Earthbound by DM Arnold (read book .TXT) 📕

“When I found you in your bathtub, I knew immediately I had to bring you here. Suki, I love you. Nonetheless, if I knew it was in your destiny to die like that, I'd have allowed you to die. But that's not how Destiny planned it. Not saving you would've caused a temporal paradox.”

“Paradox?”

“Yes. I caused your interference. You are important to our world, but you have yet to play your role. If I allowed you to die, you'd never play your role, and our world might not be. I might not exist -- I might never have existed. If I never existed, I couldn't cause the interference, and you'd survive and play your role. Don't you see? I had no choice but to bring you here and to have our doctors save you. No Earth doctor could've. The reanimation technology doesn't exist there.”

An attendant inflated a cuff around Suki's bicep and drew a tube of tar- black fluid from a vein inside her elbow. “Denke,” the attendant said and headed for the door.

“I see the needle go in, but there's no wound,” Suki said, stroking the inside of her elbow.

“The needle's coated with healing salve. The wound closes instantly.” He stood and looked out the window. “I know what must happen. You've yet to fulfill your destiny. After you're discharged, I'll take you to Earth. Then, we must go our separate ways.”

She joined him at the window. “No. I won't let you go.”

“You must. I matter little in all this.”

“You matter to me. I feel real, unconditional love with you, Nykkyo. You're the one I've been looking for my whole life. Now that I've found you, I'm not giving you up so easily.”

“No, Suki. The stakes are far bigger than either of us. You're the one on the critical path, and I dare not interfere.” He slipped his arm around her. “I don't see the harm in us staying in touch, though -- as friends.”

Nyk sat with Suki on the sofa in her room. An attendant poked her head through the door. “Nykkyo?” She beckoned him.

“Excuse me,” he said and stepped into the corridor.

“Someone to speak with you,” the attendant said.

Nyk turned and saw Senta. “Nykkyo, I've re-enabled your ID code at the apartment.”

“You came here to tell me that?”

“No. I also wanted to meet my rival. Would you be kind enough to make introductions?”

“Step this way.” Nyk gestured Senta into Suki's room. “Suki, this is Senta -- my wife. Senta, xe Sukiko es.”

“Saluti,” Senta said as she walked toward Suki. Suki extended her hand. Senta kept hers at her side as she regarded Suki from head to foot to head. She looked into Suki's eyes and at her face from several angles. She walked around her and looked into her face again. Senta proffered a faint smile and said, “Bon'taka.” She turned to Nyk. “Bon'taka, Nykkyo.” She headed out the door.

“That was the most awkward moment I've had in many years,” Suki said. “I felt like a steer being judged at the state fair. I thought you said your wife's name was Cindy.”

“That's her Earth name.”

“I'd have believed Senta as a name.”

“I didn't make it up. Our Earth identities are carefully engineered for us.”

“Nykkyo, don't you think it'd be all right to tell me the truth about you? How much of the sad, sad story you told me was fact, and how much was fiction?”

“None of it was a lie, exactly. I never wanted to deceive you, Suki. I was born in a small city on the coast, down south. The city's Sudal, population about a hundred thousand. I did grow up in a house on a bluff overlooking the sea. I flunked out of my first college. It's all my real life.”

“What about your parents?”

“My father was Food Service Ag Director. He had plans for me to follow in his footsteps. I was to be fast-tracked through the organization. It was something that didn't interest me in the least. He and my mother were returning from a trip to one of the colonies. An inertial sink malfunctioned and their shuttle crashed into one of the agridomes north of Sudal. There were no survivors.”

“And Senta?”

“She's indeed an important person. Senta heads the sequencing labs that perform genetic analysis on all our food crops. She's the youngest ever to be named a full director of a branch of the Food Service -- a branch of her own invention.

“She was finishing her degree as a microbiologist studying the genetic history of some species of lentils. She discovered in one of the species, somehow, alien genes had been introduced. Someone spliced genes from the castor bean into the genome for this lentil, inducing the production of the biotoxin ricin. A single lentil contained sufficient ricin to kill a man, and those lentils came very close to entering our food supply.” He shuddered. “If that had happened, people would've died by the millions. It was a weapon of mass destruction in a few strands of DNA.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“We don't know for sure. The whole affair is known as the Ricin Plot. It happened about five years ago. There's evidence a faction on the Altia colony was involved -- strong enough evidence to revoke the colonial charter and put the colony under direct High Legislature control. Six people were hanged for their roles in the plot -- the first executions on this world in over twenty generations. Senta feels guilt for their deaths. They were convicted on the basis of her testimony. She's considered a hero for discovering the plot, though it was mostly dumb luck. The High Legislature awarded her the Chancellor's Medallion.

“The Food Service asked her what could be done to prevent such an attack in the future, and she developed the sequencing labs. Now every crop undergoes careful genetic analysis prior to being planted in the agribeds. Senta approves each one personally. Now, she's too important and far too busy to pay much attention to me. I realize our marriage was a mistake.”

“God, Nykkyo. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be the one to come between a man and his wife.”

“There was plenty between us already. I've known Senta since we were children. Her stepfather's an old friend of my dad's. He used to bring her with him to Sudal on vacations. Senta was still at university when she agreed to marry me. Her stepdad prodded her into it. He wanted it more than we did, to bind himself to the memory of my father. Marriage on this world is less about love and more about family alignment, anyway.”

Nyk placed his hand on Suki's shoulder as he looked out her window onto the city streets. Dusk had passed. The sky darkened and the city lights shone brightly.

“Do you have to leave me alone tonight?” she asked.

“No.” He opened the sofa into a folding bed and lay on it. Suki lay beside him. He held her and stroked her hair.

“Mmm, this feels so good,” she said and kissed his cheek. “Bon'noka, Nykkyo.”

Nyk pressed his wrist to the scanpad at the apartment. The door popped open. He glanced around for sign of Senta and figured she was at the lab. He showered and changed into a fresh tunic and xarpa.

He sat at a vidisplay and placed a call. “Nykkyo,” Veska answered. “Senta told me about your injured comm tech.”

“I did what I thought was right and time was of the essence. Veska, I need to schedule a return packet to Earth, for tomorrow.”

“Two seats? Well, our offworlder's better off there than here. I'll check the packet schedule and send a telemessage with the details.” The vidisplay went dark.

Nyk handed Suki a length of cloth. “I brought you a lifxarpa. It completes the woman's costume. I'll show you how to wear it.” He placed the center of it behind her neck and crossed it across her breasts. He crossed it again behind her back and brought the ends around to form a sort of belt. “The crease goes at the bottom, and the folds serve as a pocket for small articles.” He knotted the loose ends. “There. You look great in Floran clothing, Suki.”

“All the doctors and attendants came to see me off. I'm sorry to go home. Everyone was so sweet -- I love your people, Nykkyo.”

He led her to the lift and they rode to the tubecar platform. Nyk pressed his wrist to the scanpad and ordered a ride to the shuttleport. A bullet-shaped vehicle stopped and the cowl slid back. He helped her in and started the car.

She looked up through the transparent cowl and tube. “Look at the color of that sky! Are those stars?”

“Yes, some stars are visible in broad daylight.”

The car pulled up to the shuttleport terminal. They waited in the departure lounge until their flight was announced. Nyk escorted her through a movable bridge and they took their seats.

Suki leaned toward Nyk. “The interior of this shuttle is just like a small Earth airliner,” she said. Nyk helped her fasten her safety harness. “This looks like what race-car drivers wear.”

“It's a five-point harness. I should warn you, we'll experience some weightlessness on the ride up. I hope you're not bothered by motion sickness.”

The shuttle hatch closed and it taxied and lifted off. Nyk gazed out the window as the ground dwindled below them. The sky outside the viewports faded from indigo to black. Suki reached and grabbed his arm. “This is such an unusual sensation. I think I'm having a panic attack. It feels like we're falling!”

“We are. Being in orbit's an endless, circular fall around the planet. Are you going to be sick?”

“I don't think so. I'll try some meditation techniques.” She closed her eyes for several moments. “I'm better now, but it's still an odd sensation.”

The shuttle pulled onto a landing pad on the transit platform. Normal gravity returned as the shuttle felt the influence of the artificial gravity generators on the platform. Nyk guided Suki from the craft through the docking port.

He led her to a capsule resembling a tubecar. The vehicle sped from the shuttle pad to the lower level packet concourse. Nyk presented his wrist to a scanpad in the departure lounge, spoke to an attendant and turned to Suki. “She said we'll board as soon as the vessel is serviced.” He motioned her to a viewport and pointed to the packet being serviced by tender shuttles. “We'll be aboard the Myataxya and Lexal packet. They're diverting to Earth after the stop at Myataxya. This will be a treat.”

The docking port doors opened and Nyk gestured toward them. He and Suki boarded the packet. The interior resembled an Earth wide-body jetliner, except the seats faced to the sides rather than front-and-back.

“Fasten your belt. Sometimes the warp jump tosses things around a bit.”

“No five-point harness?” she asked.

“No, the packets have gravity generators. It should be a smooth ride.”

A row of indicators below the viewports glowed white and the viewport shutters closed. The indicators glowed blue and a jolt shook the vessel. “That was the subjump. We're now outside Floran's heliopause.”

“Heliopause?”

“The boundary between a star system and true interstellar space.” The indicators glowed blue again and another jolt was felt. “We're now outside the Myataxyan heliopause. The packets travel most of the distance between stars without moving at all -- at least not in normal space.”

The lamps glowed blue again, and a third jolt shook the packet. “Was that the Myataxyan subjump?” she asked.

“You catch on quickly.” The indicators went dark and the viewports opened. The passengers let out a collective gasp. “That always happens on the approach to Myataxya. Once we're in orbit, we can stand and look out a viewport. There's no transit platform here, so they'll dock shuttles with the packet and exchange passengers. We'll have some time to sightsee.”

An announcement was made on the vessel's PA system. “We're in orbit. Come look.” He unsnapped his belt and escorted her toward a viewport.

“Oh, my God!” Suki exclaimed.

Nyk slipped his arm around Suki as he gazed upon Mytaxya's parent planet, a gas giant. It was a golden sphere with brown and orange bands and surrounded by multi-colored rings. From their vantage, the planet was half in light and half in shadow. Lightning flashes illuminated the cloud cover on the dark side. Nyk pointed down at an Earth-like moon, with a small ice cap, sapphire oceans and brown continents. White clouds laced the Myataxya colony atmosphere.

“This is a favorite resort and retirement colony. On the surface, it's a tropical paradise. It's our version of Hawaii.”

“It's beautiful beyond description from here,” she replied. “What must it look like from the ground?”

“I've never been there. I've never been