The Highest Frontier (54 page)

“Claro.”

Jenny nodded. “Did you see … outside?”

“Somebody left their diad on.”

It had never occurred to her whether plants with neurons could feel pain. Nor how the pile worms and chickens might feel about getting recombined with ultra. For that matter, how did the ultraphytes feel? “Is that why you canceled class?”

“Of course not. I told you, I’m thinking. My NIH is up for renewal.” Her arm swept the air. “What do you think pays for all this?”

Jenny nodded slowly.

“My students can take a break; they’re weeks ahead of the Harvard class.” The professor’s eyes blinked furiously, as if recording a sudden thought. “I need a new direction. Some other way to make a wisdom circuit. Vertebrates and vascular plants are both overdeveloped, fossilized patterns. Ultraphytes have a more adaptable different kind of nervous system, with entire circuits contained within a single cell.”

*   *   *

The next morning, after Hamilton’s class, he called her aside. “Jenny, thanks so much for raising these important points about our voter process. In the future,” he added ingratiatingly, “I hope you’ll bring them directly to the mayor.”

Jenny listened warily. Her professor had just spent the hour explaining Aristotle’s conclusion that democracy was a perversion of good government. “Democracy” meant rule by the impoverished, who always try to rob the well-off.

“What a pleasure to see a student take such an active interest in the community,” Hamilton added. “Of course, we must see to the needs of ill voters. The town secretary will bring ballots to the Barnside. And overall—the ballot will now be secret.” He smiled as if he’d accomplished this himself. “The first secret ballot in the history of Frontera.”

“That’s nice.” Jenny knew better than to say too much before consulting her lawyer. “Can we vote online? Without that radioactive ink?”

A moment’s hesitation. “Those details are under consideration.” By the council that wouldn’t meet till January.

Her lawyer, when she checked, had a different view. “They’re trying to head you off,” the lawyer said. “Go ahead and file.”

She filed the complaint, with signatures from Priscilla and Tom.

45

By Saturday morning Tom was up and out of quarantine. The blotches on his skin were fading, though he still moved stiffly. The other students had left the Barnside already, but Tom seemed in no hurry to leave.

“You can go now,” Jenny assured him. “Just check in daily for the regenerators.” The regenerators would take weeks to build his muscles back.

Tom pulled a chair up to the bed, like a desk. “Doc said I could stay a while, until they need the bed. My dorm, with six in a room—I never could study there.”

Jenny stared, and her pulse raced. All week she’d been asking her mental the same question, but the Monroe just went on singing old torch songs. Jenny nearly called her doctor in Somers, half convinced the mental had gone bad. “Why don’t you come live in my sitting room?” She sat on the hospital bed and caught his arms. “You can have your own room, all nice and quiet. Use my own toyroom, instead of the common one that gets all the viruses.”

Tom shuddered beneath her hands. She realized then how weak he still was, like a hurricane had gone through inside him. But she felt just a bit ruthless. That painting; he had put everything into it. “Tom, you care for me. What’s wrong? Why do you get so upset?”

He breathed but could not speak.

“Everybody needs a little time away,” she said. “After all that we’ve been through … Why can’t we get back together?”

“I can never go back. I left them all. The ones I cared for as much as you.”

Her eyes closed, then opened. “You didn’t leave them. They left you. They put you outside to die. I would never do that.”

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll try.”

*   *   *

The rest of the weekend went by like floating on a cloud. Jenny reshaped her cottage, carving a private bedroom out of the amyloid. She left Tom alone to study and get his strength back. But just knowing he was there while she plowed through her Cuba midterm made everything a different world. They went together to supper, breakfast, and church.

The next week, ominous texts began appearing about the Kearns-Clarks.

“Ken and Yola—They have to leave school.”

“The castle; I heard it’s coming down.”

“Ultra again?”

“No, something about bills.”

Yola’s window was closed, and there was no response at the castle. But at suppertime, Fran called an urgent team meeting.

In a private room at the Ohioana, the teammates crowded around the table, eating quietly. Coach was there, and everyone was subdued.

“It’s true,” said Yola. “We’re wiped out. I had given my cousin a safety account, enough for me to get by, but Ken has nothing.”

Ken looked devastated, and did not eat at all.

Fran pressed Yola’s arm. “You’re sure? Didn’t your mother take steps?”

“She tried, but it’s all connected. He even went through our trust funds.” Yola shook her head. “We thought Dad had got over it. But after our game at Rapture, those guys lured him back to play. ‘Experience the Holy Land.’ He lost everything.”

Charlie exclaimed, “But how could—I mean, Quakers don’t—”

“It’s a disease, like cancer.”

“Stupid,” exclaimed Ken. “As stupid as voting.”

“Well, who else was stupid?” said Yola irritably. “We all should have … done something.”

Coach said, “There’s nothing you could have done. We always have about twenty students and faculty in rehab. The state foots the bill.”

“We don’t need rehab,” said Ken. “We need to quit and start over, on our own.”

Yola shook her head. “Ken, we don’t need to quit school. I told you, the Lazzas will take us in.” The EMS squad was always thankful for Yola. “And my account will get us through our final term.”

“Get you through.”

“Get
us
through.” She looked around, as if appealing to the team.

Xiang said, “She’s right, Ken. The team needs you. You can’t just quit on us.”

“What’s the use? My grades won’t get me anywhere, anyhow.”

“We never cared about grades,” admitted Yola. “We always did … other things.”

“Good things,” added Jenny. “The Flood demo, that was good.”

“And the mosquito benefit.” Charlie grinned in recollection. “That was
chulo
. Hey, who knows what will need you next? Maybe an ultra benefit.”

No one seemed amused. Yola pushed the gravy with her fork, as if not seeing the table.

“So what will you do, Ken?” Jenny asked.

Ken shrugged. “I’ll go live with my
novia
and join the IDF.”

Yola looked up sharply. “The Israeli army? You? You can’t even cut a potato.”

“There’s always latrines. I can kill germs.”

From the walls the six-point mini-buck heads stared.

Coach shrugged. “Less work for me. I was planning your exam for conversion.”

*   *   *

ToyNews was now inundated with electioneering, especially second-guessing the final debate at Frontera. The near-equal poll results from Betty and Glynnis back in August had continued, after bouncing around some, but once again the race was “too close to call.” The kind of race Clive liked best. In the toybox, student windows were framed in purple or gold; purple outnumbered gold two to one. The town, though, would be the opposite story. Meanwhile, the Weaver DIRGs were back, along with others looking less friendly, inspecting every inch of the debate site for the following week. DIRGs all over—why had Jenny ever bothered to leave home?

In Mount Gilead, the new mayor’s first act was to inventory all energy supplies throughout the hab, those storing the motion energy harvested by the colonists’ power bands. This project led to a revelation.

“It seems,” announced Hamilton on ToyNews Local, “that the core energy reserves of the Smythe Power Bank have yet to be found.”

The Smythe Bank had been run by the previous mayor, Leora’s late husband. Everyone stored their harvested energy there, either donating to the town or logging for future use. The energy was stored in compact cylindrical cells. Where else could the cells have been placed?

Everyone in Mount Gilead had an opinion, but most of all, attention focused on Leora. In Jenny’s toybox, Leora appeared being interviewed for ToyNews Local. Her face looked grimmer than usual, but she kept her eyes downcast.

“Mrs. Smythe,” asked the interviewer, “can you offer any clues as to where your husband kept the energy stores from the Smythe Bank?”

“My late husband said that the right mayor would find the stores.” After this cryptic pronouncement, Leora looked up and stared directly from the window. Her face showed a brief, twisted look of defiance that Jenny had never seen. Then it was gone, her eyes again downcast.

Mystified, Jenny blinked for Sherri-Lyn. Sherri-Lyn appeared in her bright new home, her two children running around the sitting room. “Isn’t it beautiful? Thanks so much for your help.”

Jenny smiled. “I did little—it was Tom and Priscilla. Do you know any more;
qué pasa
with the bank?”

Sherri-Lyn’s eyes widened. “Nobody knows.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Can you believe it—in all the hab, they can’t find the reserve?”

“But—does Leora really not know?”

She shrugged dramatically. “That’s the least of it. Did you see the book in the courthouse?”

Jenny shuddered. “Briefly.”

“Did you see how she voted?”

“For Father Clare?
No puede ser.
”

“
Puede ser
all right.”

Whatever might have changed Leora’s mind, Jenny was not about to say. “All right, but what does she mean, the ‘right mayor’? Hamilton’s elected now, and the votes are there in the book.” Much as Jenny hated to admit it, that much was fair. Even the quarantined voters would not have changed the result. “After it’s done and certified, that’s it. That’s democracy.”

“If you ask me, people up here talk a lot about democracy, but they don’t always know what it means.”

*   *   *

Thursday afternoon in the lab, a week to go before the debate. The various wisdom plants all stretched their spoon-shaped leaves to the light. Jenny and Anouk took readings on the shape of their neurons, and compared their competitive growth. It was repetitive work, especially when no positive difference showed up. Mary took readings too, although she seemed more interested in the “reverse control.” Jenny found herself thinking about Leora’s odd behavior, and Hamilton’s election, and the Life professor canceling class instead of pacing her own work the way students were taught to do. They all could sure use some wisdom around here.

Anouk stopped to stretch her back, as she often did for her health. She watched Mary reflectively. “So, Mary. How is your reverse control?”

Mary looked at her quizzically.

“Well? Does it work?”

“We cannot tell. Too much ventilation.”

Instead of rolling her eyes at Mary, as she usually would, Anouk kept on staring. As if waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

Jenny smiled uncertainly. “We have no permit to test humans.”

“So? Why should that stop us?”

“Look what happened to you,” Jenny warned. “Do you want to get in that much trouble again?”

“No, but you do.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

Anouk leaned her arms on the bench, her scarf brushing the leaves of the nearest plant. “The fate of Earth, remember? That’s what’s at stake—you’re always telling me. Yet the candidates and voters are all so foolish. Don’t we all need some wisdom?”

“Not this way. No clinical trials—who knows, it could cause cancer.”

“Where would we be if Pasteur and Koch thought like that? Koch tested anthrax in his sitting room.”

“Anouk, you’re crazy. This is no disease here; it’s just—”

“Isn’t folly a disease?”

Human folly.
Morias philai paromen
. Poor Ken and Yola, losing their castle and all. Closing her eyes, Jenny shook her head. “How would we even know if it worked?”

“How will you know, if you don’t try?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t
you
try.”

“Aside from Life, all my classes are toyMIT.”

Jenny’s jaw dropped. “Try it on
my class
?”

“Why not? You’re always complaining about Political Ideas.”

Democracy just for the poor. Coincidence perhaps, but that class had been a joke ever since the day she unwittingly brought the laughing-gas plant. But these so-called wisdom plants—there was no sign of any result. Jenny shrugged. “So I’ll bring another plant to class.”

*   *   *

Friday, Political Ideas had a test, so the “experiment” would have to wait. The slanball team spent Saturday morning helping the Kearns-Clark twins clear out their castle. The wine collection Tom took on consignment for the café, to earn the twins a bit of cash. There were tapestries, toiletries, a few bits of jewelry, surprisingly little that wasn’t printout.

“No importa,”
muttered Yola heroically. “The castle plan’s all online. We can visit there any time.”

Jenny felt a bit sad for the dwarves, then chided herself for being silly. She looked wistfully up the winding staircase with the trip step. “Could we just … go up to the lookout?”

Ken bounded up around the stairway, two stairs at a time. Jenny and the teammates followed more slowly.

At the battlement, the breeze lifted her hair. From the lookout where the Jackson Square tribute band had played, you could see the whole college: south Buckeye Trail to Harding Hall and Reagan with the colored beans, and the Arts dome where Tom did his fresco, all the way to the river where the newly arrived frogs had gone peeping. Then back, north past the frog halls, and the stylish upperclass amyloids; and all the way out to the Mound. Jenny shuddered to think how many players had gone bust like the twins’ dad. Craning her neck, above were the tiny square homes of Mount Gilead, amyloid except for a dozen Homefair homes. She could almost pluck the church steeple pointing down.