After boarding, I took a luxurious hot shower in my cabin, ran all my clothes through the sonic cleaner, and hunted up a barber on Orbit Station. Hair trimmed back to my normal Navy length, I felt a new man. I roamed my empty ship as if looking for something, but I knew not what. Vax, when I stumbled over him, greeted me like a long-lost brother. He too found the ship’s silence eerie and disturbing. I even unbent so far as to try a game of chess with him, to his delight. He was no match.
Vax had learned through the grapevine that I would remain with Hibernia.To my astonishment he was pleased rather than apprehensive. I’d have thought he had more sense than to look forward to a cruise with an unqualified Captain who had my peculiar emotional disabilities. I didn’t remind him that depending on what officers were reassigned to Hibernia,he might be transferred out as a replacement. Time enough for that if it happened.
Depressed and not knowing why, I took the next scheduled shuttle back down to Centraltown. Customs and quarantine waved me through; by now I’d become a regular. Small-town life was amazingly relaxed compared, say, to Lunapolis.
I still had two days before I was to meet Derek for our trip to the mountains. I toured downtown Centraltown, explored the local museum, and ate in two of the recommended restaurants, occasionally encountering crewmen and former passengers. I stayed overnight in a prefab inn with the usual plastic furniture and decor. I bought a newschip and stuck it in my holovid; on page three was an announcement of an Anabaptist revival meeting in Newtown Hall. Mrs. Donhauser wasted no time. I thought of attending, but decided I didn’t care to meet her in her professional capacity.
Thoughts of our passengers reminded me I’d promised to look up Amanda Frowel. I immediately decided against it.
Then I spent the best part of an afternoon wandering aimlessly up and down the streets, arguing with myself. Sheepishly, I dug her address out of my duffel. After dinner I strolled across town to the address she had given.
“Nicky!” An apron around her waist, she smiled happily through her screen door, old-fashioned and domestic, inflicting a pang of regret that I soon had to leave the colony.
“Come in!” Her home was the back half of a comfortable wood house on a quiet side street on the edge of town. She rented, so help me, from a widow trying to make ends meet.
“I was just passing by,” I mumbled, sounding an idiot.
“But I was hoping you’d come. Look, my books are all over the place!” She brushed aside a pile of holovid chips scattered on a table. “I started work three days ago. Know what? They don’t want me just to teach natural science; I’m supposed to set up the whole science curriculum! They’ve never had one, isn’t that ridiculous?”
“Hasn’t anybody been teaching geology and biology?”
“Sure, but not in any organized way. They just got people who knew their subjects to come in and talk about them. Isn’t it quaint?”
“Very.” My tone was sour. Our world aboard Hiberniaseemed light-years away.
“Would you like to take a walk? I’ll show you the school.”
She was so enthused I agreed to go, wishing I hadn’t come to visit. She threw on a light jacket against the evening cool, and we set out for the school, about a mile away. She chattered with animation at first, but after a while she sensed my mood and grew quieter. We walked, hand in hand, under two moons. Their crossed shadows began to make me dizzy.
The public school was a one-story building encased in sheet metal, apparently a popular local building material. Amanda unlocked the door and took me inside. “This is where I work.” She showed me a classroom. The consoles at the student desks struck no chord of recognition, as my own schooling was at home with Father. Amanda’s desk and master console were to one side, where she could watch both the large screen and the students.
“The new term starts in three weeks. Nicky, it’s so exciting! The joeys will be so different from northamericans.”
“You think so?”
“Wouldn’t they, growing up in such a wild, free place?”
“I suppose.” I was feeling more and more depressed.
“Amanda, I have to go. I have an appointment.”
“You couldn’t stay awhile?” Her voice was wistful. My chest ached.
“Come, I’ll walk you home.” I wanted to leave and stay at the same time. On ship I’d never felt so bumbling and awkward with her. We walked mostly in silence through the darkened streets; Major had set and only Minor remained to guide us.
She hesitated, in front of her rustic home. “Will I see you again before you leave?”
“I don’t think so. I’m taking Derek to the Venturas tomorrow, then I’ll have to go back aboard.” I hadn’t mentioned I was still in command.
“Lieutenant Malstrom promised to take you there, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” I was grateful she remembered.
“Oh, Nicky.” Gently, she kissed the back of my hand.
“Life isn’t the way we plan it.”
“No,” I said miserably. I forced myself to smile. “Goodbye, Amanda.”
“Good-bye, Nicky.” We looked into each other’s eyes before she turned to go. As if in astonishment, she said, “We’ll never see each other again.”
“No.” I couldn’t stop looking at her.
“Well... good-bye, then.” She crossed her yard.
“Amanda?”
She stopped. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I--nothing.” As she opened her door I blurted, “Would you like to go with me?”
“To the mountains? I can’t, Nicky. I have a job.”
“I know. I thought maybe somehow--”
“School starts in three weeks. If I don’t have my curriculum ready... “
“They’ll fire you?”
She giggled. They’d waited three years for her; it would take three more to send for a replacement. “They won’t be very happy.” She frowned. “But I don’t care. I want to see the Ventura Mountains.”
“Really?” I said stupidly.
“With you. I want to see them with you.”
My eyes stung. I felt light-headed and miserable all at once. I ran to her and we embraced. “You’ll really go? God, can we start now?”
“Give me the night to get ready. And I have to explain to Mrs. Potter.” After a while she managed to get me to leave.
Derek didn’t seem put out when I told him I’d invited Amanda. He helped me buy a second pup tent and load the extra food and other supplies in the jet heli we’d rented. I had to promise the heli service three times not to tamper with the transponder; Captain Grone’s disappearance must have made them skittish.
We took off for the Western Continent shortly after breakfast. I was the only licensed driver; they’d taught us helipiloting at Academy but Derek and Amanda had never learned.
The permabatteries had ample charge for months. From time to time I turned on the autopilot to lean back and rest my eyes. The craft was roomy enough for Derek and Amanda to switch seats; they did so several rimes before settling down.
At four hundred fifty kilometers per hour it took us more than eight hours to reach the western shore. The huge submarine trees growing from the bottom of Farreach Ocean sent probing tentacles to the surface to absorb light. Plants somewhat like water lilies floated on the surface, rising and falling with the swells. The ocean was a vast liquid field of competing vegetable organisms.
The jagged spires of the Western Mountains loomed on the horizon long before we reached the continent; their raw power was breathtaking. The low hills and gently sculpted valleys of the Eastern Continent were tame compared to the vigor of these much younger peaks.
Derek pored over the map. “Do you want an established campsite or should we find a place of our own?”
“Let’s find someplace,” I said. Amanda nodded agreement. The cleared campsites would be remote enough, but we had no need to settle for them. Even after a hundred years, there were places in the continent no foot had trod.