Building Harlequin’s Moon (43 page)

L
ATER THAT AFTERNOON
, John handed Gabriel a freshly filled glass of the too-sweet berry wine they were sharing on the edge of the new dock. Their feet hung over the edge as they rose slowly with the tide. “Are you feeling any better?”

Gabriel laughed. “Maybe after I finish this wine. I’m not happy with the schedule slippages.”

John refilled his own glass. “Talk to Rachel? She goes back and forth between Clarke Base and Refuge more than any of us.”

“All right. I haven’t seen her much the last few months. We all need more hours,” Gabriel complained.

John raised his arm and pointed at the white domes of Council Aerie on the crater rim above them. “Look what you built! Quit whining.”

Gabriel quieted, watching the sea. The sun wanned his back and sparkled on the water in front of him. A little touched by the wine, Gabriel reflected that while Rachel and Ali had taught him a bit about actually loving plants, the captain was teaching him to love the sea. “A sailboat
would
be nice.”

After a while, John said, “You know, we need some fish. I hope Ali and Treesa hurry up and stock this pond. A man with water needs a way to fish.”

“I suppose you’re the one who spawned those poor salmon in the Ring River in the garden.”

“Well, I caught them both before spawning season. It would be a shame to drive such beautiful fish crazy.”

Gabriel pushed him off the dock into the water, and dove after him, laughing.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Gabriel found Rachel inside Refuge. She sang softly to herself, stacking blankets, her back to him.

He cleared his throat.

She stopped singing and turned toward him. “Yes, can I help you, stranger?”

Well, that was fair. He saw Rachel occasionally, but he really hadn’t spent much time with her in the two years since Refuge landed. He nodded and looked away. “Sorry. I’ve been busy building ships and small towns. But I’d like to talk to you. I need advice.”

She leaned against the wall, one arm above her head. The pose elongated her torso, so she looked even taller than normal. Her red braid hung down almost to her breasts. She smiled, and said, “You? Need me? Fancy that. For what?”

“Children.”

“What if I don’t want to have kids?”

“No . . .” He blinked, taken aback. Her confident teasing was a woman’s reaction. “Sorry, Rachel, I meant you and yours. The Children of Selene. There seems to be a little problem at Clarke Base.”

She still smiled, but he thought he saw a wary look in her eyes. “Oh—what problem?”

The murmur of low conversation came from the next room. Better to talk uninterrupted. “Take a walk?”

“Sure,” she said, her voice casual and light. “But I don’t know much about Clarke Base. I’m not there often.”

“You go down sometimes to visit, right?”

“Only when you guys give me enough of a break to actually leave for two days or more. I’ve been there twice in the last
month
. I still do some classes there, and I like to visit my dad.”

“I’m going to reassign you to Clarke Base.” He turned and headed up the short flight of stairs that led to the cargo escalator. The fifteen-foot-wide escalator went to the surface, connecting to a floating dock. It would ferry people into Refuge in an emergency. A single thin staircase ran next to the wide escalator. They took the stairs, Rachel ahead, stopping at the one-third point to open one of the doors that allowed the long tube between Refuge and the dock on the surface to be pressurized.

Rachel stepped up and angled through the door, her words floating back to him over her shoulder. “Treesa tells me that Council Aerie is beautiful inside. I’d like to visit sometime.”

Children walked directly past Council Aerie daily, delivering cargo between Refuge and Clarke Base, ignored by the Council inside. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you hadn’t seen it. There won’t be time today, but ask Treesa or John. They’ll take you.” He tapped the door shut and pushed the controls to rebalance pressure. It was a short series of locks—a huge inconvenience for sixty feet of upward progress. The design constraints had been significant. The need for enough flexibility to handle variable pressure as Harlequin pulled and released the sea in forty-foot tides alone caused headaches; and a complex system of doors and air control made the escalator a lightly pressurized environment.

Rachel continued to walk ahead of him without looking back. “Why send me down there? We’re not done here yet.”

“We will start assembling the antimatter generator soon. Refuge is far enough along that we’re reassigning some
people down below. Besides, I’m hoping you can help me with a problem.”

“Oh.” Rachel’s voice was low. She reached the top of the escalator and expertly tapped the door open. The smells of water and fresh air rushed in. “What do you want help with?” She stepped through the door, and stood on the dock, waiting for him.

Gabriel emerged and stood next to her, feeling a soft wind against his face. “Mathew and Dena are having trouble getting production quotas out of the group at Clarke Base.”

“How can I help with that?”

“I don’t know. Projects you work on seem to go well. Do you know anything about Children having trouble getting things done on time?”

Rachel shook her head, shielding her eyes from the light with a raised arm. “I told you, I don’t get down there much.”

“Go tomorrow morning and stay awhile. I’m reassigning you to the same group that works on parts. I want you to try and get people to work harder. I’ll be cold again soon, and that means I can’t look into this myself. But I think—maybe—that some of the problems are deliberate. I can’t prove it. But Selene is being watched. There is talk on
John Glenn
about—more extreme measures.”

“Like?”

“Like more Council living in Clarke Base and setting stricter schedules, and some actual punishment when things get ‘dropped’ on the way here.”

Rachel spun and looked at him, her jaw tight. “We need more to do—not less. We need responsibility. We need to learn so we can help ourselves. We’re getting angry, Gabriel. What are we working for? So you can leave? And that’s what you want me to help you with?”

He agreed with her, but he had little control over a solution. He wanted to pace, but forced himself still, swallowing
his own rising anger. “Rachel, Selene is still not a safe place. We don’t even have enough transportation built to get everyone in Clarke Base quickly into Refuge if we need to. Moon Born should be thinking about that—and helping by cooperating.” He lowered his voice, trying to moderate his tone, to soothe. “Go on to Clarke Base. I’m going to have a talk with Ali. The Children pay a lot of attention to you. I need you to direct that attention positively.”

She took deep breaths, as if trying to control her feelings. “Look, Gabriel. I don’t know if there really is a problem. Or at least, if the problem is us. I don’t think so. I think we already have too much supervision. We’re much smarter than you take us for.”

He’d argued that ever since they shared a twenty-year cold spell. He walked to the end of the dock, stopping by the
Safe Harbor
. “Rachel, I wish things had turned out differently. You’ve seen the High Council, met them. They choose how things get run. Not me. I’ve been able to let you teach, to keep your extra schools open, to give some of you more responsible jobs. But when I’m cold, I’ll have no influence at all.”

“When you get to the ship, will you argue for us?”

“I do that all the time.” He suspected that was why he was being called back. “It’s not good for your people when Council suspects them of trying to slow down projects.”

“So tell them to treat us better. We need to learn.”

“Will you try and help?”

She nodded. “Can you just assign more teaching for me? And maybe some work in the greenhouses? I can do the planting class, and we need more basic math and English for some of the younger kids. I come in contact with more people that way; I can learn more. Can you let me do that instead of being on a regular parts crew?”

It was a good idea. “Sure. I’ll tell Shane. I want you to report to Shane or Ali or Treesa if you find anything out.”

“Shane and Star are back?” Rachel looked surprised.

Gabriel nodded. “They will be, maybe today.”

“That’s okay. I like Star. Thanks for letting me teach.” Rachel sat down on the edge of the dock, draping her long legs over so her feet dangled. She looked away from Council Aerie, away from him, leaning back so the end of her braid rested on the dock. It seemed as though she were far away, lost in thought. Surely she would help? She couldn’t be hiding things from him, not after all he’d given her. Could she?

He watched her for a moment, his own thoughts confused. She had become as inscrutable as Ali. He felt the weight of all the years he had worked on Selene. Rachel’s shoulders seemed too thin, too young, to hold such responsibility. But she was twenty-three warm. At twenty-three Gabriel was already restoring jungle on Earth, running crews, making decisions, living on his own. He needed to understand how she felt. “Rachel—do you have fun? Do you like what you do?”

She turned around and looked at him, somber now, with the same wariness in her eyes. “Yes. I enjoy working with my friends, seeing my father, walking in the greenhouses, flying. I like the work I do.” She tugged on her braid; a gesture that reminded him of Ali. “But I can never forget the twenty years I lost, and I can never forget that you all plan to leave. That you have no love for Selene, or for us.”

He bristled. “That’s not true. Building Selene has been my life.” Ever since Ymir stopped being his life.

Her eyes bored into his, far more intense than the soft voice she used to ask, “But what happens to us when you leave?”

“What do you think we’re building Refuge for? It’s taken time away from the collider.” He tried to put himself in her place. What would he want, if he were Rachel? “Maybe some of you can go with us. It’s pretty clear some of the Earth Born will stay. Selene is stable enough that its
atmosphere will last for a century or more. We didn’t have a hell of a lot of choices.”

“Why don’t you stay?”

“We may be the last humans in the universe. I don’t know. With luck, there is an established colony at Ymir, and we can add to its chance for survival. The issue is bigger than either of us. And you won’t all fit aboard
John Glenn
.” He didn’t know why he was being so candid with her. Maybe because she asked so directly, and she deserved better answers than the Children got from most Council?

She said, “You want to know if I’m happy? Well, my home—Selene—it will die someday. Its atmosphere is destined to bleed away, and your skills are the main thread that keeps it going. You’re leaving. And you already told me there’s nothing aboard
John Glenn
we can rebuild to use as an intersystem starship, to follow you to Ymir. Even if I die before a fire kills us all, or a flare, or quakes, I’m afraid to have children of my own.”

Gabriel cringed inwardly. Council had talked of sterilizing the Children when they left, so they could live their lives in full, leaving Selene naturally empty before its air became too thin to breathe. There was no final decision.

Rachel pushed herself up from the edge of the dock. “I have to go. There are things I need to finish here before I go to Clarke Base tomorrow.”

“All right.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you. I’ll try and find time to see you at least once before I go.”

Gabriel watched her open the escalator door and disappear slowly as she walked down the steps. His last sight of her was an arm pulling the door shut.

A deep restlessness filled him, pushing at him from the inside out. Unresolved dilemmas and problems with no right solution. Finally he stood and stripped, then ran for the end of the dock and plunged into the cool water, feeling it wash over him, pull back on his braid and slide over his skin as he breaststroked through the sea he had created,
surrounded by the crater he had made, on the world he had built from the raw material of tens of moons.

He swam until pulling himself through the water sent pain shooting through his upper back muscles and his fingertips were wrinkled like raisins. Then he lay on the dock while Apollo’s light shone down on him from the pinprick of a sun, and his head spun with images of Rachel and the Children planting and working and studying. The feel of Erika in his arms, her voice the day before, commanding him to obey her. Ali and Treesa laughing together, teasing each other about fish soup. Flares and quakes and fires. The flare kite. Children. Once he had expected to have children of his own. He blinked, trying to clear his head, breathing pranayama, belly rising and falling, and finally the images all fled. Behind them, there was emptiness. And loneliness.

R
ACHEL PACKED THE
next morning, sending her few things down in the cargo elevator. She could have ridden down, but the warm soft wind tempted her; perfect for flying. Thermals swirled above Clarke Base and lifted her easily. As she flew, her head tumbled with disturbed thoughts.