Shivering World

by Kathy Tyers

  “No, I don’t. And I’d appreciate your keeping what I just told you a secret.”

  Jirina made a sealing gesture over her mouth.

  “Thanks.”

  “What happened to Paul? I thought he lit your fire.”

  Am I that obvious? Graysha wondered. “He’s still around,” she admitted.

  “Don’t forget,” Jirina said, “that sweeting with a colonist would have some pretty serious ramifications—such as the privilege of living on Goddard, Eps Eri System, Nowhere, for the rest of your life. And your life isn’t going to be so short that you shouldn’t spend it in the nicest place possible.”

  Graysha laughed, glad Jirina had learned to speak casually about the illness that drove so many of her friends into a pained silence. “Thank you, Black Goddess.”

  ―――

  The next morning, Graysha decided it was high time she rechecked the water purification plant. Paul’s invitation leaped into her mind, and she seriously considered it for about one second. It took five minutes to pack Mahera’s black box with materials she might need, and she was gone.

  Walking up the corry, she found herself relaxing in anticipation of the green, fertile environment. The colonists had the hub for a parkland, which was pretty enough, but if a person wanted solitude, already she preferred the waste marsh.

  She let the door clang shut after her and took a deep breath of warm, moist air. Overhead, bands of light gleamed to simulate daytime. There was a new odor today, bracing and sweet. Eyeing the raceways, she spotted a clump of tiny white flowers blooming on miniature spikes. A jungle would smell like this, she guessed. Kneeling near the door, she drew a water sample from that raceway with a sterile pipette, paused a moment with one finger over the top of the tube to marvel at the clarity of what had been sewage effluent mere days before, then dropped the sample into a labeled nutrient tube.

  “Hello?” called a man’s voice.

  Startled, Graysha clutched the nutrient tube. Had Paul learned to lurk? No, that didn’t sound like him. Maybe one of the colonists had discovered this place. “Good morning?” she answered cautiously, backing closer to the door, carefully tucking the broth tube into her pack.

  From the first branch in the path, Lindon stepped onto the straight walkway. He wore a loose hand-­knit red sweater that was fading with age.

  “Good morning,” she repeated, heartily this time. “You caught me at work. Do you come here often?”

  He tugged down the sweater’s hem. “Occasionally.”

  “When you want to be alone,” she guessed. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I’ll get my samples and leave. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “Oh no, don’t hurry.” He walked closer. “Would you mind my watching?”

  Amused, she opened the pack again. “You won’t find this particularly interesting, but you’re welcome to watch.” She strode straight up the long walk toward a fluorofoam raft of wire-­braced tomato plants. He followed. She knelt, pulling out a fresh pipette. Several of the tomato plants had star-­shaped yellow flowers with a faintly acrid odor.

  To her astonishment, Lindon knelt, too. He touched a blossom with one finger, flicked it up and down, then reached for another.

  Graysha drew her sample. “What are you doing?”

  “Tickling,” he said. “Pollinating, actually.”

  “Why doesn’t the fruit mature? I’ve won—” She broke off the word, realizing there could be only one answer.

  Lindon grinned. “Because greedy colonists pick them green, take them home, and let them ripen.” He rocked back on his heels. “Wastewater fruit isn’t budgeted into our food allowances. The few of us who know about it covet it for one another.”

  For one another? What a remarkable idea.

  Graysha did a reverse knee bend back to her feet. “Now the marsh,” she said, leading down the path. Paul Ilizarov’s label, “too pretty,” floated back to the top of her consciousness. The man had beautiful eyes, framed with long dark eyelashes and exotic slanting brows . . .

  And she was rebounding from Ellard, hungry for male companionship—particularly sympathetic, intelligent, generous male companionship. Lindon DalLierx had a plantation to administer. She must create a lifetime’s legacy in forty or fifty short years.

  But there it was. She’d admitted it to Jirina, so now she had to admit it to herself. It would be easy to think too much, too often, about this man.

  At any rate, he would never trust or accept her now. He knew about her EB involvement, and he had something to hide.

  And he was praying for her, like Novia.

  For the moment, she must enjoy their fragile truce. She knelt beside the grove of green cattails, keenly aware that this time he remained standing over her. Brown leather shoes and heavy browncloth trouser cuffs stood at the edge of her field of vision.

  “When I despair of seeing Goddard bloom”—his voice came as she drew more water—“I come down here. If terrestrial plant life flourishes in the worst waste, that gives me hope for the wild.”

  “I haven’t made much progress on the cooling issue,” she said softly, looking up, “but that’ll take time. Now I have to check the aeration tanks.”

  Pocketing both hands, he strolled up the walk and around the corner toward the massive cylinders along that wall. By the time she caught up, he’d already opened a sampling port. “Icch.” He wrinkled his nose. “Hurry.”

  “You aren’t supposed to open that,” she said, attaching a clickdraw to the final pipette, “until I get here.” She sucked up a few drops and nodded. Lindon screwed the sampling port shut as she dropped the sewage into her last tube. “There,” she said firmly.

  He leaned against the tank, which rose almost to the high ceiling.

  “What do you do with those samples?”

  Was he speaking as an administrator, she wondered, or was he just curious? “Certain bacteria ought to be present at each stage of the treatment, breaking organic molecules down, then down again. I’ll send these samples through either a DNA scanner or a ‘smart’ filter programmed to recognize bacteria by the molecules in their cell walls. If any of the good bugs are missing, I’ll reinoculate the appropriate waterway.” Aware she was addressing the gravel walk, she raised her chin and saw Lindon nodding. “I’d train Trevarre to do it, but I like coming here.”

  “I understand.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “How is the boy?”

  “Doing well.” Graysha strolled back toward the cattails. “Trev’s bright. Undereducated, though, and obviously unloved. I’ve seen kids like him, rebels for no reason. If you can make them care about what they’re doing, they’re just as strong-­minded about their work as they were about rebellion.”

  “That sounds wise.”

  She shrugged. “Just good teaching technique.”

  “There are good teachers and those who don’t care. I think you were one of the first group.”

  She turned her head away, hoping he wouldn’t see her smile.

  “Did you ever get out of him what he’s doing here?”

  She had promised to keep Trev’s secret. How much could she say? Reflected skylight streamed through the cattails from behind, giving the illusion of natural greenery. Grandma Brady would have loved this place. “He’s . . . running from a bad home situation.”

  Lindon paused to tap the side of the next glass tank. The water inside this one, green with algae, roiled with shrimp and tiny fish. “Too much wealth, I’d say from the little we talked.”

  Excellent guess, but she couldn’t say so. “Were you . . . planning a campaign speech for the election?”

  “I was thinking things through. Making sure I believed I was the person for the position. I couldn’t campaign honestly if I wasn’t sure I deserved my people’s confidence.”

  “What were you really doing?” She hoped she didn’t sound scornful. “Praying?”

  “No.” His voice fell, as if he were ashamed to deny it. He stared at the path pebbles as he walked on. “Som
etimes it’s hard to get an accurate perspective on my own desires. Sometimes I want a thing so badly that it would be hard to hear God’s directive if He wanted otherwise. My comfort is that if I’m serving consciously, in all the ways He commands, my desire probably is right.”

  Maybe there was no Lwuite faith, but plainly this was a religious man. Just as plainly, he couldn’t be CUF. He never hinted that he held the human organism sacred. “You probably think of me as an unbeliever,” she said. “I’m not, not exactly.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re not a member of any church.”

  “Oh?” This guess, as accurate as the other, made her strangely uncomfortable. Really, she shouldn’t care. “What makes you say that?”

  “What would you be doing here, so far from your communion?”

  “Good point. I . . .” She fumbled for words. “I would like to know more about your beliefs. Not for Novia,” she added hastily, “for myself. But I realize I’m trespassing by asking about them. Would you prefer not to answer?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  She bit the inside of her lip, wishing she hadn’t mentioned her mother. Oh well. So much for that opportunity.

  “I don’t think it would do any harm to warn you,” he added, “that you’re being watched for any attempt to contact her. Please don’t.”

  She laughed harshly. “I don’t want to. I swear it.”

  “Good.” He glanced toward the door, then looked back into her eyes. “What happened at the firing range? You were going to tell the committee, but Vice-­Chair MaiJidda stopped you.”

  Oh, mercy. Did she dare . . . did she want to accuse Ari MaiJidda, now that she’d cleared herself of conscious EB involvement? MaiJidda no longer had cause to fear her. “Some mild leg cramps,” she said. That was part of the truth, at least. “I had to move suddenly. Ask Crystal. She was there.” She skipped back to the previous subject. “And whether or not you’re the deity’s man for the job, good luck in your election.” She adjusted her shoulder strap. “And thanks for your help.”

  “I didn’t do anything, really.”

  Why are you people so afraid of the Eugenics Board? She wanted to shout it at him. Instead, she waved and walked out.

  ―――

  Even the primitive little dugout they’d given Trev for an apartment had a Gaea net terminal. He bent to examine a news burst that evening. +Search,+ he ordered, as he always did, and then, +LZalle.+

  Usually, a burst took ten or twelve seconds to scan. He stroked his mustache hairs while waiting, wondering if his father—

  +LZALLE+ It appeared almost instantly. +Blase LZalle and Solar Blases. Tour Canceled . . . +

  Chilled, he read on. Within two weeks of Trev’s departure, Blase had called off his tour, offering as explanation a “family emergency.”

  Chips. Oh chips, chips, chips. He raised a fist to pound his desk, realized once he started the downswing that he was about to hurt himself, and tried too late to pull the stroke. “Eesssh,” he hissed through his teeth, shaking the painful hand.

  You ought to be honored, he reflected grimly. Look how many maxims the old man gave up for his ugly kid.

  Holding the aching hand against his chest, he stroked it.

  But the old man’s desire was to make Trev into a file copy of himself, to hide the born ugliness he passed to his son . . . and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Trev had to dig in. His father might not be far behind him. He had four or five spare hours every day, after work and before sack time, hours he currently wasted reading articles for Graysha. He’d agreed to report two days from now to Ari MaiJidda’s green room, but he ought to be investing more time in the colonists, “making himself valuable,” as Graysha put it.

  Hastily he keyed over onto a chores-­wanted directory. Off-­site work would be best. It was hoping too much to think Gaea might let him transfer to another Goddard locale, but if he wanted to hide, it couldn’t be at Axis. Axis’s spacefield made access too easy. Prospectors and explorers were out there in the wild, some Lwuites and some working for Gaea. Didn’t any of them need part-­time help?

  Evidently not, he soon realized. But here was a listing, placed by a Yukio HoBrace—a Lwuite tech, working for the Consortium—and it looked like this Yukio needed someone with just about Trev’s qualifications.

  It also involved travel. Ignoring his hand’s rhythmic throbbing, Trev punched up the advertised net code.

  In Conference

  Lindon knocked on the door of an aboveground dwelling, then thrust his hand back into his warm pocket. While waiting, he gazed out into the Sunday cold. Heavy machinery was operating somewhere. Grinding and pummeling noises competed from two directions. Shimmering breath condensed near his face. Across the track, which would be a street one day, two more rows of yellow-­tan brick houses stretched north and south. A blockhouse at the end of this row provided tunnel access.

  The door behind him opened with a pressurized whoosh.

  He spun around. “Mrs. TollHeyer?”

  She reminded him of his mother, with a halo of salt-­and-­pepper braids and a straight-­shouldered poise that suggested she, too, had left behind a prosperous life. “Come in,” she said, “please. I’ll have tea for you and Vice-­Chair MaiJidda in a moment.”

  “Thank you.” He pulled off his coat. His hostess seized it and vanished into another room.

  Her living room measured about three meters by four. Windows of Goddard-­made, nonpolarized triple-­pane glass provided a view of open sky. No pictures hung on the room’s white walls, but the floor, swept clean of pervasive upside dust and sand, attested to Mrs. TollHeyer’s industry—and reminded him he owed his own parents a visit now, though he had lain unconscious most of the time they were visiting.

  “I didn’t mean to rush you,” he called.

  The woman hurried back out of her kitchen. She’d fastened on a white-­bow choker, and her work clothes had the stiff, unwrinkled look of new browncloth. How small the notions they considered nicety now.

  Lindon sat down on her blocky couch of darkly dyed linen over synthetic foam, and he stretched up one knee. He and Ari could have thrashed out their differences over the net, but even with privacy circuits, neither liked that notion. He also could have met her in the hub or at the co-­op or in a vacant office. Still, at a randomly chosen private house, there would be someone within call if either needed a witness for binding agreements. As it turned out, Mrs. TollHeyer was even a notary.

  Crystal’s accusation niggled at the back of his mind. He rubbed his chin, wishing he’d never heard it. His sister had been unable to prove her accusations, so he couldn’t believe them 100 percent.

  Still, Graysha Brady-­Phillips had risen considerably in his sympathy. “Ari tried to crush her, Lin,” Crys had claimed. “She nearly got me, too.”

  Through a window, he watched Ari stride up the lane, holding her shoulders stiffly forward under her coat. “Shall I let Coordinator MaiJidda in?” he called toward the kitchen door.

  “I’m coming.” Mrs. TollHeyer carried a brown pot steaming between two fine china cups on a ceramic tray. She set it down, then unsealed the narrow metal door.

  As Lindon rose, Ari stepped through, already tugging at her parka sleeves. She stretched out a slender arm to clasp his hand, then sat down in a chair close to his couch. Mrs. TollHeyer poured. “This is the last of my real tea. I’m honored to share it with you. Please consider our home your own, and call me if you get hungry.”

  Ari tilted her head. “Thank you.” Her elegant figure and stance, and her politeness with the other woman, reminded Lindon she had a deeply feminine side. Why, he wondered, had she remained so contentedly unmarried? Many Lwuites wed at sixteen. Her heterozygous status wouldn’t prevent her having pure-­gened children now that the Port Arbor clinic was in full operation.

  Maybe she too considered Goddard her highest priority. Realizing he’d fallen into that trap niggled his conscience. His first priority should be much
higher.

  Once they sat alone, he leaned forward. “I’m glad for a chance to hear your opinions concerning our differences, Ari, regardless of which way the election goes.”

  She matched his posture. “That’s good. First, though, I think you might be glad to know we’re about to make an arrest in the attempted-­murder case.”

  Varberg, Lee, or someone else? Their single dose of gamma-­vertol was gone now. If Ari was guilty of the attempt on his life, she would feel safe arresting some other suspect. That poor person wouldn’t be able to prove his or her innocence.

  Crys, why did you open your mouth? He needed to stay objective.

  “We think now,” she went on, “that the case against Dr. Brady-­Phillips is as strong as it can be.”

  But Graysha cleared herself. “What?”

  “You’ll be pleased to know,” she said, lounging on her chair, “that we anticipate Gaea’s defense countering our accusations. They’ll try to send her offworld, as we originally wanted, but I think we’d be safer keeping her in custody until we’re absolutely certain she won’t run to her mother.”

  Evidently Ari had transferred her justifiable fear of the EB directly onto Graysha Brady-­Phillips’s shoulders. “She doesn’t work for the Eugenics Board,” Lindon reminded her. “You heard her testimony.”

  Her dark eyes narrowed. “Has it not occurred to you that a nettech might carry counteractive measures to questioning drugs?”

  He sat up straight. “Then why in this world did you waste that one dose on her?”

  “I’m not perfect, either. I thought of it too late.”

  Did she, really? “I think she’s innocent,” he insisted. Ari might not recognize guiltlessness if she saw it.

  “Of course she seems innocent. She has a perfect face for espionage—the poor thing—and perfect connections. You won’t deny either of those, will you?”

  “She’s innocent,” he repeated.

  Ari snorted. “We have evidence, Lindon. We found Chenny HoNin’s insulin kit in her D-­group locker.”