The Settlers (20 page)

You don't mean --

Yes.
Up.

Up.
 

Yes.

I can't.
 

You have to admit it would be beautiful.

But I...
I.
Up?

Up, Micah.
Up there.
It would be beautiful, too.
Not like this, but beautiful in other ways.
Beautiful because it would mean something...
more.
 

It's a million miles away.
 

Well, no.
It's not.
 

Fine, okay.
Not a million, but it might as well be.
Jesus, Mae.
 

I didn't know you felt strongly about it.

I feel strongly about Earth!
Under my feet!
I like standing here.
Do you know who built this pier?
No?
Well, I do.
His name was Marcus Perrine, and he was twenty-eight when he built it with his bare hands as a gift for his bride.
It's been here for nearly eighty years.
There's history here.
I like history.
 

There's history there, too.
More history, even.
 

Don't be ridiculous.
It's not the same.
 

You really wouldn't?
For me?
 

I'm not a spaceman, Mae.
 

You wouldn't even think about it?
 

I'm from Earth.
What's up there that isn't here?
Don't scientists spend their careers looking for places just like Earth?
Why do you think that is?
It's because its Earths that matter.
They're rare and precious and beautiful and amazing.
And I like living here.
It smells nice.
It makes my heart happy.
 

Not even for me?
 

Mae.
 

Micah.

You're asking so much.

It would be the grandest adventure.
It would be thrilling every day.
 

No, it wouldn't.
It would be terribly boring.

I've dreamed of going there since they built the first one.
Galileo.
I was eight.

You've dreamed of moving to space since you were eight years old.
 

Yes!
Yes, Micah.
I wanted to watch the sun rise.

What do you think we just watched?
 

Not here, Micah.
To watch the sun rise over the entire planet.
I want to float!
I want to float like a feather.
I want to --

You want to live in a dark cold scary vacuum that will kill you.
 

Yes.
I do, I do!
Because we tamed it, Micah.
Look what we did!
Look up, you can even see them up there now.
 

I don't want to look up.

Now you're just being petulant.

Living in orbit would make me miserable.
 

How do you --

Some things you just know.
You just do.
 

You really wouldn't even consider it?
 

What about our families, Mae?
What about Christmases and Thanksgivings and birthdays?
 

Maybe they'll all come with us.
Who knows!
Don't you think being a part of something greater than yourself is worth missing a few family holidays?
 

Not a few, Mae.
All of them.
Or didn't you know that you can't come back?
 

I knew it.
 

So, really, you're okay with leaving our families forever.
Is that what they mean to you?
 

You're missing the point, Micah.
 

Oh, am I.
 

I've always wondered what an impasse feels like.
 

Don't be dramatic.
 

Well, what would you call it?

So we're doomed, is that it?
Because I don't want to be a spaceman with you?

Don't make light.
 

Look.
Mae.
I love you.
You know I do.

I need a few minutes.
 

You know I'd do anything for you.
 

Micah, give me a minute.
Okay?

I should go inside?
 

Forget it.
I will.
 

Wait.
Mae, wait.

The image of Mae and her details disappear from the card.
A simple red line of text appears in its place.

Deceased January 7 2178

The administrator glances up at Micah, then back down at the card.
He touches it with two fingers, and the red text disappears.
A single small dot dances on the card.
The administrator says, Inheritor.
 

Micah blinks, only now realizing that his eyes are damp.

The blinking dot vanishes, and a new profile appears.
Where the photo should be, there is a simple empty box.

Micah Roderick Sparrow

0627J007-1211-E

H 5'11"
 
W 192

You can remove your thumb now, the administrator says.
Stand up straight, Mr.
Sparrow.
 

The administrator holds the card at Micah's eye level.
The surface of the card reflects Micah's face back at him.
He is startled to see that he has two long tear-streaks on his skin, and he quickly wipes them away with the heels of his palms.
 

Big smile, the administrator says.
One.
Two.
Three.
Snap!

The image on the card freezes.
 

The administrator turns the card over and looks at the image, then up at Micah.
Maybe one more try?
he says.

Micah shakes his head.
 

The image is the exact opposite of Mae's.
Micah's expression is one of a lost soul.
 

Unlike Mae's beautiful smile, Micah has seen this expression on his face every day for two years.
 

Mr.
Sparrow, says the escort in the gray suit.
Shall we?

Micah looks at Bernard.
I'm sorry, he says.
 

Bernard nods.
Me, too.
 

I meant --

I know what you meant.
Be well, Micah.
 

The escort takes the Onyx card from the administrator and returns it to Micah.
 

Micah absently tucks it into his pocket.

Mr.
Sparrow, the administrator says, extending his hand.
Welcome to Argus Station.

What are you doing?
 

Reading.
You're in my light.
 

Maybe we should talk about this.

I don't want to.
 

It's important that we work these things out.
Otherwise what are we?
 

I don't want to talk about it, Micah.

Mae.
 

Leave me alone.
 

What are you reading?
 

Leave me alone, please.
 

We'll talk about it later.

Whatever.
 

Micah stares at his reflection in the mirror.
He is older than he remembers.
He has crows' feet on either side of his tired brown eyes.
When he concentrates, it looks like someone has pulled a rake across his forehead.
There are fault lines, deep ones, framing his mouth.
The effect is that his face looks as if it has been assembled from several pieces.
He forces an inauthentic smile and watches the lines deepen and shift.

He sighs, and bends over the sink and splashes water on his face.
 

The sun has broken over the Earth since he last looked outside.
The view from his apartment makes him ill.
He pads barefoot across the chamber to a window that spans the entire exterior wall, from the floor of his apartment to the high ceiling.
The glass is deeply tinted, but the orange glow that suffuses the city below is powerful all the same.

He touches the glass with all five fingers, then rotates his hand slightly to his right.
A faint contrail appears beneath his fingers.
Above it is a readout: 90/100.
As he turns his hand, the number climbs, and the window darkens measurably.
He turns his hand to the left.
The number falls to 74/100, and Micah has to close his eyes against the fierce brightness that the weaker shade has revealed.
 

He rotates his hand to the right blindly until his eyelids are no longer shot through with angry red darts.
For a while after he opens them again, his vision is imprinted with slashes of red that turn white and disappear after a few seconds.
 

He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, then flexes his fingers as wide as they will go.
He holds this stretching position until his hands tremble, then exhales slowly, relaxing the muscles in his hands just as slowly.
When he has relaxed completely, his hands are like soggy hunks of bread, invisible in the tactile spectrum of nerves that make up his identity.
 

The apartment would please anybody.
Three thousand square feet, richly furnished, with a floor that absorbs his weight and is so soft that he could sleep on it if he chose.
The bed is positioned in such a way that he will wake to a view of Argus City each morning, with its spires and towering spacescrapers and humming air traffic.
The walls are designed in moveable sets, so that Micah can adjust the apartment's layout to suit his needs.
 

He has no interest in the floor plan.

Micah rotates his hand on the window until it becomes opaque.
The window vanishes, its interior surface now the same color as the apartment's walls.
 

If desired, I can apply some digital art to these walls, a voice says.

I don't desire, Micah says.
 

He crosses the room to the bed.
 

Shall I adjust the climate to complement your resting body temperature?

Do whatever you want, Micah says.
 

He stretches out in the bed, grips one of the spare pillows as if it is another warm body, and tries to sleep.

The escort in the gray suit had had plenty to say about Micah's new environment.
After their stomach-turning ride through the giant transport tubes, during which Micah had watched a dozen decks full of new arrivals zoom by, the escort had given Micah a brief tour.
 

Don't you have other visitors to meet?
Micah had asked, annoyed.
 

Oh, no, the escort replied.
Each Onyx resident has a dedicated escort for their first week.
After that week, the escorts are less vital, and more of a convenience.
There are usually four of us for each petal floor.

How many residents are on each floor?
 

Approximately two hundred, the escort answered.

And how many floors?
 

Each petal has five hundred floors.
There are ten petals altogether, he added.

Micah was surprised.
The station seems like it could support more than just a million people, he said.
That's only a tenth of the population of most of the big cities in America.

The escort nodded.
This way, he said.

Micah followed the escort across a grand lobby.
At the nearest end, the lobby looked into the heart of Argus City.
He stopped and stared for a moment, his eyes following one canyon between the tall buildings as far as he could, until the city faded into a blue haze and lost all definition.
 

How far across is the city?
he asked.
 

Two hundred forty miles, sir.
 

Two hundred forty miles of city for just one million people?
That seems...
wasteful.
 

The escort shook his head.
Oh, no, sir.
One million is the number of Onyx residents, but Onyx-class residents are just a small percentage of Argus's total occupancy.

I don't understand, Micah said.

On the arrival deck, the escort said.
All of the other new arrivals?
Your fellow passengers on the shuttle?

Micah remembered.
 

Well, sir, they comprise the Machine-class residents.
 

Machine-class?
 

Machine-class, the escort repeated.
As in, they are the machine that keeps Station Argus going.

I don't understand, Micah said again.
 

Don't worry, the escort said, striking off toward another series of lift tubes.
Everything will be explained.
 

Where were you this afternoon?
 

Out.

Mae, can we stop being so hostile?
 

I'm not being hostile.
That's where I was.
Out.

This is so exhausting.
 

I don't know what's so exhausting about it.
 

This.
 

This what?
 

This whole argument.
It's...
it's seeping into who we are.
 

I don't know what you mean.
 

Yes, you do.
Look, I know you want to go to space.
Okay?
I know.
I'm sorry that I don't.
 

It's not that simple.
And I don't want to talk about it.
 

We have to talk about it.
We have to get past this.

No, Micah.
No, we don't.
We can't.
 

Can't?
 

You really don't understand this, do you.

Understand what?
We both have things that we wish we could do that we won't ever get to do.

Well, thanks for deciding for me.
 

Come on, Mae.
 

Don't patronize me.
 

It feels like this isn't going to get better.
 

You just want me to put this back in the box I took it out of.
I know what you want, Micah.
You want what you always get.
You want your way.
 

That's not what I want.

It is!
And it's what you always get, too.
It's the idea of my having dreams that you like.
You think it makes me adorable and interesting.
But it's the reality of my having dreams that you hate, because it might upend your happy routine.
 

Jesus.
Mae, is that what you think?

I don't have to think it, Micah.
It's obvious.
 

I don't hate the idea of you having dreams.
 

You missed the point.
That's not what I said.
You hate the
reality
of my having dreams.
 

I don't, either.
 

Then I want to go to space.
And I want you to come with me, Micah.
As my husband, the man who I want to build a future with.
Come with me!
We'll raise our family there, and our children will grow up at the changing, exciting edge of history.
They'll tell their children one day, and their grandchildren, that they were raised in space, one of the first couple of generations to do it.
They'll be like the pioneers who set out for California, or the first immigrants to America.
Let's go, Micah.
Let's go to space and look down at the Earth and up at the stars.
They'll be closer than ever, almost close enough to touch.
Let's be there when we get tired of living in orbit, and we decide it's time to go wherever is next.
We'll be old then, but we can say, Wow, look at humanity go!
Look at how far we've --