She sat down on the porch steps with a thump, her face pale. “How about a little break?” Her voice was strained, and before she had time to hide her hands, I saw how they shook.
“Sounds good. I’ll get us something to drink.”
I went inside and rummaged around for a lot longer than I needed to. I wanted to give her time to calm down. She didn’t seem to be the kind of person to show her fears and insecurities to just anyone. I mean, who does? But it felt as if it was even more important to Krista than to most other people to keep up a brave and competent face. And if she ever opened up to someone, it would be all the more precious. Forcing the issue would probably only serve to push her away, which was the last thing I wanted.
Eventually I ran out of plausible little things to do. I had switched a few batteries into the charging hub, not because I needed to, as I didn’t use much electricity in the summer, but to have something to do. And hey, who knew if next week would be unusually cold and cloudy and dry, with no winds to speak of. Then the power-mosaics on the outside walls wouldn’t have anything to generate power from. No sun for the solar panels, no wind or water to move the microkinetics. Plus, as long as Krista stayed here, there’d be two of us who needed warm water. I set the house-AI to recalculate power usage for two inhabitants until canceled.
When I went back outside with two tall glasses of fresh strawberry juice, Krista looked more relaxed. She stared out across the pond, to the village where all the gleaming power-mosaics and solar-glass clad greenhouse balconies glinted in the light. Her eyes widened in surprise when she took a sip of the juice, and before I knew it, she’d drained the whole glass. I gave her mine, smiling and feeling proud.
“Do you know where I can get more solweave?” she asked. “I think the bubble was damaged in the crash, but until I can spread it out properly, the AI can’t make a proper analysis.”
“The nearest town is only twenty kilometers from here. There’s a manufacturing plant there. We could go tomorrow, maybe? Their AI will be able to suggest the most efficient fixes.”
“Sounds good,” she said and flashed me a smile that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “You know, it’s nice to have someone to talk to again. It got a bit lonely with only the AI. And it’s also nice to not be judged…” Her words tapered out. “But then, you people here—” Her arm made a wide sweep to encompass the whole village. “—you seem to be more open-minded.”
I waited for her to continue. It didn’t take long, and when she did, her words came slowly, in a guarded voice.
“I live in a community where people are content with what they have. And rightly so, in a way. We have everything we need. But to me, it feels isolated. When I started to work on the mini-blimp, the others didn’t want to know about it. They think it’s completely unnecessary to travel, to go anywhere else.”
I hmmed. In truth, the people in my village weren’t much different. If I were to build a mini-blimp, or any kind of flying machine, or consider moving into town, they’d be concerned. They’d ask why I wasn’t happy with what I had, and what they could do to help me be happier. They wouldn’t understand that some people had a need to experience more of the world, for real, not only through virtual reality travel programs.
“The only person who helped me build it is a little girl, Qiuyue. I doubt she’ll ever forgive me for not taking her with me, but I think her parents would have had a few problems with that.” Krista gave me a sidelong glance. The look challenged me to laugh or ridicule her next words. “My best friend is a ten-year old girl, and I miss her like crazy.”
I nodded. It wasn’t a laughing matter to me, who didn’t have any close friends at all. “Is there anyone else you miss?” I asked, fearing her answer.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought so, but there’s old Mr. Mwabi. I used to hate having to help him with the hydrofarm, because his knees are so bad. I never understood why he didn’t have the AI-bot get his produce, not until it hit me that he wanted someone to talk to.”
“Old Mr. Mwabi, huh?” I was fishing for more information. I needed to know if she had another man on her mind. I mean, it’s not like I thought she might fall for me, but still, if I had competition for her heart, I wanted to know. Just in case I ever mustered up enough courage to do something about my attraction. And just in case she ever gave me a sign it might be welcome.
“Old, as in probably over 80 years old. Cranky and irritating, but I still miss talking to him.”
She noticed my relief, of course, and giggled, which made my cheeks heat up again. “Hey, a guy’s gotta know who he needs to fight over the princess, right?”
I joked it away, but there was a little too much truth to it. If she realized that or not, I couldn’t tell. Fortunately, she didn’t ask, and she didn’t dwell on it.
“Anyway, I’m planning on going back. Eventually. If I actually manage to get to Svalbard and then back… provided I can get the solweave bubble fixed.”
Relieved at the change of subject, I stretched my legs. I should spend more time on the exercise bike, I decided. Before, I hadn’t cared how I looked, or how other people saw me. But now I worried that she would look at my legs and think they were scrawny, or that my average, slim body type that spoke of my Vietnamese father’s heritage wasn’t to her liking. And still, I could change those things. But what if she preferred blond hair and eyes as blue as her own? Round eyes and a big beard? Someone who had more to offer than fresh strawberries and a pretty view? Or if she didn’t like men, or anyone at all. Not that any of that mattered since there was no reason for her to stay here any longer than it took to get her blimp airborne again.
“What exactly is it you need from Svalbard, anyway?” I asked, finally able to silence my thoughts for a while.
“Seeds for all kinds of plants my community could use, but especially strawberry seeds.”
I chuckled. Then I realized she wasn’t joking.
“My great-grandparents came from northern Swenomark. They fled to southern Polmany when the waters started rising. It’s been sort of a legend in my family that there’s something magical with strawberry cakes, and well, I want…” She paused, again letting her eyes convey a warning before she told me something important. “I want Qiuyue to have a cake like that for her birthday, at least once.”
“Don’t you have any strawberries closer than this? Or in Svalbard?” It didn’t make sense. But Krista’s expression softened, so I must have asked the correct question. Or maybe it was just because I hadn’t laughed.
“They’re watery and tasteless. I can’t imagine that a cake with that kind of strawberries would be legend-worthy, so I decided to go directly to the source and get seeds for every kind of strawberry in the world.” Her jaw clenched a little. “So okay, you can laugh now.”
“Strawberries are no laughing matter. Come, let me show you something.”
I stood up and held out my hand to help her up. When she actually took it, my heart skipped a beat.
I lead her down the path to the greenhouse. She stopped dead in her tracks as she took in the vertical troughs and the bots checking humidity, temperatures and light. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared when the scent of ripening strawberries reached her. Her mouth popped open when realization hit.
“I… you… oh. But… the juice? It must have had more in it?”
“No, only strawberries.” I grinned. “From my manual field outside. I sell the ones I grow in here. They’re almost as good, but not quite.”
“May I?” Her eyes shone.
“Of course.” I ordered the nearest bot to bring us some samples.
I’ve never seen anyone enjoy my produce with such clear delight before. In between mouthfuls, she smiled and made wonderful small sounds of pleasure.
“Don’t eat too many of these, it gets better,” I said. I lead her through the greenhouse and out the back door.
“This,” I presented with a flourish, “is where my private stash comes from. I tend to these myself
, by hand, and they get to ripen under the real sun. Have a taste.” My heart thumped with both pride and anticipation.
She picked one, a challenging look in her eyes. She made a show of it, slowly bringing it to her lips and nibbling on it, but when the first taste hit her, she popped the whole thing into her mouth with a moan. I hurried to pick some more, offering them to her one at a time.
“These are what legends are made of. This is what I need.” She gobbled another one. “Would these grow about 1500 kilometers south of here?”
“They might, but they wouldn’t taste like this. The soil is different there, and the water, and the natural light, and the temperature. All kinds of factors come into play.”
“How do you know so much about this?”
As we went back to the house, I told Krista about how I became a strawberry farmer.
As so many others, the floods had forced my great-grandparents to flee. Mine had lived in Finlonia since the 1990s, and didn’t want to leave their new homeland, their children’s only home. They returned as soon as they could and started the strawberry farm, and I was the fourth generation to care for it.
“But where are your parents?” Krista looked concerned. She had probably figured out I lived here alone—it wasn’t as if I had introduced her to a lot of people.
“When I was old enough to take care of myself, they started joining a caravan bound for southern Russia every autumn. After a few years they decided to stay there permanently, helping Mediterranean dolphins that were trapped in the Black Sea.”
Krista stared at me, her eyes blazing with anger for me. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen. But I didn’t mind. Frieda—Mrs. Solheim, that is—took care of me. I got used to being alone during the winters, and I liked it. My parents were, and still are, doing something very important to them. And it’s not like my farm bots aren’t programmed for any and every possible challenge, and even if that all was to fail, I have savings to add to the globucks.”
Her left eyebrow arched, then straightened as she figured it out. “Oh, we call the universal income grant basebucks. But ‘universal’ could mean every galaxy in the universe… and you call it global ’cause it’s only for this world. Clever, if a little facetious.”
That’s another reason I liked Krista. She was smart, and never afraid to let her opinion be known.
***
Krista’s reaction to the strawberries I cultivated, both in the greenhouse all year round and out in the open during summertime, made my head spin. I had to check my physmon to see that the clenching in my chest and elevated pulse weren’t signs of a heart attack, but it only suggested a few deep breaths to ease my lightheadedness.
She noticed, of course, and looked at me for a long time with a sort of calculating expression that sent electricity down along my spine. I couldn’t tear my eyes off her, and wanted more than anything to be brave enough to reach out and touch her.
A loud beep from her pocket-AI interrupted the moment. Krista glanced at it, swallowed, cleared her throat and said, “The inside parts of the camper are ready for active drying. I need to manually adjust the windcatchers to fan, though.”
It sounded almost like an apology. I didn’t understand why. I mean, it’s not like she had the space for a proper AI-bot in the camper, and probably not enough spare energy for one either way. But I did.
“We can use one of mine if you want.”
“They’re busy, though.” Her gaze swept over the greenhouse.
“It’s fine. This time of year their batteries charge faster than they use them, so they can work longer. And it’s not like a few hours make a difference for the berries.” I didn’t wait for her to object, but instead linked one of my bots to her pocket-AI for instructions.
In the morning, we hailed a sturdy transport-bot to get Krista’s bubble to the solweave manufacturer. According to her pocket-AI, the camper should be dry enough to reassemble in a couple of days, and by the time we’d be finished with all the work on that, the bubble should be fixed.
The cavernous solweave plant was cool. I dawdled in the clothing-section where multiple AI-bots printed out part after part of perfectly designed and colored solweave pattern parts. I recognized trouser legs only because of their length, and the backs of jackets—I think, at least. What I didn’t understand was the volumes. Did people need and use all this? Or was the plant delivering for a bigger area than I had realized?
Not that it mattered. Krista had already moved on, into the industrial side, and had her AI communicating with the order receptor.
“I want to avoid unplanned, urgent landings in the future,” she said. “Looks like caging the rotors is the first step, then making the bubble bigger to carry the extra weight. But then the actual bubble starts to weigh more, which means adding an extra rotor and cage, which makes me need a bigger bubble… Damn.” Her shoulders slumped and an annoyed crease appeared between her eyebrows. “And what’s worse, once I get to the last part of the journey, I can’t exactly land for the night and check or fix things, so I’d need to take a proper AI-bot with me.”
I must have looked confused. Krista sighed and made her AI project her route on the wall.
“It’s about 450 kilometers over open water from Hammerfest to Bjørnøya, and then another 250 to the southernmost part of Svalbard. That’s at least three nights total over the sea.”
I shuddered at the thought of Krista, alone in the camper, helplessly tossed between angry clouds and harsh, cold waves, struggling to manually adjust ropes and fans and sails and what-nots, while the pocket-AI frantically shouted out warnings and failure reports.
“Sails.”
“Huh?”
“Sails,” I said. I don’t know where the thought came from, but it felt right. “Make it a boat. Don’t fly. Float.” I saw when Krista’s brain caught up with my idea. She stopped seeing me, and instead saw possibilities, and started babbling so quickly that I couldn’t keep up. Her pocket-AI did, though, and soon projected a completely different construction than the oblong bubble of the mini-blimp onto the wall.
“You’re a genius, Hien.” She grinned at me. “I still have to get to Hammerfest first, so I need the bubble fixed. I don’t know why I never thought about just making the whole thing into a boat for the last leg, though.”
“Because it still means you need a proper AI-bot,” I said, sad to see the excitement on her face fade. “You’d have to stop in Hammerfest to rebuild, which could take days.”
“And we’re back to square one, because I still don’t have one, and even if I did, the extra weight and charging it would mean a bigger bubble and so on.”
“At least you wouldn’t need it powered all the time if you only brought it to construct the boat.” Another idea started to form in my mind, but I didn’t know what she’d think about it. In all honesty, I didn’t know what I thought about it either, but I did know it was one of those ideas that would haunt me if I didn’t just say it. “What if… what if I came with you?”
The words seemed to echo in my head. Time slowed to a crawl as I watched her turn to face me, her eyes a deeper blue than I’d ever seen them before.
“But—” She shook her head so strands of teal mixed in with the purple. “Hien, you have a… you live here. I can’t ask you—”
“But you didn’t ask. I offered,” I cut in. “Never mind. We’d have to change your design too much, and we hardly even know each other. If you don’t—”
“No, no, it’s not that. Of course I trust you, and I enjoy your company. We seem to understand each other, but this would take weeks. You can’t just take off like that, can you?”
I considered it for a while, then dove in head-first. “I don’t see why not. The greenhouse farm is automated, and it’s summer. If I take one bot off, the others will have enough energy to work a few extra hours per day.” The words tumbled from my mouth without much input from my brain. “We could rebuild your hydroponic into an aeroponic farm, which would decrease
weight a little. We could bring a bunch of my windcatchers, too—in fact, if I’m not going to be home, we could utilize most of my energy producers.”
“You’re crazy. Why would you even think about this?” Her smile took the edge off her words.
“As you said, we get each other. I enjoy your company too, and, well, it would be an adventure.” I hesitated, but I might as well be completely honest. “It feels as if I was only existing until you crashed into the pond, and you woke me up and now I feel alive. I can’t explain it better than that, but I do know I don’t want to go back to sleep.”
Her arms around me, her body pressed to mine, made my physmon beep, which made both of us giggle.
***
It took almost two weeks before we could leave. First our AIs needed time to consider and calculate all kinds of different things, from carrying capacity to food intake to weather prognosis, and then they needed time to come up with the actual blueprints and building plans.
We worked day and night and ended up pulling two of the AI-bots from the farm. I hired Mrs. Solheim’s grandkids to help out with the strawberries to make up for it, which they didn’t mind in the least. They probably ate more than they picked, but there were still plenty to ship out every day.
We ended up with a strange construction that looked almost like a snowman with wide, iridescent wings. We encased the camper in a solweave halfbubble, then came the repaired original bubble, and on top of that a smaller bubble that housed and powered only the AI-bot. The wings were a mix of solweave and kinweave, with windcatchers attached, and when in motion would generate enough power for the four rotors.
Every day as we worked, people came to gawk and talk and help and question the sanity of the whole thing. They probably thought we were crazy, and that’s how I felt, too. But at the same time, the more I got to know Krista, the more I wanted to go with her. Except for the farm, I didn’t have anything keeping me here. The only reason I hadn’t gone to see more of the world before was a lack of purpose. I’d simply never felt the need to do so. I had been content, but I knew I wouldn’t be anymore. And every day, the thought of not working with and talking to Krista became more and more impossible.
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