We Shadows

Chapter 20: not in Kansas anymore

"Outside? What's outside?"

Alcott barked out a laugh. "Tyson, you haven't seen the planet yet. I hear the sky on Earth was blue?"

"Yes?"

"Ours isn't."

Alcott waggled her eyebrows and returned to the cookies without explanation. Tyson wanted to inquire, but was handed measuring cups and dutifully assisted as Alcott chopped the rosemary. Once the small cookies were in the oven, Alcott sighed, leaning against the counter.

"I can't tell you what to do or who to tell," she remarked. "But please be discreet. The information you have learned could upset the base in ways you don't intend."

"I will," Tyson promised.

"Good," Alcott said and clapped her hands. "Set a timer for twenty minutes on your holo-rib and let's go."

She took his hand as Tyson fumbled with his holo-rib, and they were down the hall.

"We won't be able to stay long," she told him. "Not just because of the cookies, but because the air is thinner, and you're still new to the planet.

Tyson hadn't given much thought to the world around. He had convinced himself that it looked exactly like Earth and that his apartment was just beyond the horizon. Now, all of that would be shattered. Alcott stopped at the big double doors and used a code to open them.

"Is it our berth code?" he asked.

"Oh no. I'm not supposed to have this one; I'm certainly not going to share it with you."

The doors opened and Tyson had to shade his eyes from the brightness of the world beyond. As his eyes adjusted, he began to take in the barren red landscape streaked with black and brown, with white rocks jutting out the planet surface like broken bones. To their left there was a mountain range in the distance, caps white like the Rockies. He could see something metal glinting ahead in the sun and he squinted to get a better look.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It's the Aeneid," Alcott told him. "We'll visit it sometime. It's too far of a walk for me."

Tyson turned his gaze to the sky, which was a dazzling light purple, nearly lavender or pink. The sun seemed like a strange floating ball of light, fainter than the sun back on Earth. A sliver of a moon also hung in the sky, larger than even a harvest moon on Earth. The craters on its surface were strange and unfamiliar.

"That's Luna," Alcott said, pointing at the moon and then to the sun. "And that's Lux."

"Latin," Tyson remarked and then found he had to dab his eyes.

It was real, he thought. He was really four light years away on a foreign planet. He had been taken from everything he had ever known and this beautiful, alien planet was his new home now.

Tyson's breathing became labored and Alcott hurried him back inside as he wheezed. There were lockets next to the door; Alcott opened one and handed Tyson an oxygen mask to place over his face. The air was cold and welcome and helped him past his homesickness.

"And that's Alpha Keplar," Alcott said. "We'll get you adjusted and then we'll be able to go out to the lake; it's one of Lully's projects, and botany has been conducting experiments by the water's edge. Levi says that research wants to make a satellite base out there. That would be amazing."

Tyson helped her put the mask back in the locket and move the oxygen tank to the used bin. They were already on their way back to their berth when his holo-rib chimed his alarm.

"It was beautiful," he said. "Thank you, Alcott."

"I love being in botany, because I think that my department appreciates the planet more than most," she remarked. "Our first plants were flowers, even though they weren't useful for food. But they taught us about growing in this environment and they brightened up a drab and utilitarian base. I love flowers." She reflected. "Except roses. They might be pretty and all, but my hair gets caught and it's irritating."

The berth smelled like rosemary when they walked in. Alcott pulled the first batch of cookies from the oven and Tyson procured a couple plates to set the cookies on.

"Is the hall still set up for baskets?" Alcott asked. "Or will you and Keller need some help?"

"It should still be set up from earlier this week," Tyson replied. "Though, I wonder if we should move that old piano; I worry that it's going to get run into."

"There's not really a better place to put it," Alcott replied. "Levi says it's prohibitively heavy. He wants it in the meeting hall to...reclaim the place. People don't like going in there since Landing Day."

"Is that why you don't come to baskets games?" Tyson asked, realizing that she had never come by, even to watch or say hello.

Alcott put her hands on her hips. "Perhaps. But I don't want you to do your usual persuasion and counsel. This is my hurdle to get over. And don't you even start about how I'm not alone. It's not that. I've tried going in, I just get dizzy and short of breath and it's not worth it. I'm pregnant. I don't want to faint and hurt the baby."

"Alcott, all of that sounds reasonable," Tyson told her. "I do know how to turn off the 'counseling mode'."

Alcott eyed him skeptically. "Tyson, that's a lie you tell yourself. It's not a bad thing, but you definitely don't know how to shut it off. It can be very irritating, being provoked into crying all the time."

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "I don't mean to," he said. "I'm sorry."

She waved his apologies away and piled dishes in the sink. Tyson tackled these while she gathered the towels and clothes for laundry. It was their normal weekend chores; Alcott was a bit fastidious about a clean house; Tyson's apartment back on Earth had never stayed as clean as this berth. He had never had a housemate that was interested in scrubbing floors and folding clothes quite like Alcott.

"Am I really that bad?" he asked, once the last plate was back in the cabinet.

"It's not about being bad," Alcott told him. "It's more about letting things go. Sometimes things can't be fixed, Tyson."

"I don't believe that at all."

"My point exactly." 

___

This, coincidentally, is my beef with ol' Tyson too. But I think he's settling as well as could be expected; he still has a long way to go. Speaking of, at the end of this book, I think I'm going to have the short transcripts of Tyson and Keller's interviews, which will be fun since they're made for people waking from cryo, not knowing the planet and you folks know the planet all right. 

Thanks for reading!