Sada didn’t look much different from any other Outer. A tall, skinny young woman dressed in a figure-hugging suitliner, her pale hair roughly cropped, a tattoo of the constellation Hydrus sprawled across her right cheek. But her partner was an extraordinary creature who might have stepped from the virtual landscapes of some fantasy saga or one of Newt’s silly stories about pirates and monsters: a tall, powerfully-built man with black mirrors for eyes and skin the colour of new copper and smooth as plastic and completely hairless (he didn’t even have eyelashes), dressed in a white suitliner moulded to his torso and cut low at the back to accommodate his tail. Rooted at the base of his spine, it was long and muscular, and divided at its end into clasping fronds like a fleshy orchid. Despite his imposing presence, he was no more than an escort, hanging back as Sada Selene stepped close to Macy with cool confidence.
‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘Making mud pies as usual.’
‘Making a home,’ Macy said.
She was dressed in paper coveralls with a rip along one shoulder seam that had been mended with tape, auburn hair scraped back and held with a twist of plastic wire, dirt crested under her fingernails, a smear of mud on one cheek. Sada overtopped her by almost a metre, clean as new porcelain in her immaculate white suitliner.
‘I suppose you could call it nice enough, in an unevolved kind of way,’ Sada said. ‘But do you know what this reminds me of? This sunken chamber and its poor imitation of Earth? East of Eden. A place designed by people who liked to pretend that they were artists and scientists, that they lived the life of the mind, but who were really no more than farmers suffering a collective failure of imagination. Perhaps it’s good enough for you, Macy. But it isn’t in any way acceptable for those of us who want to explore new ways of being human. These low-gravity architectures are no more than imitations of the African forests that our ancestors of the long ago quit for the savannahs and seashores. They force us to use our monkey muscles to get about in them, force us to think monkey thoughts. No, if we are going to explore entirely new ways of living, then our settlements and cities have to be entirely new. Unfettered by memories of Earth.’
‘This from someone whose boyfriend has a tail,’ Macy said.
‘It looks good on him, doesn’t it?’
Phoenix Lyle was swishing the fleshy tip of his tail back and forth to the general delight of the children gathered around him.
‘Those are your wards,’ Sada said. ‘The blond boy and girl holding hands. Hannah and Ham.’
‘Han.’
‘They’re cute, in an old-fashioned way,’ Sada said. ‘I expect Idriss told you why I’m here. I hope we can set aside our differences and discuss it sensibly.’
‘Everyone thinks I’m an expert on everything to do with Earth because I was born there,’ Macy said. ‘I’m not even an expert on Greater Brazil, let alone the Pacific Community.’
‘I never imagined that you were. But you might be able to contribute some useful insights.’
‘I suppose you’ve already discussed this with Idriss.’
‘At great length. Eventually, he agreed to agree with me.’
‘He should have told you that I hardly know anything about the Pacific Community, and most of what I do know is propaganda and black information put out by the Greater Brazilian government when they and the Pacific Community almost went to war, ten years back. I’ve never been there. I haven’t even met anyone from there.’
‘Not yet. But you will.’
‘Are they coming here? To Endeavour?’
‘Why would they want to do that? They want to talk to us,’ Sada said, with acid patience, ‘because we are the principal power in the Neptune System. But I have agreed that Idriss can attend the preliminary meetings. As long as he is accompanied by you.’
‘Because you think I might have some useful insights. I can give you one right now,’ Macy said. ‘You’re trying to play the Pacific Community against its partners in the TPA. Have you given any thought to the possibility that the Pacific Community might be using you?’
She would have said more, told Sada that she and the rest of the Ghosts, and most of the Free Outers, were relying on good intentions that the Pacific Community almost certainly didn’t possess, that a small band of refugees trying to make a favourable deal with the political giant - China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa: five billion people - was like hoping to lever the Moon out of orbit, if only they had a long-enough lever and a place to put a fulcrum, but she was distracted by children’s squeals and cries. They’d been chasing the tip of Phoenix Lyle’s tail as he lashed it from side to side, and he’d thrown a muscular coil around the waist of a small boy who’d gotten too close and lifted him wriggling and kicking into the air.
Macy stepped up, told Phoenix Lyle to pick on someone his own size, and took hold of the boy and pulled him free. He immediately began to cry, huge shuddering sobs, his face hot and wet against her shoulder. Phoenix Lyle smiled blandly and said that he was only having a bit of fun, and so were the kids.
‘You took things too far,’ Macy said. She was angry, because of Phoenix Lyle’s crassness, because of Sada’s presumption. ‘You people always take things too far.’
Sada told her that Phoenix hadn’t mean any harm by it. She said, ‘The offer is genuine. You can help all of us, Macy. And in a funny way I look forward to working with you. After all, we had some fine fun in East of Eden, didn’t we? Fooling the old fossils who thought the place was some kind of Shangri-la.’
‘As I recall, you didn’t tell me what you were going to do until after you did it,’ Macy said. ‘That won’t happen again.’
‘Talk it over with your partner, the heroic pilot. Talk with whoever you want. You have plenty of time. The PacCom ship isn’t due to enter orbit around Neptune for thirty days. But for the sake of everyone in your funny little habitat,’ Sada Selene said, ‘I hope you make the right choice sooner rather than later.’
3
The two men sat on weather-bleached canvas chairs in the shade of a big boxy hangar, off to one side of a runway aimed at a technicolor Texas sunset. Cash Baker working on his third Antarctica beer; Colonel Luiz Schwarcz drinking iced tea. They’d been playing catch-up, but after Cash had brought Luiz up to date, telling his old friend how he’d turned his life around by joining the Reclamation and Reconstruction Corps, there’d been a stretch of silence. At last, Luiz said, ‘Man, one of the things I miss most, up on the Moon, are sunsets.’
‘We have good ones here,’ Cash said. ‘Especially like now, when the wind blows from the northwest and hangs some desert dust in the air. And there’s an awful lot of dust up there right now because we’re in the middle of a drought. A real bad one. But I guess you don’t hear about things like that, up on the Moon.’
‘Perhaps we don’t pay as much attention as we should,’ Luiz said.
‘I don’t blame you, man. You have your work, and you have your family, too.’
‘I got lucky, I know.’
‘Hey, it’s okay,’ Cash said. ‘I’m not trying to get in a pissing contest. I screwed the pooch, sure. But I got over it.’
There was another stretch of silence.
Cash said, for something to say, ‘I still think the best sunsets I ever saw were the ones around Saturn. The sun dropping through the rings, burning down behind Saturn’s limb.’
‘A glorious sight,’ Luiz said.
‘Like a thousand H-bombs going off.’
‘Do you remember much of that stuff?’
‘You mean before I had my ticket cancelled? I really can’t tell any more. It’s like, I know me and Vera Jackson flew into Saturn’s atmosphere on that operation. Deep Sounding. I know those pirates - the ones who called themselves Ghosts? - sent drones chasing after our singleships, and we escaped a close encounter by blasting straight up into space. But that’s because I watched the video we shot over and over, hoping it would tickle some memory. Until one day I realised that I couldn’t tell the difference between remembering watching the video and remembering actually being there . . .’
‘You were there. Most definitely.’
‘You ever run into her, these days?’
‘Vera? I believe she went back to Europe. I don’t even know if she’s still flying.’ Luiz took a sip of his iced tea, said, ‘Did you ever have a close encounter with her?’
‘There’s something I’d definitely like to remember,’ Cash said.
‘I bet you tried,’ Luiz said. ‘I know the rest of us did. She was a glorious piece of work. Beautiful, yet fierce. All business.’
‘From what I’ve seen, she was definitely some kind of flier.’
‘She was. Like many of us, I had my doubts, bringing the Europeans into the programme. It was a political move, which meant that it was born out of some kind of compromise. Neither side getting what they really wanted and ending up with a deal that was neither one thing nor the other. And that might be fine in politics, but it doesn’t cut it when it comes to flying combat planes out in the real world - because as we know all too well there’s no grey area when you’re pushing at the very edge of the envelope. But although I wasn’t prepared to say it then, I have to say now that some of those Europeans knew their way around the sky. And Vera Jackson was better than the rest of them. Almost as good as us.’
‘And we were pretty good, back in the day. I remember that much.’
‘And here you are, still flying.’
‘It’s no J-2, but it goes where you aim it, and it’s light and quick - built from those new composites we stole from the Outers. Like something made out of cobwebs. Drawback is, unloaded, it’s so light you can forget about taking off in a strong headwind. And it has a pretty low absolute ceiling, around about four thousand metres. Which means you have to buck around in thermals when you fly over mountains, and if you run into a thunderstorm you have to fly under it and hope you don’t hit a downburst gust that nails you to the ground. But yeah, it’s still flying.’
Cash finished his beer and slung the long-necked bottle towards the trash can, smiled when it ticked the edge and rattled in. He was hanging loose, doing his best to think of this as purely a social visit, just another evening with the boys at the bar, kicking back and having a little fun. Telling stories of the long-gone. The long-lost. Nothing serious. Nothing that could come back and bite you.
He told Luiz, ‘The resupply work is mostly milk runs, but I do see a bit of action now and then. Like a couple of weeks back, I’m coming into this camp on the front line. Out at the edge of the desert, looks just like all the others. Trailers and tents pitched in the middle of nowhere, acres of bare soil sprayed with that halflife polymer they use to stop it blowing away, trees waiting to be planted, dew traps, new irrigation ditches . . . You have to land on the access road because there’s no airstrip. That’s one reason why the Wreckers Corps use these little courier planes, we can land just about anywhere. The wind is blowing into the desert for a change, so I come around to land in the headwind because that will bring me up nice and short. And as I’m circling around, barely a hundred metres above the deck, heading back in towards the line of trees, I see these scudders below me, get this, on horses. Like something out of the good old days. And they raise up and start shooting at me.’
‘These are the famous rebels you have here?’
‘The Freedom Riders? No, they don’t bother the Wreckers Corps. Far as they’re concerned, the men and women in the Corps are working stiffs like most everyone else. Doing good work too, reclaiming land from desert, making Texas and the rest of what we used to call the U.S. of A. what it once was. No, they don’t have a quarrel with us.’ Cash realised he was talking about what he’d promised Howard he wouldn’t talk about, and said, ‘To get back to my story, those scudders who shot at me, they were bandits plain and simple. I didn’t realise that was what they were doing until a round went through the side window, right next to my head. They put some rounds through the starboard wing, too, and it made me so mad I circled back and shot at the sons of bitches. I carry a pistol, in case I have to put down somewhere in the back of beyond. It isn’t just bandits you have to worry about, out in the wild. Fellow I know had to set down in hills south of here. He was flying a tiltrotor like yours, and the engine died on him. Instead of sitting by his bird and waiting to be picked up he tried to hike out, and got himself eaten by a bear.’
‘Rather ironic,’ Luiz said. ‘You bring back nature and nature bites you in the ass.’
‘I doubt the guy who was eaten saw the funny side,’ Cash said. ‘Anyway, I got on the radio and told the guys in the camp to break out their guns, they had bandits out beyond their perimeter, and then I came right back at the scudders who shot at me. I was about on the ground, so low I was flying in the middle of my own personal dust storm, and I held the yoke with my knees and I emptied the pistol out of the broken window. I knew I wasn’t going to hit anything, but I wanted to show them I wasn’t going to put up with shit like that. People in the camp started shooting at them too. Killed one and drove off the rest. The one they killed was just a kid. Fourteen, fifteen. Teeth filed to points, patterns of welts on his back, tattoos across his face. He was wearing a necklace of human ears, too, and he stank like a polecat.’
Cash reached down and fished another bottle from the icewater in the cooler. His fourth, but what the hell, he was talking with an old buddy he hadn’t seen for six, seven years. It was a special occasion.
‘You still have the edge,’ Luiz said. ‘That’s good.’
‘It was a dumb thing to do, but it felt like the right thing at the time,’ Cash said.
Man, the cold beer was fine going down, what with the heat and wind stripping the moisture right out of him.
‘When I first saw you, you know, I was worried you had given up,’ Luiz said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean your clothes.’
‘My clothes? This is how we are here, when we’re off duty. R&R #669 is a pretty relaxed crew.’