The Highest Frontier (13 page)

From the left, a much larger man appeared and aimed a rifle at the class. Jenny involuntarily shoved her chair backward.

“Never mind, Big Bill.” Roosevelt waved the guard aside, though he patted a gun butt protruding from his own holster. “Can’t imagine how you all missed the tripwire—it foiled even the dowagers from the Oyster Bay Needlework Guild.” He grinned. “So you’re those reporters come all the way from our great ‘frontier.’” He emphasized the word. “Here this morning to interview me at my summer home.
Dee
-lighted to see you all. Just don’t call this campaigning.” He smiled mischievously. “A president doesn’t campaign for himself—that’s for the Republican National Committee. So—fire away.”

No one said a word.

“What do you gentlemen know about the ‘frontier’? Did you ever sleep beneath sequoias, a cathedral more majestic than any built by the hands of man? Did you ever wake upon a glacier and find yourself buried beneath four inches of snow? Did you ever feel a bear’s hot breath on your face before you dispatched it?”

A student raised a tentative hand. “I once shot a sixteen-point buck.”

Roosevelt waved an arm dismissively, and his coat fluttered. “Bears are different. Now, there are savage bears and cowardly ones, just as there are large and small ones. And sometimes bears of one district will have a code of conduct which differs utterly from that of bears in another district. You must read my book on the subject.”

“Mr. President,” asked Reesie, “what do you think of conservation?”

Roosevelt jumped with excitement, and his boots dug deep in the muddy grass. “The conservation of our forests is a primary duty of our great Republic—the mightiest Republic on which the sun has ever shone. You can build a prosperous home by destroying a forest—but you cannot keep it. Woodlands and grasslands prevent flood waste and provide irrigation, that we may raise the crops for such modest repasts as our family breakfast.” Behind him, servants were setting a lavish table. Odors wafted over: roast chicken and fresh bread, soon followed by plates of potatoes, asparagus, fruits, and berries with pitchers of cream. A child cried out and toddled across the porch after some small animal.

“Besides,” Roosevelt observed in a voice barely audible, “we shall not turn into shingles a tree which was old when the first Egyptian conqueror reached the Euphrates. Pray the people don’t realize just how much land I’ve put away for their grandchildren.”

“Mr. President,” called one of the suit-and-tie
chicos
. “What do you think of the five-to-four decision on the Northern Securities case?”

Roosevelt’s eyes flashed. “It ought to have been six! That Justice Holmes—I could carve out of a banana a justice with more backbone.” With difficulty he restrained himself. “The Northern Securities case is one of the greatest achievements of my administration. Monopoly must be crushed. Absolute monopoly is the death of freedom, whether Standard Oil or Tobacco Trust. Remember that, gentlemen, long after I’m gone.”

Toynet, thought Jenny with a twinge of unease. She’d heard the word “monopoly” whispered now and then, always out of earshot of her father. But she had a question of her own, one she knew would needle Uncle Dylan. “Mr. President, what do you think of native Americans?”

“Americans are the world’s greatest nation,” said Roosevelt. “We Americans are one native people, not a hodgepodge of foreign nationalities. We must insist upon a single nationality, one flag, one language, one set of national ideals. We must all of us be Americans—and nothing but Americans.”

“I mean, the Indians?”

He shook his head. “Much sentimental nonsense has been talked about our taking land from the Indians. The Indians never had real ownership. Where the game was plenty, there they hunted, until the game moved off, or until they left to butcher some other people. No doubt wrongs have been done; but now, we must treat the Indians with understanding and firmness, until they become citizens. Each Indian is an individual, like ourselves.”

Jenny hid her smile. She glanced sideways at Charlie, who was clasping and unclasping his hands. She texted,
“Go ahead; ask.”

Blinking rapidly, Charlie half raised his arm. “How do you like being president? I mean, are you happy?”

The suit-and-tie
chicos
rolled their eyes, exchanging looks of disdain for such a simple-minded question.

Roosevelt laughed in a paternal way. “Indeed, although the weight of this great office is enough to sober any man, I’ve been happy. A small, shallow soul can obtain the bridge-club standard of happiness; but if you are to have great happiness, you must face the risks, overcome every obstacle and trample it underfoot. I could say I’ve been happy as a king; in fact, I’ve been infinitely happier than any of the kings I know, poor devils!” He turned toward the porch, where a young woman in blue silk walked sedately down the hill. “And I’ll be a damn sight happier when I’ve had breakfast. Alice, dear, have you come to charm the reporters?”

Alice stepped in front of her father. Her young face held a beauty like porcelain, her nose and chin lifted as though she’d never seen the ground. Her silk flowed into her cinched waist like a waterfall down to her feet. She planted her left fist on her hip and raised her right arm, the sleeve falling wide. “Gentlemen, as you know, I am more interested in my father’s political career than anything in the world.” Out of her right sleeve crawled something green. A green snake, flicking its tongue and twining around her wrist. The green snake caught the silk of her bodice and slithered up her breast to her neck.

*   *   *

At the end of class, Jenny lingered after most of the students had hurried out. Drums reverberated from the daily powwow at the Mound. Uncle Dylan had managed to draw out Charlie, nodding understandingly.

“I don’t know how I got into Frontera,” Charlie confided. “I never even heard of Northern Securities. My last class on government was tenth grade. I must have got in by mistake.”

Uncle Dylan patted him on the back. “Now Charlie, I know you belong here. How do I know? I know, because our admissions director, Luis Herrera Smith, is the finest admissions officer in the country. Luis personally selected you, based on your outstanding qualifications—and he never, ever makes a mistake. So that’s how I know, Charlie, that you belong here, at Frontera.”

After Charlie left, he at last turned to Jenny. “So how’d I do? B plus?”

“Chulo.”
She asked curiously, “Was that true, about the snake?”

“The Roosevelt children had all kinds of pets. Snakes, rabbits, dogs, a raccoon, even a badger.” Uncle Dylan had never shown that part in her mother’s house. “You do understand, about the Indians?” he added anxiously.

“Sure.” She half smiled, recalling the time her father got so worked up at Teddy it took his mental all night to calm him. “Roosevelt never knew about the smallpox and all.”

“He knew. It made no difference.”

“What do you think? About what he said?”

Uncle Dylan looked down thoughtfully. “With any one person, Teddy would be absolutely right. All that matters is two souls touching. But as a leader of a hundred million souls … does that always work, do you think?”

Jenny did not answer. Her heart pounded faster. “There’s something else … I think about.” She swallowed. “The smallpox, how it spread among the natives ahead of the colonists. Thousands died before they ever saw white men.”

“Yes.”

“What if … today … that’s ultra? What if ultra is like smallpox—just the edge of something bigger?”

“Jenny,” he sighed. “Teddy was twice your age when he became president. You don’t need to save the world right now. You have time to be yourself at Frontera.”

*   *   *

Jenny hadn’t gotten the art class, but still, she could stop by the chaplain’s office and check about the Sunday service. She hesitated just a moment outside his door, recalling his benediction:
“… all of us, however great or low, are creatures of time.”
The door opened.

Father Clare had the lanky Appalachian build of someone who’d spent countless hours hammering nails into studs. Jenny knew him as Uncle Dylan’s relatively reserved spouse, who generally spoke little at fundraisers but retreated to a corner texting with her father. Here he sat in his black vestments, before a full-size floodlit replica of Michelangelo’s
Pietà
. The white marble Christ, limp as a drowned youth, head fallen back, legs hung over his mother’s marble knees.

Jenny stared, transfixed. Jordi—the view of Jordi she would never see, the body forever lost. For a moment she blacked out. Then she was aware. The chaplain’s face was very near hers, the large blue eyes.

“I—I’m sorry,” Jenny stammered. “They never let me—that is, I just don’t want to call the mental.” The dead Christ in his office, for goodness’ sake. “More Roman than Anglican,” her mother would say.

“No mentals here,” Father Clare told her. “My office is a mental-free zone.”

“What? Why?”

“In case a mental goes bad, you have somewhere to go.”

She blinked, disconcerted. A mental gone bad—one more thing to worry about. She glanced furtively at the marble.

“You can touch it.”

There was a thought. She took a step toward the statue and tentatively brushed the fingers of Mary’s outstretched left hand. Cool, solid amyloid, just a sculpture. Mary, sculpted tall as Jenny, looked down upon her fallen son with infinite repose. So young a face, she seemed more his sister.

Recovering her manners, Jenny turned to the chaplain. “I tried to take your class,” she told him apologetically. “I didn’t get in.”

“That’s all right. Better luck for next year.” On his desk lay the
Book of Reconciled Prayer,
and another curious book that was dog-eared and blackened as if by fire. “Jenny, before you go on, I have a task for each visitor.”

Off to the side, a table held a vast jigsaw puzzle. The pattern looked vaguely abstract; she could not make it out. Above the puzzle rose shelves full of pieces, sorted by colors: reds, yellows, greens.

“Please place one piece. Any piece you like.”

Jenny took a closer look at the puzzle. “The pieces,” she said carefully, not wishing to sound impolite. “They don’t all fit.”

“None of them fit. They come from hundreds of different puzzles.”

“But—” She picked up a piece tentatively. “There are holes showing through. And some look…”

“Shoved in.” Father Clare smiled broadly, and Jenny noticed that his teeth were imperfect. Random-bred, raised in Appalachia. “Life takes a lot of shoving.”

Suddenly Jenny felt uncomfortable, impatient. A brownish section showed some holes; she picked up a piece and placed it indifferently.

“Thanks so much, Jenny,” he said, as if she had made his day. “So what can I do for you?”

“I was wondering about the Sunday service. What time does it start? Does the sanctuary need flowers?”

“Sundays at eleven, and yes, we always appreciate flowers. We also appreciate help with Homefair.”

“Homefair, yes, that’s such a good program.” Hammering nails wasn’t exactly her thing. “Are there ‘homeless’ here, in the spacehab?”

“Homeless on Earth. Homefair is for would-be colonists who can’t afford amyloid. All amyloid homes have a monthly maintenance fee.”

“And if you miss the fee?”

The chaplain’s lip curved. “If you miss a payment, your home melts down.”

“¡Oye!”
Like the melting scissors.

“Homefair builds homes of carboxyplast, sequestered carbon dioxide, like the shell of the hab. Once built, carboxyplast lasts forever. If you’re interested, we meet at Wickett every Saturday morning, at the pound-a-peg door.”

“I already volunteered for EMS.” She’d filed Yola’s forms for the squad but hadn’t yet heard. “Well, I have to go now; I have Life work.” As Jenny reached the door, she stopped.

“What else?” he asked. “What is it you need to know?”

“I was wondering if…” A mental-free zone, he’d said. “Father Clare … do you really believe Jordi is up in heaven, now, looking down at us?”

The chaplain clasped his hands and leaned forward on the desk. “Jordi is now outside of time. He is out there, along with your grandfather, and your great-grandmother. And so are all your descendents, your unborn children who will die in their time. They’re all out there, all pulling for you, Jenny.”

*   *   *

The north solar cast its crimson south, lighting up the ring of Ohio River, as Jenny walked north to her cottage to freshen up before meeting Anouk for supper. She hoped Tom might show up at the Ohioana, though she wasn’t about to call him.

“ToyNews—From our box to yours.” Clive floated above Cross River Reservoir, a kudzu-lined lake near Somers. “Ultraphyte poisons have now reached Cross River, the major water supply for New York City. A dozen people sickened before the reservoir was closed for all drinking, boating, or swimming…” Jenny frowned. Ultraphytes never lived in fresh water; it must be human pollution. It was too easy to blame everything on ultra. Still, she hoped her parents had kept the cellar stocked with bottled water. And their plot of land on Frontera.

Something pricked Jenny’s arm, an insistent itch. Instinctively she slapped the arm. As her hand came away, there lay a long-legged insect, crushed but still recognizable. She gasped with shock. Dengue and malaria—anyone from Somers could recognize a mosquito.

10

President Chase sat at his desk in the executive conference toyroom. “
Gracias
, Nick,” Dylan sighed to his assistant who brought him his coffee with Quade’s latest report. A sandy-haired Newman-chinned senior, Nick Petherbridge epitomized the Board’s image of a happy alumnus, well educated, well mentaled, and largely unscathed by terrestrial misfortunes. “And could you please get out this letter to Homeworld Security?” Homeworld Security had just announced a plan to scale back their Kessler debris surveillance. For the solarray, a few collectors knocked out would only slightly degrade performance. But Frontera—it wouldn’t take much of an old rocket chunk to crack the hab.

The coffee helped Dylan focus on Quade’s report splashed alarmingly across his toybox. Alas, Quade’s report only confirmed the worst: Alien invasion.