The Hansa’s new colonization campaign played on hopes and patriotism. Media bursts and mail drones delivered the Chairman’s dramatic invitation from world to world, and human beings reacted predictably, always sure that life would be better someplace else after a new start.
With funding and bonuses from the Hansa, hopeful people left struggling colonies in droves, waiting to be rounded up by commercial transports and delivered to the nearest Klikiss jumping-off points. On every world that had briefly been scouted by transportal explorers, ambitious groups planted the flag of the Terran Hanseatic League, submitted signed copies of the Charter, and claimed new territory for humanity. . . .
As the Voracious Curiosity pulled away from cloudy Dremen, Orli went to the ship’s window and looked out at the immensity of stars, open emptiness that stretched forever and ever. She was sure she had done the same thing when departing from Earth, back when she’d been just a small girl. She could remember little about Earth, other than occasional snatches of blue skies, tall buildings, and one particular dinner in a seafood restaurant with her mother, shortly before their family had broken up.
Now her chest felt hollow, though she wasn’t entirely sad to go away. She understood their need to make a new start, recognizing that she and her father would not likely survive the deep bleak winter of the star’s upcoming low cycle. Yes, it was time to try one of the new Klikiss colonies.
Jan joined her at the window, and they stared at Dremen, whose pearly silver clouds reflected sunlight in swirls of cottony softness—much more beautiful than they had ever seemed from ground level. The dwindling globe seemed so small, a child’s bauble cast into the void.
“Look at all those clouds, girl. Plenty of thunderstorms and cold fog. I’m not sorry to be leaving all that behind.”
“Up here the sun seems so bright.”
Jan sighed. “If only those people had seen the wisdom in my solar mirror project, we could have turned Dremen into a warm and perfectly comfortable place. But nobody wanted to make the investment.”
Two years after the hydrogue ultimatum, when Dremen began to realize hard times were ahead, Jan Covitz had gotten it into his head to run for mayor, advocating grandiose and costly solutions to the colony’s weather problems. He had drawn up a plan to erect wide concave mirrors in orbit, whose sole purpose was to reflect sunlight and pump an extra degree or two of temperature into the atmosphere. In his plan, the huge filmy reflectors would be as thin as tissue, coated with a high-albedo layer only a few molecules thick. Dremen could have become self-sufficient, impervious to the longest low-intensity solar cycle.
Though technologically feasible, the plan would have required a large investment, high taxes, and years to complete. Even as a girl, little involved in local politics, Orli had understood that her father’s proposed solutions were unlikely to be adopted.
Jan had lost by an embarrassingly large margin. He’d come home on the night of the elections with a resigned smile, accepting his defeat with good grace. “No surprise that they’re shortsighted, girl,” he had told Orli, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “Too much time studying the ground at their feet and not enough looking up into the sky toward the future.”
And so, once ekti supplies were cut off, along with regular food and fuel shipments from Hansa merchants, Dremen had found itself in a very bad position.
The colonists eventually understood that Jan had been right in principle and were angry at their own failures, but as individualists they did not like to be reminded of them. Though Jan’s disposition was always smiling, even teasing, they still felt him thinking I told you so in every encounter.
Jan might have done better if he’d spent more hours and energy planning the family’s mushroom harvest, but he was a broad-strokes person, fascinated with the big picture instead of the details.
Although he was always looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, more often than not he simply got hopelessly lost. Orli did her best to lay a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow home. . . .
Rlinda Kett was the pilot of their ship. On orders from the Hansa, she flew the Curiosity from planet to planet, picking up volunteer colonists and transporting them to Rheindic Co, the nearest world with a transportal. There, the people would be assembled into large settlement groups, then dispatched to Klikiss worlds that were deemed hospitable to human life.
Captain Kett, a large, good-humored woman who loved to laugh, had pressurized the Curiosity’s cargo hold and converted it into a gathering room for the colonists. Her ship had never been designed as a passenger liner and had few amenities for so many people, but the flight to Rheindic Co would not be long, and these volunteers were willing to be crammed together briefly.
Though the Hansa had provided standard colonists’ rations and bland-tasting mealpax, Captain Kett insisted on creating the closest thing to a banquet she could manage for her passengers. She’d picked up nearly fifty people, a few from Dremen and the others from Rhejak and Usk.
“Who knows what kind of food you’ll find on those Klikiss worlds?” she said, grinning at Orli. “You deserve at least one decent meal before you get to Rheindic Co. Been there myself, you see, and it’s nothing special.”
“Except it has a Klikiss transportal,” Jan pointed out.
“Well, there is that.”
The question of the day seemed to be which colonization group or transportal explorer would eventually find the missing Margaret Colicos. The elderly xeno-archaeologist had vanished one day through the stone window on Rheindic Co, the same one the colonists were going to use. Apparently, the Hansa technicians operating the relocation facility had established a betting pool.
Aboard the ship, the voices of the passengers rose to a fever pitch. Orli had already heard them placing wagers using Hansa credits or exchanging chore responsibilities. Jan happily added a bet of his own, picking a time and a world at random.
Orli said, “It’s just like all those people who bet on finding the lost Burton out in the Spiral Arm, Dad. Not much chance of winning.”
“Not much chance,” Jan agreed. “But the payoff could be big.”
The Voracious Curiosity sailed on, every moment growing closer to the jumping-off point for the next part of Orli’s life. She took her blanket and snuggled near to her father against a bulkhead wall. Captain Kett dimmed the lights in the cargo hold so that everyone could sleep, but many of the colonist volunteers were too full of anticipation.
Jan dozed off within moments, without a care in the world. Orli remained awake, listening to him breathe, staring at the metal walls. She couldn’t decide whether she was excited or worried.