I was planning on one post for this week, so of course, it's more Space Guys. If it seems longer than usual, it's because I'm finally consolidating the ideas I haven't used so far. As usual, the table of contents is at the end.
The voyage went on. As the Janus accelerated past Jupiter’s outermost moons, word came that Jill Lightower had delivered a son. Jax showed the crew the video of the mother holding his child. It was cause for celebration across the ship. When it was over, Jason went back to their cabin. He found Jax in Dr. Cahill’s arms. She was holding him while he cried.
The ship made its closest approach to Saturn at Christmas time. They passed within the orbits of the ringed planet’s most distant moons, but Titan, the only inhabited satellite, was on the far side. The common area around the captain’s cabin became the scene of yet another celebration. The corridor was festooned with improvised decorations, notably tinsel made from padding for pressure suits and blankets and a string of landing lights. Gift-giving was limited to reserved items from the rations store. Alek made an exception, presenting Jason with his own model of a brontosaur. A festive time was had by all, ultimately stretching for days. As the festivities wound down, Moxon made a rare visit to Alek’s cabin.
“So,
I’ve been hearing, you know a lot of languages,” the officer said. “The
scientists and the crew are saying you’ve been trying to talk to them in their
own languages.”
“Of
course,” Alek said. “It’s the best way to be friendly, no?”
“It
can be,” Moxon said, his tone clearly neutral. “I’m pretty good with languages
myself. I’d like to see how I measure up to you.”
“Sure,”
Alek said. “What language do you want to try?”
Moxon was silent for a moment, as if thinking. Jason was sure he had made his decision long before. “How about Albanian?” he said. “It’s from your part of the world.”
“I
know a little,” Alek said, still enthusiastic.
“Good,” Moxon said. He began to speak, in a tongue Jason knew just enough of to recognize. Alek answered an evident question. The officer spoke back, more sternly. As the back and forth continued, it quickly became evident that Alek was confused. Soon, she became visibly distressed. Still, she pressed on earnestly until Moxon said, “Stop.”
He shook his head. “You’re speaking the northern dialect,” he said. “I suppose because you learned from a Kosovar, so that’s not your fault. You’re still getting it wrong.” He spoke several sentences. By then, Alek looked close to tears. Jason put an arm around her. “It’s always the same. You can get the basics mostly right, but the details are what matter. You aren’t that much better in Hrvatski, either. He knows that.”
The officer rose. “Here’s the thing about living in the age of world government. You don’t have to know a dozen languages to make your way around. I do myself, and I’ve only ever used four of them. So stick to English. You need enough practice with that.” He walked out across from where he had entered, as if it had all been a minor detour. Alek promptly turned to Jason.
“Look,”
Jason said, “you’re brilliant. You amaze me. I’m smart, and you still make me
feel like a talking mule. But you can’t be great at everything.”
“Why
not?” Alek said. She promptly rose and went to the lab where Chopper and Tik
Tok were plugged in. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Look, I taught
them a new trick.” Jason laughed as Tik Tok and his towering counterpart
pantomimed the meeting of Anne Darrow and King Kong.
Not long after, they were invited to dinner by Donald and Anastasia. He showed his favorite film in his quarters, at the far end of the corridor from the captain’s cabin. Also invited were Jackie and Sandra, who had been seen together without announcing or denying a relationship. In an undisputed coupe, Professor and Dame Futura also attended. The cabin was dominated by an L-shaped dinette that could convert into a bed. The professor and his lady were seated on the short leg, while Donald, Anastasia and Alek sat on the long leg. Jackie sat with Sandra directly across from Anastasia, with no sign of awkwardness on his own part. Jason sat at the end of the table. His real hope was to catch up with Sandra, but the Professor quickly drew the others’ attention.
“I know you don’t see much of me,” the professor said. “I have been receiving rejuvenation treatments, for some time now. The technology is similar to your bio-enhancements; in fact, the development of both was interdependent. It requires a 4-hour session at least twice a week. The side-effects are significant enough that it can take a full day to get back to full functioning.”
“You
know,” Jackie said, “my parents came from the Lincoln City commune. My dad met
with you, once. They say your company was the first one to bring real money in.”
“I
remember,” Futura said. “A bit of an overstatement. A number of industrialists
were investing in regional development. I do try to keep track; how is your
settlement doing?”
“We do all right,” Jackie said, pointedly not looking at Anastasia. “We’re up to 20 families, still pretty much off on our own. In another year, we should have our own pipeline in. Dad says it’s as much as we ever wanted back home.”
“So,
wait,” Donald said. “Your folks had a whole new planet, and you decided to
segregate yourselves?”
Jackie
looked at him coolly. Anastasia was clearly ready to elbow him. “Where are you
from?” he said. “New England, thereabouts?”
“New
Jersey,” Donald said.
“So
you came from the Pilgrims,” Jackie said. “Leastways, you live where they
landed. So weren’t they the ones who went to another continent to be by
themselves?” When Donald was silent, Jackie pointed to Anastasia and Alek. “I’ll
tell you something else, the Refugee laws said Russians couldn’t marry Anglos
without them both being expelled. Your senator helped pass them. That wasn’t
anything to do with us, was it?”
“We
did what we could,” Donald said, glancing at his wife. “If there hadn’t been a
compromise, things would have been worse.”
Jackie nodded. “That’s always the story, isn’t it?” he said. “Funny thing is, they never say how.”
That
was enough for a few minutes of merciful silence. “Is it really true,” Sandra
finally said, “that you hold the patents on the video record, the microcomputer
and the data disc?”
“I can tell you this,” Donald said. “He has the patent on the fusion reactor I helped my professor design.”
“Come now, I have never been unfair,” Futura said. “In the atomic age, there are no more inventors. Everything important gets done by teams, labs and whole organizations. I made my capital on a few patents refining existing technologies, as well as royalties from my biographical writings. The rest was a matter of directing and financing research. Everyone involved in the technologies my company developed has received both recognition and payment. Quite generous payment, in fact.”
“Hey,
I’m not complaining,” Donald said. “Just setting the record straight.” He looked
over Sandra. She was neither Anglo nor morena and plainly attractive, which
usually left men guessing in vain at her heritage. Jason knew that her parents
came from the country of Belize, and nothing more.
“Now that I think about it,” Futura said, “I need to take back what I said. There’s one inventor left. That would be Aleksandra, the smartest supergenius on Gaia or off.”
Alek
giggled. “Oh, you,” she said. “You are much smarter than me.”
“A
smart man knows when someone else knows something he doesn’t,” Futura
countered. “As it happens, my analysts say you’ve been on track to be richer
than me, for quite a while now.”
Jason looked uneasily between the two. “Is that really true?” he asked Alek. “You’re rich, back on the Homeworld?”
Alek shrugged. “I don’t no keep track,” she said. “I have, how to say, quite a bit. Everybody on this ship is rich. You have a lot of money; leastways, your mother and father do. I had my people check, when we started writing.”
Jason was silent, trying to shrug it off. By some thread of conversation he had not followed, Alek blurted out, “You know, Jason says on Mars, a man can have two wives.”
That got a moment of awkward silence, especially from the Martian men. It was Jackie who spoke up. “Okay, that never happened anywhere near where I live,” he said. “But I heard about in the Olympus Mons sector. We don’t really talk about it.”
Jason
blushed as Alek looked at him along with the others. “Well, it’s just not like
people think,” he said. “The thing is, it can only happen if the woman he marries first agrees to, well... share.” He looked away as Alek giggled.
“What’s the big deal?” Donald mused. “I tell Ana, I’m fine if she wants to have a boyfriend. Heck, I’d be cool if she had a girlfriend. As long as I’m Numero Uno…” That did get an elbow.
They got back to the Professor’s rejuvenation treatments. “The details are still not generally known to the public,” he said when Jason mentioned it. “We have gone to significant lengths to keep it that was. Like your enhancements, really. Some people say the people would riot if they knew it existed and wasn’t available. For myself, I would rather go without it, but if I had, I could not have come.”
“You know, you were already the first on Mars, Ganymede and Titan,” Jason said. “They say you
probably would have been first on Luna, if the Russians hadn’t landed Bergovol. Nobody would blame you if you stayed home this time.”
The
Professor glanced at his wife, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was in
this at the start. I’m staying through to the finish, whatever may come.” He
gave a wistful smile. “I’m yesterday’s hero, like Jason from the old story. You
must know how it ends. That is what I would be if I stayed home. If I wasn’t out
here, I would be either making trouble or doing nothing. They let me come
because they know that. Who knows? I just might find a place I can rest.”
Jason was silent and
pensive when they returned to Alek’s quarters. “What is it?” Alek said. She
stepped in front of him, and scowled when he evaded her gaze. “What? Are you
unhappy I have more money than you?”
“No,” he said instinctively. “I mean… all right, maybe. Just not like that. I’ve just been thinking, we’re different. I mean, literally, we’re from different planets. It hasn’t mattered out here, but when we go back? Where would we even go to?”
Alek smiled and kissed him. “You already told me,” she said, “don’t worry. Home is where you are, when I am with you.”
Jason opened a storage closet and pulled out a knapsack of gear. In his absent-mindedness, he knocked over a box half-buried at the bottom. The lid came open. He flinched as a triple-curved flame dagger went skittering across the floor. It was followed by a cascade of leaflets.
“It must be Moxon’s,”
Alek said in her flat voice. “Put it back.”
“I am,” Jason said. He used a rag to pick up the dagger by its sine-curve blade. It was spotted with rusted, despite evidence of reasonably frequent care. When he tapped the grip against the floor, there was an audible rattle. “It’s just plain junk,” he mused. “Why do you think he would carry it all this way? He already has that silly knuckle thing, and leastways, it’s made well enough…” He looked up and found Alek shaking her head.
“I know what it is,” she said. “Put it back.” Before he could act, she took the blade from him and slid it into a side compartment. She turned the box upright. She closed a small, narrow box that held a selection of medals, then fitted it neatly over the compartment. She turned her head, to find Jason examining the pamphlets. He held up a single-sheet item the size of a large postcard. It showed a little, brown bespectacled man hanging on a cross, with an expression of patient endurance. The arms of the cross were labeled “Pakistan” and “Indo-Burma” in English. A sign at the top read, “United Hindustan”. The title above declared unnecessarily, “WHAT PRICE?”
Alek took it from his hand with a sigh, and began gathering the others. “They are nationalist propaganda,” she said. “They are illegal, most places. In the enlightened lands, there are usually no penalties for possession. Moxon would have been required to read them when he was in the Strato Corps, many more than this. I suppose these are ones he save.”
She allowed him to look at several more. Most were in English, rarely good. One of the more eloquent showed a moreno in a rocket ship labeled “Separationist”, lowering a rope to his fellows who looked upward from the ground. It was inspiring at a glance, until one noticed that the rope ended in a noose. “They are in English, usually,” Alek confirmed. “It is because many of the separatists never learned each other’s languages.”
She laughed at another in Cyrillic script, addressed to the Jugoslavs. Its crude yet dynamic illustration showed their union as something like a winged jackelope, warily sniffing a carrot held out in the nearly immobile limb of an even more jumbled chimera that was the Federation. “That is Junius,” she said, pointing to a scrawled signature. “The name is for an Englishman who wrote against their king. All it means is, nobody never know who is he. Lots of people try to find him. Quite a few try to be him. The real one, they never came close.”
She closed the box and
returned it to the locker. “I know, I look, once,” she said. “He knew I would.
He don’t no care, or he would no leave it here.” She led him to bed, where they
flopped down together.
“You must be powerful,
back on Earth,” Jason said. “Leastways, you could be. You know that. So why did
you write to me?”
No comments:
Post a Comment