Jaydium

by Deborah J. Ross

  “All right, Kithryne Sunnai,” he said. He was given to using her full name when he wanted her to pay particular attention. Sometimes when a topic was really important to him, he sounded like one of his own geology lectures. Even now, she could remember the rhythm of his words, his voice, his hands covering hers on the scrubjet controls.

  “Stayman’s your world now, and you’ve got to learn her like the inside of your own room, learn her mountains, her Cerrano Plain, learn how to chip and run her jaydium. Learn the dangers of her coriolis storms and alkali pits. So you can take care of yourself when — if anything happens to me. This scrubjet will be your friend when there’s nobody else you can trust...”

  Had he known, even then, of the neurodyscrasia already setting its fatal enzymatic markers in the deepest recesses of his brainstem? Had he known how little time they had left together? Had he guessed what her life would become, between Hank’s broken promises and dustbug miners like Dowdell? Was he trying to warn her, to prepare her, to give her what she’d need to survive?

  The little ship had flinched under her childish touch like a wild creature shying away from human control. “No, don’t fight her, don’t think of Brushwacker as an enemy you’ve got to conquer,” her father said. “Think of her as an extension of yourself, just as your arms and legs are. Know exactly where and how you want to go, and then put her right...there...”

  A swerve of the scrubjet jerked Kithri’s attention back to the present. Eril had been flying in graceful, even swoops along the canyon floor. The walls narrowed and he’d oversteered in bringing them back to a straight line. Quickly he compensated and evened out. Then they began to climb, snaking through the twisted passes, always clinging to the ground. The ink-blotchy vegetation grew sparser, ragged-looking, and finally gave way to yellowish lichen.

  They reached the crest and looked down from the last hill. The vast Cerrano Plain lay before them, flat from scrubjet nose to horizon. Alkali-tolerant scrub grew in patches, blending in the distance into a swath of silver-gray. The pale soil underneath was so fine, it was almost powdery. Wherever the first human explorers had driven their heavy land-moving equipment, they’d torn away the thin protective crust. Over the years, wind eroded the trails into wildly sculpted gullies like scars on the Plain’s fragile skin. Plumes of dust rose from the old trails, blown aloft by the constant winds.

  Kithri reached for the headsets that would join her mind to Eril’s and to the computerized shipbrain. As she leaned forward, her arm brushed against the inner surface of Eril’s thigh. She wondered what it would be like to touch him deliberately, to run her fingers over the warm, sleek flesh beneath the layers of clothing. Her heartbeat soared.

  What was happening to her? She’d never reacted to a man like that before, certainly not the tavern dustbugs or Hank with his hyper-inflated ego. Yet ever since Eril had come racing after her, this awareness of him had been growing.

  Get yourself under control, Kithri! The jaydium’s the important thing, not a few jerk-you-around hormones.

  Kithri pulled on her headset and slid the padded neuroprobes into place. The gel contacts felt familiar and cool on her skin. She blinked, her brain refusing at first, as it always did, to integrate the vibrating double images, the overlay of her own organic vision on top of the computerized analysis. The equipment that made duoflight possible by linking two human minds to shipbrain was a highly sophisticated adaptation of the apparatus used to link an ordinary computer to its human operator. Several additional safety devices had been added, notably the unspoken emergency abort command that would disengage the entire system. Kithri could have chosen her own phrase, but she’d kept the one her father had programmed. Terminal Escape Velocity. She’d never had to use it, but sometimes it sifted like a ghostly echo through her dreams.

  The visual images blended together as shipbrain fed data into Kithri’s mind and her temporal lobes sent back fine-tuning signals. The effect was very like the addition of another sensory dimension. A moment later, Eril completed the duo configuration.

  Whenever Kithri linked with Hank, she always felt a flash of searing pain before he settled into synch. She’d studied enough physiology to know it was due to the differences in their synaptic patterns, but that didn’t make it any easier. Old Dowdell’s mind had been repulsive rather than painful, and she could no longer remember what it had been like when her father taught her. She held her breath and Eril joined with her.

  There was no sudden agony, but a silken touch, a whisper of delight, and then Eril was inside her mind. For a dazzling instant their awareness merged, they thought as one organic unity. Shipbrain receded to a background monotone.

  She was Eril, he was Kithri and, miraculously, there was no difference between them. She saw through his eyes. She felt the warmth of her own shoulders between his thighs. Her skin tingled, her heart beat wildly, and tantalizing shivers rippled along her nerves.

  The moment of merging faded like honey melting on the tongue, and Kithri was once more a separate entity floating in the web of Kithri/Eril/shipbrain.

  *Ready?* Kithri put ’Wacker in a straight path across the Plain as she and Eril sorted the housekeeping. The division of tasks that she and Hank had worked out was irrelevant now and she wanted to put it all behind her.

  Bio-homeostasis? Eighty percent to Eril, without a question. Kithri’s heart rate and blood pressure were almost back to normal under his sure touch. She shifted the remaining twenty percent as emergency backup to the ship. Navigation was hers, eighty-five with fifteen percent to ship memory, and power train and life support split a ragged three ways.

  *Down to business* Kithri took hold of the helm, using shipbrain’s external sensors for orientation. With a sure touch, she steadied the ’jet and sent it supersonic across the Plain.

  After a few minutes, she felt Eril relax, lulled by the flat, featureless expanse below them and the empty indigo sky above. His calmness sent ripples of relaxation through her own body. Yet years of running jaydium had taught her better than to trust the Cerrano for even a moment. She kept watch with ’Wacker’s senses as well as her own.

  Within minutes, shipbrain alerted her to a massive circular air disturbance ahead, three hundred miles in diameter. Instantly she recognized it as a coriolis storm. Driven by the immense heat gradients built up over the reflective Plain and amplified by the rotation of the planet, coriolis winds whipped to hundreds of miles per hour. The eye was usually still, but severe local turbulence along the periphery could prove deadly to even the most skillful pilot.

  Kithri tightened her grip on the controls. *Trouble coming*

  *I don’t see a thing* Eril said.

  *Clear-air coriolis, a big one. Check the infrared, not visual. We’ll try to stay out of the worst of it. Hold on!*

  ‘Wacker accelerated smoothly to match the wind speed. Then the tiny ship touched the invisible edge of the storm. It shuddered and bucked, spinning out of control.

  An imaginary hand crushed Kithri’s chest, forcing the air from her lungs. Struggling for breath, she tried to brace herself against it. The harness straps bit deep into her flesh as they held her firm in her seat. She gasped and shut her eyes. Ordinary vision was useless here — she couldn’t respond quickly enough. No single unaided human could, only two minds linked in duo.

  Kithri drew on shipbrain, using her years of experience in dealing with minute shifts in wind direction and velocity. The connection to the computer was solid, the ship responsive. She reached for Eril to take up the data sorting and sensor management she couldn’t handle.

  Instead of the silken unity of their first moments of fusion, Kithri collided with a mental blank like a solid wall. She recoiled, stunned.

  *What the hell?*

  One moment Eril had been part of her, the next he simply wasn’t there. Kithri’s first thought was that he was dead, but no — his mind had gone suddenly opaque. More than that, in her moment of confusion he’d somehow managed to grab a huge percentage of helm control
.

  What did Eril think he was doing? Was he trying to get them both killed? Did he think he could pilot Brushwacker better than she could?

  *My ship! Give me back my ship!*

  Furious and terrified, Kithri signaled for manual control. She’d been caught in worse and survived, flying singlo, just her and shipbrain. But she’d never had to fight for command of her own ship before. After an agonizing delay, the scrubjet responded. It felt as agile as a wallowing barge in the raging air currents.

  Half of Kithri’s mind was deep in the meld with shipbrain, while the other half struggled to hold the ship steady. Her sweating hands clenched the manual helm. She leaned forward, using her muscular shoulders to force the ship toward what looked like a clear path ahead. Ever treacherous, the winds shifted, lifting and twisting the tiny craft. Suddenly Brushwacker slipped sideways, plunging towards the heart of the storm.

  Her life on Stayman might not be much, but she wasn’t ready to die. Not yet, not like this.

  *Damn it, Eril! Stop playing hero and let me fly this thing!*

  Kithri’s words, or the desperation behind them, somehow got through. Eril’s resistance passed as quickly as it had arisen. His mind linked smoothly with hers again, a pulse of solid support. He kept her adrenalin levels steady as he channeled more and more data to shipbrain.

  Kithri felt as if she’d just been pulled out from beneath a Manitou avalanche. Quickly she switched back from manual. The scrubjet moved light and nimble under her control. A moment later, it leveled out, flying with the storm. Power, there was so much power streaming into her from Eril’s mind. He took up so much of the data selection that all she had to do was imagine the ship balanced and steady.

  Now to edge back toward the periphery of the storm...

  But the coriolis wasn’t done with them. Before they’d gone a hundred feet, ’Wacker struck a local turbulence. Clear winds churned and swirled like a miniature tornado. Gusts slammed into the ’jet and its metal frame wailed with strain. Data, fluctuating wildly from one moment to the next, flooded the ship’s sensors.

  It took all of Kithri’s will and years of experience not to panic. She’d never been caught like this, nor known anyone who had and lived to tell about it. Now she rode the winds with all her skill and intuition, sweating and trembling, searching for a way back into the main current of the storm.

  Then Eril’s mind surged up and blended with hers, holding the ’jet steady with unerring control. She nudged the helm, flying with the winds and using their raw power instead of uselessly fighting them. Under Eril’s sure touch, the engines rotated, compensating exactly for the turbulence. They worked together as smoothly as if they were part of a single mind. ’Wacker leveled out and slipped easily through the air streams, once more speeding east.

  Chapter 3

  Relieved to still be alive, Kithri signaled shipbrain to begin the disengagement from duoflight. She resolved not to say anything about Eril’s brief mutiny. They were still alive, she’d never see him again after today, and perhaps the storm itself had taught him better than to try it again. This wasn’t space, where he knew all the dangers and how to deal with them. Yet she couldn’t help thinking that in the end, when it mattered, he’d come through better than she expected. With him as a partner, she could duo her way through a black hole.

  She knew she was rationalizing, making excuses. If she had any sense she’d turn around and fly back to Port Ludlow right now. But if she did, she’d be throwing away her last real chance to get off Stayman...

  It’s just one run. I can survive anything for just one run.

  With the end of duolinkage, Kithri’s vision returned to normal. She slowed the scrubjet to subsonic. To the north, just inside the boundary of the Plain, lay a pile of partially completed permacrete structures, the abandoned first colony site. Fine white dust rose from the disturbed soil where the slow-growing scrub had not yet, after centuries, re-established its dominion. The merest breeze blew it aloft, an eloquent reminder of the fragility of Stayman’s ecology and the dismal failure of the first spaceport. The Federation had long since moved its base to the current location, where water was more readily available. It had never tried to revive the first site, a costly and difficult project. There was no reason to, as long as the miners were willing to haul the jaydium across the Plain.

  Kithri lifted her eyes to the vast, whitened Manitou range, rising high above a line of brownish dust haze. Peak after purple peak surged skyward, hard-edged against the dark blue horizon. The drifted snow on the summits glimmered in the sunlight.

  Behind her, Eril drew a quick, hissing breath. She was still in such rapport with him that she experienced his awe as if it were her own. The pleasure she felt at his mental touch built into a preorgasmic thrill. She caught her breath, her heart pounding in her chest.

  Kithri drew the scrubjet to a halt at the rocky edge of the Plain. Her fingers flew across the buckles of the restraining straps. She yanked the door open and scrambled, breathless, to the ground. Eril tumbled out after her and caught her in his arms.

  She held him tightly, fiercely, as if she could press her flesh through the layers of clothing and into his. His mouth on hers felt like velvet and then like steel. He cupped her head with his hands, his fingers stroking the smooth skin behind her ears. She slid her lips over his cheek, down the line of his jaw to the soft hollow of his throat, tasting him, inhaling his scent like perfume.

  It’s like making love to myself, she thought in amazement. The male self that is my perfect complement.

  Kithri drew away, eyes closed as she drew his hands over her breasts. She swayed, almost overcome with the intensity of her feelings, and sank to her knees.

  She put one hand to the barren ground for balance. A sharp-edged stone cut deep into her palm, drawing blood. The pain shocked her halfway back to rationality. The pounding in her ears faltered as she stared at the red droplets staining the grit on her hand.

  That’s my life draining away into the dust. Her stomach twisted into a knot of ice.

  She drew herself upright, her sensual rapport with Eril shattered. “That’s quite...something...I’d wondered what it was like — the backlash,” she murmured, glancing away. “Hank always got randy after a duo flight, but I didn’t feel anything.”

  “The women I trained duo with — we never connected like this.” Eril’s voice sounded husky and his pupils were so huge, his eyes looked totally black. “If you didn’t feel anything for each other to begin with — there was nothing. Sometimes Hank and I would make bad jokes about it when we weren’t in a scramble.” His fingers sank into her shoulders and he pulled her closer, caressing her mouth and cheek. “Who cares what it was like then?”

  Kithri pushed him away, wiped her eyes with the back of one hand and clambered to her feet. “This isn’t getting us any jaydium.”

  Eril lunged upright, his breath coming in huge gulps. “That’s all there is to it, then? We go on as if nothing had happened —”

  “What do you expect?” she snapped. “Instant affinity? Eril, we don’t even know each other. Yes, I wanted you — I wanted us. A moment ago — if there’d been room in ’Wacker or grass instead of this cursed rock — well, there wasn’t. Life’s like that. It’s over now. It’s time to get back to work.”

  He caught her arm as she started back to the ’jet. “Have it your own way. But the next time we duo it’ll happen again. Maybe worse. Do you think you’ll be able to walk away from me then?”

  Kithri turned from him, unable to reply, and jumped back into Brushwacker.

  o0o

  They flew slowly along the rapidly climbing slopes, past the altitude boundary of the meager vegetation. The familiar rhythm of the scrubjet soothed Kithri’s jangled nerves. Her awareness of Eril’s touch on the controls lingered as if they were still joined in duo, and that disturbed her. His parting challenge would not dissipate as simply as a few ephemeral hormones. She would have to find a rebuttal for him, for her own peace as well.<
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  I always seem to want what I can’t have. Why can’t I take what little comfort life has to offer?

  She had no answers. Not for him, not for herself.

  o0o

  As they climbed, the automatic pressurization came on, compensating for the thinner air. Kithri spotted the first few tunnels, some half-blocked with fallen rock. She pointed them out to Eril. The early settlers had thought them volcanic because of their superficial resemblance to lava tubes, but more detailed studies revealed that they ran through, rather than along, the crustal plates. The conventional opinion was they couldn’t be natural and they couldn’t be anything else.

  Kithri’s father had been particularly intrigued by the traces of odd organic acids in the slag. He hoped they might lead to understanding why jaydium was not found anywhere else in settled space. Pearls, amber, coral — each planet had its own distinctive varieties. Jaydium was unique, found only on Stayman.

  Although it had not been his primary assignment, jaydium and everything associated with it had been Raddison Sunnai’s abiding passion. He was a chemical geologist, one of the last scientists the Federation sent to Stayman as dwindling resources and escalating internal chaos forced a reordering of priorities. Then there was the war and no more Federation ships, only demands for more jaydium.

  Kithri helped him with what research he could continue, chipping jaydium to pay the bills and buy enough books to pass her University admissions equivalency. After the war began, however, there were no more scholarships. Jaydium mining itself could not pay for interstellar transport and off-planet tuition, not after supplies of the space-crystallized drug, lithicycline, had wiped out their small savings. Lithicycline was the only treatment known for neurodyscrasia, and it was palliative at best.

  It had taken Raddison Sunnai three years to die. The lithicycline shipments had stopped after one.