Analog SFF, December 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You say that,” she said, studying his face, “as if you are glad not to be like him."

  "I already told you about the elephants. He respected them, until an American hunter hired him to kill them."

  "How so, did he respect them?"

  "When we were children, he told us many stories about the elephants. Nama folk tales."

  Netty warmed again. “Maybe those stories are a more important legacy than your blood. Tell them to me."

  "There is one story about a woman, a human, who married an elephant. She tricked him into marrying her, so that she could steal his livestock."

  Netty smiled at the idea of an elephant keeping livestock.

  "One night,” he continued, “the elephant's wife took some goats and cattle and ran off with them. The elephant chased her, but before going, he told his mother that if something bad happened to him and he fell, she would know it because the whole Earth would shake with the crash. Just as the elephant was about to catch his wife, she escaped through a crack in a cave wall. He tried to follow, but the crack closed on him, and he fell. When his mother felt the whole world shake, she knew that the elephant was dead."

  Netty shivered at the prophetic tale.

  "So you see,” he said, “my father felled the elephant, and the whole world fell with it."

  "You're very down to earth, do you know that?"

  "What does it mean, ‘down to earth?’”

  She warmed inside. That he did not know proved the point. “It means I like you."

  Oscar coughed again. She shrank back. Oscar was the first person she had seen being sick on the Moon. Everyone had been screened and given a clean bill of health before being allowed on a “starfish” ship to the Moon.

  "I'm sorry,” he said. “It's always too cold."

  "You really should take care of that cough.” She held his gaze for a moment, and then he looked away in discomfort.

  "It's your turn to tell me something now,” he said.

  "You want me to tell you about that meteor?"

  "Tell me what your dreams were, before this disaster."

  Netty smiled faintly. What a lovely request to make. Revisiting old dreams often put a healthy perspective on them. “Those dreams are long gone,” she said. “But you know what? I have a new dream."

  "Martin Luther King, Jr."

  "Not hardly!” Netty laughed. “I'm just a YoCo from Maryland who won a few debates."

  "What is a YoCo?"

  "Young cosmopolitan.” Her smile froze, then dropped.

  She had just laughed. Netty would never forget where she had been or who she was with the first time she laughed after the Earth was hit.

  "Let me hear your dream."

  "My dream is to rebuild the Earth, a little bit at a time. We'll start with a village. No dictators, no wars, no racism, nothing like it was before. This time we're gonna do it right! No one will care whether you're black or white or colored—that's what your people call themselves, isn't it?"

  "Yes. We're Basters. We were. I'm the last one."

  "'Colored’ is bad enough, but that other term is so degrading."

  "It's okay. We're Basters. My ancestors were proud not to be too closely related to those around them."

  "Hmm."

  "You have a good dream, Netty. I want to help you achieve it."

  Netty shivered. For the first time, a promise of destiny whispered in her ear, and it shot through her body, making her tingle as if from an electric shock. She was fond of Oscar and attracted to him, and now, for the first time, she had reason for deeper feelings. She took his hand firmly. “You will."

  Oscar coughed again, a deep, rattling wrack.

  "Oscar, I want you to see a doctor today. Unfortunately, most of the medical staff has gone to Pod 3, but there's a GP around."

  "GP?"

  "General practitioner. He can help you with that."

  She was worried about Oscar being contagious. She suddenly realized that since he had come to the Moon under false pretenses, he might not have been properly screened. What if he had brought some dangerous infection to this nearly germ-free environment?

  Netty retired with mixed feelings. She was pretty sure that she could love Oscar, if she allowed herself to. He was more intelligent than she had first thought, and his simplicity was an attraction, both personally and professionally. Having someone like him as a husband would prevent complications with her work. It was time to be practical, she told herself, as never before.

  On the other hand, she was boiling over the fact that Oscar had managed to circumvent security to come here. There was just no excuse for that. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe he was just taking an opportunity given to him. But none of that mattered. If he had some nasty disease and it spread, Oscar would be like an open window in a meteor shower. What if she had to shutter him, too?

  The next day she received an e-mail at her desk from the GP, Dennis Simon, who requested a meeting with her, about a “Hendrik” Izaaks. His office was simply a shelf of a desk at the corner of the general clinic. Simon looked to be in his early forties, his thin hair graying prematurely, his face unwrinkled. He needed to cut his eyebrows, but like so many people here, especially the men, he showed few signs of grooming.

  "Mr. Izaaks has tuberculosis,” the doctor told her. “I don't know how that could have been missed—it was one of the standard tests."

  Her heart sank. “That is a mystery,” she said, unwilling to betray Oscar's secret. There was little point to that now. Moreover, she felt closer to him personally than she had felt to anyone in years—not quite motherly or possessive, but protective. “Can you cure him, or do you need help from one of the other doctors?"

  "Absolutely, I can cure him,” Simon said, frowning at the insinuation. “But right now, Hendrik is contagious, and he shares a room with three other men. Can you arrange private quarters? I can keep him here, but it would take up space that might be needed by the patients from the other pod."

  "He goes by Oscar,” Netty said. “And yes, I can arrange something."

  * * * *

  The private room was a large storage vault, with a real door. It was climate controlled—rare for a storage room—and was warmer than Oscar's shared quarters. The room was nearly full of plastic crates, so that despite its size, it was cramped. Oscar's nylon mesh hammock from his room was hung from stays on the walls near the door.

  Oscar coughed. “I feel like I have soggy groundnuts in my chest."

  Netty looked at Oscar with sympathy. His mouth was open and drawn, as if from exhaustion. “I'm really sorry, and I'm sorry about the confinement."

  "It's okay,” he said, suppressing a cough. “I don't want to infect anyone else."

  "That's really noble of you."

  "I am not a noble person. I should have told you earlier."

  She tried to make eye contact, but could not. She helped wrap his blanket around his shoulders. He was a treasure, like the priceless keepsakes in this vault. “Oscar, what's wrong? Doctor Simon says he'll have you out of here by Christmas."

  "I have not been honest with you, Netty."

  "You have more secrets, don't you?"

  "Just one. A very terrible one."

  She leaned to hug him, but he shied away. The hurt look on his face pained her, and her shoulders shook. There was a barrier between them, and as she realized that, she also grasped the depth of her love for him. Her hands reached for his, but were not met. “You know you can share anything with me."

  "Netty, I have AIDS."

  She gasped and suddenly felt as if she had just used up all the remaining oxygen in the pod. The walls closed in around her as her vision tunneled in. Oscar's concerned face seemed to swim, breaking into puzzle pieces. She did not want to faint, the way she had lifting off from Earth.

  "Are you all right? Sit down. I'm very sorry to give you a shock."

  Netty sank into the rope hammock. She tried to stay sitting up, but in low gravity, on a swaying, squeezing bed, h
er body did not know how. Then her right earring caught in the mesh, and she relaxed. The earrings were her mother's, and she did not want to lose them.

  "I have HIV, Netty. That's why my father sent me in his place. He hoped there would be a cure."

  Her head would not clear, and she didn't want it to. “Does Dr. Simon know?” she said.

  "Only you."

  "Okay, my dear. Okay.” Netty had a claustrophobic urge to leave the room. “Listen, I've got to do some things—I've got to go. I'll check on you tomorrow. Okay?"

  She struggled to get up, but couldn't get out of the hammock until Oscar helped her.

  * * * *

  Netty lay on her own cot, for once relishing the icy tang of its aluminum rail. It reminded her of her cousin's brass bed in Charlotte and how they used to tussle on it as girls. Thoughts of home and family drifted in the air, and she tried not to think of Oscar. She turned on some Neo Jazz. It was the first time she played music since the asteroid Big Bastard hit, and she could not stomach it. It was too soon for music.

  A Christmas star twirled silently from the ceiling, a precious family heirloom. It had also been a metaphor during her rookie year as mayor. “In government transitions,” her press manager had said, “the lights on the tree don't know what to do without a star on top. You need to be that star even before the election.” She had found that rather pompous, but her manager milked it, and it stuck. Now she was used to it.

  She remembered Christmas with her grandfather, who had died of lung cancer when she was very small. To her, he was a font of wisdom, and she daydreamed that Big Bastard might have somehow revived him so that she would meet him again. There were no smokers left now, but she knew that there were tobacco seeds in storage. Who in their right mind thought they would ever have any beneficial use?

  The applicable phrase that had been thrown around during the last few years was “what would Noah do?” Well, he wouldn't have brought tobacco. There were some who had gone around quoting Emerson, to the effect that even weeds are useful plants whose virtues had yet to be discovered. But Netty knew of no one who thought it was a good idea to preserve deadly microbes, two by two, or otherwise.

  When people were screened to go to the Moon, some of the old Ellis Island rules were revamped. The new rules were debated endlessly, but when you can only save a thimble-full of people, there are no good rules. Incurable, communicable diseases were strictly forbidden. Netty might have to quarantine Oscar indefinitely. Worse, she was afraid that she couldn't let him return to Earth. He would have to remain in exile, filling some function in the permanent lunar base for the rest of his life. It was an authority she had, but using it had never occurred to her.

  Unable to sleep, she paced through the halls for a while, until she found herself at LaDonna's room. “Knock, knock, knock,” she whispered.

  She heard some fumbling about. Derrick grunted, and LaDonna's head and shoulder wrapped around the curtain.

  "I'm sorry to disturb you,” Netty said, “but can I interest you in a little walk?"

  "Okay, but at this hour, there'd better be a big sale going on."

  "Sorry."

  "All right, let me put something on. It's better to be up all night than have to get up early! Besides, jogging beats organized tai chi any time of day."

  They warmed up by strolling to B ring, where they began a pajama power walk. As cold as it was in the pods, pajamas were the default dress code for most people. Netty typically wore her pajamas to work, with a jacket over top. The jacket was standard issue, a sort of navy blue business coat with an inner thermal layer. She still wasn't used to it, feeling half naked without real clothes and deodorant, but she was saving her good clothes for resettling Earth.

  LaDonna slowed her pace. “Next time, remind me to wear a bra,” she said.

  "I'm sorry. If you want to go back—"

  "Don't worry. I'll just consider this research for my book."

  Netty thought LaDonna was kidding, but sometimes she couldn't tell. LaDonna liked to pull surprises. “What book?"

  "I'm going to call it ‘Never Jog on the Moon without a Bra.’”

  Netty smiled faintly. “That's one book I'm glad I don't need."

  No one else was about, which was unusual. Being so close to the lunar South Pole, the floor of Shoemaker was in eternal shadow, while the rim enjoyed days of light. There, the Sun seemed to roll sleepily along the horizon, before disappearing for days. Pod 4 was lower in the crater than the other pods, nearer to the subsurface ice, and received only a few days of sunlight, when the Moon was so inclined. The long nights had lulled people into every conceivable sleep schedule. With the lights dimmed and no one about, it felt like real night.

  "You believe in God."

  "Uh-oh, here it comes,” groaned LaDonna.

  "Is this another Genesis, or are these the end times?"

  "You know, I've forced myself to ignore all that philosophical shoeshine people have been shouting at each other."

  "But what do you think? Someone claims that the creation story is told twice in Genesis, because the first civilization rose and fell, and all records of it were lost. The garden of Eden was the second chance, and Noah had the third. So when we repopulate the world, it will be the fourth creation."

  "Everybody's got some way of rewriting the Bible out of all this.” LaDonna fell into a rhythm, bouncing her shoulders and rapping. “First we cast out of paradise; out in space it's cold as ice. Singing songs in such a strange land; can't see my face in front of my hand. Then we done broke the seventh seal; in Noah's ark, in the belly of the whale.” She stopped and laughed. “You can forget all that. It's simple, sister. We on da Moon."

  They exchanged greetings with a bleary-eyed maintenance man on his rounds, completed a lap, and continued on. LaDonna did not ask why Netty was up and needing company so late, and Netty was glad she did not ask. Netty stopped short when a dark shape slunk along a cable conduit at the edge of the floor.

  "What on Earth was that?” she said, regretting the painful, habitual phrase. The dark shape was gone.

  "That was Felinity."

  "A cat?"

  "Uh-huh. You don't know about Felinity?"

  Netty fumed. “As the PA of this pod, I don't suppose I'm authorized to know about Felinity, like everyone else is."

  "Oh, well! What you gonna do?"

  After five laps, Netty was finally feeling sleepy and had no idea what she would do about the contraband cat. They stopped at LaDonna's room and held hands for a moment. “Thanks for jogging with me."

  "Go represent."

  Netty shook her head. How many times had she protected or covered for a person of color in her office who had not measured up in one way or another? Of course, they had deserved her help, but it always hurt. “Those days are over. No more embarrassment. The only black folk left don't need anyone to apologize for them. We don't need to represent, because we just are." Her lips quivered with sincerity. She let go of LaDonna's hands and turned to go.

  "You gonna tell me what's really wrong?” LaDonna said.

  Netty looked at the floor, and shook her head. “I'm not very happy with God right now."

  "I hear that."

  "So if he does exist, he better not show his face in my damned pod."

  * * * *

  Netty was awakened at an early hour by a call from her medical staff chief, Dr. Bhatti, who was over at Pod 3. He described the condition of each of the patients and asked for permission to keep the contingent there for a few more days. Because Bhatti sounded nervous, she asked if there was some other problem.

  "Actually, there is,” he said. “While cleaning up the mess, the crew found some unexpected human remains outside the complex."

  "What do you mean, ‘unexpected?’”

  "They are fragments of bone that don't belong to any of the deceased."

  Netty rubbed her eyes, which were not focusing. “What you do mean? What's going on?"

  "Someone was thrown up by the a
steroid impact. He landed here with the other debris."

  "That's ridiculous! Someone can't be thrown all the way to the Moon."

  Bhatti narrowed his eyes. “They can. It is a good guess that this fellow was sitting in his truck when he was ejected into space, along with many tons of earth."

  "His truck?"

  "There were metal fragments near the bone splinters, including part of an engine block."

  "You're joking."

  "It was a Chevy. I don't know the model."

  Netty's mind went blank. “Okay,” she said. “Bring me up to speed."

  She wanted to ask Bhatti about cures for AIDS, but decided to wait until she could do so in person. Meanwhile, there was always the GP.

  Doctor Simon's “front door” curtain had been pleated by hand to look like an oriental fan. Netty had passed it uncounted times when going through C ring, but hadn't known it was his. Unable to sleep and unwilling to wait until office hours, she went to see him as early as she felt comfortable.

  "Knock, knock?"

  A woman answered, but did not pull back the curtain. “Yes? What is it?"

  "Is the doctor in?"

  "Just a minute."

  Dennis Simon came quickly to the door, evidently having heard Netty's voice and anticipating an emergency. “Yes, Ms. Washington?"

  "Is there a cure for AIDS?"

  Simon stood quietly, looking down at the floor. He had a distant expression. He raked his thin hair back on his head and nodded slowly, then more assuredly. Extra skin under his chin wobbled in the low gravity. “I think so. Why?"

  * * * *

  Netty felt a warmness incubating within her. “In the offing,” as her grandmother used to say. She thought that Oscar's news would kill the emotion, but it had not. Instead of giving up on him, she wanted a solution. She had once saved a failing hospital in the District, so why couldn't she find a cure for Oscar?

  She went to his temporary room in the storage area. She told him that Doctor Simon believed he could cure the HIV, and described Simon's untried technique. To date, there was no actual cure for the virus, but Simon's work with dialysis had led him to research the possibility of combining transfusions with blood filtering. He had personally invented a new kind of molecular filter and would have it recreated here in a matter of hours. While there were no guarantees, she told him that it was critically important, since, as a carrier, Oscar posed a great risk to the guests and crew of SMP4.