Cracking the Sky (22 page)
Authors: Brenda Cooper
“Kami.”
“You again.”
Hart nodded.
“I can lodge a complaint and keep you away from me.”
He spoke so softly he might have been trying not to spook a real deer. “I am your friend’s grandson and I won’t hurt you.”
He was right. She wouldn’t offend Sulieyan. There were many mornings she’d asked for something special for Lance, and known she could count on Sulieyan. “I won’t give you an interview.”
“May I run with you?”
For answer she started off, curious to see what he would do. The path was wide enough for two, but she ran in the middle, keeping him behind her for the first mile. He kept up well. Only then did she move to the edge of the path. When he came up she spoke to him through the heartbeat of her runner’s breath. “Tell me about your love life.”
His breath was sharper and shorter than hers, and she could almost feel how his legs must be hot and the sweat must be slicking his back, but she didn’t slow down. Finally he managed to gasp out, “I don’t . . . have one.”
“When did you last have a girlfriend?”
“Pretty.” Pant, heave, pant. “Personal.”
“You wanted to interview me.”
“Not . . . any . . . more.”
She slowed down to a fast walk, letting him catch up with her.
When he could talk more normally, he said, “I dated the same girl for all of our senior year in college, and my mother and grandmother started giving her little gifts for a household like kitchen towels.”
She hadn’t expected him to answer. “Did you love her?”
He nodded. “But I wasn’t ready to settle for just one person. I didn’t want to choose then for my whole life. Not then.”
He must be thirty now. “No one else?”
“Yes. I told you the beginning of my love life. That was part one. Part two was a woman I fell in love with three years ago. Emily. A nurse. I loved her order and her brains and her compassion. After we had dated for a year I saved up for a special weekend and a moondust ring, and she turned me down.”
A small laugh escaped Kami’s throat. “Because she wasn’t ready.”
They ran while, the sun dappling their skin as it penetrated the leaves above them. “Do you have friends?” she asked him.
“People I work with.”
She out-raced him for a bit, lost in thought, and then let him catch up to her again.
They slowed down to pass an old woman clutching a tiny designer dog with purple ears close to her. The woman made soft mothering sounds in the dog’s fur, and the dog stayed quietly settled in her arms, sniffing the air as Kami and Hart walked by, but otherwise only reacting to her owner.
Once they rounded the next gentle bend, Kami stated, “So you are more alone than that woman now.”
“Dogs are what old people choose when their children and lovers have all gone on, and only return for Christmas.”
“You sound awfully bitter.”
“Grandma says I’m like an old man.”
Lance was probably ten years older than Hart, and he would never come back to Earth and she would never actually meet him. But he was more hopeful than Hart, who didn’t need someone else to pet a bronze deer and report back. “Do you think she’s right?”
“She told me you’re an example of love. That love is steady and that it lasts as long as a life.”
“That woman will love her dog as long as it’s alive.”
“But that isn’t the same,” he protested.
Maybe it was better than loving and leaving. She had never really done that. She’d drifted through dates when she was young, but no one had touched her heart before Lance. And she would not leave him for this man, either. At first she’d thought that was what Sulieyan wanted her to do, but now she was sure Sulieyan must have known Kami had been drifting like an un-tethered kite. “If you would like to run with me once a week or so, and if you will never print anything I say, I will meet you on Tuesdays. That will make your grandmother happy. But you must know I love someone else. I will not fall in love with you. But I will tell you a little of what I tell Lance and I can share how it is for me.”
“And how will that help me?” He looked earnest, actually curious. “Other than I will get into shape.”
“You will see that commitment exists.” Her throat tightened. “And you will have company, which seems as uncommon for you as it is for me.”
Just like she would not betray Sulieyan, he wouldn’t betray Sulieyan. The old woman’s love would bind them to good behavior.
He didn’t answer her, but he followed her for the last mile. He would show up the next Tuesday and she would have company, and Sulieyan would worry less about her grandson. Perhaps it would be enough to keep Kami in this world while she loved a man who had left it.
That night, Kami ate her meal with Lance. She told him, “I touched a bronze deer and it felt so real I expected it to tremble under my hand.”
He smiled, patient always. If she looked forward to meals with him, he must look forward to them even more. She had the park and the trail and the old women with purple-haired dogs and he had metal and electronics and propellant and stars. And now, maybe, she also had a friend besides Sulieyan. If she made her world bigger, she could help him keep his big enough. “I hope you make it home some- day,” she whispered. “You know that.”
“I know that.”
“I will love you until you do.”
“And I you.”
BLOOD BONDS
I hesitated in Aline’s doorway
. As soon as I stepped through, my sis’s minibots would whisper to her and she’d leave wherever she was and come into real to see me. Tonight, the step toward her might be off a cliff.
For now, she lay blissfully unaware, gone to some virtual place. With luck, she was in the arms of a lover or climbing Olympus Mons. Anywhere but in her broken body living in VR contact gel.
Her face had survived the terrorists’ bomb. She’d been walking away from the Marin County Fair, on Earth, north of San Francisco, and if she’d walked just a little faster, she might be able to walk today. But terrorism or not, it was partly my fault. I was the one who talked her into applying for a trip to Earth. I’d wanted her to be happy, and she wanted to see forests and butterflies and elephants and oceans. Sure, we’re identical twins, but she needed to go to Earth, and I longed for Mars. At the time, we were both on the moon.
And now the next thing that happened was going to be my fault, too. I wanted a choice and there wasn’t one.
By the time I stood beside her bed, she’d opened her startled blue eyes, her face swimming up above the blue-green gel and the myriad contacts that kept her body fed and exercised. Her warm smile played across my heart like a soft blanket and I wanted to melt into the chair beside her bed.
“Lissa,” she said. “How was your day?”
I couldn’t bear to tell her yet. “No, Aline, you first.”
She blinked—code for a nod. “I went for a long hike with the virt club, around some Earth-like mountains Rudy designed. Even with laws-of-physics design rules, he made a two-story tall waterfall that spilled a rainbow into the sky, and a flock of blue butterflies as big as my hand.”
Aline always started her day with exercise. Before Mom died when we were twelve, she used to take me and Aline running and playing through the tunnels every morning. Saturdays, we went out on the surface and played moon-gravity bounce before breakfast. So hearing about Aline’s morning virtual workouts was like being a kid again, when she was whole. But Aline’s day was a lot longer than a real one—time flew differently in virtual worlds. “So then what did you do?”
“A photo shoot in New Mexico and a . . . a few meetings with friends. That’s all. Nothing you want to know about.” She glanced away from me for a moment. She’d gotten more and more to skipping over what she did. Like I wouldn’t understand it? Or I wouldn’t think it was good? How could I think she was anything but good? I ran my fingers over her forehead. It was dry and cool, her skull naked. “Did you get any pictures you want to show me?”
“Maybe later. Tell me about your day.”
“This morning was bad as ever. Jack-o called in sick, so we had Cherie for shift super and she wanted to set some kind of record. Our yields were low ’cause the soil’s shyer of H3 where we’re mining than it is on exposed slopes, but she didn’t care. Her face was purple by lunch.”
Aline grinned. “You’d think Helium-3 was the best of everything.”
“It gave us the power to get to Mars.” I looked away, swallowing.
“I bet you were spitting mad at having Cherie.” She arched an eyebrow and winked. “You always are.”
How did she get so much from my stories? “Me? Sure. You should have seen Davey and John-boy and Mark. I thought they were going to kill her by the time the lunch bell rang. They didn’t show it to her, but Davey was secret-telling John all afternoon—they must’ve spent half what they made for the day on privacy. It was actually kind of funny.”
“That was the morning. What about the afternoon?” she asked, her eyes shining as if she knew what I was going to say and was trying to help keep me from having to say it. But she couldn’t know.
I winked. “We slowed down a little, waited. She finally figured out our game and her mouth opened so big I thought she might scream, but she laughed and slapped Davey on the back, and we made our credit-load, anyway.” I spent every day noticing fine details so I could bring them home to her. Could I stand life any other way? “Worldgov cleared two more ships for Mars today.” I swallowed. “My name came up in the lottery.”
She closed her eyes.
We’d talked about it before I put in for the lottery, and so there wasn’t a question about what I’d do. Hazard pay might buy her a new body someday; the syntharms and legs were no big deal, but the spine was a fortune. And if I didn’t make the fortune in time, she wouldn’t have enough left to work with. The last govdoc that’d talked to us said she had two years or so.
A single tear slid down her cheek. She couldn’t take my hand, couldn’t touch me, but her tear touched me for her. I stood so my own tears would fall on her face.
*
Zubrin Base was a sterile bubble filled with air, and also a light wind so our bodies would think, maybe, they were home. Of course, there was about twice the moon’s gravity keeping me stuck to the surface. But hey, the breeze was nice. I crossed the open tarmac and climbed into my flitter, the
Moon Escape
. Even though she was a company ship, she was assigned to me full time, getting her rest and maintenance when I slept. I’d named her myself, as much for the hope of bringing Aline here to help me fly her as thanks for my own luck of the lottery. I’d not only won passage to Mars, but also a job I wanted, as if I’d somehow been anointed with fairy dust.
After I double-checked the cargo manifest, I dogged the hatches, grinning. Compared to the moon, Mars is a heaven of variety. Twice the diameter means a hell of a lot more surface area. Of course, I only got to fly over about five percent of that, but the sheer size of it still stunned. I waited my turn at the base locks, waving at the doorbot as it let me through into the wilds where a girl could be alone.
As usual, I started off feeling too alone.
The communications lag between Mars and the moon was about five seconds, give or take a bit to account for orbits. The only way Aline and I could talk was email or vidmail. So at the end of every day I recorded a message for her about my job driving cargo from base to base. Every morning, I got her reply. But we couldn’t giggle about our respective lovers or play off the way our eyebrows arched. Those aren’t things you do with a five minute stutter. And forget about meeting anyplace virtual with latency like that.
If only Aline were already here. She was the stronger one, the one-minute-older one, the best one. I needed her. And so far, I’d saved less than half the money for her surgery. “Honey, girl, Aline, how am I going to do this?” I said to the walls.
Aline-in-my-head whispered back. “You’ll find a way. Or I will.”
“Even a single-step promotion won’t save us now. I need . . . something extraordinary.”
My words bounced around the empty cabin, and it seemed like the echo was her voice: “We are extraordinary.”
If only it was really her! I flopped into my red captain’s chair and stared out the wraparound window at the gray skies of Mars. An hour of silent meditation on the rocks and plains of Mars cheered me up a little. I dropped my cargo at Robinson and two men I’d never seen before loaded four big sealed boxes for Zubrin. “Go on,” the tallest one said, “so you won’t pull any overtime.”
I bristled at the suggestion I’d loiter on purpose for more pay, and it almost made me do it. But I hightailed it out of there instead, happy to be heading home and hungry for a glass of homemade berry wine from Chu’s Bar.
A single cheep roused me. Data coming in. Hopefully not another request for an early shift start. There’d been way too much work the last month or so. “What?” I asked.
“Sis.”
Not me speaking her voice. Her voice. My throat fisted. An open call would be a fortune. “What? I’m here.” My top teeth nearly bit through my bottom lip. Now the ten minute wait for an answer.
“Me too. Here.”
There was no delay!
“With you. I’m sorry.”
Her voice had tears in it, and I knew. A download. It was the only way she could be here and be invisible. A download. “I didn’t know you died.”
“I didn’t.”
Her body must have. No consciousness could operate in two places at once. It broke every law in the book. “My god, honey! Why?” My head was spinning. Such a stupid thing to do. Such a . . . hopeless choice. And it was done. No going back for her, for me, for us. But I was her and she was me and somewhere deep inside, below the breastbone, I understood. Anger and shock gave way. I could feel my own smile peel my cheeks back. “Thank god. I missed you. I missed you every damned day.”
“Me, too.”
I wondered if I could fly well enough to make the flitter do loops. “You’ll love it here. There’s so much to show you.” After we got back, I’d take her home and let her see the wall-nano pattern I’d been working on all week. Maybe she’d have some good ideas about how to get the sunset sky I’d splashed across the tiny living room to brighten up even more. Surely she’d be okay here; data stratum was thick in most of the bases; there weren’t enough people to tug at the capacity at all. “Did you come in on one of the cargo ships?”
“Something private.”
“Wow, that must have cost a fortune.”
“No.”
I swallowed. It wasn’t like her to answer so shortly. It had to be her, though. I knew her voice. “Aline? What did mom used to say when we got up?”
“That wasting a day in bed was the worst sin of all.”
She hadn’t hesitated. “And what did we say?”
“The worst sin was . . .” I finished it with her, two voices, “going to bed early.” I blushed for having to check, for doubting. I’d have never doubted her body, but a download was . . . well, I couldn’t see her. The cabin still looked empty even if it felt full of her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
The lights of Zubrin Base loomed large. “We’re almost there.” How would she get off the ship with me? Why didn’t I know these things? “How portable are you? I mean, you’re in the ship’s data now, right? What creds do you need to get into the base’s systems?”
A warning bell sputtered out of the same speakers Aline talked to me through. Three bursts, so it wasn’t routine. A male voice, not the usual computer-recorded neutral. “All research ships are to proceed to the closest base immediately. Repeat. All research ships to the closest base.”
We weren’t a research ship, but the warning was odd. Aline didn’t remark on it, but instead answered my earlier question. “I’ll fit in your personal data space. I’m afraid I’ll take most of it, but as soon as we get inside the base I can move out again. So as long as you don’t want to watch any movies as you dock this thing?”
She always could make me laugh. I authorized the transfer. If she was in my personal datapod, that meant she’d get through without any creds, or more accurately, with my creds. But she couldn’t even be on Mars with no authentication: there were layers and layers of datasec here. “Sure.” So as I flew
Moon Escape
into Zubrin Base, Aline flowed into me, unfelt, unseen, except I knew about her, as if the ghost of my sis was filling my most personal dataspaces.
Three soldiers stood at Zubrin’s gate, actually wearing weapons. I’d only seen that once before, when a convict escaped from Robinson and they were afraid he’d make it to Zubrin (he didn’t; he died just outside the gate). Base command ordered me to stop. I sighed. “Sorry, Aline. Whatever this is, it can’t be much.” Not that I was sure of that. “Maybe you’d better be quiet, though. There’s a policy about taking on riders.” And I didn’t have time to figure out if a download tripped it.
At least the head of the group was a stocky red-haired man I played chess with in Jimson’s Bar every Saturday, Jay Jakob. “Hello, Jay,” I called out to him, opening a video window between us. “What’s happening?”
“Lissa, howzit going? Been anywhere except your normal stops?”
I shook my head.
“Seen anything strange out there?”
“Nope. Jay—what’s going on?”
His turn to shake his head. “I can’t say, not yet. I need a copy of your manifest.”
I reached for it, but there was no manifest in the wall slot where it belonged. What had happened when the boxes were loaded up? It was hard to remember—with Aline in between there was a lifetime of feeling between me and a routine act. “Let me pull it up.”
Jay’s lips drew into a tight line. “I have orders not to take anything electronic.”
I smiled at him. “That’s all I got!”
He put his hands up. “Shhh . . . seeing that it’s you. Nothing looked wrong out there, nothing weird happened, right?”
“No. Everything was normal.”
“All right. I’ll clear you, but you best stay in town in case anybody’s unhappy. I will have to report it.”
“I got loaded up at Robinson, just like usual. I’m sure it’s just research stuff.” And that’s what they were recalling—research ships. “From the base. Like every day. Why are you interested in the scientific squad?”
He shook his head again and then tapped his ear, clearly listening to someone else. After a moment he smiled at me. “Just go on.” There was real concern in his voice. “Stay safe.”
“Wow,” Aline’s voice sounded in my ears now, right in the phone implants. “Is it always so fascinating around here?”
I shook my head, pulling us away from the gate and toward the hangar with a little whoosh of light thrust. “No. In fact it’s usually pretty damned boring.”
“Well, and you seemed to know this Jay. He’s cute.”
I swear if she could’ve winked at me, she would have.
I laughed, happy. “Maybe I should talk you into buying a bot body so I can beat it up when you sass me.” Except downloads in botbods were illegal as hell, too.
“That would land me in jail.”
A shiver ran up my arms and back. AIs could manipulate robots, but not be them. And downloads weren’t AIs, but also weren’t supposed to be in botbods. Silly results of years of making laws to protect people from AIs even though only a few of them had ever hurt humans, and they’d been killed right away. Fear politics.
Better to imagine I was just talking to Aline, and she had a body somewhere that she’d go home to someday. “I haven’t dated anyone. Too expensive. I’m saving money to bring you home.”
“And now I am home. So now you could ask him out.”