Lisan Navarroclan

An Excerpt from Phoenix

Ken Rand

Lisan Navarroclan had just filled the water pouch from the well a few meters outside Holy Mother Anna Devlin's alcove when she heard the old woman cry in pain, a sharp-edged groan piercing the night. Lisan set the pouch beside the well and ran the few short steps back to the alcove.

"Holy Mother Anna, are you — "

As she pushed through the whipgrass-woven gate in the alcove's low mud-brick wall — high enough to keep the goats out — she saw the old woman on hands and knees in front of the stone bench where they'd sat together a moment ago. The Holy Mother's sapbalm pouch lay on the ground, an indistinct black splotch in the dim starlight, like a dead hedge chicken. A few yellow thumb-sized balls of waxy sapbalm lay scattered from the open bag mouth, glowing. The Holy Mother's long blonde hair hung like a curtain over her face — so scarred on one side that many of the children had been terrified when they first saw her.

"Holy Mother," Lisan muttered — a prayer, in part — as she ran to the woman's side, knelt, and clutched her bony ribs. The narrow ribcage rose and fell in spastic arrhythmia. Lisan could feel the old woman's body heat. One stick-like hand groped for the nearest sapbalm ball. Just out of reach. The Holy Mother groaned in frustration.

Lisan grabbed the errant ball and put it into the old woman's hand. She popped it into her mouth and gulped it down. In a moment, Anna nodded thanks, head still bent low, hair still curtaining her face, and Lisan could hear her raspy breathing become less erratic and tense, feel her sides loosen. The sapbalm did its magic, as usual, and again, Lisan marveled.

"What happened? Are you all right, now?"

Anna nodded and tried to stand. Her knees quivered. Lisan let the gnarled old woman lean on her as she eased Anna back onto the bench. Again, Lisan marveled at how little Anna weighed. Her bones must be hollow, like a sawk's.

"Please..." Anna gestured at the sapbalm balls scattered on the ground, "Please..."

"I'll gather them."

Lisan got to her knees and gathered the waxy balls, counting them as she did so. She placed each one back into the pouch, secured the pouch drawstring, and handed it back to Anna. She sat at the old woman's side.

"I counted three hands and two fingers of sapbalm left, Mother — "

"Seventeen."

"I beg your — "

"You counted . seventeen, not three hands and — "

"I...I'm sorry, Mother, I..."

"Don't apologize, Lisan Navarroclan." The Holy Mother took Lisan's youthful-smooth hand in her bony, aged hand and pressed gently. Lisan liked it when she touched her — it felt like her own Mother's touch.

Lisan fought back that memory — her Mother had been dead only two hands and — no — twelve — nights yet.

"Seventeen," Lisan said, and returned her handclasp, warm skin against warm skin.

Lisan wanted to ask the Holy Mother what had prompted her sudden bout of illness. A memory would surface, or somebody would say something, or she'd find something left over from the rebellion in the dirt in a collapsed corridor. Or something. Always something preceded each attack.

The last one had been one hand — five — nights ago. The Holy Mother had visited Cousin Michael Riosclan's alcove. Her unannounced visit, no reason given, surprised Michael as he tended his tomato plant. When she saw the plant, the Holy Mother had collapsed in pain. Lisan tended to her, popped a sapbalm into her quivering mouth, and the episode passed. The Holy Mother left Michael's alcove, left him stunned, speechless, left without explanation.

It was as if the Holy Mother had never seen a tomato plant, and Lisan realized maybe she never had. If she had, it had been so long ago, buried so deep in her memory that it hurt physically to recall it.

Lisan had tried to ask about the tomato plant, as gently as possible, but the Holy Mother seemed not to hear. She sat for hours after the incident, silent, on the bench where they now rested, gazing out at the empty desert grassland to the west, where her memories, Lisan knew, were not really buried.

The next night, Holy Mother had asked for a cutting. She had her own tomato plant now, in its pot by the door.

What if nothing now causes the attacks? What if —

Lisan scowled at the shadowy thought like she would at a furtive bist gnawing a mealsack — what if the Holy Mother Anna Devlin is...dying? — and pushed it away. She imagined, as she did so, that this must be like how the Holy Mother controlled her memories. Or, too often, didn't.

She put her arm around Anna, and squeezed those warm, bony shoulders, as she would have done with any Cousin. Lisan gazed out too, gazed in companionable silence out into the night. The flat plain of whipgrass below, a star-filled bowl of the sky above.

No questions, not now. Just her with me, just us, like Cousins. Together.

The Holy Mother's alcove had been chosen, by popular acclaim, to give her a view of the west. It was the coolest alcove in Tierra Natal, the nearest to a well, and the First Grandfather himself used to occupy it. First Gran had died, as had all the other adults in Tierra Natal. He died three nights ago, the last of the adults to go. The children, who numbered double-twice two hands and nine fingers — No. Forty-nine — decided to give the alcove to Holy Mother.

So she could look out toward the west, where her memories lay. Or not.

Lisan again wondered about those days. She'd heard too little about them, and then only rumor and story — fairy tales the adults told before they died, and then with great reluctance, with bitterness, and often anger, stories about great huts that floated in the skies — spaceships — about villages on the stars so far away you couldn't walk there in a lifetime, about the nanofacted things they used to have, and about the Familia and the Authority and the rebellion that had torn Phoenix, their world, apart. Stories. Fairy tales for children. Nonsense.

Holy Mother said it was true, and who would deny her? So far, Holy Mother had refused to talk in any detail about those days. Lisan, or another child, would ask, 'How did you make walls from thin air and dirt? What was it like when you lived in the sky? Can we make powersleds too like you had in the old days? Are there any more fuel cells left?' — and the Holy Mother would start to answer, utter a few words that added to the mystery, then shake her head, and change the subject. Or walk away, to sit alone, looking westward.

Lisan tried to picture in her mind what Holy Mother saw.

Far across the sparse grassy flat plain surrounding the broken, makeshift town of Tierra Natal lay the Barrens, hilly country barely fit for grazing sheep and goats. Beyond the Barrens lay Goliath, the rock wall rising a kilometer straight up from the floor of the world and extending in an almost straight line from the Northern to the Southern icecap.

Beyond Goliath, accessible through narrow cracks that penetrated and split the wall in some places, lay a broad, hot desolation the Holy Mother called Ghost Basin. Beyond, further west, a vast maze of hills and caves she called the Confusions, where she'd lived most of her exile. Beyond, farther away than Lisan could imagine, lay the eastern fringe of the Great Eastern Sea, which spread its shallow surface across almost half the world — their world, Phoenix IV — to the foot of Glacier Mountain.

Glacier Mountain rose in the opposite direction from where Lisan sat now with the Holy Mother. The infrequently snowcapped mountain lay to the east, too far away to be seen even in the shimmering daytime, but accessible to a provisioned walker.

Lisan looked westward, and tried to imagine it — the Plains, the Barrens, Goliath, Ghost Basin, the Confusions, the Great Eastern Sea, Glacier Mountain, and Tierra Natal.

Phoenix IV. The world.

Michael Riosclan had crossed Goliath, had crossed Ghost Basin, and had been as far away as the Confusions. So he said, and Holy Mother didn't deny it. Only the Holy Mother Anna Devlin had seen it all.

Lisan sighed. No, she couldn't imagine the vastness of their world, details of which the Holy Mother had only hinted, and of which Michael had only seen a fragment. Lisan had never been farther west than the Barrens' eastern fringe when she was out tending the Familia goat herd that time her brother Gabriel had been too ill to go out. There, just as night ended, she stood on a hill, the highest she could find, and squinted in the rising day-heat to the west. She could barely make it out, the thin dark ribbon that was Goliath.

It looked so small in the distance, a black hair stretching from horizon to horizon as far as she could see.

Boys had been to its foot, she knew. Some had even entered the Witch's Canyon. They told wild tales Lisan knew were lies. The walls weren't as high as they said. Nothing was. Except maybe Glacier Mountain.

Again, Holy Mother didn't deny the stories, even when reminded she had been the witch — The Witch — those boy sheepherders had dreaded, taunted, lied about.

Holy Mother Anna Devlin refused to deny the stories about those times. Lisan got occasional hints she'd drop in an unguarded moment. They confirmed, though vaguely, what she remembered the adults had sometimes said before they'd died out.

Lisan wasn't interested in the wonders in those super-heated deserts beyond Goliath. She wanted to know...

"Yes, child?"

Lisan hadn't been aware she'd tensed, cleared her throat.

"I was wondering, I mean..."

A deep shuddery sigh.

Lisan turned toward the Holy Mother, heedless of her impertinence. "We've asked you before. Me, Michael, Gabriel, and other children. Little Dorothea. You can't deny her, can you? We want to know. To know. "

A long silence, and Lisan thought, again, she'd lost the Holy Mother's interest. Or annoyed her.

Finally: "Your Father. Your Grandfather. Your Mothers, and Aunts. They told you. What they said — "

"They told us stories. Lies. As if we were children."

"You are."

"But they're gone. You're the only one who can tell us...tell us — "

"I can tell you that most of what they said — your Family — what they said was true. Mostly."

Lisan suddenly became aware that she touched the Holy Mother in the manner her own Mother had taught her. The Familia way, a ritual gesture of greeting, blessing, fellowship. She pulled her hand away. Holy Mother seemed to hate the gesture, as she'd hated the sight of the Familia around people's necks, though she wouldn't say why. She'd been the Witch, and it had been Familia who had branded her so. Why?

"I — I'm sorry, Holy Mother. I'm just afraid that...that..."

The old woman hrumphed and stood. Lisan remained seated, head bowed, hands folded in her lap in respect. She waited.

Silence.

Lisan risked a glance up. Anna stood before her, Lisan's water pouch in her hand. How did she get the water? I didn't hear her move. And the gate creaks.

Lisan took the pouch, offered the older woman a sip first. Anna touched the pouch spout to her lips and returned it to Lisan, who touched the spout to her lips, completing the sharing ritual, and sat the pouch on the bench.

"You're afraid?" The Holy Mother spoke so quietly, at first Lisan wasn't sure she'd spoken at all.

She nodded.

Again, a long silence passed before the older woman spoke. If there had been even a whisper of a breeze to cool the night air, Lisan would have heard nothing.

"Will you say what you fear, Lisan Navarroclan?"

Lisan gulped in a dry throat. She reached for the water pouch, then pulled away. The Holy Mother stood above her, facing her, one pace away, gaze fixed on her. Lisan tried to look away.

"Look at me," Holy Mother demanded, voice a knife-sharp hiss. She bent down, her scarred face centimeters from Lisan's. "Look at me and tell me what you fear. "

Lisan looked up at the Holy Mother Anna Devlin. She took a shuddery breath, and tried to speak. She failed. Etiquette be damned, I need water. Lisan drank a mouthful from the pouch and sat the pouch down without offering it to Anna. The Holy Mother didn't seem to notice the affront.

"I fear...I fear you will...I fear you will...die." The last word choked off.

The Holy Mother grunted, nodded, and stood upright. She walked to the wall, four short steps, and leaned against it. Her long blonde hair seemed to glow like a halo in the faint starlight. She stood in silence for so long...

Holy Mother spoke, but Lisan didn't hear. She joined Anna at the wall, looking westward.

Anna turned to her, smiled, and gripped her soft hand. "I too fear. But nobody lives forever, you know."

"I...I know."

"I heard — long ago — that as long as somebody remembers you, it will be as if you are still alive."

"I could never forget you, Holy Mother."

Anna nodded, turned to sit on the bench. Lisan followed. "So, in you, I'll live as long as you live. Remembered."

"And the other children. They'll remember too."

Anna shook her head. "No. Memory is...so fragile a thing. So fragile."

"What if — "

"There is another way each of us lives forever."

"What do you mean?"

Anna smiled, silent. A brief glance at Lisan's budding breasts was all it took for Lisan to understand.

"Oh," Lisan said, cheeks red. Her Mother had told her about the change seven nights before she died. Lisan was still trying to fathom it. "You mean..."

"It's time I told you."

"Ah. Mother already told — "

"Not that. About those times. You asked. You fear. As do I." She touched her belly, where the pains gnawed from time to time. "Now. I should tell you, shouldn't I? Someone must know."

Lisan nodded, not daring to breathe.

"One day, long, long ago..."

Chapter One

"Affirmative."

Anna Devlin was pregnant.

In her womb, she nurtured a child, now smaller than a needle tip but growing each second. She carried new life, not a clone, one she and Martin had conceived the old-fashioned way.

Anna let out her breath — she hadn't realized she'd been holding it — as she waited for the computer to answer her query: "System pregnant?"

"Affirmative," the glowing cursor blinked green in the still air before her eyes. Her audio implant confirmed in a soft metallic whisper inside her right ear: "Affirmative."

She disengaged the hair-thin wire link between the nanomed interface plug behind her right ear and the computer console on the desk. The link retracted back into the console with a faint snaky hiss. Then she turned to look toward Martin's chair, heart pounding. "Oh, Martin — "

For an instant, panic replaced joy as Anna saw in the dim light from the computer telltale that he wasn't there. Then she remembered.

He'd gotten a call from security chief Capt. Georg Jakes an hour ago and he'd left for the admin office. He hadn't turned on the lights as he dressed, a dark shadow against the spacious room's deeper dark, but Anna had stirred. He murmured an apology about admin business, reason for leaving early and skipping their private breakfast together in their alcove, a long-standing ritual. "I'll call you for lunch," he'd whispered, "My office, not the Commons."

He didn't sound agitated or concerned, but he'd long ago mastered the art of keeping his true feelings hidden, even from Anna.

She'd mumbled agreement.

No surprise, the call. Colony Administrators kept no fixed office hours wherever they served. A call from Martin's security chief was always an emergency, however calmly Martin appeared to take it. It had happened several times before since planetfall a year ago. In fact, Anna recalled, it had happened three times in the last month. This was the fourth.

Peculiar, Anna thought, as she drifted back to sleep. Had there been another argument among the small contingent of police-troops under Jakes' command, a brawl, or an accident? Anna had heard rumors of theft. Unconfirmed.

She accepted Martin's musky-breath kiss on her cheek with a weak smile, turned over in their soft, warm bed and gave herself back to sleep.

She dreamed.

In the dream, she stood somewhere outdoors, knee deep in thick whipgrass, under the hot Phoenix sun, embracing a little girl in her arms. She cuddled the three- or four- year old girl, as if she was the girl's mother, but the girl didn't look much like her or Martin. She had a round face, jet-black hair, large, dark eyes, and a broad, flat nose. Her skin was tanned, almost black, as if she'd lived all her life under a hot sun. Both Martin and Anna had blonde hair, oval faces, and blue eyes. Authority features. The girl looked of Familia stock, yet in the dream, Anna thought of the girl as hers, born of her womb. Hers, yet born the Familia way, not the Authority way.

In the dream, the girl had touched Anna's face with a finger, a gesture filled with innocent curiosity and childlike tenderness. A golden, honey-like goo clung to the girl's fingertip, which she pressed to Anna's cheek below her right eye.

In the dream, Anna didn't feel the girl's touch, yet even now she remembered the sharp pungency the stuff on the girl's fingertip exuded — like cinnamon.

In the dream, she'd been separated from the girl for a long time. For some reason she couldn't quite understand later as she pondered the dream, it felt as though she'd been separated from the little girl, her own child despite appearances, for a long time — thirty-five years, to be exact. Yet, the girl looked to be a toddler.

Then, Anna sensed she was about to lose the girl again.

With a feeling close to panic, an oddity in an already weird dream, Anna had come full awake.

She bolted upright, the dream still vivid. She thought about the dream a while, eyes closed, as she sat on the edge of the bed. She couldn't remember ever having such a disturbing, vivid dream before.

Why thirty-five years? And the smell — do people dream smells?

The dream inspired a hunch. She and Martin had disengaged their contraceptive programs a few days ago. Maybe it was too soon to tell. Still, she decided to check med for pregnancy. She plugged in quietly, in the dark, to avoid waking Martin.

"Query: System pregnant?"

Time froze, turned to molasses. Then med reported: "Affirmative."

If the odd dream had excited her, the med report had done so even more.

"Oh, Martin — "

But Martin had left earlier and Anna sat alone in their alcove.

The room, though large, seemed to shrink, emphasizing her loneliness. She wasn't alone, knowing Martin's voice and image were an instant away through a tap of her comlink, that he was a few hundred meters away. Some thousand colonists slept in alcoves like hers, or ate in the Commons, or worked in offices or shops, all within a few hundred meters.

The room had special meaning. Here, she and Martin shared each other's company in privacy, slept together and made love. Here, they had conceived a child.

But she found no comfort in the colony's hive-like nearness, or Martin's lingering musky scent. Not alone, not exactly. Nonetheless, loneliness, a sudden and bitter pang, wrenched her heart and pressed tears to her eyes.

She hated the room, hated its emptiness, its hollowness. She hated the livewall murals designed to hide the real walls behind Earthome scenes. She hated the ever-present hot-plastic odor, the rounded corners, the seamless hardfoam walls, ceiling, and floor, featureless, unmarred by blemish or deviation from design specs.

Programmed nanoconstructors had turned Phoenix IV's silicate-rich soil into hundreds of 'living rooms', as colonists called the alcoves, all alike, within a few hours after first planetfall. All the rooms measured ten by twenty meters, spacious enough for a large bed, four chairs and a table, a large wardrobe, personal hygiene module, computer interface console, food prep unit, air recirculator, light panels, opacable ceiling, a door, plants, and whatever else colonists might want to add to help give the illusion they weren't half-buried under an alien planet light-years from Earthome.

The alcoves resembled those on the nullspace transport ship, part of the fleet that brought them from Earthome, and like too many she had seen on Earthome itself. Alike, but larger. The null-transit deepsleep pods on the huge transport were coffin-sized versions of the 'living room' where she now sat with such unease.

The alcoves, half buried in the hard Phoenix IV ground, were linked by a network of nano-constructed streets in a helix spiral pattern. The design allowed ready access from any point to any other in the complex, and for efficient colony growth.

Each room in the hive provided perfect insulation against temperature and weather extremes. Lightproof and soundproof, they offered perfect privacy. Self-repairing, they were indestructible. Transparent ceiling panels exposed light from the Phoenix sun in daytime hours, but could be opaqued for privacy and temperature control. No windows or other accesses had been programmed, though with little effort, windows could be made. Hygiene and food prep facilities were lavish, a luxury first-wave colonists enjoyed. Later arrivals might have to do with less. A simple modification of the 'living room' nano-program created larger, smaller, or specialized rooms — family housing, offices, commons, labs, hydroponics, meeting, and storage rooms.

The 'living rooms' were a universal constant, an Authority engineering triumph. Yet they represented a compromise with the people who would most often occupy them. Since Familia had embraced the Authority's colonization program in the last few decades, Authority officials bowed to Familia hierarchy demands for modifications in the nano-programs they'd have to live with wherever in the galaxy they went.

The result, Anna complained to him as often as she thought Martin would tolerate, combined the worst of Authority materialistic regimentation and Familia dogmatic intransigence. Government and the governed worked together to create perfect disharmony, barren and unimaginative. And the Familia exhibited a growing resentment seeded by their restrictive cultural beliefs, most of which were at odds with Anna's education and outlook as a child of the Authority.

Martin agreed, but added little, often changing the subject. He didn't talk about some things.

The feeling of being trapped in the alcove, despite its spaciousness, and the illusion of even more room the livewalls provided, wasn't new to Anna. It happened. When it did, she plugged into the entertainment net, the program source that provided a view of the Wind River Mountains of Earthome on the alcove walls, or some other program that met the same goal, and hid in fantasy for hours. Or she went to the Commons to eat. Most people there were Familia, and some shunned her, refused to touch her in Familia ritual greeting, but at least she was among people there. It sometimes helped.

Less often, and when it wasn't deadly hot, she had time to go outdoors to stand under the broad, starry, Phoenix night sky.

Teaching provided her best and fondest outlet when she felt trapped. She loved the children, Familia and Authority, loved seeing their bright eyes and their eager, young faces.

Now, the trapped feeling arose again.

"'Living room'," she muttered, "Ha."

She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and balled her fists to fight back a growl of frustration. The alcove's gloomy closeness didn't rankle. That was just a manifestation of the real problem — the constant bickering between Authority bigots and Familia zealots. Or was it the other way around? It put people like her and Martin in the middle — a person not Familia or Authority was suspect by one as being loyal to the other. Neutrality had become an untenable position. Anna had heard the bickering had produced riots back on Earthome and on other colonies. Unconfirmed. She suspected the Authority hid such embarrassing incidents with its usual militant diligence.

Martin administered Authority law fifty light years from Earthome, doing the best he could do. Sometimes he had to consult by nullwire with Government House advisers back on Earthome, advisers who often monitored discussions in his office in realtime. The miracle of instant trans-null communication the nullwire provided still left Martin alone in administering decisions. Jakes' command provided a token force to back Martin if a decision met resistance. Sometimes Anna wondered if Martin wasn't just a bit afraid. Stony-faced, he never showed it.

For all practical purposes, like it or not, Martin was the Authority government on Phoenix IV.

And Anna was the Authority education system. Under law, all colonial children had to meet certain educational standards, regardless of religious beliefs, political affiliation, economic condition, birthright heritage, or other factors. Earthome children learned from the same text as did children on the farthest colony planet or station. Text revisions arrived by nullwire often.

The alarm in Anna's right ear buzzed and the chrono flashed under her right eyelid — time to wake up and face the day.

Time to teach her charges, mostly Familia children, things they didn't want to know or couldn't use on Phoenix IV. The First Migration, the Fall, the Second Migration, Authority Heritage, Shipley's Argument, the Code of Citizenship. Politics went hand-in-hand with basics such as computation, nano-technology, life and physical sciences, math, logic, and language skills.

After classes, Familia children went to Sanctuary where they learned Familia doctrine, which often contradicted what had been taught in government class minutes before.

A stupid system, Anna thought as she went to the shower. Stupid and frustrating.

She dressed in a light one-piece pantsuit, the suit standard nanofacted, Authority-designed material and pattern. The suit was a bright yellow, a stark and deliberate contract with the drab Familia earth tones.

She checked herself in the mirror, brushing her long, blonde hair behind her ears. A flush on her high cheekbones accenting pale, translucent skin made her face seem narrow, delicate. This will change, I'm sure.

She plucked a small, ripe tomato from the plant near the door and ate it. She didn't bother to program a full breakfast since Martin wasn't there to help her enjoy it. She wasn't hungry.

Anna checked her chrono. No hurry.

As she reached to palm the door open, something occurred to her. She hesitated and looked back at the alcove, where a moment before, she'd felt claustrophobic. Now, she didn't.

Why?

A crease formed on her brow as she thought about it, and her lips pursed.

Then she smiled.

Because we're not alone anymore, Martin and I. Now we are three.

With one hand pressed against the warmth of her abdomen, she palmed the door open with the other and went on her way.

Chapter Two

A river of bobbing heads and shifting feet flowed along the wide street, the four lanes designated to handle inbound morning commuter traffic crowded, the two outbound lanes empty.

While colonists called their alcoves 'living rooms', they called the public corridors between the rooms with each other and the rest of the colony 'streets'. The terms were psychological, a subtle Authority-sponsored ploy designed to make the otherwise austere colonial environment more hospitable.

In fact, though disguised by livewall murals, transparent ceiling panels and other effects, the rooms and the streets looked, smelled and felt alike, all one continuous piece, all nanofacted in the same manner from the same native soil. The 'living rooms', however spacious, clean and well lit, were caves, and the 'streets' were tunnels.

Anna could not for long accept the illusions meant to make the world something it was not, although she too called the corridors 'streets' out of habit. At times, she attributed to her intelligence her ability to see the blank walls behind the illusions, but it didn't always work. She knew many people, Authority and Familia, as smart as she, and a few smarter, some of whom seemed naïve. Now and then, she found herself just as gullible. At those times, she'd shake her head, step back, and take mental stock, deliberate and methodical, of the differences between the real and the illusory.

Surely, others did the same. Surely, most intelligent Familia believers must see through Familia dogma, just as she did, just as she saw through Authority propaganda.

The homey names for the tunnels and caves, the murals and light panels all manifested from the same attempt to fool people into accepting the illusions. If Anna could see it, others could.

Maybe they did and, like her, never talked about it. She wished she could discuss it with Martin, but the subject seemed to make him uncomfortable. His job, Anna realized, required him to accept some self-delusion. An Administrator was often an actor, a politician.

Then again, she sighed as she walked alone, maybe she created her own illusion, making — what was the old saying? — making a mountain out of a molehill. The people she passed in the corridor — the street — seemed content if not quite jolly. If it helped to brighten their lives to call their half-buried warren something else, why should Anna object or care? Nor did it matter that colonists had chosen to name many streets, commons, living rooms and other features after Familia saints, martyrs, and prophets. Harmless.

Anna shook off the flood of thoughts as she walked down familiar Madrid Street past the Redwood forest, past the Florida Beach. She barely noticed they'd changed the Yellowstone Park scene to the Savannah, a grassy prairie with antelope and other animals grazing near a waterhole in the distance. The slight flicker in the Gobi Desert depth-of-field didn't annoy her as much today. Her mind wandered.

She walked toward her classroom a half-kilometer inward, a large alcove called 'Harvard Eighteen'. It was one of ten living rooms adapted to classroom use in a cluster called Harvard Square. The government school complex lay inward, toward the colony center from the general residential section. The complex also lay closer to Martin's admin office, another living room adapted to its purpose, called by an irreverent few 'Little Government House'.

Anna felt rebellious and giddy. I'm pregnant, she thought, smiling at passers-by, and you're not. Most didn't notice her radiant happiness. Those who did looked puzzled or indignant. Most just looked somber, with grave eyes and saggy faces. Few smiles.

Despite the large numbers of people, who, like her, headed to duties outside their alcoves, all at the same time, and most at the colony's core, near the Commons, the inward-spiraling street remained quiet. The street walls, floor, and ceiling had no sharp corners or edges. Sound soaked without echo into the skin-like, corrugated, rubbery surface. A necessity. Without the feature, even the smallest noise — breathing, or feet shuffling, let alone talk above a whisper — would be magnified to titanic and harmful proportions, especially during shift commutes. Nano-systems resident in one's inner ear could compensate only so far.

Engineers had made the streets wide enough to allow a powersled to turn around if need be, though need for a sled inside the city should never occur. They made the streets appear even more spacious by arranging changing livewall murals of Earthome scenes; frequent, open, side public alcoves or 'parks', filled with Earthome plants, flowers and trees, real and synthetic, and high ceilings with transparent panels. The illusion that each street lay open to the sky failed when it rained, a rarity in Phoenix IV's climate in this hemisphere. Otherwise the bright Phoenix sun poured in heat and healthy, natural light.

Colonists had voted to call their primary city, through which Anna now walked, Tierra Natal. Familia hierarchy prompted the name. It was said the term declared the colony's nature. The name also had an obscure historical etymology, Anna discovered, relating to the long-ago dawn of Earthome's First Migration. Anna made sure her students knew the name's mundane as well as religious roots.

Three thousand people resided here, though only a thousand were now present. Two dozen lived in orbit, staffing the Fleet. Two thousand lived at several smaller temporary outposts scattered at various sites around the planet, mostly in Brasilia, the continental plate on which Tierra Natal was centered. Those posts, temporary shelters for exploratory purposes, might become towns. The two largest, Calcutta Falls to the north, and Rock Springs to the south, each had five or six hundred people. They and smaller posts scattered up and down Brasilia from the Northern icecap to the Southern icecap, and from Goliath in the west to Glacier Mountain toward the east of Tierra Natal, were all nanofacted in the same fashion as Tierra Natal. Natal, as a few had already come to call it in what Familia zealots might see as near-blasphemous casualness, would be the capital of a thriving, populous colony when future colonists arrived. So Familia and Authority officials hoped.

Government House on Earthome expected no export from Phoenix IV. The Authority Diplomatic Corps privately called it a 'terminal colony'. Not expected to make an economic contribution to Authority-governed planets closer to Earthome, it was meant as a destination, a haven for Familia who wished to put worldly affairs behind them. A religious haven, yes, but Authority approved, funded, and administered.

In fact, the Authority had been quietly approving distant, peripheral, and marginal planets for general 'terminal colony' status in greater number in the last few score years. So Martin had told Anna in the privacy of their alcove.

Anna recalled the conversation as she walked the few hundred meters toward Harvard Eighteen, nodding to a few scholars and adults who glanced her way. The few who wore bright Authority service uniforms like hers nodded to her. Few others, in earth-toned Familia garb, many holding hands with one another, even met her eyes. Fewer still touched her elbow in the ritual Familia greeting.

When Anna learned about 'terminal colony' politics, she recalled, their ensuing conversation soon prompted her and Martin to decide to conceive.

"I don't think we'll ever get off Phoenix IV," Martin had mused, "I've gone as far in the Corps as I'll go." He hesitated, and pulled her closer in their bed. "I'm sure of it."

"But you're a Colony Administrator." Anna lay in the warm security of his arms, but she felt insecure, even though their bodies touched together from head to toe. "That's rank. It's supposed to be a step forward, upward. Isn't it?"

For a long time, Martin didn't answer. His sigh, the way he chose his words, the way he breathed — she knew he'd been holding back something. Martin's responsibilities as Administrator often prevented him from confiding in her. Anna accepted it, and they made up for it in greater physical intimacy. Anna listened to Martin, tenseness knotting her muscles, constricting her throat.

"I've put a few things together," he said. "Gleanings from Government House dispatches, from Jakes' security briefings, his observations and dispatches, from the public net. Rumors. Talk I hear in the streets, the commons. From First Grandfather Riosclan." He shrugged. "Bits and pieces."

Again, he hesitated.

"And?" Anna prompted.

"The public perception has been that Authority and Familia are cooperating to open colonization to Familia."

"A spirit of cooperation, yes. It's government policy. Right?"

Martin explained what he'd discovered about the Corps' private 'terminal colony' program. "I looked at some figures. The percentages of Familia colonies classed as 'terminal'. Characteristics of those planets. The ratio of Familia to Authority on Earthome, Alpha, Mbutu's System, Espana, and others. Not just general population figures. The economic division between Familia and Authority. Age differences. Birthright grant figures. Educational stats. Crime stats. Other things even more subtle." He paused again.

"And?"

"I'm seeing trends, connections. Vague. I can't prove anything." He snorted. "What good if I could?"

"Martin, you're being obtuse." She gave him a playful punch.

"The point is..." he sighed again. He drew an imaginary circle around her left nipple with a gentle finger. "The point is, I think the Authority is...exiling Familia. Deliberately. Promoting Familia colonization of undesirable planets while giving better planets to Authority interests. It...it feels like it stops just short of...of genocide..."

Anna stiffened. "Genocide?"

"...or something like it. A slow, quiet bleeding of Familia power at the core."

"But surely, as an Administrator, you'd be told about such a policy." An icy chill edged her words. "Wouldn't you?"

Again, the sigh. "I knew about the 'terminal colony' policy earlier, in general terms. Just before I got this post, I felt like I'd been declared 'persona non grata'. No assignment. People wouldn't talk to me or touch me. You know why. Then, quite suddenly, I got this post."

Martin sat up in the bed, fidgeted, not meeting Anna's eyes. "Phoenix is a terminal colony, Anna. Far off the beaten path. No further exploration expected in this sector forever. No export planned. And the data we got from the probes about the resources — "

In the silence, Anna whispered, "False?"

"Optimistic would be a kind word. Oh, we'll manage. Barely. But prosper?" He snorted.

The icy edge again. "A covert conspiracy? But surely — "

Martin continued as if he hadn't heard, as if to himself. "And there's Riosclan. The Familia hierarchy — "

Anna sat up. "Never mind the old rabble-rouser. What about us? What about — "

She read in Martin's sad, distant eyes the answers to her questions.

Martin would not advance in the Corps. He'd been exiled to Phoenix IV. 'Terminal' meant the same for his career — and Anna's — as it did for Authority expectations of the colony. Terminal meant permanent expatriation from Authority affairs. Covert or not, it didn't matter.

Anna knew why.

They'd striven to remain neutral when it came to the growing ideological rift between Authority and Familia. They, and a few like them, allied themselves with neither belief, political or religious. Such a stand had become more untenable as the gulf between the two worldviews widened.

The clandestine conspiracy Martin believed he'd found — and Anna saw no reason to doubt him — included exile of Authority officials, like Martin and Anna, whose loyalty Government House doubted.

On her own time, Anna did some independent and illegal study on the matter in the days after the conversation, using personnel files access codes Martin gave her for the purpose. She discovered those on Phoenix IV in direct Authority employ — admin, police, ships' systems, engineering, nanotech support, all four hundred Authority — had in their files strong mentions of 'suspect loyalty'. All had been red-flagged.

That day, they decided to conceive.

"If we're never going to leave this planet," Anna had said, "we might as well make the best of it."

Martin nearly wept. Then he revealed, "I suspected before we left Earthome about the terminal conspiracy. But I didn't tell you because I..."

"I figured that too. You did right. What would have become of your career — of us - if you'd refused the assignment?"

Martin laughed and Anna was glad to hear it. "You agree," he said. "Make the best, then. Our own baby. I didn't know how you'd feel about it, so I didn't — "

Anna hugged him, loving his touch, his smell.

"We'd never get a license back home," she said, "Now we can do it our way."

More discussion followed, lengthy, intense, and serious, and a consultation with the colony's medical director, Dr. Lios York. The doctor's concerns were based on Authority policy, policy she believed in. In time, she approved natural fertilization as Anna and Martin wanted, but she opposed natural childbirth as an unnecessary potential hazard to Anna's health. Martin and Anna accepted her reasoning. They would conceive and transfer the fetus to Dr. York's professional care within the first trimester.

They disengaged their contraceptive systems and made a baby. The old fashioned way.

Anna laughed aloud as she stood before Harvard Eighteen, ignoring the few disapproving glances her private outburst evoked from passers-by. Two minutes until class convened. Most of her fifteen scholars waited inside. All but three were Familia, robed in the usual drab greens, Earthome browns, tans, and rusts.

She stood in the street and looked through the classroom door at the children, bending over their slates, reading, scrolling, chatting. Some played and stifled giggles over some childish jest or other.

Her scholars were five-year olds. Almost old enough, Anna thought, to learn how to suppress spontaneous laughter, avoid fun. Anna wouldn't teach them how grim their world would become as they grew older. She'd leave that to the Familia Sanctuary, the religious school that followed the children's regular government class she conducted.

"S'cuse me." Ami Cohenclan brushed past, touching Anna on the elbow politely as she entered the room, little head swaying to some inner music, her own, or perhaps a rec.

Anna sighed as she went to her desk at the front of the room, one or two scholars touching her as she passed their desks. In four hours, she would dismiss the children and walk over to Martin's office and tell him the news.

She considered whether she should tell him as soon as she walked in, or play with him for a while over lunch, drop hints, or make him guess.

She didn't want to wait. Should she dismiss class and go now? The scholars would be surprised and their parents would —

The hour chimed in her right ear.

Anna stood at her desk and looked into her scholars' large and serious eyes. They sat hands folded on their desks, watching, waiting for her to begin.

She fought back a grin, and began.

Copyright © 2003 by Ken Rand

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