Canticle Blue

35. Night People

Music - The Luminous, the Dark by Tim Story
(from Beguiled)

For Annibet and the new crew of the Terreska, the first "real" night on the ship would not arrive soon. With new pressures to prepare the ship for habitation, Gilon felt that continuous sunlight in the interior was critical for water and air recovery in the unused rings.

For this contingency, the Castel had brought, along with its passengers and supplies, three large rolls of "sky-film" to the Terreska. Each roll contained one seamless sheet of an experimental material which the islanders hoped would eventually coat designated inner surfaces of spacecraft. Made almost exclusively of programmable Shil and Canticle Blue, the sheets would be applied to the outer surfaces of three habitat-ring skylights to provide variable transparency, artificial lighting, and even accurate celestial depictions, if desired. Each sheet contained its own power source and controller.

Recognizing the need to provide normal day-night cycles for the humans aboard, the Middi quickly installed two of the sheets on the afternoon that the transport arrived, then just finished the third at what would have been evening on Per'sa Island. After verifying that the panels could be controlled from inside the rings, Annibet and her staff opted to let Gilon create a sky-film twilight and nightfall remotely.

But, when the time came, Annibet couldn't sleep. A recurring thought kept her unsettled. For the first time in her life, she was totally dependent on technology to allow her to breathe. After initial feelings of wonder, she was now realizing she couldn't leave the Terreska. She decided to call Syl Este on the C-link.

Fortunately, she hadn't been sleeping either. She answered, "I knew you would call me on your first night. What's it like up there?"

"It's kind of like walking around inside a giant statue—albeit, a friendly one."

"Ooh," Syl kidded, "I think I Would like that!"

"It's not really dark though, even though the Middi have the panels up. It's more like full moonlight because the rest of the ring is uncovered." She stepped outside of her quarters. "But, guess what I'm looking at right now? The night sky over Per'sa Island. It looks so real on our sky-film. I didn't even ask Gilon to send it. What a thoughtful gift! If more panels were up, I'd be tempted to go for a walk.

"I agree with Ip's description of the air in here. It does smell old, but not like a tomb or something."

"Geddes likes tombs," Syl offered, "as long as they're not occupied."

Annibet laughed. "One of the high points of my day was the smell of dinner cooking. But I'm not feeling sorry for myself, really. At this point, though, I can't imagine the Terreska feeling like home. I may not be colonist material."

"No, you just need more neighbors," Syl assured. "The rest of the Middi will be there soon. And we will be coming with the Meids"

"I would say 'I can't wait,' but I have to. The quarters here aren't much to look at, you know. And we can't clean them as well as we'd like at the moment. I'm sending you some images."

Syl looked them over. "Okay... maybe we could call them 'cottages,' when we're talking to Elyse or the Bryn. I think I'd recommend big curtains for those small windows."

They talked for hours. Finally Annibet began to feel a familiar surrendering of her thought processes. Syl told her, "Geddes says I can 'dull the edges' of insomnia. He thinks it's poetic."

There was so much work to be done on the ship in the days that followed that Annibet had little time to think about friends. But she had been granted a request when she volunteered to come. The living quarters next to her own would be reserved for the Meid and Este families. Until she received the letter from Chancellor Meric, she had wondered if the Institute had even decided what to do with the ship. Then a decision had been forced on everyone. But, from her point-of-view, things were about to get better.

Whenever she could, Annibet called Elyse to describe Terreska living conditions and her current projects. Each time—although she reminded herself that she didn't need to be persuasive—she made sure to tell Elyse how much she missed the plants and trees in the island city. The habitat rings, she would reiterate, were thirty feet in diameter and could accommodate fruit trees—or even reed trees, if they were trimmed often. There wasn't enough light for them at the moment. But E-matter lights, especially the new high- intensity types, would be brought in soon.

Elyse was fascinated to hear about the floating—or, in some cases, non-floating—cottages, though Annibet wondered if she had somehow gotten the impression that they actually floated on water. But there were empty basin-like areas between most habitats, and Annibet suggested that water gardens, or even rice-like grains could eventually be planted there. And, of course, she made sure to remind her about her family quarters next-door and the decorative (yet functional) bridges the Middi had built between their homes.

Then, late one night, like a visit from a wandering moon, the Castel appeared outside the canopy airlock, casting exaggerated shadows into the habitat chamber. Pa'Keh gently eased a new transport module through the outer airlock doors and backed away from it as they were closing. As he waited outside the Terreska canopy, Gilon gently retrieved the unit and ferried it to another inter-ring airlock. Then she returned the original Castel utility module to Pa'Keh for refitting on the island.

The first group of Annibet's friends had arrived on the ship. When she saw them emerging from the module, she ran to them, trying not to bounce in the low gravity, and whispered emphatically, "Yay, my new, old neighbors!"

Syl Este was the first to give her a long hug, saying, "So, we found another strange place to live."

"Annibet laughed, "You're going to love it... or at least convince yourself to like it." Even as she was saying this, she realized that, indeed the Terreska was beginning to have a semblance of home. And it became much more so when the Meids stepped through the airlock. She was so relieved to see them that her joy suddenly gave way to exhaustion. She could barely lift her arms to hug Elyse. With her staff workers still asleep, she spoke just above a whisper, "It is so, so good to see you again! I'm all set up for you three to stay in my quarters tonight. Ip is waiting for Maire upstairs."

Elyse whispered back, "I'm still so excited, I doubt I'll be able to sleep. But I don't want to keep you up either."

"Oh, don't worry about me," Annibet chuckled. "If you see me nodding at the wrong times, just talk to the C-link, and I'll listen to it in the morning."

Havilan was carrying Maire, who was asleep. He gave Annibet a one-armed hug and whispered, "We brought a few plants too. Where should we put them?"

She pointed to their new home and said, "Just across the bridge, on your front porch. But I'm sure the Middi will want to carry them for you." She smiled. "Welcome to the new austerity. As you can see, these aren't really cottages. But now that you guys are here..."

Havilan said, "Thanks so much for putting us up for the night. As you might imagine, we're quite disoriented."

As he carried Maire toward the stairs, she whispered, "It's my pleasure. Absolutely!"

Over breakfast the next morning, Syl observed, "Things are kind of... bouncy up here."

Annibet told her, "It's the free-spin of the ship, of course. Not much gravity, but enough." She put her hand on Syl's shoulder, as if to hold her down. "You have to be careful. If you start jumping up and down, you're liable to hit your head on something."

Syl said, "I might miss jumping up and down."

Ip responded, "There are plans for a medical facility, Syl. But maybe you can learn to fly indoors with me."

Annibet quipped, "As soon as we get the interior ready, we can all go out to play."

Syl pointed to the skylight and said, "Speaking of which, I just noticed. We don't
have a waterfall."

Annibet said, "Oh, we do. You just can't hear it because it's in a vacuum."

Syl stared at her for a moment, then they both burst out laughing.  Once she caught her breath, she said, "I see the humor up here has its own vernacular."