Good old Panalina, always talking as if everything would soon be normal again, as if the barter network was likely to ever be the same. With streaks of gray in her hair, the artificer claimed to be sixty years old but was certainly younger. The grandmothers let her get away with the fib, and what would normally be criminal neglect, leaving her womb fallow most of the time, with only two still-living heirs, and both of those boys.
“Still.” Panalina looked around and thumped the hull one last time. “He’s a sturdy little boat. You know, there was talk among the mothers about refusing to let you take him away from Tairee. The Smoths had to promise half a ton of crushed grapes in return, and to take in one of the Sadoul families. Still, I think it’s you they mostly want.”
Jonah had puzzled over that cryptic remark after Panalina left, then all during the brew-swilled bachelor party, suffering crude jokes and ribbing from the married men, and later during a fretful sleep shift, as he tossed and turned with prewedding jitters. During the ceremony itself, Mother had been gracious and warm—not her typical mien, but a side of her that Jonah felt he would surely miss. Though he knew that an underlying source of her cheerfulness was simple—one less male mouth to feed.
It had made Jonah reflect, even during the wrist-binding part of the ceremony, on something old Scholar Wu said recently.
The balance of the sexes may change, if it really comes down to war. Breeders could start to seem less valuable than fighters.
In the docklock, Jonah found that his little truck had been decked with flowers, and all three of the spheres gleamed, where they had been polished above the waterline. The gesture warmed Jonah’s heart. There was even a freshly painted name, arcing just above the propeller.
Bird of Tairee.
Well. Mother had always loved stories about those prehistoric creatures of Old Earth who flew through a sky that was immeasurably vast and sweet.
“I thought you were going to name it after me,” Petri commented in a low voice, without breaking her gracious smile.
“I shall do that, ladylove. Just after we dock in Laussane.”
“Well … perhaps not just after,” she commented, and Jonah’s right buttock took a sharp-nailed pinch. He managed not to jump or visibly react. But clearly, his new wife did not intend wasting time once they were home.
Home. He would have to redefine the word, in his mind.
Still, as Jonah checked the final loading of luggage, gifts, and passengers, he glanced at the fantail one last time, picturing there a name that he really wanted to give the little vessel.
Renewed Hope.
4.
THEY WERE UNDER WAY, HAVING TRAVELED MORE THAN HALF of the distance to Laussane Bubble, when a thump struck at the wrong time—at the worst possible time—shaking the little sub truck like a rattle.
The blow came hard and late. So late that everyone at the wedding had simply written off any chance of one today. Folks assumed that at least another work-and-sleep cycle would pass without a comet fall. Already this was the longest gap in memory. Perhaps (some murmured) the age of thumps had come to an end, as prophesied long ago. After the disaster that befell Aldrin and Bezo two months ago, it was a wish now shared by all.
Up until that very moment, the nuptial voyage had been placid, enjoyable, even for tense newlyweds.
Jonah was at the tiller up front, gazing ahead through a patch of hull bubble that had been polished on both sides, making it clear enough to see through. Hoping that he looked like a stalwart, fierce-eyed seaman, he gripped the rudder ropes that steered Bird of Tairee though the sub’s propeller lay still and powerless. For this voyage, the old truck was being hauled as a trailer behind a larger, sleeker, and more modern Laussanite sub, where a team of twelve burly men sweated and tugged in perfect rhythm, turning their drive-shaft crank.
Petri stood beside her new husband, while passengers chattered in the second compartment behind them. As bubble colonies drifted past, she gestured at each of the gleaming domes and spoke of womanly matters, like the politics of trade and diplomacy, or the personalities and traditions of each settlement. Which goods and food items they excelled at producing, or needed. Their rates of mutation and successful child-raising. Or how well each habitat was managing its genetic diversity … and her tone changed a bit at that point, as if suddenly aware how the topic bore upon them both. For this marriage match had been judged by the Laussane mothers on that basis, above all others.
“Of course I had final say, the final choice,” she told Jonah, and it warmed him that Petri felt a need to explain.
“Anyway, there is a project I’ve been working on,” she continued in a lower voice. “With a few others in Laussane and Landis Bubbles. Younger folks, mostly. And we can use a good mechanic like you.”
Like me? So I was chosen for that reason?
Jonah felt put off and tensed a bit when Petri put an arm around his waist. But she leaned up and whispered in his ear.
“I think you’ll like what we’re up to. It’s something just right for a rascal.”
The word surprised him and he almost turned to stare. But her arm was tight and Petri’s breath was still in his ear. So Jonah chose to keep his features steady, unmoved. Perhaps sensing his stiff reaction, Petri let go. She slid around to face him with her back resting against the transparent patch, leaning against the window.
Clever girl, he thought. It was the direction he had to look, in order to watch the Pride of Laussane’s rudder, up ahead, matching his tiller to that of the larger sub. Now he could not avert his eyes from her, using boyish reticence as an excuse.
Petri’s oval face was a bit wide, as were her eyes. The classic Laussane chin cleft was barely noticeable, though her mutant patch—the whorl of wild hair—was visible as a reflection behind her, on the bubble’s curved, inner surface. Her wedding garment, sleek and formfitting, revealed enough to prove her fitness to bear and nurse … plus a little more. And Jonah wondered—when am I supposed to let the sight of her affect me? Arouse me? Too soon and he might seem brutish, in need of tight reins. Too late or too little, and his bride might feel insulted.
And fretting over it will make me an impotent fool. Deliberately, Jonah calmed himself, allowing some pleasure to creep in, at the sight of her. A seed of anticipation grew … as he knew she wanted.
“What project are you talking about? Something involving trucks?” He offered a guess. “Something the mothers may not care for? Something suited to a … to a …”
He glanced over his shoulder, past the open hatch leading to the middle bubble, containing a jumble of cargo—wedding gifts and Jonah’s hope chest, plus luggage for Laussane dignitaries who rode in comfort aboard the bigger submersible ahead. Here, a dozen lower-caste passengers sat or lay atop the stacks and piles—some of Petri’s younger cousins, plus a family of evacuees from doomed Sadoul Dome, sent to relieve Tairee’s overcrowded refugee encampment, as part of the complex marriage deal.
Perhaps it would be best to hold off this conversation until a time and place with fewer ears around, to pick up stray sonic reflections. Perhaps delaying it for wife-and-husband pillow talk—the one and only kind of privacy that could be relied upon in the colonies. He looked forward again, raising one eyebrow, and Petri clearly got his meaning. Still, in a lower voice, she finished Jonah’s sentence.