Linda looked at her callused palms. You know, Bis, I can manage the shopping. But I could sure do with some help with the water.
No, Bisesa said immediately. Then, more considered, she shook her head. Im sorry. Reflexively she glanced across at Myra, who was engrossed once more in the endlessly elaborating luridness of her softwall soap. Im not ready to go out yet.
Linda, still packing food away, said in a deliberately casual tone, Ive been asking Aristotle for advice.
About what?
Agoraphobia. Its more common than youd think. I mean, how would you know if somebody was a prisoner in her home? Youd never meet her! But there are treatments. Support groups
Lin, I appreciate your concern. But Im not agoraphobic. And Im not crazy.
Then what
Bisesa said lamely, I just need more time.
Im here if you need me.
I know
Bisesa returned to her vigil with Myra, and the softwall.
Maybe she wasnt crazy. But she couldnt explain to Linda any of her strange circumstances.
She couldnt explain how she had been on patrol with her Army unit on its peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan, how she had suddenly found herself hurled beyond the walls of space and time, how she had learned to construct a new life for herself on a strange patchwork other-Earth they had called Mirand how she had somehow been brought home, through a kaleidoscope of even stranger visions.
And she couldnt explain to her cousin the strangest detail of alclass="underline" how she had been serving in Afghanistan on June 8, 2037, but had found herself here in London the very next day, June 9, the day of the stormbut in her memories, more than five years had passed between those two events.
At least she was restored to Myra, the daughter she thought she had lost. But this was a Myra who had grown older only by a day, while years had passed for Bisesa. And Myra, who studied her mother with the searching gaze of a neglected child, could surely see the sudden strands of gray hair, the deeper wrinkles around Bisesas eyes. There was a distance between them that might never heal.
So arbitrary had been the way she had been ripped out of her life before that she couldnt get over the fear that it might, somehow, happen all over again. And that was why she couldnt leave the flat. It wasnt a fear of the open; it was a fear of losing Myra.
After a few minutes she whispered a command to Aristotle. He resumed the compulsive search of the worlds news outlets and databases she had ordered.
June 9 had been a worldwide catastrophe, by orders of magnitude the worst solar storm ever experienced, and days later it absorbed even Aristotles mighty energies to keep up with the flood of words and images. But try as he might, Aristotle couldnt find a single mention of the silver sphere Bisesa had spotted hovering over London on that difficult morning, the thing her companions on Mir would have called an Eye. Even on a day like June 9, a thing like that hovering over London should have been a remarkable sight, the ultimate UFO, the subject of a thousand news items. But nobody else had reported it.
It terrified Bisesa to the root of her soul that only she had seen the Eye. Because that must mean they, the Firstborn, the powers behind the Eye and everything else that was happening to her and the world, wanted something of her.
9: Lunar Descent
By the third day of the journey the Moon was huge in the black sky.
Siobhan had to bend her neck to peer through the Komarovs poky little windows of tough, micrometeorite-starred glass. But when she found the Moons bony crescent she felt a shiver of wonder. How strange this was, she thought. Amid the mundanity of the flightthe usual horrors of airline food, the space sickness, the dismal engineering of zero-gravity toiletsthe Moon itself had come swimming out of the dark to greet her, forcing its way into her consciousness with a cold, massive grace.
And yet the most marvelous thing of all was that even here, in the passenger cabin of EarthMoon shuttle Komarov, her mobile phone worked.
Perdita, please ask Professor Graf to cover my supervisions with Bill Carel. Bill was one of her graduate students, working on spectral analyses of structures in dark energy. Troublesome but able, Bill was worth the effort; she would have to trust old Joe Graf to figure that out for himself. Oh, and please ask Joe if he will handle the proofs of my latest paper in the Astrophysical Journal. Hell know how. What else? My car was still acting up, last time I tried it. The great shock of June 9 had been traumatic for humankinds semi-sentient machines as well as for people; even months later many were still struggling to recover. It probably needs a bit more time with the therapist What else?
You have a dentist appointment, her daughter said.
So I do. Damn. Well, please cancel it. She probed with her tongue at the tooth that was giving her trouble, and wondered what the standard of dentistry was like on the Moon.
Her students, her car, her teeth. These fragments of her life from Milton Keynes, where she held a seat at the Open University, seemed incongruous, even absurd, out here between planets. And yet once this immense flap was over things would go on; she must focus some of her energy on holding things together, so there was a life for her to go back to.
But of course routine business was not what Perdita was interested in.
The image of her daughters face in her phones tiny screen was fuzzed by static, but good enough. Siobhan wasnt about to complain at such slight imperfections in a telecommunications system that now linked every human being to every other on two worldsand, the systems providers boasted, would soon be reaching out to Mars as well. But the delay was eerie, a reminder that she had traveled so far from home that even light took a perceptible time to connect her to her daughter.
It wasnt long before the issue of Siobhans safety came up once more.
You really mustnt worry, Siobhan told her daughter. Im surrounded by extremely competent people who know exactly what to do to keep me alive and well. Why, Ill probably be safer on the Moon than in London.
I doubt that very much, Perdita said, her voice mildly scolding. Youre not John Glenn, Mother.
No, but I dont need to be. Siobhan suppressed a stab of fond irritation. And Im only forty-five! But, she reflected guiltily, when she was twenty or so, wasnt this just the way she had treated her own mother?
And then there are solar flares, Perdita said. Ive been reading up.
So has most of the human race since June, I would think, Siobhan said dryly.
Astronauts are outside the Earths air and magnetic field. So they arent shielded as they would be on the ground.
Siobhan waved her phone around to show Perdita the cabin. Big enough to hold eight but empty save for herself, it had hefty walls whose thickness was revealed by the depth of the window sockets. See? She thumped the wall. Five centimeters of aluminum and water.
That wont help if a big one hits, Perdita pointed out. In 1972 a massive flare erupted only months after Apollo 16 returned from the Moon. If the astronauts had been caught on the lunar surface
But they werent, Siobhan said. And there was no such thing as solar weather forecasting back then. If there was any risk, they wouldnt let me fly.
Perdita grunted. But the sun is restless now, Mum. Its only four months since June 9, and still nobody knows what caused it. Whos to say if the forecasters have any idea whats going on anymore?
Well, Siobhan said a bit testily, thats what Im going to the Moon to find out. And I really had better get on with some work, dear With expressions of love, and after sending regards to her own mother, Siobhan closed down the call. It was a mild relief to break the connection.