Then, Joe and Borden and Kumar withdraw like matchmakers leaving on cue, but I know they’re just outside, listening. I get it. We’re big investments. Prize Thoroughbreds.
I gingerly sit across from Teal. I have no claim. That passing spark of connection, that slap across my face, sharing her grief and fear at the appearance of the Voors—no right to think I did anything major to protect her or keep her from harm—did I? I imagined it all, right? Even so, I want to bathe in her presence. I could be a ghost and I’d still just want to be here and watch her.
Teal stretches her hand across the table.
“I am such a shithole,” is the first thing I say.
“Hush t’at,” she says.
I reach out. She hears flesh rub on plastic, grasps my fingers, then lays her palm over mine. Her touch is dry. Jeweler’s fingers, long and strong but delicate. I remember that fine strength. She pushes at the table, trying to get closer, so I move around the corner, kneel beside her.
“Let me feel you!” she says. She brings her face close to my head, hands hovering beside my cheeks. Her nostrils flare. She’s smelling me. “Hasna’t been hard, hasna’t?” she says, eyes moving as if they can still see. I wonder if somebody will replace her eyes, like Tak’s, and I think it could happen—but not here. I want desperately to get her to Earth, to a hospital, to fix her and make her whole again.
Back to see her child.
“So sorry a be this way,” she says, and touches the scars around her eyes. “Went hard for us.”
“I know,” I say. “Not your fault, not ever.”
She raises her chin. “You’re alive a-cause me, remember?” she says, teasing a little, but full of joy, of pride. “I saved you.”
Tears drip down my cheeks. “You sure did,” I say.
“I was sa glad a find ot’ers. Never touched you, dinna know your feel, just far looks,” she says, and her long fingers stroke my cheeks, my lips, the orbits around my eyes. I don’t remind her about that slap. “Dinna catch your smell, ’cept sweat, fear. You’re afraid now.” She touches the moisture on my cheeks. “Na tears. So much a learn!”
She takes my hands and raises them to her own face. I touch her skin. It’s the first time I’ve actually felt her so intimately, flesh, bone beneath, warmth, and her scent comes at me from different angles.
“They say you feel strong te tea,” she says. “You know te old moon’s life. What do you see, Michael?”
I don’t know how to say it. The silence grows and she frowns. “It’s na wrong. Fat’er felt it. First gen gets it strong, second less. T’ree strongest of all, t’ey say. He use a give me stories. I t’ought t’ey were odd, but beautiful.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” I say.
“Being in te Drifter weird enow,” Teal says. “What happened after you went back a Eart’?”
“I need to know what happened to you,” I say.
“Sure,” Teal says. “Te Voors took me back a te main cache, t’rough te fighting. Only five lived, Rafe and de Groot and Aram and me among ’em. T’ere wor ot’er Voors and settlers at te cache. De Groot took lead, organized, tried a open te second mine but dinna have te coin…. Still, t’ey took me in, made me one a t’eirs. Te women fit me, de Groot got his way—I wor married. I wor married—Michael.” Her eyes try to search me out, to see what I’m thinking. Her hands twitch. She wants to feel my expression, but she’s afraid.
“Was he a good man?” I ask.
“He wor chosen by de Groot, one a te Voors but not one o’ his sons,” she says. “None of his sons felt te old moon strong. De Groot chose a man wit’ a strong sense. Not cruel, not stupid.” She turns her head. One ear got nicked, I see under the short fringe of hair. My whole body aches. “Te babe came quick enow. T’en Joe and DJ and Tak returned wit survey team a open te second mine. Joe had te coin.”
“The one I found,” I say.
“We returned a digging, all a us, and t’en, good time, fine mont’s—t’en, Far Ot’ers came and hit us, we t’ink. Houses split open a dust and sky. Husband died. I nearly died. Alice and Joe send away te babies. After, we divide from t’ot’ers, live in te mine.”
“Amazing work here,” I say.
I hear a commotion outside the cubby. Kumar and Joe and Tak are arguing.
DJ enters, breathless. “It’s gonna happen!” he says.
Joe pulls him back. “We got hours yet,” he says, and drags DJ away. Harsh whispers out of our sight.
“What’s that about?” I ask.
Teal’s face firms. “Tell me about you,” she says.
The little room feels close and dense. Everything feels fragile, temporary, I don’t know why. And then…
I do know. The mine, the contents of the mine, senses time is getting short. I can picture it, maybe the same picture DJ has. The Drifter turned glass right to the central peak after it was hit.
And that’s not a bad thing.
Coyle didn’t die, not completely.
Teal pats my hand. “We’re a get evacuated, some a new camp, some a Eart’. But tell me afore we ha’a go.” She grips my hand firmly, brooking no dissent. The people outside have fallen silent. Maybe they’ve gone away. Maybe they’re decent enough to give us privacy.
I stumble through my story. My life has been empty compared to hers, and what’s the point? What are we expecting? Weren’t we supposed to get together and produce the third-gen child? Was that the plan or just my fantasy? What the hell happened? I don’t say this, but I think it as I speak, and maybe it paints over my words and makes her sad. She leans her head to one side, listening with that nicked ear, spidery hands moving slowly on the table, trying to find mine again, which I’ve put back in my lap.
I describe the lockup room and Kumar and the window.
She shakes her head as if that can’t be real. “Michael,” she interrupts, “tell me a te ot’er place. What’s it like? Living anot’er time, anot’er body? Make me see it. My husband couldna.”
“What was his name?” I ask. It’s important. People connected to Teal are important. He didn’t hurt her, maybe he cared for her.
“Olerud,” she says. “Olerud Miesler.”
“How’d he die?”
“Fighting along a te Russians, out on a dust,” she says.
Jesus. Her husband died protecting her. I wasn’t here, I can’t resent him. I can even feel admiration, gratitude—Goddamn it to hell.
“Enow,” she says. “Tell me what you see.”
“Comes and goes,” I say. “Usually, it’s brief. Like a sharp kind of dream.” I study her face, feeling the coiling of a mighty force held back, wound up….
And then…
Being with Teal, smelling and sucking in the tea, my God.
It’s here.
I start to describe to her the things I didn’t realize I’d been seeing and dreaming, spilling it all. She’s the perfect listener. She’ll believe. She’ll get it.
“All our life came from them,” I say.
“I know,” she says, nodding.
“There are millions of them spread over vast time, hundreds of millions of years—all different sorts and shapes. In the time that comes through strongest, most of the powerful ones, the ones in charge, come in two parts: a smaller rider and a big, stronger partner. I don’t know who’s smarter. They blend together, except when they’re apart—which isn’t often. They have tough shells.”
“I know. Like lice.” Her lips curl.