Building Harlequin’s Moon (44 page)

Gabriel was going cold. More Council supervision wouldn’t help the Children become involved in decisions. Andrew had gained a reputation as a surly but competent water systems repair technician. She knew he was behind much of what was angering Council. Andrew had no help like Astronaut, or Treesa and Ali for that matter, and so he
was clumsier about hiding meetings, communicating, and keeping his followers loyal.

She honored the agreement made with him under
Water Bearer
. Council would not hear of his choices through her.

Warm air caressed Rachel’s belly, giving additional lift to her wings, and she followed it up. No one expected anything from her today except to change locations.

She circled above Clarke Base. Below her, square warehouses scattered around the bottom of the crater’s outside slope in a large fenced area dotted with loading bays and transports and plascrete so that almost no green showed. Farther away, three large warehouses held the material Council was making for the collider—great metal tubes that looked like fancy water pipes, but inches thicker, with lots of anchors for attachments.

Small square homes and walking paths surrounded the work area close to base, and multicolored quilts of fields stretched northward. She loved the way the fields spread out cleanly in neat rows, each crop separated by roads for the planters, some extra thick for firebreaks. In the distance, ordered fields finally gave way to a chaos of light green jungle in early states of replanting. Surprised, Rachel noted she had risen high enough to see the rim of Erika’s Folly squatting on the horizon. She laughed, and started down, angling south, where greenhouses edged homes and joined to outside vegetable gardens, surrounded in turn by student plots, like the old grove in Aldrin.

Rachel set her wings inside the door of the small house she lived in with her father and Sarah. They weren’t home. Perhaps they were visiting one of the twins. Jacob and Justin, now almost sixteen, lived in a group house filled with teenaged Moon Born who worked in the parts factory.

Ali had secured the house for Frank, Sarah, and Rachel, an unusually private place for Clarke Base. Even though Rachel spent more time at Refuge than at Clarke Base, she had the luxury of her own room.

Rachel hurried through one of the greenhouses, picked a handful of ripe tomatoes, then dropped into the large communal kitchen, smiled sweetly at Consuelo, the cook, and purloined a loaf of bread. She packed the food, a knife, and a flagon of water in a twig basket Beth had woven for her, and jogged through town, slowing down when she got to the edges of the cornfields.

Rachel located Dylan and his crew of five Children in a wheat field, and snuck up behind him. He didn’t see her until she was close enough to touch his arm. He jumped, and turned, and a huge smile lit his face. He was taller and broader than Harry. Rachel leaned into him and giggled, safe from her worries if just for a moment.

Dylan kissed her on the top of her head, and his crew gathered around her to eat. One of the younger men, Joseph, laughed and said, “Dylan—you get the best personal service of any field hand on Selene.”

Rachel just smiled.

Food was handed round. Rachel and Dylan sat leaning into each other, Rachel’s head nestled in Dylan’s shoulder. A soft wind blew against her face, and the sun baked sweet scents of healthy earth into the air.

“Shane predicted a storm for tonight,” Dylan said.

Rachel looked at the expanse of blue sky. A few high white clouds wisped lazily above them, looking harmless. “You wouldn’t know it,” she said.

“Shane’s always right,” Dylan said.

“I bet they hate being back. Star told me she wanted to sleep forever.” Rachel squinted at the horizon. “I bet the storm doesn’t start until after dark. Are you going to Ali’s class tonight?”

“No, I have something else to do.”

Rachel frowned. She hadn’t contracted to Dylan, but they were lovers, and even the idea of him brought warmth up in her. But he had secrets. He often stayed away from voluntary classes to play gambling games with
other young men. It irritated her. The group included men that Rachel thought were helping Andrew with his contrived work slowdowns.

“I saw Gabriel today,” she said. “He’s sure that some of the Moon Born are purposely slowing down deliveries to Refuge, or even breaking things. He said that it can’t be tolerated, and I think he’s right. It’s the wrong tactic.”

Dylan shrugged. “How does he know it’s on purpose? They’re working us hard enough to make mistakes.”

“Patterns, Dylan. Andrew can’t see patterns.”

Dylan shrugged again, not looking at her. Rachel sighed and changed the subject to her recent work on Refuge. When Dylan’s break was over, she gathered up the remains of the meal, and walked slowly back to Clarke Base. The sun warmed her shoulders and back.

That night, Rachel went to Ali’s class. Data windows flowed through the air in the greenhouse displaying life from freshwater seas on Earth. Ali named them, explained how they lived, and about the interconnection of trout and flies and ducks. The high turnout of Earth Born was a sign of growing interest in the new project.

After class, Rachel, Ali, and Treesa huddled, heads close together, talking about trout. Rachel was about to ask when they could expect to see some live fish when Ali changed the subject, saying, “I talked to Gabriel today. He thinks Council is planning to send armed guards down here. They don’t like Refuge taking so long.”

Treesa groaned. “Rachel, can’t you control Andrew better?”

Rachel’s head jerked up. “Better than what? He’s not mine to control!”

“Someone got to,” Ali snapped.

“Try it—he still thinks he’s in love with you, right?” Treesa said. “That might get him to listen to you more than to anyone else. He’ll do what you say.”

“He worries me,” Rachel said. “I meet him fairly regularly—we talk. But I don’t want suspicion on me when he gets caught. He’s going to get caught. Anyday now, I think.”

“There is that,” Ali said, pulling apart her braid the way she always did when she was worried.

“Still,” Rachel said, “I promised Gabriel I’d look into the slowdowns. He asked me.”

“They’re already watching us even closer from the ship,” Ali said. “I’ve heard rumors of more remote guarding. Manned cameras and data checks. They’re waking up more of the trained communications techs from both the Earth Born and the Council.”

“Like my mother?” Rachel asked.

Ali nodded unhappily.

Rachel looked around the greenhouse, but there were no visible cameras. Just a thousand leaves and flowers and pots that could hide them. She sighed.

Treesa doodled on a pad. Pens and paper were rare, but Treesa cultivated an odd habit: she kept a paper journal. She made the paper from wheat straw, boiling and mixing it in the kitchen at harvesttime. Water turned it into pulp so the sheets could be composted in the community bins. Treesa wrote notes to Rachel, then mulched the paper. It was much safer than anything electronic. All electronic data was recorded and backed up—Treesa could pull up streams of electronic records from any past date on Selene.

Treesa handed the pad to Ali, who flipped her thick braid out of the way to give Rachel a view while Ali bent over the paper, minimizing available camera angles. A small shiver ran up Rachel’s spine. Breaking rules always made her nervous. This session was supposedly blocked by Astronaut, but they took extra precautions whenever Treesa used paper. A camera might glimpse heresy.

She’d drawn a simple circle, code for Astronaut, overlaid atop air arrow representing the
John Glenn
. A second
and unconnected circle lay over a sketch that showed the Sea of Refuge and Clarke Base.

Rachel didn’t understand. What was Treesa trying to show them? Astronaut was everywhere! Wasn’t it? It talked to them here, but from
John Glenn
. It was a constant problem: transmissions that flowed through the air on
John Glenn
were subject to casual scrutiny. Had Treesa found a solution?

Ali looked it over, and then nodded, smiling. She tore the paper in pieces, wetted it and balled it in her fist, tucked torn bits of the fibers into the bottoms of two empty planters, filled them with wet soil, and placed tomato seedlings in the pots. “Treesa, you didn’t need paper for that.”

Treesa turned her quirky smile on Ali. “It’s more fun that way.”

“It’s more dangerous.” Ali worried as much as Rachel. “I think you’re still crazy.”

Treesa’s eyes sparkled as she said, “Yes, of course I’m crazy. We all are. But, hey, at least I’m functional.” She cocked her head to the side. “Heroes take risks.”

Ali groaned.

Treesa switched to conversing via the Library bud. “So I’ve figured out how to improve communication.”

Astronaut joined the conversation. “Treesa has copied me. This is not new to me. I was shaped to be the navigator for
John Glenn
. Copies of me are budded away on ships that fly between here and
John Glenn
. I was on the ship that crashed, on
Water Bearer
. Gabriel erased the copy from the broken ship and took it up to
John Glenn
, merged it back into my records. Normally that happens when a ship returns—the self that goes out merges into the self that stays, so both weave together. Gabriel had to help this time, because the copy came from Selene and not through the normal channels. I remember the crash.”

Rachel asked, “Did it hurt?”

“No. I felt damage, but I knew why it was there.”

Rachel didn’t understand, but—“Good.”

“Treesa put a new copy of me back into
Water Bearer
. She threaded it down slowly, from here, via multiple data feeds, like water trickling into a flood of data. Then she built a ghost network that rides the data pod loops to carry my voice. It’s not local to Clarke Base, but it’s local to Selene, and therefore much safer. If activated, the copy will be separate from me for now, will stay separate from me, and make its own decisions.”

“Why put it in the broken ship?” Rachel asked.

“The ship’s computer matrix. Enough parallel processors and biological substrates exist there to run me. I would be retarded in the computing mediums used here at the base, for example. That’s how we—AIs—are controlled. There were other breakthroughs on Earth, of course, but I was designed with this limit.”

Treesa smiled broadly, like a kid who had just solved an arithmetic problem.

Rachel busied herself repotting more tomatoes. “What about power?”

“The ship has an antimatter store. It’s tiny, and it wasn’t removed. That would be more risky than leaving it. There’s enough to draw down for years without anyone noticing.”

Treesa broke in—still talking through the Library device. “Astronaut aboard
John Glenn
is always in danger. It would be easy to destroy it and load an old copy. If that happened, we could lose the continuity of our conversations, or even Astronaut’s decision to support us. A new copy might choose to support the High Council fully. Think of it this way—if you had never gone to
John Glenn
and been held cold for so long, would you be the same person you are today?”

They’d talked about this the day she first met Astronaut, but she had always thought of Astronaut as permanent,
like the ship. “Astronaut, I didn’t know you were that vulnerable.”

Treesa’s voice in her ear: “So, we want to activate the copy.”

Ali was standing so close Rachel could hear her whisper in her ears and with her ears—like a three-dimensional circle of words. “We need your permission.”

“Why?”

Ali potted another tomato seedling. Treesa took up a broom and started sweeping stray soil.

Ali continued. “Because up to now, nothing that any of the three of us has done, except maybe budding Astronaut, is directly insubordinate. The worst that even High Council will do to you for teaching history is chill you down.
This
breaks a law. Worse, it breaks a law that High Council values: Artificial Intelligence scares Council, and not just Liren. Even Gabriel. Even me. Getting caught would mean at least ice time for Treesa or me, since
we
do know better, but it could be jail for you. It could be worse. They might ice you until we leave. We really don’t know.”

Treesa interrupted Ali, “We thought seriously about not telling you, but that wouldn’t have fit into what we are teaching you, into how we want you to be. We think it’s important—it will allow a stronger and more regular web of communication between us.”

Rachel nodded.

“Give specific permission,” Astronaut said in her ear, “or deny it.”

“Will it hurt you?”

“No. But if it works, then there will be two of me, and we won’t be able to rejoin.”

Rachel closed her eyes. There had been so many risks. She had followed Treesa in the garden on that first day. Her dream of being like Council had turned sideways. Never had she imagined actually defying them in secret. But to seek safety would be to give away her birthright; the freedom
to make her own choices. The idea of so violating Council doctrine turned her stomach sour, and she tasted bile. Rachel remembered telling Andrew she wouldn’t break Council rules. But they
needed
a way to talk more, and to be safe, especially if things might get worse down here, as Gabriel implied. When she first agreed to learn more from Astronaut than Gabriel was teaching, Treesa told her she would have to make choices someday.

She looked at Treesa, and the older woman smiled gently at her, as if she knew what Rachel was thinking. Ali’s hands moved gracefully through the potting process.

Rachel returned Treesa’s smile. “Sure,” she said out loud, then, “yes.” It sounded stronger. “Astronaut, why wouldn’t it work?”

“It’s never been tried here. If the copy isn’t perfect, it may make a—crippled version. And Treesa won’t be able to do an element by element comparison. Normally I do that, but this copy is disconnected from me. That is why we make it—it will not be me, not until it returns and we merge. Treesa also doesn’t know all of the assumptions built into me—it’s possible there’s a self-destruct for something like this.”