The ensuing humble silence on Holly’s part was broken before long by Chase when he rose to his feet and moved to shake Rusev’s hands. “Chase Jackson,” he said. “It’s an honour to finally meet you in person.”
“Thank you,” Rusev replied, appearing surprised that Chase was able to walk following the injuries she’d heard about. “I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen from you. Earlier on, I asked Grav if he thought the isolation test had been worthwhile. He said it was, because, and I quote, ‘it weeded out Steve and it gave us Chase.’ And with that sentiment, I agree entirely.”
“Wow, I don’t know what to say,” Chase blushed. “Thanks.”
“It is odd, though,” Rusev went on. “Although we’ve never met, I’ve been watching you on Terradox Live every night for almost a full year, so it really does feel like I already know you well.”
Chase laughed heartily. “Oh, I don’t know about that. From what I’ve been told about Monica Pierce, we probably can’t count on her editing being particularly honest.”
“Monica,” Holly hissed, speaking this name for the first time in a while having been concerned with more important thoughts. “Is she gone yet?”
“Her whole team,” Rusev nodded.
“The whole studio crew?” Holly asked.
“Yes. From now on, only people you are one hundred percent comfortable with, and only people who are one hundred percent committed to the colony, will be here. Their Ferrier left a few hours before my Karrier came in from the station. Steve Shepherd was onboard, too, and Leon Fish.”
“How is Steve?” Chase asked, clearly genuine in his concern. The two had been good friends for a long time, and until a few days ago Chase had thought they always would be.
“He’s okay. Well, he will be okay. His jaw was severely shattered when Viola… you know… and I believe it’s going to be treated with some kind of corrective plate once he gets back to Earth.”
“Did you see it?” Holly asked Chase. “When she swung that pipe?”
“No, I think that was when I was busy getting in the way by wrestling with Peter,” he said, trying to laugh it off as he hid his face and shook his head in embarrassment.
“Lee Kim and Sara Helms left, too,” Rusev went on. “They wanted to leave and we didn’t want to stand in their way. Unfortunately, two other colonists are also on the Ferrier: the Hawthornes.”
Holly’s back straightened in total surprise. “What?! Kayla and Vic? Why? We need Kayla! She’s one of our very best physicists.”
“And wasn’t Vic one of Peter’s deputies?” Chase asked, equally surprised and saddened by this news. “Those are two important positions. Why did they have to leave?”
Rusev took a second to think of the most tactful way to say it, then upturned her hands and plumped instead for succinct simplicity: “They got pregnant.”
No reply came from either Holly or Chase.
“Exactly,” Rusev sighed. “There’s no comeback.”
A rueful silence ensued, lingering for at least twenty seconds.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” Holly said to Rusev, “and I want to ask it while Chase is here.”
“Go on…”
“Well, Dimitar told me about something when I was on the station last week, and I spoke to Bo about it when I got here. It was interesting, but I thought it was too far beyond us to be worth giving much thought right now. But the things I saw Bo do with the pop-up microsphere — you know, the ‘bubble’ he used to protect our rover and enable our short walk to the service bay — well, that was so far beyond where I thought we were right now… it’s made me think that with the right resources and free rein, they might actually be able to make it real one day.”
“I’m completely lost,” Chase admitted.
Rusev, meanwhile, wore an expression of total concentration. “Holly, are you talking about a Kosmosphere?”
“Kosmo-what-now?” Chase asked. “I’ve heard about Bo’s microspheres, but Kosmosphere?”
Holly answered Chase while looking at Rusev: “It’s a theoretical idea based on fabricating a new romosphere and essentially using it as an enormous self-propelled… well, mobile planet, I guess.”
“Woah, nice!” Chase replied.
Still looking at Rusev, Holly now aimed a question at her: “When did you find out about this?”
“At the same time as Dimitar,” Rusev laughed. “The Kosmosphere was Yury’s idea. He shared it with both of us in a routine meeting, not long before he passed.”
“Spaceman came up with it?” Holly asked. “Dimitar definitely left that part out! Why didn’t you ever tell me? And why didn’t he?”
“Yury didn’t want to bother you with it because you already had so much on your plate, but he made Dimitar promise that nothing like this would ever go ahead without your support. As for why I kept quiet…” Rusev said, sighing slowly. “Well, I wasn’t flat-out opposed to the idea, but it didn’t exactly strike me as a viable proposition. It wasn’t even really a proposition, it was more of a thought experiment.”
Chase, evidently, was not so immediately dismissive. “I take it you guys know that Nisha has been working on some kind of secret new propulsion method, right?” he said. “Do you know if they gave her a general problem to solve because they want a specific solution for this?”
Holly shrugged, honestly rather than evasively. “I only learned about this a few days ago, the night before everything happened. Nisha doesn’t know about the idea, I know that much. It’s no secret that we’re always looking into new developments in propulsion, though. Do you know if she did come up with something while you were all in there?”
“That theoretical side of things isn’t exactly my area of expertise,” Chase said with a shrug of his own, “but she has definitely been happy with her progress.”
“There’s more than just the technicalities, though,” Rusev interjected. “Yury saw the Kosmosphere as a potential new world; not just a colony, but a full-blown new society. Inspired by Terradox, but more than Terradox. That’s how he framed it, but worlds and societies need leadership. Yury knew that he didn’t have long enough to see it come into being, and I know I don’t, either. Dimitar will never leave the station, and Holly, I knew that you were—”
“Happy here,” she butted in.
“Exactly,” Rusev said, very pensively.
“I’d be up for it,” Chase said. “I’m not saying I would be in charge or anything, but I would go. I mean, hot damn, talk about new frontiers! If Nisha has been working on part of this, even without knowing it, she might be up for it, too. And if she is, count me in.”
Rusev smiled gently. “Chase, if this was happening, it wouldn’t be soon. This would be the greatest undertaking in the history of mankind — by far.”
“So how long are we talking?” he asked.
Rusev shrugged. “Five years, ten years… it’s guesswork, really.”
“Let’s call it five,” Chase optimistically replied. “I’d be one hundred percent up for that. The Harringtons might be game, too.”
“Something tells me that wild horses couldn’t keep Bo back from joining you,” Holly said, “but you’re not getting Viola. Peter wouldn’t want to leave here for anything and neither would she.”
“Maybe Grav?” Chase suggested.
At this, Rusev and Holly roared with laughter.
“And maybe instead of using embryonic romotech, you can build the whole thing out of cheese,” Holly joked. “More chance of that than Grav being involved, that’s for sure.”
When the laughter died down, Rusev looked around the otherwise empty recuperation ward. “Why are you two still here, anyway?” she asked. “You’re not even hooked up to any equipment.”
“I think we’re just waiting on some final test results,” Chase said. “We were fine last night when they did all of the same tests before they at least let us come in here, so I guess they’re just making sure.”
Rusev pushed herself off
the bed, leaning on her stick. “That’s it?” she said, rolling her eyes as she stood up. “If all you’re doing is waiting for results, let’s get you both out of here and wait somewhere else.”
forty-four
As they left the medical centre under the evening sun, Rusev revealed that the one area she wanted to visit more than any other was Christian Jackson’s Botanical Gardens, where she was keen to experience the change of conditions between the microspheres she’d been told so much about.
Terradox’s zonal divisions were something she was intimately familiar with, of course, but Bo’s recently proven ability to fabricate far smaller and more flexible zone-like areas with independently controlled atmospheres had the makings of a genuinely game-changing breakthrough with further-ranging possibilities than even he realised.
Rusev, Holly and Chase had politely asked the doctors to let the two patients leave early and return to get their results when the final analysis was complete. The doctors seemed happy enough to go along with this, rather than simply overwhelmed by the identity of the individuals asking them to bend the rules.
When Holly got her wristband back from the doctors, she no longer felt naked. She immediately used it to grant universal access to both Chase and Rusev, who put her own wristband back on and returned the one she’d been loaned by a generous medic.
Outside, Holly called a select group of people to come and join them at Rusev’s chosen spot. This group was composed of the Jacksons and the Kohlis, the Harringtons and the Ospanovs, and, of course, Grav.
With Vijay tucked up in bed, Nisha was the only Kohli who made it. Chase was likewise the only Jackson, with Christian and Jillian having encouraged him to go without them upon learning that Robert Harrington was busy working while the Kohli parents were at home and Viola, Peter and Bo were already on their way to the Gardens.
“We’ll leave the night for you youngsters,” as Christian put it. “At least I know Holly will be there to make sure you don’t step on any of my plants!”
In truth, he and Jillian were still mentally exhausted from the chaos in Little Venus and were now readying themselves for Sakura’s funeral the next morning.
Rusev, excitedly controlling the trio’s transport capsule, instructed it to take the long way to the Botanical Gardens so she could have another look at the older Memorial Garden which would host the funeral. Preparations were well underway for what would be a large-scale gathering of mourning colonists, and much had been done in the hours since Rusev passed in the opposite direction.
The centrepiece fountain at the heart of the site would be named in Sakura’s honour, and a statue had already been commissioned for the main transport capsule pick-up spot at the Childhood Development division. There, everyone hoped, her legacy would be immortalised and her likeness would remind the colony’s children of the risks she had taken to protect the innocent — both in bravely venturing to the uncharted hellscape of Netherdox and in defiantly resisting David Boyce’s attempt to seize control of Terradox itself.
Like Peter Ospanov and Dimitar Rusev, despite having participated in those crucial missions Sakura was somewhat overlooked by virtue of not being one of the often lauded ‘seven saviours’ who first discovered Terradox. None of the three had ever been in it for the plaudits, but the surviving members of that exclusive seven-person grouping universally considered their contributions equally worthy of recognition.
Sakura would be missed, but she would not be forgotten.
A voice message came in from Dimitar shortly after the capsule resumed its journey. The message, full of laughter in response to Holly’s lighthearted initial call, explained that he was “one hundred percent obviously” going to tell her at some point that Yury was the true originator of the Kosmosphere concept. His decision to keep that piece of the story to himself wasn’t randomly or questionably motivated, he explained, but was rather based on a desire to have Holly and Bo think it was his idea rather than the idea of someone they so utterly idolised. Their undying respect for Yury could have clouded their judgement, he said, and Holly couldn’t really disagree.
The remainder of the journey was quick, following the shortest possible route to the Gardens. And when she, Holly and Chase eventually arrived, everyone greeted Rusev warmly. None of them had seen her before she travelled to the medical centre, and none besides Grav had seen her for at least two years
Viola was particularly ecstatic to see her — the two had always shared a strong bond — and the feeling was very much mutual.
Viola felt equal delight to see Holly walking around with no visible after-effects of her exploits in the Kompound. The two didn’t get much time alone and knew they would be able to talk about everything the next day, but they used the few relatively private moments they did have to consign recent arguments to where they belonged: the past.
Ekaterina Rusev, openly listening in rather than eavesdropping, approved of everything she heard.
Viola told Holly that being confronted by Steve and having to act so ruthlessly had given her a new appreciation of what Holly had gone through on similar occasions when decisive self-defence had become a reluctant necessity, and that she now truly understood Holly’s core drive to keep Terradox safe above all else. These thoughts had been in Viola’s mind while she desperately sped Bo’s rover across the surface of Little Venus in the hope she would get Holly back to the Buffer before it was too late for the medics to help her, and it felt good to finally say them out loud.
For her part, Holly revealed that she now planned to sit down with the heads of every division at the earliest opportunity with the intention of introducing a new council-like management structure in place of the current CEO model which had been bestowed upon her rather than insisted upon by her. Everything would be up for discussion, including the specifics of the new security restrictions, but Holly stopped short of promising any kind of roll-back. The main point was that the absolute centralisation of decision-making power on her shoulders was a difficult burden to live with, she said, and her close call in the Kompound had made her consider the difficulty the colony would have had in moving on from the loss of its singular figurehead if she hadn’t been so lucky.
“Lessons learned before it’s too late are the best lessons of all,” Rusev mused as she glanced proudly between Holly and Viola, two women she had watched grow tremendously over recent years and who she saw respectively as the colony’s present and future.
The mood was as warm as the evening air as the whole group sauntered around the awe-inspiring Botanical Gardens, with Holly taking on the role of tour guide in Christian’s voluntary absence.
Rusev was taken aback by everything, but by nothing more so than the overwhelming warmth that hit her when she crossed the invisible boundary of one of Bo’s microspheres and entered Christian’s tropical plant nursery for the first time.
She had known about this, but just as Holly had found, seeing it up close and in person — or, more accurately, feeling it up close and in person — truly was something else.
“And over there you can see the vineyard,” Holly said.
Grav’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Chase, let me tell you: the wine your old man makes with those grapes…”
“Sells for more than the average yearly salary on Earth,” Rusev interjected lightheartedly. “Per bottle.”
“Right,” Grav said. “So, uh, naturally, I have no idea how it tastes.”
Everyone laughed; even Rusev. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” she replied with a grin. Rusev’s demeanour was as upbeat as Holly had seen in a long time, despite the sad reason for her visit, as a reunion with so many old friends brought warmth to her heart. She also took great pride in seeing how far the colony had come, both pride in Holly’s successful management and personal pride that the corporation she had fought so hard to keep alive during the trying years and decades of the past had ultimately been able to step in to purchase a controlling interest in Terradox and rejuvenate the romosphere at a time when
many were calling for it to be destroyed.
Over the course of the next hour or so, the group naturally splintered along an age-based line as the five younger members found a comfortable spot in the warm tropical nursery, having made sure they were well clear of any plants before sitting down.
“Oh, Peter,” Nisha said. “I meant to tell you: all Vijay has talked about in the last two days is how much he wants to be a security officer like you.”
Peter nodded approvingly and wore an expression of faux smugness. “Makes sense.”
“At least he didn’t say he wants to be a boxer like Peter,” Viola joked.
“I did hear about that,” Nisha said, turning to Peter. “Thanks for looking out for him.”
“He’s a good kid,” Peter shrugged, never one to need thanks for doing the right thing.
Several topics came and went as the night wore on, including the mysterious Primosphere-based ‘Nancy’ project which only Viola seemed to know anything about. She told Nisha that Romesh had seemed noticeably touchy and evasive about it, but Nisha very honestly insisted that she had no idea what Viola was talking about or what her father had been working on while she was in the Kompound.
For the first time, Bo then shared a story he had heard through the grapevine in the Buffer, which held that Nancy was the codename for an organism which had come into being abiogenetically. He didn’t say that he believed the story, but added that the name was apparently a corruption of 9-C, which in turn came from the fact that the experiment involving the organism in question was the third variation of a ninth attempted method. This subject really wasn’t within an area of expertise or even passing familiarity for anyone present, Bo included, but they were all intrigued by the discussion.
Chase, having been uncharacteristically quiet due to a general feeling of mild fuzziness in his post-concussion mind, soon directed the subject to something which all of the others apart from Bo were equally unfamiliar with. “So, Bo…” he said, like they were the only two people there. “How serious are you about this so-called Kosmosphere?”
Terradox Quadrilogy Page 85
