Higher Ground by Becky Black (most read books of all time .txt) 📕

He’d laugh and then turn serious as they shed their clothes and made love. Zach could feel the sunshine on his naked back just thinking of it. He could feel Adam’s fine, fit body straining against his.

Then they’d eat together and talk the sun down before making love again under the stars and sleeping under those same stars, naked, like primitive men under Earth’s stars a million years ago.

They’d do all that if they were alone out here.

Instead, he worried.

* * * *

Matters came to a head after dinner. People had been somewhat subdued during the meal. Even the irrepressible Professor Korrie was quiet until she ticked off her cat rather crossly when it bothered one of the children. The girl—only tiny and perhaps not used to animals—took fright at the cat and began to wail. Her mother took her away, casting a dirty look Korrie’s way as if it was her fault. Korrie scolded the oblivious cat, and that should have been the end of it, but the little girl’s crying set everyone’s nerves on edge. A few more children began to cry too. A baby in one of the tents shrieked so loud people jumped.

Then it started.

A man Zach didn’t know except as a face in the crowd stood up.

“Okay, Benesh, when are you going to admit you’re wrong about this?”

“What?”

“Nothing’s happened,” the man said. A few people murmured what sounded like agreement. Zach couldn’t deny nothing had happened—yet.

He stood up, Adam rising beside him. And then nearly everyone was standing. Some people started taking the children away. Torres, who’d been sitting by her tent with a mug of coffee, strolled over and stood in a position between Zach and the challenging man.

“His name’s Jones,” Adam said quietly.

“Mr. Jones,” Zach said, “I know this journey is difficult, but I haven’t changed my mind about my findings.”

“Neither have I,” Korrie said.

“You were always a troublemaker, Ann Korrie,” said a woman near to Korrie’s age, perhaps a decade younger. “If the Institute said black you’d say white. Sure that’s not what’s happening here?”

“You think I want to hike up a mountain just to cock a snook at the Institute when I could be back home in my hammock? I might have been a troublemaker, but I was never a fool.”

“Why haven’t we heard from the rescue ships?” Jones demanded. “Shouldn’t they have come by now? They’re not coming at all, are they?”

“If you think we’re in no danger, then why do you care if the ships come or not?” Korrie asked.

Zach took her arm. “Er, thank you, Professor, your support is appreciated.” But shut the hell up. He’d heard she’d been quite a renegade in her day—it was why he’d gone to her, knowing she’d never kowtowed to authority—but the disadvantages were showing themselves. The founding colonists had taken courses in conflict resolution to equip them to live in close quarters for years. Zach suspected Korrie had skipped a few classes.

“Haven’t we climbed high enough?” someone called. “Surely the sea can’t rise this far. Can’t we wait here for rescue?”

“There’s no way to tell how far the island will sink,” Zach said. “It might only sink a few meters, or it might be totally submerged.”

“Or it might not happen at all,” Jones said. “You could be wrong.”

“I’m certain it will happen. It’s only a question of time.”

“But you could be wrong,” Jones insisted. He’d moved closer, and the firelight and darkness made him seem bigger and broader than Zach remembered him. Involuntarily, he took a step backward. Adam’s hand touched his back, and he stopped. Jones didn’t look ready to take a swing at Zach, but he seemed determined to prove a point, assert dominance. Torres moved closer to him. She hadn’t said anything so far, not taking sides, just ready to do her job of keeping the peace.

“You could be wrong,” Jones said again. “Your data could be wrong.”

Any scientist could be wrong, of course. Zach wasn’t infallible. Even having the backing of a senior colleague like Korrie didn’t mean he had to be right.

“Yes, it’s possible I could be wrong,” Zach admitted with reluctant honesty. He heard Adam groan.

“Ah.” Jones smiled triumphantly.

“Shouldn’t have said that,” Adam muttered, but Zach felt he had no choice. The people of Arius were a community of scientists. Even the nonscientists worked with or lived with scientists. Those born here had grown up around them. They knew a scientist who claimed he couldn’t possibly be wrong was either a liar or a fool. Surely to admit to them he could feasibly be wrong meant little. But were they thinking rationally? With blisters and aching backs and crying children? With the siren call of their homes and beds behind them?

“I know this climb is difficult for many of you. And I know what you’ve left behind to follow me. Please believe I wouldn’t ask so much of you unless I was absolutely sure that staying in Arius would mean your deaths.”

“But you could be wrong.” Jones wasn’t letting go of that fact. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to come at all. Perhaps his wife or someone had talked him into it, and he needed to have the argument again and win this time. And what would he do then? Would he jump from could be wrong to is wrong and then…what? Zach knew what, and it chilled him. God, don’t let him have children. Don’t let him take children back down there to die.

“Yes,” Zach said again. “I could be wrong.”

With a triumphant look, Jones turned away. “He admits it,” he called to the watching crowd. “He’s not sure he’s right.”

“Listen to me,” Zach called, as loud as Jones but with pleading, not triumph, in his voice. “If I’m wrong, you can turn around and go back and everything will be fine. If I’m wrong and you keep following me, you get tired and sunburned and maybe have to argue with your boss when you eventually go home. But