A sudden sharp electric hum, a minor note, seized his attention. His eyes opened to a dazzling spangle of daylight piercing past the bright-green leaves and feathery pink blossoms of a carefully shaped rain tree.
He sat up, looked around, as the hum dopplered away. A laugh from the direction of the path. A shout—Shoran’s voice—“Get it! Go, go, go!”
He jumped to his feet—not out of alarm, but out of curiosity. This sounded like a game.
Riffan saw Pasha ahead of him on the path that wound around the circumference of the gee deck, linking all the cottages to the pavilion and the dining terrace.
He called out to her. “Oh, hey, Pasha!” And with a couple of easy bounds in the low gee, he caught up with her.
She turned to meet him, her delicate face framed in short blond hair that gleamed in the morning light, thin brows arched over skeptical green eyes. “Hey, Riffan.” Her tone neutral as always.
“You’re attending today’s lecture, aren’t you? May I walk with you?”
She snorted and continued toward the amphitheater. “Why are you always so formal?”
“Am I?” he asked with a frown, matching the slow-motion pace that most of the ship’s company had adopted to prevent inadvertently launching themselves into the shrubbery.
“Yes, you are,” she informed him.
“Well, perhaps you’re right.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Okay, you are right.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up.
“Are we friends, Pasha?” he blurted, stopping on the path, even taking a step back. She stepped back too, her pale cheeks warming with a flush, her green eyes wide. “I admire you so,” he said quickly, getting it all out while he could, “but I think… maybe I’ve offended you?”
“Why do you think that?” she said in an undertone, as if concerned someone might overhear. She stepped off the path and onto a small lawn, glancing over her shoulder at a cottage behind her.
“We used to be friendly, together on Long Watch. We often talked, discussed our studies. Now I hardly see you.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I see you every day at the lectures. Isn’t that where we’re going now?”
Riffan sighed, recognizing the brushoff.
With Vytet, he’d organized daily lectures and discussions on academic topics related to the expedition, ranging from astronomy to biology to history. The sessions were well attended, which meant Pasha was a face in the crowd while Riffan stood by the dais, moderating discussion—and afterward she would melt away, or be off to dinner with her friends, or disappear for hours behind her closed cottage door, doubtless pursuing research in the library.
“All right,” he said, glancing around as Alkimbra and Naresh approached along the path. He nodded to them, then blushed a bit as Alkimbra’s eyes narrowed, his keen gaze clearly perceiving Riffan’s awkward situation. He pursed his lips, raised his heavy eyebrows in a sympathetic expression, but to Riffan’s relief he said nothing, walking on with the oblivious Naresh.
Riffan turned back to Pasha. He desperately wanted her to explain what had changed—but what a ridiculous demand that would be! Everything about their lives had changed. And she didn’t owe him an explanation.
“I’ll see you at the lecture, then,” he said quietly.
She put out her hand before he’d quite gathered himself to leave. “It’s not you,” she assured him.
He waited, hoping for more, but Clemantine and Tarnya were coming next along the winding path, with several others not far behind.
Tarnya, looking ahead, saw them and called out, “Hi Pasha! Hi Riffan! You know there’s going to be a concert tonight, right?”
“Right, I’m planning to be there,” Pasha said, stepping away from Riffan, and then she was walking with them, leaving him trailing behind.
“It shouldn’t be too many more days before Elepaio gets back,” he said idly.
Only Clemantine looked back at him. She slowed her stride to let him catch up. “Are you worried?” she asked.
“No. Well, yes. Maybe. It’s just… I don’t know how to think about it. Whatever happened out there, whatever we discovered, I’ve already done it, been through it—but through what? Maybe nothing at all. Maybe three years of boredom. Or something wonderful…”
“Or terrible,” she said, guessing his thoughts.
“It’s nerve-wracking, not knowing.”
They reached the edge of the pavilion. Pasha paused to look back at him with a cool gaze. “I would have been happy to go in your place,” she said.
“I know. I wish I’d suggested it.”
A faint smile. “You’re a good person, Riffan. Better than me.”
She went ahead, striding across the pavilion, leaving Tarnya looking puzzled and Clemantine regarding him with questioning eyes. He cleared his throat, put on a smile, and said, “I’d better hurry if I’m going to be any help to Vytet.”
“Come out and play,” Shoran called as Urban rounded the cottage. She stood on the path beside her son Mikael, her smile bright, her skin glistening with sweat.
“Play what?” he asked.
Shoran stood tall, and she was well-muscled, resembling Clemantine in physique. She wore tight shorts and a sleeveless top, her silver hair bound up in a coiled braid, her breast rising and falling with exertion.
Urban liked her—her bold manner, her optimism, her inventiveness. The first time he’d met her, she declared, “I didn’t come on this expedition to look through telescopes. I’m here to explore the ruins or the recovery of life—whichever it turns out to be—for myself, as myself.” She’d made a name for herself at Deception Well as one of the earliest scouts to truly explore the planetary surface.
She said, “Mikael has remembered a game we used to play in Silk. I think you’ll like it. It’s called flying fox.”
She showed him a device in her palm.
“A camera bee?” Urban guessed. If so, it was modified. Larger than he remembered and bright red in color.
“This is the fox we’ll try to catch. One person alone will never succeed at it. We have to work together.”
She turned to Mikael, a man of athletic build with a smile more reserved than his mother’s. Age was not revealed by physical features, but it could be sensed in the way people handled themselves—and Mikael’s shy manner gave away his youth. He was the youngest of the ship’s company, only twenty-five when he made the jump to Dragon.
“Ready?” Shoran asked him.
Mikael nodded.
She tossed the fox into the air. Its multiple pairs of mechanical bee wings instantly vibrated into flight mode, producing the humming minor note Urban had heard earlier.
“Check the personnel map,” Shoran said. “Almost everyone is at Alkimbra’s lecture. We’ll need to stay away from the pavilion, but we’ve got the rest of the deck to play.”
“You’re not interested in the history of Tanjiri?” Urban asked, eyeing the fox hovering a meter overhead.
“I’ll read the transcript later—and I’m sure you will too.”
Mikael said, “The game is simple. We chase the fox, corner it, trap it if we can.”
“But use no devices,” Shoran warned. “And no implements. The aim is to train your strength and reflexes. We are a team. Let’s go!”
The fox shot off down the path. Then it dove beneath the trees dividing Clemantine’s cottage from the next one over, where Vytet lived. Mikael bounded after it in a great leap made possible by the gee deck’s low gravity.