Chapter Forty-Four

LIFE MOVED QUICKLY after that. We found it impossible to carry on any sort of relationship while living under Gat’s roof, for we rarely had any privacy. And, quickly tiring of afternoon trysts and stolen moments, we decided it was time to move out.

It being the onset of winter, the building crews had wound down, but with a little work, we were able to restore a small cottage on the outskirts of town. We had no want of assistance, for, aside from the rest of our own crew, the Keplerites proved eager to aid us in whatever way they could. And I found a little of my lost purpose in throwing myself into this work.

As soon as the roof and fireplace had been restored, we moved in. It didn’t matter that we had no furniture yet. It still beat living like teenagers, sneaking around behind our parents backs for a few minutes of alone time.

The furnishings were not long in coming. Kayleigh’s popularity as an herbalist ensured that we had more than we knew what to do with in the first few days alone. The advantage, Dr. Kimutai told me bemusedly, of finding a more successful partner.

“I did not take you for a gold digger, Captain Johnson.” He laughed as he picked his way through piles of as of yet unsorted goods. “But it appears that pays well. Very well.”

Nothing in my life so far really prepared me for the strangeness of managing my own home in the trees. The fireplace never ceased to concern me. It was built entirely of stone and sand above a wooden base. Which was about as fireproof as a fireplace could be. But the idea of lighting a fire among the trees still scared the hell out of me. It didn’t matter how many times Kayleigh explained that the living trees were too wet to catch fire. It didn’t matter how many times she pointed out that people had been lighting fires in wood houses and the middle of forests since time immemorial. It didn’t even matter that the Nation had been building fires in these trees since they’d first built the City. I still had recurring nightmares about waking to find we’d lit the entire Nation on fire.

It was the first windstorm we weathered that really tried my tolerance of treetop dwelling. It came during the night while we were fast asleep. My first inkling was the rocking sensation that invaded my dreams, gentle at first and growing increasingly more ferocious as time went on. My thoughts turned to the sea, and before long, I was tossing on a skiff far from land.

I woke abruptly from this unpleasantness when Kayleigh shook me. “There’s a storm moving in, Nik. It looks like it’s going to be bad.” If there was a prize for understatement, she would have won it. The wind roared around us, and the house had already started to shift and convulse with every fresh gust.

It only got worse from there. Before long, the hail began, bombarding our little cottage in golfball-sized chunks of ice. And with the onset of precipitation, the winds intensified. The trees that formed the three central pillars of our home shifted and bent as the storm raged on until I was sure they would snap.

They didn’t. Neither, for that matter, did the house—which was a testament to the genius of Keplerite engineering. Rather than being fixed and rigid, the buildings had been constructed in a jointed design that allowed a few degrees of give per section. Though practically imperceptible in regular circumstances, in inclement weather like this, it made all the difference between the house flexing with the trees or snapping into pieces.

Yet there was something uncanny about watching the walls bend back and forth, seeing the roof slide in one direction or another, or feeling the entire base sway this way and that—something that put a knot deep in the pit of my stomach.

Kayleigh felt it, too, and we sat huddled on our mattress until the storm passed. Now and again, we’d make a brave but futile show of ease. Mostly, we crouched together, waiting what might come.

In time it passed, leaving us unscathed. It struck me as one of my worst experiences so far on Kepler-186f. There was a joke to be made in there, somewhere, about Kayleigh and I weathering the first storm of our relationship together, but my stomach had been tied in so many knots that the moment passed.

Ice and wind storms notwithstanding, these were very happy days for us. Trite though it might be, there was no one I would rather have spent my time with than Kayleigh, whatever the circumstance. I loved her more and more by the day. The problems with settling on our new planet, all the complaints I’d had, diminished by proportion. I knew life would throw us more curveballs. It always did. But I remained confident that, together, we’d figure them out.

We weren’t the only ones to find happiness in love either. The professor, in those days, savored the two great loves of his life: his computers and himself. The former had come to some damage during our flight from the Mountain, but he had full confidence in himself and his ability to repair them. As for the latter…well, the Keplerites hadn’t yet built a shrine to the professor, but their worship of him came just shy of it. He’d defeated their age-old nemesis, and they loved him for it. His head, always big, had grown to epic proportions with the attention.

Those of us who knew the professor fully expected both eventualities. What we didn’t expect was his sudden appreciation for the Keplerites. Where only weeks before he had heaped scorn upon these inhabitants of the Nation, now he held a tolerant and deeply patronizing outlook. He decided these people were capable of learning what Earth had to teach—if they but have the right instructor. By which, naturally, meant himself.

Where the engineers’ work with the Keplerites had earned them his contempt, as soon as his star eclipsed theirs in the public eye, he suddenly saw noble purpose in sharing his knowledge with the Genesis heirs. He spoke again of his destiny and fate, and he saw the work of some guiding force behind his emergence in this particular time and place.

He was, in short, thoroughly infatuated with his work and his idea of his role in the future of humanity. And, accordingly, that much more insufferable than usual. Still, the Keplerites held him in such high esteem no amount of patronizing outreach or pretentious airs could shake their faith. In their eyes, he was almost as great a hero as he was in his own.

Life progressed less happily for the cannibals, however. The winter proved harsh, and their losses mounted. Our scouts reported that some few hundreds had made it out of the chaos unscathed. Perversely, the warriors had fared the best, for they had been the best equipped to escape. Without shelter or food supplies, they’d grown lean and again descended to infighting. Once or twice, we found the mangled body of a cannibal who had attempted the climb into the trees, only to plummet to his death far below.

Caspersen believed we should find and destroy the remnant of the cannibals’ fighting force while we had the opportunity. Gat, though, could not be persuaded. Our success inspired him, but not enough to overcome his fear. The cannibals, he argued, were no longer a threat, and his people were safe in the trees.

Caspersen saw this as cowardice and confided in moments of irritation that Gat was repeating the mistake of his ancestors. A small force of foes today could survive to become a great force tomorrow.

Yet, we could do nothing about it. Gat had made up his mind, and without the warriors of the Nation, we could not mount an assault of our own. It seemed the winter might do what Gat was unwilling to attempt. Every time we caught sight of one of the cannibals prowling through the forest, they looked leaner and more desperate than before.

I was content to leave it be and trust to hope.