The Settlers (9 page)

Anjali had surprised them both.
 

In the end, administration officials would only stay David's deportation on one condition.

He's going to be your brother, Anjali said.
 

Tasneem's eyes widened.
You adopted him?
 

Essentially, yes, Anjali said.
David?
Is that okay with you?
 

Do I get to keep my compartment?
 

Not exactly, Anjali answered.
Yours is larger than ours, so we will be moving into it with you.
I'll be giving up the compartment that Tasneem and I share now.
 

Do I have to call you Mother?
 

You can call me Anjali, she replied.
 

David looked dubious.

Tasneem looked horrified.

Anjali knelt before the children.
My dears, she said.
This is a delicate situation.
David, you understand that you were very close to being returned to Earth, yes?
 

David nodded.

And Tasneem, you have no desire to see your friend sent away, yes?

Tasneem shook her head.

Then this solution is the only one, Anjali said.
But David, you do not have to alter your life for us.
I do not intend to mother you.
You are clearly capable of managing your own affairs.
I will be your mother if you like, but for now, I will just be your mother in the database.
Do you understand?
 

You'll be my mother in name only, David said.
 

Do you agree?
Anjali asked.
 

David looked past her at the open office she'd come from, and the shadowy men within.

I agree, he said.

Oh, boy, Tasneem said.
 

David turned to Tasneem.
Wait until Audra finds out.
 

Anjali smiled at her daughter.
My dear.
Are you unhappy with this?
 

Tasneem looked up at her mother.
I'm happy, she said.

Good, said Anjali.
Now I shall take both of my children -- my real child and my fake child -- out for scoops of ice cream.
 

I like ice cream, David said.

Tasneem pressed her hands against her face.
 

Follow these instructions
.

Tasneem had ditched Blair.
He wasn't surprised.
She felt like an asshole, but he claimed to understand.
 

She gets off at juncture three, closing her eyes as she drops into the near-weightlessness of the disembarkment track.
Blair stays on board, and is out of sight before she can offer even a final wave.
 

It doesn't matter.
 

Follow these instructions.

She had listened to the rest of the message enough times to memorize David's directions.
 

Go into your apartment, into the bathroom.
Not the one in the main hall.
The one attached to your sleeping quarters.
 

Her private bathroom.
The one nobody entered but her.

The second light panel in your shower pod.
Press the corners to unlatch it.
You'll know what you're looking for when you see it.
But since I'm dead, I probably shouldn't be vague here.
You'll see a wristband, just like the old ones we used on Ganymede.
Put it on and activate it with these words.

She tries not to imagine how David had discovered a secret panel in her own apartment.
She doesn't even know of any.
 

River in heaven.

The words catch her off-guard on the first listen.
Doctor Widla had said the same thing to her, hadn't he.
 

Your name.
It means river in heaven.
Rivers are like thread.
They stitch things together.
 

She practically runs home.

She has never entered her apartment cautiously, but she does now.
The light panels illuminate softly as she closes the door.
For the first time, her home feels strange, as if it is not her own.
As if someone has been here.
 

David?
she calls.

There is no answer, but she does not feel foolish.
 

She had seen his body.
 

David was dead.
 

She walks on her toes, quietly.
 

David?
she repeats.
 

Nothing.
 

David?
 

Oh, Tasneem.
 

David, what --

Tasneem, it's bad.
It's so bad.
I'm so sorry.

What?
What happened?
Are you okay?
Are you --

Tasneem, it's your mother.
Anjali.
 

My -- no.
What happened?
 

Tasneem.
Tasneem, Tasneem.

David!
David, what happened?

Anjali is dead, Tasneem.
She's dead.
She's dead.
 

Wh -- Dav -- please.
Don't lie.
You're lying, you're lying.
 

No, Tasneem.
No, no, no.
 

The memory rushes in.

David?
she calls again.
 

The memory is so rich with his expression, the smell of his panic, that she cannot help but remember it so clearly.
 

It was the worst of times.
 

Her mother had died, Tasneem was certain, of the most awful loneliness.
She knew that it had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with David's presence.
Her mother desperately missed her father.
 

For years, her mother had talked to her father each morning.
Tasneem would walk in on her mother, and ask what Anjali was doing.

Anjali would say, I'm telling your father about you and me.

And Tasneem would join her.
 

But as Tasneem grew up, she talked to her father less and less.
She had never known him.
But Anjali talked more, and over time she would emerge from her quarters later and later.
In the past few weeks, Tasneem had not seen her mother before two p.m.

She frequently heard her crying softly.

People die of broken hearts, don't they?
Tasneem had asked David.

Maybe, David had answered.
It's not a scientific thing.
It's one of those intangible things where human emotion affects human wellness.
I think it' possible.
 

I think my mother died of hers, Tasneem had confided.
 

Things immediately changed.
 

Audra, who had resisted David's absorption into the Kyoh family, now insisted on sleeping over, convinced that Tasneem and David would fall in love by proximity alone.
But both children grieved, and barely noticed Audra's behavior.
 

Station Administration officials arrived two days after Anjali's cremation.
 

Married?
Tasneem had asked.
But he's my adopted brother.
 

David sat beside her silently.
 

The first official said, The adoption is nullified in the event of the death of the adoptive parents.
 

In this case, there is only one parent, the second official said.
And David is now essentially on the deportation list again.
 

Listen, the first official said, leaning forward.
We are deeply sorry about this.
We really don't have a choice.
 

There's just one solution to David's situation now, and it's what we've just explained, said the second official.

You want me to marry David, Tasneem repeated.
 

David still said nothing.

Ganymede law permits consenting juveniles to marry at the age of twelve, the first official explained.
Tasneem, as a certified resident of the station, you are able to extend that status to David --

-- if the two of you are married, finished the second official.

We're twelve years old, Tasneem said.

Ganymede law permits consenting --
 

She heard you, David said.
 

The four of them sat silently in the compartment.

Finally, Tasneem said, If we didn't marry, David would be sent to Earth?

The first official nodded.
 

David would be deported by Sunday, the second official said.

But if I marry him --

Then David becomes a certified resident.

Tasneem nodded.
She turned to David, who looked up at her balefully.
 

You don't have to, David said.
 

Tasneem turned to the administrators.
If we do this -- does it have to be real?
I mean, how does it work?