Planetfall For Marda

by Zenka Wistram

  Far as I can tell, a schoolhouse is a good start to reversing that trend. The kids can all take their schoolwork in, and the adults can all volunteer to spend time there. Alis insists I have something to share, too. If it will get her off my back I suppose I can pitch in.

  At first I said I'd do maintenance and cleaning or something like that, but she just gave me that look she gives Cadell when he fudges the truth or tries to spin misbehavior – the one that is stern, looks right through his skin into the heart of him, eyebrows up, waiting for him to volunteer his better behavior.

  And just like Cadell, I caved. It took longer, I can at least claim that, than it takes that otherwise irrepressible young man, but I still caved. That steely, prodding gaze, and I was willing to do whatever it took to remove its pressure from my soul. Oh, the things I could have accomplished in my life with that gaze.

  So with ill grace, I grumped about “Fine, we can discuss it when we get there.” She knew it for the capitulation it was. This evening I took a break from storytelling. I need to immerse myself in some more stories, it's hard to keep ahead of the kids. They also tend to look up things about the stories I tell on their pads when they've got no schoolwork to do.

  Briallen likes to draw the characters. Her drawings are unschooled, the proportions off and the people awkwardly stylized, but they're appealing for some reason. She's given me several, I'll upload them tonight so you can see them too.

  So instead of storytelling, tonight Catrin told me a story. Cadell occasionally stopped wheeling around the campsite with his arms out pretending to be a flying superhero in order to embellish her tale.

  “Trevor has twenty six brothers and sisters,” Catrin said.

  “Trevor?” I asked, frowning heavily and lowering my old man eyebrows at her. She was not intimidated.

  “Trevor,” she said earnestly. “The faery. Remember? He has a sister, Liberty? I drew you a picture!”

  “Oh, yes, with the pointy heads,” I said.

  “They have pointy brains, I think,” she said, seriously, her eyes big in her little face.

  “That would explain that.”

  “Trevor came and visited me and Cadell this morning while everyone was having breakfast. I gave him some of my powder eggs.”

  Because they're not powdered eggs to her, they're eggs of powder. Trevor says he's not sure he likes the crates. Apparently the little guy is going to watch and see how the people behave to the world and to each other before deciding if he likes us, though he likes Catrin and Cadell just fine.

  “He likes me a lot,” Cadell said, wheeling on in for a moment, “because I told him about Batman.”

  Catrin wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes.

  “Batman fights EVIL!” Cadell yelled, and swooped off again with an inarticulate battle cry. The Joker never had a chance.

  When we're all settled, Catrin told me, Trevor will decide if we can stay and if he likes us on his planet. Sounds to me like the twins have found an imaginative way to give a voice to some pretty hefty worries they're carrying around with them. If I was little and powerless, it would sure help me to put my worries into words if they were being spoken by a tiny, interesting faery with a pointed head.

  I'd be worried I wouldn't like living here. I'd be worried about how different the planet is from what I'm used to. I'd be worried about how everything's going to work out with everyone interacting and integrating myself into a community of strangers.

  Hell, I guess I'm already worried about those things, and I have no Trevor and Liberty to speak for me.

  I won't be without worries until I can see you again, you know.

  Love you, Marda. Good night.

  Night 13

  Dear Marda, You always laugh at people who fear the number thirteen. I remember you telling your sister you were more afraid of the fourteenth day of anything, when all those afraid of thirteen realized they'd made it through and were all right, or if something bad had happened, they'd be superstitiously smug.

  I didn't notice anyone being superstitious today, our thirteenth day out from the base, but I thought of you when I realized what day it was. Only approximately eleven days to go until we reach the settlement that Edgerift calls PS 4, for Primary Settlement 4. I am finding Edgerift's refusal to give real names to anything fairly annoying. The book we were all given states that Edgerift would like for the new colonists to naturally come to name their world, awfully hippy for a corporate bastion of inherent bastardy.

  Eventually all the communities will have chosen names, and Edgerift will decide to keep or discard those names as suits their corporate philosophies – a bizarre idea, corporate philosophy. Real philosophers must just grit their teeth at the concept.

  But that's just me being a grumpy old man again, I suppose. This evening a few of us grown types fussed over the news. It arrives by beacon overnight, and we download what we like to our pads before we set off in the mornings – professional journals, magazines, ruminations from writers we enjoy, news articles, or comics. If there's a book we need, or music, videos or holos, we set the pads to download it before we go to bed. It all feels just a bit more rustic and settler-like than having all the access we want to anything all the time. Still feel awfully pleased not to live in a time we have to fear Mongol invaders dumping centuries of knowledge into a river all at once; all those books and all that learning lost forever in the time it takes a gleeful, rampaging horde to toss it all into the Tigris.

  Turns out back in regular Commonwealth space, the Exiles are demanding reparations and planet grants. Considering they're not members of the Commonwealth, I don't know how far their shieldbashing is going to get them. I'm no lawyer, but I know a little bit about politics; unless the Exiles have something the Commonwealth wants it's unlikely there's going to peace initiated at a government level.

  Considering I met you while you were protesting at a rally, I do know the power of the opinion of the common person. My opinion is: if we're to have real lasting peace with the Exiles and even come to absorb them back into our Commonwealth (because, in the end, it is ours, our government belongs to us, not the other way around), it'll come at the mandate of regular old everyday people.

  Huw is interested in more specifics about what the Exiles are claiming and asking, Bets Almond is musing about motives, Cho is suspicious and worried. Phenni is concerned that the Exiles are feinting and will use any “insult” as a reason to attack and simply take barely settled worlds for themselves.

  Certainly taking them after a corporation has made sure they're habitable but before they're very inhabited makes sense; it's efficient, and there are usually some infrastructures already in place, and most corporations may simply decide to cut their losses if the Commonwealth spends too long arguing over what course of action to take in committees.

  It is of concern to us, of course, because within the year that perfect target will be us. I suspect more than a few of us will flee if things turn along the lines Phenni is talking about. I am not going anywhere, of course, I'm going to sit here and hold this spot for you until we can be together again.

  Not this spot, specifically. Our spot, our little dome house with the crate bedroom, with a garden and a patio for enjoying the outdoor air.

  Such as it is. Fog's good for your skin, I have to say. I look slightly less leathery and lemony than I did a couple weeks ago. The younger folk have even more improvement than me; young Elyan's spotty complexion is all but clear.

  Tonight after dinner I started telling Irish faery tales. Seems just somehow after telling the story of Branwen, in which the Irish were the enemy. One must acknowledge one's forebears from time to time, I suppose.

  You and I used to talk about going someplace for a few months, someplace with no electricity, no access to the Commonweb, no modern conveniences from the last few hundred years. You wanted to go someplace without anything clouding your head, no interference, and see if you had a book in you after all.

  I was doubtful of the need,
and I'm sorry. I didn't want to see you without comforts, I didn't want to see you working that hard, and truth be told, I was afraid without all the distractions around, what I am wouldn't be enough to fill the spaces for you.

  And I wanted instant access to coffee in the mornings.

  I was selfish, and I am sorry, Marda. Doing it this way, riding these crates with this small group, I can see some of what you want me to see. It shouldn't have taken so long for this old fart to open his mind up a little and trust in you. It's not that I don't trust in you, though, Marda, I just don't understand and have never understood how you see in me someone you want to share this kind of space with. Heck, I don't want to share this kind of space with myself.

  Cho showed me how she's doing with her plan to make a canopy out of the grass to cover an outdoor meeting area once we're settled. Once sort of knotted into place, the grass winds around the other strands, it forms a fairly secure weaving. I have no idea how long it will take to dry out or how it will look when it does; maybe there's enough fog that it will stay hydrated indefinitely, and we will have a living canopy if we can figure out how to keep it fed.

  She had me helping tie the grass in knots. I felt clumsy and old. For someone whose income was once dependent on my hands and eyes, I've become someone ham-handed and half-blind.

  Looks like I retired just in time, for more reasons than simply finding a pretty girl to bring home.

  I love you. Good night, Marda.

  Night 14.

  Dear Marda, We reached the edge of the big lake Huw was talking about today. Tomorrow we'll stay encamped, since we're making good time toward the settlement, and everyone would like a day to stretch out and enjoy being human.

  Or, not to be too coarse, I'd really like a day without my fleshless ass being pressed into the cockpit seat in the front of the crate. The science types tested the lake and found it acceptable for human contact and semi-immersion for the purposes of recreation. I could barely type that without snorting and rolling my eyes, but science types do tend to like things being precise.

  So tomorrow we'll play, and we'll collect samples, and we'll catch up on our reading, and we'll do what we feel like doing for a little while. Tonight I told the story of Oisin and Niamh of the Golden Hair and the land of Tír na nÓg, beneath the waves. Seemed fitting, even though the ending's a bit sad. I'm finding the children don't linger over the endings of the stories, but their minds dwell almost entirely within the body of the story. It's a strange perspective to me, that the middle parts are the important parts, and the ending only an afterthought that may be as malleable as imagination.

  So, anyway, since the crates are circled and I can't get a good view of the lake from beneath the awning, the awning being on the inside side of the crate and opposite of the side facing the lake, I've climbed up on top of our crate, and I'm writing to you cross legged from the rooftop. It's been years since I've sat like this, but the barometer here is soothingly kind to my old bones. The lake, what I can see of it beneath the fog, is beautiful. Even though the fog obscures the lake beneath the setting sun and the suddenly lavender sky, it's not an annoyance tonight. It gives the lake the illusion of endlessness, an introspection-inducing air of mystery and eternity. My dear, if you don't have a book in you here, it's not in you anywhere. I would love to see what you could write, sitting here with me and gazing out over the lavender lake beneath the amethyst sky, the fog a silvery cloak.

  And then the sun is gone, and it's dark. The lights of the crates take the place of the sunlight and the fog is given more power to conceal, and the lake has become only a sliver of shoreline and ebony water beneath an impenetrable cliff face of sulky gray fog.

  Goodnight, Marda. I will take pictures of the lake to send to you tomorrow.

  Night 15

  Dear Marda, The children must have desperately needed a day just like today, to wander around and arrange games and be children. The older kids arranged a game of football, and the younger kids wanted to play too, so for a second game several of the adults played with the smaller kids on their team. Huw refereed. I coached a bit.

  After the younger kids were done and off playing in the lake, the adults had their own game, accepting Even, Eiji and Katsu into their ranks. Most of the players were young folk from the Porpoise Blues and Black Moon groups; I got tired just watching them and eventually retreated to my awning to read and whittle some of the wood blanks I brought with me.

  I am still not good at whittling. You liked my crap, but I can find so many problems with them that I only really whittle to clear my mind; it's my own mantra and just the way I like it – wordless. Rumor Watson and Toondie Renfrew came and sat near me in their own folding chairs, knitting. They didn't talk much either, just musing over stitches and yarns. After a while Cho dragged a chair up, leaving Masumi under the capable eye of her sister-in-law Amaya, so Cho could work on her canopy. Ever ambitious, she's decided to make it in sections, then combine the sections when we arrive. I'm thinking maybe we can use extra parts for the dome house frames, just without the covering on them, and she can drape the canopy over that and tie it to the frame. It'll look like the inside of a faery grove, except with white treated-metal branches instead of wood.

  So I whittled a bird with a pixie on its back to perhaps dangle from the frame. Or to throw away in disgust, I haven't decided. For dinner we had a potluck. I haven't been to a potluck since your sister lived nearby and used to throw a potluck dinner every few months. You yourself prefer to just cook for everyone; for someone as soft-hearted as you are, you are pure tyrant in the kitchen and prefer no one to step foot inside your workspace.

  Maybe we'll have potlucks inside Cho's gazebo. I get a wicked grin on my thinking about your reaction to that. You know, you don't have to outdo everyone else there and bring the favoritest dish. You can just relax and let other people give to you, too.

  I brought more prepackaged desserts, since I cook as well as I ovulate. After dinner some of the kids in Porpoise Blues brought out instruments, and Alis joined them with her harp. People were singing and dancing, the children were dancing and laughing, it was unplanned madness.

  I stayed and played my violin. I wanted to leave, missing you so fiercely, wishing you were here and I could spin you around dancing with the others, but it ached so deeply I didn't want to share or show it, so I got out that violin I haven't played in maybe three years now, and I sat by Alis, and played.

  Somehow I could feel you here, smile flashing, showing how you can still, after all this time and all the destruction of age upon our bodies, jig like a real Irish girl. Maybe not as quickly, maybe not as spryly as you could when we first met, but still the most lovely and wickedly playful girl I've ever met.

  It eased the ache. I even caught myself laughing a few times. If I hadn't caught Rumor giving me that knowing look once, I'd have thought no one probably even knew the ache was even there.

  I can't wait to dance with you again. I promise not to fuss and fart around and put off things like this anymore.

  Goodnight, Marda. Dream beautiful things, and dream of me some too.

  Night 16.

  Dear Marda, The day was uneventful; more riding endlessly in the crate, my sad ass becoming ever flatter and unfleshed in that joke of a seat at the helm in the cockpit. Briallen spent the morning napping on her bunk, struck low again by a migraine. Huw tells me he worried she'd have them more often than this, he's glad she's having fewer and that they pass more quickly than usual. He suspects the soft light of the foggy plains and the lack of pollution are responsible for her weaker, fewer migraines.

  He could be right. I am less achy, less foul, less morose here, for what it's worth. I could easily see the quietness and peace of this place having a lot to do with that. You don't realize how intrusive every flipping thing on the planet (or the station) is until those things are removed: no advertisements on the wayside (no ways to have waysides!), no hum of constant conversations among total strangers, no beepings and blippin
gs and squeakings of other people's gadgets, no annoying loudmouths bleating into their coms. The only real-time long distance com around here is between us and the base, and the nineteen other groups. Offworld is contacted by beacon mail. No constant vid noise.

  In fact, though we have vids and holos and can download more, they're just not on that often. The people in our group like to talk to each other, or read, or craft, and the children play together. It seems we've lost interest in the latest soap or staged real life show. It just doesn't matter here. We've got things to do, things to make, things to learn to create our new homes and our new villages.

  We've got bonds to lay down between us to make sure we as a group are strong enough to make it through a year together, and everyone's aware of that. Edgerift's done a good job of choosing people willing to contribute in a social sense; even me, though I dislike people and especially children, I am always willing to be reasonable with my neighbors provided they're being reasonable too. We don't all get along like old friends, but we're all, so far, willing to exist as a cooperative group, to strengthen and sustain, because every single one of us depends on the others to make our settlement as functional as possible.

  I might need less from them socially, but I still need Doc Raines to be about, or the botanists and scientists to ensure our safety, and I admit this whole endeavor would be much worse without Alis' harp when she chooses to play.

  And Rumor Watson's coffee, of course.

  So quiet. Comparatively. Though the day was uneventful – Briallen was well and back in the Gethin's crate at lunchtime – the evening went to hell in a hurry. While those who cook dinner were preparing their meals, I went looking for some of the kids to see if they felt like having a story. When I passed the Almaric crate, with Phenni and Alferd setting up their camp kitchen out in front of their door, Toondie came rushing out of the crate yelping in fear.