Arrival: Chapter 36

  “Am I interrupting?” In-Su asked after the door to Bao’s office slid open.  It was a week later, and negotiations were taking place between Asari and Halley.  Although they still quite clearly hated each other, they’d at least both committed to the peace process, and to a negotiated settlement between them which addressed all of the grievances they both had.

  Bao had been chosen to mediate between them.  She served a role which was at times moderator and at others judge.   Both sides respected her fundamental neutrality in the issue and had mutually and bindingly agreed to abide by her final judgements.  A makeshift office had been set up for her near the dining hall where the public portions of the negotiations were taking place; the public element to the proceedings allowed all of the mission’s survivors to get a sense of the progress which was being made, as well as a chance to voice their own ideas and opinions.

  When In-Su entered, Bao had been speaking privately with Asari which was in no way inappropriate.   Although there was a public element to the discussions, it was not a trial.  Bao needed to be able to speak privately with both parties in order to respect their confidentiality in addition to hosting the joint meetings between them in the dining hall.  Though they found they could stand to be in the same room together, Asari and Halley found it impossible to bring themselves to speak to each other directly.   In the public meetings they spoke through intermediaries or to Bao directly.  When the public meetings were out of session, both also found it helpful to speak privately with Bao when they found it necessary to do so. 

  “Not really,” Asari answered In-Su.  “Actually I’d like your input on this.  We’ve been talking about the possibility of setting up some kind of human breeding farm on the ship.”

  “Well it certainly sounds grotesque.” In-Su answered with a wrinkled nose but an open mind.  “But tell me more.”

  “It’s an idea some of us have been kicking around,” Bao answered.  “With the obvious exception of the personnel landers, all of our other drones are still intact.  Many of us think that this means our mission can still ultimately succeed if we’re lucky.  If it indeed can though, our greatest challenge at this point is of course our severely reduced population.  Yes we have around fifty healthy adults of reproductive age, and yes together with the elderly they can all pull together to raise the children who have been left orphaned, but that can only get us so far.”

  “You want to use the artificial wombs,” In-Su surmised as he came to understand.

  “Yes.” Bao confirmed.

  “Since we never used any en route there’s still the original four installed in the bio-lab and eight more still in back up storage,” Asari elaborated.  “If we set up the backups as well and ran all twelve continuously, then in a span of only five years we could produce eighty babies.   It would be a tremendous burden on the adults left around to raise them all at the same time, but… it could be done.   Combined with maximized concurrent natural breeding, we could completely replenish most of our losses… if only numerically.”

  “So much for mission protocol…” In-Su lamented.

  Asari shrugged.  “Of course we couldn’t raise, educate, and train them as meticulously as we did on the ship, but we might just have to live with that.”

  “Well in reality,” In-Su added, “those protocols were really only enacted for use during the trip here in the first place anyways.  The careful genetic management and high level educational curriculum were never really intended to be continued in full once the colony was established and everyone was living on the planet.  We understood all along that the new reality would create a new culture and a new way of life, even if we hoped that our careful efforts would greatly inform that new civilization, we knew that things would change in unforeseen ways.”

  “Right,” Bao acknowledged.  “Well we’d leave most of the elderly and some of the younger adults on the ship to take care of the babies.  Our schmilk producers were always designed to be able to produce human breast milk as easily as bovine.  We’d essentially turn the ship into a giant orbital nursery, and send the children down when they were old enough.  We wouldn’t even have to wait until they were fully mature.  In fact the earlier they can be sent down and raised by adopted parents on the surface the better.  They’d adapt to life down there faster that way and be able to help out on the surface from an earlier age as well.”

  “It’s a good idea,” In-Su agreed.  “And you’re right, the adults down there who are going to be asked to take on raising adopted children, I’m sure they’d want to be able to start parenting them as early in their development as possible.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Bao said, “but it would be too much to drop on them too soon and all at once, especially while they’re still trying to set up the colony sites in the first place.”

  “Sites?” In-Su asked.

  “Yes… sites.”   Asari acknowledged with some frustration.  “To his credit… Halley has made a lot of concessions about it, but he does still insist on having his own alternate colony site.”

  In-Su shook his head in dismay.  “Unbelievable…  Well, what concessions has he made?” he asked.

  “Well,” Bao answered.  “For starters, Asari and Halley have both agreed to relinquish their leadership roles after the negotiations have concluded,” she stated with an appreciative nod to Asari.  “In fact they’ve both suggested that leadership of each colony be assumed by one of you simulants In-Su, and that you should decide amongst yourselves who will lead each one if you are indeed willing.  Whichever two are chosen, they will also be the official representatives and liaisons between the two colonies.”

  “Interesting…” In-Su acknowledged without making any kind of commitment to the idea.   “What else.”

  “Halley has also agreed so far that the two colonies should not be adversarial.  He agrees that they should exist in close proximity to one another, and should have normalized communications.  Instead of two colonies in opposition to each other as he’d originally had in mind, all parties now agree to a model of two nearby sister colonies working together co-operatively.  The premise we are currently working with is that instead of being clear across the planet where Halley originally landed, the second colony site should be no more than a day’s walk away from the primary site and that there should be no restrictions whatsoever on any movement between the two.”

  “Since the only drone they currently have at their existing site is one of the two paving drones, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Asari noted.  “We’ll just have the one we already have at the primary site create the twenty kilometer or so road to the new place they choose and do whatever clearing and paving they need done.”

  “That’s another thing,” Bao remembered, “as a further show of good faith to secure his second colony site, Halley has agreed to forgo the creation of his own independent landing strip, as well as any kind of claim to primary ownership of either shuttle.  This is an added insurance which means that they’ll have to maintain good relations in order to have any kind of access to either the shuttles or the New Horizon.”

  “The blimp though,” Asari reminded her.

  “Oh, yes.   He’s agreed to all that on the condition that the second site can have primary access to one of the two airships which have far more limited capabilities.”

  “I find that all very reassuring,” In-Su offered.  “It seems to indicate that he really does want to make this work and that he wants to do his part to maintain the peace.  He’s given up a lot though hasn’t he?  What have you given up to get him to agree to all of these conditions Asari?” he asked the man.

  Asari looked up at him from his chair with a somewhat quizzical look on his face.  “My consent to there being a second colony site at all,” he answered rather defensively.

  “Right.” In-Su replied, not realizing how big a concession that really was for him.

  “And my continuing commitment to share resources and technology,” Asari further elaborated.  “I’ve agreed to the principle of there being two sister colonies as part of the same mission, and for the two sites to amicably collaborate.  I’ve agreed to the peace.” Asari added in sharper defensiveness.

  “Of course,” In-Su acknowledged.  “Asari, I’d like to speak to Bao alone for a moment, is that alright?”

  “Sure,” Asari agreed as he stood up out of his chair which faced Bao behind her desk.   “I need to prepare for the next session anyways.”
 “Actually if you could just wait outside for a moment, I’d like to speak privately with you as well.  This will only take a moment.”

  “Alright.”   With that, the door opened as Asari moved towards it, and once through it closed behind him again.

  “You’re making wonderful progress Bao,” In-Su congratulated her.  “I’m very impressed.  I’m proud of you.”  The old woman got up from behind her desk and came around to give In-Su a hug. 

  “I’m proud of you too old man,” she pulled away and looked at him funny, “or young man, however you want to look at it,” she laughed.

  “It’s been nice to meet you.  I hope to get to know you much better as time goes by,” In-Su offered with a smile.

  “Likewise,” she agreed.

   

  In-Su found Asari outside the door where he’d asked him to wait for him.  He was sitting on the ground with his back against the wall beside the door to Bao’s office, with his arms hugging his raised knees.   Idly fiddling with his fingernails, he seemed incredibly distant and somehow distinctly grey.

  “How are you doing?” the simulated man asked the human as he sat down beside him.

  “I hurt… every minute, of every day…” he answered despondently.  “I lost my whole family In-Su… my whole family.”

  “I know…” In-Su replied with a heavy hearted sigh.

  “I see their faces every day… I keep expecting to see them again.  I keep thinking of things I’d like to talk to Aset about, or things I think Nekheny would find funny, and then I remember that they’re dead… that I can’t ever share those things with them, and that I’ll never have another casual moment like that with them ever again…”

  In-Su didn’t say anything.  There was nothing to say.

  “How do you get over something like that In-Su?” Asari asked.  “How does it ever stop hurting?  I don’t know if I even want it to.  Part of me feels like I’d be betraying their memory if I ever did get over it or, or let it stop hurting me…”

  “It never stops hurting Asari; you never get over something like that…” In-Su reassured him.   “Sure every day it hurts just a little tiny bit less than it did the day before, but it never goes away.   Eventually it becomes a constant dull throb which you get used to and eventually find you can live with, but it never stops altogether.  Someday you’ll remember that they loved you enough that they wouldn’t want you to live a life of misery on their account and not be able to get on with your life because of them, but that day is a long, long ways away, don’t worry.”

  Asari nodded his head.  He understood.

  “Thank you In-Su.” Asari gravely stated.  It seemed a more general gratitude, than for anything he had just told him.

  “For what?”

  “For reaching me… for helping me see something I’d been ignoring and suppressing my whole life.  For being compassionate when I needed it, and… and for helping me feel brave enough to live with the consequences of everything that’s happened… with everything I’ve done and been a part of…  It would have been so much easier to have just let Wiremu kill me.”

  “Yes.   Death is easy,” In-Su agreed, “but living is hard.  I’m glad you were willing to take on the challenge though.  Yes you’ve done bad Asari, but you were misguided.  You believed that you were doing the right thing, and that makes all the difference.  It means that you’re not a bad person at heart.  It means that the more you learn, and the better you understand yourself and your place in the world, the more accurate you’ll be in your judgements of what the right thing to do is in any given situation.  You’re a work in progress Asari; we all are…”