The Highest Frontier (36 page)

An obvious dig at their demo. Jenny wondered about that, as she showered and changed for the Café de la Paix. As she was heading out to Buckeye Trail, her mother’s window opened.

“Jenny? How’s the college?
¿Está bien?
”

“Sí, bien,”
Jenny assured her. “So far.”

“Your father has gone back to New York to help restore the system. It’s done him a world of good; he feels needed.”

Jenny thought of her seminar reading, about Teddy blasting the trusts, the perils of Combination. “Mama … do you think Toynet is a good thing?”

“
Hijita,
whatever are you saying? Is this what you learn in college? Where would we be without Toynet?”

“I know, Mama, I’m just wondering. The news, the power, the calling—it’s all in one now. It used to be different, remember? When Toynet started, it was just, like, games for Christmas.”

Soledad waved her hand. “That was then. Your father helped change all that. You should be proud of him.”

“Of course I’m proud of Dad.” Before Toynet; what were things like then?

“Then don’t worry about such things. Keep your mind on your studies. And your convention speech.”

“Mama, I told you—I can’t do that speech.”

“Jenny. Remember Glynnis with the hot plate?” The First Lady debate; it seemed like an age had passed. College life was so full of everything. “Did you see how the last Antarctic ice shelf broke up? This is our last chance, Jenny; our chance to get the reins back, and just maybe get our planet under control.” Her voice lowered. “Remember, this is the convention; the friendliest audience you’ll ever have. They’ll cheer no matter what you say.”

Saying it was just the problem, speaking out to a hundred million strangers. She’d look worse than Leora fielding questions by text.

Then her eyes widened. There was an idea.

“And please,
hijita,
no more drug busts till after Election Day.”

*   *   *

At the Café de la Paix, Anouk and Rafael basked in the glow of each other’s solicitous regard. Yola and Ken had managed a workaround through Asian Toynet to reach their respective
novio
and
novia,
sharing the windows with everyone’s toybox. Yola’s
novio
at Melbourne was a hunky shark researcher. Yola crowed about how the Bears would clobber the Melbourne team, then closed her eyes and brainstreamed him a long mental kiss. Ken’s
novia
was a colonel in the Israeli army. A water engineer, she enthused about their desalination plant. Then she brain-kissed Ken; he nearly collapsed.

Jenny slipped out to help in the kitchen. “What do you think of Father Clare running for mayor?” she asked Tom, while grinding the cinnamon.

“Father Clare does so much for the town.” Tom stirred the chocolate sauce, intently watching its consistency. “All those Homefair homes. And he’s always fixing someone’s roof for free. I’m sure they’ll vote for him.”

Recalling Leora, Jenny was less sure. “The cinnamon, it goes in the sauce?”

“No, no, that’s to dust the napoleons.”

“He needs to campaign,” Jenny said. “Talking points, and ads on the news. Mount Gilead is small; we should go door to door.”

“Really? I’ve never done that.”

“It’s easy. And it’s important. The town needs so much help.” Someone to clean up the pollution, and provide doctors.

Tom nodded. “I could try.”

The EMS snake was blinking. A student had called in from Huron. Seconds passed, lengthening. No one else responded.

“I should go,” Jenny sighed. “It’s my turn for a call.” Better now than after midnight when she’d need her sleep for the game.

“I’ll save you a napoleon,” Tom said. “I’ll wait up here for you, whenever you’re done.”

“Okay, thanks.” She took off her apron. Then her heart pounded. As she left, she went by and kissed Tom on the cheek.

*   *   *

The hallway of the frogs’ dorm was so narrow, Jenny and the medibot could barely fit the stretcher through. A code violation; she blinked a report. The walls were bare carboxyplast, like the castle lifeboats.

The call had come from Charlie. She found him in the hallway, crouching by a
chica
sprawled on the floor. The
chica
lay motionless, without any clothes. Breathing okay, with the usual sour odor.

“What happened?” Jenny snapped the scanscope around the
chica
’s limp arm. Looking into her mouth, the airway was clear.

“I don’t know. I was just coming back from Game World,” Charlie emphasized. Toy Land ran an elaborate substance-free game world on Saturday nights. “I just found her here.”

The scanscope figures scrolled. Moderate intoxication, along with hepa Q and two other emerging STDs. And her name.

“Suze Gruman-Iberia.” The Begonia recruiting director. “Do you know her?”

Charlie shook his head. “A sophomore, isn’t she? What’s she doing in a frogs’ dorm?”

The medibot handed Jenny a blanket. They wrapped Suze up and wheeled her out for a quick trip to the Barnside.

At the clinic, Doc Uddin nodded. “It’s the Begonia party. They aim to score as many new
chicos
as they can. But if they pass out, they get dumped out in the hall.”

Jenny checked the time, barely eleven. “It’s kind of early to pass out, isn’t it?”

“Someone spiked the punch. We confiscated the first batch, but not quite in time. Uh-oh, there’s another one.”

Another call, this time from Knox dorm. No one answered. Frank Lazza was working a heart attack at a southern homestead, and Yola was with a Bull who’d smashed a car into a tree. Jenny bit her lip; she really wanted to get sleep for slanball. She blinked for Nick Petherbridge.

Music blared, and she turned it down. Nick appeared amidst the Red Bulls crowd, his eyes glazed. “Sure, I’m on my way.”

“No, I’ll take care of it,” said Jenny quickly.

When she arrived at Knox, Nick was already there checking out the patient, another Begonia sister.

“Nick! What are you doing here?”

“I told you, I took the call.”

“But you’re in no shape to—”

“Mind your own business. I took care of myself.”

Behind him, the medibot looked confused.

“How, Nick?” The only way to clear ethanol from the blood that fast was the scanscope. But using the scope on oneself was a class-A violation.

“Look out, you’re obstructing care.”

Backing off, Jenny blinked for the Barnside. In the window, Doc Uddin shook her head. “I’ll deal with Nick.”

“But he must get suspended.” Worse, sent back to Earth.

“Don’t have to tell me.” The doctor’s long braid twisted as her head turned. “But we’re shorthanded.” She inserted an IV for an elderly patient, an oxygen mask on his face, power-band marks visible on his arm. “You’d think the mayor’s death last year would be a wake-up call.” She looked up at Jenny. “Make plenty of time for next week.”

The Ferrari victory celebration. The Frontera Circuit; they always won.

28

Sunday afternoon, the cords of the slanball cage gleamed in the north-south double sun, the lights casting double shadows. The pounding drums from the Mound signaled two o’clock. Jenny sat with Charlie just outside the cage.

“Show ’em how to play.”
Tusker-12 was watching on Earth.
“Show ’em for Somers.”

Jenny had skipped church but still failed Coach’s sleep meter, and resigned herself to spend the first game on the bench. Yola’s braids swung beneath her slancap, defiantly alert despite spending all night with Doc Uddin stabilizing the Bull from the wrecked car. She couldn’t have passed—but Coach couldn’t afford to bench her. What a start to the season’s first game.

The cage was now wrapped around by a cylinder of seating, crisscrossed with protective chains and holds. The spectators included students, parents, colonist families, and tourists from the Mound, all strapped into their seats. They emitted waves of the usual smells, popcorn and hot dogs mixed with droplets of upset from stomachs unaccustomed to micrograv. “Go Bears!” squeaked a couple of teddies at the top of their lungs. “Bears
go,
Scorpions
slow
!” Melbourne’s Scorpions had a small but brave contingent of red shirts huddled at one end.

“Go Bears! Bury them!” From the outer row boomed an enthusiastic dad. Loud enough for fun, yet not embarrassing.

Coach paced the row, taut as a tiger on the prowl. “Don’t leave Number six unguarded,” he rattled off. “And don’t let them crisscross and make you switch defenders. You’re switching out, you get clocked.” There were about forty different points to remember, every second of the game.

At the midline, Yola faced red-shirt Number 6 for the slan-off. The automated ref system spun a randomizer. Number 6 won.

“North,” called Number 6. That meant the Scorpions would face north at first, then south later, when the light was waning in the south but growing at the north end, streaming into the Bears’ eyes.

The south half of the cage soon filled with Scorpions. They really did look like boiled lobsters, Jenny thought with a smile. The Bears all wore their white jerseys with the purple constellation of the Great Bear. Their shoe grips crunched along the rails of the cage.

“Slan time,” called the announcer, Dean Kwon.

Yola slanned the ball wide, at a shallow angle bounding up around the cage, away from Number 6. The ball should have reached David; but surprisingly, it slowed at Number 40. Number 40 jittered the ball for an instant, then zagged himself across straight at Ken. The impact resounded, and Ken’s hair flew out in all directions. Elbow in the gut; Jenny blinked, startled to see, though the ref apparently didn’t. Her high school games were rarely that rough. But Ken didn’t yield, and Number 40 was confused just long enough for Fran to steal the ball.

The home crowd cheered. “That’s it, Bears!” called the dad. “Show ’em your claws!” Jenny clapped, exchanging a quick grin with Charlie.

But seconds later, the ball was down at the goal, the Scorpions batting it around the cap zone. Xiang heroically deflected it three times, but the fourth time it went in.

“Two points for Melbourne,” called Dean Kwon. Cheers this time, smaller, from the visitors’ side.

“Foul ball!” called the dad. “Reset the ref!”

“Who is he?”
Jenny asked Wade, waiting on the bench to rotate in.

“Mr. Kearns-Clark. Never misses a game.”

The play went back and forth, never long into the Scorpions’ half. After the second goal lost, Coach called a time out. Coach Porat was not the yelling kind. He was the fume and spit kind. Like a cobra, he spat right now. “I
told
you not to let them make you switch. What do you expect? Quit daydreaming and
play.
Get that ball in play, and don’t let go. When they set the screen, fall back and pass. Once you get a goal, they’ll wilt.”

The players regrouped, and got the ball forward. Yola at last slanned one in, and the Bears did better for a time. For each goal Jenny rose and cheered, and tried to make mental notes for next time.

By halftime the Bears were three points up. A drumbeat started, and a group of air-dancers came through in Shawnee-inspired feathers and fringes. Their feathers whirled and pulsed as they rolled head over heels, all the while sailing down the cage with apparent lack of effort.
Chulito.

In the second half, Jenny’s concentration slipped. Her eyes defocused. Suddenly, a blue-tailed skink came into view, perched on the cage. However had it got there? Jenny wondered. Did it climb all the way up the cloud ladder? Or did it hitch a ride in someone’s pack?

“Jenny, you’re in.”

Startled, Jenny checked the board. The score was nearly tied; neither side had kept advantage long, but the Scorpions had a two-point edge.

“You’re in,” Coach repeated. “Do it when you can.”

Once her feet grasped the court, adrenaline kicked in. Jenny passed and jiittered the ball a couple of times to get the feel, the sea of faces rotating beneath her feet.
Jordi.
… She shook herself. Hand over foot, she cartwheeled toward the quarter line where Ken took a step, trying to escape his Scorpion guard. Ken looked ragged, injured somewhere; he’d rotated out, but Coach sent him back in.

At their cap zone, the Scorpions had their tallest player on Yola, but she got the ball down to Fran who passed it back to Ken. Jenny launched herself from the cage to sail within three feet behind him. Ken’s guard slipped between the two of them, but the guard couldn’t know that wouldn’t matter, that Jenny’s mental reach was easily twice that. The ball leapt out from Ken, headed straight for the goal.

“Three for Frontera!”

The crowd roared.
“Way to go, Kearns-Clark!”
called his delighted dad. Several Bear teammates leapt onto Ken for hugs. Jenny kept her smile small, hiding the inner thrill, like an operative whose candidate won by half a point. She zigzagged across the cage, already eyeing the next play. After two minutes more Coach called her out, but the damage was done. The confused Scorpions double-teamed Ken whenever he came anywhere near the ball, leaving open Yola or Fran to clean up.

The Bears exulted in their first win. As they headed off to shower, Coach climbed arm-over-arm to the privacy bell and called Yola and Jenny aside. “Well, ladies.” Coach put his hands together. “There’s good news and bad news.”

Jenny nodded. Doc Uddin had said Ken had a broken rib, and goodness knows how many bruises. He’d be out for at least a week.

Coach grinned. “First the bad news. Yola, you dominated the game—and Jenny, too, for the five minutes you were in. You played fantastic—and now you feel indispensible, no matter what.”

Jenny smiled uncertainly.

“So here’s the good news. You’re suspended from practice for three days. Time to catch up on sleep, and time to think over whether you still intend to play.”

Coach locked stares with Yola. Yola’s face didn’t move a muscle.

Jenny swallowed. “Thanks, Coach.”

With a nod, he clapped them each on the shoulder, then left.