I'm farther down to the south , closer to the ocean, with room for several homes between me and everyone else, with my front door facing away from everyone and facing the ocean.
Typical, right?
But I want you to have this view of the ocean outside our living room window. It's not all because I'm unsociable.
So much hard work. I'm regrowing muscles I have decided I didn't really want back, but once I'm as fit as I'm going to get doing this, it won't bother me anymore.
If you were here right now, I'd be making muscles for you. I do like getting ogled a bit by a pretty woman such as yourself.
Day after tomorrow we'll have the Black Moon's domes finished and foamed, shortly thereafter the last floor will be poured, and then the real fun starts! You know, assembling our kitchen, being available to help other people assemble theirs and the bathrooms. Each main dome comes with a little prefab bathroom that looks like a brightly colored metal tube with an oval door on it. Inside, there's a composting toilet, a tiny sink, and an enclosed shower arranged around the interior water reservoir that will be kept full by the moisture collector outside. In a pinch, we can dump seawater in there and it will get turned into drinkable water.
All powered by the sun and our batteries. In time we'll put some windmills up on the hills there and harvest some of that energy. So we're building a pretty little town overlooking the sea, with a “road” that will stretch from the shore up to the rock trail. I hope, in the next month or two, not only will you be able to join me here, but that it will be a place you'll be glad to come home to.
I love you, Marda. Sweet dreams.
Night 32
Dear Marda, Well, it's official. Laure Carver and Alis Gethin are both pregnant. Alis figures she's about a month and a half along; just pregnant enough to have avoided it showing up in her pre-drop physical. Laure is only slightly less pregnant, if there's such a thing, about a month. It appears, by her blushing, that she and Basilio found some time to celebrate our landing on Estoper the first night we were here.
Of the two I am more worried about Alis. She's not all that young anymore. I seem to recall older mothers face more trouble. I'm just not sure it's a great idea to have babies right now, but I'm not going to argue with anyone about it. Ain't my uterus on the line. And hey, healthy babies will certainly show life on Estoper is safe enough. I admit, though, I get a bit worried now when I see either of them climbing around or carrying anything heavy.
I'm starting to feel like an old, fretful hen. I mean, there's a part of my brain that goes “Two days now without Benjones Almaric running around like a wild monkey when he's supposed to be in bed” and then “Three days now without a Benjones escape adventure”. That's just not right.
I soothe myself by reminding myself in a few weeks I could be hauling my curmudgeonly ass down to the spit to find a good place to fish and ignore the humans. The grass is about two feet up our dome now. It looks a bit like a bald-top faery mound. I like it. No need to paint for decoration, and it looks like maintaining this decorative look is going to be as easy as ignoring it.
Four more days and the floor will be cured in our house. A couple days after that, it'll be finished in the town hall. I should have enough time to fix up our place before I go pitch in at the town hall and drag our extra bunks down there to be made into tables and benches.
You'll love the view here. I know I keep saying it, but I'm actually writing this in the late daylight (first time I've managed to write to you before dark since we arrived!) and I can see the ocean. The front of our home is a front door tucked to the side, near the crate, then a huge plastic picture window looking down to the ocean, shaded by the canopy Cho gave us. The picture window is broken into three horizontal sections; the middle one (the largest section) pops out so we can enjoy the ocean breeze in our living room if we wish.
Our bathroom pod is across from the door, and with the door facing away from the front door. It's cobalt blue, your favorite of the colors offered. I know I said I didn't care and it didn't matter, but I have to admit to you right now that I am not sure I could have settled down with an orange, hot pink, lime green, or easter-egg purple metal wall in our home. The red might have been ok, but you were right about the blue, and I admit it.
I'll tuck our kitchen along that back wall, with a row of small, circular windows looking out over our back garden – and, as it turns out, looking out along the road and out on town.
If we get sick of looking at town, I'll build a stacked stone wall back there. It'll help keep the kids out, too.
Except for Benjones, of course.
Goodnight, Marda. I've uploaded pictures of our progress. I hope they make you smile.
Night 33.
Dear Marda, So everything's standing that should be, and everyone's worn out. Tomorrow we'll have a potluck out in front of town hall, and I'll bring my contraband liquor; Huw is in wholehearted agreement that it is time for a drink. After that we all just dink around until it's time to start furnishing things, I guess.
Seems like it might be a good time to explore a bit, and map any further anomalous areas or features of interest. My concern with the anomalous areas is just that someone might become lost at a point at which they need help – someone is injured or being eaten by a lizard-creature.
I'd like to scout around a bit and see if I can't pinpoint where the herd or herds might be. Probably a good idea to keep an eye on them; should drag our own town xenobiologist with to tag a specimen or two in any herd we find. It will make the animals easier to find once it's time to actually start studying them, and it will provide data on their movements, which will be good for studying them and help keep the town safe.
I mentioned this to Soren Hinrick today, since he is that xenobiologist, and he said he'd already thought of that, so clearly it was a splendid idea. We made plans to head out in my truck the day after tomorrow just to see what we can find.
Huw's started keeping a log of who'll be leaving town and when they're expected back. Very wise, in my opinion. I knew I liked him. He started it today when Annya Sanford from the Blue Porpoise group and Tesla Shane from Black Moon and Phenni Almaric headed down to the reed grove to look for dead samples to drag back to town to poke at. There's not going to be tons of tests to run while the science building is still curing, but they were eager to have a look at the reeds.
Keeping a basic log like that will make it so we know who to go look for and when if they don't answer a dash com hail. It should also give us a general idea of where to look. Once the town hall's set up we'll just put a pad in there with the express purpose of being the expedition log. That way an alarm can be set, and people going out for a picnic don't have to feel as if Huw's tracking their every move – the alarm will only go off if they're not back when they estimate they should be.
Like I said already, I like Huw. Good head on his shoulders, and I like that the person in charge of us for the time being (after a year it will be up for a vote or Edgerift may assign someone else) is as protective of what little privacy is to be had in such a small town as he is serious about his responsibility to keep everyone as safe as possible.
Goodnight, Marda. I'm going to go soak my new callouses beneath the wimpy but hot spray of our crate shower.
Night 34
Dear Marda, We had a lot of singing and dancing today, and a lot of food. Everyone brought something; I brought my best approximation of your black bean soup, having traded ready to eat meals all prepackaged to Alis for some of their supplies. Lady's pregnant now, and she'll get all sleepy and weepy soon enough, and it'll be a bit easier for them if they have something easy to feed the kids. I suspect we'll be keeping Huw busy in the months to come, which will be impeding his ability to carry extra responsibilities at home.
But tonight, we partied. Huw even let Elyan have a sip of the whiskey, the boy almost coughed his liver out his nostril. Tears streaming, face red, laughing his butt off and coughing – I'd guess he'll hold off trying more whiske
y anytime soon.
Natalie Sommers and Hans Erdich ended up making out in the shadows of town hall. Called that one exactly wrong, didn't I? I thought she'd make a play for Harry Randolph. Toondie Renfrew and Udo Jalloh seemed to dance together quite a bit, too. That's interesting; Toondie's gentle if a bit flaky, and Udo loved his wife very deeply – loves her still – but has been alone for getting close to a decade.
Still, if anyone can respect a ghost in the room, it's Toondie Renfrew. Little Benjones danced until he fell asleep, cradled in the grass, and Alferd laid his brother Blaines beside him. Blaines had fallen asleep on his father's shoulder much earlier in the evening. I watched the boys sleep for a bit so Alferd could take his wife around the dance floor a few times.
Then Laure Carver came and sat with them so Bets Almond could drag me out for a dance.
Yep. I danced. Carefully, but turns out I still got some dance left in these rusty bones. We were up far too late, but no one checked the time. As things wound down, the couples faded off into the dark, laughing quietly; Hisashi and Amaya, Laure and Basilio, Hans and Natalie. Udo walked Toondie home. Tau carried Ayo and he and Kojo went back to the Jalloh crate, murmuring and watching their father walking with Toondie.
Udo and Toondie gathered up the Almaric boys and carried them back to the Almaric crate; Toondie winked at Phenni and Alferd. Phenni giggled like a schoolgirl and Benjones' parents slunk off into the darkness to find the right spot in the grass.
Hey, I'm old, not dead. I know what these kids are up to.
If you were here, I would have caught your hand and pulled you off into the dark for a bit.
But not too long. Ground isn't as comfortable as it was forty years ago.
Me, I wandered down to the shore and stood watching the ocean for a while, then walked up here and started writing this to you, the one I've always come home to.
But now I'm waiting for you to come home to me. I can give you a purple sunset on a lavender ocean, my love. I can give you cat-goats and slumping herbivores. I can give you a little dome with a window looking out over the sea, and I can give you a grumpy old curmudgeon who loves you more than sight, more than touch.
All I ask in return is your wicked, playful eyes and your coffee. I'm cheap.
Goodnight, Marda. Dream of me.
Night 35
Dear Marda,
Spent the day bumping around in the truck with Soren Hinrick. Kid looked a bit hungover; I wonder how he tolerated how often I laid on the horn.
“Trying to scare up some game,” I said blandly as he looked at me as if wondering when I'd turned into a Inquisition torturer and why I hated him so very much.
I just smiled.
I don't get hung over.
We didn't see a damned thing today, not a single herd of three different creatures, not one hungry lizard. No birds – there are no birds here on Estoper. Tomorrow we'll go out in the opposite direction and it will be Soren's turn to drive. After that, well, my butt is still numb from today, after that I think I'll go fishing. I'll call it “aquatic sample gathering”. I have my fishing pole and an assortment of ready to eat meals; after a month on this planet I know which of these meals I will never eat again.
Hopefully the fish will like the crap I won't eat.
Oh, yeah – one more day has gone by without a Benjones escape. Little Blaines has a bit of a sick stomach, though; heard him yowling and bawling as we came back into town. Doc Raines is monitoring. It's a bit late for a bug problem; with all of us coming from different places there's all kinds of germs bouncing all over the settlement, but I'd have thought they'd have manifested before now.
Scratch that; it's only recently everyone's started mingling in a big group. Makes more sense now.
I admit, though, the first thing that came to mind after hearing little Blaines was ill was War of the Worlds, that old sci-fi tale with the alien invaders getting ill from Earth germs. Only, we're the aliens.
I had an odd flash of Catrin and Cadell's little pointy-head faeries.
Off to bed for your aching husband. Tomorrow I'll try and catch you a purple wrasskey, you see if I don't.
Goodnight, Marda, I love you.
Night 36
Dear Marda, I didn't catch you a funny little alien scavenger, but we did see the herd today. Soren marked it on the rolling map so he could come back this way tomorrow. He's determined to catch and take some of these critters; he'll take some younger sorts with him then, because I'll be collecting aquatic samples down at the ocean.
I'm not really worried about dumping the work off on someone else. You and I are retired, our only real responsibilities are to live in the dome for a year and to report anything of use to Edgerift. Of course, real responsibilities and actual responsibilities are different; there's nothing in the contract we signed about keeping an eye on Benjones Almaric or helping set up the school or being roped into being a volunteer teacher at the school.
There's nothing in the contract about walking around with Huw every morning to see who needs what, but there you go. There I am every morning, walking around with Huw, making sure all is well. Huw asked me to, and while it's not in our contract, what kind of ass would I be to ignore what I can do to help this little town achieve stability?
Back home we have some diminished responsibility. There's so many neighbors that surely someone else will handle most things. If our neighbor's ill we might need to check on them but there's a bunch of other people who can do it to. Here, there's no one else. I am the neighbor. There's no community page on the Commonweb with a list of the best local babysitters, no reviews of which doctor will take your ten page list of ailments seriously.
All that stands between us and anarchy is Huw Gethin; all that stands between us and a medical catastrophe is Doc Raines. Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but what I'm trying to say is, all that is between us and all that trouble out there is us.
You used to get so disappointed in me, I think. That I was perfectly content to hide away in our cottage and speak to as few non-Marda humans as possible.
That's not true, though. It wasn't that I was content; it was that I never really thought I belonged, and I was afraid eventually the people I talked to would realize that odd old Paden Bell just isn't like them, and they'd close in their little groups and murmur and give me sideways stares.
Seemed safer to not give them the chance. I can't do that here. I can't hide off as a hermit. There's no you here to intercede with the other humans on my behalf, there's no grocery delivery, there's no anonymous emergency services, there's just these other people and they need me just as I need them.
It's not like our old life where I always wondered, once I'd retired (right after I met you) from that job I don't talk about, what exact purpose I served in society at large. What use was there for me except in your eyes?
Here I matter, not just because I matter to you. It matters that I have stories to tell. It matters that I exist. Maybe I would have found this if I'd followed you out our front door more often, if I'd been willing to open myself up and share myself with other people. I know this is what you were trying to nudge me toward back home.
Back then I used to feel, at those moments, that you were pushing me to be something I was not, that it was about you and you wanting to have the presentable, charming husband that I could not be, and I'd feel so resentful, so awkward and wrong, and so much less than you deserved – and angry that I felt that way, so I'd hunker down even more.
I get it now.
Marda Bell, light of my heart and eyes, this was what you wanted me to have. This... belonging.
Still think people largely are weak and selfish, though. Most people will choose what ever is easiest, regardless of what it costs them or other people.
We'll see if this holds true out here. But I have to tell you, Marda, for once, I am willing to have a hope that I'm wrong. These people are human, and flawed, but they are good people.
Goodnight, Marda. I love you.
Night 37
Didn't fish. Sick to stomach. I let Doc know. Love you.
Night 40
Dear Marda,
Holy weasels, that was awful. I spent the last few days just in miserable pain, hugging a bucket, laying in Doc Raines' clinic along with Blaines Almaric and Amaya Kimura.
I am still in Doc's clinic, of course, but I'm up and walking around and holding down food again. Whatever bug that was I hope we never meet again. Cho was in here every day, right at the doc's right hand. No matter how often we threw up – or worse
– she kept everything clean and shiny with the help of a rotating bunch of people she simply called in to help. Who's going to argue with Cho when you might be sick next and you'll need her to empty your sick bucket?
Who can withstand that dark, unmovable gaze or that gentle, veiled disappointment when you try to squirm out of what she needs you to do?
I mean, I could, I just choose not to. You know.
Smells like sick and toilet in here. I imagine that's because the three of us co-patients spent the last few days hugging buckets or hogging toilets, or prodigiously soiling nappies with dark bowel-water.
That last would be Blaines Almaric, of course. I promise it wasn't me. I may be old, but damn if I'm going to soil myself in front of Cho and Amaya. Not that it was easy. I cannot describe the ferocity of the cramps to you, but as you like to joke, the only thing in the world more stubborn than Paden Bell is seized engine, and these cramps nearly outstubborned me.
I'm feeling a bit better today. Grateful for the Doc, too. The cramps and the nausea were worse before he came to see me and brought me up to his clinic.
Phenni Almaric's just brought some dinner, so I'm going to upload this to the beacon, try some food, and try to rest.
Write to you tomorrow. Goodnight, love. Glad you weren't here for this, even if I missed you even more while ill.
Planetfall For Marda Page 10
