by Ginger Booth
“Husna, look.” He poked the thermometer-like probe to stand upright on the water. It sank, but very slowly. He shot a grin back to her. “I can walk on water, maybe!”
“I doubt that!” Husna huffed, then paused to consider. “There was a sea on Earth, the Dead Sea. Its salt content allowed people to float very high.”
Remi agreed, “Sass told me about baths like this, on Denali.” He retrieved the probe and shook it out. “No damage to the probe, pH 8.4. How is this dangerous?”
“My turn.” Husna swung her reconstructed 8-meter pole over his head, and lowered it to the lake, not exerting any pressure at first. The pole rested on the surface. “Remi, skim a sample of the surface water, would you?”
“Ah…?” Her rapid-fire English was challenging. But she pantomimed what she wanted. He scooped some surface water as requested, holding his glass bottle carefully so as not to wet his space gloves. He sealed and labeled the sample.
Then he held it up to the failing golden light and tipped it slowly. The strange surface curved downward on the glass instead of upward like normal water. And it lagged slightly when it let go and crept to a new location when tilted, causing a slight bulge. The water appeared slightly milky, matching the poured-gum rocks he lay on. Whatever was in it dissolved thoroughly, with no visible grains. He studied it with his magnifier, compatible for use with space helmets. The lens permitted him to see the ubiquitous local yellow dust suspended in the solution, but nothing else.
He set it aside.
Meanwhile Husna poked around gently and got the range on the lake floor. “Any idea how deep the lake is?”
“Here? Shallow.” He scooted back from the water to pull out his comm. He found a nice picture he’d captured coming in, and showed it to her. “It glows at night, see?” The ground was black at the time, but the lake shore gleamed like dark pearl. The shallows blazed cyan, blending to a royal blue in the deeps. So far, the three years of this trip had been woefully lacking in sightseeing. Of course he’d snapped the pretty picture.
Her face registered alarm as she handed back the tablet. “Did you check radiation?”
“Ambient radiation at the ship. Here, no.” Hastily, he rummaged for his multimeter and tested it, to a relieved sigh. “Elevated from where Thrive is. But nothing dangerous.” No more dangerous than being outdoors, he meant. This planet was far less protected from radiation than Mahina or Denali, but better than Sagamore or Hell’s Bells. Their pressure suits could handle it. He couldn’t vouch for the horse-mask.
“Fascinating,” Husna breathed, entranced. “We might not need the lamps as the sun sets.”
Indeed, in the last rays of cherry-hot sunset, he began to notice a cool glow emanating from the water, and the rocks he lay on. He thoughtfully tried to capture the entrancing sight with his pocket comm. Then he rolled to one elbow and framed a picture of Husna against the horse, both glowing hot pink in the failing sun. “Smile!” He got several angles, Husna hamming it up with her awkward pole.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, reviewing his shots. “You are so lovely. I send to you.”
Husna scowled at him and re-angled her pole.
Remi completed his body roll to stare at the sky. One bright star shone, a planet by his guess. “Blue. Is that planet closer or farther from the sun?”
“Farther. Gas giant. Where?”
He pointed. “What do I say wrong now? To make you angry.”
“I wasn’t angry,” she claimed. “I’m working, Remi.”
“Of course. Ask if I can help.” He got back to work and dunked in his own sample bottle, suspended from string. He needed to poke it deeper with a screwdriver since it refused to sink. He decided Husna was doing a careful depth sample, so he just hauled it up and capped it to study later. It glowed faintly. He started to put his tools away, and noticed that they were already dry, and rimed with lake salts. This looked like pretty ordinary salt, easily dusted away.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured. Her pole now rested balanced on the spine of their catfish pier, touching the water but with no tendency to dive in. She sat cross-legged with a laptop device to evaluate the samples. “He said this would destroy plumbing.”
“No?”
“No. Nothing a reverse osmosis process couldn’t handle. Or distillation. Fascinating chemical composition. Hand me the surface sample. All of mine are at depth.”
She studied his sample in silence for a few minutes while Remi dreamily watched the brilliant after-sunset reds and purples of the horizon fade, tinging wispy clouds high above. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. Space had its beauties, but they didn’t tend to saturated color like this. He sighed and drank it in.
“This surface monolayer is fantastic,” his companion shared. “I’ll have to test it. But this must be what keeps the lake from evaporating. And keeps it so warm. Like a greenhouse blanket covering it. Yet only a single molecule deep. We need this on Mahina. If it’s nontoxic, of course. Or maybe even if it is toxic, if it’s non-miscible. Hm.”
“Poetry,” Remi mused. “Beauty and charm. But of course, you do not want me.”
“Do you have a Ph.D.?” she challenged.
“We have no university of Hell’s Bells. I study at Sagamore Orbital for a time. Mostly I learn by work.” He swiveled to sit up. “I start university young. Weird kid, always want to know how everything works. But the girls, they do not want a smart boy. How does this glow work?”
She tucked her computer and samples away, ready to go. She brought her pole to sit beside him while she broke it down. “Phosphorescent compounds. They were excited by the sun. And the water is very warm. I imagine the glow gradually dims toward sunrise.”
She gazed out over the water in rapture, lips parted, tinted dark aquamarine by the glowing shore. They never turned on the horse headlamp, since all their instruments provided lighted read-outs.
And they didn’t want to spoil the beauty. They gazed on it breathless. Breathless.
Remi hopped up and checked Quartz’s air supply. Yes, they were red-lining it. “Husna, get back to Scheherazade. Now, now! I bring the equipment.”
Surprised by his tone, she hustled. He picked up all their gear, and brought it back to her, taking a few minutes break to breath deeply on her horse’s air tanks. Then he picked his way back out the catfish and started coaxing Quartz backward.
No, horses don’t walk backward nearly as well as forward. And these robotic horses were jointed exactly like the real deal. Not that Remi had ever seen a horse. After a few trips back and forth for breathers – Quartz was getting dangerously low – he reached a wide spot on the catfish. There he could back and forth to get the horse facing land. From there he went much faster, though he slipped one foot into the lake in the process, up to his knee.
Husna didn’t seem too concerned, so neither was he. In the bone-dry air, the suit dried quickly.
They had two hours of air left, sharing it, but after his scare, Remi wouldn’t hear of staying longer. They mounted up double on Scheherazade, his arms around Husna’s waist as she took the reins, with Quartz plodding placidly behind. Remi was in love.
Husna wouldn’t admit to anything so silly, of course. But this was the most romantic outing the old woman had ever had. His glowing leg even rubbed off on hers in the beautiful night. They paused for a good 10 minutes at the crest of the hill to drink in the glowing panorama.
They got home to Thrive in time for a late lunch. They didn’t notice until bedtime that their legs glowed in the dark. This brought a fond smile to Husna’s face.
A puzzled Remi made a note to check his p-suit’s structural integrity. Water shouldn’t have been able to seep through. That taken care of, though, he fantasized about what it would be like to kiss Husna on that glowing shore – and maybe a bit more. In a fantasy, p-suits needn’t get in the way. With a bubble kit and a bottle of air, they were easily shed in real life as well.
126
Sass sighed in relief as she put her bo
ots up on her office desk. Dinner was done, her guests and crew tucked away for the evening. At last she had time to follow up on that call from Loki Greenwald, the wildcatter. She quaffed her beer, and punched him up on her desk.
“Captain Greenwald! Captain Sassafras Collier of the Thrive. Hope I’m not calling too late. Zoo of a day. Call me Sass.”
Loki whistled. “Pretty lady, you can call me anytime! Well, on second thought, maybe at bedtime ain’t the smartest idea. You are way too young and lovely to have command of a starship!”
Lay it on with a trowel, I don’t mind! Sass grinned and preened for the camera. “Purely artificial, I assure you. Inside, I’m old as the hills, with a wrinkly gnarly soul. Heart like a walnut.”
The wildcatter laughed out loud. “I love it!”
“It’s true,” she persisted. “I was born on Earth, Loki. My partner as well.”
Loki’s face stilled and he leaned closer, his worn visage hoary through the leprosy mask. “I’ll be. I thought sure I was the last. I hoped at first more wildcatters would show, stragglers. Help me whip this place into shape. But the years passed and no one came.”
Her heart went out to him. That fear, that loneliness, she knew like worn slippers she ought to throw out and never could. “Nine years ago, you came?”
“Yeah, the news that flushed this place down the toilet. Jeez, we found a nice planet and came back to report. Last thing I expected was for them to go all Stepford Wives on me, and stay right here. Colony Corps got great options! And instead they chose to stick themselves in limbo. Fools.”
“Stepford Wives?”
“Old movie, twentieth century,” Loki explained. “Long before our time! Feminist comedy. These husbands in the rich Connecticut suburbs conspired to have their wives replaced by perfect androids. Wives who flattered their egos, looked all primped like a porn fantasy, kept the house and kids picture-perfect, and never griped or demanded anything.”
Sass nodded emphatically. “I saw the kids in a Ganny creche? Misbehaved and sent themselves to stare at a wall for time-out?” She mock-shuddered. “They replace the kids in this movie, too?”
He grinned. “Nah, I don’t think so. Male ego, you see, Miz Sass.” He placed a hand over his heart as though making a vow. “Our children, our legacy!”
“So I figure you didn’t raise your own,” Sass quipped.
He slapped his desk and laughed. “Score! Nah, my ex-wife did that.” The mirth slowly drained from his eyes. “Took them to live down South. Lost track of ’em.”
Not much of the South remained habitable by the time Sass could remember. She’d never traveled south of drowned New York City herself. They fell to reminiscing about places long gone. She wasn’t surprised to learn he came up through the Navy, special projects. She told him about her stint in the Army, until she got booted for getting pregnant. Those were hard times with a new baby and no income, thrown back into the rain-drenched refugee tent cities with the great unwashed.
“But a woman cop gave me a hand up. Gave me a place to stay, babysitting her kids while she worked. I studied for the police exam, went to the academy, and got on the force. Of course, then I was a pig instead of a degenerate.”
He shook his head in commiseration. “I understand completely. Dang, when I went to meet old friends in the tents, the looks I got! Me all buffed and strong, physical training hours a day. And them…wiped. Of course, after I caught the leprosy, I never stepped foot in the refugee camps again.”
“Can’t blame you,” she assured him, mellow with good beer and memories. The horrors of those tent cities were manageable, almost comfortable at this remove. “The leprosy wasn’t so bad up north.”
“So you haven’t told me, Sass. How come you look like you’re twenty, while I’m a fright for small children? Mahina nanites do that?”
“Oh, my nanites predate Mahina –” Sass, watch it. That’s a little too forthcoming. She switched tack. “I mean, we’ve got better nanites now. But Mahina developed the technology before the settlers reached there. Belker, one of the Ganny crew on my settler ship, the Vitality, he researched medical nanites. I guess he learned a ton from what the terraformer crew began on Mahina. Then he left with everyone else for Sanctuary. Then he returned later to the Aloha system with one of Shiva’s courier ships. I guess he never reported back that our colonies were still alive. His ship is where we got the warp drive to come check on you.”
Loki shook his head, and smiled softly. “Now why would you do that?”
“We were worried about you.”
He raised his remaining grey eyebrow, a skeptic. “Don’t you try and kid an old kidder, Sass.”
“It’s the truth,” she insisted. “You see, Clay and I, we might live forever. But that’s because of what the Colony Corps did for us. You brought us all out to the stars, to new colonies. Ours were failing. I thought we were toast. But once we got them talking and helping each other again, they turned around. Sometimes in the wrong directions.”
“I’ll bet!”
“But it’s these artificial environments, Loki. We’ve all got too few people to maintain our technology. Yet that tech still isn’t up to snuff to keep us healthy. We need more green plants, better air, better we-don’t-know-what. We’re nowhere near ready to rest on our laurels. It takes a lot of people to support those specialties, the research, the engineering, the sheer brainpower and ideas needed.”
He pointed a finger at her. “We didn’t dare put all our eggs in one basket, Sass. Those first shell worlds were too damned marginal. Especially Aloha, jeez! That’s why I volunteered to look for better. Then I got back here and learned Aloha died. Everyone from America, dead.” He nodded slowly to himself. “Guess I kinda gave up then, a bit.”
Sass leaned forward. “Doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, Aloha screws up, but we’ve learned new techniques. We’re happy to share them. And look at Sanctuary! They built new starships! Better star drives! And I’ve got friends back on Mahina developing a new warp drive that doesn’t cost objective time. It took me eleven years elapsed to reach here. They hope to do it in days. What does that do for the prospect of a world like your Sylvan, huh?”
His eyebrows rose. “No more one way trips. Or just for crazy old goats like me.”
“And me. Even just subjective, let’s see…over five years I’ve spent in the black between. Earth to Mahina, Mahina to Sanctuary, plus a round-trip Mahina to Denali.”
His face crumpled in disgust. “In a JO-3?”
“We call them PO-3’s. Pono Orbital.” They both laughed. “Is that what you took wildcatting?”
“Nah. That courier model was the wildcatter ship design. Bit modified. Shiva’s are nicer than my old boat.” He sighed.
“Gotta ask, Loki, how come you’re not a Stepford Wife? Well, husband.”
“Nah, those nanites didn’t work on me somehow. With no human beings left there to talk to, I took my ship up the lake a ways. We lived on board. A couple died. The rest opted to be robots in the colony. But not me. Nah, I’d rather live out my days out here. Not cut out for small town life, I guess.”
Sass couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You live alone? On a courier-class ship?”
“Yes, I do, ma’am. Trade with the town now and then. Fresh food stock, fuel, a tank of water. Other than that, we successfully ignore each other.”
“Sounds lonely, Loki Greenwald.”
“Yeah, well, five years subjective, you said? Try thirty-odd. Wrong system, wrong planet, year after year. Slowly losing crew by one’s and two’s. Couldn’t tell you where I lost my mind.”
“So where are you? We should come visit.”
He raised both hands to ward her off. “Let’s not get all hasty, ma’am. Gotta get to know each other first. Give me time to spruce up the place, darn my socks. Besides, ain’t you a wee bit busy?”
She nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. But we’ll keep talking, yes? And we will meet? When things get a little less crazy.”
&nbs
p; “Maybe by then I’ll be ready,” he allowed.
“Hey, Loki? You said no one else here from Earth?”
“Not a one.”
She nodded, accepting it. “Then I’m going to keep calling you. You’ll get all used to people again. I’ll bend your ear into those little origami birds, you’ll see! Because it sure is good to talk Earth again.”
“Anytime, gorgeous!” And they signed off.
As she slipped into bed beside Clay, she hugged him head to foot. “Made a new friend. From Earth.”
“Be careful, Sass,” her gorgeous partner crooned.
“We should give him Yang-Yangs, Clay.”
He rolled onto an elbow, alarmed. “You told him about Yang-Yangs? On your first video call?”
“’Course not. I’m just saying. As a matter of policy. Anyone we meet from Earth, we could offer them Yang-Yangs.”
He shook his head. Relieved, he rolled back down onto his pillow. “Sass, Yang-Yangs rely on an external controller. They’re not self-correcting like our nanites. We can’t turn this Loki Greenwald into us. If it could be done, Mahina Actual would’ve figured it out ages ago.”
“I know. But at least he wouldn’t need to wear a leprosy mask anymore. A sight to frighten children. I bet that’s why he really chose to be a hermit.”
“Hush, sweetie. By now, it’s a part of him. Don’t be too eager to change someone’s life. You know better than that.”
127
A tedious month later, Sass finally managed to convene all three mayors and the software guy on Thrive for a meeting. Granted, they’d all been busy. When freed to think for the first time in a decade, Sass’s problems weren’t their top concern.
Also, like Tharsis, their brains woke but slowly from long disuse. In fact, Sass suspected Ling was too elderly for her mind to ever return from its long vacation. The Loonies needed a new major mayor. Tharsis and Lumpkin were fairly cogent by now, but like Darren Markley and poor Zelda, their biochemistry remained low on happy juice, and their thought processes…slow.