Rocket Girls: The Last Planet (9 page)

“
KNOCK KNOCK! GOOD
morning, Akane!”

“
Hoi
, Akane! Wake-up time!”

For the past two days, Yukari and Matsuri had come each morning to Akane’s room to take her to breakfast. She was always ready to go when they got there—except for today.

“
Hoi?
I don’t think she’s here.”

“Akane? We’re coming in.”

Yukari turned the knob. It wasn’t locked.

The room was completely empty. No suitcase, no jacket hanging on the wall, and no books on the desk. The bed showed no signs of having been slept in.

Yukari quickly ran back to the hallway and checked the number on the door. Room 201. This was the place.

The two girls went downstairs to the concierge. “Did Akane move to a different room?”

“Who? Miss Miura? Oh, you hadn’t heard? She left yesterday.”

“What do you mean ‘left’?”

“I was told she was going back to Japan so she wouldn’t be needing her room after yesterday.”

“What? You mean she left without telling us?”

“That’s odd. Didn’t you three get along well? I wonder why she would have done that.”

The concierge here made up for having no work to do by being nosy. Yukari left without another word. She went straight for the training center. Up the stairs, she found the door with the plate reading S
PACE
B
IOLOGY
L
AB
and went in without knocking.

Satsuki Asahikawa was inside, sitting in front of a tray with some toast and tomato juice on it, reading a trade magazine of some sort.

“Satsuki?”

“Yukari! Good morning.”

“Is it true that Akane went back to Japan?”

“What? You didn’t know? Yes, she went home yesterday.”

“You mean, she failed the test.”

Satsuki set down her magazine and shifted in her chair. “Unfortunately, yes. You were there, were you not? Someone who faints at 4 G just can’t be an astronaut.”

“But she could have gotten better with training!”

“Don’t look at me like that. The testing is used to determine aptitude—the scope of a person’s abilities at the present moment. Not in some hypothetical future.”

“That may be, but she came all this way, she even quit school, and we just send her home?”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to do it. But the job requires more than just dedication and enthusiasm,” Satsuki said. “This is really the best for her, and for you and Matsuri. Please understand.”

Yukari knew that laying this on Satsuki would get her nowhere, but it was still hard to accept. “Why did she leave without saying a word?”

“She was probably too embarrassed.”

“Why?”

“Because you were the one who recommended her. In a sense, she failed
you
.”

“She did nothing of the sort!” Yukari shouted. “I was the one who dragged her here! I was the one who told her she’d be hired in an instant, no problem. And she believed me. That’s why she came. It’s not her fault at all. It’s mine!”

A fleck of spittle shot from Yukari’s mouth and landed in Satsuki’s glass of tomato juice, sending ripples across the surface. Satsuki held up her hands. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

“It was my fault.” Yukari’s voice sounded strained.

“I understand.”

“I thought she could help out. I thought she was a good fit. That’s why I invited her.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that approach. Nothing at all,” Satsuki said.

“And she was fine in the helicopter. She didn’t get sick or faint.”

“People get carsick for any number of reasons.”

“And you should’ve seen the look in her eyes when I invited her to go up with me.”

“Yukari—”

“I told her I wanted to show her the world from above. How beautiful it was.”

“Yukari,” Satsuki said, her voice gentle, “enough.” Satsuki stood and walked over to Yukari’s side. She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the tears off her cheek.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” Yukari said with a sniffle.

“It’s okay.” She tapped Yukari lightly on the shoulder. “Here, have a seat.”

Yukari sat down on a nearby bench.

“Look. She may have failed this time, but I think there’s a possibility for a second chance. She’s much more of a fighter than she seems at first.”

Yukari rubbed her eyes with both hands and cried a bit more.

Satsuki watched her quietly.

At length, Yukari spoke. “Satsuki?”

“Yes?”

“Could you give me Akane’s telephone number?”

“Her telephone number?”

“I want to call her and apologize.”

“But you don’t have anything to apologize for—”

“I don’t want her to think it’s her fault!”

“All right, all right.” Satsuki thought for a second, then said, “You know…I don’t think I ever asked for her phone number.”

“What? Didn’t she have to fill out any medical forms or anything?”

“That’s the thing—I was thinking of doing that when she got hired.”

“You don’t have her address?”

“Not even that.”

“I guess I could always dial information.”

“Look, Yukari. I’m sure she’s not home yet anyway. And maybe you want to wait a little while in any case. Give her a week at least.”

“Why?”

“You both have a lot on your mind right now. You should let things settle a bit first. Then talk.”

“You think?”

“Yes. Absolutely! That’s my opinion as a doctor.”

“Okay, then. That’s what I’ll do.”

Yukari nodded, blew her nose, and went back out the door, leaving Satsuki to breathe a deep sigh of relief.

SUNDAY, SIX DAYS
later.

With SSA rockets going up monthly, both the ground crew and astronauts rarely had a moment to breathe, but today was a rare pause from work for everybody.

Matsuri was decked out from head to toe in tribal garb—a bit misleading, since that tribal garb comprised little more than a bikini, and a small one at that.

What she lacked in skin coverage, though, she made up for with tropical bling: necklaces, bracelets, anklets—she had the works. Most were made from local flora and fauna, such as palm fronds, rattan fibers, exquisite seashells, and the fangs of small animals, but here and there could be spotted a stray bolt or washer she had picked up on base, or strips of glittery fabric cut from a thermal blanket. Each piece played a role in the local brand of magic, but clearly there was some flexibility in the tradition when it came to materials.

Most Taliho dressed far more austerely, but Matsuri was special. She had been tapped to be the next shaman of the tribe. She strode out through the main gate, a spear in her right hand and a woven hemp satchel in her left.

“Hey there, Matsuri,” the guard called out to her. “Where are you headed?”

“To the northern jungle to gather
irippe
nuts. Might find a durian too, if I’m lucky.”

“I’m afraid the jungle is off-limits right now.”

“
Hoi?
The whole jungle? Why?”

“Security is doing live ammo training.”

“But it’s been nine years since we’ve been able to gather nuts in the north. I have to go now.”

“Sorry, but off-limits is off-limits.”

Matsuri frowned and walked over to the guard. She looked at him with her black eyes, like a cat’s. She looked
through
him.

The guard’s expression softened.

“Bullets won’t hit me,” Matsuri whispered.

“…Bullets won’t hit you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“…You’ll be fine.”

“Open the gates.”

“On it.”

The guard pressed the large red button and the striped bar across the road lifted.

Matsuri grinned and walked through.

The Solomon Space Center had been built on several square kilometers of flat land carved out of the jungle on the eastern edge of the island.

Through the gate, the unpaved road was quickly swallowed by jungle. To the southwest, the jungle rose, becoming the jagged ridgeline of the Shiribas Range.

The dangers of these tropical jungles, be it the blistering heat, fanged beasts and giant snakes, malaria, or cannibals, were often exaggerated to near mythical heights. In truth, it did get hot and steamy between the trees at times, but the ick-factor was really no different from what one might feel during the rainy season in Japan. There were hardly any large animals, and all cannibalism had been stamped out by missionaries years ago. Nor did healthy people who had been properly inoculated need to worry much about malaria.

Though there was a constant struggle between the plants of the forest for nutrients and sunlight, the front lines in that battle were in the canopy. Hardly anything of size grew on the dimly lit jungle floor. The main barrier to getting around for anyone who hadn’t grown up here was the thick tangle of low-lying broadleaf shrubs. Most of the shrubs sent out roots that popped up from the forest floor like shark fins, crisscrossing in all directions. The layered roots and vines, and fallen trees that lay like small mountains covered in moss, all served to restrict vision and slow travel by foot to a crawl.

Most of a traveler’s energy was spent clambering up and down the various obstacles. Without a clear view of one’s surroundings, it was impossible to avoid the natural barriers and barricades, and often inexperienced adventurers would find themselves at a dead end and forced to turn back. The experience could be so disheartening that, as the traveler’s exhaustion deepened, some gave up trying to find a route, and instead lay down and simply wasted away.

A short distance down the road, Matsuri made a right angle and stepped into the forest. She continued walking, weaving between the trees, her pace no slower than it had been on the open road. She walked like a cat, making not a sound, stirring not a leaf. It was almost as if she swam through the foliage, so at home did she seem there.

It was nearing noon when she reached her destination.

“
Hoi!”
she exclaimed in a reverent whisper. “Beautiful!”

An endless stream of small nuts fell from the canopy, twirling in the air as they made their way to the forest floor. When they crossed the path of the few sunbeams that penetrated the canopy, they glittered and sparkled in the air.

On the ground, the brownish winged nuts looked like badminton shuttlecocks. Matsuri knelt to pick some of them up. She removed and discarded the wings, leaving only the nut, which she placed in her satchel. The nuts lay strewn about everywhere. Matsuri barely had to move in order to keep gathering. The more nuts she picked up, the more came twirling down.

Irippe nuts were very rich in oil and one of Matsuri’s favorite foods. Yet they flowered so rarely—only once every several years, and sometimes not for decades—that if you weren’t careful, you might miss them altogether. The Taliho called these times when the irippe fell “nut years” because for various ecological reasons, it wasn’t just one or two trees that decided to bloom in a year, it was all of them in the area.

The last nut year had been when Matsuri was only seven, but she still hadn’t forgotten it. Even when the squirrel population boomed and they ate the lion’s share of the nuts, the rejoicing of the villagers had gone on largely unabated. Matsuri had kept a sharp eye out whenever their orbiter passed over the island, looking for those specks of light color—the blooming flowers—among the deep green of the canopy.

When Matsuri’s satchel was half full of nuts, she left the area.

The sun’s still high. Maybe I’ll go up the ridge a ways and look for some other fruit.

I might even find that durian.

She could practically taste the durian’s sweet-and-sour milk already. If she had any trouble finding it, the bats and orangutan trails would point her in the right direction, and the effort would be worth it. Durian were few and far between. They weren’t the only thing she was after, however. A nice jackfruit, or some figs, or the red fruit of the rambutan—any one of these would hit the spot. They were all delicious. Thoughts of culinary delights drifted through her head, and Matsuri’s pace quickened.

Occasionally, she would stop and look up a tree. When she found a fruit, she shimmied up and plucked it. Whenever branch conditions dictated that she couldn’t use both hands, she would knock the fruit off its branch and collect it from the ground. Several of them she ate on the spot.

Her bag was full, and Matsuri was about to head home when she detected something—a foreign smell in the jungle. She stopped.

Smells like…insect repellent.

Could it be someone from space? An anthropologist, perhaps? Someone in jungle development?

Matsuri’s nose twitched and she followed the trail of the scent.

She had only walked a short while when she spotted something orange in the underbrush.

Matsuri strode over. “
Hoi?
Akane. What are you doing here?”

Akane lay listless, wedged between two large root-fins. Her face, hands, and clothes were covered in sweat and grime. She was lying on a silvery survival blanket.

The orange color came from the coveralls she was wearing—a standard-issue SSA uniform for flight crew. She had on a survival vest, which was covered with pockets large and small and held up by suspenders.

Akane slowly turned in the direction of the voice. “Matsuri?” A look of surprise came into her vacant eyes. When she sat up, it was with a frailty that made her seem three times her age.

“Want something to eat? They’re yummy.”

“Yes!” Akane’s eyes went wide.

For the next ten seconds, she attacked Matsuri’s stash with a vengeance. Then she looked up. “Thank you, but I really shouldn’t be doing this. I’m not supposed to let anyone help me.”

“
Hoi?
Why not?”

“I’m doing solo survival training—except it’s more of a test than training.”

“Oh.” Matsuri nodded. Solo survival training was widely known as the most severe regimen used by the military—and by the SSA, as it happened. Personnel doing the training were given a limited amount of water, food, and gear and dropped off by helicopter in the middle of nowhere. Then they would have to navigate back to a designated place within a set amount of time, entirely on their own.

It was a test of decision-making ability, stamina, survival skills, and psychological resilience in the noisy solitude of the jungle. The training was famous in the military for higher-than-normal rates of attrition due to mental instability and in some cases, death.

Yukari had undergone solo survival training herself. In her case, it had gone rather smoothly after she met Matsuri on her first day in the jungle. With Matsuri’s expert guidance, she’d had no trouble making it back home. As a test, it’d been a failure, but the SSA had already been committed to using Yukari before the test, and the addition of Matsuri to the team had been an added bonus.

“I had no idea you were even still on the island.”

“It was supposed to be a secret. They were afraid that if you knew, one of you would try to help me. I camped overnight in the security forces’ training area and trained for three days, then they brought me out here by helicopter.”

“Wait, so how many days have you been in the jungle?”

“This is my third day. But if I don’t make it home by midnight, I’ll fail.”

Akane lowered her eyes.

They had only given her a day’s worth of food. She’d received general survival skills training for tropical and subtropical regions, but they hadn’t taught her anything specific about the geography or edible flora of this particular island.

Akane had divided the food she was given into three portions, taking care not to eat too much on any day, but she was already at her limit with hunger. No matter how much she rested, once her strength failed it did not come back.

“We heard that you dropped out and went back to Japan.”

“That’s what they told you, huh.”

“Yukari was very upset. She still is. She wanted to apologize to you.”

“What? It was my choice to come here. Yukari has nothing to be sorry about!” Using the roots on either side as handholds, Akane staggered to her feet. She folded her blanket carefully and stashed it in her pack. Then she began to walk across the loamy soil, one step at a time.

“I have to get back…have to get back by midnight.”

“
Hoi!
Well, if you want a shortcut—”

“No! Don’t tell me!” Akane said sharply. “Don’t help me. If you help me, I won’t pass. Please.”

Matsuri saw the look in Akane’s eyes and fell silent. After a few moments she said, “You’ll be fine, Akane. The weather’s on your side today.”

“Thanks. I’m going to give it one last shot.”

Matsuri scanned their surroundings. Then she pointed up in the sky. “Look! Swallows! Ooh! Look at all of them!”

Akane followed the direction her fingers were pointing. Indeed, something was darting through the air beyond the dense foliage of the trees.

“Those are swallows?”

“Yep. They’re awful good at flying, those swallows.” Matsuri picked up her satchel and stood. “
Hoi!
I’m going to go gather some more fruit before I head back home.” She walked off into the jungle, disappearing within moments, leaving Akane to ponder what she had said.

If she’s going to gather more fruit, that means she’s probably not headed straight back to base…

Akane was sure the other girl had been trying to tell her something indirectly, but what?

She looked back up at the wheeling swallows.

For some reason, it was a relief to see their familiar sweptback wing shape again. Swallows were common near her home in Japan. When they had first dropped her off in the jungle two days before, Akane had stared wide-eyed at everything, amazed by the rich abundance of life. Her joy hadn’t lasted long.

Akane prided herself on having paid attention during biology class, but for whatever reason, she had never learned much about the tropics.
If I’d only studied more, I might know what around here is edible…

Something brushed across the back corner of her mind. The wheeling swallows—swallows wheeled like that when they were catching insects to eat.

Which meant that there were insects up there. Probably a lot of them. Insects tended to swarm most immediately following eclosion—their emergence from a chrysalis, in other words.

Akane pricked up her ears. She could hear it now, a mass thrumming of wings. It was high-pitched.
Flies? No, bees
. They were most definitely small bees or wasps. She had read something about jungle wasps in a book about parasitic life-forms.

Akane wracked her brains for any shred of memory that might prove helpful.

Then it hit her: fig wasps!

Fig flowers bloomed internally—they were hard to see from the outside. For pollination, fig trees relied on wasps. Her biology teacher had called it a “masterpiece of symbiosis.”

Fig flowers had male flowers, female flowers, and a third kind where wasps laid their eggs. Two wasps would actually mate inside the fruit, in contact with a male flower. Then, with the pollen still attached, the female wasp would fly off in search of an appropriate flower in which to lay her eggs. Since the female flower of the same plant was not shaped well for egg-laying, the wasp would look for a different tree, and pollination was accomplished.

How did I not realize this before now?

She had heard the humming of wasp wings several times already during the last two days and avoided them, fearing a sting. But she had never put two and two together to realize that where there were fig wasps, there were figs!

Akane walked closer to where the swallows danced in the sky. It didn’t take her long to find a fig tree laden with fruit. She pulled off a fig and split it in half. It was perfectly ripe and full of juice. Akane crammed it in her mouth without even peeling off the skin, the sweet juice filling her mouth.