The Children Star (6 page)

The Spirit Colony was exempt from the costly regulations and reporting requirements for commercial mining. When Diorite had new samples whose contents he did not want known to competitors, he asked Rod to take them up, for a small “donation” which greatly helped the colony. It
was legal, and Mother Artemis said they ought to trust good neighbors. “Meet us in the morning,” Rod agreed.

“Sure thing. Good luck to your new colonists.”

In the morning Haemum and Chae strapped up five of the llamas, a broad-footed breed lifeshaped for Prokaryon. Strapping them up was tricky, for soon as the beasts felt a heavy load they would empty their guts with streams of spit. Once harnessed, the llamas lumbered dutifully down the trail through the brokenhearts, then turned off into the treacherous wheelgrass with bleats of protest.

The old servo lightcraft was still stuck out in the wheelgrass where Rod had left it. Beside it now sat Diorite's own sleek sentient craft, its rectennas mirror-smooth. Strains of popular music emanated from within, at rather high volume. As Rod approached, the music stopped, and Diorite emerged, shaking his head. “Sorry about that—Dimwit here has limited taste.”

“I heard that,” called the lightcraft. “Limited taste, indeed. Just you wait—only six point eight months till I draw a salary.”

“Sentients,” muttered Diorite. “Can't live with the dimwits, and can't live without 'em.”

Rod smiled. “I'll trade you the llamas any day.” Haemum fed a treat to each of the beasts. They stood there, chewing sideways.

“Well, here's the package.” Diorite caught Rod's arm, and his voice sank to a whisper. “Just between us Valans—look what we found.” He opened his hand beneath Rod's eyes. Between his fingers glinted a ruby, one of the largest and deepest Rod had ever seen. His father had worn such, and so had the Academy Master, whose namestones had glared fire at Rod too often.

A low chuckle escaped Diorite. “There's more where that came from—and
I'm
the only man who knows where.”

Rod smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “No Valan will forget his name if you can help it.” He stowed Diorite's package carefully in his old lightcraft, while Haemum and Chae helped transfer their crates from the cart. As they worked, Diorite's lightcraft lifted off. The hiss of boiling air shattered the morning calm, startling a flock of helicoids. Upward it soared, then a lateral burst of plasma sent it streaking across the sky.

Haemum said wistfully, “I wish I could come with you.”

Rod smoothed her curls and kissed her forehead; only yesterday, she had been Gaea's age. “I could use your help,” he admitted, “but the colony's short-handed.” And now he had to find her a school.

“Will Brother Patella come home?”

“If the Spirit wills. But not for a while.”

The old lightcraft soon left Prokaryon behind, the stripes of singing-tree forest and wheelgrass fading into the continent Spirilla, where most of the colonists had settled. Spirilla had the shape of an S, its mountain range rising out of its northern curve, while its southern curve cupped the crater from an asteroid that had fallen some hundred million years before. The continent rotated out of view as the great ocean came round, then continents and oceans blurred together, leaving the planet a bright jewel set in the black of space.

At Station, Rod docked and hoisted up his cargo, including Diorite's package. All surfaces had to be cleansed by mite-sized servos that removed traces of arsenic and toxic proteins. Afterward, the ship would head off to the first extradimensional space fold, where it would “jump” several light-years. Three jumps later, it would reach the star system of Elysium and Valedon. On Valedon, the gems
were always in demand for namestones. The crafts would sell better on Elysium, whose millennial inhabitants in their floating cities admired anything handmade.

While the cargo was processed, Rod hurried off to the clinic. He found Geode feeding two infants while changing a third.

“Brother, am I glad to see you.” Geode's eyestalks twined in delight, and he extended his furry red arm around Rod. “You would be quite worn-out with those little ones. Even I need an extra recharge.”

“You've done well, I see.” Rod picked up the youngest girl, T'kela. Less than a week old when he first picked her up in Reyo, she still fit comfortably in one hand. Her own wrinkled hands squirmed at odd angles, and her face had a preternaturally wizened look. She stared at Rod's face, then fell asleep, her arms still sticking out straight from the blanket. Rod put her up to his shoulder. The magic of such a tiny person always took him by surprise.

The two older ones were crawling and pulling themselves up to stand. Now that they were well fed, they acted more like toddlers than the infants the orphanage had claimed. That could mean extra costs for lifeshaping—one “older child” was bad enough.

'jum was at the holostage, observing a stellated geometric solid that hovered insubstantially before her. She caught sight of Rod and stared, then came over and squeezed his hand, digging in with her fingers as if to assure herself he was really there. Her face glowed with health, her cheeks already filling out so that he might barely have known her. Rod imagined the millions of nanoservos swarming through her veins, to clear her prions and give her genes for Prokaryon.

“Hello, 'jum,” said Rod. “Found any interesting numbers lately?”

The girl only stared.

“Don't let her fool you,” said Geode. “She can talk, all right. Say, 'jum, did you count the corners on that solid yet?”

'jum swallowed to speak. “Twelve corners pointing out, eighty pointing in. And one hundred eighty faces.”

Geode groaned. “You've got the algorithm, all right. Hey you,” he called to the holostage, “show us an extra dimension, will you.”

“Please specify request,” the holostage replied in a flat tone.

“A four-dimensional geometric solid, Dimwit.”

Rod frowned. “Brother, don't talk like the miners.”

“You're right,” Geode replied contritely, hunching his arms. “Let us pray for mindless machines, that they be granted souls. Well, the babies are making excellent time,” he told Rod. “The youngest one is taking up nanoservos twice as fast as usual. All her cells are making arsenate pumps, and her liver is nearly transformed. She'll be home within two weeks. I show them your holo image, and Mother Artemis, as often as possible,” said Geode, “so they'll know you well. I show them Patella, too; I sure hope he gets home soon.” His eyestalks twined anxiously.

“What will we do without him?” Rod asked softly.

“Pray. Pray without ceasing.”

Rod picked the toddler Qumum up from the floor and tried to catch his gaze. After a minute Qumum suddenly smiled, a big smile with his mouth and eyes wide. Then he let out his breath with a trill. Rod laughed. “Here's someone happy. Say, 'jum, how about you? Do you like your new room at Station?” Station would be her home for some months, perhaps longer.

'jum nodded, then looked away with a guarded expression.

“I'm sure you miss the blue sky.” Among other things.

'jum looked up suddenly. “Does the creeping ever reach the Children Star?”

Rod crouched to look into her face, catching her shoulders. “Never, 'jum. You will never be sick like that again.”

“There's one good thing about Prokaryon,” Geode reflected. “None of their little creepy-crawlies can grow inside human bodies and make you sick. You're as toxic to them as they are to you.”

Rod departed at last and checked that his cargo passed inspection. An hour remained for his one indulgence: supper at the Station lounge. It was a rare chance to be surrounded by adult humans again.

The lounge was built Elysian style, with rounded nooks that could expand or contract, and tables of nanoplast that shaped themselves to accommodate those who sat there. There was even a tree full of butterflies at the center, for Elysians to meditate. But most importantly, the tables actually served differentiated food. It was all reprocessed, of course, like the packets Rod's instrument produced for his meals at the colony, but Station's model could synthesize a thousand different food items, from filet of beef to flying fish.

First he had to find a seat. The bubble-shaped dining compartments seemed more crowded than usual with miners, surveyors, and researchers. Even two or three news reporters hovered overhead, shaped like snake eggs; some odd rumor must be up. Usually one of the nanoplastic walls would notice Rod and tunnel in to create a new space, but not today. Perhaps the dining hall had reached its volume limit. He paused uncertainly, brushing a whirr off his arm. The few that strayed out to Station seemed less picky about sustenance than those back home.

He saw a hand waving, next to an empty seat. The stranger motioned him to sit, removing her backpack from the chair across from her.

“Thanks,” he said. The woman, a simian student, looked vaguely familiar.

Rod sat down and placed his finger on a small window that read his fingerprint. Choosing what to order was always hard, all the more so since every minute that passed made him feel guilty for keeping himself from the colony. “Shepherd's pie, with mixed greens.” He usually ended up with his Valan home favorite.

The woman opened a pocket holostage to play the news from Elysium. Rod never watched the news at home, as it distracted from his prayers. Today's story was on Prokaryon's “hidden masters.” Giant tracks had appeared among the singing-trees, in a remote region west of Mount Helicon. Even on the holostage the “tracks” looked more like streambed erosion, but of course there were experts to claim otherwise. No wonder the “snake eggs” were about.

The tabletop opened, and a plate of steaming pie rose up. The odors brought him right back to his childhood; he could almost hear the gulls calling off Trollbone Point. The pleasure of the first few mouthfuls filled his attention, until the holostage again caught his eye. Another ship of illegals from L'li had tried to crash-land, this time on Elysium.

The hapless vessel hung forlornly above the Sharer ocean, in which the Elysian cities floated. Elysians had intercepted it, of course, and “repatriated” the passengers. Rod's fork froze in his hand.

The woman was watching him. “You came from L'li, didn't you?”

He recalled the simian student in the connector tube, staring down at him as he tried to keep a grip on the infants.

She closed the holostage and extended her hand. “I'm Khral, a microbiologist, just arrived from Science Park.” Science Park, the top Elysian research institute, sponsored fieldwork on Prokaryon. “I've joined the singing-tree project.”

“Welcome,” said Rod, shaking her hand. “I'm Brother Rhodonite, of the Sacred Order of the Spirit.”

“Oh yes! I've heard of Spirit Callers on Valedon. They do a ritual dance before the moon at midsummer.”

“That's the ‘Spirit
Brethren,'
“Rod corrected, much annoyed. “They split off years ago.”

“I'm so sorry, I don't know much about Valedon. I'm from Bronze Sky.” Bronze Sky, named for its vulcanic haze, had been terraformed four centuries before to settle excess L'liites. Today Bronze Sky was full, and there were twice as many L'liites as before—and Prokaryon was here to settle.

But Khral also showed ancestry from gorilla hybrids created as slaves on ancient Urulan. Her nose was pushed in with a wrinkle, and her heavy brow overhung her eyes, giving her a permanently serious expression. “You know, everyone gets wrong what I do, too. The students here avoid me. They think I'm here to find a plague, to give the Fold Council an excuse to terraform Prokaryon. But it's not true.”

“It doesn't make sense,” agreed Rod. “Prokaryan microbes cannot live in humans.”

Khral looked thoughtful. “That's an interesting question. There are reports of occasional microzoöids isolated from human tissues—and even from nanoplast.”

“Microzoöids?”

“We call Prokaryan microbes ‘microzoöids' because each cell is doughnut-shaped, just like the larger zoöids that roll across the fields. Each microzoöid cell runs its circular
chromosome right around the doughnut hole! With their triplex DNA, microzoöids reproduce by splitting three ways down the middle, into three daughter cells.”

“But they can't reproduce in humans. We're too . . . foreign.” He realized he knew nothing about it, only what the clinic had always told him.

“That's right,” Khral agreed. “The few microzoöids found in humans never grow in culture. But if they could exist for any length of time, just long enough to divide and copy their DNA, you're bound to get mutants. And some day those mutants—”

“Let's pray they don't,” Rod exclaimed. “The last thing we need is an epidemic, with our doctor away.”

Khral laughed, and her large teeth showed, yet somehow she looked more human. “Never fear. Even our own microbes are mostly harmless, after all; they get a bad rap. But you shouldn't be without a doctor. Doesn't Station cover you?”

“Sure, but they can take days to show up. The mining camps offer a thousand shares of stock to recruit a doctor—we can't match that. Patella came because is a Spirit Caller. But he just had an accident . . .” He stopped himself. “We'll manage. There's a lifeshaper on Mount Anaeon that we can call.”

“A lifeshaper? You don't mean the Sharer, Sarai?”

“You know her?”

“I'm trying to meet her. She's one of the few people with data on microzoöids, most of it unpublished. She hasn't returned my call yet.”

That was no surprise. “Sarai keeps to herself.”

“I would have lots to offer her—the latest strains and methods from Science Park.”

“If you're not here to find a plague, what are you here for?” Rod asked.