by Viola Grace
“How did you anchor it?”
She grinned, “I used the anchors that I designed. They were designed to pierce and lock into anything under them. Having a mobile weather unit is not safe.”
He rubbed at his eyes again. “I would have to agree.”
“Why are you rubbing your eyes?”
“I am dehydrated. It is a pretty common situation when I travel. I come from a much more humid environment.”
She twisted her lips, and a thick cloud of vapour surrounded him. He had been under stress, and he needed more water than he was taking in.
“Why aren’t you drinking more water?”
“There is still a shortage on. The rain has only begun to replenish the tanks. I won’t drink carelessly until everyone can.”
“They are Ukirns. They don’t need as much water as you do to survive and remain healthy. Where are you going to sleep?”
He gestured to his couch. “Over there.”
“Lie down, and I will keep you wrapped in humidity. I am pulling it from the air, and I am providing it to the air, so consider it my gift from me to you.”
He blearily got up and staggered to the couch. She knit a column of air and water around him, and his breathing immediately eased.
She spoke to a new guard and whispered a request for a cot and a cold meal if he could arrange one. Even extra rations would be good.
He nodded and disappeared.
She sat on the window ledge and watched Nekahar at night while Unrik slept. There were parties all over the city, dancing, celebrating and laughter that she could just hear in the distance. They were getting water, but the rain was going to stop soon, and they needed to work on what to do next. Without manipulative and greedy leadership, this city might soon regain its status as the entryway to Jarko. That would enable more trade, more visitors and an increase in commerce. Nekahar was not a tourist trap, but it was a very attractive gateway when it was all clean and shining.
Jarko was usually the first world passed on a ship’s way into the system. It was important to put on a good face and get trade going again. Having a reliable food source would be a great first step.
A light noise came from the couch, and she increased the humidity in the fog bank she had created for him.
She moved behind the mayor’s desk and brought up the computer records, reading up on the political prisoners and their time for incarceration. Unrik had, indeed, been in the prison for six months. She winced at how thirsty his body must have been.
Nine other prisoners were listed from approximately the same time. Four were still alive, and she guessed that they had been released from custody. Two were tech mechanics and one was a weather specialist. The occupation of the fourth was not mentioned.
She made a note of the names on a small piece of paper and checked on what Unrik had done to her plans.
He had divided the domed farms into segments of complementary plant cultures. The ship was bringing several colonies of pollinators, and the farm was arranged so that the insects would cover the entire span strategically. Colony overlap would be inevitable, but it was minimized in case of trouble.
Reyan went over what he had decided was appropriate for the soil, and she made a few adjustments based on the species she had requested when there was a knock at the door.
She answered and waved the young men in, putting a finger across her lips as Unrik snorted and rolled over. They set up the cot and tiptoed out of the mayor’s office, closing the door softly on the way out.
Reyan settled on the cot and closed her eyes. She didn’t need to sleep, but it made it easier to keep track of weather patterns in the region and to keep what she was doing from having any catastrophic effects on anyone else.
Moving weather was a tricky business. If she didn’t calculate the warming and cooling properly, someone else’s settlement could be washed away. Fortunately, she was very good at what she had learned to do, though learning it had been a hair-raising experience for those around her.
She sat up when Unrik grunted and started muttering to himself. Dawn was peeking through the window, and she got to her feet, stretching a little before dissipating the fog she had him in.
He looked larger than he had the night before. She blinked. “Did you get bigger?”
He glared at her in the manner of all those who were not morning people. “I am Shithikan. I absorb water and can store it for months.”
“Like a sponge.”
His scowl indicated he was not flattered by the comparison. “I maintain a skeletal structure, but it flexes as the rest of me does.”
Reyan hid her grin as he stretched, and the clothing that had barely fit him the night before split along every seam. The beacon in her jacket had chirped the night before, so she was not surprised to see robed Citadel personnel waiting for them in the reception room outside the office. Reyan went first and kept the door tight for the sake of Unrik’s modesty or at least hers.
The young man got to his feet, and the young woman extended a bundle to Reyan. “This is for Specialist Hobbs.”
“I really hope it is clothing.”
The woman grinned. “It is. It will change shape with him.”
“Fabulous. Back in five minutes.” She returned to the office where Unrik was still picking shreds off his body. “They brought you a present.”
He walked over to her with nothing on his body but the dark wave of hair that kept flipping into his eyes. She had to admit that yes, every part of him increased in size when he was hydrated. It was something to keep in mind.
Chapter Six
A small skimmer was waiting in front of the mayor’s office, and Unrik boarded, extending his hand to help her in. She kept the rolled schematic with her as they lifted off, and she slid against him, her thigh colliding with his.
He balanced her by putting an arm around her shoulders as they approached the site and neither of them commented on it. Unrik broke the tension. “How long will it take to fix the machine?”
She shrugged. “How long will it take until they get the power grid set up? If they work on that, I will work on the other.”
The machine was ready to go. She just wanted to make one alteration that would make sure it couldn’t be used outside its purview in the future. Reyan had to have a talk with it.
As the skimmer set down with the weather machine in the distance, the male asked Unrik, “Specialist, is this where it goes?”
Reyan gave him an imperceptible nod.
The current mayor of Nekahar nodded. “Yes, mark this position and get out of the way.”
The female grinned. “You should have asked the Rain, Tombo.”
The male blinked and then looked to Reyan in surprise. “You are the Rain?”
“I am. Expecting someone older?”
He blushed and nodded.
“Don’t worry. It happens a lot.” She gave him a polite smile. She hadn’t pulled her hood up this morning, so her pale hair was gleaming in the dim light.
The skimmer dropped a beacon, and the female flew them away from the drop zone.
They all looked skyward as the collapsed form of the dome appeared.
The moment the four shuttles came down together, Reyan held her breath. It was now or never to have her dream become reality. The folded segments would unfurl slowly until they connected and the small doors around the exterior would allow them inside the moment it was closed. The hinge point was supporting the centre of the dome while the rest telescoped out.
As the shuttles lined up and lowered the starting point on the beacon, Reyan gripped Unrik’s hand as tight as she could while the first segments began to unfold.
She held her breath as the dome of Nekahar slowly went from theory to reality.
Her body clenched as the segments passed the halfway point, and they lifted the dome by the locked pieces as the weight bore down into the dirt. Grapples shot out, and it seemed that the Citadel had matters in hand. It didn’t make Reyan any less nervous.
The female piloting moved the skimmer and dropped them next to the reinforced gateway in the dome. Reyan palmed the door, and she stepped inside to open the cargo door with the inner controls. She waved the skimmer in and gave her next order. “To the weather unit.”
The skimmer took off before she was sitting, and she was thrown onto Unrik. “Pardon me.”
He caught her and held her against him until the pilot slowed the skimmer down. “Not a problem.”
She looked up into his features, and he was amused.
“You are very bossy, Rain.”
“I have had a long time to practice, and in women of any age, it is called being assertive.”
“I stand corrected.”
“You are sitting.”
“Semantics.”
She grinned. It had been a long time since she was able to banter with someone. When you lived as long as she did, you either gave up on relationships or you went mad with grief. She had tried both, and now, she kept most of her contact with people on a business basis.
“The bodysuit looks much better than the tattered remains of your clothing.” She tried to switch the conversation to something less pressing than his hand around her waist and why she wasn’t getting off his lap.
“Thank you. They are designed for operatives who need protection from the elements.”
Reyan laughed. “My sister is elsewhere, you are safe.”
He smiled. “I mean standard weather patterns and soil conditions.”
They halted before she could hit him with lightning.
It took six days to bring in soil from other continents, mulch and set up the homesteads with kits brought in by shuttle. Inside the city, there were weatherproofing squads who were installing windshields and solar units under the supervision of Citadel staff.
The city was preparing to be buffeted by natural weather patterns, and those who wished to stay were given all the help that could be managed and more would be offered. Apparently, the Citadel was eager to make sure that Rain was not required on Jarko again.
Rain was playing with the weather station, making it as tamperproof as she could. With soil, compost and mulch beds high, the venting was tested on a daily basis with the sun beating down on the dome. Today, they were moving farmers and farm equipment into the dome, so the weather machine’s time had come.
“It’s okay, baby. Those mean men won’t use you anymore. You know the rules. Only me.”
The lights came on and flicked in slow, even patterns as a light cloud cover misted the inside of the dome. Light wind picked up and stirred the air, lowering the temperature to a comfortable level.
“That’s my girl. You are more than I could have hoped for.”
A bright beam of sunlight cascaded over Reyan. Her heart softened, and she stroked the machine. “I love you too, baby. With that little addition, I am with you always, but they need me to do more of our kind of work on other worlds, but you know that already, don’t you?”
The sunlight flickered as a cloud moved to block it.
“Don’t fuss. Know that I am very proud of you. I always have been. If I am lucky, you may one day have a new sister, and I will still love you just as much. You are going to bring life and protect not only the people within the dome but those outside the dome. No one can ever hold this facility hostage. You are its guardian, and you are equipped to defend it. I know you will do me proud.”
She stroked the housing, thinking about the man who had inspired it. Redmiril had been a musician, a scholar, lover and friend. They had twenty years together before she had been called elsewhere, and by the time she returned, he was gone and his family was as well. Having a loved one die when you couldn’t be there had given her a peculiar type of pain. Not knowing that he had died had ripped her heart out and hearing that her design was being used on another world gave her a piece of him back.
Leaving that piece of him was going to hurt, but knowing what her machine was doing on a daily basis to restart an economic system and heal a world was an amazing legacy for her memory.
She patted the machine again and smiled as a tear tracked down her cheek to connect with the housing. The metal should not have absorbed it, but it did, and a slow rain began to fall while a beam of light cascaded through the clouds to cover Reyan. Music came from the weather machine, a symphony that sounded like wind, rain, snow and lightning.
Reyan began to laugh, looking up into the light as rain that she hadn’t called fell all around her.
“Rain, is everything all right? You said you wouldn’t start the rain until the plants were in.”
Reyan turned to see Unrik and hundreds of volunteers standing in the gentle rain. “It wasn’t me. I was just sharing a memory, and the machine gave me this moment and this music.”
A woman from the watchers nodded. “It’s the Reyan Ikali Mar symphony. We tried to learn it in school. No master has been able to execute the entire work.”
The crowd from Nekahar were silent, listening to every note.
The woman approached and whispered, “Where did you get the entire score? Only pieces of it have ever been found.”
Reyan smiled and stroked the housing again. “It was encoded into her schematics. He loved to doodle along the edges of my designs. He composed in binary, so it is entirely possible that they gave her the symphony without knowing what it was.” She knew that he had put it on her schematics to show her when she returned, but she hadn’t, not in his lifetime.
The music soared and twisted through the air, filling the entire expanse of the dome. They stood together for an hour, sharing music that had not been heard since it was composed.
When it was over, everyone was smiling and the rain had stopped. Daylight began to dry the earthen beds that were ready for planting.
Reyan stepped down and grinned. “Who is here to get dirty?”
The crowd raised their hands, and Unrik pretended that she didn’t still have tears on her cheeks. “We are ready. Let’s begin.”
Chapter Seven
Specialist Hobbs’s talent became apparent the moment that the first block of seeds had been sown. In an effort to get as much fresh produce into the market as possible, he was using his talent to force the first crop. The stalks would be composted and mulched back into the soil in an effort at enrichment, and no additional crops would be sown in until six months had passed.
Unrik plunged his hands into the dirt where the seeds had landed, and while the rest of the volunteers were planting, he worked to bring plants to ripeness. He paused when the flowers showed and pulled his hands from the soil.
A Citadel member walked in with a box that hummed and set it down. “I will help them along a bit.”
Reyan stood and raised an eyebrow. “Animal control?”
It was their female pilot from the first day. “Insect, less control, more nudging. They agree to assist provided that they be given more flowers tomorrow.”
Unrik grinned. “I can do that.”
Reyan noted that he was shorter, so she idly wrapped him in fog cloud.
He chuckled. “Thank you, Rain.”
“You are welcome.”
He returned his hands to the soil and the flowers bloomed. He jerked his hands out of the soil, and the pilot removed the top of the box, letting a column of insects out to visit the flowers and exchange the pollen from one to another.
Reyan smiled and continued to scatter seeds with the rest of the volunteers, maintaining the fog around Unrik’s body so that he didn’t use all of his personal stores to start the next crop.
The machine must have been watching, because it watered the seeds that had yet to be sprouted to ease Unrik’s work but kept the water off the bugs that were still working.
Reyan flicked her wrist and scattered seeds over a wide area, moving quickly and covering as much ground as she
could. Others followed her example, and soon, they were onto the next patch and the next seed.
There was no way that they would be able to seed a field larger than a city in a day, but they could and did get a variety of foods started under the new dome. The farming families were moving in, but they would only be the gatekeepers of the farms. The families would rotate out to the city every three years to keep the balance of power. The farmers also needed the labour for harvesting, so there would be no chance of them holding the crops hostage.
Mind you, if anyone did try to withhold crops, they would soon find themselves on the pointy end of a lightning bolt. No one needed to know that, but it made Reyan feel secure to know that she wasn’t enriching only a small portion of the population of Nekahar.
The machine followed them with a light, nourishing rain every time they finished a segment. It took them two weeks, but when every seed had been sown, there were three different vegetables and two fruits ready for harvest.
Reyan was amused and entertained watching the children of Nekahar running through the fields and returning with armloads of vegetables, wide eyes and big grins.
The community needed this change more than she had imagined, but it was bittersweet that her part in it was coming to a close.
They had food that could be rotated seasonally and some crops had been jump started while others would come into their own in a few weeks.
Unrik walked up next to her and smiled. “The election is tomorrow. After they vote in my replacement, it would be my honour to escort you to the Citadel you are assigned to.”
She smiled back and nudged his hip with hers. They had become used to each other physically, and it was nice to have this closeness with someone who understood what she actually was. They still slept in the mayor’s office and took meals together, when they remembered to eat.
“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” She smiled. “I have enjoyed this time.”
“I have as well. Which Citadel are you being invited to?”
