Heaven's Fall (8 page)

Was it her? Or Amy? Not that it mattered now. She found it amusing that, among the many habits and practices of Earth life, HBs had done little with alcohol and almost nothing with recreational drugs. A few of the Houstons had experimented with the “fabrication” of beer and whiskey, and there were probably some who tried the same with marijuana . . . come to think of it, Xavier Toutant once confessed that that had been his business prior to the Houston Scoop. So maybe—

How had Amy Meyer weathered twenty years? Still the cute girl? Or had life, especially life under Reiver domination, destroyed her?

And what about Jillianne Dwight, the poor
Destiny
crew secretary who had had to corral Rachel and Amy during the horrors of that mission—?

The Jeep jostled as they went over a bump. Before they had all recovered, the convoy reached the base hospital’s emergency entrance. Here all of them, including the giant Sentry, got out, careful to keep clear of the ambulance team removing the injured man.

A small crowd of officials, military and civilian, was gathering, though they kept a respectful distance, except for a small woman in her sixties. “That is Mrs. Remilla,” Taj said, “director of ISRO Bangalore. If anyone is in charge here, she is.”

Wing Commander Kaushal reached Taj before Mrs. Remilla could. “Tell Remilla and the others that they can meet the crew inside, not out here. They need checkups.”

Rachel saw that Sanjay was headed for emergency surgery. The original plans called for Zeds to be taken to a special chamber inside the hospital; it had formerly been used for altitude training for aircraft crews.

“Rachel Stewart!”

Her head snapped to the sound of the voice, which was in a strange accent, certainly not Hindi-tinged English. She spotted a face at the back of the clutch of dignitaries . . . dark complexioned, younger, in military fatigues but with no rank.

“What do you feel being back on Earth?” the shouter said, pushing himself forward and brandishing a phone.

And he wasn’t alone. Suddenly, like roaches boiling out from under a rug when a light goes on, people were emerging from the alleys between buildings, not just reporter types, but older men, women of all ages, children. It was as if the residents of Yelahanka had been cordoned off in this spot . . . and were now breaking free.

Responding to Kaushal’s orders, the guards retreated, forming a perimeter around Rachel, Pav, Xavier, Yahvi, and Zeds. Taj and Tea were caught in it, too. The EMTs carrying the stretcher with Sanjay had made it inside, but the crowd had pressed close to the entrance and was almost blocking it.

“Okay, everybody,” Rachel said. She had anticipated a situation like this. “I guess we can take a few questions, though as you saw, one of our people is injured—”

Someone shouted, “Who is he?”

“Sanjay Bhat,” Pav snapped. “Born and raised right here in Bangalore.”

“Is that your daughter?” “What’s the girl’s name?” “Were you born on Keanu?” Suddenly Yahvi was the target of a barrage of questions.

Bravely, with only a moment’s glance at her parents, she answered them.

Rachel noticed Taj making eye contact with Kaushal. The wing commander leaned toward him and said, loud enough for Rachel’s ears, “More guards are on the way. We’ll have this sorted in a few minutes.”

“I thought everyone had been ordered to stay indoors.”

“They were.” Kaushal shrugged, as if that explained any of this.

“What is your mission?” an obvious reporter shouted to Pav.

“We come in peace,” he said, triggering some laughter. “Seriously, we’re visitors. More than tourists, maybe, but less than . . . space traders.”

“We want to see our old homes,” Xavier Toutant said, without being asked or noticed. When a follow-up made it clear to the crowd that Xavier’s home was Texas, the crowd reacted as if he had just admitted he was carrying the plague.

“No one goes to Texas,” one of the reporters said.

Rachel turned to Taj and Tea. Taj stepped forward.

“We will discuss the United States and the world political situation the moment we are inside.”

“To this alien being,” another voice shouted. “What are your impressions of Earth?”

Zeds wasn’t reluctant at all, which was a pleasant surprise to Rachel. The Sentry was fluent in English, but she had wondered how he would react to being surrounded by humans in open space. “The sky is very large,” the Sentry said.

“Rachel Stewart, Rachel Stewart!” It was the original questioner again. “What are
your
impressions, being back on Earth?” the original voice shouted.

“Hard to say,” Rachel said. “I was never in Bangalore until today. Has it changed?”

“Everything’s changed,” a middle-aged woman said.

So far everything had been peaceful, if you simply ignored the shouts for news-style comments from the crew. The biggest disturbance occurred when the sight of the Sentry caused at least one elderly woman to faint. (She had pointed to Zeds and screamed,
“Rakshasa!”
—a Hindi word that Rachel did not need translated: “Demon!”)

In a way, Rachel couldn’t blame them, not even the reporters who had wormed their way into the group, likely tipped off by friends or paid sources. Humans returning to Earth was the story of the year, especially in a year that probably had little in the way of happy news.

And there was the whole Revenant, back-from-the-dead business. Rachel was surprised that hadn’t been the first question.

Then she heard a smashing sound—a dropped bottle, perhaps, or a window. Either way, it was a reminder that the situation was not what she had wanted.

“Kaushal, get them inside!” Taj said.

The additional guards had arrived—possibly causing the smash—pushing the crowds back and clearing a path to the entrance.

Inside, Pav officially introduced his father to Mr. Toutant, who insisted on being called Xavier. Rachel noted that Xavier was unusually subdued, offering none of his usual wisecracks. She hoped it was a temporary situation. It wasn’t that she cherished Xavier’s wit, though it had its moments. It was just that with Sanjay injured, Xavier was the team’s all-around engineer.

Taj quickly arranged for Rachel and the others to have water, at least. After a quick poll of her crew, all of whom still seemed a bit subdued, an offer of food was rejected, for the moment. Rachel’s stomach was still performing regular somersaults, triggered by readjustment to gravity and the variety and intensity of smells, which ranged from curry to mold to automobile exhaust.

Even Zeds, who needed twice the calories of the most active human, was willing to wait.

One human was unwilling to wait: Tea took Rachel by the arm, walking her a short way down the hall, away from the others. “Don’t hate me.”

“God, why would I?”

Tea’s eyes were filled with tears. “The last time we saw each other, I was dating your father.”

Rachel tried to remember: Yes, sometime during Zack Stewart’s
Destiny-7
mission, she had talked with Tea . . . then Zack’s girlfriend.

Before Megan Stewart returned to life and complicated matters to an extreme degree.

“I loved your father, you know that, don’t you?”

Rachel nodded. An appropriate time after Megan’s death—her first death, in 2016—Zack and Tea had started seeing each other . . . which was only a little weird for Rachel, given that Tea had taken Zack’s place as commander of the
Destiny-5
lunar mission. They had, as Zack admitted one of the few times he discussed the relationship, “an unusual number of things in common.”

Tea didn’t need to add that the relationship with Zack had been shattered by Megan’s return to life . . . the circumstances were so unique and bizarre that they could not truly be verbalized.

Blinking back tears of her own, Rachel hugged the tall blond woman. “It’s all okay. I’m just glad you found someone like Taj.”

Taj led them all into the staff conference room.

It was Xavier who spoke first, saying, “Well, we made it, barely. What are you going to do with us?”

Taj told them, “As you can see, reporters are dying to speak to you, naturally, and ISRO has made arrangements for a press conference tomorrow—”

Rachel sat forward. “Let’s put a pin in that for now.” This was her mission, her group. Her agenda, by necessity, needed to be flexible . . . but it needed to remain her agenda.

Taj accepted this. “Fine. But as you’ve seen, your return is not secret. There will be immense pressure, and a few planned events will save everyone a great deal of stress—”

“Oh, we’ll do events,” Rachel said. “But not until we’ve come to some kind of arrangements with these companies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Taj,” Rachel said, sounding impatient, “what do you think we want to do here?”

Taj glanced at his grown son, which annoyed Rachel. “I’m over here,” she snapped. “
I’m
speaking to you . . . Father.”

Mrs. Remilla entered the room at that point, bowing and smiling nervously, and sliding to the back like a parishioner making a late arrival at Mass. Rachel hoped she had heard the exchange; she doubted that women had reached equality with men in this society, even after twenty years.

“My apologies,” Taj was saying. “I assumed this was . . . the first step in a return to Earth?”

To Rachel’s surprise, and pleasure, Yahvi laughed. “You only return to
home
,” the girl said. “This isn’t
my
home.”

“We are
visiting
,” Rachel said. “What happens after the next couple of days, maybe a week or two, is entirely dependent on what we learn.

“And in order to survive here for days, maybe a week or two, we’ll need money, won’t we?” Here she turned directly toward Mrs. Remilla. “Or is ISRO going to be paying hotel and travel bills for us?”

Taj blustered, as if the thought of money had never occurred to him. “We weren’t planning to
charge
you.”

“For our landing? Thank you,” Rachel said. She indicated the hospital. “And for this medical care? Thank you, again, for not billing us.

“But we have no plans to be guests of the Indian government or ISRO, or the Coalition, or NASA—assuming it even exists. We’re going to operate freely, and starting as soon as possible.

“And we will want our own funds.” She looked at the others. “It’s entirely possible that one or more of us already have money on Earth somewhere, from insurance. Tea, maybe you could tell me what happened to my parents’ house. Somebody must have bought it from—?”

“Actually, I handled it,” Tea said, “and you’re right. That money went into—”

Rachel’s nod cut her off. The exchange was one she had simulated, in a way, during the long fall from Keanu. So far it reminded her of her early council meetings when she first became mayor of the HBs, where she had been granted status and some license, but only the power and authority she took. It all felt very familiar.

To Taj and Remilla, she said, “Tell the press to bring their bids when they have them as soon as they have them.

“And we’ll need someone who can serve as our agent. After we get done with media access fees, we have scientific and technical matters to discuss.” She reached for Taj’s hand while glancing at Pav, who stood there, smug, arms folded, proud.

“We would all like you to be our agent, Taj. Tea, too. You’re family. But if you’d rather not, please find someone who will.

“Now, where are we spending the night?”