The Pilots of Borealis

by David Nabhan

  “I understand, Doctor.” Van Ulroy breathed a sigh of relief. “Trust that I do.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA

  WALKING THROUGH BORELIAN CUSTOMS wasn’t the easiest task. The best-selling “Declined”—beamed everywhere and setting sales records year after year—catalogued the jaw-dropping list of people to whom the Borelians had flatly said “no.” In perusing the list of princes, gold medalists, politicians, and magnates who’d been turned down, the reader was constrained to ask himself what chance he had to visit Borealis. And the answer was simple: none. Such hopeless folly even entered the lexicon. Teachers from Earth to the Outer Solar System scolded their daydreaming students not by asking them if they were on “Cloud Nine,” but now more often if they were “strolling on Borealis.” Sadly, it was next to impossible to visit Borealis for simple pleasure, as a tourist. If the floodgates were opened a stampede of billions would ensue, trampling to dust this jewel of humanity by virtue of the weight alone. To receive official permission from Customs for transit wasn’t just rare, it was the surest proof that one was indeed among the few of the most powerful and important persons alive.

  The tortuous process of acquiring a valid Borelian permit always granted transit times thirty-six hours beyond the duration requested. Such a generous but seemingly incongruous boon made sense though. It would have been inhuman to allow anyone on Borealis without giving them time to take the city in with their own eyes. One of those exceptional individuals was Zarathustra, alighting on the Moon and passing through the least crowded visa office in the Solar System.

  Zarathustra was Persian like his name but he wasn’t from Earth. His was one of those rare in vacuo births out in the Big Black. The moon Ganymede was nearest but the vessel carrying his mother was registered to Europa, so he called himself “Galilean,” as if just one single Jovian satellite were not enough for the likes of him. Zarathustra, a state visitor, would be granted an official tour of the city, a rite of passage for the lucky few from all parts of the Solar System. Borelians had little trouble spotting the few august visitors in their midst: stunned Terrans and Earthlings stumbling through their streets on feet unaccustomed to the light gravity, open-mouthed and yet dumb-struck. It was said that if one stripped the frieze from Trajan’s Column and wrapped it in precious metals and jewelry around a five-layer wedding cake, and were it then made large enough to accommodate two hundred and fifty thousand, this would be Borealis. So, politically, the Borelians couldn’t imagine a better prelude before an important conference with adversaries and competitors than simply by giving the visiting diplomats and businessmen some free time to take in the sights of the city.

  “So, how do you find Borealis?” The Council never opened their discussions any other way, knowing of course that their visitors would be quite speechless to answer. Realizing this was just the treasure squandered on the aesthetics of the city, rivals were forced to weigh the wealth and power resulting from almost two centuries of sheer determination that had transformed the Lunar North Pole into the single most important power source fueling the entire Solar System.

  One of the Borelians sent to meet his arriving ship asked the question Zarathustra had fielded a thousand times. What his very pregnant mother was doing speeding between moons a million kilometers above Jupiter was a story in progress, so many in the distinguished party were curious what the Borelian version would be.

  “Oh, what a chronicle!” he began, but laid into it nonetheless, chapter and verse, non-stop, all the way from Customs to Althing Gallery, Borealis’ great performing hall. He’d be entertaining here tomorrow. Now he was being escorted to the restricted suite within for important guests. The party made slow progress, with so many citizens they passed along the way interacting with the celebrity. That gave him plenty of time to expand on every detail of his nativity. When the door to the lounge slid open he was nowhere near the end of the tale, but abruptly broke off, putting his hands to his head as if to help keep it from exploding from the surprise.

  Nerissa was to one side, among other important dignitaries, representing the Pilots’ Guild. Rittener was standing against the far wall. Having never seen “The Fresco” before, Clinton was entranced by it, of course. This exquisite piece was the work of every artist who’d visited Borealis over the decades. Each virtuoso left his mark however he saw fit. Instead of leaving their scribbles with markers and paints though, the state had made available to them any quantity of Callistan onyx, diamonds, precious stones and metals, and other priceless glitter. It had turned out well, to say the least. It was meant to be an eye-catcher for visitors. But this masterpiece hadn’t caught Zarathustra’s; he was looking back and forth at something, someone, else.

  “I’m sorry, commodore,” he said to Rittener, shaking his head to indicate that it was a hard choice, “but there she is, in the flesh!” Zarathustra made a great show of prancing up to Nerissa. Whether it was a wand or a scepter he carried, he used it to punctuate his steps, waving the baton as a conductor would syncopate his heel-clicks on the immaculate Tethysean marble floor. He bowed, sweeping his crop-carrying arm so low.

  “I had everything planned out. I practiced what I was going to say to you, and I’ve forgotten everything now!” He looked around the room and laughed. It was an odd, shrill, hooting laugh. The dignitaries smiled politely.

  “Yes, I am made of flesh,” Nerissa answered. That was clear because she was blushing a little. “On behalf of the Borelian Pilots’ Guild,” she began to welcome him but he cut her off.

  “Oh, I do remember this though.” He reached into his breech pockets. They were huge, but well-tailored and disguised properly within the folds of the pants. Such voluminous pockets elicited a remarkably tiny gift. “What do you get the Borelian princess who has everything?” He bowed again, just not so low this time. “Please, accept this with my sincerest compliments, Nerissa.” It was a small compact of mascara.

  “It’s the kind I wear.” He pointed to his eyes and put on a very solemn expression. “I’m serious. Please take a good look. You have to appreciate what this does with the light. This isn’t just any mascara. Look closely.”

  Nerissa gave a quick smirk to her colleagues. The regular welcome routine was off the table. This was Zarathustra, after all. She was up to it though, the smile said. She stepped forward, put both her hands on his shoulders and drew him very close to her. She moved her head to the side, almost sensuously, as if approaching to kiss, but only examined his eyes. Zarathustra was the one blushing now, Nerissa’s coolness and self-assurance taking some of the pepper out of his façade. He was just explaining now, not boasting, and in a much quieter voice, hyper aware of Nerissa’s proximity.

  “There’s nothing like it. It’s made from the ash belching from fumaroles on the floor of Europa’s ocean. They dry it in the radiation field between the Moon and the Old Man,” he used the Jovian moon slang for Jupiter. “It’s supposed to accentuate the look the eye has during the throes of passion.” He shrugged his shoulders and turned up a weak grin. “It should. Cleopatra would have had trouble picking up the tab for this stuff.”

  Nerissa was genuinely appreciative. “Thank you, Zarathustra. I’ve never had such a gift.” He was beaming now. It truly was next to impossible to put something in Nerissa’s hands that she’d never touched before. He told himself that he’d done pretty well.

  “Zari. I prefer that you call me Zari.”

  “Thank you, Zari.”

  “You’re welcome, Nerissa. That’s Clinton Rittener standing over there, isn’t it?” He brought the two disparate sentences together without missing a beat, recovering his flair. “Do you see him?”

  “I see him,” she admitted gamely. “He’s a new arrival on Borealis. He’ll be taking the tour with us.”

  “You’ll excuse me?” Zari asked.

  “Of course,” she answered.

  Zari was back on stage, this time with even more flamboyance if that were possible, boldly inserting wha
t was meant to be a few military strides into the swagger. He put both hands up.

  “Don’t shoot; I surrender, admiral.” His baton was hanging in the air, yet didn’t have the feel of capitulation, so he offered it to Rittener as if it were the saber of a defeated officer.

  Rittener declined. “I’ve been to the bottom of the Europan ocean. If that’s my gift, you’re not going to convince me that it came from there.”

  It had been a few weeks since Clinton had arrived on Borealis and he’d questioned why this invitation for a formal tour had come just now, so late. And he wondered about something else. The powers that be on Borealis had apparently waited for the perfect, high-strung, loquacious eccentric to pass through so that Rittener should enjoy some excitable company during the excursion. The odd choice struck him as peculiar.

  “Touché, mon capitaine.” Zari struck a fencing pose, waving the baton like a sword, but then dropped his guard crestfallen. “But then that means I’ve come empty-handed.” A bright idea burst onto his face suddenly. “Unless, of course . . .” He patted one pocket, then the next, finally shrugging his shoulders. “No, I haven’t any more,” he said, sadly. Narrowing his eyes to focus on Rittener’s face and leaning toward him to make the examination more obvious, he gave his opinion. “But, I don’t think the mascara would work anyway. I think the eyes are just right the way they are.” He gave another look and pursed his lips he was concentrating so hard. “I love what you’ve done with the face,” he said, referencing the scars. “It’s very masculine. It really works for you.”

  He turned back to Nerissa for support. “Don’t you agree? I mean, about Clinton Rittener’s face. It’s very unique and quite handsome, don’t you think?”

  The Borelian welcoming crew weren’t horrified yet, but a few more remarks of this kind and they’d be there. Nerissa had long since given up hiding her smile, and gave in all the way.

  “Yes, Zari, I agree. Clinton Rittener has a very unique and handsome face.”

  Zari put his hand on Rittener’s shoulder. “Only tell me this, general,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, looking behind and around himself. “No offense, but from what I know of you, well . . . how to say this delicately . . . things have a way of going pop and bang around you. Have you noticed that?” He aspirated a puff of air as if to say that it didn’t require great powers of perception to discern that.

  Rittener couldn’t help observing Nerissa’s delight. She wasn’t concealing the fact that these were the words she wished she could find so plainly.

  “There have been a few dust-ups that I’ve not managed to avoid,” Rittener gave him that.

  Zari shook his head in an understanding way. “That’s why I’m not political, commissar. So just tell me what to say. Are we cheering freedom for the Asteroid Belt? Is that it? Up the Asteroid Belt! Hurrah for meteors!” He pirouetted smartly, sending his flowing locks whirling. Two deep widow’s peaks were artistically shaved into his mane of dense, black hair, the exposed pate given over to tattoos and glitter, accentuated with a top knot at the crown.

  “And if that changes tomorrow, just let me know. Deal? I’m a musician, not a soldier.”

  Rittener answered him with a hand signal, silent slang for insiders from the Old Man’s family of satellites. He knew how to show off too. “Oh, that’s classic!” Zari complimented. “Very well done! You have been around, haven’t you?”

  SINCE THE CORE WAS a labyrinth of elevators, tubes, chutes, escalators, and moving walkways, it was easy to lose oneself in the beehive. Everything sooner or later popped out at the surface at one or another of the levels between Alpha and Epsilon. With the most expert guides on the Moon in charge, the distinguished party emerged at the perfect place. It was a fine day on Borealis, but there could be nothing else. The dayglow was bright and crisp, yet gentle. It reflected richly off a city created in fantasy, a city where the only rare patches of concrete were those exposed purposefully so as to hold fast the sapphire and topazes in place for mosaic sidewalks. A million beams of light bounced off a million points of jewels, polished marble, gleaming gold, lustrous silver and rebounded into Zari’s stunned pupils.

  “Jupiter’s beard.” He barely got out the phrase. No Borelian uttered a word; this moment was left alone for the visitor. The only sound for the next moments was the odd combination of footsteps on hundreds of thousands of encrusted jewels underfoot and Zari’s dazed mantra. “Jupiter’s beard,” he kept mumbling softly to himself. There were occasions when guests had to turn back from tours, finding the panorama too overwhelming.

  “Here, you look like you could use a little of this.” Nerissa handed him a generously filled goblet of nectar. It was right at hand since the docents had been often asked for something to fortify shaky guests. He downed it in a gulp and stretched the cup out for more. None of the lecturers told him to go easy, that nectar had a way of sneaking up, and fast.

  “It’s delicious!” was Zari’s only comment, but the rest of his body was quite a bit more expressive—a short drama of twisting, stomach-rubbing, lip-licking, and head-turning. Nectar was mead distilled from matchless Borelian honey, itself like no other due to genetically engineered blessings in the Garden. It couldn’t be sampled anywhere else since nothing was exported from Borealis—save one product, helium-3. The master distillers here spent their days and lives doing nothing but attempting to improve it, and that for the benefit of just themselves and their fellow few citizens.

  Passing by the tongue-in-groove series of consummate palaces and mansions, where millions of pounds of gold, platinum, silver, and precious stones were treated as nothing more than stucco, they spiraled their way up to Beta. The Titan Consortium dominated this level, opting for a work depicting the Rings of Saturn. To represent the detritus swirling around that gas giant, tens of thousands of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires had been inlaid in a monolithic slab of pure black titanium. There were many others on this level equally as awe-inspiring: Phidippides running to Athens after Marathon, Columbus landing in the Americas, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

  On Gamma Level the party arrived at Nerissa’s uncle’s humble residence. “This is Dr. Stanislaus’ home. He’s the Surgeon General of Borealis and one of our eleven councilors.” Stanislaus had chosen a clean motif for his façade, but one hardly real. It required some time for the eyes to realize what they were taking in. The frontage was cut from two twenty-foot-high towering pieces of translucent chalcedony quartz. Between them an entrance was created in the shape of two strands of DNA separating, the base pairs created by matching fused bars of awesome shanks of other vivid, multihued quartzes: purple amethyst, yellow citrine, red carnelian onyx, green chrysoprase. “He named it ‘Mitosis,’” Nerissa said in a dry tone, not too impressed at all. A look up and down the level confirmed that this was indeed hardly the most extravagant house on the block.

  “Nectar,” Zari called out, unable to formulate any other comment. Nerissa smiled and saw to the request herself. He was stumbling by the time the Old City Museum was reached. Rittener remembered Darda’s warning and had his eyes open; Zari had no idea, so the docent explained.

  “Botanists, gardeners, cooks, and hobbyists in the Old City were determined to explore the limits of agriculture on the Moon,” she began the saga. “They rigged hermetically sealed planters with the offspring of quite bizarre crossbreeds—utilizing the gene pool of the most resilient plants. After fits and starts and trials and errors, the survivors were placed in the blistering sunlight, shielded to a degree by well-designed solar screens that at least blocked some of the scorching rays. Each hobbyist had his own highly guarded secrets to protect—the just perfect percentage of carbon dioxide in the ambience being the most hotly debated—and that competition exists to this day.” On cue a troupe of servers from the museum’s restaurant stepped forward with sample trays. “The mature plants are processed with synthetic emulsifiers and taste additives, and boiled into a paste that is extruded and served. It may be eaten hot, cold, frozen
, fried—even broiled in the Sun.” With a broad smile and with some unmasked pride she handed the guests their menus. “Borelian flux, gentlemen.”

  Nerissa ordered her favorite, amber flux, and dug in. “This is the one I recommend you choose,” she advised Zari between spoonfuls. Zari ignored her suggestion, a little upset that he’d come to his first roadblock. Even here they existed after all, judging by his distressed look.

  “I want chartreuse,” he slurred the word. “There’s no chartreuse?”

  Nerissa ignored the complaint. “Not for you though, Clinton Rittener.” She intimated that his new citizenship carried responsibilities with it. “You’re no novice now. You should be more adventurous. I think maybe red is a good next step.” A mischievous sparkle in her eyes made him wonder.

  “Is it anything like blue-green? I’ve tasted that. It’s different from blue-green, right?”

  Clinton was watching her eat amber flux and with no ill effect whatsoever.

  “I’ll just go with amber,” he decided.

  Nerissa was adamant and ordered for him. “Red. It’s spicy.”

  “Spicy?” he repeated and asked at the same time.

  No one answered him but Zari’s query was quickly put right now. “Chartreuse flux, as you please,” the head chef himself was presenting it to Zari with élan. Nerissa appeared surprised as did everyone else. “Well, it required a bit of color mixing,” he explained, “but you’ve got quite the palette of flavors in there. Bon appétit.”

  Zari gave Rittener a friendly slap on the back. “Chartreuse flux, satrap, can you imagine that? Quick as Mercury they cook it right up.” He snapped his fingers, but with some difficulty thanks to the nectar. Zari’s companion was too busy staring at his red flux to answer.

  “Everything is possible on the Moon,” the chef repeated the now hackneyed slogan, beaming.

  Nerissa felt someone ought to say it. Zari had been addressing Rittener as everything from “alderman” to “zookeeper” thinking one of them might hit the mark.