147: COLONISATION

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We gather back in our living dome with Max. This isn’t a conversation to be had lurking in a security room underground.

“The plan,” Max says over a hot cup of coffee, “was to establish as many Vaults as possible in as many locations as possible. Both ends of the Vault have to be made in the same location. It’s some sort of atomic thing. And then you send one end sixty to ninety light years away, and boom, you can send resources between stars.

“Originally, they were just going to pick the most viable looking planet and send as many Vaults as they wanted there, but it was decided that it was too risky. One fleet of ships might fail, one planet might have something wrong with it that they couldn’t see. So they built dozens of them, filled them up with the Vaults and the robots and the embryos that could one day grow up to manage them, and sent them to every promising-looking planet within range. Then they sent the javelins after them. Between the Vault and the life sent on the javelins, stable populations can be built to manage the Vaults.”

I find myself nodding. I hadn’t been allowing myself to think about it too much on the journey, because there was nothing to be done about it, but supporting a colony indefinitely on the plastics, rubbers and other staple resources that can be sent on a javelin would be really, really hard. Could we have set up microbial oil production and plastics refinery fast enough to replace our living dome canvasses before they expired? Could we have recycled or mined metals in the amount we’d need? We’d have had to be very, very lucky. I’d sort of been assuming that the professionals and experts ready to wake up and take over knew something I didn’t, that they knew how to handle it safely and efficiently and get us set up properly, because there’s no way that the Javelin program would spend so much time and money launching a bunch of ships to their certain death. I hadn’t counted on the Vaults as an explanation.

“So Mama raised the first colonists and taught them how to set up the Vault,” Max continues, “and they reported back to Antarctica, and the conditions of the planet were analysed and it was decided that getting a liveable atmosphere set up was the best plan for long-term survival. Antarctica really, really needs this colony to succeed. If nobody’s around to manage the Vault, they lose the Vault.”

And the opposite is true, too, when you think about it. If the Vault had failed, these people would have starved.

“So they sent the materials and the instructions, and everyone got to work, building the launcher and melting the ice caps and sending out the oxygenators. They wanted to get this place ready for plants as soon as possible. Most crops won’t grow here for a long time yet, obviously, but if they could get the atmosphere suitable for some of the genetically engineered ones, that would be a good start. The real problem is nitrogen; there’s very little nitrogen here. But everyone worked as hard as they could, did what they could, and then…” Max looks away, sips their coffee.

“And then the ship didn’t come,” Captain Klees says.

“And then the ship didn’t come. Hylara got news of other planets getting supplied, getting set up, but ours never made it. We remained entirely dependent on the Vault, and…” Max lowers their voice… “it had been a long time since the ships had been launched. The people in charge now weren’t the ones who originally designed the project. Priorities change. People… some people wondered if, maybe, Antarctica preferred things that way – a Vault team that was completely dependent on them to survive. Most people thought that that was just scaremongering, of course Antarctica would want what was best for us. Until, well. The Vault gets a lot of use, it’s a lot of work to maintain, and people can get pretty grumpy about the difference in quality in the goods we have to ship on, and the stuff we’re allowed to keep.” They gesture at the well-worn and much-repaired canvas around us. “People had been chatting to Mama and learned about something called ‘labour action’. So we organised – I don’t know if you’ve heard of it – this thing called a ‘strike’. And we stopped moving goods.”

We Courageous crew all exchange grim glances. Tinera purses her lips, a grim, hard line.

“And that’s when you have the famine?” Captain Klees asks.

Max nods, tears in their eyes. “We didn’t think they’d go that far. We got back to work as soon as the hunger became acute, but they didn’t let up. People were dying, we…” they brush at their eyes with one hand, swallow, continue. “We knew they wouldn’t kill all of us, because somebody needs to man the Vault. But they kept going. Antarctica dictates our population size, since they’re in charge of supplying us, so they knew exactly how many people we had to feed, at least at first. When it was clear that we weren’t all going to make it, we started to run lotteries. To be fair, you know? Give everyone equal chance. The kids were exempt, and a few of the elders who had really specialised skill sets were exempt, but most of us put our names in. And I was…” they swallow again. “For the last two rounds of the lottery, I was exempt. By popular vote of the community. They physically barred me from putting my name paper in.”

“Why?” the Friend asks.

Max gives it a watery smile. “Same reason they listen to me at all on this whole Courageous matter. Same reason I was allowed to be your liaison instead of a more politically active candidate. At the start of the famine, I was in a set of eight. By the end, I was in a set of one.”

“Antarctica killed your entire family,” Tinera says, voice flat.

Max nods. “So everyone respects that I have a say in this matter, even if they don’t agree with me. Although the stunt with the seeds might have lost my side a lot of credibility in general. Anyway, things were stable and normal after that. We had a Vault to run, we had atmospheric alterations underway, everyone knew what the score was. Everything got on with their lives and everything was fine. Until one day, when Hive Cattail runs into town to call a meeting about a strange message they’d received from space, from the long-assumed-dead Courageous.”

And then Captain Klees asks something that I hadn’t even considered. “Does Antarctica know that we’re here?”

“We reported the approach of the ship,” Max says quietly, “and were ordered not to interact with you. Not to let anyone land, not to accept any supplies. We all assumed that you guys knew about out colony and knew about the Vault, and Antarctica agreed that you did and said that you would kill us, replace us with your own, and take over the Vault. They said that anything you sent down would be contaminated with pathogens we weren’t used to, and wipe us out.”

“This is why you wanted a team down as early as possible, and why you broke quarantine as quickly as you thought it was safe, against protocol.”

Max nods. “There’s a lot of rhetoric out there about how dangerous you are. We had to move quickly. Antarctica… doesn’t know you’ve landed. But we trade images, see? It’s supposed to be educational, or cultural, or whatever, but it also gives us an eye on the broader human community and gives them an eye on how things are going down here; how good the colony looks, progress on what’s being built, people in the pictures, that kind of thing. Eventually, somebody’s going to slip up, and they’re going to get something that shows that we let you land.”

Photos of dunes, with one unexplainable weed that nobody noticed in time to remove it. That’s why Hive and their friends releasing those seeds was such a big deal. The slightest hint of terraformation would give the game away entirely.

“We have food,” I point out gently. “We can produce food and oils and plastics and any other organics-based consumable you want. The lack of nitrogen is an issue for open farming, but we can work with it perfectly well. They need you to manage the Vault; you don’t need them to supply you any more. You don’t have to be afraid of letting them know we’re here.”

“And there, you’ve hit the crux of the issue.” Max sips their coffee again. “I believe you. I do. I believe that the five people in this tent with me are reasonable and could grow to care about this colony. I believe, based on your word, that the crew aboard the ship might be the same – I trust your character that much. Being the radical naive idealist I am, I could even believe that the untested leagues of people in chronostasis might be good people, and that you’re all here to boost our numbers and give us the means to feed ourselves and slot calmly into our society without any trouble. But how many other Hylarans do you think believe that? A handful of us are desperately trying to get the others to take a leap of faith and bank on a better future. The others… we’ve been burned very, very badly by your kind, Aspen.”

“Our kind?”

“Antarcticans.”

“We’re no Antarctic – ”

Max gestures at me with one sharp hand. “You know what I mean! Earth people! People from out there, people who are a part of this! You guys were just colonists, I know, but you were part of the establishment of this whole program. At best, people expect you to be like Antarctica. At worst, they expect worse from you – because Antarctica had to let up eventually. They needed some of us alive to run the Vault. You don’t.”

We’re all silent for a bit.

“Well fuck,” Tinera says.

“Landing elsewhere on the planet only delays the problem,” Captain Klees says thoughtfully. “Evidence of our existence would show up eventually and put the Hylarans in the same situation, only without our supplies to help them. We could trade seed crops and soforth before the Courageous sets down somewhere else, but Max is right; without the Vault, the Courageous’ raw materials are limited enough to make setting up a colony a really risky proposition, too. Trade would be immediately necessary for both groups, and if we’re within trading range, then there’s no way to dispel the Hylaran fear of invasion.”

“Or the very real possibility of invasion,” Tinera says grimly. “We’re not even sure we can stop them from trying to set up a convict state. Do we have any way to guarantee, really guarantee, that the majority wouldn’t push for ownership of something as valuable and life-critical as the Vault?”

“We’re forgetting one thing, though,” Tal says. “Antarctica can’t exactly be mad at you guys about us. I mean, they told you not to talk to us or accept good or anything, but like… the ship was still going to come. Just tell them that we landed without permission. Then there’s still the whole issue with the Courageous to deal with, yeah, but it wouldn’t put you on Antarctica’s bad side. Why not just spread seeds and stuff and blame us?”

Max shrugs. “All I know is what we’re told. They would blame us if they found any evidence of you here.”

The rest of us exchange glances. Max is still hiding something. Has to be. The ship’s landing was inevitable as soon as the Hylarans received our transmission; it wouldn’t make sense for Antarctica to punish them for something they can’t do anything about. They need a population to operate the Vault.

Max is staring at their coffee; out of their sight, Captain Klees gives a tiny shake of his head. Don’t push the issue. Fair enough. We’ve learned a lot today; we can wait to learn the rest.

“Well,” Captain Klees says. “We need to tell the Courageous about this.”

“The tower’s probably locked up by now,” Max says quickly, which is probably a lie; if I were in the Hylarans’ position I’d have someone on duty to contact the Courageous at any hour of the day, same as the Courageous probably had someone on duty at all times, just in case anything happened. But we get the message, and it’s what we already expected. We can’t talk to the ship right now. That was, after all, the point of having us contact the ship before the tour, to assure them that everything was fine without being able to tell them this huge thing that changes everything.

I’m beginning to lose patience with Hylaran politics.

“Tomorrow, then,” Captain Klees says.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

I don’t like the sound of ‘maybe’, but none of us press the issue. Max, free to interact with the rest of the Hylarans now that the quarantine is lifted, doesn’t stay for the night, but bids us goodbye and leaves. We all sit in silence for a bit.

“Teleportation, huh,” the Friend says.

“Secret alien tech would’ve been politically way simpler,” Tal says. “I wish it was the Spider Queen.”

I don’t say anything. But I wish it was the Spider Queen, too.

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