Alexander traded a worried look with Catalina, and then both of them glanced at Benjamin.
“What about supper?” Benjamin asked.
They’d been just about to go get something to eat. Catalina frowned. “They can’t expect us to stay here without food.”
“Maybe they’re planning to bring us something,” Alexander suggested.
“We should try the door,” she said. “Maybe one of us can get something and bring it back here.”
“And risk contamination from whatever bio-hazard prompted the quarantine?” Alexander replied.
“How do we know we’re not already contaminated?”
“If we are, then staying here will keep other people safe. We can’t risk it,” Alexander insisted. “I’m sure it won’t be long.”
Catalina stared at the door until an Open/Lock option appeared on her ARCs.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking something,” she selected Open, but nothing happened. Instead an error flashed up before her eyes.
Access Denied.
“It’s locked,” she said.
“I’m not surprised,” Alexander replied. “They can’t have us wandering around and breaching containment protocols at the first sign of hunger.”
Catalina’s eyes drifted out of focus as she stared at him. “What if this lasts more than a few hours? What if it’s days or weeks?”
“Then they’ll have to find a way to bring us food...” Alexander trailed off, one ear cocked toward the ceiling, as if listening to another public announcement that only he could hear.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The air—it’s not circulating. They’ve shut the vents.”
“What?! We’ll suffocate!”
Benjamin’s blue eyes were wide and frightened.
Alexander shook his head. “We have enough air to last for a while... but whatever they’re worried about, they think it might be airborne. That’s not good.”
“I want my mom,” Benjamin said.
Catalina felt a pang of regret for speaking so candidly in front of him. She walked over and took his hand. “Come on, let’s go sit on the terrace.”
“What for?” Benjamin asked.
“So we can play a game,” she said.
“What kind of game?”
“You’ll see.”
She led Benjamin outside. A salty breeze blew off the holographic ocean and waves crashed rhythmically on the beach.
Catalina took a seat on a couch facing the view and patted the space beside her. Benjamin hesitated a moment before sitting down.
The air shimmered with heat, and the beach vanished into the distance, becoming a mirror for the cloudless blue sky where the waves had left it smooth and wet. Sunlight shattered on the water, sending shards glinting to their eyes.
Catalina sighed. “Peaceful, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” Benjamin said. “I thought you said we were going to play a game?”
Out of the corner of her eye Catalina saw Alexander come outside. He stood leaning against the sliding glass doors, unseen by Benjamin and watching them with a conspiratorial smile.
“You know how to change the view?” she asked.
“Sure,” Benjamin replied.
“Then you go first. I’ll close my eyes and try to guess things about the scene you picked. I get five guesses. Each time I guess right, I get a point, but if I guess wrong, you get a point. And if I get two guesses in a row wrong, you have to give me a clue.”
“Okay,” Benjamin said, his lips curving into a brief smile. “Close your eyes. And no peeking!”
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. “I won’t.”
“You better not. I’ll know if you do, and then I’ll get an extra turn.”
Catalina nodded. “Fair enough.” The rhythmic crashing of waves suddenly ceased. So did the salty ocean breeze and the waves of heat pulsing off the beach. The air was still and cool, but not cold, and it was heavily laden with pine scents. A river or a waterfall roared in the distance.
“We’re in the mountains,” Catalina said, deducing that from the speed and tenor of the river.
“Yes,” Benjamin confirmed.
“In an evergreen forest.”
“Right again.”
“And...” Catalina thought about what else she could deduce. Mountain air was cooler due to the altitude, so despite the chilly air it could be summer. Also, pine trees were prevalent in the Northern hemisphere, but not the southern hemisphere. “It’s summer, and we’re in the northern hemisphere.”
“Right again,” Benjamin said. “One more and you get all five points.”
“Okay...” It was hard for her to think of another deduction she could make. There was no way to be sure about the time of day, though by default that would correspond to the shipboard time. Should she risk assuming that Benjamin hadn’t changed that parameter? At least it’s something to go on, she decided. “It’s night time,” she added.
“Nope.”
Catalina opened her eyes to see the soft golden rays of the morning sun trickling through the trees.
“But four out of five isn’t bad,” Benjamin said. “I’ll have to make it harder next time. Your turn!” he said, scrunching up his entire face as he shut his eyes in anticipation of the next scene.
Catalina smiled. Her plan was working. She’d completely distracted him from his empty stomach, the quarantine... his mother. For her scene she chose a summer night by a lake in midwestern America. The sound of crickets and frogs chirping filled the air.
Benjamin proceeded to guess that both creatures were present, using two separate guesses. Clever boy, she thought. “That’s two points.”
“And... the temperature is between twenty-two and twenty-three degrees centigrade.”
Catalina checked that. “It’s twenty-two degrees.” She blinked with shock. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Dolbear’s law.”
“What’s that?”
“It states the relationship between air temperature and the rate at which crickets chirp. All you have to do is count the number of chirps in twenty-five seconds, divide by three and then add four. I did that twice and got twenty-two and twenty-three degrees respectively, so I gave my answer as a range to make it more accurate. Go ahead and count for yourself.”
Catalina couldn’t even pick out cricket chirps from frog croaks. She shook her head. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Well, even if you counted correctly, how do you know that the designers calibrated the cricket chirps to the temperature?”
“Because the default scenes are all pre-recorded from real locations, and I don’t think you know how to customize your scene.”
“How old are you again?”
“Nine. Why?”
“Because sometimes you act your age, and other times...” she shook her head.
“My mother says I’m precocious. That’s another way of saying I’m too smart.”
“Well that’s a given,” Catalina replied. “You’ve got three out of five guesses right. Let’s see if you can get two more,” she added, not wanting to give Benjamin too long to dwell on his mother
Benjamin guessed the season and the time of day, both of which were relatively safe bets from the other things he already knew.
“Five points. You’re up by one.”
“Soon to be five more,” he said, grinning.
“Don’t get too cocky. I’m sure to get at least a few things right.”
“We’ll see,” Benjamin said, smiling up at her. “Close your eyes.”
Catalina did as she was told. The sound of the crickets and frogs vanished, replaced by a haunting melody of hoots and wails like nothing she’d ever heard before. The air was hot, dry, and gusting, as if pouring from an oven or furnace. The wind sent a pungent odor, sweet and acrid, tickling through her nostrils. It smelled vaguely like burning grass. Catalina had visited a lot of
different places on Earth, but this one seemed utterly foreign to her. Another animal made its presence known with loud, urgent clicking sounds.
“It’s a jungle,” Catalina decided from the sheer variety of animal noises.
“Nope.”
“Okay... the African savannah, then.”
“Half right. Three more guesses.”
“Is it in Africa?”
“No.”
“Then it’s a savannah.”
“Yes. Lots of grass.”
“I thought so... then that brings me to my next guess. The grass is burning, isn’t it?”
“Correct.”
Catalina frowned, wondering who’d want a pre-recorded scene of an inferno raging through a grassy plain. For her final guess she decided to focus on the animal sounds. Hoots and wails could easily be from birds or monkeys. “There are primates,” she decided. “They’re calling out in alarm because of the fire.”
“Wrong and wrong again.”
“Okay, I give up,” Catalina said, opening her eyes. As she did so, her jaw promptly dropped open, and she sucked in a hasty breath of the noxious air.
To her left she saw a sickly yellow sky clogged with blowing sand and black smoke. Below that a wall of flames danced up from a field of tall blue grass, bowing in a vicious gale. The inferno advanced steadily with the wind, eating up more of the blue grass and chasing giant, glossy black arthropods. Bipedal, wrinkly, gray-skinned humanoids dashed between them, prodding the insects with sharp sticks, hooting and whistling as they went.
The scene obviously wasn’t pre-recorded, but rather based on some type of fantasy setting on an alien world.
“Well, they might not be primates, but I was right about them calling out in alarm because of the fire.”
“No, they’re not alarmed. They’re excited. The fire is herding their prey toward a cliff.”
Catalina shook her head. “You win. Where did you find this scene?”
“I didn’t find it. I made it.”
“You what?”
Benjamin smiled proudly. “It’s my impression of Proxima B.”
“How did you do that? Is there a program for customizing scenes?”
“Probably, but I used a rendering engine.”
“Don’t you have to program that?”
Benjamin shrugged.
“Smart kid,” Alexander commented from where he stood leaning against the terrace doors, watching the game. Catalina had forgotten he was there. “You sure you aren’t an android in disguise?” Alexander went on.
Benjamin flipped a smile over his shoulder. “Disguised as what? An android? That wouldn’t be much of a disguise. Like dressing you up as a lion.”
A smile flickered through the frown on Alexander’s face. “Good point,” he said, and left it at that.
Catalina was also curious about Benjamin’s acute intelligence, but if he were an android, surely the mission’s recruitment and HR offices would have identified him early on in the selection process. She put the matter from her mind and nodded to Alexander. “Don’t you want to join us?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, and went to sit on the other side of her.
“All right, you’re next, Mr. Lion,” Benjamin said.
Alexander smiled and reached around her to tousle the kid’s hair.
“We’ll have to take turns guessing,” Benjamin added, already closing his eyes.
“All right, here goes...” Alexander said.
They played several more rounds. At some point it was Benjamin’s turn to guess, but he said nothing even when prompted, and Catalina turned to find him fast asleep.
“We should take him to bed,” she whispered.
Alexander nodded and got up to carry Benjamin inside. He was about to lay the boy down on the couch when Catalina grabbed his arm to stop him. She shook her head, and jerked her chin to their room. “It would probably be better if I slept with him tonight. Do you mind?”
Alexander hesitated, then shook his head. “No, you’re right. That’s a good idea.” He carried Benjamin to their bed and tucked him in.
Catalina kissed Alexander goodnight and whispered, “You’re going to make a great Father, you know.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Think so? I didn’t do so great the first time around.”
“Dorian was your stepson. It’s not your fault he never listened to you. And besides, one failure doesn’t make us bad parents. He was a troubled boy from the start.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I made him troubled.”
A lump rose in her throat at the sorrow in Alexander’s voice. She shook her head and smiled. “No.”
Alexander shrugged. “Well, you’re going to make a great Mother. That was a good idea you had—distracting Benjamin with that game.”
“Thanks.” Catalina’s stomach growled painfully and she winced. “I hope they let us out for breakfast.”
“If they don’t, I’m going to pry the door open.”
Catalina gave him a skeptical look. “What about the quarantine?”
“They can’t expect us to stay in here without food.”
“They’d better not. See you tomorrow morning.”
“Sleep well,” he replied.
“I’ll try.”
Catalina watched him leave and then she pulled off her boots and crawled into bed beside Benjamin. She was too tired and stressed to bother changing into a new jumpsuit or brushing her teeth. She used her neural link to dim the lights, and Benjamin stirred and rolled over, tucking his head under her chin and draping an arm over her to hug her close.
She hugged him back, and the lump in her throat returned. He was all alone, and distraction wasn’t going to work forever to keep him from feeling the loss of his mother. Catalina lay awake thinking about that, about the cruel caprice of the universe, where death could come suddenly for anyone at anytime.
Benjamin’s body grew suddenly tense in her arms and he woke up, his eyes huge and frightened. “Mom?” he asked, blinking up at her in the dim light.
Catalina shook her head. “It’s me, Catalina.”
Tears welled in his eyes and fell silently to his pillow. He rolled over, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s not fair,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” Catalina agreed.
“She always looked after me, but I wasn’t there to look after her.”
“You couldn’t have saved her, Ben.”
“I could have. If I was there.”
“You’re not superhuman.”
Benjamin said nothing to that. When the silence grew uncomfortably long, she decided to try a change of topic. “Why did you come aboard the Liberty?”
“My mom sold everything to save me. We didn’t have a home anymore. I applied for the Liberty and passed all the entrance exams and my Mom got to go free because of me.”
Catalina frowned. “She sold everything to save you? From what?”
“I was born with a disease—Tay-Sachs. I would have died if my mom hadn’t signed me up for a new treatment on Earth.”
“A genetic disease? How is that possible?”
“Not everyone’s a gener. Some people say it’s us playing God and they still have children naturally.”
“But without genetic engineering you’ll grow old and die,” Catalina objected.
“Everybody dies. My mom was immortal, and...”
It didn’t save her. Catalina frowned. “How could she deny you immortality if she was immortal herself?”
“She didn’t have a choice about being a gener baby. She wanted to make sure I did.”
“But it didn’t work out the way she planned.”
“No.” Silence stretched between them once more. Benjamin broke it a moment later. “What about you? Why did you come aboard?”
Catalina explained about her and Alex’s desire to have children, and their fear for the future of Earth and Mars with so much animosity between androids and humans.
Benjamin yawned. “Androids aren’t bad. They saved my
life. Why would they do that if they wanted us all dead?”
“That’s a good question,” Catalina said. “I think the real danger is in our minds. Fear can make us do crazy things, and we’re afraid of them, so...”
“It makes us crazy.”
“Exactly.”
Benjamin nodded and rolled back to face her. Catalina wrapped an arm around him and he tucked his head against her chest. After a while his breathing slowed, and the frown lines disappeared from his forehead as his muscles relaxed in sleep.
Catalina watched him for what must have been at least an hour before finally succumbing to sleep herself, and even then she slept fitfully, dreaming of food. She awoke early with a vicious pain in her stomach. She’d dreamed that someone had stabbed her there, and now as she awoke, she probed the area carefully to make sure that wasn’t actually the case. Her belly curved away in a concave hole below her ribs, but the skin was unbroken. Catalina let out a breath and rolled over to find Benjamin. He was already awake, and this time he was watching her.
“Good morning,” he said.
Catalina frowned. “How long have you been awake?”
“I don’t know. A while. I’m hungry...” he whined, his eyes accusing, as if the quarantine were somehow her fault.
Catalina blinked, surprised by his behavior. Benjamin was such a precocious boy that it was easy to forget he could still act his age.
“I’m going to go make some coffee and wake Alexander. As soon as we’re both up, we’ll find a way to get food—quarantine or no quarantine.”
“Promise?”
Catalina smiled and kissed his forehead. “Promise. Come on, you can help me figure out how the coffee maker works.”
“Okay.”
It didn’t take long to figure out. All they had to do was pick the type of coffee, put a cup under the dispenser, and press a button; then, like magic, a fragrant, steaming brew poured out.
“Mmmmm. It smells good,” Benjamin said. “Can I have some?”
“Sure—but only if it’s decaf,” Catalina added as she carried Alexander’s mug over to the couch where he lay sleeping. He looked so peaceful that she hesitated to wake him. She set her coffee down on the table in front of the couch and placed his under his nose, thinking the smell would wake him, but he didn’t stir. “Alex...” she whispered. “Wake up, Alex.”
New Frontiers- The Complete Series Page 75
