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Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Echea

This story first appeared in Asimov’s

Science Fiction, July 1998. Nominated for

Best Novelette.

------------------------------------------

From Asimov's

Echea, by

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I can close my eyes and she appears in my

mind as she did the moment I first saw

her: tiny, fragile, with unnaturally pale

skin and slanted chocolate eyes. Her hair

was white as the moon on a cloudless

evening. It seemed, that day, that her

eyes were the only spot of color on her

haggard little face. She was seven, but

she looked three.

And she acted like nothing we had ever

encountered before.

Or since.

We had three children and a good life. We

were not impulsive, but we did feel as if

we had something to give. Our home was

large, and we had money; any child would

benefit from that.

It seemed to be for the best.

It all started with the brochures. We saw

them first at an outdoor café near our

home. We were having lunch when we

glimpsed floating dots of color, a

fleeting child’s face. Both my husband and

I touched them only to have the displays

open before us:

The blank vista of the Moon, the Earth

over the horizon like a giant blue and

white ball, a looming presence, pristine

and healthy and somehow guilt-ridden. The

Moon itself looked barren, as it always

had, until one focused. And then one saw

the pockmarks, the shattered dome open to

the stars. In the corner of the first

brochure I opened, at the very edge of the

reproduction, were blood-splotches. They

were scattered on the craters and

boulders, and had left fist-sized holes in

the dust. I didn’t need to be told what

had caused it. We saw the effects of high

velocity rifles in low gravity every time

we downloaded the news.

The brochures began with the Moon, and

ended with the faces of refugees: pallid,

worn, defeated. The passenger shuttles to

Earth had pretty much stopped. At first,

those who could pay came here, but by the

time we got our brochures, Earth passage

had changed. Only those with living

relatives were able to return. Living

relatives who were willing to acknowledge

the relationship–and had official hard

copy to prove it.

The rules were waived in the case of

children, of orphans and of underage war

refuges. They were allowed to come to

Earth if their bodies could tolerate it,

if they were willing to be adopted, and if

they were willing to renounce any claims

they had to Moon land.

They had to renounce the stars in order to

have a home.

We picked her up in Sioux Falls, the

nearest star shuttle stop and detention

center to our home. The shuttle stop was a

desolate place. It was designed as an

embarkation point for political prisoners

and for star soldiers. It was built on the

rolling prairie, a sprawling complex with

laser fences shimmering in the sunlight.

Guards stood at every entrance, and

several hovered above. We were led, by men

with laser rifles, into the main compound,

a building finished almost a century

before, made of concrete and steel,

functional, cold, and ancient. Its halls

smelled musty. The concrete flaked,

covering everything with a fine gray dust.

Echea had flown in on a previous shuttle.

She had been in detox and sick bay;

through psychiatric exams and physical

screenings. We did not know we would get

her until they called our name.

We met her in a concrete room with no

windows, shielded against the sun,

shielded against the world. The area had

no furniture.

A door opened and a child appeared.

Tiny, pale, fragile. Eyes as big as the

moon itself, and darker than the blackest

night. She stood in the center of the

room, legs spread, arms crossed, as if she

were already angry at us.

Around us, through us, between us, a

computer voice resonated:

This is Echea. She is yours. Please take

her, and proceed through the doors to your

left. The waiting shuttle will take you to

your preassigned destination.

She didn’t move when she heard the voice,

although I started. My husband had already

gone toward her. He crouched and she

glowered at him.

"I don’t need you," she said.

"We don’t need you either," he said. "But

we want you."

The hard set to her chin eased, just a

bit. "Do you speak for her?" she asked,

indicating me.

"No," I said. I knew what she wanted. She

wanted reassurance early that she wouldn’t

be entering a private war zone as

difficult and devastating as the one she

left. "I speak for myself. I’d like it if

you came home with us, Echea."

She stared at us both then, not

relinquishing power, not changing that

forceful stance. "Why do you want me?" she

asked. "You don’t even know me."

"But we will," my husband said.

"And then you’ll send me back," she said,

her tone bitter. I heard the fear in it.

"You won’t go back," I said. "I promise

you that."

It was an easy promise to make. None of

the children, even if their adoptions did

not work, returned to the Moon.

A bell sounded overhead. They had warned

us about this, warned us that we would

have to move when we heard it.

"It’s time to leave," my husband said.

"Get your things."

Her first look was shock and betrayal,

quickly masked. I wasn’t even sure I had

seen it. And then she narrowed those

lovely chocolate eyes. "I’m from the

Moon," she said with a sarcasm that was

foreign to our natural daughters. "We have

no things."

What we knew of the Moon Wars on Earth was

fairly slim. The news vids were

necessarily vague, and I had never had the

patience for a long lesson in Moon

history.

The shorthand for the Moon situation was

this: the Moon’s economic resources were

scarce. Some colonies, after several years

of existence, were self-sufficient. Others

were not. The shipments from Earth, highly

valuable, were designated to specific

places and often did not get there.

Piracy, theft, and murder occurred to gain

the scarce resources. Sometimes skirmishes

broke out. A few times, the fighting

escalated. Domes were damaged, and in the

worst of the fighting, two colonies were

destroyed.

At the time, I did not understand the

situation at all. I took at face value a

cynical comment from one of my professors:

colonies always struggle for dominance

when they are away from the mother

country. I had even repeated it at

parties.

I had not understood that it

oversimplified one of the most complex

situations in our universe.

I also had not understood the very human

cost of such events.

That is, until I had Echea.

***

We had ordered a private shuttle for our

return, but it wouldn’t have mattered if

we were walking down a public street. I

attempted to engage Echea, but she

wouldn’t talk. She stared out the window

instead, and became visibly agitated as we

approached home.

Lake Nebagamon is a small lake, one of the

hundreds that dot northern Wisconsin. It

was a popular resort for people from

nearby Superior. Many had summer homes,

some dating from the late 1800s. In the

early 2000s, the summer homes were sold

off. Most lots were bought by families who

already owned land there, and hated the

crowding at Nebagamon. My family bought

fifteen lots. My husband’s bought ten. Our

marriage, some joked, was one of the most

important local mergers of the day.

Sometimes I think that it was no joke. It

was expected. There is affection between

us, of course, and a certain warmth. But

no real passion.

The passion I once shared with another

man–a boy actually–was so long ago that I

remember it in images, like a vid seen

decades ago, or a painting made from

someone else’s life.

When my husband and I married, we acted

like an acquiring conglomerate. We tore

down my family’s summer home because it

had no potential or historical value, and

we built onto my husband’s. The ancient

house became an estate with a grand lawn

that rolled down to the muddy water.

Evenings we sat on the verandah and

listened to the cicadas until full dark.

Then we stared at the stars and their

reflections in our lake. Sometimes we were

blessed with the northern lights, but not

too often.

This is the place we brought Echea. A girl

who had never really seen green grass or

tall trees; who had definitely never seen

lakes or blue sky or Earth’s stars. She

had, in her brief time in North Dakota,

seen what they considered Earth–the brown

dust, the fresh air. But her exposure had

been limited, and had not really included

sunshine or nature itself.

We did not really know how this would

affect her.

There were many things we did not know.

Our girls were lined up on the porch in

age order: Kally, the twelve-year-old, and

the tallest, stood near the door. Susan,

the middle child, stood next to her, and

Anne stood by herself near the porch. They

were properly stair-stepped, three years

between them, a separation considered

optimal for more than a century now. We

had followed the rules in birthing them,

as well as in raising them.

Echea was the only thing out of the norm.

Anne, the courageous one, approached us as

we got off the shuttle. She was small for

six, but still bigger than Echea. Anne

also blended our heritages perfectly–my

husband’s bright blue eyes and light hair

with my dark skin and exotic features. She

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