The Fortress at the End of Time

by Joe M. McDermott

  “No sign of her. Do you think she might have gone native?”

  I did not respond. “Brother Pleo, who is in charge here? Who has the authority to negotiate with Obasanjo? Don’t stall for time. Just tell me.”

  “No one does, right this second. The abbot just retired two days ago. There’s no new abbot yet. We have to wait for word from the central church.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And, what?”

  “Who is authorized to negotiate in good faith with the station?”

  “Until the abbot is selected? I don’t think anyone is.”

  “Emergency circumstances. Special circumstances. You have called me to fix your lines because you need them operational to get word out to the central church, yes? So, I’m stuck down here even afterward until negotiations complete after the work is done?”

  “You make it sound like a dirty plot on our part.”

  “Detkarn, then. Is it she who needs the time?”

  He shrugged. “I can only imagine that the task she has beyond our repair is very important to whomever caused the damage to our little wires and machines.”

  “What does the monastery even want that Wong can offer you?”

  “You would know if you looked closer,” he said. “Aren’t you moving up in the ranks?

  I snorted. “Promotions don’t feel like promotions, most of the time. If I’m not careful, I’ll get promoted to abbot.”

  After dinner, I joined the brothers for evening mass. It was peaceful and cool in the church hall, and the singing and chanting were relaxing after so much confusion. I considered, for a brief moment, what life must be like to be one of the men making such music. I sat in the far back of the room, observing the ceremony and listening to the chanting. It was a nice break from the confusion and stress that was omnipresent in that period of my life. It was there that Amanda found me, at last.

  She slipped into the back of the room, and gracefully descended into the pew next to mine. She placed her hand over mine. “Hello, Captain,” she said. She kissed my hand.

  She led me from the service into the long halls of the monastery, into the kitchen. We were alone there, but she seemed to know her way around without help. She prepared a noodle dish with vegetables. She spoke of the difficulties of the sandstorm.

  “It would have swallowed the orchard,” she said. “We dug it out, but time will tell if the trees survive. We might lose some. Dad is already setting up rooting hormone for replacements, just in case.”

  “More red date?”

  “Pistachio, this time. The water will be here next year to support new trees. We are expanding an orchard on our own lands. If we had more people in our household, our allotment would be higher. I am supposed to marry as soon as I can find a suitable partner.”

  “How romantic,” I said.

  She shrugged. “How many suitable partners are there here? Be realistic for a moment. It was hard enough transitioning here. Stupid people still call me Jeremy.”

  Looking at her, I made the rash decision I had avoided for so long. I sought the man she was born as inside the body and lines of the woman she became. It was a mistake. Once I saw, I couldn’t let go completely of the straight shoulders and hips, the broadness of the chest.

  “We have to face facts. There’s a female shortage around here, and I am at a loss for men, too. I am something else, to them. But I have only ever been a woman to you, haven’t I? I am a woman, to you, aren’t I? Inside of myself, I have always and forever been a woman, and the med tech backs me up on that.”

  I touched her hands. I picked them up. They were hard and strong and weather-beaten, but she was right. To me, they were a woman’s hands.

  “I don’t need to spell this out, do I?” she said, pleading.

  I leaned in close and roughly kissed her. I felt the pressure of it on my face, where our clean-shaven skin pushed against the sweat and smoothness. I felt, at first, a fluttering in me, as it was happening. I felt a crazy nervous energy wash over me. What I did not feel was lust.

  “Amanda,” I said, pushing her back. “Amanda, please, not here.”

  She let me push her. We returned to the meal in silence.

  “I am sorry we weren’t here to greet you when you landed.”

  “There is plenty of time for greetings,” I said. “Once the orchard is safe, there is plenty of time. You wish to marry and expand your allotment?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you wish to marry me?”

  “I do. I really like you.”

  “I like you, too.”

  This sin, then, was perhaps my worst. I felt no lust in my heart for this poor young woman, but I believed that I was lost here. I was drifting without an anchor, missing everything that made life pure and good. I did not know what else to say. What I said was: “We will arrange the wedding soon enough. I can’t marry until I retire without a dispensation. Perhaps the new admiral will allow it. The ice comet is coming soon. I don’t have anywhere to keep you, and I want to have a home when I retire, don’t I?”

  She laughed. “Darling husband, you know I already have a house and land, right? I’m keeping you, not the other way around. I’ll show you after the festival. You can buy some land adjacent to mine. How’s that sound?”

  I guess it was good. I don’t know how it sounded. I felt like the most foolish, useless creature in the whole universe. I decided it wasn’t any good. “I want to live in my own space. I want to be my own man. I’ve been cooped up in a room up on the station, cameras everywhere and recording devices. I want to be my own man, in my own little house. You can have your house, and I’ll have mine. We’ll travel between them. How does that sound?”

  She placed her hand on mine, and it was hard for me, right then, to see the hand as my wife’s hand. I feel terrible about what happened between us, and I hope she is happy.

  “I have to work tomorrow,” I said. “I have to do what I came here to do. The house can wait. Everything can wait. I don’t know what to do about anything. I feel useless here, like an extra part glued onto the side of a wing that would fly so much better without me.”

  She leaned into me. She touched my cheek. “Don’t be so seriously depressing to be with.” She leaned over. “I want joy. I want happiness. I want a good, long life with someone I love and I want to be cherished. Why don’t you try touching me, already? Come on. Give me your hand. I’m a real woman. I’m right here, and I want you. I can’t believe you need me to hold your hand through this.”

  Confessor, I will spare the details of my time with Amanda. She is a beautiful woman, and I was a fool to fail to love her. We took from each others’ bodies, and I felt foolish doing it. I had never been with a woman. It had been years since I even considered the mechanics of the situation. In the hot room, in the windowless darkness, I looked down upon our bodies and felt ashamed that I wasn’t any good at this thing that everyone was supposed to know how to do.

  Afterward, I felt empty. All that buildup, all that imagination wasted picturing this, and it was such a slight thing, and I was sweaty, and sleepy, and ashamed of what I had done to this poor girl I did not love.

  When I woke up, I went to the monastery to work on their machines. It was a simple, brutish job, and the tablet I carried walked me through everything step-by-step. Brother Al-Malik came by from time to time to offer me mint tea. I always accepted it. My body could not seem to retain any water. It was so hot, even at night, that I was drenched in sweat after just an hour or two. I joined the brothers for lunch, when they called to me, but I knew I hadn’t done enough for one day. I was supposed to have Detkarn helping me. I left a message for Obasanjo about that, and mentioned that Detkarn had ditched me. I wanted to look for her instead of finishing the job.

  He told me to forget about Detkarn, and take my time. He said it would give him leverage to negotiate as long as I was working slow. I was to let him know if I did get close to finishing.

  Amanda came to me nearly every night. I
grew accustomed to her skin, her body, her lust. You know this, however. You remember because you were in the monastery and sang matins while I sinned in the night with that beautiful girl. At her house, her father was conveniently absent, off at the new family compound where he was working on their new orchard. He came by from time to time for meals, shaking my hand and saying nothing about what he had to know was happening with his daughter. He was warm and open. He offered me every comfort. He refused payment. He treated me like family. I am sorry for him, too.

  Confessor, the strangest thing that happened to me was when Brother Pleo came to me after the second week I was there, after I had been laying cables along the outside wall of the tower, attached to the building with magnets while dust blew up and all around me, sticking to my skin, making me truly miserable with its combination of hot sand and cool night air. I sat at the dinner table, feeling the grit everywhere it had pushed through my protective layers into my damp skin. I was going to eat and wash up and make the journey to Amanda’s house to sleep in her arms. Brother Pleo came to me, and he sat down across from me, and he handed me a glass of water.

  “Can I help you, Brother?”

  “You look like you aren’t drinking enough water, Captain. Drink some water. I promise I didn’t poison it.”

  I took the water. I sniffed it. I put it down. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “I wanted to take you somewhere interesting. Would you like to visit your lost corporal? You know that I know where she is. The wires can wait until tomorrow. Honestly, you look exhausted.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Safe from your military, and they know it. Honestly, as small as we are down here on the planet, if your people wanted to come down and take her, she’d be took. We don’t have any firepower here. Our only leverage is food.”

  “I’m going to report that I found her.”

  “Also, that you can’t accost her by yourself, which is fine. No one is coming to get her. If someone does, she will move before you get here for her. Look, can you just accept that maybe no one is out to get you here? We actually want to be friends with you. You’re an important man on the station, and we’re honored to host you here. Relax, Captain. There is no war here. We’re all going to be fine.”

  I drank the water. “Let’s go now,” I said.

  Brother Pleo, accommodating, led me to the very Osprey that had vexed me the last time I was on the surface. He gestured for me to strap into the passenger side, and sat down next to me. He plugged the coordinates into the machine, and let the autopilot take over. He looked very pleased with himself. I admit that I fantasized acts of violence and depravity.

  “How long is the journey?”

  “Not long,” he said. “It’s windy tonight. It might get a little bumpy. I’ll need to take the controls if they do. I don’t think you’ve been trained in Ospreys in a long time.”

  “Not since Earth. Why are you being nice to me?”

  “This may come as a surprise to you, but we do try to be very nice people. Men of the cloth try to help our fellow men and women. You know, you look like you need some help. When I see you, you look miserable.”

  “I’ve been climbing over your walls in the heat and sand. I am miserable. I could use a qualified tech to help me, and Detkarn is off doing who knows what for Commander Wong.”

  “I’ll see what I can do to make your life less miserable. You haven’t bought any land, have you? I haven’t seen your name listed on any maps. Do you plan on retiring?”

  “I do. I’m waiting for the ice comet to melt so I can see where the water goes. Why should anything I do matter to you?”

  “I want to know why you’re miserable, so I can try and help you work through it and find peace in God and peace on this planet. I am concerned you are a suicide risk. Thanks be to God you have a boyfriend.”

  “Girlfriend.”

  “Jeremy. Amanda. Doesn’t matter. We’re happy for you both. What do you believe?”

  We soared over dunes in a twilight darkness. The horizon glowed purple and gold where the sand kicked up. It was beautiful and stark. It reminded me of the ocean where I grew up. I miss oceans.

  “I never really stopped to consider belief. I believe you are telling me the truth that you want to help me. I don’t know if you are the one who can.”

  “What do you want out of this life, then? What is your greatest desire?”

  I thought hard. “When I was a boy, and I had a birthday party, my mother would tell me to blow out the candle and make a wish. She said that if I told anyone my wish, it wouldn’t come true.”

  “It doesn’t count when you speak with your confessor. We pray with you. We reveal nothing. We keep secrets. We are here if you need us.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We flew out past the canyon, with the towerlike rock, and beyond across the vast, sweeping sands.

  He pointed to the dunes. “The ice comet is going to come down, probably, on this plain. It is a very low elevation. Someday, this will be our ocean.”

  “Someday, but not today.”

  “We must always imagine the future. Without it, we would have no hope, Captain. It is a way of keeping people feeling hope. Is it so hard to imagine an ocean here?”

  “It is an ocean now, in a way. Were you born here?”

  He shook his head. “Most of the brothers are retired military men. My mother was a biotic. She taught me her work. My skills are very useful in terraforming. We need diverse soil.”

  “What use is an AstroNav outside of the service? I am just an overqualified network technician here. Good thing I’ve been quartermaster. I’ve gotten serious about plumbing.”

  “I’m sure you will thrive in retirement. When officers retire, they have so much money. It’s obscene. We have so little here. Someday the economy will improve to beggar all of you. We are headed to a retired officer’s compound now. She has been retired for almost forty years.”

  In the distance, a speck on the horizon slowly transformed into a dome of clear material, with shade cloth spread over it to diminish the force of the sun.

  “She will have to move when the ocean comes,” I said.

  “She retired full admiral. She is a prominent donor of our little monastery in the sands. We do not tell her what to do. I advise against telling her what to do, Captain. Be polite.”

  “She outranks me. I get it.”

  The flyer landed by itself, a good distance from the complex.

  “We park here because the complex actually is underground now. The sand buries it.”

  He led the way to the entrance, in the shaded dome, where air vents pushed away the sand enough to reveal the doorway. Inside, a series of hydroponic pipes grew vegetables and grains, while a few weeping jujube trees waited gracefully for a breeze from the door to make them dance.

  “There are individual holdings all over the planet, where wealthier officers retire.”

  An intercom buzzed. “Brother Pleo, that you?” Over the line, she sounded old and impatient, with the kind of barking precision that is the hallmark of experienced and competent commanders.

  “It is. I brought you the aspiring AstroNav.”

  “Name and rank?”

  Pleo looked over at me. Oh, I was supposed to answer. “Captain Ronaldo Aldo, ma’am. I am looking for a lost corporal.”

  “Come on down and say hello.”

  A trapdoor unlocked, and a stairwell descended into the structure. I followed Brother Pleo down into the darkness. My eyes slowly adjusted to the spacious dark. Water tanks lined the walls, filled with fish. Furniture, as well: couches and tables. Everything was empty, though. A door opened down at the end of the hall. Private Detkarn called out to us. “Come on, then. The admiral is waiting.”

  “I feel like I have been lied to by a great many people,” I said.

  “More that you never asked the right questions,” said Brother Pleo.

  “I have been doing here what you are doing for the monaste
ry,” said Detkarn. “Wong arranged it.”

  “Of course he did. Is she pulling Wong’s strings, and everyone else’s?”

  Brother Pleo placed a hand on my arm. “You are a guest here, Captain.”

  “I just want to know who the boss is.”

  Detkarn smiled and nodded noncommittally. She waved us down. “The admiral will see you in the dining room. She sent me up to fetch you.”

  “Admiral,” I said.

  We descended into the complex down two flights of stairs and across a room full of laboratory equipment until we reached this dining hall.

  At the end of a long table, in a dark room, a woman as dark as the room with a shock of white hair like bleached cotton stared at us. She did not smile, nor did she stand. She gestured for us to come closer.

  She was in a wheelchair. She was eating a sandwich of some sort, and drinking jujube tea. She took Brother Pleo’s hand and clasped it, firmly. We sat down at chairs there.

  “You’re the quartermaster, yes?”

  “For now,” I said. “I was supposed to be an AstroNav, but I got promoted when the admiral shot himself. There is no AstroNav right now.”

  “I have been asked to come out of retirement. Did you know that no one wants to come to our lovely outpost, even if it means sending a clone as a full admiral?”

  “I don’t know anything about politics. I just want to bring my lost corporal home to justice.”

  “You can’t have her,” she said.

  “I didn’t catch your name, Admiral.”

  “Khunbish. Ahn Khunbish. I am ninety-three and I am in no condition to come out of retirement, even as interim. I have told HR as much. They keep pestering me. We need new people, badly. Our genetic diversity cannot support a large colony. We will never get up to fighting strength without more diversity. There are less than three hundred people here. When the first settlement was started in Mars, there were five hundred engineers in the first wave of settlers alone. We need more people. The ice comet will be here in months. We can support more.”

  “Didn’t the first Mars colony fail?”

  “Don’t correct me. Do you have any idea how old I am?”