The Concordia Deception

Chapter Two-2

WHEN ETHAN WOKE UP the next morning, the whole left side of his face ached. He reached up to touch the gauze that covered his cut and the healing gel the settlement doctor had applied. He seemed to be the first to wake in the dorm of twenty men. Instinctively, he lifted his lapel to check his comm button for messages, then remembered that he was planetside and that the comm network wasn’t set up yet.

The colonists were using stationary interfaces. Ethan remembered there was one in the dorm, and that the previous evening when he’d checked it, there hadn’t been any messages from Strongquist about Cariad. He got up and weaved through the sleeping men to check the screen by the door again. A message had finally come. It was short. Strongquist only stated that Cariad had a broken arm and was heavily concussed. She should make a full recovery in two or three days.

Ethan exhaled in relief and rested his forehead on the wall beside the screen. After a moment, he lifted his head again to check the general news. Fourteen people had died in the explosion: thirteen Gens, including the Leader, and one Woken. Thirty-two people had been injured. No one had claimed responsibility for the bomb but the Natural Movement was suspected. The Guardians were investigating the cause of the explosion and hoped to find evidence that would lead them to the bomber.

The Guardians were coming to their rescue again. Ethan couldn’t imagine what they would do without these late arrivals from Earth and their advanced technology. He hoped they would catch the saboteurs before they killed or hurt anyone else.

The other men in the dorm had begun to stir and wake. Like Ethan, they were all farmers, or rather, they were all going to be farmers.

Ethan hadn’t had much success at school so not many professions in the colony were open to him. Farming had seemed as good as anything else when the time came to choose but he’d never been content with his decision. He would be confined to his farm for most of the time. His crops would need a watchful eye to guard against pests, disease, drought, and any of the other hundreds of things that could affect them. On the other hand, the colony needed farmers. The colonists were relying on the success of the farms to survive. If their buildings leaked or their children didn’t learn much from their teachers, they could live with it, but they couldn’t live without food.

Yet for as long as he could remember, from when he’d first understood the purpose for which he’d been born, Ethan had always nurtured a secret desire to explore the new planet. But that role was strictly off the cards for Gens. It was written in the Manual. Aside from venturing a day or two from the main settlement, exploring wasn’t allowed. The new settlers couldn’t afford to risk their lives on adventures, and that stricture had been cemented after the First Night Attack. Even with all the supplies they had brought, the colony wouldn’t last longer than five or six years if they couldn’t make it self-sustaining, and that would require the utmost effort from everyone.

“That’s a beauty,” remarked another farmer, Misha, as he passed Ethan on his way to the shower room, gesturing toward Ethan’s face. Ethan followed along to check his reflection in the shower room mirror and found a black and purple bloom surrounding his eye.

“What’s happening about the explosion at the stadium?” Misha asked Ethan as he went into a shower. “Did you read anything about it?”

“The Guardians cordoned off the area once everyone was out. They’re going through the wreckage, looking for evidence. I haven’t heard any more than that.”

Ethan stripped, stepped into another cubicle, and began to wash, carefully avoiding exposing the gel on his face to water. His skin crawled at the thought that whoever had planted the bomb was living among them, pretending to be the same as everyone else—working toward the colony’s success while secretly plotting its downfall. The saboteur could even be Misha. Ethan shook the thought from his head. Suspecting everyone he knew of belonging to the Natural Movement would be playing right into the terrorist’s hands.

The only bright side to the situation was the fact that the bomber hadn’t been able to create a bomb large enough to take out the entire stadium. If they truly wanted to destroy the colony, that would have been the obvious move. For the moment, it seemed that they didn’t have access to materials to make larger or more deadly explosives.

Ethan turned off the shower and turned on the blower, which quickly dried him. After dressing, he ate breakfast before joining the rest of the farmers in the meeting room. The organizer waiting for them wasted little time in getting down to business.

“I’m sure what’s at the front of all your minds is the explosion at the stadium yesterday. I don’t have any news on that, but what I will say is this, whatever the murderer who planted that bomb might think, we’re not going to let him or her stop us from building a thriving community here. We’re going to carry on as normal and not let the bastard stop us. Right?”

“Damned right,” said a voice, and the other farmers joined in with loud agreements.

“Let’s get on with it then,” said the organizer. “I have the land allotments here.” He swiped across a pad and a holo of the settlement and the land surrounding it appeared above the desk. Lines cut through the 3D map, marking the boundaries of the sectioned land. At the center of each block, a name floated.

The farmers got up out of their seats and went closer to see their allocations. Some asked to swap with others. Ethan had remained in his seat for a while as the rest crowded around the holo, but he decided he might as well find out where he was going to spend the rest of his life.

He went over and saw that he’d been allocated a squarish block that bordered a lake about seven klicks from town. Well, he thought, Cariad said it was pretty.