The Settlers (5 page)

If he's anywhere, it's most likely there, Blair says.

He's steering them towards a narrow glass structure, several stories high.
While the other residences are marked with identity plates, this one has no such marking.
There's a personal deck parked in front of it, but nobody is inside.
 

What is this place?
Tasneem asks.
Have you been here?

I've never been inside, Blair says.
But this is where William Bogleman lives.

Tasneem stops dead.
Bogleman.

Uh huh, Blair says.
 

As in Harvey Bogleman.

Uh huh.

This is his son's house?
His son lives on Aries?

Uh huh.
 

Tasneem paces on the lawn.
I really don't believe it.
I thought that Harvey was the only Bogleman off-world.
 

He was, Blair says.
But he's not anymore.
Now William is the only Bogleman off-world.

And you think David's inside?

Blair nods.
I'm quite sure of it, actually.
William would have wanted to do this one himself.
It's David Dewbury, after all.

Himself?
Are you saying he administers the treatment himself?
Tasneem is dumbfounded.
Is he a doctor?
 

He's a socialite, Blair says.
He throws parties.
You know, like socialite boys do.

Okay, tell me and tell me now, Tasneem says, stepping close to Blair.
How dangerous are the black market treatments?

They're bad, Tasneem.
Scale of one to ten?
These are a twenty.
That report I did -- we looked for survivors to interview, and we found three.
Two wouldn't talk, and the third one -- well, the third one had some sort of relapse, and figured she had nothing to lose.
So she talked.
And then she died.

Jesus, Tasneem says.
We have to go in.
 

Blair hangs back.
I'm not sure.
 

Did you bring me all the way here just to stop?
My friend is inside, and he might be dying!
And did I mention he's the most brilliant man alive right now?
Or at least probably?
We are not, not, not letting him go.
Now take me inside.

Blair nods.
Alright.
But --

No, no.
No buts, nothing.
Inside.
You have to help me.
 

Blair leads Tasneem to the residence entry.
I've never been inside, he says again.

It's a rich person's house, Tasneem says.
How dangerous can it be?

That's what worries me, Blair says.
Look.

She follows his gaze to the doorstep.
There's an insignia there, etched into the hard surface.

H, she says.
Okay.
 

You don't recognize that?
he asks.
 

Should I?
What's it stand for?
 

Blair looks genuinely nervous.
It stands for Harvard, he says.

As in Harvard Club?
Tasneem asks.

He nods.

Shit, she says.

Tasneem held her mother's hand tightly.
The spaceport's processing facility was a bustling hive of activity, and smelled sour.
All around her were strangers, most in dirty clothing, with mud caked on their skin.
More than a few were injured, and some appeared to be barely holding themselves upright.
They stank, and their eyes were tired and sunken.
Most wore the same blank expression, the stunned look of people from whom almost everything had been taken.
They were widows and widowers, orphans and strays, cast-offs and forgotten.

Tasneem, tuck tuck!
her mother said when Tasneem lagged behind.
 

A harsh female voice droned over a makeshift public address system: IF YOU HAVE BELONGINGS, DEPOSIT THEM IN THE STACKS UNDER THE BLUE SIGN.
NO PERSONAL BELONGINGS ARE PERMITTED THROUGH THESE GATES.
 

Tasneem stood on her tiptoes and leaned this way and that, trying to see what was under the blue sign.
In tiny flickers between stragglers she saw it: a heaping pile of satchels and suitcases and backpacks and push-carts and wheelchairs and buckets and toys.

Amma, Tasneem said.
 

Her mother kept pulling her forward in the crowd.
 

Amma, she repeated.
Amma!

Her mother looked over her shoulder.
Tasneem, come!
Hurry.
 

Amma, why are all the bags left?
 

But her mother kept tugging her along.
 

RESTRICTIONS FOR ENTRY ARE AS FOLLOWS, the woman's voice blared.
CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF FOUR ARE NOT PERMITTED.
ADULTS OVER THE AGE OF FIFTY-FIVE ARE ALSO NOT PERMITTED.
ALL APPLICANTS MUST PROVIDE PROOF OF IDENTITY.
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE YOUR PASSCARD OR YOUR IMPRINT I.D., PLEASE STEP OUT OF LINE NOW.
 

Someone behind Tasneem screamed.
 

She looked back up at her mother.

Amma, she said.

But her mother only pulled her deeper into the crowd.

What will happen to them, Amma?
 

Tasneem rested her chin on the window sill and stared down at the throngs of muddy people below.
 

They have been turned away, darling, her mother said.
 

But why?
There are still empty seats.
 

It's true, her mother agreed.
But I think they have their reasons.
Maybe there isn't enough room on the space station.
Maybe just this transport vessel is large, but our destination is small.

Why weren't we turned away?
Tasneem asked.

Her mother shook her head.
Be grateful that we were not, she said.
The people below us, they do not have homes to return to.
They will probably never go to space.
They will have hard lives.
 

It's not fair, Tasneem said.
 

No, her mother agreed.
It isn't fair.
But much in life is not fair, Tasneem.
You will be reminded of this from time to time.
Better to accept it now, when you are young, than to discover it when you are an old woman like me.
 

You aren't old, Amma!
Tasneem threw her arms around her mother.
 

Oh, Tasneem, her mother said.
I am.
You don't know it, but there was a time when a woman had to be careful having babies at my age.
I was much older than most mothers.
 

How old were you?
 

Fifty-eight, her mother replied.
But when I was born -- a long, long time ago -- it was considered risky for a woman older than forty to have a child.
Thank your stars for science, Tasneem.
It found a way to bring you to me.

Would Baap have liked me, Amma?

Her mother smiled and touched Tasneem's cheek.
Your father would have cherished you.
He would have loved this, too.
To go to space!
With you and with me!
We will have to think of him always, Tasneem.
We cannot forget him.

Show me his picture again.
 

Her mother looked around, and then produced a tiny paper photograph from beneath her robe.
The paper was wrinkled and folded, and its color was beginning to fade from the creases.
 

Don't let anyone see, she cautioned.

I won't, Tasneem said.

Tasneem studied the photograph for the hundredth time.
Her father was young when it was taken, with expressive eyes tucked beneath kind eyebrows.
His hair was windswept, as if he had just stepped off of a sailboat.

He looks like me, she said.

Her mother nodded.
 

Tasneem turned the photograph over.
The writing was worn, but still readable.

For Anjali, my love.
 

- Jae

Tasneem kissed the photo, and then pressed it against the window.
 

So you can see it one last time, she said.
 

She held the photo for a long moment, then handed it back to her mother, whose eyes sparkled.
 

Okay, Tasneem said.
We can go now.
 

In the late afternoon, the spaceport in northern Washington seemed to inhale sharply.
 

All activity paused.
The commotion within the crowd of refused applicants died down.
Spaceport officials and staff halted what they were doing.
Reporters stood quietly as cameras rolled.
There were no loudspeaker countdowns, no showmanship.
This was not a grand day of human achievement.
This was a day of desperate actions.
 

The first blast of heat rolled thick and heavy across the launch platform, then surged across the wide empty facility before it broke like an angry summer day.
The crowd of applicants blinked and stepped backward, and when they returned to their homes later, the mud on their skin had been cooked away, and their skin had been browned.
Still they remained, sweating in the lingering shimmery blur that engulfed them.

Through that haze they watched mournfully as their lifeboat lifted into the sky.
 

It seemed to move in slow motion, shedding the Earth like an unnecessary skin.
It was a hulking, unattractive beast, this lifeboat, its bulk standing on thin rocket spindles that glowed white as they pushed the Earth away.
 

It rose into the sky like an appliance, shaky and obese, covered with blinking lights of red and blue and gold.
 

And then the secondary rockets flared with a resounding
crack
, and the ship ripped through the clouds and was gone.
 

The heat remained for a time.

The crowd, permanently Earthbound, were slower to leave.
Nobody seemed ready to admit it was over, and they had failed to make it.
It was as if god himself had returned to Earth, and had carried away just a handful of people.
The rest milled about, purposeless.
Most had nowhere to go.
Some would kill themselves that very day, joined by other strangers rejected by spaceports all around the planet.
 

What reason to live could be left?
 

Earth's remnants slowly began to drown.
 

Tasneem and Anjali sat together, snuggled close.
 

Nobody in the passenger space had spoken.
They gathered together around the windows and stared quietly down at the Earth as it fell away beneath them.
The booster rockets disengaged and pinwheeled towards the seas below.
It seemed as though the passengers were holding their breath.
 

When the blue sky dimmed, and then turned black, the atmosphere within the ship changed, too.

There were six thousand of them aboard.
They were each freshly washed, and dressed in white linen robes.
They were not unlike angels summoned into the heavens.
All that was left was the unwrapping of their wings.
 

Tasneem looked up at her mother's pretty face.
 

Amma, she said.
We made it?

Almost, her mother said.
 

Almost, Tasneem repeated.
But soon?
 

Very soon, her mother said.
 

How do you say it again?
 

Gah-neh-mead.

Ganymede.
 

Very good.
 

It's pretty.
 

Her mother nodded.
Let's close our eyes and rest now, she said.
 

While Anjali slept, Tasneem remained awake and stared through the window.
She could not see any stars, but she could see part of the Earth, a swirled marble hanging in a sea of blackness.
 

And at a great distance, she could see tiny sparks following her into the sky.