Becoming Chosen
Chapter Seventeen

Everyone seems to be obsessed with what the travelers will be giving up for this mission. Personally, I think it’s a mistake of perspective. Yes, they won’t have access to the vast store of human knowledge. And yes, they will have to live with a lower level of technology than we do. But if we put their lives in historical perspective, they will be better taken care of than the vast majority of our species. They will all have food, shelter, interesting work and family. Even as late as the twenty-first century there would have been literally billions who would have gladly swapped places with them.

-Don Fisher, Excerpt from the minutes of the Cultural Committee, Sealed Archieve

The waiting was like a ride in variable gravity, tense minutes of complete terror between the hours of abject boredom. For the last two days Ronan had ridden this ride, up then down and over again.

Being trapped in a dark space with someone who had admitted to liking him might have had some significant possibilities, if the circumstances were different. As it was Ronan would admit that his interest in pairing, as Miri called it, was purely academic at this point.

Between the terror, the despair at the Captain’s murder and the strong and growing stink of the ledge they’d designated as a toilet, it was probably the least romantic time and place imaginable.

But sitting quietly in the smelly dark was not an acceptable option. So, Ronan and Miri had taken turns asking and answering questions about their lives. If this didn’t fully occupy their time, it at least gave them the illusion of purpose.

“Even with all that open space around you, growing up in a habmo must have been great,” Ronan said.

“Oh, aye, hard, hot work. Nosy, cranky old folks tellin’ you what to do at every turn, and believin’ in a religion that was a lie the whole time,” Miri said sarcastically. “It was a big party every day.”

“Hey, now! Don’t ruin it for me! There must have been good times.”

He heard Miri breath in and sigh. “I guess. It’s hard for the place you’ve lived all your life to seem really special. But I do remember this one time, when I was small.”

“Yes?” Ronan prompted when she paused.

“Well, this was when I was three or four. Before my parents died. There was a party at our house. I don’t know why, but everyone decided to go outside. The light tube was way down, casting silvery light everywhere.”

As Miri talked, her words seemed to form an image in the air before Ronan.

“It was cool, so it must have been the spring cycle of weather. Anyway, I remember toddlin’ along with my blanket, lookin’ all around. I looked up, and for the first time I can remember, I could see what was almost exactly opposite our farm, on the far side of the light tube. When it’s on full, it is too bright, there is a dazzle that keeps you from lookin’ right across the habmo.”

Ronan could hear a smile forming as Miri talked. It made him happy that she was thinking about something other than their problems.

“Way up there, I could see a farm. But it was tiny. Perfect little corrals, barns and a house. You have to remember, I was just a little kid,” Miri said her voice taking on a slightly embarrassed tone. “I pointed up and said, ‘Mummy, look! It’s a fairy farm!’ Well everyone there laughed, but I didn’t care.

“For months afterword, I thought about the farm. It seemed right out of one of the stories my Grandad told. I imagined they had cows that gave strawberry milk, that their horses were blue and gold and purple. And, there was a wee fairy girl just like me, living there.”

“That sounds like a great place.”

“Oh, it would have been, if it were real. Unfortunately, it was just the MacIver’s farm. My Da took me there a few months later. He thought I would love seein’ it up close, but I just cried and cried. My perfect little world turned out to be just like home.”

“Huh,” Ronan said, thoughtfully, “If you don’t mind, I’m going to keep thinking there is a fairy farm in the habmo. Though truth to be told, a farm would be a strange and exotic place to me.”

“Ha! I think that would change after a day or two of plowin’ and feedin’ smelly cows and goats.”

“Oh? So, you don’t think I could keep up? Poor soft Tech-boy?”

Her hand reached out of the darkness and patted him twice on the thigh. “No, I know you could do it, you are,” Miri said, only to be interrupted by a knocking sound from below.

The two of them froze. This could be the discovery they had been dreading. Then the knock came again, in the pattern they had agreed on with Ami.

Ronan turned on his flashlight, driving back the enveloping dark. It revealed Miri, her hair a tangled mess, and her clothes dirty and disheveled. She flashed him a weak smile of relief. He smiled the same back to her.

They climbed down two levels to the hatch. Ronan punched in the code to open the hatch. Instead of Ami, who they expected, the face staring up at them was Manny, a gawky boy who worked in Electrical with Ami.

“What’s up? Where is Ami?” Ronan asked.

“They took her, Ronan!” said Manny.

“Took her? Who?”

“The Officers! They came to our workshop and arrested her! She was worried this might happen, so she told me if it did, to get to you and tell you this place might not be safe for long.”

“Damnit!” Ronan said, “How long ago did they come for Ami?”

“About twenty minutes. As soon as they left, I told my shift supervisor I had the trots and needed to spend some time in the toilet.”

“Nice idea, that will keep anyone from askin’ too many questions,” Miri put in.

“Thanks. I’m really worried, you know? Everything is changing, not for the better. Everyone is saying you killed the Captain, is it true?”

Ronan looked down on the worried young man below him. His brown eyes were all but begging for him to deny it. But doing that would leave doubt, after all, a killer would deny it, wouldn’t he?

“Do you think I killed my uncle?” Ronan asked, quietly.

Manny looked at him a beat longer than was comfortable, then said, “No. No way. You might want to do things outside the Way, but kill someone? No, I don’t believe it.”

“Thank you, Manny,” Ronan said with a smile.

“Hey, we grew up together,” Manny said a little affronted. “But I need to get back and the two of you need to be gone. And be careful where you go. There are curfews and cameras all over the place now. But the turn-over is just about to start, so this is probably your best time to move.”

“You’re right. Thanks again for your help.”

“I really haven’t done much. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, but it’s probably better if you don’t know anyway. If they come for you, you won’t be able to tell them.”

“Right, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, good luck.”

“To all of us,” Ronan said, and closed the hatch.

As the darkness closed back around them, Miri asked “So, we need to get movin’. The question is where do we go?”

Ronan rubbed his face, trying to marshal his thoughts. “I don’t know. The cameras won’t be active everywhere, it’s too much data to monitor, especially with the turn about to happen. But they will have them everywhere useful.”

“Huh, that kind o’ limits our options. Could we stay here and take the chance that Ami won’t tell them anythin’?”

“It wouldn’t matter. She won’t talk, but they can start tracing her movements, and everyone she talked to. Even if they all keep quiet, it means no more supplies. After Manny, no one is going to take the chance of coming here.”

“What we need is a place that Nesbit can’t monitor, and people who wouldn’t talk to him.”

Silence fell as the two of them mulled over their problem.

“Oh!” Miri said in a quiet voice. “I know where we need to go.” Then she started to laugh. A spike of worry lanced Ronan’s gut. Was the pressure making Miri lose it?

“Ha! It’s perfect, if we can get there,” Miri told him in the glow of the flashlight.

“Where?” Ronan asked exasperated.

“We’ll do what the Captain told us to do; we’re goin’ to the habmo’s!”

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