People.
So many people.
And so many of them look nothing like me.
Only Tien is a friend. What would Mamma make of that? A chaff friend. And transgender besides.
Aidan, I wish you were here.
—Ally’s Journal, June 19th, 2282
Sanya laid as low in the boxcar as she could, waiting for Rafe to give the signal. Her back was killing her—rocks did not make a comfortable resting place.
The sledge had started downhill now, following the carved-out ledge as it dove toward the floor of the cavern. Ahead, the gray pyramids of the original Alpha base crouched like a mountain range at the eastern edge of Redemption.
She’d never paid much attention to the sledges. They carried rocks from the Dark, the unused portion of the lava tube that housed Redemption and the original NAU base. It was carried along the mag-rail to a processing facility somewhere outside of the city on the lunar surface, where the rock was pulverized and turned into gumdust and eventually all manner of products.
Outside. Where there was no breathable atmosphere. Basically, no atmosphere at all. -Um, Rafe…-
-Right here.-
-How are we going to breathe out there?-
-We’re not.- She could almost hear his smirk.
She should have guessed. -So what’s the plan?-
-Get ready to jump off.-
-That’s it?-
He lifted his head from the next boxcar. Sure enough, he wore that grin she was getting so sick of. -There are a few more parts after that, but there’s not enough time to explain them right now. You ready?-
-What—now?-
He nodded. -In about ten seconds.-
Sanya peered over the edge of the boxcar. They were hurtling toward the ground now, where the mag-rail ran along the side of the old base for a couple hundred meters before dead-ending into a metal doorway.
They leveled out. -Five, four….-
She levered herself up, ready to try, though she was afraid she’d break an arm or leg at that speed. Still, she supposed it was better than suffocating on the lunar surface.
The sledge began to slow.
-Three, two…-
It approached the door and dropped to a virtual crawl.
-…one, zero.- Rafe got up and climbed over the edge of the boxcar as if he was walking out of his own front door.
-Bastard.- She grinned, though—she couldn’t help herself. She vaulted out of the boxcar and dusted herself off as well as she could as the sledge continued past them toward the airlock door.
“What?” Rafe held his hands out, feigning innocence.
“You could have told me it would slow down.”
“I could have, but where’s the fun in that?”
She shook her head. Men.
Avri hadn’t been like that. She’d been a gentle soul.
Sanya looked up at the base. Alpha was in there somewhere, his core spinning in its magnetic cradle. “Does it know… can it see us here?” She wasn’t used to thinking of Alpha as an “it.” Or a danger.
“No, not as long as you keep that canceller on. Come on.” He led her past the looming gumdust bricks of the base as the sledge disappeared behind the big door. It closed with a definitive thunk.
They rounded the end of the base and came back out into the muted light. Ahead, the voidwall—built to seal off the lava tube when Alpha Base was founded—loomed over them like a cliff face.
The rail transport for humans used an airlock on the far end of the wall, but Rafe led her to a nondescript door closer to the center. He placed his palm on the sensor next to it.
Nothing happened.
He took his shirtsleeve, wiped the scanner clean, and tried again.
There was a beep, and this time the door opened.
He gestured for her to go first and then stepped inside, too, closing the door behind them. A flickering light came on above them as they entered.
“What is this place?” Sanya looked around. It looked like a warehouse—maybe twenty meters wide and long, and six meters high. Shelves filled with plas bottles took up most of the space. Many of them were opaque with age, but some were still clear enough to see through. They held rocks and dust and moonstones and other geological treasures.
“This room served as an intake station in the early days, and sample storage too.” He led her between the shelves and opened another door. “Come on.”
She followed him, looking at all the thousands of samples that time had forgotten. So much work done here, by astronauts whose names who were now all but forgotten. The weight of all that missing history settled on her shoulders as she followed him into another room. How much have we lost that we don’t even know is gone?
The second room was much smaller than the storage room. Along one side, a series of old excursion suits lined the wall.
Her stomach rumbled. “Don’t suppose you brought anything to eat?”
Rafe laughed. “As a matter of fact….” He set down his duffel bag on a metal table and pulled out a couple of leaf-wrapped packets. “Junlei protein bars.”
She took one gratefully. “Thanks.” She bit into hers. It was tough and chewy—probably a bit old. Still, it was sustenance.
He must have seen her grimace. “Hey, fugitives can’t be picky.”
She laughed. “Suppose not.” It wasn’t horrible, and her stomach wouldn’t care that it tasted like a mixture of fruit and dirt. “So what are we doing here?”
“How tall are you?”
“About two meters. Why—wait. Oh no. We’re not wearing those, are we?” She stared at the excursion suits in horror.
They were a hundred years old if they were a day. And they brought back memories.
-You have to come see this.- Avri was a few steps ahead of her, perched on the crater wall.
-Turn around. I want to memcache this one.-
Avri looked back at her, the helmet light showing her face. She grinned and put up her thumb while Sanya captured a hundred ‘mages for later. She’d sift through them to find the one she liked best.
-Seriously, Sanny… you gotta come see this. The view is incredible.-
Sanya edged up to the crater rim, watching her footing. She felt huge and clumsy in the suit, and it was a big drop-off from up here.
Avri was right, though. It was gorgeous.
The crater was half in shadow, but its stark beauty struck her like a blow. The northernmost of the two Krafft craters held a smaller secondary crater with a beautifully-defined rim. Above it, the half-crescent of Earth shone with reflected sunlight before the starry void. -Wow.-
-Worth it?-
Sanya grinned. -Totally worth it.- She was glad they’d come… the small lunar shuttle they’d rented sat in the bowl of the crater below, a good hike back down. It was always easier hiking downhill.
Avri grinned behind her visor. -Gotta save all this for later.- She looked up at the homeworld overhead. -Think we’ll actually get there someday?-
Sanya nodded. -I hope so. Sam and Alpha seem to have a plan.-
-It’s so close. I can almost touch it…- She reached out toward the shadowed globe.
It happened so fast, but it was like slow motion.
In the following days, weeks and months, Sanya would replay it over and over again in her head, as if she could find a way to stop it.
The ground shook, a sound like an explosion echoing up through her feet and legs through the air in her suit.
The rim of the crater crumbled under Avri’s feet, sending a shower of dust and rock rattling down into the bowl.
Avri fell after it, her arms windmilling as she tried to stop her fall. -Sanya!-
-Avri!- Sanya reached out to grab her, but her clumsy suited hands slipped off of Avri’s suit, and she ended up face down on the rim, watching in horror as Avri dropped down the steep incline.
-Sanya, help me…- Her voice cut off abruptly in Sanya’s head.
Avri.
Her fall was slower than it looked in tridees as her lifeless body slammed into the ground again and again, tumbling head-over heels toward the crater floor like a rag doll. In seconds, Avri’s body came to rest far below.
-Avri!- There was no response. Pain exploded in Sanya’s gut, tears forming in her eyes. “No, no, no, no.…” Sanya turned to run back down the trail after her, retracing their steps.
Avri would be okay. Sanya would get to the shuttle, would call for help.
She had to believe it, but a part of her realized that no one could have survived that fall—Avri’s beautiful laughter had been silenced forever.
She held back the pain like a flood-tide, racing to Avri’s side, even though she knew it was already too late.
“I… I can’t.” She hadn’t gone outside since that fateful day, four years before.
Rafe scratched his head. “We have to reach the transit hub. With Redemption on lockdown, this is the only way.”
“It’s just… I had a really bad experience the last time I tried something like this.”
He touched her shoulder. She looked up into his eyes, surprised to see compassion there. “I get that. But I don’t see another way.”
Sanya stared at the suits. Apart from their advanced age, they belonged to someone else too. Maybe Alpha?
She remembered that part of the Redemption pledge clearly enough: I will not take what’s not mine. Not that she always lived up to it.
“Hey, you don’t have to go. But you did say you needed to get to your transmitter.”
He had a point. Besides, Avri wouldn’t want her to be scared anymore. I miss you, Avrigail. “Crack it all to hell. Give me the suit.”
Tien watched the docking procedure through the Humber’s porthole windows, switching sides as needed to get the best view.
Harley piloted the heavy lifter flawlessly, bringing it slowly into synch with the spin of the Launchpad.
Poor Ally was suffering a bout of space sickness in the ship’s small head.
It was strange to be coming back to the place she’d called home for so long, after such a short trip down to the surface. She’d talked with Lorelei and Sam at length on the comm, passing along everything she could remember about Martinez Base and her brief time on the ground. Apparently all the other dropnauts were deployed in a pattern around the Earth, creating a network to allow a continuous link to the surface.
Of course, that also meant none of them would be there to welcome her back.
“Are we there yet?” Ally emerged from the head, still looking a bit green around the edges. She hadn’t yet figured out the knack to navigating the bridge in zero gee, but she bumbled her way to Tien’s side.
“Almost. You okay, Allycat?”
“Been better.” She managed a sickly smile. “The old tridees never mentioned space sickness.”
Tien laughed. “Yeah, it wasn’t glamorous enough.” She pulled out her portable medkit and handed Ally a patch. “Here, this will take the edge off. Just remove the backing and stick it on your forearm.”
Ally took the patch and smiled gratefully. “Have you ever been space sick?”
Tien nodded. “For a week when we first started zero-gee training.”
“Oh God, I’m gonna feel like this for a week?” Her face went pale, and the pulled herself back to the head.
Poor thing. “No, the station has artificial gravity. That’s why it spins. Tien turned back toward the view from the porthole. “Are you okay… about me?” She’d wanted to ask, but the time hadn’t seemed right.
Ally was quiet for a moment. “I think so,” she said at last. “Did you always know?”
Tien thought back to that little girl on the riverbank. “Yes I did. Didn’t you always know?”
Ally laughed softly. “Fair point. Yeah, I guess so.”
Tien nodded. Good enough for now. “Hang onto something.” She grabbed one of the metal bars that lined the edge of the ship’s small bridge, and Ally did the same.
The nose of the ship opened up and reconfigured itself for docking as it slowly approached the station. “Contact in five, four, three, two, one….”
The hull shuddered just a little, and then they were down.
The bridge suddenly had gravity as the centrifugal force of the station transferred to the ship itself.
Ally almost fell, holding onto one of the bars for dear life.
“Careful. We’re connected to the Launchpad now. There’s gravity again.”
“Now you tell me.” Ally still looked a bit unsteady. “Glad you secured the pack.”
“Here you go.” Sam was going to kill her for losing hers when he got back. She unhooked it and handed it to Ally.
“Now I see why there’s a ladder in here.”
Tien laughed. “Yeah, it does come in handy for docking. Come on.”
She climbed up toward the docking hatch. It spiraled open as she approached, shining a bright white luminescence into the dim lifter. “See you soon, Harley.”
“I’m already interfacing with Dek. See you inside.”
She looked down at Ally, who had gone pale. “You ready?”
Ally grimaced. “I think so.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Tien climbed the ladder into the station.
Ally followed Tien up into the light.
As they climbed up into what Tien had told her would be an empty cargo bay, a loud cheer broke out above her.
She hesitated. I should go back to the ship. It had felt safe there. At least, after the madcap dash up from the surface. She’d never been around a large group of people, and that sounded like a lot of them. She still felt sick to her stomach, and she was sure she smelled like a backed-up toilet.
Tien’s face appeared above her, silhouetted by the bright lights. “Come on! What are you waiting for?”
Maybe because I never thought this many people still existed in the whole universe, let alone that I might have to meet all of them at once? Still, she steeled herself and climbed up out of the hatch.
She regretted it instantly.
People jostled all around her, reaching out hands, touching her shoulder, her face, babbling a thousand things at once.
“You’re from Earth! What’s it like?”
“Oooh you’re shorter than I thought you’d be.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Here, I brought this for you. It belonged to my great-great grandmother. She was from Earth too.”
“My daughter wants to meet you!”
“Leave me alone.” Ally shook her head, trying to push them away, every fiber of her being crying out for her to run. “I don’t know you. I don’t know you. I don’t know you!” The last came out as a shout, and the room quieted instantly.
“Sorry, Ally. I didn’t know it would be like this.” Tien put an arm around her shoulder, waving the others away. “Everyone back off. Give her a little air. This is all strange and new for her. You can talk with her later, after she has a chance to settle in.”
“Sorry.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“You’re welcome here, whenever you are ready.”
The crowd melted away, leaving Tien at her side, and an older woman in a trim white suit. Her silver hair was cut short, and she had a kindly smile that belied her somewhat severe, professional look.
The woman held out her hand. “I’m Maria Gonzalez, Station Manager. So sorry about all that. I should have considered it when the crew suggested a welcome party. We were just so excited for Tien’s safe return.”
Ally stared at her hand.
Tien whispered in her ear. “You shake it to introduce yourself.”
Ally laughed nervously. “Of course.” She’d seen it in tridees, but before Tien and Rai, she’d never met anyone new before. She held her own hand out, and the station manager shook it firmly but carefully.
“Welcome aboard the Launchpad. Things are a bit of a mess at the moment up on Redemption, but once they get things squared away, I know there are many folks who will want to talk with you.”
Ally nodded. The very thought of speaking to so many people as if she was some kind of representative made her a bit ill, but she shoved it aside. She’d been miserable at Boundary Peak when she thought she’d live the rest of her life alone, but this… it was overwhelming. “My mother’s sick. We came to Martinez Base looking for medicine….”
The station manager frowned. “Where did you say you came from, child?”
“From Boundary Peak. It’s in what used to be Nevada.”
She nodded. “I’ll look into it. Before our dropnauts ran across you, we had no idea anyone had survived down there. Is there any communications equipment there?”
“Yes. My father built a radio antenna before he died. We never heard anything on it, though.”
“Probably an old band. We have no ships to send down at the moment—not even sure that’s a good idea until we get a handle on the current situation. But we can see if we can at least make contact.”
Ally nodded. “I’d really appreciate that.”
Maria tapped her temple, a gesture Ally had seen Tien use. “Dek, can you locate that facility?”
A voice came out of nowhere. “Of course. I’ll let you know.”
Ally cringed, but Tien’s hand on her shoulder reassured her.
“It’s just the station AI.”
Ally nodded, not thrilled to have gone from the frying pan into the fire, as her mother used to say. But she would withhold judgment on the whole AI thing. For the moment.
Now that she had calmed down, she had a chance to look around at the station’s docking bay. It wasn’t all that different from Boundary Peak—industrial and efficient. The walls here were gray, covered at various intervals by conduits and shafts painted blue and white. The bay was empty, save for a few drab gray boxes stacked in one corner.
“Come on.” Maria gestured toward the door. “We have a room set up for the two of you—if you don’t mind sharing?”
Ally looked at Tien. It would be good to have someone familiar nearby in this strange place. “I don’t mind.”
Tien nodded. “Me neither.”
“Then it’s settled. We had one of the visitors’ suites free. I think you’ll like it.” She winked, and Ally felt immediately more at ease.
“Is there a chapel?” She hadn’t said her formal prayers in days.
“Yes. We have a nondenominational chapel off the runway. Tien can show you where it is.”
Nondenominational? Ally frowned. She didn’t know that word. Hopefully, it meant that it would welcome her too. Did God even know she was up here? She wasn’t sure how the whole heaven versus outer space thing worked. “Thanks.”
They left the dock and climbed a metal stairway. At the top, the station manager paused. “It’s a bit busy out on the runway. Brace yourself.” She put her palm on a plate by the door, and it slid open. “We’ve given you full palm access to all the public parts of the station.”
“How—”
“Harley supplied your palm print.”
Ah. Efficient. And a little creepy. These Loonies were nice, but a little too trusting. “Is she here?”
“Soon. Dek is making a place for her to operate within his system. It’s quite remarkable, finding not just surviving people, but another surviving pre-Collapse AI. There’s so much we can learn from both of you.” Maria led them out into the station proper.
After the calm of the loading dock, the runway was a bit of a jolt. Shops lined both sides of this strange street up in space, and people rushed back and forth on their way to who knew what. Many of them were talking to themselves, tapping their temples.
She fingered the talkie nestled behind her ear, wondering if her brother was okay. Aidan, you would love this. She should probably take the thing off, but if there was even a small chance Aidan could reach her through it…
Tien took her hand and squeezed it, and they followed Maria down the middle of the white pedestrian walkway.
The people there must have been told to leave her alone, because no one approached them, although there was some pointing and whispers and smiles. Ally was grateful for that.
Soon they reached a quieter part of the runway, a third of the way around the station. Here open hallways branched off the passage, and the station manager took her and Tien down one of them. “If you ever get lost, just touch the wall and say ‘Home, please,’ and Dek will guide you back here.” She led them to the very end of the passageway and pointed at the palm pad by the white door there.
Ally placed her hand on it and squealed in delight as the door slid open for her.
“Well? Go on in.” Maria urged her through the door.
With only a little trepidation, Ally let go of Tien’s hand and stepped inside.
The room was four times bigger than the room she’d shared with Aidan back home. It was furnished with a white couch and sofa chair on one end, and white table and chairs at the other, but the view was what caught her eye.
The station was spinning. A window three feet high and maybe fifteen wide ran along one side of the room, and Earth was just coming into sight.
It was breathtaking. So much better than the view through the portholes in the lifter. “Where are we?”
Maria came up next to her. “You mean, where above the Earth?”
She nodded. “Let’s see… that’s Europe there. You can see the boot of Italy, though it’s missing its toe now, and it’s a bit skinnier than it used to be. And over there… see all that blue?”
Ally nodded.
“That’s the Atlantic Ocean.”
Ally pulled up a chair and sat there, content to just watch the show.
Tien hugged the station manager. “I’ve got it from here.”
Maria nodded. “I’ll leave you two to settle in. Your packs will be brought up shortly.”
“Thanks, Maria.”
The door closed behind her, leaving the two of them alone.
Ally heard the words but hardly noticed. The world was so big and so beautiful. It was hard to believe she had lived down there. Almost as hard to believe as the fact that she was up here.
“Are you hungry?”
The Earth spun out of view, and she was left staring at empty space. “Um, what?” She turned to find Tien grinning at her.
“I was the same way the first time. Of course, my quarters weren’t as nice as this.”
“Wait, there’s more?” This place was huge.
“Yeah. Take a look around, and I’ll order us up something to eat.”
Ally could only take in so much at a time. “I’ll be right back.” She popped her head into the next room and found a bedroom with one gigantic bed, an armoire, and two nightstands, again all in white. How in the world do they keep all of this clean?
And the next room…
The tub alone was as big as her room at Boundary Peak. And it had a view, too.
She had to remind herself she was here to get help for her mother, who probably wouldn’t approve of any of this. But still….
She sniffed herself. She was definitely a bit rank.
One little bath wouldn’t hurt.