The Sunspacers Trilogy (8 page)

I came to the last guardrail, where I sat down with my arms around my knees and gazed out into the magnificent space over the gym field. Unsureness crept into me again, and the future became shadowy. I was here to become a physicist and dig out the secrets of the universe. Sure, I was interested in digging out the secrets of nature, but I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy the work. It was fun to think about, but I knew enough to know that it would be work. It was not going to be work for Morey; he was in love with every bit of it, and ready to put off everything to get where he was going. I knew that I probably couldn’t spend the rest of my life in that way, or keep the world away. Physics was not going to be it for me, even though I could do it. Somewhere there was something else, but I couldn’t see it clearly yet. I would eventually, because that way lay the truth about myself.

In the meantime I would have to go through school and get what I could out of it; and maybe it would all come to me one day soon, when that small part of me that was stubborn, and smarter than the rest, decided to speak up. It was depressing, but there was nothing else I could do, even though the answers were probably right in front of me.

The archers retrieved their arrows and started over. After the fourth time they collected their shafts and went into the gym. I stared at the empty field. Then I noticed that someone was waving something orange at me, a scarf or a light jacket.

I jumped up and waved back. The figure seemed to glide across the field. She reached the bottom of the hill and started up. I took a deep breath, and my pulse quickened as I noticed her red braids.

“Hello,” she said, stepping over the rail.

“You were waving at me.”

She smiled. “I wasn’t.”

“What were you doing then?” I demanded.

“Just twirling my jacket.” She looked puzzled. “Who knew you were watching?”

“You came when I waved,” I continued stupidly, staring at her skimpy white shorts.

“I always walk this way,” she replied, ignoring my gaze.

“Well, sorry I waved back, I guess.”

She gave me a careful look. “That’s okay. What’s your name?”

“Joe Sorby.” She would remember me at any moment.

“I’m Linda ten Eyck.”

As I looked into her wide, green eyes, I saw that she was probably my age, certainly not as old as she had acted when I had arrived. It had been her confidence, the way she had done her job.

“Oh—I was your guide when you came in from Earth.” She gave me a knowing, mischievous smile.

I nodded, feeling silly.

“Well, nice seeing you … again,” she said after a silence. She brushed her lips lightly with her tongue, slipped past me, and continued up the hill. I stared, noting how beautifully her strong thigh muscles flexed as she climbed.

She didn’t look back even once.

I went back to the room and punched up the titles of my course books on the desk screen. Retrieval codes popped up, and I slipped them into memory. I was all set to display texts for study. My credit was clear and all my fees had been paid. Three years later: one shiny new physicist.

Maybe Morey was right. Concentrate on one thing and get it done, whatever it takes; catch up on life later. But just then it seemed the hardest thing in the universe to do.

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Linda

It was the Friday night before the first week of classes. I was sampling course books at my desk, still determined to make a go of it, and finding nothing that would call for memory boosters.

I blanked the screen, sat back, and gazed out the window at the night glow of the Sun rings as I thought about Linda. Most students were at dorm parties, mixing and pairing, roaming the campus, invading the nearby town or hiking in the woods. The drop in gravity toward the poles was a great novelty among hikers; some couldn’t get enough of it.

But the hurried atmosphere of orientation week had turned me off. I didn’t like lists of things you were supposed to do, so I had kept pretty much to myself, getting up the determination to start school. Morey and I usually had lunch together, but we were apart the rest of the time.

I was about to close the drapes when Morey came in and sat down on his bed, looking exasperated.

“They think they’re here to have a good time!”

“Well, it is the last weekend before classes,” I said, turning my chair to face him. “Besides, what do we care?”

“Have you
seen
some of our classmates? They’ve brought their talking pets. They debate the points of their expensive wristphones. They brag about how many of their relatives have artificial hearts and when they’re going to switch to the natural grown ones, or how many grandparents are in cold storage waiting to be cured of incurable diseases!”

I didn’t much care for bioengineered pets either; they were so pathetic mouthing words they couldn’t understand, just to please their owners. I had to admit that the showiness of my fellow earthies irked me.

“I thought we’d leave high school crap behind,” Morey added.

“Well, the local students seem serious.”

“How can you tell?”

“The Mercury situation, for one thing. There’s a big demonstration planned.”

“That?” He looked at me with contempt. “You think that shows seriousness? Politics. It’ll be settled one way or another, but not by us. I don’t have time, and you won’t either.”

I saw my chance. “See—you do share something with our classmates from Earth. They don’t care either.”

“Come on! That’s a cheap shot.”

“People are dying.…”

“What do you want?” he demanded angrily. “Do you know what’s going to happen? Those who can’t make it in school are going to fool themselves into believing they’re changing things, or they’re going to chase each other in mad affairs. Either way, they won’t get their degrees or develop the push that gets the prizes.”

“Why get excited, then? Less competition for you.”

He looked at me as if I’d betrayed him.

“Calm down,” I said. “Things will settle when classes start.”

He got up and left the room.

I let out a deep breath as the door slid shut. Then I looked around the room as if in a trance. Morey made me feel that I would never grow up. Maybe no one ever did, and all the adults were faking it; and Morey was faking the nonexistent wisdom of old age. He had done it all through high school. I knew his feelings about politics, and that he held his views honestly. I understood what he meant, but the way he applied it to the Mercury situation rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t shake the suspicion that Morey really wanted to be Christopher Van Cott.

I punched up 1088.

Linda’s face appeared in the screen. “Oh, hello,” she said, surprised. To me it sounded as if she had said, “O hollow,” which showed what kind of state I was in. Morey and I had often disagreed, but it had always been friendly. Linda’s smile was a welcome relief.

“Say,” I croaked, “like to go out?”

“What?”

I cleared my throat. “Would you like to go out?”

“Oh.” I thought she was going to laugh at me.

“Would you like to go out this evening, with me?” I managed to say.

She stared at me for a moment. “Say, how tall are you?”

“Uh, about a hundred and seventy-five centimeters. Do you want to or not?”

“I’ll meet you in the courtyard of your dorm.”

She smiled and blanked the screen.

The night was a bright lunar twilight with a million stars scattered across the blue-green inner surface. The polar Sun rings were a soft blue-white. I stepped closer to the rock garden in the courtyard and read that the minerals and sand were all from the Moon. Then I gazed upward, picking out the roads leading in and out of the town on the other side of the world.

“Hello.”

I turned around. Linda stood in front of me. “Hi,” I said. She was about my height, maybe a half inch taller.

She stepped close to me. I felt her breath on my cheek. “People from Earth grow slower,” she said, smiling.

“I hope you weren’t busy, when I called, I mean.”

“Just about to wash my hair.”

I took in a deeper breath. The knots in her braids looked even more complicated than I remembered. She looked delicious, and she seemed to like me. I felt my pulse quicken.

“I was going to take it out,” she said. “Would you like it long?”

“Sure.”

She smiled again. “Do you like it like this, with the braids piled on top?”

“Sure.”

She touched my cheek gently. “You’ll say anything. Where do you want to go?”

“How do you know people from Earth grow slower?” I asked feebly.

“Higher gravity to overcome. You know that. Where are we going?”

“How about the movie museum?” I asked, happy at my good luck.

“What’s playing?”

“Let’s go and see.”

“Okay, Sorby, let’s go.” Her use of my last name surprised me.

She hooked her arm in mine, and we marched across the courtyard. I glanced at her, and she smiled as we started on the path to the student center.

“You’re making fun of me,” I said.

“I call everyone by their last name until I know them better.” She gave my arm a squeeze.

We circled the big white cake of the student center. The museum came into view—a one-story circular building tucked away among some pine trees. We came closer and saw what they were showing: WAR OF THE WORLDS
THE TIME MACHINE

“Old stuff,” she said. “Over a hundred years old. Flat screen, messy sound.”

“It’s probably been cleaned up and in 3-D, but we can always ask for something else.” I stopped and looked at her. “Were you expecting me to call?”

“Well—”

I could see that she was tempted to lie about it. “No, Joe,” she said finally, “honestly, I wasn’t.”

Maybe someone else had stood her up. She was at least using my first name now.

“But I wanted you to call,” she added, startling me.

“What would you really like to see?” I asked, recovering.

She put a finger to her temple and closed her eyes in mock concentration. Her tight-fitting tan denim suit revealed that she was small breasted and thin, but her small waist made her hips seem rounder.

“Maybe if they have a Bergman, she said, opening her slightly tilted eyes wide. “Got a good look?”

“What?”

She laughed, and I swallowed hard. “You’ve probably seen every film they have,” I said.

She hooked her arm in mine again. “Lets go for a walk instead.” I felt her warmth and wanted to put my arm around her. I had not gone out since breaking up with Marisa. It seemed very long ago, and I was a bit nervous as well as excited.

“Do you have brothers or sisters?” she asked.

“There’s just me.”

“Not even one?” She made me feel that I should have double-checked, just to be sure.

“Families are smaller on Earth.” I looked up, and again it seemed strange not to see a sky. I kept seeing all the lights as stars. “Where can you see the stars?” I asked. “I mean directly.”

“Why? We’d have to wear safety suits on the maintenance level, and the view would be spinning anyway. Let’s go to your room. I’ll show you how to punch up views from the observatory.”

“I know how to do that,” I said, missing the point that she wanted to be alone with me.

“You’ve
seen
stars,” she said.

“Not the way I’d like to—outside, in a spacesuit,” I replied, turning us down the path to my dorm. “Do you have any large birds here?” I asked.

“Sure—ducks and geese.”

“What happens when they fly into the center?”

“Well, they
don’t
get stuck. They sort of swim out.”

I laughed, feeling that she was interested in me but didn’t know what to make of me. I knew I was being moody, picking up on things late. Morey had upset me more than I had realized.

The ceiling flowed with light as we entered the room.

“Here, Joe, look at this,” Linda said, sitting down at my desk.

I leaned over her shoulder. “There’s the twenty-kilometer O’Neill colony cylinder,” she said, touching the screen, “and assorted factories nearby.” The view changed, but remained within the L-5 area of space. “Here’s the asteroid hollow.” It looked like a giant potato, cratered and ridged, but was growing green on the inside of the hollow rock, as natural as planting flowers in clay pots.

“I’d like to visit that one,” I said.

“They’re pretty stuck up over there. Many of the people are the original asteroid miners who brought the rock into L-5, and they’ve never gotten over slapping each other on the back about it.”

“Well—why not? The Asteroid Belt is a long way from here. You sound like someone from Earth.”

“We have a right to be critical of ourselves. It’s been over twenty years since the hollow was brought in, and many of us feel it wasn’t all that necessary, since we can build anything we want out here, without using old rocks.”

“I read that the metals mined to make the hollow gave Earth quite a boost at the time.”

“Right—Earth, not us. We still had to get our materials from the Moon. It slowed up development of L-5 for a decade, but it made us more self-reliant. Sure, we have a lot of rivalry among ourselves, but it’s friendly.”

“Tell me about the bad feelings toward Earth.”

She turned around and looked at me. “I guess you really
do
want to ruin our evening.”

I retreated and sat down on my bed. “Sorry.”

“I’ve never met anyone from Earth,” she went on, “who really understood. Don’t they teach you anything there? Look—Earth gets everything from us. Power, minerals, drugs, manufactured products of all kinds. Power for the lofting lasers at the spaceports comes from our orbital Sun rigs, and so will the increased power loads for the new gravity catapults. We handle all communications throughout the solar system. Believe me, the antigrav corridors from Earth will use a lot of power—”

“But who would want to deny all this?” I said, feeling a bit defensive.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “A political struggle has been going on for some time. Power is shifting to the Sunspacers.”

“Well, it happens,” I said, “but we’re all the same humanity. We come from the solar system.”