The Highest Frontier (63 page)

“As mayor of Mount Gilead, I am calling a flood drill.” She emphasized the word “drill.” “The drill we’ve practiced Sundays after service. We all walk out, straight to Buckeye Trail. No stopping, and no running: Just walk out. At Buckeye Trail, head north—and keep going.”

Voices rose again; Frank banged on the table. “Order in the courthouse. Listen to the mayor.”

Jenny’s mother and father: Where were they?

“Remember,” Leora called again, “head straight to Buckeye Trail. Then north all the way.
Do not leave the trail.
” She took a breath. “To keep us in order, remember, we will sing. ‘Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee…’”

The colonists took up the song, evidently one they knew well. It made a good walking song. Farmers marched out, and mothers marched out with children. The students didn’t know the drill or the song, but they fell under the calming influence of those who did.

“Jenny!” called Rafael. “All the students—the frogs back in the dorm. They won’t know what to do.”

“There’s Elephant Man, and Dean Kwon, and—”

“They can’t all get north in time.” Tom took a breath. “We have to get out the lifeboats.”

55

Jenny found herself hurrying down Raccoon Run, disoriented, barely able to think after nearly a whole day awake. She stumbled in the darkness that came in between the pools of light. She dodged a stalled DIRG; without Toynet, they were useless. Now she could hear something in the hab, a distinct rumbling sound that she’d never heard before. Had the pumps failed? A deep, grating sound. Her foot stumbled again, and her leg collapsed. Was the substratum cracking?

Anouk caught her hand. “
Écoute,
Jenny. I know how you feel about floods—but you must stay calm.”

The plants. All her orchids, and the wisdom plants. That was it; she had to save the plants. At Buckeye Trail, Jenny turned south.

“Jenny!” Anouk yanked her arm. “What is wrong with you? You heard the mayor.”

“I have to get my plants.”

“You’re crazy. We can’t carry plants.”

“Some of them.”

“Merde.”

“The wisdom plants, remember?”

A bullhorn called, “Buckeye Trail, head north. Buckeye Trail.” Dean Kwon raced by, and other staff. Students and professors, all heading north.

Jenny barely noticed. She had to reach her cottage.

When she got there, everything was dark. She fumbled in the darkness trying to collect several pots in her arm.

“Madness,” Anouk insisted. “You can grow more plants. Let’s get out of here.”

From outside, a gush and a roar. In the distance water fountained up from the ground, pouring in all directions. Above, across the hab, another jet of water fountained downward, then up, pouring over the farms. A whiff of microbial stew.

Jenny handed Anouk a wisdom plant. “We’ll put these in the boat.” Outside the cottage, she pulled at Tom’s lifeboat leaning at the wall.

Anouk tugged the boat down. “There, leave your dumb plants; the boat will float. Let’s run for the trail, before it’s too late.”

Jenny arranged the last of her plants in the boat: Vandas, vanillas, Blood Star. And the two wisdom plants. But others were left upstairs; there was no more room. She started to cry.

At her feet the water rushed over, icy cold. The rush of water filled her ears now.

“
Merde,
it’s too late.” Anouk jumped into the boat and savagely shoved the plants back. “Get in here, you crazy person.”

Jenny lifted her leg and stumbled into the boat. None too soon, as the water rose around it. A foul odor arose from all the photosynthetic microbes, like the smell of a beer-soaked carpet the morning after.

The boat heaved, and Jenny slid across, banging into the side. A couple of the pots fell out. She stretched her arms, desperately trying to hold on to the rest.

Anouk let out further exclamations in French. She took hold of an oar, but the boat kept rocking. “Keep your head
down
!” She shoved Jenny down to the floorboards. “Just hope we stay afloat—”

The boat grabbed Jenny and took off on its own. A current was flowing, where, she had no idea. Screams, and cries for help. Someone out in the water, waist deep, raised their arms and called out. But Anouk could not yet control the boat, which still lurched and rocked in the current.

As the boat drifted away from buildings, Anouk’s oars dodged the trees. The current slowed. The fountains gradually subsided into the water. Water was everywhere, water above upon the farmlands, its distant wavelets reflecting pools of light from the backup beams. There were cries for help, chilling in the distance. I didn’t help them, thought Jenny. First responder.

Anouk got out the oars and started rowing. “Look there.”

Along Buckeye Trail, survivors from the courthouse were still walking north, in about a foot of water. The trail was somehow “higher,” apparently following a ridge that stretched the length of the hab.

“Let’s get over there. I don’t trust this boat.” Anouk started rowing over toward the trail.

They had nearly reached the trail, when the boat slammed into a tree. Jenny slid out, holding just one of the wisdom plants. She gasped at the chill.

“Come on!” Anouk grabbed her arm and pulled her, wading slowly, to join those walking north.

*   *   *

Before the water came, Dylan knew what had to be done. Quade had got out one briefing before the cutoff. This time, the fried system had failed, and the pumps shut down. The unthinkable had happened; and they had to get the students out to safe ground. The college staff divided up amongst the dorms and faculty residences, systematically calling out the students. Once they reached the trail, above the solid rib of the hab, they’d be okay.

Dylan knew that time was short; but he also knew there would be students in those dorms that didn’t hear the call. Entering Huron, he hurried down the hall, yelling and banging on doors. A frog was fast asleep on the couch in a lounge; Dylan pulled him up and shoved him toward the door. Another was curled up on a bed, frozen with panic; the loss of Toynet could do that to some. Still another, disoriented in the dark, couldn’t find her way out.

As he got through the third floor, his foot sunk and half stuck. The amyloid was melting. He raced out the hall and down the stairs, his feet sticking and sinking. At the doorway, he nearly got out, but his shoes completely stuck. He slid his feet out; but then his left foot stuck in the amyloid.

Dylan reached up to the door frame, and he just managed to hold on. Unlike the upperclass residences, the frog dorms had a frame of carboxyplast. He held on, and managed to keep his other foot up, without getting stuck. But he was trapped, as the dark water rose icily around him.

56

The powwow ground was covered with colonists, children, professors, students. The toymaker and the doctor huddled with their whimpering teddies. Students were crying, or staring, or asleep beneath blankets handed out by workers from the Mound. The darkness, amid all the blank toyboxes, could be felt almost like a solid weight.

From the distance came the high-pitched groan of a bear. Then a lowing of cattle. Exhausted beyond imagining, Jenny propped herself up on an elbow and peered out upon the flooded fields.

In a pool of light at the foot of the Mound, where the water lapped the new shore, Quade’s square-cut ark floated into view. The carboxyplast platform was crowded with miserable teddy bears, mini-deer, mini-cows, and some of the most dejected elephants she had ever seen. The ecoengineer, along with Fritz Hoffman and a couple of other Bulls, had to shove the animals out onto dry land, which the creatures no longer seemed to trust. Then a deer bolted, and the rest began to scramble off on their own. Fritz started unloading cages: the cages from Reagan Hall, that held the Life professor’s chickens, rats, and two-headed snakes.

“Jenny!”
Soledad found her. She caught Jenny and held her so tight she could barely breathe.

Jenny gasped. “Where’s Dad?”

“Your father is here—he had a fit when he first got cut off, but now he’s fine. He’s helping Zari restore the system. As for the rest of the world—”

Jenny’s eyes closed, and she finally fell asleep.

*   *   *

Still caught in the congealed amyloid of Huron, Dylan sculled the water with his arms and tried to stay awake. The foul-tasting microbial soup had leveled off, but he had to keep moving to keep his head above water. And his limbs were numbing by the minute. At least his caught leg no longer hurt. With his right hand, he caught the side of the door frame again, but could not keep holding on. He had to keep his mouth out of the water. But he found himself nodding; if once his chin slipped, he’d lack the strength to cough his throat clear. His head swarmed with visions; the bright green lawns of Westchester, the redbrick halls of Harvard Yard, the hair-raising turns of the Dubai Autodrome. The chapel where Clare had delivered his first sermon.
That saving grace that is in the hearts of the saints …
Jonathan Edwards would have the last laugh.

“Dylan? Is that you?” Someone was calling him, from a long way off. From the world he was leaving.

“Just reach up.” Out of the darkness an arm reached downward, with a hand outstretched, like God at the Creation.
“Dylan!”
With a voice like Clare’s. Dylan smiled to himself, and his eyes closed. He’d always known God would sound like Clare.

“Dylan,
wake up
. Just reach out,
please.
I can’t reach any farther.”

His eyes opened. There was Clare upon the ledge above, braced against the carboxyplast, his arm with its hammer-honed muscles reaching down. “Dylan, can you hear me?”

Dylan’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Dylan, do you remember our first time, years ago? That night, remember? We’ll do that again—at Lila’s Beach. Lila’s Beach, you hear?”

The thought of Clare on the beach struck a spark in the mortal world. His circulation quickened. All his effort went into lifting that arm. He couldn’t even feel it, but somehow the arm lifted out of the water. Clare grasped his hand and pulled. A bolt of pain up his leg, as if his foot were torn off. After an eternity he slipped free and was hoisted up where he sank into the waiting lifeboat.

57

When Jenny awoke, the hab was still dark. The black roll of water lay throughout the hab, making a muddy shoreline around the cap just below the powwow ground. Treetops stuck out, spreading jagged shadows across the pools of emergency light.

But her toybox filled with Babynet text. The toymaker and her teddies had managed to get Babynet up.

“BANDAID, ANYONE?”

“CHARLIE? HAS ANYONE SEEN HIM?”

“WHEN DOES HOMEWORLD GET HERE?”

“DID WE WIN?”

All messages were local; there was still nothing from Earth. Wolfing down amyloid from the Mound, Jenny looked up at her mother. “How long has it been? Why aren’t they coming?”

“A day and a half—we don’t know.” Soledad’s voice was grim. “Homeworld should be here by now, as well as FEMA.”

From the shore rose excited cries. Reesie Tsien and Suze Gruman-Iberia were hauling up a huge jug they’d found drifting in the water. “The votes!” she exclaimed, cradling the radioactive jug. “All the ballots—they’re here. They’ll count!” The most verifiable votes in the whole election.

“EMS NEEDED.”
From Doc Uddin.
“ALL EMS VOLUNTEERS REPORT TO THE MOUND.”

Feeling somewhat restored, Jenny roused herself. The wisdom plant was still there with her, not entirely wilted. Furtively she gave it half her water ration.

At the Mound entrance, the lights were all out to save power. But inside, the lights were on, enough to see the games. Maybe she could sneak her plant in there. Frank and Judge Baynor were at the gate, along with Yola and other EMS. Doc Uddin explained the Mound’s medical system that they’d rigged up, a surgical cart Babynet-linked to a scanscope. The scanscope data had to be read from a flat box on the cart. Inconvenient, but it worked.

Jenny trundled a cart down the hill, checking out various students sick from the foul water, bruised children, and elders suffering hypothermia. And damaged limbs; Uncle Dylan’s foot had lost a toe and half the skin, but the amyloid bandage held without infection so far.

“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he told her. “I promised your mother we’d take care of you.”

Jenny shrugged. “We are here.” Except Charlie, the thought nagged at her. Charlie was one of four students unaccounted for, along with two colonists.

“And then you had to face all this, after your brother.”

She looked off in the distance. She actually hadn’t thought of Jordi. She’d thought only of her plants. Crazy, maybe, but it kept her sane.

Dylan strained his arm, trying to sit up. “I should have sent the students home,” he said. “We knew the cutoff had fried the network. Zari had to order parts. In the meantime, we knew the hab couldn’t withstand another blow.”

Jenny shook her head. “We didn’t cut and run.”

“Ten years as president,” he reflected. “I hung on too long. I should give someone else a chance to do better.”

She half smiled. “You’d regret it—like Teddy did.”

“I could go back to being a professor.”

“You’re a great professor,” she told him sincerely. He was her only professor who didn’t need the plant.

“And you’ve become a wise
gantowisa.”

“JENNY—COME HERE IMMEDIATELY,”
her mother texted. What could it be?

On the bank with Soledad, there was George—the first Jenny had seen of her father. She hugged him close.

“Jenny,” whispered her mother, “your father is about to go out. Outside the hab.”

Zari Valadhkani stood there in spacewalker’s overalls, along with Leora, and Coach Porat. All were experienced spacewalkers.

“Your father and Zari think they can pick up a Toynet signal. To find out why no help has come. And what’s going on … on Earth.”

Jenny shuddered. “So what can I do?”

“Go out with your father. In case he needs help.
¿Entiendes?
”