The briefing left Marianne feeling shaky. Not that she hadn’t known most of it before, since Zack’s first explanations in the signal station, but somehow this meeting had made the full horror more real. At night she dreamed not of the Collapse she had never seen, but of the result that she also hadn’t seen. Cities overgrown by wilderness, or else H-bombed into rubble. Vast empty stretches of farmland reverting to prairie. Primitive settlements of survivors trying to hang on. And in Europe and Asia and Australia and Africa and South America, probably more of the same. A mixture of technology from Bronze Age to late twentieth century to alien artifacts like domes and esuits, used but not understood. The mind had trouble grasping it.
And yet people went on, replacing abysmal loss with everyday activities: prepare communal dinner, work in labs, educate children, prepare for dome defense. The new normal.
She made her way through the crowded, overpopulated Lab Dome to the infirmary. Children from the Settlement, who evidently had no trouble adapting to a change of “normal,” pushed past her in some sort of excited game. Their parents looked bewildered and unhappy, although Marianne knew that the more enterprising of them had already begun to plant a vegetable garden right outside the dome walls, under the watchful eyes of Jason’s guards, where they could be hustled back inside in case of attack.
Halfway to the infirmary, Kayla Rhinehart grabbed Marianne’s arm. “Where are you going?”
“To see my son.” Marianne peeled Kayla off her.
“I want you to get me in to see Colonel Jenner!”
“I can’t do that, Kayla. I almost never see him myself and I have no authority.”
“You’re his grandmother!”
Marianne wanted to say And this is not a matrilineal lahk, but she didn’t. Kayla looked dreadful. Claire must have adjusted her meds again, still without finding the optimum dose. Mania had been replaced not with depression but with desperate anxiety. Kayla had lost weight, and her thin face looked cadaverous. Marianne said, “Can I help?”
“No! Only Colonel Jenner! I want him to send us back to World on the Return!”
Marianne said as gently as she could, “That isn’t going to happen, Kayla.”
“It has to! I hate it here! And so does Glamet^vor¡ and La^vor and… and everybody!”
Marianne had not observed La^vor hating Earth. Jane’s friend was mostly occupied with her younger, mentally challenged brother: playing with him, teaching him, looking after him. At fifteen Terran years, Belok^ had the lively curiosity of a three-year-old, although not as large a vocabulary. La^vor seemed the most loving of caretakers, the sort of woman born to be a wonderful mother.
Kayla said, “I want to go back to World! This isn’t the Earth I came here for!”
As if it were for any of them. “Maybe someday we’ll go back. But for right now—”
“You won’t help me! You’re no different from the rest of these fuckers, Marianne!”
“I—” But Kayla punched her on the shoulder, turned, and stalked away.
Marianne rubbed her shoulder. She would need to find Claire and tell her about this. But first she was going to see Colin, still in infirmary.
In the infirmary corridor, she met Lindy Ross. Lindy’s face was creased with worry, and Marianne’s heart clenched. “Colin? Is he—”
“No, no, he’s fine. Healing well.” Lindy hesitated. “Marianne, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“When Jason was a child, was he vindictive? No, that’s the wrong word. I mean, did he feel that scores had to be settled even if there was no immediate threat?”
“No, never. He valued fairness and got indignant when people weren’t fair, but he was never mean, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Lindy nodded, her face still troubled. On impulse, Marianne said, “Forgive me if I’m overstepping boundaries here, but I think Jason still cares for you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Immediately Lindy’s face closed. “I’ve seen the way he looks at Jane.”
Jane? Really? How had Marianne missed that? Or was Lindy mistaken? Marianne said, “Don’t be too hard on Jason. He looks exhausted. He’s holding this place together with spit and duct tape and sheer will.”
“With all due respect, Marianne—do you think I don’t know that? Plus a lot more that you don’t know?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Lindy’s mouth twisted. “We’re all just taut as catgut.”
“I know. And you’re all doing a wonderful job.”
“Trying, anyway.” Lindy forced a smile and walked away.
Marianne watched the back of Lindy’s upright figure. Such a formidable young woman: intelligent, tireless, but unforgiving. Had Marianne herself ever been like that? She had. Maybe that was why she liked Lindy so much, despite Lindy’s prickliness. Well, in this situation, prickliness was a reasonable response. Much better than hysteria or despair or fanaticism.
But… what did Lindy mean by Plus a lot more that you don’t know?
CHAPTER 10
Jane sat alone with Colin Jenner when he woke from sedation.
His bed, her uncomfortable chair, and medical equipment crowded the tiny room in the infirmary, a place of hard edges and square angles and too bright lights. Each night Jane dreamed of the soaring curves of karthwood, of purplish orchards, of the broad soft sky of World. Each morning she had to find in herself the determination to face the next day without inflicting her fear and sadness on La^vor and Belok^. They did the same for her, of course, even Belok^. Bu^ka^tel.
But at least Lab Dome held Colin Jenner. He lay under an Army blanket drawn over most of his body, but she could see that one leg bulged with wrappings or machines of some kind. One hand lay under the blanket and one on top. If he had been a Worlder, she would have taken that free hand and held it in solidarity and comfort, even though he was a stranger. But Colin was not a Worlder, and Jane was bewildered by her attraction to this stocky, sun-burned Terran with the uncut hair and mud-colored eyes that no Worlder had ever had. She knew well what her feelings were; she was not a thirteen-year-old virgin. It was the strength of the attraction that surprised and upset her.
Sometimes, her lahk Mother had said back home, delight comes unbidden and should be honored. But this was not delight. It was all mixed up with her homesickness and Colin’s beliefs and the maternal feelings that Jane had denied too long now—she was already twenty-seven, more in Terran years, and had not provided her lahk with the first of the two children that were her duty to create for the good of all, while her eggs were still at their best.
Her lahk was 103 light-years away.
But—
Colin stirred and opened his eyes.
They focused slowly, and when they did, they gazed at Jane. A smile came and went on his lips. He tried to speak, croaked something unintelligible, tried again. “Settlement?”
Jane hadn’t expected to be the one to tell him, but anything less than the truth was unthinkable. “Many of your people died, but the rest are here, in the domes. I am told that the inside of your dome is destroyed by… by a weapon. I don’t know the word.”
Colin squeezed closed his eyes, opened them again. Jane said, “I am sorry, Colin Jenner.”
“We will start again. How…”
“Colonel Jenner destroyed the ones who attacked you and then bringed your people here in our spaceship.”
“Is Jason hurt?”
“No.”
“Mary?”
“I don’t know who that is.” A woman’s name. His woman? Jane’s throat tightened. “I will get Claire. She will want to examine you.”