Nara

by M. L. Buchman

  She glanced at the corridor and looked at it with fresh eyes. They had existed for six months in a narrow spacecraft and now stood in the red hallway of L1 command sector.

  “Welcome aboard.” Olias’ voice grated forth at last.

  “Thanks, little brother.” The Captain’s smile didn’t return, though a wry grin did struggle to reach out.

  Ri could feel her jaw drop, unable to do anything about it. When the Captain spotted her, he did smile.

  Olias chopped it off with a grunt.

  “I’ll go and see to your accommodations.” He turned and stalked off with none of the normal roll in his gait. She was about to remind him that she’d already taken care of all that, but thought better of it.

  “Long story.” Captain Jackson Turner rubbed his face as if wiping off the day.

  With Olias’ departure, the others relaxed their postures and Ri could pick them out even as Captain Jackson introduced them.

  Hank Christianson and Sicily Jacobs, the attractive older couple, were the scientists of the team. Jill Emers, pilot, Jane Keller, mechanic. Wright, astrogation, and Rolovsky was the cook.

  Ri recovered. “Officer Ri Jeffers, I’d like to repeat, welcome aboard. The Captain will bring you her own greetings as soon as she is free.” Ri thought it better not to mention that she was busy deciding whether or not to execute Jaron MacAndrews. She blinked hard to remove that thought and focus back on the task at hand.

  “Well troops, we’re here, let’s see what there is to see.”

  They were clustered together like herded sheep.

  “Looks bigger from the outside.” Even Donnie’s voice was just a whisper, a state that didn’t sound natural on her.

  Ri nodded. “We have other spaces. Come on, I’ll show you one of them.”

  She led them to spinward from the vator, their black shipsuits were well worn. Only the Captain looked sharp, he’d clearly kept a suit back from normal wear for their arrival. After a few hundred meters, the corridor jogged sharply to the side. She led them around the corner and stopped before an airlock set into the inside bulkhead.

  “What do you miss the most?” She didn’t have to say what she was talking about, these folks could feel in their bodies what they had lost.

  “The sun.”

  “A tree. Even a small one. I’d like to lie under a tree.”

  Wright poked Donnie in the shoulder, “If we don’t get this one in some swimming water soon, we’ll have to space her just to get some peace and quiet.”

  Donnie slapped aside his hand. “Captain wants a cold beer.”

  “I’d like to get some fresh herbs, we launched so fast that I didn’t get to bring any along.” The cook was looking down at his hands, the big man spoke softly.

  Finally the tall Captain chimed in.

  “What? You’re grinnin’ like some sorta banshee.”

  Ri thumbed the lock.

  They all squeezed into the inner lock. The cramped space was rich with their smells. Then the inner door cycled open and they tumbled out only to freeze in their tracks.

  This was one of Ri’s favorite entrances of all the biomes, partly because so few people used it. The other reason was that from here, the biome’s treasures were hidden at first. Even the far wall, just a hundred meters away, was hard to discern. A clump of well-place cypress trees blocked a view of the opposite hatch.

  A few of the crew stumbled forward. Wright and Keller actually fell to their knees.

  A cascade of water shot out of the biome wall, though it looked like the top of a water-carved rock edifice. It splashed its way down over rocks and through pools until it found a cattail marsh. A few narrow outlets allowed a small stream of water to trickle into the vast pools before them. Rich, dark soil edged pools which wandered among mounds of grass. Some of the islets had small trees growing from their crowns. The tree density thickened off to the right.

  As long as you didn’t look directly behind you at the airlock, the illusion was perfect. The climatic zones were a little unlikely in their close transitions, and that they didn’t reach off into the distance, but the designers had blended the edges so well that it looked, and more importantly acted, natural.

  A heron, its legs red due to mating season, was stalking through the cattails, lifting one careful leg and pausing before making the next step as it searched for its next meal. Jill Emers could only point as it continued its hunt oblivious of the watching humans. The fact that half a dozen more were perched in the far trees seemed of little consequence.

  Captain Turner turned to face her. “How did you do such a thing? You don’t know how we’ve mourned Earth, we even talked about not returning. Maybe set up a cryo-freeze and just blast for the stars. We never dreamed…” He waved a hand about him.

  “Wish I could take credit. C’mon, let’s go.”

  The crew jerked out of their reverie. “Do we have to? Can we come back?”

  “As members of the crew you are welcome to come here anytime for as long as you wish. But there are some other things you should see.”

  They turned reluctantly toward the lock, but she shook her head and pointed down a path that skirted the marsh and plunged into the verge of trees.

  Hank Christianson was discussing the engineering considerations that must have been involved in building the biome wall to their right. It was sculpted and planted to look like a natural canyon reaching up toward the sparkling blue sky. No one seemed to be paying him any attention.

  His partner Sicily tugged him along whenever he began to slip into a state that could only be scientific trance.

  The first squeak of surprise sounded from ahead as Ri trailed them through the lush palm grove. A shout sounded and soon those behind were shoving forward to see what all of the noise was about.

  Then with a roar, they all rushed forward down the beach into the ocean. Some stripped off clothes, scattering shipsuits and shoes on the hot sands. Others like Donnie plunged straight ahead at a dead run and plowed into the waves fully clothed.

  Ri sat at the base of a palm and leaned her head back against the smooth bark. The crew splashed and body-surfed and dunked one another and started water fights all mixed richly with roars of laughter.

  The ocean biome spread all but twenty meters of the width of the ring. Over three hundred meters long, it held over two hundred megaliters of salt water. The central island had a diving platform as well as the wave generator and detritus skimmers. The skimmers cleaned the water and desalinated a portion to be returned through the marsh. The leftover salt was slowly mixed back into the ocean to keep everything in balance. A thousand different species still flourished in this biome despite Yerke’s losses.

  The porpoises showed up and joined in the fun. The mammals didn’t breed, there wasn’t enough space for a breeding population and somehow they knew it. But despite that lack, they enjoyed themselves immensely, often at the cost of any nearby Homo sapiens. They quickly introduced the Icarus’ crew to their favorite game of dunk and rescue, much to the crew’s sputtering astonishment. One of them, Jane perhaps, started swimming across to the island.

  A hand rested on her shoulder. Ri would have jumped to her feet when she recognized Captain Conrad had not the pressure restrained her. The Captain settled to squat on the hot sand as she gazed out at the crew.

  “How do you think they’ll fit in?”

  “They’re space corps.”

  “Been alone for a long time out there. Not the home they expected to come back to.”

  “But they’re corps.” Ri searched for better words, but the command crew, all spacers except herself, were a team. They no more belonged on the ground than a street urchin like herself belonged in the sky.

  “Let us hope that is as true and powerful a calling as you believe it to be.”

  Captain Jackson Turner spotted them and headed out of the
water to where he’d shed his shipsuit.

  “I pardoned Jaron MacAndrews.”

  “I’m glad.” Ri took a deep breath, the first one today. “He’s a good man. You did the right thing.”

  The Captain glanced at her and narrowed her eyes. “I’ll agree to the first. As to the latter, I wish I could be more sure.”

  Captain Turner strode up the beach, a pair of briefs the only thing covering his body. The broad shoulders and well-formed chest showed that he shared a spacer’s occupation with working out. He tossed his dry shipsuit on the sand and lay back on his elbows before greeting the Captain.

  Ri had to struggle to keep her eyes on his face.

  She expected Captain Conrad to call him to attention instead of smiling at him. Smiling!

  “Captain.”

  “Captain.” Turner’s trademark broad grin split into a wide, wide smile.

  “Welcome aboard, Captain.”

  “Glad to be here, Captain.”

  If Captain Conrad laughed aloud, Ri would decide that the world had indeed ended and the typhoon had left Japan untouched once again.

  “How do you like our little ocean?”

  He glanced over to his crew. Several were now spread-eagled on the hot sands soaking up the artificial solar rays.

  “Does nicely.”

  Devra sobered. “Yes, but it isn’t Earth.”

  Captain Turner had the decency to not agree. The limitless sea, no matter how good the illusion, should not have curved upward to meet the sky with the ring’s curve. She rarely noticed it after her months aboard, but it had thrown her badly at first.

  “How are you doing, Jackie?”

  “Pretty good, Devra. That crew is the best. Real tight.”

  “You always brought out the best, even in me.” Devra Conrad settled beside Ri. “No matter how much I resisted.”

  “You always were stubborn. Your Captain,” Turner aimed a finger like a gun at Devra while meeting Ri’s eyes with his wide hazel gaze, “was a recalcitrant, pesky, party-wrecking, stiff-neck of the finest order. Never mess with her.”

  Ri couldn’t help return his smile.

  “I learned that one all on my own.”

  He switched the aim of his finger and his gaze. Confronting Devra, while his finger aimed at Ri’s midriff.

  “She’s a smart one.”

  Captain Conrad nodded. “Best watch out, Jackie. She’s quiet, but one of our best assets.”

  Ri hung her head as her cheeks burned.

  “Our?”

  “Yes, ours, Jackie.”

  “Nu-uh. Yours, Devra, but not mine. I figure we’d stock up, do a little R-and-R here on this old beach of yours, then go out and see who else we can gather up.”

  Captain Conrad fell silent. Ri could see her out of the corner of her eye, struggling for the words. At least she could save her Captain that pain.

  “We’re the last, Captain Turner. Captain Conrad thought it best to not inform you enroute.”

  “But…” His face went white, even for a spacer. “What about…”

  Ri shook her head. “We caught a message from the back of the moon, they’d bounced a signal off Mars using one of the big scopes at Farside Observatory in Mare Orientale. Thirty-seven people, no more supplies, that was over a month ago. Mars was wiped clean. Io base had a coolant failure. We sent repair instructions but never heard from them again. No Earth orbit craft survived other than ourselves and four unmanned satellites. I’m sorry, Captain Turner, but with your arrival, the full complement of humanity is now made up of those aboard Stellar One.”

  He’d closed his eyes before she finished talking. The silence echoing among the three of them drowned out all other sounds of the sea and the Icarus’ crew.

  “She doesn’t pull her punches, does she?”

  “Officer Jeffers is forthright and informative when she chooses to speak.”

  There was a dry tone that caused Ri to glance at her Captain. She received a nod of thanks for being the one to deliver the bad news.

  He blew out a puff of breath. “No wonder you vatored my ship into lockdown. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.”

  Captain Conrad waved at the ship about them. “There’s plenty to do here, Jackie. I’m sure Olias would be willing to step aside and allow you to be my second in command.”

  That jerked the complacent Captain Turner upright on the sand.

  “No, don’t do that. It wouldn’t…be a good choice. Just leave well enough alone and we’ll get settled in a bit.”

  Ri now wished she’d thought to look up Olias and Turner’s history. Why had Olias not mentioned that one of the few survivors of the catastrophe was his own kin? How could he deny such a connection? Ri had lost everyone she’d ever cared about, mostly by her own fault. Maybe completely. Had she breached her shame at killing her Cadre Leader and abandoning her closest friend to the unspeakable death of the Zenbu, and managed to speak with the Angel Lady, would Suz Jeffers have stayed aboard rather than dying on Earth? Another question she could never answer no matter how it plagued her dark nights.

  Captain Conrad was about to protest, but caught the small shake of Ri’s head. It was safer to warn her Captain off the subject until she could be better informed.

  “Tell you what, Jackie. You get settled. We’ll have a dinner in the next few days, crack open a nice bottle of wine, and lie about old times.”

  Jackson Turner looked relieved at being let off the hook.

  Ri knew better and watched Captain Conrad carefully. She barely glanced at Ri, but she knew her Captain would be expecting answers and in very short order.

  As the Captain departed through the beach airlock in the sandstone cliffs, Turner turned his gaze upon his crew to watch them frolic in the last living sea.

  # # #

  Bryce waited by the entrance to the jungle. Over his arm was slung a canvas bag holding two mugs and several liters of his latest brew. Jaron looked exhausted when he finally arrived from the axial drop.

  “I heard they let you off for good behavior.”

  Jaron jerked like he’d been hit with a blow dart and then glared at him, but Bryce really didn’t care. He was simply glad to see the man back. And Samnal certainly wouldn’t be missed by anyone.

  He glanced at the clock above the airlock. “Don’t you have to tend bar now?”

  Bryce shook his head. “Hired some help while you were on R-and-R. Things change, even when you aren’t there to oversee them.”

  Jaron’s glare grew darker and more intense. Bryce couldn’t help smiling.

  “And I’m working day shift out at the Desert Pub in R2 for a few days to help out a fellow bartender. You offered to show me a jungle sunset once, ages ago. I thought I might take you up on it.”

  At that, the man straightened up and squared his shoulders. His attitude changed like a switch had been thrown. He moved to clap Bryce on the shoulder, but stopped before he actually made contact. His eyes drifted aside rather than focusing on Bryce’s face though his tone lightened.

  “So I did. They’re beautiful, you know. The parrots. The sunlight catches the color of their wings and looks prismed across the entire spectrum.”

  Bryce had asked exactly the right question.

  Jaron thumbed open the lock and he followed through. He glanced at the inner panel and saw that he’d have to make sure to leave with someone, no way to open these doors without leaving your thumbprint behind.

  Jaron grabbed a commpad and reached for a machete. He flinched as if he’d been slapped, and stepped away from the rack without taking one.

  “Do we need one? I can carry it.” Despite speaking quietly, Jaron still twitched at the sound of his voice.

  He shook his head and descended the ramp quickly.

  Bryce took one more look at the hanging weapons before following him towa
rd the dense jungle. Even before the visual magnificence could register, Bryce’s nostrils were assaulted by the smell. It smelled like the outdoors. The air tasted of new leaves and dark mysteries. It was impossible but—Bryce closed his eyes to concentrate…it smelled alive. Something absent in the corridors of the ship.

  He opened his eyes, but couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The Desert Pub overlooked a sparse biome and he’d never been in any of the others. He looked back toward the ramp and lock to make sure they were still aboard ship. The airlock stood in place, immovable and mechanical, surrounded by a scene of waving greenery. Vines and smaller trees were planted in terraces that angled out and upward around the door.

  It was counterintuitive when compared to the construction of the rings, getting larger with each level closer to the center of the ring, but the result was incredible. The jungle swept upward into the distance. Jaron and his team had obviously planted smaller breeds at the higher levels forcing the perspective even farther.

  As Jaron led him beneath the first trees, he could only stare upward at the huge trunks growing so tall. And life. Life such as he’d never seen before, not even in the best zoos. Nowhere in his or the Old Bastard’s memory was there anything like this. Trees were wrapped in vines. Vines were covered in orchids that grew in their curves and twists.

  When he stopped, he could spot frogs and small birds moving throughout the area. A leaf seemed to be walking on its own along a branch. Upon closer inspection, he saw the small worker ant that was struggling with her mighty load toward a nest somewhere against the trunk. The dusk beneath the trees was hiding the colors, softening everything into pastels and shadows. And the moisture. It laved against his skin like a brush of the magical creator of all living things.

  Neither Bryce believed in God the Creator, but this place could go a long way to changing Bryce the Younger’s attitude.

  He glanced up and realized that he’d lost his guide. He trotted down the trail until he caught up with Jaron. As he neared, the man turned aside and pushed several leaves out of the way, each nearly as big as Bryce. They climbed twenty meters or so up what must be the side wall before popping out onto a small terrace.