by Larry Niven
Astronaut found Treesa in the kitchen, kneading bread, pulling sticky dough in toward her and pushing it away methodically. Her hands were covered in flour. When Astronaut played the conversation, she stopped to listen, then returned to her kneading, pushing harder. “Ali’s kidding herself,” she said.
“Why would Ali lie to herself?”
“We’re cheating. We’re extending our life spans using nanotechnology. We’re not supposed to want that. We only do it while we need to, to reach Ymir. Hah! Ali has no idea how hard she’d fight to save her life.”
“There are things she would not do, though.”
Bread dough slammed the board. Treesa said, “I am old enough to understand your fears. Perhaps we can resolve this.”
CHAPTER 51
LOGISTICS CHALLENGES
COUNCIL AERIE WAS the first place on Selene that Gabriel thought of as a home. Real glass windows and hand-woven mats gave the rooms a warmth Gabriel had never felt in Aldrin’s more utilitarian housing. Sculptures decorated corners.
He and the seven other Council members overseeing the Refuge project had created time to build it largely by hand. It represented almost two years of sweaty hard work, started just days after he and John splashed Refuge within two meters of its original target.
Data flows from all over Selene converged on Council Aerie.
Gabriel’s room, at the north end, had a view down into the crater sea from one window. The opposite window looked down on the fields surrounding Clarke Base, spreading green and reddish tan into the distance. Apollo’s morning light gave it all a pastoral feel that belied Gabriel’s worry about production schedules.
It was almost time for the weekly status report to High Council. Gabriel walked down the outside hall that connected Council Aerie’s domed rooms until he reached a large communal kitchen and living space in the center of the eleven domes. The smell of warm bread and coffee greeted him. John and Treesa had beaten Gabriel to the common room.
The kitchen window looked down on Clarke Base, and comfortable couches sat in front of a window with a view of the sea. Light played on the water. The eighty-foot boat they used to transport goods to Refuge, the Safe Harbor, bobbed gently at the end of the new dock. Half barge, half ferry, the Safe Harbor could carry up to five hundred people at once, or a lot of cargo. The dock itself looked like a black spiderweb surrounding a stick. Carbon fiber nets stabilized the crater rim right below Council Aerie, falling away to the waterline. The dock had to manage forty-foot tidal swells. The bridge was easy to cross at high tide, a gentle slope walked along a thick plank that rose and fell nestled inside the nets. A cargo slide allowed easy dock loading at high tide. At low tide, people scrambled up or down, using the nets themselves as handholds and steps.
Today there would be only three of them in a virtual meeting with Clare and Erika. The other residents of Council Aerie were in Refuge, or down at Clarke Base.
John stared at plans for a twin-masted sailboat, which rotated slowly in three dimensions in a data window above a low table. He reached for a plate of croissants and strawberries on the table, and pointed up at the sailboat’s keel. “Look,” he said, “see this keel design? I think it can take anything this sea can dish out . . . if we can just get some time in the factory to get it built.”
Treesa laughed at him gently, putting a hand on his knee. “We did well enough to get Council Aerie built.”
“Well, if I’m to be captain of the Sea of Refuge, I rather need a boat, don’t you think?”
Gabriel reached through the data window to grab a handful of strawberries. An image of the boat’s sail rippled across his forearm. “Maybe we can manage a personal raft. Besides, you designed and built the Safe Harbor.”
The captain waved his hand, as if the Safe Harbor were nothing. “I want a sailboat. Look how elegant this design is! Or here—” The image changed from a single-hulled sailboat to a trimaran. “Now this one doesn’t even need a keel. Just one little bitty mold.”
Treesa’s eyes lit up. “Like one little bitty forty-foot-long mold?”
John sighed loudly and put his arm around Treesa. “I suppose I shouldn’t even ask them today, huh?”
“That would be wise.” Gabriel took a croissant. “Baking again, Treesa?”
“Aren’t you glad? You eat everything I make. What are we going to report today?”
“We’ve got to report the late parts,” Gabriel said.
“They’ll have already heard that from the Clarke Base side,” John said. “I’ll start with Refuge progress.”
“I want to talk about my work with Ali on algae,” Treesa said.
“Three minutes—enough to make coffee.” The data window displaying the trimaran winked shut as John pushed himself off the couch and headed for the kitchen.
Gabriel sat down next to Treesa to finish his breakfast in silence. She’d turned out to be an asset: Treesa acted as overseer for the Selene data flows in a precise manner that he appreciated very much, keeping them clean and easy to navigate. She was helping Ali build an ecosystem in the sea, preparing it to introduce fish stocks. Not to mention taking up most of the baking. Treesa almost never cooked dinner, but every morning she baked breakfast bread.
John brought up the window for the meeting. Erika and Clare greeted them from the captain’s office on the ship; Erika’s office. It hadn’t changed much since it was John’s office. There were significantly more pictures of spacecraft. The furnishings remained simple and austere: steel and cherry wood over a thick blue carpet.
“Hello,” Erika said, “glad to see you three.”
John and Gabriel nodded, and Treesa smiled and said, “Good morning.”
Clare leaned forward in her chair. “We need to talk schedules. We just finished meeting with Mathew, and he mentioned the schedule slippage on parts from Clarke Base for Refuge is at nearly ten percent. Mathew has shifted some personnel and the collider barrel is coming along almost on schedule. That implies the slippage is based on people, not process.”
Treesa asked, “Meaning the wrong people for the job? Not enough training?”
“No,” Clare said. “Or maybe. I think some Children are trying to do a bad job.”
John leaned in toward the window, hands steepled under his chin. “Sabotage?”
“Not directly. But the illness rate and the increasing rework is statistically six percent higher on the general manufacturing crews that feed your project. Have you found anything yet? Mathew and Dena are coming up blank.”
“No. Nothing yet,” Treesa said. “The statistics aren’t conclusive. The difference in number of Earth Born on the two projects might be part of it, except it’s largely Moon Born here on Refuge, and we aren’t seeing the same problems. I’m still watching. Maybe we should have Astronaut look at the statistics?”
“Astronaut hasn’t found anything obvious,” Erika said. “We may send someone down temporarily just to look into this. All of you are too stretched already.”
Treesa stiffened. “We’ll find it, or it will stop. Let me keep on it.”
Clare chewed at her bottom lip. “We’ll advise you. Don’t be surprised if the next ship sends you some help. Someone on the ground with no other job may see things you don’t. I know that bothers your pride, but you haven’t turned anything up. We need results before the full High Council meeting in two weeks.”
Erika spoke up. “Gabriel, we’ll want you for that meeting. Then it’s time for a year or two off. You’ve been warm too long already.”
Gabriel winced. “We’re in the middle of this project. Just one more year to finish Refuge, and five for the Collider. It’s a critical time.”
“We’ll make sure you are awake when the collider is done.” Erika’s look softened. “Besides, it would be nice to see you up here.”
They had not made love since the day she came to him in his office, before Refuge was brought down here, yet they had both been warm the whole two years. He smiled. “Yes, it would.” I want to finish
Refuge first.”I would prefer to stay, or to come up for the meeting and return here until Refuge is done. Then I can be shipside for a few years in between.”
“That was an order,” Erika said. “Be at that meeting, and plan to stay.”
Gabriel blinked, stung. She was pulling rank. On him.
Erika continued. “Now, John and Gabriel, how about an update on Refuge?”
John grimaced at Gabriel and started popping models into data windows. John was the best working partner Gabriel had ever had. He astonished Gabriel with his ingenuity and sense of play, and he combined both energies in his engineering choices. He’d be fine handling the Refuge project, but Gabriel realized with a jolt that he and the captain were friends . . . he wanted to finish this project side by side with John. No one else was being ordered back, and John and Treesa had both been warm for as long.
John’s voice pulled his attention back into the meeting. John was pointing out an undersea escalator-style ramp in a tube that could handle compression and pressure changes. The end of the tube that wasn’t inside Refuge simply stuck above the water, sliding in and out of a floating dock.
Gabriel took Clare and Erika on a guided camera tour of Refuge’s insides, passing through hallways, sparse medical rooms, dormitory-style sleeping spaces with fold-down beds built all along long walls, functional galleys that could feed hundreds, and up and down spiral staircases. Refuge’s inside infrastructure was dazzling brightness and intricate curves; diamond walls and stairs built by nanotechnology in the safety of space. Surfaces gleamed. In contrast, furnishings and closets for food and medical stocks were all utilitarian and sparse. Nano on Selene was allowed to make raw materials; materials nano did not have enough programming to be dangerous. All small-scale work was done the old-fashioned way, with molds and tools.
As the tour finished, Gabriel said, “If we had a larger crew, we could finish faster.”
Erika shook her head. “It would save you all now, in the event of a flare. Right? Maybe not comfortably, but the population is small. You have what you need. You have enough staff.” She paused for a drink of water. “Perhaps you should even consider a smaller crew, especially if the production schedule for raw materials stays slow. Why not shift some people to Clarke Base? After all, that might rebalance the work output.”
“That’s a good idea. Implement it,” Clare said. “Thank you. Treesa?”
Gabriel fell out of the conversation as it turned to biology, and potential fish stocks for the sea. He barely heard the rise and fall of Treesa’s voice as she and Clare talked. He didn’t want to reduce Refuge’s staff; they really weren’t ready for a major flare yet. Erika’s tone bothered him. He didn’t want to go cold, not now.
Windows closed, and the three Council members were alone in the common room once again.
No one spoke for a few minutes. Finally, Treesa said, “That was not a good meeting.”
“No.” John shook his head. “Sorry, Gabriel. I thought for sure Erika would let you stay.”
“I feel out of touch with the John Glenn,” Gabriel said.
“You’ll be there soon, from the sound of it,” Treesa said.
“Long enough to be iced.” Gabriel realized he sounded bitter. Probably it was nothing—he had been warm seven years this time, and his one ten-year stint had been too much. He stared out the window and sighed.
Gabriel got up to clear the dishes, and once, when he turned around, Treesa and John were kissing. It was natural enough that the two oldest Council members would bond, but whenever he saw them together Gabriel felt just a little bit lonely. He didn’t know if he liked an Erika who was willing to order him around.
Ali was here, but she maintained her own room, staying friendly, only occasionally a lover. He had tried to ask her why, but she just smiled and went on to whatever next thing she had to do. She had become inscrutable.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, John handed Gabriel a freshly filled glass of the too-sweet berry wine they were sharing on the edge of the new dock. Their feet hung over the edge as they rose slowly with the tide. “Are you feeling any better?”
Gabriel laughed. “Maybe after I finish this wine. I’m not happy with the schedule slippages.”
John refilled his own glass. “Talk to Rachel? She goes back and forth between Clarke Base and Refuge more than any of us.”
“All right. I haven’t seen her much the last few months. We all need more hours,” Gabriel complained.
John raised his arm and pointed at the white domes of Council Aerie on the crater rim above them. “Look what you built! Quit whining.”
Gabriel quieted, watching the sea. The sun wanned his back and sparkled on the water in front of him. A little touched by the wine, Gabriel reflected that while Rachel and Ali had taught him a bit about actually loving plants, the captain was teaching him to love the sea. “A sailboat would be nice.”
After a while, John said, “You know, we need some fish. I hope Ali and Treesa hurry up and stock this pond. A man with water needs a way to fish.”
“I suppose you’re the one who spawned those poor salmon in the Ring River in the garden.”
“Well, I caught them both before spawning season. It would be a shame to drive such beautiful fish crazy.”
Gabriel pushed him off the dock into the water, and dove after him, laughing.
CHAPTER 52
REASSIGNMENT
THE NEXT MORNING, Gabriel found Rachel inside Refuge. She sang softly to herself, stacking blankets, her back to him.
He cleared his throat.
She stopped singing and turned toward him. “Yes, can I help you, stranger?”
Well, that was fair. He saw Rachel occasionally, but he really hadn’t spent much time with her in the two years since Refuge landed. He nodded and looked away. “Sorry. I’ve been busy building ships and small towns. But I’d like to talk to you. I need advice.”
She leaned against the wall, one arm above her head. The pose elongated her torso, so she looked even taller than normal. Her red braid hung down almost to her breasts. She smiled, and said, “You? Need me? Fancy that. For what?”
“Children.”
“What if I don’t want to have kids?”
“No . . .” He blinked, taken aback. Her confident teasing was a woman’s reaction. “Sorry, Rachel, I meant you and yours. The Children of Selene. There seems to be a little problem at Clarke Base.”
She still smiled, but he thought he saw a wary look in her eyes. “Oh—what problem?”
The murmur of low conversation came from the next room. Better to talk uninterrupted. “Take a walk?”
“Sure,” she said, her voice casual and light. “But I don’t know much about Clarke Base. I’m not there often.”
“You go down sometimes to visit, right?”
“Only when you guys give me enough of a break to actually leave for two days or more. I’ve been there twice in the last month. I still do some classes there, and I like to visit my dad.”
“I’m going to reassign you to Clarke Base.” He turned and headed up the short flight of stairs that led to the cargo escalator. The fifteen-foot-wide escalator went to the surface, connecting to a floating dock. It would ferry people into Refuge in an emergency. A single thin staircase ran next to the wide escalator. They took the stairs, Rachel ahead, stopping at the one-third point to open one of the doors that allowed the long tube between Refuge and the dock on the surface to be pressurized.
Rachel stepped up and angled through the door, her words floating back to him over her shoulder. “Treesa tells me that Council Aerie is beautiful inside. I’d like to visit sometime.”
Children walked directly past Council Aerie daily, delivering cargo between Refuge and Clarke Base, ignored by the Council inside. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you hadn’t seen it. There won’t be time today, but ask Treesa or John. They’ll take you.” He tapped the door shut and pushed the controls to rebalance pressure. It was a short series of locks—a huge inconvenience for s
ixty feet of upward progress. The design constraints had been significant. The need for enough flexibility to handle variable pressure as Harlequin pulled and released the sea in forty-foot tides alone caused headaches; and a complex system of doors and air control made the escalator a lightly pressurized environment.
Rachel continued to walk ahead of him without looking back. “Why send me down there? We’re not done here yet.”
“We will start assembling the antimatter generator soon. Refuge is far enough along that we’re reassigning some people down below. Besides, I’m hoping you can help me with a problem.”
“Oh.” Rachel’s voice was low. She reached the top of the escalator and expertly tapped the door open. The smells of water and fresh air rushed in. “What do you want help with?” She stepped through the door, and stood on the dock, waiting for him.
Gabriel emerged and stood next to her, feeling a soft wind against his face. “Mathew and Dena are having trouble getting production quotas out of the group at Clarke Base.”
“How can I help with that?”
“I don’t know. Projects you work on seem to go well. Do you know anything about Children having trouble getting things done on time?”
Rachel shook her head, shielding her eyes from the light with a raised arm. “I told you, I don’t get down there much.”
“Go tomorrow morning and stay awhile. I’m reassigning you to the same group that works on parts. I want you to try and get people to work harder. I’ll be cold again soon, and that means I can’t look into this myself. But I think—maybe—that some of the problems are deliberate. I can’t prove it. But Selene is being watched. There is talk on John Glenn about—more extreme measures.”
“Like?”
“Like more Council living in Clarke Base and setting stricter schedules, and some actual punishment when things get ‘dropped’ on the way here.”
Rachel spun and looked at him, her jaw tight. “We need more to do—not less. We need responsibility. We need to learn so we can help ourselves. We’re getting angry, Gabriel. What are we working for? So you can leave? And that’s what you want me to help you with?”