Earth Legend (2 page)

I looked away from the red-headed family and
towards my cousins as it hit us all at the same moment. Failure
could be turned into success. All that was necessary was for me to
take their places on the Destiny. To stow away in their stead. To
carry out their mission. To become a felon. We shared the same
upbringing, the same background, the same genes, and I certainly
had the formal education to validate my inborn knowledge. A brand
new doctorate and several lesser degrees. I was a young but
knowledgeable botanist. I could do it. I could save ten thousand
lives.

My cousins' lightning-fast looks hit me with
the force of bricks, the kind that usually fly through windows with
messages wrapped around them. Their looks were that hard and said,
'We failed, Elle, but you can succeed.' 'We weren't able to stow
away on the Destiny, and here you are being escorted on board.'
'You must do this, Elle.' 'It's your destiny.'

So I hugged each of them as they whispered
advice and sobbed because they knew I'd missed the intensive
sessions on how to stow away successfully. I'd have to wing it once
I was on board.

As the guard pulled at my shoulder, Betts
hugged me one more time and shoved something into my pocket. Then I
followed that guard across the empty space that now separated the
colonists from everyone else and through the small opening left
where the divider hadn't yet been erected. As I passed, someone
closed it behind me. I was the last colonist.

I walked straight and as tall as my five foot
two allowed, pretending I belonged and ignoring the curious looks
aimed at me, the last person to be shooed towards a future on
another planet. I didn't turn as I reached the elevators that the
first few colonists were entering. Didn't look around for fear of
being recognized for what I was. A stowaway.

As I passed through the door, though, I
couldn't help it. I did turn just enough to wave to my cousins
because I'd never see them again and I was terrified. They all gave
me the thumbs-up signal. Then I stepped into the elevator and
watched the doors close behind me.

I stood in that crowded elevator and waited
to be caught. Held my breath because I couldn't believe I was
there. But no hand grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. No irate
guard seized my arm and ordered the elevator to return to the
ground floor. Nothing happened other than that we continued upwards
in the slow, measured ascent that brings people and supplies to the
space station.

I'd been there once on a school outing. I
remembered seeing shuttles hanging from every available hook. Every
now and then one would break off and seemingly drift to one of the
space ships that rested in space far enough out to be safe from
earth's gravity.

Now, as I waited to be caught, I looked
around, prepared to disappear if a guard came too close. I was so
tense that I jumped when a male voice spoke from just behind me.
"Are you okay?"

I turned and almost rammed a man in uniform
with enough stripes on his sleeve to make a flag. Whoever he was,
he was important and he was looking at me oddly. I folded, knowing
I was caught, hugging my stomach as the futility of my efforts
washed over me and made knots of my middle. "I'm sorry. I'm so
sorry." I wondered what jail was like and how long I'd be
incarcerated.

"Space sickness." He looked me up and down
and grabbed the sleeve of a passing stewardess. "Do you have
something for space sickness? She's got it bad."

The stewardess handed me a package with two
capsules along with a bottle of water. "Take these, they'll fix
it." She looked around and frowned. "It'll take a few minutes for
them to take effect. You might want to find someplace to sit until
they kick in but it seems that all the seats are taken. So good
luck." She then continued on her sure footed way along the swaying
elevator.

The security guard watched me swallow the
pills and some water, calling after the stewardess, "Will she be
all right?"

The stewardess didn't even glance back as she
answered. "In a little while." She must have given a thousand
people the same pills she'd given me. She left me with the security
guard, who now scowled as if wondering why he'd bothered with me to
begin with. Because now he was stuck with me.

I struggled against that iron look. "I'll be
fine. I just need to sit a while." I looked around. The elevator
was jammed with people standing, sitting and leaning into the
viewing portals for one last glimpse of Earth. There was hardly
room to stand, let alone sit. "Don't worry about me. I'll find a
corner."

The scowl grew. He'd made me his business and
now he was stuck with me until I got better. I wanted him to go
away and he wanted to go away but his conscience wouldn't let that
happen. He put one large, competent hand in the small of my back
and shoved me through the crowd towards a wall. Then he cleared a
space along that wall by waving one arm. That was all it took.
People looked at his expression and the stripes on his sleeve and
just melted away. Then he slid down the wall and pulled me after
him. "This'll have to do."

My problem wasn't space sickness, it was
terror but the pills did seem to help. The guard remained beside me
with arms folded and a determined expression on his face. He stared
into space so angrily that I finally said, "I think I'm okay
now."

"Good." But he didn't leave. Instead he
turned enough to assess my health, eyes going up and down my body,
head to toe and back again, in an impersonal manner. My face and my
shaking hands. Then my hair. They stayed on my hair. Everyone
notices carrot red hair. "You won't have to worry about sunburn on
the Destiny." A feeble attempt at humor.

"That's good." An equally feeble answer. He
definitely wasn't the conversational type and I didn't want to talk
to anyone in a uniform who could throw me into jail. But he was
stubborn. He'd do his job and right then, I was it. He opened his
mouth a few times, as if to talk, and then shut it because he
didn't know what to say and didn't want to talk and would leave as
soon as he knew I wouldn't puke all over him. Until then, he'd
stick to me like a burr.

I waited for him to leave. Instead, he
inspected my face once more and frowned because I wasn't healthy
yet. He cast about for something to say. He'd used up the one thing
he knew, the red-head comment, but his job probably required that
he be friendly. He finally pointed to the nearest viewing port.

We were high enough that the sky was black
and forbidding and I could make out the ships near the space
station but I couldn't find the Destiny anywhere. I looked and
looked, craning my neck, but I saw nothing.

"Over there." His bark had a military sound
to it though he could be a civilian. I didn't know which security
was. His black hair was military short and he had nicely
proportioned shoulders and the strong build that seems to be
mandatory for all soldier types. So he might be military. Whoever
he was, I was screwed if he asked too many questions.

He was pointing to what I'd thought was empty
space. I followed his finger to the dim outlines of something so
huge my mind had difficulty accepting that it was a ship. It was so
black that it was almost lost against the sky. It was miles long
and shaped like a cigar. My eyes went wide.

He almost smiled at my expression. Not quite,
but almost. "Most people have that reaction when they first see the
Destiny." There was pride in his face and in his voice. He loved
the huge thing out there.

I had no idea what to say in the face of such
pride because I was terrified of the black space ship but I had to
say something. "We're going on an adventure."

I waited for him to laugh at my inane
comment. Or leave. He did neither. He stayed beside me, arms folded
now that he'd shown me the Destiny, looking over the crowd in the
elevator. I began to wonder whether he was sticking to me because
he was concerned about my well being or because he suspected
something and was merely verifying my guilt.

I needed him gone before I puked from pure
fear, but I couldn't very well ask him to leave so I decided to
imitate his impersonal behavior and inspect him as he'd inspected
me. Maybe he'd be as uncomfortable under my inspection as I was
under his. Maybe he'd leave.

As I looked him up and down I decided that
under different circumstances I'd be impressed. And interested. He
was good looking, though judging by the people in the elevator with
us, that was a requirement for being on the Destiny. I'd not seen a
homely person yet. Lots of muscles and tons of glowing health.
Still, even with glowing health and good looks as common as they
seemed to be, the guy beside me stood out from the crowd.

I checked the stripes on his sleeve again. I
hoped he wasn't very important but I was afraid he was. If there
were any more stripes, he'd need longer arms. "I'm not good at
military stuff so I'm sorry to say that I don't recognize your
rank."

It was in his long-suffering expression that
I should know his rank, everyone should, which meant he was
important. Very important. But all he said was, "I'm in
Security."

"Oh." My voice slid up an octave. His job was
looking for people like me. I should get away from him as quickly
as possible and then I should avoid all further contact with him.
But I should do so politely so as not to make him suspicious. So
when I was able to make my voice fairly normal, with only a slight
squeak, I asked, "Do you like Security?"

As I spoke I inched away, planning to stand
up soon, as casually as possible, thank him for helping, say I was
fine and look for the nearest group to disappear into. But he
didn't seem to know that. He leaned back and gazed at nothing as he
thought over my question as if the answer was actually important.
"Do I like my job? Yes, I do. It gives me the life I choose."

That stopped me. This ship, this trip was
what he wanted out of life? I couldn't believe it. "You prefer a
life in space, never to return?"

"Exactly." Seeing my expression he added, "I
like space and I'm not leaving anything important behind." He took
a deep breath, realizing I didn't feel the same way and that,
somehow, we were in a conversation, so, like it or not, he had to
say something. "It's a huge ship. Enough room for ten times the
people who are going and I enjoy solitude. I'll get it on the
Destiny." His eyes swept over me again and, as the inspection
ended, he nodded. I wasn't sick any longer. I wouldn't puke all
over him. He could leave. So as soon as possible without looking
like he was running away, he nodded politely, rose in one easy
movement, and left without looking back.

I watched him disappear into the throng and
was careful to avoid anyone in a uniform for the rest of the trip.
After many, many hours of slow ascent, we reached the space
station. The doors to the airlock opened and we all trudged across
the station without being allowed time to gawk as in that school
trip, until we were in the airlock that led to the shuttles that
would take us to the Destiny.

We weren't counted and we weren't asked for
identification. We were simply herded into a shuttle and told to
sit. The shuttle crew looked as if they were tired of ferrying
colonists, which they probably were, and were glad we were the
last. Doors were locked, the shuttle was disengaged from the
station, and we glided across miles of black space to the
Destiny.

It was an easy trip. It took mere minutes to
go from the known to the unknown. From the life I'd expected to
live to one I'd never have chosen if there'd been any choice. As
the Destiny loomed larger and larger in the view port, terror
started in the pit of my stomach and threatened to keep me glued to
my seat. Even the space sickness pills didn't help. I was leaving
Earth, leaving home, leaving everything I'd known or hoped to know.
I was going into space. Forever.

Chapter Two

I
become a stowaway.

When we docked with the Destiny and everyone
prepared to leave the shuttle I didn't think I'd be able to stand.
I was sure I couldn't follow the other colonists down the aisle. I
was positive I couldn't enter the small, round, undulating tube
connecting the shuttle to the Destiny and I knew that if I did
manage to enter the tube I'd faint before reaching the space ship
that hung at the far end.

None of those things happened. I stood up and
walked and then I kept on walking. As I entered the gently swaying
tube and felt my stomach knotting, a hand appeared from nowhere and
braced the center of my back. Just like before. "It's just a short
walk." It steered me smoothly but surely through the tube and then
into an unremarkable, square room. Gray and unfurnished, it
resembled a prison. My first impression of my new home was prison
gray. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

I turned. The security guard with all the
stripes on his arm was behind me, pushing me forward, but as soon
as we emerged onto the boarding deck of the Destiny, his hand
dropped and he disappeared. Several men and women in uniforms
similar to his but with fewer stripes or none at all on their
sleeves came up to him with tablets to be signed and questions to
be answered. He turned away from me and towards them as if I'd
never existed. Thank goodness.

"You've got a friend there." A middle-aged
woman, a colonist with two children in tow, had watched me cross
with the help of the security guard.

"I suppose so."

"Cullen Vail is head of Security. He's
important." She shuddered. "And he doesn't suffer fools at all. I'd
hate to be on his bad side."

Fighting sheer terror as I realized I'd been
hobnobbing with a man who could put me in prison for the rest of my
life with no more than a nod of his head, I rushed after the woman
and the other colonists who were disappearing through an open door
on the opposite side of the room. But I stole a moment to see if he
was watching.