Citadel: First Colony (35 page)

Mitch turned in a fury. “I don’t give a
damn
about Taggart, or what he thinks he can do to us! What I care about right now is that someone I cared about, someone I trusted with my life, has been lying to me all along! Who else is lying to me? Who else is breaking my trust?”

Thomas suddenly looked sick and pale. His mouth opened, and then clamped shut again. He swallowed and rubbed his eyes with the forefinger and thumb of his left hand. Mitch watched, his anger fading slightly as he wondered what was wrong. “You ok?” he asked. His voice was still tight, but it did have a note of concern.

“Me, Mitch.”

“You? You what?”

“Me. I’ve been lying to you. I’ve betrayed your trust. Me.”

Mitch blinked. “Wha– what do you mean? You ...”

“I’m not who I claim to be. Or ... well, I’m exactly who I claim to be, I’ve just never claimed to be anyone really. I’m ... well ...” he looked around, verifying that they were alone. He stepped closer, took a deep breath, and whispered, “I’m John Thomas Paris.”

Mitch blinked again, then looked seriously at Thomas, who was stepping back and casting his gaze to the floor, rubbing his eyes again.

And then he burst out laughing. “John Thomas Paris!” he barked. “C’mon, that’s a little over the top, man.”

Thomas blinked, then glanced around again to make sure no one was watching. He waved his hands in front of Mitch to try to get him to keep it down. “No, I’m serious! I ...”

“Oh man,” Mitch laughed. He started coughing and doubled over slightly. “Oh man! Heh. That’s good. Damn. ok, Thomas. I get it. Alan ... we don’t know why he did what he did. He has his reasons. So we have to find them out before we judge him. Heh. John Thomas Paris,” Mitch said. “Damn that’s funny.”

“But ...” Thomas began.

“ok, ok. Let’s get going, already! Reilly kept the engines going. I’m ready to track Alan down and ... bring him to justice.” There was a wistful pause, but Mitch genuinely had resolved to do what he was ordered to do. “You going with us?”

Before Thomas could answer, a quiet voice came from the ramp. “He is,” Captain Somar said. “But before you leave, I feel you should fully understand what Mr. Thomas has revealed to you.”

Mitch, still smiling, with tears of mirth in his eyes, looked from Somar to Thomas, then back again. Suddenly the smile faded, and he looked at Thomas with wide, unbelieving eyes.

“Hi,” Thomas said. “My name is John Thomas Paris, and I’m the man who destroyed a world.”

Mitch blinked. “Hi ... John,” he said quietly.

––––––––

o
k
, Thomas thought.
That ... wasn’t so bad.

He was strapped into the command chair near Reilly’s station. Somar had made it clear that Thomas was to be in charge of the mission to arrest Alan Angelou and bring him into custody. There were four armed guards accompanying them in the flight, each a Blue Collar with security training. There was usually little need for a police force on colony worlds, especially new ones. Many had fallen back to the old tradition of electing a sheriff, who would appoint one or two deputies as needed. There would be a judge, of course ... usually the leader of the colony, until a more formal system was needed.

Thomas looked at the makeshift police force strapped in along the walls of the cargo area, and wondered what they would do if they suddenly discovered who he really was. Would they bother trying to arrest Alan Angelou? Or would they seize him and then turn the shuttle around so they could also arrest Captain Somar, the alien “accomplice?”

It wasn’t a far-fetched scenario. Taggart
might
use that very trick to cement his control of the colony, but what worried Thomas more at this moment was Mitch.

He hadn’t spoken a word since they’d taken off.

Thomas unbuckled his straps and moved closer to Mitch. The engineer had to notice he was there, but he said nothing. Instead, he continued to pore over the data that was scrolling slowly upward on the terminal in front of him.

“Mitch,” Thomas said. “Look, I think we should talk.”

“The shuttle is running within all expected parameters, sir,” Mitch replied. He was cold, succinct. He was biting his words.

“Mitch, come on. I didn’t lie to you, ok? I never lied.”

Mitch turned slowly to face him. “No, you didn’t.”

For some reason, Thomas didn’t feel any better about this small victory. “But ... you’re still angry with me.”

“Thomas ... John ... what do I call you now, anyway?”

“Thomas!” he said, looking around furtively. “Just Thomas, ok?”

“Thomas, you never lied to me. But that doesn’t mean I can trust you. This secret of yours, it’s big. Bigger than anything Alan might have to hide, I bet. Bigger than Taggart and his plans for the colony. You ... you
destroyed
First Colony. You’re ... you’re like the most evil man in history!”

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I was framed, would you?”

Mitch looked him over. “Were you?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause. “I believe you. But ... it doesn’t change anything.”

Thomas sighed. This was going to be tough. Hardly the toughest thing he’d ever dealt with in his life—not even the toughest thing he’d dealt with in the past week. But it was important that Mitch be on his side. It would help the Blue Collars to accept Thomas, when his secret was revealed. But it would also just make him feel better. He liked Mitch, and felt a bond with the man. He needed all the friends he could get.

“Mitch, I wish I could say something to make this better. The truth is, when First Colony was destroyed, it changed everything. Not just for me personally but for the world. We were taking our first steps into the universe at large. The whole world, for the very first time in history, was united under one hope! But the explosion ... that was the end of one good beginning. The next round was tinged with distrust and apprehension. And I think that’s led to the state of things as they are now. This ... this
segregation
between Blue Collars and White Collars and Colonists. For the first time in history, Earth had gotten past the boundaries of racism and class distinction, and one explosion put us on track to creating a whole new division between human beings.”

Mitch was listening, watching Thomas intently. “What does this have to do with anything?”

Thomas laughed. “Maybe nothing. But you see, I got a second chance. I have no idea why or how, not really. Alan had something to do with it. So did Earth First, it seems. I was pulled out of time and put here, now. And when I woke up, I found that things had changed quite a bit, in both wonderful and terrible ways. But I had a second chance. And if I can get one, so can the colonies. So can humanity. But I won’t feel like it’s a second chance if I lose any friends I’ve made as soon as they find out who I really am.”

Mitch was watching him, silently. For a moment he didn’t move. Then he shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He laced his fingers together over his stomach and regarded Thomas with a steady stare. “What happened to First Colony?” he asked.

Thomas sighed. “That is going to be a very long story,” he said.

Mitch leaned back a bit further and pointed at a line of rolling numbers on the display in front of him. “You have forty-five minutes,” he said.

And to Thomas’s great relief, Mitch was smiling.

Alan
and Penny saw the pod
from nearly half a mile away. It was lying out in the open, like a poorly hidden Easter egg. The sun glinted off of the shiny brass and steel fixtures and the transparent canopy. If they hadn’t known better, they would think someone had gently placed it there.

It took a bit to reach it, since they were forced to cover a patch of rough terrain covered in brush. But when they arrived, they found the pod perfectly preserved, without a scratch. Alan went to the control panel and started working on the pod’s computer and diagnostic systems, polling for biometric data while also scanning for the program he had stored in one of the pods. Penny, meanwhile, was cautiously stepping toward the canopy.

She wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of what she would see, or of what she wouldn’t.

She closed her eyes when she got within sight, counted to ten slowly, and then opened them.

It was her mother.

“It’s her!” she squealed and began to laugh. “I can’t believe it, we found her!”

She glanced at Alan, who was crouched by the pods computer. A smile spread on his face as he stared at the scanner in his hand. Penny suspected it wasn’t because they’d found her mother.

“It’s here,” he said, quietly.

It took a moment for Penny to remember. “It is? The program? You ... it was in my
mother’s
pod?”

Alan looked up at her, and for the first time since she’d known him, he was showing real, genuine emotion. He looked as if he might burst with tears of joy. He looked ...
happy
. And somehow, that was unsettling to her.

“What do you think the odds of that would be?” he asked. “I’m calculating about two-hundred-thousand to one. That’s a rough estimate, based on the number of colonists, the distance between the pods, the—“

“Alright, already, I get it!” Penny said, and then despite herself began to laugh. “So we were both looking for the same pod all along!”

“I guess so!” Alan said, and he sprang up and hugged her.

It caught her off-guard. She hugged him back, more out of reflex than anything else. But what surprised her was how much she
liked
it. How much she wanted to keep
doing
it.

Alan pulled back, and his expression had changed. They were still tentatively embracing each other. Alan looked as if he were feeling some kind of anguish, as if he didn’t know what to do and wasn’t sure if he should do anything at all.

Penny felt like the breath was going out of her. “I ... I guess we’d better ... let my mom out?”

Alan stared into her eyes for a moment, blinked, then turned his head slightly toward the pod as he said, “Yes. I think that’s the best idea.”

The embrace broke, and Penny found herself feeling a tinge of regret. She had told Alan that she’d continue on with him, even after they rescued her mother. But there was no way to know what her mother would say to her when she awoke or how it would affect Penny. She would be able to rejoin her parents, and the three of them could be together, back at Citadel. But she’d made a promise, and suddenly it seemed vital to keep it. Suddenly she just wanted more time, out here, alone with Alan.

That was new.

Alan went to the controls, and in moments the canopy slid open, and Elizabeth Daunder awoke.

“Mom?” Penny asked.

“Mrs. Daunder,” Alan said, helping her to sit up, “let me help you.”

“Oh,” she said in a voice weak from the grogginess of stasis, “thank you, dear.”

She blinked and looked into Alan’s eyes. “You are not my husband,” she said.

“No, ma’am.”

“Where is my husband?” she asked.

Penny answered. “Dad is back at camp, mom. He’s fine. There was an accident, and we crash-landed.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Daunder said, as if this were the simplest explanation she’d ever heard.

“She’s still a bit groggy,” Alan said. “Give her some water.”

Penny opened the canteen she was carrying and gave her mother a drink.

“Thank you, Penelope,” she said.

“Penny, Mom. I’ve told you a million times, call me
Penny
!”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry. Thank you. Where are we?”

“We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere, Mom. Literally. But there’s a camp close by, and a shuttle will come to pick you up soon.”

Mrs. Daunder nodded and allowed Alan to help her climb out of the pod. For the first time, Penny noticed how frail her mother seemed. She had never been sickly or weak in Penny’s life, but at that moment, she seemed as if she might break in half at any moment. “Are you ok, Mom?” Penny asked. She was becoming worried for her mother.

“I’m a bit queasy, actually. I could use something for my stomach.”

Alan again came to the rescue. He handed her a small pack of crackers, and Mrs. Daunder opened them and ate one in small, nibbling bites.

They spent the next hour preparing the pod for transport. Alan called the rescue crew and told them their location, and that they had someone for retrieval.

“They’ll be here to pick you up shortly,” Alan assured her.

“But,” Mrs. Daunder said, “what about you, Penelope? You are going with me, of course.”

“No, Mom. I’m helping with the rescue effort. The team will take you back to our base camp, and when the shuttle arrives, they’ll take you to Citadel where you can be with Dad.”

Mrs. Daunder scoffed. “Nonsense. You will come with me, and that’s final.”

Penny felt herself getting angry and knew that if she didn’t get a handle on it, she would fall into one of their old habits. She would be in a screaming match with her mother, here in the middle of an alien landscape, in front of the man Penny ...
knew
.

What had she almost thought?

“Mrs. Daunder,” Alan spoke up. “Penny has been a huge help to me in finding the pods, including yours. She’s very good at tracking and getting through rough terrain. I need her help if I’m going to save the rest of the colonists.”

Mrs. Daunder looked at him for a moment, then looked at her daughter. Penny, for her part, stayed silent for once.

“Ah,” Mrs. Daunder said. “I see. Well, what kind of person would I be if I took you out of the rescue effort? Go ahead, dear. I’ll be fine.”

Penny fought the urge to grin. She shouldn’t feel like she needed her mother’s permission to do this. But despite being an adult, despite having her own life, and despite her antics in the tabloids, she was still the daughter of Elizabeth and Miguel Daunder. She would always be their little girl.

Alan was on the comm with the rescue team, asking for a pick-up. They weren’t prepared for the response.

“Mitch and the crew are coming straight to you,” one of the Blue Collars on the other end informed them. “They should be there in the next few minutes.”