Nara

by M. L. Buchman

  “Good morning, Miss Ri.”

  She yelped and jerked around in the chair.

  “So sorry, I did not mean to scare you. You are off.” Rajesh yawned widely before pressing his palm on the command plate and speaking in the sing-song tones that had survived on the Indian subcontinent despite the transition to Anglese. “Rajesh Menala now accepts command of Stellar One at 4:59 a.m. of whatever day this is.”

  “It’s January 11th, Rajesh. Eleven days Ad Astra.”

  “Thank you so very much. Like I care.”

  Ri checked that she’d cleared the buffers and the log of what she’d been doing, hoping no one would check the backup layers that couldn’t be purged.

  “Thanks, Rajesh.”

  He smiled and then slumped into the chair she’d just vacated.

  “Don’t fall asleep. Olias will be here in an hour or so.”

  “Right.” He yawned and waved her toward the door.

  # # #

  When Ri arrived at the bar, there were two women slouched at a back table with empty beers in front of them. The dark-haired woman was barely coherent enough to tell her that Bryce had just left. The other was asleep before Ri had finished extracting the information.

  She went to his storeroom, but it was sealed and coded shut. There was no answer to her knock. Ri could feel, by the prickling between her shoulders, the baleful stare of the conscious drunk. She tried thumbing in, but it stayed red. She considered only a moment before trying double-thumbing. Red again. That should open any door on the ship. But not this one. How had Bryce done that?

  What was so damned important about an unregistered bartender in R4 anyway? She shook her head. It was stupid that she’d wasted this much time on him as it was. She should have simply hauled him in, gotten him registered, and gone about her life. Or she could just ignore him and let him go about his life.

  Halfway back to the lift she knew she couldn’t do that. Where had he been going two nights ago in L0 when she plowed into him? And why hadn’t he shown up entering the restricted corridor? She trotted to the nearest maintenance hatch and thumbed down into L0. The long corridor was empty and silent in both directions.

  When she’d run into him, he hadn’t seen her coming. She’d been running spinward, so he too must have been facing spinward.

  She kicked directly into a hard run, keeping her footsteps as light as she could on the rubberized plates. Her knee hadn’t healed in a mere twenty-four hours, but she pushed through the pain.

  Maybe he slept down here in the maintenance corridor at night. That was patently ridiculous. It was hard to image a less hospitable locale.

  She’d sprinted fully three-quarters of the ring to spinward at her top pace. The pain in her side would have been intolerable if the pain in her knee wasn’t worse. She must have missed him. Her calves were screaming from the sustained sprint, but, on the verge of easing off, a yellow light splashed on the gray plates up ahead. It was so momentary she almost missed it. She stopped and then moved forward slowly to where she thought she’d seen it.

  No one was there. It had to be one of two hatches overhead that had shone the light down. Both showed red lockout lights. She was hardly surprised when the one in the middle of the corridor didn’t respond to her thumb print. He’d tinkered with this one as well. She thumbed up through the one along the side without a problem.

  It was only as she forced her aching legs to carry her up the ladder that she realized where the altered hatch led. She staggered out into the corridor outside the Arctic biome. She backtracked the hundred meters to the nearest airlock, but it was several minutes before she could bring herself to thumb in.

  Her lockdown was still in place and the stupid computer still insisted she was the last one here, less than three weeks before. She dragged a heavy parka from the rack as the inner lock cycled open and the frigid air washed over her.

  She stepped in and it seemed little different from the last time she’d been there. The small, dark ocean ran for a hundred meters to her right. She must have left the wave generator running as small ice floes rocked gently on the ocean’s surface. She could swear she’d shut it down from command. A false quarter moon lit the dark of the winter morning in the far north.

  Ri turned away before she could focus on the outcropping where she’d found Carla’s body. Naked and frozen as solid as the ice around her with her iced-white hair showered over the rock face. She seemed to still be there, but it was simply a coating of the spring hoarfrost.

  The cobble beach was heavily ice-encrusted. The cold struck through her thin ship shoes. She hadn’t taken boots, but if she cycled the inner lock to get them, she might not have the heart to reenter. Her rage had carried her this far, but it was being frozen away, shed like layers of calving glacier and she doubted if it could carry her in again.

  After climbing up from the rocky shore, Ri could see the tundra spread out before her. There were no grasslands anymore. The bacteria had survived long enough to consume the detritus, but they were probably gone now too, starved rather than frozen.

  Large boulders, looking exactly as if they were glacially dropped, were scattered about the field. Green and purple lichens covered many of them. Other than a few phytoplankton, they were the only life form left in the biome. She wandered through the stones and drifted to a stop in the middle of an open ring of stones. A different-colored lichen had spread over each one. Giant, misshapen marbles of yellow, red, purple, and half-a-dozen other shades stood around her.

  A deep breath hurt her throat with the cold, but it was clean; not reprocessed and rebreathed by ten thousand others. It was clean in a way that neither the maintenance levels nor any of the functional biomes could emulate. She took another breath deep into her lungs and felt a layer of the brittle armor cracking off her chest and ribs and falling away.

  Ri closed her eyes and—

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  She yelped and bolted to the side of the stone ring opposite the voice before turning. A heavily muffled man stood there, his hood pulled up and a large piece of wood in his over-sized hands; perhaps some of the beach’s planned flotsam. She knew those hands.

  “Bryce? Shit, you scared me.” He didn’t move and Ri began to shrink from the menace of his hidden gaze.

  He finally tossed the branch aside. It landed on the frozen soil with a dull thud.

  “Biologics Liaison Ri Jeffers. Or should I say, Security Officer Jeffers? How the hell did you get in here?”

  She kept a hand on the nearest boulder, feeling the scratchy lichen which covered its surface, a thin insulation against the stone beneath.

  “How did I get in? This biome is part of my job. What are you doing here? And what did you do to those hatches? And who the hell are you anyway?”

  He looked at her across the space. When he took a step forward, she moved back. He was taller and had a much longer reach than hers. But that hadn’t caused her trouble in the past. She was fast and she was good, Nara and Levan had seen to that. But he was the unknown. And she didn’t want to fight.

  He stopped.

  Her pulse was loud in her ears. She wrapped the coat more tightly around her wishing she’d grabbed boots and leggings as she was starting to lose any feeling below her knees where the parka ended.

  “I’m the bartender. This can’t be your normal rounds at 5:30 in the morning.” He jammed his hands down into his pockets.

  She couldn’t see his face. The moon wasn’t bright enough and the sun wouldn’t rise except briefly at noon.

  “You need to answer to me. Your business isn’t registered and there’s no one named Bryce on the rosters. I repeat, who the hell are you?”

  A silence stretched between them. One so thick she could almost touch it. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. Finally the shoulders of his coat slumped downward.


  “C’mon.” He partially turned and nodded over his shoulder. “I have a place out of the cold.”

  He waited until she began to move, then he turned his back on her and headed off toward the far west end of the biome. He weaved as if dizzy when he picked up the length of wood, a table leg she could now see, and rested it on his shoulder just like some caveman with his club.

  Bryce must have rigged a perimeter alarm to have caught her entrance near the east end. Why she hadn’t thought to come armed was beyond her. She’d walked right past the weapons stowed behind the security panel inside the biome airlock.

  She hadn’t thought to because Stellar One was not Nara. The ancient Ninja fighters she’d sought to emulate would laugh their heads off if this modern-day Neanderthal split her skull wide open with his length of table leg.

  He halted at the biome lab built into the back corner. She stopped well behind him.

  “Be it ever so humble.” He turned to her, but his face was still shrouded by the fur brim of the hood. “Will you come in?”

  If she didn’t get somewhere soon, she’d freeze to death. The cold was sliding upward beneath the parka. Even though it was long on her, she was chilled clear through. A voice was yelling at her to run, but he was beside her in three easy steps before she could react. She hadn’t slept in a couple days. Nor eaten enough.

  “Christ, you’re shaking so hard. Why didn’t you pull on a full suit?” He tossed his weapon against the lab wall where it thudded loudly before dropping onto the rocks.

  She jumped and fought the tears pushing against her eyes.

  His large hands guided her through the thermal seal and into the lab. He set her into a deep chair in front of a viewer resting on the floor. He quickly tapped a few keys on a commpad and nothing happened. He blinked hard and pressed the sequence slowly and methodically. He was drunk, or well on the way. On the third try a fire crackled into being on a viewer he’d propped up on the floor. The flame image was so perfect she could almost smell the smoke.

  He stripped off his coat and hung it up. “You’ll be warmer if you take off yours. I’ll turn up the blowers for you.”

  Ri shook her head. She watched the flames flash on the screen before her. A log settled in the back of the fire and a cloud of sparks rose and disappeared when they reached the top of the viewer.

  He handed her a large mug with his bar’s logo on it. She watched him sink into the chair beside her and stretch his legs past the side of the viewer until it was hard not to imagine his feet being on fire.

  He raised his mug. “Hot chocolate. Try it. I won’t poison you.”

  She took a sip and could feel the warmth scorch a pathway to her frozen interior and settle in her stomach. Another sip and the heat began to radiate outward in pleasant waves. When she finally felt able to speak, she faced Bryce. His dark eyes watched her over the rim of his mug.

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  He nodded several times. “I guess it was too good to last. Bryce Randall Stevens, Jr. at your service.”

  Ri choked on her next swallow. “You’re not related to—”

  “Bryce Randall Stevens Sr. The president of the World Economic Council. Prime Minister of the Earth. Right Hand of God. Chief Bastard of the Universe. He’s my mother’s father.”

  “But how…” Ri set her cocoa down before her shaking hands could splash it all over. He was grandson of the man who had triggered the Crash and Smash that had ruined Japan, killing over a three hundred million and condemned her cadre to their fate.

  “But how did I end up here?”

  All she could do was nod.

  He slid down in his chair and sipped at his mug. He licked at the foam on his lip and she realized he was drinking beer not cocoa.

  “I followed one of my mother’s dreams into space. She was the best. I got sick… Drunk, if you must know. I was mechanic on one of the Earth-to-orbit shuttles. Had a trainee aboard who thought she was ready.” He closed his eyes. “She wasn’t. And I woke up just in time to watch the Earth die with them broken down on the surface.”

  Ri huddled in her coat until the shivers subsided. It was ridiculous but the fake flames did make her feel warmer.

  “You satisfied? Christ, I’m tired of it all. Sick of the running. Just lock me up and get it over with.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or someone in his memories. She peeled off her coat and draped it over her shoulders.

  The chocolate was still warm when she finished the dregs. Bryce stayed morosely silent, transfixed by the fire’s flickering light.

  She rose and went in search of a refill. The lab was neat and well-kept. A bed had been jury-rigged in the corner, probably one of the old surgery tables for emergency veterinary work. It didn’t look much used. There was no clock nearby, no terminal to read from, not a single viewer easily visible to a sleeper there.

  He’d come aboard with nothing and acquired nothing. No photos, probably not even any clothes beyond a standard shipsuit. He was only supposed to be on station for a single night’s rest. Shuttle jock in transit.

  The lab sink and specimen coolers had been arranged into a small kitchen. A row of mugs bearing his bar’s logo were the only ornamentation in the room. She dialed for more cocoa, filling a fresh mug for each of them and returned to the chairs.

  Bryce was asleep. She set the mug on the lab stool that served as a table by his chair. He clearly wasn’t used to guests, so it took her a moment to figure out why there were two chairs. Hers was normally for his feet. She doused the lights and opaqued the windows to the chill and stark biome. Only the artificial fire now lit the room with its dancing light.

  She leaned back against her coat and watched the flames for a long time.

  # # #

  Bai, bai, bai, bai,

  Báyu, Detusku mayú!

  Bai, bai, bai, bai,

  Báyu, Detusku mayú!

  Shta na gor—

  The buzzer interrupted Robbie’s song. She continued humming as she wound a branch of her Cécile Brünner rose around the rung of the lattice frame it had been reaching for over many days. It slipped away. Not quite there but soon.

  She answered the door. Jaron was there. But he never came to her quarters. He’d made it clear through his actions that he wanted nothing to do with her socially. She took small comfort that he apparently didn’t want any other woman either.

  He wavered at her doorway but didn’t speak or come in. He looked her up and down and she became suddenly aware of her flowing silk caftan. The fine white sheer was more for comfort than privacy. He’d probably never seen her except in work clothes.

  “What?” She was getting a little irked with the man.

  He opened and closed his mouth but nothing came out. That’s when she noticed how white he was. She took his arm and escorted him to a chair. He dropped into the wicker like a rag doll as the door slid closed and shut them in.

  “What is it, Jaron?” she made her voice softer.

  “Did I hear singing?” his voice was weak and wandering.

  “Yes, it is an old Russian lullaby I learned from my grandmother.”

  “Will you sing it to me?”

  She opened her mouth to refuse, but stopped. He looked as lost and desperate as that night he had wept in her arms high in the trees of the Orinoco valley. It was one of her treasured memories and some maternal instinct made her want to care for him this time as well.

  “It is actually a song to an orchid. But I sing it to my rose and it doesn’t seem to mind.” She waved a hand toward the climbing rose that now filled one entire wall of her apartment with clusters of small pink blossoms.

  She tried folding her hands before her, but that felt stupid. She moved to the wall of rose blossoms and then back until she stood before Jaron. She pulled over a chair and sat knee to knee with him. She took
his hands and held them gently as she began to sing.

  Bai, bai, bai, bai.

  Bayu, orchid, little dear.

  Bai, bai, bai, bai.

  Bayu, orchid, little dear.

  On the hillside in the spring,

  Birds of heaven sweetly sing,

  Seeking for their young what’s best

  In the forest dark they nest.

  Bai, bai, bai, bai.

  Bayu, Detusku, mayú.

  Bai, bai, bai, bai.

  Bayu, Detusku, mayú.

  Jaron looked at her. His soft eyes and gentle hands made her heart ache as they had years before during that first summer spent together in the jungle.

  “We’re in terrible trouble, Robbie.”

  # # #

  Bryce stretched until his neck popped. Well, yet another night he hadn’t made it to bed.

  He glanced at a readout. Two o’clock in the afternoon. Hours before his first customer would show up, but he hadn’t checked the vats in a while. There should be a batch ready for a decanting and the follow-up cleaning and prep for the next. Maybe he’d try something new. Perhaps he could get a couple bushels of apples traded over from Ring 2’s Forest biome.

  As he rose to his feet, he heard a small sound beside him. He barely suppressed a shout. It took him a moment to recognize the woman curled up there, only her midnight black hair showing above the collar of her coat.

  Security Chief Ri Jeffers. Shit. Last night. Shit and damn. He’d told her far too much. Why did it have to end, now after he’d finally dug his comfortable little niche?

  Too much beer and finding someone inside his biome. That was it. Maybe he hadn’t told her anything and only dreamed that he had.

  Bullshit, Bryce. Yup. That was his specialty, but it wasn’t going to get him out of this one. He reached for the mugs and was surprised to find a full one next to his empty. She’d gotten another for him. Cocoa.

  And she was here. Asleep.

  He hadn’t woken up to a room crowded with security guards, but rather a tiny slip of a woman asleep in his chair. A small woman who could flip a couple of battle-ready plas workers into a bulkhead wall.