Impact!

by Laurence Dahners

  “Hey, I’m a big boy you know! I can take care of myself.”

  “You couldn’t cook for yourself even before you broke your leg! And even if you could cook, you wouldn’t be able to do it on crutches. You don’t have a hand free to carry stuff from one place to another around the kitchen.”

  “I can order in, or for that matter, go out to dinner.”

  “Laundry! You can’t do laundry on crutches either!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got the same song and dance from my mother. She’s planning to stay with me for the first week, but I swear I don’t need her.”

  “I’ll bet you do Bucko. And you’d better say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ too.”

  “Women! You’re always ganging up on me…” He thought about telling her that Ell had been picking on him too but decided that telling Carol that Ell had been by to visit might not be the best idea he’d had.

  “Well,” Carol said, “I’ve got some good news for you too.”

  “You found a Martian!”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re pregnant and we’re having the first Martian!” Phil said, even though they were on a strict birth-control regimen to make sure they didn’t bring a baby into the universe in a high radiation environment like Mars.

  “Nope, no such luck. This has to do with certain rocks someone found in the Valles Marineris.”

  “The assays came back?!”

  “Yep. You are now officially the discoverer of the ‘mother-lode’ of rare earth ore. Not only are we finding rare earths in higher concentrations than anywhere on earth, I still haven’t been able to find the ends of the deposit. It’s freaking enormous! Lots of neodymium!”

  ***

  Francine Miller watched as the Kinrais kid stumped his way up to the front of the class for his little speech. She’d asked each of the children to tell about someone they admired and why. Many of the kids had spoken about their mothers, some about their fathers, a few about generic firemen or police officers. Several of the boys had admired sports stars and one of the girls picked Ell Donsaii.

  Kinrais would be the last kid to present and Francine thought to herself that she was likely to be surprised by his choice. He usually did whatever the class called for, but a little bit better than any of the other kids. Sometimes he would startle her with a multisyllabic word that made her think he might be a lot smarter than he let on. For a while, she’d thought that his chubby physique and his bookish knowledge might lead the other kids, especially Jimmy Wright, to pick on him. But it hadn’t happened. Jimmy seemed to avoid him, but certainly didn’t harass him.

  Little Zage turned to face the class, “I admire a girl… Not a grown-up woman, but a girl my age. A girl who is nice to everyone around her even though they are cruel to her.”

  Francine swallowed. She immediately thought she knew where this was going and feared it could go somewhere terrible. She wondered if she should try to stop Zage. With a sense of awe, she realized he was looking each of the other children in the eye as he spoke.

  He continued, “This girl smiles at each person, even while they’re saying mean things to her or about her. If they play keep away, she simply goes and does something else. When they tried to avoid touching her for fear of ‘cooties,’ she shrugs and lets them avoid her… without saying bad things about them or telling her teacher. She doesn’t even point out that there isn’t any such thing as cooties.”

  Kinrais stopped to look around the room at the other kids again, then finished by saying simply, “I admire Nancy Jensen.”

  Francine’s eyes welled with tears as Zage walked over to Nancy, pulled her up out of her chair, and gave her the kind of clumsy hug that little boys dispense.

  A moment later little Marvin got up and gave Nancy a hug also. Then Mary and Diane got up out of their chairs! They approached Nancy, each gave her a hug and turned to look out at the rest of the classroom with the fierce eyes that socially dominant little girls can muster.

  In a few more minutes almost everyone in the class had given Nancy a hug.

  Francine had never seen anything quite like it. She had more expected Nancy’s low social standing to wear off on Zage than vice versa. Francine wondered what kind of force of personality Zage had that would let him do such a thing and be successful at it.

  Why hadn’t she recognized whatever charisma he had at work here?

  ***

  Dex coasted in to land at the shelter hie, Syrdian, and the children had been building. One of the meteorites stood there unmoving, a little ways in front of the doorway. Hie wondered if it had put itself there, or if one of the dalins had put it there? As hie stood in front of it pondering this question, it spoke to himr, “We need your help, or the help of another dalin.”

  “Okay,” hie said, thinking that in general the meteorites helped the dalins rather than vice versa. “What do you need?”

  “We would like to put up a device that will replace some of the missing sunlight. However, it needs to be anchored to the ground which is something that a meteorite cannot do.”

  “How would I attach it to the ground?”

  “Oh, you could attach it to a tree or a boulder. It doesn’t have to actually be attached to the ground itself. Just something that will keep it from flying away.” Suddenly the big fin on the meteorite turned translucent and an object fell out of it. “This is the device.”

  Dex studied it. It had a coiled rope at one end. At the end of the rope was a large thick disc made of meteorite material, then another, much smaller disc that was made out of the clear watery substance that the meteorites emitted light through. Finally came a piece of floppy material. Dex picked up the rope.

  The meteorite said, “We need you to tie that rope around a tree or boulder.”

  Dex cocked hies head, “Can I tie it to this boulder that my house is built against?

  “Yes, that would be fine.”

  Dex picked up the rope with its attached devices and turned to look at the boulder. Several other homes had been built against this particular boulder, but theirs was built against a craggy area that had an overhang. Hie found a big snag on the rock face that hie could tie the rope around. Once done hie gave it a couple of hard tugs to make sure it was secure, then turned to the meteorite, “Does that look good to you?”

  “Yes, it appears to be quite secure. The other end of it is about to get larger, please don’t let that worry you.”

  Dex turned to look at the floppy gray material at the far end just as, with a hissing sound, it started to expand and enlarge. It reminded himr of a water bladder filling with water. However this kept getting bigger and bigger, becoming significantly larger than a water bladder. Astonishingly, even before it got very large it began lifting up into the air. Once it became fairly full, it was tugging itself vigorously towards the sky and had pulled the rope to point straight upward.

  Dex stared at it. Another device that flew without flapping any wings! Suddenly the big bladder started to rise up into the sky! A fine shiny rope was coming out of the big disk.

  The meteorite said, “Can you see the small rope that is coming out of the device at the end of the big rope?”

  “Yes. It is very shiny. It’s beautiful!”

  “We’ve been worried. Do you think there’s any danger a dalin might fly into it by accident and be injured?”

  “I think it will be easy enough to see, but let me look at it from the air.” Dex beat into the air, circling around the shiny little rope. It truly was a thing of beauty the likes of which Dex had never seen before. Even when hie was fairly far away hie could still see it easily because of its sparkly surface. Hie circled back down to land by the meteorite. “No. It’s easy to see. No one will run into it by accident, but it’s so beautiful some may try to take it!”

  “Oh… That’s a problem we hadn’t considered. Can you talk to the tribe about it? It would be very difficult to cut that little rope because it has a much smaller rope inside of it that is extremely strong. But
a dalin might injure himrself trying to cut it.”

  “Sure, I can talk to them. Dalin’s can be surprisingly foolish about pretty things though.” Hie tipped hies head up to look up towards the floating bladder at the end of the fine rope. To hies amazement, it had ascended so high into the sky that hie could barely see it. It looked like it was just below the clouds and hie thought that some days when the clouds were lower it might actually be inside of them. How could so much rope be inside of that big disk hie wondered?

  As hie stared upwards hie noticed a glow appear at the bottom of the floating bladder. It gradually became brighter and brighter until it looked like a small sun up there in the sky.

  Dex blinked away from it and looked out around the surrounding area. It looked like the ground was brightly lit starting a little ways away from himr, but not right where hie was standing. In fact as hie looked around, hie realized there was a little area that was dimmer all the way around where the rope was coming down from the sky. It was as if the little sun was shining down all around himr, but not right on himr. With a squeal, the meteorite lifted up and flew out into the brighter area. After a moment, Dex walked out away from the rope and into the bright area himrself.

  Dex realized with amazement that the sunshine was quite a bit brighter out away from the rope. Hie could actually feel increased warmth coming from the new little sun. The real sun was shining down through the clouds and hie thought was actually providing more warmth than the little one, but because it wasn’t direct like the little sun below the clouds it didn’t seem to be as noticeable.

  The little sun dimmed slightly. Dex had been feeling a little bit too warm, but the dimming made it feel just about right. Hie’d been worried because it seemed too cold in this area before. Maybe it would be about right now?

  At D5R, Ell turned to Emma, “Using the video cameras as photoreceptors, Allan estimates that with the port at this duty cycle, the total incident light at the teecee’s new site has been boosted up to the same level as the light back at Goldie and Silver’s cave before the comet struck.”

  Emma was studying her screen. “It’s a good thing graphene is resistant to heat. Even with your little trick, building a doughnut port around the tension cable so that the port isn’t shining high intensity sunlight right on the cable, all that sunlight is heating the air around the cable enough to make the cable pretty hot. Hot enough that I’m still worried about some young fool of a dalin flying into the beam up high and getting fried.”

  “Yeah, I’m a little worried too. The AI we’ve got monitoring the beam should be pretty foolproof at turning it off if a dalin tries to fly into it at altitude.” Ell chewed her lip, “But I think I’ll ask Goldie to warn them to stay out of the beam up high though. That way, if one of them does manage to beat the AI and gets burned they’ll know he’s partly to blame. Do you think we ought to put up the rest of the lights now?”

  Emma grinned at her, “Let’s wait till tomorrow. This is going well and Murphy hasn’t had time to put her hand in yet. If nothing terrible has happened by tomorrow that’ll be soon enough to start putting out some more of the skylights.”

  Ell said musingly, “Do you think the tribe’s going to make it?”

  Emma leaned back in her chair, put her hands behind her head and said, “Yeah. They are.”

  Dex beat up into the air. Catching an updraft off the cliff to help gain even more altitude, hie looked out over the Yetany tribe’s new homeland.

  The new little sun the meteorite had given them lit a surprisingly vast area around the houses the Yetany were building. Far off in the distance, hie could see that the world remained dim from the dust in the sky, but here, where the little sun’s light fell, the world looked bright. Hie would swear it even looked a little greener than it had, though hie couldn’t imagine that a few deks of sunlight would already be enough to improve the health of the plants.

  Hie wondered whether the meteorites would give them more of the little suns so that they could improve the health of the plants even further away. As hie soared along hie saw the distinctive silvery wings of Syrdian sailing back towards their home camp. Hie suspected that the smaller wings accompanying himr were probably some of their children.

  A feeling of bliss came over Dex. The kind of bliss you have when you’re in love, or have just survived an attack by a talor.

  The kind of bliss that comes when dark despair has been lifted by a ray of hope.

  ***

  Warren shuffled in to the concert hall with the rest of the crowd. His mother had bought him a ticket to this concert as soon as she had heard that Stell was playing in Asheville.

  Warren hadn’t encountered Stell since that time when she had met him at the doctor’s office. Every time he went back to the doctor, he hoped that she might be there again, but she never had been. He wanted to tell her how happy he was to be able to see. And to thank her for putting him on the list to be the first patient treated.

  He’d even avoided looking at any pictures of her, wanting to tell her, when he first saw her, that it was the first time he’d seen her.

  However, as time had passed, Warren had begun to despair. Stell was busy, and famous, and probably had a boyfriend. He hoped that she might remember him if they did ever encounter one another, but he no longer felt sure that she would.

  At first, when his mother had given him the concert ticket, Warren had told her that he didn’t want to go. He told her he didn’t want to see Stell until it could be special.

  This was even though in his own mind he had already despaired of ever seeing her one-on-one again.

  Even though he’d decided that she had already moved on.

  His mother said in a choked voice, "Maybe… maybe you should think that it’s something special to see her at this concert. Don’t break your heart over her. She did something wonderful for you and she’s a really special person. You probably care a lot more about her than she does about you and you should accept that.”

  Warren had been staring down at the table, stricken with his own disappointment. Hearing his mother’s voice breaking up as she spoke, he looked up at her. His always cheerful mother, the one who’d gotten him through the depths of his despair back when he was blind, had tears pouring down her cheeks. Warren found himself wondering how many times she’d been crying in the past and he hadn’t even known it because of his blindness.

  “You should go,” she said. “Live your life. Stell might come back into it, but don’t let your life slide into tragedy just because she hasn’t.

  As Warren continued on into the concert hall he was surprised to realize that his seat was down on the main floor. His mother didn’t have a lot of money, and he had expected to be sitting up in the back of the balcony on one side. In fact as he followed the seat numbers he realized that he would be sitting in the middle of the main floor. It certainly wasn’t right down front, but it was a great seat! He was just one seat over from the main aisle.

  Warren settled in to his seat finding it strange to be at a concert without his mother. In the past, he’d always had to have someone lead him in and that had almost always been his mother who would then sit next to him through the concert. He knew people usually went to concerts with someone else and as he sat there by himself he could understand why. Despite being in the midst of a huge crowd he felt lonely.

  He wondered about the empty seat between his and the aisle. At first he had assumed that it had been sold to another person that wanted a single ticket, but as it remained open closer and closer to the start of the concert he wondered if they had been unable to sell it.

  The lights dimmed in the hall and Warren considered moving into the empty seat on the aisle where he’d be able to see just a little bit better. He decided to wait until the concert had started. This was a fortunate decision because at the last moment a girl strode up, sat down in the seat and tossed back the hood of her little sweatshirt. Up on the dark stage, a guitar started to pluck out the opening line of Forgiveness.
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  The girl was a pretty blonde. Warren wondered whether he’d have the courage to try to talk to her, but then she turned to him, grinned, and said, “I’ll bet you were about to steal my seat weren’t you?”

  Stell?! The voice was right, but it couldn’t be Stell, she’d be up behind the stage getting ready to sing! A spotlight came up on the stage, but no one was there. The spotlight slid slowly down the main aisle to stop right beside Warren’s row. Then it slid over to light the girl sitting next to him!

  She stood up pulled out a microphone and started to sing.

  Stell!!

  As she continued the first verse, Stell reached a hand out to Warren. He didn’t know what to do, but then she made a little wave evidencing her desire to have him stand up. Warren slowly stood, his heart pounding as he wondered what was going on. Stell reached out and took his hand pulling him out into the aisle with her.

  She finished the first verse, but then began speaking as the guitar continued gently progressing through the chords. “I’d like to introduce y’all to my friend Warren Dawson.” She chuckled, “I’m sure most of you will remember that when I started singing I was blind. D5R gave me my sight back and it was during that effort that they invented the contacts with HUDs in them that many of you are wearing.” She started walking down the aisle towards the stage towing Warren along by his hand. “My handsome friend Warren here was blind too. But his blindness wasn’t a simple problem with the cornea and lens like mine was. He’d had his eyes removed for cancer! Now he’s D5R’s first patient who’s had his optic nerve hooked up to cameras to let him see again!”

  Warren’s head whirled as she led him around to the stairs at the edge of the stage and then up onto it. They walked to the center of the stage and faced the audience. Stell continued, “But, I’ll tell you what. The most amazing thing isn’t that Warren is so handsome, and it isn’t that he’s a blind man who’s been given the power of sight. No, the most amazing thing… is that he can sing!”