by Larry Niven
Zack wore a blindingly bright pair of red suspenders over hand-stitched overalls. A fiddle was tucked tightly under his chin, and Cadmann was damned if he didn't actually coax music from it. Zack was playing the hayseed image to the hilt as he stomped and sang on the low stage, guiding the flux and flow of the square dancers with a theatrically midwestern twang in his voice. His voice was flat but lively: the colonists followed his lead in an explosion of joyous energy.
The music itself was an odd mixture of synthesizer keyboard, traditional woodwind and string. Some of the instruments had been shipped aboard Geographic, justified as vital cultural treasures. Some had been cobbled together after landing.
And now all promenade,
A-with that sweet corner maid,
Singing "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny Oh..."
Cadmann leaned against the wall, halfway through his third mug of beer. The last cold knot of tension in his stomach was coming unsnarled; his head began to buzz politely. He hated lines. He had waited until the music blared from the hall and the dancers returned to their marks before tapping the cold kegs of beer.
On the far side of the crowd Mary Ann danced, swirling her bangled green skirt, throwing her head back to laugh deeply. The smooth white expanse of her throat flashed above a red kerchief. She caught Cadmann's eye and crooked a challenging finger, blowing him a kiss, silently mouthing Come on before Elliot Falkland caught her hands and swung her around to the opposite corner of her square.
Cadmann stretched. Tight spots, wounds not quite healed? Yeah, he could find the pain in chest and left arm and hip and knee, if he needed an excuse not to dance. It was more fun to watch.
Carlos bowed out of the dance, pecking Ida van Don on the cheek as he released her hands. She looked around uncertainly, with almost a touch of panic, then spotted Omar's huge frame and pulled him from his seat, tugging him into the patterned chaos, whooping with glee. The glee was not entirely spontaneous. Her smile seemed too rigid. Cadmann wondered if her dreams still rang with Jon's dying screams.
Carlos mopped sweat from his dark brow, fanned the dark circles staining the armpits of his red flannel shirt. "Ah, amigo. I am getting old. The senoritas are too much for me."
"Then don't get married."
"Vertical and horizontal dancing are much different." He smiled evilly. "Bobbi lets me lead." He took a sip of Cadmann's beer, smacked approvingly and drew himself a glass. He downed a third of the mug before coming up for air. He followed Cadmann's gaze to Mary Ann. "Your senorita—she also likes the dance, yes?" He paused, considering. "I think one can tell much from the way a woman moves to music. The hips, the hands, the way she holds—"
"Don't you think about anything but sex?"
"Life is short. One must find one's great gift, and practice it—how do you say?--assiduously."
Cadmann sputtered out a noseful of suds.
Together they strolled around the outside to the quad, where Bobbi Kanagawa worked at a food booth. Her long black hair twisted and pinned beneath a white paper cap, Bobbi was oblivious to the music piped out from the hall and didn't notice her fiance's approach.
With a long, thin knife, she carefully pared strips from one of three samlon on her cutting board. Movements almost mechanically precise, she sliced those strips into thinner pieces, then positioned them atop formed and pressed blocks of rice.
Although not in full production yet, the rice fields were healthy enough for Zack to authorize the release of some of the grain stored aboard Geographic.
Carlos leaned across the counter and kissed her wetly. Startled at first, she smooched back, then rubbed noses with him. "Leave me alone for fifteen minutes, then do with me what you will."
"I'll hold you to that, chiquita."
"You had better." She squeezed his hands, and there was enough heat in her emerald eyes to scorch stone. That's what it would take to nail Carlos... "I'm taking you down the rapids, mister."
Carlos grabbed a strip of samlon before she could protest and popped it into his mouth. Bobbi waved her knife at him as he skated away, chortling over his mouthful.
"What a woman. Don't you think we'll make beautiful babies?"
Cadmann reflected for a moment. "The loveliest woman I ever knew was half Japanese and half Jamaican. Assuming the kids take after their mother, they've got a chance."
The square dance ended with cheers and a thunderous round of applause, and the hall emptied into the quad.
Mary Ann worked her way to him through the press, holding a foaming mug. She panted, face glowing and sticky with perspiration. "Cad, you're such a stick. Why won't you dance?"
"War wound. Both legs blown off. Medics screwed up, sewed two left feet on."
She stuck her tongue out.
"Look on the bright side: somewhere out there is a guy with two right feet, killing ‘em at the Waldorf."
"You're just ashamed of me. You don't want anyone to see us together."
Carlos nodded sagely. "It is true. Many times he has told of how he likes to hide you away in the dark, covering you with his own body if need be—"
"Carlos—"
Martinez took the hint. "I've got to get ready for the rapids."
"Turning into a tradition, isn't it?"
"Around here, anything that happens twice is a tradition."
Carlos disappeared into the crowd.
The day just felt so damn good.
Contests and exhibitions had been running since breakfast. Cadmann had watched the archery and wrestling, cheering but not competing. Soon would begin the three-day boat race between the honeymooning couples. That he would enjoy! Then the dance contest... silliness, that was really all it was, but he had to admit that he was catching the bug.
True, he was pleasantly drunk. (Who had brewed the beer? If he could work out a private deal with that worthy—say, fresh melon cactus every month in exchange for a keg?) He felt more comfortable around the camp than he had in months. But something was pulling him back from wholehearted participation. A voice that was weakening by the minute. Or the mug. Whatever.
He politely squelched a burp.
Watching Mary Ann dance was good for him. He hadn't had a chance to really compare her with the other women.
There was no question that they were a couple: she had fixed the judges, bribed his cornermen and K.O.'d him before he even knew the fight was on. But it warmed him to feel a healthy physical tug when a twirl or gust of wind raised her skirts. Her hard work up at Cadmann's Bluff had trimmed away fat and added healthy muscle. The pregnancy didn't show yet, but there was something special about her. She did glow...
She squashed her lips against his in a beery kiss. "Cad—when are you going to—" her face changed in the middle of the question, became more mischievous—"dance with me?"
Shoot the rapids with me?
The real question was behind the smile, behind the laugh. It lived in the way she leaned against him, letting him feel the muted fire in her belly.
What the hell. It's just a formalization. Why not? But not now. Not on holotape, for God and the whole world to see.
"Later," he promised. "You'll see."
The stands on the north edge of the quad displayed a mosaic of the
Colony's artistic craftsmanship. Cadmann was startled and gratified by the breadth and reach of the work on display. These people had not been chosen for artistic talent. They had hidden depths.
Here was a kinetic sculpture, a globe filled with clear fluid, holding iron flakes spiraling in a slow nebula of magnetic flux.
There, a painting of Avalon's twin moons setting over the bramble bushes. The artist had precisely captured the mauve sunset.
Mounted on a linen-covered table was a sculpture of woven, wired and glued bones. Hundreds of samlon and pterodon bones, sliver thin, formed and painted into a golden bull. As a sumi painting suggests flight or motion with the barest strokes, somehow the bull was challenging and frightened, bursting with animal power and aching vulnerability. The artist's
signature was simply "Sylvia."
Cadmann glanced over his shoulder, suddenly wondering if anyone was watching him study the incredible piece, then forced himself to move on.
Next to it was a cameo of native obsidian, and several of Carlos's scandalous thornwood carvings. They would have been right at home on the wall of a Nepalese temple, and Cadmann was suddenly glad that none of the children were old enough to point and ask embarrassing questions.
The crowd was flowing into the meeting hall. Food must be ready to serve. Cadmann followed the flow. He claimed two empty seats next to Terry's wheelchair.
Mary Ann brought two plates piled with Bobbi's samlon sushi, with a dab of the precious powdered wasabi horseradish shipped from Earth; fresh spinach pasta, fresh tomato marinara, whole-grain wheat bread. Most of the food was from the fields and the nets. Avalon was yielding up her harvest, making what reparations she could for the damage done to her newest, strangest children.
Terry ate quietly, slowly chewing each mouthful into liquid. Always thin, he seemed to have gained a few pounds since his injury, and it made his face less pinched and severe. "I approve," he said neutrally.
It took a beat for Cadmann to realize Terry was talking to him.
"Food's pretty good," he agreed.
"No. You and Mary Ann. Good match." Terry took another careful mouthful. Cadmann noticed the streaks of gray hair coursing through the curly brown. "How are things up there on the mesa?"
"Nice. Quiet." Cadmann glanced at Mary Ann. "Wait until Sylvia has the baby. Come on up for dinner."
"I'd like that, if we can get this damned chair into a Skeeter."
"Sure, we can do that. Or have Carlos make you a folding model."
The projection equipment was wheeled out to the center of the floor.
An enlarged holo field shimmered like a heat mirage: the faces and figures against the far wall were pale, wavering ghosts.
The lights dimmed. The holo image hardened, and the speakers piped in sound.
A motorboat was being lowered down the ravine and into the river below the dam. The boat was a ten-foot black oval, tough synthetic elasticized skin stretched over a metal frame, two low seats and crescent steering wheel mounted in the front. The Skeeter-type engine aft looked too big for the boat. The plastic-sealed knob of a holotape recorder showed above the central mast.
It had reached the water. A second, identical boat dropped to join it.
Sylvia came to sit between Cadmann and Terry, and she smiled shyly as she lowered herself uncomfortably to her seat.
"You look ready," Mary Ann said.
"You know it. Now Marnie's saying next week! Cadmann, don't ever get pregnant." Her complexion was a little blotchy. She wheezed with relief as she settled herself, balancing a plate heaped with food in her hands.
"I'll remember that," he said. "Last time Mary Ann gets on top."
"Hush."
Someone yelled, "Ta-ta-ta-daah!" as Elliot Falkland and his fiancee.
La Donna, dashed to the center of the floor amid a rowdy chorus of cheers. "Chunky!" Falkland was all grin and jug ears and peeling tan, with a body almost twice the size, of La Donna's. But the little woman was known as an indefatigable construction worker. Behind Cadmann, Andy guffawed something about La Donna "sweating that blubber off Elliot before they reach the ocean."
Cadmann raised a cheer as Carlos and Bobbi joined the first couple. Carlos swept off a broad-brimmed hat in a low, gallant bow. Somehow, even dressed in denims, Bobbi managed a shy curtsey.
Carlos rushed over to Cadmann and Mary Ann. He wore a yellow safety vest, and skintight rubber pants. He carried a bedroll in his left hand. He and Bobbi would take the boat all the way to the ocean, camping along the way. Three days later they would be picked up by Skeeter, officially married.
Cadmann chortled to himself, guessing that Carlos would triple-check that the recording equipment was off before turning in for the evenings...
"Wish me luck, amigo. Falkland has more water experience than we do."
"More than anyone but the samlon. He's got flippers for feet." Elliot
Falkland and Jerry minded the catfish ponds downriver. Falkland also coordinated the underwater repair operations and had overseen the construction of the dam. That was where he had come to know La Donna. "Anyway, it's not when you get there, it's how."
"Loser paints the winner's house."
"I see your point. Kill him."
"Senor Falkland sleeps with the fishes."
"Good luck," Terry and Sylvia chimed.
Carlos shook hands with the men, kissed the women, then hustled out to supervise the lowering of his boat.
Sudden envy stirred in Cadmann. A three-day trip down the river would be a nice honeymoon. But we had ours while we built the camp, and it was fine!
The holo field flickered to a different vantage point. An aerial view of the Skeeter pad swiftly expanded to take in the entire camp. Cadmann's stomach lurched—the reaction he always had when in the air under another's control.
The Skeeter zoomed and veered explosively, rose straight up, then dive-bombed Civic Center. There was clapping, cheering and groaning. The holo field was expanded to fill the room, the magnification bleaching a little of the color from the image.
The three-dimensional aerial panorama was stunning, especially when it veered east, across the Miskatonic. There, Camelot, their new community, was already blocked out.
Camelot wasn't the cramped curlicue of the first year's temporary dwellings. It would be Avalon's first permanent city, and was designed as such. Now that the crops were established, there was time to work on a more leisurely layout. Camelot covered a square kilometer of homes, boulevards, parks and meditation groves, recreation centers...
Each plot of land was huge, larger than any of them could have afforded on Earth. Unbelievable wealth by any standard that they had left behind. And room for almost infinite expansion, as their worms and insects and terraforming lichens churned Avalon's soil into something that the less hardy plants and animals could use. Mineral supplementation and acid balancing created an ideal medium for their crops. Huge homes, ranch houses. Mansions that would one day overlook gracious estates.
Room for a man to grow!
The boat engines were no longer ear-jarring burrs, and the Skeeter zipped off to follow the race. The camp cheered, bets flying and changing: Who would be the first through the rapids? They were twenty kilometers from the northern mountains, and it would be a while before the real action began, a few minutes before the boats worked their way through the dam locks.
In the meantime, the band had apparently rested long enough. Zack mopped his forehead with a bandanna and yelled, "All right—we've got enough time for a couple more turns around the floor. Let's get it moving!"
He shouldered his fiddle. His fingers danced across the strings, producing sounds of surprising sweetness.
Hey there ladies, grab your man
Hold that lad as tight as you can—
Sylvia's hand sneaked around behind Cadmann and tapped Mary Ann twice, sharply, and they exchanged a silent message.
It's a conspiracy. I'm doomed...
Mary Ann stood, politely but firmly pulled his plate from his hand.
Setting her heels into the composition floor, she dragged him to his feet.
Sylvia and Terry and the surrounding crowd howled at his obvious discomfort, and Cadmann let that bolster him.
"It's been a long time," he whispered, "and I am sore wounded," relieved that others were moving out on the floor. They formed a square with Hendrick and Phyllis.
In a few moments there were squares all over the hall, and Zack was calling and fiddling, the band was playing, and Cadmann's considerations were lost in the urge to keep the rhythm and watch his feet.
Mary Ann was an excellent square dancer, and she pulled him along with her into the mood. Soon Cadmann was part of an interweaving pattern of human rectangles, do-si-do-ing and skip-stepping as their square b
roke and re-formed, changed places and swiveled joyously around the floor. Sharp reminders from half-healed wounds eased as he warmed up. The seated observers whistled and clapped and stomped their feet.
Before he realized it, Cadmann was grinning and sweating and thoroughly convinced that he was keeping better time than anyone out there.
At the end of an hour the dance broke up with a spontaneous cheer and hugs all around, and Cadmann's drunken whoop was as loud as any. What the hell—this is your family. You need them—at least Mary Ann does. And don't be surprised that square dancing makes you feel like part of the community. Earth magic, that's what it is. What it's always been.
The holofield projector was wheeled back to the center of the quad. Once again the air shimmered, causing squeals of delight—Carlos's boat had breached the rapids, and it was deliciously easy for Cadmann to lose himself in the illusion.
He was aboard their boat, hovering directly above Carlos's shoulders as he spun the wheel, guiding the boat through the rushing water. The water was beginning to churn white, and there an outcropping of glistening wet rock scraped the side of the inflatable. The boat jumped, and beside him Bobbi screamed delightedly.
Elliot's boat was right behind him, and with a jolt the holofield changed its perspective. La Donna was at the wheel, and the couple were whooping it up more than competing. As the boat hit each spill, they grabbed each other in mock fear, mugging ferociously for the cameras.
The water grew whiter, choppier, and the race was really on. The river was narrower and faster here, and the towering walls of the northern mountains rose up around them in jagged iron-gray sheets.
Elliot coaxed his engine to sharper life. With a sure hand La Donna wove them through the rocks. Every dip, every eddy was breathtakingly real, three times larger than life.
The water splashed up and licked at them, and Cadmann wiped at his face reflexively. Elliot's boat shot a short falls, landed flatbellied, with a crash and a whoop from the hall.
The image switched back to Carlos, who was looking back over his shoulder at the approaching boat.
Cadmann's palms were sweaty and shaking. It was almost impossible to resist the urge to roll up his sleeves and grab a pole: there was a rock spur! Ah, good. Bobbi, with movements as quick and light as the flicker of a whip, nudged their boat away from it.
