Shareen clipped a stabilizer cable from her belt onto a thin metal rung, and gestured for Howard to do the same. “The view’s better up there. Come on.”
The young man followed her, with Del Kellum huffing to keep up. From the high platform, they could look into the vortex of misty chemicals that were sucked into the main body of the skymine. Shareen swung out, relying on the clip to keep her safe. Howard peered into the dizzying swirl of gases.
Del raised his voice above the loud wind. “You always were a tomboy—just like your mother! But you’re a young woman now, a beautiful girl, even if you don’t know it.” He jabbed a finger in her face. “You could trouble yourself to look nice. Don’t you want this young man to notice you?”
“I already notice her, sir,” Howard said, making Shareen feel warm inside.
She responded with a mock huff. “I want a boy who sees me for who I am.”
Del reached out to wipe a grease smudge from her cheek. “Sometimes it’s hard to see who you are.” Then he playfully tugged on one of her pigtails. “I want to show you something.” He unfolded a flexible screen from one of his jumpsuit pockets, spread it on a flat surface, and activated the power film. “You’re not done with your schooling, just because you didn’t like Earth. It’s time for some Roamer education.”
“That’s why we came here. Hands-on work at the Golgen skymine.”
Del took Howard by the sleeve and pulled him closer to the film-screen as well. “Not good enough. You’re a genius, and geniuses have to go the extra parsec.”
On the screen Shareen saw a beautiful maelstrom of nebula gas, a cluster of stars at its core, and a flotilla of domed habitats, skeletal frameworks, flitting ships, stretched sheets of polymer fabric like butterfly wings, and a partially completed arc that, when finished, would become a giant metal ring.
“Kotto Okiah has the biggest ideas of any Roamer,” Del said. “I’m going to make some contacts. I have a lot of clout as former Speaker of the clans, by damn.”
Shareen wasn’t impressed. “My dad used his connections to get me into the best Earth academy—and look how well that turned out.”
“My clout is different from your father’s, and I know different people. Wouldn’t you like to study with Kotto Okiah?”
Even Howard seemed impressed. “He’s a legend.”
Del tapped the images on the screen. “This is Fireheart Station, where you belong. Once you’ve studied with Kotto, the Spiral Arm will be your oyster.”
Shareen frowned. “I don’t like oysters. You made me eat one when we visited you on Rhejak.”
Del laughed. “Don’t much like them either—salty and squishy, and if you don’t swallow one whole, it’s like a glob of phlegm stuck in your mouth.” He rolled up the flexible screen and stuffed it into his pocket. “Anyway, that’s just an expression. Sure, spend a few months here if you want, but you’ll have all your life to run this skymine. I want you to dream big, girl. Dream big.”
FORTY-TWO
XANDER BRINDLE
Xander’s anticipation built as the Verne headed toward the dense shock front at the nebula’s edge. He had been to Fireheart Station when he was just a child on one of his parents’ runs, but he didn’t remember much about it.
Early on, his father started keeping a scrapbook of every star system, planet, Roamer colony, or industrial installation they visited, so the boy would have a list of where he had been in his life. Xander didn’t count a place, however, if he didn’t remember it. This time, he would remember.
“Approach trajectory locked in,” Terry said from the copilot seat. “Should be a standard flight, nothing scary.”
“I double-checked the navigation calculations and found no errors,” said their compy OK. “Errors are statistically unlikely, but they do occur.”
“Just keep us safe, OK,” said Xander.
Only twice in their years of voyaging together had the diligent compy discovered errors. OK’s attention to detail was one of the reasons why Xander’s parents had given him the compy to serve as navigator.
The Verne began to jostle and bump as they entered the heavier dust concentrations at the edge of the Fireheart nebula. From this approach, the thick front masked the spectacular view, but deep inside the vast cosmic sea, five intense newborn stars blasted enough radiation to ionize the swirling gases and light up the nebula. The stellar winds also pushed the dust outward, carving out an ever-expanding bubble.
Now the Verne tunneled through the shock front. Static filled the cockpit screens, but OK calmly chose the route of least density. Xander followed the compy’s guidance without flinching. After two minutes of tense turbulence, they were through the compressed dust and into the colorful maelstrom of the nebula itself.
Terry said, “Hands off the controls and let OK fly for the next few minutes.”
Xander sniffed. “I’m perfectly capable.”
“OK isn’t going to stare out the window like a tourist, and you are.”
“Good point.” The compy took over the flying duties, so Xander and Terry could just drink in the scenery, side by side.
“I see why Kotto Okiah wanted to set up shop here. It’s beautiful,” Terry said.
Xander thought of the eccentric Roamer scientist. “I doubt Kotto factored the scenery into his decision at all. A place like this… plenty of potential.”
By the time he turned fourteen, Xander knew every ship system, and when he turned eighteen two years ago, Rlinda Kett had presented him with a ship of his own, the Verne. Though it still technically belonged to Kett Shipping, Xander was the lease owner. His parents gave him the scrapbook of all the planets and settlements he had visited in his life, as well as a book—a real book, made from thin Ildiran crystal sheets—that listed the documented planets and settlements. All of them. Now he had a goal, and he and OK had set out to check planets off the list.
In a spaceport bar at Ulio, he had met Terry Handon, a mechanic and service engineer. Though Terry didn’t belong to any Roamer clan, Xander thought he had Roamer sensibilities. From years of working in the Ulio repair yards, Terry had acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of spaceships, and he knew the Ildiran stardrive backward and forward. He had watched ships come and go in the Ulio complex, but he never went anywhere; the weightless shipyards were perfectly suited to a man who couldn’t use his legs.
When Xander met him, Terry had been collecting images of places he wanted to see. Although he would wistfully look at highlights, natural wonders, astronomical phenomena, he was content to live vicariously. Terry enjoyed hanging out in the spacer bar to listen to travelers telling stories about far-off places. He made a habit of checking the origins of various ships that came to Ulio, though he rarely got up the nerve to talk with the visitors. He was only two years older than Xander.
Xander had just come from the Plumas water mines, which were run by his clan Tamblyn cousins. He showed Terry images of the Plumas ice sheets, the pumping stations under the crust, the wellheads that poked above the surface.
The next time he came through Ulio, he sought Terry out to show him images of other places he had visited in the meantime. The third time, he showed Terry his scrapbook, as well as the extensive list of planets still waiting to be checked off. Terry had seen none of them, which surprised Xander. “You live at the heart of a spaceport and haven’t gone anywhere?”
“Never had the opportunity,” Terry said.
“Never took the opportunity.”