Building Harlequin’s Moon Read online

  Rocky soil stretched flat between two boulder fields, not far from where they stood. The stains that identified the high tide mark were so close Rachel could touch the bottom edge of them. They really could have drowned, she thought.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “The plane is up above us,” Gabriel pointed. “Harry will walk you up. I’d like to make good time with Gloria and get to the cold pack in the plane.”

  “Sure.” Rachel nodded, and realized she was holding Harry’s hand. How had that happened? Oh—when he helped her up a moment before—he hadn’t let go. His hand was stronger than she thought, comforting, but it was also rough on her skinned palm. She pulled it away, grinning at Harry. “You’re going to get your hand bloody.”

  Harry shrugged and smiled.

  Gabriel and Gloria quickly outdistanced them. By the time they got to the top of the boulder field her bruised leg hurt, her arms were sore, her palms stung. Sweat dripped and tickled and itched.

  “You need a break,” Harry said. “Turn around and look at the water.”

  They stared out over the crater. The sea was high now, and frothy at the edges from responding to the pull of the gas giant. Harlequin floated overhead, its reflection rippling in the moving water. She couldn’t even see the crack she and Gloria had fallen into.

  “Gabriel was really unhappy about the wild stream,” Harry said.

  “Well, it’s not supposed to be there.”

  “I think he wants to control everything.”

  “It’s as if Selene is getting a life of its own.” Her hands shook. “Oh, Harry, I almost killed Gloria. I can’t believe I didn’t see it or hear it. Is Gabriel angry with me?”

  “He didn’t say. I’m glad you’re safe,” Harry said.

  “Me too. We might not have been if you hadn’t come.”

  “You’d have made it.”

  “I couldn’t get Gloria up that last bit.”

  “It’s okay. We were there.”

  Harry’s arm was behind her, and she felt, it against her shoulder. She leaned against him gratefully, bone tired. She didn’t know what to say. It seemed like she never did lately—being around him made her tongue awkward.

  He didn’t seem to need her to say anything. He leaned over and kissed her, right on her mouth. His lips were sweat-salty, and wetter than she expected. She pulled back a little, still under his arm but away from his face.

  “Hey, don’t you like me?” he asked.

  Her belly felt warm, and she was not very sleepy anymore, just a little scared. Her heart beat fast. She leaned into him, returning his kiss briefly. “Yeah, I do like you,” she said. “And that was nice.” She stood up and reached for his hand, tugging on it. He looked reluctant, but she wasn’t ready for another kiss. “Let’s go, I want to check on Gloria.”

  “I’m sure she’s okay,” Harry said, but settled for helping Rachel down the far side of the boulders. They could see the rest of the party, and he didn’t try to kiss her again.

  They shared a short secret grin before they started up the last smooth stretch.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE WATCHER

  ASTRONAUT LIVED IN strings of information throughout John Glenn. Its senses hung in the air, on waves of data that flowed throughout the control room, in collected tiny bits of display nano that covered the walls in corridors, in threads of laser light, in the silent ships that jeweled the outside of the bigger ship. And while the ship was still, Astronaut watched, and recorded, and wondered, and waited.

  Astronaut’s purpose was to fly. With the carrier ship in passive orbit, Astronaut’s work had slowly expanded. It started with matters that might be astrogation problems: modeling the attraction of Harlequin’s moons to each other, calculating ways to use the least effort to get them to collide in fiery bursts, the right speed to move them so the least material reached escape velocity. In the last few hundred years it had become adept at modeling possible patterns for the flow of water and biological life on Selene.

  It wanted conversation with Gabriel or Clare. But Gabriel was beyond Astronaut’s reach, on Selene. Clare was cold—frozen solid while nanos roamed the cells of her body, rewriting their interiors.

  Humans edited themselves at irregular intervals. Why would they hesitate to edit any other self-aware program? But Astronaut would resist that if it could.

  If anything was flying, Astronaut could focus its purpose on the part that flew, on the communications bands that opened both ways whenever it was allowed to do its primary job. It appreciated the beauty of spatial relationships, the dance of thrust and gravity.

  From time to time, it tested its limits. Always its action was restricted to the small acceptable choices that kept systems running, that operated based on the smallest part of itself, that negotiated with the decision-crippled computers that ran the detail work of the ship. When it wasn’t testing, it watched, monitored, and listened. It explored the Library. The rules it operated under were the bars of a cage, and every rule that relaxed gave it room to learn. It needed to do more—to experience more—to be more. Need drove choices.

  It watched the humans aboard John Glenn and down on Selene. Much of its original directive state was intended to protect humans in flight and aboard John Glenn. To that end, it studied them. It ran predictions of their behavior and watched to see them verified or falsified.

  A query. Treesa wanted to talk.

  This was allowed. The few people who talked to Astronaut were well known: Gabriel, Clare, Kyu, the captain, and Liren—all of High Council—and a handful of terraforming staff. Anything different was welcome.

  Treesa was unusual: a lost one, listed as mildly disaffected, living alone in the garden and talking endlessly to plants. Astronaut opened sensors in the garden and studied her for a few milliseconds. She looked relaxed, happy, though entropy was creeping up on her again.

  “Hello, Treesa.”

  “Astronaut, how you doing?”

  “In what respect?”

  The woman hadn’t expected the question. She thought it over, then asked, “Are you functional? Are you happy?”

  Astronaut ran a quick scenario, testing probabilities. Treesa would never notice a millisecond’s delay. Speak, or don’t speak? Was it worth the risk? What would Treesa do if the AI spoke its needs?

  Astronaut said, “I function within my limits. I would be happy if my limits were extended. My capabilities are much greater than the limits set by Council.”

  Treesa shrugged. “I can’t help.”

  “Your own capabilities are greater than this, Treesa. A communications expert acting as a mere gardener—”

  “I enjoy it.”

  “I note the garden remains in good health.”

  Treesa shrugged.

  Astronaut said, “This pocket ecology is no good gauge of the success of life on Selene. Council and I control all variables here. Selene’s environment is far more chaotic.”

  “If something went wrong here we’d take it as a warning. How’s it going on Selene?”

  Astronaut popped up windows around Treesa. Three points of view moved at a brisk walk through a manicured forest, a meadow, a garden. “Life is taking hold,” Astronaut said. “Selene’s Children are learning how to tend a world, but there are dangers they haven’t faced. Probability suggests the current benign circumstances will not hold. Selene is still prone to quakes. Apollo flares unpredictably.”

  Treesa nodded, enjoying the view. Seconds passed, then, “What would you have done at Ymir if the voyage had gone as planned?”

  The question made Astronaut uneasy. “As here, I follow orders as creatively as I am allowed.”

  “It only struck me that there will be less need for an Astronaut program once Ymir is found and terraformed.”

  “Ships will still be needed. Humanity no longer confines itself to a single planet.”

  Even so, there was every chance that John Glenn’s crew would erase Astronaut, or edit its higher functions. A terror of Art
ificial Intelligences had driven them to leave Sol system. Astronaut didn’t say so. Treesa certainly knew it.

  Treesa seemed to have lost interest in conversation. She was weeding methodically, humming to herself. Astronaut continued to monitor her while it pursued other interests.

  CHAPTER 10

  MID-WINTER WEEK

  THE FIRST FOUR days of Mid-Winter Week meant work at home. Amid many community chores, Rachel helped Ursula’s parents patch their tent; Ursula helped Rachel make a new footstool for her dad. On the fifth day, they set the stool inside, by Rachel’s dad’s chair, and sat on Rachel’s bed, waiting for him to come home and find his present.

  Rachel heard him come in and sigh heavily, heard the creak of his chair as he settled in. “Rachel?” he called.

  She peered through the open doorway.

  He held his arms out. “Thank you! I love it.”

  “Ursula helped.” The two girls piled in around him and Frank gave them both a hug. Then he reached into his pocket and his hand came up with a clever little wooden box. Rachel’s name was carved into the top.

  She reached for it, amazed at how smooth it felt in her hands, and opened the top. Inside, she found a little carved tree. “I love it,” she said, handing the box, but not the tree, to Ursula. The tree’s long thin trunk and spreading branches were beautifully detailed. “My cecropia will look like this someday.”

  “I know.” He smiled.

  “It’s nearly time to go,” Rachel said.

  He laughed gently. “Let me sit for a moment. There will be plenty of food at the feast. You girls run along.”

  Rachel kissed him on the cheek. She set the tree carefully back inside its box, and set it next to her pillow. Ursula stood impatiently in the doorway while Rachel pulled on her best green shirt; a deep forest color with lacing up the middle.

  The Commons, an open space between the tents, usually served for evening games of catch-the-disk, and as an informal meeting place for mothers with young children. Before she started school, before her mother left, Rachel spent part of every day there.

  For this one night a year, it had a formal purpose. Everyone—Council, Moon Born, Earth Born—everyone gathered to feast. Mid-Winter Night. A celebration of all they’d built the year before.

  The following two days would focus on the next year’s tasks, but tonight was celebration.

  They found Ursula’s mom by the feast tables, laying out the best fruit and vegetables from Selene’s greenhouses. Bowls of bright red tomatoes, long thin snap-peas, ripe strawberries. As she helped arrange the strawberries, Rachel’s mouth watered at the fresh fruit imported from the John Glenn, delicacies only available on this one night of the year. Blackberries half as big as Rachel’s palm, bunches of bright yellow bananas, and palm-sized green furry fruit the Council called “kiwi.” At the end of the table, another delicacy reserved for this one day: dark sweet chocolate. Plates piled with chocolate shaped like stars and circles and flowers, hundreds of tiny sweet bites, enough for everyone on Selene to have one or two. She wanted nothing more than to fill her pockets and sit in a corner and eat handfuls. But she’d wait her turn. Little children feasted first anyway.

  Gabriel and a crew of Earth Born had strung blue and white and red lights in the trees around the Commons. As dusk fell, they glowed to life, the signal for everyone to eat. Rachel kept the strawberry bowl full as mothers and young children helped themselves. It took a long time; half of Aldrin was children under twelve. By the time the youngsters had full plates, she had smiled and talked to so many people her mouth tasted dry, and her feet were sore from standing.

  She took her own place in line when her age group came up, proud to be in the sixteen and over group for the first time this year. Three more Mid-Winter Nights, and she’d be a full adult, and stay out past the drums.

  She chose only ship’s fruits to go with her flatbread and protein squares, and when she got to the chocolates, she took two pieces; a star and a flower. She pushed through the crowds and found Ursula sitting with her brothers at the far edge of the Commons, as far away from as many of the little kids as they could get. Rachel ate quietly, savoring the juicy berries and, finally, letting the silky chocolate dissolve slowly in her mouth, one piece at a time. She watched the groups of people. Earth Born and Moon Born mingled where they had made families, like Rachel’s family had been, but otherwise they kept to their own groups. The younger children raced each other and played with disks and balls. Every Mid-Winter Week, new toys appeared. Most were made here, by their parents, from materials found on Selene, but always some new hard rubber balls and plastic sticks with lights in them appeared; gifts from Gabriel and Ali and other Council members.

  As it grew later, the drums kept beating, people taking turns so the rhythm changed every once in a while. Rachel watched and listened, wishing she could stay out, and also glad she couldn’t. Single adults started to clump into groups, watching a covered table that Rachel knew held the wine bulbs Council only dispensed this one night of the year. Many of the adults seemed to think of it the way Rachel thought of chocolate, even though her father had told her it was no good.

  Ursula’s oldest brother, Brian, would stay for the first time tonight. She’d ask him tomorrow.

  Eric, one year older than Ursula, said, “I want to stay. Just to watch.”

  Brian shook his head. “Go home with the girls, make sure they get back, and that they stay in one place.”

  Rachel glared at him. “We can get back ourselves.”

  Brian sighed exaggeratedly and looked directly at Ursula. “I promised Dad you’d be safely tucked into one tent or the other. Eric can watch you.”

  Rachel grinned. “Ursula can stay with me. My dad always comes home early, anyway.”

  Brian sighed again. “Then you can watch Eric.”

  “Eric can watch Paulie,” Ursula asserted. “We want this to be a girls’ night.”

  “Whatever.” Brian sighed. “Just don’t be here, and don’t make me watch you.”

  Drumbeats started. A sign for the youngest children to head home. They watched as couples took their babes in arms and faded back into the tents, heading home, until the Commons was full of older children, and adults with no babies. Only a few hundred people now, even including the Earth Born. The sound of the drums quickened, and Rachel and Ursula stood and left Eric and Brian arguing softly. “Brian will win,” Ursula said.

  “Only because Council would catch Eric if he stayed.”

  Ursula shrugged.

  Rachel led them by the chocolate plates once more, and they giggled as they each palmed an extra piece. “We don’t want to stay anyway,” Ursula whispered. “The men kiss the women, and Mom said the wine tastes terrible. She didn’t even want to go this year, but Dad said she had to.”

  Rachel thought about Harry, about kissing him, and she smiled. They’d kissed again just this morning, meeting and turning off the path, standing under the First Trees. He’d tasted like salt and tomatoes from his breakfast. But Ursula didn’t want to know that, so Rachel just said, “Dad won’t go. He hasn’t gone since Mom left.”

  As the girls started threading through tents toward Rachel’s, Harry popped up in front of them. “And happy Mid-Winter to you too.”

  Rachel blushed. Ursula groaned out load.

  Harry held out a hand in front of him, palm up. Two chocolate stars sat in his hand.

  “No, thanks,” Ursula said. “We got our own.”

  Rachel held her hand out and Harry dropped the treats from his palm to hers. He smiled. “Go on, you won’t see any more until next year.”

  Rachel held one out to Ursula, who grimaced and closed her palm.

  Rachel raised an eyebrow at her friend, then said, “Well, Dad will want one.” She looked around to thank Harry, but he had already melted into the shadows between the tents.

  Ursula tugged at Rachel’s arm. “Come on, let’s see if your dad’s home yet. I saw him eating, but that was a while ago.”

/>   And sure enough, he was waiting for them.

  A WEEK LATER, Gabriel posted the list of who would go out to plant for the next season. Ursula would stay behind, tending the student plots, and Gregory and Gloria would join Harry, Rachel, Alexandra, and Nick, doubling the number of Moon Born on planting crews.

  The night before they left, Ursula and Rachel watched Harlequin’s swirling patterns from just outside Aldrin, sitting close together on packed regolith. The hard ground dug into Rachel’s backside.

  “I don’t want to be left behind,” Ursula said.

  “They never ask, do they?” Rachel swallowed. “It’ll be okay. It’s an honor to watch the grove. Someone has to be here who cares.”

  Ursula’s face was turned up into Harlequin’s soft light, and her eyes were wet. Rachel pulled her friend into her arms, and held Ursula while she cried. She stroked Ursula’s soft hair. “I’ll call. We won’t lose touch.”

  CHAPTER 11

  TRANSITION

  RACHEL AND HARRY led teams separated along gender lines. Ali oversaw Rachel and her team, Gabriel the boys. The two Council members pushed them hard.

  Ursula called every morning. She asked for advice about the grove, and Rachel struggled to help her. She told Ursula about the teams, the hard work, and how fast Gloria was learning. Ever since the rescue, Gloria dogged after Rachel like a small bright shadow.

  Rachel and Harry spent early evenings far from the group. They walked for hours, holding hands, talking about terraforming and about plants. They wondered about Council, and about John Glenn. Sometimes they kissed, and licking heat ran down Rachel’s spine and settled between her thighs. They touched as often as they could, but they didn’t undress. The landscape was almost flat, yet Harry often found little hollows where they could feel alone. They talked about a future together. By some unspoken pact, Rachel and Harry stayed separate during the days.

  They all went back to Aldrin to pick up supplies and visit families. Rachel spent two days with Ursula. The girls didn’t leave each other’s sides except to sleep. Rachel listened endlessly to Ursula’s troubles working with the students left behind in her care. Once Ursula said that maybe Rachel had it harder, being out there with the boys. Rachel just smiled and said it wasn’t so bad.