Choices by Tara OShea

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True scattered the corn, and watched in with rapt attention as the chickens and geese pecked it up. They weren't cats, but they were still fascinating to the twelve year old, even if they weren't particularly cuddly past the chick stage. One overzealous rooster made as if to go for her feet but True shooed it away, clucking at it in displeasure, and tugged at her pantlegs. The overalls Bess had made her for her twelfth birthday were already too short around her ankles, and her dad swore she was growing like a weed.

John Danziger leaned against the back porch of the Hotel, watching his daughter as she chased the geese, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

When they'd first crashed here, all his hopes had been pinned on the arriving colony ship. After all, he'd worked all his life to pay off the debts of his grandparents just so he could live on the Stations not as operations personnel, not as a *drone*, but as a citizen, with all the rights that had entailed. Moreover, he had been thinking of True's future.

Watching her, blond hair shining in the early summer sun, brown and laughing and happy, he was beginning to wonder how he ever could have thought of taking her back to the sterile, crowded orbital stations that had seemed like such a prize two years and a lifetime ago.

Those hopes had changed, as they themselves had changed. He knew she didn't want to leave, and he wasn't sure he wanted to either. They hadn't spoken about it because there was nothing that needed words. Yet, anyway.

"Hey, Dad?" True set down the bucket of grain, and looked up at him with those big blue eyes.

"What, True-girl?" He didn't need to crouch down any longer to meet her eyes. if he did that now, she'd tower over him. But he did stoop a little so that she could look into his eyes without getting a crick in her neck.

"Are there a lot of kids coming?"
"Yep."
"Will they all be little, or will there be some who are my age?"

"You'll have lots of friends, the colonists kids, the brothers and sister of the Syndrome kids, and you'll always have me." He would have hugged her, but he wasn't sure what the current opinion was on almost-thirteen year-olds accepting public displays of affection, so he wisely kept his hands at his sides. But the question made him curious. "Why?"

"Just askin'." True shrugged, but he could see the wheels turning in that devious little Danziger brain she'd inherited, and could guess at the motives.

"Where's Uly gone to? I thought he was supposed to be helping you?"

"He's around." True shrugged again, and picked up the bucket to feed the rest of the flock.

Uly stood at the edge of the meadow, waiting. He had shot up in the past two years, his dark curls brushed the collar of a shirt that was almost too small, the cuffs creeping up his wrists, and he rolled them up in a small gesture of annoyance. He was going to be taller than True, and that was making her crazy. It seemed like she just couldn't win, even with two years between them, which should have afforded her some kind of advantage. Apparently not heightwise. She would simply have to be content with being smarter, she said. Often.

The ground stirred beneath his feet, and his waiting was rewarded as three Terrians appeared, staffs in hand.

"They're coming." Uly smiled. "They're coming at last."

"Eden Advance, this is Eden Colony, come in." Sheila's voice came from the tiny speaker, and was no longer laconic and cheerful. That set off bells and whistles in Devon's mind.

Devon took a deep breath, and then cued her comlink. "Eden Colony, this is Eden Advance. We're reading you."

"We've got problems." Sheila stepped away, and Dr. Vasquez's face filled the screen. He looked tired. And even though Devon knew he'd been in coldsleep these past 24 years, he looked old suddenly. "We had trouble with three of the children in cold sleep." Dr. Vasquez massaged the bridge of his nose with two fingers, perhaps to mask the tears, she didn't know. "Devon, they didn't come out of it."

"Oh God..." Devon paled.
"Their families knew how dangerous it was to put them into coldsleep, they knew the risks." Vasquez seemed to be reminding himself as much as Devon, and she could tell he was being torn apart.

"There is a cure here," Devon began, chewing her bottom lip. "This planet healed Uly--"

"Healed, as in completely?" Dr. Vasquez's eyebrows crept towards his hairline. "I was sure that it would take possibly years of exposure to built up the children's immune systems, are you sure?"

"I can have Dr. Heller upload her data now, if you like, for you to read while you prepare to land."

"No, no, I'll need to examine Uly the moment I arrive, I'm sure her data will keep."

"I'm afraid I insist." Devon shook off the grief, she didn't have time to deal with it now, and adopted a brisk, businesslike manner. That mask she knew all too well, and it was a comfort to her. She was In Charge. That meant not falling apart when others needed her to be strong. "It's more complicated than you think."

Morgan Martin sucked his thumb and tried not to think about the pain.

"Morgan, honey, are you okay?"
"Damn hammer," Morgan said around the injured digit, and sat down on the unfinished porch, dropping the offending tool to the grass at his feet.

They had started their house two months ago, and it was slow going. Even with the Zero unit, he was having to do a great deal of the work himself, and having never handled hammers and nails and saws and the like before, it was clumsy. Or rather, he was clumsy. But he was determined to do it, and do it right.

Their house. Their land. Next to their river. Maybe this planet wasn't so bad after all. "I can't believe they're finally coming." Bess sat down next to him, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear.

"It's about time. With the supplies in those cargo pods, maybe this will go a little faster."

"Is that all you can think about? Morgan, we've been waiting two years for this day, aren't you even a little excited?"

"Of course I am," Morgan sighed dramatically, "I'm just tired."

"The house'll be finished soon," Bess smiled, and draped an arm around his shoulders, pillowing her head on his chest, and he kissed her forehead.

"Our house," he said softly, surprised at the pride with which he infused the word. Three years ago he would have laughed if anyone told him he'd build a wooden frame house at the edge of a wheat field and spend the rest of his days rocking on a porch with his wife.

Now, it was starting to sound kinda... nice. After all, he had a position here as a leader of the community, something it would have taken him decades to achieve back on the Stations, and he'd filed claims on some of the best land on the continent, and his name would go on as long as the river ran, which was to say, forever.

Not bad.

Devon fidgeted outside John's door, and then finally raised her hand to knock. Before her knuckles could touch the wood, the door swung open, and a damp and smiling Danziger almost bowled her over.

He reached out to steady her as they both threatened to spill out into the corridor, and she blinked as she realized he smelled of soap.

She shouldn't be close enough to be able to tell how he smelled.

That was not something she should be thinking about right now. There were more important things on her mind.

...now, if she could just remember them. "What's up?" Danziger seemed to have lost none of his equilibrium, and waited for her to say what she'd come to say. He had just gotten out of the shower, having spent the better part of the morning making sure the wiring in the hospital was up to code (if they actually had anyone who would bother to check it against Stations code, anyway) and was planning to watch the ship land with True.

"Can I talk to you?" She looked up at him, chewing on her bottom lip, and he shrugged, and then stepped back inside, gesturing for her to enter.

The room was small, but cosy, living space combined with sleeping, and the twin beds were covered with brightly patterned quilts, Danziger's rumpled as if he'd been napping.

Devon sank onto the end of True's bed, hands together in her lap, and fingers toying with the ring on her right hand. She continued to chew her lip, as if what she was about to say was something Big and Nasty. Danziger leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his thighs, and waited.

"I've been thinking a lot about what's going to happen when the colony ship arrives."

"Yeah," John prompted, and she cleared her throat. She opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Finally, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and just said it.

"Are you leaving?"
"What?" Danziger gave her *the look*, got up, and started pacing.

"I know that ever since we first arrived here, your intention was to hitch a ride back to the Stations on the colony ship. But it's been almost a year since we last . . . last talked about it, and I wanted to know if your plans had changed."

There, she'd said it.
Danziger looked down at her dark head, lips pursed as he took stock of the situation.

This he hadn't expected.
First of all, he hadn't thought she'd need to ask. The fact that she had changed everything. She also seemed as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and while a part of him kind of enjoyed the fact that apparently the notion of him leaving had that effect on her, another part was disappointed that she could even entertain the possibility that after all they'd gone through to get to New Pacifica and get the place ready for these Colonists, he'd just up and go.

All these thoughts ran through his mind in about the space of a half-second, but they seemed like an eternity to Devon.

"You can't get rid of me that easily, Adair," he said quietly, grinning, and she looked up at him with a smile of relief that lit up the room, and stopped Danziger's heart.

Not that he let that show outwardly. He thought.
He *hoped*.

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