Equinox

by Christian Cantrell

  “Escape pods,” Luka said. “We know Equinox was originally built with emergency reentry vehicles, right?”

  “We know ERVs were in the original schematics,” Omicron corrected, “but we don’t know if they were ever built. Or if they even function, for that matter. And even if they do, how would we know where he splashed down?”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Cam said. “I’ll find a way to get a message to the Hawk either before reentry, or once I splash down. If it means stopping the Coronians, and potentially finding Haná, it’s worth the risk. Now let’s move on to the second part of the plan.”

  Cadie could tell that Luka wanted to continue before there could be any more objections. “The second part is terraforming,” he said. “You guys have Arik’s research, right?”

  The question was directed at Cadie. “We’ve extracted most of it,” she said.

  “So all we need to do is genetically engineer a bunch of seeds and figure out how to spread them all over the world, right?”

  Hearing Luka discuss her area of expertise—and her husband’s research—so cavalierly and with so much ignorance was unexpectedly infuriating. Not only had he managed to talk the entire group into essentially sacrificing Cam, but he obviously knew nothing about the biology and the mechanics of terraforming. She let her hands drop to the stainless steel surface and her chopsticks leapt from the edge of the soy tin.

  “And how are we supposed to do that when we don’t even have access to seeds or soil?” she asked.

  “We’ll get you some,” Luka said, unperturbed.

  “How?”

  “Charlie and I know plenty of people at Yerba Buena Gardens,” he assured her. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “And do you know which seeds will be genetically compatible with Arik’s research?”

  “Nope,” Luka said, “but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “And will you be able to get us sufficiently toxic and irradiated soil so we can test under realistic conditions?”

  “Nope,” Luka said again. “We can get you dirt, but the rest will be up to you. Any more questions?”

  Cadie noticed for the first time how bloodshot Luka’s eyes were, and she wondered if he’d gotten detergent in them while rinsing down, or if he was having problems with his contacts. It also occurred to her that he very likely felt the same way about her as she felt about him—though perhaps he had not yet located that sliver of admiration that might, in his eyes, make her slightly more tolerable.

  “Actually yes,” Cadie said. “How do you propose we spread seeds all over the planet from a secret underwater laboratory strapped to the side of a deep-sea mining rig?”

  Before Luka could provide her with another insipid, incompetent, and unproductive response, she heard Ayla’s distorted voice arise from the polymeth.

  “Drones,” she said.

  Cadie looked at the flickering image of Omicron to try to gauge his reaction, and she saw him nod in agreement.

  “Perfect,” Luka said, seizing on the girl’s initiative. “Drones.”

  Cadie trusted Omicron’s judgment, but the logistics of using autonomous robots for terraforming struck her as absurd.

  “Where are we going to get hundreds of drones capable of traveling thousands of kilometers,” she asked, “while at the same time dispersing seeds and fertilizing agents—which, by the way, all have to be implanted at a very specific depth and under very specific conditions?”

  “We have about a dozen vehicles on the Hawk,” Ayla said. “That’s a start.”

  “We’ll need to assemble new models,” Omicron said. “Charlie, Cam, and I can hopefully build a working prototype from what we have, then derive an assembly schematic from it.”

  “Just make sure they’re as discrete as possible,” Luka said. “Try to remember I’m the one who has to smuggle all this stuff out of the foundry.”

  “I’ll send out the specs on our fleet,” Omicron said. “Let’s start iterating as soon as possible.”

  Cadie was about to stage additional protest but she stopped herself. She could name dozens of reasons why none of this would work—hundreds of details they were conveniently ignoring—though it occurred to her that the same could almost certainly be said for just about any scientific endeavor of true consequence. She recalled the excitement and optimism with which she and Arik approached the ODSTAR project even though their academic adviser had discouraged them from even attempting it. And how they’d solved artificial photosynthesis only by throwing away almost everything everyone believed they knew about the problem and trying something completely new and unproven. And finally, she recalled the extent to which Arik was ridiculed—even persecuted—for wanting to research terraforming, and how determined he’d been to do what almost everyone else believed to be impossible. Doing great and important things, Cadie realized, was not always about being practical, logical, and realistic. Perhaps there was something to be said for selective myopia; for childlike resolve and willfulness; and perhaps even for the occasional touch of insanity.

  “OK,” Cadie said. She looked around at everyone in the group. “I’m with you,” she told them. “I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to pull all this off, but I’m with you.”

  “We don’t have to know how we’re going to pull it all off,” Luka said. “We just have to know what we’re going to do next.” He maneuvered himself out from behind the table and stood. “Let’s meet again at the same time tomorrow. I have to be on the line in fifteen minutes.”

  “Hold on,” Charlie said. “There’s one more thing.”

  Luka began folding his thermal cloak. “What are we forgetting?”

  “We’re forgetting about the San Francisco.”

  “What about it?”

  “Even if both of these plans work,” Charlie said, “they won’t necessarily change anything here.”

  “So?” Luka said. “I’m done with this place.”

  The girl was clearly accustomed to Luka’s impudent disposition and didn’t appear particularly phased by it. “You may be,” she told him calmly, “but I’m not. This place is my home. And it was your wife’s home, too.”

  Luka dropped the folded cloak onto the brushed steel surface and looked down at Charlie.

  “In case you forgot,” he told her, “Val and I were brought here as child slaves. This place was never a home to either of us.”

  “I know that’s what you’d like to think,” Charlie said, “but it isn’t true. Val loved it here once she found her place. You know she loved working in the Gardens, and you know she loved being married to you.”

  “Maybe she found her place,” Luka said. “But I never found mine.”

  “Then why’d you send that note?” Charlie asked him. “Why’d you shut down the power? If you hate it here so much, why didn’t you just leave? Why’d you even start all this?”

  Luka finished his bulb of water and made a fist to compact it. “Because I was stupid enough to think that I could change it,” he said. He turned and threw the crushed bulb into a refuse bin beneath the counter behind him. “Now I know better.”

  “I don’t think so,” Charlie said. “I think you did it because you know how much potential the San Francisco has under the right leadership. And because whether you like it here or not, it’s the only home you have.”

  “Whatever you think my motivations were,” Luka said, “they’re irrelevant now. We have to think bigger than the San Francisco. I’m already taking way too many chances. I can’t take on trying to fix this place, too.”

  “Maybe you can’t,” Charlie said. “But I think I can.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHEMILUMINESCENCE

  CADIE SELDOM LEFT AQUARIUS. IN accordance with Two Bulls’ warnings, she and Cam usually kept themselves confined to the cramped steel cylinder, experimenting with genetically modified seeds and spores, iterating on drone design, and trying to figure out how to turn a reinforced shipping crate into a one-man spacecraft.
They generally stayed awake as long as progress could be made, and slept when waiting on results, materials, or equipment. Except in the cabin, task lighting constantly burned, and the amount of natural illumination that reached the vessel’s eight viewports was not nearly sufficient to promote any kind of true circadian rhythm.

  The risks of Cadie leaving Aquarius were statistically small, but the repercussions were potentially catastrophic. The problem wasn’t that nobody would recognize her since the population of the San Francisco was high and dynamic enough that one did not expect to recognize every single person one saw; the far bigger problem was the opposite: that the population was simultaneously small enough that she could run into Dr. Abbasi, or someone else who had seen her between the time she was removed from her cryostatic chrysalis, and the time she was escorted down to the waterlock where she was supposed to have been executed.

  Initially Cadie didn’t think that confinement to Aquarius would be a problem given that she and Cam grew up in V1. However, she rapidly became acutely aware of the differences between the two environments. Most of the individual pods that made up V1 were small, but at least there were enough of them—and enough variety, due to their specialized nature—to accommodate the need for changes of scenery. Additionally, there were long stretches of uninterrupted metal-grate walkway beside the maglev track that one could use not only to enjoy some exercise, but also to get away from everyone and everything, and to clear one’s head without having to resort to the maddening litany of pacing. And finally, after working in the Life Pod, Cadie essentially had unrestricted access to the dome—by far the most voluminous structure in V1—in which she could experience not only the natural beauty of the thousands of tulsi ferns that provided the colony with oxygen, but even a small amount of natural light, weak and refracted as it was. Cadie wondered how the aquanauts who once lived aboard Aquarius kept themselves from losing their minds, then realized that most of them probably spent as much time as possible outside the habitat, exploring the exotic forests of coral reefs around them.

  It wasn’t just the familiarity and the closeness of the space that made Cadie stir crazy—and, at times, even borderline claustrophobic—but also her proximity to Cam. To be fair, she told herself, it probably wasn’t so much about Cam specifically as it was about having to share such a cramped environment with any other human being. Cadie was an excessively introverted girl, and although she had always enjoyed the limited company of close friends like Cam and Zaire, about the only person she could imagine living with for so long in such confinement was Arik.

  There were times, therefore, when Cadie felt she simply had to leave Aquarius. Luka and Charlie tried to talk her out of it initially, but it quickly became apparent to them that they were much better off supporting her in her determination to experience a little novelty (and put some distance between her and Cam) than risk her doing something impulsive and reckless. Preparations consisted of Charlie cutting Cadie’s long, black hair into a perky bob and coloring it a milk-chocolate brown that matched her irises, and Luka asking Tycho for a detailed account of Farah Abbasi’s whereabouts over the course of several weeks. Everyone was surprised when, from the list of places it appeared Abbasi was least likely to ever be, Cadie chose Kacis, a Turkish hookah lounge located on the lower level of the retail structure known as Union Square.

  Although Luka and Charlie agreed to help Cadie get out of Aquarius and explore a little of the San Francisco, they only did so under the condition that she would not go alone. Luka met her at the moon pool, provided a circuitous escort to Union Square (by way of Yerba Buena Gardens, per Cadie’s request), and then sat across from her in one of the U-shaped padded chairs arranged in the corner of the lounge. Cadie wore a double-breasted black jacket buttoned across her chest and a cinnamon-colored newsboy-style cap low down over her eyes. Luka was wearing his usual cargo scrubs with a fitted, long-sleeve microfiber shirt printed with geometric shapes in various shades of dark gray. Docked to the table between them was the flared and ornate multistemmed hookah. Cadie clutched one of the hoses, and although she’d sniffed at it once or twice, hadn’t yet put it in her mouth. Luka, on the other hand, drew on his liberally and with obvious relish.

  Technically, Kacis Hookah and Coffee Lounge violated several San Francisco ordinances, yet as long as the proprietors agreed to maintain certain standards, the Public Health Committee allowed it to operate. The filtration and air circulation systems were custom-designed, and since Union Square was on the south side of the city—and Kacis was in the southernmost corner of the structure—a special hexagonal PVC duct carried vapor over Alemany Boulevard and allowed it to vent directly through an opening in the dome. The shisha they smoked was shisha in name only, and in fact was a liquid solution synthesized from several chemicals that Kacis had special permission to have assembled, and which was vaporized by simple heating elements in the base of the pipes. Apparently Luka’s favorite selections were vanilla and a sickeningly sweet flavor known as whipped cream.

  Despite the sophisticated atmospheric conditioning system, there were still enough vaporized chemicals in the air to give Cadie a feeling that she did not find entirely unpleasant.

  The establishment was dim and bathed in a serene violet glow from walls coated in chemiluminescent paint. Although Cadie turned out not to be much of a smoker (beyond the secondhand variety), there were two things that drew her to Kacis. The first was the Turkish coffee, the smell of which brought her back to the office of one of Arik’s favorite teachers, Rosemary Grace. Rosemary worked for Arik’s father in the Water Treatment Department, or the Wet Pod as it was commonly known, and in order to promote organic collaboration and communication among her reports, she always had a pot of fresh coffee available (even though she preferred tea). Rosemary was an environmental and hydraulic engineer by trade, but she taught Gen V about much more than just computational fluid mechanics. Not only did Rosemary introduce Cadie and her peers to the elegance of economy in scientific thought and problem solving embodied in the principle of Occam’s Razor—or the importance of cutting away as many assumptions from one’s hypotheses as possible—but she also taught Gen V what Cadie now believed was the single most important lesson Arik ever learned: Question Everything.

  The second thing that attracted Cadie to the hookah lounge was also something that reminded her of Arik: just about everyone in the establishment was wearing a BCI, or a noninvasive Brain-Computer Interface. Cadie wasn’t sure what they were called here (mindmouse? wavecap? neuroprosthetic? headcrab?), but they were much more refined than the one Arik had used, and given what they were being used for, they appeared several generations more sophisticated. Everyone’s chair but Luka’s was turned toward a polymeth wall that showed several perspectives on the same football match, but rather than everyone simply watching, rooting, and boisterously editorializing, they were actually participating. While Arik used his BCI for interacting with his workspace, the people around Cadie were using theirs to play a full football match with all of its complex elements and dynamics: penalties, referees, facial expressions, hand signals, attack and defense strategies, and no doubt dozens of additional subtleties that Cadie lacked the domain-specific knowledge to recognize. What was little more than a diversion to the patrons of Kacis was probably one of the most impressive and technologically spectacular things Cadie had ever seen.

  “Before I forget,” Luka said. He released his mouthpiece, allowing the hose to retract gently into the body of the pipe, then removed something from the shoulder bag that hung from the back of his chair. “More dirt.”

  The container he passed across the table was the plastic shell left over from a boxed meal. Cadie bent down and slipped it into the watertight pouch at her feet.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “And Charlie will bring you more protein cubes tonight.”

  Cadie was back to watching the game. Luka turned to look behind him.

  “Football fan?” he asked her.

  “Not at
all,” Cadie said. “I’m interested in the technology.”

  “What about it?”

  “Was it developed here?”

  “Yes and no,” Luka said. He extended the hose from the body of the hookah and drew. When he spoke, vapor rose from his mouth and nose, combining into a single rapidly dissipating cloud. “It’s old Coronian technology that a bunch of engineers adapted in their free time.”

  “What else is it used for?”

  “You’re pretty much looking at it,” Luka said. “You can jack your brain into most of the systems around here if you want, but not that many people do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Most people don’t have the patience to get good at it. Unless it’s for gaming. Then they’ll spend every waking moment trying to master it.”

  Cadie’s eyes wandered over the people around her. At least twenty-five of them were actively engaged in the game—twenty-two players and three referees—yet they were also conversing, sipping coffee, and smoking as effortlessly as though the match were a replay.

  “I’m worried about sending Cam up there,” Cadie said.

  Luka expunged vapor through his nostrils as he lifted his cup of thick Turkish coffee. “I know you are,” he said. “You haven’t exactly made that a secret.”

  “I mean I have other concerns,” Cadie said. “New ones.”

  “Like what?”

  The team in crimson broke away. Cadie could feel the tension in the room rise as patrons began getting to their feet and shouting. The shot was wide and an anticlimactic uproar ensued.

  Cadie waited for the noise to subside. “The Coronians have much more sophisticated BCI technology than this, right?”

  “That’s the rumor,” Luka said. “Apparently anything electronic they can control with their brains.”

  “Have you ever thought about what would happen if Cam were to be captured?”

  Cadie could feel Luka trying to read her. Behind him, a goal kick sent the white glistening ball on a long and graceful arc that she watched from multiple perspectives.