Exiled to the Stars (25 page)

"Thank you for coming, Messer Montero," she said in a quiet contralto. "I was sure you were a man of your word." She paused. "And thank you for coming without a guard or a weapon."

Cesar smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Shourd. I must tell you, however, that I am very busy." He smiled. "We are establishing a Colony Council. I'm told you are aware of that."

Her answering grin was friendly. She nodded. "Ah, they told you that I'm claiming a place at the table."

He nodded again. "Yes, and I support your claim, at the moment. One of the reasons I'm here, though, is to tell you that you must evacuate Dorm 25." He paused. "Nearly everyone on Deck 5 was killed, most by being crushed when the decks above collapsed. I'm told that Dorm 25 survived because it was the only single dorm, it was surrounded by small compartments, and because your hatch was welded shut."

Her smile was sardonic. "Are you telling me we survived because we were sealed in?" she asked in a skeptical tone

"The computer says so." He shrugged. "The point is that there are hundreds of human remains on this deck that cannot be recovered. We must seal off everything above Deck 6 as tightly as possible to reduce the offensive odors and the threat of illness from necrotic products.

"That's why I say I support your claim at the moment. But we must move you within 24 hours, and once we have done so, your claim will become much more arguable." He grinned. "I look forward to the arguments!"

She frowned. "I'm not so sure I do. Will you have room for us downstairs? Will you be breaking us up and spreading us among the other dorms?"

He shrugged. "I honestly have no idea. For one thing, that will be up to the Council. For another, we are going to be very crowded. We lost two dorms to a medical quarantine, so we only have ten dorms for 3500 people. Finally, of course, our people are terrified of yours. We are turning every empty compartment on Deck 5 into dorms. We'll be able to feed everyone in the lunchrooms, but many will not be sleeping in the dorm where they eat." He sighed tiredly. "And I wish that were our only problem."

She threw him a sudden, sharp glance. "Man, you
are
exhausted, aren't you? How long since you've slept?

He shrugged. "I don't know. How long ago was the crash?"

She shook her head. "This is ridiculous. Do you have a deputy?"

He nodded. "Two of them, actually. The only healthy surviving members of the original Council."

"Call them!" she demanded firmly.

"Why?"

She frowned. "Because I want to talk to them. They're also on the Council, aren't they?"

He nodded. "Then call them," she repeated. Her tone was cold and demanding.

Cesar sighed. "Oh, very well." He called Vlad on his tablet.

"Vlad," he said when Vlad's image appeared on his tablet, "Mrs. Shourd says she wants to talk to you."

Vlad looked surprised. "Me? Why?"

Helen snatched Cesar's tablet from his hand. "I wanted to find out whether it was your sanity or your eyesight that's deficient!"

Vlad looked bewildered. "What? What?"

"You claim to be Messer Montero's deputy, do you not?"

Confused, Vlad just nodded.

"Then you must be insane, incompetent, or blind to let a man of his age work himself into a state of exhaustion!" Her tone was furious. "Now, you just stay on the line for a moment…" She was already moving toward the closed hatch. Arriving, she banged on it until Boyet opened it. "Are you in charge here?" she demanded.

Boyet straightened in surprise. "Yes, Ma'am," he replied.

"Good!" she said firmly. "Now, do you know this man?" she waved Cesar's tablet.

"Of course," Boyet replied uncertainly. "That's Dr. Renko, Messer Montero's friend."

She snorted. "Friend! Ha! All right, you two. You can take whatever security precautions you deem appropriate, but I'm kidnapping your boss. I'm told you have a crowding problem. Correct?"

Bemused by this whirlwind, Vlad just nodded. So did Helen. "All right. We're the only people who
don't
have one. You can tell everyone you can have your boss back in about ten hours. That ought to give him time to get some rest and maybe some breakfast. The very idea! Making a man that age work around the clock!"

"
Making
him?" Now Vlad was scandalized.

She jerked a nod. "Now, you," she said turning to Boyet. "If you want to post a guard or something, get to it, but tell them to just sit quietly, because I'm about to put Messer Montero to bed, and he'll be talking to no one for at least ten hours!"

An openmouthed Cesar had simply stood stunned throughout this onslaught. Now Helen grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the back corner of the dorm. Along the way, she was issuing a steady stream of orders.

"Sira, we'll use Jana's bunk. Double the mattress, and give him the Prophet's pillow. Aisha, clear out the back two layers of bunks. Lana, Pass the word. I want quiet. No talking above a whisper. Fatima, they're going to want to post a guard. That's fine, as long as he keeps his big mouth shut. Make sure he gets anything he needs. Anita, start passing the word. We'll be evacuating the dorm tonight. Everyone should begin gathering their belongings in preparation for the move. But they must do it
quietly
!"

They entered the bunk cube, and Helen began to reach for Cesar's tunic. This seemed to rouse him from his amazed state. He shook off her hand. "Madam," he said, "I'm quite capable of removing my own clothing!"

She nodded. "Then do it." She turned away, back to the tablet which still displayed an openmouthed Vlad. "Now you, Messer Deputy, Messer Montero will be out of contact. If this tablet rings even once, I'll smash it. Understand?"

Vlad was wide-eyed. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Good." She clicked off and turned to Boyet, who had followed them to the dorm cube. "We've got a chair for your guard. We'll put it at the entrance to the cube. Tell him to be quiet, and if he wants to be polite, tell him to take off his shoes. Now shoo."

A bemused Boyet looked at the laser in his hand that seemed somehow no match for this powerhouse woman, and walked away, shaking his head.

The guard did leave his shoes at the hatch, but he kept his laser in his hand, and his head swiveling to make certain no one could sneak up on him. He couldn't understand how Boyet could entrust Messer Montero's safety to fanatical killers!

Boyet, though, was nodding and smiling. He knew the type. Infinitely capable, infinitely dynamic, these women simply dominated every social situation and every mere male within reach. In Manila, they were called either "ate"; "big sister," or "Lola"; "Grandmother." It seemed Cesar might have met his match!

When Cesar awoke some nine hours later, Helen held his tablet hostage until he consumed a breakfast that had at least 1500 calories.

Finally, he was able to call Vlad. The black man's expression was wary. "Is she gone?" he asked in a hushed voice.

Cesar laughed. The sleep and breakfast had benefited him greatly, and over breakfast, he'd found Helen to be a charming companion.

"Not completely," he responded to Vlad's question. "What's been happening?"

Vlad shrugged. "Not much. More complaints about crowding, but they're starting to slack off as more compartments are opened. We've got people sleeping on storage shelves, but it's working, after a fashion.

"I think your first move should be another ship-wide address. If they think they know what's going on, people will put up with a lot; but if they think they're being kept in the dark, everything becomes an irritation."

Cesar nodded. "As soon as I get back to the 'office'. Have you made any preparations for the Dorm 25 people?"

Vlad shook his head. "Not really. Oh, we've been factoring them into our figures, but we haven't made any specific arrangements. There are about 30 of them, aren't there?"

Cesar nodded. "32. 21 women and 11 children. They seem completely normal now. It's hard to believe they did what they did. But they're a real problem. Everyone else on the ship is terrified of them, and for good reason. We have to find a way to isolate them, at least until the Council can decide what to do with them. They're all packed and ready. They can leave anytime." He sighed. "Well, we'll talk about it when I get back down there. Do you think we can schedule a Council meeting for, say 14 today?"

Vlad shrugged. "That's six hours. I'm sure it won't be a problem. Where will you meet?"

"The Dorm 7 training room, I guess."

"I'll get right on it."

"Helen," he said, "I'm sorry, but until the Council makes a decision, I'm going to have to insist that you attend the Council meeting by computer. I'm not sure you realize just how frightened of you people are. The stories of the fight have been retold and retold, and get more horrible with each retelling." He smiled sourly. "Some of our Council members will probably be surprised to see you don't have horns and a tail."

Helen nodded soberly. "I know, Cesar, and I understand. But could you please do me a favor?" She produced a beer bulb nearly full of a gray powder. "We would like your lab to analyze this powder. It was found among the Prophet's effects."

Cesar took it, regarded it curiously. "What is it? How did he get it aboard?"

She shrugged. "We don't
know
what it is, but we suspect it's what made us do some of the bizarre things we did. As for how he got it aboard, we brought it for him. All of us were made to swallow rubber balloons full of the stuff, and then retrieve it after we were aboard." She grimaced. "I remember doing it, and the memory is disgusting; but somehow it seemed
right
to fish those damned balloons out of our own feces." She shuddered.

Cesar's expression had softened a bit as she spoke. He was beginning to suspect that he knew what the powder contained. He shrugged. "All right, Helen. I'll give this to the head med tech for analysis." He grinned. "Since no one has mentioned it, I'm going to assume the authority to consider you a Council member, at least temporarily, which means you'll have the chance to plead your case. However," he continued, "you must understand that the bio lab is very busy trying to determine whether we can survive here. Also, the Council will have a lot of details to deal with. So, while I'm sure the Council will hear you out, the meeting is at 14, and I cannot guarantee the analysis of the powder will be complete."

Relief, frustration and fear flitted across the woman's open face, but after a moment, she sighed deeply and her shoulders sagged. "Very well, Cesar. We can only do what is possible. We will appreciate your efforts to get us a hearing, and to analyze that stuff.
Something
caused normally sane people to behave insanely, and I suspect it was that powder. My husband was a
missionary
, for God's sake. Yet he literally
threw
himself at a man with a blaster, because the Prophet demanded it." She sighed. "And I was right beside him. I was knocked unconscious by the fringe of the blast, so I survived with minor blaster burns."

On his way back to his "office," Cesar personally delivered the bulb to Koumanides. "I know you are very busy," he said, "But Mrs. Shourd was right. Those people's actions were not villainous; they were simply insane. I agree with her that this powder is the likely culprit."

Koumanides regarded him tiredly. "Is this really that urgent, Sir? We're up to our eyebrows in here, helping Dr. James. We're taking turns snatching naps on a bench in the corner, and grabbing a field ration when we can."

Cesar nodded. "I know, and I dislike dropping another task on you. Urgent?" He shrugged. "It's certainly not as urgent as making sure we can live here. But it's urgent enough.

"If this is what I think it may be, we may be able to reintegrate those thirty-two people into our population. If it's
not
what I think it is, we'll have to find a way to protect ourselves from them. There's already been talk of exiling them, which is just a rather horrible death sentence. The only other choice I've heard is to keep them confined. There are 32 of them, and the youngest child in there is three years old. Can a struggling colony support a jail population that large for that long? I doubt it."

The med tech shrugged. "All right, sir. I'll see what I can find out. But most of the lab equipment is tied up. Don't count on a detailed molecular analysis."

Cesar smiled and nodded. "I won't. But we won't need that level of detail. All we need is an idea of what it is, and what its effects would be on humans. Thank you, Doctor. And I
am
sorry to do this to you."

As soon as he returned to his office, he took his place in front of the computer and asked for a ship-wide hookup.

"Good morning," he began. "This is Cesar Montero again. I wanted to report on our current situation.

"As you know, we have all elected representatives to our new Governing Council. The Council will itself decide how the housing shifts caused by our crowding will affect your representation, but you may rest assured that you
will
be represented.

"The Council will have much work to do, but none will be more urgent than deciding how to deal with possible flooding. During the crash, the ship dug a huge groove in the earth, over fifteen meters deep. The crash also bent and distorted the hull, so it is no longer air- or water-tight. With the first heavy rains, water will collect in that massive gouge, and will flood our lower decks. Muddy water, carrying dirt, bacteria, and possibly even alien creatures.

"All of you know that the lower decks are the ones the crew sacrificed themselves to save. They contain all of the machinery, vehicles, and supplies we will need to build our new world. Unfortunately, we were not in orbit long enough to completely map our planet's weather patterns, so we have no idea how much time we have.

"Our lives literally depend on those machines, vehicles, equipment, and supplies. If they are ruined, it is very unlikely that we will survive. This means that this problem is even more urgent than building housing and moving off the ship.

"It is imperative that the Council have the best available information on which to decide. If you have heavy construction experience, especially in engineering or project management, please contact your Council representative at once! We have no time to lose.