Chapter 20

Xi Pegasi
Colony One
October 12, 2057

Lenna walked along the path from the hospital to the nearby housing area. By unspoken consent, the colony had no roads in the central areas where most of the people lived and worked. Those industries that consumed bulk materials were located next to the river, or they had short roadways connecting them to it or to the ground port. Lenna had noted that a bicycle production facility would be opening here at Colony One in two weeks. That would greatly aid the colonists’ mobility without straining their limited production capacity by producing powered ground vehicles.

Besides, Lenna thought as she followed the tamped gravel pathway, this is much better than the freeways on Earth. She turned at the second pathway leading into the woods, and soon came to a dome-shaped cottage nestled in a grove of evergreens. She walked up to the door and rang the admittance chime.

“Come in, Lenna,” Yamina called over the speaker. “I’m out back.”

Lenna opened the door and walked straight through the living area and out the glass doors at the back. Yamina was on her knees, scooping a shallow hole in the tilled earth at the edge of the patio. A carefully wrapped bundle of plants lay beside her. “Hello, Lenna. Let me get this flower bush transplanted, then I can make you some sapphire lemonade.”

“That sounds good.” Lenna sat down in one of the two available chairs and watched Yamina work for a moment. “I finished my investigation into Roger’s death. I though you’d want to hear it first.”

“I know it wasn’t Faith’s fault,” Yamina punched the earth around the new plant forcefully. “She won’t believe me when I tell her she didn’t screw up.”

“You’re right that she doesn’t believe you, but it was her fault. Or, I should say, our fault.” Yamina sat back on her heels and stared at Lenna in shock. Lenna wiped a tear from her eye. “We got carried away with the therapy for Roger’s Alzheimer’s symptoms. As we told you both, he wasn’t responding to the usual therapies, and so I got creative. What Faith and I both missed was the possibility that Roger’s immune system would react to the new therapy.”

“But, Roger said he didn’t have any allergies,” Yamina objected.

“He didn’t. The same chemicals that cured his infertility and caused his early Alzheimer’s flare-up also sensitized his immune system to certain other compounds, including the compound Faith injected him with when he died. So, we killed him, Yamina.” Lenna looked at her hands. “Our cure was worse than the disease.”

Yamina’s eyes hardened and her nostrils flared. She climbed to her feet and stalked the five feet to stand in front of Lenna. The doctor leaned back in her seat as the former sergeant glared at her. “Don’t you tell me that,” she snarled in a low, growling voice Lenna had never heard from her. “Roger would kick both your asses to the moons and back if he could hear this! You, and Faith too, were trying your best to help him! Don’t you dare give up now, you hear me?”

Lenna nodded shakily, her face a mask of shock and fear. Yamina turned away and pulled the other chair up in front of Lenna. She sat down and looked unflinchingly at Lenna. Most of the fury had subsided, but her eyes were obsidian orbs in her dark face.

“If you think I blame you for his death, then you’re as stubborn as Faith is. I loved Roger, but, in the scheme of things, he was but one man. This child, “she laid her hand on her belly, “is our future. Roger is dead, and I will miss him,” tears began streaming down her face, “but don’t you two make his death meaningless by trying to lay blame.” Her face softened. “Please, Lenna. Roger found something important, even if it was by accident. He would want you to keep going, and neither of us blames you, or Faith, for what happened.”

Lenna covered her face with her hands and wept as Yamina hugged her close. They cried together, and finally Lenna pulled away and sat up. “Thank you, Yamina. I really did come here to comfort you.”

Yamina smiled, and then rose. “I need a tissue.” She disappeared into the house and came back a moment later with a box. “I figured we might need more.”

Lenna wiped her eyes and sat quietly, trying to compose herself. “I deserved that, didn’t I?”

“I never put up with that failure mentality from my troopers, and I’ll be damned if I’ll put up with it from the likes of you,” she smiled to take the offense from her words. “I’m going to give you that lemonade I promised you. We are going to sit and talk about my husband, and then you are going to go back to work.”

“Yes, sergeant.” Lenna replied meekly.

Xi Pegasi
Research Station Alpha
October 15, 2057

“The last module is up and running, Peytor.” Tanya waited at the airlock as their quarters module came online. The research station was a collection of spare parts culled from the last of the prefabricated stores aboard the Wells. Jannes Maharis and Arif Restin had collaborated on the station’s design, and they had delivered the results in just over a month. The new station had several labs, a small fabrication facility and its own life support section with a hydroponics bay. At Devin’s insistence, they had even installed a centrifuge for the crew’s use.

The mining stations would be responsible for resupplying the research station, and a freighter would call on them once per month. It was the best assignment Tanya could have hoped for, and Peytor was happier than she’d ever seen him. The telltale on the airlock’s environmental panel turned green, and she cycled the lock.

Peytor watched from the command module as Tanya crossed into their new quarters. It was time to get to work, and he turned to the comm panel. “Wells Station, this is Research Station Alpha. We are online and beginning our operations. Thank you for your help. We are initiating telemetry downloads, and we are receiving the System Net uploads. Research Station Alpha, clear.”

Xi Pegasi
Aboard the Wells
October 16, 2057

“Good evening, everyone, this is Shanna Reston. Welcome to my broadcast. The top item this evening is, well, time. Devin has officially announced that we will adopt a new calendar and a new time clock at midnight, December thirty-first of our present calendar. That time and date will fall exactly on local sunrise at Colony One. At that moment, all official timekeeping devices will be changed to show zero-six-hundred hours, First Day, Firstmonth, First Year. The local year will be fifteen months long. Each month will have thirty-seven days, and four point six eight-day weeks. A leap day will be observed every fifth years to adjust the calendar to the planet’s solar year.”

“To avoid even more confusion, we will continue to use Standard hours, minutes and seconds, so a ‘day’ will now be twenty-seven hours long, with a twelve minute time period called Harmony after the twenty-seventh hour. The planet will be divided into twenty-seven equal time zones, with the Prime Meridian passing through the center of the downport runway at Colony One. The first time zone will be centered on the Prime Meridian, and it will be designated ‘Zulu’. The next time zone east of Zulu will start with “Alfa’ and move eastward. The last time zone will be called “Twenty-Seven”, since we will have run out of letters.”