The Highest Frontier (64 page)

*   *   *

Outside the cap, the stars shone, and the moon was a sharp sickle. The hab’s surface looked browner than before; yet it yielded power, more than expected, Quade Vincenzo had said. The brown contaminant absorbed ultraviolet, a range of wavelengths missed by the purple microbes, and it transferred extra electrons to the electrodes. Quade didn’t have to say what that contaminant might be.

On the platform where Coach and the Pezarkars had built the
sukkah,
the spacewalkers now rigged up a Toynet node and tried to get up a signal. George Ramos was not accustomed to spacewalking; he’d spent most of his life in his den in Somers. Now he hung out there with the others, with a nudge from Jenny now and then when he forgot to hold on. All around reeled the stars. A bright explosion as a bit of Kessler debris flicked the brown surface of the hab.

“ToyNews. From our box to yours.” The window appeared, with Clive like his old self, full of hair.

A huge sense of relief—Jenny had never welcomed a toy window so much. Not that the news was much help; more casualties in Antarctica, more flooded islands in the Pacific, and more confusing numbers from Election Day. There was still no presidential winner, though the popular vote margin favored Carrillo/Guzmán by half a percent, the widest margin in two decades. With all the lawsuits and riots, had nobody noticed
el desastre
out in space?

“Still no word from Frontera,” announced Clive at last. “The power-out prone spacehab, with all their friends of wisdom, still lacks contact with Earth.” The last phrase held an ironic tone. Jenny frowned; it didn’t sound right. “We have this message for Earth from Frontera College president Chase.”

A message from Uncle Dylan? Who was resting injured below at the Mound?

The supposed president Chase appeared, his usual jaunty self. “Not to worry, all is under control. The outer link will shortly be restored. If our beloved space habitat is the frontier (as it certainly is), and our students are the great pioneers that we know them to be, we can manage nicely on our own for the time being, and will soon be back in touch.”

Around the rig, the spacewalkers froze—Leora, Coach, Zari, all receiving this in their heads.

“LIES LIES LIES.”
Her father’s space suit began to flail its arms and legs.
“ALL LIES—SALT BEINGS ALWAYS LIE. TEDDY LIED TO THE IROQUOIS—”

Coach grabbed George’s suit from behind, and tried to pull him toward the airlock.

“DAD, CALM DOWN. IT’S ALL A MISTAKE, DAD.”

They got him back inside and into the pressured chamber. George’s head burst out of the suit. “What Dylan said—it’s all lies. Teddy lied when he said, ‘The Ohio Valley belonged to the Americans by right of conquest and of armed possession.’ Teddy called the people of the longhouse ‘wild and squalid warriors.’ His men threw Iroquois children into the fire—”

“Dad,
stop.
This is not real. It’s not—
appropriate.
”

George subsided, his eyelids fluttering. “Not real? Not appropriate?”

Jenny swallowed hard. “Just be appropriate. We need … appropriate now.”

Coach demanded, “How can we get out a message?”

Zari shook her head. “We’re still waiting on parts for our main transmitter.”

Jenny thought furiously. “A heliograph—reflecting the sun?”

“To where? Who’ll see the faint signal?” The toymaker snapped her fingers. “The laser. Zhang keeps it on second-floor Reagan—it should be okay. We’ll point it at the moon.”

58

Jenny brought her father back to rest with her mother. “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

“You did your best. You reached Toynet.” Her teeth chattered, and she drew the blanket closer. The ToyNews clip had shocked her as much as her dad. Uncle Dylan, and Clive as well; no doubt both were faked. If news could be faked like that, what else could one ever believe on Toynet? She sure hoped the laser worked—and that somebody cared enough to come. They had to come before the Mound’s power gave out, and the hab froze.

“The vote is too close,” her father told her. “This time, I wonder how they’ll decide.”

She regarded him curiously. “How do they usually decide?”

“We look at the numbers,” George said simply. “Some are hard to define. Where the signal volume is high, we see traces of lost data. We try to reconstruct it. Or we estimate.” He added, “That is why long ago I called Dylan for help.”

“Uncle Dylan? Why?”

“For advice on what was right,” George said. “Dylan always said he had the finest faculty, the best scholars anywhere. So I asked him for a politics expert to help out.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Not … Hamilton?”

“An award-winning professor. The wisest in the land, Dylan said.” George nodded. “Phil always helped us. ToyVote loved him. He helped us decide the fairest, the best way to reconstruct the vote.”

Jenny put her head in her hands. No wonder the Guzmáns always won.

Up the bank trudged Tom, his steps weary. He sat down beside Jenny. “We found another student.” He’d been rowing out with Father Clare to pick up stranded survivors.

“Charlie?”

He shook his head. “A
chica
trapped in a tree.”

“Does she need care for exposure?”

“Yola is treating her.”

After Tom left, Jenny turned to her mother. “Mama, I love Tom. And I don’t care about his genes. Just like you didn’t care about Dad’s.”

Soledad took her hand. “Jenny, there is something you should know. In case—I don’t know how all this will end.” She took a breath. “The real reason we made you as we did. Your father and I so loved Grandma Rosa, that we longed to see her again in you. And we were never, ever disappointed.”

*   *   *

Fritz Hoffman trudged up the hill. Like most of the survivors, he still wore what he had from two days before, in his case further soiled by hauling animals from the ark. “Jenny? Is there anything you can do for hurt elephants?”

Jenny tried not to inhale. “Did you ask the town vet?”

“He’s only tending the livestock.” Fritz shook his head. “The elephants can’t take the cold. And some of them got really banged up.”

Reluctantly she followed Fritz out behind the Mound, where the ecoengineer had put up a fence to keep the animals more or less separate from human survivors. The less traumatized of the elephants had already got out, and were poking amongst the people for a handout. But several injured creatures lay beyond the fence, their bodies limp as if clinging to life.

“This one.” Fritz patted the back of an elephant that still managed to stand, barely, on three legs. “His foot looks bad. I was really fond of Dumpy. He was like our mascot.”

Jenny warily watched Dumpy swaying on his feet. The animal let Fritz hold up his injured leg for Jenny to inspect. “The foot pad looks infected,” she said. “I doubt Doc Uddin will give you antibiotics. The Life profs might. I’ll check the Mound.”

Inside the Mound, the ceiling was dark and lights were dimmed to conserve power, but you could still see the slots. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. Ramos Kennedy,” said Bobby Foxtail Forrester, rubbing his hands. “Free drinks at roulette.” Taxplayers continued in the windowless hall, surreally unconcerned by the catastrophe outside.

“Thanks,” she told the manager. “I just need bandages and veterinary antibiotics.”

“No trouble, no trouble at all.”

Beyond the gaming stations, the guest rooms were filled with students and colonists. Anouk was holding a review session for the upcoming exam in Developmental Math. Professors’ families doubled up in the more private rooms. In the back, Doc Uddin was holed up with the Mound’s medical staff. Jenny picked up some bandage amyloid, and some hints on antibiotic dosage from Semerena. On the way back, she paused to check the small private room she’d reserved to keep her wisdom plant under a light.

Outside at the fence, Fritz held up the leg of the injured elephant, and Jenny managed to scour out its foot. The calm of the injured animal surprised her, as she knew the scouring could not feel good; a child treated thus would be screaming. She gave it a shot of antibiotics, and a blob of amyloid for the foot to sink into. The bandage congealed around the foot; it was the best she could do.

Fritz grinned. “
Guao,
just like Saint Francis.”

As she rose, massaging her back, which was sore from stooping, she couldn’t help notice other elephants as well as bears showing gashes or limping on damaged paws. So she took the drugs and amyloid and did what she could. With a well-practiced gesture, Fritz tossed a blanket over a teddy bear and held it down groaning in protest, while Jenny cleaned the wounds and slapped amyloid.

Without warning, the south solar came on. After days of dark, the light was blinding.

Jenny squeezed her eyes shut and fell to her knees in the mud. A collective gasp rose, and then cheers, all around. As her eyes adjusted, she could see at last down the muddy cylinder of the hab all the way to the Ohio River, where there shone just a hint of a rainbow. At mid-cylinder, out of the water poked the rectangular foundations of Wickett Hall and academic buildings, the First Firmament Church, and the few Homefair homes build of carb. No matter; at last the hab was getting fixed.

“DID THE TOYMAKER RESTORE POWER?”

“DID HELP ARRIVE?”

“SOME BIG
CASINADIE
SHOWED UP AT THE CAP.”

Ignoring the rumors, she went on plasting bears and elephants. At the Mound entrance, a commotion erupted as workers scurried out on some sudden errand up the hill. Jenny paid no mind, until she heard a familiar voice.

“Goodness me.”

She looked up, covered in mud and animal hair. “
Hola,
Aunt Meg and Aunt El.”

Aunt Meg and El stood there, surrounded by Secret Service DIRGs with orange neck rings, campaign aides, and obsequious Mound croupiers. “My goodness,” said Meg.

“I’m just, um, tending the wounded.”

Just then, Lane Mfumo showed up with a hand camera. That woman had a nose for news all right.

Meg’s gaze swept the hab.
“Qué lío.”

El added, “Like the Rose Bowl, the day after New Year’s.”

“Of course, the brave frontier needed no help.” Meg wrinkled her nose. “I smell a powerful odor.”

“An odor of mendacity,” added El.

Jenny wiped her hands on her pants. “Look, could I just clean up first? I’ll tell you everything.”

“You’d better,” agreed Meg. “Someone’s got a lot of explaining to do.”

*   *   *

They met in Jenny’s small back room, where her plant was well lit and the walls hopefully secure. What happens at the Mound, stays at the Mound.

“Look, Jenny, you’d better say quick just what happened here,” demanded Aunt Meg. “And why someone at Homeworld would want to take out your hab.”

Jenny watered the plant, but her arm shook and it dripped all over. “How should I know? Maybe Hamilton knew.” He’d known about the Creep—and when to clear out.

“We’re sorry about Hamilton,” said Meg. “He was supposed to look after you.”

“And help you see the light,” added El. “Like we did.”

“We didn’t know he had a problem.”

“Lunar debts,” added El, “and worse—”

“Enough, El. Jenny, you know what I’m asking. What is the frontier air?”

Jenny took a breath. “First of all, my
compañera
was an ultraphyte.”

Aunt Meg rolled her eyes. “I come here and pull your chestnuts out, amid the campaign and the recount—and you give me an old roommate story?”

“Meg,” said El, “I told you—”

“Shut up, El.”

“No, I will
not
shut up.” El glared at the head next to her. “All the time now, it’s ‘Shut up, El,’ or ‘El, shut up.’ Who do you think you are? Ever since you accepted as running mate, you’ve forgotten whose head shares your shoulders. I’ve caught you in your toybox, cruising those ‘head removal’ toysites. As if I’m just a—a tumor to get rid of. You think I don’t know what goes on.”

Throughout this tirade, Meg kept quiet, while Jenny watched. At last, when El had done, Meg and Jenny exchanged reflective stares. “Okay, Jenny,” said Meg at last. “Tell us about your
compañera
.”

Jenny picked up the plant, her old habit to stay calm. “They told us Mary was an omniprosthete. Like the Creep. Fixed up by his doctors.” She gulped. “Mary drank salt all the time. Then, after the debate, the first power-out, she turned into an ultra and—”

“She did what?”

“Went down the drain.”

El exclaimed, “No wonder. The ultra reverted to single cells, throughout the hab; you can see it from outside, in the color of the shell. Homeworld panicked—they had to get rid of it.” She shook her head. “But Frontera—we had no idea they’d sent the mandrake here.”

“Who sent the mandrake?” asked Jenny. “Why?”

“That’s classified. What did it do?” Meg demanded. “Did it ever hurt you?”

“Never,” said Jenny. “But she let out cyanide under stress.”

“Just a minute, Jenny. If you please,” Meg added pointedly to El. “Jenny, you’re leaving something out. The candidates.”

“Yeah, that debate,” agreed El. “What happened?”

Jenny held up the plant. “Take a look. A really close look.”

“The souvenir.” Meg’s hand took the pot, and El’s hand held the other side. They stared curiously, for a long while. “So this is it,” said Meg at last. “The ‘frontier air.’”

“Claro,”
agreed Jenny. “Be careful. The ultraphyte made this plant for our intro lab project, and it’s not been tested.”

“Your intro lab project. You talent prize winners are altogether too dangerous.” Meg added, “Well, I can see we have a problem.”

“Do we ever,” agreed El.

“A problem with our running mate.”

“But not the problem you think,” El told Jenny. “Who cares if he has ultra syndrome. Ultras, elephants, interns—whatever.”

“The problem is,” said Meg, “what to do with a vice president who designs a weapons-grade mandrake, only to test it out on an unsuspecting spacehab and practice defense against it.”

El nodded. “I won’t say I told you so, because I can see how dumb it is to needle the head that shares your shoulders. But yes, we have a problem.”