

UNA

# By Deborah Dunlevy

#

# 

#

Copyright @2018 Deborah Dunlevy

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America.

Digital Edition ISBN: 978-0-9966556-7-5

Madison House Publishing

www.madisonhousepublishing.com

## For all the women

## whose lives were shattered

## and who bravely built

## a new one

# Contents

By Deborah Dunlevy

Hidden

Turning Point

Beginnings

First

The Rest

Enough

Survival

Consequences

Murder

Motive

Justice

Sentence

Charter of the Maymar Colony

TO CONTINUE THE STORY OF CARA AND TOM

AND THE MAYLAND FAMILY

CHECK OUT

TWIN

A TWIN PLANETS NOVEL

COMING OCTOBER 16, 2018

READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK

TWIN

Chapter 1

Home

About the Author

#

# Hidden

## "We the members of the Maymar Foundation believe...that humanity is capable of greatness beyond what it has shown."

## – Charter of the Maymar Colony, Preamble

Ashanti knew exactly what her day was going to look like.

In five minutes, the chime of her alarm would sound. She would get up, brush her teeth, put on a fresh jumpsuit. In the mess, she would get a tube of strong hot tea and drink it while she looked over the previous day's reports. There would be just enough time when she was finished to wake Lil and get her ready for school before reporting to the lab section. She would run tests and finish calculations and try to endure the presence of Jim, the apprentice astrophysicist with a bad habit of humming under his breath. She would walk back to the family cabin where Hiram would have the dinner he collected after picking up Lil from class. They would eat and trade boring stories about their boring days. If they were lucky, Lil would have something amusing to report from the children. There would be a blessed hour with her violin while Lil played nearby. Then bedtime stories. When Lil had been tucked in, Ashanti would read her novel. Hiram would interrupt her from time to time with comments on his own book. At the designated time, they would go to bed so that they could start it all over again the next day.

When Ashanti's father had told her that she would see the stars and walk on a new world, she had thought it would be exciting. How naive she had been.

Ashanti sat up and turned off the alarm before it could chime. There. One thing that was different from yesterday, at least.

For a moment, she considered breaking the routine further by not brushing her teeth, but she banished the thought sternly. What was wrong with her? She wasn't a petulant 18-year-old. She was forty-five, a scientist, a mother, a leader in a historic community. She brushed her teeth.

The mess was empty when she arrived, but Michele and Irina came in while she waited for her tea to heat. They nodded at her and went straight for the coffee. Luckily, they weren't morning talkers.

Ashanti set her tea on the corner table and keyed open her tablet. Then she sat for a few minutes, not ready to face the reports. Absentmindedly, she sipped at her tea and burnt her tongue. The pain felt almost good.

Ashanti shook her head. This wasn't like her. She loved this ship. She loved the future they were headed toward. She loved her work. She loved her community. She had been helping to lead them for the last twenty-five years without faltering. True, when she had turned forty, there had been a brief bout of depression, but that was normal. She had spent a few hours talking with friends and wrote longer-than-usual entries in her journal. Then a few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant with Lil, and there was enough excitement in her life to banish any boredom.

All the reports in her inbox were marked green except one. The astronomers had sent her something with a red flag. They did that every few months. Gil was an excitable guy, and they were traveling through space no one else had visited. The last time he had sent one, it had just been a very normal...

Ashanti froze. Slowly she lowered the tablet.

The last time.

The last time she had felt this way...

She picked up the tea and sipped carefully, determined not to jump to conclusions. She would go get Lil up and off to school. Then she would visit Mia on the way to the lab. She would not hurry. She would not make assumptions.

She would not read those reports, either. They could wait.

Dr. Mia Lang was only thirty-two years old and still technically an apprentice to her distinguished father, but Ashanti always preferred to visit Mia on the rare occasions she needed a doctor. George was not as brilliant with people as he was with diseases.

"You were right," Mia said as the results of the blood test scrolled across her screen. "You're probably not even two weeks along based on these levels. How did you know?"

From long force of habit, Ashanti kept all her emotions contained and addressed the question. "I recognized the feeling."

Mia grinned. "That's impressive for something that's only happened once before. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Ashanti said, and she meant it, though her answering smile was all she would allow herself.

"Are you going to go straight to Hiram?"

"I think this might be worth interrupting his work, don't you?"

"If you don't, I will," Mia said with a laugh. "And would you like to be the one to tell my father, or can I do that?"

"Oh, I think you've earned that right."

"He was sure it wasn't going to happen without in vitro," Mia said.

"Between you and me, I was about six months from telling him he was right, but there's no need for him to know that now."

"Absolutely not. He needs to be wrong from time to time. Keeps him from getting a big head."

"Thank you, Mia. Really."

"Hey, it was you and Hiram who made the decision. I carried out your wishes, just like the Charter says."

"Yes, but the Charter doesn't say anything about being kind. That was all you."

Mia smiled. "Congratulations."

Ashanti walked out of the tiny medical bay and down toward the governor's office. A second child. Hiram would be so happy they were finally fulfilling their responsibility. The Charter didn't require the colonists to have children, but the Plan depended on most doing so. Two to three children per couple was ideal. There was plenty of genetic material on board to make that possible for anyone, but Ashanti had wanted to hold out for natural conception. It wasn't a spiritual or ethical issue. She just knew herself. She didn't easily connect with people. Without the full biological experience, she wasn't sure she would properly bond with her child. Not that she had ever said that out loud to anyone.

Hiram had supported her without understanding her real motivation. He had his own reasons for not rushing to have more children. According to the Charter, one of their children would one day take his place as governor. They would not arrive at Theta Prime for another thirty-three years. The younger that new leader was when they arrived, the better for the colony. This timing was perfect. Hiram would be pleased, though he would probably express it with trite platitudes.

Ashanti sighed. She wasn't being completely fair. Hiram was a good man. He was kind and he was dedicated and he was determined to lead the colony to a successful life on Theta Prime. It wasn't his fault if he wasn't terribly original. It wasn't his fault that he sometimes seemed to be all training and no personality. His ability to stay the course and execute the Plan made him perfect for his position. Most days she appreciated his dependability and calm. On a spaceship, predictability was gold.

It was just at moments like this that she wondered, was it possible to be too dependable? Was there no room for spontaneous feeling?

When the door to the governor's office opened, Hiram was not behind his desk. He was standing with a cluster of admins, and he didn't look surprised to see her.

"You saw it?" he said as soon as Ashanti stepped inside.

She had been so focused on her own news that his question stopped her short.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"About what?"

It was Hiram's turn to look confused.

"This is huge," said Gil from the corner. She hadn't even seen him there.

Ashanti took a deep breath to clear her head. "I think I missed something."

"You didn't read the astronomy report?"

"No, I..."

"They found another habitable planet."

"Two habitable planets," said Gil.

"Possibly," Hiram said.

Ashanti swallowed her own news.

"Where?" she asked.

"2.43 light years away!" crowed Gil.

It wasn't possible. "That would mean..."

"With deceleration time, we have about six months to decide if we want to pursue it."

"That's not enough time for thorough studies," Ashanti said.

"Wait til you see it," said Gil. "We won't even need six months. I've never seen anything so perfect."

If there was one thing Ashanti's father had taught her, it was that things that seemed too good to be true, were. He had learned that on the supposed utopia of the Lunar Scientific Colony.

"We'll take all the time we have before making a decision," said Hiram. "We're putting the whole science team on this in every minute that can be spared. The Plan was seventy years in the making. I have no intention of changing it on a whim."

Ashanti studied her husband's face. Something was different. There was a thrum of excitement in his voice that belied his cautious words, and his eyes didn't quite meet hers.

"How have we never seen this planet before?" she asked.

"Planets. Plural. They were hidden from view of Earth by a cluster of stars and only came into our field of study four days ago. Believe me, we ran two dozen tests and ten thousand equations before I wrote that report. We've been staring at this and only this day and night. It's a complete game-changer."

She had called Gil excitable, but the manic look he wore now made his previous energy look calm.

"I'll read the report and get my people on it immediately," she said.

"I'm making a ship-wide announcement tonight at the gathering," Hiram said. "Full disclosure and all hands on deck is the only way we're going to collect enough data to be reasonably sure of our course."

"Agreed."

Ashanti turned to go before they all noticed that her head was spinning. Had anyone ever been more wrong about a day than she was this morning?

"Ashanti." Hiram put a hand on her arm. "If you didn't read the report, then you came here for something else. Did you need something?"

The fact that he would ask that, would notice, even with something so huge on his mind was what made her husband such a great leader. It was the reason she had come to love him in spite of her occasional doubts.

"It can wait. This can't."

He nodded. "There won't be family dinner tonight with the gathering, but I do want to hear you. Tea afterward, maybe?"

Ashanti smiled. "You might want to make it coffee. I don't think any of us are going to get much sleep."

# Turning Point

## "We the members of the Maymar Foundation believe... that too much of humanity's resources have been spent attempting to correct the errors of the past and not enough ensuring a better future."

##

## –Charter of the Maymar Colony, Preamble

"As far as I'm concerned, it's not a question of if. It's only a question of which one." Gil leaned back in his chair and swiped a hand through his shaggy hair. There was a lot more grey mixed with the brown than there had been six months ago.

"We're talking about throwing away a Plan that our fathers and mothers worked their whole lives constructing." Belle kept her voice soft, but it was sharp at the corners. "You can't seriously expect us to have no arguments at all."

"No one is throwing away the Plan," said Ashanti. She tried not to let her exhaustion show. "The location of our colony is only a small part of the Charter. Its true principles will hold no matter where we settle...or when we arrive."

"You can't pretend it's not a huge change," Belle insisted.

"Of course it's a huge change," Hiram said, "but Shanti is right about it still being true to the Charter. I would remind you that the Plan includes the need for adaptation to new discoveries. In considering this new course, we are following the Plan perfectly. Not," he said forcefully as Belle opened her mouth again, "that we are taking the decision lightly."

Ashanti marveled again at her husband's controlled energy. As the rest of them had become progressively more drained in the weeks of work since discovering Una and Dua, Hiram seemed to gain vitality. On the surface, he maintained his steady demeanor, but underneath a fire had been lit.

"We've been studying the system for more than five months now," Gil complained. "No one in this room has had a decent night's sleep in all that time. We know more about these two planets than we do about Theta Prime, and everything we've learned tells us that they are both more suited for human habitation than Theta Prime will ever be. I can't believe this isn't already decided."

"It will be by tomorrow night," Hiram said. He was watching Ashanti, and she saw the worry in his eyes. "You're right. We've done the work we needed to do, and it's time to get everyone back to a more reasonable routine. But first, we will discuss the decision at length in a full gathering tonight. Everyone will get a say. In this, as always, we will follow the Plan. Everyone's life depends on it."

"Sure," growled Gil. "I'm all about letting everyone have their say. As long as we make the right decision when they're done." He turned on Belle. "Tell me you don't think these planets are our best chance for survival."

"As it happens, I do," Belle said. "But people are afraid of a change this big. You can't force it on them."

"God save us from shrinks forevermore," Gil muttered.

"We all want the same thing," Hiram reminded him. "We always have. Now, enough talking. There'll be plenty of that tonight. Everyone take the afternoon off. And I mean off. Go back to your quarters. Read a book. Take a nap. Think about anything but Una and Dua."

"Its name is Bhaskara," Gil said for the hundredth time.

No one responded.

Ashanti smiled to herself as Hiram helped her to her feet. As the discoverer of the binary planets, Gil had been given the honor of naming them. He had immediately named the larger one Una, after his Russian grandmother on Earth. In the three days it took him to decide on a name for Una's sister planet, his staff had started referring to it as Dua. It was a joke, but it took hold. Even though Bhaskara was the official name of record for the smaller planet, everyone but the chief astronomer called it Dua.

In their family quarters, Ashanti eased herself down onto her usual chair, leaning back and closing her eyes. She was only six months along, and already her belly was as big as it had been full-term with Lil. It was like lugging around a melon everywhere she went. These months would have been exhausting even without trying to grow someone inside her body. With it, the edges of her brain were permanently fogged over.

Not that she would want it any other way. Just last month they had found out the baby was a boy. A son. She didn't know how Hiram felt about it–there had been no time for talking about anything other than Una and Dua–but Ashanti walked around with the same feeling she had when she solved a difficult equation, every number and symbol falling perfectly into place. One girl. One boy. They were complete.

Even her ridiculous size was a comfort. This was a quiet little guy, only occasionally moving around to let her know he was okay. After Lil, who punched and kicked non-stop until her release, Ashanti found this baby's stillness strange. If it weren't for her rapidly-expanding waistline, she might have been truly worried.

"I didn't know it was possible for a person to look so exhausted and so happy at the same time," Hiram said.

Ashanti opened her eyes a crack to see her husband watching her with a half smile.

"I didn't know it was possible for a person to look so tranquil and so agitated at the same time," she said.

Hiram's smile disappeared, and for a second, she thought she had offended him, but he considered her words thoughtfully.

"That's how I feel," he said finally. "I feel calm, purposeful. I have as much surety as I ever had. But I also feel something I didn't before."

Ashanti's sleepiness faded, her brain clearing up as much as it ever did these days. She waited for him to go on.

"I don't know how to describe it," he said. "I don't have the words."

She could have let it go. She and Hiram had been married for twenty-five years, and though there was plenty of affection, neither was in the habit of sharing their personal feelings. Most of their years together, they had felt more like coworkers than lovers. But something had changed in Hiram, and after watching it slowly grow these last weeks, Ashanti found that she wanted very much to understand it.

"You're excited about this change in the Plan. We'll arrive so much sooner."

"Yes. Yes, that must be a part of it, surely. But..." Hiram sat down in the chair opposite her, leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees like he was going to tell her a secret. "From the moment I heard about these planets and realized we would have to make a huge decision, it was like..."

"...something came alive."

"Yes. Exactly that."

"I saw it," Ashanti said.

Hiram studied her face, and Ashanti dropped her eyes. She was thankful she wasn't given to blushes. It was uncomfortable to talk like this.

After a long silence, Ashanti looked up again. Hiram had leaned back, but he still watched her. She tried to smile like this conversation was normal.

"You think you're just ready to get off this ship?" she asked, mostly so that he would talk again.

"Aren't we all?" he said. "But no, I think...I think I was waiting all this time to have something to do."

"You work as hard as any of us. You always have."

He waved a hand dismissively. "I collect everyone's work. I listen to complaints. I keep files and records. A robot could do those things. But my father trained me to look ahead, to bring the future into the present. He always told me it would require resourcefulness and adaptability to make the Plan into a reality, but until now it was all just...execution."

Oh, thought Ashanti as the disconnected pieces fell into place. "You have been governing, but now you get to lead."

Hiram's breath rushed out. "Yes." His careful control broke down for just a moment, and he sagged in his chair.

After a second he looked up, and this time when he caught Ashanti's eye, she didn't look away. "Thank you," he said. "You made that sound almost...reasonable."

She meant to tell him that it was perfectly reasonable, that anyone would understand why he was happier with a problem to solve, that she felt the same. Instead, she said, "I like you this way."

The words felt simultaneously inadequate and much too revealing. The way Hiram's eyes darkened told her that he heard what was under them.

For a long moment, Ashanti held herself perfectly still, returning her husband's gaze, barely daring to breathe. Then the little one inside gave a single kick, and her eyes widened. She pulled Hiram's hand to her belly, but their boy was still again.

"Sorry," she said. "He doesn't move much."

"He has his mother's calm," Hiram answered.

"Or his father's self-control."

Hiram took a deep breath. "Yes. About that."

"It's not necessary all the time," Ashanti said.

Her husband smiled.

# Beginnings

#

## "We the members of the Maymar Foundation believe... that human dignity and freedom are of equal importance with advancement and discovery."

## –Charter of the Maymar Colony, Preamble

##

George warned her this was how the end would begin.

Ashanti tried to blink away the black spots, but they weren't temporary afterimages. This was her body betraying her one last time.

She gripped the doorframe. There would be no working today. (Ever again? It was impossible to imagine.)

"Ama?" Max tugged at her hand, and when she didn't respond, he pressed his face hard into her side. Ashanti put a hand on his head, feeling the soft curls, trying to steady her breathing.

When she could control her voice, she said, "Can you walk Ama to her chair, Max?"

His tiny hand came up and gripped her fingers. Together, they walked to the chair, and Ashanti sank into it. Max climbed onto her lap. She couldn't stand to see her son's face obscured by the dark spots, so she closed her eyes and hugged him close, focusing on his smell and the feel of his solid pudginess in her arms.

She should call Hiram, tell him it had started. George said once it began, there would be days at most. But Ashanti made no move toward the comm. Instead, she sat perfectly still, holding her boy, feeling his breath move in and out.

As he had been when he lived inside her, Max was content to be still for much longer than most children, but he was nearly two, which meant that he had to wiggle eventually. He pushed away and twisted around, putting a hand on each side of her face.

"Seeping, Ama?"

"No, beta, just resting." Ashanti forced a smile and opened her eyes. She could only see one of his beautiful brown eyes and the round cheek under it. The rest was already in darkness. It's fine, she told herself. You knew him before you could see him. It is just the same.

"Cool?"

"No. No school today. Today we'll stay here."

That brown eye squinted. He wasn't happy. Max liked his routine, and though he wasn't one to throw fits, lately he had started quietly crying when things didn't go his way. She really should call Hiram.

"We can do school at home, beta. How is that?"

The eye shifted as he cocked his head, and she now saw his little button nose.

"Bocks?"

Ashanti wasn't sure how she would manage, but she nodded anyway. "Yes. Go get your blocks."

Max leapt away. She immediately missed his weight, holding her down, holding her together. When something hard bumped her knee, she opened her eyes again. Max was back with his box of geometric blocks. Ashanti slid down onto the floor next to him.

"What should we build?" she asked, even though she knew what the answer would be.

"Sar!"

"All right. What shapes do we need to make a star?" Fortunately, this dialogue was familiar to both of them, and Max didn't really need help with the star anymore. George and Mia said it shouldn't even be possible for a child his age to manipulate the blocks the way Max did. His spacial reasoning was off the charts, and though his motor skills couldn't keep up, he made up for the lack with extreme persistence.

Ashanti reached out and squeezed his shoulder. He shrugged her off, not wanting interference with his work. Something sharp and cold stabbed at her chest, and for a second Ashanti thought it was a new symptom. Then she recognized it as grief.

Her son had incredible gifts, and he was going to do something amazing with his life. Only she was going to miss it.

Her whole vision went black, and Ashanti didn't even try to see through it. She had no idea how much time passed before the door opened with its soft chime. She recognized Hiram's steady footsteps even before Max said, "Da!"

"Hey there, bigs. Look at what you made."

"Sar! Un. Two. Tee."

"Three stars. They're wonderful. Maybe you can make a spaceship to travel from star to star."

Max immediately began rummaging in his block box again.

Hiram's voice came closer as he sat on the floor by Ashanti. "Bel said you were late coming into the lab."

Ashanti just nodded.

"It started?"

She nodded again.

Hiram took her hand. "Too soon," he said. "It was always going to be too soon."

Ashanti couldn't stop the tears as he pulled her close.

After a while, he cleared his throat. "I'll comm Tan and have him send Lil."

"No," Ashanti said into his shirt. "Not yet." She took a deep breath, tried to pull herself together as she sat up. "There's nothing for her to do here but watch her mother degenerate. She should stay at school."

"Shanti." He said her name so quietly that she opened her eyes. She still had that one patch of clarity, enough to see his mouth and chin as he said, "We only have a short time together. We need to be a family."

Ashanti swallowed. She thought of Lil, just turned seven and full of energy. Every night for the last four months, the little girl had read to her mother while she endured the headaches or tried to control her shaking body. In the last weeks, Lil had started picking up the family dinner from the mess so that Hiram could walk Ashanti home from the labs. The girl knew what was coming, and she was already preparing to fill her mother's role, playing with Max in the evenings and helping Hiram clean up the quarters. But who would fill her mother's place in Lil's life?

As always, Hiram was right. Lil needed every minute they had together. "Yes," she said.

After he made the call, Hiram sat silently next to her, holding her hand. They had gotten to the place now where no words were necessary. The marriage that had been a friendly partnership for the first twenty-five years had grown into something deeper and more exciting after the discovery of Una and Dua. They had changed course as a colony, and her private life had changed course at the same time. That year had been the best of her life.

Then one day her right hand started trembling uncontrollably. The next day it was the entire right side of her body. George ran extensive tests. The news wasn't just bad. It was the worst. An extremely rare degenerative disease. Incurable.

"We keep discovering new techniques and inventing new cures, and our bodies respond by manufacturing new ways to die," he said. George wasn't known for his bedside manner, and his anger at his own uselessness made him even more curt than usual. "We cure cancer; then we start seeing Throm's disease. We find a treatment for HIV, and suddenly Gorhoff syndrome rears its head. We've managed to increase average life-span past a hundred, but it's like there's some invisible line we can't cross."

As a scientist, Ashanti understood why this frustrated him at the macro level. As a woman, all she could see was her own imminent death. Four to six months, George said. He could give her drugs to help manage some symptoms, but there was no effective treatment.

That was the first night she and Hiram passed holding hands and saying nothing. In the weeks that followed, they had many long talks that lasted until the early hours of the morning, but that first night there was only the fierce grip of shared pain. The same grip that held them now.

They could do these next few days together, but after that, they would each have a road to walk alone. In some ways that was the worst part. They had just learned how to really be together, and now it would end.

The door opened, and Lil ran in. The girl never walked when she could run. Ashanti caught a glimpse of wildly swinging brown curls and a perfectly formed ear before her daughter threw herself down beside her and wrapped her arms around her neck. Ashanti closed her eyes and willed the tears away. She needed to be strong. She needed to... Lil's whole body shook, and Ashanti wrapped her arms around her girl and sobbed with her.

The unfairness of it all stabbed at her. Her father had been one of the architects of this colony. He and Hiram's parents had written the Charter, recruited other families, spearheaded the building of this ship. Ashanti had prepared for this mission since she was three years old. She had married Hiram and boarded the ship at age 20. She had helped steer the decision to move toward Una and Dua and had made the final calculations for their new course. She had studied those two planets for months as they decided which they should colonize first. She had worked all those years to get to this point: less than three months from landing on Una, from founding their first village, from beginning a brighter future. She would never see any of it now. She would never step foot on Una. She would never see her daughter grow into a woman and take over her father's job as governor. She would never see Max realize his full genius, would never get to take him on as an apprentice.

How could you be so close to everything you ever wanted and then get none of it?

Lil pulled away, leaving her hands gently on Ashanti's shoulders. "Does it hurt?" she whispered. "Can I help?"

Ashanti's sobs stilled even as the tears flowed harder. What kind of seven-year-old asked that? How could Ashanti say she hadn't gotten all that she wanted when she had a child like this? Lil's empathy and compassion. Max's quiet brilliance. This was what the universe had given her and what she would leave to make a better future. Hiram's steadiness and inner fire. This was what the universe had given her and what would guide her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"I'm not in pain," she said to Lil. "All you need to do is be here."

They all sat in silence for a long time.

"The department heads came to me yesterday," Hiram said. "They said everyone has taken a vote. They want to name the first village after you. Shanti, they want to call it." She could hear the lump in his throat.

Ashanti was moved by their affection, but... "That isn't right," she said.

"They want to remember you. You brought us here," Hiram said.

"If they want to remember me, they should call it Mayland," Ashanti said. She had taken Hiram's last name when they married, not because she liked it or wanted to make Hiram happy but because it set a good example of family unity for the rest of the colony. Now she thanked her younger self for doing the right thing, even if her reasons were weak. "This. Us. This is what should be remembered. Not me alone."

Hiram nodded and took her hand again. Max butted his head into her side again, and Lil cuddled close. Ashanti closed her eyes and just felt them all. Together, for as long as there was.

# First

##

## "Therefore we have determined...

## To leave Earth and its current colonies behind with no violence or ill-will.

## To begin the settlement of a planet beyond our solar system."

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Preamble

##

The first death felt like a betrayal.

Lil didn't blame her father for bringing her the news. She didn't blame the medical team who had worked around the clock trying to prevent this. She certainly didn't blame Roon for losing his painful battle.

Lil blamed Una.

Una, the first solid ground Lil had ever walked, the first unfiltered air she had ever breathed, her first true home. And she was Una's first, too, the first human to step foot on her wide, open plains. Most people thought that honor had gone to Hiram Mayland. Only Lil and her father knew that just before he had stepped off the landing platform, he had set her down first.

From that moment until this one, Lil had felt that she and Una shared a bond. When everyone else had treated their new home with fear and suspicion, Lil had reassured them all they were safe. Her confidence had been confirmed as the years passed and Una was nothing but benevolent and welcoming.

Until three weeks ago, when the first colonist had fallen sick and the evidence against Una mounted quickly.

The planet was killing her people.

Slowly, Lil stood up and brushed the coarse grit off her hands. She had been working in the gardens, covering the shift of an infected woman. She was tempted to shake the dirt of Una off her feet, too.

She was being ridiculous, of course. To hide it, she met her father's eye steadily. "Have they started the autopsy?"

"They gave Shar time to say good-bye first, but by now they will have begun."

Lil nodded. Everyone had agreed they needed to act quickly, to gather as much information as possible. Shar would understand. She was a scientist herself.

"How is she?"

"As you would expect. She asked that I go along to tell the children. Po won't understand yet, of course, but Ryn is old enough to need a man's voice."

Ryn was nine. Lil knew what it meant to lose a parent at that age, and she knew her father was the boy's best chance to feel understood.

"I'll go the medical center, then, to wait for the first reports. You shouldn't hurry with the children."

Her father didn't answer. Likely because he had already known that would be her response. Twenty years since she officially became his apprentice, and she'd been sharing the duties of governor for the last five. At this point, they often finished each other's sentences.

Lil glanced over as they walked. Her father's hair had gone completely grey now, though he walked with the same firm steps. He spent more and more time with his camera and he'd begun talking about stepping away soon and giving her the official title. He seemed to be waiting for something, probably for her to marry and begin having children to carry on the work, though he never said so.

Lil didn't ask. It wasn't time yet. The colony wasn't ready to let him go. She wasn't ready, either.

They arrived at the medical center just as Shar came out the front doors. Gab, one of the nurses, walked by her side, carrying a small bundle. Roon's personal items.

Lil stopped in front of Shar and looked into her eyes, witnessing her pain as her father had taught her. The shock and loss written there reminded Lil sharply of the day she had lost her mother, but she pushed the memory away. Today wasn't about her loss. "I'm sorry," she said.

The woman's tears spilled over. "Me, too," she said. "But the doctors think they may learn enough from him to save the others. He would have been proud to know that."

"Yes. He always put others before himself."

Shar pulled her into a hug, and Lil let her hang on as long as she wanted.

When Shar finally pulled away and said goodbye with a little pat on Lil's shoulder, Lil took a deep breath and stepped into the medical center.

It was cool and quiet in the small waiting area. No one came to the med center these days except those who had contracted the disease, and they were in the hospital wing with their families. Twenty-two sick so far. Roon had been the third to show symptoms.

Lil would visit the sick later.

First, she went through the double doors marked RESTRICTED behind the nurse's desk and into the hall of the laboratory wing. Here, every room she passed had people working. She made her way down to the chief's office.

Jun wasn't there, of course. She'd be performing the autopsy herself. Her admin, Bev, was busy compiling notes at the desk, and she nodded as Lil came in.

"I just finished sending the reports to your tablet," she said. "Jun is dictating as she operates, and the transcription should automatically update every five minutes." Bev was the best admin in the colony, and though Lil had sometimes wished they had her in the governor's office, today she was thankful the woman was where she was most needed.

Lil scrolled through the report summary Bev had sent. All the patients seemed to pass through the same series of symptoms, though at different rates. First a rash, then sudden weakness and fever, giving way to elevated heart rate and blood pressure. That stage was often accompanied by agitated behavior. After a while, that passed into lethargy. The fever burned on, but the heart rate slowed more and more until eventually, in Roon's case, it stopped.

Six more patients had entered the lethargic stage. For some reason, Jer, the first case, was still showing agitation. He was younger than Roon, but only by a few years. The doctors had no explanation for the slower advancement of the disease.

Jun was convinced the disease was caused by new clusters of molecules they had found in the blood samples of all the infected patients. She didn't know what they were, though. The molecules didn't respond to any antibiotics, and if it they were a virus, it was unlike any she had ever seen. They hadn't yet been able to find the connection between the infected patients. They were all ages, came from all shifts and job assignments.

Why now? That was the question that plagued Lil as the feeling of betrayal surged again. Nearly twenty years they had lived on Una, and they had only lost a handful of colony members. For eight of those years, their diet had come chiefly from native products, with no ill effects. Why would this disease appear now? What had changed?

If there was a medical explanation, Jun would find it. She was brilliant, and her team matched her skill.

But something about this nagged at Lil. Una's ecosystem was much simpler than Earth's, it's flora and fauna much less varied. The colonists had so much more to discover, but everything they had found so far fit neatly into an ordered system. This disease had no place in that.

What if it wasn't native? What if the colonists hadn't stumbled across it but had somehow created it?

Maybe her planet wasn't trying to kill her. Maybe it was just trying to tell her something. Lil would make sure she was listening.

She typed up a quick communication, asking the department chiefs to meet her at the med center prepared to give full reports of recent activity. Lil wanted to hear about the changes, anything big or small that the colony had begun doing differently.

"Is there a room I can use where I won't be in anyone's way?" she asked Bev.

Bev raised an eyebrow. "We're at full capacity," she said, "but you can set up in the off-duty room if you like. No one's sleeping these days."

Lil nodded and headed toward the door only to crash into the person who barreled through it.

"Mia?" She took in the doctor's face, and her heart sank.

"We just lost another one," Mia said. Her face was drawn and grey. "Hol, five years old."

Lil let the emotion sweep over her, concentrating on standing firm as her father had taught her, so that she'd still be there when it passed. Two deep breaths got her through.

She took Mia's arm, gently pushed her into an empty chair. "You need rest."

"I need a cure," Mia said. "Three more have gone still. We're going to lose Jil any minute, and Hy isn't far behind. Engineering just brought a new case in, an apprentice who collapsed in their office."

"We're doing everything we can."

"Lil, an epidemic will end us."

"The Plan takes it into account."

"Only to a certain point."

"Then we won't let it get to that point."

Mia's look said that Lil was being young and naive. Lil preferred to think of it as strong and determined. Her tablet buzzed.

"I have to go. Engineering sent the report I asked for, along with an engineer who is prepared to answer questions." She looked Mia straight in the eye, witnessing her fear. She knew words couldn't help, so she just let Mia see her understanding.

Then she turned away and went to look for answers.

# The Rest

## "We the members of the Maymar Foundation believe...that careful planning can provide the balanced growth which is the ultimate key to the survival of the human species."

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Preamble

##

Lil couldn't remember the last time she had slept. Two weeks after Roon's death they still had no idea where this disease had come from or how to stop it. The medical research team was beginning to question whether the strange molecules they'd identified were really to blame for the disease, but they had no alternate theories.

Meanwhile, fourteen more people had died.

Fourteen people out of a little over a thousand and the hospital wing was overflowing with the newly sick. The clinic lobby and a few of the lab rooms had been taken over to accommodate patients. Researchers were stepping on each other as they worked.

Lil had made an office out of the little tool shed in the front garden, close enough to be on hand when she was needed but out of the way of those whose work was more vital.

Her tablet pinged from its perch on top of the workbench. She punched a button, and her father's exhausted face popped up on the screen. She saw his office wall in the background and shook her head. He was supposed to be at home resting right now.

They still weren't sure how the disease was spreading, so he'd given in to her request that he stay away from the med center, but nothing could keep him from working himself as long and hard as everyone else. She didn't bother to scold him. She knew what he'd say. A leader works harder, stays longer, exhausts himself more. That's what it means to lead.

He was right, but her heart ached at how old he looked. She had thought she was too numb to feel anymore, but something about his eyes made her throat close up.

"They're bringing in two more," her father said, and his voice cracked. "Lil, it's Max and Van."

Lil forced herself to nod, even though it was hard to breathe. She had known this might happen, but still, she had hoped...

"I wanted to come with them, but Fern won't let me out of her sight."

Lil tried to swallow, but it didn't work, so she forced the words out through a dry throat, "Ye...yes. She's right. We need you well. I'll meet them."

"You need rest, too, Lil."

She couldn't smile, but she tried to lift her head and look more energized that she felt. "I'm fine. I should go."

"Give..." Her father broke down. Lil looked away from the screen. "Give them my love."

"I will," she whispered.

Outside of the little shed, a cold breeze hit her face. For a second, Lil felt sharper. Then the headache crept back in at the edges of her brain. She walked through the scraggly bushes to the front of the garden. From there she could see the cluster of people carrying two stretchers.

The man at the front of the larger stretcher gave her an understanding smile. Tan was an engineer, one of the best they had, and he had volunteered to head up the emergency service now, too. Lil nodded her appreciation and looked down at the man he carried.

"Hey, little brother," she said. "If you wanted a day off, you could have just asked."

Max's neck was covered in rash, his eyes bright with fever. "No way," he said. "You're too much of a slave-driver."

"True. Still, this is a bit drastic."

Max closed his eyes, clearly in pain. "How's Van?"

Max's son was on the next stretcher. His face showed rash, but he didn't have any signs of fever yet. He pulled a candy stick out of his mouth and gave her a grin.

"Aunt Lil! I have a charberry stick! I get to eat the whole thing! And we're going to see Ma!"

Max's wife, Bette, had been brought in the day before. Luckily, her case was still in the early stages.

"Let's get you there quickly then," Lil said, taking Van's hand.

The stretcher-bearers moved steadily, and the tired nurse at the door of the med center found them a place to set Max and Van while beds were made up for them.

"If you can put them here, maybe Bette can be moved here, too?" Lil asked. "I'll take a shift of caring for them."

The nurse tossed her a grateful smile as she turned away.

A hand on Lil's arm made her jump.

"Can I have a moment?" Tan asked.

Lil was still watching as a second nurse came out to take Max's vital signs. "Um...yes, of course."

"This is in the last report we sent, but I'm not sure what Kel said about it. She isn't convinced it's important."

Lil turned toward the engineer, saw the intense look on his face, and tried to focus her brain. "Isn't convinced what is important?"

"You asked us to double and triple check anything new from the last several months, so we have. I think we've found something significant. The fibers we've been processing from the Reddi vines? Our new processing system was recently changed."

"Yes, we've investigated that. There's nothing toxic in the Reddi or in the process. We tested the Reddi vines and the newly produced fibers, but we didn't find anything."

"I know, and that's why Kel dismisses it. But I've spent some time studying the Reddi fibers, and there's something we haven't considered. Our new process breaks down the vines on a chemical level in order to make them softer for fabrics. It separates molecules, strips away some of the bonds that made it stiffer. You can read the details in the report, but basically it comes to this: all the tests we've done have been on newly produced fibers. I think we need to test the fabrics we've made after they've had time to rest. I think it takes time after separation for the problem to show itself because the molecules we separated are bonding with something new to form the infective agent."

Lil's head hurt. "Is that something that can happen?"

"Theoretically."

"Then test it. Test whatever you have to."

"That takes supplies from the medical labs. They aren't eager to let those go right now."

Lil looked at Tan, noticing how his dark curls fell into his eyes. The man needed a haircut. She shook off the irrelevant thought. He also needed lab supplies.

For once, there was a problem she could actually solve.

—————

"I was wrong!"

Lil jerked her head up, dropping the cool cloth she'd been about to put on her brother's head. The angry words on the tip of her tongue died when she saw Tan's shining face, but she gestured for him to lower his voice.

"I was wrong!" he whispered, still excited. "It didn't form a new bond!"

"If you're wrong, why are you so happy?"

"Because I was also right! We broke it apart from its twin, and it's going around looking for a bond it can't make."

"So...?" Lil's exhausted brain just couldn't keep up. Max's fever had raged all night. She was thankful that he was still restless—it was when they went still that you knew the end was close—but she had been forced to physically restrain him multiple times.

"So we know where it came from. And we don't need to kill it. We just need to give it back the other half it's looking for."

"The other...?"

"The infecting agent they've been calling brachious is actually..." Tan stopped abruptly as Max began to thrash behind Lil's back. For the first time, the engineer seemed to take in her slumped shoulders, her dark-circled eyes, her family laid out around her.

"You don't need the details," he said. "I've already sent the results to the lab to confirm, but I'm right. I know I am. They'll confirm it, and we already have the equipment we need to separate out the twin molecule. This is a cure, Lil."

"A cure?"

"We screwed something up. We didn't understand the biology of these plants, but we can fix it." He put a hand on her shoulder. It felt impossibly warm. "They're going to live."

"I'm not sure..."

"You don't have to be. I am. You pointed us in the right direction. I can get us where we need to go."

Someone called his name from the direction of the laboratory wing, and with a final squeeze of her shoulder, Tan strode away.

Lil sat on the edge of her brother's bed, stunned. She should call her father. She should go see if the researchers needed help. She should check on the other patients in her area. But there was no strength left.

She picked up Max's hand and held on tight. It was all she could do. Someone else would have to do the rest.

# Enough

##

## "This colony and all its members, in pursuit of these purposes, shall act in accordance with the following principles...

## 2. Each and every human being has the right to self-determination with regard to personal relationships, including but not limited to romantic alliances, legal family formation, and reproduction."

## –Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 2

##

"It happened again."

Tan looked up from where he was assembling a miniature spaceship for their son. "It passed?"

Died, she wanted to say. Our baby died. But she didn't. She nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Mia says it's time to stop trying."

Tan waited just a moment before answering. "You know I think she's right. But it's your decision."

Tears welled up in Lil's eyes, and she was furious with herself. She had known this was a long shot.

"Pa! Ship!" Cal said, banging a pudgy hand on his father's knee.

Tan picked up the ship again, but Lil wouldn't let that behavior slip by.

"Cal," she said. "What's the first rule?"

"Pashints," he said with a pout.

"Yes. Patience. You don't rush your father. You show self-control."

"My pwesent!"

"Yes, it's your birthday present, and it's good that you want to play with it. But your present isn't more important than your family, and when we're talking about something important, you don't interrupt."

Cal scrunched up his face and sniffed hard, but no tears fell. He took his hand off Tan's knee.

"It's almost ready, Son," Tan said. He twisted one last part and handed it over.

Cal crowed with delight and ran off. Tan stood and took Lil's hand.

"I am sorry. I know it's hard."

Lil tensed, determined not to break down. "I waited too long," she said.

"We had Cal right away, and there was no trouble."

"But I was already old then, and it's been four years."

"Mia said it has nothing to do with your age."

"She said they don't always know why these things happen."

"Science can only do so much."

The knot of pain that had started in her center was growing. It was getting hard to breathe normally.

"I can't just give up. We need at least two. After the disease...our population counts... I'm the governor. I should be setting an example."

"Everyone knows you've tried. And the population downturn ended last year. We're already rebuilding."

"The Plan has been set back by two decades."

"The Plan has no deadlines."

Lil shook her head. "We don't know what else might come our way. The colony needs more children."

"The colony is having more children. There were six babies born in the last month alone. And June just found out she's having twins."

The news rocked Lil back. "Again?" Tan's sister already had twin three-year-olds.

"Yes. A Third AND a Fourth. The boys are already set to take over for June and Mick. One of these babies can be my apprentice. There's no need to risk yourself."

He was trying to be kind and reassuring. Lil couldn't let him see how she really felt.

"They must be so happy."

"They are. And we're happy, too, right? We have Cal. We have each other."

Lil nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak, but when Tan pulled her in for a hug, she leaned against him, rested her head on his shoulder.

She was happy with her husband and son. She was happy governing Mayland, and it kept her incredibly busy. She barely had enough time with her family as it was. Another baby would have been a serious challenge. And Tan was right. The colony was already beginning to grow again. She was needed for much more than producing children.

But the ache inside didn't fade. It was just... When she had pictured her future, she had always thought she would have two children, just as her mother did.

She had always thought she would have a little girl.

Since her mother died, Lil had been surrounded by men. Her father. Max. Tan. Cal. She loved her boys with all her heart, but still, she had always imagined herself with a daughter. She had been happy to wait for her, but she had never considered that she might never come.

She had never told anyone that. Not even Tan. She had barely admitted it to herself before now.

"We're going to be okay," Tan whispered.

He was right. They would be okay. She had a family already and fulfilling work. They were enough.

Lil pulled back, straightened her spine.

If she had to let go of a childish dream, then she would. She was good at letting go. She had started young.

"You okay?" Tan asked.

Lil smiled. It was hollow but not completely fake. "I'm okay," she said. It wasn't the truth, but it would be someday.

"We can try again if you want."

"No." She took a deep breath. "Mia said the risk factors have doubled now. It doesn't make sense to go on."

The relief on his face hurt, but she told herself it didn't.

"I promised Cal I'd take him outside the fence to fly his ship this afternoon. You want to come?"

"I'd love to, but I have work."

"See you at dinner then?"

"Yes."

Tan watched her face for a minute. Whatever he saw there seemed to reassure him. That was good. There was no need for him to worry.

She'd be fine in time.

# Survival

#

##

## "This colony and all its members, in pursuit of these purposes, shall act in accordance with the following principles...

## 8. All members will do what is in their power to protect and wisely use the resources of their new home planet, including its preexisting flora and fauna."

##

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 2

##

Val was bored, which always pissed her off.

She picked at the skin next to her thumbnail while the head of the zoology group droned on about the reproduction rates of apex predators and their prey. This was all stuff the previous generation had studied at length, but he "wanted to refresh their memories" as they began a new phase of breeding.

Val didn't need her memory refreshed. It didn't go stale like some people's apparently did. What she needed was to get back to her research. She was days away from being able to present her finding about twin cells. It was going to change the whole way they looked at their world.

A sudden silence made Val look up. Was he finally finished?

Then Yun raised his hand. "One quick question..."

Val wanted to cut his tendons, but she put her aggression into making her thumb bleed, instead. The drops of red welling up calmed her a little.

"We won't take you away from your individual projects," zoology was saying, "but we do ask that you provide sustainability estimates for the fodder we'll need for domestic herds and be on hand for other questions as they arise."

He could have asked for that in a message. Why were they all in a meeting?

"So this breeding project isn't displacing the others?" Yun really liked to have things spelled out for him.

"It will for the zoology department, but for botany, that won't be necessary. We do ask prompt replies, though. The governor has made this a top priority. Our presence has already lowered herd counts, and we need to learn all that we can about sustainability in order to make the decision of whether it's time to open the ark and begin seeding Earth animals onto Una."

Val's head snapped up. He had to be kidding. She had to have heard him wrong. One of the two of them had clearly taken a blow to the head.

"That can't seriously be an option," she said loudly.

"Nothing is decided yet, of course." Zoology put on his best diplomatic face. "But it has always been one option, and a few people have begun to suggest that this might be the time."

The way he said it made Val sure that he was one of the people arguing to open Pandora's box.

"Is there ever a good time for xenocide?" Val didn't believe in mincing words with her superiors. Either they could deal with opposition, or they should give authority to someone who could.

"That's not exactly a fair characterization..."

"You're going to release birds into an ecosystem with no flying predators, and you don't think that will decimate the insect population? Or were you thinking goats to wipe out the vegetation?"

"We would start much smaller..."

"Oh good, yes, let's start with single-celled organisms that can infect the existing flora and fauna. Mass extinction is always a laugh."

"Ms. Garrigio, this is not the time or the place for this discussion. We're working on this project to hopefully prevent the necessity of opening the ark."

"The second we even consider this, it's time for the discussion. The Charter clearly stipulates that our guiding principle will be to care for the world we colonize, including its preexisting flora and fauna."

"That is one of our guiding principles. Another, more fundamental one, is that we all work for the good of the colony first."

"It's not in the best interest of the colony to murder entire populations of living beings."

"That word is overly dramatic. It's not in the best interest of the colony to starve."

"Well," said Zen brightly, springing to her feet, "this meeting got way off track. I don't know about zoology, but the botany group has a lot of work to do. Shall we get back to it?"

Val was staring down zoology. (She suddenly remembered that his name was Bron, which proved that his mother was as stupid as he was.) She wasn't willing to let him off the hook yet.

"Val," Zen said, taking her arm. "We'll take this up with the governor when we need to. It's time to get back to work."

Val liked Zen. She was a good team leader and a thoughtful scientist. A little too much of a politician, but if that motivated her to keep taking all the extra administrative work, that was fine by Val. The stars in the sky knew, Val didn't plan to do it.

She let herself be led away, ignoring Zen's final assurances that they would get the necessary data over to zoology ASAP.

"Thanks for making my job so exciting," Zen said when the door shut behind them. "What would I do without you?"

"I'm not going to apologize," Val said, though the stress lines around Zen's eyes did soften her a little. "They can't be seriously thinking about this, and if they are, we need to be saying a lot harder things than what I just said."

Zen sighed. "You know I agree with you. Of course I do. But calling people murderers isn't going to convince anyone."

"I'm not trying to convince them. I'm trying to call them out, so they'll feel enough shame to do the right thing."

"The right thing isn't always quite that simple."

"It is in this case. The original colonists brought along the ark because they were planning to land on a planet with little to no life already in existence. Instead, we found this." Val gestured at the tough grass beneath their feet, the neatly planted gashi with their thick spines and their glorious blooms, crimson in the autumn air. As if on cue, a pennifin fluttered by, its translucent wings sparkling. "We don't need animals from earth. We likely haven't even discovered all the ones that are on Una."

"Probably, but we haven't discovered any new ones in the last decade. The planet is sparsely populated, and in spite of our best efforts, our presence is lowering the populations of nearly every species we've found."

"Right. Because we introduced an alien species. Which is exactly why we can't introduce any more. You've seen the preliminary outlines of my research, Zen. This entire world is built on different building blocks than ours, and we barely understand it at all. We almost killed ourselves once because we didn't see the twin effect, and we were so relieved to have solved that one little problem that we never looked deeper, never saw how vital those twin pairs are to the survival of every living thing on this planet. And yet they're easily disrupted. They won't survive the introduction of the kind of ferociously fecund life that thrived on Earth."

"I know." Zen stopped outside the door of the botany lab. "And when the time comes, I'll stand up and argue that right along with you. But for now, we need to finish our research and to cooperate with theirs. That's the way to convince people."

"I'll finish the research, no problem. The cooperation is up to you."

"Fine," Zen said. "I'll do all the communicating with zoology. Just promise me you will let me do all the communicating. No more arguments."

Val shrugged. "Done." She wasn't planning to leave her lab for the next week anyway.

If finishing her research had been a minor obsession before, now she'd work on it like the whole world depended on it.

Most likely it did.

# Consequences

## "This colony and all its members, in pursuit of these purposes, shall act in accordance with the following principles...

## 3. All members will place the good of the colony above their own good, knowing that their own survival depends upon this mutual commitment."

##

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 2

##

They didn't even keep it all that secure.

The room was locked, but everyone on the biology teams had access. The ark itself was sealed with a passcode, but it was neither long nor complicated. It was the kind of security you used to keep people from accidentally opening something. Clearly, they didn't think anyone would intentionally try to break in.

They were wrong.

Usually, Val despised people for being naive. Today, she was grateful. She took no pleasure in what she was about to do; it was a necessary evil, and the sooner it was over, the better.

The room had no outside windows, so as soon as the door shut behind her, Val activated the lights, blinking a little at the sudden brightness of the stark white room.

There were three enormous bio-storage units against the far wall. Human genetic material was contained in the largest one. Most people chose natural reproduction, but the danger of genetic stagnation was very real in a small population, so the original colonists had planned carefully when they left Earth. Val herself had never married, and she had always figured she'd be coming here one day to make a withdrawal.

Not that they would allow that after tonight.

The other two units were what interested her today. The one that the colonists had called Eden contained seeds and other genetic samples from nearly all of Earth's species of flora. The other, the Ark, contained the animal embryos and tissue samples. The ability to preserve, transport, reanimate, and breed from these samples was one of the advancements that had finally made deep-space colonization possible.

Val was about to undo 200 years of work.

She stood in front of the giant metal cylinders, hating herself and hating the ones who had made her come here even more.

Their final study on domesticating the native animals had shown that there was no way for reproduction to keep up with current levels of consumption. Some had tried to present this as a crisis for the colony, but of course, it wasn't. It only meant that they needed to reduce consumption of animal products. There was an abundance of plant products which could make up the caloric difference, and Val herself had been part of a team that had created new dietary models which provided all the necessary nutrition for a healthy populace to survive and grow. It was somewhat lacking in variety, but that was likely only a temporary problem. After all, they still had only explored a tiny fragment of their new planet.

You start taking the meat away, though, and people get angry. An old man mentions eating chicken as a child on the original spaceship, and suddenly there's talk of breeding Earth chickens on Una. Talk of chickens leads to talk of fish, of pigs, of cattle even.

They were all crazy.

Una had a fully-formed ecosystem with well-developed species of flora and fauna. It was a miracle to find such a place in the universe, and its relative proximity to Earth made it even more miraculous. Even with their best conservation efforts, the colonists' presence on the planet had already disrupted the delicate balance of their new ecosystem. If they began introducing other alien species, they risked destroying everything that was here.

Humans had already decimated one planet; it was unthinkable to do that again. They had all sworn that they wouldn't. It was in the Charter. It was the reason Val's grandmother had signed it.

Val had argued all of these things at the gathering. Some agreed with her, of course, but a surprising number of fools fought back. Finally, the governor had put an end to debates and set the vote for tomorrow. Lil had the right to override the vote, but she had given no indication of how she was leaning.

Val knew in that moment that she couldn't leave it up to chance. If the animals were gone, so was the threat.

A surge of anger spurred her into action. With her tablet to help run calculations, she only needed two minutes to find the right passcode and open the Ark. Inside, the control panel was equally easy to decipher.

All in all, it took ten minutes to end half-a-million potential lives.

Val stood her ground, staring at the numbers until the thawing cycle was complete. She imagined each and every species she had studied, remembering them from the photos and videos in the archives. Giraffes with their awkward but oddly beautiful bodies. Hawks that soared through the sky and swooped low to catch their prey. The huge grey one-horned monsters they called rhinoceros. When she was ten, she hung a picture of one of those brutes on her wall, only barely believing that it was real. Something twisted in Val's gut, and she forced herself to feel it. Of course the destruction made her sick. She had devoted her career to life, not death.

She told herself that these animals still existed in the universe, some still on Earth, but all also contained like these in frozen DNA samples, someday to be shipped off to barren planets across the galaxy. They would live on elsewhere. And now the pennifins and ipits of Una would also survive.

When she was certain the process couldn't be reversed, Val closed the Ark. She hesitated for a moment before the container marked "Eden," then turned away. No one had expressed any desire to seed Earth plants on Una, and one day they would fill this planet and take flight to colonize another. Better to have as many species of flora as possible for terraforming.

Besides, there was only so much death Val could take in one night.

Instead, she turned off the lights and slipped out of the lab, not bothering to close the door behind her. She would go home, not because she wanted to escape being caught—she'd turn herself in tomorrow—but because she wanted to be surrounded by her plants. They always comforted her.

She had felt brave coming here tonight, the only person with enough courage to make the hard choice. She didn't feel like a savior now, though. She just felt the weariness of having done what needed to be done.

She would go home, find her bed, sleep until the sun came up; and tomorrow, everything would be changed.

# Murder

## "This colony and all its members, in pursuit of these purposes, shall act in accordance with the following principles...

## 5. All members will seek to live in harmony with other members and agree to settle disputes peaceably, without violence or threat of violence."

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 2

##

"They're really something, aren't they?"

The two four-year-olds were focused intently on the village they were building out of their toys, paying no attention to their grandmother, who watched with a smile. Dark heads bent down, skinny legs crouched, quietly working in and around each other. A stack of books for the greenhouse, blocks for living quarters, stuffed toys inside a makeshift fence to form a school. The little boy moved quickly, dropping a tower in the center, a cluster of flowers that disrupted the straight lines of sheds. His sister didn't say a word as she rearranged roads and structures without complaint, building order around his chaos.

"I sometimes wonder where she got her patience from," Cal said in answer.

"Who said she's being patient?" Lil cocked an eyebrow at her son. "You don't have to be forbearing with something if you don't see it as a problem."

Cal refrained from snorting. Who would have thought that the woman who carefully trained him to be ordered and disciplined would have no problem with a grandson who demonstrated none of those qualities? The privilege of being a grandmother, he supposed. She could just enjoy them without the responsibility to raise them.

He didn't begrudge her the chance to relax. She had led the colony as governor for decades, only officially stepping aside five years ago, and she still worked hard as his advisor. If she wanted to be indulgent of the children, it wouldn't hurt them any. They had a father and mother to set them on the right path.

"You're here early," he said. "Did Jul call you?"

"I called her," Lil answered. "I knew she had a lot of work at the clinic. They're still trying to figure out what's causing the rash among the school children. I thought she might want to go in early, let me get Bree off to school and stay home with the twins for a change."

"Thank you," he said.

"It's hardly worth any gratitude. There's no sacrifice when you're getting to do what you love best."

"Well, it's a help to Jul and to me, too. I actually came back to see if she needed anything."

Lil gave her son a look of pride. "That's my boy," she said. "Though of course, you really learned that from your father." A shadow crossed her face before she chased it away with a flick of her hand. "But run along now. I know you have a busy day, and I have things handled here."

As if on cue, the tablet in Cal's hand buzzed loudly. It took a second for him to realize that it was being echoed by the one sitting at Lil's feet. They shared a quick look before scrambling to swipe open the messages.

Code red. SS-10. Murder. Come ASAP.

Cal and Lil dropped their tablets in tandem.

"You go," Lil said. "I'll drop the twins at the nursery and meet you there as soon as I can."

Cal already had two pairs of shoes in hand. He gave them to his mother as he turned to go.

"Cal," she called after him. "Don't run. This is exactly the kind of moment when you should appear calm."

Cal took her advice. He had learned long ago that her advice was always right.

His steps were measured, but his heart raced. Murder? It couldn't be. The colony had been on Una for fifty years, and the only two violent crimes had been domestic abuse, both dealt with swiftly and severely. Interpersonal problems were always rooted out immediately. Everyone knew their survival depended on cooperation. The worse crime they'd dealt with in the last two years was a case of petty theft, and that had been a couple of kids.

The space science work groups had offices in a rectangular building near the northwest gate, with quick access to the observatory they had built in the hills outside the settlement. Cal's uncle Max ruled supreme in that building, technically head astrophysicist but in reality a personal mentor to almost everyone who worked there. They were a reclusive bunch, eyes fixed upward on the sky or downward on their calculations more than side to side at their fellow colonists. Not that they didn't work as hard for the good of the colony as everyone else. They just did it from their own ivory tower.

On the outside, the space science building looked normal. No one rushed in or out. Nothing seemed out of place.

Cal opened the front door onto the small open lobby. Photos of the universe covered the walls, and a few chairs were grouped around work tables, but otherwise, the space was empty. A few of the larger offices were right off this room, but Cal knew the hallway straight ahead would lead him to SS-10. Memorizing the layout of all the colony's buildings was easy when you made regular rounds. The governors of Mayland were known for being present among the people.

The hallway was quiet, most of the doors were shut to keep out distractions, or perhaps their occupants had been on duty at the observatory last night and were now at home sleeping. Only the door to SS-06 was open, and the man inside had huge headphones over his ears and his eyes shut as he drew something on his tablet. Cal was grateful that he seemed to be unaware of the crisis. It was important to get the facts straight before rumors and panic spread.

The door to SS-10 was half-shut, probably to keep away casual observers, and Cal pushed it open without hesitating. It was a sizable office but crowded with three workspaces. His uncle Max stood in the center of the room, watching as a doctor leaned over a body that had been stretched out on one of the desks. From the look of things, the contents of the desk had been hastily dumped on the floor to make room.

"What happened?"

Max's salt and pepper hair stood up even more than usual, but he answered calmly. "She collapsed over her morning coffee. I happened to come in to ask a question, so I called the clinic immediately. By the time Dr. Nokes arrived, she had stopped breathing."

Cal stepped closer to the desk and took in the bloodless face of the woman lying there. He recognized her, and his memory supplied the rest from her file. Wyn Lee. Age 42. Astronomer. Widow. One child, now her apprentice.

"I've got her stabilized for now, but it was a close call," the doctor said.

Cal's breath caught. "She's not dead?" He turned to his uncle. "Your message said..."

"Murder," the old man growled. "Thank God we can change that to attempted murder."

"How...?"

"He's already admitted to poisoning her coffee," Max said, jerking his head toward the corner behind Cal. A man sat quietly on a chair wedged between a desk and the wall.

Ah. Of course. Wyn Lee had a twin brother, Ny, also an astronomer. The two had been working together their whole lives.

"Why?"

"He's not talking, but I've got an idea. We can go over it all once we get out of here. Doc wants to take the girl back to the hospital, but I made her wait for you. This needs someone to be smart about it. I don't want my whole group disrupted."

Cal had the unaccountable urge to laugh, but he stifled it quickly. "Your group? Uncle, this is going to disrupt the whole colony."

"Well, it's your job to take care of that, isn't it?"

It was, and Cal believed in doing his job.

"Wyn needs the hospital. Getting her back to health is our first priority. Doctor, do we have medics available to transport her?"

"I've already called them. They should be here any minute."

"Great. When they come, we will tell them, and anyone who asks, the truth, that she collapsed over her coffee and that you were able to revive her, but nothing else. I'll see to it that we get you samples of the coffee so that you know what toxins you're working with. I'll inform the lab tech who works with it that it was intentionally introduced poison. We don't want to compromise the lab's ability to be useful to her recovery. But leave that conversation to me, please. Everyone else only needs to know the necessary facts to care for the patient."

Dr. Nokes nodded. She was a very practical woman. Cal would have preferred that Jul had answered this call, but Mol Nokes was a good second.

"We'll need to take the coffee, including the cups, into evidence. Uncle, do you have anything here we can use to transport them safely without damaging the evidence?"

"I've some sample boxes borrowed from earth sciences. I'll get you one of those."

"Thank you. We'll also need to seal off this room until we have a chance to investigate further. It's a crime scene now." The words sounded ridiculous to Cal, but his uncle and the doctor nodded as if it was all very sensible.

"I can lock up when we go. Only these two and their apprentice have key cards."

"The apprentice is her daughter, right? Where is she? She'll need to be informed."

"She'll be at home sleeping. Spent the night at the observatory."

"Is there anyone you trust to go wake her and take her to the hospital? She should see her mother, but not be told the details until you and I can do so in person."

"I'll send Jo," Max said. "They're friends."

"We'll interview Ny in my office. There is a room next to it that can be used for detention." It had only been used once before, and right now it was full of musical instruments that one of their master musicians had been inventing from local resources. Cal had been studying them in his free time. "Will he go quietly?"

"I think so," Max answered.

"I can sedate him if you're worried," the doctor suggested.

"I'd rather not," Cal answered.

"That won't be necessary," Max was growling again. "He's not a stupid boy. He gave up the truth as soon as he saw that I was not going to believe it was an accident, and he knows there's nowhere to run."

Cal nodded and turned for the first time to the suspect in question. "I'm not going to restrain you. You're just going to walk between me and Max all the way to my office, and then you are going to sit in the chair I give you there. Are we clear?"

Ny nodded, his dark eyes blank.

Two medics rushed into the room. The doctor immediately began to instruct them on moving Wyn. Mercifully, they asked no further questions.

"Uncle, we'll go as soon as we get that sample box."

Max ducked out of the room. Cal could hear him saying something in the hallway, and then Lil entered.

"Max says you have everything under control."

"She's alive."

"Thank the stars."

"Talk more at the office?" she said with a significant look at the medics.

"Yes. Max will bring a sample box that we can use to take the most important evidence with us. Can you handle that?"

Lil nodded and followed him to the third desk which held two identical cups of synthetic coffee, each swirled with a white substance that was undoubtedly a milk substitute. The perfect symmetry was eery. Both cups nearly full. Both with a small smudge on one side showing where someone had taken a drink. A sort of horror came over Cal as he pictured brother and sister sitting down and drinking their twin coffees, while one waited for the other to die.

The medics were already leaving with Wyn carried on a stretcher between them. Dr. Nokes gave Cal a curt nod as she followed them out.

"I'm not sure I'm ready for this," he said in a low voice only his mother could hear.

"No one's ever ready for this," she answered. "The universe never asks for permission."

She was right. Luckily it didn't matter what the universe wanted. It had been throwing curve balls at humankind since the beginning, and humankind just kept swinging until it figured out how to hit a home run. Or at least a good single. This would be no different.

Cal turned toward the would-be murderer and began to plan.

# Motive

#

## "The purposes of the Maymar Colony are to...

## 5. Use Theta Prime [sic] as a base of operations for studying systems in that part of the galaxy with the goal of eventual further colonization."

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 1

Before I talk to him, why don't you tell me what you know?" Cal handed his uncle a cup of tea, surprised by his own calm.

Some of that was due to the message he had just received, of course. Wyn had arrived at the med center and was still breathing. The lab had already identified the poison in her blood. The antidote would be administered within the hour. Unless there were complications, she would survive.

Of course, long-term damage was still possible.

And there was a would-be murderer in the storeroom next door.

"You'll know their history from their files," Max rasped. He took a swallow of tea and sighed. When he went on, his voice was clearer. "They're twins. Both geniuses in the field. They've always worked together by their own choice. Seemed more comfortable that way. They're quiet, Wyn even more than Ny. She can get worked up over a new discovery, but otherwise, she just watches and listens and lets her work speak for itself. Ny likes to explain things, a habit that annoys the hell out of most other scientists, but when it comes to personal matters, neither of them has much to say.

"If Jorg hadn't come along, I'd guess the two of them would have lived in their childhood home forever. Still, Ny seemed happy for his sister when she married. He and Jorg used to play bocce every Friday night. When Jorg died, and Wyn was left alone with little Xi, Ny moved in and helped out. That was 13 years ago. Their parents passed last year, within a week of each other. It was a tough time, but I didn't notice any trouble between the two of them."

"You said you had an idea of what might have caused this."

Max took another long drink of tea. "I'm getting there. Data only makes sense in context, boy."

Cal thought of reminding his uncle that he was the colony's governor, not an apprentice astrophysicist, but he knew the petulant urge would only contradict his point.

"About five weeks ago, Wyn came to me with something new. The two of them have focused their studies on Dua for most of their careers. I've encouraged it. Our job is to make sure we know enough to colonize off-world when the time comes, and Dua is the most likely first candidate. Makes sense for my best astronomers to study it. The delicate relationship between Una and Dua is another reason. The fact that these two came to orbit each other so closely without crashing is so statistically unlikely I'd call it a miracle if I believed in such things. If anything shifted, even a little, it would be the end of us all. I liked knowing brilliant minds were keeping an eye on that."

"So she came to you with something new?" There was no questioning the sharpness of Uncle Max's mind, but his sense of urgency had apparently disappeared with his waistline.

"They'd been tracking weather patterns on Dua, and she had an interesting theory about its occasional windstorms. The atmosphere of Dua is thick, which keeps the sun's heat trapped and the surface warmer than ours here on Una. The ocean is small, and there's no other surface water we can detect. That means some clouds, but likely not much rain. Mostly just near the edges of that ocean."

"I've read the reports. That's part of the reason we settled here instead of there."

"Part of it, yes. What Ny and Wyn had discovered is that from time to time, wild windstorms sweep across the continent. Wyn had a theory about those storms. I won't get into all the details–because yes, I can see you're impatient—but before you go in the next room, you should read the entire report."

"Are the details relevant to this case?"

"I'm pretty sure you'll find that Ny thinks they are."

Cal made a note.

"I told Wyn to put together a team, pulling in meteorologists and geologists and whoever else she might need to develop her theory. Then I sent off a message to Ny letting him know she'd have a special focus for a while, and he should continue their other Dua studies with Xi to help him. An hour later, he burst into my office, red in the face."

"He didn't like that plan."

"More. He claimed that Wyn's theories were actually his. Not just the theories. Every word in her report. He said it was outright plagiarism, that he'd been obsessed with this new project for a while, and that she only got on board later, and now she was stealing all the credit and the project along with it.

"I'll admit the whole thing surprised me. They had collaborated on dozens of reports in the past and also submitted reports individually, and nothing like this had ever come up. I looked into it. Scientists are territorial about their work, so we have a procedure in place for things like this, always bring in another Head to confirm our findings. I got Orn for this one. You can verify all of this with him.

"We asked Ny for proof that the report was originally his, but he had none to offer. Still, he kept insisting, and he seemed genuinely distraught. We went through every file on every device from their team. If he had come up with those theories before, there was no record that he'd written them down. Meantime, Wyn seemed baffled. She freely admitted that the project was his in the beginning and that she had only come to share his obsession later, but she said the theory came to her without ever talking to him, and that she wrote the report entirely on her own. Xi confirmed the writing part, as she had seen her mother at work.

"I didn't find it hard to believe that Ny really had come up with the same theory, or even that he had thought of it in similar words since the two of them were so tight. It seemed like a pretty simple case of two people having the same idea at roughly the same time. It happens more often than most people know."

"So how did you resolve it?"

"Wyn offered to share the project with Ny, but I was worried about them neglecting all the other work to focus on this one obsession. I was also worried about Ny. His distress over not being believed was completely out of proportion. He seemed like someone who had pushed himself too far. I told him to take a week off and rest. Then he could come back and be a part of Wyn's team, but he was to take a minor role that would still allow him to supervise Xi and the other projects. He was furious, but he took the week. When he came back, he seemed calm again. Now of course, I wonder if that just meant that he had a plan."

"You really think that this one event was enough to make him want to kill his twin sister? His roommate and workmate of 42 years?"

Max shrugged. "Maybe it was just the tipping point. Maybe things had been bad for a while. No one knew their private life well enough to know, except maybe Xi."

"I'll be talking to her next."

"Go easy. She's a sensitive girl, and this is already been a terrible day."

Cal just looked at his uncle until the old man waved an impatient hand.

"Okay, I know. You've been doing this job for a while, and you're damn good at it. But Jo treats that girl like a sister, and that means she's another granddaughter to me, so I'm not apologizing."

"I'm not going to interrogate her. Just learn about her life."

"Well, that's fine then. But don't be surprised if you don't learn much that helps. If I had to guess, I'd say no one knows what's inside that man's head."

"He does."

"Maybe. Ask your wife about the brain, though. It's pretty good at deceiving itself."

"His motives are only one factor in deciding what's to be done. We'll be calling a gathering tonight to announce the trial once I'm sure I have enough information to be accurate. Our three judges are nearly at the end of their term, and we're going to deal with this while they're still holding the office. They're a level-headed group, and if I have to entrust a turning point in our colony's history to anyone, I'd like it to be them."

"Jer's a friend from my nursery days. Smart man. He'll help steer them right."

"Sanj was Jul's mentor. She's capable and she knows how to stay calm. Kyr is young, but he's the best long-term thinker I've seen in a while. They'll get us through this."

"Better you than me, boy. I think I screwed things up badly enough already."

"Sounds to me like you did the best you could. Doubt I could have done better."

Max laughed, and the sudden burst of sound made Cal realize that his head was throbbing. "Sure you could have. You're about to prove it."

Cal hoped his uncle was right.

# Justice

## "6. All members will submit to the judgment of duly chosen arbiters as laid out in this document"

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 2

##

"Any last words of advice?" Cal tried to keep his voice light, but his mother saw through him.

"You don't need advice," she said. "No one can handle this better than you."

"You handled it pretty well when it happened to you."

"No," Lil shook her head. "It wasn't the same. Val made a lot of people angry, and angry people are a headache, but what Ny did will leave people afraid. Fear can change people in ways anger never could."

"You're not exactly reassuring me here."

"You don't need reassurance any more than you need advice."

That was true. Cal knew what needed done, and he was ready to do it. The system was already in place for this, and he trusted it to see them through. He had planned exactly how to explain things, and there were contingency plans in place for unexpected problems.

There were also five more minutes to get through before the meeting started, and he needed his mother to fill the silence.

"I had a good talk with Jen today." She knew him so well. "We were reminiscing about Val's sentencing and how angry everyone was. She made an interesting point, I thought. Before Val burned the Ark, we followed the Charter and voted in our judges, but no one ever gave it much thought. There was so much work to do. Everyone was focused on survival. The idea of crime seemed as far away as Earth. After a while, people started voting in the most useless person they knew, so that the useful people wouldn't have the extra burden of a judge's work. Then when it came time to deal with Val, they were all yelling about how the judges weren't competent and two of them were way too young, and...you've heard it all. Jen's point was that after that, people took judge selection a lot more seriously. That's put us in a good position today."

"So you're saying I should be thankful for Val?"

"Yes. And honestly, though she made my life hell at the time, this isn't the first time I've had that thought."

The door opened, and a young man poked his head through. "We're ready to take him in."

Right on time. "Thank you, Carl. Kim." He nodded as another man followed Carl into the room. The three of them crossed to the opposite door, which Cal unlocked.

The storeroom had been cleared of the pile of musical instruments that was its last occupant. A small cot was against the far wall, and a table with two chairs sat in the center of the room. Ny was in one of them, his back to the door.

"Come with us, please," Kim said. There was a hard edge to his voice that Cal had never heard before.

Ny stood, and the two temporary guards flanked him as they followed Cal out of the room.

The Gathering Hall was in the same building as the governor's office, but Cal chose to take them outside and around to the main entrance. This was partially so that Ny could breathe fresh air and have a few minutes to stretch his legs and partially for Cal himself–he didn't like to enter through a different door than the rest of the colony. It sent the wrong message. A small thing, maybe, but success and failure hinged on the small things.

As planned, they were the last to arrive. Since the entire colony was in attendance, entering from the outside meant walking past hundreds of eyes as they made their way to the front. Cal felt his usual nerves increased by the weight of the situation. He couldn't imagine what Ny was feeling, but he hoped those eyes meant something to the man. His actions had impacted every one of these people. He should feel the burden of that.

At the front, Lil took a seat in the front row next to her brother and Wyn's daughter. The three current judges sat in seats facing the assembled colonists. Cal waited until the guards had escorted Ny to a fourth seat, set a little apart, before turning to address his people.

"Thank you all for coming, and special thanks to the apprentices assigned to stay with the children and those unable to leave the med center. This is being recorded so that everyone can hear for themselves all that is said today. Though it is always wonderful to see the entire colony together, the reason for today's gathering is not a pleasant one. For the first time in our history, a member of our colony has harmed another with the intent to kill."

Most of the people in the room had come with only a vague idea of what the gathering was about. Cal watched as their faces registered a range of emotions.

"I know that this comes as a shock to many. I know that you all share my sadness and anger. We all depend on each other for our very survival. Putting the colony's well-being over our own is one of the highest values of our society. The violation of that value cannot be taken lightly. The very possibility of such an act also naturally breeds fear. We will not give in to that emotion. I have full confidence that you all care deeply about this community and about each other. This is an isolated event, and together we will respond with truth and justice."

Cal paused for just a moment. The room was deathly silent, all eyes fixed on his face. He was relieved to see determination there.

"The facts of the incident have been carefully investigated and are not in dispute. I will explain our findings as clearly as I am able. Those who are involved in the case will be called upon to give their own witness. Nothing will be kept back or hidden. You all will know the verified facts, and we ask, as always, that you keep your discussion of this incident to those facts. Further speculation is not useful."

Briefly, Cal told the story of Wyn's attack. He saw confusion over the work dispute, shock and sorrow at the personal nature of the attack, relief as the gathering realized that Wyn was alive and stable, anger at the news that permanent damage had been done to her voice box and possibly to her cognitive function as well.

When he finished, he called on Max to give more detail about the nature of the motive. Dr. Nokes explained the medical evidence and confirmed Wyn's current status. Harm Griffin, the chief psychologist, gave an account of his conversations with Ny, attempting as much as possible to use Ny's own words to explain what he had done. Finally, Cal asked Ny directly about the attack. In a barely audible voice, the man confirmed everything.

In the front row, Xi cried softly. The rest of the room was still.

"In accordance with the Charter, our three judges will pass the final judgment and will determine the sentence to be given. We are aware that this case is the first of its kind and that all of you have a stake in true justice being accomplished. The Charter is clear that everyone should be given an opportunity for input into the process. We will not do that tonight. Now that the facts have been presented, the judges will determine guilt. If anyone in the room objects to their determination, you will have an opportunity to voice that objection. Other thoughts should be saved for later. We all will require time to process the facts, to deal with our emotions, and to consider as objectively as possible the best course of action. The sentencing will take place one week from today."

There was a stir in the room as people took in this new information. Cal waited for it to die down before continuing.

"Judges are excused from their usual duties until the sentencing, so that they can devote their energies to thought, discussion, and to listening to our colony. I have assigned a special admin to process any messages you may wish to pass along to them, and we will hold a voluntary gathering in three days for anyone who wishes to share their thoughts in person. That gathering will be recorded for those who cannot attend. Let me be clear: the judges will make the final decision in this case. Their decision will not be disputed after it is made. I will see to it that the sentencing is executed exactly as they instruct."

Cal looked around at his people, willing them to be their best selves.

"I ask you all to remember that you elected these judges because you respect and trust them. In this critical moment, continue to treat them with respect and trust."

Several people were nodding. Cal wished it were more.

"This was an evil act, and though we will do everything in our power to counter that evil, there is no action we can take that will erase it. We ask our judges to give us justice. We do not ask them to do the impossible."

He waited while that sank in, letting the silence stretch out as long as it needed to. Then he turned to the judges and asked them for their ruling.

All three spoke together.

"Guilty."

No one in the room had any objection.

# Sentence

## This colony and all its members, in pursuit of these purposes, shall act in accordance with the following principles...

## 1. Each and every human is equal in dignity and worth and possesses the right to life, to freedom of person, and to the pursuit of self-improvement.

## —Charter of the Maymar Colony, Chapter 1, Article 2

Cal had thought he was delivering good news, but Wyn's face told a different story. He forced himself not to look away from her pain, as his mother had taught him, but all his reassuring words stuck in his throat.

Max spoke up. "It was the right call. Fair. Measured. Just."

Not everyone agreed. The judges' sentence didn't go far enough for some. They clamored for imprisonment, for suffering. What they wanted was punishment, a natural desire. But punishment wouldn't help the colony, wouldn't heal the hurts done, wouldn't prevent future problems. Punishment was waste. The Charter didn't allow for waste.

Ny Lee's sentence was consistent with his crime. He had valued his work and receiving credit for it above his sister's life and above the good of the colony. As a result, the judges had ordered that he never work in his chosen field again. Since this deprived the colony of his skills, he would take over the job of an apprentice miner. He would serve the colony for the rest of his life by operating mine machinery, closely supervised by one of the judges in his case, while the apprentice he replaced was trained in astronomy.

It was a similar sentence to the one Val had received for destroying the Ark, but though she had lost her job, she had been allowed to train her own replacement. It wasn't much of a concession; no one had taken her work seriously after her act of vandalism. Still, she had succeeded in leaving behind a young botanist almost as surly and arrogant as she was.

Ny Lee would not be put in a position to influence anyone. Most likely, other than the psychologist assigned to meet with him weekly, he would hardly interact with anyone at all.

Wyn gestured with one hand. The doctors thought her damaged vocal chords would heal eventually, but for now, she had no voice. Max handed her a tablet, and she quickly typed, "Where live?"

"There's a single unit that's being refitted to have the necessary surveillance. The judges have given his psychologist the power to lift the surveillance in time, to allow him more privacy if he shows improvement, but for now, he will be closely monitored."

Wyn shuddered.

Max put a hand on her shoulder and fixed her with his piercing gaze.

She shook her head in answer to the question he didn't ask. After a minute, she typed again. "Work. Family. Privacy. They took everything."

"He tried to take everything from you," Max growled.

Wyn shook her head again. Cal had never seen anyone look so confused and miserable.

"I know this is all so much to take in. You have as much time as you need to process it. If you have more questions or if there is anything you want, please just ask. At any time."

She had closed her eyes, but now she opened them and typed a few more words. "Can I see him?"

Without thinking, Cal looked over at his uncle before he answered. "As governor, I won't stop you. There is no official reason that you can't visit." He fixed his gaze on Wyn again. "But as someone who cares about you, I would ask that you at least wait a while. I know Harm Griffin is meeting with you himself. Talk to him. And listen. He'll help you decide if this would be a good decision for you or just cause more pain."

"Best to cut it off clean and get it over with," Max said.

Cal flinched at the pain that shot across Wyn's face. He didn't often let emotion influence his decisions, but there was no question in his mind that right now, their presence was hurting this woman more than it was helping.

"Uncle, it's time to go."

Max only listened to the governor when he wanted to, so Cal was grateful that today, he stood without arguing.

As he closed the door, Cal got a last glimpse of Wyn's face. It haunted him all afternoon.

When his work was finished, he took a walk around the colony, giving himself time to breathe before heading home to dinner. It wasn't an accident that Ny's sentence had been announced on a day when families dined alone at home. They only ate that way twice a week. The other five days, the colony would gather to eat in the huge common dining hall. In addition to being logistically easier, eating together created a sense of community that was vital in their isolated position.

On days like this, though, the larger group was a liability. Ny's crime and the consequences for it were a milestone in their history. People needed time to process, and the quiet environment of dinner in smaller family units would provide that.

By the time Cal arrived at home, the food had been delivered from the kitchens, and Bree was setting it out on the table. He gave his oldest daughter a hug and kissed the top of her dark hair. She smiled up at him, a miniature version of her mother.

"They told us the news at school today."

Cal nodded, waiting. She knew what he would want to know.

"I don't think most of the kids really understand. They didn't seem upset or excited or anything really. Just like it was something that happened."

"What about you?"

Bree pursed her lips as she thought. Another inheritance from her mother. "It was fair. Right for the colony, which is what matters. But..."

Cal raised his eyebrows, inviting her to continue.

"I wonder what his sister feels."

And there was her mother's true gift. Compassion, empathy, and the ability to cut straight to the heart of the matter. Bree was going to make a great doctor.

"You saw her?"

Cal nodded. "She is...in pain."

A shadow fell over Bree's face. "At first I wondered if she would want him to be punished more for hurting her. But then I thought, he's her brother. She's going to worry about him."

Before Cal could answer, the front door burst open, and Tom and Cara tumbled, laughing, into the room. Jul was just behind. "Slow down, space monsters, before someone gets hurt. Go scrub your hands for dinner."

The twins giggled again and headed for the chem sink.

Jul shook her head. "They are in rare form tonight."

"Something at the nursery?"

"I don't know yet. They barely said a word, just giggled all the way home." She sighed. "At least someone is happy tonight."

Cal wrapped his arms around his wife. "Maybe we should learn from them and just enjoy our dinner and a few hours together."

"Can you do that?" she asked into his shoulder.

She knew him too well.

"Good leaders know how to rest," he quoted his mother.

Jul looked up at him with exaggerated disbelief. Cal laughed for the first time in days.

"I can at least pretend," he said.

"Me, too," she said, resting her head on his chest again.

"Me, too," said Bree.

Cal smiled into his wife's hair.

"Me free!" said Cara from the bathroom door.

"Me free, too!" said Tom.

They were still laughing when they sat down to dinner.

#  Charter of the Maymar Colony

### Preamble

We the members of the Maymar Foundation believe:

  * That humanity is capable of greatness beyond what it has shown.

  * That human dignity and freedom are of equal importance with advancement and discovery.

  * That it is in the best interest of humanity to think not only of itself but of the well-being of the world which sustains its life.

  * That too much of humanity's resources have been spent attempting to correct the errors of the past and not enough ensuring a better future.

  * That careful planning can provide the balanced growth which is the ultimate key to the survival of the human species.

Therefore, we have determined:

  * To leave Earth and its current colonies behind with no violence or ill-will.

  * To begin the settlement of a planet beyond our solar system.

  * To end contact with what we have left and move into the future without outside influence.

  * To form and follow a plan of growth which will aim to secure the future of humanity.

  * To dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of the highest quality of human life.

To that end, using the resources of the Maymar Foundation, we the undersigned agree to form the organization that shall be known as the Maymar Colony.

### Chapter 1: Purposes and Principles

### Article 1

The purposes of the Maymar Colony are to:

  1. Form a community of committed individuals which represent all the skills and experiences needed for survival and growth on a previously uninhabited planet.

  2. Establish a colony on the planet of Theta Prime in the Theta solar system.

  3. Ensure a high quality of life for all colonists and for the future generations of the inhabitants of Theta Prime.

  4. Create and promote a plan for long-term survival and growth of both individuals and community.

  5. Use Theta Prime as a base of operations for studying systems in that part of the galaxy with the goal of eventual further colonization.

### Article 2

This colony and all its members, in pursuit of these purposes, shall act in accordance with the following principles:

  1. Each and every human is equal in dignity and worth and possesses the right to life, to freedom of person, and to the pursuit of self-improvement.

  2. Each and every human being has the right to self-determination with regard to personal relationships, including but not limited to romantic alliances, legal family formation, and reproduction.

  3. All members will place the good of the colony above their own good, knowing that their own survival depends upon this mutual commitment.

  4. All members will carry out their assigned work to the best of their abilities and in keeping with established standards laid out in this document.

  5. All members will seek to live in harmony with other members and agree to settle disputes peaceably, without violence or threat of violence.

  6. All members will submit to the judgment of duly chosen arbiters as laid out in this document.

  7. All members will participate in open and measured communication on all topics relevant to the community at large.

  8. All members will do what is in their power to protect and wisely use the resources of their new home planet, including its preexisting flora and fauna.

#  TO CONTINUE THE STORY OF CARA AND TOM

# AND THE MAYLAND FAMILY

# CHECK OUT

# TWIN

# A TWIN PLANETS NOVEL

# COMING OCTOBER 16, 2018

#

#  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK

# TWIN

# Chapter 1

# Home

Tom was home.

He hadn't sent them a message, and the perimeter chimes hadn't sounded yet, but Cara knew he was at the east gate.

She always knew.

When you've shared every minute of your existence with someone, there are some things you don't have to question.

He must have pushed his group hard to get back in time. She would have to find the heart to reprimand him. She had told him not to hurry. He was the leader of an exploration team, and they were looking for the site for their second settlement. Compared to something that historic, their twentieth birthday wasn't important.

Being Tom, though, he knew she didn't mean it. Celebrating her birthday without him would be like playing football without any ball. She could go through the motions, but there wouldn't be much point.

She made a note to share that metaphor with him. Tom would find the idea of pantomime football hilarious. Of course, he'd also probably take the opportunity to tell her they were twin-tastic and follow it up with the song he invented, called "Double the Trouble." He liked to wait until she was focused on something important and then sing it over and over to drive her crazy. He had a terrible singing voice.

A bubble of happiness filled her. Stars, she had missed him so much she actually wanted to hear that ridiculous song.

Cara repressed the grin that wanted to escape. Kim, the chief agricultural engineer, was explaining the difficulties he was having with the new strain of maka grain. It was important to show that she valued his work and the time he took away from it to communicate with the governor's office. Interrupting him, or even looking distracted, would have implied that she had more important things to do. Never mind that this grain problem would be solved by his experts with no need of her help. Never mind that she hadn't seen her brother in two months.

A leader's life is not her own, her father's voice lectured in her head.

Cara ignored the tingling in the back of her mind that told her Tom was anxious to see her. Why wasn't there a perimeter alert yet? Were the chimes broken? She tried to focus on Kim's words.

"...be trying a new modification starting next week. The chemists think..."

A soft ding, repeated several times, interrupted the chief's words. Kim smiled. "That'll be the explorers, won't it?" The twinkle in his eye made Cara think of her grandmother. She and Kim had been good friends. "You'd better get over there and greet them. Apprentice governor's duty."

Kim had always been one of Cara's favorite people.

He gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Tell him happy birthday for me."

Cara felt like running, but she didn't want anyone to think there was an emergency.

Leaders must never seem anxious, her father's voice cautioned, or they will breed anxiety in those who follow them.

She held herself to a brisk walk, trying to focus on her usual delight in the order around her. She loved the strategic arrangement of the buildings and the tidy gardens surrounding each one. Mayland Settlement, the first human home on the planet Una, was the model for future settlements. Everything was laid out for maximum efficiency and aesthetic appeal.

Today, though, each well-designed feature felt like an obstacle. Why were the greenhouses so ridiculously far from the gates? And was it really necessary to plant that many trees?

Cara kept on her friendliest smile, greeting the people she passed by name. If she didn't pause to chat, no one seemed offended. Probably, they all knew where she was headed. Her father had been the governor of Mayland since he took over from his mother. Her family had no private business. It was a burden sometimes, but it had its advantages, too.

With every step, Cara's excitement rose. She couldn't wait to hear how far Tom and his team had gotten. She couldn't wait to see if he had grown the beard he had been threatening. She couldn't wait to find out what the team's big new discovery was.

Cara's step faltered. How did she know they had made a big discovery?

With a swoop in her stomach, Cara realized that not all of the excitement she was feeling was her own.

She shivered. It had been a long time since she had felt Tom's emotions strongly enough to confuse them for her own. She had hoped that she had stopped that for good.

It was one thing to have a vague sense of his location; science had documented that phenomenon for centuries. It was something totally different to have him take over her head.

When she came around the corner of the archive pavilion, her discomfort fled. The team of explorers clustered around her father, all talking at once. Cara barely had time to take in Lin's striking red hair in the center of the group before a tall, lanky figure broke away and ran toward her, grinning.

"Six! What took you so long? Too busy filling out checklists to come see your long-lost twin?"

Cara laughed as he crashed into her and wrapped her in a suffocating hug. "You were gone?" she said into his shoulder. "I didn't notice."

That brought on a flurry of tickles which made her shriek and push away. "Tom! Stop it!"

She saw her father glance over, felt his disapproval. She stepped back and fended Tom off with both hands. "Stop! I mean it. People are staring."

"The only people here are the ones who have been missing their families just as much as I have. They won't judge." He stopped, though, giving her long black ponytail a tug before stepping back. He looked good, healthy and tan, his dark hair overgrown and disheveled, a few days of scruff on his face instead of a full beard. "Happy birthday."

"Happy birthday to you. I can't believe you made it back."

"Are you kidding me? You knew I wouldn't miss it. But where were you? I thought you'd be waiting for us."

"Kim was giving me the grain report."

Tom nodded. "Yes, I can see why that would be more important than your brother. It's not like grain reports happen every day."

"They don't," she said with a sniff. "They only happen once a week." She kept her smile hidden under a prim face.

"Honestly, I don't know how you stand the excitement, Six."

Cara grinned. Her father didn't approve of nicknames, so naturally, she didn't have one. Only Tom called her Six, a reference to the number of minutes that had passed between her birth and his.

The Charter required the first two children in each family to be apprenticed to their parents. By the time Tom and Cara were born, their sister Bree was seven and had already shown an aptitude for her mother's job as a doctor. That meant the next-born Mayland would be apprenticed to their father, while any other children would be trained as explorers and colonists to found future settlements.

"Those six minutes are very important to me," Tom always said. "Those six minutes are the difference between a life of paperwork and the freedom of life outside the fence."

Of course, he only said things like that when their father wasn't around.

"Are you available now? Or are there more urgent reports you need to file?"

"A leader always knows when to interrupt her routine for matters of pressing concern," she quoted sternly.

"Good," he grinned. "Because I have something amazing to show you."

"A birthday present?"

"Better than that."

He took her hand and dragged her over to the group, which parted to allow them in to where their father stood with the red-haired Lin, studying the clear bottle she held up.

"What is it?" Cara asked.

"Something of importance, according to Lin," her father answered, "but I have yet to receive a full report from the team leader." He looked up at his son, and the warmth in his eyes softened his dry tone. "Perhaps now you are ready to bring us up to speed, Tom?"

"I thought it was important that your apprentice be here to receive the report at the same time," Tom answered glibly. "Efficiency is a virtue."

"Naturally," his father said. "But as she has arrived, please proceed."

Tom planted his feet and straightened his back formally.

"Per our mission parameters, the team travelled northwest after leaving Mayland, following the Vita River. As our early scans had shown, the river passed through one small fresh-water lake with no suitable ground nearby for the establishment of a new colony. To the south, we could see a forest in the distance, but we stayed with the river as instructed. After two weeks, we came to a place where the Vita split into two courses. One stayed in open grassland and the other headed directly into the forested area. We took a week to explore the first, then returned and followed the other branch into the forest. Lin has the logs which contain all of the geographical data.

"The day after we entered the forest, we sighted a herd of yesela grazing along the river. Since we had exhausted our stores of fresh food and were down to camp packs, I authorized our two best hunters to take down a pair of yesela for us to eat. Pel got hers with a clean shot through the head. Rik was not so accurate. He clipped his yesela in the hindquarters, and it ran off through the trees."

"Please stick to pertinent data, Son. We'll have time for hunting tales over dinner."

Tom raised a brow at his father. "This is pertinent data, as it leads to the most important part. The rest of the herd was, of course, frightened off by the shots. They ran straight into the river and away on the other side, but the injured yesela stumbled into the forest. We chased it. One yesela wouldn't feed us all, and we didn't want to lose our dinner. Even wounded, those things are fast. The yesela followed a well-trampled path through the trees and up over a steep hill. When we got to the top, the trees had thinned out, and we saw the yesela plunging into a flat lake at the bottom of the incline.

"If I hadn't seen what happened next with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. The yesela was limping badly, blood running down its back leg, but the minute it submerged itself in the water, it began to walk normally again. After a few moments, it came out of the lake, completely healed, and darted off before we could get over the shock of what we had seen."

Cara watched her father's face. He showed no sign of surprise or wonder. His eyes studied his son thoughtfully. "Who witnessed this healing?"

"There were four of us who made it to the top of the hill in time to see it happen. Myself and Rik, Lin and Grish. Several others arrived just after and saw the yesela running away. We were all amazed at what we had seen."

"I'm confident that your amazement didn't hinder you from taking appropriate precautions however," his father said.

"Of course not," Tom answered. "Lin took charge of collecting a sample of the water for scientific study, and we were careful not to touch it. No further tests were conducted in the field, but we did survey the land surrounding the lake, and the results were extremely favorable. A well-watered plain surrounded by forest, reasonable proximity to the river. Our full evaluation will be in my report." Tom dropped his formal commander stance and grinned. "Basically, it's perfect. I think we've found our new settlement."

"As long as this water doesn't turn out to be dangerous," Lin said, holding up the bottle. Cara noticed she was wearing gloves even though the bottle was firmly capped. Lin may have been an explorer, but she wasn't the kind who took unnecessary risks.

"It's not dangerous," said Rik. He was older than Cara, but he still had the gangly arms and legs of a teenager and the idealism that went with them. "It's healing water! We're going to live by a lake of healing water!"

The governor quelled him with a look. "You will have time to make your own report later this evening, and your report will include only the facts of what you observed. The safety of the sample and its effects will be determined by our scientists, and the eventual location of our second settlement will be decided by our leaders. Is that clear?"

Rik turned bright red as he bobbed his head.

"Excellent. No doubt you would all like to see your families and clean up from your journey. I would ask that you keep the details of your trip confidential until we've compiled enough data to ensure accuracy. I understand your excitement about what you've experienced, but we don't need wild rumors about healing water. That will only breed confusion. Once we have solid facts to share, the whole colony will hear them. For now, keep your stories to the more mundane aspects of the mission. I'll expect written reports from everyone in my office by tomorrow morning, and we'll start the interviews at noon. In the meantime, enjoy your well-earned rest. You appear to have done exemplary work on this expedition. The whole colony is proud of you."

Someone let out a whoop, which made the others laugh as the knot of explorers broke up, each in a hurry to get home. Cara noticed that Tom grabbed Lin's hand and squeezed it briefly before she slipped away. The smile Lin gave him made Cara feel giddy until she furiously pushed her brother's emotion away. What was wrong with her? She must have gotten lazy while Tom was gone, forgotten how to maintain control.

"...which is why it would be better if you accompanied him," her father said.

Cara refocused. Her father couldn't know what she had been thinking. He was just telling her to escort Tom to the medical center to hand over the sample and give the report. The staff there would want to get to work studying the water right away.

"After that, you may have your rest, as well, Tom. Cara, meet me in the office. We will need to finish as many of the weekly reports as possible in order to be free to handle interviews with the exploration team tomorrow."

"Of course," Cara said, quashing her disappointment not to have the afternoon with Tom. Her father was right. The arrival of the explorers, not to mention this new discovery, was going to put pressure on their already tightly-scheduled week. At least that night was their birthday dinner. They would get to be together then.

"I don't know how you do it," Tom said as their father walked away.

"Do what?" Cara asked.

"All of this: the schedule, the reports, the rigidity, him."

"He's an incredible leader and a wonderful mentor."

"Oh, I know."

"I'm lucky. I couldn't be happier."

Tom shook his head. "I know you're happy. I can feel that. But there's something else there, too. Admit it."

"You aren't supposed to be feeling my feelings, Tom. You're supposed to be blocking me out."

Tom just looked at her with eyebrows raised.

Cara shrugged. "Nothing is perfect. Everything has challenges. It would be unreasonable to expect my life to be any different."

"Right. We wouldn't want to be unreasonable."

She didn't like the way Tom was watching her, like he could see inside her head. It was dangerous. She didn't want to ruin his homecoming with a lecture, but she made a mental note to talk to him about it later.

"No, there isn't any point in being unreasonable, and we can't all be blissed out in love like some people," she said with a raise of one brow.

Tom grinned. "Too bad. It would be good for you."

"I take it things progressed while you were gone."

"You could say that."

"I did say that."

"Yes, but did you say we're officially together?"

Cara stopped walking. "I didn't say that. Should I have said that?"

"Only if you wanted to beat me to the good news."

Cara felt a foolish grin on her face that matched his. "You and Lin are a couple."

He gasped. "How did you know?"

Cara wanted to jump up and down, to throw her arms around him, but she just stood there with that stupid smile. "You guys are perfect for each other."

"You really do have to say everything first, don't you?"

"Well, I am older," Cara said, starting to walk again.

"Six lousy minutes, and now I don't even get to tell my own good news."

"I promise I'll give you at least six minutes to tell Bree before I jump in."

"That should be enough."

Cara stopped at the door to the med center. "You know I really am..."

"...happy for me. I know." He pulled the door open and ushered her inside. "Like you had any choice."

Twin-tastic, Cara thought.

"I prefer twin-riffic," Tom said, "but whatever."

Cara's heart skipped. "Did you just...?"

"Did I just what?" Tom asked. He was already heading toward the office where their mother would be waiting.

"Nothing," Cara said. "Never mind."

She hurried to catch up.

# About the Author

Deborah Dunlevy was born in Indiana and grew up everywhere else. Even moving every year or two couldn't satisfy her need for adventure, so she learned how to read and started taking trips into other people's lives. Eventually she grew up, went to college, and got a respectable job as a teacher. Then she ditched that to go live on the other side of the world, where she learned that everything can be upside down and still exactly the way it's meant to be.

Deborah now lives in Indianapolis with her husband, Nate, her three kids, and a mismatched pair of furry animals. You can find more of her work on her website, deborahdunlevy.com.

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