Far Frontiers Part 16

Jenny put a hand on his shoulder, not holding him ~. but comforting him. She asked what he was doing. "I'm just looking for the way back to my quarters," he said. Tears blurred his vision of her. "Where do you go when you can't find your home?"

Sharon looked back over her shoulder, surveying well-kept gardens and the hopeless souls lingering Grampa saw tears well up in her eyes, too, at this sad sight, a limbo where memories and ident.i.ties wandered aimlessly out of people's minds.

She helped him get one feeble leg over the railing, then swung one of her own legs over.

The two straddled the edge for a moment. Grampa reached out to hold Jenny's hands.

And they fell together.

Granipa felt like he'd just jumped out the air lock into open s.p.a.ce, with the remaining atmosphere rus.h.i.+ng past him, dissipating into the void. He peered down, watching the fiercestorm leap up to meet them, its spiraling arms spread to catch them in its vapory embrace.

While they plummeted, emotions surged through Grampa's heart: fear of death, antic.i.p.ation of freedom, fascination with the gale raging around them, Sharon's hands holding his. Her eyes sparkled with the same uncertain hope and inexplicable joy he experienced.

Grampa prepared for death, wondering if anything waited for him beyond that final, conscious barrier of life. He glanced over Jenny's shoulder at the wind and lightning tearing through the pressure-dense clouds. He expected at any moment they'd crush, rip, and blow him and Sharon to oblivion. But her eyes gave Grampa the peace and courage to face what he ex- pected. . . or whatever unimaginable end awaited them.

He closed his eyes, allowing his addled senses to tumble around him. Instead of falling down, Grampa felt like he was climbing, pulling himself up that companionway ladder to his quarters. Familiar impressions rounded him: the smell of his service locker, a utilbag stuffed with tools tossed on the deck, holopictures stuck on the bulkhead wall. He psed onto his bunk with the satisfaction of suc~fully completing the day's work. Grampa wrapped nself in his warm military blanket. Here he was free life's problems and limitations. He didn't care his cabin dissolved from his consciousness, beise he could finally embrace its memory without of losing it.

On some level he felt the pressure crus.h.i.+ng his body, compacting his fragmented brain into a on star. The winds filled him, and he drank deeply their crisp, pure scent. The electrical discharges flas.h.i.+ng all about them energized him, blasting through the fog haunting his mind. But Grampa wasn't Iestroyed. His consciousness-his soul-remained, perceptions and memories becoming sharper, more vivid. He looked into Jenny's eyes, and suddenly ~verything became clear.

The clouds transformed Jenny into the girl he remembered from school, the one on whom he'd had a crush. All the feelings of blissful infatuation filled him: iess, idealized euphoria, the vague yet certain ex~ctation of joy. The vapors clothed her in the dress he ~ught her during his delusional shopping trip in the garden. The winds played with its hem and tousled her like a warm morning breeze. The pressured haze orange lightning transfigured her into anangel surrounded by an aura of golden brilliance. Her arms reached out to save him, draw him back from the darkness of his life into something more wonderful and delightfully mysterious.

Jenny touched him, and details of her life illuminated his mind. He read it all in her eyes, heard it in her smile, felt it in the gentle touch of her fingers. He knew she watched her parents die like those back on the platform-their lives slowly deteriorating, trapped in uselcss bodies with disintegrating brains. He realized the infinite love and patience within her to have endured that torture, then stay to comfort others trapped there. It might as well have been purgatory.

Grampa focused on Jenny's hands holding him, infusing him with a s.h.i.+mmering light that cleared the gray from his mind and returned memories long lost. Now they flooded back to him like the million voices of a triumphant choir: pride swelling in his chest at his technical academy graduation; reconfiguring the power conduits around a blasted coupling box; his granddaughter's infant hand holding his index finger; approaching a ma.s.sive starcruiser in an insignificant personnel shuttle; sharing dinner with his family, the smell of roast lamb wafting through the kitchen. He saw them not as if he were losing their impressions, but experiencing them for the first time, fresh and unexplored, all at once. He embraced them like meeting old friends after countless years apart. . . and picking up right where they'd left off.

The intense pressure became innumerable warm hands patting him on the back, embracing him, welcoming him home. They surrounded Grampa, inviting him to join them, a cheering crowd hoisting him to their shoulders to celebrate the victory.

The wind rushed through Grampa, calling his name in myriad voices, the sounds of people he once knew, still knew, and would know. They gave him the comfort of strong friends reunited, the excitement of meeting them for the first time, a life's worth of experiences ahead of them. His old buddies encouraged him to join them for another drink. s.h.i.+pmates congratulated him on a job well done. Children giggled as their light voices climbed over him. Someone whispered seductively to him, a long-lost lover, or perhaps even Jenny.

Grampa looked into her face, smiling, glowing, framed by her golden hair. Beyond them the storm's plumes formed a stratospheric landscape. In the distance all their friends enjoyed a picnic among the hills and fields of illuminated clouds. The gale's cries formed music, the lightning laughed, and the pressure surrounded them in the pleasant humidity of an early spring morning.

Grampa turned to Jenny, smiling at her gentle, brown eyes. "I'm Charles AnthonyMarlowe, engineer's mate first cla.s.s."

"Hi, Charles. I'm Danielle Jennifer Hawkins, nurse."

"Please, call me Charlie," he replied.

As they floated off to picnic with the others frolicking in the sunlit clouds, Jenny took Grampa's hand in hers. "Come on, Charlie," she said. "Let's go play."

DOWN ON THE FARM.

by Julie E. Czerneda

Canadian author and John W. Campbell award finalist Julie E. Czemeda lives in a country cottage with her family. Her novels include A Thousand Words for Stranger, Beholder's Eye, Ties of Power, and Changing Vision, all published by DAW. A former biologist, she has written and edited several textbooks, including No Limits: Developing Scientific Literacy Using Science Fiction. A hockey and football fan, Julie is currently at work on her next novel.The satellite signals pulsed to Demeter's surface, regular as rain, collecting like so many puddles in stations nestled within belts of fertile farmland. They were interpreted, enhanced with input from land-based towers, rerouted, and pa.s.sed along to the tireless machines without flaw it was archaic but reliable. This far from Earth, on humanity's latest frontier~ reliability counted for more than style.

"Stick your nose in it!" Deighton roared. The wide-eyed, would-be colonist looked up from her crouch, then, doubtfully, at the handful of dark, steamy organic matter in her gloved hand. She hadn't expected this; then again, which of the eager recruits from an overly civilized Earth did? Education was, Deighton thought with a bit of exasperation, always left to those in the field.

"In it?" came a horrified mutter from someone among those cl.u.s.tered for today's cla.s.s at Demeter's Colonist Induction Center. Deighton made a mental note regarding pig sty a.s.signments for the remainder of the week. Should kill or cure him.

Deighton gestured impatiently. The recruit with the handful took an ill-advised deep breath as she bent her head over her hand. The cla.s.s, mindful of past experience and determined to succeed, unconsciously leaned forward with her. The delicate, upturned tip of her nose disappeared into the ma.s.s. There was a silent, prolonged moment of disbelief-on Deighton's part as well as his cla.s.s. She raised her head, the beginnings of a triumphant look on her face, a flake of greenish black on one cheek.

"I meant stop being squeamish and take a closer look at it, you fool!" he growled, throwing up his big hands. "What did you think you'd learn about the d.a.m.ned horse at ann's length? Does she need worming or not?"

"Worming?" The recruit turned an alarming shade of green and dropped face first into the manure. Her cla.s.smates rushed forward to help her, exclaiming in equal parts sympathy and disgust.

Patterns set by schedules and plans generated the season past were implemented. Spray, like a surgical tool, pinpointed the blush of green that marked resurgent weeds and coated themwith deadly dew A hand's breadth away, new seedlings glowed under a mist of nutrients, receiving a boost of phosphorus, copper~ and su!fur to help them match those growing in richer soil just ahead. Satellite signals pulsed down unceasingly, telling the machines where they were within mere centimeters.

The lone human in the lead machine, a jockey on a five-ton metal monster~ spent the time writing letters home. She was in token charge of the flock of twenty, floating in meticulous formation across the waving gra.s.s ocean, immense boom sprayers held out as if wings. A human presence was a holdover from the colony's first days when the machines might have encountered something not covered by failsafes or programming. Now, she was there in case something unimaginable went wrong. But nothing ever did.

Cla.s.ses were over for the day. Taking advantage of the late-lingering light of the northern prairie summer, most of the Center staff had jumped into trucks and headed to the sandbanks of the nearby Green River to swim and relax.

The newest batch of recruits, not yet ent.i.tled to planetside liberties, had all showered, one twice, and were tired in that bone-deep way that encouraged philosophy. As usual, they gathered at the fence line to gaze l.u.s.tfully upon the fields surrounding the Center, to where machines flashed and gleamed, slicing soil and cradling corn, humming in C major chords.

"That's real farming," one burly recruit breathed, eyes round with wonder. 'That's where I plan to be."

"A jockey? Give me a break," his smaller companion dug a sharp elbow into his ribs.

'The future's those guys.~~ The pair turned as one to the huge bay doors where yet another freshly emptied harvester growled its way into the beginning twilight. Ag-techs in their pristine whites clucked and fussed over the immense machine as though over the birth of a champion calf. Unimpressed, the harvester continued toward the field, halting its slow inevitable course only once, to let a stray chicken cross. Deighton's pretend farmyard was never perfect.

"Yep. That's farming." They paused in silent commumon, no need to remind each other of what was definitely not, in their opinion, real farming.

Still the thought couldn't be totally contained. "Have you checked out tomorrow's schedule?" the young woman asked bitterly. "Scouting for s.m.u.t. On foot. And in the barley, noless."

Shudders oscillated down a dozen backs. The evening air was settling, leaving no doubt that the day's unusual humidity would mean a rough night's sleep and an early return to the heavy heat in the morning. And barley hairs had a way of creeping under pant legs, no matter how tightly they were tucked into boot tops.

"Don't know why they haven't spent the cash and put in automated samplers like we have at home," grumbled one. "What are they waiting for? Demeter's been settled long enough, hasn't it? The government promos were all raving how perfect this world is for ag-biz-how soon it will be exporting pharmaceuticals and fresh produce to the stations, let alone be self-sufficient. I don't know about you, but I signed up for my fifteen years here to make some serious credits, not pretend to be some twentieth-century farmer."

Nods of agreement. Then the young woman said boldly, "We won't be stuck here much longer."

"Maybe you don't think three and a half Demmonths isn't long, but I do," the other recruit responded glumly. "You know the drill. We're in for a full season. Everyone from colonist prospect to temp worker has to pa.s.s Induction training-"

A third, hitherto silent, disagreed sharply. "Haven't you heard the scoop from home? We aren't the only ones who think making techs shovel manure and chew canola is a waste of time and resources."

"Hold it down! Here comes Deighton."

Deighton, also showered but inclined to look fresh from the barn regardless, contemplated the evening sky, ignoring the recruits' retreat as easily as he dismissed the ceaseless machines surrounding his island of peace. He also ignored the stars beginning to pockmark the darkening arch with unnamed constellations, looking for and finding what he was after, head strained backward until his shoulders ached. Satellites, like pendulum clocks, rolled around Demeter, always where they should be, always transmitting, dependable as rain in spring.

'it's coming," he whispered to the moving spots of light, feeling unusually discouraged.

There had been news today-the kind that traveled in low voices, avoiding corn systems and certainly never leaving a paper trail. Not good news and not unexpected, at least by those like Deighton whose labors had added Earth-scents to the evening air. "Too d.a.m.n soon."

"Pardon?"Deighton dropped his gaze, trying not to scowl at the small, earnest face lifted to his. At least she'd cleaned off the evidence of this afternoon's blunder. "Nothing, Ms. Peirez. Just talking to myself."

"May I speak to you for a moment!"

"If it's about what happened today!" he began warningly. Last thing he needed tonight was a complaint about his methods.

"No, sir," she said quietly but fmnly. 'That was my mistake."

Thinking he knew where this was going, Deighton sighed. "You want out. I'm sorry, Ms.

Peirez, if that's the case, but settlement fees are nonrefundable." Among other things, those fees helped finance each little move forward in technology for the colony. Potential colonists contracted for short- or long-term stints on Demeter-and paid up front for both travel and the time it would take to turn them into productive members of a society with quite different demands than the tame world they'd left.

Left being the operative word. Demeter was Earth's first, full-scale attempt to expand humanity's reach. No one was granted full immigrant status here until they'd proved their worth and their commitment to stay. There were too many waiting their turn at this fresh start to waste valuable time or resources on anyone who'd take their skills back home on retirement.

"No, sir." This with an element of surprise. "I'm on a twenty-five-year immigration track.

It took some doing, as you can appreciate; there are a lot of robotics specialists who'd kill to be out here, to get a chance at this human-machine interface tech. There's nothing like this back home." She waved in a vague general motion that seemed to encompa.s.s the barn as well as the stars above. "I've no intention of throwing away my chance." She took a step to one side.

Deighton realized it was so the lights from the barn shone on his face and she could see his expression. He wasn't sure why, until she went on in a determined, jumping-off-the-cliff voice.

"What I wanted to ask you is: why? Why are you making us do this? You must know how unpopular it is to force everyone coming here, regardless of their specialties or training, to learn this-antique-farming methodology. Don't give me that government line about training us to survive as pioneers. Sure, all the brochures call Demeter the frontier, but what's that mean, really?" Her voice grew even firmer. "Demeter City is three times the size of my hometown already. From what the staff says, there's nothing on Earth we'd want that isn't here now. This is Earth, as far as anyone can tell.""Oh, it's not Earth," Deighton countered, inclined to be amused. "Granted, you'd be hard- pressed to find any differences in this particular biome. The prep crews were quite thorough."

Demeter had qualified for colonization based on two key factors: its Earth-similar physical environment, from atmosphere to gravity, and the relative youth of its biology. The Demetran fauna consisted of three phyla, none with bone or appreciable size, while the flora, slightly more abundant and varied, still depended on good timing and rainwater for procreation.

From orbit, one could see how the prep crews had rib-boned the colony's agriculture between preserves of native life, preserves kept inviolate by molecular disintegration fields powered from Demeter's own core. Within these fields, Demeter's life could continue to evolve as it would- without further human influence.

That these sentry fields protected the spreading leaves of alien vegetation, from bananas to maple trees, was equally important.

"I've seen it," she agreed. "Which makes me-and not just me-wonder why we have to spend time here before heading to our real a.s.signments. Blanchard Robotics has a job waiting for me in the city. What's the government thinking: that we'll be mysteriously cut off from tech support or s.h.i.+ps from Earth won't stop here anymore? That's nonsense. If the planet's secured, why can't we get on with settling it? We know our jobs, Mr. Deighton."

"We'll see if you know any more, then," he said with what he felt was admirable restraint.

"Good night, Ms. Peirez."

Deighton turned and walked away, leaving her standing, mouth slightly open.

The next day, Persephone blazed downward in all her glory. It was as hot, humid, and uncomfortable as any of the recruits had feared. There was barely enough room between the rows of waxy barley stems for a person to stand with both feet together. The plants were just tall enough to discourage straddling. The fifteen recruits followed Deighton down the row like a chain of condemned conga dancers.

"Here," the instructor announced, stopping the advance by simply planting his big boots on a spot absolutely indistinguishable from anywhere on the hundred hectares stretching in all directions. There was a moment of collision and confusion that quickly subsided under his scowl.The Induction Center's farmyard, fondly remembered by the overheated and already weary recruits as a blessed oasis, was over the horizon, as was the transport that had dropped them at the edge of the field two hours earlier. The sole thing taller than the humans and grain was the distant sequence of thunderstorms, luminous white towers connected to the ground by dark walls of rain.

The sudden silence was balm to Deighton's ears. He stilled his own breathing to better appreciate the sense of being supremely one with the world, to better hear the rustling as small hot breezes tossed the hairy barley heads this way and that, reflecting tawny gleams amid the green.

"What do we do now, sir?" asked the recruit whose poor luck had put him directly behind the instructor in line. He had the look of someone feeling doomed no matter what.

"What do you think you should do now, Mr. Red-ding?" Deighton replied quite reasonably, blinking sweat from his eyes. There was an abominable itch on his inner thigh that he'd wouldn't have scratched to save his life. It lent a certain fierceness to Deighton's expression as he waited for an answer.

Mr. Redding merely gulped. One of the keener types near the back waved a hand.

"Establish our position and begin sampling, sir. Is that right?"

"Does Mr. Redding agree with that?"

Mr. Redding would have agreed to running naked through the gra.s.s if it would get him away from Deighton's gimlet stare.

"You know the drill, people."

Deighton settled his hip against the walking stick he'd brought with him and watched the ensuing scurry of activity. The recruits quite competently called up the positioning data on their belt comps, children's toys on Earth. New recruits frequently found it charming that Demeter relied on such basic tech.

There was little discussion. The s.h.i.+mmering heat haze and the coating of dust had turned the formerly individual recruits into a pack of brown automatons. Meters and other devices were waved above the plants and soil with almost comical precision. Results were plugged into belt comps for later a.n.a.lysis. Then, out came the nets, and, one by one, the recruits stopped moving of their own accord and looked to Deighton.

He grunted. What were they teaching in biology back home these days? Deighton took a net from the nearest student, the unfortunate Mr. Redding again as it happened, and steppedcarefully two rows to the west. Then he swept the net in four graceful arcs, back and forth, just kissing the top of the barley heads. Finally, he shook the contents of the net deeper inside and used one hand to close the soft white netting.

"Oh," came a soft chorus of comprehension and nets began beating their way across the field.

"I caught something. I caught something!"

Deighton, almost dozing in the heat, pushed back his broad-brimmed hat to better appreciate the spectacle of fourteen relatively mature human beings rus.h.i.+ng to peer into a net held against the emotion-swelled bosom of, yes, Mr. Redding. "I should hope so," Deighton muttered to himself.

The Something turned out to be a cabbage b.u.t.terfly-a component of the transplanted prairie ecosystem now thriving on Demeter. Deighton watched it flutter away as fifteen recruits meticulously recorded its existence here and now, idly wondering if any had ventured far enough from their homes to see one on Earth. This was the catch of the hour, the other reemits unimpressed by the dozens of tiny green aphids and black s.h.i.+ny thrips that shared the inside of their nets with fragments of barley hair. But they dutifully recorded everything, which was a good start.

The next sampling site was a kilometer away. The recruits, though hot, were buoyed by their success and chatted with enthusiasm for the first while. Then the toil of placing feet one before the other and balancing a pack took more of their attention.

The next site was markedly different to Deighton's experienced eye. He waited, hip braced against his walking stick, for anyone else to notice as the recruits began their tasks.

They humed through the measurements and sampling, then spread out, nets like giant b.u.t.terflies themselves in search of prey. They'd learned the fun part. He sighed.

"Mr. Deighton, what's wrong here?"

The quiet voice from behind made him start. It belonged to Ms. Peirez, the wanna-be robotics specialist. He was pleasantly surprised.

'What makes you ask?"She bent over the nearest row of plants. 'They're farther apart. There are gaps-here- and over there. Some of them," her voice came up m.u.f.fled because she had gone on all fours to better inspect her suspects. "Yes, some have leaves just on the outside."

Deighton was delighted, but kept his face skeptical. "So?"

"Well, that's not right," she insisted. The others, sensing something going on, started to gather around, nets in hand. "What's wrong?"

"Check the nets," someone suggested. The recruits hurried to do their counts, inputting the numbers. A quick stat a.n.a.lysis found no difference in the numbers of insects. A similar check of soil content found only minor fluctuations. Deighton settled himself to wait. Either they would care enough to find out, or they would give up.

Although there was no place to sit down without crus.h.i.+ng the barley plants, the recruits managed to squat in a rough semicircle. Suggestions, some valid and several that made Deighton roll his eyes, flew back and forth.

The ideas slowed, then stopped. They called up last years' harvest map and found a slight decrease in yield, but no other clues. Flasks of water were shared in glum silence. The rustle of the grain was the only movement. Thunder grumbled, safely distant.

Deighton thumped his stick on the ground. Fifteen sets of eyes leaped to him as though they'd forgotten he was there. He thumped the ground a second time. Ms. Peirez shook her head.

"We tested the soil."

He smiled. "But you didn't stick your nose in it."

She looked quizzical, then got it with an answering grin that showed startling white teeth in the mask of dust. "Who's got the shovel?"

Twenty centimeters down were the culprits. The recruits stared in awe at the dozens of small yellow larvae squirming on the sieve.