Shivering World

by Kathy Tyers

  Yes, he ought to make his presence known, if only to remind Ari that he wasn’t conceding authority just yet. “I’ll wait here,” he said, “until you’re ready.”

  The man hustled back to the lineup, flicked off and on the range lights, then stood waiting for silence. Blasting noises died away, and women turned to look at the range instructor. “Holster your pistols,” he directed, “and stand at attention for review by Chairman DalLierx.”

  Varied female figures pulled their feet together, straightened their clothing, and slicked hair into their braids. He smiled as he watched.

  The instructor nodded. Lindon strode forward, wondering if he would ever feel completely comfortable wearing the mantle of authority. He had no militia experience except his own D-­group training. Consequently, he said nothing about disarrayed clothes or unfastened holsters, though he suspected untucked blouses were inappropriate. Ari could handle that. He knew many trainees by name. ID tags helped him with the rest of their faces.

  At the sight of one face—one very familiar face, staring straight forward with her chin tilted and a smirk on her lips—he stopped and grinned. “Well, hello, Crys.”

  His sister’s salute included a wink. “If Mother could see us now,” she said.

  Their parents had chosen to live at another settlement. Lindon laughed softly and walked on, reassured. Crystal was an excellent judge of character, and she’d sense any bad feelings directed his way. She would also let him know if Ari MaiJidda mishandled the D-­group.

  Ari was nowhere in sight, he realized. Had she delegated responsibility for today’s target practice? Looking around for her, he spotted a new long, pale gouge in the concrete floor. Huge crates were haphazardly piled low along the floor instead of high to the ceiling as he remembered them.

  There’d been an accident, he concluded. At least he could assume no one was hurt. He’d have heard about that.

  Almost at the far end of the line, he found himself staring at dark blond hair pulled back from a less familiar face.

  “Dr. Brady-­Phillips,” he exclaimed, trying to hide his shock. Why hadn’t he been told she was involved in D-­group? Surely Ari had warned the other women not to talk openly about certain things in her presence. “You’re . . .” You’re here seemed like a stupid thing to say. “How goes the practice?”

  “I’ve improved about 600 percent in three days.” She stood erect with her shoulders back and a twinkle lighting her silver-­blue eyes, looking much healthier than he remembered. “I’m pleased to be working with your people, Chairman DalLierx.”

  “Thank you,” he said, making a mental note to speak with Ari. Dr. B.P. must not be put in any position where she would hear too much. Nor must she be harmed. At least she’d been able to keep up with this training squadron.

  Crys. He already had a spy here, he realized. He would ask his sister to watch her.

  Quickly he moved on, finished reviewing the line, then returned to his spot at the back wall. The instructor signaled his class to start again.

  As the women resumed firing, Lindon eyed Graysha Brady-­Phillips from the awkward angle, then stepped along the rough wall to watch her target. She wasn’t doing poorly at all. Perhaps she’d trained with handguns before, at EB offices on Einstein. Maybe she was an EB nettech after all. The notion sent a spasm of fear up his spine.

  He pulled a deep breath, reminding himself that no one should be declared guilty without proof. The sight of twenty women shooting, even at clay targets, disturbed another of his protective instincts. “Hand-­eye coordination exercise, and a sense of unity, pride, and accomplishment,” had been secondary objectives of the pistol training program. Those, too, made logical sense. But he still was a man, and a man noticed certain things.

  With her back arched slightly, one arm barely dropped and the other held stiff, Graysha held her head cocked, concentrating down her sights. She had a wild beauty that her odd hair color enhanced

  Astonished to find himself thinking that way, he left the firing range and jogged back up to his office. A road-­building project needed attention this afternoon. Settling into his high-­backed chair, he was struck by one more thought: Graysha Brady-­Phillips was the only Gaea employee who’d bothered to join their rudimentary defense organization. She might have done so for purely innocent reasons—or as a spy. Not long ago, he’d hoped to send her away on the next shuttle.

  Now he wondered if they dared let her leave.

  Deviations

  Sarai mentioned Dr. Brady-­Phillips that night when Lindon visited their crèche. Seated on the other couch, Bee created eerie almost-­music on a borrowed vidharp. The triangular lap instrument constructed from spare electronic parts belonged to the colony school and was available for anyone over ten to check out.

  “I’ve seen her.” Sarai’s young voice sounded uncannily solemn. “Everybody in our crèche knew about her the day after she came. We saw her with the tall black lady. They looked like salt and pepper.”

  “She’s not well.” Lindon stretched out both legs on the central room’s brown couch and watched Bee play.

  As she gripped press points for chords along one edge, her right hand waved up and down the slick, clear central reading surface, where it broke a light path and set the pitch of melody notes. She seemed lost in her improvisation. The curve of her chin and her rapt stare at nothing visible reminded him sharply of watching Cassandra play.

  Fourteen terrannums ago, when they furnished their first apartment, Cass brought home a commercially produced vidharp, engraved on all three sides with a swirling knotted ribbon design. She sang to him the night Bee was conceived.

  From the floor beside him, Sarai leaned her head against his knee. “Then I like her even better,” she said. “I know what that’s like.”

  Graysha. Sarai was talking about another woman, not her own mother.

  Galled by the thought, he caught himself up short. How long had Cass been gone? Sarai had never even known her. “No, Princess,” he said, wishing the very thought of Cass didn’t made his chest ache. “You’re stronger than anybody thinks you are. Including you.” He kissed the top of her head. “Dr. Brady-­Phillips has a rare disease and shouldn’t stay here. She should go back to the habs, where the very best doctors are.”

  “We have very good doctors,” she said firmly.

  “Not the same kinds of doctors,” he answered.

  He dreamed of Graysha that night. She stood spread-­eagle in firing position, aiming one stiff finger for the horizon. Wind whipped her dark golden hair, and when she twitched her trigger finger, a broad green swath appeared on the ground, slowly fading to yellow.

  Alone under the polarized skylight, he woke craving the dream woman’s company. Hastily he sat up and waved on a lamp. He’d had nightmares about Graysha’s mother, but he hadn’t peaceably dreamed of another woman since Cass died eight terrannums ago. Why now, and why—of all people—Dr. Brady-­Phillips? He stared at the thin fiber rug covering his apartment’s concrete floor.

  Because, he decided, Sarai mentioned her. He was also concerned for her health. His subconscious mind had to be trying to reconcile that with the need to send her home and the worry about her possible EB ­connection—compounded by his own stress over the impending election. He lay back down, pulling a softly woven sheet over his shoulders. Dreams were creations of the mind, mixing and juxtaposing inappropriate images.

  He still felt vaguely guilty. Rolling over, he took the sheet with him and tried to push his face into a comfortable spot on his feather pillow.

  When Goddard was established, and when he had free time again, he must consider remarriage. The population must increase, and it was not good for a man to live alone. He had that on the highest authority.

  ―――

  The following evening, Graysha’s final night of training week, she joined Crystal and Duncan in the co-­op for dinner. Twilight filtered down through the long skylight. The few older crèches present ate quietly, and most tables wer
e lined with adults. Their backs presented an oddly regular pattern: short hair, pigtails, pigtails, short hair, up and down both benches.

  She felt strangely content, comfortable enough to accept her dinner invite before going home to sink-­bathe. Tonight the professional and cultural concerns she had shared with Jirina seemed downright superficial. How odd that physical exercise and one moment of crisis could link her so strongly to the Lwuite woman, when with Jirina there was a world to shape from bedrock up. Maybe humans, for all their cerebral posturing, were still more physically oriented than most cared to admit.

  Or maybe the difference was Crystal herself. She had a warmth and depth that went beyond Jirina’s playful intellectualism to a profound sense of contentment.

  Struck by the number of couples who arrived together, she finished brown rice and cheddar—a sticky dish, but tasty—and asked Crystal about the entering pairs.

  “It’s our ethic to job share with your spouse. It seems to work.” Crys glanced at Duncan, who was getting second cups of coffee from a glass-­sided tank. “But Duncan and I don’t have to spend all our time together. We’d both go crazy, I think.”

  “I’ve heard the same thing from retirees.” Graysha shrugged.

  “So have I. Anyway, there’s a lot of organized recreation, which tends to be women only or men only. It’s a chance to escape the person you work and sleep with. But working together keeps us in communication and almost doubles the work force.”

  “That’s why baby farming is such an important part of your economy?”

  “I guess so.”

  “How did you meet Duncan?” Obviously, Crystal had done a better job of spouse hunting than Graysha, with her chemistry-­lab flirtation.

  “Our parents thought we might get along, and if that isn’t archaic, I don’t know what is. I was sixteen when we married, almost eight terrannums ago, and I still enjoy his company. It’s a secret, but—” as she trailed off, her eyes flicked down through a net of sudden smile lines—“I’m two months along again.”

  “Congratulations,” Graysha mumbled. How ironic. As one biological clock coated her capillary walls, a different clock molded life in Crystal’s womb. There was a name for this ache: “Earth-­womb fever” was a barb perennially leveled at unattached females in the life sciences.

  “Were you ever married?” Crystal asked.

  “Briefly,” Graysha murmured. “He was extremely intelligent but very critical. Apparently I didn’t meet his expectations. He left.”

  Crystal rubbed her upturned nose. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was for the best, I suppose.” Graysha spooned thoughtfully into bread pudding studded with raisins. “I’d guess you’re glad to be planetside, too, out of the radiation, if baby farming is so important to your colony. Fewer chances for new genetic problems.”

  Crystal’s startled look seemed to confirm Graysha’s hopes.

  “Strange, though, isn’t it?” Graysha pressed on. “Once, it was Earth’s wrecked atmosphere that gave people cancers and chromosome breakage. Nowadays, genefects are the price we pay for living in space.”

  “Oh. Genefects.” Crystal took a forkful of sweet-­potato pie. “That’s right. You’re—”

  “Yes,” Graysha interrupted, but she kept her voice casual. “Back at Newton where I was born, we’re starting to have quite a few show up. Was it that way with your people?”

  Crystal tapped her fork against her plate and said, “Forgive me, I’d forgotten.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Graysha insisted. There it was again, the willingness to discuss any question but the one she really asked. “You have no idea what it’s like to work at terraforming a planet,” she plunged ahead, “when it’s illegal to fix your own broken chromosomes.” If only Crystal would quietly say, “Yes, I do.”

  Instead, she answered, “I guess I’ve never worried much about genetics.” She flicked her bangs. “I mean, worrying won’t change anything, will it?”

  Graysha hesitated. That answer didn’t fit the pattern she expected, not at all. If the Lwuites recruited settlers who needed gene-­healing, Crystal surely would have feelings one way or the other. “You’re lucky to have . . . what you have. I’m going to miss you, and the others in D-­group.”

  Crystal’s wide, wary eyes seemed to relax. “We’ll run into each other,” she said. “Axis Plantation isn’t all that big, and I have a lot of freedom in this job. I can take my crèche on field trips.”

  Was that a hint? Graysha pictured a troop of primaries marching through the Gaea building’s halls, and she declined to answer.

  At least, she decided, she’d planted a seed in Crystal’s mind. Or had she? Did Crys understand what she’d meant?

  This could be her last chance. “Crys,” she blurted as Duncan started back across the wide room, carrying two steaming cups, “is it true you people . . . help genefective individuals? Before you say anything, I want you to know this is not for the infamous Novia Brady-­Phillips. I want to know for me. For me alone.”

  “No.” Crystal’s sympathetic expression faded to blank, and for one moment, her somber eyes darkened like Lindon DalLierx’s. “No, we never have. I’m sorry, Graysha.”

  Graysha slumped on the bench, sensing she’d risked—and ruined—her chances, her hopes, even her budding friendship with Crystal DalDidier. “I’d heard a rumor, you see,” she said quickly, then added, “I haven’t mentioned even that to Novia, and I won’t. You have my word.” Graysha smiled up at Duncan, who stepped up to the table and set down his mugs. “Maybe I’ll see you at the refresher session next Dropoff, Crys. Hope so.” She stretched out her legs under the concrete table. They felt stronger than they’d felt a mere four circs ago. “I hope I can stay in shape.”

  “Lots of us jog the hub, evenings. Thanks, Dunc.” Crystal sipped her coffee, then stood up. “They keep the hub cool, fifteen or so. Comfortable for running.”

  Duncan swatted a young boy whose offense Graysha hadn’t seen, then touched Crystal’s arm. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Graysha, I’ve been meaning to ask something, and it’s never come up. Before you leave us, tell me whatever you can about these recent deviations from our expected temp.”

  Goddard’s cooling, rumor number two. Graysha exhaled sharply. “I’ve found out just about nothing, and that’s despite the fact that I’ve made a real pest of myself asking. It’s almost like there’s a . . .” Did she dare use the word? Well, why not? It felt this way. “. . . Like there’s a conspiracy,” she finished, then realized how lame it sounded.

  Duncan cradled his mug two-­handed. “Will you let us know if anything comes up?”

  She looked from Crystal—vibrant, young, and too busy with her children to risk telling secrets—to Duncan, who, like Graysha, had dared to ask a potentially dangerous question. “Well, yes,” she said. “I’ll do anything I can, and I’ll start by keeping a watch on the Gaea net.”

  Duncan nodded solemnly. “We’d owe you for that, Graysha.”

  Was he saying . . . did he mean . . . ?

  As Graysha’s head whirled with unanswered questions, Duncan and Crystal carried out their coffee mugs.

  Twenty preadolescents arrived late at the door and stampeded for the food line. Graysha walked to the dump window and left her dishes with the short-­haired teener inside.

  Enough browncloth. It was time she got back to work and her own professional circle. It would be good to see Jirina again and to catch up with new developments in the lab.

  And that reminded her she still hadn’t reported back to Dr. Lee about the Lwuite philosophy that made them gun carriers. She whirled away from the dump window, almost bumping a tray-­carrying woman behind her.

  Could she speak frankly with Dr. Lee? Four days with the Lwuites had made a staggering shift in her perspective. She’d gone to D-­group as a spy—not for Novia, but a spy nonetheless. Now her concern was chiefly for Goddard.

  Maybe a few days with the Gaea people would restore her earlier pers
pective. As she plodded out into the green-­smelling hub, she reminded herself that genetic healing wouldn’t clear her capillary system anyway. It would merely let her have children who didn’t carry the defective gene—and what would that matter, since she had no husband?

  Global cooling, though—that mattered. If the Goddard project might succeed through her efforts, she could leave a legacy to Crystal and Duncan and their people. She had a fighting chance at that.

  Fighting . . . Yes, she decided as she marched past a bed of bright yellow flowers. She’d better report the handguns. If Dr. Lee heard about them later, from someone else, she’d want to know why Graysha didn’t report them.

  Varberg probably had several new bacterial strains to farm out, too. A plague on geneticists—some of them certainly deserved one.

  She passed south through the utilitarian concrete arch into the echoing Gaea tunnel, found her own door, and waved her key across the reader. Emmer uncurled on the pillow as if to greet her. Smiling, she stirred the potpourri under her browncloth hanging, laid her duffel beside her desk lamp, and then noticed a message light blinking on her console.

  To her surprise, it was a personal letter carried by shipboard computer from Einstein, then sent on by laser pulse from Copernicus Hab.

  17 October 2133

  Gray—

  How then is life at Halley? Are the students any more grown-­up than the crowd at King Pre-­Coll? How’s the air? Our exalted supe got caught dipping into air-­tax money. About time they threw him out the lock.

  I miss you. Now that you’re on Gaea salary, spend a few maxims and answer right away—at length.

  Always,

  Luce

  Graysha shook her head at the screen. She and Lucile Coyote, languages teacher at the high school, had shared countless coffee breaks. She calculated backward on her fingers: a month transit Einstein to Halley, two more en route to Copernicus, roughly a week to cross the Eps Eri system. This letter had been chasing her for over three months, and Luce wouldn’t hear back until Graysha’s first G-­year was half over.