EarthBound

by D M Arnold

  The train ran at about a quarter of its top speed through the tube to the first stop, decelerated and came to a halt. A chime sounded, and the doors swished open. The coach emptied out leaving only Nyk, Senta and an elderly man as passengers. Senta leaned toward him. “See, no one wants to go to Sudal.”

  A double chime sounded, the doors closed and the train began to accelerate again, this time to achieve its top speed. Nyk watched the cityscape turn into a blur.

  The next station, where the express would not stop, was for the power plant and for a connecting monorail line running to the west and servicing the mining cities in the uplands. Off to the east, on the seacoast, Nyk could glimpse the domes and towers of the power generating plant, one of two on the planet.

  The train abruptly slowed to Mach 0.3. The coaches' inertial sinks permitted them to stop on a dime, if the need arose, and the passengers would feel nothing. The train passed the power plant station, then accelerated and sped through the Floran countryside.

  Most of Floran's population lived in the cities, so the intervening countryside was quite empty. Vast areas of the planet's virgin vegetation whizzed by. The train was now traveling at its top speed of Mach 0.75, about 500 miles per hour -- too fast to glimpse nearby detail. Nyk looked out toward the west at the extinct volcanic mons rising into the planet's stratosphere.

  Nyk's planet was younger than Earth by a half billion years or more. In its evolutionary progress it was about the equivalent to Earth during the pre- Cambrian era. Most of the planet's life existed in a sea covering nearly ninety percent of the planet's surface. Life on land was limited to plants and microbes. There were no higher order land animals at all.

  He could see the uplands on the lower slope of the mons. They were covered with a dense forest of tall, fernlike plants. The leaves were shades of deep violet, almost black, to soak up the low-energy orange sunlight.

  Closer still were the plains, dominated by a scrubby, horsetail-like plant growing about knee high. The vegetation was primitive and reproduced with spores, though some analogues of Earth gymnosperms were emerging.

  Nyk's training taught him something about early life on Earth. He pondered what was to evolve on his homeworld during the upcoming half billion years or so. His people lived here five thousand Earth years -- an instant in geologic time. He wondered how they would influence the natural development of native life.

  Senta began to drowse. She rolled away from Nyk and slept with her forehead against the window. Nyk stood and started down the aisle. He walked through the cars until he reached the lead coach and found an empty seat in the first row.

  Nyk enjoyed a child-like pleasure sitting in the transparent nose cone of the train, looking down the maglev line as they sped southward. From this vantage, the train appeared to bore its way through the landscape at close to the speed of sound.

  The train approached the station at Tinam -- a small town known as the gateway to the agridomes. Some of the smaller and older domes had been visible in the distance for a while. Here, the first of the modern domes were visible. They were deceptive, looking smaller and closer than they were. A vast array of these domes stretched southward, to the outskirts of Sudal.

  Nyk could see the mouths of the guard tubes for the station. The train switched onto a side rail and lost speed. He watched as the coaches slowed and stopped adjacent to the boarding platform. A chime sounded to announce their arrival.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, turned and saw Senta. “I thought you'd be here,” she said.

  “You were asleep. I know sitting here gives you vertigo.” A double chime announced the train's imminent departure.

  The train began to accelerate, its inertial sinks absorbing the forces so the passengers felt nothing. In no time, it had resumed top speed.

  Senta glanced forward, then looked down. “Please, let's return to our seats before I vomit.”

  Nyk followed Senta through the coaches. He sat, looking forward at the empty rows. She leaned against him and began to drowse again. He brushed her hair from his face.

  Finally, he heard a chime announcing the train was approaching the end of the line -- Sudal. Senta awoke, smoothed her hair, rubbed her eyes and yawned. Nyk stood and retrieved their cases from the luggage rack. The train slowed, entered the guard tube and came to a stop at the station. The doors swished open.

  The first thing he noticed was the increased ambient temperature. Sudal was located at the southeast corner of his planet's continent, near the equator in the tropical zone. The vegetation here was different than in the north, but it retained most of the same characteristics. The temperature averaged ten to fifteen degrees Celsius warmer than in Floran City. Nyk's urban garb betrayed him as a visitor from the North.

  Nyk summoned a groundcar for the drive to the Residence. He put their bags in the luggage compartment and climbed in. “Car, the Residence,” he commanded. The vehicle slid out of its parking stall and headed toward the east. The Residence lay about twenty kilometres outside the Sudal city limits.

  “Do you know what I think we should do tonight?” he asked.

  “I hope you're not thinking about making love under the stars.”

  Nyk watched the landscape roll past. The groundcar turned onto a narrow access road that led past the Residence.

  “I feel strange returning here,” he said. “I haven't been here since before we were married. Senta, I know it's too much to ask that you love this place like I do, but I so wish you could like it a bit.”

  “You know how I feel about Sudal.”

  The Residence was built for Nyk's father as a reward for overseeing a major expansion of agridome capacity. Although there was no private ownership of land or buildings among the Florans, Nyk owned the right to use the Residence. It passed to him upon the deaths of his parents, and would remain within the Kyhana family for as long as the line was perpetuated.

  The structure was circular with a domed roof. Heavy steel shutters lined the house. These could be slammed down at a moment's notice as protection against the violent tropical storms that arose periodically in the area.

  All the buildings in Sudal -- a city of about 100,000 -- had such shutters. Every so often the entire city would shut down and the residents would close the shutters to wait out a storm so violent as to be death to anyone foolish enough to venture outside.

  The groundcar drew up to the house. The place was closed up -- the storm shutters were down. Nyk climbed from the groundcar and gave Senta a hand. He stood and regarded some native plants growing near the entrance. His mother had put them there as ornamentals. They had bamboo-like stalks and grew violet- black, gas-filled spheres that served as leaves. The spheres appeared impaled on the stalks. Between the spheres grew orange trumpet-like spore disperses. He approached the entrance and pressed his wrist against the scanpad. The house recognized his ID code and came alive. The shutters flew open.

  He carried their travel cases into the structure and up the spiral staircase to the living quarters on the second level. There were no outside walls on the second and third floors. The wedge-shaped rooms had no back walls - - they were open and overlooked the sea.

  Nyk carried his case to his childhood bedroom. “Were you planning on sleeping with me tonight?”

  Senta brought her case into the room and set it down. The sea breeze was blowing, bringing with it the musty, bitter scent of the Floran sea. It carried a faint trace of rotten egg. Nyk inhaled the air deeply.

  “I don't know how you can stand that smell,” she said.

  “I'm going to walk on the beach. Would you care to join me?”

  “I can barely tolerate that smell from up here. Go by yourself -- I'm going to review some sequencing reports.” She sat at a tabletop vidisplay, brought up her reports and began dictating annotations to them.

  Nyk walked out to the edge of the bluff and looked down at the sea. He could see the surf pounding in on the black, basaltic sand on the beach below. The surf was more violent than usual.
He knew a tropical storm was brewing somewhere beyond the eastern horizon.

  He climbed down the rocks leading to the beach, removed his sandals and walked barefoot on the black sand, dodging bits of marine vegetation broken loose by the force of the surf. He looked down and saw a specimen of Floran sea fauna, an arthropod-like animal with five legs. The surf had tossed it onto the beach and it was struggling to right itself. Nyk picked it up and tossed it into the sea.

  He recalled reading Koichi's journal entries about Floran's sea and how it differed from Earth's. Koichi's family owned a summerhouse on Long Island. Koichi loved strolling the sands and appreciating the marine life. He expressed in early journal entries his repugnance for the smell of Floran's sea. Only in his later entries he wrote of developing a tolerance for it.

  Dusk approached. Nyk climbed the rocks to the Residence. Senta was busy annotating sequencing reports. He went into the house's storage room, retrieved a couple prefab meals and warmed them. He opened the packages and placed one before Senta. Then he pulled up a chair opposite her and began eating his dinner.

  “Will you take a walk on the bluff with me later?” he asked.

  Senta looked up from the vidisplay at him. “All right, so long as we don't go too close to the sea.”

  Night was falling. More stars became visible as the sky darkened. Nyk looked up and saw a pattern in the sky -- a bright star with four dimmer companions making up a lopsided rectangle. He knew from his training Earth's sun lay in the sky in that vicinity. He looked down. The land breeze was beginning to develop.

  “It doesn't smell so bad, now,” Senta said. He walked hand-in-hand with her along the bluff, listening to the surf pound below.

  “I wish you could learn to like this place. It's my home, and I love it. I know you grew up in the City, when you weren't on the transit platform. I understand what the City has to offer and why you like it. I wish you could like this place enough to spend a little time here during the year.”

  “Nykkyo, it's not that simple. I can't be so far from my work. The sequencing labs are located in the City. It takes a half a day to get from here to there. If you need to spend time here, by all means, please do so. It simply won't work for me.”

  “I think you could relocate the sequencing labs to Sudal. They'd be much more convenient to the pilot beds and the research facility.”

  “Where would I find the staff to run the labs? None of our current staff would care to relocate to the south. I doubt we could find qualified technicians in this backwater.”

  “Talented and qualified people must live here,” he replied.

  “Moving the labs here simply won't work. I don't wish to discuss it further.”

  Nyk continued to walk, holding hands with his wife. “Senta, it's good to have some quiet time with you. Let's go in and share the gift.”

  He led her to his childhood bedroom on the second floor. Nyk removed her tunic and she removed his. Senta had the figure of a teenager, although she was two years older than Nyk. Her hands and feet appeared slightly too large for the rest of her frame. Bushy red hair extended down her back to her shoulder blades. Her skin was creamy with a ruddy mottle, and a pattern of broad freckles covered her shoulders and upper arms.

  Senta lay beside him. He gazed into her eyes, stroked her cheek and awaited her signal. She guided his hand to her breast, and he took her hand and placed it upon his chest. He caressed her and kissed her neck and shoulders.

  “Divide your mind,” she coached him. He attempted to focus the front of his awareness onto the cues her body was giving and to force sensations of her touch into his back mind. “Concentrate, Nyk. You're not concentrating.” Nyk closed his eyes and attempted to regain his focus. He began caressing her again. “That's better,” Senta said and guided his face to her chest. He traded kisses with her. She caressed his body. “Now, you're rushing it. Did you forget what I taught you? For the technique to work you must keep your focus on your partner.” He closed his eyes again, took a deep breath and returned to caressing her. “No, Nykkyo. Not like that...”

  Nyk lay on his back and held her beside him. He stroked her arm, playing with a vein that ran along her bicep. “I'm sorry, korlyta. My mind's too preoccupied.”

  “Maybe we should've used performance-enhancers,” she said. “I did bring some.”

  “Where are the drugs? I'll use one and we can try again.”

  “No, Nyk, you don't have to do that, now. You've been through a lot lately, and I know you're not emotionally equipped to deal with it.” She smiled and kissed him. “I'll be patient.” She rolled with her back to him. “Good night, Nykkyo.”

  * * *

  Floran's golden dawn waked him. Nyk arose and stood at the rear of his walless bedroom and looked out over the sea. Senta was asleep. He headed for the bathroom, shaved and showered and slipped into a pair of loose shorts. He began to brew a pot of green tea.

  Senta stepped from his bedroom toward the bath. He could hear her showering. The vidisplays began signaling him. His wristscan answered the call and a blue, voice-only screen appeared. “Hello, Nykkyo?” a voice greeted him in English.

  “Suki!”

  “I'm trying the laptop computer. I'm in the apartment and I have it connected to the phone line. It works! I feel so much better knowing I can call you.”

  “Yes, our communications work well. How are things going for you?”

  “I have a lead on a job. It's part time at my old grad school. They're looking for someone to be a contributing editor for an archeology journal the school publishes. It's not much, but it gets my foot in the door, and I can finally use my degree.

  “Yes, Nykkyo, I'm beginning to believe what you say about Destiny tracing paths. What're you doing?”

  “Nothing, right now. I'm taking some time to clear my head. Have you thought about what we discussed?”

  “Yes ... Nykkyo, I'll follow my path -- to wherever and to whomever it leads. Right now, I have so many other things to occupy me.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied.

  “My mom's calling me for dinner. I'll call again later. See you, Nykkyo. I love you.”

  “I'll never stop loving you, Suki.” The session terminated. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back.

  “What was that about?” He heard Senta behind him. He jumped, turned and saw her standing, nude and dripping by the bathroom door. “Was that who I think it was? With what other woman would you be speaking in that language?” Nyk stood and faced her. Her lip was beginning to tremble. “I thought you said it was over between the two of you.”

  “You were the one who said it's over. I never said that.”

  Senta stormed into the bedroom and pulled the door shut. She emerged in her tunic carrying her lifxarpa and pounded down the spiral staircase to the lower level. Nyk headed after her. “It's definitely over between us!” she shouted as she headed out the main entrance.

  “Senta...” Nyk followed her. “Senta ... Suki's my friend. She can't be my lover and she knows it.”

  “I don't believe you.” Senta glowered at him. “You lied to my dad and now you're lying to me!” she said as she opened the groundcar.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the City -- and don't you dare set foot in my apartment.”

  “But Senta ... You're taking the groundcar. I'll be stuck here.”

  “It's not my problem.” She pulled the cowl shut.

  “At least let me ride with you to the train station,” Nyk yelled. The car rolled toward Sudal. “Senta!” he shouted as she disappeared into the distance.

  Nyk walked to the edge of the bluff and paced back and forth. On the eastern horizon he could see a line of grey storm clouds. He walked inside and took inventory of the prefab meals in the storage room. A check of the vidisplay gave him a storm forecast. A category three storm was approaching and would hit by nightfall. All Sudalese were advised to prepare for two to three days under cover. He pressed the house's control panel and
the storm shutters slammed shut.

  * * *

  Nyk carried a meal tray to his vidisplay. Outside the wind howled and he could hear pelting of rain and hail against the closed shutters. The tempest had raged for four days. He poked the vidisplay and received the latest weather update -- the storm had been upgraded to category four. The vidisplay signaled an incoming call. He pressed his wrist to the scanpad and a vidphone session opened. He saw Suki's face break into a smile.

  “Nykkyo! It's so good to see you! I love seeing you in that tunic. I must call more often.”

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “From my office at NYU.”

  “You know you must be careful not to let others see this technology,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. Don't worry, it's after quitting time. My office is on the top floor of the NYU union. The place is deserted.” He saw her fingers loom large in the image as she removed the digital camera. A panoramic sweep of her office appeared on the vidisplay. “See, no one's here but me. I share this office with a woman named Cathy. She's an inspiration to me, Nykkyo. Cathy's blind, but she gets around almost as well as a sighted person.”

  “Does Cathy work on the same journal?”

  “No, she's the editor of a newsletter the university publishes for the disabled. She has a computer that's set up with a speech synthesizer so she can hear what's on the screen. She's amazing. I've only known her for three days and we're getting along really well.

  “The office has a high-speed data port, so I decided to try the vidphone. I can't believe we're two hundred lightyears apart. I'm so happy to see your face again, Nykkyo.” She turned from the camera. “Hold on, someone's at the door.”

  He saw her crack open the door. A slight woman in dark glasses and carrying a white cane walked in. Cathy spoke to Suki and closed the door. Suki held her hand over her mouth. Nyk strained to hear, but rushing air drowned out their voices.

  The two women stood on either side of the doorway. Suki started to speak but Cathy held her hand up and cocked her ear to the hallway. Suki said something and Cathy shook her head.