by Kathy Tyers
What was life like for her, married to that man? Or was she just as loopy?
The door swung open. “Come in,” Graysha heard. Bracing herself, she walked inside.
Dr. Lee sat at her desk. Once Graysha stood beside the extra chair, Lee touched a panel on her keyboard, and the door shut again. With its serene decorations and top-notch office hardware, this place was a far cry from Lindon’s Colonial Affairs office. Graysha felt as if she’d come back home to the twenty-second century.
“Sit down.” Lee rocked her chair in a slow arc forward and back.
Wishing herself anywhere else, she complied. “Good afternoon, Dr. Lee.”
Melantha Lee’s face remained placid as she pressed her palms together. “I believe I deserve an explanation for this . . . colonial hijacking of a plane we were using for geological survey work.”
That stare would unnerve a statue, and a statue’s stomach wouldn’t churn. “As I understand it,” Graysha said, “Axis’s new Chair for Colonial Affairs commandeered that plane. I have no clearance for high-altitude flight from the HMF, and I would not have taken the plane without checking first with you. Trevarre is . . . impetuous.” She leaned farther forward. “But I’d’ve been crazy not to take advantage of what he and Chair MaiJidda did. And you’ll be pleased to hear I have antimicrobial sensitivity tests running. If all goes well, we should be able to start getting a handle on this cooling difficulty within a day or two.” She had to tell Lee about the study she was running. Maybe it would draw attention close to home, and Lee—or whoever was the saboteur—would miss the fact that she’d started duplicate organisms off campus.
“I am glad.” Lee granted her a dispassionate nod. “However, fuel consumed on that unauthorized trip was extremely expensive, not to mention dangerous to the plane. Mr. LZalle crashed one Gaea aircraft already. Fuel and repair costs will be taken from your salaries.”
“The . . . both costs? Fuel and repair?”
“It would not be just for Gaea Consortium to absorb such waste from its limited resources.”
Graysha’s legs twitched. She wanted to get up and run far away. It was unfair, absolutely unfair to bill her. But if she argued, would Lee’s sabotage program reach out even further?
Half a terrannum’s wages wouldn’t cover the cost of aircraft repair. Even at triple salary. “Doesn’t Gaea have insurance?” she asked, recovering some semblance of intelligence.
“For authorized pilots.” Lee crossed her arms.
“Yukio HoBrace crashed that plane.”
“Then the colonists will pay damages, too. You have no idea,” she said, then she paused to sigh, “how weary I have become of petty financial difficulties, of high-handed appropriation of Gaea equipment and materiel.”
“As a Gaea employee, wasn’t Yukio covered by us?”
Lee uncrossed her arms. She lowered her eyebrows and gave Graysha a dark look. “Go back to work, Dr. Brady-Phillips.”
“Yes,” Graysha said, feeling nauseated. “I will.”
After calling the elevator, she stood staring at metal door panels. Gaea had spent the time and money to give them a satin finish.
Yukio HoBrace had to be insured. Melantha Lee was simply telling her, showing her, that the price for any further meddling would be exorbitant. In retrospect, she wished she hadn’t been so quick to blame Ari MaiJidda and Yukio, giving Melantha Lee an additional reason to resent the colonists.
Too late. As she rode the elevator back to her floor, she knew the heaviness deep in her stomach wasn’t due just to accelerating upward.
She wished she had something to fall back on, emotionally—the way Lindon leaned on his church. If only Novia hadn’t spoiled religion for her . . .
Well, this evening would be interesting. She focused on her duties for the rest of the afternoon. Just before quitting time, Jirina slipped into her lab. The long sleeves and high collar of a black turtleneck shirt showed under her brilliant pink lab coat. “That must have been quite a conference with the Dragon Lady.”
Graysha pressed her eyes to the scanning scope, where she was counting spores. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jirina laid a hand on her shoulder. “You okay, Blondie? How’s that beautiful colonist of yours surviving his new unemployment?”
At the mention of Lindon, Graysha’s cheeks warmed. She pushed away from the scope and eyed Jirina, who drew back to lean languidly against the countertop. “I’d guess he’s too worried about the girls over at Hannes to waste time crying in his beer.”
“Ooh. I do wish you hadn’t mentioned beer.” Jirina shook her head. “The Lwuites never bothered planting hops. If we pooled our petty cash, we could send for a keg from Copernicus and have a floor party.”
“It was just an expression.” Graysha lowered her voice. “But don’t invite Varberg. And I think I’d leave Paul home, too.”
“Wisely said, Blond Woman. That leaves you and me and Trevish.”
It felt good to talk about something light, something irrelevant. She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we’d better invite Botany.”
“Maybe we’d better wait till we can go to Copernicus ourselves.” Shaking her head in mock sorrow, Jirina strode out.
Graysha’s eyes ached for a rest. She stood up and cracked her back, then pulled open the wincubator door to check preliminary growth.
The plates looked ominously clear. After five hours, some slight turbidity might confirm that the bugs were growing.
If these flasks, too, had been sterilized . . .
One still sat in the chilly water bath. Maybe S. gaeaii wouldn’t flourish in any of these media, or maybe she was trying to grow cloud-borne organisms at too high a temperature or in too moist an environment.
Or maybe . . .
She could run an enzyme activity check on a 100-ml sample from one flask to confirm viability, or she could wait until morning. Running the titration would mean skipping dinner if she hoped to join Lindon at his church.
If the organisms were dead, knowing tonight would make no difference. At least she had cultures hidden where no one should suspect.
She pulled off her lab coat and waved off the lights. Since the HMF lay just beyond Gaea housing on the hub, she dashed downstairs and checked her culture dishes there. Glistening, lumpy growth streaks made her exhale hard in relief. Here, at least, the bugs seemed content.
That made the no-growth flasks up in her lab all the more suspicious.
She gobbled a bowl of stew and took a fast sink bath, then paused in front of her open drawer. Her offworld clothes were far dressier than anything she’d purchased here. Did she want to appear so obviously foreign—or try to fit in?
She lifted a soft fawn-colored pullover. If only she’d worn it this morning, when Lindon held her. She still wondered why he’d done it. Voted out of office, he might be vulnerable, needing sympathetic company. Or maybe the undeniable chemistry that had drawn her to him from the beginning pulled both ways and only now was he free to show it.
No. She was still Novia Brady-Phillips’s daughter, a former Eugenics Board employee, the informant responsible for Rebecca Endedi’s conviction and the misery imposed on all those children.
Emmer lay content on her pillow, stuffed full of dinner scraps. Graysha almost envied the creature’s easy, risk-free life.
But not really. Not tonight. She wondered what Lindon’s late wife had looked like. Beautiful, probably. Surely no one ever expected her to die so young.
Graysha’s pullover looked dressy enough when she wore it with browncloth pants that hung like long culottes. She took a few extra minutes with her hair, making sure every strand lay smooth along her head and snug in the tie. A touch of blue eyeliner to bring out the silver in her eyes made her realize she hadn’t worn makeup since arriving on Goddard.
Then she pulled open her perfuming kit. Lilac again, she decided. Lindon seemed the kind to enjoy old-fashioned touches. She mixed the proper amounts from memory, then touched dropl
ets to her wrist and throat and stroked what remained across her hair.
It was seven-fifteen. She slid on shoes and was ready. Rather than wait, she walked up to the hub.
He had arrived early, too. Standing between a bench and a young apple tree, he faced Gaea housing and watched her arrival. It gave her a chance to take a good look too. He wasn’t tall, was more slender than muscular, but remembering the calluses on his hands, she guessed he was strong enough. Paul called him “too pretty,” but there was nothing effeminate about Lindon’s strong chin, his arching black eyebrows, or the possessive smile with which he met her. “I’d offer my arm,” he said, “but you’re going to create a stir as it is.”
That was an understatement! “Did you sleep?”
“A little.” He wore nubbly trousers and a pale blue shirt—local clothing, but finer than usual. “One thing you’d better know is that there will be a short communion service.”
“Universal Father stopped doing that fifty years ago. We’re not into blood.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s . . .” He seemed to catch himself. “What I need to tell you is that it’s open to all who consider themselves believers. There won’t be any pressure to participate, though.”
“That’s good,” she said. “I was, once. I think.”
“That’s all right.” He guided her north. “There will be others who don’t take the elements. But I need communion tonight.” The desire in his voice became keen, almost hurting her with its intensity. “With Sarai still gone,” he explained.
Not to mention the ego blow of an election defeat. “Here.” She drew the text capsule from her hip pocket. “Thank you.”
He took it back without comment and walked on. At a plain concrete arch on the corry’s right, he touched her arm. It led a hundred meters farther on, past several rooms she’d never seen. Finally he pushed open a round-arched door.
She blinked into darkness that was barely lit by unscented candles. As she hesitated at the entry, Lindon let the door close. From speakers she couldn’t see, soft, slow electronic music played a reverie.
Lindon slid into the back row of foam-covered chairs. She followed until he chose one, then took the seat beside him. About fifty people already sat inside, some whispering, some quiet.
To her right, light from the doorway flashed and faded as other worshipers entered. She’d never felt more like a spy. Yet if Lindon’s own version of God existed, she, too, was being observed. I want to learn, she addressed Him. No one here would mind if she tried a silent prayer. But please, nothing mindless.
The first parts of the service—singing, group prayer—could have been Universal Father. Beside her Lindon stood up, then sat, then stood again, obviously at home with the routine and trying to cue her when necessary.
Graysha felt the room’s atmosphere darken as the ritual began. “The visible reminder,” intoned the leader, “that blood has been shed and we have been cleansed.” Graysha cringed. This was a disturbingly effective method of reminding worshipers what they believed. Physical involvement was required, and everything shared was consumed . . . digested . . . became part of the participant’s body.
Lindon winced as his teeth crushed half a cracker, just as if he were biting into someone’s flesh. Acutely aware of being trapped in her own defective body, Graysha shivered. He really did believe this. She could be back at Einstein for all the attention he paid her now.
He accepted a tiny cup of red juice and sat staring at it. “. . . blood of the new covenant,” the man up front finished. “Help us to live as those who have been forgiven.”
Lindon drank, then wiped his face. Tears? she wondered. Lindon was no blood-sipping barbarian, but this smacked of ancient Rome and the lions.
When the meeting ended, no lights came up. A few people left, while others remained seated. Some bent forward to rest their arms on the chair in front of them.
Graysha searched the room, this time noticing its stark plainness. Its yellow-tan walls were smoothed but not painted. At least there was rough brown carpet. “Don’t you have emblems of some sort?” she whispered. “We had the three stars.”
Lindon sighed, as if he were focusing his mind back on his chosen planet. “The cross is our sign. But this sanctuary is used by other faiths on alternating days.” He stood to embrace a man who stepped in front of him—the gesture didn’t seem to embarrass either one of them—then bent back down to address Graysha. “In the two terrannums since arriving here, we’ve admitted a number of new members. Perhaps they need to understand their human identity. Perhaps they’ve found that human nature hasn’t changed so much, despite the . . . changes we’ve made.”
She smiled inwardly at his near slip, feeling composed again. “Maybe living on a half-finished planet makes people more desperate to believe someone out there is on their side.” Particularly that Man, she reflected, remembering the text capsule.
Instead of answering, Lindon touched her shoulder and nodded toward the aisle. In the corridor, several other people greeted him, shook her hand, and invited her to come back. They gave the impression of sincere welcome. At first it surprised her. Then she guessed that those who feared her had already left.
The gathering dissipated. Lindon glanced up and down the corry. She wished his wrist alarm would bleat with news that Varberg had released Sarai and the other little girl. Then he really might relax. What about it? she asked the supernatural one. He just paid you a visit. This would be a good time to act on his behalf.
Back at the main corridor, Lindon hesitated. “Would you come home with me for a while?”
Feeling as if a shuttle’s thrust had just ended, leaving her weightless, she said, “All right.” If all her old fears were about to come back, she could at least delay the re-entry. Oddly, she didn’t distrust his intentions. Was she so convinced of Lwuite nonaggression?
Not far from the textile plant, he led west at a narrower corridor, pausing at its end to unlock a door. A breath of spices and hot dough puffed out before he waved on a light. She stepped into a small carpeted living area. Other than a cluster of framed portraits straight ahead, his walls were bare.
Then she sniffed. “It smells wonderful in here.”
“I have fresh rolls from the co-op. Would you like tea?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Lindon crossed the room to a tiny kitchen. She let her eyes swing left, through an open door into a small bedroom, then quickly followed Lindon. His counters were bare—he probably ate at the co-op—but he did have a dusty glass of faded, dried flower heads on a shelf over his sink. Memento of his wife, she guessed.
She took a seat by his table on one of two benches cemented to the wall. He switched on a small waterpot, then pulled a hooded ceramic tray out of his oven and a stoneware crock from the refrigerator.
Amused, she wriggled, finding a comfortable spot on the bench’s thin cushion. “Are you still worried about my blood sugar?”
Lindon set the tray on the table in front of her. “It’s called hospitality.” He slathered butter over one roll and pushed it toward her on a plate, then returned for two steaming stoneware mugs. “Now, what can I explain about the service?”
Intentions, she reflected wryly. This man had designs on her soul. Her body could wait.
“You’re an intelligent man, Lindon. Obviously, to you this is real. Does it make you happy? Does it make your life . . . smooth?”
“Obviously not,” he said softly, “or Sarai would be at Axis.”
As would Sarai’s mother. She glanced at the dusty dried flowers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is your older daughter back from Hannes yet?”
A drip of butter pooled on the underside of his fingers. “Yes. Of my girls, Bee is the quicker. She tells me she turned and ran when Varberg broke into the crèche’s hallway and started grabbing hands. Sarai frightens easily.” He shook his head. “It will take her months to recover. If ever.”
“The poor child.” Graysha wiped her
hands on a soft cloth napkin. “This must be one of the hardest things you’ve ever lived through.”
He stared through his roll at the table, and she respected his silence. The table, she noticed, had a repeating wood-grain imprint on its brown-stained concrete surface. She admired the ingenuity that reused one precious board to give many colonists’ tables the comforting look of home.
“It’s not a matter of finding divine security,” he said after a long minute, “or smoothness. It’s an assurance that . . .” He leaned back, closed his eyes, then opened them and went on. “That when I have fallen short, or put my surroundings out of balance, the covenant He struck provides me with reconciliation. You read a gospel,” he added. “Laying aside historical criticism and the CUF’s deification of humanity, for a moment, would you call Christ’s life heroic?”
“Obviously.” Here, she was on familiar turf. CUF study classes had discussed reasons to believe or disbelieve historical documents, instead of studying the documents’ contents. She’d been taught since childhood that literalists lacked education, imagination, and intelligence. “But if you’re going to take the man literally, he said he was returning to Earth. Doesn’t it worry you that we’re colonizing other worlds and it still hasn’t happened? If you really expect it to happen, don’t you want to be there?”
Lindon pulled off another section of roll and buttered it. “It took longer than anyone expected from the Abrahamic covenant to the First Coming. Thousands of terrannums longer. But from an extradimensional perspective, God could manifest himself anywhere—or everywhere.”
CUF teachings had no answer for that. Impressed, she decided not to ask what he meant by an Abrahamic covenant. Plainly, his was no mindless belief. “Do you think the man was God, then?” Really, that was the crux of the matter. If a person bought that idea, everything else had to follow. Every word he said had to be taken . . . well, taken as gospel.
