by Ginger Booth
He held two fingers in front of Copeland’s face. “How many fingers, Cope?”
“Pink or green?” Cope asked in return. He took another too-large bite of his sandwich, and crooned, “Mm!”
Cope hated Jules’s egg salad, and normally picked the lettuce and pickles off to eat separately. Eli peered closer. The man’s eyes were glassy, and the whites turning magenta.
“Inoculate him for human diseases only!” Eli demanded. “Stat!”
She hesitated and her eyes flew to her bag. “It’s fast-acting…” With a sigh, she conceded defeat, and prepared a new custom syringe.
“Ow,” Copeland acknowledged a full second after she stabbed him. “That hurt.” Unperturbed, he resumed polishing off his sandwich.
“I can check the…nanite versus bakkra thing,” Dr. Tyler allowed. “While you wait.”
She was having a rotten day, Eli figured. Like baby doctors everywhere, some jackass taught her that asserting her authority was prerequisite to the therapeutic process. Against a united front of Eli, Sass, and Clay, the poor woman was out of her league.
“A moment,” Eli said. “Explain this to me, please. If Denali organisms cannot eat Earth biology, and humans can’t eat Denali, why is it that bakkra infest people? How does the parasite relationship benefit them?”
“Um, heat,” the doctor supplied. “Bakkra strains are sensitive to minute temperature variations. The mega-fauna here are cold-blooded. But humans excel at regulating their thermostats.”
“Hm. Not enough,” Eli judged. “There must also be a food source.”
“Oh. Salt. The bakkra that colonize humans eat sweat. The forest bakkra are also starved for carbon dioxide. In the gut… We’re very selective about what we grow in our intestines.”
“Yes,” Eli replied queasily.
Copeland waved the ice wand, now back in his hand after Sass and Clay took their turns chilling their beers. “So would hypothermia kill them?”
“Well, if you could induce…” She paused, frowning. “You can induce hypothermia?”
Copeland stirred his beer again. “Easy. How cold?”
Eli nodded, breaking out in an admiring grin. Their pressure suits even came factory-installed with a hypothermia setting. They’d used it to save crew woman Cortez’s life on the trip here.
“You would have to bring a person below 30 degrees Celsius. Not air temperature. Their core temperature!” the doctor objected.
Copeland took a swig of beer and nodded. “Can do. Would you like this ice wand? As a gift. For saving my life and all.” He powered it up and dabbed it on her clothed upper arms, as though with a blade conferring knighthood. Sitting on the broad step, he couldn’t reach her shoulders.
She hugged herself with a shiver, as though titillated by goosebumps.
Eli reminded her, “If you would be so kind as to check first, on which of my nanites is effective against bakkra? Assuming Copeland isn’t at death’s door.”
“There’s only one of you now,” the engineer reported. “And you’re Eli colored. Your shot works fast, doctor.”
Was Copeland flirting with the doctor? Eli had forgotten that was possible when meeting new human beings. Probably because he preferred plants. They really had been cooped up on that ship far too long. He supposed the doctor was pretty, in a bald and lavender sort of way. Pissy personality, though.
“I’ll be right back, then,” the doctor confirmed. “And I’ll send my nurses in with loincloths for you.”
Sass beamed at her warmly. “Thank you so much.”
Following her lead, they all smiled until the door shut.
“Loincloths,” Clay muttered in disgust. “Like the toga challenge all over again.”
“Please never mention that day again,” Copeland begged. Their container disaster struck on toga day.
“No togas!” Sass and Eli chorused. Sass wagged a no-no finger at Clay.
The nurses soon arrived. And they were indeed colored from their bald heads to their fanciful toenails, and clad in nothing but pastel peach and blue loincloths. Because it was warm inside the city, they said.
Apparently they considered their current muggy corridor chilly, because of the river rapids below.
“Is that what that roaring sound is,” Sass mused. They glanced again at the velvety blackness beyond the cliff edge. Not quite the season for sightseeing on Denali.
Eli studied the 2 meter long scarf of…leather?…the older nurse handed him, a lavender tiger-striped affair with a slight velvety nap. The other perkier nurse drew Copeland up by his hands and bequeathed him a zebra-striped strip in baby blue and tan.
“How do I…?” Copeland was unfortunate enough to ask first.
The nurse gracefully dropped to her knees to intimately demonstrate, a process that left the engineer quite flushed again.
Eli’s nurse matter-of-factly followed suit, yanking a bit too tight for his comfort. She gave him a perfunctory nod and turned to tie a softer mottled pink leather onto Sass.
The accomplished clothes-horse among the male crew, Clay tied his own based on watching Cope’s example. “No harder than a neck-tie,” he encouraged.
The younger nurse rose in front of Copeland, and smiled beatifically. She splayed her fingers on his cheeks and kissed him fully on the lips. “Welcome to Denali!”
Copeland shuffled backward, hands up to ward her off.
When they were gone, he muttered to Eli, “Tell Abel and you die.”
Eli chuckled. “I’ll tell Ben.”
Clay sighed theatrically. “You know better, Cope. No secrets survive the Thrive.” Accepted gospel among the men’s poker players.
All too true, Eli thought ruefully. As a child, he longed for brothers. Be careful what you wish for.
4
Sass blew out, steeling herself to meet with the Waterfalls Council. Then she summoned her broadest smile from deep within, and tried it on Clay as a warmup. He winked and beamed back at her, his suave and confident persona pulled on like one of his damned FBI suits.
For herself, Sass found conducting business bare-breasted a bit inhibiting. But of course these people wore as little as possible, at all times. They didn’t even have interior walls and rooms in this dome, merely bamboo thickets and emotional distance between parties.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, she reminded herself. She nodded at Clay and smiled forth, stepping from behind their potted hedge to present themselves.
An older man within stepped forward with a smile to match. Actually, his smile was painted on and nearly reached his ears, but mouth and teeth peeked from within, and eyes and cheeks beneath the opalescent bakkra. Those smiled, too.
“Selectman Aden?” Sass asked, sailing into the room. After medical, they’d graduated to a guide named Aurora, who briefed Sass on the etiquette for this meeting. “Captain Sassafras Collier. My husband and co-owner of the Thrive, Clay Rocha.”
No, they hadn’t gotten married. They merely decided to present a united front here. Sass kicked herself mentally for not conveying her white lie quite smoothly enough. The annoying Aurora had proven uncanny at reading people.
With no head-bows or touching, Aden introduced them to the other two dignitaries present, Selectmen Tor and Viola. The latter was female, but apparently the title Selectman was gender neutral. Another two selectmen joined them by video, their displays propped on tray tables amid the indoor grove. From this and their facial decoration – red and black warpaint, versus wrinkled but bakkra-free clear skin – Sass deduced those two represented the outdoor and agricultural communities from the segregated air of separate domes within the complex.
“I’m so eager to see your waterfalls,” Sass assured them. “I imagine they’re beautiful. And mountains, and most of all the ocean. Mahina is quite dry.”
“I understand you’ve seen these things before?” Aden prompted, and led her to a cushioned backless bench. The city was indeed warmer than the corridors of the bio-lock approach.
The native approach to furnishings sought to maximize skin surface open to the fan-powered breeze.
“Clay and I were born on Earth.” She smiled confidently, though she was surprised Aden already seemed to know this. She and Clay spent many a night on pillow talk deciding whether to be open about their origins. But they came as beggars to whatever banquet Denali had to offer. They decided their best angle was to appear as intriguing as possible.
“To see ocean again, open water,” she continued, “would be a great pleasure. Do people visit the sea, from Waterfalls?”
“Oh, yes!” Aden assured her, the compact older man of the pinkish clown smile. “Our guides lead expeditions there. Though not in winter.”
“Oh, good! Then we could hire someone,” Sass countered.
Aden laughed, and spread his knees wide to catch more air. Copeland told Sass he was impressed with the local fan systems. Her engineer was less than ecstatic with much of anything else here.
“That would take quite a few someones,” Aden gently advised her. “You may have noticed, the wildlife is a challenge.”
Check. Guides come in dozens, not singles. Bet that’s expensive. “And amazing,” she purred.
Clay flicked a corner of his loincloth’s front flap. “We were wondering what kind of beasts we’re wearing.”
Sass wished him joy of the group scrutiny of his crotch. She bet he instantly regretted that question. She winked at him with both eyes.
One of the remote attendees replied from his tray table display, the hunter Selectman Gorey. “That’s a sea creature, the walrus. And captain, your wrap is a common sloth.”
“Not the Earth creatures, you understand,” Aden clarified. “You’ll find most life forms here are named after Earth analogues. Though I understand many of them were extinct before you were born.” He frowned slightly, perhaps wondering when exactly his guests might have been born.
“And ours are vicious,” Gorey assured them. “Always.”
“That must be very challenging,” Sass agreed. “Speaking of challenges, how are you managing without Denali Prime?”
Aden sighed hugely. “The reason we decided to host you here is that Waterfalls hopes to remake itself to replace the functions the capital used to serve. Perhaps something like your Mahina Actual? We know very little of Mahina.”
Judging from his face, what little he knew wasn’t much to his taste. Sass couldn’t blame him.
“What functions would those be?” Sass asked. “There’s the spaceport, of course. Sky drive fuel manufacture?”
Aden nodded. “Advanced industry. But also our breeding program. Our geneticists.”
Sass gasped. “You lost your creches?”
“Oh, no! Generation 6 is alive and well!” Aden touched his hands together in a little prayer gesture. “I don’t know how familiar you are with Denali history?”
“Not at all, I’m afraid. We are eager to learn your ways.” Some of us more so than others, Sass quibbled internally. For instance, Copeland and Eli looked ready to throttle Aurora.
“Your colonies around Pono have suffered biologically,” Aden explained. “Misfit to your surroundings. We are blessed with the most Earth-like colony in the Aloha system. Our geneticists adapt us better to our environment with every generation. But natural disasters like Denali Prime are overwhelming setbacks.”
Clay asked, “Your population has grown then, from colonization?”
“Fallen,” Aden replied. “Our ship was bigger than yours, over 300,000 settlers. We fell to a low of 140,000. Then we were starting to grow again, to 175,000. But Denali Prime housed 50,000 souls. So we’re down to 125,000 now. And alas, the scientific and industrial specialists were there. And Mahina?”
Sass supplied, “Our population has continued to fall, but more slowly. From a peak of about 260,000, we’re down to 150,000 now. I hadn’t expected us to outnumber Denali.”
“But Mahina is making a turnaround,” Clay claimed. “That is Thrive’s current mission. To harvest, if you will, the experience of the Aloha system. So we can all learn together how our colonies can better thrive.”
Sass nodded firmly. “The satellites we’ve already installed for you. Those can link you to like-minded experts on Mahina and Sagamore. Or rather Hell’s Bells, the Sagamore mining platform in the rings. I understand Mahina and Sagamore were unwilling to cooperate in the past. You’ll find that’s changed now. If you need expertise off-world, we can connect you to the right people.”
“That is indeed a welcome change,” Aden breathed.
Viola quibbled, “Cautiously welcome.”
Aden silenced her with a graceful gesture.
Sass pressed on. “And we brought trade goods. For today, a gift for you. A token of our good will.” She presented an ice wand to Aden, held out across her two open palms.
His eyes flew wide. Yes, he received reports from our previous interactions. Sass wasn’t surprised. So far as she knew, they were only the third group of off-world visitors to Denali in living memory. She didn’t know whether the previous contingents visited Waterfalls.
He stood to visit a standing table of fruited water pitcher and glasses, served at room temperature. Sass joined him to demonstrate how to apply the toy, using her signature helix swirl though her glass. Everyone seemed to develop their own personal flair to ice a glass. While at the table, she prepared another tumbler for Clay and returned to her bench. Her hosts each built on her example, ooh’ing and ah’ing politely.
Sass and Clay cooled their foreheads with their sweating glasses. As she’d noted with previous natives, they instead touched the cold cups to an inner elbow or knee, enjoying the cooling sensation someplace inconspicuous. They sipped cautiously. They’re careful not to disturb their cultivated faces.
As they settled back to their seats, Sass offered, “I can supply many more ice wands. And we brought substantial cargo that we hope you’ll find most valuable.”
Aden sighed with pleasure at his cold drink. “And what you want in return is?”
You’re on, Collier. “A scientist, Michael Yang, currently lives in Neptune. We hope to persuade him to return to Mahina with us.”
“He was exiled from Mahina, was he not?” Aden observed mildly.
“We believe we can reverse that,” Clay explained. “Strictly speaking, he was exiled from Mahina Actual. But the settlers outside the city want him, to improve their quality of life.” He went on to explain the urb nanites, while the settlers went without.
Sass added, “The original terraformers were concerned about overpopulation, if everyone enjoyed robust health. The opposite has proven more of a problem. I believe that the entire Alohan system suffers a critical degree of underpopulation.”
“Ah. I expected something more prosaic,” Aden acknowledged. “Like ‘fuel to return home.’”
“And that,” Sass agreed with a soft laugh while her stomach sank. Her fixed smile started to ache. “On that topic. Before we left Mahina, we arranged for Denali Prime to produce and stockpile extra fuel for our return, just in case. I understand that was a major increase in your star drive fuel demand.” Which was mind-blowing in itself. Thrive’s entire 18-month trip caused nary a blip in Mahina’s supply.
Clay added smoothly, “Is there any chance that stockpile survived?”
Aden blinked. “Under the volcanic ash? I’m sure I have no idea.” He glanced around his compatriots.
Gorey volunteered, “It’s still too hot to explore. Two of the volcanoes are in active eruption.”
Sass gulped all too obviously, and gave up on the smile.
“But with your starship,” Gorey continued helpfully, “maybe we could overfly it sooner. Or, did someone tell me you have a shuttle? To save fuel.”
Aden shifted. Sass couldn’t read bakkra yet, but that fidget was universal human body language. “Gorey, the pterries gave their main ship trouble. Let’s speak of this later.”
Gorey slammed a table in front of him – wherever he was – and sat
back with a glower. Sass fancied the red of his facial bakkra glowed brighter.
“In any event,” Aden continued, voice growing oilier, “any exploration trips must wait for daylight. The sun returns in a few weeks. Plenty of time for you to settle in, make yourselves comfortable.” He rose with a graceful hand gesture inviting the group to stand. “I imagine we will meet often. Captain. Clay Rocha.”
Sass bowed her head, smiling again. She had no idea what the etiquette for leaving was, so she simply turned and walked away, Clay’s fingers resting lightly on her elbow.
Once behind the screen of living bamboo, she flopped forward, hands braced on her thighs. She breathed deep of the thick, sticky air, and blew it out slowly.
“That went well,” Clay observed.
“In what possible universe?” Sass demanded.
He sighed. “No threats. Trips to Neptune and Denali Prime are possible. They understand they need to replace their industrial and academic hub. We’re in the right place at the right time. We can help them.”
She countered, “They won’t help us go anywhere else, and they don’t have what we need. They’re an even more segregated society than Mahina or Sagamore. This town – Clay, it’s less than 25,000 people!”
“That was probably their peak population,” he differed. “Much less now.”
Sass sighed. “So they have a problem. We have a problem. Is what you’re saying.”
