Receptors perked, she shrugged off the lethargy induced by days of miserable weather and reluctant babysitting. The smaller juveniles hadn’t been able to clear the front and were forced to take the brunt of the storm at twenty thousand meters. Of course the adults had remained at the same altitude to provide comfort and reassurance. It had been a fatiguing chore.
Now pods to the south and west were chatting happily in unbroken sunshine, their photosynthetic skins pulsing with living green as they renewed energy reserves. Soon her own group would be in the clear as well. Still listening, she quickened the pace of descent at the thought of the three missing young ones. In all likelihood they were simply off exploring, but each year the monsoons tore and grounded careless calves, and she was anxious for their safety.
Perhaps this was the keening of a semi-conscious, wounded child.
But that seemed a dubious explanation. Although this speaker used basic speech protocol, its IDs were pure fantasy. 171171971 of 13098973? There was no such pod—and even if there were, it couldn’t be big enough to justify such a personal number. Besides, 1291 had never known a skyfriend to skip across wavelengths in such a random, choppy fashion, even in the throes of a terminal bursting. And in decoded form, the data she was hearing was unpunctuated nonsense.
Baffled, she pulsed her tutu rhythmically, aligned to a magnetic band, and morphed to take maximum advantage of the offshore breeze that blew toward the foothills where the signal originated.
When she drew close enough for radar imaging, all she saw was a little earthbound, too ugly to qualify as a morning snack. She hung uncertainly, a blush of deep purple washing across the green scaliness of her underbelly and tentacles.
The signal was there, stronger than ever. But earthbounds couldn’t speak. The very suggestion was ridiculous.
She broadcast a tentative salutation.
No response.
The earthbound lurched across the ground. Was it just her imagination, or was the signal shifting with it? Maybe its auditory range was constrained above the standard bands, nearer to where its own queer babblings seemed to concentrate... Again she broadcast a greeting, this time higher and at maximum power.
The chatter ceased and the earthbound seemed to twitch and then freeze. 1291 turned pink with astonishment. Had it heard her? What sort of creature was this? Pod mythology mentioned speaking earthbounds, but only in the same accounts with animate clouds and mountains—she had never credited it as anything other than fanciful storytelling.
As 1291 pondered, her receptors suddenly picked up the sounds of calves frolicking in the distance. Curiosity gave way to pleasure at the prospect of a quick return to food and socializing with the rest of the pod. She swelled to sky away from the bizarre chatter, and soon her radar imaged the first of the errant calves rounding a hilltop to join her in the boundless blue.
She signaled a stern but tolerant reprimand and sailed toward them with maternal efficiency. She’d come back to this mystery later.
11
Julie brushed sandwich crumbs from the countertop and set her dishes in the sink, the tang of aged cheddar and rye still strong on her tongue.
Mechanically she rinsed the milkiness from her glass, ran water, and then sank her hands into the hot suds. Through the window, she glimpsed flashes of the denim-clad twins frolicking in the loft of the barn. A draft of April air floated in, cool enough to make her shiver. Her hands squeaked faintly against the glassware.
Last night’s storm was still brooding overhead, darkening the new growth that tipped tree branches and framed the muddy flower beds around the farmhouse. Puddles glinted a dull, opaque bronze from the rutted driveway where a tractor rested in stolid defiance of the weather.
Her father had been up before sunrise to milk the cows. She’d heard him pull on his heavy boots and jacket and thump out as she struggled with her own insomnia. Now she caught snatches of halfhearted cussing as he fumbled with tools on the far side of the John Deere. He’d had the hood up since breakfast.
Unbidden, her eyes wandered from the windowsill, flickered over the scarred cutting boards and the ceramic cookie jar that said “Love at Home”, and came to rest on Rafa’s letter.
It lay unopened atop the divorce papers she’d been procrastinating all morning.
She looked away.
When the last cup was neatly stacked in the cupboards, Julie pulled up a stool, pushed the letter aside, and sorted through the waiting pile of forms with wrinkled fingers.
They said the same thing they had an hour earlier.
Unhappily she fetched a pen and began to sign, careful to keep her eyes from the hand-labeled envelope with the California postmark.
Julie S. Orosco.
She wrote it without thinking, then smiled bitterly at the surname that came as second nature. She’d debated about going back to Sterlyn. Predictably, her mother was all for it. But Julie felt ambivalent; apart from the desire to have the same name as her girls, she wasn’t ready for a wholesale repudiation of the life she’d begun on her wedding day.
It wasn’t so much an allegiance to Rafa, she told herself—it was a recognition that marriage and motherhood had become dimensions that were indivisible from the rest of her self.
Julie Sterlyn was simply not all of who she was.
Her pen finished its glum scratching and landed atop the sheaf of paperwork in an untidy pile. Julie pushed it away and eyed Rafa’s letter once again. Sooner or later she had to open it, if for no other reason than to pass on anything he’d enclosed for Lauren and Kyrie.
She picked it up.
It was flimsy. Light. No surprise there—Rafa had never been long on words. Wandering slowly out onto the porch, she worked a finger under the overlap and tore open the envelope. The stamp seemed to stare reproachfully; Rafa’s terse but welcome love notes had never needed postage.
Unwittingly her feet took her to the swing that hung from the patriarchal weeping willow by the driveway. Sitting down on the damp oak seat and rocking forward, she blew to make room for her fingers and withdrew a single sheet of paper.
The branches overhead creaked softly.
Dear Estrellita, it began. Angrily she brushed back tears and shook her head. Emotional already. She pushed harder against the ground, then leaned back and kicked out, her gaze lost in the budding green above. In a minute the saline blur was gone and she looked down again, ignoring the ground spinning dizzily beneath her.
Dear Estrellita—
I will not contest the terms of the divorce. As you can imagine I am sad. But I understand.
You might want to delay a little while. You and the girls will be better off if I die while we’re still married.
I had my intake physical a few days ago and will be leaving for a two-week training tomorrow. It will be a relief—prison has been a nightmare.
I am worried about Mamá. I try to write, but I’m afraid she can’t see well enough to read my letters. And she must be very lonely. Would you visit her for me?
Please tell Palomita and Mariposa that I love them.
I am sorry this is so short. I have a million thoughts in my heart, but you know I am not much of a talker.
—Rafael
As she finished, a flood of confusion and grief welled up from a region of Julie’s heart that she had attempted to lock away, and she began to sob convulsively.
She wept for her own innocence, shattered by a vicious crime against a stranger; for Lauren and Kyrie, who would someday retain only vague recollections of the man who sang them to sleep and taught them to pray; for Rafa’s mother, abandoned in an antiseptic, impersonal institution with no son to brighten her days. She wept for herself, a widow to selfishness and hate, doubt and recrimination.
Had she been foolish to stay away from the trial once she reached the heart-rending conclusion that Rafa was guilty? Already she regretted the lack of closure, the emptiness of saying goodbye by proxy.
Who would her daughters convict on the evidence when they we
re old enough to judge: her, or Rafa? Would their cries for a father always haunt her dreams?
Elemental anger burned back in reaction to the doubt. How could she be torturing herself like this? It only increased the damage from Rafa’s crime, made her an accomplice to her own destruction.
He was the one who had betrayed his family, forsaken daughters and mother, and violated her trust and his wedding vows. Julie’s fingers curled into a fist, crushing Rafa’s letter to a tight ball. Her life had been gentle and happy until the decision to divorce. She was a stranger to hate. Now she welcomed its searing pulse, stepped deliberately into the laser focus and waited to be consumed.
But instead the venom flickered and was gone, taking with it the fire, the ice, and the whimper. All that remained was a persistent, ephemeral melancholy and the nagging practical concerns that a newly-single mother could not escape.
Rafa imagined he was saving the house with the inflated paycheck he was supposedly earning. He thought his sacrifice would be to her benefit.
Oh, noble, very noble. He might have thought of that before murder came between them.
Of course he didn’t see the “past due” section at the bottom of his legal bills, wasn’t aware that the university had revoked all benefits, had no idea that their accounts were frozen while the government reclaimed ill-gotten gains. Maybe he would underwrite college for the twins—if he managed to live long enough—but in the meantime, it was Julie’s parents keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads.
Even if Julie had been able to tap their modest savings account, would she do it? How much had it been used over the years to satisfy Rafa’s love interest and eventual victim? Or worse, how much had it grown from his crimes or even her contributions? The thought made her sick.
She had to take Rafa’s money when it finally started flowing, if she ever wanted to escape the bills from his lawyers—and hers. Could she bring herself to accept it?
She’d already given up on the house. In a way, it was just as well: she wasn’t looking forward to reinhabiting a place stiff with unhappy memories. Better to sell everything. Rafa’s clothes, tools, trophies, books. The sandbox and tree house and swing set. The fireplace. The bed.
Better to buy something small and secluded where she was a stranger.
But it still hurt to walk away from what had once been a happy home. It felt like giving up. It was giving up.
It was also being practical. If she wanted to support herself and the twins after Rafa died, cutting expenses was a necessity. She’d been doing freelance translation for years, sending and receiving documents by email. As a home business it was pleasant but not especially lucrative; with diligence and some luck it might save her the tedium of lipstick and high heels and daycare and an impersonal cubicle in the corporate people mill. Of course, luck had not been on her side much, lately.
Sighing, Julie pulled up the oft-neglected planner on her phone and looked up realtors near their suburb in California. Time to list the house and get it over with. She picked one at random and fired off a quick email asking for an appointment, wishing even as she did so that she’d procrastinated instead.
As she cleared the screen a flashing reminder caught her eye. “Save Rafa for twins?”
Julie had written the note herself, but for several seconds she couldn’t remember what it meant. All she could think of was the literal meaning and its irony. Save him, indeed. Wouldn’t that be nice?
She looked at the date again, and suddenly the significance dawned on her. Today was the first day Rafa’s viking broadcasts—that portion that MEEGO was required to release as a token perquisite to immediate family—would be freely available. He’d asked her to save a copy for Lauren and Kyrie.
She wasn’t certain it was a good idea. Was this the best way to remember their father—living out his death throes on a violent world, surrounded by the dregs of humanity? No matter how the company scrubbed for public consumption, it was bound to be unpleasant.
Yet neither could she bring herself to deny the request. Not out of hand, anyway.
Tonight she’d preview the broadcast and make a decision.
12
By the time their shift was over, the sun had been down for hours. Rafa stumbled through the main hatch, scarred by the excavating claws of the mining probe, tramped across the commons, and sagged wearily into the alcove where his bunk should have been.
The mattress now hung uselessly overhead. Some of the others had cut theirs down, but he was too tired to make the attempt. His head was still ringing from the bizarre explosion of noise that had knocked him out for a few minutes during the day. Earthside had no explanation.
Most of the crew was already sprawled around the room, eyes glazed with hunger and fatigue, their boots and coveralls leaving muddy trails on the slanted former ceiling where lights now glowed. Rafa was surprised to see one man kneeling in a corner, whispering and genuflecting with his eyes closed.
The kid with the nose rings and ever-present lollipop was fingering a rosary while he read a comic book. He nodded up at Rafa.
“What’s your story?” Rafa asked reflexively. He didn’t really expect an answer; nobody on the crew seemed to like him, and the feeling was definitely mutual. But he’d had so many students about this kid’s age that he couldn’t help the attempt at interaction.
The candy made a popping sound as it emerged. “The usual: bad guys duke it out with a muscle-bound hero while the babe waits in suspense.”
“Sounds exciting.” Rafa failed to keep the contempt out of his voice.
“Stupid, you mean.” But the kid didn’t sound offended. “Hey, I need an escape. World could use a few heroes.”
I could use a babe waiting in suspense, Rafa thought.
There was an open box of ration packets in the center of the floor. It looked emptier than when he’d seen it at lunch time, but not much—apparently the craving for physical rest was taking precedence over the desire for food. He noticed Compton picking over some sort of jellied fruit that vaguely resembled peaches, and he winced in sympathy.
Exhaustion hung heavy in the air, and at first its mind-numbing effects prevented Rafa from heeding Chen’s plodding motions as she knelt in front of one reclining viking after another. Eventually it registered that she had dispensed pills of some sort to several of his crewmates.
What did that mean, he wondered morosely—alien bacteria at work already?
Was it his imagination, or did that guy’s face look especially flushed, possible even a little splotchy? He did a quick assessment of his own condition, but found it impossible to distinguish between fatigue and any nascent symptoms he might have.
Whemper did not appear to have the same problem. Between bites of dinner he was complaining loudly about the rigors of the day and how he had a sore throat and migraine, the unquestionable result of extraterrestrial parasites that would soon attack the rest of the crew. Nobody heeded his little melodrama, perhaps because they were repulsed by glimpses of his half-chewed meal through nicotine-stained teeth and felt no sympathy toward his demand for neural stimulation to mask the pain.
Chen tossed Whemper a packet of pain reliever on her way to Fazio’s bunk. The big man had been sleeping off his surgery all day long, not once emerging from the module. Rafa was inclined to suspect his sedation had been prolonged to avoid more fireworks with Heward.
If that had been Chen’s strategy, its effectiveness was over. Rafa heard a snarl, saw his muscular arm swat away Chen like an annoying pest. The next minute Fazio was on his feet glaring around the room, his throat yellowed with iodine and swathed with bloody gauze. He made a futile, hoarse, wheezing attempt to speak, then swayed unsteadily and sat back down with a lurch, his eyes full of malice.
At the same moment, Heward walked in and perched on a convenient spot, eyeing the group coldly.
“Well, well, Sleeping Beauty is finally with us again. Have a nice nap?”
Fazio responded with a sullen glare.
/> Heward snorted and lifted a finger. “I’ll have some of the peaches, Compton.”
The woman shoved the ration box in Heward’s direction without meeting his gaze. He dragged it closer with his toe, retrieved a meal packet, and continued to survey the crew with unhurried arrogance.
“How about a medical report, Chen?” Heward spoke casually, but there was an implied rebuke in his tone, a hostility that annoyed Rafa.
The lines around Chen’s high cheekbones deepened into a frown. “I thought Earthside would keep you posted.”
Heward made no response except a steady, demanding stare.
“Nickerson and Rosetti are complaining of abdominal cramps and dizziness. They both have a mild fever and rapid pulse. Earthside thinks they’ve got a local infection of some sort. Not much we can do except give antibiotics and hope for the best. Whemper and Carlsson have headaches and nausea. Might be the same thing. Might not.”
Heward eyed Whemper speculatively. “I doubt it,” he said. “You’d be surprised how many different species of bug you can get exposed to in an hour of EVA. On my last mission three guys got the runs. One got better, one died from internal hemorrhage an hour later, and one ended up puking green worms. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”
When Whemper’s face blanched, Heward burst into laughter. “Don’t be a fool! You think I’d re-enlist if it had really been that bad? I’m more worried about the big monsters than the little creepy crawlies. DNA from Earth doesn’t usually mix very well on other planets. Same principle that keeps you from catching a virus from potatoes in your garden.”
Rafa shook his head. Maybe Heward was making up his biological tale of terror, but it wasn’t as far-fetched as he claimed. Before enlisting, Rafa had spent hours in the prison library researching the public records of other viking missions. Some of them read like scripts of a grade B horror vid.
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