Building Harlequin’s Moon (61 page)

—A
ND WARM AGAIN
, again on Selene, feeling the changes.

Rachel followed Kyu Ho, picking her way up the pathway to the air strip. It had rained for three days, and the grass was wet and slick, the paths muddy. Apollo was high, edging toward Harlequin’s huge red-black disk.

Kyu was laughing, jumping up and down, taking long strides, playing with the low gravity. She turned and grinned at Rachel, her long orange hair twirling around her face in four braids. “So, I had to come down. I love it here. Why didn’t I come down before?” Kyu ran, hopped, and did a full handspring, flinging mud everywhere.

Rachel laughed. “I don’t know. Scared?”

“Of a little scrap of muddy moon?”

“Well?” Rachel stopped, hands on her hips. “You’d have been more good to us down here than up on the ship.”

Kyu wrinkled her nose at Rachel. “Maybe. But we thought our jobs were on the ship.”

“Well, they were. A little. I’m glad you’re here now.”

Sarah followed them almost breathlessly, her eyes glued on Kyu. She carried her newborn daughter, Nisi. The four of them stood together in the bright dampness, watching a spaceplane from
John Glenn
land and taxi over near them. Gabriel and Rich disembarked first. Rachel ran up to Gabriel, flinging her arms around him, trying to make up all in one moment for the year he had been gone. “I missed you,” she whispered.

His hand roamed her face, a familiar gesture. “I brought you a treat,” he said.

“What? And I have one for you too.”

“Mine is a who.”

Rachel cocked her eyebrows at him, a silent query.

He didn’t answer, just smiled, and turned her toward the lander. Rachel watched the people disembarking.

A short woman, tiny, young. Rachel felt her heart skip. Her mother.

Kristin walked carefully over, searching Rachel’s face.

“I heard what you did,” Rachel said. “In the flare, years ago. How you convinced Gabriel not to cut my access to Vassal. But you went cold right afterward, and I could never thank you.”

“It seemed best. I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

Rachel shook her head lightly, whispering, “You’re the only parent I have left. I’m glad you came.”

Kristin returned the hug briefly, stepping back one step, keeping one hand in her daughter’s. “Gabriel woke me. He said there’s to be a bonding ceremony.”

Rachel leaned into Gabriel and squeezed him hard, still holding her mother’s hand. “Yes. Astronaut found one for
us.” They’d been lovers for a quarter of a century, on and off, ship’s time. Shift bonding wasn’t enough.

“Besides, I thought I should see Selene one more time. I’ll stay through tomorrow’s party. Then I’m going cold, and I won’t see you again, not if we finally get away.”

Shadows were falling. Rachel looked up. “Time,” she stated. “Mom, Gabriel, Kyu—Kyu! Look at the sun. It’s okay, it won’t blind you now.” Near zenith, Apollo was a blurred orange arc setting through Harlequin’s atmosphere. “Now, look a little left.” The sun was gone now, the sky was cobalt-blue. “Do you see it?”

“We’ve all seen it . . .” Kristen’s voice trailed off. “Ye gods and demons. It’s a flaming sword!”

“You’ve only seen video.”

Daedalus was big enough to show as a tiny brilliant dot, but it wasn’t as bright as the current flow from Gabriel’s flare kite. A pulsing, writhing, branching thread of lightning streamed away from Harlequin, searing bright, then dimming, but writing itself across fifty degrees of sky.

Kristen said, “That’s a lot of energy. What if it hit Selene?’

“Can’t. I’ve skewed the kite out of the plane of the ecliptic. It’s easy to control, kid. Not really a kite. It’s a tethered light-sail.” Gabriel bellowed, “Hey, everybody, I made that!”

Daedalus set behind Harlequin. Rachel said, “Mom, I have some things to do . . . but I can spend a few hours with you first, and then you can help me.” She looked over at Gabriel. “Okay if we take a walk?”

Gabriel smiled at her. “Sure. I want to check on Gagarin and Aldrin anyway. I’ll join you for dinner. Watch your footing, Kristen, these eclipses are darker than you think.”

Rachel watched him walk away. Then she turned to her mother. Kristen looked younger than the image Rachel saw
in the mirror each morning; less tired, fewer lines on her face. She laughed and took Kristin’s hand, leaving Kyu in Sarah’s capable hands. Sarah immediately deposited baby Nisi in Kyu’s arms. Kyu bounced gently, holding Nisi as tenderly as if she were an egg.

Rachel turned to Kristin. “Come on, Mom, I’ll show you Council Aerie and the Sea of Refuge.”

“I’ve seen them,” Kristin replied.

“No, no you haven’t. You’ve seen pictures. You can smell the real sea, feel it fill your hands. You can swim in it.”

J
OHN
G
LENN
WOULD
be ready for departure in two months.

An amazing number of Colonists and Council had asked to be warmed to help. Earth Born came to walk Selene. Moon Born came to visit
John Glenn
, a last chance to touch the dreams of the Council of Humanity, to embed real experiences to carry forward and tell at night over dinner.

The garden had been emptied, its rotation stopped, vegetables and fruit and seeds stored in cryo, every living thing recycled. Yggdrasil had been cut up. Rachel has asked for some of the branches, and Kyu had ferried them down’to her. She’d helped her decorate the walls of Refuge with holopictures of
John Glenn
and the garden, and branches of Yggdrasil to prove to future generations that the pictures were of something real.

Once again the garden held megatons of water, for shielding, for sustenance, for reaction mass. This was how
John Glenn
had left Sol system, with every possible hollow space filled. But before the water rushed in, a swarm of Moon Born fliers had taken advantage of the unencumbered space, circling within the vast emptiness, free of gravity. Rachel and Sarah had flown within a storm of blue and purple and silver wings, collisions and laughter and bruises.

And now
John Glenn
was invisible, circling Feynman, a safe half billion klicks from Selene. The stinger on
John Glenn
was filled to capacity with antimatter.

R
ACHEL AND
G
ABRIEL
rode along the crater path. It was empty except for them, and they walked their horses slowly, savoring the dark red noon.

Rachel could barely see Feynman as a pinprick of light a few degrees from Harlequin’s black arc. The collider that circled the little ex-moon had been drained. High Council had left it in working order, powered by a nest of solar sails. More antimatter would accumulate. When the people of Selene were ready to claim a god’s power, to stride among the stars, the power would be there. And if they never came for it, well, they’d had their chance.

Selene was still fragile. The superconductor kite was in place, leaning aside from Daedalus by half a million kilometers. For as long as it stood—or as long as they had the power to repair or replace it—there would never be another huge flare from Apollo. But quakes still shook Selene, and the ozone layer must be maintained forever.

“I would at least have liked to watch takeoff,” Gabriel said.

“We’re going to be underwater, in Refuge,” she said positively, “and that mucking great mass of Harlequin is going to be between Selene and
John Glenn
when it takes
off. Honestly, Gabriel, when will you get serious about antimatter?”

“You won that argument,” he said. “Too.”

Rachel swallowed. “Last chance to change your mind,” she said.

He guessed what she meant. “I made this place. How could I leave it? How could I leave you?”

Rachel had known that would be his answer, but she still responded from some deep place to the love that implied for her, and for Selene. For their home, now.

He continued. “Besides, you know, even with so many Earth Born staying, and some Children going, most of the Council is leaving. Some of us should stay. And they’ve filled my slot.” He seemed tranquil enough.

She kicked her horse next to his, and reached for his hand, squeezing it tightly. “Earth didn’t need gods, did it?”

“Well, we made them up anyway. But we weren’t gods, and we knew
that
. Not until the last ten thousand years or so. Earth’s ecologies took care of themselves for a long time. Then we gradually took over. Time we left, Earth’s oceans and atmosphere were as artificial as Selene. That’s what I finally saw.
Of course
Selene needs taking care of, but so what? So does any cornfield.

“And even so, gods are a pain in the ass,” Gabriel said. “Most of us are leaving, and that’s good.” He grinned at her. “You won’t miss Ma Liren?”

“No. But I wouldn’t have her job.”

“One day,” Gabriel said, “you will.”

Look for

D
RACO
T
AVERN

0-7653-0863-0

L
ARRY
N
IVEN

Now available from
Tom Doherty Associates