Heaven's War (20 page)

“When, for prom?”

But she took it and jammed it in the pocket of her jeans.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.

“Same as you,” she said, in a voice that was so noncommittal that he began to relax; he hadn’t been caught.

“Just had to get away?”

“Duh.” She saw the Slate in his hands. “God, you have music?”

“For a while.”

“Can I listen? Who is it?”

“Summer Jihad.”

“I know them!”

“Really.” He didn’t believe her for a second, but he handed over the unit, anyway.

“Shit, yeah! ‘Blow Me, Blow You,’ ‘Down, Up, Down,’ I’ve got them all on my Slate, too.”

“Where’s yours?” he said, having to shout a little, because Rachel had the earbuds locked in and was actually dancing around, already immersed in music.

“Buried it!” she said loudly. “In my mom’s grave!”

Pav knew all about Megan Stewart’s death, of course; he and his father had been present at the Kennedy Space Center when Zack got the news of the accident…had stayed in the United States to attend the funeral.

And in Bangalore Control, he had also heard the strange rumors that Megan Stewart had somehow been brought back to life here, on Keanu.

“Which one?” he said, daring to joke about what was likely a very sensitive subject.

And he hit home. Rachel removed the earbuds. “There only is one,” she said, suddenly very serious.

“Well, what happened, then? They were saying all kinds of strange shit….”

“Such as…”

“That whoever is running this place had made some kind of copy of her—”

Rachel was fiercely shaking her head. “No! No, it wasn’t a copy…it was my mother! She came back to life. I talked to her. I mean, she couldn’t fool me.” She was waiting for him to agree with her. “Wouldn’t you know your mother anywhere?”

“Not sure,” he said, “but my mother and I—”

“Fine. Not that I care, but just trust me: She was back.”

“And…?”

“She died again.”

She started to put the earbuds back on, but Pav stopped her. “Then where is she?”

“We don’t know. I mean, my father said she…she…” Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. “We don’t know, okay? Why don’t you go back to beating off!” And she wrenched his Slate and earbuds away and put them on again.

Which is why Pav heard the rumble, a groaning vibration that seemed to come from beneath them. It lasted maybe two seconds…but it freaked him out so completely that he forgot his embarrassment.

“What the hell was that?”

Rachel blinked and pulled off the buds. “What?”

“Didn’t you
hear
that?”

“Hear what?”

“Wait…” He put an arm out to steady Rachel, and himself. “I thought it was starting again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Some kind of quake.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“Well, no, not dancing around like that—”

“Fine, then.” She shoved the Slate into his stomach.

“Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. Keep it for a while. I just…felt something. It’s like this whole place shivered.”

“You’re freaking me out.” She did look terrified. “What do you think is going on? Keanu’s a spaceship…do they even have things like quakes?”

“It’s really a small planet,” he said, having heard Makali Pillay state this fact half a dozen times. “It not only has quakes, it probably has worse quakes than Earth.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yeah. We understand earthquakes. An object this size would have a lot of them, just because it’s in a tug-of-war between two really bigger bodies. Earth and the Moon,” he added, unnecessarily, of course. (Her father was an astronaut, too!)

Rachel stared at him. “What are you, some kind of astro geo guy?”

He was embarrassed again. He wasn’t all that sure of his facts, for one thing. And he never talked science, ever. He was into music;
that
was what he talked about,
especially
with girls.

Maybe he was just really changing the subject. “You know what it’s like when your family is in the space business. You can’t help hearing things like that.”

Rachel said, “We should probably go back. My dad used to freak out when I was late coming home, and that was in Houston.” She smiled. “Things are a little different here….”

“I hear you.”

By silent agreement, they turned and began walking toward the Temple and the others.

“Hey, what if that wasn’t a quake, though?” Rachel said. “What would all that shivering mean?”

“It would probably be very bad. As in, the place is falling apart…or about to change, and if it changes, it’s not likely to be good for humans.”

“You’re not very cheerful, Pav.”

“Not lately.”

The last thing Weldon said to Harley Drake, while helping Harley out of his wheelchair and onto a mat of some kind of leaves that Sasha had arranged, was, “Stick with me tomorrow.”

“I ain’t going anywhere, Shane.”

“You know what I mean. We’ve got a lot of folks who’ve gotten through the first day like stunned cattle. They’re going to be more agitated tomorrow, once it sinks in that we’re stuck here.”

“Didn’t you listen to Zack? We aren’t necessarily
stuck
here, my friend.”

“Stewart is a goddamn optimist,” Weldon said, using a tone more appropriate to describing him as registered sex offender. “These access vents could be twenty clicks away, across a frozen vacuum we can’t possibly cross.”

“Or they could be ten clicks away, or right next door, if we just find the right passage.”

“And even if we get to the next habitat, then what? We’ve only seen one, and aside from food, water, and one useless building, it doesn’t have much. Why would you assume you’re going to find Keanu mission control?”

“Does it hurt to give people hope?”

“Not until they realize it’s bullshit, and then it hurts a whole lot.”

“So they’ll be hurting later rather than sooner.”

He was flat on his back now, and Jesus, did it feel good.

“Are you fucking arguing with me, Harls?” Weldon and Harley had always had a commander-pilot relationship, with Weldon in the commander’s seat. Which was funny, because Harley’s chops and flying experience were substantially more varied and flashy…but Weldon had
commanded Marine units, then moved into NASA management. Harley had commanded an airplane and did not enjoy telling other people what to do.

“Just helping you shape your argument, my friend.” He was troubled by Weldon’s reversals on the subject. Usually, once consensus was reached, he was Mr. Consistent. “Besides, didn’t you sign on to Zack’s bit about sending a signal?”

Weldon chose not to answer, finding another distraction.

Which was fine with Harley. They were all too worn out and stressed to have rational discussions. What they needed was sleep.

Assuming that was possible on the slatelike floor, even with the “cushion” Sasha had so thoughtfully provided. “You’re too good to me,” he had told her. Harley was, in fact, astonished to realize that he and the woman from Yale had been inseparable since the Keanu crisis went critical…four days ago?

“Oh, don’t worry: I know,” she said, rubbing a smudge of dirt off her face.

“What I can’t figure out is why.” He knew this was a stupid question.
If she starts asking herself that, she’ll be gone!

“You mean, why is this goddess of a woman spending all her time with…?” She made a comic gesture toward Harley, including his useless legs.

“I know I’ve got tons of charm, but—”

“Well, sure. And fame. Let’s not forget the fame.”

“Yeah, me and your local member of the state assembly. Can you name him?”

“Her. Actually, I can.” She blinked, and he couldn’t tell whether she was joking. “But I take your point.” She thought for a moment. “Are you at least rich?”

“I make a living.” He had a pension and a little money put away in an IRA. No significant property, no anticipated inheritance.

And no sense of just how and why a casual conversation had turned into a game of Where Is This Relationship Going?

“Don’t worry, I have money.” She smiled.

“The question remains.”

“Well…maybe I was just between boyfriends.”

“I can live with that.”

“And you are kind of cute and funny.” She actually reached down to muss his hair. “Aren’t you just totally fucking tired, though?”

“I’ll shut up.” Just in time, too.

The moment Sasha was on the mat next to him, however, she said, “What do you mean, other vents and habitats?”

So he told her. And was gratified by her interest. In spite of his public position supporting Zack, fatigue, or innate pessimism, had convinced him that Weldon was essentially correct: Zack was giving them false hope. They were trapped here inside Keanu and would die sooner rather than later…new victims of the space age, like the
Challenger
and
Columbia
crews…just more numerous. Even getting back in touch with mission control—hell, anyone on Earth—meant little.

Barring some miracle, Keanu was where they would spend the rest of their lives. The challenge was to make that time less than “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Food, water, consumables—that was one major and likely ongoing challenge. And, in spite of what Zack Stewart had pitched, lack of rescue, lack of hope.

No one was talking about danger! About the fact that one of the first astronauts to enter Keanu had actually been killed…and that two of the others hadn’t survived the mission, either.

They’d been brought here against their will. Told nothing. Helped in no way that he could see, other than the simple fact that the environment wasn’t immediately fatal.

“Hey!” Sasha said. “Look who’s here!”

Camilla had approached them. The Brazilian girl looked unfazed by the suicide or accident or whatever she thought had happened.

“Hi!” Harley said, in his best tourist-friendly voice. He knew Camilla didn’t speak English.

Then the girl rattled off a phrase in a language that Harley recognized. “Is that German?”

“Yep,” Sasha said, and spoke quickly to Camilla. “I did two years of grad work in Geneva. I’m pretty fluent.”

“Lucky for her.”

Sasha didn’t miss the sarcasm. “Come on, she’s nine years old and the
only person who speaks Portuguese is that weird Russian woman. Would you like that?”

“No,” Harley said, feeling selfish. He also felt that feeling selfish was a survival mechanism. “But I like so little these days.”

“Ha,” Sasha said. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

Harley accepted the new reality: He and Sasha were Camilla’s adoptive parents, much as the two of them had served in that role for Rachel Stewart back in mission control…four days ago.

Four days, or an entire lifetime.

As they reentered the cool, theoretically safer interior of the Temple, Harley noticed that Camilla was scratching at a place on the back of her left arm. Even a quick glance confirmed that it was lumpy and inflamed. “What happened there?” he said to Sasha, who had seen it, too.

“Bug bite, I guess.”

It wasn’t until they were all resting on their sides and backs, fighting off sleep, that Harley asked himself:

What bug?