Liberty's Heirs

Chapter 10

Blion looked out the window and downward at the spectacular flames and smoke billowing out of the rocket's massive engines.  It wasn't his first trip to another continent, his family had a tradition of doing that most summers, but it had always been aboard a slow flying cruise ship, never on an Intercontinental Transport Service space rocket.

Mac Spencer spoke as Blion stared at the Towers of downtown Los Angeles as they dropped out of view.  "You know an ITS rocket carries about the same amount of propellant as a Saturn V rocket did back over three hundred years ago when the United States of America launched the Apollo missions to the moon with it.  They were absurdly proud of that accomplishment.  Of course, in modern times we get a thousand times more thrust out of the same reaction mass."

Blion was not the least bit interested in Ancient historical trivia.  He looked around the cabin as the sky outside faded from blue to the black of space.  The cabin was empty.  No one else, it seemed, was interested in going to Europe this afternoon, at least not the fast way.

Mac Spencer read his mind.  "Are you sure this is what you want to do, Blion?  It's not certain your parents are still alive and you've never seen real peril, not like this."

"Yes, I'm sure." Blion said with a confidence that he didn't feel.  "I wanted to meet them so badly when I first found out I was adopted.  What do they look like?  What do they smell like?  Who are they?  Why was the rebelion against the Aye worth sacrificing me," his voice cracked slightly at that last question.  "I had a hard time accepting I'd never get a chance to know them.  When you told me they were still alive, I was shocked.  I never had any doubt that my original parents were rebels after all, who else gets adopted.  But I never suspected they might still be alive.  The Advocates always say that the Aye executes Rebels."

"That's not quite the way they phrase it," said the old man, "Advocates always tell the truth.  Even if it's practically the same thing."

Blion wasn't concerned about ethical semantics right now.  "Now that we're alone, can you tell me why you don't know where they are?  Where are we going?"

"I already told you.  We're going to Paris."

Blion was irritated at the old man's intentionally useless reply but he know better than to show it.  "I mean where my parents might be."

"Your parents were last seen in England.  That's where we'll end up.  Don't forget I told you this would be the most dangerous..."

"England!"  Blion would have jumped out of his chair if the restraints hadn't still been on.  "You mean that's a real place?  I thought it was like Atlantis."

"Yes, Blion," he replied with a serious, almost somber expression, "it's one of the world's best kept secrets.  The Aye doesn't kill rebels, at least not directly.  It sends them to the lost island of Great Britain from which they are forbidden from ever returning.  We hid it from all the maps.  We omit or generalize all references to it in history and literature.  Except of course, from certain fiction as you have read.  It is very important that you never tell anyone about this, or you and they will end up there."

It was clear enough that an Advocate must keep certain information in confidence but it wasn't clear why rebels would be sent to England and why it would be secret if they did.  There must be something more to it.  "Why all the secrecy?  What goes on there?"