Alternate Gerrolds (34 page)

Mom leapt ahead to the punch line. “So what’s this really about?” she asked.

I hesitated. It was hard to say. “I—I think I want to be a boy. And if we don’t go to Earth, I won’t be able to.”

“Sweetheart, you know how Jill feels about males.”

“Mom, that’s
her
problem. It doesn’t have to be mine. I like boys. Some of my best online friends are boys. Boys have a lot of fun together—at least, it always looks that way from here. I want to try it. If I don’t like it, I don’t have to stay that way.” Even as I said it, I was abruptly aware that what had only been mild curiosity a few moments ago was now becoming a genuine resolve. The more Mom and Jill made it an issue, the more it was an issue of control, and the more important it was for me to win. So I argued for it, not because I wanted it as much as I needed to win. Because it wasn’t about winning, it was about who was in charge of my life.

Mom stopped the argument abruptly. She pulled me around to orient us face to face and lowered her voice to a whisper, her way of saying
this is serious
. “All right, dear, if that’s what you really want. It has to be your choice. You’ll have a lot of time to think about it before you have to commit. But I don’t want you talking about it in front of Jill anymore.”

Oh
. Of course. Mom hadn’t just wandered into the galley because of the bread. Jill must have buzzed her awake. The argument wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

“Mom, she’s going to fight this.”

“I know.” Mom realized she was still holding the baking cylinder. She turned and put the bread back into the oven. She set it to warm for two hours, then bake. Finally she floated back to me. She put her hands on my shoulders. “Let me handle Jill.”

“When?”

“First let’s see if we can get the rock we need.” She swam forward. I followed.

Jill was glowering at her display and muttering epithets under her breath.

“The Flyby Knights?” Mom asked.

Jill grunted. “They’re still saying, ‘Take it or leave it.’”

Mom thought for a moment. “Okay. Send them a message. Tell them we found another rock.”

“We have?”

“No, we haven’t. But they don’t know that. Tell them thanks a lot, but we won’t need their asteroid after all. We don’t have time to negotiate anymore. Instead, we’ll cut Janis in half.”

“And what if they say that’s fine with them? Then what?”

“Then we’ll cut Janis in half.”

Jill made that noise she makes, deep in her throat. “It’s all slush, you can’t cut it in half. If we have to go crawling back, what’s to keep them from raising their price? This is a lie. They’re not stupid. They’ll figure it out. We can’t do it. We have a reputation.”

“That’s what I’m counting on—that they’ll believe our reputation—that you’d rather cut your money rock in half than make a deal with a
man
.”

Jill gave Mom one of those sideways looks that always meant a lot more than anything she could put into words, and certainly not when I was around.

“Send the signal,” Mom said. “You’ll see. It doesn’t matter how much nickel is in that lump; it just isn’t cost-effective for them to mine it. So it’s effectively worthless. The only way they’re going to get any value out of it in their lifetimes is to let us throw it away. From their point of view, it’s free money, whatever they get. They’ll be happy to take half a percent if they can get it.”

Jill straightened her arms against the console and stretched herself out while she thought it out. “If it doesn’t work, they won’t give us any bargaining room.”

“They’re not giving us any bargaining room now.”

Jill sighed and shrugged, as much agreement as she ever gave. She turned it over in her head a couple of times, then pressed for
record.
After the signal was sent, she glanced over at Mom and said, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Half the rock is still more than enough. We can print up some reflectors and burn it in half in four months. That’ll put us two months ahead of schedule, and we’ll have the slings and tether already in place.”

Jill considered it. “You won’t get as big a burnoff. The tail won’t be as long or as bright.”

Mom wasn’t worried. “We can compensate for that. We’ll drill light pipes into the ice, fractioning the rock and increasing the effective surface area. We’ll burn out the center. As long as we burn off fifty tons of ice per hour, it doesn’t matter how big the comet’s head is. We’ll still get an impressive tail.”

“So why didn’t we plan that from the beginning?”

“Because I was hoping to deliver the head of the comet to Luna and sell the remaining ice. We still might be able to do that. It just won’t be as big a payday.” Mom turned to me.

“The braking problem on that will be horrendous.” Jill closed her eyes and did some math in her head. “Not really cost-effective. We’ll be throwing away more than two-thirds of the remaining mass. And if you’ve already cut it in half—”

“It’s not the profit. It’s the publicity. We’d generate a lot of new business. We could even go public.”

Jill frowned. “You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”

Mom swam around to face Jill. “Sweetheart, our child is ready to be a grownup.”

“She wants to be a boy.” So Jill had figured it out too. But the way she said it, it was an accusation.

“So what? Are you going to stop loving her?”

Jill didn’t answer. Her face tightened.

In that moment, something crystallized—all the vague unformed feelings of a lifetime suddenly snapped into focus with an enhanced clarity. Everything is tethered to everything else. With people, it isn’t gravity or cables—it’s money, promises, blood and feelings. The tethers are all the words we use to tie each other down. Or up. And then we whirl around and around, just like asteroids cabled together.

We think the tethers mean something. They have to. Because if we cut them, we go flying off into the deep dark unknown. But if we don’t cut them…we just stay in one place, twirling around forever. We don’t go anywhere.

I could see how Mom and Jill were tethered by an ancient promise. Mom and I were tethered by blood. Jill and I were tethered by jealousy. We resented each other’s claim on Mom. She had something I couldn’t understand. And I had something she couldn’t share.

I wondered how much Mom understood. Probably everything. She was caught in the middle between two whirling bodies. Someone was going to have to cut the tether. That’s why she’d accepted this contract—so we could go to the marble. She’d known it from the beginning. We were going to ride Janis all the way to Earth.

And somewhere west of the terminator, as we entered our braking arc, I’d cash out my shares and cut the tethers. I’d be off on my own course then—and Mom and Jill would fly apart, too. No longer bound to me, they’d whirl out and away on their own inevitable trajectories. I wondered which of them would be a comet streaked across Earth’s black sky.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely fictional.

 

All stories reprinted with permission of the author.

Additional materials © 2004 David Gerrold

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written ermission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

BenBella Books
6440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 617
Dallas, TX 75206
Send feedback to [email protected]

eISBN : 978-1-935-61895-9

 

 

 

 

Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. To order call (800) 888-4741.
www.ipgbook.com

 

For special sales contact Laura Watkins at [email protected]