L'Gem

by Sharon L Reddy

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  They picked up equipment on the way. They bought a "truck" in a small town. They bought a ranch wagon, utility trailer and dozer in a small city. They bought a ranch multi-tasker that was sitting by the grav-way with a sign on it. They bought a trac-rig with a flatbed at a used truck dealer at the edge of a city and filled it, the ranch wagon, truck and trailer with supplies at a builder's supply.

  They had lunch at a rigger rack, a restaurant with parking designed for trac-rigs, and bought another trac-rig. It had a road-apt click-on.

  They hooked the flatbed to the trac, then went back into the city with the trac-rig and ranch wagon, bought a multi-van, two boats, five skimmers, two trailers, a flatbed and filled that flatbed, around the multi-van on it, with more supplies from a different builders' supply.

  They had six vehicles with them, four more at parents' places and no place to put any of them, when they got home. When Bard, Blade, Nev, Case and Stats arrived, all five were standing between the dozer and the multi-tasker at the top of the drive, smiling widely.

  "Equipment parking is obviously first."

  "This is all yours?"

  "Yes, Blade."

  "Two haulers, I thought Nev shopped heavy."

  "Haulers? Trac-rigs."

  "Light hauler."

  "Truck."

  "Utility transport."

  "Multi-van."

  "What's that thing?"

  "A ranch multi-tasker. That one needs some work. The rancher dredged a pond with it and forgot to drop the bio screen. It's got targer carapace flakes in the blow-through. He priced it to be worth the work to disassemble it and deal with several thousand extremely sharp septic blades the size of your little fingernail. He said it was worth the price of a new one to find out he had targers in the pond, and one of his kids cut was two too many."

  "Tell me about this creature."

  "Freshwater amphibian. It's nest is underground, above water level, but entry is underwater. It makes a vent hole about the size of your finger on land, up to twenty meters from the water, if it has to go that far to get above it. The carapace is formed in layers of very thin plates, getting thicker and broader as the targer grows. It's primarily silicates it exudes. It carries the carapace. It's not attached. The plates spread as it grows and new form beneath, so it doesn't outgrow it, but plates break off. The animal would be harmless except the plates are deadly. An animal that swallows one while drinking will be cut up inside, probably while swallowing. If it doesn't swallow, but mouth or tongue are cut, it may die of infection. In the wild, plates settle, float downstream and settle, get broken apart, become silicates another bottom-feeding targer uses. Targer plates are used by a half-dozen other creatures, including two that break them up to make their own shells. Targers have a predator, a very venomous water worm, but a type of fish gets most of their young ones, so it's all balanced, in the wild."

  "This lake?"

  "Wrong geology. There are animals that exist in both areas, but they're in the upper third of the food chain. This is a rather welcoming habitat for our domestic animals and us. There's nothing here that does more than make a welt if it stings. We will check you for allergies to a couple of those before we wade into brush. Labs picked up test kits for seven."

  "Blisterflies?"

  "Make welts, but even those are less problem to our horses here. I hear the reason. That tree. Look for a small blue-chested avian."

  "I see two."

  "Those two would reduce the size of a swarm of blister fly's fast, but they don't eat the primary pollinators."

  "Bluebibs in a blackwood tree, it's a nice place to live."

  "Yes, Bam, it is. Those two bluebibs are going to be very friendly when we start cutting brush. Don't be surprised if one decides to use a shoulder, or head as a perch. They like people, yards, cats and dogs."

  "They like cats?"

  "It's mutual. Cats and dogs will play with them, chase them, but never chomp or bat hard. The bluebibs will laugh if a cat knocks them out of the air. They're pretty sturdy and like to play, and cats will yowl for help if they accidentally hurt one. That's the only 'wild' animal on this planet that will let a human pick it up, take it to a vet, fly back up to the nest when fixed, and come down to play with kitty an hour later. There are people they don't like, and they're the same ones cats don't. Bluebibs live up to eighteen years, mate for life, have one chick every other year after two until they're twelve, and their only natural enemies are a plant disease that kills blackwood trees and weather. They eat the bugs that make holes in blackwood bark, which allows disease to enter, so weather is the most common killer. They don't migrate. We'll build our bluebibs a windbreak."

  "Windbreak?"

  "The blackwood holds its leaves until new buds push them off. The leaves serve as a natural protection against freezing rain and snow. If the wind is too strong, it blows through and little bluebibs freeze."

  "What do they eat in winter?"

  "Billions of leaf-cutter eggs in brown lumps on winter-brown plants. We'll supplement with tipple seed. Our lawn won't be the dinner pail this brush is and making them go farther to get food reduces the energy they have to fight cold."

  "Does the blackwood have to have winter?"

  "A field?"

  "It doesn't sound like the bluebibs would mind. The avians on the BNU campus certainly didn't. Some fly into the cap, but they aren't damaged, do learn where it is and some go under. We've got a migratory pair that hopped out, flew south and hopped back in this spring. Next year, they may stay. They only go one hundred fifty K."

  "I'm not sure fields would accomplish what we want to do here, Nev. They're far too expensive for most people."

  "That's not what Bard, Nev and Blade do, Quinn. It's not what they taught us to do. Create the home you want for you. If you want a field ten meters out in the lake, do it. If you want a parking area that rises out of the deck of a big swimming pool and covers it, or unfolds over a field of flowers, do that. If you want it all lawn and everything else underground, do that. If you want the whole half-K plus in walls that can be opaque, do it. People will ask how much this, that or 'something like' will cost. They'll know what fields cost, and they know what domes cost. They'll know what posine costs and that they can have it shipped easily if it's not available here, conveniently imported and stocked."

  "We were doing a 'like that one' for a family. Stats said, 'This isn't what they taught us.' He walked in and got a description of the life and entertainment style of the family, made a design change, chose a different material, and we gave that family a far more useful addition in less time for about the same price, and it's gorgeous too."

  "Case doesn't mention he listed materials that would be easier to use to do what they really wanted until I said, 'that one,' and Drand adapted the mechanisms to do it, and… Figure out exactly what you want and build it. It's the perfect-for-us that makes it worth hiring you to do it. That's the 'designers.' If you standardize, sell plans and let builders build it."

  "Did you know we taught them to do that, Bard?"

  "No, Blade, but I know it's what Nev taught us to do."

  "Me too."

  "I figured out what my parents needed and you guys helped. 'Taught' is a little too he-did-it to fit. However, it was what we learned making places right for our families. Stats is right. Stop thinking of it in terms of 'example.' Build exactly what you want. If you love playing in snow, or just looking at it, don't enclose it. If you like looking at it a half-K away, do. If you like that and a quarter-K to run bare in, make a room with walls you can opaque that big. If you hate paying power bills, generate your own power. We can pay a license fee to make you a storage tower to get the idea across it's not just for big businesses or schools. Design and build perfect for you. That's the right example."

  "Nine days."

  "So yell for help to get it done that fast, or in three, if yo
u think you might be told to put on your uniforms and told go do something."

  "The blackwood and bluebibs would do fine, as long as there's airflow and tipple seed, but I don't know if they'd like it. I don't know if we would."

  "You like sleet?"

  "No, Bam."

  "Good. We'll go somewhere to play in snow."

  "We're going to start over?"

  "No, we want the same things. We'll just rethink how we want a couple. There's no reason to run a field all the time, or even when it rains most of the time. Personally, I don't see the need for both wall and cap fields. Put an object field over it and a gate field just across here."

  "We'd have to make sure the bluebibs are home before we turn it on, Loopy."

  "All right, we leave it on all the time and don't worry the bluebibs or the cat are stuck outside."

  "You want the 'lock' of an object field?"

  "I don't know, Quinn. I'm not sure I want everyone to know where we live."

  "Define the feeling, Loopy. Look for the why, the when and who."

  "I'll try, Blade. By invitation only. Just drop in, but yell to open the gate. We're famous and everyone isn't polite, or sane. We're changing the world. Sinful? Express an opinion destructively?"

  "Comm connect Drand. Put a cap shield over the sculpture garden. That's what they'd destroy to 'express an opinion destructively' on our world. Loopy looking for why she wants walls and a roof. Comm out."

  "Sorry, Nev."

  "I'm not, Loopy. Drand will decide to make it 'always summer' and I'll go there in winter too. We talked about it last winter. Here?"

  "Safety is close neighbors or a good security system. Tell everyone you have one or both, and thieves or crazies don't try. Your world is very nice now. You're thieves and crazies all identified themselves and you did something about them. We don't have a high percentage, but we don't know who they are, until they steal or destroy. A feeling we'll be glad we did, sorry if we don't, we're not the only ones it will benefit and… Some others far more. No 'when' because I think we will and won't be."

  "Let's figure out how, and how to do it from inside."

  "That's not one field, Quinn."

  "I expect it to be a half-dozen or more, Bard."

  "Where do you want to plan this?"

  "In the road apt. This is how a lot of riggers live."

  "Very nice."

  "This is a two-bedroom apartment that goes along, Blade. It's not a camper. It's a home, and most who have one don't have another, though they may have a place they own to park their rigs in four or five locations."

  "I thought most hauling was done by robo-haulers."

  "It is. Riggers are large shipment couriers. Most don't have routes or regular schedules. They have a central dispatch you call if you need something here to there 'now.' You pay for the run, not the size of the load. They get more work than you'd think for that reason. A rigger can move a really big load for less than standard shipping because they're taxed differently, but they won't make five stops. Most do 'out-and-back,' from one city to another and back. The dispatcher sets them up that way. Riggers with road apts go 'wherever.' They each have a personal definition of 'nearby' for picking up a load and the dispatcher knows it. One might be twenty minutes and another 'over an hour away they pay extra.' I think most of those would happily move from doing it on the ground to doing it in space. There aren't a lot, but they say, 'Some are born restless,' and we heard one complain he was 'running out of continent' today. Another said she was on her third and would be out before she was sixty."

  "He gave her a never-run-out-of-new-places-to-see comm code."

  "The thought was obviously depressing, Topper. Cheering her up seemed polite. Here's the area we did with plan overlay."

  "This?"

  "Scooter… rink? Field?"

  "I have no idea what to call it either, Quinn. Nice plan. What do you want to change?"

  "This. I like Stats' suggestion of not using all the space for something we need seldom, Bard. However, this needs to be bigger."

  "So does this road if all this is going to be parked here long. Let's figure that out first. That spot is?"

  "First because we need the multi-tasker for everything else. It's the place I figured I could set up the hazmat dome I got, clean the multi-tasker and dispose the whole dome."

  "Specs on the dome?"

  "On my pocket comp."

  "This was not a cheap unit. Why dispose?"

  "The plates, I don't think we could get them all out."

  "How much did that rancher knock off for the cleaning job?"

  "About twenty thousand stels."

  "I have greater appreciation of the difficulty, and danger, of this task."

  "The hazmat dome was about two-thirds that, Blade. He was relieved when I said I'd use one. It's too good a piece of equipment not to do it, but I know he considered just hauling it to a large disposal site. I considered 'wishing' it to the best place to do it, but realized I was sure I hazmat dome there was the best."

  "Let's get it set up."

  "Bard, I'm going to do this with him. Don't argue, anybody. I'm sure we'll get it clean safely and I don't feel that way about anyone else."

  "I don't like it, Blade, but I'm just generally, not specifically, worried."

  "I love you too, Nev."

  "Quinn… I love you. Be careful."

  "I love you too, Bam. I will be."

  "You guys haven't all said, 'I love you,' yet."

  "No, Blade."

  "And you haven't kissed."

  "No."

  "Everybody kisses everybody else and says, 'I love you,' before we start. Nobody is going to have what-if-something-happens-I-should-have-said feelings while we do this. He would feel them and rush. Let's go outside. It's going to be hard for these guys to kiss without us here."

  "Stats, I'm going to kiss you."

  "Case, that's not…"

  "I love you. You do excite me. I don't need, or really want, to do anything about it, but I do want to kiss you."

  "You don't excite me. No man does. I know that's actually odd. It is, guys. A little excite, but not enough to want to do anything about it, is usual. However… I love you very much, Case, and I'd like a kiss."

  Case kissed Stats. Stats said it was definitely time to find some "not shy" women. Case said, "Definitely," and went out the door. Stats grinned and followed. Bard kissed Blade and Nev, then Blade kissed Nev. Bard steered him out the door. Blade winked at the five, stepped out the door and closed it.

  The three of them were suddenly in their house in Teal Valley. Nev said, "Oops." Bard and Blade were not standing when Nev wished them back to Case and Stats. Case and Stats were rolling on the ground laughing too. Nev sat down, tipped over, and giggled.

  Quinn looked out the door. Blade said, "Standing on his bed, and we know we helped!" Quinn burst into laughter and closed the door. A few minutes later, he came out of the road apt. He had tears in his eyes when he said, "Thank you," and told Blade he was ready.

  Quinn had gear to go with the dome, though not full hazmat suits. He'd bought 'more than enough' sturdy covalls, shoe covers, caps, face shields and the only gloves the plates couldn't penetrate. They covered to midforearm. Nothing over-the-elbow had been plate impenetrable. Blade asking if the gloves would be enough. He took a deep breath and nodded.

  "Quinn, nothing… scared you like this. Why?"

  "Two times out of nine, amputation is required to give time for anti-bios to work on redvein. The scan said it's present."

  "It usually isn't."

  "It's a mutation. It didn't exist sixty years ago. We think it's going to prove nonviable, now that we found the reason the mutation was beginning to dominate in some regions, soil remediation for Terran crops. We stopped and it's down in samples, but the ranch is in one of the regions. Cleaning this here isn't likely to contaminate if it 'got loose.' It
has little enemies that live here and the environment isn't healthy for it in other ways. Our biggest fear is it will mutate again, not revert. So far, it hasn't."

  "That's surprising."

  "We know. We think 'back' is most viable. It's dangerous, of course, but we're more naturally resistant to it."

  "It's not 'the nightmare,' but it's a damn bad dream."

  "Yes. We didn't change something so much it killed us all, but something we did changed an organism to much more deadly. If it had been another type…"

  "If we can use the plants and animals, they can use us. If we push them around too much…"

  "We may push them into something meaner than we are. The bluebibs are volunteers for change. I think they'll move in with us in a couple hundred more years, maybe sooner. We didn't know they'd eat tipple seed, until about thirty years ago."

  "Tipple is?"

  "A grain grass were working with in hybridization experiments. It doesn't grow were bluebibs live. A student took a bag of seed home to work on the project over summer and a chirr bug went into the open bag. A bluebib got the chirr bug, laughed in delight and ate seed, went to get his mate, she ate seed, then they took seed to their fledgling."

  "Laughed?"

  "You'll hear it when we start cutting brush. They chirp at you, and have the distinctive song you heard, but there's no doubt the other sound they make is 'fun' and it's laughter."

  "They don't look big enough to be that smart."

  "They're much smarter than Terran birds, and other avians their size on this world. They're very different. They split off a long way back in their evolutionary track. Their brains are heavier. They don't have long necks. Theory is the brain developed to process vision. There are bugs that they can't eat, and some they don't. But they eat the bugs that mimic those in coloring to fool other avians."

  "And cats like them. I think you've got a high-psi avian."

  "Shh, so do we, but we don't say it."

  "Some people don't say cats are high psi either."

  "I know. Bam wants a cat. I don't even know where to look."

  "Where the right cat is."

  "I hadn't thought of that. If I land in a basket with a litter of kittens, I'm going to giggle."

  "I think some of not having control is it does make us giggle."

  "Probably."

  Quinn disappeared and Blade giggled. When Quinn came out of the road apt, he stopped. He could see he was furious. They were halfway down the drive, pushing the multi-tasker, which they learned was commonly called a 'georgie,' with the dome package on top, when Quinn suddenly burst into laughter.

  "I'll bet I scared the hell out of them! I just remembered how I'm dressed."

  "There was a 'them' where you went?"

  "Two boys. They were torturing a cat. That's literal. They had it tied spread-eagle between two stakes. I yelled, 'You're sick!' and kitty and I disappeared, without strings and stakes. Labs thinks the quick-heal will prevent scarring, and the fur they burned will grow back. I was on another world, fast glimpse of hundreds of very tall buildings on the horizon, so an older one."

  "I hope you 'scared the hell out of them.' It needed to be done."

  "I hope so too. I hope they stay scared a while, and have nightmares. They deserve them, and the lesson of not being able to tell why they had them. Never do anything that gives you bad dreams you can't tell your parents about."

  "These were not big boys."

  "About ten or eleven."

  "They may have been why he's the right cat."

  "They may, but I'm sure he's the right one. He was already trying to make Bam feel better. He named him Buddy. He wasn't well cared for. He's skinny, but that won't last long. Nev went for the 'right food' and came back with go bowls of brown rice and brown gravy. He said he was surprised to arrive in a restaurant kitchen in front of the pots, but he wouldn't have known what to order if he'd arrived at the door. He thinks it's a fungi, not meat, gravy, but asking what he'd just ordered, after slipping out of the kitchen felt odd."

  "Asking the planet is a little strange too."

  An hour and thirty-seven minutes later, Blade stepped out of gear onto the georgie, lifted it and Quinn cleaned the bottom. He opened the dome and Blade drove it out. Quinn stepped out of his gear and the dome, closed it, then collapsed it. They picked up the dome, with seventy-five liters of antiseptic in the catch tank and their gear in it, with the georgie, and drove it up the drive, and onto the back of the truck. In eleven minutes, they had the dome, and contents safely recycled. When they got back to the top of the drive. Labs told them the area where they'd worked had the usual beasts, no plates or redvein.

  Quinn sighed deeply and visibly relaxed. He and Blade were pointed to the road apt for dinner and to meet a cat named Buddy.