"All the leaves are brown . and the skies are gray ."
The song's minor harmonies echoed in roundelay through the glittering imp-phones that held down Cinnamon Byrd's long black braids even as she floated around the leviponics lab. Not that any brown leaves were ever allowed in the long rows of tomato plants that hung throughout the hydroponics "field", their bare roots wet with nutrient spray. Nels had often teasingly accused her of using Aleut magic to sense when the plants were not doing as well as they should, and nipping the problem, quite literally, in the bud. As Cinnamon passed through the tall rows of verdant growth, her long brown fingers lightly stroked the leaves. Almost absentmindedly, she adjusted the nutrient mixture, adding a touch of iron here, a bit more aeration there, fine tuning the artificial ecosystem. She had only called up the ancient song to compliment the unsettled atmosphere that prevailed on the hydroponics deck of the lightsail spacecraft, Prometheus.
The ascent stage of the lander rocket Eagle had left the Roche lobe of the double-lobed planet Rocheworld, and was now heading back safely to Prometheus, but despite the dramatic escape of the landing party, Cinnamon could sense unhappiness in some of her friends. Her good friend on the landing party, Carmen Cortez, had not tried to contact her in days, apparently devoting all her time to either manning her twelve-hour shift at the Eagle's communications center, or asleep in her tiny bunk on the crowded lander. Although Carmen was right in the middle of mankind's first encounter with intelligent aliens, she was taking little interest in the astounding discoveries those on the planet had made and she had showed no desire to talk over the remarkable events with her closest friend.
Closer to home, Nels Larson was also out of sorts. Cinnamon watched his disproportionate but oddly efficient form propel itself from one side of the hydroponics deck to the other as he collected various delicacies from the closely growing plants. Long association with the levibotanist let her see the hidden frustration that colored his movements. Cinnamon knew that her boss was furious that the explorers were not bringing back the tiny sample of alien body tissue that had been given to them by the large white alien. Katrina Kauffmann, the biochemist who was on the surface, had explained that the little white blob had acted more like a young individual than like a tissue sample. Fearful of damaging the new relationship with the aliens, she had returned the squealing blob to its progenitor. When the obliging aliens, or "flouwen" as the computer had named them, later showed the humans their true method of reproduction, Katrina's fears were proved groundless. Now, although Nels would not discuss it, Cinnamon knew he was trying to think of the best way to make sure that such mistakes would not be repeated. Cinnamon moved on to the corridor that contained the fish tanks, long tubes of flowing water containing trout and catfish of varying sizes. The largest trout would soon be ready to harvest and be the centerpiece of a few real-meat special dinners for a few lucky members of the crew.
Nels ignored Cinnamon's singing. He had long ago gotten used to her habit of dredging up obsolete songs to while the time away. Nels did not intend to let another chance to study the strange new alien life form slip by. True, the main reason that he had been included on the mission was to provide the crew with nutritious, appetizing food for their one way mission to the stars. But no one had really expected that they would discover intelligent life! Surely no one on board knew more about genetics and life on a microscopic level than he did. He intended to ask the commander, Major General "Jinjur" Jones, to allow him to go to the surface of Eau during their return visit to Rocheworld. Unfortunately, the stocky black woman was first and foremost a Marine, and Nels had felt from her the same contempt for deformity that so many of the very physically fit seemed to have. It was as if she thought that he could have developed proper legs if only he had shown more discipline. He knew that it would take some persuasion before Jinjur would allow her intellect to overpower her prejudice.
Nels left Cinnamon on the hydroponics deck and dove down the sailcraft's long central shaft toward the galley. To gain speed in the nearly free-fall environment, he used the handholds on the side of the shaft to pull himself along with his long, muscular arms. Broad shouldered and burly, Nels would have been a tall man, had his legs not ended as soon as they had begun. Just below his hips, Nels had small flipper-like feet with long, nailess toes. Constant exercise of the malformed digits made them strong, almost prehensile, and he was able to use them to carry the special delicacies he had just harvested. The heros would be arriving soon and a party was in order.
Nels had cut ruthlessly into the tissue cultures "Chicken Little", "Ferdinand", and "Hamlet" that supplied the real-meat chicken, beef, and pork rations for the nineteen astronauts on Prometheus. He had also collected all the fruits and vegetables that were ripe enough to harvest. There were fresh strawberries, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, and mushroom buttons for crisp finger foods, and spinach and endive for salad. These delicacies would normally be used only to cut through the blandness of their standard algae-paste food diet. Although the fast-growing algae food was nutritionally adequate and consisted of many different varieties that were subtly flavored to mimic a variety of foods, the algae was the butt of many crude jokes among the crew. To a man, they looked forward to their infrequent allotment of "real" food.
Now, the rest of the crew that had stayed behind on Prometheus had gone without these special treats for days so that there would be plenty for the welcome home party. Nels had even managed to procure some of Cinnamon's jealously guarded fish roe, so he could make a caviar appetizer. All this was in Nels's favor. He intended to have the General sated before he tackled her about his being assigned to the landing party for the return to Rocheworld.
Once in the galley, Nels prepared the feast. Nels got special joy in these last few moments of the foods' preparation. He had designed most of these foods, and in many cases had personally crafted their very DNA. He had watched as the cells first started to mature and multiply; coaxing their growth with the mediums that they craved. He had nourished them throughout their lives and now he had harvested and cooked them, seasoning them to perfection. He insisted on their having the proper presentation.
Nels talked to the ship's computer through his robotic imp, riding in its usual position on his left shoulder.
"James? Could you please send the Christmas Bush down to the galley to help prepare for the party? Have it bring the special set of party platters I have stored in the top deck."
Within a few minutes, the spiny, sparkling motile with its multicolored laser lights joined him in the galley. The complete bush-shaped robot had a six-armed main body, each of the six arms dividing again into six smaller arms, and so on, until the motile was surrounded with a final brush of tiny cilia. But since it was also the repair and maintenance motile for the entire ship, and the hands for James, the ship's computer, the Christmas Bush was rarely in its complete form. The robot structure was designed to separate into smaller parts that were miniatures of itself. Each of these smaller Christmas "branches" or "twigs" or "imps" or "mosquitoes" could act as separate motiles. The smallest ones could even fly by rapidly vibrating the tiny cilia at the ends of their limbs. These smaller motiles could do practically anything; such as monitoring the health of each crew member, repairing equipment, picking up microscopic bits of dust, weaving new clothing, taking dull scientific data, compounding medicines, brewing beer, and manufacturing semiconductor chips.
The flickers of colored light that illuminated the robot and gave it its name, were really lasers that let each segment communicate with the rest of the motile and with the ship's computer. It was, in fact, small subsets from the Christmas Bush that made up the multicolored twinkling imps that accompanied each of the crew members, who had the flexible imps form whatever shape they found most convenient.
Once in the galley, the Christmas Bush separated into dozens of small hands that began helping Nels prepare the meal for the party. They followed his lead as he arranged the food onto numerous plates and bowls in a myriad of shapes, colors and sizes. The computer understood that to Nels, this was more that just a meal—this was art. Thin strips of beef were impaled on metal skewers and doused with soy sauce and spices to make teriyaki beef. Chicken chunks were breaded with algaebread crumbs and deep fried in permaoil into golden brown nuggets. Thin strips of ham were wrapped around ripe slices of melon.
Listening through his imp, Nels heard the exuberant greetings of the others as the small ascent module floated in between the shrouds of Prometheus and docked at its airlock set in the ceiling of one of the corridors of his hydroponics deck. Jinjur's deep throaty voice was audible above the babble of the others as she greeted the leader of the away team.
"That's the last time I give you an airplane to play with, George!" she scolded playfully. "You're too hard on your toys!"
The sounds of revelry became louder and switched to reality as the entire crew poured down the shaft and into the lounge and dining area. Red, George, and Thomas were being carried through the lounge, their heads bumping against the low ceiling lightly in the fractional gravity. As Nels understood it, it had been the stunning red-head's fast thinking, and the superb flying ability of the handsome Jamaican that had saved the most senior member of the crew.
Nels was glad he had managed to prefect the banana flavored algae. Fried in small sliced-size patties along with some of the fresh trout from Cinnamon's tanks, he had managed a platter filled with spicy West Indian flavored delicacies as a special treat for Thomas. Most of the herbs that he used were fresh from their beds on the hydroponics deck. Although James could synthesize the chemicals for any spice, Nels had stockpiled supplies of such spices such as pepper, nutmeg, and cloves for such special occasions when Nels wanted to give the astronauts the true tastes of Earth. The varied crew on Prometheus had such eclectic tastes that alongside the sandwiches made of dark pumpernickel-flavored algaebread spread with liverwurst made from the tissue culture Pat LaBelle, was bratwurst made from the tissue culture Hamlet, curried lamb from Lambchop, and catfish with hush puppies made from cornmeal-flavored algaeflour. Nels had a bumper crop of string beans, and he had the sense to add nothing to the freshly steamed vegetable but a little algaebutter. The thin finger-long haricots verts were a perfect fingerfood.
One thing that Nels had to let James synthesize was the wine and other beverages. Still the computer managed to plan ahead and there were dozens of squeeze bulbs in evidence filled with red wine and white, champagne, various beers, soft drinks, and mixers, and even quality gin, bourbon, scotch, and brandy. One of the parting gifts to the astronauts from a grateful Earth had been the sharing with James of the last truly secret recipe of the twenty-first century, so that the crew could enjoy the true flavor of Coca-Cola on their long journey to the stars. Richard Redwing was hardly ever seen without a squeeze bulb of the bubbling beverage. Nels considered the brown liquid an assault on the palate, but he had to admit that coffee cool enough to be sipped from a floating ball of liquid in zero gee was too cold to be satisfying.
As the party started, Nels was swept up in their gleeful enjoyment of the delicacies. While he relished their praise, and their obvious enjoyment of his carefully crafted meal, it always amazed him how weeks, even months of work, could vanish so speedily down a human throat. Arielle Trudeau, the pilot who had been a beauty queen in Quebec before the secession of Quebec from Canada and the absorption of the rest of Canada into the Greater United States of America, always managed to eat huge amounts without letting it affect her figure or her appetite. Although she had a front tooth knocked out during the crash that had damaged the Dragonfly's engines, a subsection of Arielle's imp now acted as a brace to hold her healing tooth in place. The brace-imp glittered from between her lips as she opened her mouth to eat a mushroom skewered on a toothpick imp and dipped in a warm pseudocream sauce spiced with dill and thyme. Arielle sucked the imp toothpick clean and then let the tiny robot fly its way back to the kitchen, where it washed itself off under hot water, and then attached itself to a larger branch that was preparing the next platters of food. Before she had even swallowed the mushroom, she was already reaching for the pastel balls of melon that Nels had scooped from the honeydew and cantaloupe.
Shirley Everett, the tall blond California "surfer girl" and Chief Engineer, seemed to be collecting some of the cold fresh fruits and the treats made of chipped beef rolled around pseudocream cheese and horseradish sauce, for her to enjoy at leisure later. Richard Redwing was also eating with more speed than relish, washing down each bite with a swallow of soda. He never seemed to realize that the food was for more than maintaining his muscular physique. Nels tried to remind himself how much worse it would be if they didn't like his cooking, and instead, tried to avoid looking at anyone who was actually eating. To his surprise he found himself watching Carmen Cortez. Usually Carmen was the most flattering and most ravenous member of the crew.
Carmen had been a last minute addition to the crew; a curvaceous seorita. At first she was the most fun-loving, and free-loving girl on the ship. The youngest women on board, she was the sort of wide-eyed ingenue that made one consider her an innocent, even while she was showing off the kinkiest moves in her varied sexual repertoire. Pretty and vivacious, all the men had vied for her attention. They needn't have competed; she readily acquiesced to each one of their attempts at seduction. Even as the crew slowly succumbed to the sexually and intellectually debilitating affects of the drug No-Die in order to slow their aging for their forty year journey to the stars, Carmen had done her best to keep the hormone levels hopping. But it was as the crew first started coming off No-Die, and their intelligence and interests caught back up to their ages, that Nels first noticed a change in the tiny woman.
Carmen had begun to eat. She ate anything and everything. Fast friends with Cinnamon, samples of Nels' experiments were always available to her. Carmen soon looked like a tennis ball with dark curls and flashing eyes. Her admirers vanished along with her figure, and soon her good humor vanished as well. Nels could sympathize with her. He knew only too well how it felt to know that your appearance repulsed people. To have traded on your beauty and then loose it must be equally hard.
Now, for some reason, Carmen was eating none of his wonderful banquet. It wasn't as if this was algae gruel; this was fresh fruit, crisp vegetables, and real meat! He made a mental note to tell John Kennedy about it. As their acting doctor, John would want to make sure that she wasn't coming down with something. Maybe that was what Carmen wanted anyway—the handsome nurse took after his Presidential namesake in both appearance and temperament, and so made a habit of seducing all his patients. In fact, he made a habit of attempting to seduce any women that he was left alone with for two minutes. Even as Nels watched, John was doing his best to corner Cinnamon. Somehow, he had trapped her behind a floating ball of champagne and was trying to convince her to help him drink it before it drifted to the floor in the low acceleration. No— there— she managed to distract him and duck out of the room. Now, John had his arm around Katrina and was using her "welcome home" hug to cop a feel. Reiki LeRoux, the anthropologist whose mixed Japanese Cajun descent gave her what Nels considered the most interesting DNA of all those aboard, was enjoying a slice of Nels's famous home-made bread spread liberally with algaebutter and nothing else. The flour for the bread came from a special line of algae that Nels had developed, while the yeast was a strain that had been handed down to Nels from his mother. Nels also used his mother's recipe for making the bread. His mother's bread had been famous throughout all of Goddard Station and Nels was prepared to bet his bread was the best in the galaxy. Reiki nodded her head toward Nels in acknowledgment of his cooking. Reiki was too polite to embarrass him with open praise.
Nels decided that Cinnamon had the right idea and slipped off to the hydroponics deck. He hadn't had a chance to talk to Jinjur in the throng, but then, for the whole two hour feast he hadn't said a word to any one. Not that anybody, especially not Nels himself, had noticed.
Jinjur, too, had left the party early. She and George were sitting on the control deck planning the next phase of the mission.
"I know we only have three landers left, and more than three moons around Gargantua to study," said George. "But it's vitally important that we go back to Rocheworld." The oldest member of the crew and second in command, Colonel George Gudunov was respected for more than his grey hairs. He had a Ph.D. in Planetary Atmospheres and had written a number of science fiction stories and popular science articles. He had earned the admiration of everyone but the military. Back in 1998, while he was still a young captain in the Air Force, George suggested to his superiors that they test the Air Force Space Laser Forts Project in a non-threatening manner by using their powerful laser beams to push small lightsails carrying robotic interstellar probes. When a number of space laser forts suffered catastrophic failures under this two day test, George was commended by Congress for exposing the problem, but the military brass never forgave him. They retaliated by keeping him muzzled as a permanent fight instructor until, twenty-four years later, when positive reports came in from the fly-by probe sent to Barnard. Promoting him to colonel and sending him off to the stars was the military's final solution to his embarrassing presence, but George had proved his integral worth.
"Those aliens are so far ahead of us in mathematics that we need to set up permanent communication with them," George was insisting.
"But what good is pure mathematics?" said Jinjur.
"It is the key to physics and technology," said George. "At first glance, it would seem that advanced mathematics is just a barren exercise in pure logic and should have no relationship at all to the real world. In fact, our mathematicians go out of their way to design the logic of mathematics so that it isn't contaminated by any rules based on 'common sense.' But, for some reason, the behavior of the real world follows the logic of mathematics and no other logic. If we have a mathematical tool and can calculate something using it, we are pretty sure nature will behave the way the mathematics predicts. But we don't have enough of those mathematical tools, and we know it.
"Astronomers can't calculate the exact motions of two gravitating bodies except under special conditions. Aerodynamicists can't calculate the exact flow of air over anything except a few simple wing shapes. Weather forecasters can't predict more than a few days ahead. Atomic scientist can't exactly calculate anything more complicated than an hydrogen atom.
"The human race needs that math and the beauty about math is that unlike being given the secrets to advanced technology, being given advanced mathematics will not stifle the technological creativity of the human race, since we will have to figure out how to apply the mathematics."
"OK," said Jinjur. "But how are we going to get the information out of them? This crew may be pretty smart, but none of us are theoretical mathematicians. We may be able to understand some of the simpler stuff, but after the second and third infinity I know that I would be lost."
"What we should do is set up an interstellar laser communicator in the Hawaiian Islands on the Eau Lobe where their older thinkers stay," said George. "That way the long-lived flouwen could communicate their advanced mathematical knowledge directly back to Earth—even long after you and I and the rest of the crew have fluttered out the last of our mayflylike lives."
"You're getting poetic, George," said Jinjur. "I never knew you had it in you."
George looked pensive for a long moment, eyes staring past her out the control room window. Finally he rose from his seat.
"I better go talk to Carmen and Shirley to see what we can put together that the flouwen can use. The laser should be in a well-sheltered place on land, with a reactor that will keep it going for a few decades until the follow-up expedition gets here. But the operating console will have to be underwater."
"Now just a minute there George," said Jinjur sternly. "Remember what they told you in officer's training? 'The program isn't finished until the documentation is done.' You just finished an important and exciting mission and there are a few billion people back on Earth who are waiting to here all about it. You've got a report to write!"
Back in the lab, Nels was working on an algae culture he had been trying to develop that would properly imitate a steak. He had perfected the tissue culture "Ferdinand" that produced slices of real veal, but it and the other tissue cultures grew slowly and the crew was allowed only one small real-meat ration a week. Nels had discovered that by adding the proper amounts of complex carbohydrates to the algae's growing medium, he could manage to duplicate the flavor of beef, but he had yet to manage the proper texture of steak. He could make a good pat from it, but it made a mushy hamburger. The work helped him relax from the noisy party. Cinnamon was singing as she worked around the lab, but Nels didn't pay her any attention. He hardly even heard her singing anymore.
"Rollin', rollin', rollin' . keep those doggies rollin' ."
Cinnamon had grown up in the small Alaskan town of Chenik, living in a huge barn of a house that was the headquarters for both her father's medical practice and the local radio station. When radio went digital back in the 90's, Cinnamon's grandpa had picked up a California station's library and equipment for a song. He was forced to play only the recordings that had come out before the CD boom, but the people in the town were happy with the local station, despite the fact that the musical selections stayed the same and kept falling further and further behind the times. Everywhere Cinnamon had gone in Chenik, somewhere in earshot was a radio tuned to Gramp's station. Even as she slept, old forgotten songs were dancing in her ears. Now songs dredged up from her memories ran through her head . and often out through her mouth.
The ship's computer, James, had learned to accommodate the quirk. Cinnamon only needed to sing the first few bars of a song and James would pipe the whole thing privately to her through her earphone-shaped imp. This would let her complete the song and go on to another so that she wouldn't get 'hooked' on a single phrase and keep repeating it until she, or some other crew member, went mad.
Cinnamon's mood had improved. Nels' feast proved to her that he wasn't too upset about not having had a chance to examine the flouwen sample, and better yet, she had seen him eyeing Carmen from across the room. It was Cinnamon's dearest wish that Nels and Carmen would get together—although Carmen obstinately refused to cooperate. Carmen had fallen into the habit of making the most blatant sexual advances, yet instantly rejecting any man that attempted to respond to those advances. Cinnamon could almost see Nels cringe at Carmen's outrageous innuendos. Still, maybe what ever was bothering Carmen would keep her from throwing herself at Nels until he was ready to catch her. Cinnamon giggled at the image she'd conjured up . good thing they were in near free fall!
Carmen, meanwhile, was back in her cabin. She was staring at the image on the screen across from her bed. It was a still from one of David Greystoke's sonovideos; an interpretive composite made from the video taken by the exploration crew during the flouwen reproductive act. It showed four flouwen with most of their bodies swirled together into a twisted spiral, like one of those huge lollipops that her uncle used to buy for her, even though she never liked them very much. The colors of the adult flouwen faded out towards the center, leaving a clear, jelly-like mass. In the very middle was a patch of bright blue; the color of the newly created being.
Carmen knew that the still frame was inaccurate. She had seen the original video dozens of times, and the new being did not develop color until the adults had separated from the colorless mass created by their mating. But she liked David's composition; not just for the color and symmetry, but more for what it represented. Life. New life from old. Reproduction. Something she'd never be able to accomplish. Burying her head in her pillow, Carmen cried.
Today was Carmen's birthday, although she had told no one on board about it. She was 72, well, 42 really. You couldn't count the time they had spent under the influence of No-Die. The drug had slowed the rate of aging of the crew by a factor of four, so they only aged ten years during the forty years they had spent coasting at twenty percent of the speed of light from Sol to Barnard. Unfortunately, the drug also lowered their Iqs by an equivalent amount, turning highly intelligent adults into large bodied preschoolers. All Carmen could remember of those years was her frustration at the boys not wanting to play doctor, and at the pain involved when William Wong finally did. She still remembered vividly the time when he poked her in the neck and said to James, "Carmen's got the mumps."
William changed after that, becoming distant and aloof. Then he pulled them all into the sick bay one by one, and gave them the most horrible treatment. It had made her feel weak and nauseated all the time, and her hair fell out. Just when she was starting to feel better, William was gone. Carmen had gone to his room for more of those tickle and kiss games that he, alone, of the men remembered how to play, but he was just lying there, stretched out under the tension sheet on his bed, still and cold, with only the Christmas Bush in attendance. Carmen knew now, that William had come out of No-Die in order to treat the crew with chemotherapy to save them from a virus-initiated Hodgkins cancer that had attacked them all. William had delayed treatment on himself in order to properly take care of them, and when it was his turn, it was too late. Part of her couldn't help but feel guilty for enjoying his adult sexuality while all the rest of the crew were acting like three-year-olds.
Carmen had spent the remainder of the time on No-Die feeling lonely and different. On No-Die, it was obvious that the other crew members were smarter than she was, and without their civilized veneers, the others had the heartless cruelty of children. As they started to be brought back, they would laugh because she had trouble reading, and would not play games with her because they thought beating her was too easy. That was when she first befriended Cinnamon.
Nels was ahead of them all intellectually, and while Jinjur nominally remained in charge throughout the No-Die void, it was Nels who thought up all the best games. Carmen noticed that sometimes he would slip off by himself, so one day she followed him. He went into an apartment Carmen had never been in before. It had belonged to Cinnamon Byrd. The viewwall in Cinnamon's apartment was perpetually set on a repetitive video scene that looked like someplace in Alaska, with a wild ocean and snow-covered trees in the foreground, and snowy mountain peaks in the distance. Nels sat making faces at a girl with long black braids, who was just lying there in the apartment sitting room, playing with her toes, and clapping with glee every time a whale breached the ocean in the viewwall scene. Cinnamon would smile and gurgle and coo, but Carmen had never seen her out playing with the others, or coloring, or watching cartoons. Carmen had hardly noticed Cinnamon during the training period before they went on No-Die, and the drug had lowered Cinnamon's mid-level IQ too far for her to interact with the others during the long flight out to Barnard.
Carmen started visiting Cinnamon's quarters regularly, and as they both came back to themselves, Carmen took the other woman under her wing. Before Carmen had relearned to read, she retaught Cinnamon the alphabet. And when Carmen remastered long division, she taught it to Cinnamon. By the time everyone was back in their own ages, Carmen and Cinnamon were inseparable. But however motherly she might feel toward her friend, Carmen was no one's mother, and never would be.
Carmen had grown up Catholic, and even with all the changes Vatican IV brought to the church, "Go forth and multiply" was still the 11th commandment. William had wanted to sterilize her when she first came on board. After all, the mission was to study, not to colonize. All the other women had their tubes tied. When Carmen refused, he demurred, saying that since all the men had undergone vasectomies anyway, she was in no danger of becoming pregnant. At first, Carmen thought it was wonderful sort of freedom to never have to worry about conceiving.
Vatican IV had accepted group marriages and since the whole crew was on this one-way mission to the stars for "better or worse, till death do us part", Carmen had cheerfully submitted to all her new husbands. But now her biological clock had started sounding alarms. This family of adults—it wasn't enough. Down there on the surface of Eau those simple alien blobs of jelly could do God's will. They could co-mingle with a purpose, and reproduce. Carmen remembered vividly the last time she had gazed at floating dribbles of ejaculate. It had been so long ago that she wasn't even sure who's it was, but as the cleaning mini-imps for the apartment had carried them away, all Carmen could think of was "Death". That which should have been carrying life to her fertile womb, was lifeless and empty, decaying already.
Carmen's belly was rounded now only with her own fat. She would never feel "quickening", the stirring of life that she had felt when she touched her sister's belly so long ago. Her sister was a grand-mother or a great-grandmother now. Carmen would just grow old and die.
Carmen sat up. This is ridiculous, she thought. I'm not dead yet. What was it the cat "Mahitabel" used to say? "there's life in the old girl yet!"
Carmen splashed a little cold water on her face, letting the mini-imps scramble to collect all the spattered droplets. She looked at her reflection and re-applied her make-up. Her face seemed a little hollow, but, she thought critically, hollow was only to the good. Some day she would have to go on a serious diet or no one would remember that she had a chin.
Carmen left her room, palming the sliding room shut, and stood on the balcony surrounding the wide central shaft, listening quietly for a moment. It was usually easier to find Cinnamon by listening for her singing, than it was to ask James where she was. Carmen could hear her coming down the shaft from the hydroponics deck above.
"It's my party and I'll cry it I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to—" For a moment Carmen wondered if Cinnamon could tell she'd been crying, but when the tall girl saw her she just called out, "Welcome Home!" and swooped towards her to give her a big hug.
"Hey, hey! We missed you! I was worried about you!" Cinnamon released her and stepped back. "So when are you going back down to Rocheworld?"
"Going back?! What makes you think I'll be going back?" Carmen laughed. She stepped back and palmed open the door so that Cinnamon could come into her room.
"Nels says that we have to go back . the chance to find out more about these flouwen . it's just too big an opportunity to miss!"
"Yes, but I'm not the only comm expert, it'll be someone else's turn next time. Besides, we've all been cross-trained. After all, even you can land the SLAM ."
Cinnamon blushed. "Carmen; I told you the truth about that, and it's not funny! Gods! What if Jinjur actually wanted me to ."
Carmen laughed. "Don't worry. I don't think the General is desperate for volunteers. Anyway, I suppose we will go back down, but I don't know how soon.
"All I know is that Nels is going to be one of the volunteers. He's chomping at the bit!"
"Nels? Why would he want .? Oh, I get it. He wants to see if he can breed a flouwen that we can eat."
"Don't be silly. He really is the best person to study the flouwen— at least from a biological point of view. And probably from an intellectual viewpoint. James says that the flouwen are very smart, and I know that Nels is the smartest one on board."
"Like you're an objective judge of brains. After Nels saved the Alaskan coastline, you believe he can do anything. Besides, I'd wager that the smartest one on board is James."
"No bet! But I don't think Nels is perfect for everything, just perfect for this job. Not that I want him to go. Every landing is risky—look what nearly happened to the six people who crashed on Eau. If anything happened to Nels, I would have to be in charge of the hydroponics deck! We'd all be living on algae shakes within the week. But I'm really hoping that Nels will manage to convince Jinjur to let him go. You know though— I think the General is one of the few people that intimidates Nels. I don't think that he has said a hundred words to her in all these years."
"Your hero has feet of clay?"
They both laughed together. They were close enough to Nels to know that he would appreciate the joke.
"Actually, Nels has hardly said a hundred words to the whole crew! He is the most . reserved? . quiet? . succinct! . man I know."
"Well you and he certainly did a lot of communicating way back when ."
"You mean the sex? Chula, we didn't waste anytime talking! He just made sure that I wasn't merely giving him a pity-fuck, and then we went at it. Foolish man— legs just get in the way in zero-gee. Dios, you should know." She cocked an eyebrow at Cinnamon.
Cinnamon squirmed and looked down at her fingers.
"What?" exclaimed Carmen as she tried to catch her friend's eye. "You mean you still haven't?"
"He hasn't asked," said Cinnamon defensively. "Besides I'm not sure it would be good for the relationship."
"What relationship?" asked Carmen sarcastically.
"We're friends, and we work well together . and we've had this conversation before. Let's change the subject."
"Okay . " Carmen paused, "So what's been going on up here? Make anything new at the lab?"
"I almost forgot!" Cinnamon reached into her coverall pocket and pulled out a small glass globe filled with water. "I made this myself—it's not real, it's a tissue culture from a pea blossom, but it came out pretty, I think. Anyway, welcome home."
Inside the palm-sized globe there floated what looked like a deep red rose. Closer inspection showed it to be all petals, with no stamen or stem, but Cinnamon was right, it was pretty.
"Thank you, Cinnamon!"
"You're welcome. Do tell me if it starts growing or shrinking or anything. It's one of my first DNA modifications and I need to know if it mutates."
Just then there was a knock at the door.
"Come!" called Carmen.
Jinjur stepped inside. "I hope I'm not interrupting?"
"Oh no, sir . ma'am . uh, just leaving, ma'am—" Cinnamon sidled around Jinjur and out the door. Jinjur looked after her. She knew who Cinnamon was, of course, but she had not had much contact with her. Still, this "ma'am" stuff had to go. Jinjur turned back to Carmen and cleared her throat.
"Well, from all accounts, you did very well out there."
"Thank you Jinjur, we all tried our best."
"Yes, yes, of course. But George and I have been talking things over. What we need to do next is to set up a communication link so that the flouwen can talk directly to the Earth."
"Is that possible? Think of the time lag involved! Why just the two second round trip time delay from Earth to the Moon makes conversation nearly impossible."
"George believes that the flouwen have incredibly long lives. They are very intelligent and can give the people of Earth a lot of new mathematical insight . insight so pure, that back and forth conversation is hardly necessary."
Dios, Carmen thought. Then she said, "You'll need to have a specialized input pad . aren't the flouwen geared toward sonic communication? Do they even have a written language?"
"They seem to be able to transfer memories chemically. They share 'tastes' of themselves to communicate ideas too large to be easily transmitted sonically. We will need to do a lot more research into that, but that's a matter for the biologists and the chemists. What I need from you, is a design for a laser communications link that will be able to transmit all the way to the Earth. It will need to be powerful enough to punch a wideband video signal over six lightyears, adaptable enough to maintain lock on Sol through all the rotational and orbital gyrations of Rocheworld, and rugged enough to stand up for decades in Eau's ammonia atmosphere and violent storms. I'd like for you, Caroline, and Shirley to get to work on it . if you think you'd like another trip down to the surface?" Jinjur smiled.
Carmen was stunned for a moment. "Thank you!" she cried and hugged the Marine. "This is wonderful!" Then she paused and remembered the conversation she had just had. "You know General, you might also want to send Nels down. He'd be able to ferret out all the flouwen's physical peculiarities and maybe even its genetics."
Jinjur was stern. "This is a dangerous mission, not a passenger trip. Whatever relationship you may have with Nels is not to be a factor in deciding who gets to go to the surface. If you are unhappy about being separated from him again so soon .
."
"No, no," Carmen cried, anxious that Jinjur not get the wrong idea. "I'm not asking that Nels come along as my bedmate! But he and Cinnamon work with other life forms all the time. They even create new life forms. Surely they would be able to get more information than the average biologist."
"Don't call me Shirley," Jinjur said with a smile as she thought over Carmen's suggestion. "I doubt John and Katrina would be considered average biologists. They were the best in the field back home."
"Nels was rumored to be the smartest man alive!" Carmen flashed, defending her friend valiantly.
"Maybe you do have a point," Jinjur conceded thoughtfully. "His file is impressive, although I must admit that I was never too impressed by him. I'll consider what you've said. But when it comes down to it, I am the one responsible and I'm not going to risk the lives of the whole away team by sending some one who's . well . not fit for the job."
Carmen stood at attention. "Yes, Ma'am!"
"I said I'd think about it!"
Jinjur left feeling puzzled. Why did Carmen push the leviponics scientist at her? Jinjur had expected Carmen to be thankful she had been chosen, not argumentative about the selection of the others. Maybe it was that lab assistant Cinnamon whom Carmen was really trying to help. Wasn't Cinnamon some sort of pilot, and a medic too? If so, Cinnamon would be a better choice than Nels . Jinjur resolved to review both their files as soon as possible. Right now she had other fish to fry.
Jinjur tapped lightly on Shirley's door and then let herself in. The tall blonde was standing just inside her bathroom door, taking a "bird bath", wiping away the grime and fatigue with a warm wet washcloth. Jinjur sat on Shirley's bed, and helped herself from the tray of tidbits that Shirley had brought back with her from the party. As Jinjur bit into a pseudochocolate covered strawberry, she watched Shirley's large muscular body move easily in the low gee. Shirley's long blond hair was loosened from its usual single braid down the left side of her head, and the wavy tresses fanned out around her face in the near zero-gee environment. Shirley's imp, normally in a crescent moon shape on the right side of her head opposite the braid, was now splayed out over her scalp, busily untangling incipient snarls and removing the occasional grey hair.
"Why aren't you with George?" Shirley asked. She pulled on a blue silk teddy and fastened it casually. She joined Jinjur on the bed and the General washed down a mouthful of caviar with a squirt from the squeeze bottle of white pseudo-wine.
"George is doing the paperwork . he was the commanding officer down there and he has to write the trip report."
"Ah, the privileges of rank! He's going to be at his console for hours! He isn't what you'd call a speed typist."
"Oh, I don't know, both his fingers are pretty fast." They giggled together.
"Poor lad," Jinjur said. "And poor me, I'll have to wait to give him a proper welcome home. By the way; welcome home my dear." She leaned forward and gave Shirley a long, deep kiss. Then she upended her, turning the tall women easily over her knee. She delivered a stinging slap on the blond's rump.
"Ouch!" Shirley squealed, but Jinjur held her tightly with one strong arm and kept on spanking.
"That was for scaring the crap! out of me when you went off joyriding! . on that alien! . How could you! . the safety nut! . have gone and done anything so foolish?" Jinjur had punctuated her remarks with spanks but now she let the engineer roll away from her.
"You're the best engineer I've got!" Jinjur continued with a furious tone. "Without your repair of the fan on the Dragonfly, to turn it into a water propeller, chances are that the whole landing party would still be stranded, if not dead. Golflabit! You hardly let me take a piss without you checking out the crapper, and then you go swimming inside a blob of vanilla pudding and nearly get yourself killed!" She glared at Shirley, who was rueful rubbing her reddening posterior, but then Jinjur's eyes softened.
"Shirley," she said softly, "you worry too much about the rest of us, and not enough about yourself. Don't you realize that the worst thing that could happen to us, is for us to lose you? I swear you need a keeper. We may need to send you back to the surface, but this time I'm not going to let you out of my sight."
"I'm going back? We're going back? Oh Jinjur, Thank you!" The pretty blond launched herself at the black woman, knocking her back onto the bed. Sweetmeats floated around the bedroom, left for the flickering cleaning imps to find.