CHAPTER 2

THE TWO-MONTH TRIP TO TARSUS IV was uneventful and eventually quite dull. Tom Leighton and I were the only two kids on the voyage, and by the time it was over we knew every detail of the ship and about each other. Tom reminded me a lot of Sam; he was smart and quiet, loved to read, and wanted to be a scientist. Once he got comfortable with me, I found him to be an engaging friend. He often pulled weird facts out of his head that were always interesting and entertaining.

One night, while everyone was asleep, he woke me up, excited.

artificial gravity generator is." I had no idea what he was talking about, but I got dressed and joined him as we headed out to the catwalk that led to the rest of the ship. Like most ships in Starfleet, the New Rochelle tried to imitate Earth's conditions of day and night, so this was the late shift and most of the crew were off duty and asleep.

Tom led me to a ladder that went down to the bottom of the main hull. When we reached the deck, he indicated a hatch.

"Right behind that is the artificial generator for the entire ship," he said. "It took me a while to figure out where it was."

"Congratulations," I said. I was really tired and not a little confused.

"Come on," he said, and immediately headed off.

"Where the hell are we going?"

"You'll see."

We headed back up the ladder, and then forward again. We then snuck into a cargo hold and stopped on the catwalk. We were about 100 feet off the floor of the hold, which was partially filled with storage containers.

"According to my measurements, we're about halfway between the artificial gravity "According to my measurements, we're about halfway between the artificial gravity generator and the bow plate." Tom put his hands on the railing of the catwalk.

"So?"

"Watch." Tom pushed hard on the railing and suddenly was rising off the deck. He flipped over and landed, feetfirst on the ceiling. It looked like he was standing upside down.

"Holy crap," I said. "What the hell is going on?"

"I read about it," Tom said. "These cargo ships used to be run by families who learned all sorts of facts about these ships. Some of them called this 'the sweet spot.' Try it!"

I grasped the railing and pushed. At first I was just pushing up my own weight, and then suddenly I was weightless and moving through the air. I tumbled end over end. I actually hit Tom and we fell to the "floor," which was actually the ceiling. It was amazing.

"Let's do it again!"

Both of us lost in laughter, we then pushed off together and landed on the catwalk. We kept going back and forth, laughing, yelling, almost missing the catwalk a couple of times, until finally a security guard found us and dragged us back to our quarters. We spent a lot of the next two months sneaking off to this area. Eventually, I became interested in why it was happening, and I sought out a crew member who explained it to me. It was my first experience trying to understand life in outer space, and the relationship between humans and their spacecraft. It also taught me a valuable lesson on the inherent risks involved in space travel, as on one of these excursions I got careless; I missed the catwalk and landed on the cargo bay floor, breaking my wrist.

While my wrist healed, I ended up spending a lot of time with Tom's parents. They were very loving and attentive to him, and treated me like I was a member of their family. They made sure I was taken care of, and that I kept up with my studies. Barbara, a physician, always asked me lots of questions about my interests and was on me constantly about whether I was getting enough to eat. She was small, probably just over five feet tall, but she had a quiet intensity that somehow gave her authority over the three larger males in her care. She stood in great contrast to her husband, a boisterous raconteur who thrived on attention. (Rod, much to his wife's chagrin, taught Tom and me poker on that trip, where I learned more about his ability to bluff. No real money exchanged hands, but it was still instructive.) Rod was skilled in modern construction and was very excited about joining the colony, and though my mother had been on Tarsus IV for years, it wasn't until this trip that I learned about its history.

Humans settled Tarsus IV in the 22nd century after the Romulan War. Most of the settlers were veterans of the conflict who, with their families, purposely picked a planet on the other side of the Galaxy from the Romulans and the Klingons. Their goal was a society devoted to peace. So, although many of them had served on ships as soldiers, they devoted themselves to a scientifically constructed technocracy. The government was built on completely practical notions of what the individuals in the society needed and what they in turn could provide. For a century the colony had flourished as one of the most successful examples of human achievement in the Galaxy. At 13 I don't know if I fully understood the accomplishment of the people who built this world, but looking back it makes what would happen there that much more tragic.

We arrived at Tarsus IV on schedule, and the Leightons and I were among the first people to be taken down to the planet. As the pilot took the shuttle below the cloud cover, I could see huge tracts of barren, rocky land.

Then in the distance there was a strip of green, and we came in on a landing field outside a small city. When we stepped off the shuttle onto my first foreign planet, I was surprised at what I saw: blue skies, rolling hills, grass, and trees. My first exposure to a Class-M planet; it wasn't foreign at all. It could easily have been mistaken for Southern California.

The spaceport was only a few kilometers outside the main town. I could see the dense sprawl of buildings, none higher than four stories. It had the feel of a late-19th-century European city, dense but not quite modern. I was trying to take it all in,when I was startled by someone calling my name.

"Jim!" I turned. It was my mother. Because of the limits of communication while in transit, I hadn't heard from her in the months since I left Earth. I had gotten so caught up with space travel and landing on a new world I'd actually forgotten about her.

She ran toward me, a giant smile on her face. She'd gotten older since I'd seen her last; in my mind she was still the young, vibrant woman who lifted me up in her arms when I was little. Now, because I'd grown, she seemed small to me. It was a difficult adjustment; she strode like a beautiful colossus in my imagination and now she was only slightly taller than me. She squeezed me in a warm hug. I could feel her tremble as she fought back tears. I felt the eyes of everyone around us as she embraced me, and though as a child I'd missed this affection, in this moment I could not return it. She felt my awkwardness and stepped back. We were almost on the same eye level.

"You've gotten so big," she said. Whether intentionally or not, that was one of the last things she said to me before she left Earth. Now, unlike then, I heard the regret in her voice. We stood in uneasy silence for a long moment; then the Leightons stepped in and introduced themselves to her. Barbara said some things about what a nice young man I was. Mom wasn't particularly warm to them; she seemed uncomfortable, anxious to get me away.

"Come on, Jim, let's go home."

I could see Rod was a little put off by her attitude, but Barbara placed a gentle hand on his forearm. Barbara said they'd see me later, she was sure, and I said goodbye and thanked them. Mom helped me with my luggage, and we headed off to a waiting hover car, a simple vehicle with four seats and an

open trunk. She drove it herself into the main city.

As we glided through the streets, Mom gave me a tour. She seemed very self-conscious talking to me, and I frankly wasn't doing anything to help put her at ease. She filled the time by explaining the colony to me.

"There are 12 boulevards that radiate out from the city center," she said, as we entered the outer perimeter. The boulevard we were on was surrounded on both sides by buildings no more than three stories in height, and they looked to be made of brick and stone. It all seemed very old to me.

"All the buildings except the ones of the original settlement are made of indigenous materials," she said.