CHAPTER 26
Morgan slapped his hand on the table before leaning toward Devon and pointing at his head dramatically. "Are you out of your mind? The man is crazy!"
With that wild look in his eye, he seemed like the crazy one.
John calmly stretched out an arm and pushed Morgan back into his seat. Morgan looked like he was about to protest but instead he huffed and crossed his arms. But John said nothing, thinking.
Again Devon looked around expectantly. This was like pulling teeth. She realized Alonzo had mostly been keeping silent, and wondered if maybe he was the one who would open up first. She turned to him and said, "We need to know what's happening up there. Andy will listen to me. I've known him my entire life."
"Well, sometimes this planet changes people," Alonzo stated.
Devon shrugged. "For the better sometimes."
John shook his head. "For the worse a lot of times. Coming here was a big change for people. Not everybody can handle it."
Devon was exasperated. "Don't make me drag all of this out of you, John. I know everyone's been trying to keep this from me. I'm not oblivious. I could sense it from Julia in the transport. I could sense it from Yale while you were gone. And I can see it right now."
John briefly closed his eyes and let out a sigh. He looked at Julia, who nodded at him encouragingly.
Reluctantly, he began to explain. "I'm not gonna say we were lucky to crash on this planet instead of shuttling down straight to New Pacifica. But trekking our way here, going hungry and thirsty, getting burned in the sun, frozen in the snow, so tired you can't think, it gave us some perspective. After what we went through, New Pacifica is paradise to us. But those people came straight from the stations. So, for them, when most of them got here, they realized they'd left everything behind for a hut in the middle of summer and a pallet on the floor, Terrians popping up out of the ground, Grendlers slobbering all over the place, children still sick… And you, the woman they believed in, the woman who brought them here, gone."
"You said as much last night," she said sternly. When you could have explained all this, she thought.
John averted his eyes.
"Some people couldn't handle it, Devon." Julia shook her head at the memories. "We had some parents who couldn't take the strain. The thought of the Terrians helping their children was too much for them. Instead of watching their children progress through the Syndrome, they chose to…" Her voice broke, and she couldn't continue.
Alonzo took Julia's hand, and she gave him a sad smile. He turned to Devon to finish Julia's thought. "They thought they were putting their kids out of their misery once they realized just coming here wasn't enough to heal their children. Yeah, and then they took their own lives. Or just wandered away."
Devon was horrified. She'd known some children had been lost since landing in New Pacifica, but she'd never had any idea it might not have been through natural means. Her mouth opened, but no words escaped.
"So, it was easy for Hunter to get people on his side," John declared angrily, his disdain for the man palpable. "He spoke out against the Terrians. Against the parents who had chosen to heal their children. Got them to think they could recreate some kind of station-like haven with some semblance of Council rule. But anyone with half a brain and any guts at all stayed here to tough it out. Learned how to live life on this planet and with the planet. Hunter was full of great ideas alright," John scoffed. "Wrangling penal colonists to build up some kind of new drone class? Kobas as weapons? The guy's nuts, Devon. If you wanna go talk to him, be my guest. But you might not make it back."
Devon closed her eyes for a moment and let out a long breath. "This is unbelievable."
Julia cleared her throat. "Maybe that's enough for today," she said softly to John.
"Enough?" Devon asked. "What else could there possibly be? So, Andy has some…interesting theories. Why would I need to fear for my life? I can't believe Andy would actually harm me."
"How far back do you want us to go? He was pissed off the minute we woke him up," Baines said, scowling.
"All of it," Devon answered.
Alonzo cleared his throat and let go of Julia's hand. He clasped his hands before him on the table and gazed at them, looking back at the events in his mind's eye. "I'm not sure what all made it into those vids you watched on the transport. Mazatl, Uly, me, and some of the others used the hibernating Terrians to communicate with people on the colony ship while they were still in cold sleep. Some people we reached easily and were able to prepare them for what they found on this planet. Some just remembered a sensation when they got here, but that was enough to ease most of their worries. But some weren't receptive at all, couldn't be reached. We woke up the colonists in groups over time so that we could keep building the colony as they came down. I guess it was a mistake to save the people we couldn't reach for last."
Morgan snorted ruefully and continued with the tale. "We thought it would be easier for them to come down with the colony prepared. But the rest of the colonists were good and settled by then. Some had been here a year and a half by that point. It's not a coincidence that Hunter and most of the people he took with him happen to have been in that last group. It was too much of a shock for them, I guess. They were expecting a fully-functional colony, not what we'd been able to slap together from spare parts, Grendler trades, and working the printers overtime. We were proud of what we'd been able to do, considering. The other colonists had had time to help us out and felt more invested in this place."
Baines reminded the group, "On top of all that, there was all this stuff about the Dreamplane, the Terrians. They couldn't stand it. The rest of us were used to all that by then. It was hard enough for me to accept those kinds of things, but I've had to, you know?"
"Don't forget that since they were the last group to come down, they'd missed the elections, and the next wasn't scheduled for another five years. Man, Hunter couldn't stand Danziger," Morgan laughed.
John sighed in exasperation. "Thanks, Morgan." He decided to wait to see what Devon would say before continuing.
Devon remembered Andy Hunter, a man she had known since childhood. Longer than Yale. A notable engineer and keen businessman who had been a key part of Adair Industries for decades. He was a decent man, but she had no doubt that he would have never accepted a man like John Danziger as the leader of the colony. "I wouldn't imagine you and Andy getting along. That part doesn't surprise me," she stated. "What else?"
Julia explained, "Once he learned what it meant for the children to be healed by the Terrians, that it would change them, he was horrified. He said he had to get the news to the Council about what we'd done. We didn't want him to learn about the colony ship and find a way to commandeer it. Even though we've told the colonists everything about what the Council had been doing on this planet, done to us, what we thought they knew about Uly, it didn't even seem to phase him. We wondered if maybe he knew more than he was telling, but we never found out."
"Before he could rile things up even more, we kicked him out," John said, shaking his head in anger. "Said anyone that agreed with him should leave, too. Hunter was happy enough to get out of here. He knew he was outnumbered. In the end, we lost about a hundred and fifty colonists to Hunter. Families who were terrified of changing their sick kids, parents who'd lost their kids en route in cold sleep…"
"I know that part. But why are you so afraid of him? The armed shuttle, the fear of intercepted communications?" Devon asked.
"At first they just cut off contact, which was fine by me," John replied. "Hunter had made it clear they were striking out on their own and wanted nothing to do with any of us. We sent some hoverscouts to check and see if they were ok. They just shot 'em out of the sky. We sent messages. No answer. But a while back…," John looked to Julia as if looking for encouragement or support. She lowered her eyes, swallowing hard, as if the memory itself caused her pain.
Julia nodded and gestured for him to continue.
John took Devon's hand, as Alonzo had just done to comfort Julia. But Devon didn't find it comforting. It only made her dread what might come next even more.