The Highest Frontier (34 page)

“What do you think?”

“The hand…” She paused. “It’s hard to believe it was … carved out of solid rock. How could you do that with a hammer?”

Father Clare nodded. “That hand has a storied history. It was smashed twice, the first time by accident in the eighteenth century. Scholars still argue what the original actually looked like, before the repair.”

“Really.” Hard to imagine how something so important could be … unrecorded.

“The second time, a twentieth-century madman took a hammer to it. But by then the form was well documented.”

Madmen were dangerous. Jenny swallowed. “No mentals here, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m worried about Mary Dyer. She had those ultraphytes—no one knows how she got them past the DIRGs. And besides—” Jenny gulped, not wanting to say it. “She tries to act like one.”

“She acts like an ultraphyte?”

“She always talks like multiple people, and she says a person can divide in two, like an ultraphyte cell. She even drinks saltwater. It’s not healthy.”

The chaplain’s eyes scanned back and forth, reading his box. “Actually, you can drink small amounts of salt, with plenty of water. I’m sure Professor Abaynesh will look after Mary’s health. And so will you. Although she’s moved out, Mary still needs a good
compañera.
”

“Thanks.” Jenny felt guilty for wishing she was done with her. “But Mary’s obsessed with ultra. Like the Creep, obsessed with the War on Ultra. Her hands—she even looks like him. It’s…”

“Creepy?” Father Clare smiled. “I don’t think Mary wants to fight ultra. I think she loves ultraphytes. Perhaps she … identifies with them. She feels different, isolated.”

“Claro.”

“People often imitate things they love, like their pets.”

“That’s true.”

“There are more extreme cases,” said Father Clare. “There’s Jerusalem syndrome. People visit Jerusalem and see all the holy sites; they get overwhelmed. A person of unbalanced mind may suddenly think they’re John the Baptist. They start running around wrapped in a goat skin, trying to baptize people.”

She smiled. “That’s pretty funny. I mean, not really.”

“Then there’s Paris syndrome. People who’ve studied art all their lives visit Paris and suddenly get overwhelmed by all the Van Goghs.”

“
¡Oye!
Couldn’t such a person … do something dangerous? ” Like that madman who had smashed the
Pietà
.

He sighed. “Students do dangerous things every day of the week. As do college administrators,” he added cryptically.

“So you think Mary has, like, ultra syndrome?”

“I can’t disclose details, but we’re working closely with Mary, believe me. Jenny, I understand your concern, after all you’ve been through.”

“Well, thanks.” She’d kept her promise to her mother, and she did feel better. “I guess I’d better go start my homework. Oh, how are things with you? How’s Uncle Dylan in Washington? Did his trip go well?”

Father Clare gave her an odd look, as if she ought to know otherwise. He looked somehow much older, as if slipping a mask. “Yes, thanks, Dylan’s trip … went well.”

*   *   *

Afterward, Jenny checked her toybox. Her newstream was still turned off; she’d missed a whole day of world, state, and local news. A whole day without Clive—how Anna Carrillo had leaked her short list for running mate; how several drones had gone down in a dogfight above Ellsworth, and the Amery Ice Shelf had collapsed, the last remaining ice shelf of Antarctica; and how a certain college president on the moon had driven his Anthradyne 500 up into a spin. There it was in her box, amid the gaudy lights of Mare Crisium, the heart-stopping sight of Uncle Dylan’s car tumbling over and over at least a dozen times while falling ever so slowly in lunar one-sixth g.

26

The lunar express took Friday night returning to Earth, then Saturday morning Dylan came back to Frontera. On the way, Fritz called from Berkeley. “Dad—how
could
you?” His curly-haired son was the picture of filial outrage. “Just imagine what could have happened.”

“Thanks for your … concern,
tío
.”

“Think how Pop feels. That car—all through everyone’s windows. The whole universe saw it.”

Dylan had blocked all his media windows. He hadn’t yet heard from Clare. “How was your benefit for
Marmota monax
?”

“The band was fab, especially the Lennon.” Fritz shook his head gloomily. “But we may be too late. It’s been a decade since a groundhog’s been seen in PA.”

“Why not send us a breeding pair?”

Fritz’s face lit up, the picture of youthful hope. Then he remembered to frown. “You better watch yourself, Dad. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

As he neared Frontera, Dylan tried again to reach Clare, but he still wasn’t answering.
Qué desastre.
Orin called, before the lift had even docked. “Congratulations!” chortled the financial officer. “Three new positions. Wait till the Board hears. Witherspoon bet me you wouldn’t do it—he owes me a new set of irons.”

Helen called as well. “The faculty will be thrilled.” The toyprints mounted higher than ever on her desk. “Three new positions—just what we need for Antarctic Studies.”

Dylan winced, recalling that the faculty had yet to approve his frog seminar plan.

Helen added, “There are matters requiring your prompt attention. The ultraphyte in Reagan Hall—”

“Of course. Arrange us a meeting
pronto
.”

Clare’s window had disappeared.

Dylan felt a shock, and he nearly lost his footing. What had become of Clare? Was Clare even still here in the hab? He fought down a rising sense of panic. Life without Clare—it had been years since he had imagined such a thing. In college, before his liver transplant, Dylan had been the life of every party, yet inside he felt achingly alone. Then one day Clare had appeared in the bookstore, the golden-haired frog printing out a pile of books that weren’t even assigned for class. Life without Clare would be like life without books.

Stuck down below, on outer level, the three screening lines were interminable. After an age he got up to ground level and rushed home. But Clare wasn’t home. Wherever would Clare be on a Saturday afternoon?

Feeling light-headed, Dylan sank into the couch. Overhead, the Sistine God separated light from dark. Dylan was famished; the lunar express no longer served food. The bowl by the couch had one apple left, and he bit into it. The rush of sweet juice cleared his head.

How to find Clare?

He blinked for the toymaker.

Zari appeared in a conference room at the Toynet Support Center, the vast hidden labyrinth of toyrooms and electronic hardware that connected all Frontera residents with each other and with planet Earth. The teddies were coming in and out of toyrooms, a couple of them snoozing on their little nap rugs. “Welcome back!” Zari’s dark brow arched expressively. “We’re in training for Toy-five. It plugs all those security gaps, especially Ebola.”

“My, that’s something.” Dylan flashed his most winning smile. “So sorry, but my box overflowed again. The media, you know.”

“Of course. Need a clean-out?”

“I think I fixed it all, except for Clare’s window. Would you mind?”

“No problem. Just a minute.” Zari’s eyes defocused. In a moment, Clare’s window returned.

He blinked for coordinates. There was Clare, all the way down at the south end of the hab. He was sitting on the bank of the Ohio River.

Dylan sighed with relief. A quick change of clothes, and he was out jogging down Buckeye Trail. Snatches of student music blended with the bird-calls, then the distant rumble of powwow drums. A group of wide-eyed prospectives and parents, their student guide walking backward while lecturing. A troupe of donkey-tailed elephants staggered drunkenly across the trail. A bear’s shaggy hindquarters lumbered off into the wood. At last, amid the foliage, reflections twinkled off the water. There, upon the gravel of the riverbank, sat Clare.

Dylan sat himself down on the bank and threw his arm around Clare. “Goodness, you gave me such a fright.”

Clare said nothing. Looking out across the river, he picked up a flat round stone and tossed it with a flick of the wrist. The stone skipped once, twice, thrice.

“Not bad,” said Dylan, trying to smile. “Clare, I’m truly sorry. I should have told you; I just didn’t want you to worry.” He took a breath. “I’m done with racing for good. I sold the car on ToyBay.”

Clare picked up another stone. He turned it around in his hand, then tossed it. This time it skipped a full eight times before vanishing beneath the waves.

“Clare, what is it? I come back, I find an arsonist to expel, an ultra to exterminate, and God knows what else. What am I to do?”

“It’s all about you.”

Dylan paused. “I didn’t say that. I said, what is with you?”

“I’ve lost my faith.”

Dylan closed his eyes. He took a long breath and let it out again. “Clare, you have more faith than anyone I know.”

“It’s not enough.”

“‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.’”

“‘And if I have all faith, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.’”

“Clare, you have more love than anyone.”

“Without you, I can love nothing. If you were gone tomorrow, my faith would be gone. So what good is it?”

“We’ve been this way before, Clare. You can’t live every if; if this, if that. If a dead space truck hit the hab today, what then? We’ve always lived here like this, on the edge.”

“If a dead space truck hit, at least we’d be gone together.”

Dylan blinked several times, at a loss for words. A blue-tailed skink flitted amongst the stones, in that curious lizard way: three steps, stop; three steps, stop. Peepers began to sing. Finally, he tightened his arm around Clare and held him close. Clare relaxed at last, just like the old days. The peepers’ chorus grew deafening. A breeze blew from the river, and the solar faded from gold to auburn. Light glinted off distant skybikers, heading north. From somewhere cried a barred owl.

The two of them rose together and started back north, strolling slowly hand in hand toward the campus. Students headed toward the dining center dragging their shoelaces, mumbling at their toyboxes, or singing some Renaissance air in flawless harmony. The front lawn of the Red Bulls’ club house sported a purple campaign sign,
FLYNN FOR MAYOR.

For a moment Dylan’s foot froze in midair. Then he recovered his stride alongside Clare. “Did I miss one of your reports again?”

“Nope,” said Clare. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

The college chaplain squaring off against the Politics professor to fill the shoes of Mount Gilead’s dead mayor. That would do wonders for town-gown.

*   *   *

In Dylan’s office, Sharon Abaynesh faced Helen with her arms crossed. Helen was on Dylan’s side for this one, he knew. She would explain to Sharon why the ultra had to go. Still, he repressed the urge to check for a snake under his chair.

“Sharon, as dean of the faculty, I’m always your advocate,” Helen began. “Now, just explain to us why this is a First Amendment issue.”

Sharon maintained her serpentine stare. “The ultraphyte is my research subject. I put in for it, I got approved.”

“Not by the college.”

“So, approve me.”

Helen shook her head. “Senior Staff discussed it. This project is not in the best interest of the college. After mosquitoes, it’s too many invasives in one year.”

“So what should I do?”

“Give up the terror agent to be destroyed.”

Sharon sat there in her jeans, considering. Finally she shrugged. “So I’ll give it up.”

Dylan let out a breath.

“Thanks, Sharon,” said Helen. “We knew you’d understand. Next year, you have my word we’ll take up your request again.”

“Not to worry. I’ll just put out salt to attract some more.”

Helen stared. Then she turned to Dylan.

Dylan cleared his throat. “The substratum passed inspection. It was cleared by Homeworld Security.”

“Homeworld Security?” demanded Sharon. “What do they know? The feds have purged evolutionists for the past decade. Imagine—suppose they purged missile defense of physicists?” She took a breath. “Ultraphyte is more than a species. It’s a quasispecies, like hepatitis Q.” She eyed Dylan meaningfully, a reminder of their previous run-in. “Ultra evolves even faster than viruses. Like baramins after the Flood.”

“But we can still detect hepa Q. That’s why we test for it.”

“Hepa Q and R, yes. But we can’t yet detect hepa S or T. Though half our students probably—”

“Yes, Sharon,” interrupted Helen, “we get the picture. So your point is … you think our soil’s got ultra, and Homeland Security can’t find it?”

If that were the case, Frontera was finished. First mosquitoes, now ultra. How could the college survive that, all in one year?

Sharon added, “Their DIRGs didn’t find the one the student sneaked through.”

The student—there was another dilemma. What to do with Mary, the ultra-obsessed orphan with the pearls? They’d contacted her doctor, the one with the White House connection who’d done her omniprosthesis, but the doctor wasn’t returning calls.

Sharon spread her hands. “If our soil’s got ultra they can’t detect, you can be sure Earth does too. At least if we study what we’ve got, we may get a handle on what’s here.”

Seconds ticked by, as all three professors sat, absorbed in their own thoughts.

The lights flickered.
“Power loss,”
came Dylan’s toybox.
“Level One systems shutting down.”
A burst of windows opened, announcing, demanding, questioning.

Outside, the late-afternoon light dimmed, like the penumbra of a partial solar eclipse.

Sharon got up. “Excuse me, I have to check the Reagan emergency generator.”

27

That Saturday morning, Yola had spent half the practice in a toyroom full of Melbourne’s Scorpions. “I know Melbourne Uni; my
novio
goes there. I warned him, expect no quarter. Think of them as boiled lobster.” The Melbourne team logo was a red scorpion. “They puff up but don’t do much.”