Exiled to the Stars (34 page)

Doug had been sure that the crash was his big chance, and he wasted no time. He'd been assigned to Dorm 2, and he'd immediately gone around, introducing himself to the dazed Korean residents, and working his 'not their fault' routine to the max, along with the idea that a white man would have more power on the Council. The Koreans, still in shock and amazed to be so courted by a white man, elected him their representative to the Council.

Two years later, and his large dome had mostly been converted into a combination bar and casino. A barter economy had arisen alongside the beer economy, but Doug figured you couldn't manipulate a barter economy much, and he insisted on payment in beer or ship scrip, while several of his people served as go-betweens, converting barter goods to scrip and back. It was a very profitable arrangement. Then, of course, there was the money lending operation, lending money to those who lost in his casino. At high interest, of course.

He was also a rising power on the Council. He had blackmail material on five Councilors, and was actively looking for more. And his position gave him access to put his face and his 'not your fault' routine on display on the 'net. Every colonist knew who Doug Ryles was, and in a tablet society, such exposure translated to power.

A slow smile spread over his face. No, he supposed he had nothing to complain about. Even if he had to wait until Montero died, he had no doubt he would eventually take over the colony.

He'd been right. The crash had been his big break. Of course, nothing would have happened if Doug hadn't seen his chance and jumped on it. Finally, he was moving toward the future he knew he deserved. And this time,
they
couldn't stop him!

~~~~~~

BOOK II – THE COLONISTS

~~~~~~

Chapter 13

Sixthmonth 21, year 23 of the landing

Ronald Creding, Junior, checked over his shoulder to make certain they were no longer visible from the walls of the fortress surrounding the hulk of the ship, itself surrounded by a growing circle of cultivated fields. He sighed with relief. They were actually doing it! They had escaped the heavy, dull work of the slowly growing village, and were really off on their great adventure!

He shook his head. When he was a child the fortress, universally called the 'castle', had seemed an exciting place to live, built to protect the infant colony from unknown threats. The Castle's six-sided shape with the diamond-shaped towers at each corner had come from the computer, of course, and it had taken over ten years to complete.

Now, it was just a gloomy prison, built by frightened survivors of a plague that no one could guarantee had not been a biological attack. A symbol of paranoia and fear. He'd been told that Messer Montero had fought against building it, considering it a waste of time, effort, and resources. As with his battles to begin exploring their new world, though, fear had prevailed. Ron was actually surprised when his appeal to the Council had been successful.

A white grin flared in the darker face of Elaine Renko. "Don't worry about it, Ronnie," she said lightly as she released her weapons belt and unzipped her shipsuit. "They can't see us here." He stood guard with his shoulder laser while she wriggled out of her shipsuit. Once she picked up her laser, he set his weapon down and dropped his bolo-laden weapons belt before slipping out of his own shipsuit and quickly buckling the weapons belt back around his waist. Now they were both clad only in rather tight shorts and soft leather shoes called "moccasins." They both sighed as the sunlight warmed and penetrated their bodies, but their eyes never stopped scanning for threats while they stuffed their shipsuits into their packs.

He snorted. " 'Don't worry,' she says. You don't have to listen to another of my mother's endless lectures about 'propriety'. I swear," he continued. "Tara Creding must have been the stodgiest prude on Earth!"

Elaine shrugged, causing her breasts to bobble interestingly. "You know the Earthborns don't think like us. I think they're scared of us, because we're so different. They can't draw energy from the sun, and they come in a whole mess of different colors."

Ron chuckled. "Well, you're darker than I am, but your skin still has the same green tinge. On you it looks good. Looks kinda goofy on your dad, though."

She giggled. "I know. Especially with that curly white hair. I wish I'd inherited that. I think I'd look dar with white hair, don't you?" She whirled, displaying the thick nest of tightly-curled brown hair that set her apart from the other colonists. "Especially if I could get it to straighten!"

Ron shook his head. "I dunno, I kinda like your mom's yellow hair."

Elaine frowned in irritation. "You would.
Men
!" She turned her back and began packing her shipsuit into her backpack. Ron grinned. He enjoyed tweaking her about her mother's exotic coloration; she was the only blue-eyed blonde remaining among the colonists.

None of Susan Renko's coloration seemed to have passed to Elaine. Vlad Renko's AfroAm heritage was clearly present, though. Her brown hair was short, forming a cap of tightly-curled ringlets. This made it easy to care for, but she longed for her mother's long, straight, silky blonde hair. Her skin tone was much lighter than her father's chocolate brown, however; she was actually a lighter brown than some of the Asian-descended Planetborns. Her thin, slightly aquiline nose was clearly inherited from her mother, her full, sensuous lips just as clearly from her father. She was tall for a colonist, most of whom were Asian-descended and short. Her body was trim and athletic, her breasts medium-sized, smaller than those of many of the NorAm and NorEuro-descended women, but larger than many of the Asian-descended.

Ron's pure-Caucasian NorAm heritage was obvious in his straight, sandy-colored hair and light, green-tinted complexion. He was taller than Elaine at over a meter and a half, and well-tanned, though his lighter skin still contrasted with Elaine's green-tinted golden brown.

They finished packing their shipsuits away. Ron picked up the laser, and they continued walking toward the narrow line of thorn trees that bordered the river. "I think it's just
dar
how you talked the Council into letting us go to the ocean."

He shrugged, but his chest swelled with pride. "Yar, well, I just told 'em it was time we found out about it. The Comp says it
thinks
the ocean's about a week's trip downriver, but it says the 'readings are uncertain', and nobody's ever gone there to see."

She nodded. "Yar, but we don't really
need
to go. I mean, there's plenty of good farmland here, and we've got the Comp to help us. I can't believe they agreed."

Ron waved away the interruption. "That's what Messer Ryles said. But I bigged 'em by reminding them that I was Planetborn, and better suited to explore than the Earthborns. I think I embarrassed them into it. But Messer Montero backed me up, and we won by one vote."

Elaine nodded. "Well, we
are
better suited for it. We can't draw
all
our energy from sunlight, but the Earthborns can't draw
any
energy from the sun, even though they have the symbionts. Mom says it was too late for them, that the adaptation has to take place in the womb. And we're stronger and faster. You're right, though. It does kind of embarrass them to talk about it."

Ron laughed aloud. "If you think
that
embarrasses them, you should have heard my mom trying to explain
sex
!"

Elaine laughed, too. "I know. My mom tried to explain it, and it turned into a biology class. But it was even funnier when my dad tried it. He blushed a funny greenish-purple, and stumbled around for ten minutes before he sent me off to the Comp. Why do you suppose sex embarrasses them so much?"

He shrugged. "Mom says it has something to do with religion."

"What's religion?"

He shrugged again. "I'm not sure. That stuff about a creator, and life after death, I think. The Comp says there's a lot of different ones. It didn't make a lot of sense to me."

"Oh, that stuff." She paused. "What do you think, Ronnie? Do you agree with Jeffie that the Comp is really the Creator? That it made all this?"

"Naw," he replied. "Jeffie's freak. All the Earthborns say that the Comp is just a machine, like a cultivator. It's just a real smart one, that's all." He grinned. "You mean to tell me you haven't asked the Comp about itself?"

She slapped him lightly. "Of course I have, silly. But it gave me this big long speech about cybersomething, and bubble theory, and data retrieval and a bunch of other stuff I didn't understand."

"Yeah," he replied. "But I kept asking, and it showed me pictures and diagrams and stuff. It says that people made it, but that each unit of its 'bubble memory' is made of something called 'nano', and is so small you can't see it, even under the comp's highest magnification." He waved his hands in the air. "I mean, how could people make something so small they couldn't even
see
it?" He shook his head. "Like I said, it didn't make much sense to me."

They fell silent as they entered the narrow band of thorn trees that bordered the river. The colonists still weren't certain thorn trees were really trees, or even that they were pure plant.

Oh, they were shaped something like a fat, stubby tree, and grew some three meters high. But they displayed most untree-like behavior. Clusters of branches began less than a meter above ground. The branches were studded with needle-sharp, barbed spikes 15 to 30 cems long. But it had cost two colonists their lives to discover that the trees also grew a network of ground-hugging vines that acted as triggers. When an animal (or what passed for an animal on Crashlanding) stepped on a vine, it somehow signaled the tree to whip one or two of the spiked branches over that point with amazing speed.

Dr. Susan Renko, Elaine's mother, theorized that the trees used the decaying bodies of the impaled animals to fertilize the ground beneath, as well as to attract more victims. She also suspected the trees might draw some direct nutrition through the impaling thorns. But the colonists were understandably reluctant to engage in close-range study of thorn trees.

Ron and Elaine had burned a path through the trees to the river, but it took all their attention to make certain that new vines had not grown up overnight, and to be constantly ready to duck or dodge the lethal branches. Their already-laden craft was tied to a rock on the shore of the river. The river was sizeable here, some ten meters wide, with a gently-flowing current.

A Stinger was nosing around their boat. Earthborns said the Stinger looked a lot like something called an "armadillo" or a "pangolin," though one a meter long, with six legs and a long, sharp, barbed tail as long as its body. It used the tail to spear the aquatic creatures the Earthborns called "fish" From pictures provided by the Comp, Ron knew that the only resemblance between Crashlanding and Earth "fish" was that some of them had scales, and all swam. Planetborns could eat stingers, but considered them tasteless. They were toxic to Earthborns.

Right now, however, they weren't hunting, and the stinger was simply an irritation, though one that could be dangerous. Ron stopped and unlimbered his laser, in case the stinger decided to charge instead of retreating. Elaine stepped forward and grabbed several fist-sized rocks, which she threw at the stinger while screaming harshly.

Stingers are stupid. When the first rock struck it, it slowly looked around, finally spotting the humans just as Elaine let fly another stone. This one hit the thing's nose. It shied backward, looked around again, and finally began moving slowly off. When a third, heavier rock hit the base of its tail, the stinger finally got the message, and it switched to a shambling trot toward the trees, its tail barb extended behind it. After a few moments, an agonized squeal announced that the stinger had not watched its step carefully enough.

The boat had been designed with the help of the Comp. It was based on something called a "canoe," though the Comp had widened the design somewhat, and updated it. It was four meters long, with seats at the front and rear. The prow was high and pointed, widening out to its full width after a meter or so. The rear of the canoe mirrored the front, except for a small flat area at the rear, mounting the tiller for the small electrical water-jet motor. Fittings extending from just behind the front seat to a short distance in front of the rear seat supported a flat, lightweight canopy just over a meter above the hull that stretched nearly the length of the canoe. The canopy provided shelter for the supplies and people, and supported the solar cells that powered the water-jet at the boat's rear. The portions of the canopy extending above the seats were removable, so the occupants could soak up sunlight when available, but be protected from Crashlanding's torrential rains. The boat also featured retractable, inflatable outriggers that could be spread if enhanced stability was needed. Two paddles provided backup motive power.

Neither of them had ever paddled a canoe, but both had many hours in the computer's classroom, studying planetary exploration, and dealing with every conceivable circumstance from unknown water predators to violent rapids. So their movements were confident as they loaded their backpacks aboard and climbed into the vessel.

Ron removed his weapons belt and stowed his shoulder laser in a watertight cover. He donned a harness that put his hand laser conveniently in the center of his chest, while supporting the fighting knife that was his pride and joy at his waist. His mother's reverent manner toward both the knife he'd inherited from his father and her own made Ron inordinately proud of the weapon. Elaine checked the power gauge for the electric motor. She nodded to Ron, and they pushed off into the current.

Elaine took the tiller of the small water-jet, and guided the canoe toward the center of the river.

The excitement of escaping the colony quickly faded to boredom as they slid silently down the slowly flowing river. The decision to stay in the center of the current was a calculated risk. The boat contained something called "panoramic sonar" that showed the river bottom as a pattern of bright orange lines, and even indicated passing 'fish'. It had been a parting gift from Wen Ho Jackson, the son of one of Elaine's father's friends. They hoped it would let them detect underwater threats in time to react to them. The river was reputed to contain some
very
large denizens.