CHAPTER ONE
Ironically, it was the most fanatic tree-hugging environmentalists who first went to live in space. They didn’t go far. In the orbital colonies, they could preserve the sanctity of their enclosed piece of Earth while keeping a disapproving eye on those who stayed behind.
These little worlds offered a haven from the high tech, instant-access Earth. Many were there because of the lucrative opportunities space provided, but the sky was also the new frontier for all those who couldn’t or wouldn’t share with the billions of the Earth. Of course, that was before the Spacer War.
Fifteen years after the Spacer War started, the most expensive spaceship of the day still doesn’t spin up to full gravity, but it docks like a dream. Cesar Vaquero stands tall on its docking deck. He is the very picture of weather-beaten cowboy straight from the American Wild West, though no Earther cowboy could ever afford Cesar’s real leather pants or cotton shirt in this day and age.
Cesar’s clothes are well worn and lovingly repaired. His boots are hand-stitched but cracked, with heels almost worn through. Time and fate have not been kind to him. The leather pants hold countless zippered pockets, each full of interesting treasures. His knapsack is made of good quality bioplastic, if torn and patched.
Standing still the way he is, you don’t notice the hitch in his gait. His thick white beard almost covers the jagged scar that stretches from his right ear to his lip. There are crinkles around the eyes that speak of many tragedies and, in spite of them, a willingness to smile.
There is the telltale clicking of a ship docking on an orbital. Cesar shifts from foot to foot impatiently.
You are a right fool, he tells himself. To wait fifteen years to come home and then feel like you’re going to die if you have to wait another fifteen seconds.
He shakes himself slightly, but still watches the door like a hawk. Earlier, Cesar tried watching on the observation deck as the ship approached the orbital, but gave up in disgust and came down to wait by the door when he realized that he didn’t recognize Ithaca at all.
Cesar spent the first twenty years of his life inside that orbital, before he took off without a single backward glance, swearing he’d never come back. Sad to say, if his life depended on identifying his home from the outside, he’d have died long ago.
Ithaca seemed to be doing well without him. It wasn’t as elegant as some of the other orbitals—the wheeling tori or globular colonies that stretch out across the sky like dew on a spider web. This one basically looks like a huge spinning beer can. It’s a large cylinder, miles in diameter and length.
When he was standing on the observation deck earlier, Cesar listened to a man on the deck explain to his small son that Ithaca contains three levels with sectionals that seal off instantly if there is a problem, like most orbitals.
The outermost level spins at slightly higher than Earth gravity. That level contains a complicated interlocking ecosystem of plants and animals to support the inhabitants. Ithaca produces some of the best cheese and meat in the system.
The second level houses the ten thousand residents who call this orbital home. This level is also for the manufacturing plants that make almost everything the colonists need from bacterial cultures in huge vats. These bacterial manuvats are coaxed to produce anything from bac-wood for furniture to bioplastic for shoes.
The last, innermost level holds the docking station, storage bays, and freefall recreational facilities. Although Earthers always expect the orbital colonies to be dark and dank, the agriculture and habitation levels are engineered with ceilings higher than most Earth skyscrapers and a system of mirrors and windows that make the orbital more sunny and warm than most of the Earth below it gets.
Cesar listens to the man lecture his son while spotting new solar panels, large debris nets and window polarization that all seemed in good repair. Cesar didn’t see the burns and dents on the outer hull that where from pirate attack, asteroid hit or some other calamity. He’d heard Ithaca was having mysterious problems lately. It’s what finally made him get up the courage to come home.
He also saw that the communications dish was still smashed. Cesar smiled, remembering the day he did that. It didn’t look like anybody had tried to repair it in the last sixteen years, but a small short wave antenna was installed next to it. That meant Ithacans only talked to their neighboring orbitals and got only Spacer Ether. They didn’t communicate with the Earth directly.
Interesting.
Cesar is happy to see Ithaca looking so prosperous. He smiles at the merchant carriers tethered to the orbital, waiting for their turn to dock like whales on a leash. He also sees quite a few shiny personal transports docked. That he does not like at all. It means the rumors are true. The richer colonies are circling Ithaca like vultures.
Cesar is past speculating whether coming home was a mistake. He is worn out and beyond anything but the dull aching need to see his family. He tells himself that whatever he finds, he will at least have found it. At the very least, that will stop the nagging questions in his mind.
Will his ranch even be there at all?
“The ranch,” he corrects himself. “Certainly isn’t my ranch anymore.”
And not like he had a right to it, since he hasn’t laid eyes on the place in more than fifteen years. Cesar wonders, as he did thousands of times over the years, what he will find when he gets there.
Did his family leave the ranch to strangers and make their way in the spheres? Will he find it abandoned with sad little graves marking him as the last lonely member of his clan? Will he find it prosperous and happy? Run down and penniless?
Cesar curses the years he spent refusing to even look for news from home. At first, he told himself it was better not to know what his family was doing, but lately he’d realized that was just cowardice. He didn’t ask for news about his family because it hurt too much to think of them. Right now, he’d happily listen to a rambling story about his old dad’s bunions if that meant the rotten old bird is still alive.
Whatever he finds, Cesar resolves to be satisfied in the knowing of it and move on. Cesar is not a man given to deep thinking or conflicting philosophies so he comes spoiling for a fight, half dead on his feet.
The ship gives a final shudder as it locks into place against the floating little world and then a voice over the intercoms announces they just docked with Ithaca.
“Named Ithaca by my lunatic father,” Cesar mutters.
He hears the final set of grinding clicks that indicate everything was locked into place. Space colonies, regardless of their design, always spin. Ships always dock on the part that doesn’t spin, so that part never has much gravity. Which is why Cesar’s hair seems even wilder, floating around his face.
Cesar steps toward the airlock, wobbling just slightly as his vision blurs. Fortunately, his grav boots hold him tightly to the floor. Cesar is extremely sick and he knows it. Weeks of battling some sort of bug have him fevered and weak. On the trip here, he did everything he could to appear healthy. Many orbitals refuse to allow a sick man entry. Others might quarantine him for weeks.
In some of the rougher colonies, quarantine means getting pushed out the nearest airlock since a bug-infested corpse can’t be used even as fodder for the manuvats.
Cesar figures he is dying and he wants to do that at home, if he can. Fortunately, Ithaca is a medium-sized colony off the main shipping lanes but far from the well-populated Lagrange points. It doesn’t have the most rigorous of security checks. Or at least it didn’t when he left. If they’ve been having the kind of trouble he’s heard about, that may have changed.
The airlock door finally swings open and he strides forward, trying not to look like he is hurrying. Cesar imagines that he can already smell his old home before he steps through the door, but he knows the pressure differentials keep that from happening.
The lone man at the gate is a frontier world’s haphazard attempt at a doorkeeper. Cesar recognizes the oldster as one of his father’s old drinking buddies, Mathis. Cesar smiles to himself and straightens up to begin the process of coming home.
Grizzled, cranky and suspicious of outsiders, Mathis lets returning locals pass through with a nod and pushes the leaving strangers out as fast as they will go. Mathis stops Cesar, squinting at him as though Cesar is some mangy dog trying to sneak past.
“What’s your business here?” Mathis snaps, snatching Cesar’s ident card but not really reading it.
On Earth, he’d have been DNA-printed and body-scanned and no one would care what his business was.
“I’m visiting some old friends,” Cesar grins, waiting for Mathis to recognize him. It didn’t happen.
“Old friends? Where?” Mathis gives him the kind of look you give a man when you are trying to decide if he matches any of the pictures from this week’s “Universe’s Most Wanted” posts.
“Vaquero Ranch. I’m an old friend of the family.” Cesar tries to nudge the man towards recognition, but it is not to be.
“Vaquero? Listen, mister, those are good people out there and they don’t need anyone else pestering them. You give them no trouble, you hear?” Mathis waves him on dismissively, grumbling about unwashed outworlders.
Cesar makes his way toward the elevators. He wanted to ask old Mathis about the rumors he’s heard, about Ithaca in danger and under attack, but he can’t risk old Mathis discovering how sick he is and detaining him.
Cesar is a little stunned that the old man completely failed to recognize him. How many times had he fetched his father home from Mathis’ house after a few too many beers on a Saturday night? Has he really changed that much?
Cesar stormed off fifteen years ago to the Spacer War as a strapping young man with short red hair and an unmarked face. He knows he bears little resemblance to that young man now. Cesar feels his current long white beard and mane is rather dashing when his hair isn’t matted and his beard isn’t so long he might keep mice in it. He smiles at his own vanity. At least the beard covers some of the scars.
“And Lord knows, I’ve got little enough to be vain about these days,” Cesar muses.
His days fighting in the Spacer War gave him a mild but definite limp. One of his later adventures earned him the jagged scar running down his right cheek. A narrow escape from a fire left him with a scarred and twisted left ear that his long hair helps to cover. For all the wear he’s seen, he moves with vitality and the odd sort of grace that a man used to trusting himself in space carries.
Down the elevators, Cesar steps off and sucks down a deep breath. He bends down and flips the small switch in each of his boots to turn off the electromagnet. Most Spacers have grav boots with strong electromagnets in the heels needed in low gravity to keep them from floating away. Earthers who want to pretend buy the cheaper biosteel boots, but they aren’t strong attractors like the pure stuff.
“Ah yes. That’s it. That smells like home. I can die happy now,” Cesar mutters to himself as people walk past him, looking askance.
Time to see the ranch.
The population of Ithaca is small, so they have plenty of room. Thus the space between habitations is large enough for privacy. Although the crops and livestock are on the level below, the habitation level is made to look as much like a small Earther city as possible. Gardens and small plots of well-tended grass separate the houses. The Vaquero Ranch is set far away from the shops, factories, moving sidewalks and the public elevators. Cesar plods along slowly, hoping he doesn’t die before he reaches his goal.
After what seems like hours, Cesar spots a ranch in the distance. His breath catches and he shakes his head desperately to clear his vision. Then his heart sinks. This can’t be his home. Cesar remembered well his simple one-story ranch with the wide porch. This house is twice as big.
It has two stories with biostone and other expensive trimmings. A lush garden surrounds the sides where there had only been dust and dirt. There is even a pen of mini-pigs. They must be fantastically rich to afford the water that supports all this.
When he left, Cesar’s family was the most prosperous in this orbital. “These people must be ten times as wealthy as we ever were,” he thinks to himself. With all the insanity after the War, many things changed and people moved on. His family must have gone.
“Probably did. Only to be expected. Well, maybe these folks will know where my people went,” Cesar grunts, telling himself that this will be enough.
The sickness he kept a secret suddenly overwhelms him. Cesar staggers, flushed and weak, but he continues plodding forward, sure in the knowledge that when he stops, it will be for good. Cesar bends his head to keep from looking at the painful sight of this ranch and also to make sure his feet find steady ground.
The unmistakable sound of a shotgun cocking startles him from his private dreams and jerks his feet to a halt. Somehow he has managed to get within a stone’s throw of the front door. Cesar’s eyebrows shoot up with surprise.
The empty porch of the ranch in front of him now holds a person. He sees a shadowy figure in grubby pants and mud-caked boots, wearing a hat pulled too low to make out a face.
Must be some kid home while his folks are out, Cesar decides.
However, the kid is handling the gun with an ease born of much practice. Cesar raises both hands up in the air and hopes the youth isn’t trigger-happy. He waits cautiously, but the figure seems content to stand motionless and silent.
“Son, I’m unarmed and feeling poorly. You got no cause to be worried about me. I’m just passing through,” Cesar rasps in what he hopes is a friendly voice.
An abrupt wave of dizziness causes him to lurch forward suddenly. The shotgun roars in response, kicking up puffs of dirt not two feet in front of him.
“Come on, now!” he cries, stumbling back. “Don’t kill an old fool when he’s this close to death. I’m just looking for directions to the Vaquero ranch!”
He bends over, wheezing light-headedly with his hands on his knees.
“Gringo, you a friend of Vaquero?” the figure asks, not taking the gun off him for a second.
The voice has a soft Spanish burr and is unmistakably female. Cesar jerks his head up in surprise. She is still shadowed by the doorway, but now that he knows what to look for, he can make out the suggestion of gentle curves beneath the bulky clothes.
“Yes! You know Vaquero?” Cesar replies, his heart leaping as he fights to keep his balance. “You might say I am an old family friend.”
She makes a very unladylike snort of derision.
“Mister, an old family friend would know he’s standing in the front yard of the Vaquero ranch,” she snaps, taking a step forward into the sunlight so he can finally see her face. Suddenly, the world seems to tilt on its side and slip away from him. His heart stops and his breath sticks in his chest.
Cesar knows her.
He knows the proud curve of that chin and that shining black hair, caught back in a thick braid. He’s spent a hundred nights admiring her smooth Spanish skin. He knows those laughing black eyes, sparkling now with suspicion.
Even after fifteen years, a man knows his own wife.
Cesar falls to his knees there in the dirt. His strength is well and truly played out. He feels himself lurch and topple over with fever, overwhelmed. He hears his wife, Penelope Vaquero, run from the porch to stand over him.
“Hey, mister, you alright?” She shakes him roughly, but he is sliding from consciousness. Cesar fights to open his eyes as the landscape spins like a child’s toy.
“Come on, gringo, wake up!” she insists as he closes his eyes again. He feels her small, cool palm sting sharply as she slaps him hard across the face.
“Yep,” he thinks, “That’s my wife.”
He has one final reflection before the darkness swallows him. “If she knew I was her husband, she’d shoot me for sure.”