Space Colony One

Chapter 4

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CHERRY SLIPPED OPEN the lock on the shed and pulled out the two heavy wooden doors. Her breath puffed like smoke in the chill air. It was late in the season to be harvesting cereal crops, but the weather had been unusually wet. Damp grain rotted in storage, and the colony couldn’t afford to lose any more food.

An empty ache settled in her stomach as she saw the looming form of the harvester, shadowy in the pre-dawn light. The sight of it always reminded her of Ethan. She recalled the first time they’d had a proper conversation, that day out by the lake, when she’d used the pretext of wanting to borrow a plow to talk to him. He’d saved her life that day, or rather, they’d thought her life had needed to be saved. The Fila had tried to grab her in order to take a closer look at this strange new species that had appeared on Concordia.

Later, he’d sat with her in the cab of a harvester when she’d brought in the colony’s first crop. Perhaps it had been this very machine.

She blinked and drew her sleeve across her eyes. This was no time for tears.

After mounting the steps on the side of the machine, she opened the cab door and climbed in. It had taken her a while to figure out how to handle the machine with one hand, but a couple of adjustments had made it possible. She’d been glad. She didn’t want to give up her role as a farmer. She continued to lead the military, but she was sick of fighting and death. Farming connected her with life and the land, her home.

She started up the engine. The welcome vibration coursed through her bones, and she drove the hulking machine out into the field just as the sun sent its first rays over the horizon.

An hour later, when a quarter of the wheat field was stubble, the engine suddenly quit. Inertia threw her forward, thrusting her midriff against the steering wheel.

She cursed and checked the dashboard screen. Nothing seemed wrong. The engine wasn’t overheating, the battery held plenty of power. She pressed the ignition a few times, but the machine didn’t respond. Turning off the music she’d been listening to on her comm, she hopped out of the cab. There were mechanics she could call out but fixing the problem herself would save time. Garwin had taught her how to deal with the most common problems with farm machinery.

The first thing to check was the cutters. If they hit something thicker than a twig the engine would automatically cut out. It was a fail-safe to prevent nasty accidents and animal bodies contaminating the harvest. Considering most wildlife had been wiped out, it was extremely unlikely anything was stuck between the blades, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.

The cutters were clean and empty. Nothing was caught in the feeder house chains or belt either.

She walked around to the front of the machine to open the engine casing. The sun was now high enough to take a good look inside. What had Garwin said? She peered at the mechanical innards. Was the problem simply a connection come loose? She reached in and jiggled each one in turn.

The engine sparked to life and the harvester jumped forward. Realizing her mistake, she tried to snatch her arm out of the way but a protruding bolt, old and sharpened with rust, dug into her skin. Within a second the bolt cut a deep channel down her forearm to her wrist.

“Aw s**t! Damn!”

The harvester died again as it sensed no one in the driver’s seat, but the damage was done.

She swore some more as she inspected the damage. Blood coursed from her wound and dripped on her boots. Feeling like a fool, she comm’d her fellow farmers to take over for her but all were busy taking advantage of the dry weather. It couldn’t be helped. She set off for the medical clinic.

The autocar dropped her at its doors just as the clinic was opening. She wordlessly held up her arm to the medic.

After a grimace, he led her through the empty waiting area to an examination room, sat her down, and inspected the wound. “Wait here while I get the irrigation equipment. Gotta clean that out before we close it.”

When the door opened again, however, it wasn’t the medic who appeared, but Kes.

“Hey,” said Cherry. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he replied, seeming equally surprised. “What’s wr— Oh, I see,” he added as his gaze alighted on her b****y arm and clothes. “That looks nasty. I hope it isn’t serious.”

“No, I was just giving myself a reminder not to be so damned stupid.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It doesn’t matter. Have you decided to switch professions and go into medicine?”

“No.” He pulled up a chair. He was holding a small tray containing cotton bud sticks and clear tubes with stoppers. “I’m taking DNA samples from everyone who comes into the clinic. Would you mind opening your mouth?”

“Uh, sure.”

He wiped a swab on her inner cheek and put it in a tube which he then sealed.

“Why are you sampling our DNA?”

The door opened. The medic was back.

Kes asked, “Do you have five minutes for a chat when you’re done?”

She did, and he said he would wait for her outside. After her wound had been cleaned and closed with sticky healing gel, she found Kes in the street.

Annwn was waking up. The traffic had grown busier during her short time in the clinic. It was odd how quickly things had returned to normal after the destruction wreaked by the Scythians’ biocide. Though many Concordians had been killed by the attack on Oceanside, most had survived the deadly virus. People had picked up their lives and carried on almost as if nothing had happened. But a current of dread underlay the daily routine. Shocked out of complacency, Cherry had a sense this latest generation of colonists finally understood the fragility of their existence.

“What’s the big secret?” she asked jokingly. “Or did you only want some fresh air?”

He didn’t smile. That didn’t mean anything necessarily. Kes rarely smiled these days. Cherry inwardly winced. It was irrational, but she couldn’t help feeling somehow responsible for his wife’s death.

“This probably warrants a longer talk,” he said. “The short version is, we’re in deep trouble.”

“Don’t tell me the Scythians are coming back.”

She was kidding, but if they were and Kes had somehow received the news before her, Concordia was sunk. Most of its defense capability had been expended in the most recent attack. They had begun to rebuild but it would take years to reach the original capacity.

“No,” Kes replied. “Internal trouble. Where to begin? I suppose it started with the case of a young child who cut themselves. It wasn’t a very bad cut but it required medical attention. The problem was—the cut wouldn’t stop bleeding. The medics sealed it up, but the child continued to bleed internally.”

Cherry wrinkled her nose.

“A doctor brought the case to my attention,” he continued. “Not unreasonably, she thought a Concordian organism might be the problem. If something had infiltrated the wound...” He paused and shook his head. “The child has hemophilia.”

“Right. And that is...?”

“An inherited genetic condition that stops blood from clotting. When I figured it out, I became curious. You see, Cariad screened out genetic disease carriers in the Nova Fortuna Project applicants. It should be impossible for hemophilia to appear in the colony except as a mutation. The child’s case is due to a mutation, no question, but it prompted me to complete a survey to assess genetic diversity. I collected samples from schoolchildren first, then workers, and now patients at medical clinics, trying to vacuum up the few who slipped through the net. Cherry, the preliminary results aren’t good. The colony’s gene pool is too homogeneous. As time goes on more conditions will manifest. We could forestall the effect by enforcing restrictions on marriages, but it would only delay the inevitable.”

She had kind of followed what he said, but not quite. “More people are going to get sick?”

“Yes, and, even more importantly, infertile. It’s a common effect of inbreeding.”

“I thought that was why Cariad created those extra babies—to prevent inbreeding?” Her memory of the influx of infants, saved by the Fila when the Nova was destroyed, was vivid. Everyone at Sidhe had endured months of sleepless nights, regardless of whether they had personally volunteered to take on a child themselves.

“She tried, but it clearly hasn’t worked. The Project was already skirting the edge of minimum numbers required for a healthy population according to genetic science at the time. This was always a possibility.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Cherry had been feeling mildly optimistic since Aubriot’s announcement about the jump engine. Kes’s revelation had thrown a dampener on everything.

Before he could answer, she exclaimed, “Ow!” and slapped her neck. On her palm was a squashed, black insect about a centimeter long. Fresh blood stained her skin. Her own blood, she suspected. “Something bit me.”

He inspected the mess on her hand. “We’ve been seeing a lot of those lately, though we haven’t named them yet. They appear to be harmless—aside from the biting. We’re developing a repellent.”

Lifting one side of her upper lip, she wiped the dead insect on her pants. “So the colony’s doomed?”

He tutted. “This is why I wanted to speak to you in private. You can’t go around saying things like that, you understand?”

“I’m not a moron, Kes.”

“I didn’t say you were, only...”

“What?”

He sighed. “I don’t know what we can do. When I think about the future, about the world I’ve brought Miki and Nina into, I...” He lapsed to silence.

She touched his arm. “No one knew this would happen.”

“Maybe not, but we knew the Scythians would be back one day. I’ve been irresponsible. I imagined life here had turned out to be like it was on Earth—safe and secure. That couldn’t have been further from the truth.”

“Look, it sounds like all the colony needs is an injection of fresh blood, right? New genes to supplement our current ones.”

“You say that as if it were the easiest thing in the world to achieve.”

“Not easy, maybe, but possible. If we manage to get to Earth, we might be able to persuade some people to come back with us.”

“If we get to Earth. How likely is that in reality?”

“According to what I heard this morning, it’s likelier than you think. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Aubriot sometimes calls me Bandit. Do you know why? What does it mean?”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Kes’s lips. “Why are you asking me? Surely you should ask him?”

“He won’t tell me. I thought it might be an Earth-English thing. Is it?”

“It’s better you ask Aubriot,” was all Kes would reply.

It started to rain.

“s**t,” Cherry muttered.