If Jove Stray

Chapter 27: friends such as these

Lully and Esperanza hurried through the halls to Alcott's berth, knocking breathlessly when they arrived. Alcott hadn't given many details, but she had sounded upset. Lully knew that things had been shifting on the base, after a while you could feel it in the air. Unfortunately, past experience told him it always originated with Levi and Dylan.

"Merci for coming," Alcott said, opening the door and letting them in. "I've just put the pot pie in the oven, but we can talk before we eat."

Levi was sitting on the couch with a dazed look on his face. Dylan, wonder of wonders, was sitting next to him holding his hands. Walsh waved from the kitchen, holding a spatula. Alcott poured Lully and Esperanza a glass of wine each and then sighed.

"Dashiell removed Levi from botany," she said and then further explained what had transpired today.

Levi added a thing or two from the couch as she spoke and Lully hated that he was right about things changing on the base. He hadn't liked Dashiell, hadn't voted for him in the first place, and now that his friend from Earth was building the new constitution, there was a possibility that Dashiell would remain captain despite their best efforts.

"How are you doing?" Esperanza asked Levi. She moved to the couch to touch his arm.

"Pas mal, I guess," he said, blinking once and then turning to face her. "I'm just in shock; I just...." He sighed. "A lot as happened here and I never expected that botany would be the thing I lose next."

Dylan's face twisted with guilt, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"No es tu culpa, ma belle," he replied. "I mean, I see Dashiell's point. There's no one like me on this base. I am a rare resource. But I was willing to volunteer my free time, not be conscripted into a new department. I mean, I went from blackberry research to head of a new department in a day."

"I don't care about your rarity," Walsh remarked. "You made your choice of occupation. We don't need anything from Earth to survive. What are they going to do for us? Increase the air density? Find us some more resources? Even if we get some blueprints or other useful information, we are woefully lacking in resources to print them. Vertov ran out of iron yesterday."

"Truly?" Dylan inquired.

"Oui. We weren't able to finish repairs. That's why I had time to do dinner in the first place."

"I didn't know that," Lully remarked. "Why not?"

"Because no one knows," Walsh replied. "Vertov doesn't want anyone to panic when there's nothing that can be done. I took the broken pieces back to printing so they could be reused, but even if everyone recycled fastidiously and we reduced print queues, it's not enough. It's not like we're printing superfluous things. We need to expand. We need to grow."

"Is that why you couldn't print my holo?" Dylan inquired.

"Not that I know of," Lully replied. "Possibly? I don't know anymore."

"Lully, don't feel bad. Vertov only told me because I was beating down his door and demanding answers," Walsh pointed out. "He trusts you. He just knows that you are the source of most rumors on this base."

Lully grimaced. It was true; but he had always thought that it was better for people to know what was going on. If they didn't know, they couldn't do something about it. People would be hold off on printing expensive things if they knew how low the reserve materials were.

"So what do we do about Levi?" Alcott asked, turning to the crisis at hand. "Obviously you can bring it up in congress, how many votes to you think you'd have? Anatoly, Levi, Walsh for certain. Probably Cameron; she seemed upset, but I can never tell with that woman. Rainier. Maybe Ford. Madison and Ibsen?"