by Alan Black
Maslow said, “You be careful, you do not want to run into the Halberds.”
Veronica smiled. “That’s why I’m taking Mags with me. Somehow, she makes me feel safe.”
Auggie and Mags exchanged a brief flash of hand signals. Mags said, “Okay, Veronica. You should be as safe as sitting in your own living room.”
“Yes, but most accidents happen in the home.”
Mags laughed, “I can’t help it if you’re clumsy, but if we run into the Halberds we should be safe enough.”
Veronica pulled the maps from the truck and pointed to a spot downstream. “It looks like, if we check this place here, we can build a dam across this choke point. It would back water up to fill this whole area.” She drew an imaginary line around the map area. “That should give us a large reservoir and maybe even a small lake to play in on the hot days.”
Mags nodded as she slid her fingers over the map as if committing the terrain to memory. “If we put a small wall up across the back side at this spot, we might double the size of your lake.”
Veronica grinned. “That’s an excellent suggestion. Let’s go take a look at the area and make sure we’re not going to drown something we want to save.”
The two women started walking along the rapidly drying streambed.”
“Meaning you don’t want to drown a colony of rabbits or something?”
Veronica said, “That would be an unusual find on a planet without native animals. I was thinking more like a patch of wild strawberries or an outcropping of gold-bearing quartz.”
“Gold?” Mags said. “Do you think there’s gold somewhere on this planet?”
Veronica nodded. “Somewhere, someone will find gold, silver, platinum, and precious stones. They will…this place is too Earth-like. Besides gold is a universal element on the periodic chart. It’s bound to be here somewhere.”
Mags looked around thoughtfully.
“Are you catching gold fever?” Veronica laughed.
Mags nodded, “I think it might be fun to learn prospecting.”
“You and Auggie have the blasting part down right.”
Mags said, “Oh, that? Um…it’s just a weekend hobby.”
Veronica said, “I’m not asking about it. I’m commenting on how it’s such a useful skill, both in building dams and gold prospecting. You walk around this flat area along the hills on that side and I’ll go around this way. We’ll meet at the far end.”
The walk convinced Veronica that all the lake water would remain on her property. The canyon walls were steeper here than back upstream. They were certainly capable of storing more water. It might even take a few rainy seasons to fill up completely.
Mags stood on the top of a canyon wall where the stream cut back through a pinch point.
Veronica scrambled up the slope to stand next to the woman. The extra exertion left her breathing hard and sweating in the 115-degree heat. She drank deeply from her water bottle and noticed Mags had not even worked up a sweat.
Mags said, “I didn’t see any gold-bearing quartz on my side, but then I wouldn’t know what to look for anyway. I sure would like to know though. Maybe someday Auggie and I can go prospecting up in the mountains.”
Veronica caught her breath and said, “I can teach you prospecting.”
“You know how to look for gold?” she asked.
Veronica shook her head, “No, but I have enough data to do the research and put together a study course for you and Auggie. We may have to get you some special equipment, besides blasting powder and shovels. I know that panning is a usual method, so is sluicing and even using metal detectors, but I’m not sure how they work.
“You can teach us, though?” Mags asked.
Veronica nodded. “Of course, if you want to leave and become a miner, I’m not going to stand in your way.”
“Leave?” Mags surprised Veronica by grabbing and holding her. “I don’t want to leave. I’ve felt more at home here than anywhere, ever. I was just thinking about a hobby for Auggie and me to enjoy together. I mean, there’s only so much sex he can take in a day, you know. I mean, five or six times and he’s done for the day. Besides, it sounds like it’ll give him something to blow up. He does like that.”
Veronica did not say anything until the woman released her. “I didn’t mean that you had to leave, only that you could if you wanted to. And even if you do leave, you can always come back.”
Mags nodded with finality. She turned and pointed at the pinch in the canyon walls. “That’s the choke point shown on your map. It seems to me that if we dam it up to the top, then the lowest point will be where we’re standing now. Even after this fills up, the water will flow back down into your fields before going south. It should block any westward flow completely.”
Veronica said, “That choke point should be easy enough to dam up.”
Mags shook her head. “Not as easy as it looks. Sure the walls are close together, but if we want to dam to the level of the canyon rim, we’ll have to bring in rocks from somewhere else and fill from overhead, otherwise, just collapsing the canyon walls will lower the height of the lake.”
Veronica waved her arms around her. “It should be easy enough to find rocks.”
Mags said, “There are quite a few outcroppings of rocks along the side I walked on.” Pointing, she continued, “Auggie can drop a load directly into the truck, and it’ll make it up this slope and across there, falling there.”
Veronica said, “Good.”
“Can we walk the other little creek to the west?” Mags asked. “It does help to see where it goes if we’re working on your secondary priority of shutting off the Halberd’s water.”
Veronica pulled out the map again. She had not noticed the small creek before. It was a narrow short line on the map, edging along a canyon wall. She started to trace a way to get there on the map, but without even glancing at the map, Mags led her back down the slope, across the canyon floor, and through a gap. Then they climbed up and over a ridge.
Veronica stopped to fill her water bottle as Mags knelt by the small creek. Without looking down, Mags brought water up to her lips. Her eyes flicked around, trying to look in every direction at once. Veronica was becoming more curious by the minute about Auggie and Mags. The woman was hyper-vigilant where there was no possibility of animal attack and running into another human being was improbable.
They continued walking along for a while, the silence as comforting as their companionship.
Mags stopped and looked around her. They were at a fork in the creek, one side wet and one side dry.
Veronica looked at a dry channel. It seemed like a hillside had slid down, diverting the small stream.
Mags said, “I would bet you that years ago this creek flowed naturally back onto your property.”
Veronica said, “It looks like it happened a long time before humans got here. Shrubs and trees are growing in that pile of rubble.”
They walked on again.
Mags came to a quick halt. “This is the edge of your section. What do we call it anyway? Smith Farms? How about the Bar-S Ranch or the V-Plus Ranch?”
Veronica continued, walking onto Halberd land. They were far enough south it had to be Dillon’s property. She looked back at Mags and waved for her to join her. “Maybe we should have a contest and vote on an appropriate name. Yes, I know we crossed the land boundary, but the map doesn’t show where this creek goes and I want to know.”
Mags caught up quickly, “I just wanted you to know that I know Auggie offered to help you with the Halberds. He told me that he spoke to you. Thank you for telling him no, we, um, we used to be in the business of solving people problems. I kind ’a miss the work, but Auggie always did the heavier wet work and it was beginning to wear on him. That’s why we left Earth for here.”
Veronica nodded, “You wanted a fresh start. I can understand that. I can’t understand the work you did, but I know it’s not just a movie theme.”
Mags said, “We started ou
t as government employees, but we took a few side contract jobs here and there.”
“You worked as a team then?”
Mags laughed. “Oh no, we were actually employed by different governments. I would never have believed it, but loving that surfer boy tops institutional ideologies any day of the year. This is just between us, right? I mean, neither of our employers knows where we went. We sort of quit without notice, if you get my drift.”
Veronica nodded, “It’s a new planet and it’s a new beginning. I left a lot behind—” She stopped and grabbed Mags arm. “Stop.”
They were about to walk away from the cliffs into an open field covered by sand. The creek spread out, flowing into the sand and seeped into the ground, but did not reappear on the other side of the field.
Veronica picked up a rock and tossed it into the middle of the wet sand. It sank like the sand was deciding whether to taste the rock or spit it out. The rock sank, not too fast and not too slow.
“Quicksand?” Mags asked.
“I don’t honestly know. My money would be on a sand covered sinkhole, but this is as far as we go. The water either sinks and joins the aquifer or bubbles up like a spring somewhere.”
She stared at the rocks on the cliff face for a moment. Calling up her data-patch, she took a few pictures, and let the data-patch scan its data banks. It flashed a response back quickly.
Mags waited patiently.
Veronica pointed at the cliff face over their heads. “See that outcropping of rocks? It matches this picture on my data-patch. That’s what an outcropping of gold-bearing quartz looks like.”
Mags looked at the cliff wall and back at the picture on Veronica’s data-patch. “So there is gold there?”
“Maybe, but probably not. According to my data, that’s the first place I would look. Of course, we’re on Dillon Halberd’s land, so it doesn’t do us any good to look deeper.”
“Are you going to tell Dillon Halberd he may have gold on his property?”
Veronica looked startled. “Oh no, not if my life depended on it.”
Mags laughed. “Well. I guess I can keep a secret if you can.”
They walked back to the diversion point of the creek, then up to the top of the rubble blocking the old creek bed. Once there, Mags pulled a wad of explosives out of her pocket.
“Is that dangerous to carry around like that?” Veronica asked.
“Not really,” Mags replied. “It’s the detonators that are dangerous.” She pinched off a small piece and stuffed it in a crack. Pulling a detonator from another pocket, she tamped it into the explosive.
“I thought you said the detonators were dangerous to carry around?”
Mags laughed. “They are, but then so is Auggie, and I keep him around. Maybe you should head back up the creek about thirty yards or so. No reason to rush, these detonators give us a good ten minutes before they blow once they’re jammed into the putty.”
Veronica took off at a run. She expected Mags to be behind her, but the Chinese woman planted three more charges before reaching Veronica with a smile on her lips.
Mags did not have a watch, but she held up her fingers and counted down. “Five, four, three, two—” The charges blew at two, exploding in a series. “Dang it, I was a whole second off.” She looked at Veronica, “Don’t tell Auggie I missed the count. I don’t want him to worry about me and start mothering me.”
Veronica said, “Tell him? I don’t know whether to be impressed or scared. That was crazy and good. It may have been good and crazy. How do you still have all of your fingers?”
Mags waved her hand, wiggling her fingers. “What makes you think these are all my natural fingers? Hey look, we restored the creek to its natural flow. Instead of sinking back into the sand it’ll flow onto our place.”
Veronica smiled at her use of the personal pronoun “our”. It had not taken much time for these people to become more than ordinary staff and employees. They were becoming friends. She was more than fine if they wanted to think of her section as their home. She did not know how it was possible for her to come to love such a diverse group, but she was no longer fighting Tatum and the Halberds for just herself. She would protect these people, even if she had to stop Auggie and Mags from protecting her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
After Veronica showered and washed her hair, she went out to sit on a comfortable chair in her enclosed, interior courtyard. She was relaxed and topless with a towel wrapped around her waist. It was sunny and hot—not the burning hot of mid-afternoon—but the waning residual heat of a brutally hot day. She brushed her hair, letting the dry season air suck the moisture away from the long strands. It was a quiet day, the first quiet day in a while. There were no crickets chirping and no birds tweeting. The children were all well out of earshot. This planet with no name was strangely quiet when you got away from other people.
Typically, she left her hair braided, wrapped, and twisted in on itself to shorten its length. It was an old habit from growing up in Phoenix. It was easy to put it up on hot days. It was as hot and dry on this new planet in the middle of the summer as it was in Arizona. This evening she planned to leave her hair down for a while.
She was not sure why, but most men preferred long hair on women. Her mother always reminded her of that when Veronica threatened to cut hers short. She then remembered another Veronica she used to teach about in her film history class. The woman was beyond pretty in her day. Miss Lake started her own fashion fad, wearing her long hair swept over her right eye. While it covered her beauty, it gave her an air of mystery.
Veronica knew she was not as beautiful as Veronica Lake, but she was going to try the little hair-over-the-eye trick anyway. Back issues of Cosmo in her database offered up several flirting tidbits using long hair.
She had thrown a few lures at Maine, but now it was time to jiggle the line, get him to strike, and then set the hook. She was pleased with the analogy and it made her chuckle. Her father, the great outdoorsman, loved using sportsmen’s metaphors whether they were appropriate or not. This one was right on the money because she was trying to catch Maine.
She slipped into a pair of not quite see-through panties without adding shorts or jeans. She did not expect to been seen below the waist and being partially dressed gave her a vampy feeling. She hoped the feeling would translate into her voice. She put on her best pushup bra and covered it with a button-down shirt.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She may be a few years older than Maine, but not enough to matter. She could pass for younger. While running her fingers through her hair to fluff it out she thought it was a silly thing to do. Why did I bother brushing my hair if I’m only going to mess it up again with my fingers? It seemed strange and contradictory, but the Cosmo videos recommended doing it that way. Her hair now had a half slept in look, sleek, but touchable.
Her hair was a dull brown, the color she was born with. It matched her complexion exactly as nature intended. She shook her head and let the hair fall where it may. She moved a handful so it draped across her face, not naturally or easily, but it left her feeling like she had a sexy, mysterious look. She moved the hair to cover the other eye and then switched it back. She was certain her left eye was prettier than her right, so she covered her right eye.
She undid a shirt button and adjusted her breasts trying for more cleavage. She undid another button, to show a bit of her bra. She sighed. It was evident she was not sixteen anymore.
She put on a little makeup, though normally she wore none. Her theory of makeup application was that less is more.
Seated in front of the vidphone, she dialed the Halberd home number. The communications satellites were all up and working now, but she did not have Maine’s private data-patch number. She assumed everyone had a data-patch even though she had never seen him use one. No one on Earth was without a data-patch though none were able to get away from viral vids of cute cats, boogers, pratfalls, and crushing x-gamer crashes.
Halberd’s
daughter opened the vidphone connection. She stared at the screen with a blank expression on her face and did not say hello. Her hair looked unkempt; looking wild and fly away like she never brushed it. Her skin was at the teenage pimple stage. As a teacher back on Earth, Veronica was more familiar with Earth-style teenage fashions than she wanted to be. She doubted the styles of this new world could have changed much from Earth’s in one a year. Veronica felt that the clothing the girl was wearing had not been of her choosing, either to buy or to wear.
Veronica realized the girl was probably wearing Missy Halberd’s old clothes, cut down, and pinned up to fit. The thought of forcing a child to wear a dead person’s clothes sent chills down Veronica’s spine.
“Hello, Miss Halberd,” Veronica said with her well-practiced smile, the same smile she used when greeting a class of freshmen on the first day of class.
Staring at Veronica, she did not respond.
“I’m your neighbor, Veronica Smith. How are you?”
The girl shrugged.
“Well, it is certainly nice to see you again. Is Maine available to speak to?” she asked.
The girl shrugged, then stepped out of range.
Veronica heard the girl shout, “Maine. Phone call. I don’t know. No. You ask. Okay—okay—okay.”
Veronica wondered if the girl thought she could not be heard if she could not be seen. It seemed plausible for an abused child, trying to be invisible, trying not to be seen, trying not to be noticed. If her father was abusing her, he must not be in the house or she would not have brought attention to herself by shouting.
The girl stepped back into vidscreen range. “Maine was in the kitchen. He’ll be here in a minute. He said to tell you to wait.” She turned and walked away without saying goodbye.
Rather than be subjected to on-hold music or the popular, but ever-so-irritating vids, pix, and slideshows of family vacations, birthday parties, and bar mitzvahs, the girl left the vidcall pickup open. It gave Veronica an unobstructed view of the most uninspired décor since the last first lady took up residence at the White House.