The Settlers (7 page)

And you believed her?
You ever hear of something called a fire code?
Been around for a few million years, still governs how buildings have to handle escape routes?
 

Shut up, says Tasneem, but she smiles.
 

Alright, Blair says.
A smile.
Nice.
 

He steps back and holds the door for her.
Tasneem pokes her head out.
They've emerged in a quiet corridor between the law firm and the tower beside it.
There are no reporters in sight.
 

That was pretty cool, Tasneem says.

Miss Kohhhh!
 

Look out!
Blair says, snatching Tasneem back from the doorway.
A blogbot dives in too fast and almost collides with the door.
The bot wings it, and ricochets out into the concourse, where it's clipped by a boy on a personal deck.
 

The bot hits the ground with a metallic thunk, bounces a few times, and stops.
The screen on its face points toward the sky.
 

Miss Kohhhh,
it squeals again.
A few words!
Where are you?
What happened?

Tasneem steps forward without thinking.

Wait a second there, Blair says, taking her arm.
What are you doing?

Tasneem shakes her head to clear the cobwebs.
Instinct, I guess.
 

It's not a real person, Blair says.
I mean -- well, yes, okay, it is.
But that's just a floating avatar for some blogger back in his apartment.
 

How do you know it's a he?
Tasneem says.

Well, Blair says.
I guess because it sounded like a guy's voice?
Also, I saw the screen before it hit the door.
Skinny kid, red hair.
Blogger.

I hate journalists, Tasneem says, picking up her bag from the ground.
 

Hold up there, Blair says.
You're talking to one.
 

I was specifically talking about that one, Tasneem says, pointing at the sputtering bot.
And those vultures who were waiting to pounce on me.
 

Okay, two things now, Blair says.
One, I'm a journalist.
That thing -- he points at the bot -- is most definitely not.
And two, you don't know anything about wildlife.
Vultures?
That pounce?
Where did you study, on Neptune?

They don't have vultures on Neptune, Tasneem says.
Can we go now, please?

Alright, fine, Blair says.
But if there are vultures on Neptune, I'm pretty sure they don't pounce there, either.
 

Shut up, Tasneem says.
 

Bound, maybe, but pounce?
Not likely.

From the concourse, Blair and Tasneem catch the fast-track to juncture three.
Blair makes a move to stand beside Tasneem, but she turns and says, I'd really like a few moments to myself.
 

Okay, Blair says.
 

It's just that -- okay, today's been a little rough.
And I really appreciate you getting me past the reporters, but I just need some quiet time.
 

Okay, Blair says.
 

It's nothing personal.
 

I didn't think it was, Blair says.

Tasneem studies him for a moment.
I'm going to go stand over there.
 

I'll be standing right here.

She smiles.
Thank you.
 

The fast-track hums along.
Tasneem leans on a window and exhales.
From here she can see across the gap that forms the central hole in Aries's ring design.
The far side of Aries is a thin ribbon, distant and small.
As rapidly as the fast-track moves, it will take almost an hour to reach juncture three.
 

She closes her eyes.
 

She almost drifts into sleep, and then she remembers the calls that she had missed.
Without opening her eyes, she presses her wrist, then squeezes twice to begin playback of the recordings logged.
Unsurprisingly, there are more than twenty messages, and most of them are from reporters and strangers.
One is even from Blair, telling her that he'd be waiting for her in the lobby of the attorney's building.
 

The reporters want the same thing -- exclusives.
 

Fat lot of good an exclusive will do you when I've just had my deposition broadcast to the entire fleet, Tasneem thinks.
 

The next few messages are just the same.
 

Miss Kyoh, a few questions.

Tasneem, our viewers are interested in you.

We'd like to get inside the relationship you had with David Dewbury and Audra Salter.

Please call.

Call us immediately.

Let's meet for coffee and discuss what this means for you.

She sighs.
 

The next message is from David.

Tasneem.
It's David.

She listens to the message again and again, and the shock doesn't seem to wear off.
It can't be real, can it?
How could it possibly be real?

There's only one reason you're receiving this message.
I'm sorry.
I know you liked me.
I liked you, too.
I had a feeling the treatment might go badly, and I should have waited for a better option for myself, I know I should have -- but I couldn't.
 

You goddamn selfish bastard!
Tasneem screams inside of her own head.
 

I know what you're thinking
.

She cannot wait until she is in her apartment.
His voice brings the tears out of her.
She cries quietly, listening.

You're thinking I should have the treatment done like everybody else.
For real.
In a doctor's office.
That's what you're thinking, isn't it?
 

Even though she's heard the message six times already, she still nods.
Yes, that's what I'm thinking.
Yes.
Yes.

Tasneem, I wanted to.
It wasn't the money -- it was expensive, but you know we would have found a way.
It wasn't that.
There was -- well, I had other reasons.
They would never have given me the treatment.
Not me.
Not for real.
 

What reasons?
she shouts.
 

And so I've made a bad call, and I must be gone now.
This message is triggered by my death.
You're maybe wondering now: why didn't he send this to Audra?
Well, I can't explain that.
I chose you.
Maybe you know why.

But she didn't.
 

There's something important that you need to see
, David continues.
If you're at home, then you're there already.
Follow these instructions...

They met, all three of them, when they were twelve years old.
They had come up through different educational channels, each of them from a different arm of Ganymede.
The space station was an enormous cross, like a massive tire iron circling Earth slowly, and each of its four arms was a complete city unto itself.
Of the four arms, three are named for the Jovian moons which are sisters to Ganymede itself -- Io, Europa and Callisto.
The fourth arm is named Galileo, for the astronomer who discovered the moons in 1610.

Tasneem had always found it disorderly to name a four-pronged space station for a single moon of a quartet, and then come up short when naming its components.
It felt dramatically wrong that the station itself was not named for Galileo.
That would have made more sense, she thought, and then the four cities could have been named Ganymede, Io, Europa and Callisto.
That felt proper, and a nice tribute to a dead old man.

Instead, the dead old man took a back seat to one of the chunks of rock that he had discovered.

It just wasn't right.
 

Audra came from Io.
She lived with her grandparents and an uncle.
Her parents had been evangelicals who believed that Earth was sacred and the future home of their personal deity, and refused to emigrate to Ganymede.
They'd had the opportunity, and had turned it down.
Her grandfather often referred to Audra's parents -- his own daughter and son-in-law -- as damned fools.
Tasneem liked him.

Tasneem, of course, lived with her mother in Callisto City.
They shared a small compartment on the interior causeway, far from the picturesque outer residences.
Of course, the station administration insisted that all residences were equal, that in fact all residents themselves were equal, but Tasneem knew that could never be true.
 

Audra had thought her pessimistic, but David had agreed with her.
Equality, he would sometimes say, is a myth even in cultures that acknowledge and promote it.
 

David had always sounded smart.
He
was
smart, but he talked smart.
Tasneem didn't know anybody else like him.
He was from Europa City, and while Tasneem and Audra played after classes released, David took the station line to Galileo City University, where he sat with the professors and talked for hours.
They call me stunningly bright, he confided to Tasneem once.
But I think it's just that they're surprisingly limited in their vision.
I thought professors were supposed to be smarter than everybody else, but this has just taught me that no matter how high you climb, there will always be people who shouldn't be there with you.

David lived alone, and somehow managed to do so without attracting the attention of Ganymede Administration, which surely would have placed him with a guardian pair.
He never talked to Audra or Tasneem about his parents, or whether they even came to Ganymede with him in the first place.
 

Audra and Tasneem each knew that David was going to be special.
There was no question which of them he would end up with -- Audra was visibly interested, and clung to him in a way that Tasneem was incapable of.
She seemed quite content to -- well, to
serve
him.
Audra understood, Tasneem often thought, that David was on some plane above her, always thinking, always contemplating.
Without her, David would forget the most basic human needs.
So Audra cared for him, and David mostly didn't acknowledge Audra's ministrations.

Tasneem loved him.
This was never a secret.
Audra understood this, and wasn't bothered by it.
To her, Tasneem was too similar to David.
If the two of them were ever together, they would have one explosively intellectual year together -- then die of malnutrition and lack of exercise.
 

The social circle that they would dance in for the next twenty-one years was decided.

I'm not going, David said.

Oh, come on, Davy, come on, you have to go!
Audra insisted.
Please
, please, please go.
Please.
 

Tasneem laughed, trailing behind the two of them as they walked through the corridors of Ursa Academy.
She and Audra had taken the station line to the school to meet David.
They had waited outside David's classroom, Audra peeking in the windows repeatedly to try to get his attention.
He's just so
serious
, she had complained.
He won't look up at
all
.
 

Do you think I should go?
David asked, looking over his shoulder at Tasneem.
He pretended not to notice Audra, who had draped herself over his arm and was practically limp, her feet almost dragging along the corridor behind her.

Don't ask me, Tasneem said.

But I am asking you.
 

Audra popped up.
Yeah, Tasneem.
He should go, right?
He should go.
 

I don't know, Tasneem said.
Do you want to go?

Oh, man, no, Audra said, throwing her hands over her face.
Don't ask him
that
.
 

No, David said.

See?
Audra said.

Well, then you shouldn't go, Tasneem said.

Tasneem says I don't have to go, David said.
 

Yeah.
I heard.
Audra shot a withering look at Tasneem, who just shrugged.

They're supposed to be the best band in the whole world, Audra whined.
Come
on-nnn.

How do you know they're the best band in the world?
David asked.
What were the criteria?
Did someone perform critical studies?
What were the characteristics determined to be
best
?
Is a consistent voice the best indicator of the best band?
Or is experimentation a more appropriate --

David.
God, Audra said.
Come on, Tasneem.
Let's go.

Audra dropped David's hand like a hot rock and stomped up the corridor.
 

Tasneem caught up to David and said, I'm sorry she's like that.
 

David smiled.
It's okay, he said.
As long as she is free to be like that, and I am free to be like this, we will always both be happy.
 

That doesn't sound like it works out well for her, Tasneem said.
Works out pretty good for you, though.

It only doesn't work for her because she requires another person to achieve happiness, David said.
She'll either grow out of that or she won't.
If she does, she'll be happy.
 

Sometimes I don't think you're twelve years old, Tasneem said.
 

David smiled again.
Sometimes, he whispered, I think I'm twelve thousand.

Tas
neem
, Audra complained.
 

Audra stomped her foot in indignation.

Gotta go, Tasneem said.
 

I really meant those questions, David said.
See if you can determine why they're the best band in the world.
It presents some interesting logical conflicts that must be winnowed through.

They're the best band because Audra wants you to go with her, Tasneem said.
We probably won't even go now.
She just wants to be with you.

But I'm going to University now, David said.

I know.
She just wants to feel like she's more important than what you're doing.

But she isn't, David said.
 

Tasneem whispered, I wouldn't tell her that part.
 

She skipped ahead and joined Audra.
 

How can a band be the best band in the world if you live on a space colony, and not on a planet?
David said to himself, walking along.
Do they mean the word
world
literally?
Or is it a loose term that can be applied to any social construct in which you reside?
If that's the case, then our space colony is a world.
By the same logic, a community of spacedivers who float together through the cosmos without anything but each other could also be a world.
 

The girls vanished ahead, and David continued to walk to the station line, talking to himself.
 

Audra had still wanted to go to the show, and so Tasneem had gone along.
The band was certainly not the best band on any world, Tasneem thought, and she knew she would have a fun conversation with David later about what really would constitute the best band, and whether you could even truly identify such a thing.
 

David liked objective conversations about subjective things.
 

He's so difficult, Audra complained.

They were on the station line from the venue in Galileo City.
The cylindrical transport moved slowly through the center of the Galilean arm, only slightly faster than the walking speed of the few people outside.
The entire car was a crystal lit from the inside.
Tasneem felt exposed on the station line, but she never noticed anybody outside watching her.
 

He never wants to do
anything
, Audra continued.
 

Tasneem had had enough.
That's not true.
 

Oh, no?
When is the last time he agreed to come to anything with me?
 

You said he never wants to do anything, Tasneem pointed out.
But really, David always wants to do something.
You just don't like the things he does.
Maybe if you really wanted to spend time with him, you would join him for the things he's interested in.

Audra folded her arms.
Yeah, but those things are really boring.
And anyway, he should show me that I'm more important than that.
 

Whatever, Tasneem said.
 

Audra grabbed Tasneem's knees and leaned forward.
Neemy, she said.
He should.
I'm really special.
I know I am.
And he should make me feel that way.