Sanctuary (Jezebel's Ladder Book 3) (16 page)

Zeiss shrugged. “We’ll ask
Snowflake. Maybe we didn’t wait long enough for the air system to cycle, or the
human body can only go through scrubbing once a month.”

Over the headset, Toby added, “We
think your hemoglobin might be damaged from the scrub process. Until you
recover, Yvette and I will trade shifts up there.”

Looking at the small mirror that
Red held up, Auckland muttered, “Roger. I hope for all our sakes this color
change isn’t permanent.”

Giggling, Red said, “Unless Pratibha
likes Poppa Smurf.”

Mercy snorted and covered her
mouth. “Sorry. That’s horrible.”

Lou laughed. “No. Horrible would be
calling his lady Smurfette and asking her to wear a blonde wig.”

Punching him in the shoulder, Mercy
ordered, “Stop it. How would you like it if I made part of you turn blue and
teased you?”

This made the pilot laugh even
harder.

Red wiped away tears as she asked,
“What did the shuttle have to say?”

Auckland sobered. “They promised to
convey our message to Mori. Moon base cobbled together spare engines and merged
them into a monster force field based on instructions Mercy left.”

“I told them not to do that!”

“The shield took several tries to
initiate, but once established, it blocked all the incoming nukes. Some
generals are already planning a toroid ring around the entire crater as a
defense.”

“Armageddon averted,” Zeiss said
with relief. “How’s Alistair?”

The doctor shook his head.
“Everything in L1 was wiped. Only the Saudis are making apologies. For better
or worse, the Chinese are our allies now.”

After talking to Sojiro and their
mechanical engineer, Risa, Zeiss reported back. “Evidently, the lens had an
invisible membrane that was still in place when Crandall set off the
explosion.”

“Like a frog’s eye. Did we
permanently damage the seal so air leaks out?” asked the doctor.

Zeiss nodded. “Like chimps trying
to adjust a television by banging it.”

“Hah. I know some sports fans who
still do that.” Laughing caused Auckland to wheeze uncontrollably for a minute.
Mercy rushed in to put the breathing mask back on and pull up his blanket.

“The best workaround we found was
to close both the lens and the decontamination room door for at least an hour
before someone steps into a pod. We also need to tell Snowflake to heat the
room faster. However, there’s a cost: each time we use the lock, we lose a
little more nitrogen and oxygen from
Sanctuary
. The ship can generate
more by tearing apart water and biomass, but that’s also fuel and our ecosystem.
When we reach the new planet, we’ll have to load more of the appropriate elements
to balance what we’re burning. Once we own the ship, Sensei might teach us to
repair the lens damage.”

Checking the doctor’s pulse on the
monitors, Mercy whispered, “Z, he’s not supposed to be exerting himself.”

“Did you see much soccer when you
were in Brazil?” the doctor asked his ersatz nurse.

“Dad went to the championships last
year with the president, but I never saw the point.”

Auckland winced. “You’re killing
me. Have you no soul, no national spirit?”

She shrugged. “It was the quietest
work day I ever had.”

Mercy stayed by his side and
learned how to take basic patient vitals every hour, just in case the machines
failed.

While she was counting the patient’s
heart rate for the second time, Zeiss came into the medical bay. “Hey, doc.
Pratibha just called.”

Auckland perked up at the mention
of his girlfriend’s name. Because the Indian expert in space colonies was in
charge of Garden Hollow, she couldn’t accompany him when he was stationed in Olympus. “How is she?”

“She wanted me to officiate at some
sort of ceremony when spring arrives.”

“What kind of ceremony?”

“Remember that question you asked
her when you visited her folks?”

“She turned me down. Her
grandmother told her in a few months she’d get this playboy astronaut thing out
of her system and settle down with a nice Hindu boy.”

Zeiss nodded. “Yeah, well, in light
of recent events, she’s reconsidered.”

“Hmm. I guess the trip back to
Ascension
was worth it after all. I’m getting married.”

The commander clapped him on the
shoulder. “Congratulations. Sorry I can’t offer you a cigar or go clubbing like
we did for Herk’s stag party.”

Auckland wheezed a laugh. “Cheap
bastard.”

****

“Test jump in three, two, one . .
.”

Compared to the buildup, the moment
of transition to subspace was anticlimactic for everyone but Mercy. When they
submerged, she could see whorls and rivers of gravity behind the still-open hundred-meter-wide
sunlight windows. “It looks like the original map of subspace but infinitely
more detailed—swirls like a Julia set or a Van Gogh painting. It’s a nice
change. The space windows can be only clear or, when shuttered, they become
mirrors to reflect light from other windows. I get tired of the same tri-tone
color scheme everywhere. Although, that would imply a third color we haven’t
seen yet.”

“The rest of us can’t see by the
light of philosophy. Luckily I brought a torch,” Lou said, clicking on a
flashlight in the control room.

Soon after, Red closed the ship’s shutters
to prevent possible heat leakage from the huge windows. Next, she ordered
Snowflake to backlight a few control panels for visibility.

Over the radio, Zeiss said,
“Campers, send up your first shift.”

No one answered. None of the ground
crew responded to any of their queries.

Mercy’s first thought was,
Did I
mess up the gravity equations and kill them all?

Everyone but the Zeisses and the recovering doctor descended
the spiral stairs to investigate. Mercy led the way because she didn’t need the
flashlight to navigate. She knew where the domino steps were without her normal
vision. Lou proceeded slowly, complaining that the light had a pinkish quality
instead of its normal blue tint. “My peripheral vision is wonky, as well.”

Much like swimming underwater, it
took the team a while to adapt to walking under Einstein’s rubber sheet. At 10
degrees latitude on the sphere interior, they were past the fog to the rice
fields.

Lou called in. “It smells a little
like fertilizer down here, over.”

Red didn’t reply. Instead, she
leaned over the railing at the top and shouted, “No signal.”

He gave her a thumbs-up sign and
draped the headset around his neck. “We’re going stone age.”

Mercy wrinkled her brow. “Do we
need more power to broadcast the signal? Is the signal there but distorted?
Does subspace preclude both frequency and amplitude modulation?”

Sojiro said, “Ooo. Maybe people in
normal space can still hear what we’re saying.”

“Could be radiation interference,”
Park suggested. “Hope it doesn’t kill us. I don’t want to be remembered in
science history that way—like Madame Curie.”

Frustrated, Lou said, “Assume we’re
being jammed because there’s a Russian attack underway. We’re going to shut up
and run from here.”

****

Again, Mercy took the lead because
of her ability to sense the gravitational fields. After the rice fields came
the orchards. She couldn’t see the varieties, but some of the trees were
flowering. The gentle scent from the plums was the only thing that kept this
from feeling like the dark forest in Oz. She kept expecting the trees to reach
down and grab her. When she cleared the last of the trees, no longer worried
about falling branches and thrown fruit, Mercy increased her pace.

“Slow up,” Park panted. She was
thirty meters ahead of the others.

“It’s only been two-and-a-half
klicks,” she said. “Besides, wasn’t Lou just complaining that I ran like a
girl?”

“An eight-minute mile
is
wimpy,” Lou asserted.

“For the first mile . . . after
that, it’s called
stamina
,” Sojiro said, a little out of breath.

Lou held up his hand. “I’m willing
to walk for a while, only because Yvette twisted her knee on this hill we’re
approaching.”

“That hill’s probably there because
the river needed to be redirected away from the space window on the ground,”
Mercy theorized. “Why was Yvette climbing up there anyway?”

“Strawberries,” said a voice in the
dark.

Mercy gripped her chest
theatrically as Toby stepped into the glow of their flashlights. “You scared
me.”

“Sorry. I was on my way to the
steps and just popped into the field for a minute to pick some berries.” Toby
held out a basket brimming with fresh strawberries and blackberries.

“I love pancakes with those,” Mercy
said.

The nanobiologist pulled the basket
back. “I was saving these to give to Yvette when she relieves me.”

After a hmph, Mercy said, “For a
sample, I’ll tell you what would impress her more.” When he extended the basket
warily, she added, “Change the name of this hill on the map to Strawberry Hill
so people don’t make fun of her every time they give directions.”

“You’re pretty smart for a girl,”
Toby said as she munched a handful of berries.

Sojiro laughed. “This
girl
has four patents.”

“And a higher GRE score than you, Butt-cheese,”
Lou added, mispronouncing the biologist’s surname, Baatjies.

Mercy jumped to his defense. “No
need to call him names.”

The pilot persisted. “He knew
lights-out was coming. If he’s so bloody smart, what’s he doing stuck out here
without a torch?”

Toby thumped something strapped to
his forehead. “I brought a miner’s headlamp thingy, but it must not be charged.
I haven’t been waiting that long.”

As she explained about the radio-blocking
effect, Mercy reached up, grabbed a cord dangling beside his ear, and plugged
it into the medical technician’s headset. Xenon light blazed from the lamp, and
Lou gripped his sides to hold in the laughter. “Red should never have pulled
your butt out of that crash simulator. Sometimes I don’t think you have what
the Yanks call ‘the Right Stuff’ to be an astronaut.”

Narrowing his eyes and clenching
his fists, Toby said, “Just stay away from you-know-who at the wedding
celebration.”

“Yvette?” asked Lou, enjoying the
needling. “She ordered me in for a private consultation. Since she outranks me,
I can’t refuse.”

Mercy said, “It’s for grief. Lou’s
having some acting-out issues because his girlfriends keep having accidents.
Please cut him some slack.”

Toby nodded. “We’ll just have to
change his call sign to Coyote Date. Women would rather chew off their own arm
than stick around him.” The blow came so fast, no one could block it. Lou
punched the other man in the mouth so hard that he fell onto the path,
scattering the dark berries on the riverbank like a bloodstain.

Mercy stood between them while
Sojiro grabbed Lou’s arms in a martial arts hold. “Stand down,” Sojiro
whispered.

Toby wiped his mouth, and red clung
to the back of his hand.

Park asked, “Do you wish to file a
report?”

Shaking his head as Mercy helped
him up, Toby said, “No. I fell down the hill in the dark.”

She righted the basket and began
rinsing the fruit, but he walked away. “Don’t you want your berries?”

Toby kept walking. “I’m late for my
duties, and the boss needs to know everyone’s okay.
I
don’t let people
down who rely on me.”

Lou squirmed, but Sojiro held him
firm.

“I’ll take the basket to Yvette and
explain you picked them for her,” Mercy shouted as Toby vanished in the
darkness.

“Freak!” Lou screamed after him.

“The sooner you let it go, the sooner
I can,” Sojiro encouraged.

Park said, “I wanted to ask him how
the biozone mapping was going, and how Nadia is doing.”

The Japanese interface specialist
said, “I helped on the map. Major zones are the ones over three hectares in
size. They identified thirty-six major nonaquatic zones, collecting samples
from each in case we have to replant. There are fewer than a dozen micro-biomes
like the Hollow itself. The trickiest one to analyze will be Mushroom Gorge up
by the perma-fog.”

Mercy grinned at the name from the
old computer game with the bouncing race car. Someone was a fan.

“Nadia’s probably helping Herk
build a still for potato peelings,” Lou said, mellowing slightly.

The Korean physicist smiled and
nodded. “If the Hollow has a fireplace and a bear-skin rug, this might not be a
bad winter.”

“We know what Nadia likes,” Lou
said suggestively.

“Yes,
I
do,” Park confided.
“Attentiveness, faithfulness, and focus of purpose.”

“I have that,” Lou grumbled.

As he released the pilot, Sojiro
explained, “Lou, on your first date, you knocked Nadia over into the chip dip
when your team scored.”

“I dated Nadia?”

“Manchester championship three
years ago,” Park explained as they resumed walking.

“Oh, yeah. Play went into overtime.
What happened on the date?”

Sojiro laughed. “Park helped wash
her shirt out, apologized on your behalf, and walked her home.”

“This quiet, little mother
rebounded one of my shots?” Lou asked with a grin. “I don’t know whether I
should slap him or buy the sneaky bastard a pint.”

“He has a black belt.”

“A pint it is.”

Mercy trailed after them, shaking
her head. “Boys—I’ll never understand them.”

****

They were in sight of the mountain
when Park asked, “What are the Zeisses doing during the radio silence?”

Lou snickered. “Petting the bunny
in zero g.”

“What?” Mercy asked, coloring
slightly.

“It’s a tattoo,” Sojiro muttered.

“Joining the two-kilometer-high
club.”

“Be cool,” Sojiro said. “They’re not
animals.”

“You haven’t heard Taz through the
walls, man—ouch.”

Sojiro bent Lou’s pinky finger
enough to gain his attention. “There’s a lady present.”

They continued ambling along as the
creek wound through a vast vegetable garden.

Suddenly, Sojiro’s head perked up,
and he pointed toward some tiki torches planted at the edge of the vineyard on
the other side of the creek. “I see Oleander’s aura pattern.” The artist waved in
grand gestures and shouted, “Hi, Ole! Over here!”

Someone had rigged a bridge out of
long, bamboo poles, and she clomped over the wooden contraption with heavy,
magnetic boots. “You’re earlier than we expected,” Oleander said from a
distance. “Why didn’t you call?”

“No radio under the sheet,” Lou
explained.

“Good thing we didn’t have any
problems down here. I saw your lights at the edge of the Green Giant’s Valley
and came to escort you.”

“All these vegetables in the fields
around us, waiting to be frozen,” Sojiro said. “Funny.”

“Never mind that. Why the escort?”
asked Lou.

As Oleander approached, the tall,
Nordic woman held a flaming torch in one hand and a sapling spear in the other.
Dressed in a bear skin, she would’ve made a credible cavewoman.

“Herk put out snares.”

“Because?”

“The sustainability equations
showed that with the pheasant population holding constant, there have to be
predators somewhere.”

The male astronauts shifted stance
to stand back-to-back. “And you figure they’ll come out at night?”

“Hadn’t considered that. I’ll ask
Toby. We’ll need to set up IR sensors to monitor for heat signatures in case
there are . . . things that go bump in the night.”

“What good will a warning do when
all our weapons were confiscated?” Lou complained.

“I’m here for more than protection
and guiding you through the traps in the vineyard. Navigating the rocks can be
tricky in higher gravity, and you’d never find the cave entrances in the dark.”

Mercy decided the guardswoman was
right, especially in the dark. The entrance to the cave complex was camouflaged
behind a boulder, deep in a narrow crevasse. The steps down seemed completely
natural; however, the tunnels were formed by three overlapping smooth-bored
circles. Oleander had to duck her head as she led them inside. “The tunnels are
a smidgeon shorter than I am, and sloped upward so they can’t flood or leak
heat.”

The shortest of the newcomers,
Mercy could stand upright as long as she didn’t try to run or leap.

Sojiro suggested, “You could make
these wall ridges into a rail system to move crates easier.”

Oleander replied, “Risa already
adapted a mechanic’s crawler by tilting the wheels against the curve of the
wall. Herk rides it down like a luge sled.”

“We could have winter Olympics,”
Lou joked.

“Do you have a fireplace?” asked
Park.

“We have two vents in each room. We
could use one for fresh-air intake and the other for smoke exhaust—they branch
in different directions. So far, Risa has built an oven and a kiln. A communal
fireplace is next on her list.”

Park nodded, his ultra-reserved
version of pumping a fist and shouting, “Yes, score!”

The first room was ten meters
across, round, and clogged with boxes and sheaves. People were cataloguing and
storing food and wood as fast as possible. Lou laughed, “Sugar cane and
coconuts! Is there anything you don’t have here?”

“If the cold kills things off, we
need to replant. Then I’ll increase the amount of soy because women need more
calcium. In the worst case, we’ll have to subsist off what we harvested until
we can grow more.”

“What can we do to help?” Mercy
asked.

“Nothing yet. You all need sleep. I’ll
ghost to Olympus and let them know you arrived safely.”

“What about fetching Auckland?”

“Herk wants to wait for first
daylight interval to lug him down the steps. Mercy, this is the single women’s bunkhouse.”

Smiling, Mercy pushed aside a
blanket to see her new room, but it was dark. Holding out the basket, she
whispered, “Where’s Yvette? These were a gift.”

“She’s making a house call. I’ll
take those. All food is communal. We’ll use them in breakfast. Thanks,” said
Oleander. “You can wash dishes whenever you wake up.”

“Sure. I need to cross-train,
though. Since I can see okay in the subspace dark, maybe I could be security
like you.” Mercy crawled into the nearest empty straw tick and used her jacket
as a blanket. Between the depression and exhaustion, she fell asleep quickly.