“The kitchen grows a little watercress, but I’ve never seen it. I grew up on a boat in the Pacific gyre, Corporal. I have seen fish, but no seaweed.”
Amanda looked at me with a squint. “Seaweed?”
“Plants that live in the sea, underwater.”
“Oh,” she said. “Like coral, right?”
“No,” I said. “Like spinach, but saltier. Thank you for the water, Corporal. I have little else to do, today. I appreciate your hospitality.”
“We like to see new people,” said Corporal Garcia. “Always nice to see new people. Plus, you can earn your keep.”
Amanda stood up and held out her hand. “That’s right,” she said. “Are you going to help me plant or not?” Her hands were so long. She had such rough, long, powerful hands, and I was afraid to take her hand. I looked at it, and thought that taking it would only make my smooth, space station palms, sweaty and limp, like a dead fish to her vigorous heat.
I got up without taking her hand. I handed her the tea mug instead. It was such an awkward moment. She looked down at the mug, confused for just a moment that I had handed it to her. Then, she turned away suddenly and placed it in a tub near the drinking tank. She was taller than me, but not much taller. Her hair and skin smelled like sand, even from where I stood. Her sand-colored skin, her sand-blasted hair, and her brown eyes made me wonder what her mother was like. She was much lighter than her father.
She led me downstairs to a large basement, an underground farm. Most of the things she grew were destined for the compost pile. They composted 75 percent of everything. Ten percent of the rest went to the fish. Soil was a precious commodity, in a desert. They were growing soil. We talked a little while we worked, mostly her explaining how to do it right, and what it was for. We didn’t talk about anything personal. Afterward, her father was sewing, and we went to him.
“Which one do I take?” she asked him. “I don’t want the Osprey.”
“Fine. Take the Hemi. Have a good time. He’s a pilot. He can handle a few bumps.” He reached into his pocket and tossed keys to her. She caught them.
I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine a vehicle here that required something as archaic as keys. When I followed her downstairs, into the basement, she threw a tarp off a huge pile of lumps of metal and revealed a monstrosity. “My grandmother built it out of dead tractor parts, then Dad reconfigured it when he was betrothed into the family. It’s the best way to travel over the dunes. The Ospreys struggle with the winds and drafts.”
It was a beast of cobbled pieces, to be sure, but it was a polished beast, with shining chrome plates and reflective paint cooling off the joints from the beating of the sunlight. She paused before opening the door for me.
“There are currently thirteen unmarried women on the whole colony. They have all fielded numerous marriage propositions. My father has advised me to be very strategic and consider the future.”
I did not say anything. What could I say? I had never lain with a woman, and I knew nothing of the mystery of their hearts.
“Don’t propose over a ride in a Hemi, Ensign Aldo. Don’t misinterpret this.”
“I honestly confess to confusion in the whole affair. It is very hot. Do we have water to take with us?”
“We have some leftover tea. It will get stale quickly, but we must not waste it. I hope you are eliminating in the approved receptacles. Let me give you the tour of the beast.” She popped open the hood and the inner workings exposed to air. Compressed air forced through joints and axels to push out any hidden grit. It was a cool, dry blast across my face. “The bathroom is in back. There is a sheet you can pull across for privacy. Dad will empty it into the septic, later. Water is precious. Do not waste water.”
“I understand,” I said. “I sweated so much, I cannot imagine anything happening soon. Must we discuss this?”
“Do not waste water. The ice comets aren’t here yet. Let me show you the finger mountain. Strap in.”
The seat was a modified pilot seat. The straps were probably older than everyone I knew, but they would work well enough. The engine was an ancient, biodiesel hack job, put together from spare parts. It was supplemented with solar, an electric battery, and even some tiny wind turbines generating energy out of resistance. It was an odd vehicle, and ugly, but Amanda was clearly excited to be driving. She revved the engine and cheered. A panel opened in the wall large enough to fit a spaceship through, and she pushed out away from the settlement and the buildings hunkered in against it.
We rambled downhill, bumping and grinding over the sand at high speed, dodging rocks. It was fun. I wanted to drive. Next time, I’d ask to be the driver. The dunes stretched out as far as the eye could see, once we got down to the valley floor.
She slowed the Hemi and gestured with her hand at the grand vistas of sand. “Doesn’t look like much yet, does it? But the multimineral sand is excellent raw material once terraforming really warms up with more water. This will all be underwater, someday. Projections suggest forming a coral reef here, if we can get some coral polyps off the ansible.”
“Terraforming projections are notoriously fickle,” I said. “Onast was supposed to be an ocean world, but the water actually sank straight down into tiny holes in the crust where they became superheated. Now it is dangerous to walk the surface with all the erupting hot springs. Once water enters the system on a large scale, every projection is a rough guess at best.”
“We have to plan land management and ownership around the projections. Most of the projections are right most of the time. Otherwise, why even place the monastery anywhere on the surface?”
“Perhaps you are right,” I said. “We cannot hold our breath forever, waiting for stability. The station needs the colony for food and raw materials. The colony needs the station for colonists, advanced equipment, and ansible access.”
“Do you like it on the station?”
I hesitated too long before answering. “It is an excellent posting. We are the vanguard against the enemy’s return.”
“Dad says it’s a nightmare posting and ceremonial, mostly, but once you’re out, you get in early on the real estate down here. Once the planet has the water for it, fortunes will grow for anyone who gets in early on the best land.”
“How much land do you own?”
“I don’t own anything yet. I have to save more, but the monastery doesn’t pay that well beyond just food and water. My dad owns as much as he can afford, and we try to get more but there are regulations about how much any one person can own. We are almost at the finger mountain. Hang on.” She turned toward something, but I didn’t see anything mountainous. I waited for an explanation. We came over a dune and stopped, suddenly. The sand leveled out, and became rocks. Ahead, the ground dropped suddenly.
“Come on,” she said. She hopped out and flipped up her hood and mask. She pulled a sack out of the side and threw it at me. It was a cool suit, an ice pack inside a full cover overcoat with a hood like hers. I pulled it over my uniform and flipped up the hood. “Borrow eye protection from the monastery, next time. You need goggles.”
She bounded over to the edge and pointed over the side of the cliff.
“Check it out! The mountain is right there!”
I walked over carefully. The wind was strong. Gusts swept up from the cliff and pushed against my face. At least the wind pushed me back from the edge, not toward it. At the edge of the cliff, over the edge, a steep drop for miles and miles like an undersea trench. It was a fault line. The other side of the trench was far lower than this cliff side. Down below, a piece of our own cliff had snapped off and leaned over a little, becoming a thin mountain just below and apart from the cliff face, a huge edifice of golden sandstone upon a black, igneous plain. The fault continued on in both directions as far as I could see.
The wind gusted. Vertigo set in.
“When the next comet comes, this will become a river, flowing around the mountain. The one after that will be big enough to make this a
vast lake. Then, we will probably not be around to see the third, but our great-grandchildren will fish in boats and waders in the marshland just above this cliff through the water that will come up to their waists, here, on this long plain. They will gaze down through the clear blue to the mountain, there. It will be so beautiful and blue. I have never seen an ocean. I hope I live long enough to see an ocean.”
I did not want to explain that an ocean of dunes was, in many ways, the same. I pointed at the base of the pillar. A tent was set up. The reflecting lights of solar catchment revealed it to me, a mile below my eyes.
“What is that?” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Amanda. “Come on. Let’s find out. They might need help. It looks like an emergency kit.”
“How do we get down there?” I said.
“We call the Osprey. It’s got an automatic pilot. See if you can find a network band to reach a signal down there.”
Amanda got on the horn to the monastery and her father. I thought I recognized something about the equipment. On a hunch, I called Jensen.
There was no answer.
I left a message.
“I am at something called the finger mountain, on a tour with a local. There’s a tent. Is it yours? Call me back immediately.”
Instead of calling me right back, Jensen climbed out of the tent and searched the cliffs for us. She found us. She waved. I could barely see her, but the uniform was distinctive, as was the long hair.
Then, she called me back.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Checking on you. Are you all right? What is your water situation?”
“I am camping. I am fine. Please leave me alone.”
Amanda grabbed my tablet like she owned it and went private line. “You are not authorized out here. You are way out of the safe zone. A dust storm could blow you away. You need to relocate. Don’t be stubborn about this.”
A pause.
“This is Amanda Garcia, not Jeremy. My dad is coming in an Osprey. We will help you relocate your campsite to unaffiliated land—safe land.” She slammed the phone down.
“Did she say anything?”
“She says she isn’t going anywhere. She wants us to go. When are you going back up to the station?”
“Captain Obasanjo should complete his supply negotiations shortly, and then we will oversee our pack and stack and calculate the lift.”
“They have weeks to have negotiated until the orbital slowdown. Why does it take so long?” She had ropes in hand from a container on the side. She was bolting them to the vehicle for ballast.
“I am led to believe much of it is for show. It is the closest thing to a vacation most of us get, and it gives the monastery an opportunity to charge for our room and board and attempt to convert us.”
“The fools. Dad goes to service, but a few of the monks don’t even want me in the pews.”
“Why?”
“I might tell you someday,” she said. “Come on, and let’s go down and talk some sense into your corporal. She could get swallowed into the sand down there if there’s one bad night.”
I placed my hand on Amanda’s. “Hold up. Is she in mortal peril right now?”
“No,” she said.
“How long until your dad gets here?”
“Soon. Less than an hour.”
I scanned the horizon. “We will wait here for your father. No need to risk our necks climbing down there when we can just as easily wait an hour. Okay? Relax, Amanda. I will call her and talk to her. Hand me my tablet back, please.”
The signal reached out to the computer down below, and it rang.
“What?” said Jensen.
“Corporal, I have been told that your campsite is dangerous. Why are you camping in a dangerous location?”
“Ensign Aldo?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The Garcia boy got his claws on you, did he?”
“I don’t know what you mean by claws. We were out for a drive to see the planet a little. It seemed more interesting than sitting in a monastic cell. Tell me, Jensen, why aren’t you sitting in a monastic cell? What are you doing out here?”
“Camping,” she said. “We aren’t due back yet, are we? I haven’t heard anything from anyone.”
“Corporal, this is not a safe activity.”
“Yeah, well, so what? I am safe so far. The whole planet is dangerous. It’s one dust storm away from burying everyone. It is why the monastery keeps military-grade shielding in good repair. I have pickup soon. I just needed some time to myself to think.”
“Corporal, the Osprey is coming. When it gets here, I want you to get on it and go with Corporal Garcia. Pack up your campsite. Prepare for pickup.”
“Ensign, call Wong, okay? Just call him.”
“Are we even in perigee to the station right now? I only have the tablet.”
“Please, Ensign. It’s your fault. You said you weren’t recording, but you were. So call Wong and call off the Osprey. My pickup is coming soon enough.”
I hung up. I gestured to Amanda. “Right,” I said. “Let’s get the ropes. We may need to bind her when we get there. Have you ever had any basic combat training from your dad? He’s ex-military.”
Amanda got a wicked grin of shock on her face and started setting up the ropes. “I’ve never punched anyone. I can get you down there, though.” She was excited. She was a kid on her first military assignment, experiencing an excitement she never knew among the seedlings.
I checked my handheld to see if we were in reasonable perigee with the station to get a signal up without crossing the monastery’s lines. I sent a message to Obasanjo that I thought Jensen was going AWOL and Wong was helping her. It would take about fifteen minutes to get up to his desk, and he might not be watching his messages.
Amanda got the ropes set up and helped me tie into a harness. She had a small machine that would do most of the work. All I had to do was keep my legs out and push off. It was a long and windy way down. We strapped on helmets, goggles, and masks. She checked me twice, and then gave me a thumbs up. She jumped over the edge with a whoop. I took my time easing over, and the device grabbed my weight. The rock face was hot and jagged. My boots had no easy purchase. Beside me, Amanda was already nearly at the bottom, and I was gently easing down.
At the bottom, I heard shouting. My handheld rang with a very weak signal, and it was Wong.
I let it go. Near the bottom, a message came through from Wong:
Retrieve the corporal, if you can. I do not know what she thinks she is doing, but we cannot allow her to go AWOL in the dunes. She’ll die out there.
I sent it along to Jensen. Nearly at the bottom, I turned and saw Amanda on the ground, bolting her long rope line to the wall to keep it in place for the ascent.
“The two things that matter most on this world are water and sand,” said Amanda. She pointed at the little camp. There was a huge tank of water, as big as the tent beside it. There was a small shield device, as well, to discourage sand buildup, with an emergency fan on a generator blowing sand away from the campsite, but this would be useless against a sandstorm. Wedged as she was between the base of the finger mountain and the cliff, she had some protection from the elements, but the precariousness of her campsite was driven home by the unstable sand beneath my own boots. It was hard to walk here, like a beach with the water pulling sand always away underfoot. But it wasn’t water underneath, just sand and more sand with bits of black igneous rock jutting out in crags, and some footsteps didn’t sink and others did. The ground itself was political, negotiating weights and alliances, shifting underfoot. I considered carefully what Wong was telling me. Officially, of course, he had to say that. If you can, if I can, if . . .
What if I can’t catch her?
I did not wait for a response. I called out to Corporal Jensen. I released the rope device from my hip and walked around the perimeter of the encampment.
“Be careful,” said Amanda. She went around
the other way, holding on to a bolt gun like it could be used as a weapon, but it was a safety-locked tool not permitted to fire at a person. It was little better than a club.
“Goddamnit, Jeremy,” said Jensen, from inside. “Ensign Aldo, please. Please just leave me alone.” She came out of the tent dressed like a nomad, covered head to toe against the sand. She wasn’t armed.
“Stop calling me Jeremy,” said Amanda.
“Who are you if you aren’t Jeremy?”
“Amanda. I’m not Jeremy anymore.”
She snorted. “Well, that’s nice. ‘A man, duh.’ I get it. Ensign, did you contact Wong?”
“Where did all this stuff come from? This is not casual camping gear. The monastery doesn’t just have this much water sitting around.”
“They don’t. I told you to contact Wong and ask him what he says. He outranks you.”
“I did. You are coming with me. That’s what he said.”
“I will not go back, Corporal. I will not.”
She turned back into her tent. I followed in after her, wary of any surprises. It was just her, sitting on a bench and looking up at me. She was crying.
“Wong got paid, either way,” she said. “That’s right, isn’t it? And if you get me back, it’s your fault, not his. If you don’t, it’s your fault, too. He really fucked you, Ensign.”
“Corporal Jensen, this is not a safe campsite. When Mr. Garcia gets here, we will relocate you back to the monastery. We will discuss your situation from there with the admiral. Am I being clear?”
I heard the sound of an Osprey getting closer.
She looked up toward it, though we could see nothing through the thick tent.
“The Garcias are notorious. Watch yourself.”
“Notorious for what, exactly?”
“They want land. They can only buy so much, legally. They are always looking for ways to get more. Amanda used to be Jeremy. I don’t know what that’s about, or how far into the surgery she went. Watch yourself.”
“Are you coming with us?”
“I am getting on that Osprey,” she said. “Let me just get my kit together in private. Where would I run? Without water, I wouldn’t last half a day.”
The Fortress at the End of Time Page 13