Yvonne stood. “Even if the public eats this interview up, the tide of opinion won’t change what’s happening on Mars. I just hope Matthew doesn’t come to regret calling out Barclay.”
ELIZABETH TRIED TO take each day one at a time. The loss of the farm and Matthew’s near-death experience was more than she could cope with, so she focused entirely on the latter. And despite the aching hurt, Albert’s farm was just a place. Mere material possession only. And her memories were more potent than the grief of loss, or they would be some day.
Right now, she would just focus on Matthew, though he needed the attention less and less with every passing day. He’d managed to gain back most of the weight he’d lost and was working on a plan to get back into shape. Which meant that she had very little to do around the guest house that Bishop Elias had kindly loaned them. At least until she was asked to teach a few classes at the school.
“I haven’t taught in twenty years,” she said, desperately looking for an excuse. “And I worked with adults. College students, not children.”
The old man smiled, the skin around his eyes wrinkling. “I wouldn’t have thought a Cole would be afraid of a few teenagers. It’s a pity because I think they would love you. And if Matthew’s love of the written word comes from you, then I know you’ll do wonderfully.”
She agreed, of course. Mostly because she felt she owed something to this man that had been so influential in their lives. She spent a few days preparing and then, on the first day of class, arrived with notes in hand on a lecture about the power of storytelling. The community center doubled as the school right now since there were only about seventy children and more than enough space to hold them on the three days that class was in session.
The room was absolutely silent when Elizabeth entered, and twenty teenagers of varying age turned to look at her, including Grace. She’d been voluntarily attending classes with her friends from Ceres, whether it was to socialize or actually learn anything, Elizabeth hadn’t figured out yet. Grace gave her a thumbs up.
Elizabeth set her tablet down on the podium. “Good afternoon,” she said, feeling like she’d stepped out of an airlock without a pressure suit. “I’m Mrs. Cole, and Bishop Elias has asked if I would give a few lectures during my stay here at Antioch.”
Blank stares.
She looked hard at her tablet. On a whim she closed her notes and instead pulled up her favorite short story. Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find had never once failed to stir an audience in the three centuries since it had been written, and it wasn’t about to start now. As she read the story of the Grandmother and her son Bailey’s family, the class slowly became more and more enraptured. When the Misfit arrived after their car accident, every eye was wide. As the family was slowly murdered, there was a murmur of movement through the class. And when Grandmother herself was finally killed, one of the older teens let out an expletive before turning red and apologizing.
“What was the point of that story?” asked a girl.
“Did you enjoy it?” Elizabeth asked.
“Well, yes, but it was horrible.”
“Then what was O’Connor trying to say? Because I have never read a more true story.” She was met with silence and Elizabeth smiled. Maybe she had missed this after all, but she knew she was going to have to feed this group. She doubted they’d ever been challenged to think deeply about a work of fiction. “Grandmother believes herself to be a good person. But is she?”
“She’s not as bad as the misfit,” came the first reply.
“But she was pretty terrible,” another said. “She treated her family something awful.”
“She seemed okay. At the end, anyway.”
She let the class talk it out, a small smile creeping across her face. When it began to dwindle, she said, “It’s a complex story. And of course, it leads back to the idea of grace. No, not you, Grace, but your namesake. At the best, we get good things that we don’t deserve. We’re all imperfect, and it’s a fatal mistake to think you are anything but sinful. Grandmother lived all her life prattling about good things, thinking that she was just that, and only in that last moment with the Misfit does she realize that she’s something else entirely. Human. Broken. Sinful. That’s why it’s so hard to find a good man.” She paused for effect. “There are none.”
When she dismissed the class, half of them, Grace’s friends, swarmed around her and asked what story they’d read next. “Oh, I’ll find something. I haven’t decided yet.” She smiled as she scooped up her tablet and walked out of the room with the last of the students. She had missed this. So very much.
JULIA’S EYES LIFTED from her monitor to the open window. Her office in Discordia, a spire above the Imperial Palace, gave a near three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the cloud formations that endlessly swirled around the city. There was just the first hint of reddening to the towering structures. Discordia, floating free on the wind experienced sunrise and sunset as it drifted through the Venusian atmosphere. Natural days there lasted over a hundred standard days, but the turbulent winds pushed the city along far faster, the skies above changing from day to night in just a few days’ time.
With effort, she brought her attention back to the matters at hand. Matthew’s blockbuster interview had only increased the demand for guild crews. The line of freelancers wanting into the elite club was backed up. Matthew’s injury had slowed down the current process, and after a couple of months, Yvonne and Abigail had only begun to make a dent in catching up.
She made a snap decision and began to type.
Yvonne,
I propose a different route. There’s only so much the crew of the Sparrow can do. Allow me to aid in the recruitment process. We had initially planned on there being only three shipboard crews, the Sparrow, the Queen of Sheba, and the Red Dragon for the guild’s first phase. I propose that we can double it to six crews. If it’s acceptable with you and Matthew, I can go through resumes and invite appropriate captains to Venus to discuss the guild. I’ll begin at once if you give me the go-ahead.
I’m glad to hear that Matthew’s recovery continues. Tell him I said hello and that my father and I look forward to his next visit.
Julia of Venus
She proofread the message twice and tapped the send button. Having finished that, she switched back to the reports her father had asked her to go through. She slumped back in her chair as her eyes scanned the numbers. They were nothing new, just the end of a century-long trend, and that trend only had one possible destination.
The complete collapse of the Venusian economy.
“Are you up here, Julia?”
“I’m here, Daddy.” She turned as his head poked up from the spiral staircase that led into her tower.
“I appreciate the spectacular view the tower affords,” he said, coming up behind her and placing warm hands on her shoulders, “but I wonder how you tolerate the stairs.”
“The exercise is good for me, especially when you keep me chained to a desk all day.”
“You have the best head for numbers in the family,” he said. “I’ve got no one else I can trust this with.” He paused. “It’s bad isn’t it?”
“It’s exactly what you would expect from a pair of floating colonies. We have no resources,” she gestured at the clouds, “besides sulfur, which is easily acquired elsewhere. Our economy has always been based around service industries and with the Martian colonies at the brink of war...” She shook her head. “There aren’t any more tourists.”
“Then we’re doomed?”
“Not immediately, no,” she said. “We’ll be fine for years, most likely, and we’ll be able to hide that we’re struggling for some time yet. And of course the current trend could moderate somewhat if the Martian situation settles down.”
“Things never go back to the way they were,” he said, letting out a long quiet breath. “We’ll press the schedule and finish the Contingency. Divert funds to ensure it’s completed before we’re bankrupt.”<
br />
She turned and gave her father a hard stare. “You’ll accelerate our demise.”
“If it gives humanity a chance?” He let the question hang. “Maybe the Sparrow will come through with their artifact search. Maybe our efforts are for nothing and they’ll find Moses out there somewhere.”
It was a foolish endeavor. There were better things the Sparrow could spend its time pursuing than hunting for so-called miracles. Like all things romantic, her father was enamored with the idea and had laughed when Matthew revealed that he held in his possession the very artifact that had, in fact, been stolen from the palace’s collection. Her father had turned around and officially gifted the item in question to Matthew, who had, in turn, secretly left it back in her father’s care. The whole thing was a silly waste of time.
“Speaking of the Sparrow,” she said in an effort not to chase stray meteors. “Did you see Barclay’s response to Matthew’s interview?”
Her father rubbed his hands together. “Oh, I bet this will be good.”
“Not quite as dismissive as I would have thought. I don’t think he was quite willing to brush off the famous Matthew Cole. Hold up. I saved the clip. Here.”
“It’s a little discouraging that Arizona’s most famous son has been taking political potshots at me, but I’ve tried to take him at his word. We all know Mr. Cole is as good and trusty as one can find in these barbaric days. I can assure both him and everyone else on Mars that the Phobos Platform is the most well-guarded installation in the Solar System, and if Mr. Cole wishes to see for himself, he can. Matthew Cole, consider this an open invitation. At your leisure, come and inspect the defenses yourself. The brave men and women of the Highland Treaty Organization will give you the full tour of Phobos. Then perhaps we can have another sit down. I fear Matthew Cole and I have passed each other on the tracks without really meeting in the middle.”
Her father chuckled. “Matthew really pushed a few buttons there, didn’t he? Remind me to give Barclay a hard time the next I see him.”
Julia rolled her eyes. “Dad... Please don’t make this worse.”
“I’m kidding,” he said. He clapped his hands on her shoulders again. “Will you make it to dinner tonight?”
She looked at the array of economic numbers on her screen. It wasn’t a problem to be solved overnight. Or more likely, not at all. Maybe it was best if the royal family started living a little more frugally. She pasted a smile on her face. “Sure, dad. I’ll be there.”
THE SPARROW MADE THE long trip out to Saturn once in that time, nearly three months after setting out. It was to be the last trip before returning to Ganymede, and though they’d stopped in more than once, everyone was ready for the crew to be whole again.
Most of all, Yvonne. She’d never felt more alone in her entire life. Not even in the months after Tomas died. Abigail continued to stonewall her on all but business, and Davey... Well, she was fond of him, but there was no way she was going to survive much longer if he was her only meaningful social interaction. At least Matthew wouldn’t hold things against her. He didn’t hold anything against anyone. It was just one last trip, and then things could go back to normal.
Titan had been a disaster. The crew rejected the offer to join the guild, which admittedly was a bullet dodged, and Abigail and Davey botched their job horribly. So badly that Benny was still trying to negotiate their way out of being financially liable to the client. When they left the surface of the moon, not even Davey and Abigail were speaking to one another. A dark corner of Yvonne’s brain was secretly quite pleased that she wasn’t alone in her misery.
As she pulled the Sparrow out of Titan’s soupy atmosphere and into orbit, the comm buzzed. For a moment, she considered ignoring it. They didn’t have any more business here, and this would just delay their departure.
Davey hit the comm switch. “This is the Sparrow.”
“I can see that,” a familiar voice deadpanned. “I was starting to think you didn’t have time for an old woman.”
Gebre’elwa. Yvonne glanced at the scopes and saw the massive shape of the Queen of Sheba three and half thousand klicks above her in orbit. “Sorry, ‘Elwa. Been a rough few months. We’re on the backside of a wasted trip.”
“Oh, I’ve had my share of those. Tell you what. We’re waiting on a refinery to get their act in gear and send over their tankers, but it’s going to take a few hours. Swing by the Queen and I’ll have my chef whip up something nice.”
“I appreciate that offer, but we’re ready to get back to the rest of our crew.”
“I’ll throw in some good wine,” ‘Elwa suggested conspiratorially.
“Say yes,” Davey whispered. “Matthew would turn down the wine.”
“You’re only nineteen,” Yvonne replied.
“Which is plenty old enough,” he said. “In some colonies.”
“That settles it then,” ‘Elwa interrupted. “I’ll see you soon.” She cut the channel and Yvonne stared at the scopes. It really wouldn’t hurt and ‘Elwa was a friend. Davey let out a cheer when she altered their course.
Dinner was squash stuffed with braised pork shoulder and parmesan-crusted polenta. The meat may have even been real, not lab-grown. Yvonne was afraid to ask, because she couldn’t bear the feeling of being further in debt to the woman’s hospitality. As for the wine, Yvonne and Abigail made Davey strictly promise that he would never speak of this to Matthew.
“I’m not going to tell him,” Davey said, taking another sip of the dry red. “But I’m not going to lie. So if Matthew ever asks, I’ll spill.”
Abigail shook her head and took another bite of her polenta. “What are the odds he’s going to ask ‘Davey did ‘Elwa give you wine?’ It’s not going to happen.”
“I don’t know. Grace and I have a theory that he can read minds.” Yvonne just raised an eyebrow at him. “He was a priest,” he finished lamely.
‘Elwa and her husband, Mateo, laughed. “You know,” she said. “There were stories about Matthew before his history with the church was made public.”
Abigail sat up straighter. “What kind of stories?”
“None of the other freelancers quite knew what to make of Matthew Cole. A quiet man who was insufferably honorable, had a tendency to be just shy of polite, never drank a drop of alcohol when most in our profession practically bathe in the stuff. He was most certainly talked about. An enigma among freelancers. I never ran into him, so that was all I knew of him.”
“He’ll be rejoining us when we get back to Ganymede,” Yvonne said softly.
“How is he doing?”
“It’s been a long recovery, but he’s ready to be back out here.”
“I bet we wouldn’t have screwed up that job if Matthew had been around,” Davey muttered. Abigail looked as if she was going to disagree and then deflated. Yvonne just continued her meal in silence. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to talk about the disaster the three of them had become lately. Or rather that Yvonne had become. Try as she might, she couldn’t pretend the fault lay elsewhere.
Soon enough, the meal was over and before she could escape back to the peace and safety of the Sparrow, ‘Elwa had her by the elbow and was pulling her aside. Yvonne watched as the other two disappeared down the corridor.
“Something has made you decidedly unhappy.”
She shrugged the other woman’s arm off. “We’re just ready for things to get back to normal.”
“I’m sure that’s all there is to it,” ‘Elwa said.
And yet Yvonne couldn’t turn away to leave, despite every good sense telling her to do so. For the first time in three months, she had a willing set of ears. A pair that had sought her out.
“I’ve been thinking about... My husband lately,” she lied. It wasn’t entirely untrue. Anything related to Kudzu ultimately led back to Tomas. He would have hated her for pulling that trigger, but then he was always clear-eyed about the harder questions in the universe. Right and wrong weren’t a mystery to be wondered at for him.
“It’s been three years if I remember,” ‘Elwa said. She turned back toward the other hall and called for her husband. “Mateo, go to the Sparrow and let Ms. Sharon know that I need to speak with Yvonne. She’ll be along in an hour or so.”
He nodded and passed them by with a polite nod and smile to Yvonne. She was aware that the other woman was leading her back toward her parlor and away from the Sparrow and she sighed. What was she doing? This woman had nothing to offer her.
“Closure is a funny thing,” ‘Elwa said. “Let me tell you about my first husband.”
BEING HOME WAS WONDERFUL, though Abigail had started to struggle to define what home really was. It wasn’t the Sparrow. Not quite. She’d been aboard it for the last three months, and while the place was the same, things were missing. People were missing. Well. Really just one person. Sure, Grace was important, but Matthew was the beating heart that made it work.
She tried not to think about what that meant. Because it was complicated and he was a priest or rather had been a priest. It was better if she didn’t turn into some sort of blubbering maiden. That sounded, frankly, mortifyingly embarrassing.
Still, she missed her partner because they were just that. Partners.
The day the Sparrow landed on Ganymede, they stayed up long into the night, talking, catching up on all that had been missed. Abigail had left her suit in her room and wheeled into the bridge, carefully transferring herself to the co-pilot seat.
“So Grace has really been attending class for the last month?” she asked. “Seems hard to believe. She’s always been less interested than even Davey in your boring attempts at educating them.”
Matthew ignored the jab. “On the pretense of hanging out with her friends, yes. But I think she’s been enjoying it. Even with Jason and Eva around.”
“Pity about that,” Abigail said quietly. She was pretty sure Grace was already asleep, but it never hurt to be careful. She had poured her little heart out to Abigail in message after message over the last month. “Teenage crushes are confusing things.”
After Moses: Wormwood Page 26
