Colony worlds, p.34
Colony Worlds, page 34
At the thought of MarEe, his right implant pinged. He half expected to see her ID until he realised it was his official channel. He concentrated on the unfamiliar face in his mind, light blue eyes the same as his. RoMan always noticed eyes first, knowing from experience he could most easily observe the personality behind. The rest of the image, the head, and shoulders, he took in as a matter of habit. Short, straight, blonde hair framed a handsome face that might well be pretty in female. The name tag on the collar read LinDer.
"Where are you, Observer Ro Man?" asked LinDer, politely separating the syllables in deference to his status.
He suppressed the temptation to say, as NorMan would, 'where I was, when told not to move'. "I've just landed," he said instead.
A fleeting frown, a perceptible turning up of the blue eyes. Her expression shouted at him, 'I'm dealing with an idiot'.
"I realise that Sir, and I apologise on behalf of the OIC for not meeting you on the pad, but we are in the middle of a delicate situation." He saw mounting frustration in her expression as she spoke. "And now one of the - settlers has blundered in on it." After a visible effort to regain composure, LinDer continued in a polite if somewhat patronising vein, "So, if you'll just tell me where you are, we can get you sorted out."
RoMan wondered if the bitten off adjective which seemed to express LinDer's attitude to the newly arrived settlers extended to colonisation? Or was it simply the universal frustration with newcomers?
"I'm outside. I suspect I'm your blundering settler," he said, gently closed the call, and walked back to the verandah, ignoring the alarms het reactivated.
The large two-line inscription on the doors read Level 7 - North Entrance. Feeling like an intruder, he stood to the side of the transparent doors and let the iris scan confirm his identity.
Sunlight, softened by atmosphere, fell through the windows in oblong panels across the corridor floor. Further along he saw chaotic activity, the confusion LinDer mentioned. Newly landed settlers with their baggage unable to get around a knot of settlement personnel, identifiable from their uniforms, pushed up against a trolley of equipment by the windows. RoMan glanced through both door and window to where their focus lay, the curious landform. A delicate situation, LinDer had said, and from this RoMan inferred the landform he had wanted to look at would be a native.
Feeling better for his observations, RoMan waited patiently for the two settlement personnel, who'd extricated themselves from the milling crowd, to let him in. The doors' micro-panels concertinaed aside like a curtain, and he stepped inside the airlock-like entrance, its inner doors opening as soon as the outer doors closed. With no air extraction and replacement, it was more a buffer zone.
RoMan continued observing his fellow settlers, for ultimately, he and the uniformed personal were all settlers, if not here, which now seemed likely, then further in toward the galactic centre. Several faces from the knot of personnel against the window looked up as the inner doors clicked together behind him. He was reading relationships when a hidden face, leaning over the equipment trolley, lifted, immediately drawing his attention. His training faltered as soon as their gazes locked. The green eyes, bright even at this distance, turned away to speak to another uniformed person, breaking contact, releasing him.
The person spoken to, detached from the group, and came towards him. He recognised LinDer and concluded that green eyes belonged to the settlement's OIC; council's problem child, HeLen. RoMan walked forward, mentally adjusting his image of LinDer. The handsome face topped a female shape, probably in transition. It was difficult to tell the direction at this stage, but his trained eye guessed at female thinking male. Her face coloured slightly as they met. RoMan didn't notice. He was looking over her shoulder at the finely sculptured face around the green eyes.
As they approached, HeLen turned away from speaking to the assembled crowd. Several settlement personnel, including the two who had let him in, hustled the new settlers away. RoMan could sense LinDer trying to warn her boss. He guessed that in the confusion; she had forgotten to mention she had found him.
HeLen's gaze swept passed him dismissively, and there was a sharpness to her voice when she spoke to LinDer. "I'll deal with him later, where's the damned observer?"
Despite the sharpness, RoMan liked the cadence of her voice.
"Here," LinDer said, nodding toward him.
RoMan stepped forward and proffered his credentials.
"What were you doing out there? You should observe more, and do less."
With great difficulty, which he hoped didn't show, RoMan recovered his wits. He was the instrument of the Prime Councillor, so although technically she outranked him, she had no authority over him. A tricky diplomatic situation for both if handled wrongly. Now was not the time to take offence, but neither could he back away. A bad first impression was almost impossible to correct. There was a pause. A holding of breath. Waiting.
"Observing your view," he said.
He imagined he saw a fleeting smile cross the green eyes as she opened his credentials. The small label on her pocket confirmed his earlier guess. HeLen - OIC. While she studied his authority, he made a detailed observation: dark hair, finely sculptured facial planes, and a well-muscled body, unambiguously female.
He watched her relax into a confident stance as she read, occasionally glancing up as if to compare description with reality. Presence and poise, he thought, inspiring. Things were looking up. He tried to stand more erect without her noticing. The way she talked when at ease, especially the way she said his name, warmed him. He wondered if she was in a relationship and then laughed at himself. Here less than an hour and already wanting to bed the boss. None of this reached his face.
She handed back his credentials. "Well, Ro Man," HeLen said with careful pronunciation, and an inquiring glance to make sure she had it right. "You nearly did the unforgivable even before you got in the door."
She pointed at the monitor, reading as she talked, observing the observer in quick, unobtrusive glances that the untrained might miss. "When you triggered the alarms, you were heading for a dead native. What would Council think of their observer breaking the edict and breeching quarantine in the simple act of arriving?"
RoMan watched her statement ripple through the few remaining personnel. Slight posture changes, a squaring of shoulders here, an exhalation there. Their OIC was giving the intruding observer a polite dressing down, and the troops were lapping it up. He concluded HeLen was a natural leader, in charge, not just nominally OIC.
That was both good and bad. It meant he only had one person to deal with, to set the tone for the entire establishment. But it also might mean HeLen had condoned the 'development aid' AmRik sent him to stop and might hide the culprit he needed to remove. "Then I'm grateful that you stopped me."
Returning focus to his subject, it annoyed him to find the OIC evaluating him with the same intensity. He grinned to cover his lapse and drew again that fleeting smile.
Watching how the group reacted as she issued orders brought another individual to his attention. One who observed the OIC, in that special way that said 'lover'. His name tag read RoLik. It surprised RoMan to have previously missed the connection. Those damn green eyes were a distraction. Yet when they glanced in RoLik's direction, RoMan detected a slight hesitation. A one-sided affair?
"Welcome RoMan, to Settlement-3," HeLen said, letting the smile out a fraction and completely disarming him with pleasant familiarity. RoMan not Ro Man already. Now we're happening.
"I'm He Len. This is my deputy Lin Der."
"We've met," said LinDer, then aside to HeLen "I'll get it started."
HeLen nodded and moved to the window, beckoning RoMan. LinDer had a brief word with RoLik. The remaining settlement personnel left with him, leaving only him with HeLen and LinDer.
10 Child
HeLen glanced at an instrument on the trolley, then out the window at the female and child, then back at the young observer sent to spy on her. Inclining her head towards what appeared a shapeless lump. "I could use another opinion on that, Observer."
She watched as Observer Ro Man stepped up to the trolley, made several adjustments to the monitor controls then straightened. "What would you like to know?" he asked casually.
HeLen felt disappointment. Having set him to the task she had sat back to watch for his reaction to the child's face. If he was any good, he wouldn't need to have it pointed out to him. He looked up from the monitor only seconds afterwards with no apparent reaction. About as useful as water in a vacuum, she thought, but persisted anyway.
"Your opinion based on your observations."
"First, the native female is dead and the child soon will be if you do nothing. Doing nothing accords with the edict. The child, however, is not native."
HeLen exchanged a glance with LinDer as she revised her opinion. His confirmation of the problem threw it right back in her lap. She speculated that despite council's ban on procreation until the decision to settle was final, someone hadn't waited. When constant opposition had delayed the decision, they'd hidden their problem among the natives. It all felt a tad farfetched. But then how else did a human baby end up with a native.
The obvious next move: save the child, and send him up on the return shuttle for a genetic profile to ID the parents, but that flouted the edict. When she roused from her introspection, the damned observer was patiently watching her, waiting to continue.
"Second, although the native froze to death, she was already very ill, so was the child, but he has passed the crisis point, the symptoms are waning."
HeLen found herself suddenly interested in his opinion. If his observation skill was any guide, then he might be useful after all. Catching her own play of emotions mirrored on LinDer's face, HeLen wondered idly how much of RoMan's phrasing and delivery was deliberate, intended to get them to reveal themselves. Child, not native, was how they perceived the infant. She realised both she and LinDer had become emotionally tied to the fate of a sick child, not an animal. They had turned the sound off because they couldn't handle the cries, but the balled-up fists, tight shut eyes and open mouth on the monitor undid them.
They had been looking to the observer to support a rescue attempt.
"My opinion," he said when she brought her attention back to him. "The edict doesn't apply to the child but bringing him in breaches quarantine. You could, however, safely take the hospital to the patient."
HeLen again exchanged a brief glance with her deputy. It was clear from LinDer's expression that she had also re-evaluated RoMan. They had taken twenty minutes to reach the same conclusion. Assembly of a field hospital had been well under way as the shuttle was landing, the implementation order given to RoLik only minutes ago. Already, over RoMan's shoulder, two ground cars and a trailer had emerged from 7-South, and were heading upslope.
HeLen steered RoMan in the other direction on the pretext of touring the settlement. She still didn't completely trust him. After all, AmRik had sent him. He had an agenda of which she knew nothing beyond the official stated purpose to observe and report any breaches of the edict. Temporarily, she would have to tighten security.
They hadn't gone far when she handed him over to LinDer, claiming urgent settlement business needed her attention. After checking with the Duty Watch for free accommodation, she told LinDer, "Show our guest to room 309 and then take a rest break. I want someone competent on duty tonight."
Once they were out of sight, HeLen immediately turned and headed out to the field hospital. The child's sudden appearance continued to worry her. How had the parents kept the pregnancy and birth secret, and how had they smuggled the child to the natives? It was a major breach that had previously gone undetected. Her primary concern however, was that this now dead female had accepted, nurtured, and then given her life for the child; ample evidence of sentience, which jeopardised settlement.
She felt a certain sympathy for RoMan, a nice enough kid, whose official task was now far from straightforward.
11 Settlers
As LinDer escorted him to his billet, he observed a lithe body in transition, the breasts small, the hips unpronounced, a fine shadow on the cheeks. Quick gender changes during sex were temporary. Long-term changes required consistent effort in one direction. His guess remained; she was going male. It was nothing identifiable, merely a feeling produced by the sum of the indicators. Time would tell. She would be a handsome bloke.
RoMan, having read, from a combination of, stance and expression, she favoured a direct approach, went straight to work. "Why are you flaunting the edict?"
She looked sideways at him, expressive eyes speculating on how much or how little to reveal. He watched her make the smart decision. Observers were too hard to fool and he had amply demonstrated his abilities.
"Because it's bloody senseless. We're supposed to stop interacting with them so we don't contaminate their culture? Rubbish. Natives or no natives, we're not leaving. Any culture they have will last about two nanoseconds once we settle permanently. Face it, the overwhelming majority are here to settle a new world, me included. For us there is nowhere else to go and when Council puts it to the vote, it will be a landslide for Settling."
"If they prove sentience, then according to our charter, council can move us on without a vote, what then?"
"Revolution," LinDer said.
RoMan agreed. It really was the whole point of their journey. Noting twists and turns as they descended to level-3, he reviewed his own changing attitude. Among his peers he had been the only one disinclined to settle, but from the moment he'd felt the soil between his fingers, he'd seen merit in the idea. For those few stubbornly against it, discovery of the hominid bands must seem opportune, allowing them to revive the non-interference debate, hoping against reason to move on. But given Flying Horse's decreasing supplies, that was unlikely to happen.
"So how does helping them, help you stay?"
As if she hadn't heard him LinDer said, "My concern is what will we do with them, or to them, when we do finally settle. I don't see genocide as a good way of justifying the inevitable, but that's what Council has implied. The discovery team ship led us to expect vacant possession, so let's change the facts to fit the story. Wipe them out and there's no problem." She paused and now faced him directly. "Whatever else you might think there is one thing I must make clear. HeLen treats them strictly as fauna. She doesn't have a clue how much we've helped them. She thinks the child is one of us dumped on the band. I think it's a Hybrid."
RoMan noticed her constant use of 'we'. A 'we' that did not include HeLen. He would have to investigate LinDer's links to find out who was in 'we' and how big the group was, but for now, he wanted to understand why.
The door to room 309 opened as they approached. "I've sent the code to your private channel," LinDer said as they entered. The room had a similar layout to his platform quarters, but twice the size. Nothing had to fold away to make space.
"You haven't answered my question. How does what you're doing help the natives?"
"We want to show they're sentient," LinDer replied. "The changes in the bands are self-evident. They have adopted and adapted our suggestions, using what we give them, in the same way we would. They're as human as we are."
That LinDer passionately believed in what she was saying was obvious. RoMan warmed to her.
"How would you feel about putting the child on the return shuttle?"
"You can try," she said, and he could see in her expression, a determination to stop him.
"I didn't say it would happen. I only asked how you would feel. Thank you for being forthright. Now take me out to field hospital."
The field hospital, outside 7-West, was a large inflatable dome pressurised and warmed. "What are you going to do with the body of the female?" he asked HeLen on entering.
He saw LinDer frown. The child was now recovering in a cot in a separate partition. The dead female stank, yet no one seemed at all worried about cross contamination. Was that knowledge or complacency?
"Why do you ask?"
"I asked first."
"After an autopsy, we will incinerate what's left."
"What about the native culture, burial rites?" RoMan asked, noting that neither were unruffled by the question.
"Their culture has no burial custom and we have to dispose of the remains," LinDer said. "Would you like us to throw them out for the carrion?"
"Sorry I asked."
Ignoring the antagonism between RoMan and LinDer, HeLen went to the child. RoMan and LinDer followed.
"MarDu told me that those who are close to death take a long walk, as this female did. When they can't, the band does; walks away that is, leaves them." She shrugged, not looking at LinDer. "We do autopsies, to increase our knowledge of the ... fauna," she added, glancing at RoMan.
"Will you dispose of the child as well?"
He received a malevolent glare from HeLen, rubbed in by LinDer.
"Of course, why didn't we think of that. We saved NatLen so we could kill him personally."
"NatLen?" he asked, attempting to deflect the rise in tension.
LinDer answered, "Yes, Nat Len for native, rescued by HeLen, unless you have some objection to naming a poor dumb - animal."
RoMan couldn't help smiling at their hesitancy to say native. LinDer's advanced gender, which he now saw must have started long before he arrived, made him wonder how much of her/his aggression resulted from hormonal changes. "The name might be more appropriate than you think," RoMan said, as soothingly as possible. "What if NatLen isn't an abandoned child but a hybrid, as LinDer suggested?"
The silence stretched interminably. HeLen looked from RoMan to a now pensive LinDer, and back to NatLen. Mixed parentage shouldn't be possible. If true, it would have enormous repercussions. Sentience and irreparable cultural damage in one stupid act.
He gleaned from HeLen's demeanour she had considered the idea, but unlike LinDer had shelved it as untenable. His suggestion had her re-evaluating.
