Adel saw the silver ball lift from the top of Kamilah’s suit and float directly above her. The bottom half of it was now incandescent, lighting the surface of the Godspeed against the swarming darkness. At the same time the ground around him lit up. He looked and saw his firefly hovering about a meter over the suit.
—amazing—buzzed plus—we’re out, we’re out in space—
They crossed the flat staging pad just outside the airlock and stepped off onto the regolith. The rock had been pounded to gray dust by centuries of foot traffic. Whenever he took a step the dust puffed underfoot and drifted slowly back to the ground like smoke. It was twenty centimeters deep in some places but offered little resistance to his footplates. Adel’s excitement leached slowly away as Kamilah led him away from the airlock. He had to take mincing steps to keep from launching himself free of the Godspeed’s tenuous gravitational pull. It was frustrating; he felt as if he were walking with a pillow between his legs. The sky was a huge disappointment as well. The fireflies washed out the light from all but the brightest stars. He’d seen better skies camping on Harvest.
“So where are we going?”
“Just around.”
“How long will it take?”
“Not that long.”
—hiding something?—buzzed plus.
—definitely—
“And what exactly are we going to do?”
“A little bit of everything. One of her robotic arms gave him a playful wave. “You’ll see.”
They marched in silence for a while. Adel began to chafe at following Kamilah’s lead. He picked up his pace and drew alongside of her. The regolith here was not quite so trampled and much less regular, although a clearly defined trail showed that they were not the first to make this trek. They passed stones and rubble piles and boulders the size of houses and the occasional impact crater that the path circumnavigated.
—impact crater?—buzzed minus.
“Uh, Kamilah,” he said. “How often does Speedy get hit by meteors?”
“Never,” said Kamilah. “The craters you see are all pre-launch. Interstellar space is pretty much empty so it’s not that much of a problem.”
“I sweep the sky for incoming debris,” said the Godspeed, “up to five million meters away.”
“And that works?”
“So far,” said Kamilah. “We wouldn’t want to slam into anything traveling at a third the speed of light.”
They walked on for another ten minutes before Kamilah stopped. “There.” She pointed. “That’s where we came from. Somewhere out there is home.”
Adel squinted. There was pretty much meaningless. Was she pointing at some particular star or a space between stars?”
“This is the backside. If Speedy had a rear bumper,” she said, “we’d be standing on it right here. I want to show you something interesting. Pull your arms out of the sleeves.”
“Done.”
“The comm toggle is under the right arm keypad. Switch it off.”
The Godspeed broke into their conversation. “Kamilah and Adel, you are about to disable a key safety feature of your hardsuits. I strongly urge you to reconsider.”
“I see the switch.” Adel’s throat was tight. “You know, Speedy warned me about this back in the airlock.”
“I’m sure she did. We go through this every time.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Many times,” she said. “It’s a tradition we’ve started to bring the new arrival out here to see the sights. It’s actually a spiritual thing, which is why Speedy doesn’t really get it.”
“I have to turn off the comm why?”
“Because she’s watching, Adel,” said Kamilah impatiently. “She’s always with us. She can’t help herself.”
“Young Adel,” murmured the Godspeed. “Remember what I said.”
—trust Kamilah—
—or trust Speedy—
—we were warned—
Adel flicked the toggle. “Now what?” he said to himself. His voice sounded very small in the suit.
He was startled when Kamilah leaned her suit against his so that the tops of the eggs were touching. It was strangely intimate maneuver, almost like a kiss. Her face was an electric green shadow in the glow of the HUD.
He was startled again when she spoke. “Turn. The. Comm. Off.” He could hear her through the suit. She paused between each word, her voice reedy and metallic.
“I did,” he said.
He could see her shake her head and tap fingers to her ears. “You. Have. To. Shout.”
“I. Did!” Adel shouted.
“Good.” She picked up a rock the size of a fist and held it at arm’s length. “Drop. Rock.” She paused. “Count. How. Long. To. Surface.”
—science experiments?—buzzed plus.
—she’s gone crazy—
Adel was inclined to agree with his minus but what Kamilah was asking seemed harmless enough.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
She let go. Adel counted.
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five…
And it was down.
“Yes?” said Kamilah.
“Five.”
“Good. Keep. Secret.” She paused. “Comm. On.”
As he flicked the switch he heard her saying. “…you feel it? My first time it was too subtle but if you concentrate, you’ll get it.”
“Are you all right, Adel?” murmured the Godspeed. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Adel, mystified.
“Well, we can try again on the frontside,” said Kamilah. “Sometimes it’s better there. Let’s go.”
—what is she talking about?—minus buzzed.
For twenty minutes he trudged in perplexed silence past big rocks, little rocks and powdered rocks in all the colors of gray. In some places the surface of the trail was grainy like sand, in others it was dust, and in yet others it was bare ledge. Adel just didn’t understand what he was supposed to have gotten from watching the rocks drop. Something to do with gravity? What he didn’t know about gravity would fill a barn. Eventually he gave up trying to figure it out. Kamilah was right about one thing: it was real work walking in a hardsuit. If it hadn’t been for the isotherm, he would have long since broken a sweat.
—this has to get better—buzzed plus.
“How much longer?” said Adel at last.
“A while yet.” Kamilah chuckled. “What are you, a little kid?”
“Remember the day I got here?” he said. “You told me that you were sentenced to spend time on Speedy. But you never said why.”
“Not that interesting, really.”
“Better than counting rocks.” He stomped on a flat stone the size of his hand, breaking it into three pieces. “Or I suppose I could sing.” He gave her the first few bars of “Do As We Don’t” in his finest atonal yodel.
“Gods, Adel, but you’re a pest today.” Kamilah sighed. “All right, so there’s a religion on Suncast…”
“Suncast? That’s where you’re from?”
“That’s where I was from. If I ever get off this rock, that’s the last place I’m going to stay.”
—if?—buzzed minus—why did she say if?—
Anyway, there’s a sect that call themselves God’s Own Poor. They’re very proud of themselves for having deliberately chosen not to own very much. They spout these endless lectures about how living simply is the way to true spirituality. It’s all over the worldnet. And they have this tradition that once a year they leave their houses and put their belongings into a cart, supposedly everything they own but not really. Each of them drags the cart to a park or a campground—this takes place in the warm weather, naturally—and they spend two weeks congratulating themselves on how poor they are and how God loves them especially.”