Aditi didn’t answer. But she didn’t reject the idea, either.
Late in the afternoon, as Jordan walked with Aditi back toward the communications center, he saw Brandon step out of the biology lab’s bubble tent.
“Bran,” Jordan called to his brother. “How goes it?”
Stepping quickly toward Jordan, Brandon said, “Radiation level’s peaked. It’s starting to go down. Slowly.”
“I wonder how the ship made out?”
“Hazzard’s been checking on it remotely. She answers his queries, and the diagnostics don’t show any major damage.”
“That’s good. I get the feeling that Meek thought the radiation storm was cooked up by Adri to destroy our ship.”
Brandon glanced at Aditi, then said, “That’s not a joking matter, Jordy. You know there’s a cabal simmering along?”
Jordan felt mildly surprised. “A cabal?”
“Meek. He and Longyear and several others. They’ve formed a faction that’s not happy with your leadership.”
“Oh, that.”
“It’s more serious than you think, Jordy.”
“How serious can it be?”
“They’re talking about pulling up stakes and heading back to Earth,” said Brandon. “I think maybe Hazzard agrees with them.”
“Nonsense,” Jordan scoffed.
“They’re serious, Jordy. Meek is scared shitless of Adri and this whole situation. He says it can’t be natural. Everything we’re learning about this planet points to the conclusion that what we’re seeing isn’t natural.”
“He’s overreacting,” said Jordan, with a glance at Aditi. “He’ll get over it, in time.”
“I don’t know, Jordy,” Brandon said. “I just talked with Elyse, over at the observatory. She’s found out that this planet doesn’t have a magnetosphere.”
“No planetary magnetic field?”
“None.”
“Another difference from Earth,” Jordan murmured.
“Considering the radiation flux from the Pup’s flare, we ought to be getting fried here on the ground, without a magnetic field to deflect the charged particles.”
“That’s why Adri gave us the energy shield.”
Shaking his head, Brandon said, “Elyse told me that something’s absorbing the radiation, stopping most of it from reaching the planet.”
“Something? What?”
“Damned if I know. If there’s no magnetic field, then what on Earth is protecting this planet?”
“The energy shield,” said Aditi.
Both the brothers turned to her.
Brandon demanded, “You mean the shield protecting this camp is strong enough to deflect the flux from the flare?”
“No, it’s not. This little shield merely absorbs the residual amount of radiation that gets through the big shield.”
“The big shield?” Jordan asked.
Aditi nodded. “The planetary shield. The energy screen that protects the whole planet.”
Brandon gaped at her. “You mean you’ve got an energy shield strong enough to handle the flux coming in from the flare?”
“Certainly,” Aditi replied, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “We don’t have a natural magnetic field, so we had to set up an energy shield to protect ourselves.”
For several moments neither brother spoke, as they tried to absorb what Aditi was telling them.
A man-made energy screen that protects the entire planet, Jordan marveled. And she takes it for granted; it’s perfectly normal to her.
But Brandon said, “Wait till Harmon hears about this. He’ll want to hightail it out of here today!”
Jordan stared at his brother, thinking, We can’t leave! We just got here. And there’s so much to learn, so much to explore.
He glanced at Aditi, who stood patiently at his side, looking as if she were wondering what all the fuss was about.
Framing his words carefully, Jordan said to his brother, “Bran, I can understand Meek’s fears. I worry about all this myself. I mean, it’s just too good to be true. But we mustn’t run away from it. We’ve got to learn about it. There’s an enormous amount to be learned, I’m certain of that. And I intend to stay and learn, not run away like a frightened little boy.”
Brandon smiled tightly. “That’s just about what I thought you’d say. Now tell it to Meek.”
Taking in a deep breath, Jordan said, “I’ll do that. In the morning. I’ll call a breakfast meeting and we can thrash this out, with all of us present.”
Nodding, Brandon said, “Okay. I’ll tell Meek and the others.”
“Good. Do that.”
As Brandon hurried away, Aditi asked, “Will this be trouble for you?”
“Perhaps,” said Jordan. “But I’m supposed to be this group’s leader, so I’m going to have to lead them.”
And he remembered an old dictum from another leader of an earlier century: The secret of being a successful manager is keeping the five guys who hate you away from the four who haven’t made up their minds.
The evening was more than a little awkward. He had to find a space for Aditi to sleep. Very hesitantly, he phoned Elyse Rudaki at the observatory again to ask if Aditi might spend the night in her cubicle.
Elyse smiled knowingly. “Of course. I’m not using it.”
“I … ah … well, since you’re still in the city…” Jordan stammered.
Elyse seemed amused by his consternation. “Even if I were in the camp I wouldn’t be using my own cubicle. Not as long as Brandon is there.”
Jordan mumbled a thank-you and cut the connection.
He did not want to eat dinner with everyone else. No sense starting a debate with Meek and his clique over dinner, he told himself. We’ll have it out in the morning.
So he picked up a pair of dinner trays and met Aditi outside, where her minihorse was placidly munching on the grass. They sat upwind of the animal, with their backs against the sloping, slightly yielding wall of a bubble tent, laid the prepackaged meals on their outstretched legs, and opened them. They instantly heated themselves.
“Rather romantic, actually,” said Jordan as the aroma of their steaming meals wafted up to them. “Dining out in the open, under the—”
His voice caught in his throat. Up above them, the sky was glowing with colors. Long gossamer sheets of delicate green, red, blue, white shimmered and danced across the heavens, almost blotting out the stars.
Aditi gasped. “Aurora,” she breathed.
Jordan found his voice. “From the radiation storm,” he said softly. “Some of the radiation got through your screen and it’s lighting up the ionosphere.”
“It’s so incredibly beautiful,” she said.
“Overwhelming.”
Without thinking consciously about it, Jordan impulsively reached for Aditi and pulled her to him. His dinner slid off his legs and onto the grass as he held her tightly in his arms and kissed her.
Factions
Aditi and Jordan never finished their meal. They never even started it. They clung to each other for hours, caressing, kissing, speaking to each other in low, breathless voices.
“I had to travel eight and a half light-years to find you,” Jordan said. “To come alive again. To feel love and warmth again.”
Nestling her head on his shoulder, Aditi said, “I never realized how overpowering an emotion love can be. It … it simply sweeps you away.”
“It does that,” said Jordan. Looking up at the aurora again, he added, “Of course, we had a little help from the stars.”
She giggled. “Yes, we did.”
He looked down at her beautiful face, lit by the flickering aurora, and kissed her again.