Exiled to the Stars (36 page)

Ron reached the shore and signaled Elaine to step off the bow line. She did so, without interrupting her watchfulness. Ron moved a few steps from the river to a point where the ground felt firm and dry. He fired a piton into the ground, and clipped the canoe's bow line to it.

This was their fifth night, and they had developed a smooth, efficient routine. The canoe secure, Ron relieved Elaine of the sprayer. Under Elaine's watchful eye, he paced and began adding to the sprayed semicircle, increasing its diameter until it reached about six meters. He carried the sprayer back to the canoe. He returned it to its place, and picked up a smaller tank and a handful of pointed shafts some 30 cems long.

He sprayed the fire retardant on the still-living vegetation bordering the dead zone, and placed the alarm spikes around the semicircle at two-meter intervals.

Finished, he returned to the canoe, and tapped Elaine's shoulder to let her know the preparations were complete. Elaine nodded and followed Ron in reboarding the canoe.

Finally, Elaine used her laser to ignite the dead weeds and vines that had been crackling under their feet.

Crashlanding's vegetation is highly flammable, especially if dead. The weeds at the water's edge smoldered for a moment, and then sudden flames spread up the bank so quickly Elaine imagined she could almost hear a 'whoosh'. Almost as suddenly as they had spread, the flames reached the retardant Ron had spread, and began to die. The large cloud of black smoke that arose was barely visible against the darkening sky.

The flames died quickly, and they were in the center of a six-meter semicircle of black ash bordering the river.

The light was fading quickly now, and they hurried as Ron gathered a shovel and Elaine a broom they had made of sticks. While Ron placed more alarm spikes along the riverbank and dug a fire pit in the center of the semicircle two meters up the bank, Elaine swept the black ash from their camping area.

They had already decided that it wouldn't rain that night, so they didn't bother erecting the tent. Ron dropped several fire pellets in their fire pit and ignited them, while Elaine brought the stove, their rations, and her fish from the canoe.

Technically, the fire pellets were classed as 'emergency supplies', intended for use if they lost use of the stove somehow, but Ron and Elaine agreed that there was something very comforting about an open fire, an almost visceral pleasure. They'd had a campfire every night.

Ron used his knife to cut a small sample from the 'fish'. Beneath the skin, the flesh was a sickly pale yellow, but Ron raised it to his nose. There was no detectable odor. He licked it, but there was no telltale burning sensation on his tongue.

Elaine, watching carefully, sighed. "I wish we'd let momma loan us that poison detector they designed.'

Ron shrugged. "It's the only one the colony has, and besides, it would have taken up too much room in the canoe. Besides, we don't
have
to eat any local life. We
could
just stick to our rations." With a determined glance at Elaine, he popped the sample into his mouth. The texture was somewhat rubbery, and it certainly didn't taste as good as the Earth-descended fish from Gouge Lake, but it seemed edible.

He chewed thoroughly, to make certain he detected none of the bitter taste of the poisonous native creatures, and then swallowed.

They waited, Elaine's gaze steady and solemn. When five minutes had passed with no detectable reaction from Ron's body, they both relaxed. Finally, Elaine grinned. There was another Crashlanding creature the Planetborn could safely consume.

Ron snapped some pictures with his tablet, so they would be able to identify them in the future, and then began setting up the stove. Elaine began skinning and cleaning the 'fish'. Darkness had fallen, and they had unconsciously moved closer to the fire. Finishing with the stove, Ron turned. Elaine was using her bolo to sever the head of the next 'fish', and suddenly the bobbling motion of her breasts transfixed Ron.

He froze. Elaine Renko had been his best friend since he could remember. Born only weeks apart, they had been among the first Planetborns, and had both endured the poking and prodding of the science staff since birth. The Renkos and the Credings had been friends since before either of them had been born, and they had been constant companions. Together they had snatched sweets, fleeing and laughing. They had gotten sick on beer. They had tried, with little success, to find ways to avoid the computer's classes, and when they were nine, Ron's mother had caught them playing 'doctor'.

But now, suddenly, he was seeing her through totally new eyes. This wasn't just his friend Elaine, but a surprisingly attractive young woman. Suddenly the cap of tightly-wound ringlets of her hair was remarkably attractive, and somehow the campfire turned her green-tinged brown skin to gold.

She turned toward him, half smiling, and their eyes met. After a long moment, her eyes widened and she drew a deep, surprised breath as she suddenly became aware of a new tension between them.

Another long moment, and she licked her full lips, swallowed loudly, and shook her head. Her eyes dropped. "No," she said quietly. Then stronger, "No, Ron. Sam…" her voice trailed off.

Usama Bin Taren, universally called 'Sam', had been seeing Elaine recently. They'd gone to several dances and Bingo nights together, and by colony standards, they were 'dating'. In a similar way, Ron was 'dating' Soledad Contreras. Still, the sudden flash of realization stunned him.

Ron frowned for a moment, then shook his head sharply. "Yeah. Sam." He struggled to regain his composure, to find a way to lower the sudden tension. "Hey," he suddenly said in a forced, cheerful tone, "What's taking so long? I'm starving over here!"

Elaine's answering grin was composed of equal parts nervousness and relief. Ron's sudden interest was a shock. Oh, yes, her parents seemed to assume that she and Ron would eventually marry, but she'd always thought that was silly. Ron was, well,
Ron
. Oh, yes, back when she was first hit by puberty, she'd been convinced she'd marry him someday. But for the last several years she'd known that Ron liked slim, graceful, almond-eyed Asian girls, not a tall, gawky, kinky-haired whatever-she-was.

As Cesar had long ago predicted, racial lines among the colonists were becoming increasingly blurred, especially among the Planetborn. Even to those whose parents had been the most bigoted, their friends' indifference, and even disdain, tended to counteract their parents' indoctrination. To the Earthborns, as nationality identification had faded under EarthGov, racial identity had grown. EarthGov tried to fight this trend, and while they were somewhat successful among the urban elites, they were far less so among the poor, especially the rural poor.

But the ship had been crammed with a racial mixture. EarthGov refused to consider race a factor in dorm assignment. Of course, the slum areas where colonists were 'recruited' by sweeps were usually racially homogenous. This was why the Deck 6 'Drone' dorms contained mostly Asians. The Deck 5 dorms, however, had been filled with 'Undesirables', those EarthGov considered a threat to good order. Since these were often 'recruited' individually, and since western divisions tended to be more racially diverse, the deck 5 dorms had been wildly polyglot. So, the children on Deck 5 had mixed freely. The children on the Deck 6, though, had not.

But then had come the crash. The survivors from Deck 5 were thrust into the Deck 6 population. Suddenly, Caucasians, Africans, Amerinds, SoAms, Mediterraneans, and Asians were crammed together. The crowding trumped race theory, especially among the young, and racism began to seem faintly ridiculous; something that only mattered to the 'old ones'.

The plague had greatly contributed to this trend. The few remaining colonists had little choice but to band together, regardless of race or color, and the close association of the Asian Cesar and AfroAm Vlad provided an excellent example for the young. Discrimination of any type was a luxury the struggling colony could not afford, and even the most dedicated racist was forced to suppress his feelings in the interest of survival.

The establishment of the crèche and 'test tube' babies had almost finished the job. The crèche tried to match parents based on their genetic makeup, not their race. Though they would accommodate race as a criteria if the parents insisted, Susan Renko, its Director, had established an unwritten and unspoken rule that race should be ignored whenever possible.

The computer, of course, had been programmed by EarthGov, and its educational programs reflected EarthGov's views on race. So, the educational programs were designed to ignore or minimize racial identity. Naturally, all of the colony's children were being educated by the computer, so racial tolerance became ingrained into the Planetborn. Racism persisted among a few of the older Earthborns, but by now it was considered an aberration, a weird eccentricity.

So, there was no condemnation in Elaine's recognition of Ron's perceived preferences, but more a resigned acceptance. She forced a grin. "You could stand a little starvation," she said, looking pointedly at his waistline.

"Hey!" he protested in a theatrically wounded tone, "I'll have you know that's all muscle!"

Elaine snorted and threw a fish at him. Some of the tension faded as he grabbed desperately for it, barely catching it before it hit the ground.

Some
of the tension faded, but not all of it. That evening, night, and even the next morning, the air was thick with it. They were both nervous and tense. They ate breakfast quickly and loaded the canoe, anxious to escape the oppressive atmosphere. Both of them struggled to suppress relieved sighs as they pushed off, back into the current.

Chapter 14

Sixthmonth 28, Year 23 A.L.

They had been travelling for three hours when Elaine began noticing with satisfaction that the underbrush seemed to be giving way to long grasses, and the thorn trees farther and farther apart. Perhaps they were approaching the river's mouth, and they would be able to begin returning to the village. It would also give her time to work through this thing with Ron. She certainly hadn't accomplished anything concrete this morning; her thoughts were still in a whirl, her emotions conflicted.

Suddenly Ron, in the bow, began waving his arms wildly, and motioning toward the left bank of the river. Elaine jerked the tiller and the canoe swung and began cutting across the current before she even consciously reacted.

She started to shout, to ask Ron what was wrong, when he turned and put a finger to his mouth, signaling for silence. Then, he pulled out his tablet. Elaine fumbled for her own.

Ron's fingers flew, and "NO TALK! LAND NOW!" flashed from her tablet's screen. Frowning, Elaine guided the boat to the shore. By the time they reached it, Ron was standing in the bow, always a risky action, and he had the sprayer in his hand.

His bent knees absorbed the shock as the canoe grounded, but even before that, Ron was spraying a semicircle of death. The grasses here were even higher than they were upriver. Some were over two meters tall. Elaine used the motor to hold the canoe against the shore as Ron prepared their landing area.

When they had a secure area some two meters wide, Elaine was finally free to ask Ron the problem in a hoarse whisper.

Ron was flushed with excitement. "Aliens!" He stage-whispered. "Or natives. Whatever they are, I think they might be
people!
"

Elaine was stunned. After a moment, she frowned. People? Could it be? For almost their entire lives, people in the colony had speculated about the possibility of intelligent native life. It was one of the reasons the colonists had built that silly fortress they called the 'castle'. It was a frequent topic of conversation among those with more vivid imaginations. Some devoted hours of their off-duty time to studying contact procedures and old science fiction first-contact stories.

They had, after all, only been able to study the planet for less than a month from orbit. The planetary survey program had not detected any of the signs of intelligence it was programmed for; clusters of shelters, controlled fires, lights at night.

Still, it was no secret that those signs had been established by people who had never encountered another intelligent species, and never would. What if they lived underground? Perhaps they didn't use the same visible light spectrum as the humans. That last, it was agreed by most, was very unlikely, given the fact that Crashlanding's sun was very like Sol, Earth's own star. Of course, if they lived underground, they might use another sense entirely. Radar, like bats, perhaps.

Instinctively, the two crouched, facing away from each other, warily eyeing the high grasses covering the squishy ground. They were painfully aware that the two-meter-high grasses and reeds were even more concealing and threatening than the underbrush.

"Exactly what did you see?" she asked, her voice pitched just loud enough for him to hear.

"Not much," he admitted. "But there was a cluster of bumps I think might be something like our domes. They looked tall. I didn't wait to see more."

Elaine nodded. Ron had been right. They were exploring unknown territory. If there was even a remote chance that Ron's suspicion was correct, it was vital that they observe and report. If there was intelligent life on Crashlanding, the colony's survival depended on their knowing about it as soon as possible.

"So, what do we do?" Elaine asked.

For a couple of his teenage years, Ron had hung around with a group of the "believers," as they were called by their more stolid, or more realistic, neighbors. For awhile, he had attended their meetings, had read the old science fiction stories, and spent hours seriously discussing the possibility of intelligent Crashlanding life. After awhile, though, he discovered that the colonists' tolerant dismissal had led the believers to ever more radical positions, opinions, and flights of fancy. A few were quite militant about it. His interest had faded, and finally he'd moved on to other companions.

Still, if there was one thing his association with the believers had taught him, it was
caution
. In the old stories, the current members' imaginative ideas, and even the EarthGov training programs, one theme had been recurrent: that foreknowledge was important. If there
was
intelligent native life here, it was vital that the colonists learn of
it
, before
it
learned of them!