Infinity's End

by Jonathan Strahan

  As far as I knew, Long Meng had given up the Luna idea. Then she cornered me in the dim-lit nursery and burst my bubble.

  She quietly slid a stool over to my rocker, cast a professional eye over the cerebrospinal fluid-exchange membrane clipped to the baby’s ear, and whispered, We made the short list.

  That’s great, I replied, my cheek pressed to the infant’s warm, velvety scalp.

  I had no idea what she was referring to, and at that moment I didn’t care. The scent of a baby’s head is practically narcotic, and no victory can compare with having coaxed a sick child into restful sleep.

  It means we have to go to Luna for a presentation and interview.

  Realization dawned slowly. Luna? I’m not going to Luna.

  Not you, Jules. Me and my team. I thought you should hear before the whole hab starts talking.

  I concentrated on keeping my rocking rhythm steady before answering. I thought you’d given that up.

  She put a gentle hand on my knee. I know. You told me not to pursue it and I considered your advice. But it’s important, Jules. Luna will restart its crèche program one way or another. We can make sure they do it right.

  I fixed my gaze pointedly on her prognathous jaw. You don’t know what it’s like there. They’ll roast you alive just for looking different.

  Maybe. But I have to try.

  She patted my knee and left. I stayed in the rocker long past hand-over time, resting my cheek against that precious head.

  Seventy years ago I’d done the same, in a crèche crowded into a repurposed suite of offices behind one of Luna’s water printing plants. I’d walked through the door broken and grieving, certain the world had been drained of hope and joy. Then someone put a baby in my arms. Just a few hours old, squirming with life, arms reaching for the future.

  Was there any difference between the freshly detanked newborn on Luna and the sick baby I held on that rocker? No. The embryos gestating in Ricochet’s superbly optimized banks of artificial wombs were no different from the ones Luna would grow in whatever gestation tech they inevitably cobbled together.

  But as I continued to think about it, I realized there was a difference, and it was important. The ones on Luna deserved better than they would get. And I could do something about it.

  FIRST, I HAD my hair sheared into an ear-exposing brush precise to the millimeter. The tech wielding the clippers tried to talk me out of it.

  “Do you realize this will have to be trimmed every twenty days?”

  “I used to wear my hair like this when I was young,” I reassured him. He rolled his eyes and cut my hair like I asked.

  I changed my comfortable smock for a lunar grey trouser-suit with enough padding to camouflage my age-slumped shoulders. My cling-pointed cane went into the mulch, exchanged for a glossy black model. Its silver point rapped the floor, announcing my progress toward Long Meng’s studio.

  The noise turned heads all down the corridor. Long Meng popped out of her doorway, but she didn’t recognize me until I pushed past her and settled onto her sofa with a sigh.

  “Are you still looking for a project advisor?” I asked.

  She grinned. “Luna won’t know what hit it.”

  Back in the rumpus room, Tré was the only kid to comment on my haircut.

  “You look like a villain from one of those old Follywood dramas Bruce likes.”

  “Hollywood,” I corrected. “Yes, that’s the point.”

  “What’s the point in looking like a gangland mobber?”

  “Mobster.” I ran my palm over the brush. “Is that what I look like?”

  “Kinda. Is it because of us?”

  I frowned, not understanding. He pulled his ponytail over his shoulder and eyed it speculatively.

  “Are you trying to look tough so we won’t worry about you after we leave?”

  That’s the thing about kids. The conversations suddenly swerve and hit you in the back of the head.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I’m totally fine.”

  “I know, I know. You’ve been running crèches forever. But we’re the last because you’re so old. Right? It’s got to be hard.”

  “A little,” I admitted. “But you’ve got other things to think about. Big, exciting decisions to make.”

  “I don’t think I’m leaving the crèche. I’m delayed.”

  I tried to keep from smiling. Tré was nothing of the sort. He’d grown into a gangly young man with long arms, bony wrists, and a haze of silky black beard on his square jaw. I could recite the dates of his developmental benchmarks from memory, and there was nothing delayed about them.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “You don’t have to leave until you’re ready.”

  “A year. Maybe two. At least.”

  “Okay, Tré. Your decision.”

  I wasn’t worried. It’s natural to feel ambivalent about taking the first step into adulthood. If Tré found it easier to tell himself he wasn’t leaving, so be it. As soon as his crèchemates started moving on, Tré would follow.

  OUR PROXIMITY TO Earth gave Long Meng’s proposal a huge advantage. We could travel to Luna, give our presentation live, and be back home for the boost.

  Long Meng and I spent a hundred billable hours refining our presentation materials. For the first time in our friendship, our communication styles clashed.

  “I don’t like the authoritarian gleam in your eye, Jules,” she told me after a particularly heated argument. “It’s almost as though you’re enjoying bossing me around.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Ricochet’s social conventions require you to hold in conversational aggression. Letting go was fun. But I had an ulterior motive.

  “This is the way people talk on Luna. If you don’t like it, you should shitcan the proposal.”

  She didn’t take the dare. But she reported behavioral changes to my geriatric specialist. I didn’t mind. It was sweet, her being so worried about me. I decided to give her full access to my biom, so she could check if she thought I was having a stroke or something. I’m in okay health for my extreme age, but she was a paediatrician, not a gerontologist. What she saw scared her. She got solicitous. Gallant, even, bringing me bulbs of tea and snacks to keep my glucose levels steady.

  Luna’s ports won’t accommodate foreign vehicles, and their landers use a chemical propellant so toxic Ricochet won’t let them anywhere near our landing bays, so we had to shuttle to Luna in stages. As we glided over the moon’s surface, its web of tunnels and domes sparkled in the full glare of the sun. The pattern of the habs hadn’t changed. I could still name them—Surgut, Sklad, Nadym, Purovsk, Olenyok...

  Long Meng latched onto my arm as the hatch creaked open. I wrenched away and straightened my jacket.

  You can’t do that here, I whispered. Self-sufficiency is everything on Luna, remember?

  I marched ahead of Long Meng as if I were leading an army. In the light lunar gravity, I didn’t need my cane, so I used its heavy silver head to whack the walls. Hitting something felt good. I worked up a head of steam so hot I could have sterilized those corridors. If I had to come home—home, what a word for a place like Luna!—I’d do it on my own terms.

  The client team had arranged to meet us in a dinky little media suite overlooking the hockey arena in Sklad. A game had just finished, and we had to force our way against the departing crowd. My cane came in handy. I brandished it like a weapon, signaling my intent to break the jaw of anyone who got too close.

  In the media suite, ten hab reps clustered around the project principal. Overhead circled a battery of old, out-of-date cameras that buzzed and fluttered annoyingly. At the front of the room, two chairs waited for Long Meng and me. Behind us arced a glistening expanse of crystal window framing the rink, where grooming bots were busy scraping blood off the ice. Over the arena loomed the famous profile of Mons Hadley, huge, cold, stark, its bleak face the same mid-tone grey as my suit.

  Don’t smile, I reminded Long Meng as she stood to begin the presentation.

&n
bsp; The audience didn’t deserve the verve and panache Long Meng put into presenting our project phases, alternative scenarios, and volume ramping. Meanwhile, I scanned the reps’ faces, counting flickers in their attention and recording them on a leaderboard. We had forty minutes in total, but less than twenty to make an impression before the reps’ decisions locked in.

  Twelve minutes in, Long Meng was introducing the strategies for professional development, governance, and ethics oversight. Half the reps were still staring at her face as if they’d never seen a congenital hyperformation before. The other half were bored but still making an effort to pay attention. But not for much longer.

  “Based on the average trajectories of other start-up crèche programs,” Long Meng said, gesturing at the swirling graphics that hung in the air, “Luna should run at full capacity within six social generations, or thirty standard years.”

  I’m cutting in, I whispered. I whacked the head of my cane on the floor and stood, stability belt on maximum and belligerence oozing from my every pore.

  “You won’t get anywhere near that far,” I growled. “You’ll never get past the starting gate.”

  “That’s a provocative statement,” said the principal. She was in her sixties, short and tough, with ropey veins webbing her bony forearms. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  I paced in front of their table, like a barrister in one of Bruce’s old courtroom dramas. I made eye contact with each of the reps in turn, then leaned over the table to address the project principal directly.

  “Crèche programs are part of a hab’s social fabric. They don’t exist in isolation. But Luna doesn’t want kids around. You barely tolerate young adults. You want to stop the brain drain but you won’t give up anything for crèches—not hab space, not billable hours, and especially not your prejudices. If you want a healthy crèche system, Luna will have to make some changes.”

  I gave the principal an evil grin, adding, “I don’t think you can.”

  “I do,” Long Meng interjected. “I think you can change.”

  “You don’t know Luna like I do,” I told her.

  I fired our financial proposal at the reps. “Ricochet will design your new system. You’ll find the trade terms extremely reasonable. When the design is complete, we’ll provide on-the-ground teams to execute the project phases. Those terms are slightly less reasonable. Finally, we’ll give you a project executive headed by Long Meng.” I smiled. “Her billable rate isn’t reasonable at all, but she’s worth every credit.”

  “And you?” asked the principal.

  “That’s the best part.” I slapped the cane in my palm. “I’m the gatekeeper. To go anywhere, you have to get past me.”

  The principal sat back abruptly, jaw clenched, chin raised. My belligerence had finally made an impact. The reps were on the edges of their seats. I had them both repelled and fascinated. They weren’t sure whether to start screaming or elect me to Luna’s board of governors.

  “How long have I got to live, Long Meng? Fifteen years? Twenty?”

  “Something like that,” she said.

  “Let’s say fifteen. I’m old. I’m highly experienced. You can’t afford me. But if you award Ricochet this contract, I’ll move back to Luna. I’ll control the gating progress, judging the success of every single milestone. If I decide Luna hasn’t measured up, the work will have to be repeated.”

  I paced to the window. Mons Hadley didn’t seem grey anymore. It was actually a deep, delicate lilac. Framed by the endless black sky, its form was impossibly complex, every fold of its geography picked out by the sun.

  I kept my back to the reps.

  “If you’re wondering why I’d come back after all the years,” I said, “let me be very clear. I will die before I let Luna fool around with some half-assed crèche experiment, mess up a bunch of kids, and ruin everything.” I turned and pointed my cane. “If you’re going to do this, at least do it right.”

  BACK HOME ON Ricochet, the Jewel Box was off-hab on a two-day Earth tour. They came home with stories of surging wildlife spectacles that made herds and flocks of Ricochet’s biodiversity preserve look like a petting zoo. When the boost came, we all gathered in the rumpus room for the very last time.

  Bruce, Blanche, Engku, Megat, and Mykelti clustered on the floor mats, anchoring themselves comfortably for the boost. They’d be fine. Soon they’d have armfuls of newborns to ease the pain of transition. The Jewel Box were all hanging from the ceiling netting, ready for their last ride of childhood. They’d be fine too. Diamante had decided on Mars, and it looked like the other five would follow.

  Me, I’d be fine too. I’d have to be.

  How to explain the pain and pride when your crèche is balanced on the knife’s edge of adulthood, ready to leave you behind forever? Not possible. Just know this: when you see an oldster looking serene and wise, remember, it’s just a sham. Under the skin, it’s all sorrow.

  I was relieved when the boost started. Everyone was too distracted to notice I’d begun tearing up. When the hab turned upside down, I let myself shed a few tears for the passing moment. Nothing too self-indulgent. Just a little whuffle, then I wiped it all away and joined the celebration, laughing and applauding the kids’ antics as they bounced around the room.

  We got it, Long Meng whispered in the middle of the boost. Luna just shot me the contract. We won.

  She told me all the details. I pretended to pay attention, but really, I was only interested in watching the kids. Drinking in their antics, their playfulness, their joyful self-importance. Young adults have a shine about them. They glow with untapped potential.

  When the boost was over, we all unclipped our anchors. I couldn’t quite extricate myself from my deeply padded chair and my cane was out of reach.

  Tré leapt to help me up. When I was on my feet, he pulled me into a hug.

  “Are you going back to Luna?” he said in my ear.

  I held him at arm’s length. “That’s right. Someone has to take care of Long Meng.”

  “Who’ll take care of you?”

  I laughed. “I don’t need taking care of.”

  He gripped both my hands in his. “That’s not true. Everyone does.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I squeezed his fingers and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. I changed the subject. “Mars seems like a great choice for you all.”

  “I’m not going to Mars. I’m going to Luna.”

  I stepped back. My knees buckled, but the stability belt kept me from going down.

  “No, Tré. You can’t.”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it. I’m going.”

  “Absolutely not. You have no business on Luna. It’s a terrible place.”

  He crossed his arms over his broadening chest and swung his head like a fighter looking for an opening. He squinted at the old toys and sports equipment secured into rumpus room cabinets, the peeling murals the kids had painted over the years, the battered bots and well-used, colorful furniture—all the ephemera and detritus of childhood that had been our world for nearly eighteen years.

  “Then I’m not leaving the crèche. You’ll have to stay here with me, in some kind of weird stalemate. Long Meng will be alone.”

  I scowled. It was nothing less than blackmail. I wasn’t used to being forced into a corner, and certainly not by my own kid.

  “We’re going to Luna together.” A grin flickered across Tré’s face. “Might as well give in.”

  I patted his arm, then took his elbow. Tré picked up my cane and put it in my hand.

  “I’ve done a terrible job raising you,” I said.

  NOTHING EVER HAPPENS ON OBERON

  PAUL MCAULEY

  OBERON’S TRAFFIC CONTROL spotted the intruder in the last seconds of its approach. Something small and fast, decelerating hard, estimated terminal velocity around three hundred kph. No time to raise its crew, if it was crewed, or pinpoint exactly where it would come down—the best-guess landing ellipse covered an area of s
ome two thousand square kilometres on the north side of Egeus Crater, one of the largest on the little pockmarked moon. There was no distress call or beacon, either, but Bai Bahar Minnot, supervisor of a scale-mining operation in Egeus, was aloft in her hopper bare minutes after the alert and soon spotted patches smashed into the endless umbrella-tree forest that covered most of the crater’s floor. A dotted line that led her straight to where the intruder had ended up.

  It sat at the far end of a trough of wrecked trees: a white sphere three metres in diameter, cupped on the deflated puddles of tough airbags that had protected it during its kinetic landing. A lifepod, according to the hopper’s catalogue, an old model built some time before the Quiet War. It had thrown out a web of tethers to anchor itself in Oberon’s vestigial gravity, its systems were powered down, and its hatch was puckered open.

  It looked as if the pod’s passenger had survived the crash and climbed out, but there was no sign of any movement around the pod, no one was calling on any channel, and a multispectral scan of the area failed to pick out anything in the infrared background radiated by umbrella trees around the crash site. Bai sent a quick report to traffic control, said that she was going to set down and take a look. Trying her best to sound cool and matter-of-fact, even though this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in her young life. She was anxious too. The pod’s passenger could be badly injured, might need more help than she could provide. Or maybe they were an outlaw, or were in some species of serious trouble—why else would someone crash-land on this no-account backwater moon without broadcasting a distress call?

  She picked out a clear spot in the tangle of broken trees, touched down with scarcely a bounce, and was reaching for the helmet of her pressure suit when someone pinged her on the common channel. Lindy Aguilar Garten, from the camp at the North Pole. She’d heard Bai’s report, she said, was on her way to the crash site with a small search and rescue party, would be there inside two hours.