by Josi Russell
Ethan peered more closely at her, to see if she was telling the truth. Aria, like all the passengers, still dealt with one of the effects of fifty years in stasis: nightmares.
Aria insisted that her dreams during stasis had been mostly pleasant. She had relived, in greater detail than she would have thought possible, her happy childhood. She had flown. She had lived in a castle. She had lived a thousand dream-lives while she slept through the stars.
But there were dark dreams, too—ones she told Ethan about in the still of night when he had his arms around her and she was safe enough to explore them again. She told him they were dreams of loss and fear, of dark shapes pursuing her through bizarre landscapes.
They were dreams of abandonment, deep loneliness, and hunger, long and aching. These were the dreams that came to her, even now, four years after their awakening. Ethan hated that they snatched her from sleep. Neither of them got enough of it, with small children in the house whose sleep patterns were still erratic. Ethan himself had a few dark dreams while in stasis, but they only plagued him occasionally now.
He slid a hand over hers on the table. “Any bad dreams?”
Aria cast him a bright look that dispelled his worries. “Nope. I just dreamed I grew a field of wheat here. It was so beautiful, golden against the blue soil.”
Aria had been a crop geneticist back on Earth, and there she had developed her own strain of wheat. But she hadn’t been able to find work here on Minea.
“You should visit Kaia before you go to work,” Aria said. “Take her some of the new mugs that Luis dropped off yesterday.”
Ethan nodded and checked his missive for the time. He’d better go if he wanted to have time for that.
***
He stopped in at Kaia’s cottage, the little crate of mugs under his arm. When she opened the door, her eyes were red and her face rumpled. She’d had a long night. She didn’t sleep well, a product of years in the artificial environment of Ship 12-22.
It was still strange to Ethan that his ship had an official title. They’d started referring to it by its launch and dock numbers during all the government proceedings that took place after they’d arrived at Minea, and the title had stuck.
Kaia smiled warmly. “David!” she said.
Ethan blinked, the sting of it hurting him like it always did, and leaned in for a hug, hoping she wouldn’t catch herself this time. She was always so embarrassed when she called him the wrong name, and it was happening more and more often lately.
She didn’t notice this time, though, and she took the mugs and pulled him into the kitchen for some lalana, the sweet hot morning drink she indulged in every day.
He sipped it, enjoying the creamy, rich flavor. Saras Food Production could do amazing things with a sweetbean.
“What’s on your schedule today?” Ethan asked, trying not to notice the slight shaking of her hand as she lifted one of Luis’s bright mugs to her lips.
“I think I’ll visit the junkyard. I want to pick up a few new parts.”
Ethan shook his head quickly, before he could stop himself. “I don’t know, Kaia. That place is a deathtrap. If that central pile of junk ever falls . . .”
He could see her annoyance in her eyes, but she teased it away, her voice light as she said, “You’re right. Maybe I’ll just stay home and knit a shawl instead.”
Ethan tried to remain stern, but he couldn’t help but chuckle at her twinkling gray eyes. “Hey, I still have that shawl. You’re a pretty good knitter.”
“I’m a good robot builder, too,” Kaia said sternly. “And I will be careful at the junkyard.”
Ethan stood and stretched. “I’ll stop by again. I guess I’d better get to work for now, though.”
She hugged him. He could barely feel her frail form in his arms.
“Have a good day, David.” Ethan flinched as he felt her tense. She had realized it this time, and she didn’t pull away from the embrace. He knew she didn’t want to look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry, Ethan.”
He stepped back, searching her face and trying to convey comfort. “Hey, Kaia. It’s okay. Really. It’s fine.”
Her jaw tightened. “It’s not fine, Ethan. I’m really scared. What if I’m slipping?” She walked a quick circle around the kitchen, then grasped his hands.
Staring into her desperate eyes, Ethan felt the old ache of regret over what had happened on the ship so many years ago. But it was long done, and no amount of regret now would change it.
“We’ll get through,” he said. “This is just another of our adventures. We didn’t know what we were facing on Beta Alora, or how to get through it. But we figured it out together. We’ll figure this out, too. You’re not alone.”
She squeezed his hands tighter and blurted out, “But, Ethan, what if I forget you? I will be alone.”
He looked at her a long moment, wanting to deny it, but knowing it could happen, “Then it will be my job to remember you,” he said, embracing her again and wishing, somehow, that he had better words to say.
Chapter 3
Marcos Saras saw the explosion before he felt it. A flash, and then the rumbling percussion that he’d come to love. Brighter by far than the planet Lucidus that everyone was so excited about yesterday, it meant a new mine shaft, a new vein of glassy Yynium laid bare, and this time, a new bonus.
Marcos never expected to be mining a planet this far from the desert where he was raised. He never expected to be this busy, and he never expected to be this rich.
His mother wouldn’t have liked him saying that, but it was true. The first three UEG bonuses he’d won and held for his efficiency in delivering Yynium had made it true. Still, he probably wouldn’t say it in front of her.
And the bonus the UEG was offering this time, if he could produce the purest sample of Yynium by the end of next month, wasn’t just a measly 2.5 percent. It was also a land grant: the whole of the Karst Mountain range that lay outside of his city, and all the Yynium in it. This was an instant monopoly, the ability and permission to extract every grain of Yynium from what his surveyors were suggesting was a deposit richer than any found on Minea so far. But even though it lay closest to his city, the six other companies would be vying for the bonus as well, and if one of them got it, Saras Company would be hamstrung, blocked from expansion under the karst towers.
As he watched the cloud of rubble settle over the opening to the new shaft, he cursed softly. He should have done this last month, then he would already be on his way to being awarded that land grant.
But he had another plan, one that would secure the grant for sure. He would meet with his vice presidents, Veronika and Theo, in an hour and fill them in on it, just as soon as they were back from their daily checks of the districts.
They were vice presidents, but they didn’t spend their days in decorated offices attending endless marketing meetings like they had on Earth. Here in the settlements, VPs ended up doing a lot of assistant work. It couldn’t be helped. If there was a snag in the production line or a group of disgruntled workers, Marcos had to have someone he could trust take care of it. His assistants and managers didn’t have a big enough picture of the whole operation to make decisions, and his VPs had to be out in the districts to get that big picture. Every decision had potentially disastrous consequences and they couldn’t be made haphazardly.
His VPs, though, were anything but haphazard. Tall, thin Theo Talbot had been the first in charge of Saras Company on Minea. As soon as Marcos’s father had set up the settlement, he’d returned and left Theo to run the whole city. Theo had been here for a dozen years: four with Marcos’ father, five running the operation by himself as acting president, and three after Marcos had come. Theo knew the operation in and out. He could tell Marcos the names of every manager across the city—in the Food Production District, the Market District, the Mine, or any of the other districts. He could quote production numbers for the last ten years off the top of his head. He was friendly and got along wi
th people. He had an energetic manner and could talk his way through problems. Marcos could see why his father had picked Theo to man the operation for so many years.
Veronika Eppes was the opposite. She was cold, calculating, and efficient. She didn’t let emotion get in her way, and she dealt with people like tiles in a dragonboard game. She knew where they were best used and she placed them there. If they weren’t of use, she’d knock them off the board. Marcos had, more than once, relied on her decisiveness. And more than once she’d saved them from the mire of Theo’s tendency toward indecision.
They didn’t get the long days in their lavish offices that vice presidents got back on Earth, but Marcos tried to keep them supplied with perks. For Veronika that was expensive imported wines, clothes, and jewelry from Earth. She had a particular affinity for rubies. For Theo, a custom hovercar, which he’d be driving as he finished up his rounds right now.
The day was calm, and now Marcos could see the darkness of the new shaft gaping through the settling blue dust. As he watched it, he was distracted by the beeping of an incoming transmission alert from his hovercar. He slid into the back seat and tapped a screen mounted at eye level. The cost of this one luxury, a receiver in his hovercar for Coriol’s single Real-Time Communicator back at Saras’s Coriol headquarters, would have built his mansion on Yynium Hill twice over. But his parents insisted that he have it so they could keep an eye on him—though their supervision had lessened considerably after he’d earned the company the second bonus. He took that to mean that they were gaining confidence in him.
Marcos’s father, Dimitri Saras, was suddenly looking at Marcos from the screen with the level, piercing gaze that was his trademark. There was no greeting. RTC was expensive, and Dimitri didn’t use it longer than necessary.
“Are you receiving this in the hovercar? Where are you?” he demanded. “Why aren’t you at the office?”
Marcos chose which question to answer. “I’m overseeing the start of a new shaft. We just blasted.”
His father scoffed. “That’s not where the president needs to be.”
He said president with an emphasis Marcos had grown used to. He knew that for his father, the word was more than a title. It was an identity. Dimitri had made that clear in every interstellar interaction they’d had since he left for Minea shortly after Marcos was born. Marcos had grown up in the shadow of the word “president.” In fact, Dimitri had sent him to Minea as soon as he walked back into Marcos’s life because he wanted his son to be a company president, no matter the cost.
Marcos felt his body tense. He wanted to defend himself, tell his father that he’d been in the office every day for the last three weeks, explain that Theo said that without some field experience he wouldn’t make a very good president. But field experience was not something Dimitri valued. Marcos had wanted to go to college, to have the experiences it seemed everyone had there: late nights, final exams, learning about fields other than mining. However, his father had put him on a P5 RST ship anyway, seeing no use in a boy who already had a job spending valuable time exploring useless fields of information.
People go to college so they can get a job, he’d said. You have a job. And he’d sent Marcos to do it. Now Marcos had been here three years.
“Do you hear me?” Dimitri’s voice was edgy.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“I said, you should be at the office. Something big is happening on your planet, and I’ve got you a seat in the defense meeting this afternoon. But it’s not going to come into the backseat of your hovercar. It’s top secret. You need to be there.” Dimitri had a way of making every sentence final.
“I’ll be there. I’m heading back now.” He closed the hovercar door and gestured to his driver. They set off for Saras headquarters.
“This shaft is important, though,” he tried to explain.
“Marcos, every shaft is important.”
“But—”
“Don’t interrupt me. You need to learn delegation. You need to learn division of duties. You need to learn that being president isn’t about getting in on all the fun. It’s about making sure that all the parts of your organization are fitting together into a functioning machine.”
“There’s another bonus up,” he tried to say.
“I’m aware of the bonus. And I expect you to secure it as you’ve secured the others.” Again, that final tone.
“I will,” Marcos said, hearing the cold edge that had crept into his own voice. While he had his father on the line, he jumped at the chance to ask, “Is there a landing date for Serena’s ship yet?” The girl he wanted to marry was on her way back to Earth from an Interstellar Study trip, and she should be landing very soon.
Dimitri grunted, closing his eyes in irritation. “Keep your mind on your work, Marcos. I told you I would let you know of any developments. If you haven’t heard anything, then there is nothing new.”
“I’m just hoping—” Marcos began, but his father broke in, changing the subject.
“Where are your VPs?” Dimitri said. “Theo? Veronika?”
Marcos hated the way he said her name. Even now, eight years since she’d been put on the P5 with Marcos and they’d both been sent out of the way, Dmitri’s voice held a salacity that turned Marcos’ stomach. “They’re out on daily checks.”
“Ah. Well.” He could see that Dimitri was disappointed, and he was glad his mother was not on the call. “You’ll be at that meeting, Marcos.”
“I will,” Marcos said again.
“Message me when it’s over. I want to know what’s discussed.” The screen went blank. His father gave no goodbye.
The hovercar stopped at Saras headquarters and Marcos knew he should go right up to his office, but instead he slipped out to the south shop to see what progress Cayle was making on the P5.
The sleek little ship looked out of place in the big shop, surrounded by earthmovers and drill rigs. Cayle tossed him a wave from atop a twenty-foot rockhammer and Marcos felt a ripple of annoyance.
Cayle must have seen it on his face, because he hurried down and rushed into an apology.
“Sorry, boss, but Theo says they need that hammer for the new shaft and if it’s not ready by the end of the day, I’ll be drivin’ it instead of fixin’ it.”
Marcos never acknowledged apologies. He’d learned that from his mother. Acknowledgment of bad behavior meant its acceptance.
“How long on the ship, Cayle?”
Cayle shook his head slowly. “Well, there’s no tellin’. I’ve got the grunge cleaned out of the engine, mostly, but I still can’t get that YEN drive to fire up, and I haven’t had time to machine new rods yet. With my regular work, it’ll be a while yet.”
Marcos briefly considered, as he did every time they had this conversation, making the ship Cayle’s full-time priority, but Cayle was the best mechanic they had, and pulling him off the mine equipment would raise too many questions. He shook his head quickly.
“Keep working on it. And,” Marcos glanced around briefly, “keep your mouth shut.”
“I always do, boss.”
Marcos left the shop, crossed the liftstrip, and walked through the high, glassed-in entryway of Saras headquarters. He stopped to glance at the rows of windows. They were green with little patches of plants growing along the edges. These plants were showing up everywhere in Coriol. Marcos barked at the receptionist to get the cleaning staff in here and make a note to dock them two hours’ pay. Perhaps that would get them to take a little more pride in their work. Missing the windows in the front lobby? Sloppy.
He slipped a sweet, hard gar fruit candy in his mouth and hoped his screens were set up in the office. He had an Interstellar Communications System recording coming online, and he’d be expected to get his response to it out within ten minutes after seeing it. And then he had to meet with Veronika and Theo before this RTC meeting his father had gotten him into with the Coriol Defense Committee. Marcos walked a little faster.
The screen
s were set up, and the ICS recording was just beginning when he sat down in his Earthleather chair in front of the wide windows that looked out over the heart of Coriol, his city.
The recording was routine. It requested comprehensive Yynium output numbers for the last quarter. As he entered the numbers, Veronika opened his office door and leaned in.
“I’m back,” she said.
He nodded. “Get Theo and come back in five minutes.”
He finished the numbers quickly. It was vital to keep the UEG happy.
Checking the clock, Marcos saw he had just enough time to fill Veronika and Theo in before the Defense Committee meeting. Veronika entered first, and she came behind the desk, as she always did, to lean against it. Veronika had little use for personal space. Marcos leaned back in the chair as Theo came in.
Theo always gave him plenty of space. This time, he gestured the VP forward a bit so he didn’t have to shout the plan down the length of the office. It didn’t take Marcos long to explain the idea that would win them the land grant bonus. Theo, as usual, was resistant.
“You want to blast a shaft down from our legal land and tunnel under the Karst Mountains? We don’t even know for sure what’s down there. We only have the core samples, which were illegal, too, by the way. Why would we risk it?” Theo asked, the tone of authority that Marcos hated sneaking into his voice.
Marcos felt Veronika’s hand on his shoulder. She had moved behind him, to face Theo. “Because he knows that not doing it is a bigger risk. If someone else gets the grant, then we might as well get on the P5 and go home now. There won’t be enough Yynium left to support a third of this city. The veins we’re mining are running out right now.”
“But don’t you see that if we’re caught we lose it all anyway?”
Marcos scoffed. “The UEG isn’t going to shut us down for a little bad behavior. We’ll be fined, sure, but we’ve got the scrip to cover whatever they can impose. The veins we’re in now are so sparse that we’re pulling a lot of rock with the Yynium, and it’s possible that we’re not getting all the rock out when we refine. We’re not on Earth, with the best of equipment and plenty of it. This is the frontier, and you know as well as I do that we’re making do as best we can. Still, purity is way down, and we can’t win that grant with dirty Yynium.”