The Highest Frontier (35 page)

Fran and David laughed, recalling the match the year before.

“But watch their center, Number six,” Yola warned. “He can reach the goal all the way from the midline. I’ll need to cover him all the time he’s in our half. Keep him out of the cap zone, where he’ll try to make us double-team. That leaves a forward exposed…”

Jenny could see what Yola meant about the Melbourne players; they moved just a fraction of a second slower than the Great Bears. But the Scorpions had their own plays, and a way of sneaking behind to steal the ball. And keeping that Number 6 covered would be harder than it looked.

“ToyNews Mount Gilead.” After practice, the local ToyNews was back in her box. “A new candidate throws his hat in the ring for the job of mayor. The candidate is Father Clare Flynn, Frontera College chaplain and rector of All Saints Reconciled Church.”

Jenny’s mouth fell open in amazement. Father Clare, who always hung in the background of her mother’s fundraisers? Who’d never given a speech outside a church?

Father Clare appeared in the news window, his sleeves rolled up, outside the Homefair frame just raised. “My aim is to assure every citizen a roof over their head, full medical care, and protection from outer-space debris.”

For response, there was Professor Hamilton, smiling his most ingratiating smile. “I welcome my esteemed friend and colleague into the race. My aim, as my fellow church members know, is to keep our focus on spiritual values; the kind of values that make Mount Gilead a great town, a part of our great spiritual nation.” In other words, avoid any profit-trimming regulations and keep the house edge low.

“And finally,” the announcer added, “a response from Mrs. Leora Smythe. Mrs. Smythe, which candidate do you endorse to fill the position left by your esteemed late husband?”

Leora looked aside as she always did, even when handing out lunch for the Homefair volunteers.
“I believe Phil will be a fine Christian mayor.”
She seemed to hesitate.
“And I believe Father Clare is a fine Christian man.”

Jenny sighed. Only four weeks left till the special election; Father Clare would have to hustle. She wondered who was running his campaign.

*   *   *

By midmorning, Jenny was at Castle Cockaigne, hauling the last crates of Margaux and Saint-Julien up a winding staircase to the next floor of the keep.

“Mind the trip step,” called Ken.

Jenny had no idea what that meant, until her foot hit the top of a step just an inch taller than the rest. Only the narrow width of the claustrophobic staircase kept her from falling headlong and dashing the bottles down the uneven amyloid stonework.

“The trip step repels marauding Crusaders.”

Repressing a retort, Jenny returned to the main floor, where brilliant amyloid tapestries of knights and archers covered the four-foot-thick walls. This all had little to do with flood protection; but then, it was hardly worse than assembling hundreds of canapés for a Somers state rep’s fundraiser. In back of the hall rested the two lifeboats, built of carboxyplast that would last forever. The boats were moored ominously at the postern gate.

To greet their visitors, Ken and Yola came out dressed in historic garb. Ken was a monk in a brown tunic cinched at the waist, a cowl drooping over his head. Yola was an Elizabethan physician, in a blue tunic and cape, white gloves, and a beaked mask.

Outside, visitors for the tour were already crossing the drawbridge above the precariously overfilled moat. From above came the lively beat of the George Lewis tribute band, staged behind the parapet atop the keep. Not medieval, but old enough. The archway through the curtain wall led across a short courtyard, thence into the keep. The first floor consisted of a large hall with a crude amyloid-wooden table surrounded by rough-hewn chairs. The ceiling was painted with scenes of landowners and their hunting hounds jumping through hoops, shepherdesses in quaint frocks twirling their crooks at the sheep, and monks tending their vineyards.

Leora, in her pink-checked pioneer dress and bonnet, held her little boy by the hand, while her two older children raced around the table, their power bands
click-clacking
. Children’s energy; what a power source, Jenny thought with a smile. While the little ones squealed with glee, the mayor’s widow inspected the ceiling closely.
“Sheep,”
texted Leora.
“Ready for shearing.”

“Sheep and shepherds,”
agreed Jenny.

“Any dinosaurs?”

Startled, Jenny blinked at her.

“Dinosaurs are rarely seen. But the Medievals had sharper eyes than we do.”

Sherri-Lyn brought her two girls. Flexing her hammer arm, she shook her head at the four-feet-thick wall. “Imagine laying
that
foundation.”

Jenny had no idea how the Medievals did it. It was almost harder to imagine building a real castle than finding a real dinosaur.

Sherri-Lyn leaned closer, confidentially. “So sorry, about that ‘mutant’ thing. It’s just gross what those Golds spout on Toynet these days.”

Puzzled, Jenny did a quick scan. A Centrist talk show had put out how the “Ramos mutant” was scheduled to speak at the Unity convention. She gave a shrug. What else did the party expect.

Outside, the students were gathering, some more drawn to the music. Anouk in a coneflower scarf, with solicitous Rafael; Fran and David with the whole slanball team, including Charlie; and there was Tom with his tool belt from Homefair. Tom’s face held that look of Newman intensity. Jenny stared, then made herself look away. Donna Matousek, Frank Lazza, and other farmers admired the ponderous curtain wall, while children played hide-and-seek in the space between the wall and the keep. Travis Tharp inspected the wall, tapping it now and then with his amyloid tester.

There were Professor Abaynesh and Coach Porat, with Tova on his shoulders clutching her model
Titanic
. Mary Dyer accompanied them; heaven only knew what that omniprosthetic ultra-grower made of all this. Meanwhile, Dean Kwon and Father Clare stopped by to keep an eye on things, as did Quade Vincenzo. The ecoengineer looked up and down the castle wall, with a businesslike air, as if performing some structural calculus.

“Jenny, the lifeboat,” called Ken. “Time to get ready.”

She shook her head. “That’s your job.”

“Aren’t you going to try?” he demanded. “What will you do when you really need it?”

Jenny froze. This was not part of their plan.

Yola caught her arm. “Don’t be a dwork, Jen. This was your idea, after all. Try it—it’ll be good for you.”

The music came to a halt. A siren wailed, alerting all to leave the building. Jenny blinked open her EMS life finder, a channel that returned the location of all toyboxes and brainstream sources within the area. Townspeople and students gradually strolled out of the keep and back over the drawbridge.

Yola pulled off her mask. “Attention everyone.” Her voice was amplified, echoing off the curtain wall. “This year’s tour of Castle Cockaigne concludes with a demonstration of what can happen in the event of substratum overflow. ‘Substratum overflow’—it was there in the form we all signed as Frontera colonists.” A copy of the form blinked into everyone’s box, with the key phrase highlighted. “What does that really mean? It means that, in the event of total power loss, the hab’s outer substratum—the water layer full of solar microbes—will flow up (that is, inward) above the denser layer of rock and soil. The flow could flood the hab with up to six feet of water. What to do? A simple carboxyplast lifeboat is what every family needs.”

Yola turned to Ken for the next part, but Jenny stopped her. “Someone’s still inside.” Her EMS window showed a signal source.

“It’s my boy,” called Frank Lazza. “Just a minute.” The farmer glared at the castle, presumably texting the boy what he could expect if he didn’t get out. Suddenly the child burst through the great doorway, pumping his legs as fast as he could to run down the drawbridge.

Ken threw back his monk’s cowl. “‘And the flood was forty days upon the earth,’” he intoned from Genesis. “‘And the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every man, died.’ But those who heeded God’s warning were saved by the ark.”

This message dampened the mood of the crowd, which fell silent. Above, the musicians rested their instruments upon the parapet. Ken and Yola started up the drawbridge.
“Come on, Jenny,”
texted Yola.

“My mental won’t allow it.”
Jenny blinked her mental’s window.

The Monroe appeared, pouting reflectively. “We think you can handle the Flood. It will do you good. Don’t worry, we’ll be here for you.” The cherry lips blew her a kiss.

At the drawbridge the entire slanball team was watching, and Anouk and Rafael, and even Fritz Hoffman with the Red Bulls. And Tom.

Jenny dragged herself up across the drawbridge, her pulse pounding, as she wondered, how did she get herself into this? She followed Yola through the deserted castle. Ken got into one boat and drew out the oars. She suddenly recalled their old family vacations on Lobsterville Beach, before that end of Martha’s Vineyard went under. She got into the other boat with Yola, and found the pair of oars.

“Backwards,” Yola reminded her. Rowing wasn’t that hard.

The first tongue of water came gliding snake-like over the amyloid. Jenny’s skin crawled. Then the water came faster, like tide rolling up the beach, only much faster than it ever had in Lobsterville. The flood rose surprisingly fast; faster than she’d realized.

The boat lifted and swayed, unsteadily.

Yola gripped Jenny’s arm. “You okay?”

Jenny nodded, seeing her own pallid arms. She took a deep breath.

Ken was already rowing the other boat, using his oar as a pole to navigate past the table in the hall. There was actually only about three feet of water. Once Jenny got started rowing, it felt rather silly, rowing a boat through a room. Only it wasn’t silly; it was everyday life for millions of coastal people, watching the sea claim their homes.

As the boats emerged outside, the crowd cheered. From the parapet the band played “Oh When the Saints” as if to beat a train. Jenny blinked in the light and remembered to smile without closing her eyes. In her window, the Marilyn face beamed. “Congratulations, Jenny!” The mental team would tell her mother and expect a raise.

Suddenly people gasped. Arms pointed back toward the flooded garden. Jenny looked backward, following the arms. Mary Dyer floated there in the deep water of the moat, swimming in a rather vague way. She must have been inside the castle—yet the EMS stream had not detected her as a person. No Toynet for her; that had to get fixed.

Yola tossed a ring in the water, but Mary did not seem to notice. So she pulled off her costume and dove into the moat, leaving Jenny to clutch the rocking boat for dear life. Yola reached Mary in a couple of strokes, and held out the ring. Watching Yola, Mary at last got the idea and caught the ring with her hand, allowing herself to be drawn to the wall.

The music concluded, and the visitors slowly dispersed. Ken and Yola set to draining the moat, while the dwarves came down to clean up. Jenny approached Tom and Charlie, who had stayed discussing some project.

“Tom and I are going to build lifeboats,” Charlie told her. “Carb is dirt cheap now, with the slump in Earth housing. We can get surplus carb through Homefair, and build enough boats to supply every dorm.”

“And every home in Mount Gilead,” added Tom.

Jenny beamed. It felt like the sun came out.

Tom squeezed her hand. “Have to go now; I’ve got to work on tonight’s menu.” The Café de la Paix.

“
Chulo.
We’ve got our reservation.” Life was suddenly wonderful.

As the
chicos
left, only the ecoengineer remained. Quade stared at the castle, seeming lost in thought, his unique bulbous profile half in shadow.

“So,” ventured Jenny, “what do you think?”

Quade stroked his chin, and his eyes defocused. “What about the animals?”

The minis. Elephants, teddy bears, mini-deer, and all the settlers’ mini-cows and mini-sheep. A few would make it out of the water, those near either pole where the earth curved upward into the cap. But most would not get there in time.

“And the plants,” added Jenny. Even Noah had saved no plants beyond animal fodder. No maple trees, no wildflowers, no cornfields. The parterre garden might recover from its brief submersion; but a real substratum overflow would be full of salt.

Suddenly the light dimmed. The “southern” cap went black, and the “northern” cap faded to a moonlike glow. The upside-down forest went gray. It was like nightfall, only an eerie brownish tint. The gloom filled the entire length of the spacehab.

Jenny turned to Quade. “What is it?” Her EMS window opened a long checklist: Activate backup lights, check the sewage pumps, shut down the elevator.

“Interesting,” Quade observed to his toybox, doubtless feeding lots of windows. “A brownout. We’ve got work to do.”

*   *   *

Jenny’s cottage had been restored two blocks away, minus Mary’s half, and well away from the substratum leak. Despite the brownout, the amyloid walls held up, although the printer flashed “Empty”—no fresh amyloid pumped up from the outer shell, where the microbes used sunlight to produce it. Nothing else amiss, aside from the penumbral light throughout the hab.

President Chase’s office window opened. “We’ve lost our Earth power,” Uncle Dylan explained in his most reassuring tone. “As most of you know, this happens several times a year: Some piece of space debris cuts our connection. Not to worry—Frontera generates eighty percent of our own power, from the infinite rays of the sun.” Their purple microbes in the outer shell, making electricity and amyloid; and their solarray out in space. “But Earth,
ahora,
is experiencing Toynet instability, with rolling blackouts all across North America; while at Frontera, we only dim the lights. Our microbial generators continue service, all around the hab. So you see, this is the worst power loss our community will ever face.”