Arkwright (34 page)

Remote observation could only reveal so much. Before
Galactique
left Earth, mission planners knew that the mission's final make-or-break point would be when the ship reached its final destination. And so, as
Galactique
fired its thrusters for its primary approach to Eos, it entered the phase in which it would decide whether the efforts of its creators and their descendants had been a colossal waste of time.

Once again,
Galactique
made a long, shallow dive through the planetary atmosphere, using the heat shield to brake itself. From the ground on the night side, the arriving starship appeared as a fireball streaking across the dark sky. Firing its lateral thrusters,
Galactique
emerged from the atmosphere and assumed geosynchronous orbit above the planet's equator.

Then it went to work.

A small port in the module housing the biopods opened, and a small probe was jettisoned. The probe fell into the atmosphere, and shortly after entry, it discarded its outer aeroshell and deployed its parachute. The probe drifted to a soft landing near the region
Galactique
had tentatively selected as the primary site for colonization, where it immediately opened the half dozen panels protecting its instrument array.

For a very long while—time was unimportant to
Galactique
, so it paid almost no attention to measuring its passage—the probe sampled the atmosphere, dug soil from the ground and analyzed its composition, and studied the chemistry of this world. It quickly determined that the DNA of its organic molecules was left-handed, which was crucial to the future habitability of Eos. If their chirality had been right-handed, it would have immediately doomed any attempt to transplant Earth life to this planet, for even the simplest of plants would have been poisoned by the Eosian soil. So this was a fortunate outcome.

On the other hand, in making this determination, the probe also learned that Eos was not entirely lifeless. As a red dwarf, Calliope was a young star, and its planets were also young. Thus, Eos's native species were primitive as well, still on the lowermost rungs of the evolutionary ladder. Yet even the lichen, sponge molds, and tiny ferns of its flora and the multilegged worms and trilobite-like crustaceans that occupied the top of the food chain for the fauna were evidence that the planet was not barren.

Many years earlier, Arkwright Foundation scientists and mission planners had argued long and hard over the ethical problems just such a discovery would present. The intent all along had been to reshape Gliese 667C-e into a world that, while perhaps not being earthlike, would nonetheless support bioengineered Earth species: plants, animals, and, yes, humans. Yet, was it morally right to condemn an entire planetary ecology to death so an Earth colony could thrive and survive? No one had an easy answer to this, for humankind had already made extinct millions of planet and animal species on its own world. So a compromise had been reached.
Galactique
's AI was programmed with a series of protocols that would help it determine whether life on Eos was sufficiently evolved to make their destruction an act of genocide.

Had the answer been yes, then
Galactique
would have stopped there, and its last act would have been to transmit its data via laser to Earth so that, twenty-two years in the future, whoever was still running the Arkwright Foundation could scream in frustration. But it took the AI, with its coldly ruthless logic, only a few seconds to determine that the answer was no.

From that moment, Eos's destiny was forever changed.

 

BOOK FOUR

The Children of Gal

 

1

Sanjay Arkwright's mother was sent to Purgatory on Monone, the second day of Juli. As dawn broke on Childstown, Aara was escorted from her home by a pair of Guardians, who silently walked two-legged on either side of the heretic as they marched her to the beach. Sanjay and his father, Dayall, quietly accompanied them; carrying belly packs and walking on all fours, they kept their heads down to avoid meeting the gaze of the townspeople who'd emerged from their cottages and workshops to observe Aara's passage into exile.

It was a day of shame for her family, and yet Aara maintained an upright stance. Even after a Guardian prodded the back of her neck with his staff, she refused to lower her head or place her fores against the cobblestoned street but instead strode forward on her hinds, gazing straight ahead in almost haughty dismissal of her neighbors. For this alone, Sanjay was proud of his mother. She would obey the Word of Gal, but not with the humiliation expected of her.

On the beach, a group of Disciples had already gathered to form a prayer circle. They squatted in a semicircle facing the Western Channel, where the sister suns Aether and Bacchae were beginning to set upon the distant shores of Cape Exile. Illuminated by the bright-orange orb of Calliope rising to the east, they cupped their fores together beneath their lowered faces and chanted words passed down to them from their mothers and grandmothers:

Gal the Creator, Gal the All-Knowing,

Forgive our sister, who denies your love.

Gal the Creator, Gal the All-Knowing,

Guide our sister as you watch from above …

Their voices fell silent as Aara and her guards approached. If they'd expected Aara to join them, they were disappointed. Aara barely glanced at them as she walked by, and Sanjay had to fight to keep his expression neutral.

Dayall noticed this. “Don't smile,” he whispered to his son, “and don't stand. Everyone is watching us.”

Sanjay didn't reply but only gave his father a brief nod. His father was right. This was a sad moment and also a dangerous one. Most of those who'd followed them to the waterfront were Galians, and even if some were friends of the family, a few were pious enough to report the slightest impropriety to the Guardians. Any sign of support from Aara's family, and the deacons could easily extend the same sentence to her husband and son, as well. It had been many yarn since the last time an entire family was sent to Purgatory, but it had been done before.

R'beca Circe, the deacon of the Childstown congregation of the Disciples of Gal, stood on all fours beside Aara's sailboat, accompanied by the deacons from Stone Bluff, Oceanview, and Lighthouse Point who'd traveled across Providence to attend Aara's trial. The Guardians led Aara to them and then stepped aside, standing erect with their staffs planted in the sand. R'beca rose from her fores to look Aara straight in the eye; the other deacons did the same, and for a long moment, everything was still, save for the cool morning breeze that ruffled their ceremonial capes and Aara's braided red hair, revealed by the lowered hood of the long black robe she'd been given by the Guardians.

Then R'beca spoke.

“On the first day of the Stormyarn,” she recited, “when the Disciples were separated from the Children who stayed behind, Gal told his people, ‘Follow my Word always, and obey the lessons of your Teachers, for my way is survival, and those who question it shall not.' Aara Arkwright, it is the finding of the Deacons of the Disciples of Gal that you have questioned the Word of Gal and therefore committed the sin of heresy, for which you have refused to repent. How do you plead?”

“I plead nothing.” There was no trace of insolence in Aara's voice; as always, when she was given a direct question, she delivered a direct answer. “I am neither guilty nor innocent. I saw what I saw … and there is nothing in the Word that says it cannot exist.”

R'beca's eyes grew sharper. She pointed toward the sky. “Clearly, there is no light there save that of Gal and her suns. Even at night, when Aether and Bacchae rise to cast away the shadows and the stars appear, Gal remains in her place, bright and unmoving. Stars do not suddenly appear and vanish, and none may approach Gal.”

Almost unwillingly, Sanjay found himself following Deacon R'beca's raised fore with his gaze. As she had said, Gal the Creator hovered almost directly overhead, a bright star that never rose or set but remained a fixed point in the sky. It had been this way throughout the one hundred and fifty-two sixyarn of Eosian history, from the moment when Gal had carried the Chosen Children from Erf to the promised land of Eos.

None but fools or heretics ever questioned this. Those who did were purged from Providence, sent alone to the mainland to live out the rest of their days in a place where survival was unlikely.

Yet Aara wouldn't recant. “I did not lie then, and I'm not lying now. I saw a new star in the sky during my turn on night watch, one that moved in the sky toward Gal.”

“So you question Gal's dominance? Her status as creator who cannot be challenged?”

“I question nothing. This was not an act of blasphemy, Deacon … it was an obligation to my duty to report anything unusual.”

Hearing this, the Disciples crouched on the beach wailed in bereavement. As they slapped their fores against their ears, R'beca's mouth curled in disgust. She'd offered Aara a chance to repent and beg for mercy, only to receive a stubborn reiteration of the same defense she'd given during her trial. Again, Sanjay felt pride surge past his sadness. His mother had never been one to back down, and she wasn't about to do so now.

Yet her courage wasn't met with sympathy. As the other three deacons lowered themselves to their hinds and cupped their fores together, R'beca reached beneath her cape and produced the symbol of her office, a large white knife she carried with her at all times. Made of the same material as the large block of Galmatter that, along with the Teacher, resided within the Transformer inside the Shrine, it was one of the few remaining relics from the yarn before the Great Storm, when the Chosen Children had first come to Eos from Erf. R'beca clasped the pale blade in her left fore and, raising it above her, intoned the words everyone expected to hear:

“In the name of Gal, creator of Eos and mother of her children, I send you, Aara Arkwright, into exile. May Gal grant you safe passage to Purgatory, where you shall live the rest of your days.”

Then she brought the knife forward and, with one swift stroke, whisked its blade across the right side of Aara's face. Sanjay's mother winced, but she didn't cry out when the blade cut into her cheek; it would leave a scar that would mark her as an outcast for the rest of her life, making her a pariah to any community on Providence to which she might try to return. She could be put to death if she was ever seen on the island again.

R'beca turned her back to her and, still on her hinds, walked away. “You may say farewell to her now,” she murmured to Dayall and Sanjay as she strode past. “Be quick.”

Sanjay and his father were the only ones to approach his mother. By custom, everyone else who'd witnessed the ceremony stood erect and silently turned their backs to her. Through the crowd, Sanjay caught a glimpse of Kaile Otomo. Her long black hair was down around her face, making it hard to see her expression, yet she briefly caught his eye and gave him the slightest of nods. Then she turned away as well.

Dayall stood erect to pull off his belly pack. It was stuffed with clothes, a couple of fire starters, fishing tackle, and his best knife, all permitted by the Guardians to be given to someone facing banishment. Aara took it from him and then let her husband wipe the blood from her face and take her in his arms. Sanjay couldn't hear what his father whispered to her, but he saw the tears in her eyes, and that was enough. After a few moments, Dayall let her go, and then it was Sanjay's turn.

“Aara…”

“It's all right. Everything will be all right.”

He wasn't expecting the wan smile that crossed her face as she accepted the belly pack bulging with food he'd taken from their pantry. She dropped it on the ground next to his father's.

“I'm even sadder about this than you are,” she said, “because I won't be around to see you and Kaile become bonded, but—”

“It's not fair!”

“Hush. Keep your voice down.” She glanced over his shoulder, wary of being overheard by the Disciples or the deacons. “Of course it's not fair. I was only doing my duty. But the Guardians have their duties, as well, and R'beca”—another smile, this time sardonic—“well, she would call it blasphemy if winter came late. My only sin was not realizing this before I opened my mouth.”

Sanjay started to reply, but then she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. “This is not the end,” she whispered. “We'll see each other again.”

Sanjay knew this wasn't true. Once someone was sent to Purgatory, he or she never returned from the other side of the Western Channel. Yet perhaps his mother wasn't facing reality or she was speaking of the afterlife promised by the deacons, when all who believed in Gal would join once their souls had departed Eos. So he simply nodded and told her that he loved her, and she borrowed his fish-bone knife to cut a lock of his red hair to take with her, and then a Guardian stepped forward to impatiently tap the sand with his staff.

It was time for her to go.

The catamaran was sound and sturdy, its outrigger hull constructed from cured umbrella palm, its mainsail woven from bambu threads. Sanjay had built the boat with his own fores, with help from his friend Johan Sanyal; they'd done this while Aara was under house arrest, awaiting the arrival of the other deacons and the commencement of the trial whose outcome was all but certain. They'd made the boat quickly but carefully, taking time from the spring fishing season to fashion the small craft for his mother. The master boatbuilder, Codi Royce, hadn't objected when the two boys didn't work on the fishing fleet's boats for several precious days; as Sanjay's mentor, he knew just how important this was.

Although it wasn't strictly permitted, no one had objected when Sanjay discreetly hid a harpoon beneath the oars. It wasn't likely that Aara might encounter an ocean monarch while crossing the channel. The leviathans were nocturnal; along with the receding tide, this was a reason outcasts were sent away at dawn, to give them time to reach Cape Exile before the creatures rose to the surface and started hunting. Nonetheless, it might give her some measure of protection if she encountered one during her journey.