I wished I had learned about the swamp room earlier. I was going to Earth soon. I wasn't sure when, but Christophe was pleased with the feedback from his leaks and assured me it would be sooner rather than later. I would be leaving. Would I find a place like the swamp room on Earth?
The room only measured twenty feet by thirty feet. The "sun" was really just a light. Everything inside had been carefully shipped from Earth. The water ran from one side of the room on a slight artificial tilt, then got piped under the floor back to the top of the small rise to simulate the slight flow that true swamps have. There were frogs. They croaked in the simulated night. There were flies of different types, and even some kind of fish. "Mud skippers", though I never got to see them skip in the mud. There were even a few rodents. "River rats". They didn't bother me. One of them sniffed my foot and took a nibble at my boot, but he clearly didn't like the flavor and didn't bother me again after.
Each afternoon the humidity gathered under the simulated hazy sun and fell in a heavy mist. It was no quite strong enough to be called a rain. The environment was just not big enough for that. It misted heavily for about an hour, and then the simulated sun heated it back up and you could smell the excitement of the plants. The first time I went in the room about a week before was right after one of these showers. The plants stood taller. They seemed happier, fresher. I liked that. More than anything else, it made me feel at home. I took a deep breath of the musty air and felt myself relax.
My holocom buzzed. I ignored it. Pretend it's a caa fly, I told myself. It buzzed again. It was hard to pretend it was a caa fly when it shook on my belt. I squeezed my eyes tighter and tried to hold on to the calm. When it buzzed a third time I gave up. It was Lynette. I clicked. Before I could talk, she began.
"There you are. Are you in the marsh again? Why do you go there? You always come out stinking of rot."
"I come here because it's the one place I can get peace and quiet around here!" It came out sounding harsher than I meant it to. It wasn't Lynette's fault I felt high strung. "It's not stinky. It's just marsh." I tried to sound more patient.
"Ralph says you're to get back here stat."
"Why?"
"Lessons."
I sighed. "Can't we skip them for a day?"
She quirked an eyebrow. "And let you start falling behind just when you're finally starting to get the hang of it?"
"Yes."
She laughed, even though I was being serious. "I expect you back here in half an hour."
Good. That would give me time to relax.
"And I expect you to be showered off. I'm not spending the afternoon with someone who smells like a cesspool!"
"What's a cesspool?"
"You. Now get up here." The screen went blank. I sighed and pushed up. I knew I should have left the holo back in my room. I just knew it.
"Wipe your feet," Mother had said. I walked out of the habitat and waited for the airlock to take away the warm wetness of the marsh and replace it with the chilly canned air we all breathe on Utopia. When the door clicked open, I stepped into the hallway and squeaked my muddy boots down the hall. On the ship, we always hit the decon chamber before entering our quarters. Any contaminants were hosed off, air dried, and then laser purified. We didn't have mud inside the Condor One, unless it was in collection samples. Every bit of dirt was gone before we crossed our threshold. I never had to wipe my feet because a highly honed electronic and robotic system did it for me.
Squeak, with a satisfying sploshing noise. My feet were covered. My uniform pants were dank up to the knees in just the short time and I knew the seat of the pants were covered in muddy moss from sitting on the rotting log.
"MISter Cosworth! If you insist on contaminating my habitats, the very least, and I do mean very, you could do would be to leave the bits and pieces where they belong! Now you've gone and tracked flora clear across the laboratory floor! It's going to take..."
The lab door closed and sealed off the rest of Bradley's rant. Utopia had a lot of bored bots. I'm sure as soon as I stepped a muddied foot on the pristine floor a whole little fleet of them snapped to attention to get on the task. I passed the other security points and got on the elevator, laughing at the look on the outer guard's face.
"What the hell they got goin' on in there?"
He must not have had the clearance to go any further. I left my mud prints in the elevator and walked down the squeaky clean halls. I got to my quarters and was surprised to find Reginald waiting for me at the door. He hadn't been all the way down to my level yet.
That sounded bad. I'm not knocking Reginald, but it was clear from the start that he lived in a different world. Nice guy, but as out of place with "regular people" as I was. It maked me feel bad for him. He spent his life building an enormous, beautiful place, and he only fit in on the very top floor.
"Ah," he said, making a motion towards my muddy clothers. "That's what Bradley was going on about. You really must, must leave the habitats alone, Jake. The water content has been precisely measured..."
"My security clearance allowed me in."
"Are you going to make me cancel that clearance?"
I sighed. "No. I'll stay out of it."
He frowned, thinking. "I'll tell you what. You are free to enter the antechamber. How's that? You get to view the marsh you seem to like, and the habitat maintains a scientific perfection." He wouldn't understood how much worse that would have been than not being near the marsh at all. He patted my shoulder. "Glad that's settled. Now, why I'm here. We've got some news, some exciting news!"
My heart leaped. "The fah'ti?"
"No, no. That's still on schedule for tomorrow. No, something better."
As if there were anything better!
"Our records have been accepted and...wait, we shouldn't do this in the hall. Let's gather the team." He opened the door and shuffled me in, calling for the others. They came out of the other room and Lynette gave me the quirked-eyebrow look that meant she was less than impressed with my appearance. I gave a little shrug and a grin. She rolled her eyes.
"What's going on, Reggie?"
If Reginald minded Ralph's new nickname, he didn't mention. Since we saw Reginald get "drunk as a skunk", in Ralph's words, Ralph figured we reached a new level of acquaintanceship.
"Great news, Ralph! Great news. Where's Jillian?"
"Still sulking about the uniforms."
Reginald scoffed. "That was weeks ago." He pulled his holo off his belt and tapped something out on the keys with more force than was necessary. After a second, Jillian's voice came through. He cut her off. "Quit being a baby and get down here. We've got big news and you're up to bat." He didn't give her time to respond. "Christophe's on the com to the press corp on Earth as we speak, but he'll be down for his own briefing later. I just couldn't wait." He glanced at his watch, then at the door, clearly bubbling with excitement. "Oh screw it. You can fill her in if she ever gets down here." He motioned to the dining table. "Everyone, have a seat." We did. And then Reginald stood at the head of the table and simply looked at us for a minute. He tends to be a little dramatic at time.
"This morning I received a communique from the presidents of the United States, Russia, and Great Britain. As you may or may not know, the three lead the Counsel for Interstellar Oversight." He smiled at Ralph's look. "Yes, I know. What interstellar? Maybe they had big heads, or maybe someone simply listened to Grandfather all those years ago. The CIO is the largest roadblock. We've always battled. Father did. I try to make peace." He waved a quick hand. "I'm getting off track again.