Hearts and Stones - Robin D. Owens Page 0,7
in style. They don’t want to suffer the years like the rest of the generational staff.”
“Years,” she repeated.
“They think between seventy-five and a hundred and fifty. There’s living space for a generation or three on-board, that’s why it’s called a generation starship. Those in the cryonics tube will be frozen and awakened after landing on the beautiful new world with no gov who hates mutants. Everyone will be a mutant.”
“Especially after a couple of generations of breeding with each other,” Levona murmured, but her brain clicked along. All right, she hadn’t thought of a lifetime living on a starship — after she’d had the whole of the Rockies to run around in — or being frozen so she’d live on the planet. She didn’t know what would have been worse.
What would be worse. She’d find a way to get on that ship with Pizi. During this passage through the waterway gulches and the stone sewers, she’d shut a stone door on her past life; the scraping by in the mountains, the danger of living in the city, hiding from the gov, on the outskirts of the persecuted psi community. Her existence always at risk. No. Never again. She’d get a better life for herself and Pizi.
Her future and Pizi’s included the starship.
She didn’t say so, instead she voiced another fear. “You think they’ll make it off-planet?”
He looked at her sourly, sucked tea through a missing tooth. “Our ship, or the others?” He shrugged. “They’ll try, but no. If you, or they, think the UStates gov will let them get away clean, you got many more thinks a-coming.”
“Yeah,” Levona said.
Sighing, Bartek stared into his coffee. “But we — they — might get lucky. The UStates oligarchy has to consult with the other WorldStates oligarchies, so that might delay any action against the ships.”
“Huh,” said Levona.
“Our leadership has been smart. They moved soon after the latest purging of the generals and military. Even in the mountains, you must have heard of that, about three weeks ago?”
“Yes. Why was it done?”
“The oligarch spouted that the generals ‘overstepped their authority.’ Where and when we weren’t told, just the regular nonsense, so who really knows? It’s shark eat shark at the top of the govs. We should be glad this dictator is more stupid than usual.”
“True.”
“I’m sure our mutant resistance leadership believes we can move faster than the new generals who are still scrambling to secure their positions. Those guys are probably risk-averse.” A sardonic smile whipped on and off his mouth. “I’m sure our strategists, or one of our oracles, has calculated the timing of leaving down to the nanosecond.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Levona paused. “No one who joined up is having second thoughts?” If she had after being told, others must.
Bartek drummed his fingers on the table, stared into Levona’s eyes and she became aware how sunken his own were, surrounded by dark shadows. Pity twinged through her, but she kept it from showing. Plenty of times she’d seen pity on people’s faces, especially after her parents died in the psi-killing bomb set off over the city two years and two months ago … and when her neighbors stolidly watched the UStates gov confiscate her family home and all its contents. She’d observed from a hiding place across the street that night.
Some of her neighbors had sensed her, but everyone kept their mouths shut. After all, they hadn’t been too far away from the psi ghetto, and no one who’d survived wanted to be labeled a mutant-freak.
“Perhaps some people did have second thoughts,” Bartek said. “Not sure who has checked in. Everyone in the whole barrio showed up to gawk at the ship and mill around. Me, too. Since it didn’t concern me, I didn’t watch who might have reported as crew. Only the leaders are on the ship now, working. Provisioning will happen the next couple of days, and crew assignments after that. But I know there is a waiting list. Not sure how long the list is, but truth to tell, if you get on the ship and regret it, too damn bad. They’re spacing from here. Perhaps they have some kind of sorting process, counseling, don’t know.”
He drank his coffee, then continued, “I hear that Nuada’s Sword, the ship in NJNY, is larger than our Lugh’s Spear, and they’re taking on crew who aren’t psi since the ghettos in the East have been decimated by fighting. There’s a chance you and the kit could get on there, if you