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“‘Cloning,'” Aramina Jackson read, “‘has been banned since the late 7090’s, when several clones had started showing malfunctions that were potentially lethal to humankind. The practice of making androids has never been banned, and as the two are synonomous, what’s the point in banning one and not the other?’ Yes, that should get the point across most nicely.” “I feel sorry for Ashan and Sorran.” Kakka Murl, at her right elbow, stated. “They’re clones.” “Yes, it can’t be easy for them, having to do this project.” Aramina frowned. “But at least they were cloned before the ban, and everyone thinks they’re one of those rare twin pregnancies.” “Poor Nara, she was the original, the person.” Kakka said sadly. “The others were just moulded after her.” “No, Ashan was moulded after her. Sorran had to have a different personality because of that rule about having two clones of the same person not being allowed and all.” Aramina reminded him. “The chemical reaction made Sorran’s eyes green, not blue.” “That’s true.” Kakka agreed, then they sat in silence, each thinking about their school essay. Aramina Jackson was human, with brown eyes and auburn hair. She wore the school uniform, yellow shirt and black pants, each with a silver stripe on the side. Kakka Murl also wore the uniform, but he was a Dari, and that was a lecture in itself. The Dari were normal human beings who had fled underground when the Apocalypse had threatened to destroy everything, and had spent two thousand years down there and had emerged five thousand years ago. As a Dari, Kakka had blue skin and a slight tendancy towards anxiety. All the Dari used to have white skin, but time in the sun – had bleached it to blue. The bell rang. This was a sign that everyone had to go home, unlike the other bells, which signified lunch, class and end of school. After school, students could stay behind and work on their BH-1’s, the small laptop that everyone had. “Well, I guess that’s it.” Kakka sighed. “Don’t know if I’m going to finish this project.” “Same here.” Aramina agreed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” “See you.” Kakka said as they were swept outside in the crush of people. Calisto, Aramina noted with some satisfaction, was looking greener and so were the other moons. From where she was standing, her homeland of Jupiter looked pretty good, too. But then, it could be going through a natural disaster and you wouldn’t notice it just by looking at the ground and sky, like Aramina. Aramina saw her tube arrive. At least, she saw it when it stopped. Tubes went at supersonic speed. Clambering in, Aramina saw a free seat, and jumped in, fastening her seatbelt. The tube took off. Around her, Aramina’s schoolmates and total strangers were sitting down and talking or laughing. Aramina didn’t talk. Only people who knew each other talked, and she knew no one on the tube.
The tube came to a smooth stop and Aramina and several other people got off. Aramina walked the few paces that took her home. The automatic guard let her through, as did the automated steel fence.
Entering her family’s spacious living room, Aramina was shocked. People had been through here. Draws had been ripped out of their cupboards, her family’s huge television had been sabotaged, the cupboards containing the DVD’s and the precious spare disks that her parents put their important work in was tipped over and the contents broken scattered. The sofa was ripped up and turned on it’s side, the table thrown against a wall and the prize antique armchair torn up. Aramina sank to her knees, hoping that this was all a dream. Then the family’s android, David, walked in. David was a typical android in the fact that he had been given a personality that wasn’t difficult to manage, but still a personality, and that he was human-shaped with black hair, hazel eyes and a business suit. “What happened?” Aramina demanded, almost hysterically. “What’s going on? Where are my parents? I want to see my parents.” “Your parents are fine, Miss Jackson.” The android replied. “There was a mishap. Your parents are in the cellar. I will get them.” Then the android walked out, and Aramina saw that the ransackers had managed to wreck David’s wires, which were in the back of his head and poking out. However, someone – Aramina suspected her father – had got him on-line again. It was five minutes later that Aramina’s parents turned up with David. “What happened?” Aramina demanded again, in a trembling voice, as her mother went over to hug her. “We don’t want you to know.” Her father said nervously. “The less you know, the less danger you’re going in if they catch us.” Mara, Aramina’s mother, explained further. “Some powerful people want our research.” She said. “But they can’t get the research without us, because we implanted the knowledge into our brains.” Aramina remembered that. Her parents had had the research put into a nanodisk and then had the nanodisk implanted into their brain so that they could access the knowledge off the disk. Aramina wasn’t sure how the brain could read off of the disk, but it was done, and worked, because everyone had an ID nanodisk in their brain, telling them who they were and their parentage and address. The Emporer of the Human-Dari Empire had declared this neccessary after the 3092 episode, when a virus had ripped through human and Dari alike and erased their personal knowledge of themselves. “We have to leave.” Her father, Len, added. “Our stuff is packed. The G9H is waiting on the roof.” The G9H, Aramina knew, was a powerful new type of compact aeroplane/spaceship, capable of carrying twenty people and taking them out of three solar systems without a hitch. Then she realised that David had disappeared off somewhere. “Where are we going?” She asked, frightened, feeling three years old again. “There’s a planet suitable for human habitation. The scientists call it DHTDCV894587890.” Replied Len, the only one in the entire family who could memorise such a serial code, as he and Mara quickly marched their daughter to the G9H. “We’ll think up a better name when we’re there, okay?” “But my friends!” Aramina protested. “Sorran and Ashan and Kakka, Voshi, Farrah and Kse-Tung! And what about school andmy education?” “Ashan and Sorran are on the run too, Aramina. Their parents were killed.” Mara said gently. “No!” Gasped the teenager for whom death was an unthinkable act. “That’s awful!” “It is.” Len replied. “While I’m at it, we have more passengers than that. Aran Salsix, Peter Kilaman, Hse-Ku Ting, Abdullah bin Dullah, Lillah bint Dullah and Yoshimiri Tengatesu.” “But some of them are your co-workers, both of your co-workers, what’s going on?” Wailed Aramina miserabley, as they reached the plane and she was bundled in next to her mother’s Japanese co-worker, Yoshimiri Tengatesu, who was asleep. The ship had a row of seats able to sit five, then another five-seater opposite it. One Aramina’s row was Aramina herself, then Yoshimiri Tengatesu, then Hse-Ku Ting and Ashan Harvey. The opposite row consisted of Aran Salsix, Sorran Harvey, Abdullah bin Dullah, Peter Kilaman and Lillah bint Dullah. The front row sat two people, Aramina’s parents. “Why’s he asleep?” She asked, calming down. “They all decided to take a sleeping pill. It was a majority vote.” Len replied grimly as he climbed in the cockpit, where, on the other side, Mara watched him. “Take one yourself. It will relax your mind, and things won’t be so bad when you wake up.” “No.” Aramina decided, her mind now working irrationally. “I’m not taking one. I’m going to name the planet. What’s it like?” “It has forests and lakes. It reminds me of Earth, in a strange way. But this planet has more land and less water. I don’t know about the animals on it, but when I deep-scanned it, there were no life forms there that were dangerous. Just some small animals that couldn’t possibly pose as a danger to us.” Mara told her. The next few minutes were spent, for Aramina, in total silence and misery. Aramina’d lived on Jupiter for ten years of her life, the other two having been spent on Mars, the harsh land of her childhood. And the fact that her parents were holding something back was upsetting her even more. She felt the tears trickle down her face as she looked down at her house and saw that it had already shrunk in size, as they were gaining altitude quite quickly. “I want a pill.” Aramina snuffled. “I don’t want to go through with this.” Then, to her embarassment, she started crying, as Mara handed her a pill. Aramina quickly swallowed it, and fell asleep quickly. In the cockpit, Mara looked back at her daughter, and sighed. “Why do they do this?” She asked her husband. “The agents ruin everyone’s lives, and we did nothing illegal or even wrong.” “It’s two factors.” Len replied, switching to autopilot. “What we did before the new Emporer came to rule, and our new project.” “But our work, it’s useless to them!” Mara exclaimed. “Why do they want our work? Surely it’s not worth it?” “Delving into the past was forbidden when Emporer Cyrus ruled. But you know they lifted the ban, but anyone who knows too much….” A troubled look came through Len’s eyes. “We didn’t know.” Mara said. “How can they kill us for something we know that isn’t important? What is wrong with them?” “There’s something in the history, something that must point to a grave mistake the Imperial Court or Imperial Army made.” Len shook his head, as if to clear it. “Maybe, it’s something that points to a bad decision on behalf of the Emporer….”
“Len!” Mara turned to face her husband sharply. “That is seditionous talk.”
And it was. The Emporer was widely regarded as an incarnation of a god by many people, in various religious sectors. Therefore, the Emporer had decreed that any talk against him in the slightest was sedition. The Emporer, everyone learnt, was perfect. The Emporer cared and provided, but bad things were not his fault, but his Imperial Court or Imperial Army’s fault.
“They’re already going to kill us.” Len reminded his wife. “Sedition doesn’t worry me now.”
“I hear the Imperial Army have large torture chambers.” Mara whispered. “And they torture seditioners there. To death.”
“We’re not going to be caught.” Len said. “They can’t catch us at the scanning ranges, because our ship isn’t registered as a proper vehicle yet, and the robot scanners don’t detect non-proper vehicles. Human scouts haven’t been seen for years, unless they’re Raiders, and Raiders operate on the same basis as the scanning robots.”
“They let the machine do the scan, and it won’t be able to pick us up.” Mara said, feeling slightly relieved. “I hate the Raiders.”
“So do I.” Her husband replied grimly. “They wreck the perfectly balanced civilization we are, with all their raids and forays into the colonies. The Fiaer Legion are no better.”
Twenty-nine years ago, the Fiaer Legion was just another troublesome cult, albeit one that had most of the population of the colony-planet Dis under it’s thumb. Twenty-seven years ago, the members had rose against the rest of the population, causing a large and spectaculary bloody revolution. It was the worst event in the whole ninetieth thousand period of history. There were still horror stories being told, twenty-years since the takeover had been complete and the spaceports forever closed to the Emporer, his Imperial Court and his Imperial Army and anyone else. Anyone who went there had never come back.
Mara, a slightly religious woman, crossed herself. Those rumours were very bad.
“Let’s hope they don’t spread.” Mara said, referring to the cult members.
“If they do, the Emporer will see it coming. His people keep an eye on all planets. Especially the Dari planets.” Len predicted.
“Why do you think rebellion will start with the Dari?” Mara asked, surprised.
“I don’t think it, they do. But you have to admit, most trouble begins with the Dari.” Len said grimly.
“But the serious trouble is caused by us.” Mara reminded him, the ‘us’ meaning non-Dari. “We were the ones who had the ideas of the Fiaer Legion, the Badek and Sasopxi.”
The Badek and the Sasopxi were the two worst dangers to humankind. The Badek was a virus that affected the Dari and brought about an onset of early senility and insanity that usually caused the Badek-infected victim to kill anyone around them for a three-day killing spree, unless they were shot down. It was classified as an alien life form by scientists, who decided that no known virus could be that specific and decided ‘it’s an alien life form,’ who took five hundred years to find a cure, and then took ten months on figuring out any side-effects before administering doses everywhere. Terrorists had grabbed a vial of antidote and a vial of virus, and worked to create a virus that could not be cured by anyone’s scientists that was the same as the Badek only more immune to the antidote. However, the virus was very short-lived, only staying around for an hour before dissolving into air.
The Sasopxi was a cult like the Fiaer Legion who believed that genetically engineered people were better. They were the Raiders to anyone who couldn’t be bothered using the proper name. The Sasopxi stole children and engineered them to be perfect, but left everyone else alone. Because so many children died in those experiments, of one thing or another, more children were always needed. The Sasopxi, however, didn’t clone, listening to half the Emporer’s laws and ignoring the other half. The practice was in abeyance due to the new rule, issued to every government in the known universe (with the exception of Dis, which didn’t communicate) that any member of the Sasopxi was to be killed on sight.
And these were the worst out of the bad stuff the universe threw at the human race.
“I’m taking a pill, myself.” Mara announced after a while. “I don’t want to stay awake much.”
“Me too.” Len nodded. “Autopilot can handle itself.”
The next day saw the crew awake and past Pluto. Sorran and Ashan Harvey went straight back to sleep after ten seconds, Aran Salsix and Peter Kilaman kept quiet, Hse-Ku Ting, Lillah bint Dullah and Yoshimiri Tengatesu, were, by comparison, happy. Mara, Len and Aramina had not woken up and Abdullah was the same, the only difference being that he wasn’t snoring.
“This is a great opportunity.” Enthused Hse-Ku Ting. “A chance to explore a new world before anyone else!”
“What do you thunk we’ll find?” Lillah bint Dullah asked, eyes sparkling.
“Marvellous landscapes, a friendly enviroment and no predators large enough enough to eat us!” Yoshimiri Tengatesu joined in.
“But you don’t know this for a fact.” Aran Salsix, a Dari woman with the white skin of a Dari that had refused to ‘tan,’ pointed out. “I do remember Genevieve Dieudonne’s expedition to AJB389, don’t you?”
“It was disaterous.” Peter Kilaman said quietly. “No one returned from that supposedly inhostile planet, but Genevieve Dieudonne herself. Danger at every corner.”
“Our instruments are better now. Genevieve Dieudonne’s expedition was made two hundred years ago. This will be paradise, I promise.” Ting enthused. “I can’t wait to get there to explore it.”
“Our food supply is low.” Aran said suddenly. “We don’t know what to eat on that planet. There will be poisoned foodstuffs.”
“What we really have to worry about are our IP’s.” Lillah asserted. “That makes us immune to poison, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” Aran said. “But the supply will not last long. We need to use them sparingly.”
“Uh.” Lillah shuddered. “And become old and wrinkly? I think not. I want to be normal and not die.”
“No one can avoid death.” Aran reminded her antagonist. “When a person reaches two thousand, they are exterminated.”
“Yes.” Ting said. “But the ingredients might be common on the planet, and we can live longer.”
There was a groan from next to Yoshimiri Tengatesu, indicating that Aramina was awake. Aramina looked around at her parent’s co-workers and blinked.
“I thought, no, hoped, this was all just a dream.” She muttered. Then she noticed Aran. “You don’t work with my parents.”
“No, I don’t.” Aran admitted. “But I have expertise they need. And I am no longer welcome on Jupiter. None of us here are. We can not go back to any Terra-settled planet and expect to be welcomed.”
“Terra?” Aramina asked, then remembered that Terra was what the Dari called Earth. “What do you mean, we won’t be welcomed? What, are we fugitives now?”
“Yes, we are.” Lillah bint Dullah said gently, knowing how much it would shock the girl.
“Fugitives…” Aramina mumbled, sinking down in her chair. “Oh no….”
“I’m doing checks.” Aran said quietly “Checks on the planet’s distance.”
She proceeded to grab a small meter and press in a few digits.
“We’re eighty light-years away.” Aran announced. “Another few hours, so settle down. We have two mintes to get to top speed.”
“So don’t look out the window, right? Even if we had a window.” Lillah asked. “Or we’ll get sick?”
“Spacesick, yes.”
“Great.” Aramina muttered. “Oh, great. Just great. Oh, anyone thought of a name for the planet? I need help.”
“Paradise?” Ting offered, having, like the rest of the crew, guessed that the task of naming the planet wouldn’t be given to any of them. Like everyone else, excepting Aran, Aramina and her parents, he had been thinking of suggestions.
“Heaven?” Lillah asked. “How about Eden?”
“I saw the landmass on the scanner….” Yoshimiri said. “And you know how Earth is called Earth, but there’s mostly water? We should call this one Water or Aqua!”
“Good idea, but the idea is to call it something other than that dull word.” Ting argued. Then he turned to Aramina. “What do you think? Or can we – ow!”
Lillah, sitting next to hime, had poked him in the ribs.
“You’re behaving like a kid.” Lillah exclaimed.
“What are the co-ordinates of the planet?” Aran asked suddenly. “The exact co-ordinates?”
“Space D3, Sector ZZZ.” Yoshimiri replied, frowning. Why did Aran want to know that for? And now?
“Space D3, Sector ZZZ. One and a half hundred years ago… Space D2, Sector ZZX.” Aran said thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
“How could it have been in Space D2 and Sector ZZX two hundred years ago?” Ting asked. “If it was, how could it have travelled that far in such a short time?”
“It’s a Black Hole Emergence planet, same as Terra.” Aran replied. Then she explained for the benefit of Aramina. “It was sucked through a rogue black hole to the current sector and space. Terra was in Space A2, Sector AAA before it fell through a rogue black hole which wiped out the dinosaurs and ended up in Space A1, Sector AAA.”
“How come the dinosaurs were wiped out and the plant life wasn’t?” Aramina asked curiously.
“Black holes only wipe out reptilian and mammalian life forms.” Yoshimiri said, before anyone else could say anything.
“I learnt in history that someone discoverd a habitable planet in the space and sector that the planet was in.” Aramina said.
“Yes…” Lillah thought for a moment. “It was Anatolious Scott.”
“Under the order of Genevieve Dieudonne, who had scouted there earlier and ordered Scott to look around with her.” Aran said. “So it was Genevieve Dieudonne and not Scott who discovered it. I read the computerized version of the log. It’s equal in status to…. the diary of that Dutch girl…. Anne Frank, the diary of Anne Frank, was after the Second World War. It’s a classic.”
“I never read it.” The rest of the (awake) crew said.
“There was a lush rainforest area teeming with life. Reptilian life, mainly. And reptilian birds. Genevieve Dieudonne wrote it all down in that log.”
“That’s it!” Aramina exclaimed. “That’s what we’ll call it!”
“What?” Ting, Aran and Yoshimiri asked in one voice.
“Dieudonne!”
“Well…. it sounds good.” Lillah admitted.
“Impressive.” Ting added.
“Interesting.” Yoshimiri contributed.
“Snappy.” Peter said.
“And…. appropriate.” Aran surmised. “They did this before the Space Expansion plan was put into practice, and it was used even further back when people didn’t even know what their own world looked like.”
“How could anyone not know what their own home world looks like?” Aramina asked curiously. She’d grown up knowing that everything was urbanized and the Red Spot was a thing of the past thanks to modern technology.
“It’s like we are going to settle on one spot of this planet, Dieudonne. We don’t know what the rest of the planet looks like, except from space, which our ancestors didn’t have. A space view.” Yoshimiri explained.
“Oh.” Aramina nodded, although the idea of not knowing what your own home world looked like still seemed strange to her.
The two clones came around with a groan.
“Where are we?” Ashan asked.
“And…. when are we going to reach the planet?” Sorran added. “I don’t feel like sleeping the whole way.”
“The planet’s been renamed as Dieudonne, after Genevieve Dieudonne, who first sighted it, and we should be there in a few hour’s time.” Lillah told them.
“I’m not tired anymore.” Ashan announced. “Tell me more about the planet.”
“What’s it look like?” Sorran asked. “Any dangerous life forms?”
“Aran’s the expert, and it looks like she knows more about it than us.” Lillah answered.
“I read the journey’s log, and Genevieve Dieudonne’s diary. Both are published and unedited, which is good because it means no one tried to embellish anything.” Aran explained. “It was discovered two hundred years ago, and then it had good vegetation, a sort of rainforest planet with it’s other habitats, but mainly rainforest. There were reptilian life forms, mostly. There were few mammalian life forms, apparently resembling large, furry moths and small apes. But the planet went through a black hole sometime after that, which would have wiped out the life forms, excepting the forests and other habitats.”
“Because the plants have had time to evolve an immunity against the black hole’s effects, and the animals wouldn’t have been evolved enough.” Ashan summarised.
“Very good.” Aran said. “You do take after your predecessor, you know.”
“Both of us do.” Sorran pointed out. “Except when the personality change comes through.”
“Yes, except for that.” Aran agreed. “But that’s a good thing. No one wants anyone else to be exactly alike. Jamal el-Kalil didn’t count on that when he created the first identical clones. Is Peter asleep?”
“Looks like it.” Yoshimiri said briefly, after a glance. “And so’s Lillah.”
“Must be an effect the tablet has.” Aramina said. “Those things never work like the company says they do. You always go to sleep for a short time afterwards. Which is what I plan to do.”
Aramina settled down and, true to her word, fell asleep shortly afterwards.
Aran, Ashan, Sorran, Ting and Yoshimiri looked at each other.
“Abdullah, he’s been out for ages.” Ting realised with surprise. “I never noticed.”
“I did.” Said Peter and Sorran, at the same time.
“He looks sort of… waxy.” Sorran added. “Do you think something’s wrong?”
“Um…” Peter reached out and felt for a pulse on Abdullah’s wrist, then gasped. “He’s dead!”
“He’s dead, oh my god, he’s dead.” Sorran shrieked, trying in a panic to push Abdullah’s corpse over onto Peter’s lap while he shoved back.
“Don’t do that!” Peter yelled, panicking himself. “What do those pills do?”
“Anyone over here not squimish?” Aran enquired.
“No…” Yoshimiri said, and Lillah who had just woken up, agreed, albeit a little hysterically.
“Good.” Aran grabbed hold of Abdullah’s corpse with a grimace, told everyone what she wanted done, and, with their help, tossed him out of that particular section of the ship. Into space, as a matter of fact. After debating whether the oxygen shields would work, andif they did, would it really be safe enough to open the door and shove the corpse out. After all, there could have been a shield breakdown, and opening the door would have meant getting space air inside, which would have killed them.
“That… that was different.” Lillah said shakily. “My god, he was my brother. I can’t believe he just died like that, in that way.”
Then she started sobbing uncontrollably. No one knew what to say for a minute.
“We’d better check on everyone else.” Aramina said. “They could be… dead.”
There was a momentary pause, then Aran reached over and felt, with difficulty, for the pulses of Mara and Len. They were faint but at least still there.
“Get the Medikit.” She ordered everyone on the opposite row. After all, they were closer to it. When this had been accomplished, Aran got out the small clamps, and applied them to the side of Mara’s head, then Len’s. The clamps applied a shock capable of waking up the brain easily without actually causing any damage. Then she applied it to Aramina’s head, after feeling for a pulse. The effect it always had was the feeling that the recipient of the clamps had woken up naturally.
“They had a weak pulse.” Aran explained afterwards.
“What’s going on?” Mara asked, a little weakly.
“The pills, which you procured from your house after the attack, were spiked.” Aran replied. “Abdullah died.”
“Oh, no.” Mara looked stricken.
“That’s why they’re not chasing us.” Len exclaimed. “They spiked our pills and hoped we’d die from it. And then they guessed we’d head to a planet they controlled and they could catch us then.”
“I want to know the full story.” Aramina said bravely.
“Well, we – Yoshimiri, Ting, Lillah, Abdullah, Melissa, John, Peter and Len and I were working on the history of the Empire. We must have gotten too close to something, and the agents found out about it somehow, and they raided our homes. They killed John and Melissa, which is why their daughters are with us.” Mara swallowed. “And they planned to kill all of us.”
“And Aran?” Aramina demanded.
“Melissa was Aran’s closest friend. She was at the aftermath of the attack. They would have killed her too.” Len said gently.
“And I had extensive knowledge needed. About history, about science and general knowledge.” Aran finished. Then she looked at her moniter. “We’re an hour away from Dieudonne.”
“That’s what the planet’s called.” Aramina explained.
“It was a good choice.” Ting added.
“Uh, yeah.” Lillah agreed. “Suitable.”
“Oh, yes, after it’s first discoverer.” Mara remembered “Genevieve Dieudonne.”
“I can’t believe it’s only an hour away.” Peter had his say. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Lillah agreed. “Now that we’re all awake, I suppose we’d better moniter each other. In case our pulses do that drop thing while we’re awake.”
“Good idea.” Sorran and Ashan said at the same time.
“So… what do we discuss now?” Aramina asked.
“Plans for what we do when we reach the planet.” Aran said.
“I’ll let you decide that.” Mara and Len said at almost the same time.
“Good.” Aran said. “We land in a good spot, ie, a place with water and preferably food nearby, which I have already picked out with my scannings of the planet surface, we find something to construct houses and construct them, eat something after scanning it with the Healthtron, which detects poisonous agents, and go to sleep, if it’s night. If not, we’ll improve our huts. It may be best to construct huts out of timber and tree foliage. If my scannings are right, the weather will be hot, always hot, so mud bricks over that and possibly under that. In case there are any predatory animals, we should all start building one big hut to hold us all and more room than that. Then I suggest we watch the native fauna so we can learn their habits if we need to kill and eat them.”
“I can see why they brought you along.” Ting said, visibly impressed. “Did you prepare this beforehand?”
“Only the scannings. But everyone knows about the scannings.” Aran replied.
“Wow.” Ting was even more impressed. “Anything else?”
“We don’t need weapons, there are some in the back, Medikits are here, we have educators… we need nothing else.” Aran said. “Except the lighters, for lighting fires. Nothing else matters.”
Now everyone was even more impressed.
“You have a great talent.” Lillah said.
“It’s hereditary.” Aran admitted. “It was bred into us. When our ancestors packed and left the aboveground, they took only necessities with them, and as new tunnels were dug, people took only what was needed. If they were in a cave-in, their relatives would have something to remember them by.”
“Were any of your family killed in a cave -in?” Aramina asked. She figured that, if Aran knew the logic behind something started over two thousand years ago, and that if all Dari knew as about as many of their ancestors as they claimed, Aran would be able to answer the question.
“My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather died in the Tunnel 80111 incident. His name was Kannae Liman.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.” Aramina said.
“So was my family.” Aran replied. “But we still have some of his possessions.”
“Why?” Ting asked.
“They were useful, and now they’re heirlooms.” Aran answered. “And they have sentimental value.”
“Ah.” Lillah said, having been listening.
“Ah.” Aramina copied.
“Don’t repeat.” Sorran said.
“It’s impolite.” Ashan told them.
“Listen to them, they’re finishing each other’s sentances.” Yoshimiri said.
“Wish I could do that.” Peter said. “Know what everyone was thinking, I mean.”
Len and Mara seemed inclined to agree.
“How long now?” Aramina asked Aran, referring to the time it would take them to get to the planet.
“Two fourths of an hour.” Aran replied, then sighed. “I think we’re on full power.”
“Why would we not be on full power?” Len asked. “I programmed autopilot to go one full power.”
“I thought it could go faster.” Aran said. “I don’t know what speed we’re at and I don’t know what speed we can reach. There are no windows, so I can’t look out and judge for myself.”
“Most people get spacesick with a window. That’s why they don’t put windows in anymore.” Mara told her.
“Think how my family must have felt, coming up from belowground, and seeing the sun.” Aran said softly. “They all went blind. It took eighteen generations to produce a new type of Dari that could actually stand the sun. And even then, we had to use the previously forbidden genetic enhancement processes.”
Everyone brooded.
“I never really knew much about the Dari.” Mara admitted.
“I never bothered, either.” Len said.
“The sun thing,” Aramina said thoughtfully. “I thought you all just came out.” “No.” Aran said, as Peter applied the clamps to Lillah. “The Terra sun can’t reach underground. We only had artificial light, and when you go out in the sun after having spent all your life in artificial light, it blinds you anyway. There are chemicals in the sun’s rays that aren’t in artificial lights. And that’s what blinded them.” “How long?” Sorran asked Aran. She was also scowling at Peter, then referred to him. “I was perfectly fine.” Peter just looked at her. “We’re an hour away.” Aran said. “I’ll take over the controls soon.” Everyone lapsed into a silence, broken only by the sound of the engines, which were quickly cut off when they landed, an hour later, on the heaven-like surface of Dieudonne.I know, I know, it’s a bit crap. But, it’s my first attempt at an original sci-fi story.
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