Foundation (9 page)

Everything was cast in a bedazzling whiteness.

Little by little, the glow dissolved, revealing the dim interiors of a medium-sized house. Even if the shutters of the French windows were drawn, all the same, a thin beam of morning light sneaked in through the glass panes of the front door. It was enough to chase away the shadows, letting the eye glimpse bits of what was inside.

The house developed around one level. The space had been woven around the difference in the level between the lower living room, on the right, and the raised kitchen with the dinette, on the left.

The main entrance gave into the wide living room where a white sofa and a low glass table sat above a low-hair ethnic rug woven in earth colors. Nearby, a couple of armchairs faced a modern, stylish fireplace built into the wall.

On the far side of the living room, another door opened onto the remaining rooms: a master bedroom, a room for the guests, a couple of bathrooms and the laundry.

Above a quick flight of steps, was the dinette—with a square table, four chairs and a ceramic fruit tray—and, in the corner, the kitchen.

Large, bleached olive-wood planks had been used for flooring in the living room, looking cozy and warm, while the kitchen floor was plain ceramic tiles.

A plastic sheeting covered part of the living room. An aluminum ladder lay against the far corner, along with a folding platform, a bunch of water-paint cans, used brushes of all sizes, a paint roller and rolls of masking tape. Clearly, the house had just been through some restructuring and the vague, acrid smell of paint was still in the air.

The house was silent and motionless, except for the particles of dust caught in the beam of light coming in from the front door. They fluttered lazily around it, uncertain if they should keep floating or, at long last, yield to gravity.

Even the outside sounded quiet.

Then, all at once, a shrill carefree voice rang about, just beyond the doorstep. A second, deeper voice answered it. Two shadows danced briefly in the frame of the door, a key tinkled, slipping into the lock and, with one last chuckle, the door swung open.

A younger Trumaine and a beautiful woman entered the house.

Trumaine looked jaunty and tended to smile a lot more than his older counterpart.

The woman had fair, long and rebel hair. A glint of sunlight must be trapped in it, because it shone every time she moved her head around. Her nose was straight and her full lips were eternally curled in a smile; a warm, genuine, good-hearted, carefree smile.

Nothing could be said about her eyes, since she was making a point of keeping them shut.

“I can’t see a damn thing!” she said playfully. “You know, this is how accidents happen. I feel like I’m gonna fall on my face and break my nose any minute now. I’ll bleed all over your paint job and you will have to start over again!”

Trumaine stared back in surprise. “Paint? Who told you about the paint?”

“My nose, you idiot.”

Trumaine sniffed at the air, realizing the smell was still in it. She chuckled and he shrugged.

He took her hand and led her toward the dinette table, where they laid the bags they were carrying.

“Can I open them now?”

“Not yet, Shanna ...”

Her full name was Starshanna Andrews, of course, but Trumaine used to call her all possible variations her name allowed: “Shanna,” “Hanna,” “Star” or even “Starsha.” Lately, he had begun to think that “Hanna” was too a common name, while “Star” or “Starsha” sounded a bit weird and way too spacial, so he had settled for “Shanna.”

“Step,” he warned as he guided her down the flight of stairs to the living room.

“Stay,” he told her, and Starshanna let out a sonorous bark. Trumaine rolled his eyes. That’s what it’s like having a harebrain for a fiancée, he thought.

He strode to the French windows and threw them open. As if a dam had just burst, light flooded in, washing the interior of the house in a bedazzling white. The light was so intense that even Starshanna, behind her closed eyelids, had to squint.

“Can I open them now?”

“Not yet, one moment more.”

Trumaine hurried through the living room, quickly retrieving the occasional rag and piece of junk he had left behind, cramming it all into the unlit fireplace. He wiped his hands on his trousers then, again, he took Starshanna by hand and pulled her toward the center of the room. He turned her around so that she would look at the house from the most favorable position.

“Now?” she pleaded.

“Now,” conceded Trumaine.

Shielding her face from the dazing light with the palm of her hand, Starshanna opened her eyes ...

They were bright, amber eyes. Sweet but also smart, searching eyes that hinted to the complex world that lay beyond them.

It wasn’t Starshanna’s tight body or her fit breasts or her round hips that had conquered Trumaine when he first saw her. It was her eyes and her smile, and he would have spun forever on a pin just to keep looking at them.

It took Starshanna a while to get accustomed to the light.

“So?” asked Trumaine, tense.

He would never admit it, but he was worried about Starshanna’s response. What if she didn’t like it? He had spent a whole year remodeling the house. Would he find the strength to get rid of it all, he wondered, if she didn’t like it? It wasn’t the money, or the time—he had enjoyed all the tedious, meticulous work it had taken. It wasn’t that; it was the piece of himself he had put in it, and he wasn’t sure he could get rid of that.

Trumaine glanced at Starshanna with longing, but she didn’t say anything yet, so he just stood there, like an idiot, looking at her. She walked about the living room, around the sofa, by the mantelpiece, inspecting closely everything she saw. Trumaine suspected she wasn’t just exploring the house—she was teasing him.

“So?” he asked, antsy by now.

But all she did was smirk at him and tiptoe past the far door into the rest of the house. Trumaine couldn’t take any more of it. He rolled his eyes, threw up his hands and, with a groan, he slumped down on the sofa.

Starshanna returned about five minutes later.

“Well?!” he just said.

She waited a little more, still playing with him. Then her eyes gleamed and she broke into cheerful laughter.

“The house’s just great ... I love it!”

Trumaine looked relieved. As he stood, grumbling, Starshanna flung her arms at him and awarded him a long, meaningful kiss. He lifted her and swept her in a circle, then looked her in the eyes, much relieved.

“Hey, surprises ain’t finished ...”

He put her down, pulled her along through the French windows and both went outside.

They had come out from a beach house overlooking a stretch of sandy shore, beyond which the ocean washed peacefully and the gulls circled lazily.

The wide patio had desert flagstones for a floor—the color of silver and dull gray, with rusty highlights. A low bleached table, a battered beach umbrella and a couple of spanking new deckchairs occupied one of the corners of the house. The boundary between the patio and the beach and—on the opposite side—the access road, flourished with majestic samples of
Euphorbia Trigona
, desert and barrel cacti, low ferns and yucca trees in pots.

“And what is that? A pool?” asked Starshanna, approaching what looked like a long, narrow pool bordering the patio.

“Not exactly, it’s a water channel. It runs around the house, then goes straight back into the ocean. The previous owner was a water addict.”

Starshanna frowned at hearing a strange modulated whistle. She turned at hearing it again, closer now.

“Hey, I know that whistle!”

Puzzled, she leaned over the edge of the channel and, in moments, a dark-blue shape drifted through the water, quickly approaching the point where she was.

The sleek muzzle of a bottlenose dolphin poked out of the water, inches away from Starshanna’s feet, treading water and splashing gently.

“It’s a dolphin!” she squealed. “C’mere, you!”

She kneeled, reaching out her hand into the water and the dolphin came closer, clicking excitedly; without fear, he rested his chin on Starshanna’s hand and let her stroke him.

“His mother was beached,” said Trumaine. “Good for him that the old owner found him. He brought up the dolphin all by himself. From time to time, I feed him some mackerel too, but it’s more for company—I guess he knows how to catch a fish ...”

They stood there for a while, contemplating the cetacean, then Starshanna stood, turning to Trumaine.

“I love the house. I love the channel. I love the dolphin—” she got to her toes and kissed Trumaine.

“And I love you, Chris Trumaine ...”

He opened his arms, ready to hold her, expecting more kisses, but Starshanna spun on her heels and, to Trumaine’s befuddlement, she started undressing. She got rid of her shoes, her shirt and her Syntex jeans. Wearing only her knickers, she dived into the water and started swimming away with the dolphin.

Trumaine rolled his eyes with a disconsolate groan, then set to retrieve Starshanna’s discarded clothes ...

It was early afternoon in the house.

A couple of recently used pans sat on the unlit cooker. In the sink, a bunch of dishes waited to be scrubbed, along with discarded forks and knives. On the dinette table, two empty glasses and what remained of a bottle of wine gathered dust.

In the living room, the plastic sheeting was still in place, but the aluminum ladder, the folding platform, the paint cans and the dirt brushes had been moved against the opposite wall, as if some last-minute touch up had just been done.

The room looked deserted. It would also be quiet, if a soft, odd, repeated noise didn’t break the silence.

The noise grew in strength and rhythm, until it was clear they were stifled moans of pleasure of two lovers engrossed in lovemaking. The groans, which seemed to originate from behind the couch, went on for a long while, until they suddenly climaxed and then there were none.

A flushed Starshanna rolled away from a sweaty Trumaine, lying alongside him on the olive floor. They looked at some point in the ceiling, getting their breath back, without saying anything.

At last, Starshanna spoke.

“They offered me the job,” she said.

“That’s great. You don’t get that kind of offer every day. Did you accept?”

“I don’t know, Aquaria isn’t exactly around the corner ...”

“But you’re dying to go.”

“It will be the chance of a lifetime ...”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go grab it, before they think again and give the job to someone who doesn’t give a damn about what he’s doing.”

“Are you okay with that, Tru? I’ll be away most of the time. We’ll be seeing each other far, far less—we’ll be together only on the holidays ...”

“I’ll get a first-class Aquarian citizenship,” promised Trumaine. “And then I’ll be with you all the time.”

He smiled. He was happy because he had the world in his hands. The thought that someone or something could take it away from him was the farthest thing from his mind.

“Come here, you,” said Starshanna. She straddled him again, kissing him repeatedly. Then she stopped at once and looked straight in Trumaine’s eyes.

“
Life’s a beautiful dream ...
” she said.

Suddenly, like in an overexposed picture, everything went white.

The glare dissolved to reveal a vast hall.

The floor was aquamarine marble streaked with sapphire veins and looked like an endless stretch of blue ice. The walls were tall and thick, lined with slabs of bluish alabaster aglow with the light trapped within the translucent surface.

The ceiling was a tilted video wall which kept playing images of the amazingly thriving plants and creatures of an ocean planet.

At the center of the hall, a holographic reproduction of a big blue planet rotated slowly: Aquaria.

Aquaria was the common name of
Aquaria XVII
, which was found in the nameless spiral galaxy that went by the code name of
NGC-4414
. Three degrees north of the
γ
star in the
Coma Berenices
constellation and sixty-two million years from Earth, it was the seventeenth planet suitable for human life that had been discovered after the large-scale colonization of the universe had begun.

Even though it was considered an ocean planet, it included a thin, oblong rock ridge that had risen from the depths of the ocean floor. Meridian Island developed in the general north-south direction for more than ten thousand miles. About two hundred miles at its largest, it was crested by a chain of jagged mountains that hardly soared above two miles’ height.

While armies of biologists had been sent since its discovery to study the local fauna, it was soon clear the fine-sand beaches, the warm climate with a constant temperature of about seventy-five degrees, the absence of pollution and the limited strength of the rare storms that hit the inland, made Meridian Island a great place to live.