A Day In The Journey

Earth. London, England. A.D. 2471. Secondary Headquarters for the United Earth Colonization Federation.

Just inside the entrance to a large oval briefing room, a young woman sits, waiting. In her mid twenties, she is attractive, yet hardened by labor and trouble. She waits. Finally, the secretary calls her name.

"Kyla Erwyss Langdon."

She stepped forward to the table and sat in the chair indicated to her. The general in charge gazed at her for a moment before beginning.

"Miss Langdon, you understand that you are not here because you are in trouble, don’t you. We do realize that while the measures taken by you and your friends were extreme, they were necessary in your situation. What we don’t understand is what exactly the situation was. That is what we are here to discover. You and your parents were among the second migration to the colony, am I right?"

A small ten-year-old girl faced the transport. New adventures; but also new fears to face. A new world. To a ten-year-old girl, the fears almost outweighed the sense of adventure. But, her dad walked over to her took her hand. "It’s time to go." And with that he led here into the transport and her new life.

"Yes, sir." In a voice calmer and surer than her years would account for, Kyla Langdon began her tale. "For my parents, Terga Prime seemed like the best opportunity they would ever have. My father lost his English professorship at Oxford over a textual debate regarding Henry IV, and my mother had just finished her Master’s in Biological Science. They were looking for something new. They had both been offered teaching positions at the newly established colony school, and they accepted. The transport left the next week. It was one of the last transports to Terga Prime."
"What was the colony like when your family arrived?"

She stepped off the transport to a bewildering cacophony of sensations. The colony’s one story square buildings and round Velor Quonset huts marched around the central square, but straggled lazily at the edges. People bustled around fulfilling duties and accomplishing tasks, just like any Earth town, but it was different. The air was rough-hewn, daring, courageous. Slowly the girl’s fears melted away as the spirit of the place trickled into her. Adventures beware: Kyla was coming.

"It was thriving. It was full of spirit and life. The colonists were so very proud of everything they had built and done. It was incredible."
"What was the government like at that time?"

"The Council meets tonight." Her father had come into the kitchen and placed himself at the table.
"Isn’t it early for them to meet? They always meet on Saturday." Kyla’s mother turned to her husband with a puzzled frown.
"They want to discuss expanding the school. They’ve called a special session because they know I can’t make it on Saturday."
"Good. I assumed that after it was discussed at the colony meeting they would rule about it."
"We need more room. I think we’ll get it. The Council really does manage to get whatever is in the colony’s best interest. It certainly has worked out well."

"We were governed by a council of 21 men and women. They were elected every year. The council met every Saturday evening. Colony meetings were held on Mondays, which gave the council time to think about what was discussed in the colony meetings before ruling on it. From what I could tell, it seemed to work very well. I did not find out until later that several council members were plotting a change."
"That correlates with the information that we have. Up until the year ’61, we feel our information is fairly accurate; it is after that year that we cannot be sure whether our information is true, or a fabrication of the Tri. What happened in the year 2461?"

The young girl who had stepped off the transport to such a new world was now a teenager. She stood at the edge of one of the colony’s fields and gazed over the rows of withering, blighted crops. It seemed they shriveled away even more as she watched. This year there would be no harvest.

"2461. I was fifteen years old. That was the year that the crops failed. . . ."
"Did anyone ever discover the cause for the crop failure?" This time the question came for the Secretary of Agriculture.

A group of worried men stood in the rows of blasted corn. They pulled off leaves randomly and scanned them with a small instrument. By the shaking of heads, it was obvious that they were not finding anything. Finally, with desperate and hopeless look they left the field.

Kyla considered him for a moment before continuing.
"At first, no one had any success trying to discover the cause. Then the epidemic came and no one had the time or energy to devote to sick crops with so many sick people. Then no one had permission. Over time, a theory developed that the blight of the crops was merely a different strain of the disease that struck the colony. Later it was theorized that the disease had been developed and integrated by the Tri so that they could establish power. Both theories were substantiated, but the evidence is no longer in existence." Her voice had grown hard over the last phrase. The general pondered her face and then nodded.
"I am persuaded to believe you. Excuse my interruption, General McDairmant. Please continue, Miss Langdon."
Kyla swallowed, and obeyed. "The crops failed that year. We watched them as they wasted away from a blight that we could not identify. Around what would have been harvest came the Epidemic. The first to fall ill was Adam Rowle."

"Old Adam Rowle fell ill today. Doctor Fischer said he’s never seen this before." Kyla’s father placed his briefcase on the table and hugged his wife. "He wasn’t really worried, though. He said that it’s probably just old age and Adam’s weak immune system, not anything serious."
"That’s good," came her mother’s relieved sigh. "The colony can’t afford illness right now."
"I wouldn’t worry about it, Rebecca. Doctor Fischer said not to. It should be okay."

"No one really thought about it then, because Mr. Rowle was older and had a weaker immune system than most. But then more people grew ill. Within two weeks Adam Rowle was dead, and the entire council grew seriously ill. Then the entire colony began to fall victim to the disease. The colony fell into ungoverned chaos. The Tri stepped in to maintain order. They certainly did that, and well."
She stopped at General McDairmant’s upraised hand. "What exactly do you mean by restoring order?"

The Tri. It seemed strange to call them that after having known them all this time. But no longer were they Senator Bendley, Laretha Omar and Jonson Rafet—now they were the Tri, the new government of the colony. Kyla’s father vehemently expressed his uneasiness at the development.
"I do not think dissolving the office of the council was a good idea. I’m afraid this government is turning sour, and the scent of it is authoritarian."
"Alex, don’t worry about it. So many people are ill now, I don’t think we could elect a new council if we wanted to. After this is over, we’ll reinstate the council, I’m sure."
Alex Langdon just sighed.

"They abolished the council and set themselves up as the government of Terga Prime. Almost immediately, they instated a strict state of affairs. Everything was rationed. Anyone over the age of twelve had to work, taking the place of those who were ill. At first, we went directly to the Tri with problems and questions. After six months, though, they appointed a "general" to be the liaison between the colonists and the Tri. The authoritarian government that my father had feared was developing."
"Your parents were victims of the epidemic weren’t they?"
"Yes. Almost everyone over the age of twenty was."

A slender, work-worn hand placed a single white lily on her parents’ coffin. Then, sixteen-year-old Kyla, the hand’s owner, straightened and threw the customary handful of dirt into the grave. Then she turned and walked away. She knew she couldn’t bear watching the shovelfuls of dirt smother her parents’ coffin. Now, suddenly, for the first time, she was alone.

"They died almost a year after the Tri came to power. I was sixteen."
"What happened to you after their death?"

This is your new home." The general held her shoulder as they faced the large Velor Quonset. It didn’t look very inviting, but it was the only place she had anymore.

"The Tri saw to it that I was place in their orphanage. It was a terrible place to live; very hard."
"Hard?"
"Cold, forbidding, uncaring. The administrators were hard, cold people who made the place hard and cold. They didn’t care about us beyond whether or not we’d done our work. They ran the place like a military camp. We had rigorous schedules and strict discipline. At times it seemed they disciplined us simply because they didn’t know what else to do with us. As more people died, more children came in, and the administrators grew harsher and harsher. They began to beat us down emotionally, trying, and basically succeeding, to make us believe that we deserved the harshness and hard labour. Frankly, it was evil and dehumanizing."
"What kind of work did you do?"

Scrape, scrape, scrunch, scrape. Eighteen-year-old Kyla hand hoed the field. Glancing up, she sighed, relieved that it was almost sun-down. She couldn’t wait to get back, eat, shower, and sleep. She doubted if she had felt rested once in the entire two years since her parents’ death. She had moved out of the orphanage several weeks before, so at least she had some privacy and now. But still, no wages. The Tri still claimed that the colony hadn’t recovered from the crop failure of three years before. Kyla had begun to doubt that. She wasn’t the only one, either.

"About the same as we had been doing before: working in the fields, making necessities, loading shipments of trade goods. The difference was the hours: sunrise to sundown, no exceptions. I was a field worker. I suppose they thought that was a great irony since my parents had been intellectuals. And there was no pay, even for those out of the orphanage. We had necessities, and no more. They did give us a house—typically our parents’ house—but meals were served at the town hall so we wouldn’t waste time cooking. And all this time, the Tri and their inner circle of friends grew more and more wealthy from our labour. Those of us who could remember knew it was wrong; we just couldn’t do anything about it."
"When did the dissenters first begin to meet? Who were they? You were one of the first, I believe."

She had been sitting beside him for several minutes in silence. She never spoke to anyone in the dining hall. He spoke to her.
"I’m Joram Adliss. You’re Kyla Langdon, am I right?"
Kyla stared at him for a moment. Warily she replied, "Yes, I’m Kyla Langdon, how did you know?"
"You’re father was Alex Langdon, correct?" At her nod he continues. "I was one of his students. He used to talk about you and your mother all the time. He kept a picture of you both on his desk. You look just like her, you know."
"That was almost eight years ago! You remembered?"
"Yes. I tried to find you after your parents died, but I couldn’t. The orphanage refused to let me look for you."
"Well. Now you’ve found me."
The pair began to spend dinner together every night. It didn’t take long for them to discover common ground: they were both dissenters. Joram had met three other dissenters over the past two years. Now they were coming together.

"I was one of the first. I met Joram Adliss not many weeks after leaving the orphanage. He had been one of my father’s students. He knew several other dissenters. They had remained fairly separate because of the surveillance. The Tri didn’t tolerate any dissenting talk, so they placed cameras and microphones everywhere.
"My father had built a study for his books under our house. We began meeting there on Saturday evenings, in honour of the council, and because we had Sunday off. Over the next year, our number grew to twenty."
"What did you do after that? What happened in the six years between then and the revolt?"

Four years had passed since Kyla had first met Joram. Over those years, the Tri had pressed harder and harder on the colony. They had started a school for young children, but it was little more that a propaganda mill to teach support for the Tri. Kyla’s hear broke to see it. This day had been a particularly hard day in the fields. She almost skipped dinner but decided against it as it might raise questions of her loyalty to the Tri. As she trudged home, she wondered how much longer she could take it. How much longer until something could be done. She stopped to let two bedraggled schoolchildren race across the street. "They aren’t discouraged," she thought. "But that’s because they don’t know any different." Tears began to stream down her face. How much longer could she watch young children be oppressed by the Tri, teenagers forced into adulthood by hard labour.
She walked into her house and was surprised to find the lights on. Then she smiles, seeing Joram asleep on the couch.
"Joram, wake up," she whispered in his ear. Slowly he awoke and looked at her. She smiled and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. She smiled and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. Joram came in behind her, slipped his arms around her waist and hugged her.
"I have a not from Elca. I thought you would want to read it. It’s on the table." He paused. "You’re going to make it, Kyla."
"Sometimes, I doubt it. If I see many more children scrubbing floors and hoeing fields, I think I’m going to break down. I knew their parents, Joram. They were better than this." She swallowed. "On top of that, I’m being watched. I’m so tired of planning every move I make and everything I say. I long to just speak my mind. It’s been so long already; how much longer will it take?"
"I don’t know. All I know is we’re together in this." And kissing her on top of the head, he left.

"We struggled. We starved. We hid from the Tri. We worked. The Tri took more of our freedoms. It was worse than the Communism that plagued the Earth hundreds of years ago. By 2466, we weren’t aloud to speak during work hours because they were trying to curb dissent. By ’67, we couldn’t talk at dinner. But the more they pushed, the more dissenters found our group. By ’69 there were too many of us to meet at all. It was hard for more than ten people to meet anywhere safely. The group elected five of us to handle information and plan. We now knew we had to do something. Children in the orphanages were starting to die from overwork. The Tri was experimenting with cloning and droid technology to eliminate the need for us at all. We had to take action; we just didn’t know what action to take yet."
"When did you finally decide that outright revolt was the action to take?"

The five straggled around the underground study.
"We have to take action soon." It was Elca. "There won’t be a better time than Senator Bendley’s birthday soirée. Security in the main colony will be minimal at best."
"Yes, but it will be tighter than usual around the Tri’s compound."
"Laster, you’re just cynical." Elca protested. "Nobody said we were going to storm the compound."
"You may call it cynical, but it’s true."
"Even so, Laster, Elca has a point. Whatever we are going to do, we couldn’t look for a better time than Saturday," Kyla agreed. "What we should do is the question. If we wanted to send a signal to Earth, Saturday would be a perfect opportunity."
"A signal won’t accomplish much," Laster rejoined. "Earth wouldn’t believe us, and the Tri would find out about it."
They sat in silence for several minutes. Then:
"Why don’t we storm the compound? There are enough dissenters to stage a revolt. The Tri rules by fear and propaganda, not numbers."
"Joram, you can’t be serious. It wouldn’t work." It was the first time Aren had spoken all evening.
"How do you know it won’t work; we haven’t tried it yet."
Laster and Elca just stared. Aren shook his head in disbelief. Kyla, crouched in front of a bookshelf, slowly stood and turned around. After staring thoughtfully at Joram for several long moments, she spoke.
"Revolt. Do you honestly think we could storm the compound and win?"
"I don’t see why not?" Joram answered, startled by Kyla’s interest. "We have the numbers, we just need a plan."
"Then let’s get a plan."
The five pulled their chairs around the table and started in.

"It just happened. Joram made the suggestion one night, more out of frustration that actual thought. But suddenly it seemed like the right thing. Senator Bendley’s birthday soirée was that Saturday, and it was the perfect time. We made our plans, and that Saturday we took back the colony."
"You did a very effective job."
"I read a lot. You would be surprised at how accurate even fiction can be."
"Somehow, I’m not all that surprised. Miss Langdon, who is responsible for the death of the Tri?"
"I am."

The banquet hall. She stood inside the doors she had just kicked open, tazer in had. The Tri stood facing her; their guests had already fled the room. Suddenly faced with the three people who had caused such great hurt to her and so many others, she felt tired and alone. She was a little girl again, seeing them for the first time.
"Kyla, dear." Laretha Omar stepped forward with a smooth smile. "You don’t really hate us, do you. We’ve only done what’s best for the colony. We’ve freed you from worry, you just never realized. We’ve freed you from worry, you just never realized it. We care about you. We’ve just been waiting for the right time to share our beneficence with the entire colony."
Kyla stood there, almost paralyzed under the gaze of the older woman. At first she didn’t know how to respond. Then she saw in her mind all the people who had died.
"Did you care about me when you infected me parents with the plague? Did you care about Adam Rowle or Harper Emme or Jareth Corbit? What about Doc Fischer? No. You never cared about anyone but yourself. You murdered hundreds of innocent people, and in case you’re wondering, I’m counting all the children who have dies in the orphanage. You shattered this colony, and all for your own selfish desires."
"That really wasn’t our fault. It was their fault. If they would have gone along with our plan to change the government, everything would have been fine." Senator Bendley had spoken. "We offered every one of them a share of what we would gain, but they refused."
Kyla stared at him. "That’s because they knew you would double-cross them sometime. It just happened while they still had their integrity."
Jonson Rafet looked at her for a moment. "Kyla, you don’t have to turn us in, or execute us, or whatever you are planning. You can join us. You’re a very pretty young woman and I’m a single man. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted."
"Do you honestly think that will tempt me? Will that undo everything you’ve done? No. My parents are still dead. And if I agreed to your terms, my friends would all be dead, too. As for executing you, that’s not my job. You’ll go back to Earth and stand trial as you ought."
"I doubt it," came Laretha’s voice. As she spoke, three armed guards came through the back door of the room. Kyla ducked to the side firing. Joram ran in behind her and shot the guards. Senator Bendley grabbed one of the guards’ weapons and aimed it at Joram. Kyla fired her small tazer three times. The Tri were no longer a threat. Joram helped her up, and together they left the room.

"I never intended to shoot them. I had intended to bring them back to Earth. Then three guards came in. When they fired, I fired back. Then it was over."
"I understand. It seems very clear-cut to me. Now I must discover how their tyranny went so long undetected and make sure it can never happen again. But I don’t need you for that. Miss Langdon, thank you for your time. I feel I must apologize for everything you and the other dissenters have suffered. I hope you will not abandon Terga Prime to its decay."
"No, sir. There are children there who need a better life."
"You are dismissed, Miss Langdon. I hope you will continue better than you have been."
Kyla Langdon strode out of the briefing room into the sunshine of Earth. So different from the cool sunshine of Terga Prime. She missed that sunshine. A hand took hers. "It’s time to go." She turned to Joram and smiled. A new life awaited.