Clash of Mountains

by Chloe Garner

  “Is Jimmy trying to kill you?” the woman asked, standing. Helpless. The poor woman was absolutely helpless. Sarah shook her head.

  “I hope not,” Sarah said, making her decision. “I married him.”

  The woman froze, and Sarah gave her a cool smile. Two ways that could go, in the woman’s mind. Either she would believe that Sarah had won the competition and there would be a sense of being outmatched, or she would expect Sarah to be bitter and jealous about Jimmy’s previous bedmates.

  Sarah had no intention of letting either have an impact on her decisions, even if she was - still - viscerally intent on how physically exposed the woman was, standing there at the door not an arm’s length away.

  The woman swallowed.

  Put her hand on the door knob.

  Paused.

  She wanted to say something. Sarah couldn’t guess what. She waited, and the woman looked away at the door.

  “Have a good trip,” she said, opening the door. Sarah walked through without looking at her again.

  --------

  The pods had once been living spaces. Long, long ago, some dozen people had lived in each one, sheltering there against the elements, building a civilization around them. They’d long been repurposed, gutted down to just a hull, now with seats and seatbelts for part of the space and with tiedowns for cargo in the bulk of what remained. No one operated them - they were lifted and dropped from the LaVelle - so there was no space wasted for crew.

  Sarah and Sunny took a pair of seats near the back of the passenger section, strapping in with five-point harnesses. Usually, the pickups and drops were uneventful, but from time to time one of the calculations would be bad and the magnetic lift would go off target and lose the pod. If it happened from the wrong spot - and it had, once or twice - the pod would fall to the ground and smash, killing everyone aboard, but mostly what happened was that the pod would drop unexpectedly and then the magnetic beam would re-catch it and continue the lift.

  The ground crews referred to the magnetic beams as tentacles and the LaVelle as the temple or the cathedral. The LaVelle’s crew was much more technically specific. They still remembered the person on earth who had developed the technology for everything.

  Sarah glanced over at Sunny, who was taking everything in with quick eyes.

  “Get what you came for?” Sarah asked. Sunny shook her head.

  “Not until I see the control room,” she said. Sarah looked forward again.

  “That isn’t going to happen. They don’t let civilians look at the control room. Not unless they’re in the program and they have the technical chops to understand it.

  “I studied to understand it,” Sunny said. “I just didn’t get accepted into the exchange program.”

  “Personality matters,” Sarah said, looking sideways at Sunny, who accepted the barb without any acknowledgment that it had even happened.

  “I don’t fake likability,” Sunny said. “Personal standard.”

  Sarah shrugged, settling into her seat as much as the restraint would let her.

  The rest of the people going up took seats around them as the ground crew loaded cargo, and Sarah crossed her legs, mentally going over the presentation she’d assembled.

  It was sound.

  It wasn’t a slam-dunk, because there was no such thing, just like she’d warned Jimmy, but it would get a yes in at least some traffic conditions.

  That was the best she could do.

  She was leaving space for working with them again. Shipping absenta by space station was the safest way to do it, and it was ever so slightly possible that the LaVelle would add a drop/pickup in Lawrence, if the right breeze happened.

  She could have exaggerated the use or value of the satellite, if she was willing to burn the bridge, but if she intended to come back and ask for additional support, she needed to be able to demonstrate that her previous request had worked out the way she’d predicted. It was tricky math, increasing the likelihood of this request versus building a relationship with the crew to increase the odds of further ones, and Sarah had a lot of examples to work with, both good and bad.

  The pod lifted off on time and took about fifteen minutes to get up to the LaVelle, another ten to dock and go through clearances to open the door.

  “Do you know how the gravity on the ship works?” Sunny asked.

  “No,” Sarah said.

  “I do,” Sunny said.

  “And how much benefit are you getting out of that?” Sarah asked, unbuckling her seatbelt and going to the door.

  She could tell from the curl and width of the hallway that they were close to the common room; it made sense: the pod swap with Intec would happen frequently enough that they wouldn’t want to hold it up with getting cargo on and off.

  Once the common room had been a large living space that the colonists had used while they were waiting to drop to the planet’s surface, but now it was mostly just a giant warehouse with a tightly-controlled inventory pattern.

  “Do you know how the magnetic fields work that they use to bring up the pods?” Sunny asked. “I do.”

  Sarah glanced over at her, then shouldered her bag and checked the locked case that had her guns in it. Theoretically, it was impossible to open, up here, but Sarah knew - as did all of the program students - that there were ways.

  “Did you know that, before the magnetic beam technology, we used to burn literally tons of fossil fuel to get things into orbit?” Sunny asked. Sarah rolled her eyes and took out her lighter.

  “I know that this is what I use to set light to wood up in the mountains when I’m cold at night.”

  Sunny shook her head.

  “This ship is literally the snapshot of the pinnacle of human technology at the moment it was launched. They were still upfitting it with new technologies in the last few months before it left.”

  Sarah did know that. The stories about the last year before the LaVelle had left earth were a part of the first few weeks’ curriculum, though the stories the crew told privately were vastly more interesting.

  Sarah looked over at Sunny, noticing a change to her, less woodenness, a lift to her face.

  “Why don’t you join the crew?” she asked. “If you’re qualified? Why not at least apply?”

  “My mother,” Sunny said. “She said if I did it, she would blow up the space port in Genoi.”

  Sarah twisted her mouth.

  “Let me guess. She said that somewhere it was recorded.”

  Sunny nodded.

  “She’s a clever woman. Always tends to get what she wants with very little effort.”

  Sarah led the way to the common room, finding a group of LaVelle officers there, checking everyone in. She glanced at Sunny to make sure the woman stayed where Sarah could reach her, then went to wait on one of the couches nearby.

  Sarah wasn’t the type to wait in a line. Rather be last than stand, like that.

  Finally, one of the officers lifted his head and looked at her.

  “You’re one of the legacies?” he asked as she stood.

  “I am,” she said, leaving her bags on the couch and going to stand next to him. “Sarah Todd.”

  “I remember you,” he said, and she gave him a sideways smile.

  “All of you look the same to me.”

  He nodded.

  “Yup. That’s exactly what I remember about you. You’re here to pitch a launch?”

  She nodded, and he shook his head, writing on his screen quickly.

  “Wouldn’t have pegged you for the type.”

  “It isn’t for someone else,” she said. “It’s for me.”

  His eyebrows went up, though he didn’t look at her again.

  “You went entrepreneur? That I can believe.”

  “More or less,” she said.

  “Well, I’m always glad to see the legacies come back through to trade on their training. At least you guys know what we’re up against, up here, for priorities.”

  She nodded, and he fin
ally looked up again with a formal, but not unkind, smile.

  “Welcome back.”

  Sarah mirrored the smile.

  “Would it be possible for me to see the control room?” Sunny asked.

  “No,” he said, turning away. Sarah shook her head, going back to the couch and her bags.

  “They’re supposed to assign us a pod for while we’re here,” Sunny said. Sarah held up a keycard between her fingers, flicking it back and forth so it caught the light. It was metallic and a solid weight, and it had her name engraved on it. All of the program students got one, and it opened one of five doors on a short wing of pods at the far end of the common area.

  “Already have one,” she said.

  “I didn’t know that,” Sunny said. “You actually have your own key?”

  “I did live here,” Sarah said. At any given time, the number of graduates who would actually be up on the ship was small, and Sarah had had a number of them go through her pod while she’d been on the ship for the program. Their stories were nearly as interesting as the crew.

  The students for the program were chosen for a lot of reasons. They were all smart and had relevant degrees, but they were also from all over the planet. After the original colonization, the LaVelle had pulled up pods and put them back down all over the place, testing out this environment or that, letting people spread cities without the infrastructure to link them ever being necessary.

  The graduates reflected that scope of civilization, and the interests of the various cities along the LaVelle’s orbit band.

  International economics, indeed.

  Sarah found the door to the pod she’d lived in while she had been aboard the LaVelle and opened it, stepping aside for Sunny and listening to the quiet conversation going on inside the pod. Students. Young enough that most of them weren’t on Perpeto yet - not unless they were a part of Toby’s young-forever trend - they tended not to be loud-voiced or particularly giddy, though arguments could have raised voices, and there had been drinking on more than on occasion that had turned silly.

  The conversations inside the room cut off as Sunny went in, and Sarah followed, letting the door fall closed behind her.

  “Full?” Sarah asked, and one of the young women shook her head.

  “No, we’ve got plenty of room.”

  Sarah nodded to Sunny.

  “Find a room that suits you.”

  “I want to see the control room,” Sunny said, and the room exchanged glances.

  “No one is going to let you,” Sarah said.

  “She’s not a graduate,” a young man said. Sarah shook her head.

  “No, she’s with me.”

  They looked at each other again, and Sarah shrugged. The graduates hadn’t often brought people with them, but it wasn’t unheard of, either.

  “You shouldn’t keep asking,” Sarah said to Sunny. “They’ll send you back down for being a security threat.”

  Nods.

  Sunny looked back at her.

  “I want to see it.”

  Sarah gave her a big shrug.

  “You’re going to be lucky if you get to cross the civilian-military line.”

  “Are you going to the military side of the ship?” Sunny asked. Sarah nodded.

  “I’m presenting. That’s where the panel is going to be.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  The postures in the room were growing uncomfortable, and Sarah was about done with Sunny’s demands.

  “I brought you as a favor,” she said. “I don’t care whether or not they keep you up here. But if you act like that, if you talk like that, they’re going to send you back to Intec, and you’ll have to wait there for me to finish up, however long that takes.”

  There was a very brief silence, and then another young man spoke up.

  “What are you presenting?”

  “I’m bidding for a satellite,” Sarah said, and the room nodded. It wasn’t the most expensive request she could make - it would effectively be a one-time commitment, so long as they could get all of the parts together at once and fit them in a single pod - but it would replace an entire shipment, most likely, and that wasn’t the easiest sell, either.

  “Where are you from?” the first girl asked.

  “Intec,” Sarah said. Close enough.

  “Oxala?” the girl asked. Sarah nodded.

  “Graduated there.”

  “Cool. That’s where Andy and Juno are from.”

  Sarah made eye contact with the two of them, then pointed Sunny toward the hallway where the bedrooms would be.

  “Find one with an open door and get settled,” she said.

  “What’s the point of me being here, if you’re going to just put me into a pod and leave me here?” Sunny asked.

  “If you can find your way back here, you’re welcome to explore the common area and the pod hallways,” Sarah said. “But that’s your limit. You try to cross the civilian-military line without an escort, they will send you back, and if you try to sneak across, they’re within their rights to arrest you, and then what happens to you is completely up to them.”

  More nods. Sarah pointed again.

  “What are you going to do?” Sunny asked.

  “Pick a room, then come sit out here and wait for them to call me,” Sarah answered.

  “They know where to find you?” Sunny asked. The room broke into insider smiles.

  “Sunny, I have a key with my name on it,” Sarah said. “The minute my name showed up on the manifest, they knew who I was.”

  Sarah wanted to remind the woman of her philosophy about not fighting, just letting the universe do the work of giving her what she wanted, but that was all the way unhelpful and just extended the encounter. Sarah held her ground as Sunny finally broke away and walked toward the hallway. They weren’t real rooms, really. Just cubbies with beds and a shelf for personal goods. The early colonists had lived one to a room for months or years, but it was much more suited as a place to sleep and get out of, otherwise.

  Sarah was unsurprised when Sunny didn’t turn back up in the common part of the pod.

  The kids in the program were just like Sarah remembered them: some of the most well-adjusted, likable people they could find anywhere, comfortable among each other, talking about challenging things that, even now, engaged Sarah’s mind in a way that felt like waking up. Much the way she’d felt about her favorite classes at Oxala.

  Rhoda had said once that the hardest part about being out at the end of the line was the lack of books. Elaine had gone out of her way to provide a library for Sarah to read, but it had been like opening doors to sunlight when Sarah had gotten to Oxala and discovered what a repository of knowledge the world actually held.

  Almost all of that knowledge had originally come from the LaVelle. Stored digitally, the collective wisdom of their species had been transplanted along with the humans and the zygotes of various service and food animals, and this really was a temple to that knowledge.

  She mostly listened as the kids - students, adults in their own eyes the same way she had been in hers, when she’d been here - talked about politics and commerce and science, then one of the girls turned to her.

  “So what was your specialization, when you were up here?”

  Sarah took a slow breath, remembering.

  “I evaluated risk and reward to shipping routes,” she said.

  It didn’t sound like much, but they nodded at each other.

  “Were you good at it?” one of the boys asked.

  “You’d have to ask them,” Sarah said. “They’ll have stats on the decisions I endorsed.”

  Grins.

  Everything was tracked and while no one was ever going to get access to the list - ever - they all knew that the students in the program were ranked and scored against each other for the quality of decisions they advocated.

  The LaVelle wasn’t just as shipping hub. It was also used for diplomatic purposes, moving people around from place to place.
Intec was one of the first settlements, but there were six, in total, that had per-orbit pod exchanges, the cores of civilization, culture, and commerce. Each of those had a university associated with it and they were responsible for nominating students for the program.

  “Come on,” the same boy said. “Everyone knows. How did you do?”

  Sarah grinned and looked off to the side.

  “Where I come from, you don’t really hear about the wins and losses, but I was one of the best.”

  More grins.

  Everyone thought they were one of the best, no matter what.

  Those were the types of people they brought up here.

  “What do you do now?” one of the quieter girls asked. They were looking for her high-status job that put her up here on the LaVelle again. All of the graduates that came back had important jobs.

  “Shoot people,” Sarah said, just for the fun of shock value.

  “Awesome,” one of the boys said reflexively.

  “I saw your weapons container,” another boy said. “What are you carrying?”

  She could see it in his skin, the way hard work, hard life had marked it differently than the rest of the kids with their soft, moisturized complexions. She gave him the list, full detailed, and he nodded, hungry for the sense of home.

  “Twanger is a little heavy for my taste,” he said, and she grinned.

  “I’ve got twenty pounds on you, easy.”

  He flushed, and she shrugged, turning her attention to the door as it opened.

  “Ms. Todd?” a man in a low-ranking uniform asked. Sarah stood. One of the young men whistled.

  “You are important,” he said quietly and the room nodded. She gave them a one-shoulder shrug.

  “You mind looking out for my friend?” she asked. The young woman nearest the door nodded.

  “We’ll stalk her if she leaves. Won’t let her get arrested.”

  Sarah gave them a grateful nod - an honest one - and left following the officer across the common space and to the civilian-military line, crossing it with an instantaneous sense of apprehension.

  They’d spent most of their time on the military side, because that’s where all of the people were that they were here to learn from, but there was always a sense that she was crossing a boundary by special permission. They all felt it. Even without the pause, there was a sense of decorum, the way the man checked that she was who he thought she was as she crossed, put his head up, just a moment of awareness.