Spacehart

By Gloria Upper

It is 2275, and the Correctionist Reformist Imperium rules a war-torn and ravaged Earth. Condemned for resisting the slaughter of the last fir trees in the North Territories, Julianna Hart, a feisty and courageous sixty-one-year old activist and astronaut is sent on a one-way Deep Delve mission to a distant galaxy. Alone in an ancient spaceship without communication or flight controls, Julianna is headed for Noreusa, an unexplored planet her ship is programmed to conquer and exploit.

Separated from all she loves, Captain Spacehart leaves behind her long time partner, Pharthy, her close friend Sahma, and two adult sonsas well as memories of her deceased half-alien daughter, born in prison when she was barely eighteen. Impetuous and passionate, with a weakness for aliens, Spacehart is determined to foil her mission and return to Earth. But her plans change when she realizes an alien craft is stalking her waiting to attack. Alone in her tiny, unarmed ship, Spacehart knows there is no escape. Quickly outnumbered, she is captured and imprisoned on dwarf planet Visanak, where she must face a plethora of new challenges.

In this science fiction, adventure, and love story, Spacehart must decide whether to stay on a nearly idyllic planet where All is One or attempt a perilous return to a possibly dying Earth.

Cover Art: Wassily Kandinsky, Komposition IV, 1911. (R.383.),
Artists Rights Society (ARS). New York/ADAGP, Paris

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475990126

Gloria Upper

Gloria Upper earned degrees in art and English from the University of Washington and has enjoyed diverse careers as a graphic artist, editor, painter, gillnet fisherman, and ski instructor. She has written and published short stories, poetry, and plays. She lives in Seattle, and has three children and five grandchildren. This is her first published novel.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Part One An Involuntary Mission

Chapter 1

Careening Through Space, May 25, 2275

Chapter 2

A Mysterious Cargo

Chapter 3

The Canopy Sit

Chapter 4

The Trial

Chapter 5

The Pit Or Fly

Chapter 6

Liftoff

Chapter 7

Hales Prison And The First Repressions

Chapter 8

A Passing Ship

Chapter 9

Ovoids

Chapter 10

A Fiery Pinwheel

Chapter 11

A Call Waiting

Chapter 12

A Message From Earth

Part Two Dwarf Planet Visanak

Chapter 13

Raspins And Canids

Chapter 14

A Night On A Sleepshelf

Chapter 15

A Bodily Energy Fluids Exchange

Chapter 16

Rasnik, Star Shepherd, And Wilbur

Chapter 17

A Trade

Chapter 18

Rain

Chapter 19

A Night On The Trestle

Chapter 20

A Refuge

Chapter 21

In Love

Chapter 22

Preparations To Leave

Chapter 23

Flight

Part Three Planet Noreusa

Chapter 24

Charuff

Chapter 25

Into A Night Garden

Chapter 26

Araruff

Chapter 27

A Confession

Chapter 28

Retrofitting

Chapter 29

A Clash In The Docu-Hub

Chapter 30

It Is Happier Here

Chapter 31

A Dream Of Earth

Chapter 32

A Voice From Earth

Chapter 33

A Merciless Cosmos

Chapter 34

Landing

Acknowledgments

Glossary

For my family

. . . . . . . . .

Always

The other landscape the heart dreams

And yearns for. A place where we could dwell,

And trust, and walk on through a world

Renewed and fresh as far as the mind

Can create.

—Joseph Stroud, Proportions

PART ONE

An Involuntary Mission

Chapter 1

Careening through Space, May 25, 2275

Adrift in a war-torn city, I pick my way through a deserted plaza, across a muddy, pitted square, reach again for my missing money belt. In the misty half-dark a solitary man appears and casts a furtive, hungry glance from a hooded face. Behind him, another figure approaches. I lower my eyes, seized by fear, shift direction and hurry on, uncertain, searching for someone—perhaps a friend I planned to join farther on at a theater. Broken glass crunches under my feet. Ahead, the pavement meets a wall of gutted buildings with blind, gaping windows. A torn poster flaps in a gust of wind. Why am I here? I can’t remember. The friend is not here. Overhead a hovporter clatters and whines. I look up and watch it pass; they’re running again, but it seems to be empty. How do I get home? Time after time, I recall, night after night, I’ve attempted to climb this structure. It is night now and a fine rain falls into my face…

I wake suddenly, lurch forward with a start, my shoulders and breasts pressed tight against the harness; still in the dream, for a moment I don’t know where I am. The scene fades, the shrouded figures dissolve and there’s only the hum of the careening ship, a lingering sense of dread, and a moment of deep disappointment to find myself here in this cramped cockpit, alone in this ancient craft. I shake myself awake, look overhead through the dome at the sea of stars, and then glance back again, knowing full well that Earth and its sun are long gone and the last curving arm of the Milky Way is far behind. Distant stars and galaxies streak by as Star Shepherd rushes on through the night, farther from home than I’ve ever been.

It’s hot as hellsfire in here. My bodysuit sticks to my back and thighs. I undo the harness, unstick myself, stretch out my legs, and scrunch my shoulders. There’s an acrid taste in my mouth, as if I’d eaten some dry, bitter rations, like Seti’s cat food. I’ve slept too long; my arms and legs ache from being folded and cramped in the cockpit. It’s time to get out, get down on the deck and stretch out. I raise the seat and run my finger across the scratch marks that, like a prisoner in olden times, I’ve made on the instrument panel to note the days, and count again how many sleeps I’ve had, how many days and nights I’ve been hurtling through space, isolated and alone, trapped in this small ship. As well as I can tell, sixty-seven days have passed. There’s been no message-in and no reply to my messages-out since liftoff, no word from Pharthy or Sahma, nothing from Mission Control at Cape Colibri. Transmission connections are useless, and the Com-net screen continues to glow a bilious green, silent and empty as a swamp.

I scan the panorama of dials and monitors, look again to see if anything might have come alive. The one instrument they’ve left in my control is the Galax-Search, my only navigational device, its convex screen glowing an amber-red. It’s obsolete, but at least I can attempt to orient myself, get some sort of idea where in the cosmos I am. The Galax Web, the Intergalactic Impel Indicator, the ship’s atmospheric and gravity controls, and the rest are base-controlled, on auto-compute. Unless base activates my instruments, there’s no way for me to change course or control the ship, no information, no communication.

No one is there, for sure no one. Cut off from everyone, I’m agitated and jumpy. This loneliness will eat me alive.

Hello! Come in Earth! I shout into the Com-net. My loud, unused voice startles me; the words echo as if emanating from some invisible other, some stranger.

"Star Shepherd here, Captain Julianna Hart, Spacehart. Come in! Silence fills the ship. Answer me, damn you!"

I’m convinced someone hears me; I must be getting through. Base monitors me, they can locate me, can change my impel path, bring me back home if they wish—or obliterate me. But no matter how often I try, Operations won’t reply. With months to go before I reach Planet Noreusa, I’m at their mercy. They don’t care if I contact them or reach Pharthy, or Sahma, or anyone at all. They don’t care if I live or die, and they don’t intend to ever return me to Earth.

I’m sure Pharthy has tried to reach me, that he misses me as much as I miss him, but the only way he can send is psychically, and in spite of what he thinks, he’s not good at psychically, at least not as good as I am. He should have picked up something; I’ve been sending to him again and again. Every day I close my eyes and concentrate, try to reach him, try to reach my sons and their families on their space station, try to reach my soul sister, Sahma, and my Viridian friends. Images of them come, but only indistinct pictures, most of them only scattered and remote memories with no indication that anyone has received me. My psychic skills have faded as well; like Phar’s, they’re no longer dependable. Even the Lapvoice Pharthy slipped me at launch is useless except for recording and music.

I rest my head back against the seat, stretch out, close my eyes and picture Pharthy’s calm face, his long, arched nose, his pale far-seeing eyes, sometimes blue and sometimes gray, eyes I seem to look right through into the sky. I recall his quiet voice warm in my ear, his slow, reassuring smile, his tall, confident stance. My sweet and dreamy, sometimes maddening and immovable Pharthy. How I yearn to talk to him, to be home with him, to have him near me, feel his skin against mine, to caress his beautiful face, feel his firm belly pressing into mine. I’d give a lot even to quarrel again.

So far I’ve had only one clairesight: a disturbing picture of him in an underground room, a burly clone poking him with a glowing club, interrogating him, Pharthy crouched on the floor in his big wrinkled overalls, his arms crossed over his head, silently protesting his innocence. I dread to think of what those Correctionist Reformist bastards have done to him. Because of the tree-sit, because he lived with me.

He’s done nothing wrong. He wasn’t involved in our protest, doesn’t believe in interfering, as he calls it, and—unless he was the one who opened the Bio-Dome for us—he’s innocent. But if they torture him, sooner or later, to save himself, he’ll be forced to confess what he hasn’t done and tell them whatever they want to hear.

Phar works for the CRI Preservists, spends his days in the Bio-Dome Preserve with his plants, developing new herbals and pharmaceuticals and herbicides. A fellow worker told him they were going to laser the last of the Doug firs, and Phar passed the information on to me, warned me to stay out of the trees. Because he told me their plan, and because of my arrest in the dome he’s at risk. He may even have known about the weapons we discovered hidden in the park. CRI could accuse him of leaking classified information to a known dissident group. But by then the Viridians already knew the Preservists were going to grab the firs, and we’d already decided to save them, to climb into the trees and stop the lasers.

I put off telling him I was going up until two nights before the climb, until it could wait no longer. It was early evening, still light; we were sitting on the bed in our crumbling dome apartlet on the hill, watching the last glow of sun cast a hazy light across Lummi Sound. We were scanning some old pictures of our trips into the mountains, recalling a full eclipse of the moon we’d seen from our tent in a high meadow beneath Mt. Baker, eight years before.

We had some wine and supper, and a few scattered lights from ruined and flooded Seacouver below us were just coming on. There was a lull in our conversation; Phar seemed mellow; it seemed the right moment, so I got up my courage and told him, I’m joining the canopy sit on Wednesday.

He straightened up and stared at me, his hands spread stiff on his knees. I thought you’d given up protesting, he said. There’s no way your Viridians can save those trees. They’ll arrest you and send you to prison again.

We’ll be okay. They have bigger insurgents than us to deal with. I was tired, on edge, and didn’t feel like arguing, like going over it all again and dealing with his objections; he was exaggerating, didn’t want me to embarrass him at work.

You and your fool Viridians. You’ll end up in Territorial prison this time, the Pit, or worse.

I’m not a Viridian.

You might as well be. No one will believe you.

They have no proof. I have no green on me, no tattoos or scarring.

Why associate with those agitators? he asked. Resistance and violence only create more resistance and violence. He leaned in front of me and clicked off the pictures.

They’re not violent! The Viridians are sworn to nonviolence! I was indignant that he’d forgotten. And anyway, you haven’t come up with a way to stop those Preservist bastards. They’re the violent ones.

He just looked at me and rolled his eyes. Don’t underestimate the Imperium. Forget your useless demonstration. Don’t go.

I’m going. Someone has to speak out. It’s the only way anything will ever change, if enough of us speak the truth.

Nothing will change.

Their crimes have to be exposed. We have to let people know. It’s our only hope.

They probably would arrest us, I thought, but someone had to let people know the CRI Preservists were going to steal the last firs in Seacouver, the last trees in the Bio Preserve, a park that belonged to them, the citizens. Almost the last grove of trees in the North Territory. Our action would remind people of the Reformist’s decimation of our land, their contamination of our water and air, remind them of CRI’s greed and cruelty, and their devastation of our lives. If they arrested us it would be a relatively minor sentence, we thought, like the last time four years ago. A year or two in Hales Prison would be worth it if we could arouse a discouraged and defeated population. Our action would encourage others to join the coming revolution, our hoped-for mass action for change, and get people out on the streets.

But Phar was right; we’d underestimated CRI. This time those Imperium thugs not only charged us with trespassing and rebellion but with insurrection, sabotage, and treason. They decided to get rid of us for good. We were stunned. My friends Sahma and Bode and Zeeb and the other Viridians were sentenced to Territorial, sent to waste away underground as prisoners or slaves with the aliens and the homeless, or be executed. And I’m out here, headed for some improbable planet on this no-return Deep Delve mission. In Imperium eyes I’m a criminal, a troublesome old revolutionary conveniently disposed of. I’ve involved Phar; I’m disgraced, and worst of all I’m separated from those I love.

I slam my fist on the panel. Damn CRI! Goddamn their wracking hides! Damn them for condemning my friends, for sending me on this Delve conquest mission, for using my skills to do their dirty work. Damn their corruption and cruelty. There must be a way to thwart this mission and get back. Those schrockers aren’t getting rid of me for good.

I give the bar a wild jerk sideways. How maddening to have no control of the ship. I’m unable to navigate, unable to change course or speed. I was told nothing, don’t even know if I’m on the correct impel path. I can only pray I’m not looping around in some mobius or heading on some strange vector to nowhere.

Hello! I shout again into the Com-net. Spacehart here. Come in Earth! Speak up!

I picture the operations techs milling around their instruments in the tower at Cape Colibri, laughing, chiding and kidding each other, tracking my voyage, ignoring my calls. They may be watching me, hear my voice this very moment. They can track every move, every sound I make, perhaps even monitor my thoughts. I try to remember someone who could help, maybe one of the older controllers or programmers from twelve years ago when I flew for the Free Peoples Majority. After the coup CRI did a final termination of those convicted or suspected of disloyalty, but skilled controllers and programmers were in short supply, and in spite of the war, in spite of the long struggle of the Free Peoples Majority, in the end a few went over to the Imperium to save their skins. There must be someone who’d dare activate the program and give me control of the ship, someone who’d risk freeing me from this assignment and help me get back home.

Chapter 2

A Mysterious Cargo

My role in this mission remains a mystery. On the last day, shortly before liftoff, the two young astronauts in charge of my orientation informed me I was going into Deep Delve, headed for Planet Noreusa in Galaxy Arion M-9, and would receive instructions later. Other than that, there was only a fourth-hand story passed from a guard to a gardener in the Bio-Dome and then on to Pharthy in his lab. Two days before launch he slipped me a note in my cell, passed the word that some creatures on Planet Noreusa had contacted Earth to seek our help. Enemies from a neighboring planet had attacked them, the story went, or possibly an asteroid was headed their way; the gardener was unsure. Beyond that I know nothing. By now Noreusa may be conquered or blown apart and drawn into its sun. But if alive, those aliens, whether evolved and peaceful, or hostile and warlike, or somewhere in between like us, are expecting my arrival and are armed with some suspicion or knowledge of my intentions.

I close my eyes and draw in a quick breath, feel my gut tighten. I’m certain this mission is some sort of conquest attempt by CRI. Soon I will know. My arrival is only a few months away.

I’ll try again to determine where I am. Though difficult to read and not designed to reach this far into space, the old Galax-Search remains active, still glows a hopeful amber-red. The glowing white patterns on the dark monitor are blurred, but when I look closely they correlate with a group of stars out there: Constellation Mastodon, the real Mastodon, far off in the distant universe, with its tipped-up body of galaxies, quasars, and stars, and then more stars flinging out from its heels. I enlarge Mastodon’s humped back, its long tusks and short legs and attempt to guess which bright spot in the constellation might be M-9. If Star Shepherd is on course, the galaxy will fuzz out in a month or so, then become visible as a glorious spiraling mass and gradually spread out and enfold me in hundreds of billions of light bodies.

Arion M-9, as far as I know, is an unexplored galaxy with so far only one planetary system found to contain intelligent life, a planetary system that revolves around Sun Sardins 215, a sun similar in size and evolution to Earth’s sun. Still zillions of light years away, Sardins 215 supports newly discovered Planet Noreusa and perhaps others with the possibility of life. Earth scientists doubtless have more recent information, but so far that’s all I know.

Restless, I get up, lean over the panel and peer down the intergalactic impel path, watch it stream away into nothingness, my translucent passage into dark, infinite space. Shivers of fear scurry across my back, along with old feelings of anticipation and excitement. The familiar enchantment of the unknown, the lure of another new world. For better or worse, those mysterious aliens are waiting for me. Will we be able to communicate? Will they accept me, believe I’m not a threat? This time I may not be coming back. How thrillingly doomed I am.

I’d love some Blissmist about now, a few whiffs to take the edge off, but I must ration it. Pharthy slipped me as much as he could when he was in my cell before liftoff, but unless I use it sparingly there won’t be any left for another three months or more.

Hell, why not enjoy it now? I lower the seat, find the dispenser, lie back and give it a good squeeze. There’s the pitchy fir odor, the sense of well-being, the floating euphoria; my toes are already tingling, my ears ringing musically.

I stare out at Mastodon, feel the exhilaration, the thrill of discovery. The stars are thicker and brighter already, dancing quarks of energy all around me, inside me, everywhere. New dimensions, possibly new universes. It’s not merely a void out there, not ever. There’s always the mystery, the invisible and violent forces, forming and reforming, always something startling and unknown in the vast cosmos. When I listen closely I hear the faint hum of the universe, feel it penetrate and enclose me, like a swelling song, connecting me to the source. The light and energy from every star dances through me, neutrinos through space and time, every stellar beam passes into me connecting it all. The rapture of deep space… how lovely. I’d almost forgotten this exultation that always returns, flight after flight, sailing into the unknown. Remembering past voyages, my many years of flight, I realize this is what I love, what I live for. Even this no-return mission. This is my life.

But there’s that noise, that crackling again, disturbing my bliss. It sounds as if something’s come loose; something’s gone wrong with the ship. I get up and peer through the door into the devac chamber but find nothing. Then I circle the deck, look in the binzalls, check the cleanse room, the closet, the fuel panels but find nothing to explain the noise. It must be below deck; I put my ear down, can’t locate the sound. I’ve struggled several times to break open the hatch with the wedging bar, but the lid won’t budge. The noise continues. The magic is gone, the Blissmist spell is broken. What a waste. With a groan, I throw myself back in the cockpit, try another futile check of the instruments.

What in hell am I doing out here in this archaic little Micros Avenger? I ask myself. My life isn’t worth a feather. Even if Base turned over the controls, even with the updated faster-than-light innovations, these old crates regularly malfunction, fly apart without warning, or just disappear. Anything can go wrong. Much as I love her, Star Shepherd is a back-number, not designed for these prolonged and risky Deep Delve explorations. She goes back thirty-some years. And it’s been twelve years since I’ve flown, since the CRI coup when women were forbidden to fly—and then in a much newer ship, my sleek and gorgeous Silver Siren. My astro skills are up to date, but these deep-space missions require a more advanced craft and the latest crop of young, indoctrinated CRI cosmoheads. It’s been twenty-nine years since I piloted one of these old Avengers, way back in ’46 when I was in my thirties. Talk about a back-number! Well, at some point they’ll have to hand over the controls for approach and landing. I can handle it; if this old ship holds together, so will I.

To drown the noise I start a Bach Prelude on the Lapvoice and toss down the mat for a stretch. The crackling persists and now does seem to come from below in the hold. It almost sounds alive. There’s something lethal down there, a cargo CRI doesn’t want me to get my hands on.

In my cell before liftoff Phar and I speculated there’d be a deadly cargo in my ship. Sitting on my narrow bunk in the cramped cell, we whispered together, trying to guess what evil concoction, what toxic substance or device to disempower the Noreusans and take over their planet would be onboard this time. CRI’s usual agenda: another conquest and theft of resources, another source of alien slaves.

Whatever’s down there, it’s been impossible to get into the hold and dump it. If I can’t get rid of it now, I’ll warn the people there when I can, maybe somehow jettison or deactivate it before I land. There has to be a way to terminate CRI’s plans. Whatever their scheme, I’ll never help those bastards. I’ll get out the bar, try again to open the hatch and find out what the schrock is going on.

I wedge the flat end of the bar under the hatch cover, stand on it and jump, push down with all my weight. It won’t budge; whatever’s down there is locked up tight. I’ll try again later.

Chapter 3

The Canopy Sit

I climb into the cockpit, make another day’s mark on the console, and reach for my old black boots. The Zambezi rayslay that Phar tucked into my right boot at launch is safely in the hidden holster, pressing against my leg. It was a risk for him to bring it at liftoff and I’m grateful—flying alone unarmed is perilous. But I’m sworn to nonviolence, determined never to use the weapon.

I’ve been traveling solo for more than three months now, forever wishing there was a companion in that second seat. I’ve rarely flown alone. (Though the Micros is tight quarters for one, she’s designed for two.) Every day I close my eyes and attempt again to contact Pharthy, sometimes speak to him into the dysfunctional Lapvoice he slipped into my pocket before liftoff. I’m talking to myself; he can’t receive me, not that way. If he’s okay, if he’s not in prison, he’ll be at our place, maybe reading or listening to music, maybe draped over our round bed enjoying the sunrise through the smog and the vine maples, leafed out by now. Maybe tending the garden.

We were lucky to keep his dome apartlet after the coup. Though damaged in the wars, crumpled in on one side and tipped a bit, it’s still livable, still earthquake, flood, and hurricane-proof (we hope), and by some miracle still revolves. What was left of the buildings and domes on the hills above the city was either destroyed or taken over by the new regime. They cut our dome’s few remaining evergreens and left a slashed and strewn mess, but we created a little garden out of the debris, cleared a terrace for vegetables, dug a little pond to catch the rain, even planted a cherry and an apple tree. As the apartlet revolved we looked into the flowers and rows of vegetables, and if it wasn’t raining we could see beyond out into the tops of those seven tall Douglas firs below us in the Bio-Dome Preserve, firs close enough that with our dome open at night we could hear the wind breathe through them as they swayed together. Talking trees, we called them; they sang a shushing sound, seemed to moan sadly through the night, anticipating their fate. The last firs in Seacouver, perhaps in the North Territories or anywhere.

I remember that night in the treetops: swaying up there in the chilly darkness with Sahma and the Viridian men, passing the night among the epiphytes and canopy creatures; waiting for dawn and the goons to come and laser the firs. The Bio-Dome was open and the trees creaked and sighed as they rocked. The pitch smell and oxygen were exhilarating, even mixed with the acrid smells of Seacouver below. During the long, anxious wait, perched on our branches, Sahma sent squirrel sounds from her tree to mine: Chi, chi, chi… chi, chi, she called.

Ah roo, ah roo… ah roo, ah roo, I answered with a dove call. The pitch on my hands from the climb was sticky and fragrant. I cupped my hands over my face and breathed in the pungent odor for strength and courage. Surely the CRI goons would discover us in the morning.

Seven of us—Sahma, me, Zeeb, Bode, Red Limewater, Sabin, and Numis—stole into the Preserve after dark. (A rainbow of Earthlings we were: black, white, red, and brown, from every territory.) Someone—it could have been Pharthy—deciding at the last minute to help us, shut off the cordon beam around the dome so we didn’t have to break in and set off the alarm. He worked there and may have known the code.

Once inside we stopped dead, startled to see the dark forms of dozens of weapons looming up behind the bushes, an arsenal of half-concealed artillery, lurking there like hidden enemies. The Imperium had filled the park with rows of armed Hornet Helis, rolling street artillery, and some wicked-looking Yellowjacket and dread missiles, monsters hidden there in anticipation of the uprising of the people. Pharthy hadn’t told me about this hidden hoard, but he must have known. Probably he hadn’t dared leak such highly secret information, even to me. No wonder he didn’t want me to join the protest.

We’re in serious shit now, Zeeb said. If they catch us in here they’ll accuse us of sabotage and treason as well as trespassing.

Why don’t we? Sabin whispered. Let’s do some damage. We won’t get a better chance.

It’s too risky. The weapons must be alarmed, I said. The goons will come before we can get out.

We don’t have any way to damage this stuff, Numis said.

We should leave, Sahma said. Forget this. We’re in trouble enough. They must already know we’re in here.

We came this far, we can’t leave now. Come on, let’s go up. Bode hunched his shoulders, wrung his hands, nervous and eager to climb.

Let’s go, I urged. We’re here now. Let’s follow our plan.

Don’t leave, Rainwater said to Sahma, who had started to turn back. We need your help.

She looked intently at each one of us, thinking hard, and then nodded in agreement. She was reluctant, but started with us for the grove.

We had plenty of time to climb the trees. If the Preservists knew we were there they would wait for us to get into the canopy, catch us up there totally in the act before they arrested us, we thought.

With Sahma’s help and instructions, we started up. Sahma the agile confident canopist had shown us how to climb. We’d never have made it without her. She went up first to loop the climbing ropes over the strongest branches, her sturdy, athletic body moving swiftly up the trunks, her thick, gray braid swinging across her back. Then we put on our harnesses and used the old-style double rope technique, knot sliding up to the tree tops with foot loops and Blake hitches. Once up there we threw ropes to each other, lashed the trees together, found branches to rest in overnight, and chained ourselves to the trees. There were seven of us, one for each fir they planned to laser down. During the chilly night we called back and forth, Sahma and me and the five men, making the sounds of eagles, crows, chickadees, and some of the extinct birds—thrushes, owls, and seabirds—and the bears, wolves, and seals we knew and loved and remembered. A few mysterious birds and night creatures in the canopy grew bold and answered us. For a while the men softly sang some old revolutionary songs: All Gone, I Didn’t Ask Why, Traveling Boots, Those Laser Blues.

Our eyes and ears alert, we watched as the scattered lights of Seacouver gradually went out and a few dim stars flickered overhead through the smog. We couldn’t sleep. As dawn approached we grew motionless and silent.

Sahma was first to spot the lasers, coming into the dome on their loading vehicle, the sharp, forked risers protruding in front, ready to cut and remove the trees. All the birds and Earth creatures were still as the machines headed toward us in the dimness, their lights sweeping the firs like searching predators. They knew we were there. The wind stopped rustling the branches. We became foliage and trunks, green and invisible, waiting in our perches. Let them find us.

Come down, the men below trumpeted. They raised their ladders and aimed the searing light beams into our faces, like streams of acid into our eyes. Come down or fall with the trees.

We’ll die first! Sahma screamed at them in a fury, in her element, so much braver than she was on solid ground. Tree killers! Murderers!

These trees belong to the people, Sabin shouted. The trees go, we go!

If you want us, come and get us, Numis cried.

We waited. Maybe they’d leave. Their ladders weren’t tall enough to reach us; we didn’t think they would dare laser the trees with us in them.

Trees coming down! Their speaker blasted; they raised the volume. A bunch of them milled about below with lasers aimed and ready, prepared to cut us down.

Rape, ravage, slash… turn the Earth into ash, we chanted. We dropped fir cones and small branches on them as they moved around and muttered into their pods, apparently calling authorities for instructions.

Soon the deafening throbs of the Hornet Helis reached us. Their black insect bodies dropped inside the dome, headed for us through the dawn mist. I covered my ears, filled with dread, my heart racing. They could have flown without that menacing racket, but they duplicated the chopper roar of the old fighter helis to frighten their prey. From above, armed clone securities dropped into the trees, landed on our boughs and cut us loose.

The closest you lackeys ever came to a tree, Sahma yelled.

We went limp as they handcuffed our wrists, pulled the cuffs tight until our hands ached and bled, became numb and white. They shackled us around the ankles like animals, lashed us into rescue slings, raised us up into the ship and swung away. Huddled together, we flew off to the jail roof. On the way we joked a bit, looked at each other with sadness, knowing that for now we were near the end of our time together and our Viridian fellowship.

Our protest won’t change anything much, Sahma said in a small frightened voice, but maybe people will hear about it, know what’s going on. In the early morning light she was pale as milk.

Numis rubbed his eyes with his fists and tried to stretch. We slowed those rabid-dogs down some, but I doubt if we made a dent in their intentions.

Much less their cruel hearts, those greedy schrockers, Bode added.

Maybe this will give some of those weak-kneed people out there the courage to resist, I said. I was trembling with anger and fear—they would cut the trees; what would they do to us?

The firs are gone now. They lasered them that same morning while we waited in jail, before we went to court.

*

At this mid-passage in life I should be home, enjoying my mature years coupling with my man. I close my eyes and concentrate but can’t find Phar. I picture his wide smile, his long, handsome face, his soft, graying, brown hair, picture us lying in our round bed, kicking off the covers, enjoying our nakedness, laughing and loving. Though tall and slim, more than six feet, how gracefully and confidently his body moves; how velvety his skin is.

It’s summer in Seacouver, at least July by now, time for lovemaking outdoors, for hikes into the North Cascade alpine meadows. If it’s evening he might be outside, on his knees tending our hillside patch. The lettuce and spinach and arugula we planted will be up and eaten by now; the carrots and peas and beans should be ripe, if there’s been any sun. The crocus and early tulips bloomed long ago, and the cherry blossoms are gone. It’s way past time to start the annuals. The old birch tree that survived all the wars will be leafed out, full of the nesting birds it harbored, its tresses glittering, swinging in the breeze. The hanging bells we made will ring in the south wind from the Cape, and the hummingbirds, those feisty, darting little survivors will be fighting over the feeders and blossoms. The mosaic statues, the steps and walls we built from rubble after the destruction, the little pond—our oasis in the ruined city, the sheltered home we created from chaos—it’s all waiting there to enjoy.

Tears fill my eyes. It’s too late for regrets.

For a moment there’s a clear picture: Phar in his herbal gardens, in the Dome Preserve where he works, bending over his hoe. Then he moves to the workbench where he propagates and hybridizes his experimental plants, studies the pungent medicinals and the sometimes-potent and poisonous herbs he grows. Then he’s gone. Perhaps he’s not in prison, or they have let him go.

So it’s back to the Lapvoice, still in my pocket where he put it before liftoff. Even though he can’t hear me, I can talk to him and transcribe what happens on this trip, my thoughts, and inspirations. Spacehart Chronicles I call them. No one may ever get the disc, but I want the truth recorded—the arrest, the trial, the whole story. If I don’t get back, scavengers could find Star Shepherd and the Chronicles be miraculously returned to Earth. Something left of me, Spacehart. Then my grandchildren will know I wasn’t really a treasonous, subversive criminal, a bad person.

"Dear Phar (I begin), I wonder what you’re doing.