Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (4 page)

It was sometimes
difficult for Ayan to believe that the Everin Building existed at
all. The circular structure looked like it belonged underwater.
Hundreds of oval, bubble-like segments seemed to rest atop each other
in a slow taper from bottom to top, as though they were the eggs of
some giant sea creature that artfully laid them in a tall pile. The
old cargo container homes that brought most of the refugees to Haven
Shore were abandoned months ago as families moved into the lower
levels of the Everin Building. The battered ships were stored in the
nearby temporary port, where they were still being slowly repaired.
Lacey, Ayan’s right hand in official matters and companion, thought
they were an eyesore, a reminder that – no matter how much progress
they made in Haven Shore – they had to be ready to escape at any
moment.

Ayan looked across the
circle of segments at the top of the building. There were hundreds of
families living in the structure below, and the feedback from the
residents was positive overall.

As the segments were
inhabited, the resilient skin of the building changed colour
depending on what the residents wanted their home to look like. The
energy collection technologies built into the outer skin still lent
an opalescent sheen to whatever colour was chosen, but that only made
the outside look more spectacular. The changing temperature of the
Tamber moon, any light, and any pressure contributed to the energy of
the building, and the skin of the outer walls could emit energy as
well. It was the combined technology of Freeground and Earth, as well
as a few things Ayan and her people had learned along the way. The
most impressive thing was that the walls, floors, and ceilings were
laid as pliable sheets, then hardened and thickened once they were
properly shaped. They would thicken further over the next few years,
and the building would shift little by little to accommodate.

Ayan dared a glance
towards the centre of the building, at the mouth of the wide hole
running down the interior of the structure. Vertigo threatened to
overtake her as she leaned towards it, though the edge was still ten
metres away. She leaned back towards the walkway.

The wind picked up,
whipping a lock of red ringlets into her face and she couldn’t help
but chuckle at herself and her fear of getting blown down the hole.
It would be over a hundred metre drop, but she knew there was no way
a gust would send her tumbling off the temporary walkway, across the
tops of a few segments. The wind was soothing in the heat of the day,
and it brought the mild, earthy scent of the nearby jungle.

Her gaze fell on the
lush green expanse to the west. Thick, untamed jungle that was
centuries old as far as they could determine, it had taken on
characteristics all its own as the terraforming material that started
that growth interacted with the unique mixture of nutrients and
bacteria in the soil. There was no place exactly like it in the
universe, and Ayan wished the first colonists who settled Tamber
could be around to see it. The trees and hearty undergrowth provided
a vast bounty of fruit, nuts and vegetables, more than the
inhabitants of Haven Shore and the Triton could consume. The
engineering in the expansive rain forest was only evident when
someone realized how efficient the jungle was at providing food. At
any time, there were three major food crops ready to pick. As they
went past their season, another three or more crops were ready. The
creatures of the jungle kept much of it in balance, as the jungle
grew wild for the long time it was uninhabited. Birds of all kinds
picked near the top of the tall trees, a variety of small mammals and
monkeys ate fruit and whatever else they could find in the middle,
while great cats and other beasts roamed the jungle floor.

What the pickers from
Haven Shore took from the jungle made little difference to the
inhabitants; it was easy to pick a little and move on instead of
stripping areas. Ayan sometimes wished she could remove herself from
the Haven Shore Council and join them. The life of a picker was part
labour, and part exploration, and the people who stayed past their
first week stint in the jungle claimed to love the work, the
challenge, and the jungle they depended on.

The cliffs running
roughly through the middle of their island had sheltered over half of
the jungle from the ecological damage from the attack on Tamber
months before, and never had she seen a more vibrant place as she did
when she looked to the untamed side of the island. The Everin
Building straddled a narrow part of the cliffs where stable rock
jutted upward, as though trying to become a mountain. Most of the
homes had a view overlooking the jungle on the west side, while east
facing homes had a view of the other buildings, temporary shelters,
and administration centres that would eventually be replaced, and the
shoreline in the distance.

“Commodore?” asked
Lee Romita, the project manager in charge of constructing the Everin
Building. He was a tall, wiry man with grey-black hair that seemed to
have an escape plan from his scalp that varied from strand to strand.
He approached her with a grin that told her that he didn’t have
anything to hide, and he was glad to see her. “I wasn’t expecting
you for an hour.”

Hearing her rank, and
remembering that she was still in uniform - a white, fitted one-piece
vacsuit with gold rank insignia with her modified violator handgun
hanging on her thigh - brought her back down to reality. “I wanted
to take a look before you started putting in the supports for the
top,” Ayan told him.

He greeted her properly
with a friendly hug and stepped back to arms’ length. “From the
trouble I hear on Crewcast about city council and all that malarkey,
I don’t blame you for seeking high places. This vote’s got a burr
in people’s shoes, there’s a big group against and a group just
as big for.”

“I know, maybe if
they could all stand here for awhile I could be more certain about
how it’s going to turn out,” Ayan said, looking eastward, into
the wind and towards the distant shoreline. Deep waters kissed the
white, blue, green, and yellow quartz beach sands there.

“I’m sure it’ll
turn out right, whatever the outcome,” Lee said. “As for the
building, we’re at decision-making time again, and I’d rather you
make this one.”

“Start working on the
transit system,” Ayan said. “Or concentrate on building the
spiral frame.”

“Yep. I know my Trina
wants to get around faster, takes forever to get to the Medical
Centre in the morning. Still, she says all the walking’s given her
a girl’s bum again for the first time since she gave birth to our
first, and neither of us are complaining about that.”

Ayan couldn’t help
but laugh at his frank speech, but he had a point. The occupancy
level of the Everin Building was rising, and the temporary elevators
were always crowded. Connecting and building the permanent transit
system, at least inside the main structure, would alleviate a lot of
frustration. The spiral frame, a new foundation to connect more
segments to the Everin Building on arms stretching away from the main
structure, was something that she’d like to see happen soon too,
but she had to consider the whole picture. “Let’s get people
movers built. The tram and permanent elevators should be finished
before we consider expanding the habitat. Oh, and add more safety
systems for our skidways, a lot of people who should be driving using
autopilots aren’t. We have to add course locking to more lanes.”

“What about the
military features?” Lee asked. He was referring to a system Ayan,
Liam Grady, and several other experienced engineers had added to the
Everin Building’s design that could move military vehicles around
the inside of the building for servicing, launching, and storage.

“I think that’ll
keep for another week. We don’t have the service personnel or ships
to fill a quarter of the building’s capacity yet, so there’s not
much point. I think people will feel safe enough when the shield’s
final test passes tomorrow.”

“Glad you’re
finally feeling right about that thing, watching Liam second guessing
your design, making you run through the details like a race course
over and over,” Lee shrugged; Ayan could tell he was choosing his
words carefully. “There were days when I wanted to shut him up in a
closet for awhile.”

“Sometimes we need to
be questioned so we can see our own mistakes,” Ayan said. Defending
him was a reflex, one she was still trying to get past. “He didn’t
agree on a few of the details, but I had more experience with combat
shielding, and I think he had trouble realizing that. Didn’t help
that he was stubborn about it either, but we’re past that now. The
shield is working better than expected, thanks to your people.”

“We’re only as good
as the plans we’re working from. I can’t wait to prove that the
shield can protect the entire island. Gets the whole question of
safety here off the table.”

“True, and I’m sure
we’ll have even more people trying to move in to Haven Shore. I’m
surprised at how many off-worlders are applying for citizenship, I
thought it would mostly be people from Kambis and Tamber looking to
move in.”

“Are you going to
take more people in?” Lee asked her.

“Eventually, as our
own aquaponic food production comes online, but until then it’ll be
slow, unless the Council starts pushing for more immigration, but I
don’t know why they would.”

“I’ll put a rush on
finishing transportation systems for this building and the outer port
just in case. With my skitters on the job, it shouldn’t take more
than twenty-eight hours,” Lee replied. “I’ll have my people
stay up here, getting things ready for the final steps before putting
the top on this place in the meantime.”

“Thank you, Lee. You
and Trina have done incredible work here.”

“Ah, I’m just glad
there’s something to build, and she’s happy to be somewhere that
has a use for a doctor again. Bots with thoughts kept most of her
patients away in Glinn Shire. She thought she’d be a career mom for
the rest of her life, just to keep busy. Now she’s got our four
teenagers and two wee ones plus a couple hundred patients.”

“So it’s going well
in the Medical Centre?” Ayan asked.

“Yep, most docs have
never been happier, even though there are still bunches of people who
are a little shy at being treated by anything other than a medical
android, or an internal repair thing.”

“Is there anything
else you wanted to talk to me about while I’m here? This’ll
probably be the last bit of free time I have until the votes are in.”

“No, nothing comes to
mind,” Lee said. “You just concentrate on getting bots out into
the rest of the workforce, and if they have a doubt as to how good
that would be, well you just point to this building. If it weren’t
for skitter bots, lifters, and VAPs we’d still be working on the
foundations.”

“I will. Wish me
luck, here comes my shuttle.”

“You knew I’d
notice you up here and we’d have our meeting early,” Lee said,
smirking accusingly.

“I didn’t, I should
have had an hour up here for some quiet,” Ayan replied.
“Something’s brewing.” She turned her Crewcast feed back on and
cringed. There were eight urgent messages waiting for her, including
one breakthrough that played through the comm node in a jade and
silver clasp she kept on her left ear. It was Lacey Rosendale, her
secretary and overall right hand, one of only three people who could
send her a breakthrough message, made to play the moment someone was
in range of, or turned on, the Crewcast network. “Cory Greene has
called a supplementary meeting of the Haven Shore Council, it has
something to do with Liam. He’s already got Vic and Mischa there.
You’re ignoring Crewcast, so I’m coming to get you.”

The newly refurbished,
angular six-person shuttle set down on a temporary landing pad. “Good
luck,” Lee said before moving off to round up his foreman and
forewoman.

Lacey, a woman that
made Ayan feel short on occasion even though she wasn’t overly
tall, was a mess of irritation and windswept black hair as she leaned
out of the shuttle’s side door. “The Council is stirring early,
probably thanks to some back-room meeting.”

Lacey matched Ayan’s
mode of dress ever since she started working for her six months
before, but she didn’t normally bear arms when she was in Haven
Shore. Ayan couldn’t help but notice the sidearm on the woman’s
hip, and she glanced at it, then at Lacey.

“Something serious is
going on,” Lacey said, recognizing the glance. “With the way
you’ve been treated in Council chambers the last few weeks, I’m
not taking chances.”

Ayan took a seat and
pulled the side hatch closed. The shuttle was off the landing pad
before it finished sealing. “They’re only words, we knew there
would be a lot of contention surrounding this referendum. There
always is when a Council surrenders an issue to the public, and my
personal life has made me unpopular.”

“That was what? Four
months ago? If the public’s still sore about you breaking off from
Liam, they should bloody damn well grow up. It’s none of their
business, and no reason to oppose your side of the issue. You should
have the qualifying system take pettiness into account.”

“You’re right, but
some people have long memories, and Liam is very charismatic. There’s
also a whole set who believe I betrayed Jake.” Ayan took a breath,
deciding to move on from that over-examined topic. Lacey was more
angry about the lingering disapproval towards Ayan concerning her
short romantic relationship with Liam Grady than Ayan was.

“I’ve held off on
asking,” Lacey said tentatively. “But I’d like to know so I can
have all the facts while I stand on your side.”

Ayan had a feeling she
knew what her aide was about to ask and nodded her encouragement as
she scrolled through Crewcast highlights. “I can’t see why, you
know more about me than anyone.”