The Highest Frontier (18 page)

Mary moved closer, turning her face toward the man, yet she gazed slightly past him, as she did with Jenny. “Are elephants human?”

Travis laughed. “They sure think they are.”

Mary asked, “How would you exterminate them?”

Jenny blinked and looked hard at her
compañera
.

“Oh,” Tharp said cheerfully, “that depends. Smartshot wouldn’t take but a couple of hours to clear the hab. Kinder way is to max their contraceptives.”

Mary asked, “Would that work for humans?”

*   *   *

Alone in her room, Jenny reached her mother. “The hab has mosquitoes, my place is a wreck, and my
compañera
wants to exterminate humans.”

In her toybox, thirty-six thousand klicks away, Soledad nodded soothingly. “Never mind,
hijita,
your furniture code is up on Toynet, even Grandma’s picture.”

“But Mama, my
compañera.
What if she’s an ecoterrorist?” Those fists pounding the glass.

“
Hijita,
who does not contemplate human extinction? It may yet happen.” If the Centrists won another four years, they’d scrap the few global protection laws and solarplate the Death Belt from Alaska to Alabama.

Jenny swallowed, reluctant to voice her worse fear. “What if … she’s a DIRG?”

“A DIRG? Accepted at Frontera?
Dios mío,
” her mother muttered.

Her father actually smiled. “I played jokes like that on your mother’s school. Hacked the registrar, then changed all the As to Fs.”

Soledad rolled her eyes. “Just to impress me with his smarts, the MIT brat.”

If only she were home, Jenny thought. Home where her mother could squeeze her hand, and Jenny could pat her father’s arm.

*   *   *

That evening Jenny set out with Anouk to the Bulls Blowout at the Red Bull clubhouse. She still had her last two Nobels to read for Thursday, and now she had a Politics paper due Friday. The trail had softened after the late afternoon rain, and she grimaced at the condition of her laces. She’d print out new ones as soon as they reached the Red Bull house. Anouk lifted her hem from the mud, her Monroe following at a distance.

From ahead boomed heavy music, drowning out ToyNews and the spring peepers. Scarlet race cars lined the curb, their rear wings extending halfway across the trail. From all directions, students converged to the music’s source, a square textured-stucco building with
chicos
hanging out of open windows and doors. Glitter-haired
chicos
and
chicas
milled around watching as a giant hog carcass rotated on a spit above a laser grill. Real pork; it smelled wonderful, though she felt bad for Anouk.

The music boomed so loud she could barely hear. Several frog
chicos
were standing around in slash-cut shirts, anxious but friendly. A
chica
arrived in glittering tights, a tattoo of coupling dogs showing through her moonhole. Text crowded Jenny’s toybox.

“Has anyone played
Meet Me in Shanghai,
with Newman and Monroe?”

“Pong, anyone?

“Let’s shag the mosquitoes.”

“Blast the mocs out of the hab.”

“Drown them in beer.”

Everyone’s cup was full, and some had the glazed eyes of pregamers. An elephant sidled up among the students, lifting its trunk to beg. One student held out a cup; the elephant dipped its trunk and slurped. Everyone laughed.

“Jenny!” Fritz Hoffman came out from the clubhouse, his hair brushed up full of glitter, biceps polished to a shine. He pointed to a table inside, draped in purple. “Voter registration, tonight and tomorrow morning. We avoid scheduling classes on Tuesday and Thursday, so we can volunteer service.”

Jenny texted to Anouk,
“I just need to say hello inside.”

Within the clubhouse, the air had a stale yeasty smell. Anouk followed close behind Jenny, politely smiling, while Berthe stopped just inside the door.

“Jenny,” called Charlie, weaving his way through the crowd. “What a great practice that was today!”

“A great team. Remember what Ken said,” Jenny warned.

“Oh, I can handle that.” Charlie had no cup yet. “These bros are real great to me; they make me feel at home. They even hold study sessions.”

Someone bumped into her. “Hi,
tía.
Dance?”

Jenny smiled but looked away, trying to inch closer to the draped table.

“Don’t miss the Frontera Grand Prix.”

“Ferrari whipped our ass last year, but this year we’ve got new Anthradyne engines.”

“Fingerprints?” someone asked at the desk. “To register to vote?”

“It’s an Ohio thing,” the
chico
behind the desk explained. “Fingerprints, or else a retinal scan. You want to save the planet or not?” Behind him, the amyloid wall blinked in purple,
CARRILLO FOR PRESIDENT
. A virtual globe showed black areas for the solarplated death zones: the western USA, Nevada through Tennessee; the Amazon; the Sahara, the Australian interior. Unity candidate Carrillo pledged a halt to solarplate.

Behind her back, someone pinched Jenny through a moonhole.
“Qué jeta.”

Jenny pulled away, but the
chico
caught her arm. She wheeled around. Glazed eyes, a pregamer. “Excuse me,” she said very clearly, “I need to leave.”

The glazed eyes stared, and the grip lingered. Jenny blinked her “safe” button. At the shock, the
chico
withdrew his hand, with an angry utterance.

From the doorway, Anouk’s Monroe moved forward, her face pouting prettily. Reaching the pregamer, the Monroe grasped him by the back of his shirt and lifted him a couple of inches off the ground. Turning him to face her, dangling from her hand, the pouting face shook her head.

“Dios mío.”
Jenny pushed her way through the crowd, now just desperate to get out. She ran out the door, dodging students lined up for their plates of pork. The elephant was now tottering unsteadily on its feet, while more students gathered to laugh. Passing the red cars, she tripped on her laces and fell in the street. Mud all over, she picked herself up and paused to catch her breath. Above amid the black gleamed the stars and the church cross in Mount Gilead, and north, the golden haze of the Mound. A ring of lights beyond marked the motor track.

“Jenny!” Anouk called, running after her. “Are you all right?”

“Get away from me, you and your DIRG.”

“Berthe was just trying to help.”

“I took care of myself. I just had to put in an appearance; but now, Clive will have an incident to report on.” Jenny tried to wipe the mud off her clothes.

“But your honor—you should not allow—”

“Who are you to say what’s honorable? What are you doing all the time, snooping in my toybox?”

“What do you mean?” Anouk’s voice chilled.

“If you snoop in a dealer’s toybox—in America, that’s ten years in prison.”

“I don’t need to snoop, I just count cards.”

“Well, you won’t count my cards anymore.”

“
Écoute
—You don’t understand.” Anouk’s face drew close to hers, wisps of hair straying from her gold headscarf. “It’s a disability. I can’t help it—I’m compulsive.”

Jenny’s jaw fell open. “You’re what?”

“A compulsive hacker. A form of OCD; it’s all documented.”

“Qué historia,”
Jenny muttered.

“It’s the truth,” Anouk insisted. “That’s why I couldn’t join my brother at Oxford,” she added bitterly. “The
gendarme
told my parents I could go to the pen, or leave Euro, one or the other. So they sent me off-world.” She lifted her chin. “How would you feel, to be banned from your own planet?”

Jenny looked away. Drunks, ghosts, mosquitoes, and hackers. How was she to get any work done?

“Not that it matters, I can hack the Pentagon from here. But I didn’t harm you. Just got to know you, that’s all. That’s how I know that we’ll be great friends.”

Some friend.

“Look, I—I’ll keep Berthe away next time. And I can help you lose your mental.”

Jenny turned on Anouk, blinking fast. “You can’t do that.” She swallowed hard. “I need the mental.”

“But you could lose her, now and then, just for a bit. Just long enough to see Jordi.”

14

From the slanball court, the south solar was a peach, pale and luminous, ringed by the blue Ohio River. The “sunrise” gradually whitened. The players were practicing a one-two pass, in pairs with paired guards, zigzagging all the way down the court. Yola jittered the ball ahead of her, as Jenny crawled the cage at an angle, behind the back of guard David Pezarkar. Yola slanned it back to her—but David nearly hit it out from under, before Jenny jittered it away. David had good “eyes in the back,” Jenny thought. She slanned the ball back to Yola; but then out of nowhere came Reesie. Reesie got in just near enough to slan the ball out of Yola’s range.

“Great job, Reesie.”
Coach Porat hung overhead, like a bat from a tree.
“Don’t run all the way; pass.”

Reesie jittered the ball past Jenny, then she slanned the ball hard. But her footgrips came loose, a sign of inexperience with the cage; she extended her arms and legs but continued sailing slowly across.

Meanwhile, Jenny caught the ball, letting it jitter for a moment before her eyes. Then she passed it to Kendall. Guards Fran and Ricky converged on him. Jenny crossed over to play her part, trying to get her head in the mix without fouling the defenders. She scrabbled like a monkey along the rungs of the cage, till she had the right angle to launch. Launching herself just right, she passed by Kendall’s shoulder and slanned the ball out from him. The ball crossed half the court and sank into the goal, despite a late deflect by goalie Charlie.

“Way to go, Ken!”

Everyone cheered Ken, in case of spies. Indeed a suspicious heli sailed around outside, at some distance from the cage.

Fran took a moment to launch herself to Reesie and nudge her toward the side, recovering her grip.

“Time out.”

They could use it, thought Jenny, wiping the sweat from beneath her slancap. Coach Porat had climbed over to Reesie to advise her.

“Hey.” Yola caught her shoulder. “Nice catch—and nice pass.”

Kendall came over, hand over hand. He did not look Jenny in the eye. “Cruising the clubs already, are we?”

“Chill out, Kenny-boy.” Yola punched him. “She didn’t drink anything. We all need to work on passing.”

“I
know
that, Yola-babe.” Then he smiled, as if remembering something. “‘The wise man learns from everyone.’ Good job, Jenny. How’s the roommate? The classes?”

“
Muy bien.
We’re building DNA.” Jenny avoided comment on her
compañera
.

“You haven’t dropped Abaynesh yet.”

“Ken, I like your sayings,” Jenny told him. “Are they all Quaker?”

Yola laughed. “The Talmud. He likes to butter up Coach.”

“I like the Talmud,” Kendall insisted. “Quakers can go to hell.”

“Ken tried to convert,” said Yola, “but Coach wouldn’t let him.”

They turned as Coach Porat ambled over, along the cage; he usually walked with footgrips, not bothering to use hands. “That’s more like it; hustle on defense. Never let up on your opponent; confuse them, whoever’s got the ball. But what happens when three of us go after one slanner?”

“Other players get left unguarded,” said Fran.

“And Melbourne’s man-on-man defense is lethal.” The Melbourne Uni Scorpions—just over a week till their first Sunday game. The first game of the season was always tough, Jenny thought with a tightening in her gut.

“But we’re the greatest,” called Yola, “aren’t we, Coach?”

Porat put his hand out, and everyone put theirs together. “Together, we’re the greatest. Our opponents are as feeble as we are formidable. We beat the Scorpions last year; we’ll do it again. Show them what the Great Bear is made of.”

*   *   *

Tuesday-Thursday classes met twice a week, but Thursday was the three-hour Life lab. The class had dwindled to about twenty diehards, still including Tom and Charlie.
“Thanks for the eggs,”
Jenny texted Tom.

Tom smiled back, like a burst of sun through the clouds.

Within the baobab trunk, the DNA strand plunged downward forever. Abaynesh surveyed the class. “So what does DNA do? It receives signals, for your cell to do things—like grow a nerve fiber. And it makes copies of RNA.” RNA was like DNA’s Illyrian twin: nearly alike, but not quite. “If you’ve read all your Nobel experiments, you should be ready for the quest. Pick your partner, then step out. Always remember two things: observe, and cooperate.”

The students paired off. Jenny and Anouk followed the professor out a narrow doorway through the trunk.

As she emerged, Jenny blinked in the sun. A couple of trees dotted the savannah, near a shallow river. Anouk was there, but where were the professor and the other students?

Anouk nodded smartly. “We’re on our own.”

“So what do we do?” In Jenny’s toybox appeared an inventory. It held a laboratory notebook, a flaming torch, and a clean baby’s diaper.

In the distance rose a cloud of dust. The dust came nearer, revealing four men on horses, their hooves pounding. Jenny caught Anouk’s hand and reminded herself this was all just a toyworld. Just when she was about to get out of the way, the horses pulled up short.

The nearest horse reared with a whinny, raising a hoof the size of her head. The rider was space-black, in a leather costume decorated with beads and a lion’s mane on his head. He pulled out a long trumpet and blared a flourish. “In the name of the Queen of Sheba, sovereign of the Cushite Empire, I proclaim your quest. The Queen’s baby is missing. The baby must be found—the future of the Cushite people is at stake. The aim of your quest is to find the royal infant.”

The lion’s mane leaned down from the horse, whose flanks still panted in the hot sun. From his hand dangled a large bronze key.