The Concordia Deception Read online

  “Hurry up,” Strongquist said. “We don’t want to miss the opening.” He grabbed Cariad’s and Ethan’s upper arms and urged them forward.

  Cariad squirmed free. “Ease up. It won’t matter if we miss the first few minutes. The Leader’s going to speak for at least an hour before she gets to the point.”

  “Oh yes, it will matter,” Strongquist said. “Come on. They’re all waiting for you.”

  Cariad and Ethan stopped in their tracks. Strongquist turned to face them then swept his arm in a wide curve, inviting them to lead the way. They shared a worried look. There seemed no other option than to do as Strongquist suggested, however. Together, the three went through the wide, open doors that led into the stadium.

  A deafening cheer erupted from the assembled Gens, Woken, and Guardians. It was so loud and unexpected, Cariad’s first impulse was to run, but Strongquist was right behind her, lightly pushing her forward.

  Along with her friend, she walked into the open area at the center of the stadium, entirely bemused. She stood side by side with Ethan in the strong afternoon sunlight while the crowd cheered and clapped.

  Eventually, the noise began to die down, and the Leader brought it down further by beginning to speak over the broadcast system. At first, Cariad couldn’t make out what she was saying, but as the cheering subsided, it became clear that the woman was speaking about the First Night Attack, and the roles Cariad and Ethan had played in it.

  At last, it all began to make sense to Cariad. The Leader was well aware that the Gens would rather have had Ethan in her position. By orchestrating this show of appreciation, she was piggybacking onto his popularity with the Gens and, to a lesser extent, Cariad’s with the Woken. The Leader would be perceived as gracious, humble, and generous. She was an intelligent woman.

  There was nothing Cariad could do except smile and bow to show her thanks.

  The Leader talked on for an excruciating ten minutes or so, while Cariad and Ethan stood and waited for it all to be over. When she had finally, mercifully, finished, and the audience had given another round of applause, they walked toward the seats that had been reserved for them in the Leader’s box.

  As they reached the stadium steps, the Leader started up on another monologue that promised to eventually lead to the announcement of the winning vote on the name for their new home. A drop of water hit Cariad on the nose. She paused at the bottom of the steps and held out a hand, looking up at the sky. Gray clouds had blown in. The stadium roof would protect the seating areas, but it looked like the ceremony would be slightly spoiled by rain.

  Cariad began to climb the stairs but she halted when she realized that Ethan wasn’t with her. He was standing at the edge of the field, holding out both his hands and looking up in wonder at the sky. Gasps and murmurs were running through the crowd, and people were leaving their seats to run down to the stadium’s center.

  Rain had begun to fall, softening the light and dimming the view. Of course. Cariad laughed. It was the first time any of the Gens had experienced rainfall. They had grown up aboard the Nova Fortuna, where water had been a precious commodity. Each drop had been carefully dispensed, collected, and recycled. No Gen had ever felt the rain on his or her face or listened to a thunderstorm at night.

  Nearly all of the two thousand Gens were wandering about the field, getting wet, grinning and whooping. Some of them were dancing. Cariad watched, her heart warmed by their enjoyment of the simple pleasure. Their lives on the new planet promised to be an amazing adventure.

  Chapter Two

  Something was lying across Ethan’s chest, pinning him down, and it was covering his face so all he could see was darkness. His legs were free, however, and he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. The only discomfort he could feel was an ache where he’d hit his head and the crushing pressure on his rib cage.

  All around him he heard sobs, screams, and cries of pain. The memory of where he was flashed back into his mind. There had been an explosion. He began to struggle. He had to find Cariad. She could be seriously hurt. He had to help the others.

  Ethan pushed against the thing that was trapping him. He felt it shift, and he pushed harder, grimacing with the effort. The object seemed to move toward his head, so he concentrated his efforts in that direction. The pressure on his chest began to lift. He pushed harder, drew up his knees, and used his legs to drag himself downward.

  As he eased out from the confined space, his chin caught on a metal corner. He twisted his head away, but he couldn’t escape the sharp edge. He was panting with the effort of holding up the object that pressed down on him, but he couldn’t let it go. If he did that, the corner would descend into his neck.

  There was nothing for it. If he wanted to get out, he would have to drag his face down the corner. He took a deep breath, pushed upward as hard as he could. He lifted the trapping object another few millimeters and pulled with his legs. As he slid along, the corner bit into his skin at his jawline. He winced. A cut tore up his face to his cheekbone. He gasped in pain, and paused for a fraction of a second before making a final effort. The corner grazed his eyelashes and hit his eyebrow. It drew another cut up to his forehead.

  With a yell of effort, Ethan pulled himself the last few centimeters. He was finally free.

  His left eye immediately filled with blood from his cut and more ran down his face and dripped from his chin. He sat up and looked about him with his one good eye, wiping the blood from the other. Before the explosion, he’d been seated in the Leader’s box roughly midway up the tiers in the audience section of the stadium. Now, he was nearly at ground level, and the seating were in broken chaos all around him. A section of seating had fallen onto him, and he realized he was lucky to have survived relatively unscathed.

  People from other parts of the stadium were running over to help. Some were already lifting the wreckage left by the explosion, desperately trying to free trapped victims.

  Still wiping the blood from his eye, Ethan leapt up. He had to find Cariad. She’d been sitting right next to him. She couldn’t be far away. He scanned around and spotted a single white shoe. It was one of hers. Then he caught another glimpse of white deep within the jumbled remains of the seating. It was the other shoe. He was sure of it.

  He scrambled over shards of broken plastic and metal and put his face to the opening where the shoe was visible. He could see a glimpse of her ankle.

  “Cariad,” he shouted. He repeated her name twice but heard no reply, and the shoe didn’t move. He pulled at the ruins that were trapping her, removing the mangled pieces one by one.

  “Have you found her?”

  Strongquist had appeared by Ethan’s side.

  “Let me help you,” the Guardian said.

  Ethan briefly wondered where the man had been seated that had allowed him to survive the blast. He’d thought Strongquist had been sitting close by. But his fears about Cariad soon drove the thought from his mind. He could now see her leg. Blood was spattered across her dark skin.

  Together, Ethan and Strongquist removed the remaining pieces that covered her. They each grabbed one end of a large section of seating and lifted it up. Beneath it, Cariad lay on her side. One of her legs was folded up but looked okay. However, one of her arms was bent at an unnatural angle. Her clothes were stained red and her eyes were closed.

  Ethan crouched down beside her and gently touched her shoulder. “Cariad.”

  “Don’t move her,” said Strongquist. “Her neck could be broken. Is she breathing?”

  Ethan watched her chest, which rose and fell slowly. “Yes.”

  “Good. Stay with her. If she wakes up, keep her still and calm. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  The Guardian stepped down over the seating and ran across the stadium field, heading for the exit that led to the shuttles.

  Other Guardians were working through the wreckage from the explosion, but many Gens were standing around in shock, simply watching what was going on or wandering around the muddy ground
aimlessly. Rain had begun to fall again, but this time hardly anyone seemed to notice. Ethan remained with Cariad, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. The fact that she didn’t seem to be bleeding heavily reassured him a little, but he wished that she would wake up.

  What had caused the explosion? There was nothing explosive in the stadium. No fuels or anything under pressure. It had to be a bomb. But who would want to set off a bomb during the Naming Ceremony? He didn’t have to think hard to answer that question: it had to be a member of the Natural Movement.

  After the sabotage on the First Night Attack, the perpetrator had been caught and executed, but now it was clear there was more than one of them. Natural Movement fanatics were living among the colonists, determined to prevent the expansion of humanity into the galaxy.

  Memories of Lauren flooded his mind. He would never forget seeing her fall beneath one of the predatory native life forms on that fateful night. He couldn’t erase the image of her remains from his memory. His feelings of loss were still raw. He couldn’t face losing someone else he cared about.

  Cariad’s eyes were moving beneath their lids. They flickered, then opened wide in alarm. She tried to rise, but Ethan gently restrained her. “You’re okay, but don’t move. You’ve been hurt. Strongquist has gone for help. You’re going to be all right, but you need to stay still.”

  She seemed to hear him because she stopped struggling. Her gaze sought out his. When their eyes met, he managed a small smile to try to reassure her, but he imagined the sight of his bloody face was less than reassuring. She struggled to speak but he couldn’t make out the words.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get you fixed up. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Strongquist was back. He’d brought two of his Guardian buddies with him, and they were carrying a board somewhat like a stretcher and other items Ethan didn’t recognize. A flitter hovered nearby, and more were spread across the field. Guardians were loading the injured onto them.

  Ethan stepped back to give Strongquist and the other Guardians room to work. First, they pressed a jet injector against Cariad’s neck. Immediately, her body relaxed and her eyes half closed. Then they carefully turned her onto her back while one of them held her head, keeping her as straight as was possible on the uneven surface. They slipped some kind of collar around her head, neck, and back, and lifted her onto the board.

  Ethan helped the Guardians carry Cariad down to the flitter.

  “Where are you taking her?” he asked.

  “Back to the Nova Fortuna,” Strongquist replied. “Her back or neck may be broken, and the settlement’s medical facilities aren’t yet equipped to deal with an injury of that severity. We can assist with her treatment best aboard the ship.”

  Ethan wanted to go with Cariad but he also wanted to remain to help search for more survivors. The scene was still in chaos. The Leader was nowhere to be seen and no one else seemed to be organizing a response to the emergency.

  “Can you please send me word as soon as you know anything about her condition?” he asked Strongquist.

  “Of course,” the Guardian replied. “Don’t forget to have someone check you over and fix that cut.”

  With those words, the Guardians sped away on the flitter with Cariad. Ethan turned to face the pandemonium. He went to the nearest group of bystanders who seemed to have been frozen to immobility and gave them instructions for organizing others who were also doing nothing, forming them into rescue teams. He also told them to find people with medical experience and send them to him.

  They needed to divide the destroyed portion of seating into sections, and they could take it apart, piece by piece, shoring up unstable parts. They would find everyone who was trapped.

  Ethan realized he was still using only one eye because the other was covered in blood. He took off his shirt and ripped off the sleeve. He tried to wipe the blood from his eye so that he could see out of it, but it was too crusted up. Instead, he cleaned his face as well as he could, though his cut continued to weep fresh blood, then he tied his shirt sleeve over his eye.

  A Gen ran up to him, panting. “I’m a medic. Where should I go first?”

  It was going to be a long, hard, heart-breaking afternoon.

  ***

  When Ethan woke up the next morning, the whole left side of his face ached. He reached up to touch the gauze that covered his cut and the healing gel the settlement doctor had applied. He seemed to be the first to wake in the dorm of twenty men. Instinctively, he lifted his lapel to check his comm button for messages, then remembered that he was planetside and that the comm network wasn’t set up yet.

  The colonists were using stationary interfaces. Ethan remembered there was one in the dorm, and that the previous evening when he’d checked it, there hadn’t been any messages from Strongquist about Cariad. He got up and weaved through the sleeping men to check the screen by the door again. A message had finally come. It was short. Strongquist only stated that Cariad had a broken arm and was heavily concussed. She should make a full recovery in three or four days.

  Ethan exhaled in relief and rested his forehead on the wall beside the screen. After a moment, he lifted his head again to check the general news. Fourteen people had died in the explosion: thirteen Gens, including the Leader, and one Woken. Thirty-two people had been injured. No one had claimed responsibility for the bomb but the Natural Movement was suspected. The Guardians were investigating the cause of the explosion and hoped to find evidence that would lead them to the bomber.

  The Guardians were coming to their rescue again. Ethan couldn’t imagine what they would do without these people and their advanced technology. He hoped they would catch the saboteurs before they killed or hurt anyone else.

  The other men in the dorm had begun to stir and wake. Like Ethan, they were all farmers, or rather, they were all going to be farmers. Ethan hadn’t had much success at school so not many professions in the colony were open to him. Farming had seemed as good as anything else when the time came to choose but he’d never been content with his decision. He would be confined to his farm for most of the time. His crops would need a watchful eye to guard against pests, disease, drought, and any of the other hundreds of things that could affect them. On the other hand, the colony needed farmers. The colonists were relying on the success of the farms to survive. If their buildings leaked or their children didn’t learn much from their teachers, they could live with it, but they couldn’t live without food.

  Yet for as long as he could remember, from when he’d first understood the purpose for which he’d been born, Ethan had always nurtured a secret desire to explore the new planet. But that role was strictly off the cards for Gens. Aside from venturing a day or two from the main settlement, exploring wasn’t allowed. The new settlers couldn’t afford to risk their lives on adventures, and that stricture had been cemented after the First Night Attack. Even with all the supplies they had brought, the colony wouldn’t last longer than five or six years if they couldn’t make it self-sustaining, and that would require the utmost effort from everyone.

  “That’s a beauty,” remarked another farmer, Misha, as he passed Ethan on his way to the shower room, gesturing toward Ethan’s face. Ethan followed the man to check his reflection in a mirror and found a black and purple bloom surrounding his eye.

  “What’s happening about the explosion at the stadium?” Misha asked Ethan as he went into a shower. “Did you read anything about it?”

  “The Guardians cordoned off the area once everyone was out. They’re going through the wreckage, looking for evidence. I haven’t heard any more than that.”

  Ethan stripped, stepped into another cubicle, and began to wash, carefully avoiding exposing the gel on his face to water. His skin crawled at the thought that whoever had planted the bomb was living among them, pretending to be the same as everyone else—working toward the colony’s success while secretly plotting its downfall. The saboteur could even be Misha. Ethan shook the thought from his head. Su
specting everyone he knew of belonging to the Natural Movement would be playing right into the terrorists’ hands.

  The only bright side to the situation was the fact that the bomber hadn’t been able to create a bomb large enough to take out the entire stadium. If they truly wanted to destroy the colony, that would have been the obvious move. For the moment, it seemed that they didn’t have access to materials to make larger or more deadly explosives.

  Ethan turned off the shower and turned on the blower, which quickly dried him. After dressing, he ate breakfast before joining the rest of the farmers in the meeting room. The organizer waiting for them wasted little time in getting down to business.

  “I’m sure what’s at the front of all your minds is the explosion at the stadium yesterday. I don’t have any news on that front, but what I will say is this, whatever the murderer who planted that bomb might think, we’re not going to let him or her stop us from building a thriving community here. We’re going to carry on as normal and not let the bastards stop us. Right?”

  “Damned right,” said a voice, and the other farmers joined in with loud agreements.

  “Let’s get on with it then,” said the organizer. “I have the land allotments here.” He swiped across a pad and a holo of the settlement and the land surrounding it appeared above the desk. Lines cut through the 3D map, marking the boundaries of the sectioned land. At the center of each block, a name floated.

  The farmers got up out of their seats and went closer to see their allocations. Some asked to swap with others. Ethan had remained in his seat for a while as the rest crowded around the holo, but he decided he might as well find out where he was going to spend the rest of his life.

  He went over and saw that he’d been allocated a squarish block that bordered a lake about seven klicks from town. Well, he thought, Cariad said it was pretty.

  Chapter Three