Unlight

by Chandra Shekhar

  “Yes, he’s a fraud,” said Jessica. “For all his tough talk about taboos, he’d sooner die than break that one.”

  Anna nodded. “And what happens if we get pregnant? We haven’t had our tubes tied like you, Mum.”

  Nicole had recovered her composure. “I see where you’re going with this. You two are out of the picture and so am I. Which leaves us with …”

  Mother and daughters turned their gaze to the remaining member of the quartet.

  Elizabeth gasped. “Surely you can’t be thinking of me?”

  “Yes, we are!”

  Elizabeth blushed a deep scarlet. “You’ve got to be joking, dear! An old crone like me?”

  “Old crone, my eye. Healthy, attractive older woman. Isn’t she, Anna?”

  “Absolutely! Sultry and sensual in a way that the rest of us can only envy. Don’t you agree, Mum?”

  Nicole paused to marshal her thoughts. Jessica’s idea was shocking and radical, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. “Well, I did mention a few minutes ago that your Grandma would be a much better match for Larry than me.” She turned to Elizabeth. “And I should confess that I was always a tiny bit jealous of you. The way Larry looks at you sometimes, the way he never looked at me, with such admiration. Like the other day when you were bending down to put something on his plate …” Elizabeth stared open-mouthed at Nicole, who turned to Jessica: “So yes, if we follow your crazy plan, Grandma would be the right choice. Assuming she agrees.”

  Jessica looked at Elizabeth, who was sitting with a stunned look on her face. “Will you do it, Grandma?”

  It took Elizabeth several seconds to find her voice. “Well!” she faltered. “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes!” pleaded Anna.

  “Will you at least consider it?” Nicole asked.

  Elizabeth gazed at her daughter and granddaughters for a long moment. Her stupefied look gradually dissolved into her habitual untroubled expression, the hint of a mischievous smile on her lips. “Dear children, would you be shocked if I told you …”

  “Told us what, Grandma?”

  “That I’ve often fantasized … about what you’re suggesting?”

  It was Nicole’s turn to look shocked. “Really, Mum!”

  “I’m sorry, dear. It’s wicked of me. But I’ve always had a thing for Larry.”

  Nicole and her daughters sat in stunned silence until Elizabeth spoke. “Do you really want me to carry it out?”

  Nicole was the first to recover. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she said, and the girls nodded vigorously. “None of us can bear to see Larry fall to pieces before our eyes. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Nothing to lose by trying,” said Jessica.

  “Very well, I’ll give it a try.” Elizabeth looked at Nicole thoughtfully. “But what makes you think he’ll respond? Even if he’s attracted to me, as you claim?”

  Nicole took a deep breath and exhaled. “We all know how much regard he has for you. I think he cares about you even more than he cares for me or the girls. I’ve been really worried about your health, and so have the girls, but Larry has been the most concerned. In fact, sometimes I think your health worries him more than our problems with air, or energy, or anything else. If you could show him that there’s life in those old bones of yours, that would reassure him more than anything else.”

  Elizabeth smiled, but looked doubtful. “But what will he think about taking advantage of his companions?”

  “It doesn’t apply to you. You’re a woman of mature years, not a girl he has nurtured into adulthood. Further, if you couched it as a dying woman’s last wish, I don’t see how he could refuse you. A little white lie would be all it takes.”

  Elizabeth giggled. “What a wicked mind you have, my dear! I am finding all these hidden sides to you. Very well, you’ve convinced me.”

  “You are a sport, Mum.”

  “So when should we …?”

  “How about this afternoon?”

  “So soon?”

  “If we’re going to do something crazy, it’s better to do it before we change our minds. Besides, every day that we wait is one more day that he suffers.”

  “Then say no more. I’ll try my luck this afternoon, unless you have second thoughts.”

  “No second thoughts,” said Nicole firmly. “Jessica’s plan sounded crazy at first, but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it’s the only thing to do. It’s either that or watch the man we love destroy himself.”

  “Let’s hope it works.”

  “It will.”

  “I must admit that I’m getting excited about it already. It feels wicked, but I can’t wait to do it.”

  “After all you’ve done for us, you deserve to have some fun, too. Besides, I have another motive.”

  “What?”

  “Your health. I know you love to meditate, but I’m worried that you’re overdoing it. Didn’t you tell me that your master in Nepal began to meditate more and more in her last year or two, and one day never came out of her trance?”

  “Yes, that’s what happened. Fancy your remembering that.”

  “So with our little scheme we can kill two health birds with one stone—you’ll meditate less and engage more in an activity that gets your heart pumping and your endorphins flowing.”

  “You silly thing!” giggled Elizabeth, blushing.

  “I’ll be there to monitor you with my stethoscope. I’ll make sure your pulse rate stays in the safe zone.”

  All four women collapsed into giggles that turned into peals of laughter until tears flowed.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Later that afternoon, as Larry slumped wearily over his notes and calculations, Elizabeth came up to him.

  “Larry, do you think you could come to my room? I wanted to ask you something personal.”

  “Certainly,” said Larry, welcoming a break from his air and energy worries, and followed her down to her chamber. As the two went downstairs, Nicole and the girls exchanged a meaningful glance.

  “If they’re not back in five minutes our plan’s a success!” said Jessica.

  “Lucky Grandma!” sighed Anna.

  It was nearly two hours before the pair returned from their tryst. Elizabeth had a gleam of mischief in her eyes. Equally, Larry—he of the calm, steady, even keel—looked blissful, guilty, and sheepish in equal measure.

  “Success!” Jessica whispered to her sister.

  And a success it proved over the next few weeks. Larry came out of his funk with a spring in his step; he ate well, slept soundly, and regained his cheerful spirit. But he became more than the Larry of old. For someone normally sober and poised, he often sang or smiled for no apparent reason, and acted playful with Anna and Jessica. The girls rolled their eyes at each other and took a while to adjust to the new Larry, but when they did they decided they liked him even better now. He had always been kind and competent and strong; now he was actually fun to be with. “RIP stuffed-shirt Larry,” Jessica told her sister.

  Elizabeth, too, was transformed. In the past, though she never spared herself when taking care of others, she often appeared to be struggling against a natural lassitude. She always did more than her share of everyday chores and activities, but it was obvious that, left to herself, she would prefer to just be. Though she was always available to help anyone, and was a wonderful listener, her eyes rarely lost their look of dreamy abstraction. A part of her seemed to dwell in some mystical realm where the cares and sorrows of life didn’t penetrate. Now, though as placid as ever, she was also alert and engaged. She endured the girls’ chaffing with good-natured indulgence.

  About four months after Larry’s recovery, the geothermal well started to cool again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Heating

  The geothermal well functioned perfectly until the end of November in Year Five, when its output fell by three percent o
ver the course of a few days. Unlike most alternative energy sources, geothermal doesn’t fluctuate much, so only minor fluid pressure adjustments were necessary to keep the energy output constant. A three percent drop was within specification, so Larry did not give it much attention until he observed a few weeks later that it had fallen another percentage point. By the time of the air-quality crisis, it was down five percent, but even that didn’t raise alarm. At that rate of cooling, Larry thought, the well would remain hot and productive with at least fifty percent capacity for several more years. Furthermore, their austerity measures had reduced energy needs by six percent. And as Jessica had predicted, the failure of the Air dome proved to be a blessing in disguise for the power situation. Switching off the purifier and shutting off the heat to that dome reduced their power requirements by another twelve percent. By the time all this happened, their energy capacity exceeded their consumption. They seemed to be ahead of the game, and the well seemed to have stabilized.

  Around mid-January of Year Seven, however, the well began to cool again. Until then, they were using less energy than the well’s maximum output, but now they were losing that advantage. The cooling this time was more rapid than before. By mid-April the well had cooled by another fifteen percent. They were now using eighteen percent less energy than before, but the well had cooled by a total of twenty percent—their energy use was in the red again. The deficit was now beyond the capacity of the automated systems to correct, so Larry increased fluid pressure manually until their power needs were met.

  The family held a meeting to discuss the falling energy output. Larry explained how their earlier energy conservation measures and the closure of the Air dome had bought them several months of extra time.

  “Can’t we deal with that by increasing fluid pressure?” Nicole asked, remembering an earlier discussion about how they were maintaining constant temperature in the living areas despite the cooling of the well.

  “Yes, we can.” Larry grimaced. “Unfortunately, at this rate, we will hit maximum fluid pressure in another month or two.”

  Nicole stared. “What happens after that?”

  Larry avoided a direct answer. “At present the well seems to be cooling by about five percent every month. It seems to be a compounded decrease.”

  “What’s that in plain English?”

  “As the well cools, its rate of cooling should slow,” Jessica explained.

  “And is that good or bad?” Nicole looked from one to the other.

  “Compounded cooling is slower than linear cooling,” said Larry. “But not slow enough for us.”

  “Then how much longer do we have?”

  Nicole’s question caused everyone to tense up. Larry tried an evasive answer, but she pressed him until he admitted that they would have just a quarter of their energy capacity in a couple of years. The well at that point wouldn’t be hot enough to run the generators, and any heat from it would be lost in transmission. “It will be pretty much useless at that point,” he concluded.

  There was a short pause as the group digested the unwelcome news. A few years ago, such an announcement might have triggered exclamations of dismay. Now it elicited only grim silence. Having weathered other crises before, the Shellmates had an almost blind faith in their ability to deal with this one as well.

  “Any suggestions?” asked Larry at last. He had gradually stopped making decisions by himself and now sought consensus. He relied on input from the girls and increasingly let them take the lead in policy discussions. If there’s going to be a future outside the Shell, he told himself, it’ll be theirs. It seemed only fair that they be allowed to lead. Besides, Anna and Jessica weren’t the callow teens of their early days in the Shell; both were now mature, smart, and competent women.

  “We could tighten our energy belts some more, you know—shower less often, or stop boiling water for tea. But I guess that wouldn’t be enough,” said Anna.

  “Nope,” said Jessica. “We’ll have to shut down another dome.”

  The others stared at one another and then looked away. “But which one?” asked Nicole.

  “We can’t close Geo or Central. Air’s already closed, and Entry’s never been heated since we got here.”

  “We could close Health,” Nicole said. “Which will mean no more gym,”

  Jessica shook her head. “It won’t be enough, since it uses energy only when we’re there.”

  “We’ll close Health anyway and move the essential medical stuff here,” Larry said. “But, as Jessica said, that won’t be enough.”

  “Which leaves us Food or Eco. Pick one.”

  “Right. Any thoughts about which one we should close?”

  “I’d hate to lose either,” said Nicole. Elizabeth nodded.

  “You decide,” Jessica told Larry. In her earlier incarnation, she would have opted without hesitation to close Eco, which had been her least favorite dome, but she had begun to appreciate it much more. Besides, she had now learned to do something she would never have in the past—consider her sister’s feelings.

  Larry hesitated before responding. “I think it’s a question of portability. Food has mostly portable stuff, while Eco doesn’t.”

  “But where would we move it?”

  “What if we move the stove, pantry, and the washer to Eco? It’ll be a tight fit there, and Anna, you may need to crowd your plants together more than you’d like, and maybe shift the hydroponics downstairs to the hex, but it’ll allow us to shut off power to Food.”

  “What about water?” Elizabeth said. “the pond is in the Food hex.”

  “Of course, we’ll need to make a daily trip there. We could break off chunks from the pond and thaw them in Eco.”

  There were nods of agreement. “Yeah, that could work,” said Anna.

  Jessica turned to Elizabeth for approval.

  “What do you think, Grandma? As the big boss of the Food dome?”

  Elizabeth assumed a stern voice. “What? Close my dome? Over my dead body!” Then she laughed and resumed her normal tone. “I could never be a boss of anything, dear. What the rest of you decide is good enough for me.”

  Anna giggled. “You’re becoming a clown, Grandma.”

  What had started off as a grim meeting ended in grins and chuckles, but the mood was serious during the following weeks as the plan was carried out. Many unforeseen difficulties cropped up—rerouting the plumbing turned out to be particularly tricky—but, on the whole, the move went well. On May 22 of Year Seven, Elizabeth began cooking in her new kitchen in a corner of the Eco dome, located as far from the manure buckets as possible. Having the food area right on top of the bioreactor was not ideal, but the family were amazed at how quickly they got used to it. Later that day, after a round of inspection, Larry turned off the heat to the Food and Health domes, which reduced their energy load by twelve percent and put them in surplus once again.

  But the well continued to cool.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Backup

  A few months after the Food dome had been shut down, Larry brainstormed with Jessica in the Geo dome. She had taken her sister’s slot there after Air’s closure, freeing Anna to devote all her time to her precious chlorella. Jessica didn’t have as much of a feel for the power plant as she did for the air purifier but was coming up to speed so quickly that Larry increasingly relied on her judgment.

  “Your Highness, can I get your opinion?” Larry’s tone was light but his expression serious.

  “On what?”

  “The energy situation.”

  “Stable but precarious.” Jessica wiped her hand on a rag and picked up a chart. “Look at this. On the positive side, the well’s cooling more slowly. It’s almost stable at seventy-two percent of the original output. Consumption is down to seventy percent, so there’s a two percent surplus. But then again, we’re at max fluid pressure.”

  “What’s your gut feel?”

  “Queasy. We don’t know why the cooling started and why it’s slow
ed down. If it speeds up again, we’re screwed.”

  They looked at each other for a moment. “That’s why we need to consider our plan B,” said Larry.

  “What’s that? Shut down another dome?”

  “That’s become plan A.” Larry laughed without mirth. “We’ll have to do that soon anyway, but that won’t be good enough.”

  “What then? Shift from Central to here?”

  “Well, it’s certainly warmer here, but what about air quality, with all the steam and sulfur?”

  “Sucks.”

  “Not only is it foul, it’s unhealthy as well. You and Anna have been wonderful about not complaining, but I can’t see Lizzie surviving a month here.”

  “Lizzie?” Jessica raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Larry blushed and stammered something.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll only tell everyone. Anyway, what’s your plan B?”

  “Remember the Air dome hex?”

  “Of course. Packed floor to ceiling with diesel.”

  “Right, we have 120,000 liters of it. That’s about 100,000 kilograms. We could shift all of it to the Entry hex and run the diesel-based generators in the dome above.”

  “But what about the food store under Entry?”

  “We shift it to Air.”

  Jessica looked unconvinced. “Okay, then what? Shift all ops to Central, including clinic and kitchen?”

  “Exactly. And some plants, too. So we’d be down to maintaining just two domes.”

  Jessica reflected for a moment. “Hmm, I’ll buy it. Not that there’s any choice. But how long can we carry on like that?”

  “My guess is three years, but you could make a more precise estimate.”

  “Will do.” The Jessica of old would have asked what happens after the diesel runs out? Like the others, however, she had stopped agonizing over their long-term prospects. As long as there was no immediate threat, she was happy. Her time horizon had shrunk; an additional three years of survival felt like an extra lifetime.

  A thought struck her. “Where are the design docs for the diesel backup? I never saw any.”