by Ginger Booth
Hunter Burke tamped a smirk as an older proctor inched forward on his knees, eager to meet the newbies and take care of the hurt ones. The teacher barked an order. He keeled back onto his butt abruptly, crossed his legs lotus-fashion, and nodded sharply. “Hi!” the proctors barked in acknowledgment. Or maybe it was the martial arts “Hai!” for ‘Yes, ma’am!’
The new children flinched back. The teacher hastened to assure them that they didn’t need to learn new rituals today. They should just lie down and rest after their ordeal.
“I’ve never been in a hunter dome before,” Kassidy confided in a closeup. “I don’t think these kids are up for the grand tour right now.”
“We should be in bed ourselves,” Aurora’s voice noted off-camera.
Kassidy rolled her eyes brat-like, the way Sally did, the way Hunter was trying to cure her of. Gee thanks, Kassidy.
“I may never pass this way again,” the starlet intoned piously. “Let’s take a look at these kids’ new home. It’s a lot different from what they’re used to!”
Hunter sank back in his couch and soaked up the scenery with interest. But Sally and Ari grew bored with the interior decor and dining arrangements and pressure suit rooms.
“Da-ad!” Sally crooned, now hanging from his knee. “Will any of them transfer to our school? We could take some in our house! We have lots of room now that Mom’s –”
Mom was dead now, after three years battling cancer, her hospital-like furnishings now cleared from the dining room. Sally might not remember her mom before the wheelchair and the ever-present oxygen tanks and cannula. And she probably thought nothing of it. Most of her friends had parents and grandparents slowly wasting away at home. None of them had dads as healthy and compact as hers. She didn’t like getting teased about it, how her dad thought he was better than everyone else.
Hunter grieved for her matter-of-fact tone. His wife passed four months ago, an eternity at Sally’s age. “No, sweetie,” he replied, his voice sounding rusty in his own ears. “They live too far away. They’ll never come here.”
“They’ll go to Schuyler,” Ari argued, still glued to the screen. “If anyone comes. Dad, why don’t we move to Schuyler? You always go there for work. Everything is happening there.”
Out of the mouths of babes… “This is our home, Ari. Wouldn’t you miss it?”
Ari glanced at the dining room, now featuring an empty table instead of the warren of life support, and quickly away. “Nah.”
“It’s like our house is haunted by Mom,” Sally said practically. Ari took a swipe at her, but she dodged. “I don’t mean in a bad way. But if we get better schools, Schuyler will get them first. Schuyler gets everything.”
Schuyler was a grubby transport and industrial hub. Newer York was the standard settler ville, a small downtown island surrounded by farm fields, isolated by kilometers of trackless regolith. But Hunter had to concede, as settlers gained more power and products, now even foreigners in Saggy Town, Schuyler was more interesting and varied than Newer York.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to start over, in a house where he wasn’t constantly reminded of his late wife. “I’ll think about it,” he agreed.
“Do it,” Ari voted, studiously keeping his eyes on the screen.
“Sally, we can’t do anything to help Denali,” Hunter explained. “And you,” he touched a finger to her nose, “need to get ready for bed. Ari, half an hour.”
On the screen, Kassidy and Aurora signed off before they entered the dome medical bio-locks in order to be allowed back into Thrive. Kassidy vowed to send highlights of the continuing rescue efforts when her duties allowed.
“Good-bye for now, Mahina. I miss you!” She smacked a kiss at the viewer.
And Hunter Burke wondered if it were true, that there was nothing he could do to help Denali. He certainly felt the desire, and his kids. Maybe not everyone, but he bet many shared the urge. He turned off the display and tousled Ari’s head good night.
At their leave-taking, Abel Greer told him about his problems getting a cargo together. That much of it was valuable only because people would only supply goods, not the secrets of how to make them. Mahina Actual tied him up in red tape about a refrigerant for ice wands, of all things. The Saggies would sell him the bubble stuff by the ton, but not admit the recipe.
Maybe a politician and revolutionary could do something about that. And just maybe it was high time these worlds worked together. What Sass and Dad had accomplished so far was already bearing fruit. These worlds had to work together or fail alone.
Today was the right opportunity to hammer that nail home. Kassidy had already softened the wood for him.
Hunter got on the phone with Atlas Pratt first in Mahina Actual. He worked his way up to Pierre Lavelle in Saggy Town.
And Sally was right. If the kids were willing, it was high time they moved to Schuyler.
32
Three weeks later, Ben blearily poured himself some coffee and dropped into a seat in the galley. His best friend and lover hadn’t come to bed last – well, it wasn’t night. The pattern of their days was to ground the ships, collect in the Thrive, and pass out during the worst of the burgeoning sunshine hours, now over half of the too-short 20 hour clock.
Cope hunched over a new device he’d apparently built over siesta. Utterly exhausted, he needed to pause every couple minutes to wipe the sweat dripping from his nose. Parked on the ash field bowl of Denali Prime, its bright gray reflecting light everywhere, their spaceship had turned into an oven.
Abel dragged into his usual seat beside Cope, looking likewise wrecked. They all did. “Hey, Cope, anything you could do about the temperature?”
“Busy.” The engineer tucked a flopping coil into his new-made box, and teased out a tiny fan. He’d printed the parts from plastic except for the wiring. The whole contraption came to about a foot cubed. Doggedly, he fastened the fan with tiny screws.
“I see that,” Abel attempted. “But we can’t work if we’re too hot to sleep.”
“Fuck off,” Cope invited.
“Hey!”
“Abel,” Ben interceded. “Whatcha making, buddy?”
Copeland made a final connection, then flipped a switch. The fan whirred. He stared at his little box in hope, then closed his eyes and slumped back in relief.
Ben leaned in and basked in a stream of cool air. Abel crowded in from the other side. Copeland straight-armed the first mate out of the way, allowing only Ben to share his treat.
“Please tell me we each get one,” Abel begged.
“No,” the engineer replied. “But it’ll cool me down so I can think straight to come up with a real solution. And then get back to the damned fuel problem. We came to Denali Prime to get fuel. To go home.”
Ben felt torn. His lover was clearly in the wrong. But Cope was also close to boiling over, in his estimation. “Maybe I could make copies for you.”
Cope shook his head. “Feel the other side. This is a glorified ice wand.”
Ben tested the outflow as directed. Sure enough, Cope’s little device blasted heat toward the far side of the table.
“Dammit!” Abel hollered, pounding against the table edge. “Cope, we need to sleep! Summer is just around the corner! It’s getting worse every day!”
“I know that!” Cope yelled back. “But someone took the manic pill! Then someone sold all my refrigerant! And someone sold my steel printer stock!”
“Guys, stop!” Ben ordered. “Cope, calm down.”
Cope paused to glare at him. Then he plucked up his little air conditioner and tools, shot a middle finger at his lover, and stormed out.
Ben sighed and reconsidered his breakfast. Yet again, the menu featured room-temperature yam noodles. Today some shreds of cabbage and festive pink fish paste swam in a soy-and-vinegar watery sweet sauce. Today, like every day since the evacuation of Denali Prime began, he expected to sit in a pilot or gunner chair. Another massive thunderstorm struck just before bed, unleashing
torrents of rain. All of his progress at clearing ash awaited him to do all over again.
Abel was right. They couldn’t go on like this.
“I can’t eat this,” Ben announced, and rose from the table.
“Where are you going?” the first mate demanded.
“To help Cope fix the heat,” Ben told him over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “I’m on engineering today.”
From the catwalk, he spotted his partner trying to work under the staircase, perched on a crate, attempting to ignore the crazed hub-bub. Denali rescue workers had taken over their cargo hold. By now, Sass more-or-less took direction from Selectman Gorey and his counterpart from Hermitage. Go here, go there, clear ash, ferry refugees.
They were doing a fantastic job on the evacuation. It was just a big honking job that had nothing to do with the Mahinans. Yet the Thrive crew could not escape the Herculean task in good conscience. It wouldn’t do them any good, anyway. What they needed was fuel. They still hadn’t found the depot. And anyone who could help them was busy saving lives and salvaging equipment.
Ben trotted down the stairs to join Cope. “Second engineer reporting for duty, Chief. How can I help?”
“I was a complete ass,” Cope groused.
“So was he,” Ben asserted cheerfully. “Buddy, forget it. We need you thinking about how to fix the heat, not about a stupid spat over breakfast. So what are we doing?”
Cope closed his eyes and breathed out into the merciful breeze from his air conditioner. Ben gave him a moment for emotional reset. At last Cope nodded. “You know what I want? I don’t want you working on my project. I want you to think outside the box. Come up with new ideas. Brainstorm.”
Ben nudged him. “Not even a hint of what you’re doing? So we aren’t working on the same thing?”
Cope shrugged. “Old-fashioned air conditioner. Big. Refrigerant. Coils to absorb heat inside. Compressor to dump it outside. Clay’s son, Hunter, got us instructions for how to manufacture the refrigerant from the ice wands. Reza got someone in Waterfalls to make me a batch. They’re making some Saggy bubble stuff, too. I’ll get a few gallons of the coolant next time we’re in town. Brute force. But it’ll work.
“So brainstorm with me. What else could we do? Because this’ll take a week.”
“Outside the box,” Ben murmured. The first thing he thought was that the laws of thermodynamics left him very much inside a box, and that box got hotter every day. He breathed out explosively. “OK, why are we hot? Because we cool the ship with heat-dissipating fins stuck out into the cold of space, or the cold of night –”
“That’s not why we’re hot,” Cope interrupted. He pointed at the bulkhead. “Insulated. We generate heat inside a thermos. Sorry. You’re brainstorming. I’ll shut up now.”
Ben studied the bulkhead above the giant cargo door. “No, that was useful. My first thought was to build a sunshade. But the outside doesn’t conduct heat to the inside, does it?”
“Shouldn’t,” Cope agreed. “If it does, we need to fix that.”
Ben made a note of that, then returned to generating dumb ideas. “Paint it white. No, that’s the thermos argument again. Build a cool hole to stick our heat fins into. Heat fins.” He glanced to the airlock where he’d married the bio-lock. “Aw, hell.”
He’d built a giant heat fin, then hooked it into the airlock. Except it conducted heat from the outdoors in, right now, along with everyone who entered through the bio-lock. He scrunched his eyes shut and hung his head. “How do you do this, Cope? I suck as an engineer!”
“No, you don’t,” Cope consoled him. “Create, then adjust. If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make anything.” He sighed. “Then you advance to the point where they trust you so much, people die from your mistakes. Then you wish you were never born.”
Ben peeled an eye open and glared at him. “Too dark. Self-pitying. Lame.”
At least he got his partner to chuckle. “OK, go away now. Great third officer act, Acosta. Sass is rubbing off on you. You got me back on task. But leave me alone, and go spin ideas. Come back when you’ve got something.”
Relieved that he managed to cheer up his partner – and get his head back on cooling, rather than kicking himself over trading barbs with Abel – Ben wandered over to his inadvertent reverse-heat-fin attachment. Yes, indeed, the metal coupling nearly burned his hand. Why did he use steel anyway, when Cope was short of steel? That was dumb.
Steel. He hadn’t seen much of it at Waterfalls. But he’d seen it here at Denali Prime. Stainless steel! He made a note to follow that up later.
“Whatcha doing?” the guard Cortez inquired, bored.
Her boss-and-lover Wilder insisted she stand guard in the cargo hold whenever Denali were aboard. The hunters handled any passengers who got out of line. She was supposed to monitor, and make sure no one slacked off on bio-containment the way they did at home. The locals hated sluicing off their bakkra, and felt naked without it.
Ben replied, “Trying to think of ways to cool us off until Cope can get a real air conditioning system rigged. So he can get back to the fuel problem.”
“What’s the bottleneck?”
“Coolant. Steel. Hey, can you operate the plastic printer while you watch the door?”
“Oh, God, please!” Cortez begged, fingers steepled Denali-fashion. The gesture looked off with a laser rifle nestled in her elbow. “I swear, sar, if any bakkra are left by the final chamber, gongs sound. Can’t miss it.”
Ben laughed. “Yeah, I’ve heard your new alarm. Nearly scared me off the john yesterday.”
She smirked. “I was bored day before yesterday. Still bored.”
He nodded. “I’ll get back to you!”
Next he drifted among the Denali, surveying to learn what they did to keep cool. Selectman Gorey had commandeered Cope’s fancy new seat and desk at the engineering control station, still a freestanding podium on the other skyship, the Koala. Denali koala were – surprise! – ferocious, sported an orange mohawk, and weighed over a ton.
Gorey claimed that hunters – no surprise here, either – did not suffer heatstroke. Or if they did, they didn’t admit it. Or if they had to admit it because they were hospitalized, it was due to extraordinary circumstances that superseded proper precautions.
Ben pursed his lips wryly. Like every challenge they refuse to back down from. Most of the hunters he saw in the Denali dome shelter suffered from heatstroke. The caste raised macho to an art form. At first, he thought they were all men. But Aurora explained to him that no, many of the women took testosterone from before adolescence to grow stronger and more aggressive. Awesome. To Cope’s bemused follow-up question, she clarified that the hunters had about the same proportion of homosexuals as cosmos. Many women just appeared male outside the loincloth. And used the pronoun ‘he.’
Now Ben listened politely to their ideas and home remedies. Some of the leaves they mentioned sounded worth a try next time he sweat his sunblock off and got burnt. Then he wandered upstairs to grill Sass and Clay. Earth got hot at the end, he reasoned. And Mahina’s settlers lived in cheap geodesic domes while they built the atmosphere. Surely they knew techniques?
“Fans,” Sass replied. Indeed, she’d glued some circles of plastic sheeting to rods. Both she and her ‘husband’ waved them at their faces as she spoke. She flapped it at Ben for a moment in demonstration, and doused her brow with water again. “Evaporation. Water.”
“I had a pocket fan,” Clay shared. “On a water bottle. It spritzed water at your face, and then the fan blew the water dry. And I drank the water.”
“I like that!” Sass agreed.
“Can you show me a design of this?” Ben encouraged.
Clay gave up hunting for a photo after a few minutes and just sketched the thing. Sass added that ideally it would stick into a pocket or go on a lanyard around the neck to carry around, and operate off a standard rechargeable.
“Or just a fold-up fan you can stick in your pocket,”
Sass allowed. “Sorry, it never got this hot in the mountains where I lived on Earth. We had fans or we had nothing. Toward the end, it rained most of the time.”
A couple hours later, Ben reported back to the chief, who’d fallen asleep in the outflow from his little cooling unit, head propped under a stair edge where he wouldn’t get kicked.
Ben woke him with a squirt of water from his new fan-squirter-bottle. He took the first off Cortez’s assembly line after the prototype. She kept the prototype for herself.
Copeland laughed and grabbed it for study. “Not bad, squirt!” He matched action to word. “What else?”
Ben ran down his list. He slowed down on his new plastic replacements for the clamps connecting the bio-lock to the ship. Cope vetoed replacing the clamps themselves, but praised his efforts and told him where to splice in plastic to cut the heat conduction to the clamps.
“And steel,” Ben offered. “There’s cutlery in the city we could scrounge. Pots, forks, knives, spoons. I can melt it outside Thrive, turn it into printer stock. It’s crap quality, but ought to be good enough for fan blades and piping.”
“Well done!” Cope nearly hummed. “That it?”
“I could make the bio-locks cooler.” Ben showed his plans for building a foamcrete shelter for the converted containers. “And paint it with ash and glue to reflect the sun.”
Cope squirted himself and let the little hand fan dry it off. “That helps the bio-lock users. Fixing the couplings is the part that helps us.”
“Point. And there’s a leaf you can chew,” Ben offered. “Makes you feel cooler on the inside, and you take the chewed-up leaf and spread it on your forehead and feet. Sort of like evaporating peppermint. Except it tastes awful.” As Cope began to silently laugh at him, the younger man defended, “Hey! Eli’s isolated the compound! It works. He just doesn’t have the ingredients to make it in bulk. And the leaves are free, so...”
Cope grew solemn. “Good work, Ben. Thank you. Get that bio-lock fixed. I’ll ask Gorey if his crews can collect steel for us.”
