by V. S. Holmes
Despite the sprawling modern building, theirs was the only aircraft in sight. Weeds sprouted through cracks in the otherwise pristine pavement. The arching bridge to the mainland, visible beyond the tangle of jungle, was deserted. Lin caught Nel’s hand as it rose to unfasten the helm. “Decon first!” Her shout was muffled by the glass and she jerked her head toward the shuttle door. “C’mon!”
Nel dropped her hands. Outside the shuttle door, two glowing signs directed those native to Earth to the left and the rest to the right for what was, Nel assumed, additional screening. Gleaming steel and crystalline acrylic cubicles greeted them. Nel fought her impatience with increasing difficulty. Can’t I just run screaming outside and French kiss a continent I’ve never been on like the weird-ass white chick I am?
A figure in a clean suit directed her to the nearest empty cubicle. Sterilizing chemicals hissed out, bombarding her atmosuit. The next room provided racks to deposit suits. After a moment’s entanglement with her wires, she extracted herself and exited. Nel stepped aside, watching as someone pressed a compact object against Lin’s upper arm in another clear room. Based on her wince, it contained a needle.
Immunizations?
“Ma’am, your arm,” Clean Suit requested, brandishing an injector of his own.
Nel glowered at him, but extended her arm. “Couldn’t we just have this done while in cryo?”
“With an immune response in stasis and your body already flooded with a dozen chemicals?”
“Good point.” The device clicked and a deep burn spread through her deltoid. “What is it?”
“Had a few outbreaks in the last couple years. IDH helped us develop the vaccines, but they aren’t required unless you’re making planetfall. Have a good visit.” He turned to the next passenger, and Nel was left with her own complicated feelings at not being immediately recognizable as an Earthling.
Rubbing her arm, she exited the decon rooms. Four continents, a dozen countries, and countless flights were under her belt. This was the largest Arrivals terminal she had ever seen. Eerie stillness gripped the typical warren of customs lines, moving walkways, and security points. It was then that she noticed the signs along each wall and the friendly stickers on the floor reminding travelers to maintain distance and wear surgical masks. New concerns weaseled between those about space invasions and homicidal audio. Mom was always pretty healthy, she promised herself.
Nel heaved a sigh and shouldered her personal bag. Conversation was muted in the early hours of the day, and Nel turned onto the concourse amid relative quiet. The group funneled along the bright hall and descended an escalator into the bowels of the building. Gleaming tile hadn’t had enough traffic to even collect dust. Instead, the whole thing had a stale chemical odor, as if carpets still outgassed.
Below, she glimpsed the silver snake of a train, ribs cracked open to permit the few dozen interstellar travelers. Nel deposited her bag on the cargo cart and drifted to the crowd gathering on the platform for their briefing. She pulled up the mission itinerary on her comm, scanning the events with disinterest. The light rail would depart at midnight, apparently, leaving them yet again with an awkward amount of time to fill. Her gaze snagged on the date, blinking unassumingly at the top of her comm’s projected screen. Three years ago she was in Chile with Mikey, full of certainty and fire and beautiful ignorance.
A moment later IDH staff swarmed through the door from their extended time in decon. The idea that this little ball of dirt posed more danger to them than a routine trip to Odyssey ever did for her brought a smile to her face. We may be small, but we are fierce.
Lin emerged, long strides keeping pace with Dr. Ndebele, much to Nel’s horror. She fought the urge to duck behind the nearest support column. Lin listened to the mission operative’s words with an almost feral concentration, nodding every few seconds. Nel could almost see the thoughts darting between neurons. The woman clapped Lin on the shoulder before disappearing onto the train. Lin stepped aside, making several notes on the open screen of her communicator before scanning the room. Her eyes alighted on Nel and she grinned before jogging over. “Sorry that took so long!”
“You’re fine.” Nel jerked her chin at the stickers suggesting a two-meter distance. “What’s with this? Needle-dude said there were outbreaks?”
Lin shrugged. “Seems to have dissipated, since no one’s enforcing masks or whatever with us.”
“Or they just have bigger issues to focus on,” Nel muttered darkly as she fell into step with the rest of the passengers.
“If there was a pandemic, they wouldn’t be risking us,” Lin promised.
She meant to be reassuring, Nel knew, but the unspoken undercurrent was hardly comforting. Would you just let us all burn down here? “I hope to show you a bit more of Earth while we’re here, you know.”
“I’d like that. There’s a lot I didn’t really get to see last time.” Lin’s gaze slid back to the notes still lighting the space above her wrist and she typed a bit more.
“Yeah, murder charges have a way of hindering plans,” Nel drawled.
Harris stepped up to the front of the crowd, which stilled at his stern expression. “Welcome to Earth. While most of you attended the previous briefing—whether invited or not—” his gaze flicked to Nel, “there are several additional details of which to be aware. Effective immediately, there will be no auditory communication. Period. Noise-canceling headphones await you in your cabins and will be required for all missions. Those of you who use auditory readers due to blindness or other visual disabilities should see our tech staff, who will be happy to set up external blocks on your devices.”
“Excuse me, can't we just put those on everything?” a young man piped up.
“No. Please save questions until afterward, and direct them to your group officer.” He crossed his arms. “Lists of both your occupational and domestic groups have been uploaded to your communications device. Any questions, again, should be taken up with your officer, who is listed on your grouping notice. Some faces you’re going to want to know: I’m Harris, Chief Field Operative. Dr. Ndebele you know, Chief Analysis Operative. The aforementioned Technical Officer Teera Mak, Head of Computer Engineering. Munashi Sepulveda is our Founders liaison.
“As with all missions, chores will be assigned according to ability first, then equally among us. Scheduling conflicts will be considered, but otherwise we all pull our weight around here. We recognize some of you have never been to Earth before, and we respect the curiosity. However, recreations off-base will be strictly supervised and generally prohibited.” He paused, gaze falling to her boots for a split second. “IDH is public knowledge. But we are not liked. We are not trusted. We are tolerated as a curiosity and necessity at best. You stay within our supervision, otherwise your safety is your own responsibility.” He cracked a thin smile. “Dismissed.”
Nel tucked herself into the angled metal flashing along the wall. She had been here, waiting for a departing trip on the floor with hundreds of strangers many times before; it was easy to fall back into those patterns of navigating liminal space. These days everything seemed liminal.
She glanced over to Lin, half-baked plans of dinner on rooftops and summer beers fizzling at the distraction in Lin’s eyes. “So, we got some time to kill—once we’re all through decon, want to poke around?” Nel suggested. “I’m dying for some fresh air.”
“I don’t,” Lin dismissed. “Have time, I mean. The preliminary data from the Samsari mission just got in and we’re going to cross-reference it with what the Indian government has for us.”
“I thought we couldn’t send messages—”
“We can’t. No Wi-Fi. But a courier is meeting Dr. Ndebele in fifteen minutes.” Lin frowned and reworded something before closing the screen down. “I’m sorry everything’s been so busy.” Her intensity belied the apology.
“Busy and chaos is my norm lately,” Nel assured. “So, know when you’ll be free?”
Lin’s face brightened. “I should have some time before we leave. See you soon?”
Nel lifted her chin to catch Lin’s brief goodbye kiss, then watched her go. Between the few hours until departure and Lin’s brisk attitude, she was, once again, spinning.
She popped open her pack, discarding its deceptively light, gleaming case with relief. Is this what Lin felt, back on the Promise? On Odyssey? Righteous relief. Her remaining toes worked into the soles of her boots. Sure, she’d rather have her own gear, clothes, be recognizable for herself and herself alone. But it didn’t matter. Beneath her shoes, beneath fire retardant floor tiles and cracked pavement the soil was made of the same minerals as her bones. She was of this place.
Even as her finger hovered over her mother’s messages, the warning flashed over her screen:
NO AV CALLS
NO AUDIO CORRESPONDENCE OF ANY KIND
It was repeated in Mandarin, Cyrillic, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic. English was third on the list. Nel found her smile fading. Even if her feet were solidly on honest-to-fuck Earth, she wasn’t home. This was a strange world she had never experienced. Her eyes ached. Her bones dragged. She wondered if terrestrial bones made her more brittle than her star-born counterparts. It could be the renewed weight of gravity. Or a new gravity all her own, seated in the hollow between her billowing lungs.
Overwhelmed by the newness and the sameness colliding, she drew her field book from its pouch and flipped through the last few written pages. Notes on Los Cerros Esperando VII, sketches and a map from running from the cops. Thoughts on Samsara. Somewhere along the line her field notes took a turn for the conspiratorial.
Finding a blank page, she wrote the date of their departure from Odyssey, and today’s as well. What do I even say? The pen felt clumsy in her hands. Even if she wasn’t aware of the time since she last wrote longhand, her fingers were.
“Dr. Bently.”
She shrank back as she turned to face Harris’s banal expression. “Hey, Officer…I’m sorry, I don’t know your rank.”
“Harris, please. I was going to look at the view. Thought you might appreciate some fresh air.”
“Fresh air as in outside?” Her heart hammered to life.
“Indeed.”
“Fuck yeah.” She faltered. “Do I need my badge?”
“You’re with me. But in the future, you might want to carry it with you. Earth’s a dangerous place these days.” He extended his elbow. “Shall we?”
“Keep the chivalry, Harris, but sure.” She locked her hands behind her back to dissuade any more contact and fell in beside him. “I didn’t know we were allowed out, otherwise I’d already be there.”
“You would be long gone, I’d imagine. Or off to the spaceport bar.”
“Ah yeah, I was considering that.” Nel chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Though I probably shouldn't have told you.”
“It’s not my spaceport,” Harris rationalized. “I don’t concern myself with other people’s business unless they pay me to.”
“Seems like a good policy.” So who’s paying you now?
“It’s worked so far.”
“Thanks, by the way. For pulling whatever strings you did to get me here.”
“So you found out about that.”
“Lin told me. I hope that’s okay. Whatever you need help with, I’m yours. This means, well, the world.”
He held open a door emblazoned with EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY, flashing his card at the reader just inside the stairwell before the alarm even began. They walked in silence for a few moments, his steps a soft echo of her clomping stride. They reached the top of the stairs and he shoved open the rooftop access, holding it open for her to exit ahead of him.
She stepped into the hot, humid air of the sunbaked rooftop. She didn’t care that drawing breath was like sucking gelatin through a crazy straw or that she had never been within a thousand miles of Bakjeeri before now. She was home. She rushed to the edge, leaning over the wall. A parakeet fluttered from its nest several paces away. Nel tilted her face to the sky, eyes squeezed shut against tears as much as sunlight. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how afraid she was of never feeling Earth’s daylight on her face again.
Another lungful of air brought her the sharp musk of distant forest, the warm stone of the mountains, the bite of hot tarmac, the tang of sea salt. “Thank you,” she whispered, eyes fluttering open to take in the view, blurry through the haze of heat and emotion. “You grew up off-world?”
“No.” His eyes settled on the glitter of the city, several miles away. “Valladolid. It was an idyllic childhood followed by a lovely adulthood that ended abruptly.” His smile held no mirth. “Not everyone thinks this place is worth saving, Dr. Bently. Forgive me if I find my motivation for this mission elsewhere.”
“Different paths, same goals. I can feel you there.” She followed his gaze and hoped she was being as subtle as possible. “So was overriding their gatekeeping just about shutting me up?”
“This isn’t gatekeeping, Dr. Bently. This is just assignments. You’re still here, your expertise is still needed, and surely Lin appreciates your being here.”
“Eh, she’s pretty into the mission stuff. I guess Dr. Ndebele is a hero of hers.”
“Her mentor, yes.” He lapsed into silence again, seemingly aware of her gaze but content to let her stare.
Nel took him up on it, following the set of his jaw and the unreadable expression of his eyes. As much as she was growing to like the man, the very IDH mysteriousness made her second-guess her trust in him. He reminded her of someone, but each time her mind came close to grasping who, it slipped away. “So your role is, what, reconnaissance?”
“I am very good at finding things,” he demurred. As always, even his seemingly bald confessions were carefully imparted. “So are you, if you just keep that temper in check. Luckily IDH has a larger ego than it does a sense of retribution. Most of the time.” His eyes crinkled with mirth, however, that told her he didn’t share their qualms.
“You don’t think I was out of line?”
He did not smile. “I respect you.”
“But you don’t like me.”
“I do not like much of anyone, Dr. Bently.” Shadows clung behind his eyes, ones that were new to Nel. Those filling Lin’s eyes were left over from events Nel couldn’t imagine. The darkness in Harris’s, however, was from things she didn’t want to. “You’ve a part to play in this, and I look forward to discovering what it will be.”
The sun slunk lower, its brilliance pierced with the jungle canopy, a popped yolk bleeding pigment across the clotted clouds.
Harris’s wrist comm flashed, and he stepped toward the door without checking the message. “Duty calls, Bently, but you’re welcome to stay. Close the door behind you.”
“If I stay out much longer, I’ll never come in,” she explained, following him to the door. They didn’t speak on the descent back into the bowels of the hulking spaceport, and he disappeared into the crowd with nothing more than a polite nod goodbye.
Taking permission from Harris’s disinterest, Nel decided to spend the rest of her evening exploring the hulking mass of the spaceport. The bank of main doors proved locked upon her firm jiggling, but several yards down a brick propped open a service door.
As a teen, whenever her mind felt too close, she had taken off into the woods, exploring until the wilderness of her thoughts seemed tame once more. The service hall split, hooking left toward what must have been an employee lounge and time clock, while the main corridor continued on to meet with the security check. She moved down the concourse, listening to the soft tap of her IDH-issue boots on the gleaming tile. The forgotten reminders of whatever flu wracked the place were eerie warnings that anything could change.
She rounded a corner and the hall opened up into a massive lobby. Like your average big city mall, the three stories of terminals opened into a massive food court. The hub of intergalactic hopes and dre
ams. It was empty and smelled faintly, comfortingly, of mildew. She tilted her head. Somewhere the sound of rushing water echoed off the gleaming steel and glass. Most of the restaurants and stores were barred with metal grates, but enough weren’t that Nel could almost imagine it bustling. Streamers still hung from opening day.
The sound of water emanated from the huge fountain in the center. A botanical garden’s worth of plants and trees tangled the space on the ground floor, branches reaching toward the glass dome overhead. Vines curled around every rail, and epiphytic orchids and plants were tucked into every crevice Nel could see. Was it by design, or had nature already claimed its place even here?
Abandoned wasn’t the right word. Not really. The decor was both outdated and progressive at once. Held gently in stasis until something changed. It wasn’t even overgrown or reclaimed in the way every post-apocalyptic movie led her to expect. Probably because we’re not to the “post” part yet. And they wouldn’t ever be, if Nel had anything to say about it.
A restaurant bar extended along one wall on the second floor, and Nel jogged down the stationary escalator to try the staff door. It was locked, as she expected. Instead, she hopped up onto the bar itself and dropped behind.
“Jackpot.” She cradled the almost-full bottle of El Capo Anejo with a lover’s tenderness. She fished a glass from the rack and blew the dust out before pouring a few fingers into it. Of course the fridge was empty—mercifully so, considering the power was off—so she knocked the drink back straight. It burned in all the familiar, right ways, a trail of seductive fire down her throat. “Oh sweetheart, it’s been too long.”
“I thought you only talked to me like that.”
Nel glanced up to see Lin leaning on the end of the bar. The high collar of her electrosuit was undone, the gleam of sweat on her beige skin set off by the cold blue and black of the electromesh. Even as pissed as she was, Nel couldn’t deny the draw of that open fabric. “Hey. Thought you had a meeting.”
