Child of Earth (30 page)

“That one worries us a lot,” Earring admitted. He exchanged a serious look with Smiller and Byrne. “If such a situation exists on Linnea, it means that none of our present scouts can continue working and observing anywhere they might risk identification. It would cripple the program.” And then he added, “Enormously.”

“Then I do have a point, don't I?” said Da-Lorrin, smiling wryly.

Earring nodded sadly. It was the first time I'd ever seen him look anything less than ferocious. “Let me say it bluntly. We have to get our people out with a minimum of attention—and as little cultural upset as possible. Right now, our best plan involves a team of stealth operatives hitting all the guards simultaneously with self-vaporizing anesthetic darts. With tear gas as a backup. We know we can do it. We've scanned the prison, we know the layout, we know the routines of the guards. We've run simulations of six different assaults. We have an excellent chance of success. To the Linneans, our people will have simply disappeared from a locked cell.”

“And that will add to the belief that Oerth-people have mysterious powers, won't it ...?”

“Our other on-site teams will start rumors that a sympathizer freed them, that someone saw them riding out of town. We'll take their horses at the same time.”

“Won't that put the guards under suspicion?” asked a farmer named Brill. “Won't that endanger otherwise innocent people?”

“Probably,” said Earring. “But I doubt that you could call this squad of military guards
innocent
. They have a nasty reputation, well-deserved. I don't have a lot of sympathy for their needs right now. But the question does merit consideration. All of our questions do. We have to consider all our options and their consequences before we act.”

He glanced at the clock. “I think we've said enough for now. Midnight approaches; so does winter. You all have work to do. Those of you who want to volunteer, give your names to Smiller—then go home and talk this over among yourselves. In your own homes, nowhere else. Remember, no one goes unless his or her family agrees. Oh, and don't worry about the hidden monitors; tonight's snowfall will probably knock some of them out for a few hours. Weather often has funny effects like that.
You all know the situation, so you shouldn't have any disagreements about the facts. Just decide if you can afford to take the risk. If you can, make your good-byes tonight. We'll pick you up in the morning. Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “Thank you.”

THE DECISION

THE TRACTOR-BUS WAS WAITING FOR US, its engine already running. I wondered what the driver had told the Kellys about why we hadn't gone back with them, but I didn't worry about it too much. We had a more important subject to discuss.

But once we got home and started passing out tea mugs, there really wasn't much to say about it one way or the other. Jaxin had demonstrated enormous kindness to all of us. While we had a sense of protective loyalty toward Linnea, we had an even greater sense of comradeship with the scouts who trained us. We didn't know the other scouts, but whatever it took to rescue Jaxin, the whole family supported it; so we went to bed quickly, leaving Mom-Woo and Lorrin alone in their little corner of the house. They probably had a lot to talk about and not a lot of time.

The next morning, Smiller rode out on Mountain to pick up Lorrin. We were already shivering in the cold air when she came thundering over the hill, stirring up clouds of fresh powdery snow in her wake.

Almost her first words, she said, “The Gate Authority turned down our request to mount a rescue operation.”

“What does that mean—?” Lorrin started to ask.

“It means we'll have to send in a team of
observers
instead,” said Smiller. She tossed down the rope ladder. “Come on, let's go.”
Observers
. We knew what that meant. They would be operating outside the restrictions of the Charter. Whatever happened on Linnea, there would
be hell to pay back here on Earth. But that would be later, and right now nobody was worrying about
later
.

Lorrin tossed up his bag, then turned back to us for farewells. He looked grim when he told us not to worry, but how could we
not
worry? He hugged each of us in turn—he ruffled my hair and told me to take care of Aunt Morra and Uncle Bhetto—then he climbed up the ladder into the basket on Mountain's right side, and they headed off in the direction of the Brill farm. We didn't know when we would see him again ... and the possibility that we might
never
see him again suddenly scared me. For the first time, I think, mortality was a real thing to me.

But almost immediately, Mom-Woo began pushing us back to work. She pulled her boffili robe tighter around herself and said, “Well, don't everybody stand around waiting for him to return. We still have a lot of work to do.” She gave me a push in the direction of the house and said, “Come on, Kaer. Let's clean up the breakfast dishes.”

Later that day the snow started coming down again, this time so thick and fast it scared us. We worried that the dome's snow-making machinery had broken or something. We all took turns climbing the ladder to peek outside, until finally Mom-Lu complained that we were letting all the heat out. When Irm came back down the ladder with nearly an inch of white frosting on top of his cap, Mom-Woo said, “All right, everybody. We'll have no more peeking at the snow for now. Come on, Rinky, help me get lunch on the table.”

By the third day, the snow was two meters thick. Our water tank was full, and so was the cold-room, where we kept our food. The big pile of fuel bricks and boffili chips that we'd left upstairs had turned into a giant snow cone. We took some leftover boards from the wagon we'd “dismantled” and practiced sledding with the little-uns.

But the snow kept coming down, even thicker than that, and after a while, it was all we could do just to clear it away from the doors. We had a lot of time to ourselves then. Aunt Morra helped all the kids with our lessons, while the moms concentrated on their sewing. In the evening, we sang and told stories and acted out plays—just like Jaxin had told us we would. And even though it was cramped, we had fun.

It would have been more fun with Lorrin—we all missed him so—but Mom-Woo just said, “He'll come back, I know it.” And then she'd resume stirring something at the stove, or she'd pick up her knitting or whatever else she had been doing.

We had to work harder without Lorrin's strength, but nobody complained. We couldn't exactly ask for news, but every two or three days
one of the scouts would call or stop by to check on us, and in the course of her visit, she'd remark, “Lorrin sends his love. They've crossed over.” Or: “They've arrived at camp, only twenty klicks from Callo City. Lorrin says he misses you.”

We weren't totally cut off from everybody else. In the evening, we had a half hour of news from the Administration. It was like going to Meeting, only we didn't have to walk two klicks to get there.

Administor Rance said told us that we would have to get used to not having the latest information piped into our homes, that we had to learn how to live in real isolation, and we all knew she was right. Even so, the evening broadcast was the high point of our day, and nobody ever missed it. We'd gather around the screen almost hungrily. On Linnea, we wouldn't have even this much, unless we were willing to dig a secret room like the Kellys.

After the news ended and the darkness returned, Mom-Woo would light candles, Mom-Lu would pour tea, and we'd talk about what we'd heard, speculating about what each thing meant to us.

One thing had been bothering me since the night winter was postponed. “I don't understand it,” I said. “How can anyone be so stupid that they would tell the Linneans about Earth? Didn't they get trained properly? Don't they know that they're putting other people at risk? Why would anyone do something like that?”

Gampa came over and sat down next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder. “Kaer, you have asked a very sad question. You probably won't like the answer.” I leaned into his shoulder, letting his hug protect me. “Some people ...” Gampa said slowly, “Some people do not believe they have to keep their word. They say whatever they think others want to hear while they create personal loopholes for themselves. They tell themselves that rules exist for other people, but not for them. They have their own selfish agendas, which they don't share with others, so they use other people to get what they want. They pretend to go along with the program while they further their private plans.”

“But what kind of plans? Why would they betray the Agency?”

Gampa shrugged. “Think about it, little peanut. Linnea resembles our own world, three hundred years ago. Imagine if you could travel back in time, you could invent the steam engine, railroads, electricity, the telephone, movies, automobiles, airplanes, all of the great industries that changed the world. If you could do that, you could
own
the world. Perhaps some of the people who crossed over to Linnea may have succumbed to that temptation. Yes, I know, we all want to think the best
of everyone who makes it through the training. But those three families that disappeared...I wonder if maybe they had planned to do that all along.”

I thought about that. It made me sad and angry to think of someone going through training, lying and pretending just so they could get to Linnea, knowing all along that they intended to abuse the trust of so many others. I couldn't think of the right words in Linnean to describe such actions; we hadn't learned many Linnean cusswords, but the few I did know were pretty bad. Anyone who would betray two worlds at a time had to be double-maizlish.

“But, Gampa, why would they tell the Linneans about Oerth? Earth? What do they gain by that?”

“I have a theory,” said Auncle Irm, filling his mug and joining us. “The traitors—yes, I would call them traitors—want the gate closed. If they can turn the Linneans against Oerth, the administors will have to stop sending families, will have to pull back the scouts. That would explain why they had to disappear—so the scouts couldn't track them down and extract them. Or maybe even ... kill them. Considering the stakes in this game, the traitors will have to play for keeps. And so will the scouts.” I must have looked horrified, because he added, “Kaer, if you want to own a world, you have to get rid of the competition. I fear that Linnea has become the site of a secret war. And I fear that the people who cross over will find themselves on the front lines of the battle.”

EVEN MORE SNOW

IT WAS STILL WINTER. There were still storms. The snow kept falling. Somewhere up north, a couple of lakes must have been drained. I gave it only a passing thought. In our minds, we were already on Linnea.

And we finally figured out how to keep warm. It was a matter of adjustment—us as well as the burrow. We hung robes on the walls. We hung woven mats of dried grass. We hung the extra canvas from the wagon. Every bit helped to keep the heat from seeping out through the bricks. This hadn't been in any of the trainings; we had to figure it out ourselves. And later on, we realized why it hadn't been in any of the trainings—because we were
supposed
to figure it out ourselves. Real Linneans are resourceful.

With the double insulation of our walls, the combined body heat of all twenty of us in the same room was enough to raise the temperature another ten degrees. And by dinnertime, the cook-fire had added ten more degrees of warmth, so if anything, we were sometimes too warm in the house and we had to open up both of the ventilation shafts all the way just to cool down. It took us a few days, but we finally worked out a system so we were mosty comfortable.

We had two ventilation shafts at opposite ends of the house. Above us, one terminated just above ground level; the other went up a twometer chimney. The pressure differential as the wind blew over the two shafts created a steady flow of air through our underground house. We also had a third chimney directly over the cooking bay, and a lot of
warm air went up that shaft, melting the snow up topside so it would flow down into our water tank.

Of course, with all the snow coming down, we had no shortage of water. The tank filled up quickly and stayed filled. Because the tank was more than two meters underground, the water in it didn't freeze; it was always cold and refreshing—except at bath time. Mom-Woo didn't want to waste valuable fuel boiling too much water for baths, so we had to learn how to bathe in cold water. That was always good for an evening of shrieking. But nobody complained about bundling up into a nice warm bed afterwards.

Every so often, just for the fun of it, someone went up the ladder, pushed opened the hatch, and scooped out a few buckets of fresh snow to look around and see how high it had gotten. There were a couple of days when we had no idea how much white had piled up topside. On the evening news Administor Rance said we had gotten four meters of snow—simulating a light Linnean winter. Our ventilator chimneys could be raised above the snow level, so they both stayed clear, but the periscope Klin rigged showed only white.

One of our projects was something we hadn't had time to do before the snow started; but now we did. We built a real bathtub. We used some of the razor grass fuel bricks to boil down some tarpay, and we made a huge brick tub against one wall with a firepit under it, like a stove. Now we could take hot baths, two or three at a time—or as Gampa said, we could also use it to make a
lot
of soup.

Mom-Woo wouldn't let us have much fuel for the fire. But at least now we were able to keep clean—and that was very important for a large family cramped together in a small house. Not all the bed shelves had been installed yet; we had run out of time before Lorrin left and winter started, so Rinky and I decided to use the tub as our bed so we wouldn't have to sleep on the floor anymore. But it echoed when we giggled.