Damocles Read Free Page A

the headphones she wore blocked out all but the most piercing sounds. Meg knew the real reason she kept peeking over her shoulder was to reassure herself that nobody was going to come into the capsule, pull the plug, and inform her that this entire experience was a simulation.
    Voices. Meg clamped the headphones down more tightly over her ears, unnecessary for their function, necessary to keep her mind from blowing out the sides of her head. The drones picked up thousands of voices—articulated human vocal sounds—and as the language program separated the threads of sounds into manageable categories, she skimmed through the groupings to hear the sounds for herself.
    She knew the look she had in her eyes. She’d seen it in almost every set of eyes on board when she would force herself away from her console to grab a bite to eat or to drywash the oily grime of recycled air off her skin. She’d passed Cho in the toilets and neither one of them could make a complete sentence. They’d finally just given up and grinned at each other. She’d had to step over Jefferson on the way to the kitchenette. After he’d taken in his drones’ data on minerals and inorganic resources in the planet’s crust, he’d laughed so hard he’d had to lie down to catch his breath. Prader had plenty to say, most of it of the four-letter variety, as she threatened every mechanical system on the ship that didn’t come into line with her demands. But when she wasn’t swearing and kicking panels into place, she would look up with a big toothy grin for anyone nearby.
    Only Samantha Aaronson, the pilot, didn’t join in the rejoicing. She didn’t grin, she didn’t high-five. She climbed and clambered over every inch of the wiring within the ship, consulting with Prader and Cho and Captain Wagner about the health of the propulsion crystal, but otherwise keeping her eyes on the myriad screens she oversaw. And in the middle of those screens, she occasionally let her eyes drift to a photograph of a handsome man in a military uniform. Sometimes she even let her fingers drift there, and when they did, everyone on the crew knew to look elsewhere.
    The ship’s log revealed that the first four planets on the path of given coordinates had been a bust. One had been devoured by a supernova; two were simply labeled “hostile”; and the fourth had been deemed “inaccessible” due to “solar conditions.” Captain Wagner had worked with Aaronson to read the star charts the nav system had created. He signed off on them and launched another relay beacon that would, in theory, transmit the information from the
Damocles
back to one of the gathering satellites they’d scattered through deep space. It was like shooting a spit wad over the ocean, and they all knew it. The crew of the
Damocles
was on an information-gathering mission like no other, farther than any of their kind had ever dreamed of traveling, following coordinates nobody could guarantee led anywhere.
    News of an ancient race seeding the species hadn’t set well with the species as a whole. Meg and her language program had come under fire for falsifying information or, as the senator from the Galen colony had suggested, “making it all up.” World religions and scientific communities reeled at the concept of something extraterrestrial influencing the course of life on the home planet. Creationists and evolutionists teamed up to fight the mind-shattering revelation that the one concept they all agreed on—theuniqueness of humanity—might be in danger. The message had changed the definition of humanity. But to Meg’s thinking, the reaction to that fact did more to damage humanity than any message ever could.
    The
Damocles
’s mission might never have happened if not for a horrific organized attack throughout the terraforming ring. Furious at what they saw as hubris, fringe groups of Christian and Muslim fundamentalists banded together for a brutal four-day assault. Firebombs, pipe bombs, and