Esperanza was a little bored as the rumbling machines did most of the work and people scurried from place to place. She was still glad she had come; Blair definitely didn't need to spent his time away from his son tapping his fingers, but she wished she would have realized there would be so little work for her to do. She could have borrowed one of Levi's books. She had never left the base for so long; Lully and she had talked about spending the night out at the lake, but with everything that kept happening at the base, that trip had been tabled indefinitely. The air was noticeably thinner, and she felt tired, even though she hadn't done anything at all.
She didn't like to bother Harriet and Oliver; they were so busy and she always felt that she was taking up too much space in their close quarters. So as dinner started she slung the bag over her shoulder and wandered between the tents and out toward the mining.
The landscape was strange and beautiful. They were far enough away that they couldn't see the base, and so there was only rocky ground and lavender sky all around. The mountain cast a shadow over the camp in the morning, but now, it was lit by the setting sun. The rocky surface glimmered in the orange light of the sun, casting long shadows as people began prepping for the cool night. The clouds were magnificent shades of purple and blue and pink, but most people didn't look up. Everyone was focused on taking shifts off to get food, and evening prep, and no one had time to look around at the new planet. Joan was standing with several others next to a large machine slicing up the side of a hill. They were shouting to be heard over the machinery and taking notes on their holo-rib. Joan waved to Esperanza, who hurried over.
"Anything wrong?" Joan shouted over the rumble.
"No, just looking around," Esperanza replied. "If anyone's been hurt, they haven't told me about it."
"Can you check on Jacques?" Joan questioned. "He hit his head during install, but if you haven't seen him, then he didn't check in like I told him to."
Esperanza nodded and headed back up to her station, hoping to see Jacques on the way.
"Hey petal." Lully came up behind her and wrapped her in a hug. "Did you have a good day?"
"It was a long, boring day," she said. "I'm glad Dylan did so much work on the environment; can you imagine if we all had to have oxygen masks?"
"We couldn't have done it," Lully agreed. "What are you up to? Have you eaten?"
"Not yet," she said. "I'm looking for Jacques; Joan said he hit his head and didn't tell me."
"I think exploration might be worse than builds," Lully laughed. "You don't have some sort of extra sense; they have to tell you when something has happened."
"I know that; it's everyone else who seems confused," Esperanza smiled. "What did mischief did you get up to?"
"Petal, I am the paragon of propriety," Lully told her, mock indignant.
She laughed and twirled out of his embrace. "I'd be happy to have dinner after I treat Jacques," she told him. "Meet you at the tent?"
He nodded and Esperanza pulled out her holo-rib, not wishing to traipse around these tents until nightfall to find this man. She was a little out of breath from her trek around the camp; hunting a patient down was not how she wanted to spend her evening. Jacques answered slowly.
"Esperanza? By the stars, I told Joan I'm fine."
"Then you won't mind if I confirm that," Esperanza said. "I just want to see if you have a concussion. If you don't, you can call both Joan and I worriers, and we can all move on."
"Fine. I just got dinner; I'll wait for you at the medical station."
Esperanza smiled and hurried back to the tent. Harriet jerked a thumb towards the back.
"You have a patient," she mentioned.
Jacques sat on the cot, eating her dinner of green beans and some sort of cornbread casserole. It smelled delicious. The young man looked up and grimaced when Esperanza entered.
"I'm fine," he complained, setting his plate aside.
"What happened?" Esperanza asked.
She rummaged through her bag for a small light. There was a little blood in Jacques's blonde hair, but it was dried and Esperanza didn't want to open the cut back up.
"We were putting the drill into place and Trudeau swung one of the arms without checking to see that I was standing right there," Jacques grumbled. "Idiot. It knocked me down and bled for a little bit."
"Have you been light headed?" Esperanza inquired, shining the light into Jacques's pupils.
"A little, but..."
"You're concussed," Esperanza told him, seeing the uneven pupils. "You're not going back out there; get confortable."
"Esperanza..."
"You can complain all you want, but you're a liability with a concussion. It seems to be mild, but concussions are serious, Jacques. You should have come to me like Joan told you."
"I'm fine," he grumbled, but picked his plate back up to continue eating. Lully appeared a moment later; Harriet gave him two plates and he handed one to Esperanza.
"You have a patient," Lully remarked, sitting on the ground next to the cot. Esperanza sat behind him.
"Not for long," she said. "I'm going to request Joan send him back to the base; the lower oxygen levels aren't going to do his concussion any good."
"Medical treats us like Earth antiques," Jacques complained. "People heal. People can work with injuries; we're not going to fall apart at the slightest touch."
"No, but each person is valuable," Lully commented. "Not just for their workload, but also their genetics. And not to mention the risk you pose to others. What if you get dizzy as you're lifting something heavy? You could hurt someone. You could get yourself killed."
Jacques muttered something Esperanza couldn't catch, but she wasn't worried. She messaged Joan about Jacques, letting her know that he needed to go back to the base. And in fact, she could send someone back to replace him, if she needed; he would be no good to the operation out here.
"You're going to send the hover back just for me?" Jacques asked sulkily. "The guys are going to make fun of me for a cycle after this."
"Non, we're sending the hover back anyway," Lully remarked. "Emerson says that Bell has been experimenting with all the materials the mining has unearthed. She wants to send back samples and get Rivera to come help with the electrolysis. I learn a lot listening to Emerson complain."
"If they are, can we send an order for more vegetables?" Harriet requested, listening in. "I can send Anatoly the order and the credits if the hover will be back tomorrow."
"I'm sure that's possible," Lully shrugged. "I'm not in charge though. I'd talk to Bell or Pollack; he'll be driving it."
"Oliver, handle the casserole," Harriet ordered, pulling out her holo-rib and messaging furiously.
Jacques seemed to be more content now that he wasn't going to be the only reason the hover was going back to the base. He swayed more than he probably was aware of. Lully sighed, leaning against Esperanza as he ate.
"How was your day?" she asked.
"Boring," Lully admitted. "Mostly I stood around and told people to leave Emerson alone until we had a steel filament sample to try. It works, and Emerson made a mug."
"A mug?" Jacques asked skeptically.
"We didn't have a lot of steel," Lully shrugged. "Now we just have to confirm this ore vein will be large enough to worth all the manpower out here. Bell wants to convince Vertov to do the refining out here. We'll see."
"You don't seem very happy," Esperanza noted.
"There's a chance I would have to stay out here if that's the case," Lully explained. "And I don't want to. But Emerson is deck manager and he can't be out here for more a couple days. I can do most of my work from my holo-rib and be out here.
"I can stay," Esperanza pointed out. "Either officially or I can take some vacation days. I wouldn't mind; I like it out here."
Lully sighed and she rubbed his shoulders, feeling the knots of tension there. Lully seemed more stressed than she knew what to do with, and the reasons he was suggesting weren't good enough.
But there were other people in the room, and she didn't want to pry.
"Your hands are cold," Lully remarked.
"I can stop," she suggested.
"Oh, please don't," he sighed and leaned into her kneading hands. Jacques scooted down the cot with a roll of his eyes.
"You two have been putting up with this?" he asked Harriet and Oliver. "They know that we're working, right?"
"Aeneid folk are all pear-shaped, you know that," Oliver pointed out. "And these two are friends with congress, part of that whole mess."
"Not all of congress," Esperanza protested. "Just Dylan and Levi. And Cameron."
"And Ford, my papa," Lully added. "And Vertov is my boss. Oh, and I think I've done a thousand credits of nanoprintings for Anita, so we're probably friends at this point. We know more than our fair share, I guess."
"You're the one doing the nanoprintings?" Jacques asked, his disdain vanishing. "Those are amazing! How much does it cost? Anita said the ones in the classrooms took two days to print."
"They did," Lully agreed. "Most take a couple hours. It's the initial layers that are complicated, and then I just have to mix the colors correctly. But I've been working on a program for that."
"How did you get started?"
"Dylan had a book with pictures in it. I wanted to reprint one of the pictures to hang on my wall. I was a little...obsessed about making a proper berth for Esperanza. Since I work in printing, it seemed like we should have everything we needed."
"Do you get to print for free?'
"Ha, non," Lully laughed. "I think I work for free more than I get paid, but non, Vertov charges all the printers the same he charges the rest of the base. I think I worked eighty-hour weeks before Esperanza woke up. My schedule is a little more reasonable now. Do you have a partner yet?"
"No," Jacques replied. "I mean, I do, but she's in cryo. She's older than me; I thought I'd wait another two years. Especially with all the upheaval at the base right now, I don't want kids to grow up with this jacked up mess."
"What are you talking about?" Esperanza inquired.
Harriet barked out a laugh. "Congress? The new vote for captain? All the murders and guns and then Levi's new department? I'm convinced no one thinks farther ahead on congress than a few minutes."
"And their memories are even shorter," Oliver added. "At least Vertov makes the departments plan better than Dashiell did, but we never had anything like this happen on the Canary. People knew better."
"What do you mean by 'knew better'?" Lully questioned.
Esperanza was also confused. She wasn't as close to Canary individuals, but she hadn't realized that bewilderment and disregard had gone both ways. She had always thought that the Canary crew was more formal, less understanding, more military and less science. These three weren't formal at all, just baffled as to how their new home was run. They had been forced to adopt the base ways instead of compromise. This, perhaps, had been a fatal mistake, one that led up to Landing Day.
"People knew their place," Jacques replied. "Levi should have accepted his new role as archive head. Harper shouldn't have been given the chance to refuse Cameron as his partner. Dylan should have been sent to medical instead whatever happened to her after Landing Day, and she definitely wouldn't have gotten the chance to not only get back on congress, but oust the rightfully elected captain. Oh, don't look surprised. This base is too small for gossip not to spread. And we lost half of our friends, our family landing on this planet because of Aeneid contention. I, for one, am not going to give your shipmates the chance to kill the rest of us."
Esperanza was indeed a little shocked. She had no idea they felt this way and was a little ashamed she had never bothered to ask. Blair and Madison certainly didn't bring it up at work.
"I can't speak for everyone from the Aeneid," Lully said slowly. "But I risked Esperanza's life to help the Canary. I got shot. We care; of course we care. But we have...very different views and Aeneid people are more vocal about their differences."
"No kidding," Oliver scoffed. "Look, that's the point. We're not vocal against you because that's not how we work. We work together. We don't have outliers like Dylan. If the Canary officers had decided to let the Aeneid suffocate kilometers away on the planet's surface, then that's what would have happened."
When Esperanza and Lully didn't speak, Oliver leaned against the table with a sigh. "So yeah, I'd say that we're different."
____
Hearing from the other side is... strange I imagine. Esperanza and Lully are in for an education out here.
I'm headed to New York today! I'm hoping to get a job, but not sure what the trip will bring. I'm pretty nervous, but at least I'll get to have bagels and pizza!
Thanks for reading.