The Wind Spindle Chapter 11

 

Kallo circled the 24-kilometer-wide dome of Kinlani Observatory, now weirdly still; it's kilometer-diameter receiver dishes usually spun and shifted as they rotated under widening and narrowing armatures, but now they were frozen still, glittering darkly around the rim of Asia Mars volcano like hematite gems. Normally she would be able to receive the channel from the Observatory, but of course everything was dead.  Crows followed her in flight, curious and probably hungry.  But she had no cookies for them now.

The trench steppes stretched east in thousands of rows of quadroquinoa as exact as an old-fashioned circuit board, punctuated by cistern pumps at the switchbacks.  Herds of adapted sheep crept like dingy clouds along the steppes and west of the Observatory, where the concentric rings of yurts and hogans of the merging communities of Kinlani and New Khan looked bare, dry and vulnerable under the still, dry CAP towers.

If Kallo could take off again from one of the work platforms surrounding the Observatory tower, she would be able to make it back to the central grid tower from here.  If not, she'd be grounded unless the Observatory tube station was working. Her body quailed at the thought of being stuck on the ground.

But she had to carry out her Daddy’s plans. And she had to find Dohna though she wasn't even sure why, or what she would say to the old woman, or what to ask. She just knew that she had to see her. 

A beam of light jammed into her retinas, causing her to falter in flight.  She squeezed her eyes shut and corrected, her heart hammering as she was slapped with the memory of falling blind.  For several seconds she recalled perfectly the sensation of tumbling and careening.  She pulled herself out of the it, corrected her flight attitude and swallowed hard.  The laser had come from one of the dish apertures.  A trick of reflection?  Or had it been a warning?

She blinked, now seeing a line of figures, one waving a long black silk flag, which meant either Go Away or Land Immediately-Kallo couldn't remember.  It wasn't something she'd ever needed to remember.  She was a star performer, and everywhere she flew the sky had belonged to her.  

They had to know who she was; she had performed here many times.  They wouldn't be angry when they found out they had a celebrity among them.

Kallo decided to keep it simple.  No acrobatics.  She pulled her chutes.

It was a perfect landing, but there was no applause. She was running to a stop and saw them all closing in around her: Khams, in the Tibetan tradition, the guardians of Kinlani and New Khan for generations.  She had seen them at a distance many times before, but never this close.  They wore black felt hats over long hair woven full of opals. Swords glinted in their sashes and on their backs; they also wore laser pistols on their belts and knives in tall black boots, although now they were not holding weapons-just gathering in a tightening circle around her.

Kallo stood still while her chutes folded onto her back.

“I am Kalleyno.” she said, and waited through a tedious silence. “The wind spinner!” Did they really not know who she was?

“This way,” the tallest guard motioned, and Kallo followed him with the rest of the Khams flanking her up a steep walkway and into the entry courtyard of the Observatory. A woman strode into the courtyard, stopping in front of Kallo.

Kallo stared at the woman's dyed and beaded leather boots.  Layers of emerald and sage green velvet skirts swirled under her luxuriously thick sheepskin coat, which was oversewn with layers of green silk designs; her wrists and neck were wreathed with glittering, pale green peridot cabochons set in silver. She had a mix of Adapted and First Nations features; her nose was wide and flat and her eyes hooded like an Adapted, but her irises resembled labradorite-a compromise of radiation resistance with an Aurora Borealis sheen that protected, and depths of dark like the classic beauty of Earth eyes. Unlike the older generations of Navajo she had Adapted skin, a deep caramel that would sluff every day, taking radiation accumulation and damage with it. But her gleaming blue-black hair was pure Mars Dine', mounded on the back of her head in great loops of obsidian and trailing white yarn ties. Her hair must be meters long when loosed, thought Kallo. She had seen Kinlani royalty before at private flight exhibitions, but never conversed with them for long. She did not know all the protocols, and it now occurred to her that she was not very good at Kinlani dialect.

A Kham’s deep male voice jolted Kallo.

“You are before Princess Kinlani of the Kinlani Dry Canal Clan. State your business,.” he spoke in common Mars dialect, which had a stately, old-fashioned sound. But at least she could understand it. Of course they know who I am, she thought. Everyone knew who she was.

“My Daddy is hurt.” Kallo didn’t know why she had said this; her Daddy would not have wanted her to. “But-and anyway, the grid is down but we are rebuilding. And I want to talk to Dohna.”

“How seriously is Mano injured?”

“He’ll be alright. He’s rebuilding the grid. But I need to-”

“The Keeper does not come at your command,” said the princess, with a deep, cold calm.

Who?  wondered Kallo.  But she continued. “I have messages. Weather forecasts, infrastructure rebuild updates and the future of the independent Mars grid,” she recited. Then she said, “But first I get to talk to Dohna."

"Tonight we are holding a very important sing. Come back tomorrow and I will speak with you."

"No!" Kallo blurted, "I need to talk to Dohna right now!"

“Are you sure that Mano does not require help?”

Kallo shook her head. “But-I-”

The princess pointed her lips at the gate, “Escort her to a guest hogan, please.,” She turned with a rich ripple of velvet skirts and a heavy swish of hair., “Give her supper.  But keep a guard on her."

Kallo hated walking. She could be flying home if they had let her on the Observatory roof; it was high enough for take-off and there were enough prevailing winds. But instead she was mincing along in a crowd of tall guards who, infuriatingly, kept smiling down at her. She returned their indulgent looks with glares.

The steep, rocky path from the Observatory grounds on the edge of the volcano wound around and down. It was tiring and Kallo’s ankles already ached; they nearly always ached, but mostly she was able to forget about it. She stumbled and was caught, and lifted before she hit the ground. The guards stopped on the path, speaking to each other in a Tibetan dialect. A guard cupped one of Kallo’s feet in her hands and said, in Mars common dialect, “Do you have pain?”

“Put me down!” Kallo said. The guard moved her foot gently back and forth, and Kallo winced. There was more discussion, then Kallo found herself hoisted on to another guard’s back and riding as she had on her Daddy’s back when she was little.

“I want to go home!” She slapped the big guard’s shoulder, but without conviction. It was a relief to be off her feet.

“Tomorrow we will bring you back to speak to the princess,” he said.

“I want to talk to Do-” Kallo nearly stood up on the guard’s back. He stopped.

“The lagoons!” said Kallo. When the winds out of the north brought a stale scent of the quicksand lagoons through the Tharsis valley, it was often a sign of a storm brewing. But she couldn’t be sure. Another scent hit and she laughed. She smacked the guard several times hard on the shoulder, writhing. He set her down.

Kallo scanned their faces. “Why won’t you let me go home?” she wheedled. “I can take off from the Observatory tower.”

“Not tonight. The guest hogans aren’t far. We will bring you some stew.”

 Kallo circled the 24-kilometer-wide dome of Kinlani Observatory, now weirdly still; it's kilometer-diameter receiver dishes usually spun and shifted as they rotated under widening and narrowing armatures, but now they were frozen still, glittering darkly around the rim of Asia Mars volcano like hematite gems. Normally she would be able to receive the channel from the Observatory, but of course everything was dead.  Crows followed her in flight, curious and probably hungry.  But she had no cookies for them now.

The trench steppes stretched east in thousands of rows of quadroquinoa as exact as an old-fashioned circuit board, punctuated by cistern pumps at the switchbacks.  Herds of adapted sheep crept like dingy clouds along the steppes and west of the Observatory, where the concentric rings of yurts and hogans of the merging communities of Kinlani and New Khan looked bare, dry and vulnerable under the still, dry CAP towers.

If Kallo could take off again from one of the work platforms surrounding the Observatory tower, she would be able to make it back to the central grid tower from here.  If not, she'd be grounded unless the Observatory tube station was working. Her body quailed at the thought of being stuck on the ground.

But she had to carry out her Daddy’s plans. And she had to find Dohna though she wasn't even sure why, or what she would say to the old woman, or what to ask. She just knew that she had to see her. 

A beam of light jammed into her retinas, causing her to falter in flight.  She squeezed her eyes shut and corrected, her heart hammering as she was slapped with the memory of falling blind.  For several seconds she recalled perfectly the sensation of tumbling and careening.  She pulled herself out of the it, corrected her flight attitude and swallowed hard.  The laser had come from one of the dish apertures.  A trick of reflection?  Or had it been a warning?

She blinked, now seeing a line of figures, one waving a long black silk flag, which meant either Go Away or Land Immediately-Kallo couldn't remember.  It wasn't something she'd ever needed to remember.  She was a star performer, and everywhere she flew the sky had belonged to her.  

They had to know who she was; she had performed here many times.  They wouldn't be angry when they found out they had a celebrity among them.

Kallo decided to keep it simple.  No acrobatics.  She pulled her chutes.

It was a perfect landing, but there was no applause. She was running to a stop and saw them all closing in around her: Khams, in the Tibetan tradition, the guardians of Kinlani and New Khan for generations.  She had seen them at a distance many times before, but never this close.  They wore black felt hats over long hair woven full of opals. Swords glinted in their sashes and on their backs; they also wore laser pistols on their belts and knives in tall black boots, although now they were not holding weapons-just gathering in a tightening circle around her.

Kallo stood still while her chutes folded onto her back.

“I am Kalleyno.” she said, and waited through a tedious silence. “The wind spinner!” Did they really not know who she was?

“This way,” the tallest guard motioned, and Kallo followed him with the rest of the Khams flanking her up a steep walkway and into the entry courtyard of the Observatory. A woman strode into the courtyard, stopping in front of Kallo.

Kallo stared at the woman's dyed and beaded leather boots.  Layers of emerald and sage green velvet skirts swirled under her luxuriously thick sheepskin coat, which was oversewn with layers of green silk designs; her wrists and neck were wreathed with glittering, pale green peridot cabochons set in silver. She had a mix of Adapted and First Nations features; her nose was wide and flat and her eyes hooded like an Adapted, but her irises resembled labradorite-a compromise of radiation resistance with an Aurora Borealis sheen that protected, and depths of dark like the classic beauty of Earth eyes. Unlike the older generations of Navajo she had Adapted skin, a deep caramel that would sluff every day, taking radiation accumulation and damage with it. But her gleaming blue-black hair was pure Mars Dine', mounded on the back of her head in great loops of obsidian and trailing white yarn ties. Her hair must be meters long when loosed, thought Kallo. She had seen Kinlani royalty before at private flight exhibitions, but never conversed with them for long. She did not know all the protocols, and it now occurred to her that she was not very good at Kinlani dialect.

A Kham’s deep male voice jolted Kallo.

“You are before Princess Kinlani of the Kinlani Dry Canal Clan. State your business,.” he spoke in common Mars dialect, which had a stately, old-fashioned sound. But at least she could understand it. Of course they know who I am, she thought. Everyone knew who she was.

“My Daddy is hurt.” Kallo didn’t know why she had said this; her Daddy would not have wanted her to. “But-and anyway, the grid is down but we are rebuilding. And I want to talk to Dohna.”

“How seriously is Mano injured?”

“He’ll be alright. He’s rebuilding the grid. But I need to-”

“The Keeper does not come at your command,” said the princess, with a deep, cold calm.

Who?  wondered Kallo.  But she continued. “I have messages. Weather forecasts, infrastructure rebuild updates and the future of the independent Mars grid,” she recited. Then she said, “But first I get to talk to Dohna."

"Tonight we are holding a very important sing. Come back tomorrow and I will speak with you."

"No!" Kallo blurted, "I need to talk to Dohna right now!"

“Are you sure that Mano does not require help?”

Kallo shook her head. “But-I-”

The princess pointed her lips at the gate, “Escort her to a guest hogan, please.,” She turned with a rich ripple of velvet skirts and a heavy swish of hair., “Give her supper.  But keep a guard on her."

Kallo hated walking. She could be flying home if they had let her on the Observatory roof; it was high enough for take-off and there were enough prevailing winds. But instead she was mincing along in a crowd of tall guards who, infuriatingly, kept smiling down at her. She returned their indulgent looks with glares.

The steep, rocky path from the Observatory grounds on the edge of the volcano wound around and down. It was tiring and Kallo’s ankles already ached; they nearly always ached, but mostly she was able to forget about it. She stumbled and was caught, and lifted before she hit the ground. The guards stopped on the path, speaking to each other in a Tibetan dialect. A guard cupped one of Kallo’s feet in her hands and said, in Mars common dialect, “Do you have pain?”

“Put me down!” Kallo said. The guard moved her foot gently back and forth, and Kallo winced. There was more discussion, then Kallo found herself hoisted on to another guard’s back and riding as she had on her Daddy’s back when she was little.

“I want to go home!” She slapped the big guard’s shoulder, but without conviction. It was a relief to be off her feet.

“Tomorrow we will bring you back to speak to the princess,” he said.

“I want to talk to Do-” Kallo nearly stood up on the guard’s back. He stopped.

“The lagoons!” said Kallo. When the winds out of the north brought a stale scent of the quicksand lagoons through the Tharsis valley, it was often a sign of a storm brewing. But she couldn’t be sure. Another scent hit and she laughed. She smacked the guard several times hard on the shoulder, writhing. He set her down.

Kallo scanned their faces. “Why won’t you let me go home?” she wheedled. “I can take off from the Observatory tower.”

“Not tonight. The guest hogans aren’t far. We will bring you some stew.”

 

The landing party stared coldly at Del, then at Jennifer.

"Shall I kill her?" Anma brought her sleeve to her mouth, wiping a bit of drool.

"No, Anma,.” said Lady Jewell. ”She has complete immunity.  We will have to release her.  But how did you know?"

"Dark communications from the barge that brought you here.  They were hers." Anma exchanged a glance with Hank full of understanding and desire.  It was like watching an intimate moment of bedroom conversation; Del wanted to avert his eyes, but then the moment was over.

"But we couldn't find out who she was conversing with," Anma’s eerie eyes came to rest on Del. "Interworld Guild. There’s our answer,”

"Oh. No, no!” Del laughed too loudly, and softened his voice to sound warm and casual. “I was heading for the Bowl to bring the first news of the Independent Mars grid," he smiled, "Until the grid is built we will send flyers with updates on the rebuilds, weather, and other news."

"Who will own the new grid?" asked The Lady. Her enormous, deep-dark eyes bored into his.

"Mars," said Del. “Free and open only to Mars.” He flashed his charming grin. "Interworld may buy a signal when the work is comple-"

“And what business do you have with this liar?” The Lady tilted her head toward Jennifer, who was now sitting limply on the sand and panting in her helmet.

"I want to explain,” Del began, "I know nothing about-"

“Don’t bother, Del,” said Jennifer. “They know. But they don’t know it all. So now would be a good time to shut up.”

“My Lady, I promise you-” said Del.

“There is no call for promises. The situation is clear. And it seems best that you take your friend’s advice. If either of you come within the Bowl boundaries you will be detained. When the grids are rebuilt your profiles will be updated, and the world will be informed of the charges against Jennifer and the evidence to the suggest that you, Del, are a potential accomplice.”

“But-please, My Lady-”

“Our security protocols will not allow us to investigate you further at this time. You have had quite the career,” said the Lady, with gentle compassion. “I watched you on the broadcasts many times. A shame. Might I suggest Earth?”

Kallo played with the slice of mutton in her bowl. She’d only been hungry enough to eat some broth and bread. It was very poor manners not to finish food, but it hadn’t been her fault they brought too much. Kallo set down the bowl and threw herself on one of the beds with an explosive sigh.

The silk panel door slid aside. Three smiling faces peered in.

“We came to see the Wind Spinner.”

Kallo shrugged, sitting up. She wasn’t doing anything. She couldn’t do anything.

Three monks entered; one was very old, one middle aged, one trans, in their  late teens.  They all wore red robes and wooden beads under their sheepskin coats and hoods. They bowed to Kallo with their hands together, grinning. Kallo vaguely remembered that she should have bowed back, but she was unhappy just now and didn’t feel like being polite-not that she was often in the mood to be polite.

“Here you are!” said the middle-aged monk. “I am Tenzin Gyaltso,” He helped the elderly monk to sit on a bed next to Kallo’s, “This is Elder Yoche Kondun,” he motioned the teenage monk to sit on the floor, “And Yeshi Dawa.

“We have heard that Mano was injured in the burst.” Tenzin sat next to the Elder Yoche and leaned toward Kallo. “Does he need our help?”

“No,” said Kallo, but she felt tears beginning to sting. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to stop them. “He’s already rebuilding the grid from the inside. He wants to get all the networks fully integrated and secured before Interworld sends any communications.”

“Secured?” said the teenage monk, Yeshi, with a blank look.

“He wants to make sure that all internal access to networks is open to Mars communities and that network barricades prevent any back door intrusion from Earth networks or organizations,” though ordinarily bored crazy by her father’s work, Kallo knew much of it by repeated exposure. “Mars will have an independent grid. If Interworld wants a signal on our world, they’ll have to buy it from us.  The Mars communications grid will be independent and belong to us only.”

The monks were nodding. “I would have expected nothing less from Mano,” said Elder Yoche. “I assume he’s using scramblers as well?”

“To muck up any incoming signal or data that isn’t paid for, yes,” said Kallo. “But the grid will be free and open to all of Mars; we won’t profit in any way. We will ask for support when new networks must be built, or for periodic maintenance,that kind of thing.” Kallo felt tired with all this talk. She heaved a sigh, hoping they would go.

“Of course, of course,” said Tenzin. “And you were injured, when you landed?”

“No.”

“But you have pain?”

“Oh.” Kallo shrugged. “My ankles hurt sometimes. They don’t hurt when I fly and I’m always flying,” She lowered her chin, gazing at Tenzin with her lower lip slightly poked out. “When people let me.”

He laughed. “You will have an audience with elders and the Dine’ court in the morning. You can carry a data stick back to Mano?”

“Yes. He wanted me to ask you for parameters for the temple signal and New Khan networks.”

Elder Yoche dug into his bag with trembling, gnarled hands. “We brought you some cactus fig cookies.”

“I like to feed the crows with them.”

“Oh! You like crows.” Yoche smiled, his tarnished silver eyes glittering in his deeply wrinkled face.

"They're my friends," said Kallo.

Yoshi leaned forward from his seat on the floor. “What does it feel like?”

“Huh?” said Kallo.

“When you fly up in a dust devil? What’s it like?”

Kallo had to think. “It’s like flying, but going straight up, that’s all. So you get dizzier.  And it’s more exciting.  And colder.  And there’s sand.”

“You went so high last time. And then the monitors went out!” Yoshi’s mercurial eyes were dancing with excitement. “It was so frustrating. How high did you go?”

“My instruments were knocked out,” said Kallo. “I can’t tell you. I fell out of it. If Del hadn’t been there-”

“You fell?” asked Tenzin.

“I was about to lose velocity anyway.  I was blind and then I was falling. But Del caught me and we landed together. It’s good that he did. My chutes wouldn’t open.”

“I watched you in acrobatics when you were four,” said Tenzin. “That was many years ago now.”

Kallo didn’t respond to that; she’d learned not discuss her inability to age. Those conversations tended to go in uncomfortable directions.

“I’ve seen almost every one of your shows,” gushed Yoshi, “Do you think you’ll ever make it to the outer atmo?”

“It’s all I want. I wanted to be the best flyer, and I am, and I wanted to fly as high as the edge of space and be awake to see it. I still haven’t done that yet but I will, no matter what.” But even before she had finished speaking Kallo was thinking of her Daddy, covered with nursebots in the medpod, and of the new grid she had promised to help him build.

 

Kallo stirred to the sound of women singing. She padded painfully over the rugs on the hogan floor and slid open the door.

The sun had appeared over the jagged mountains, fig-sized and deep red in a frozen mist. Women emerging from hogans were singing and sprinkling maize pollen or tossing milk, singing the Dine´ and Mongolian morning songs.

Kallo couldn’t remember her mother’s voice. She knew her mother had sung in the morning too, but she didn’t remember what her eyes looked like or how she smelled or what it had felt like to be in her arms.

The old hollowness within Kallo spread like a shadow, seeping over her heart. Most days she covered the emptiness with other things, but it now gaped black and aching within her, deep as a cistern. She crawled back into bed and allowed herself to sob into the blankets, falling back to sleep for a time. Then she jolted awake.

“Time to begin gathering,.” said a deep voice beside her. Kallo looked up to see Dohna offering her a steaming cup of butter tea.

 

Mano’s mind was following microbots down corridors of the freshly-constructed comm pipeline, double-checking connections, when he felt the first power surge come roaring in. His mind scrambled past the rows of silk atom transistors, dove through optic fibers and slid back into his wreck of a body in the medpod just ahead of the power pulse, which would never be quite as fast as thought.

He opened his eyes just in time to see the green lights in the medlab blink off, followed by the usual soft white lights indicating central grid power source. The medlab was suddenly bright and Mano’s nervous system responded with a jolt of reward hormones, a cocktail of seretonin, dopamine and other compounds that made him nearly giddy, for a moment. 

With one thought he sent the first communication to central grid towers in the Bowl, Kinlani, New Khan, Stormhorse, Olympus and Nova Hofsgil:

“Welcome to the new Independent Mars Grid. Upgrades include ease of use, added platforms and deep security. This is a free and open grid for Mars use, but closed to outer worlds. You may add access to any party from any world and limit and terminate that access according to need, once protocol compliances are met. Security and use agreement protocols may be downloaded directly, starting immediately.”

A ping rang in the medlab. As expected, the Bowl had been ready ahead of everyone else. His comm screen blinked to life for the first time in ten sols.

“Mano Tewa, I am Jewel Isikirari. A pleasure to meet you, though I bring unfortunate news.”

 

Tassy stood back, watching the printer releasing circuit fabric in the wing prototypes .  The first trials had worked too well; she'd wired the palm-sized gravity reversal units (grav mag units mounted upside down, but that was how you marketed engineering) to a few receptors. They had flown up and stuck to the ceiling.  She'd had to send a bot up to shut them off, and they had crashed to the floor and cracked the casings.  After the third try, she'd had control of the units.  She remounted and cased the units. It would work.  It would really work.

She hauled the wing fabric out of the printer and attached it to the temporary harness.  Then she plugged in the grav reversal units.  She stepped into the wind tunnel, a good safe place to fall, with minimal air currents to hold her aloft.

She clicked the command button and woke up on the ceiling, her legs and arms dangling.  The impact must have knocked her out.  Her head throbbed.

"Helmet would have been smart," she groaned to herself.  But the harness had held, and the specs were correct to support a flier with suit transposers.  That part worked.

·         She clicked the command on her wrist unit to start very soft jets of air to support her body again and tried the unit again, this time dialing it back immediately.  She was able to stop herself in mid-air, in a very steady hover.

 She turned off the wind tunnel support jets; her silver pigtails settled into a droop; her rippling suit went still.

 She maintained the hover.

  She gasped.  

 

Mano’s mind was following microbots down corridors of the freshly-constructed comm pipeline, double-checking connections, when he felt the first power surge come roaring in. His mind scrambled past the rows of silk atom transistors, dove through optic fibers and slid back into his wreck of a body in the medpod just ahead of the power pulse, which would never be quite as fast as thought. 

He opened his eyes just in time to see the green lights in the medlab blink off, followed by the usual soft white lights indicating central grid power source. The medlab was suddenly bright and Mano’s nervous system responded with a jolt of reward hormones, a cocktail of serotonin and dopamine and other compounds that made him nearly giddy, for a moment. 

With one thought he sent the first communication to central grid towers in the Bowl, Kinlani, New Khan, Stormhorse, Olympus and New Hofsgil. 

“Welcome to the new Independent Mars Grid. Upgrades include ease of use, added platforms and deep security. This is a free and open grid for Mars use, but closed to outer worlds. You may add access to any party from any world and limit and terminate that access according to need, once protocol compliances are met. Security and use agreement protocols may be downloaded directly, starting immediately.” 

A ping rang in the medlab. As expected, the Bowl had been ready ahead of everyone else. His comm screen blinked to life for the first time in ten sols. 

“Mano of the Red Star Tewa, I am Jewel Isikirari. A pleasure to meet you, though I bring unfortunate news.”

 

Tassy's stomach growled, but now that the power was back up she couldn’t stop; she was so close on integrating the new wings with an upgraded flight suit pattern. Why bother with wings?voices of her old bullying classmates cut through.  She answered the triumphantly, “Rescue. All the anti grav suit’s capabilities extending into wing appendeges opened the door for search and rescue efforts as well as tripled the flier’s ability to carry transport. One thing you always knew as a flier: you never knew what capabilities you might need for the next situation.  They would learn as they went, but that was not a reason to keep the suit limited to stunt and distance flying.  Besides, with wings they would be especially visible and therefore available to the community.  Tassy, like those in her family and many on her home world, believed deeply in service to others, the beauty way,  as the path to both personal and community health and rightness. She picked up her cup of cold butter tea and took a long pull, gulping.  She tapped the datapad again, opening the main drive on the graphics controller.  

The almost unfamiliar sound of a comm ping, cranked loud enough in the lab to override any equipment din, made her jump. Tea dribbled over her lip. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve as she dove for the communication panel. The comm grid was back up! 

A flat AI voice thundered from the speakers. She had turned them all the way up so as not to miss the first transmission after the outages. 

“TASSY.” 

She lowered the volume, wincing. 

“Mano! Are we-” 

“DISCONTINUE ALL COMMUNICATIONS WITH DEL.” 

She was still mopping tea from her face. She stopped. 

“W-what?” 

“UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE HE IS BLOCKED. THAT IS AN ORDER.” 

Mano had given orders before, many orders. But he had never called them that. Despite the flat tone of the AI voice it sounded extra belligerent, even from him. She took a moment to breathe and absorb this. 

“COMEBACK.” Mano demanded. 

Tassy tried to speak but then had to cough. She tried again, her voice ragged.

“Copy" she coughed some more. " Copy that.” 

When Mano’s signal cut off, Tassy logged into her contacts. She stared at the icon for Del’s dark channel, her fingertip hovering. 

 

Del’s heart seemed to be in his boots. He trudged next to Jennifer, watching the orange dust of the desert floor sifting aside with each step. There went the Bowl, and with the Bowl went the greatest support he could have had. 

“The transport may take a couple more hours.” Jennifer checked the wrist pad on her suit. “But they’ve been dark, so they were shielded from all this anyway.  Good karma, huh? They know I’m down. They’re coming.” Del said nothing. Jennifer huffed. “Del. You need to get over this. Not everything good comes from the Bowl.” 

“No,” he said. “Just most of the financial support, and the engineers, and the reputation, and while we’re at it, the best food and music and-” 

“Well, get manly. Or, what is it you say here? Or jump off.” 

Del mustered his patience. “You just got here, and we’ve been in negotiations. So I’m going to be polite to you.” 

“Martian manners,” she laughed, “Which is why it takes you forever to get anything done-” 

“Earthling-” he interrupted, watching her shocked offense at the counter-insult with satisfaction, “-rudeness.  To remind you, the first successful Adapted human gene codes were edited here.” Del jabbed his finger at the ground, “Not by wetbrains. By Dinée and Hopi Marsers, on this world you happen to be standing on. And then Company 1 tries to grab credit and steal codes-” 

“You seem to be fine with that particular moral conundrum at the moment.” 

Del took a deep breath. Finally he said, “Earth history. You must be so proud.” 

Jennifer’s face darkened. “The history of women on Earth is what I care about. A history of advances followed by defeats, over and over again, with every advancement toward equality slapped away by the old hateful ideas.” 

“So, live here,” said Del, “We haven’t been held back by that idiocy here since the second die off.”

 She gaped at him, her face twisted in outrage. 

Del explained, “We can serve our sentences, finish our rehabilitation therapies and start over. It’s not what I wanted either, but-” 

“You think I came here for a romance with you?” She laughed. “Del, I have a job to do.” 

“Company One can jump off.” 

“No. Del!” She slapped her chest, “I have something important to do!”

 “What?”

 Jennifer stared at him with regret. “I was going to try to leave you out of it. But you’re implicated with me now, anyway.”

 “Company 1 wants the code, I know. But we don’t have to-”

 She sighed. “I have to show you something.” 

 

Dohna opened a thermal silk package and drew out a hot round of bread, fresh from the fat. It steamed in the morning chill, with a glistening golden crust that tore effortlessly, revealing tender, fluffy insides. Kallo stuffed a handful into her mouth.

 “You’ve been an empty spindle, weightless. You haven’t gathered life. It’s time.”

 “I know grandmas talk in stories,” Kallo said around the mouthful as best she could without slowing her breakfast, “But you don’t make any sense.”

 “You are arrogant,” said Dohna. “You are proud. You have not been taught manners. You are ignorant and have not learned skills you need because of your pride and arrogance. First, there will be a fall from a great height. Then you will have to get up again, and you will need to grow up. Nature demands it.”

 “Why did I want to see you anyway?” Kallo gulped creamy, tannin-sharp tea; her upper lip gathered a thin sheen of butter fat. She wiped her mouth. “I have manners,” she said.

 “No, you don’t. But that is a good question. Why would you want to see me?”

 Kallo stared at the old woman, her insides churning with confusion. She could not find the words.

 “You are alone,” said Dohna, “For the first time. That’s good. You have so much to do.”

 “Quit telling me things you don’t know. You’re just trying to brain-spin me.”

 “A good turn of phrase.” The old woman laughed. She pulled a spindle from her pocket and spun it from a delicate strand of wool.  "This," she said, "Is how you move now.  This is how self-centered you are," Dohna held up the wooden disc on a stick, empty of yarn, spinning crookedly, "A whirling spindle."   She stopped it, wrapped the wool around the staff, and spun it again.  Yarn began piling on to it in neat rows. "It's time to gather life."

 Kallo rolled her eyes. She threw her head back to swallow the last of the tea. She wanted to slam the cup down but stared at Dohna, setting it with deliberate gentleness on the table. Then she stomped from the yurt.

  

A small wheelmule thundered toward Del and Jennifer, finally pulling up in clouds of dust.

 “Tate!” Del said, pulling off his mask as the dust settled.

 “Hey, yah!” Tate shot back in Arturos slang. “What’s coming down, brother?”

 Del stared at his old friend’s getup. Tate was from Arturos, like Del. He’d grown up gritty, like Del. Now he wore new triple-silk desert gear, sleek and fully outfitted with the newest telescope goggles and equipment belt. His dust-resistant, unscratched boots gleamed.

 “Company 1 treating you right, by the looks,” said Del.

 Tate grinned with neat rows of new teeth, but his eyes were still, cool, ready. “Betcha.”

 “Del, get in,” said Jennifer. “Let’s move it.”

 Tate gave the same cool smile to Jennifer. “You’re a sweet Earth thing,” he said (as Del winced at his coarseness), “But I don’t take orders from you.”

 Jennifer ripped the cover from her wrist pad, seized Tate’s hand and smacked her wrist screen against his, causing a cascade of tones. Tate stared down at the new data.

 “Now you do.” said Jennifer, “So you will act a gentleman from now on. You get me?”

 Tate swallowed and took the wheel. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, settling in for the long drive.

 

Del had not been back to Arturos in years. He remembered the massive solar arrays of mirror canyons and ambient radiation harvesting networks, the piles of mineral tailings and dead equipment and rubble stretching for kilometer after kilometer. When he was small it had been overrun with packs of diseased canidae, but these were regularly rescued and relocated to the Bowl as to be trained as therapy pets. He imagined there were still rodents of one kind or another crawling around. 

He remembered the road they had now turned onto; it used to lead to a couple of useless canyons that had been extra dumping sites for asteroid tailings, long before he was born. He had never explored out here much, with the exception of adolescent drinking parties. But he hadn’t stayed long for those. He had found a real position; Mano called him a “natural broadcaster” and had also given him work in the lab. Back then the future seemed open, like a wide, clear morning sky. Many good things could have happened. He had worked so, so hard for a real future. And now it was all gone. Now, he could only hope for a new one.

 The wheelmule followed the bumpy spiral track down the inner slopes of the impact canyon, piled high with heavy asteroid rubble. Finally it jolted to a stop. As they climbed out of the wheelmule, Tate grabbed a camouflage tarp on the canyon wall and yanked it aside; it showered sand. A steel door behind it slid open, revealing two armed Arturan guards.

 

Tate climbed back into the wheelmule and was off in a spray of gravel. 

Del cussed to himself. He had a bad, bad feeling. If he had had any other option, he would have taken it. But now he was following Jennifer down a series of glaring corridors. This area had never held greenhouses, just mining installations, blasting pads and landing pads.   The laser carved sandstone and basalt halls were strange but not completely unexpected, this was originally an earth outpost.  It occurred to Del that Earth architects must have designed this; Marsers had better eyes and wouldn’t need all this blinding extraneous light. 

Jennifer stopped in front of a door that looked like dozens of other doors: plain, unmarked steel. She swiped her wrist panel across the door, which slid open; they were met with a wall of dense, humid atmo. It was a plain entry room with a few desks and cabinets, very stark. Earthers loved square, bright, cold rooms. It all made Del feel like a specimen on a slide. 

Jennifer took off her helmet, pausing to cough as her lungs adjusted; this wasn’t perfect Earth air. She worked at the fasteners, finally emerging from the suit. Del had looked away in modesty, but now he looked back at her; she was wearing a traditional red silk dress of ancient design that fit her in taut, smooth lines. She pulled a pin, releasing her heavy black hair. Then she opened a desk drawer, pulled out pointed shoes with heels on them and stepped gracefully into them. All the while she watched him, like a cat. 

“I need you to be strong,” she said. “Come with me.” 

Kallo shoved the sliding panel door of the yurt aside and stared up into the face of a Kham guard. 

"The power and comm grids are back up," he said. Kallo marched past him to the wheelmule and plunked into a seat. "Take me to the Observatory now," she said. 

They made the climb up the volcano; Kallo leaned her head back to watch the raven-sized drones taking off from a launch pad on the Observatory tower, one after the other, like bees leaving a hive. A blimp was rising beyond the Observatory, weather instruments whirling, readouts scrolling on its skin. 

Kallo’s heart lightened to see this. The sky was alive again. The grid was alive, and her Daddy was in charge of the comm grid, and now it belonged to Mars. Kallo's eyes stung with pride. Mars had its own comm grid now. Earth didn't own the signals anymore. Now they were free.

 Then another thought made her heart pound: this was important and she better not mess it up. Her Daddy was depending on her. Mars was depending on her. Kallo looked at the sky and made a promise to herself. She would not let her Daddy down. She would not let her world down.

 She leaped from the wheelmule before it had come to a full stop and ran in her pigeon-toed, limping run into the empty courtyard, stumbling only once. 

"I want to see my Daddy now!" she shouted. The guard had lifted her before she could dodge him and was carrying her into the Observatory, past the great stone doors, up the spiraling stairs past the vibrantly colored sand paintings and artfully woven wool rug hangings on the walls, into a central circular gallery of tall gleaming windows with the view of the sky and mountains. Through the glass ceiling high above, the giant receiver dishes spun and tilted. 

Princess Kinlani was seated with the three monksin their red robes Kallo had met last night and several elders from New Khan in their silk robes and fur hats, all at a ring of desks.

"I apologize for detaining you last night," said the princess. "We wanted to ensure protection for you and for Kinlani.”

Kallo opened her mouth to say something angry but found herself remembering what Dohna had said just moments ago. For some reason now, those words about life and manners had begun to make sense. Kallo swallowed.

"Can I go now?"

"You may have private wheelmule transport."

"Forget that!" Kallo turned and ran up the continuing spiral steps.  She stopped, hearing Dohna’s voice say “manners, manners.”  She turned and bowed to the Princess. 

“Your highness, please forgive my rudeness.  I am worried about my Daddy, and also we have many jobs to do, carrying news and updates to all corners of Mars by flier. until all the updates are complete”

“A brilliant solution,” said the Princess, “Mano thought of that, of course?

“Well,”  Kallo thought.  “All of us, really.  But now that the new comm grid is up there will be security concerns, maintenance and other things I must put my attention to.”

The Princess grinned suddenly.  “I though you were just a child, but you have the potential to be very grown-up, don’t you?

Kallo looked at the Princess, thinking hard.  “I hope so,” she said with a sigh.

The Princess laughed.

“And to see our skies coming alive again,” they stood looking up at the drones flying in precise formations and the blimps scrolling weather metrics.  What do you think of that?”

“I am very proud,” Kallo’s voice shook.  She couldn’t help it.  Tears streamed down the sides of her nose.  Then the Princess did something that surprised her.  She stepped up to Kallo and wrapped an arm around her.

“We are all proud today,” she said softly.  Kallo looked up at her.  “I will do my world proud,” she said.  “I will never compromise the free voice of Mars.  I promised my Daddy, and I promise you.” The Princess gave Kallo a squeeze and set her free.  Kallo ran.   

She made it onto the floor above and all the way to one of the doors to a maintenance platform, but the doors wouldn't open.  Yoshi, the middle-aged monk, was walking calmly behind her.

He swiped his wrist data pad at the doors, which opened.

"We've heard about Del," he said, "Please be careful.  We only have one flyer who can ride devils."

Kallo stared at him. "What about Del?” she said.

He was smiling at her tenderly. "Goodbye, little spinner.  Come to Stormhorse one day."

Kallo was going to tell him to jump off, that she was in a hurry, but then she remembered her promise. She thought for a moment. "What do you need?" she asked him. "I can bring you more hard data, or-"

"We will let you know."

He bowed with his hands together, and Kallo awkwardly returned the gesture. She turned and walked to the edge of the platform.

Her mind went still as she sucked deeply through her nose and mouth to read the air. The winds were too calm, which meant atmo energy gathering somewhere else. It also meant terrible take-off conditions for her. The saline funk of the quicksand lagoons was still strong this morning and through it tinges of metals, no doubt off-gassing from the reconstructions and power reboot. Her skin prickled with the knowledge before her mind had put it in words. She ran back down the spiral steps and into the gallery.

“A storm is coming,” she told them, “A big one. The energy is going to start building fast in about four hours.”

One of the elders frowned, checking his desk panel. “Our instruments don’t indicate-”

“Your  instruments might be able to detect one molecule in a trillion like I can,” said Kallo. “But they don’t know what it means when the lagoons are evaporating slow enough that I can smell algae, and when I can smell a fresh cut in a glacier between here and the equator, and sheep dung first thing in the morning before they even take the herds out. That means a lot of warm moist air is moving up and the cold air is rushing down a lot faster than usual. Put that all together. There’s. A. Big. Storm. Building. You need to get everyone subground and protect all your equipment now.”

They all stared at her.

“Now!”Kallo just barely contained the urge to yell.

Princess Kinlani nodded. “And you will stay here with us.”

Kallo glanced at each of them. She darted back up the spiral stairs, stumbling. She heard the princess call out, “Stop her!” but she made it back through the door, onto the platform. The blimp was still rising; its mooring lines were being drawn up. If she jumped now she might catch one and steal more elevation; from a higher trajectory she could fly to the central grid tower faster. If she made the leap without enough trajectory, it would be very close to the ground. 

Guards ran onto the platform

Kallo jumped.