Corazón got up after last check and crept out of the Maiden House, shoes in hand. In an hour and forty minutes the supply train would come rolling slowly through an aperture in the dome around Bountiful. Enough time to reach her cache, change clothes, and stow away. These were the most dangerous moments. If she were caught, she’d be punished. Worse, she’d be stopped. A whole year would pass before another opportunity, if she got one at all. Now or never.
The outer door was supposed to respond only to a Sister’s voice, but Corazón had filched a tool from the greenhouse and rewired it. She pulled the cover off the door control just enough to reach the outgoing connection. It opened and she slipped across the courtyard. She’d used this method to sneak out for assignations many times. It wasn’t until Dorcas got worried and insisted on meeting in a closet in the chapel that they’d got caught.
The Sisters’ hypervigilance after that incident had relaxed a little. Time had passed; the adolescent boys had all gone off to Precious Harvest to help set up new agricultural domes, while those girls who might be inclined to share an interlude with Corazón were all too frightened after the last time to come anywhere near. She and poor, shy Dorcas had been shocked with a prod normally used on livestock. It caused pain but didn’t damage the skin. Dorcas had broken down in weeping hysterics, while Corazón had borne it in silence until Sister Rebekah released her grip. Then she’d run out the door and straight home, livid red welts fading on her skin to nothing. Only her word.
Her father had first been angry at the Sisters, but when he got on the vid with Sister Rebekah he came back and said in a flat, cold voice that Corazón would go back to the Maidens’ House and stay. Caleb Matthias, who normally had a twinkle in his eye and an easy manner with his family, didn’t even look like someone she knew. Her mother Raquela had stood by and said nothing, not looking her daughter in the eye.
“I won’t go! You can’t make me!”
“I tell you that you will. You have no other home. Perhaps some day, when you have learned to submit your willful heart to God, I will receive my daughter into my house again. My married daughter and her husband, welcome guests as is proper. Until then, I will not see you. Do not come here again with your mouth full of lies and your heart full of sinfulness.”
“Do you mean that, Father?” Quiet. All the rage drained out of her.
“I do mean it.”
“Mother?” Corazón felt cold.
“I respect your father’s wishes, and so should you.”
Corazón gazed at each of them for a long moment. “I understand.” She turned on her heel, skirts swirling around her long legs, and walked out.
She hadn’t known then what she was going to do. The plan formed slowly, rising up piece by piece. The first thing she did was get her brother Lucas to bring her old hand-held comp.
“All they have here is trash, Lucas. You have no idea. Slow, and all programmed to recite little prayers at you. If I hear another one I will vomit.”
He grinned. “You’re such a snob, Cor. Should have been a techie. They should be sending you off to Garden to get educated, instead of that idiot Jeremiah.”
“Huh. He’s going because his father is Elder Ballard, and you know it. Also he’s sure to come back and get married and father more babies for the glory of God and New Canaan and live on in perpetual self-satisfaction, forever and ever, amen. If I ever get off this God-spooked dirtball, they won’t see me for dust.”
“Don’t say that, Cor. I’d miss you.”
“You’d be the only one.”
She didn’t dare let Lucas in on her plan. He knew her too well, and his loyalties were divided; he might decide to betray her for her own good. Instead, she sweet-talked Josef Sato into bringing her some boy’s clothes. Unmarried girls didn’t travel alone. She would dress for her trip in pants and a loose jacket, with her hair clipped and a hat pulled down over her eyes. If seen in Bountiful, she might be mistaken for one of her brothers. Once she got to New Jerusalem, the clothes would grant freedom to move about.
She reached the greenhouse, where the long rows also contained cabinets full of supplies: pH testers, trowels, shears, the usual emergency gear in case there was a breach. Oxygen tanks, breather masks, pressure suits. A bundle of clothes, her comp, and food weren’t in the usual inventory, but were still hidden where she’d left them.
She stripped off her clothes: long skirts, petticoat, high-collared blouse, and pinafore. She wrapped a stretchy bandage around her breasts to flatten them, then pulled on trousers, shirt, and loose coat. She checked the food in her bag and added a breather mask with two eight-hour supplies of compressed oxygen. If she couldn’t find livestock, she’d have to ride in a freight car which wouldn’t be oxygenated.
Last she pulled out shears and used them to cut her hair. By feel, and it probably looked like it had been chewed off when she was done; but however ragged, short hair wouldn’t give her away like the long curly strands which now lay on the ground around her feet. She picked them up in a bundle with her old clothes and stuffed the whole thing in the back of the cabinet.
Time to go.
She was early. What if the train were late? What if someone saw her? What if she couldn’t get on the train as it passed, or got hurt trying?
The supply train ran from the new settlement at Precious Harvest through Bountiful and down to New Jerusalem, the largest city on New Canaan. The space port there was the only locus of contact with the larger civilization beyond this planet, including Interplanetary Commerce and Colonization’s facility.
The triumvirate of Survey and Exploration, PsychDep, and ICC were the closest thing to an interstellar government, and had an interest in all human doings. Until New Canaan was fully terraformed, and therefore self-sufficient, it must trade and accede to certain demands. The ICC offered evaluation tests to anyone who wished to take them, by agreement. The tests were a gateway to employment with the agency’s New Canaan facility, perhaps more. New Canaan understood it as a test of faith, that they must deal with the corrupt civilization they had hoped to leave behind: rendering unto Caesar. Corazón understood it differently.
It was a six-hour test offered that day, in New Jerusalem. She could leave the Maidens’ dormitory, hop the train, and arrive in good time for the test. Then what? She didn’t know. One thing at a time. First, the train.
The sky was beginning to lighten when it finally came by. Bad, because she was losing cover of darkness. Good, because she couldn’t see in the dark. She forced herself to wait as the first five cars went by; passenger cars, too risky. Then a few more. Finally she saw one that looked like it might hold livestock.
They all opened from the top and sides, with no runners. She had to run alongside, clamber up the ladder, crawl across the top, open the door, drop in, and close it. All before the train left the Bountiful dome.
Fortunately few measures were taken to discourage what she was trying to do. New Canaan was a well-ordered society, and no one lacked food, a home, or useful work. The train was commonwealth, and anyone could ride it just for the asking.
Guided by programming, the train slowed through the dome. Once out in the barrens it would move fast.
Corazón started running. Her bag with the oxygen tanks thumped against her back. She grabbed the hand rail of a ladder on the end of a car, and pulled herself up. Her feet sought the steps; one slipped, but she had a good grip and soon both feet were solid.
Up. Crawling across the roof was nerve-wracking, but manageable. She used her lock-pick, then struggled with the sliding door. She hung by her hands from the edge, above darkness. She caught sight of a large shape: a crate. No livestock and no air, but at least she had a way to climb down. Her feet touched the top.
Got on it, didn’t fall. A chain allowed her to close the upper door. Now it was really dark. She rummaged in her bag, attached oxygen to her breather mask all by feel, waited until the light showed green, then put it on. Checked the meter. Eight hours should be more than enough, with the extra for backup.
Rumble and squeak of motion all around, rattle, metal squeal. Shadows passing by the one small window, thick and scratched. She clambered down to the floor which shook and rocked under her feet. She settled in to nap while she had the chance; better while her oxygen tank was fresh.
It wasn’t a good place to sleep. Also the sun was coming up, and she was used to rising early. They’d be wondering where she was by now. Hopefully, guessing wrong.
Corazón sat up and turned on her comp. She’d already studied everything she could get her hands on, which didn’t seem like much. She had a good grasp of mathematics and science useful to agriculture, terraforming, and life support. There were gaps. The Council of New Canaan did not approve of doctrines which contradicted Scripture or fueled worldly lusts. Consequently animal breeding was covered exhaustively in the materials available, including genetic manipulation, but human sexuality and evolution were missing. She had to extrapolate.
At least she hadn’t had to start from scratch. Back before her father started treating her like a stranger, he and Corazón had shared a love of old media. They raided the planet’s library network for everything they could find. Literature up through the mid twenty-second century was fairly complete, though some of it had been expurgated while some was complete gibberish: she knew what a knight was, but hound? What were corbies? The explanations she found were no better. Animals didn’t talk, or eat people. Did they? Wait, there was Elijah and the bears, and also Jonah being swallowed by a whale. Visual arts were spotty, but it was possible to find old vids from as far back as the twentieth century. She loved watching the old, funny “movies” with their depictions of a vanished world. Some of it was confusing; were the Germans in The African Queen the same as the Germans in Casablanca? If not, why was Bogie always fighting Germans, or rather refusing to fight them and then reluctantly getting dragged in?
Trying to find out about the Germans was how she figured out that approved history was the most distorted of all. New Canaanites taught history like a Bible story, and they tended to favor the Old Testament. Earth had been corrupt and God in his wrath had caused the seas to rise and the ice caps to melt. Famine, wars, and terrible plagues had killed millions. God’s chosen had come to New Canaan in order to build a new, uncorrupted world, and because He favored their works they would be able to wrest fruitful land from lifeless rock.
Corazón knew exactly how much work went into growing food and producing breathable air. Like every New Canaanite child, she had started contributing to the colony’s survival practically as soon as she could walk. Every one of them worked tirelessly to make the ground fruitful, or at least livable. So what part of it was God doing? And what about all the other people, the ones on other planets and even back on Earth? Was God helping them? If not, how come they were still around?
The response to such questions was shushing when she was younger and punishment as she grew. No one ever actually answered them. Her mother, who was often the voice of reason, said, “I can’t explain, Corazón. You’ll understand when you get older.” Now she was older, and still didn’t understand.
No one in Bountiful seemed willing to answer her questions, nor anyone on New Canaan. Perhaps no one out there in the beyond would answer either, but there was no way to know.
She spoke of going to the stars one day in front of her mother. “Don’t say that, mi corazón. If you leave New Canaan, you can’t ever come back. We could never speak or see each other again.”
“Why not? Don’t they have vid screens on other planets?”
Raquela just shook her head. “It would not be allowed.”
The train slowed and then stopped. It couldn’t be New Jerusalem yet. She peered out the scratchy window, but all she saw was yellow ground with dark grey exposed rocks and hazy greenish sky. The barrens. No human habitation, not even the gleam of an atmosphere station in the distance, and no living thing.
Why had the train stopped? She had surely been missed by now; could they have figured out where she went? No, they wouldn’t stop the train in the middle of the barrens for that; someone would just grab her in New Jerusalem and haul her back. What kind of punishment would the Sisters think up for daring to wear boy’s clothes, let alone running away? What would her parents do? A New Canaan girl was officially her father’s ward until she married; then her guardianship passed to her husband. Divorces were only granted by an act of the Council, and usually meant that the Council took responsibility for the woman thereafter; single women of good repute, with the backing of their families, wound up as Sisters running a Maiden House usually. What happened to unmarried women whose parents disowned them? There was no place for them, but New Canaan did not tolerate anything out of place.
Was there an emergency? She began to imagine scenarios in which the passengers and livestock were evacuated from the train, while she, unknowing, stayed until her oxygen ran out.
A much more realistic fear struck her. What if she were late? What if they turned her away? Sorry, come back next year. It was cold in the car, but she began to sweat.
The train jerked and started moving again. Corazón sighed and went back to her last-minute study. What was important? Astrocartography? She’d mostly memorized what little she found, but opened up the file again and plotted a route from Gamma Leporis, New Canaan’s double-star system, to Sol via Procyon, then an alternate route through the jump-gates at Sirius and Alpha Centauri.
As the train finally approached New Jerusalem, it slowed. Outlying structures and independent household domes began to pass by the window. Corazón began to worry that someone had figured out where she’d gone. Could she jump off the train once they were under the New Jerusalem dome and walk in? It was broad daylight. She would be seen…might be seen anyway, but at least if she waited she wouldn’t have to jump off a moving train.
It slowed further, then stopped. Corazón looked out to make sure they were under the dome, then pulled at the side door and slipped out. She walked between some warehouses, down an alleyway, and was on the streets of New Jerusalem. Easy as that.
She had no idea where she was. New Jerusalem was big, and busy. Corazón had imagined walking across town in half an hour, but it was much bigger than that. She was losing more time. She was already very late.
“Excuse me, brother, you seem lost. May I be of assistance?”
It took Corazón a few seconds to realize the stranger was addressing her. She knew everyone in Bountiful by sight, as they knew her. It was not proper for a grown man to speak to an unmarried girl who was not his close relation; but this man did not know who she was. He was dressed in the usual loose men’s jacket over coveralls, and a hat. He had a full beard and laugh lines that crinkled when he talked, and he looked at her with kindly curiosity.
“I’m sorry, sir, I am a little overwhelmed. Could you direct me to the port?”
“Our city on the hill is an inspiring sight, is it not? The works of God are mighty. But why the port, if I may ask?”
This was more conversation than she wanted, but he knew how to get there and she did not. “I just want to look at it. To see how our Founders came.”
It was a good answer; the stranger chuckled. “Ah, the curiosity of the young. Well, you are close, these warehouses run along the west side of it. Walk down five blocks, turn left, and there you are. You can see ships in flight from here.” She looked where he was pointing and he laughed. “Not today, I don’t think. They do not come very often.” Corazón tried to keep her disappointment from showing. “Perhaps one will come while you are here. If you have lodging close by, you will know when it happens. It sounds like nothing in the world.”
Lodging? She had no thought beyond getting to the ICC complex and taking the test. “Thank you. I must be going.”
“May God bless you, brother. And if you need a place to stay, go down to the blue house on Alpha Street and ask for Martha.” Corazón waved back at him as she hurried on her way. There were long rows of warehouses all alike, and the blocks were long. She began to run.
She arrived out of breath to a plain building, functional and painted green. The front door was translucent and proclaimed INTERPLANETARY COLONIZATION AND COMMERCE, NEW CANAAN HEADQUARTERS. Someone was locking the door.
“Wait, wait!”
“Yes? Can I help you?” The person was a woman, older even than Corazón’s mother but with close-cropped grey hair which she wore uncovered. She had pale skin and blue eyes. “I am Donna Van Eyck, and I am the director here. What can I do for you?”
“Am I too late? The instructions said oh nine hundred, but my train was late and I…”
“Too late for what?”
“The test! The evaluation exams. I came down from Bountiful this morning and I know you only offer it once a year. Please…”
“It’s a six-hour test. With breaks, that takes most of the day, then there’s the discussion afterward. I would really prefer not to stay late tonight.”
“I can’t go back!” Her voice sounded panicky in her own ears. The Director quirked an eyebrow and Corazón’s face grew hot.
“That’s not what I meant. You can start this afternoon, then we can pick up again tomorrow morning. I won’t make you go all the way back to Bountiful untested. That’s quite a journey.” She looked at Corazón and opened her mouth as if to say more, then shut it again.
“Oh, thank you! Can I start now? So as to not keep you?”
Donna van Eyck’s eyes glinted. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I was going to go eat lunch. I suggest you do the same. If you go around the corner there is a commissary. Tell them you are a candidate for the exams and mention my name. Meet me back here at thirteen hundred and we will get started.”
Corazón had some goat cheese and bread stashed away, but at the word “commissary” her stomach growled. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you again!”
“See you after lunch.”
The commissary was full of good smells and strangely dressed people. There were a few New Canaanites sitting together dressed in the prescribed clothing, but the rest wore a wild variety of colors and styles. None of the off-world women had their heads covered, though they all looked old enough to be married. There were grown men without beards as well.
Corazón picked up a tray and marched up to a table. A staggering variety of food was laid out buffet-style. Two kinds of meat! Apples and oranges! There were also the usual soy cakes and millet bread, but with what looked like an unlimited supply of butter. Someone had a real cow.
“Just start at one end and work your way down. You can always come back for seconds.” One of the off-worlders smiled at Corazón, a woman with shoulder-length dark hair dressed in a white jacket and trousers. “I know boys your age are always bottomless pits.”
Seconds? Corazón decided not to waste time, and picked up a slice of chicken and some curried goat. She filled the rest of her plate methodically and sat down near the woman who had spoken to her, not right next to her so as to intrude, but close enough to allow her elder to continue the conversation if she chose. Corazón tried to read the insignia on the woman’s jacket without appearing to stare, while simultaneously stuffing her mouth.
“Scoot over and sit with us. We don’t bite. At least, I don’t. I’m Kamiko Sullivan.” The woman patted the bench next to her. “You pique my curiosity. What brings you here to the space port? You’re not looking for a job, are you?”
“Well, yes, I am.” She grinned while saying it, around a bite of sweet potato.
“Oh, indeed? Are you taking the exams?”
“Today, yes. I haven’t started yet.”
“Don’t worry,” said a man with very dark skin who wore a loose multicolored garment. “It’s only six hours of your life you will never get back. And it’s almost as much fun as beating rocks into sand with your head.”
“Oh, shut up, Kamau. You are just complaining so somebody will ask you how you scored. I think five years should be the official time limit for resting on Academy laurels. Your test scores and your grades are done now. It’s time to move on.”
Corazón looked to see if he were offended, but he just grinned. “You are the one who brought it up. And at least I have laurels to rest upon, my dear. What was it they called you? Skin of Her Teeth Sullivan.”
“A miss is as good as a mile. That’s past, I prefer to focus on the present. And the future, such as this young person here.” She turned to Corazón, “So, have you thought about which service branch you want to go into? They will make recommendations based on your aptitude and how well you do in your courses, but you do have some leeway.”
“Which branch?” Corazón boggled.
“Well, sure,” said Sullivan. “Aren’t you talking about taking the service exam?”
“Yes. I mean…is there more than one?” She felt a panicky chill in her belly.
“No, it’s the same exam whether you are applying for a job at a local facility or to go off-planet. I just thought, given your age, that you were aiming for the Academy.” Her expression was a little bemused.
Off-planet? “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Well, allow me to recommend Survey and Exploration as a possible career choice. Going places no one has ever gone, seeing things no one has ever seen! Of course, it’s difficult to get in, but you should always aim as high as possible. Jump at the sky.”
Kamau rolled his eyes. “Or if you prefer more intellectual challenges rather than boredom alternating with panic, you could try for PsychDep.” He smiled kindly at Corazón. “I wish you luck.”
There was a man behind the desk at the ICC office. Corazón looked around, but Donna Van Eyck was not visible. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to take the exam. The…service exam.”
He nodded. “Donna mentioned you. Come with me.” He led her back through the offices, which were full of ornamental plants under sun-lights. A furry animal with grey and black stripes and a long tail lay on a cushioned chair.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s Macavity.”
Macavity looked up at the sound of his name, then went back to sleep, one ear cocked back and the black tip of his tail twitching. The young man led her into a strangely blank room.
“Here you go. Once we record your name and set it up, all you have to do is tell it when you want to begin.” He spoke to the room. “Authorization. Assistant Director Kim Geong. Agency Qualification Exam, common calendar July 19, 2449.” The words appeared like bright ghosts in the air. “Candidate information to follow.” He turned to Corazón. “Family name, personal name, then middle initial if you have one.”
“Matthias.” It was common enough, and the point of this exercise would be lost if she gave a false name. “Cor…uh, Corby. J.”
“Date of birth?”
“Delta 13, Year 121. Ah…”
He just nodded and the display gave the New Canaan date along with the common calendar. He held up a visor. “Put this on for a moment; it will take a retinal scan and also measure your visual field for the simulations.”
With the visor on, the words “Retinal Scan” appeared in front of her, followed by a flash, then a series of colored lights which moved across her field of vision. “Scan completed. Please return visor to proctor” hung in the air. It took her a moment to obey.
“Have you used one of these before?” Corazón shook her head. There was nothing like this in Bountiful. “There’s a tutorial at the beginning, I advise you to run through it. It’s pretty easy. You can manipulate the virtuals like solid objects, you just have to get used to the fact that there’s no resistance. Do you have any mobility impairments or other special requirements? Some parts of the test require movement, but the system can adjust.” Corazón shook her head again. “All right, I will leave you to it. There are periodic breaks, you can come out and walk around, get something to drink, pet the cat.” Assistant Director Geong ducked out with a last friendly smile.
The room shifted subtly, the blankness becoming a vast space. An icon hung in the air labeled “Tutorial.” It took her a couple of tries, but she grabbed it and the system then ran her patiently through a lesson in how to manipulate and maneuver in its virtual world, some of which required her to get up and move around the room. She learned how to stack virtual objects, move them from one place to another, and open files by poking at them. Then she was ready to really begin.
It was exhausting, even with a break every ninety minutes. The first part was all puzzles, logic problems, memory and visualization, and she sailed through that and started to feel elated. Then there were some questions she simply did not know the answer to, even to hazard a guess; some of the questions themselves she didn’t understand. “Pass.” “Pass.” “Pass.” Then some about biology and related technology, growing more difficult until she was answering very involved questions about closed-system life support and repairing a model of a broken gas exchange monitor. She was surprised to find that she seemed to know a great deal about the subject through a combination of osmosis, deduction, and practical experience. Astrocartography was the best part; she actually got to pilot a mock-up of a ship, and seemed to do well. Then history, full of some questions she thought she knew, some she was unsure of, and some she had no clue about. (Who was Henry Ford, and what did he have to do with the Diaspora?) She did well on pre-Diasporic literature and media, and was absolutely ignorant of anything to do with contemporary human culture outside of New Canaan. Mathematics she thought she did well on until she suddenly reached the end of what her education had included. Then there was a set of what appeared to be logic problems again, except that they involved emergency scenarios. In one, a hologram prison guard told her that a mother and child were in the next room, and she must choose which one he would shoot. If she chose, she could go free. If she didn’t choose, he would shoot both of them. She decided that a person who would make such threats was not trustworthy, and rushed the guard. The scenario ended there rather abruptly and the program asked her for her reasoning. No clue as to whether she’d gotten the answer right.
And so on, for hours. At the end of it Corazón emerged from the testing room wrung out and on the verge of tears. She had failed. There were so, so many things she didn’t know. She was too ignorant to escape New Canaan, and there was nothing on New Canaan to help her ignorance. She had been born into a trap.
The creature Macavity came and butted her with its head. It made a trilling sound. She touched it, very cautiously. It rubbed her finger with a furry cheek.
Assistant Director Geong bustled cheerfully back into the room. “All done?” Corazón nodded, willing herself not to weep in front of this stranger. “Well, it’s past the end of our hours. The comp will run its analysis pretty quickly, but the Director will need some time to look at it. If you didn’t quite make it, sometimes we can make recommendations for a course of study that will improve your scores the next time around.”
This cheered her briefly, and then reality set in. There wasn’t going to be a next time. She had risked everything for this one chance, and lost. Still, she might as well see it through. Perhaps she could beg them for a menial job that would mean she didn’t have to go back to Bountiful and might actually get another chance.
He was still talking. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I was asking if you could come back tomorrow at ten hundred.”
If she were really a young man, she could go stay in one of the dorms or someone’s hostel and work off her lodging. “I’ll…I think I know of a place I can stay. Yes, I’ll come.”
Alpha Street was one of the smaller self-contained communities that made up New Canaan; it even had its own section of dome in case of accident. Lavish plantings instead of greenhouses to produce food and oxygen, carefully managed grazing areas for goats and sheep. An open square held an amphitheater for the community’s church services. It was arranged very much like Bountiful, except more prosperous.
Corazón knocked on the door and was bustled inside by a cheerful, round-faced woman. “Martha Hohner, dear. Just tonight? Well, you can put your belongings in a cubby upstairs where you’ll be sleeping, I’ll show you. It’s after dinner but we’ll find you a little bit of something. There’s the sign-up board for work. If you help with clean-up tonight, you only need do two hours in the morning. If you stay longer, you’ll get a regular shift and earn service credits as well as room and board after two weeks.” This was why people ran hostels; they got free labor for their homestead and service credits on top of that, for the not inconsiderable task of housing, feeding, and riding herd on a bunch of young unmarried men.
Corazón ate her dinner of lentils while the clean-up crew jostled plates, joked, laughed, and walloped each other with dish towels. She carried her dishes to the sink when she was done and got caught in a soapy crossfire. “Sorry, sorry.” The perpetrator was a brown-haired boy just a little above her height, who grinned. He had dimples. Corazón grinned back only to see his face go blank. What had she done wrong? She tried to puzzle it out while rinsing bowls. She learned the boy’s name was Jacob from the mocking banter of the other boys, and when he caught her looking at him again, he winked.
Most of them trooped out, shouting and laughing as they went, but Jacob hung back. “Hey, I’m going to go check the monitors in the greenhouse, and I bet you need some more work time. Want to help?”
“Sure.”
“What’s your name?”
“Corby.”
He flashed a dimpled grin again, and Corazón smiled cautiously back.
Out in the greenhouse, he showed her how to check their system. By the third time he touched her hand unnecessarily, Corazón caught on. She considered; what if she responded, and he then revealed her as a girl? Signs indicated he already knew, though. What if she didn’t, and he got mad, and told on her? That could be bad.
He was cute. Corazón caught his hand and squeezed it. He took her other hand gently, then leaned in for a quick kiss. There followed quite a satisfying tussle for a short time until, after running his hands over her body under the jacket, Jacob suddenly jumped back. “Christ! You’re a girl!”
Corazón drew in her breath for one long cold shocked moment. Then she went hot with embarrassment. Then she started to laugh. She sat on the floor of the greenhouse and giggled until she started to snort. “Yes,” she finally gasped, “all my life.”
Jacob looked at her. He wasn’t laughing. He even looked a little angry. He crouched down. “Are you going to tell anyone about me?”
“Tell them what? Oh—” Corazón finally overcame her giggles. “Sorry, I’m a little slow on the uptake. I tell you what, Jacob. You don’t tell anyone I’m a girl, and I won’t tell anyone you like boys.”
He flinched a little when she said it, and she could see this line of conversation wasn’t calming him down any. He probably thought she was laughing at him, though she wasn’t; it was just too much. Laugh or cry, and if she started crying she was a goner. Corazón sat quiet and looked at him without saying anything more until he relaxed and sat down next to her. “Why are you here, Corby? Is that your real name?”
“Sort of. It’s a nickname I just made up. I’m here because…” She thought back. “I’m here because the Sisters in the Maiden House beat me with a shock stick, and my father wouldn’t do anything about it, and my mother agreed with him.”
“What did you do to get beaten?”
“I was with another girl. In the chapel closet. Not praying.”
He sat there for a while, taking this in. Then, finally, “Girls do that?”
They stayed in the greenhouse for quite a while, talking. As they went back in, they overheard a voice saying, “Yes, sir, I saw him getting off the train from Bountiful. Riding in a cargo car. Runaway, I thought, sure enough. Looks old enough to be out in the world, but you never know. Could have run from an obligation or his parents. He’s here now though. If you got a boy missing from Precious Harvest or Bountiful, you can come looking for him here.” It was the voice of the stranger who’d given her directions to the space port.
Corazón could feel the blood beating in her ears. She looked at Jacob, who was looking at the door. “Let’s go in the kitchen,” he whispered. She nodded.
He led her back to the storage room. “What do you want to do?”
“I need to get out of here.”
“The door is locked at night. Wall has wire at the top, plus the geese will make noise. You could try hiding and sneak out in the morning…”
She shook her head. “I can pick the lock, if I have my bag.”
Jacob nodded. “Stay here.”
She could hear the hum of the generator, a woman’s voice in another part of the house, the drip of water that hadn’t been shut off tightly enough. She bit down hard on another fit of inappropriate giggling and tried not to move. She could hear her own heart beating. Someone came into the kitchen, and she held her breath, but they left. A million years passed. Jacob had told on her. Jacob had gotten caught. He’d fallen asleep. He’d forgotten her.
Jacob appeared, with her bag in hand. “There’s nobody at the door. Go now.”
She ran, unlocked the door, and slipped outside. She was halfway down the street before she realized she didn’t know his last name and hadn’t thanked him.
She found a bin between two warehouses close to the ICC office and dozed behind it until the sun came up. When Donna Van Eyck came to unlock the front door, she found Corazón sitting on the stoop. “Won’t you come in?”
Corazón followed her in, yawning and conscious of her dirt and dishevelment.
“Sit there a moment.” Corazón obeyed, and in a few minutes the older woman poked her head around the corner. “Would you like some tea?”
Tea made, the two of them sat down in a room with a table and a console. Donna Van Eyck began, “Well, Corby, you have some very interesting results here.” Was she trying to be polite, or ease into it? “It’s true that there are some predictable gaps in your general knowledge…the education you have received has some deficiencies. I’m sure you are aware of that by now.”
Corazón nodded, sinking into her chair. Ignorance.
“But education is only part of what we measure. We look for natural intelligence, certain personality traits, and also what you have done with the education you have had thus far. Your scores taken all together are reasonably good, acceptable though not remarkable. But your intelligence, aptitude, and grasp of the areas of knowledge you’ve had exposure to are genuinely extraordinary. Traveling here on your own from Bountiful shows initiative and desire, and that too enters into our assessment. Plus your responses to the ethical dilemmas were quite fascinating.” She paused. “I cannot offer you a position here at the ICC facility on New Canaan, because you haven’t the requisite knowledge base for the jobs we have open.”
Corazón closed her eyes. What would she do? No job here meant she had no recourse except another hostel until she could find other work, and what were the chances that her family weren’t already looking for her? Her masquerade had nearly fallen apart in less than a day, how could she keep it up for a full year?
“….the Academy for the three Services can offer a first-rate education, but what we can’t give is the will and imagination to make use of it. We can hope to train extraordinary people, but we can’t create them. As the director of ICC operations here I have the power to fill a slot at the Academy by recommendation each year. I have to tell you, there are some years I don’t use it. This year, I want to offer you the New Canaan appointment.”
“What?” Corazón came back to the room with a jerk.
“I realize that going off-planet is a huge decision. It effectively means giving up your New Canaan citizenship, though who knows what the future will bring. You can take your time, talk it over with your family if you like. I can hold the appointment for you for three months and await your decision. You could even wait until next year and re-apply; I can’t guarantee it that long of course, but it’s better for you to wait if you need to be sure.”
“I would prefer not to, actually.”
“Well, since you are thirteen…sixteen by the common calendar…you are allowed to enter contracts on your own behalf by New Canaan law.”
Corazón’s head spun. Her family, her parents, her brothers, everyone she’d ever known…Escape. Her own life. The sky. Then the weight descended again. Only boys reached their majority at common-year sixteen. “That’s not quite true. My father has to approve.” Donna Van Eyck did not look surprised. “I take it your father did not approve this journey.”
Corazón shook her head. “No. He did not.”
“Perhaps I can help. What are your parents’ names?”
“Caleb and Raquela Matthias.”
Van Eyck tapped on the table. “Request communication with Caleb Matthias, from Director Van Eyck of Interplanetary Commerce and Colonization.”
Soon Caleb Matthias appeared on a screen in front of them. “Yes, what is it?”
“I have good news for you. First, your daughter is safe.”
“Thank you for telling me.” He looked angry.
“Secondly, she has passed our entrance exam with flying colors, and I have offered her an appointment to the Academy of Services on Mars.”
His face was a study at that. He’d always taken pride in her accomplishments, but a different kind of pride told him his daughter should be under his control and it was a shame to him that she wasn’t. A brilliant, but disobedient daughter? “What does that have to do with me?”
“She is thirteen by your calendar, sixteen by ours. According to the laws of New Canaan, she needs parental permission to accept the contract.”
“Did she tell you that I turned her out of my home for licentious behavior, or that she ran away from our Maiden House? You should know what kind of bargain you are making. She was under their care, go ask them.”
“Neither our laws nor our agreement with the Council of New Canaan require me to recognize the authority of a third party here.” During this exchange Corazón’s mother had come to stand at her husband’s shoulder. She leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of Corazón, who got up to stand directly in front of the screen.
” ¡Mi niña! ” Corazón flinched. “Come home.” Raquela put her hand on her heart as if it pained her. Corazón watched her father’s face, which bore the same cold, distant expression as the last time she had seen him. He’d thrown her out of his house; having spoken those words, would he take them back?
It didn’t matter. Corazón tried to imagine herself back in Bountiful, in the Maiden House, or in her parent’s home. Somehow in one day she had come to no longer fit, or maybe the reality was that she never had. “No, mami. I can’t. ”
There was a long silence. Finally her father spoke. “She speaks this much truth. There is no place for her here; neither the Maiden’s House, nor mine. Take her off to your Academy.”
Donna Van Eyck only said mildly, “As a representative of that Academy, I thank you.”
Corazón waited. He said nothing more. “Goodbye, Mother. And you too, Father.”
Raquela put her hand to her mouth, but didn’t speak. Caleb flushed, and cut the channel. Director Van Eyck looked thoughtfully at Corazón. “I have increasing respect for your fortitude.”
Corazón returned the look. “That was part of the test, wasn’t it? Or it was a different test.”
Van Eyck acknowledged this with a nod. “What do you think the purpose was?”
“To see if I’d lie to get what I wanted?”
“To some extent. I also know that leaving New Canaan is permanent. Other candidates could perhaps afford to leave a mess behind, then come back to it when they have more maturity. You can’t.”
“That wasn’t a mess?”
“We don’t always get to make things as tidy as we would like.”
Corazón sat up straight in her chair. The only way out was forward. “What next?”
“There will be a trade ship coming in a few days from now; I’ll get you a berth on it. After that, Garden in the Procyon system until it’s time to go to Mars.”
“There was a lot in that test that I didn’t know. Can the comp here teach it to me?”
Van Eyck smiled. “Some of it.” Macavity came in and jumped up on the table to sniff at the teacups, then sat on the edge nearest Corazón. She reached out to pet him. He leaned into the caress and made the trilling sound again.
“When can I get started?”
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Sara Amis is a writer whose writing has also appeared elsewhere. |