The Highest Frontier (23 page)

Priscilla sat down on the slab next to Jenny. She wiped a damp curl of hair out of her eyes and took a bite of her sandwich. Jenny did the same. From the north, the racetrack beyond the Mound, came the faint drone of cars practicing for the Frontera Circuit. In her window she could see them, the scarlet Red Bulls and the black Ferraris.

Drums boomed, a rock beat reverberating from Buckeye Trail. Too early for powwow; it must be the live band the Kearns-Clarks had hired up for their Save the Mosquitoes rally. Jenny opened a toybox window to see. A fair crowd of students had collected to hear the band, in the soccer field behind Reagan Hall. Above the stage a giant virtual mosquito hovered in mid flight, its wings rainbow colored. After the band warmed up, Yola came out to address the crowd.

“To destroy any species is a crime.” Yola’s words echoed from the upcurving fields. “Mosquitoes and other insects feed frogs, and the frogs feed owls. None of the diseases they carry are even found here. We can breed the mosquitoes to avoid humans altogether. Who is the real danger to earth’s survival? The danger is us, human beings. We need to learn to live with our biosphere, not trash it.”

The last part drew applause and whistles.

“Now here’s our petition to the college trustees to withhold the smartspray until we give biocontrol a chance. We need everyone here to sign this petition. Check it out—it’s right there in your box. Sign now to prevent species cleansing.”

Kendall stepped forward on the stage, looking grim as death. “You don’t have to know life science to see that it’s wrong to destroy nature’s precious creatures. According to Genesis, God gave humans dominion over all the creatures of the air and earth. With dominion comes responsibility to do it right. And we messed up. First we got kicked out of Eden, then we drowned in the flood. If we mess up this time, we could lose Earth altogether.” Applause at that line, for who didn’t worry about losing Earth. “Saving insects is a start. If we expect God to save us.”

The band picked up again, echoing through the spacehab.

Priscilla looked up curiously. “What do you think about the mosquitoes?”

Jenny shrugged, reluctant to undermine her team captains. “What do you think?”

Priscilla looked reflectively at her sandwich. “I’m not sure. Like, I’m still thinking about it.” She took another big mouthful. “What about Hamilton’s homework?”

“Aristotle?”

“Yeah.” Priscilla chewed again until she swallowed. “I mean, if we’re all here to govern the
polis,
then what’s the
polis
here for?”

Jenny wondered the same, although she doubted that response was what the professor wanted. She wondered about this Professor Hamilton, how his mind worked; what she might find out about Centrist leaders and how they held on to ordinary citizens like Leora Smythe.

“Bear!” called Fran suddenly. “A bear’s headed this way. Clear out the trash.”

There ensued a hasty scramble to gather all the leftover food and napkins into the recycler. Everyone stared across the field, where a black furry creature lumbered over. It looked like a medium-sized dog, although its plodding gait was unlike a dog’s. The little bear approached to within a few yards of the students huddled together outside the house frame. It reared on its hind legs, as if for a better look, a piece of sandwich wrap in its jaw. Then, spooked by the crowd, it turned and took off again across the field.

“Newbies over here,” David called out to the frogs. “We’ll go over the frame and fix the issues found by the spider. Not too many,” he assured them, “you all did great. Owls with experience, follow Fran to raise the roof.”

Out came the triangular roof trusses, all laid in a stack. Father Clare climbed a ladder to raise the first truss, steadied by students at both ends. His biceps stood out like cords of anthrax as he centered the peak, lithe as a student and a lot more expert. A nudge at one end, then at the other, to align the overhangs and nail it to the frame. For the next truss, Fran soon followed up the ladder, looking as secure up there as she did in the slanball cage. The red-shirted Bulls followed too. From the north came the rumbling drumbeat of the two-o’clock powwow at the Mound.

Soon the peaks of the trusses reached halfway along the length of the roof. By now, the few spider issues had been resolved, a loose nail here, a misaligned plank there. Now the frogs were regarding the growing roof with interest. Tom and Charlie ventured up to align a truss, guided by Fran. Tom had his shirt off, and his chest gleamed in the light from both solars. Then Priscilla went up, nailing and creeping monkeylike through the web beams. Before long, the frogs up there outnumbered the owls, and the air rang with a dozen hammers. A lot of people clambered along a lot of narrow beams.

The rafters went up quickly, boards of lightweight carb filling in the slopes of the roof. Ladders went up all around, and people were crawling all over the roof, nailing boards and drawing guides for shingles. Jenny sat on a windowsill, feeling she’d had enough for one day.

A shout; someone cried out, and others gathered around. Priscilla lay on the ground, just below the roof overhang.

The chaplain knelt beside her. “Keep still.”

“I’m okay,” Priscilla insisted. “I just slid off the edge.” She winced.

“You must keep still. The medic will get here.”

Jenny pushed past the chaplain. “Lie down, all the way.” With her hand she eased Priscilla’s head down, took her pulse, and felt her arms and legs. “What’s your name?”

“Priscilla Cho,” she sighed.

“Who is the president?”

“Like, Chase?”

“The United States.” I’m out of practice, Jenny thought.

“Guzmán, a hundred forty-one days to go.”

She put a test patch on Priscilla’s neck. The patch would dig in and sample her blood. “What happened?”

“I just reached without looking, and my foot went off the edge.”

“Only experienced volunteers were supposed to go up.”

“Duh, how should I get experience? Like, I’ll know better next time. I didn’t fall that far.”

“Can you wiggle your toes?”

In Jenny’s box several numbers blinked red, for molecules that leaked out of broken bone. There must be a cracked vertebra. Jenny pulled out a piece of amyloid and set it on Priscilla’s neck. The amyloid liquified and spread about her neck, then solidified.

“Hey, now I can’t move.”

“You move, you’re dead,” Jenny replied, more crossly than she should have. Totally worn out, she sat back on the ground and momentarily closed her eyes. Overhead a heli whined, descending with the medic. Her eyes opened; there was Tom at her side, watching gravely. She looked up at Father Clare. “Why don’t you have EMS standing by?”

“We prayed for a volunteer. Now we have one.”

The heli opened, and a medibot trundled out.
“Where’s your human operator?”
Jenny texted.
“EMS rule, no bots alone.”

“We’re short-handed,”
the bot replied.
“Why did you not call in this event according to regulations?”

“I applied for the squad but never heard.”

“Show up Monday at twenty-one hours.”

In her toybox next to molecule-of-the-day a new window appeared, the EMS snake twined around a pole. The window bore the name of Eppie Uddin, M.D. The college physician, Jenny recalled, Doc Uddin was married to the toymaker, Zari Valadkhani, who ran the local Toynet with all their adopted teddies. The tumor mouse sniffed the new window curiously, amid all the rest; there was barely room for another.

*   *   *

Back at her cottage, Jenny had to drag herself up to the greenhouse, where she’d put her mattress. She let the mister play on her face. She thought she’d lie down for just a minute before a shower.

The next thing she knew, Anouk was calling. “Jenny? Jenny, are you all right?” Anouk’s scarf had an elaborate pattern of blue and gold tiles. Next to her sat Yola and Kendall, at Café de la Paix. “Did you forget?”

It was past seven, when they had all agreed to meet for dinner. She must have slept three hours, and still done no homework.

At the café, Jenny found Anouk and Yola enjoying an appetizer of
crottin de chavignol roti,
roasted goat cheese with honey and sautéed apples arranged in a swirl, while Kendall enjoyed spirulina salad. “We saved some for you,” said Anouk. “And some of the bread—fresh from Paris.” The bread was a wonder, a crust that crunched just right, and the inside melted in her mouth.

Yola nodded. “Congratulations on joining EMS. I’ll know who to call.”

“Thank you.” Jenny tried the
crottin
. Crumbling on her fork, its flavor was delicate, piquant. “How was your … event?”

“Fantastic,” exclaimed Kendall. “The band was awesome—you could hear it all the way to the Mound.”

“We collected fifty-eight signatures,” said Yola. “Impressive, for a species with such a bad rep.”

Anouk nibbled her bread and kept quiet. Outside the café, Berthe kept watch, her Monroe face just visible through the window. “The Homefair house looks nice,” Anouk observed at last. “Most charitable.”

Jenny sighed. “I just wish I’d got my Life done.” Those neuro articles were as impenetrable as kudzu.

Kendall groaned. “I’ll trade you my chapter on ‘The Reconciliation of the Apostolic Succession.’ Pope Leo ruled that King Edward messed up, then Pope Sebastian ruled the Anglicans back in.” The foundation of First Church Reconciled. “Pope, pope—I feel like a peeper.”

“Hah,” crowed Yola, “Christian history, for a change.”

“It’s required for the major. Never postpone requirements till senior year.”

Anouk said, “I completed my homework, on the coding of Legendrian submanifolds.”

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Tom brought out a silver tray. Clearly he hadn’t come back to sleep for three hours. Out of the tray came plates of
sandre au beurre d’écrevisses,
pike-perch in crayfish butter surrounded by parsley and shallots.

Kendall tasted his triple mushroom pâté. “Not bad. Do you suppose we could get him at the castle for our Feast of Fools?”

Yola said, “Let’s see how he does with the
boeuf en croûte.
It always comes out soggy.”

Jenny put down her fork. “Since I’m on EMS now,” she ventured, “could I raise a point of … safety?”

“Sure, sis. What’s up?”

“The water seeping up from the shell.” Her pulse raced just to think of it.

“Why that in particular?” Yola wondered.

“Well, the hab could flood any time. And nobody knows about it.”

“Sure we do. We all signed the form.”

The form from Frog Preorientation popped into her box. A phrase was highlighted, “substratum overflow.”

Jenny said, “I had no idea what that meant.”

Anouk crossed her silver on her plate, as usual leaving just a morsel uneaten. “I didn’t know what that meant either,” she said, “until I found it in the secure archive. Not that I was surprised.” No Frontera deficiency would surprise her.

“EMS runs a flood drill,” said Yola, “let’s see, every other year. Or has it been three years? We’re really more concerned about Kessler debris.”

Tom returned to take the trays and refill the water glasses. Jenny smiled but did not catch his eye. She turned again to Yola. “At least everyone could sleep on an upper floor.”

“What good would that do? The hab would flood only in a power-out, and the amyloid would all collapse.”

“Really?” Jenny recalled the broken amyloid melting. “There’s no solid frame underneath? No carb?”

“Wickett has carb underneath, and so do the frog residences,” Yola explained. “For seniors, it would be too expensive to cut down all that carb every year when new students come in. It releases carbon dioxide.”

Her greenhouse, everything would collapse. Jenny’s scalp crawled. The next dish arrived, the
boeuf en croûte
with asparagus, artichokes, and red peppers. The pastry formed the Frontera College crest, complete with the colonial ax and Gil Wickett on his rocking horse. But now Jenny could scarcely eat.

Yola took a forkful from the crisp crust. “You’re right, Kennie-boy, this will do for our Feast of Fools.”

Kendall looked up. “Our castle’s got lifeboats,” he remembered. “Why don’t we hold a Flood Awareness Day?”

“‘Flood Awareness Day’?” Jenny repeated. “How would that work?”

“Ask the chaplain, he’s Student Events Coordinator. He’ll send you the form.”

“He approved our event,” said Yola, “the band and all.”

“A band,” exclaimed Kendall. “A New Orleans band—I can see it. ‘What do we have to do to send the river in reverse…’” He snapped his fingers. “We could hold it at the castle. Next Saturday, after our annual tour. Demonstrate the lifeboats in the moat.”

Yola nodded. “People are always curious about Castle Cockaigne. We hold an open house, early in September.”

“Hey,” said Kendall, “we’ll open the moat and
flood
the castle. And paddle the lifeboats out.”

That would draw attention, all right. “Can we do a flyer—a map of all the flood-safe locations?” As they planned, Jenny got back to eating. The beef was excellent, as were the concluding profiteroles with Côte d’Ivoire chocolate.

As the group rose to leave, Jenny hung back. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told Anouk.

Anouk nodded. “I understand. If you call, I’ll send Berthe to walk you home.”

“Um, I’ll be okay, thanks.”

After the others left, Jenny paused at the door to the kitchen. Her heart suddenly beat fast, so fast she thought she would faint. The door swung in. A steel sink was piled with spoons and copper kettles, amid a rush of onions and tarragon. The onions made her eyes tear.

Tom looked up. “Something wrong?”

She wiped her eyes. “The food was wonderful. I just thought maybe I could … help with the dishes.”

Tom looked confused. “But you paid in full.” Seeing her look, he added, “That’s okay, I’m nearly done. You can hang out while I finish.”

Jenny got to work with the soap on the pots and spoons, having had long practice after all those campaign suppers. “You must have done a culinary course.” She nearly added “in Paris,” but caught herself just in time.