Our leader couple looks up. We await his reaction. I can see that the fog has cleared, and the blackness beyond is relieved by…
But I must wait my turn.
Our leader couple is stunned into silence. Then he tells us we should all look up, if only to confirm what he is seeing.
We do.
After a long while, we come to agreement as to how to describe what we see, above the roof of our world. There is no other roof. Instead, there is a huge round blot of brilliance, radiating heavily in the infrared—our favorite mode of seeing. And all around it, like tiny creatures, much like those who surround us in the wilder regions of our inner sea: hordes of bright little specks.
But the specks are infinitely sharp, tiny.
“They must be holes in a greater roof, holes like the one we just dug,” says our fourth couple, perhaps not the best and brightest, but most amusing and beloved. “Maybe they are shining lamps filled with little glowing creatures come out to welcome us.”
They are something like “funny.” A bug version of Vee-Def or DJ. We love them, love him (the little guy is our referent in these matters), but doubt that what he thinks is true. I’m working my brain overtime, and actively comparing notes with the sluggish but often more stable and even wiser brain of my big wife.
She comes up with a solution first. I love her for that. “I think those glows are other places made of ice, like our world,” she says. “But there have been disasters. They’ve dug out to the surface, other explorers have broken through to the open, but their explosions were too powerful—and they are all on fire. They’re burning!”
Perhaps not the most fortunate hypothesis. It is convincing enough that we scramble back to the frozen pool of water and frantically chip and dig down again. The cap finally breaks up and we dive through and fall, drifting down past what is left of the scaffolding and the drills, tumbling along the side of the tower of rock and ice, rolling, endlessly rolling until we are back among our companions, our friends, our supporters.
The funny couple doesn’t survive. We will miss them.
Shit. My partner died, too. That means my host male will be dying soon as well. Makes me sad, very sad. Worse to lose that partner than to die myself.
Many sacrifices, much sadness—but also much discovery. Much to think upon.
We soon concluded that the lights in the outer blackness are not holes. They are burning spheres. Millions of them.
That was the first time.
We—that is, our doubled bug forebears—waited a very long time to try again.
JACOBI AND TAK stand over me. I’ve had my eyes open for some time, but only now do I see them.
“Wow!” Tak says. “You were way, way down. Feel better?”
“I lost her,” I say. “They dug out, but I lost her.”
“No time,” Jacobi says. “We’re moving out.”
“Everybody?” I mumble.
Tak and Jacobi lift me from the cot. “They’ve cleaned our skintights,” Jacobi says. “Pretty good job, as far as I can tell.”
“Weapons?” I ask.
She says, “See if you can stand.”
AD ASTRA OR ELSE
I’m doing better now. I know who and where I am, for a little while, maybe.
We’re suited up and back on the Red. Litvinov’s troops have lined up the vehicles to begin transporting settlers away from the mine. The settlers number about fifty. Most of the work in the mine must have been done by kobolds. DJ and Joe and the Russians organize the move. They pack as many settlers as they can into the first group of four vehicles—two Tonkas and two Trundles.
I’ve had no chance to say good-bye to Teal. Borden and Kumar and I stand with our Skyrine sisters. Captain Jacobi brushes my arm. Something about her attitude has changed. That worries me.
“Moving out?” she asks. I lift my thumb. I can’t see her face behind the plate, bright with morning sun. “About time,” she says. “Ishida asks if you’re married or otherwise bespoken.”
“Lifelong bachelor,” I say.
“Figures. We’re running a pool on whether you end up married to Borden, to your Muskie girl, or to Ishida.”
She brushes my arm again.
“Terrific,” I say.
“Gadget likes you.”
“She’d burn me to a stump,” I say.
Jacobi’s face becomes visible as she turns. She’s nervous watching the lines of settlers in their skintights. “We can hand over her instruction book if you want to study up.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Borden and Kumar approach from the Trundle. “One of those for us?” Jacobi asks.
“Three, actually,” Borden says. “We’re also taking Litvinov and ten Russians.”
“Won’t be enough for all the settlers,” Jacobi says.
“Our mission takes precedence,” Borden says.
Then Jacobi does something that astonishes me. She and Ishida flank Borden and stop her forward progress. Borden is surprised into silence.
“We won’t lift until the settlers evac,” Jacobi says. “All of them.”
Borden stares her down. “Then you’re going to die here,” she says, voice tight.
“If necessary, Commander,” Jacobi says. “I won’t take the blame for killing Muskies.”
“So says our lady,” Ishida adds. The others gather to show support.
Kumar raises his hand. “This is not an issue. We have priority to return to Earth all who have a connection with the mines.”
Borden looks astonished, and then really, really angry—like she wants to strangle Kumar. She comes plate to plate with him. “Why am I not kept in the loop?” she asks.
“To accomplish that,” Kumar smoothly continues, “we have been provided ten landers—enough for all, I think. Might take an hour more, however. By which time Antags could be upon us with, as you say, righteous hurt.”
Borden turns her back on us. She’s feeling the thorny end of the shit stick and I don’t know why. I suspect it’s because Kumar just doesn’t care.
“Maybe so,” Jacobi says. “But we won’t leave until they’re off the Red. These people have suffered enough because of us…sir.”
Kumar studies her a few seconds, then acquiesces with a bow. “I will so instruct Litvinov,” he says, and walks away. At this moment, I love our sisters with all my heart.
Jacobi’s cheeks are pink with anger. “What’s the deal with Joe Sanchez?” she asks, voice still tense. “Ishikawa thinks he’s dead cool. Is Sanchez taken?”
I don’t dignify that with a response.
“Don’t go all GI on us, Venn,” Jacobi says.
“No, ma’am,” I say.
“Until we all get in the shit again and decide to fuck or fight, to us you’re still a POG,” Jacobi says.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say. Sisterhood is powerful. Warm and fuzzy, spattered with blood and spit.
AN HOUR LATER, still no sign of Antags or anyone else. All the settlers in suits have been loaded. They fill seven vehicles, including the Trundles, and twelve hang from the sides of the Tonkas. The round-faced Russian ballerina, Starshina Ulyanova, stands on the rear hatch step of the Chesty and waves for an accordion to be stretched from the nearest domicile. Not enough skintights for complete evac. Good planning all around.
SNKRZ.
I’m tired of feeling confused and shitty. I want to feel tight and angry, like coming off a good fight—like I can shift the stars with my rage, with the righteous indignation that stupid fuckers anywhere would dare challenge me and my brothers and sisters. True grunt rage, hu-wa! Best drug of all. Back when I last felt it, it turned my skull into a white-hot, chrome-plated death’s head filled with sizzling brains—fearsome to behold. I’d like to feel that again. Having Jacobi rag me makes me think it might be possible. But not yet. Not unless we survive our lift from the Red and our big transport is ready for the long, long haul.