by Ginger Booth
“Zan –”
“Zan is asleep.” Softening his approach, Gorey begged, “Allow me into the fray just this once, captain. I’ll return to administration. But your crew has been out in the field. Your gunner – Ben? – is down with heatstroke.”
Sass completed her pre-flight checks silently. “It was fun playing hero while it lasted. But yes, my team needs to stay flight-ready and mind the machines. I’m glad if we gave you a jump start until the Waterfalls and Hermitage relief forces could arrive.”
“More than a jump start,” Gorey argued. “The technologies you brought us, the skills and ships you offer, are accomplishing the impossible. We are grateful beyond measure. Let’s get these children to their new home.”
“Indeed,” Sass breathed. She nodded sharply, accepting the man’s presence on her bridge. She did prefer someone who took orders. And of all the Waterfalls Council, Gorey seemed the most prickly, most alien. But so be it.
She picked up the comms and announced departure. “Children, the big screen will show our trip. Stay in your hammocks.” The poor kids were packed in 4 to a seat. Their adult minders didn’t get seats, busy tending the kids. “Captain out.”
She lifted above the ash-filled valley, Thrive tilted to bring engines to bear against the heavy gravity, though thankfully not as steep as the dolphin-on-its-tail dance she’d flown coming into Waterfalls the first time. The ship’s gravity plates maintained the floor as ‘down’ as the world around them canted crazily.
“Once around the site for the view,” Gorey requested. At Sass’s narrowed eyes, he explained, “It’s high noon. No one’s kicking up dust. Good visibility.”
Sass sighed and turned for one sweep around the disaster zone. Another caravan from Hermitage arriving did spew a dust plume in its wake. She didn’t envy the people riding in those tanks in the brutal heat. But no doubt reaching shelter was preferable to stopping to sit there and bake. “They should have waited under the trees for sunset,” she murmured.
“Everyone wants to be a hero,” Gorey returned. “Me too. I can hardly fault them.”
“Amen.” Sass straightened from her bank and turned the Thrive toward Waterfalls. As they passed beyond the ash field, on to burnt forest below, she ordered, “Guns free for practice shots.”
She observed carefully as Gorey familiarized himself with the similar-but-not-identical controls. She gave him a minute, then wordlessly pointed to the control that spawned practice bogeys. He nodded, took another moment to consider his gun options, then invoked the targets.
Three shots, three hits. On his first try. “Damn, you’re good,” she praised. “You’ve always been a hunter, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Born and bred, of course,” Gorey allowed. “But now I am a leader. I rarely go out on the hunts except for ceremony. Too old, anyway. Past that next ridge, slow if you can. That’s where my people are clearing predators.”
Sass complied, and let him speak to the hunters below. She marveled at a thunderstorm in the distance, towering higher than she’d ever seen on Earth, a roiling mass standing distinct from pure cobalt sky around it.
“You lied to me,” she said, as he finished his comms. “Or Aden and Aurora did. About your population. You claimed 125,000 people after the loss of Denali Prime. But the city had barely more people than Waterfalls. Your city is maybe 15,000 at most. Neptune less than 5,000. That’s it, isn’t it. Three sizable towns remain, with Hermitage. And Hermitage is smaller than Waterfalls. Do you even have 50,000?”
Gorey sighed and lined up a shot at a blimp. But someone from the ground exploded the predator first. “I didn’t lie. They did. There are no other settlements. With Hermitage, we have 40,000, plus however many we can save from Prime. You’re right.”
“No smaller towns?” Sass adjusted course beyond the pass, Thrive emerging from between peaks that towered above them.
“There were,” Gorey said. “Glasswork was the last. Is it your intent to criticize how we run our world? Because with respect, captain, Mahina has perhaps seemed less than admirable, viewed from a distance. You’ve made great strides in what, the past two years? Most of which you’ve been off-moon. Forgive my skepticism.”
Sass nodded wryly. “Touché. No, my point was, this is why. Humanity is shrinking throughout the Aloha system. Mahina was terrible in the way the settlers were treated. They were blocked from the medical technologies that allowed the urbs to live well. That’s why I’m flying, why I’m here. We have to find a way for humanity to succeed here in Aloha. We need a new agenda. With so few, we need to band together, all three worlds. Or we have no hope of maintaining and advancing technology to endure these harsh environments. I must return to Mahina with my people. I hope you’ll help us leave. Help us collect the fuel we need.”
Gorey dismissed this with a shrug. “I’m not stopping you.”
Sass left it at that as she banked towards her approach to Waterfalls. The Denali were hard workers, and they’d been busy. A new road led from her pocket spaceport to a dome, a different one than they’d used as their entrance so far, a bit farther but less vertical distance. She called ahead to cut power to the sonic barrier roof to the clearing, and settled her craft into its strange home.
“Selectman, your show,” she acknowledged. “Let me know how we can expedite the unloading of the children, and taking on more supplies and volunteers. But I need sleep, and so do my people.”
“Thank you, captain.” Gorey paused, then added plaintively, “Won’t you watch the first children disembark with me?”
She smiled at him. “Of course I will. Thank you.”
30
“We’re here!” Kassidy cried to a hold full of children. “Yay!!!”
Her drones skipped in and out among the hammocks, catching the weak applause and smiles among the children. The hold smelled foul beyond belief, with fluids best not considered dripping to the floor.
The showboat wouldn’t draw any attention to that. She had her editorial vision of triumph, of three worlds working together to save these children. Her show would bring a lump to the throat, a tear to the eye, and pride throughout the Aloha system. The Sagamores with their funky bubbles, the Mahinans with their misfit envoys, and every man, woman, and child on Denali. These children would survive, and we helped!
Granted, her thesis was a bit of a stretch. But it was the emotional experience that counted in Kassidy’s book. That every person watching feel uplifted, be the hero, stretch those downtrodden atrophied hero muscles, and strive to shine!
“Cheers for the medical staff!” Kassidy cried. “Hip-hip-hooray!”
Denalis didn’t say ‘hip-hip-hooray.’ Their smattering of response sounded more puzzled than enthusiastic. But Aurora strode forth, the circles under her eyes as dark as anyone’s, and clapped her hands together as she steepled her fingers into their little prayer gesture. “We offer thanks to the doctors! Hoo-ah!”
The kids clapped and steepled and cried ‘hoo-ah’ on cue.
Kassidy took correction without pause. “And the volunteers from Waterfalls! Hoo-ah!” It took time to bring the vans around and marry a new bakkra-free loading ramp to Thrive’s airlock. She kept them cheering for five minutes.
Gorey slipped beside Aurora and gave her a logistics briefing while Kassidy kept the crowd warm and primed. Then Aurora passed along her news and concerns about how the children would react.
Kassidy nodded and stepped away. “Children! I’ve got exciting news! How many of you are hunters? Let’s hear it for hunters! Hoo-ah!” She gave the ferocious ones plenty of time to practice their claw grabs and strut their stuff, to the extent they had the energy. Thrive loaded the sickest children first for this run.
“My news!” she continued. “Here at Waterfalls, you hunters are graduating to the hunter domes right now! Today! I know, isn’t that amazing? You’ll enter the big kids’ hunter creche! Hoo-ah!”
This was in fact alarming news. These children would have stayed with the
farmers for years more. But entering a farm dome was a major operation. Those domes would not be accepting refugees until after medical cleared them, and likely not even then. The farms didn’t need more labor heading into the fallow seasons.
Her father paused in his doctor rounds to watch Kassidy’s antics, his head tilted and brow furrowed. Kassidy resolved to ignore any and all wet blankets.
“And you farm kids! This is so cool! You get to play cosmos for a while! Oh, and you will love the cosmo domes at Waterfalls! So much to see and do! Hoo-ah!”
Naturally timid children were the ones selected for the farm track. Kassidy covered for their consternation by zooming in to kiss a few foreheads. Her signature smack on the lips was definitely not for children from a foreign culture. “You’ll love it, sweetie, I promise!”
She tried to back out toward the engine room, but got in the way of the throng of techs scurrying to rig the ramps, and Dr. Tyler priming her volunteer medics for the next phase. Kassidy changed course and scampered up the slide, teetered along the top of the catwalk railing, and flipped an impressive somersault down to the dogleg of the stairs above the workers.
Aurora cried, “Wasn’t that amazing, kids? Hoo-ah!”
The kids agreed with that one, successfully distracted from their worry about the scary new housing, exiled from their familiar safe farm domes. Which had been traumatically unsafe for the past four months.
Kassidy hammed it up, taking a few bows. “Kids, do not try that yourselves. I am a professional clown.” She laughed aloud. “And I cheated, too!” She held out her personal gravity generator on display, and hopped 2 meters straight up, and drifted down to a slow soft landing. “Nifty, huh? Yeah, we use gravity a lot on Mahina. That’s my world. Does everyone know where Mahina is?”
No primary-school-aged Denali knew or cared where Mahina was. Kassidy got that. But she figured she had another 10 minutes or so to keep them entertained, so she spun out the floor show. Her somersaults and balance-beam acts on the railing interested the kids far more than her patter about a distant world. But the starlet knew how to read her audience.
“Excuse me, Kassidy!” Aurora called up to interrupt, then turned to the children. “We are ready for the sickest 20 hunter children. I know you will all help me and these nice people to find the right people to take first. Everyone point to the child nearest you, who should go before you. Hunter children!”
Not a child pointed to herself or himself, where Mahina kids would be up on their knees yelling, “Me, me, me!” Even a five-year-old Denali knew better than that. The children who needed help most pointed to no one, while their neighbors pointed to them.
Kassidy had them count aloud and cheer when they reached 20. “And a giant cheer for our friends who went first! Aren’t they brave? Hoo-ah!”
When she put it that way, the kids eagerly tried to cheer for their friends, especially the farmer kids who would be separated from children they’d known all their lives. Not that this was a terribly traumatic thing – by age 9, farmer children shrank from their more boisterous hunter classmates. But it was a strange feeling to know that they’d never live together again.
Kassidy provided a double-somersault for those feelings. “And Aurora! Will the next load be our new cosmos?”
“It will! About 5 minutes!”
“Excellent! I bet you’re eager to get into bed, huh?” Kassidy encouraged. “Soon. But first –” She turned and waved to Sass and Gorey, now seated on the catwalk with their legs dangling to watch the show. They’d laid back as she pranced past them not too long ago. “Do you know who those people are?” Introducing the captain and the Selectman was mildly interesting and killed some time.
And load by load, slowly the hold emptied of children. Kassidy exhorted the final couple of groups to be so proud of themselves that they could walk out! Aurora and Dr. Tyler cut in with amended praise on how they’d let others go first, who needed help more, just as they should. And that all of Denali was proud of how well behaved they were today.
“Cosmos or hunters, Aurora?” Kassidy called down. “Which group shall we follow, I wonder?”
“Hunters it is!” Aurora called back with enthusiasm. “The final load will be hunters! Congratulations on going last! Hoo-ah!”
Kassidy reflected yet again just how weird Denali were. But both hands flew to her mouth wide open in an OH! “Don’t leave me behind!” She cartwheeled to the floor as the hunter helpers arrived to claim their charges, shaking their heads in amused disbelief.
Back at floor level, Kassidy ducked behind the staircase to confide in her off-world audience for a moment. “Did I keep them entertained? Did I help them face this new development?” She shook her head melodramatically, and gazed pensively into the distance. “How scary that must be, you know? To leave everything you’ve ever known. A sick child, alone, many of their caretakers dead, like orphans come to a strange city.” She fixed earnest eyes on her cameras. “I hope I made it a little easier for them. But now let’s follow them into the city, shall we?”
“You have a ship’s clown,” Gorey noted, as he and Sass clambered back to their feet on the catwalk. “How bizarre.”
“She comes in surprisingly handy,” Sass agreed. “Any chance I can button up my ship, so my crew can rest until sunset?”
Gorey snorted. “Cleaning, loading – no. But we will maintain bio-lock and stay below. No harm will come to your ship, captain. Sleep well.”
Sass supposed there wasn’t much she could do about it, aside from rouse her exhausted security duo to watch for her. “I appreciate the offer of staying on the lower level. Out of the engine room and my supplies, please.”
Gorey threw up a hand in acknowledgment as he walked away. He didn’t actually concede anything.
Sass smirked, and turned to stride toward Clay’s room. She couldn’t say she’d made friends with the hunter. But perhaps she’d made herself understood, and that would do.
31
“Wow!” Back on Mahina, in an upper middle class home in Newer York, Hunter Burke’s 8-year-old inched closer to the wall-sized living room display on his knees. His younger sister did the same.
They watched the live feed as Kassidy Yang entered the hunter dome at Waterfalls behind the semi-ambulatory survivor children. The locals rigged the entire route so that no one needed bio-lock procedures again to kill their bakkra. Although judging from the wild colors the hunters wore at home, Kassidy would need full decontamination before she returned to the Thrive.
“Dad, look, their boobs are hanging out! Will we get to see Kassidy’s boobs?”
“No,” Hunter said firmly, hoping it was true. “You two need to go to bed soon.”
“For school?” his son scoffed. “We’ll just watch the video feed from Denali all day anyway.”
Hunter let that go without comment. Despite his continual harangues, the Newer York school system wouldn’t even teach children to read, only how to make a computer do it for them. He pitched in with some other parents to hire a literacy tutor. So far as he could tell, the school favored recess above all other subjects.
As the most powerful settler on Mahina, interface to the urbs – their elected president was a figurehead – Clay’s son Hunter figured he ought to be able to get his kids’ school to teach phonics. So far no luck. Few of the parents knew how to read, or even operate a calculator. Newer York was not a sophisticated town.
His daughter inched closer to the screen again for a closeup of an emaciated child’s arm, as a medic carefully inserted an IV. She moaned as the needle went in.
Hunter watched his kids’ soccer games when he had the chance. He thought it was adorable how the children went to their knees to croon sympathy to the hurt one at any injury. His kids were now doing the same thing, but to these unfortunate alien children on another planet.
To him, the vivid animal skins hanging on the walls in medical looked outrageous, and the nurse’s naked painted breasts even more so. But Sally unconsciously took a d
rink of her milk to echo the Denali child drinking oral rehydration salts. His son Ari felt up his own arm trying to identify the boy’s broken bone being set on screen.
Kassidy Yang apparently decided the medical treatment was growing a little too graphic – about time, Kassidy! – and moved on to show the creche.
“You’re a Hunter, Dad,” Sally pointed out, with a silly grin.
“So I am!” he agreed in mock surprise.
“Will we get to see granddaddy in a loincloth again?” his son Ari demanded. “Painted like a savage?”
“I hope not,” Hunter replied with feeling. Actually none of the footage of his dad ever seemed to show him coated in the gaudy bakkra. Clay always was a snappy dresser. Hunter wouldn’t put it past him to grow microbes on his skin with aid from a professional stylist.
An older cohort of Denali students from the warrior caste cheerfully cleared out their meager belongings from their airy dormitory. The space looked skimpy on bedding. Apparently they slept on the floor on individual woven mats. Neat rows cut down on the children stepping on each other. An older kid, maybe 11 or 12, sat ready on the mat at the head or foot of each row. Aurora explained that they were proctors, ready to meet and lead their charges through the tooth-brushing rituals of going to bed and getting to breakfast on time, clean and dressed.
The first few Denali Prime refugees, 7 to 9 years old, drifted in with great trepidation. Aurora supplied an aside that ordinarily, graduation to the hunter dome involved preparation and ceremonies that the children took solemnly indeed. They offered solemn vows to give their lives for the community in battle against fierce beasts, and never count the cost.
A teacher in the background assured the new children that their vows could wait until they were older. Today their only task was to get well, and get used to their new homes.