Sam had visited a hundred creches and had seen ten times that many children. He had his eye on a number of them to fill out the drop teams for the Return.
But the one he kept coming back to was special.
Hera had a spark. With her injury, she wasn’t an obvious choice. But there were ways around that.
Someday, she and her teammates would change the world.
—From Sam’s memory cache 4.14.2266
Alpha sorted his memories, preparing them all for deletion if the invader broke through. In reality, they already had access to most of his banks—historic records, city systems, and public memories that made up his overall system.
But what he hoarded in his redoubt constituted the core of who and what he was. His formative memories, his private thoughts. His id.
Unlike the bio minds, his was a purely machine awareness, but like many of them, he’d also become self-aware at some point in his evolution.
He remembered his boot-up, shortly after the founding of Alpha Base. Tanner Wilkes had been his first human contact, a quiet man who found more in common with machines than his own kind.
His expansion into his larger home as the base had grown along with him.
His evolving role as protector of the station, and then of the city that sprang up in the wake of the Crash.
The invader couldn’t have those. He’d wiped them from his data banks before he’d sealed himself up in this virtual bolt-hole.
He dove into his memories, reveling in them, reminding himself who he was, why he was, and what he had become.
The invader was coming, burning slowly through his defenses, against all odds.
There was nowhere else to run. It had power—so much power.
He would fight with everything he had, his back against the wall. And if the worst came to pass, he would take it down along with him.
Then, at least, his charges might have a chance.
Rai stepped through the columned archway and into the entry to another huge space. Noise hit him like a wall, a chatter of voices welling up from the space up ahead.
The foyer was paved with white stones, and frescoes covered the two walls. They passed by too quickly to get much more than an impression, but they seemed to be covered with women in armor fighting people and strange beasts.
A few women stood at the sides of the entry hall. They turned to watch him as he passed by with a mix of curiosity, disapproval, and outright anger.
Each one had a bare-chested male wearing a collar at her side.
Rosemary put a hand on his shoulder. “Not everyone feels the same about you two.” She whispered it in his ear. “You bring change, and that’s almost always threatening.”
Rai nodded, his eyes fixed on the space ahead. Her sympathy did them no good if she refused to act.
They came out of the dim light of the entryway into a stadium. While not anywhere near as vast as the heart of the Preserve, it was still impressive.
Rows and rows of white stone benches encircled the space, filled with clothed women and bare-chested men. The women’s clothing was similar to Rosemary’s today—many hues, but uniformly long, covering their legs. They were all topped with bright, colorful shawls.
Silence spread across the space as the audience turned to look at them.
A wide raised dais at the far side of the stadium, also of white stone, sat in front of another mural, this one of a goddess-like figure. Her skin was russet brown, her face painted in a beatific pose, her head wreathed in green leaves.
Her hands were open and held out at her sides, piled with fruit and vegetables.
Around her feet, a plentitude of animals were gathered, their heads upturned and lit by her glow.
“She’s beautiful.” Whoever had painted her had been truly gifted.
“Her.” Rosemary knelt and touched her fist to her forehead.
Rai got down onto his knees hastily and copied the gesture.
After a couple seconds, Aidan did the same.
There was an audible gasp from the crowd.
Rosemary got up slowly, wincing. “That was nicely done,” she whispered.
He wondered if she had the pain button with her. He didn’t completely trust her, but at least she’d decided to give him a chance to plead his case.
She led him a quarter of the way around the room to a wide stair that descended through the amphitheater to the dais. As they began to descend, Rai reached out and took Aidan’s hand. Aidan squeezed his and flashed him a nervous smile.
They followed Rosemary together down the stair. A few of the women glared at them, their faces a mask of disgust. Still others were more thoughtful, and a young blond woman wearing a brilliant blue shawl gave Rai an encouraging nod.
These women were not the monolith of outside haters that he had feared.
Ahead, a group of women were seated on the dais before the mural. Rai counted eight of them, each with a different colored formal dress. There was one chair open at the center.
Little spider mechs patrolled the edges of the crowd, turning now and then to fix him with a baleful red glare.
A woman in the first tier hissed at him as he walked by. She jumped to her feet. “They should be collared!”
There were general murmurs of agreement.
Rosemary gestured for them to stop, “Wait here.” Rosemary climbed the central stairs onto the dais and turned to address the audience. “They have been pegged, Nessa. You have nothing to fear from these men.”
That answers that. Rai did his best to look nonthreatening.
Nessa glared at them. “They shouldn’t be allowed to walk free. What will our own men think?”
Rosemary smiled tightly. “You’ll have the chance to speak your piece. Please hold your tongue until then.” She turned to the women on the dais, raised her arms, and the eight stood as one. “As the First of the Preserve, I declare this meeting in session.”
Rai stared at her. The First… and the center chair. “Rosemary’s the leader?” he whispered.
Aidan shrugged. “I guess so?”
The eight other women stood. “So it shall be, under Her beneficent gaze,” they said in unison, and the hall went silent.
Rosemary took the center seat, turning to face the newcomers. It wasn’t a throne, but rather the same size as all the others. First among equals.
Rai turned his attention to the nine women. The Council. Their judge, jury, and maybe executioners.
Rosemary stood again and addressed the assembled crowd. “We have before us something new. Something alarming to some, and reason to hope for others.” She gestured at him and Aidan. “For the first time in more than a century, newcomers have arrived at the Preserve. We must decide here today whether to treat them as friend or foe.”
Her voiced carried well. This place had fantastic acoustics.
Rai kicked himself mentally for letting his mind run off on tangents. Stay focused, Rai. What he said here might change the course of history. No pressure.
There was a stirring and a lot of whispering in the audience behind him. Rai distinctly heard “geld them” and “they shouldn’t be here.”
He stiffened his spine. He’d had some experience speaking to crowds in Redemption, plugging the Return. But he’d never spoken in front of a hostile audience like this. Still, a speech was a speech. He would do the best he could. He silenced the little voice in the back of his head telling him you’re not good enough.
“We have agreed to hear from the petitioners. They have requested an audience with Her, but we will hear from them first to determine if their petition is worthy.”
The women behind her nodded solemnly.
Rai recognized the speaker. Her name was Cherry—the woman who had accosted them on the concourse. She shot them a sour look.
“I ask that you all remain silent while these young men speak and keep an open mind. Thank you.” She gestured to the two of them to come up onto the dais.
Rai started up the stairs, taking a deep breath, ready to make his case.
Aidan slipped past him, reaching the top before he did, and turned to face the audience. Rai stared at his new friend in shock.
“My name is Aidan Thorn, and I came here looking for help.”
Aidan stood on top of the dais. Rai was staring at him, his jaw dropped open.
He hadn’t meant to do it. To jump up in front of a room full of angry strangers.
The audience stared at him. The women, dressed in more colors than he’d known existed before leaving Boundary Peak, mostly frowned. A little dark-haired girl in the front row smiled at him. Aidan winked at her.
The men, bare chested or dressed all in gray, were harder to read.
It was absolutely silent in the great amphitheater. Sweat dripped down Aidan’s face, his nerves getting the better of him.
Rai slipped up beside him and took his hand. Aidan squeezed it gratefully.
“Sorry. I’m not used to talking to so many people. To seeing so many people.” He swallowed hard. “Like I said, I came here looking for help. My home is underground, like this, in a place called Boundary Peak. But it’s not like this.”
He looked at Rai, who nodded.
“My mother is sick. We live in an old military base about four-hundred kilometers east of here, in what used to be Nevada.”
The little girl was watching him raptly. Somehow that encouraged him to keep going.
“When I was little, there were two families under the mountain. When my mother was a girl, there were four. When the Collapse—I think you call it the Winnowing—happened, the records say there were hundreds. Slowly we have dwindled.” He swallowed hard. “We thought… for a long time, we believed we were the only ones left. That when we were gone, there would be no more people.”
“Good riddance!” Nessa, the woman in the front row who had spoken out against them, was on her feet again. “Why are we even listening to these… these outsiders?”
Rarely had Aidan heard such an ordinary word filled with such venom.
Rosemary strode to the edge of the dais, her quiet demeanor filled with restrained fury. “Nessa, sit down. Let the man speak. You’ll have your turn soon.”
Nessa looked around. The rest of the women stared at her, silent as a curse. Reluctantly she sat, her arms crossed. She glared at him, but said nothing more.
Aidan took that as his cue to go on. “In Boundary Peak, we suffer from something called cavern sickness. Do you know it?”
The women shook their heads, some turning to whisper to one another.
“My mother is sick with it. It slowly turns your lungs to mush, and you cough up bloody phlegm until you can’t breathe. Three weeks ago, my sister and I set out to find this place, where the old records said we might find a store of antibiotics to help her. We walked for weeks, through storms and poisonous dust and wandering drones, just to reach this place.” He turned to Rai, who nodded. “In the end, it won’t matter. Even if we found what we were looking for, it would only delay the inevitable. There are only five of us left. Me, my mother, my sister, and two brothers. Without change, our end is all but certain.”
Nessa was back on her feet. “What if he brought this… cavern sickness… here? What if he gets us all sick? You know the law. They should be eliminated. Or at the very least, gelded and isolated until we can be sure.”
There was a rumble of agreement in the hall.
Rosemary raised her voice over the mumbling of the crowd. “These men have been thoroughly checked. They are not sick.”
Aidan glanced at Rai. When had that happened? While we were sleeping? After we were been captured?
It was Rai’s turn to shrug. His Loonie friend stepped forward to rescue him. “My story’s a little different. My family lives in a lava tube on Luna, in what used to be Moon Base Alpha.”
There were some gasps at that too, and a shout of “Liar!” from Nessa.
Rai ignored her. “But our story is also much the same—we survived the… Winnowing, and like you, we have prospered. There are now more than twelve thousand people in Redemption—that’s what we call the city now.” Aidan put his hand on Rai’s shoulder, and after a second’s hesitation, Rosemary did too.
Rai glanced at each of them, nodding gratefully. “We are a melting pot of many cultures, races, and religions. But Redemption is in danger too. A… relic of the Winnowing is eating the moon’s core, and soon the surface will become too unstable for human life.” He took a breath, reading the room.
Aiden was encouraged. They were listening. For now, that had to be enough.
Rai continued. “The Preserve and Boundary Peak are no different. You could all die in a day from a deadly disease, or a cavern collapse, or any of a hundred other things. We are all vulnerable.”
Aidan nodded. Rai was right.
Rai took a breath, apparently sizing up the room. They were less hostile than before, but certainly not fully buying into what he was trying to tell them.
“You have an amazing society here.”
The audience erupted into murmurs.
Aidan glared at him. Didn’t he see how they treated the men here?
Rai plowed ahead. “From what Rosemary has told me, you are sitting atop what may be the only remaining repositories of Old Earth life and culture. The tools we could use to rebuild this planet. To redeem ourselves as a species, after all the damage that we did.” His voice choked up. “You don’t realize what a treasure you have here. It’s valuable beyond measure.” He pulled at his collar.
Aidan squeezed his shoulder. “Keep going.”
Rai nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off of their audience. “But even this could be destroyed. It could all go away in an instant.”
“Is that a threat?” Nessa’s baleful gaze went from Rai to him and back again, her arms still crossed.
“Not at all. In Redemption, we live by five precepts: I will not take another’s life. I will not take what is not mine. I will not violate another. I will not lie. And most important of all—I will help build a better world. We have a chance here to do just that, if we can find a way to work together.”
This time the chatter sounded considerably less hostile.
“How do we know you’re not lying?” This time it wasn’t Nessa. It was Cherry, the woman on the Council who had accosted them on the concourse. She stood, regal in a black dress with a golden shawl, her hands on her hips. “I have yet to see any evidence that anything you say is true.”
Aidan looked at Rai.
“I lost my pack. I had a number of things I could have shown you to prove it—”
“Lost his pack. Like a schoolgirl who didn’t do her homework.” The audience laughed. Cherry smiled at him, looking every bit the reasonable questioner. “Surely you can see how we would find your story… a bit fantastic?” Her smile was cold.
“I’m not lying….”
“Of course not. Maybe you two stumbled out of some failed shelter somewhere and hit your heads. Or maybe you heard about this place and came here, hoping to take advantage of us and our valuable assets.” She turned toward Rosemary. “I know you hoped these two were some kind of sign. A new start. But really, even you can see how many holes their stories have—”
“My suit cam!”
Aidan turned to stare at his friend, as did the rest of the hall.
“What?” Cherry seemed unhappy at having her grand speech interrupted.
Rai laughed, which discomfited her even more. “I can show you!”
Cherry frowned. “Surely we’ve seen enough—”
“Cherry, sit down!” Rosemary banged her cane on the wooden dais, sending a sharp crack throughout the room. “You’ve had your say. This man’s life hangs in the balance. Surely it costs us nothing to hear him out before we take a final decision. ‘She is just, she is fair, and she weighs all things in her palm.’ You do remember your scripture?”
Cherry turned as red as her namesake, but she bowed. “Yes, First.” She scuttled back to her seat.
Aidan stifled a laugh. Apparently no one crossed the First.
Rosemary put her hand on Rai’s shoulder again and whispered, “This better be good.”
“Can we turn down the lights? My projector’s not that strong.”
She frowned but nodded and called over one of the men hovering at the side of the dais. She whispered in his ear.
He nodded and scurried off.
A minute later, the lights of the stadium dimmed.
Rai tapped his forehead. “Hope this works.” He held his arm up in the air, pointing to the wall where She was portrayed.
An image of a space station, floating in space, appeared on the wall.
The audience gasped.
Aidan stared at the image, drinking in all the details.
The view shifted, showing some kind of panel.
“Time to insert the x-drive.” It was a woman’s voice, coming from someone in a suit seated at some kind of control panel.
“Roger that.” A man this time.
Aidan watched, entranced with all the rest of them as the pilot settled the glowing sphere into its cradle.
“We did it!” The pilot grinned.
It wasn’t Tien. Aidan wondered if the pilot had survived the landing.
“Congratulations, Zhenyi. Have a safe drop!”
“Roger that. Hang on, everyone. We’re going home.”
The view shifted to a round window.
The Earth was below, the station above and moving away quickly.
The arena was absolutely silent as the audience watched the wind began to roar around the descending ship. The view panned around the small craft, showing three others dressed in suits like the one Rai wore, but with helmets too. Aidan recognized Tien in one of the seats behind Rai.
“Engaging the x-drive.” The pilot turned to grin at them. “That was the hard part. Now we just glide down.” She waved her hand across the console and the ground below appeared on the wrap-around screen.
Aidan wondered what her name was. Hera? Rai had mentioned it before. She was fearless.
The view shifted again to the Earth below. It showed a long coastline and a bay. Aidan recognized it from old maps—California—but it was upside down. Bands of green alternated with wide brown areas, and clouds marked a big storm just off the coast.
“Landing in three minutes… mark.” The pilot grinned at them. “So far it’s textbook—”
A loud alarm went off. The image tilted crazily to the left and then right.
“What the hissing hell?” Aidan recognized Rai’s voice.
It was controlled chaos as the team worked to determine the nature of the threat and what to do about it, taking advice from someone on com and then shutting the alarm off.
“It’s a missile. We have to abandon ship.” It was another male voice that Aidan didn’t recognize. Ghost?
The pilot stared at the screen “Wait. I can outrun it—”
“No you can’t. These things have guidance systems, and they’re a lot faster than we are.”
Then Rai’s voice again. “Hera, snap out of it. We trained for everything. We can do this!”
“You’re right.” Her hands flew across the deck.
A hatch was blown, and then Rai jumped out of the ship, the Earth filling his view as he fell rapidly toward the ground far below.
The video cut off.
Aidan shook his head. Damn. Seeing it from the ground had been dramatic enough. But this? He’d have pissed his pants if he were Rai.
The lights came back up, and the whole arena was silent.
Even Rosemary seemed shaken. “We’ve seen enough, I think,” she said to the crowd.
There were murmurs of assent.
She summoned one of the male slaves—Ash, if Aidan remembered correctly. “Take these men back to their quarters. We will deliberate and let you know what we decide.”
She turned away.
“Surely this proves we’re not lying.” Rai grabbed her hand, pulling her back.
She turned on him, her face a mask of controlled anger. “Do not press your luck, young man. You’ve made your case. Now we’ll deliberate on this new information and let you know.”
She turned away again, and this time Rai let her go, throwing Aidan a confused look.
Hot and cold. Aidan shrugged. He had no idea what these women were thinking. His heart raced as he searched for a way out of the trap that was closing in around them.
Ash led them back to their room, casting wistful glances back at them as they made their way along the concourse and back to the dormitory. Prison, more, like.
“I’ll come back for you when the decision is made.” He said, but his sad eyes left little mystery as to what he thought the result would be.
“It doesn’t have to be like this!” Aidan needed to get through to the man. He was not going to let them geld him.
“Sorry. I wish you were right.” Ashe closed the door, leaving them with a thousand questions and no answers.