Building Harlequin’s Moon

by Larry Niven

  The captain’s voice startled him so he almost fell off the bench. “So, did she take it as hard as you thought?”

  “She’s angry. All I’ve told her so far is how much time passed while she slept. She wants to know everything at once.”

  “Of course she does.”

  Gabriel stood and started walking. The captain followed. “Liren should have wakened me when the flares kept going.”

  “You said that,” the captain replied dryly. “She’s not warm to fuss about it to.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good anyway. I am worried about the flares.”

  “Yes. There are more shelters, and people are more careful. We handled it.”

  “I talked to Astronaut, and it thinks bigger flares might happen. I need to work on that flare kite I talked about. We might need to give Selene a thicker shield somehow—thicken the atmosphere even more, or build some kind of shield around it, or maybe just a safer place . . .” Gabriel was lost in the problem . . . “If we brought in another comet, that would add—”

  “Easy, Gabriel. We should talk about it.” The captain laid a hand on his shoulder. “But first, why don’t you go to Selene and see what we’ve done so far?”

  “Huh? Oh, yes. But I have to take Rachel.”

  “So take her.”

  Gabriel could hardly wait to get off the ship.

  CHAPTER 25

  CATCHING UP

  RACHEL FELT VIVIDLY alive: remade. Every sense was a flood. Her fingernails were hard and round, her hair shone, colors were bright and distinct from one another, and even sounds had an amazing clarity. Her body wanted to get up and dance and run and go to the garden and fly.

  Her heart wanted to flee back to sleep, back to the peaceful blankness of the cryotanks where the nightmare wasn’t real, where she would wake up and go back to Aldrin and find Harry waiting for her and continue her last argument with Ursula. She wanted to lie on her bed in her tent and smell dinner as her father cooked it.

  Her body won. The new energy kept her from sleep. No matter about the time, she wanted to see her dad and Harry and Ursula. Her dad needed to know she was all right. He must be so worried. Ursula was already suspicious of Council; what must she think now? And Harry; there were a million things she couldn’t think about a Harry twice her age.

  She had surrendered her wrist pad when she went cold. She tried some Library queries again, and heard only silence. So she remained cut off, whispering to emptiness. Like Andrew.

  Rachel had to talk Gabriel into telling her what had happened, and into returning her wrist pad and communication. She had to get home. She wouldn’t stay here, not now. She wouldn’t let them make her stay. Too many unexpected things had happened. She did yoga, trying to prepare herself for seeing Gabriel. Even as she balanced on one leg, her mind ran scenarios: what had twenty years done to her friends?

  Was Harry waiting for her? He couldn’t be. Her breath caught and she fell sideways, hopping to keep her balance. What about Ursula? Did she make the planting teams? Was she still afraid of the big planters? She tightened her thigh to give her balancing leg strength and reached back. Her hand easily held her foot and she pulled up on it, stretching so the back of her foot approached the back of her head.

  Dad! Surely he knew she didn’t mean this. She wobbled, and straightened the arm that was in front of her, reaching to retain balance. She needed to be strong to talk Gabriel into letting her go home.

  Rachel sat cross-legged on the bed when he finally stood in her doorway. She blinked, looking past him, not sure she could meet his eyes and stay calm. He balanced a tray of bread and apple slices and tea in his right hand, and he was dressed formally. His long hair was carefully combed so it flowed to his waist. He smiled, and in spite of herself, her own smile flickered awake.

  He turned a knob next to the door. It had always been there, but she’d never seen anyone touch it.

  “What does that do?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s a Privacy Switch—everything that happens in here will still be recorded, but no one will see it unless the captain orders it.”

  She thought about the nights she’d sat against the door, crying. “Why didn’t you tell me about that before?”

  “Didn’t Kyu tell you?”

  “No one tells me anything.” She could hear the edge in her voice.

  “You’re angry.” He handed her water and tea, and she finished the water in one long pull, and held on to the tea. It warmed her hands.

  If she didn’t hurry, she would lose her courage. “Gabriel—I want to go home. To Aldrin. Today. I have to know what’s happened.”

  “Soon.” Gabriel sat down on the edge of the bed, near her. “You need more time to acclimate. You have to get used to the idea of missing time before you go down there—some things aren’t like you left them.”

  “How could they be? You showed me Selene! All that new stuff—” Did he really think she was that stupid? “Gabriel—I know that things are different. What if we were on Selene, and you knew that somehow everything on John Glenn had changed, and you couldn’t get here?”

  “Time has passed. That’s all. Next time I see Ali, she will have lived six months that I didn’t, and I’ll have lived some amount of time that she didn’t.” He nibbled at an apple slice. “I do know something. Your mind hasn’t adapted to the change yet. You need to accept new things slowly. That’s even true for those of us who are most used to these cold time jumps.”

  “How can I sit here? I need to see Harry.”

  “Harry’s contracted.” Gabriel’s voice was unemotional, as if he had said “Apollo is rising.”

  Pain lanced through her, physical, forcing her eyes shut. But she said nothing. She had thought about this in the few moments before sleep took her last night, her body still in the dead silence, cut off from all communications. She knew Harry couldn’t wait twenty years for her. But she hadn’t known how it would feel when it became real.

  She opened her eyes and blinked at Gabriel. His calm infuriated her. She wanted him to leave so she could cry about Harry. She watched Gabriel as evenly as she could, keeping her face as neutral as his, her body as still, waiting him out, holding her questions. Rachel saw Gabriel’s jaw twitching, noticed that he looked away sometimes, far into the corners of the room. He was trying to look calmer than he really was.

  “Harry and Gloria just renewed a fifteen-year contract. They have two children. Dylan is a sixteen-year-old boy. His younger sister’s middle name is Rachel.”

  Sixteen! She’d only been cold three years when Harry made Gloria pregnant. Gloria would have been . . . seventeen herself. Rachel was seventeen now . . . plus twenty. Rachel’s voice shook. “What did you—did Council tell Harry and my dad about why I slept longer than expected?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel said.

  “What about my wrist pad?” She tried to sound casual about the query. Lack of communications access was hard; she felt vulnerable.

  “After I tell you a few things, probably tomorrow.”

  She couldn’t give up. “Gabriel, I need to go to Aldrin.”

  “Two days.” He pushed the tray toward her, and she decided that if he’d given in that much, she could eat a little. It was a small concession.

  Ursula never trusted Council. She wondered if Ursula was contracted to anyone, and if she was a teacher. “Gabe?” she asked. “Gabriel, how is Ursula?”

  “When I woke up, I looked up references to all of the people I knew you cared about. That’s the job of whoever does the transition counseling when someone comes on or off watch—that’s what I’m doing now.”

  So that was why he was here. But surely he cared about her?

  “I looked for Harry first. Then your dad. He’s healthy, by the way. Recontracted. You’ll meet his new wife. You have a half sister and two half brothers.”

  But . . . but . . . Rachel and her dad had always been inseparable, a unit. What would it be like to see him with another family? Did they live in the
same tent? Was someone else in her room?

  It took a moment to think about it, let her feelings sink in. She took a long pull of water and let it sit in her mouth before she swallowed it. She’d expected to be angry . . .

  She realized she was glad he had found company. Twenty years would have been a long time to be alone. Even though she felt excluded, it made her feel better, less like she had abandoned him. “Who?”

  “An Earth Born—a Colonist. You’ll meet her. Her name is Kara Richardson. The daughter is seven, and the boys are nine-year-old twins. Kara’s contract is only for ten years, and there’s been no renewal yet, and I couldn’t find out how they get along. You’ll meet her—there’s another year to the contract anyway.”

  “Do they know I’m awake?”

  “Not yet,” Gabriel said, pacing the room. “I’ll tell them when we’re ready to go back.” He looked uncomfortable.

  “What about Ursula?”

  “She’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 26

  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

  RACHEL HAD NEVER answered Ursula’s message about Nick. So she couldn’t be dead. It was too much. It . . . just . . . couldn’t be real . . . she had gone to sleep two days ago. Two days!

  Twenty years.

  The room seemed to contract. Anger filled her, startling her with its heat as it flooded her limbs and dimmed her vision. She launched herself at Gabriel, fists flailing. “How could you do this to me? How could you let her die? How come you get to decide everything for everybody? Why didn’t you just kill me? Me instead of her?”

  Gabriel grabbed her fists, easily holding her away from him. She pulled into a ball, kicking at him. When he leaned forward to stop her feet, Rachel snapped for his hair with her teeth, tasting a thick rope of it. She couldn’t talk anymore, but she struggled for a long time.

  He didn’t let go.

  The first sob racked her, taking her by surprise. She gave in, folded in Gabriel’s arms, held against him tightly, her legs pinned between his, her arms at her side. Her body shook with sobs that wouldn’t stop. Ursula . . .

  Gabriel whispered to her, over and over, saying, “You will be all right. You’ll be fine. It’s okay.” He whispered nonsense, and songs, and rocked her.

  He was stronger than she had imagined. She was trapped in a cage of his arms and legs, but it was a soft yielding cage as long as she relaxed into it. Her crying subsided into short gasps. She finally pushed him away. This time, he let her go. For just a moment, she saw his face mirror her confusion. “When did she die?”

  “Fifteen years ago.”

  But I just got a message from her. “How . . . how did Ursula die?”

  “She fell. In the Hammered Sea crater. She was working on a crew that was checking pipes for leaks, and she fell. The report said that she had tied the belay line wrong, and so when she fell she just . . . kept going. She hit her head on a rock, and that’s what killed her.”

  Rachel rose and paced around the small room. “You know she was always afraid of falling. You never made her stand at a cliff’s edge. R-remember, in Erika’s Folly, y-you sent her on the easy walk with Harry? At the Hammered Sea? You let her sit away from the edge?”

  “I remember.”

  She pulled her fingers through her hair, trying to think. “So who made her climb the crater? She would never have gone there willingly. She just wouldn’t.”

  “But she might have been careless enough to tie the rope wrong. Terror can make you clumsy.”

  She whirled to face him. “Who was with her?” she demanded. “Was Harry there?”

  “Harry was in Aldrin. Nick was with her. Ursula and Nick were promised, but not yet contracted. There is no one to blame, Rachel. Accidents happen.”

  Disbelief threatened to sweep her away again. She was dizzy. Gabriel had pulled her close to him, holding her, the warmth of his body absorbing her tremors. Slowly she felt her body responding to him as it had to Harry, warming to him. She pulled away in confusion and threw herself down on the bed, shaking, trying to bury her fear and tears in her breathing.

  Gabriel whispered, “I’ll see that you sleep. Take it easy. Let it sink in.” He put his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, and then she felt nothing as the med-feed embedded in her arm slammed her with a wall of sleep drugs.

  CHAPTER 27

  FINDING TREESA

  RACHEL FELT NUMB when she woke. Her pain had become a distant thing, and nothing had come to take its place. She sat in the middle of the bed, unmoving, waiting for Gabriel. Surely he would come. She couldn’t tell time without her wrist pad. The Library didn’t respond to her.

  She waited. Kyu or Gabriel always appeared shortly after she woke. It wasn’t something she thought about, it just happened. The doorway stayed empty. She realized she didn’t even know if Kyu was cold. For all she knew, Gabriel and the med staff might be the only people awake.

  There would be people in the garden—there had to be, didn’t there?

  She pushed her door open, and looked down the empty corridor. She returned to her bed and sat, then stood and paced the room. She drank water from the bathroom, but her belly ached for food. She went back to her door, and this time she started down the corridor. No alarms sounded; no one came for her.

  Was anyone planning to?

  She took her normal path to the garden. She hesitated, held her breath, and stepped inside.

  The garden bloomed and danced in front of her, full of life and movement. Rachel swayed, dizzy again, watching. Council moved about almost like her first day here, mostly at a distance, some flying, some walking paths or tending plants. Kyu had dropped her at the door before. Maybe no one would think it odd she had come here alone.

  The hanging baskets near the door were smaller, and overflowed with pansies and geraniums instead of fuchsias. The low-gravity herb planters that had been near the tree trunk were gone, replaced by something that looked like the meadow in Aldrin. Rachel felt floaty, separate from the ship and the garden and the Council. She made her way to the cafeteria slowly, taking in changes one by one.

  Inside, Gabriel and the captain sat together. Gabriel sounded angry; the captain’s voice was low and calm, but insistent. She caught the words “Liren” and “disaffected” before Gabriel saw her and called out, “Good morning, Rachel.” Three people were gathered in a knot by the far wall. They looked over when Gabriel called her name, and their conversation stopped.

  She swallowed, nodded, and went straight for a plate, filling it carefully with grapes, an orange, mock bacon, and bread before sitting down beside Gabriel. She peeled the orange carefully, trying to look like she wasn’t starved. The orange smelled richer, and tasted sweeter, than she remembered. Every sound seemed distinct; the scrape of a chair as someone sat down, the captain’s fork against his plate.

  They were all watching her.

  She remembered being close to Gabriel the night before, and how his arms felt around her.

  Rachel ate quickly, feeling stronger as bread and fruit filled her stomach. She didn’t want to talk to Gabriel with the captain there. Gabriel had said that long times cold were nothing to Council, and the captain was High Council. She was angry at the captain just for being High Council, and at Gabriel for not meeting her that morning.

  When she had emptied her plate, Rachel looked at Gabriel.

  His face was almost expressionless. “You look more rested,” he said, his voice flatter than she hoped for.

  Of course, she thought, you gave me sleep drugs with the med-feed. She wanted to question Gabriel more about Ursula and Harry. The captain looked at her with sympathy, maybe even pity. She didn’t want his concern.

  “I’m going to take a walk,” she said.

  “Meet me back here in an hour,” Gabriel said.

  “I don’t have a way to tell time.” Why didn’t he leave the captain and talk to her? Didn’t he know she wanted to be with him? Needed it?

  Gabriel handed her a wrist pad.

  It wa
s different from the one she had surrendered to the medical staff, smaller and lighter. It responded to her taps and to her voice, and of course, it kept time. She looked at him.

  “Better model,” he said. “Access to Selene is blocked for now.”

  Her jaw clenched and her hands curled into fists. She forced herself to be calm with three deep breaths. She needed more.

  “The Library?” she asked. “Please?”

  A chime rang in her ear. She queried it for the time. It answered. Now she was fully functional. Almost. She was still a prisoner on the ship. She couldn’t call home, or go home, or see home.

  Rachel left the cafeteria. Once outside, she started back toward Yggdrasil and the aft door. Then she stopped. She didn’t want to go back to her room. She didn’t want anything, except to sleep, to forget. Her body hummed with energy.

  Rachel walked up the path toward the jungle grove. She felt too shaky to fly. The new wrist pad didn’t have any assignments on it, nothing that told her how to spend the hour. Everything that drove her choices was gone—stolen from her!

  She found herself at the little shed where Treesa had taken her. Why hadn’t she come here before?

  She knocked on the door. No one answered.

  Rachel turned and sat with her back to the door. She had a wrist pad. She wanted to talk to Harry, to her dad. What she wanted most was impossible: to send Ursula a note. She couldn’t think of a single question for the Library. Not one she wanted answers to. So she sat and looked out over the garden, tears streaming down her face. Yggdrasil hung above her. The ribbon of river hung over her head beyond the tree, and the greenbelt that made the exercise area looked like it always had. A plant-misting bot flew by just over her head, surprising her.

  “About time.”

  Rachel jumped. Treesa’s voice came from above her. She sat on the roof of the shed, legs hanging over the side. Her hair was grayer than Rachel remembered, and neatly combed. Treesa’s clothes looked new, bright red with turquoise feather decorations sewn onto big pockets. She even sounded more engaged as she continued. “The Ice Maiden returns. Twenty years to find me again!”