Can I accept his death as a consequence of that?
I don’t know if I want to.
“I see we have some catching up to do,” Grandpa says, studying me.
“Obviously, I haven’t got much of a poker face yet,” I say.
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry.” Grandpa turns to look up at the sprawl of blue-green light spilling over the horizon. “It isn’t cheap, and paying for it . . .” He shakes his head. “To borrow a phrase, it sucks.”
Mom has always had a good poker face, too. Beth, Teddy, and I used to call it her “commander face.” What did she do to earn it? And how did she lose it?
I think Mom answered that question herself when she was arguing with Grandpa on the Prairie.
I’m not panicking. I’m despairing.
“Is Mom . . .” Okay seems like silly word right now. No one is okay.
“She’s fine,” Grandpa says. “I made her have a good meal and clean up before we debriefed last night. She’s brought me up to speed on the events of the last few months and your interactions with the indigenous sentients.”
Interactions with the indigenous sentients. That’s one way to think of half our team being torn apart and eaten by phytoraptors followed by the Sorrow demanding that the rest of us leave the planet.
“How are we going to do this, Grandpa?” I ask. “This course . . . it isn’t just harsh. It’s impossible.”
Grandpa offers me a wry smile. “You’re not overstating the problem. We’re going to be asking a lot from our people. We’re also going to be asking a lot from your friend Tarn.”
Tarn. Just thinking about him makes my stomach hurt. How will he react to all this? How will his people react?
“Your mother tells me you know more about the Sorrow, and their leader, than anyone else on the team,” Grandpa says.
“Not really,” I say, flustered. “Beth has spent way more time studying Dr. Brown’s notes than I did. Dr. Brown lived with them for years after the rest of the Ranger team died. My friends and I were only with Tarn a few days.”
“It is a shame Lucille was killed,” Grandpa says. “She was brilliant.” He huffs a little laugh. “She never did care for me. Said I was shortsighted and old-fashioned.”
“What?” I say. “Weren’t you research partners?”
He nods. “That’s how she developed such a nuanced opinion. Of course, she was right.”
“No, she wasn’t!” I protest. “You aren’t either of those things.”
That earns me a full-fledged laugh.
“Sure I am,” he says. “Or are you too young to remember how much time I spent telling your father that the Galactic Frontier Project was a fool’s errand?” His eyes drift up to the crystal mountains to our west, just starting to spark with rainbows in the morning light. “Sometimes, it’s good to be wrong.”
I follow his gaze. I’ve been living at the feet of those glittering peaks for months and they still take my breath away. I think they always will. I’m so glad I got to see them. But that doesn’t mean we belong here.
“I do remember those arguments,” I say. “You told Dad that colonization would be more complicated than the GFP imagined. And you were right. It was more than complicated. Coming to this planet . . . that’s what was wrong. And staying here is worse.”
Grandpa turns to study me with the same intensity he gave the prismatic mountain range. I wonder if I’ve offended him. He just crossed light-years to get what’s left of the human species to Tau. He probably doesn’t want to hear about the moral complexities of that decision right now.
My stomach twists as he sloshes through the water and clambers up the steep riverbank to my side. Should I say I’m sorry? Or will that just make everything more awkward?
“Brrr,” he says, shuddering a little. “It’s damn cold out here.”
“Grandpa,” I start to say, “I didn’t mean to—” But the apology evaporates as he pulls a pair of silver studs from a pocket on his utility harness.
“Are those ensign insignia?” I almost whisper the words. “How did you . . .”
Grandpa beams. “I found them in your mother’s office. She had them made weeks ago.” He leans in to fasten them to my collar. “I was supposed to wait. Do this with her. But I’m a selfish man. And I needed to replenish my spirit.”
“So you’re promoting me?” I say, astounded. “But I. . . . Why would you promote me?”
“Because you understand that settling on this planet is wrong, even though it is necessary. That’s going to be the crux of every dilemma we face here. We can’t pretend this situation is fair to the Sorrow or the phytoraptors. It would be a lie, and they won’t thank us for it. You see that. You’re willing to say it out loud. I need you to keep saying it. I need to see this world through your eyes. To understand it, so that I can build a place for us here.”
“Really?” I say.
He nods. “Really. It won’t be easy. I’m going to be asking a lot from you as well.”
My fingers go to the tiny metal dots that just transformed me into Ensign Joanna Watson. They’re heavier than I thought they’d be.
I meet my grandfather’s expectant eyes.
“I won’t let you down, sir.”
“You never have,” he says. “I only hope, when all of this is said and done, you’ll be able to say the same of me.”
Five
By the time we gather for the memorial service, it’s even colder, if that’s possible, and the world is soaking in fat drops of rain.
Mom isn’t here yet. She’s probably juggling a million things. I hope she got a few hours of sleep last night. Dad is standing with Doc and Dr. Kao at the front of the assembled crowd. They look worried. I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Still, I don’t feel like learning any more depressing details about our future right now, so I find my friends instead.
Chris and Leela and Beth are huddled together under a big tree next to the memorial stone.
“Where’s Jay?” I ask, as I join them.
Before anyone can answer, a chorus of gunfire smacks through the air. We all turn to see both marine squadrons lined up back to back on the path from the Landing, rifles aimed at the sky. They fire again. And again. And again.
My ears are ringing by the tine they flip their rifles to their shoulders and march down the path toward us. It’s so quiet I can hear the rain pattering on the fido tree flowers in between the dull thuds of the boots on the wet ground.
The crowd parts before the marines. They march past the memorial stone and unfold into four straight lines on the riverbank behind it. Jay is in the back row, his rifle on his shoulder, his body stiff at attention. I can’t see his face.
“What was that?” Chris whispers.
“Twenty-one-gun salute,” Leela whispers back. “I’ve never seen one, but it used to be a thing at military funerals.”
It didn’t feel like a salute. It felt like . . . showing off, I guess. A memory rebounds through my head. Ord marching his Takers into the Landing for the first time, bristling with weapons. What was it Tarn had called that?