Ark by Stephen Baxter Page B

Thomas Windrup and Elle Strekalov were sharing the feed from an Angel. Thirteen years old, their hands intertwined, they rocked gently together.
    The class was discussing why the Candidates and their families, those of a Christian background, had not been allowed to celebrate Easter.
    “It was tough on my father,” Holle said. “We could have done with a break.” There was now an ambitious schedule in place which would see a fuel lode of antimatter, the key to the interstellar drive, being manufactured on the ground, and a long sequence of Ares boosters rising up from Gunnison to launch Ark modules to the space station, which was to be refurbished and used as a construction shack. All this to be done in just eight more years. But as milestone after milestone was missed the pressure was relentless on the senior people, including her father.
    Magnus Howe said, “Easter is a vacation, yes. But what about the theology?”
    Wilson Argent blew a raspberry. “It’s got nothing to do with theology. It’s politics. President Vasquez went to war with the Mormons. And then you have those New Covenant nutjobs who say that God is drowning the sinners. We’re going secular in reaction.” Dark, sharp, heavyset, Wilson was a recent recruit from the refugee camps, selected for his ferocious ability and tough personality. It seemed to Holle he was challenging Don and Kelly for the informal leadership of the cadre.
    “You’re forcing people into a choice,” Kelly Kenzie said. “We lost some good people, whose parents chose the other way, chose God over your selection process.”
    “Well, it wasn’t my process,” Howe said. “The social engineers’ theory was—”
    “It’s not the theory that matters,” Venus Jenning said. She was flicking through a yellowing paperback. She was a slim, tall girl, calm and quiet, and, perhaps prompted by the chance of her name, fascinated by astronomy. And she liked science fiction, images of vanished futures. “Hey, look at this,” she said now. Her book was called The Door Into Summer, by Robert Heinlein. “Denver gets to be the national capital in here too. After the Six Weeks War in 1970!”
    Howe said evenly, “You were making a point about theory and practice, Ms. Jenning?”
    “Oh, sure. Sorry. Look, because of the religious ban we lost Jews, Hindus, Muslims. Barry Eastman. Yuri Petrov. Miranda Nikolski! She was the best mathematician we had. She’s a year younger than me, and she was teaching me interstellar navigation! You can’t afford to lose people like that. Even Zane was almost pulled out.”
    The group focused on Zane Glemp. After three years in the Academy, twelve-year-old Zane was still among the shiest of the group, and he looked to the floor.
    Magnus Howe prompted, “Zane?”
    “Well, it’s true. My father’s ancestors were Jews. We don’t practice ourselves. But my father didn’t like the idea that we had to reject our tradition altogether. And I don’t think he liked the social engineers meddling in his project.”
    Don Meisel snorted. “Jerzy Glemp was in at the start. But no matter what ideas he’s been putting in, it’s not his project. It’s fueled by my father’s money, and yours and yours and yours,” he said, jabbing a finger around the room at children of the superrich: Kelly, Susan Frasier, Venus Jenning, Cora Robles, Joe Antoniadi, Holle. Cora, a rich kid who had grown up with attacks on her parents’ wealth, just laughed prettily.
    Magnus Howe prompted, “Zane? So why are you still here?”
    Zane shrugged. “We wanted the Ark more, I guess. What use is faith if your family is extinct? Also Mr. Smith visited a few times. He urged my dad to keep me in the project.”
    There was an odd silence at that. Harry Smith, their pastoral tutor, loomed large in all their lives, big, bluff, complicated. He was close to his charges. He spent a lot of out-of-hours time with the Candidates. He had even taken to dressing like the students, in a version