Virtual Fire

by Mendy Sobol

  Eric sat silently, listening, not wanting to betray the emotions stirred in him by Jenny’s story, half wondering why, and half knowing he was holding back for her sake.

  “So I guess I’m saying, I’d like you to start at the beginning, wherever you think that is.”

  Eric already knew Jenny well enough not to ask if that was wise, if it weren’t perhaps better to let the ghosts sleep. She wouldn’t have chosen him if she didn’t want to hear it and hear it straight.

  “Okay,” he said. “Chapter One.”

  There is a field, a hot, dusty field several hundred acres in size, a rare open space, an inexplicable break in the vast, dense, green of the Great Magnolian Forest. From his vantage inside the tree line at one end of the clearing, Eric sees a swirling dust cloud. It grows larger, consuming the field, spreading to its edges and into the forest. His eyes blur with dust and he is choking. He cannot see, but he can hear—pounding hooves in the thousands, crossing the field, away and then back, kicking up the dusty turf in great clods that soar high into the air and fall again, exploding in clouds of dirt and pebbles that shower over him, stinging the bare flesh of his face and arms. He flinches, covering his eyes. The horses are moving toward him; he can hear their snorting and high-pitched whinnies, see their green-tinged coats, smell their panicked sweat. He raises his arms, shouting, “Yaah! Yaah!” and the horses reverse direction, moving in concert like a wayward flock of geese, galloping away from the woods, away from safety, into the center of the clearing.

  In the distance, a monotonous droning sound grows louder, closes on his position.

  His back turned to the clearing, he is running, running along a slender, weed-choked trail, the afternoon light filtering green through the forest’s canopy, woody tendrils grasping at his ankles, thorny branches scratching his arms and face, leaving red-beaded welts. Not far to go now, but his lungs burn and legs turn to wood, with the droning louder, closer, rising in pitch, until ahead, only fifteen yards, the trench’s outline, and Regan, waving urgently. Props beat the air directly overhead, but he is slowing, his legs stumbling as he pitches forward the last few steps, an awkward airborne pirouette, falling into Regan’s outstretched arms as she reaches for him, rolling forward with his momentum into the covered ditch, underneath and then on top of him. The props, quieter, more distant bass than treble, muffled by the huddled sweating bodies stretching into the semi-dark distance on either side, the warm earth beneath his shoulders, the dripping, meaty fronds above, and Regan hard on top of him, elbows digging into his chest, flattened against him, breathing hard and hot against his neck. Everything is hushed except for Regan’s breathing and the syncopation of his own harsh gasps.

  One sharp warbling whistle. And another. And another. And another. Until the air is so heavy with shrieking noise there might never be room for any other sound again. Until suddenly, the whistling is consumed by the first concussive detonation and the next and the next and the next and the next and the ground heaves with explosion after explosion and great clumps of earth falling on the thick magnolia leaves and branches above his head sifting downward raining him with dirt and shrapnel whistling through the forest and sizzling through the trees overhead dripping magnolia-scented sap hot and sticky on his arms and chest whistling bombs whooshing rockets strafing endless lead explosions and hot gushing sap soaking his shirt and dripping down his cheeks, blinding him.

  Abruptly, it stops. A blink, an instant, a heartbeat of total silence, like deafness, not even the sound of Regan breathing. Eric raises his head next to Regan’s cheek and listens. The props are faint. His ears ring, a muffled, high-pitched tone. The droning fades. The planes are gone. Along the trench the soldiers lift their heads and listen. All is silence.

  Except the horses, the horses screaming….

  Eric’s head jerked forward, a prop a few feet above him. A moment’s panic. Whoomp whoomp whoomp. The ceiling fan, its broad blades churning slowly through the warm night air in his darkened bedroom.

  “Fuck.”

  Eric lifted the soaking sheet from his body, braced himself on one elbow, and twisted his legs over the side of his bed. Still sitting, he pulled off his t-shirt, then boxers, slowly sliding them under his buttocks and down to his knees. Only then did he stand, a little unsteadily on his bowed, arthritic, varicose-knotted legs, letting his underwear drop to the floor around his feet and wiping the beaded perspiration from his arms, chest, stomach, and thighs with the already damp t-shirt. He stripped his sheets, placing them across the back of the chair next to his night table, setting them out to dry along with his shorts and shirt. He took fresh sheets from the dresser and remade his bed. He did all this without much thought, going through the motions of an often-repeated routine.

  The next step was using the bathroom before going back to bed, but this time he paused.

  “Got to think about the girl,” he said. “If I go in there, it’ll wake her up.”

  Eric stood for a moment, naked, unsure, measuring the pressure in his bladder against the hours left in the night.

  “Aw the hell with it,” he said, and lay down on his bed, hoping he could hold his water for the three hours left until dawn, hoping Magnolia, and her dreams, and his past, would let him rest, at least for the remainder of the night.

  The next day Regan dropped in while Eric was drinking his first cup of coffee and Jenny was still asleep. These days there was a little sugar swirled in the cocoa of Regan’s hair, and she wore it collar length instead of cut above her ears. Other than that, she looked to Eric as though she’d barely aged from her academy days. Her eyes were still the darkest blue, her posture erect, her mind sharp. The shopkeepers and clerks in Noahstown enthusiastically told Eric how great he looked, but despite the cataracts, Eric could see his reflection in mirrors, and unlike people, mirrors didn’t lie. His hair, while thick and wavy, was completely silver. In contrast with Regan, Eric’s gray eyes appeared cloudy, his frame bent with arthritis, and his memory—at least of recent events—forgetful. Some years ago he’d unpacked his old dress blue uniform. Twenty frustrating minutes later he gave up all hope of buttoning the jacket’s gold buttons or zipping the pants’ fly. Regan, he was certain, could still fit trimly in hers.

  “I missed you yesterday, Regan.”

  “Not much, from the look of things.”

  Before bed, Jenny had borrowed a set of pajamas—the pants almost shorts length on her—washed her very feminine undergarments in the kitchen sink, and hung them to dry in the middle of the living room. She’d chosen the floor of the back room over the couch in the front room, so Eric threw down some pillows and an old featherbed for her. She fell asleep before he closed the door behind him. That was eight hours ago, and she would sleep for twelve more, not arising until Eric had supper on the table.

  Eric wanted to talk about the girl, but Regan was in a hurry.

  “I just dropped in to say goodbye. I’m heading offworld for a few weeks.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Great niece fell in with some stoner refugees from Cascadia. Got herself arrested on Athena, and you know how tight-assed those Athenans are. Naturally, the mayday goes out to Auntie Regan. Never a dull moment in the Hollady family.”

  “Regan, I’ve got a visitor.”

  “No shit, Eric.”

  “Not just any visitor—a virus resequenced great-granddaughter of the big Beaut bastard himself.”

  “Harvard?”

  “Yup. Jenny Harvard, to be precise.”

  “I hope you smelled her.”

  “More than that. She’s got pimples.” Eric made a snap decision not to tell Regan where the girl had pimples.

  Regan whistled. “Eric Stratton and a Harvard under one roof. I must be hallucinating.”

  “She wants me to tell her the history, Regan. The real history.”

  “So this one’s a masochist instead of a sadist?”

  “I don’t think so. But still, there’s something about her….”

  “So
what are you gonna do?”

  “I don’t know. I mean she’s a likeable kid.”

  Regan lifted Jenny’s polka dot brassiere between her thumb and forefinger. “I’ll bet she is. And beautiful too, even with pimples.”

  “Not bad, but nothing special.”

  Regan laughed.

  “Well, what do you think I should do, ‘Auntie Regan’?”

  “Tell her, Eric. Tell her everything. Kid’s got a right to know. More than that, her generation needs to know.”

  “What am I supposed to do with her in the meantime? She hasn’t got a place to stay, doesn’t know anyone on Magnolia, and everyone I know would as soon spit on her as rent her a room.”

  “Let her stay here, Eric. It’s safe, and she can keep an eye on you while I’m away.”

  Eric bristled. “I don’t need anyone ‘keeping an eye on me’!”

  “Then do it for my sake. I’ll feel better knowing you’ve got company. Besides, I’m sure you won’t mind keeping your eyes on her.”

  Eric hadn’t won an argument with Regan in years and knew he’d already lost this one. “All right, if that’s the way you want it, she can stay. And I’ll tell her everything, like you said. But if this blows up, I’m blaming you.”

  “Why should this time be any different?”

  Regan turned toward the door.

  “Hey, Captain Hollady, where’s my goodbye hug?”

  For a long moment the two old friends embraced, till Regan broke it off with a peck on Eric’s cheek.

  “So long, Captain Stratton.”

  “So long, Captain Hollady. Oh, and Hollady—try not to shoot anyone while you’re on Athena.”

  “And you, Captain Stratton, try for once in your life to keep it zipped. She may be a beauty, but she’s still a Beaut. Even as small as it is, you wouldn’t want it to get cut off, would you?”

  Also by Mendy Sobol

  THE SPEED OF DARKNESS—A Tale of Space, Time,

  and Aliens Who Love to Party!

  CHAPTER 1—GEIGER

  Roy Geiger accepted his appointment as First Officer of Grissom Base on Jupiter’s fifth moon, Io, the same way he accepted all his accomplishments—with a complete lack of ambition. Roy’s childhood neighbor, Jeffrey Graham, was always the ambitious one, the leader. Geiger was the sidekick, the second banana, the loyal best friend.

  Had Roy grown up next door to anyone other than Jeff in their side-by-side mirror-image Florida homes, he never would have sought a scholarship to attend St. Petersburg’s Honor Naval High School, Admiral Farragut Academy, never received one of the school’s two appointments to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland (Graham got the other one), never achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander, never been posted to Jupiter’s giant volcanic moon Io as second-in-command—to Commander Jeffrey Graham.

  Now they sat together at the Grissom Base officer’s mess—Graham at the head of the table, Geiger at his right hand, eating breakfast and looking out at a vista neither of them could have imagined when they were children.

  Gus Grissom Base rested within the shelter of Daedalus, an almost perfect bowl-shaped crater, twenty-six kilometers in diameter. With almost no atmosphere to obscure it, the 360-degree view around Daedalus’s rim was crystal clear and dramatically spectacular. Starting thirty feet below the crater’s surface, Daedalus had been built upward toward its rim, level upon level. After almost three decades of steady growth, in what was acknowledged as humanity’s greatest engineering achievement, the entire caldera of Daedalus was ringed with mining offices, science laboratories, military barracks and luxury hotels. Development had been somewhat haphazard and unzoned, more often than not determined by the transfer of large numbers of credits into the off-earth bank accounts of highly placed officials. But everyone wanted a view, and by unspoken agreement the outward surface of every level was faced with specially tempered glass, like ever-larger rings milled from diamonds. At sunrise, Grissom Base looked like a giant, glittering, crystal punchbowl.

  “Long way from Florida, eh buddy?” Graham asked.

  “I still miss those sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico, but sunrise on Io is not bad, not bad at all.”

  “And first mess beats those cold grits and fried eggs they used to serve at Farragut.”

  “Roger that, Commander, but I sure could go for a glass of real Florida orange juice to wash it down!”

  Geiger spooned himself a second helping of “Pancakes a la Io,” the mess chef’s breakfast specialty. Io’s low gravity made them extra light and fluffy.

  “Well, Roy, duty calls,” Graham said, pushing back from the table. “I am outta here.”

  “You’re gonna miss sunrise.”

  “Have to. Engineering requested my presence over at the mine-head, ASAP. Something about stress fractures in some of the structural supports.”

  “Sounds serious, Jeff. Want me to come along?”

  “And keep you away from all that paperwork that’s been piling up on your desk? Not on your life! Besides, that’s why they pay me the big bucks!”

  “Suit yourself, Skipper. But I really don’t have anything pressing this a.m., so I’m thinking I’ll pass the time drinking coffee, watching the sun rise and contemplating my duties as an officer and a gentleman.”

  “Duties like hitting on Ensign Deyo?”

  “Commander, I am shocked at your lack of faith in the dedication of your loyal first officer. I assure you the lovely ensign was the furthest thing from my mind. But now that you mention it…”

  “Still no luck, eh?”

  “As our new interstellar neighbors the Djbrr are so fond of saying, ‘Failure is merely a prelude to success.’”

  “Even repeated failure?”

  Geiger shrugged.

  “Well, don’t let that paperwork slide too long, Roy. I’ve got a feeling this stress fracture thing will require another mountain of it today.”

  Graham got to his feet as Roy groaned.

  “That all you got to say for yourself, sailor?”

  “Yes sir. I mean, no sir. I mean…aye aye sir!” Geiger leapt to his feet, snapping to attention and saluting sharply.

  “Carry on then, young man,” Graham said, returning Geiger’s salute and striding toward the mess hall door, “and try not to do anything today that will embarrass the United States Navy… or your commanding officer!”

  Geiger lounged in his swivel chair, taking a sip of steaming black coffee, contemplating the silence. The hour before dawn was one of the few quiet times on Grissom Base. Graham always made a point of waking Geiger with an intercom call ninety minutes ahead of reveille so they could work out, then enjoy breakfast together before the junior officers began filing in. Every morning Geiger grumbled his way out of bed, but he never rolled over and went back to sleep. Rising early also gave him, in theory, extra time to catch up on paperwork, (the scourge of every First Officer in the fleet), an opportunity Geiger routinely ignored. The Navy may have replaced sailing ships with starships, he thought, but it would never replace paperwork. To Geiger, that meant paperwork could always wait until tomorrow.

  Through the mess hall door he could hear steps approaching down the passageway. That would be Ensign Deyo. Bright, ambitious, fresh out of Annapolis, and, as Geiger was almost constantly aware, quite attractive. Liz Deyo was always the first of the junior officers to arrive at every function. “Be a heckuva commanding officer some day,” Graham had once remarked. Geiger agreed. Working with Jeff all these years, Roy knew a good commanding officer when he saw one, though he had no such ambitions for himself. What he was, and what he wanted to be, was one hell of a great second in command, maybe the best in the fleet. While he may have let the paperwork slide a little too often for his C.O.’s liking, he never let Graham down on what they both considered his primary mission—backing up his C.O., as Graham had backed him since elementary school.

  “Morning, Liz.”

  “Good morning, Commander.”

  “Are you here early
for the sunrise, the chow, or my charming company? After all, it is Friday the Thirteenth. Could this be my lucky day?”

  “Just trying to get a head start on my work, sir,” Deyo said, sliding a pocket computer from her tunic and setting it on the mess hall table next to her plate.

  Geiger groaned. “All work and no play, Ensign?”

  Deyo ignored him and began spooning salad and home-fried potatoes on her plate. No pancakes for someone who spends as many hours in the gym as Deyo, Geiger thought.

  Just then the first rays of sunrise crept over the far rim of Daedalus, shining directly into the officer’s mess like diffused golden laser beams. On the other side of the crater, 180 degrees from where Geiger stood, the day’s mining operations had begun. The drill-head threw fine particles of sparkling red Ionian clay and Palomino sand high into Io’s thin atmosphere, turning sunrise into a spectacular, silent fireworks display. Jeff would be over at the mine by now, missing the wondrous sight they usually enjoyed together each morning.

  Then Roy noticed something strange, something he would see when he was awake and asleep, in daydreams and in nightmares for the rest of his life. The slightest V, a notch in the crater rim at the drill head, allowing a premature and temporarily blinding blast of full sunlight to flicker out across the crater and into Geiger’s eyes. Roy blinked, clearing his vision, and watched as the notch grew, deeper, wider, with astonishing, shocking, horrifying speed….

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