“But I did not know that these boats had no artificial gravity, and that anyone not in a seat might be killed during the launch. I did not hear the warning the boat was giving in Standard. There was so much noise coming from our dying ship, and Mama spoke only French. She made me take the seat and she knelt in the aisle, praying, when the door closed. I… I blacked out after that. And when I woke up, she… she…”
Nicole collapsed in wracking sobs, the guilt and loss that had been eating away at her heart finally exposed. But a part – be it ever so tiny – of the burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt the comforting touch of caring hands as the others extended their sympathy, and Reza wrapped his arm around her shoulder, drawing her to him.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “It wasn’t your fault–”
“But the warning,” she gasped angrily. “I knew Standard! I should have listened! I could have saved her!”
“And where would that have left your mom?” asked Tamil, an acne-scarred girl with hair cropped close to her skull. “Back on the ship to get spaced when the hull gave way?”
“I would have stayed with her!” Nicole shouted defiantly. “At least we all would have been together.”
Tamil shook her head. “She wouldn’t have let you, girl, and you know it.” While she was not very old when her own mother had died, Tamil remembered her mother well, and how she had saved her daughter’s life at the cost of her own. “She would have knocked you over the head and strapped you into that last seat to save you, if it came down to it. She loved you. She wouldn’t have let you die.”
That remark was met with nods and murmurs of agreement from the others.
Nicole suddenly understood that a consensus had been reached, and the look of sympathy in their eyes was joined by something akin to forgiveness. It was a tacit understanding that Fate was to blame. There was nothing she could have done to avert the tragedy that had taken her family away. More than that, they had accepted her. She was one of them now, if she wanted to be. Thinking back to what Muldoon had done, she gave thanks to God for her good fortune.
“Listen,” Reza told her, “the pain… never really goes away. But you learn to deal with it.” His voice was nearly lost in the background banter and clatter of nearly a thousand spoons scraping the remnants of the evening meal from the trays of House 48, her new home. “You have to, if you want to get out of this lousy place in one piece. If you don’t, people like Muldoon and some of the kids here will use you and throw you away like a toilet wipe. And you’ve got friends now to help.”
“Besides,” said a short, stocky red-haired girl two seats down from Reza, “you’re a short timer. What are you, fourteen, or so?” Nicole nodded. “Jesus, Nicole, you’ve got less than a year here until you’re fifteen and you can apply for one of the academies. You look like you’re pretty sharp and in good shape. They’ll probably take you. If you don’t,” she shrugged, “you’ll just have to wait it out until you’re seventeen.”
“Fifteen,” she lamented. “It is forever.” The thought of spending the next six months here until her fifteenth birthday was appalling, but having to wait until she was seventeen was simply unbearable. Strangely, applying to one of the academies was a thought that had never occurred to her in her former life. La Seyne was very traditional, clinging to many of the ancient Western traditions brought by its early settlers. Most of the women born there spent their lives caring for their husbands and raising their children, any thoughts of becoming a “professional” being scorned as sacrilegiously self-serving. But, to get out of here in six months instead of two and a half years, she was more than willing to abandon tradition.
“It’s a lot less than I’ve had to spend on this rock,” Reza said darkly, his pre-pubescent voice carrying the resignation of the damned. His eyes blazed so fiercely that they burned her with shame for thinking that the paltry time she would have to spend here was unendurable. Reza had been here for some time before she had arrived, and would still be here after she had gone.
“Please,” she choked, suddenly flushing with empathy for him, for all of them, “forgive me. I did not mean it that way.” She reached out and gently stroked his cheek with her hand. “Mon Dieu,” she whispered, “how horrible.”
Reza shrugged, his face dropping its melancholy veil. “It could be worse,” he said. “At least it’s not like for some of the really little kids who came here without even remembering or knowing their parents, like little Darrow over there.” A tiny black boy a few seats down nodded heartily and gave her an enchanting smile. “At least we knew our parents and can remember them.”
Nicole nodded thoughtfully as Reza turned his attention back to the others.
“Does anybody else have anything?” He looked around the table like a chairman of the board or councilman, his eyes intense pools of jade. “Okay, that’s it, then, except to remind you that we’re on alert for Muldoon and his slugs. Nobody goes anywhere alone, so stay with your blockmates. Jam your doors when you go to sleep and don’t open them again until your team leader – Thad, Henson, or Charles – comes to pick you up in the morning. Little kids, if you hear the fire alarm, don’t leave your room unless you recognize one of our voices outside and we give you the right signal on the door. Muldoon pulled that trick last year and nailed a girl from Screamer’s bunch. He’s going to be gunning for us for a while this time, and there won’t be another load of newbies for him to go after for another two weeks, so watch out and stick together.”
With a murmur of acknowledgments, the children quickly got up from the table. Moving in formation with almost military precision, they dumped their trays in the waiting bins and followed their team leaders to the bunkhouse, leaving only Reza and Nicole behind.
“Should we not go with them?” she asked, wondering if the two of them would be safe, alone.
“No,” he told her, gesturing for her to follow as he got up from the table and headed toward the tray bin. “We’re not going back with them tonight. They’ll be all right, but I think it’s too dangerous for us to go back to the bunkhouse until tomorrow, at least.”
“But,” Nicole stammered, “where will we sleep?”
“Trust me,” Reza told her. “I have a place Muldoon can’t get into very easily.”
He led her outside, following a path that led them through the various buildings that made up the House 48 complex. It comprised the bunkhouse itself, which was really a collection of dormitories; the school, which was only occupied during the winter, when even Muldoon could not bear to herd the children into the fields; the tiny medical clinic; and the administration building. The last, ironically, was also the largest, as it also housed House 48’s shelter, visible from the outside by the universal red and black striped blast portal that was kept lit at all times. The exact same buildings could be found at any of the other Houses dotting Hallmark’s surface. All of them were pre-fabricated, tough, cheap and easy to build and maintain. They were true modern architectural wonders, and all ugly as sin.