Someone near the back cheered. Applause, sporadic at first, spread. Tillie found it suddenly difficult to see through the stinging wetness in her eyes. With 60 minors ineligible to vote, the final ballot was 297 to 48, Tillie’s favor.
Half an hour later, those 48 suicided quietly in their quarters, poisoning their own children.
Tillie blamed herself. Not for the adults’ actions—but for the deaths of the children. She should’ve ordered protective custody, should’ve . . .
When she wouldn’t answer his calls, Lewis Liffey came to her quarters. “Mind if I speak with you?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged. He came in and closed the door. Tillie sat with knees drawn up to her chest in the corner of her cramped bunk. She’d spent a long time crying, but now all she felt was numb.
“Just because they elected you all over again, Dr. Matson, doesn’t mean you’re stuck with the job. You can take off that badge any time you want.”
She looked up slowly, found sorrow and compassion in his eyes. But not pity. Not even a hint of pity.
“And if we’re wrong? What if Oliver Parlan and Hank Biddle were right? We could be leading these people to a violent death at alien hands. . . .”
His jaw muscles tightened. “Yes, we could. Any number of possibilities exist. The Concordiat may beat this invasion fleet back, then not bother to resettle Matson’s. There may not be enough left to make it economically feasible. I’ve seen it happen, when alien wars ravage a world so badly nothing can grow for a century or so afterward.”
Clearly, Lewis had been lying awake nights, too.
“Tillie, we may get there and find an empty world and have no way to contact the Concordiat ever again. Or we may find a bustling city where you and your husband planned to start a colony. Not likely, but that’s the point. We don’t know what we’ll find.”
Tillie swallowed hard a few times. “I’ve been . . . Those of us with family in Phase I are never going to see them again, are we?”
Lewis opened his lips, then paused. “You want my honest opinion?”
“I think I just heard it.”
“I’m sorry. But given the circumstances . . .” His voice changed, wrenching at Tillie’s heart. “I had a little girl on Scarsdale, Dr. Matson. Her name’s Ginnie. She just turned seven. I said my last goodbye to her the night we found out we couldn’t repair the SWIFT unit.”
Tillie couldn’t speak for a long time. Finally she whispered, “I’ve been thinking about Carl, too. If he survived to evacuate . . . I know him better than he knows himself, I think. He’d enlist. Especially when he finds out they can’t locate us, that we’re missing, presumed . . .” Tears threatened to clog her throat again. “He never was any good at that kind of thing.” She sniffed back wetness in her nose. “I just don’t know if I can keep going, day after day, year after year . . .”
Lewis Liffey was silent for a long moment. “Well, if you want to take off the badge, you can. But I don’t think you will.”
She looked up slowly.
“Every one of us on the Cross has lost family or friends. The difference between them and you is simple. These folks chose you to lead them. By an overwhelming majority. They’re frightened and hurting and they look to you for guidance, for someone to help get them through the nightmare. And I think they made the right choice.
“You’re doing the best you can under the worst conditions I’ve ever seen. You’ve already got hydroponics set up to feed us and the livestock, and I’ve just taken a look at the expansions to the system. They’re good, sound plans. You’ve taught the children how to do manual milking, so there’s plenty of calcium-rich food for the little ones. Hell, we may even get real eggs one of these days if those biddies keep growing at this rate.” His lips quirked. “Know how long it’s been since I tasted a real fried egg?”
“Don’t joke about it,” Tillie groaned. “I just killed—”
“The hell you did!” He strode over and sat down on the edge of her bunk. She flinched away, but he didn’t touch her. He just sat there, eyes dark and worried. “Tillie, you didn’t kill anyone. Or fail anyone. They killed themselves.”
She didn’t believe him. “They were my responsibility. The children, Mr. Liffey, those children were my responsibility. . . .”
“Yeah. Yours and mine, both.” The tone of his voice caused her to wince. He plucked absently at the bedding. “Do you honestly think those people wouldn’t have found a way to kill their kids, even if we’d taken them into custody? When a person’s as crazy determined as those poor souls were . . . You’ve never been in a lifeboat before, have you?”
“No.”
“I have.”
The way he said it caused Tillie to look up against her will. His eyes were haunted again. What was he seeing? Something he’d seen before? Something he didn’t want to see again? “Some folks live, some don’t,” Lewis Liffey said quietly. “Some just give up and some struggle to keep going no matter how desperate the situation. I expected we’d lose a few this way.”
Shock hit her like icewater. “You what? You expected it?”
Lewis grimaced at her expression. “I’d hoped not—prayed not—but it just seems like some folks are able to turn a mental switch that says, `Now I will fight for survival’ and others can’t. It’s got nothing to do with how well or how poorly you do your job. We’ve lost a total now of seventy-two people. That means two hundred ninety-five are still looking to you and me to get them through this.”
Tillie’s eyes began to sting. “But I don’t know if I can do it,” she whispered.
He held out a hand. “Maybe not. But we can.”
She met his eyes. He tried to smile and nearly succeeded.
Tillie spent a long, long time crying on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Liffey—”
“Don’t you think it’s about time you started calling me Lewis?” She looked up and found a wan smile. “You just spent thirty minutes wetting my uniform, after all.”
Tillie actually managed a smile in return. “All right. Lewis. I’m sorry about your little girl. Surely they evacuated Scarsdale in time.”
He touched her chin, wiping away wetness. “And I’m sorry about your husband, Tillie Matson. I hope he survives the war.”
Tillie nodded; but she was already saying her own last, heart-wrenching goodbye.
Lewis sat back and studied her closely. “So how about it? Ready to take that badge off now?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m stuck with it, I guess. Like marriage, this job is for better or worse.”
He held out his hand again. “Welcome aboard, partner.”
She hesitated only a moment. But when his hand clasped hers, doubts and terrors faded. The coming years wouldn’t be easy. But Lewis Liffey was one of those lifeboat survivors. She felt the mental switch in her mind click over.
In that moment, Tillie knew they’d be all right.
Sensors track the approach of a ship with Concordiat markings. I monitor its descent from orbit. This vessel has suffered damage which my data banks correlate with battle. The burn scars of energy weapons have traced its hull. Portions of the ship have been opened to vacuum. The propulsion system is functioning at an approximated 20.073 percent of optimum. Descent from orbit is ragged. It loses power and falls twenty thousand meters before engine restart. Braking thrusters function after three attempts to engage.
The ship settles in a broad field of soybeans 15.09 kilometers from colony center. I approach at full speed, Battle Reflex circuitry engaged. This is a Concordiat ship. But I am not fooled. The Enemy is clever. Six times I have successfully fought invasion attempts of Matson’s World. Six times the Enemy has left derelict ships in orbit. Two of those ships were captured Concordiat vessels. I hold fire until my sensors can confirm a seventh infestation.
A hatch opens. A ramp descends on automatic. The life forms which emerge are human. I close the remaining 1.95 kilometers and halt 7 meters away from the open hatch. I do not open fire. But I traverse infinite repeaters and lock onto the humans in case the Enemy has successfully captured human targets to front another invasion attempt. The nearest human attempts to block the one behind with his body. This act of protectiveness confuses me. They do not behave as though controlled by alien pests. The human behind him, which my sensors determine to be female, speaks.
“My God! It’s—it’s Digger!”
Joy! My new Commander has given the proper code word. My long vigil is over.
“Unit DGR reporting, Commander. Request permission to file VSR.”