Elizabeth’s amiable tone shifted to serious as she asked, “Question is, what do you plan to do about it? Are you actually looking for something?”
“I-I don’t know, Liz. Been caught up in all the training, all the stuff to do. I hadn’t really had a chance to think about it.”
“Well, don’t let me hold you back. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll miss our visits, but from what I’ve gathered, she’s not the kind to simply not get attached. If you’re going to tell her no, you need to, soon.”
Eric chewed on his lip.
“She’s a good girl and has her heart in the right place,” Elizabeth said. “You two might be good for each other. Look, have some more water and try to go back to sleep. When Doc said you’d have to be on light duty for at least a week if you pulled through, Turing said he wanted me to teach you actual interstellar navigation next, not just orbital mechanics and orbit changes. He’s got a list of practice problems he wants you to be able to solve by the time you’re good to get back on your feet.”
Eric took the proffered glass of water and emptied it. The sound of the door closing barely registered.
“You awake?”
Leah.
Eric grunted and stretched out. “I guess? How long have I been out?” Eric asked and rolled to face Leah as she sat on the stool. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her hair mussed from the cloth wrap she held in her hands, but Eric’s saw little else but the twinkle in her eye and the dimples made by her smile.
“Liz stopped in about four hours ago. She said you were feeling better. You lying to her again?”
Eric couldn’t help but return the smile. “Lying? No. ‘Better’ is a relative term.”
She grinned and said, “Well there is that. I just got back in from helping Blaise and his crew. We did a lot of weeding and picking pests. You should see the plants, Eric. I almost want to pull out the carrots right now and eat them.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah! They look great. Pascal says we’ll be harvesting them along with what’s ready from the garlic, onions, and a few others next week. That should help Anne’s cooking a bit.”
“Oh, right. Didn’t you get the garlic and the onions started in those herb boxes you were asking about when we first got here?”
Leah beamed. “Yeah. Turns out I had the right idea. There’s no way I could’ve done what Pascal’s been able to do with things, but I did get that right anyway. He’s trying to get me more materials so we can have even more ready for next spring.
“I know you’ve been busy with Hadrian and Byron, but you should see the rest of the fields, Eric. There’s so much food, so many beautiful plants. We’re going to make it, Eric. I know we are,” she said, bubbling with enthusiasm.
I’ve got to look like a fool, laying here smiling at her like this. Can’t help it, that smile’s contagious.
“You think so?” he asked.
“Yeah, I talked with Pascal last week. That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about when you first got back. Before I found out you were hurt, that is.”
“What’s that?”
“He wanted to double check his math, so he and I walked the fields last week. If the yields are anything like he expects, we’ll have more than enough seed for next year and food to spare, even if the next batch of newcomers is bigger than expected.”
“That’s great, Leah. You wanted me to come see it?” Eric asked. Something in her tone had suggested something weightier.
“Actually, no. I wanted to tell you I was volunteering. For Hadrian’s project. For the militia.”
“Woah, hold on.”
“What? You don’t think I can do it?” Leah asked, an undercurrent of disappointment and hurt nipping at the edges of her words.
“No, no, it’s just unexpected. That’s all, Leah. Unexpected. I’m sure you can do it. Can I ask what made you decide to volunteer?”
“Well, after talking with Pascal, I realized there will always work to be done, but we’ve got enough hands to get everything done. He’s been reassigning folks to other departments the last few days. Did you know Jorge was a licensed chemist?”
“Jorge? No. Sorry, haven’t met him. I’m assuming he was one of the last group that came in?”
Leah nodded. “Him and Jeff have been talking. Terry, too. Now that they got the rest of the machinery from the bunker set up, they think they might be able to do all sorts of things. And,” she trailed off.
“And?”
“And well, everyone with a useful skill is off doing more useful stuff than digging in the dirt. Jeff was complaining about needing oils or lubricants or something for everything. Hadrian’s been grousing about wanting to make new ammunition from all the brass they’ve been saving. Jorge said he should be able to set up a lab by the old mill once the construction folks are done rebuilding it. They got the mill mostly working again while you were out, too. I know you haven’t met Felix, but he used to be an artist. Worked with glass, he wants to make windows!”
Leah sat there, smiling at him for a few seconds. Eric scratched his chin
“So, not trying to kick you here, but I take it you’re afraid you’re going to feel useless again?”
Her features wilted a little as she shrugged.
“Yeah, kinda. That’s not all of it though. I realized what you do is important, Eric. Just as important as feeding everyone and, well, Hadrian hasn’t let on much but I know they’re not telling us the worst of it. Just enough to make sure everyone knows the legion people are a threat, and, well, I want to feel like I’m helping more than just making plants grow. I want to feel like I’m in control of myself again. I want to feel alive again, not trapped in my head.”
Eric cut to the heart of what he thought she was saying.
“Defenseless.”
Her eyes fell to the floor and she shrugged.
“Yeah.”
Eric held out his hand. Leah looked at it like it was a wild animal.
“Hon, I’ll stand by you if you’ll stand by me when the time comes,” Eric told her earnestly. Her eyes slowly rose to meet his before she took his hand in hers.
“You barely know who I am. Why would you say that?”
“Barely know you? We spent weeks vacationing together on the Shrike and then this sunny planet, how can you say that? You wound me so.”
Leah’s smile illuminated her face.
“There’s the Leah I know. The real you, not the one you’re afraid of being.”
She grinned wider. “Oh yeah? Who am I then, since you know me so well?”
“Well, I do know you were a lawyer before all this. I was kinda hoping you’d fill me in on the rest. You’ve been stingy on the details. I know you’re brave and intelligent. Kind. Stronger than you think you are. Beautiful, too.”
Leah giggled. “Well I guess I have been a bit tight lipped. What do you want to know?”
Day 189
Eric glanced over to the pile of note paper on the desk beside him. He grumbled, leaning back in his chair. What the hell am I doing? Why did I agree to this? I am way out of my league here. The door into the study opened behind him as he sighed.
He looked up from his tablet to find Leah closing the door behind her.
“You look a bit worn out,” Eric commented.
“Yeah, I’ve been up since dawn. We ran a few kilometers and hiked the rest of the day with extra PT thrown in during breaks. For fun, they said.”
“Fun?” Eric asked with a smirk.
“That’s what they said.”
“Doesn’t sound like any kind of fun I’m familiar with.”
“Me neither. This is the fourth day we’ve done it this week. I’m about to fall over,” Leah told him. She dropped into a nearby chair. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, Turing has me working on orbital mechanics. Liz is helping but some of the math is… unpleasant? Accounting for interstellar drag, nonlinear planet shape and density creating non-linear gravity fields.”
“Ick, I w
as a lawyer, not a physicist. I only took intro to calculus on a dare. Save me the agony, please.”
“What? You’re plenty bright, Leah. You could handle some of what I’m doing.”
“I highly doubt that. I saw your notes. It looked like someone vomited numbers and random letters from several different alphabets all over the page. No thanks.” Eric snorted. “Besides which, you were reading your tablet when I came in. Looking stuff up?”
“Nah,” Eric replied. “Taking a break from that actually. Was reading some of the old stuff on the tablet.”
“Like?”
“It’s political theory stuff, mostly.”
Leah tilted her head. “Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Well, it’s not like there’s anything you can do with it, not here anyway.”
“Oh, well yeah, there is that. It’s something different to think about, break up the monotony. Some of this stuff is interesting to think about,” Eric said.
“Like what?” Leah asked.
“Well, let’s see,” Eric glanced down at his tablet and began to read aloud. “The three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind--those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full investigation.
“A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.”
Leah’s brow rumpled and she asked, “Is that even English?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Eric told her.
“Sounds like some of the older legal texts I had to read back in law school. Run that by me again.” Leah’s brow creased further as Eric read the tract again. She held out her hand and asked, “Do you mind?”
Eric smiled and handed her the tablet.
She read in silent concentration for several minutes before looking up at him.
“This is interesting, Eric. I don’t know these places they’re talking about, but I think I understand what he’s getting at.”
Eric nodded.
“You don’t have a lot of context, either. I spent the last few days reading the history of the era on break just to get context. That paper is one of over eighty published back on old Earth. The country in question had won its independence only a bit over a decade before. Their first attempt at forming a government was a failure at best. Those papers were part of a larger media campaign to sway the public in supporting a change to a new system.”
“Did it work?”
“The campaign? Yeah. It worked and they recreated their government. Some of the stuff they talk about in that specific paper though? Yeah, not entirely accurate.”
“How so?”
“In the third or fourth paragraph, the author makes a case that the commercial interests would keep the different states from warring with each other. That didn’t happen.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, about eighty years later there was a civil war. I suppose I should be fair, it’s not that the author was wrong, he just wasn’t entirely correct. Same difference as me telling you that if I dropped this apple it’d land on my foot. It would, but it would end up on the floor shortly thereafter. I’d be right in either case, but more correct with the full explanation.”
Leah nodded and said, “You see the same thing in law. Word choice is terribly important. Most folks don’t seem to ever understand that words mean things.”
Eric snickered, “That they do. Though based off of what I’ve read, it seems that folks are also pretty fond of pretending words mean only what they want them to instead of what they actually mean.”
“Truth. Do you think it’s possible the author knew there was more to it but didn’t say anything? I mean, if it’s a media campaign to get folks to sign on, you only have so much time to get people on your side. Why give someone the ten minute explanation for a small part of your argument when you only have twelve to make the whole argument? People only have so big of an attention span and you only have so much time,” Leah asked.
“That’s entirely possible. Everything else I’ve seen from these folks has seemed remarkably spot-on. Your theory would make sense.”
Leah grinned and handed him the tablet.
“I’ll have to borrow that sometime, it sounds interesting. Anyway, I’m going to raid the kitchen for leftovers before I go pass out, want to come with?”
Eric shrugged and stretched as he stood. “Sure.”
“Great. I have it on good authority that Anne is hiding some of yesterday’s apple pie.”
“More apple pie? Why didn’t you say that up front? Let’s go.”
Eric looked up at the opening door as he swallowed the last of the apple pie.
“Oh, hey, Pascal,” he said. “If you were after the pie, too late.”
Blaise snorted and said, “There was pie? Damn. And here I was, just getting tea.”
“Tea? This late?” Leah asked.
“Yeah,” Blaise said, “I’m meeting with Turing here in a bit. Me, Denise and Jeff have things to sort out. Figured a little caffeine wouldn’t hurt if the meeting ran long. That, and you know Turing. He loves his tea. Might make him a bit more tractable.”
“What about?” Eric asked.
“Well, Jeff got the last of the fabricators from the bunker up and running a while ago. I’ve got some stuff we’ll need to get the greenhouse up and running, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the raw materials to build some of it. We’ll have to brainstorm on how to improvise, if that’s even possible. Do some horse trading as it were. I’ll have to pony up labor I don’t really have to help gather materials, most likely.”
“Anything I might be able to help with?”
“What, and have Turing looking over my shoulder the whole time? No thanks.”
“Really? I didn’t know having me working for you was that bad,” Eric groused.
Blaise smirked, “It’s not, really. I just know you’re doing well with what you’re doing. Not saying I couldn’t use the help, but I don’t want to short-sheet other people if I don’t have to. You and the other hunters are making your quotas for the kitchen. As much as my job is to make sure we don’t starve in the long term, I’d hate to be the reason we stopped eating as well as we are right now. You remember Fox’s bit, morale is damn important and food is morale. We eat worse now, that’ll lower productivity across the board, so you helping a few hours or a few days could cost me a lot more than it might gain me.”
“How are you doing otherwise?” Eric asked. “Leah’s being worked to death by Hadrian. I’m pretty sure she misses your work details already.”
Leah rolled her eyes.
“Eh, living the dream, Eric. Living the dream. Well, if by ‘the dream’ you mean a dream that periodically borders on a nightmare. I always liked everything that came with agronomy. Feel of the dirt under your feet, the smell of--”
“Fresh shit you’re spreading as fertilizer?” Eric interrupted.
“Not exactly where I was going with that,” Blaise said with a snort. “More like having something you could point at and say you grew it. It’s kinda like having kids without having kids. It’s rewarding in ways you can�
��t really explain. Always liked being a farmer more than being a pirate, but piracy paid the bills when farming couldn’t. Now? I get to do what I enjoy and possibly end up being a hero for it. Who wouldn’t like that?”
Day 302
“There he is,” Eric whispered.
“What? Where?” Leah asked just as quietly.
“By the big oak over there,” Eric whispered as he slowly pointed. “Now remember, aim a bit back and below from the front shoulder. You want to hit lungs or the heart.”
Leah gulped as she brought her rifle to her shoulder.
“Just keep calm. You’ve shot paper plenty the last three months, you can do this,” Eric said. Her suppressed rifle chuffed. The deer jerked its head up and looked about.
“Shit,” she groused and went back to her sights.
“Wait,” Eric whispered, putting his hand on her shoulder.
The deer took a single step and toppled onto its side.
“Holy shit! I got it! I got it, Eric!” she said, bouncing several times before hugging him with one arm.
“That you did. Square in the gravy pump, I’d say. Good shot, hon. Now I show you how to clean them.”
Leah wrinkled her nose at him before grinning even wider and grabbing his hand to drag him onward.
Day 335
Turing looked up from his tablet as Eric entered his study. "I did it. I cracked the file and now I wish I hadn’t.”
Eric noticed the slur in Turing’s words. Shit, he's been drinking. This is bad. Eric asked, “Really? When? And why? What’d you find?”
"A few days ago. Been lost in all the data ever since. Humanity's problems haven't changed in the last six hundred years, if not longer. I've only gotten to the early 1800s from modern day and it's depressing, Eric. Everything we know? Lies. All of it. Do you know what history is? History is a bubbling mass of bright spots amid a sea of midnight. Sparks of promise born in an instant and drowned in a sea of turgid idiocy and jealousy before they can illuminate the world. Only a handful survive in any given generation, and their influence is hobbled by limited minds, greed, and weakness.
By Dawn's Early Light Page 35