Crossfire Prologue    My God, thought Jake Holman, I did it.    He looked up at the faces watching him from the natural amphitheater of the California hillside. Six thousand faces, white and black and brown and golden, large and small, bare and garishly painted, pla in and ugly and genemod beautiful, rapt and wary, with and without headgear. Six thousand people ready to go to the stars. And every single one of them crazy.    “No one thought we could possibly do this,” Jake said into the microphone. “No one believed that a small, privately held corporation could actually mount this expedition to Greentrees. No one believed we could raise the money, could build the ship, could equip and staff her. No one believed any of it would happen.”    Because no one believed rich people would leave Earth forever to go God-knows-where. The enormous fare, the critics said, was the stumbler. Historically new worlds were explored and claimed by governme nts and then colonized by the poor and wretched of society: starving Irish potato farmers, persecuted Puritans and Jews, deported convicts. People with nothing to lose. Of course, half of those historical emigrants died aboard ship, and half of the surv ivors died in the first year from disease and hostile natives. Greentrees was already ahead of the curve – the ship was safe and Greentrees had no sentients, hostile or otherwise. Still, the unknown was always dangerous. So why, asked the critics, woul d anyone with enough money to buy passage on a starship use the money to leave Earth in favor of a non-existent colony on an unclaimed, unexplored planet sixty-nine light years away?    It had turned out that there were as many reasons for the rich to emigrate from Earth as there were emigrants. The critics had meant logical reasons; the colonists had reasons of the heart.    “We are a diverse and miraculous group,” Jake continued, and from her seat in the front row his business partner frowned. Not too flowery, Gail mouthed at him. Jake ignored her. “And we have chosen th is path for diverse and miraculous reasons.”    Now some of the New Quakers were frowning at him as well. Quakers, Jake had learned, didn’t believe in miracles. Well, too bad for them. This was the last Jake would see of any of them, except William Shipley, for over six years. Only the Governing Board would be awake for the journey out, and only as many of them for as long as they could stand it.    “But all of us will have one thing in common: our new home. Greentrees. Mira Corporation salutes your choice of that home and wishes you joy of it. To the ship that carries us there: Godspeed.”    Jake strode away from the microphone. Applause started, tentative at first, then stronger as the translators put his little speech into Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. Gail smiled, no doubt relieved that Jake had been brief. A coordinator took the mike and began directing the first group aboard the Ariel.    Jake watched the various groups, as separate here as most of them wished to be on Greentrees, rise from the sere grass and cling to each other before their long cold sleep. The Quakers, almost two thous and of them. The deposed Arabic royal family with its enormous retinue, the women veiled and sitting separately from the men. The Chinese, meekest of the contingents, obeying their leaders without question. Larry Smith’s dubious tribe of “Cheyenne,” a thousand strong and possibly the craziest of all. Gail’s huge extended family, convinced that Earth had only one more century as a life-sustaining biosphere. Plus the scientists, adventurers, star-lottery winners, and miscellaneous millionaire eccentric s.    And Jake Holman, uncaught criminal.    My God, I did it.    “Ready, Jake?” Gail said. Her brown eyes shone – unusual for the efficient and pragmatic Gail. Jake looked at her sun-scarred, middle-aged face (no genemods for beauty here), at the triumphant stance o f her strong body. Feet apart, torso tilted forward, chin lifted. Like a boxer just before a match.    He smiled at her. “More than ready, Gail. For a long, long time.”

Copyright ©2003 Nancy Kress