Supernal

Chapter 32

10:15 pm Sunday, 8th July 2029

Crew Room on the OCF

Charlie and Jayal came into the crew room where Summers and Toby were waiting.

"The children are all asleep," Charlie confirmed, "and so is Rob. We just looked in on him. He's sleeping like a baby."

"That's good," Summers said. "Toby and I have been checking on him every hour. Sleep is the best thing for him right now. I know it's been a long day Jayal, but we've got a lot to sort out before the shuttle arrives on Tuesday."

"I'm fine, I just needed some time to myself."

"Glad to hear it. Tell me ... can you operate your spacecraft?"

"I can give the intelligence unit commands if that's what you mean. It was taught to recognize and obey my voice."

"We need to get rid of it, and the bodies, before 6 pm Tuesday. Do you think you can do that?"

Jayal thought about it for a minute.

"I would need to go over earlier in the pod, give the intelligence unit a command to depart for a destination at a certain time, come back here, and then instruct the pod to go back on its own. Yes, it should be no problem."

"Will your vessel go anywhere you tell it?"

Jayal nodded.

"It will obey instructions without question."

"In that case, my suggestion is to put the bodies aboard and send the vessel on a course to the Sun. It will burn up long before it gets there."

"We could do that tomorrow," Toby pointed out, "and avoid any last-minute glitches on Tuesday."

"Good thinking, but set the departure time for twelve noon Tuesday. That's 8 am at Kennedy when everyone will be concentrating on the Spaceplane launch. Less chance of being noticed. Speaking of Tuesday, I'll be taking the kids back down with me on the return flight. Are there any questions?"

"Yes," Jayal asked quietly. "What is going to happen to me?"

Summers assured Jayal that he would speak with the United States government and make sure she would be welcomed.

Jayal turned to Toby.

"Is your island in the United States?" she asked bluntly.

Summers narrowed his eyes and peered at the pair of them. Toby was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"Am I picking up a vibe here? Is there something going on between you two?"

Charlie looked at him incredulously and shook her head sadly.

"Men never fail to amaze me!" she declared.

#

While Jayal and Charlie went to check on Rob again, Summers congratulated Toby and promised he would arrange everything with the secretary of state. He was sure that once he told them of Jayal's role in the whole affair they would grant her almost anything she wanted.

Toby told him that a US passport and a ride on the Gulfstream back to Scotland would be enough.

"I'm going to make sure both you and Charlie are paid a nice fat consultancy fee ... for all your hard work fixing our oxygen system," Summers winked.

Toby accepted gratefully. After disappearing for a month without informing his publisher he wasn't sure his editing job would still be there when he got back.

The two women returned and reported that Rob was snoring and his heart rate was back to normal. Jayal still couldn't understand how he had survived and Velan had not.

"I have a theory about that," Toby said. "Mutu told us that the gravity on Vitu is slightly less than on Earth. That accounts for why you Manitan are far more slender and small-boned than us. Higher gravity also means our hearts work harder so they develop stronger muscles. I think the charge from the electrolaser was enough to stop Velan's weaker heart, but not quite enough to stop Rob's heart."

#

In bed that night, Jayal wanted to hear more about his life on Oronsay. Toby told her how he had been a successful university professor until the paper he had written on intelligent design had ruined his career. How he had been hounded and ridiculed until he had found sanctuary on the remote island off the coast of Scotland, buying an abandoned croft with a derelict cottage which he had spent the last few years rebuilding.

He told her that he'd been earning some money editing articles for a scientific magazine. And that he'd thought their current mission would have proved his theories correct and restored his reputation, and his career. Now that the president had decided that it was to be kept secret for the foreseeable future that was not going to happen.

"What will we do instead?" Jayal asked.

Toby kissed her.

"What was that for?"

"For saying 'we'. We could start farming the croft ... buy some sheep and cows. It would be hard work."

"I'd like that. When I was little, my parents had a farm. I grew up with animals."

Toby turned to her with a concerned look on his face.

"Jayal, I'm an idiot! I didn't think about your family back on Vitu. What will they do when you don't go back?"

"I have no family on Vitu," Jayal revealed. "They were all killed by the Atikas."

#

They lay awake, talking into the small hours, and Jayal told him how she had been born into a small farming community in the upper temperate band of Vitu. The community had a reasonably good life and as long as they met their food production quotas they were left in peace.

But then the Atikas had discovered the increased efficiency of their intelligence units if younger brain cells were used, and the harvesting of children had begun.

When Jayal was a small child, some Manitan had come to take several children to Caranal. Their parents had refused to hand them over. The next day the community had been sealed off and all supplies cut. They had some food stored but no electricity or water and within a week people were starting to die.

Then the Manitan had come back and seized every living child, including Jayal. All the adults were left to die of thirst.

Jayal had been taken to an institution near Caranal that was part orphanage, part boarding school. There were hundreds of children and the teaching was relentless and strict. The Atikas wanted to realize the full potential of young minds before they became donors.

Many of Jayal's young friends disappeared overnight but she herself was never chosen. It was nerve-wracking and most of the children had nightmares. She remembered her mother chanting to her when she couldn't sleep as a child and she had developed her own self-hypnosis technique which she then began using to comfort the other children. Her teachers had recognized the usefulness of her skill and singled her out for training as a psychologist.

After her training Jayal returned to work at the institution, doing all she could to make the children's short lives better by calming the trauma and fear they suffered after being taken from their families.

"Do the children know that one day they'll be used as donors for the intelligence units?" Toby asked, appalled.

"The younger ones don't understand at first. The people on Vitu don't talk about it. It is what you call a 'taboo' subject, but as they get older, they hear the rumours."

"Why don't the workers rise up and rebel against the Atikas? Put a stop to all this?"

"It has been tried but Caranal is impregnable. No one can get inside unless the praesidium allows them in," Jayal shrugged.