The Innocent

CHAPTER 1
 
 
WILL Brandis stood beside his father, gazing out at the cultivated field of wheat that rippled in the soft breeze. The orange sun warmed his skin, and he could feel the contentment in his father's hand that was resting on his shoulder.
"It'll be a good harvest this year," his father predicted, chewing at a length of straw. Will chewed a similar, smaller piece, copying him. "The best we've seen since we left Earth."
Will nodded, though he really couldn't say. He'd been only six months old when his parents had left their home world to become part of the colony here on Tarshish. Will knew all the data about Earth, of course, because it was required learning in school. A smaller planet than Tarshish, but apparently sometimes a very lovely one--only very, very crowded. There were, when the colonists had left, almost sixteen billion people on Earth. Will could visualize the number without really understanding it. It was so huge. There were only 617 people here on Tarshish, though there would probably be more later on.
He had no memories of Earth. Most of his memories were of growing up on the Tarshish Endeavor, one of the four ships that had brought them here to this planet. His world had been metal corridors and steel bulkheads until two years ago, when they had finally reached their destination. Then, for the first time in his short life, Will had stepped out of the Endeavor and stood on solid ground.
He'd hated it at first. There was no familiar thrumming from engines in the deck plates. No sighing of the air purification system. No humming of the computers at work. And the temperature had been all wrong. Instead of a steady twenty-two degrees, it varied. There were no comforting walls about them, and there was no ceiling over their heads.
The adults, naturally, had loved it. Tarshish had been seeded by the advance party, and a section of the native woods cleared. The adults had run about happily, enjoying everything. Enjoying a bit too much, perhaps, because nine months later, there had been thirty-two babies born. Will wasn't entirely straight on the facts of life yet, but he knew that for babies to be produced, two adults had to get pretty happy together.
It took the adults a little while to realize that Will and the other kids weren't as ecstatic to be on Tarshish as they were. The adults thought of themselves as planetary Pilgrims. Builders of a new world. Will and his friends, however, wanted the comfortable, known environment of the ship back again, not the wide open spaces the adults seemed to crave. Finally, the adults had compromised. Though the bulk of the four starships that had brought them to Tarshish had been cannibalized and used to start building the colony, several sections had been retained for use by the children.
To their relief, the children were given one large section as a school. Only temporarily, the adults had pointed out. As soon as they could, a real schoolhouse would be built. Will and his friends didn't understand the difference as far as they were concerned, the metal-clad rooms of the old Endeavor were a real schoolhouse. The adults seemed to think that the kids would get over their attachment to confined spaces, but Will knew they were wrong. It was unnatural living on the surface of a planet instead of in a safe, comforting spaceship.
Will was looking over the wheat field because it made his father happy. Back on Earth, his father had been a tax consultant. But overwhelmed by what he considered the dangerously unhealthy conditions on his home planet, one day he decided to chuck it all, uproot his family, and build a new life as a colonist on Tarshish. Here, like most of the people, he was a farmer, and a builder, and a planner. The adults had laid out a grid for their city, and were building homes in sections for the settlers. The government had encouraged such development. It was hoped that off-Earth settlements might relieve the terrible overpopulation problem on Earth. Many were already inhabited, but some of the settlers still lived in tents while their good, solid houses were being built by the community. Unfortunately, the Brandis house had been completed a couple of months back, and Will had been forced to move out of the comforting school section and into the family house. He really hated it, but he knew it would hurt his parents if they ever found that out, so he didn't tell them. Instead, he was simply desperately unhappy all of the time he was on the surface.
He glanced at his watch and smiled with relief. "Got to go, Dad," he said. "Time for school." Yes! He could get out of the open and back inside for the rest of the day. He'd be happy again, at least until evening. Then he'd be forced to leave the school precinct and return home.
"Have fun, son," his father replied, grinning, and swatting his back playfully.
He intended to! Will ran all of the way to school, his spirits rising every step of the way. The school had been placed in a small valley, out of sight of the main buildings. There had been some debate about that to begin with, as the parents had worried about the children having to make the journey, even though it was short. But nobody had wanted the beauty of the colony to be marred by the sight of the battered starship section, with its angular beams still jutting out of it, and the holes and plates where things had been removed. The adults had considered it an eyesore, if a necessary one, and it had been relegated to an out-of-sight area.
Will couldn't understand that point of view. As far as he was concerned, the schoolhouse was the most beautiful building on the planet. It always made him happy when he saw it, stark and incongruous against the grass and trees.
The parents had only allowed it to be placed here because Tarshish didn't have any dangerous animals at all. There were native species, of course, but they all seemed to be totally harmless. Will kind of liked the fuzzbats--hairy, gliding creatures that ate the local fruits. It turned out that fuzzbats had a fondness for cherries, a fruit transported from Earth, which didn't make the adults very happy. The adults hadn't yet finished their research into which native fruits and plants were safe for human digestion, and they were being very cautious about trying them out. In the meantime, they had planted many fruits on Tarshish native to Earth--including cherries, which seemed to flourish. Until, that is, the fuzzbats developed a taste for cherries!
Anyway, the schoolhouse was off on its own, away from most of the adults, which suited the kids just fine. It was more than simply a school, of course. It was also the hospital, and it was where most of the babies were held during the day. To make the colony grow, all of the adults had to work together. The computer docs looked after the babies, and the computer teachers kept an eye on the older children while also educating them.
Jenna Hughes was waiting for Will by the door, and waved when she saw him. Jenna was his best friend, and one of the lucky ones. Her family home wasn't due to be built for a couple of months yet, so she was still staying in the school. Will wished he was, too, but adults never paid much attention to what their children wanted.
"Hi, Will," Jenna greeted him. She was almost exactly his age--one of the fun things about her was that she was precisely seven days younger than he was. On Earth that would have been a week, but here it was only seven-tenths of a week. The colonists had decided a decimal calendar made more sense--ten days made a week, ten weeks a month, and ten months a year. Tarshish took almost three Earth years for one of its own, so by native standards, Will was slightly less than three years old. But he preferred to count birthdays the Earth way. That way, he was almost nine. It sounded better to him that way.
"'Lo, Jenna."...