Ringclimber

Chapter 12 - Birth And Rebirth At Various Ages

Erin slams the front door and falls back against it, face rigid with frustration. She glares down at her pendulous belly. It swings gently with her breath and the movement of her child.

"Bloody damn thing," she mutters. She stars at the ceiling.

I'm sick of being a walking incubator. I'm sick of having to piss every ten minutes. I'm sick of this basketball in my stomach. I'm sick of not sleeping on my back, and I am extremely sick of being kicked.

"I need a doctor," she sighs.

I thought you were getting used to it.

Oh, shut up.

She sits down on the arm of the easy chair, watching the rain drop gently onto the porch outside. The baby shifts. After a while, Erin punches up Anne on the datapad. It takes some time searching -- longer than usual. "Hmmm," she muses.

Anne's image appears.

"Hi, Anne," Erin says. A long time passes.

"Erin, how are you?"

"OK. Hey, where are you? The lag is fierce." More time.

"Inner Belt; Apollo Amor, so, right now, I'm only about a half minute out. Didn't you know?"

"Know what?"

"I'm a Belter now. Permanent resident status."

"What?"

"Well, I came out to visit Pat -- remember? She invited me when we were on Arsia, and.. a lot happened. You should catch up on your mail sometime. Anyway, I decided I liked it out here. There's a lot to do. So, what's up?"

"I've been thinking about getting off planet before my pregnancy gets much... bigger. I thought you could give me some advice about Mars."

Give you advice? Anne thinks. Then, Pregnancy? Maybe I should read my journals...

"How far along are you?"

"Four months. You want to bill me for this?"

"Erin. Of course not. We're still friends, aren't we?""

"Bill me. Your time is expensive."

"Not to mention whatever you're paying for this call. Well, look, five months is just borderline for Earth orbit accelerations. If you're going to go, you have to go now."

"Is Mars going to do me any good?"

"A lot depends on the person, and the history. Sometimes there are complications on low-G pregnancies. Even out here, where we have so much experience and all the right tools, we still have some problems."

"Are you saying I should come out to the Belt?"

"Oh, no."

"Well?"

"I need to see your history to recommend anything. I'd like an exam, but I'm out here and you're down there. I can't afford to come down and you shouldn't come up."

"I'm just sick of how heavy this is."

"Post me your history, and I'll recommend."

"Just one thing, Anne..." Erin begins warningly.

"Of course, it's confidential. Encrypt it, if you want. I'll send you my personal router encoding. Maybe you should come out here. We've got gravity generators in Maternity now. We could cover any spectrum of weight you need. No, look, never mind. Just send me the history. Ready for the address?"

"I've got it already," Erin replied. "I'm talking to you. Remember?"

Anne laughs. "OK, so send me, and we'll go from there."

Erin sighs and nods sadly. She always seems to be on the verge of tears lately, she doesn't know why.

Erin stalks the halls; the archways admit a cold and crystalline light from the clouds.

The entryway rings with the inaudible echoes of Gordon's departure. They will meet in the Belt in two weeks, but for now, she is alone. With the child. Is that the way of it -- lives bound...? What will it be like...She imagines the child in her arms, soft face on the white cloth above her breast. A strange intimacy. An older child, later, a companion. Would the child resent her mother? Would she resent that she had no choice in her companion... not forever... She smiles faintly at the images of friendship that chase through her thoughts.

Sharon leans over the console, toying idly with the controls, changing the iridescent marbled pattern on the surface of the simulates vase. On another day, it might have been the way she worked out an idea. Today, it is the day Kyle Trafton is going into the rings, and everything seems vague and unreal. She sighs with dissatisfaction and sinks into the seat.

She looks out the window, over the trees of the city. I want to go, and I'm afraid.

See, I can face it.

If that bastard makes it, I'll...

It's not important.

Besides, it can't be done. That's what they're all saying.

-- and they're saying it because you say it.

Oh damn.

She recalls the confrontation with Trafton after the show. He had run into her on the steps of the museum when she returned after her talk with Erin.

"Hi," he says, stopping, glancing at her face. Strange, he seems almost shy, as if he knew what he had done.

"Hi, Kyle." She stops, not sure whether to apologize or be angry.

"Poor Liam," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"He's pretty upset."

"You mean he figured out what a jerk he is?"

He laughs, pulling his head to one side in a characteristic gesture. "I guess that's what I mean. Do you always tell people what they mean?"

She sighs. She doesn't need this.

"Never mind."

"Well, it isn't up to him. If you really want to know, I had to tweak his arm."

"That'll teach him."

"What's with you, anyway? I never thought you were so hot for glory you'd deny me mine."

"It's a little foolish of you to be asking me this, if you remember how our last conversation started."

He seems unwilling to take up the challenge. He purses his lips and looks out across the city.

"Maybe you've forgotten the closeness," she continues, not wanting him to escape.

"Maybe you've forgotten why people climb..." Trafton sighs.

"And maybe you spend too much time with machines to know about love and death, Kyle. I didn't think you were the caricature programmer, but maybe I'm wrong."

He shakes his head, and, before she could stop him, walks away down the stairs. He leaves her watching him walk, and she is thinking that the breeze that whips the edges of his hair make him look pretty hot, and make her wish she hadn't been so rude.

"C'mon, what's with those things?" Trafton yells out over the loading volume.

The technician looks up, flustered. "They don't know what to take first."

"The Borning modules, damn it. The rest of the stuff's no good without that."

"All right," the technician turns to the robots. "Those, over there. Pronto, eh?"

"Sir." they tone in unison. They bend to their work.

Trafton glares down at his pad. Why hadn't they known? Loading is now two hours behind schedule, and he keeps reoptimizing to try to make up lost time. He needs to find some way to really optimize the critical path. Why aren't the genetic programs breeding properly? He keys some ideas and waits for confirmation or denial. Below, the robots stir, and the containers are being gradually moved to the doorway.

A light touch on his shoulder, and he starts, a risky move in null gravity. Liam smiles and presses him down against the rail. "Thanks," Trafton says.

"How's the loading?"

"We're behind," Trafton snaps, half his attention on the pad's results. "But we'll catch up."

The snow is cold and so is the pain. A five year old Sharon wails with surprise and more snow sifts down from the ragged shell.

The shuttle seats are bent around her into a compact cave. Sharon twists with discomfort and starts to cry, beating on the seat and finally digging at the snow. Her hands are cold and then numb and the edges of metal make little tears in her pale skin. But the snow is away from the gap, and there is enough room for her to struggle toward the daylight.

Too late, she realizes that the wreckage is sloping toward a drop, and a thousand meters of air open below. She screams and wedges herself against the icy metal.

"Mom!" she cries. Particles of snow shift down past her as she scrambles frantically back to her seat. She hears voices, and she cries out louder. There is a terrible ripping sound, and the metal above parts into a bright flare of outside light and a cold gust. "Help!" Sharon cries. Hands reach down and pull her out into blinding glare. She blinks and gasps. "Thank you," she sobs. "What happened?"

A blond woman in cold-weather clothing bends down and looks earnestly at Sharon, pulling a thick cap over the little girl's flying hair. "There was an accident, honey. You didn't make it into orbit."

"Where's my mother and father?" she asks, sniffling.

The woman looks around the snowfield at the debris and shattered ice. Finally, she answers. "I don't know, honey. We'll find out later. Right now, I need to get you up to the blimp. Can you help me?"

"Okay," she agrees dubiously.

"Here, let's get this harness on you," the woman pulls a too-large coat around Sharon and then arranges straps and buckles tightly. Sharon feels the tautness like an embrace, and her body stops shaking for a moment. "Ever been on a rope before?" the woman asks.

"No."

"That's OK, it's great, there's nothing to worry about. You'll be up high, but you won't fall. I'll have you with me all the time." She stands and picks up Sharon, cradling her, and clicking buckles home. Sharon giggles. "This is neat. What's your name?"

"Lissette," the woman replies. "Lissette Jermand. I'm from France. How about you?"

"I'm Sharon Lazlo, from America."

"Hi, Sharon. OK, here we go. I'm clipped into the rope now, and we're going up." A pair of strange hammers... no, axes, thin like saws; they are suddenly in Lissette's gloved hands. "The blimp is up there, so we're going to do some climbing. Did you ever climb before?"

"No, never."

"Don't worry, you're clipped to me. It's very exciting stuff, climbing, you'll see." Sharon feels arms swing and axes bite, but she is forced to stare over Lisette's shoulder at the sun-blasted clouds and the deep blue sky. "How high are we?" she asks. Lisette grins, and the smile creases her freckles. "We're about four thousand meters." Her voice is suddenly raspy under its accent. "The air is a little thin here," she grunts, swinging hard, and Sharon can feel the spray of ice on her face. "It's going to get a little steep now, you hang on, OK?"

"OK," she promises.

"Up rope, Pierre!" Lisette shouts. "Come on."

A vague voice stirs somewhere far above.

Suddenly Sharon is looking over Lisette's shoulder at the panorama of the Himalayas beyond. It is a sight more stunning to the unprepared, and Sharon gasps at the weight of the size and complexity of it. "Where am I?" she asks.

"In the mountains," Lisette, mutters, panting. "We were on vacation, but they needed climbers, so we came to help you." A motion swings Sharon past the side of Lisette's face, and she catches a thin tang of the woman's sweat and soap along with the endless falling away to the metal-littered ledge below. Then they are above and a tall man with a thin black beard grins at her. Lissette slips Sharon from the harness, and they walk quickly across the snow with a loud, crunching pace to the cold shadow of the blimp. Lisette crouches beside Sharon, who feels suddenly uncertain. "Where's my mom and dad?" she asks. Lisette smiles with a faint sadness. "I'm going with Pierre to look for them," she replies. "But you have to go with the blimp right now so they can get you to the hospital, make sure you're OK. Now go on." She gestures up the ramp to the waiting figure in the doorway.

"We will find them if we can," Pierre comments gravely. He takes Sharon's small hand and walks her up the ramp to the waiting nurse. He hugs her. "Good fortune, mon petit," he rumbles.

Sharon waves as they trudge back across the snow. Lisette turns to wave back, but the nurse takes Sharon inside before she can respond.

"Pierre, it is so sad."

"I am sure they are dead," he replies.

Behind them, the engines of the blimp sigh into motion. The silvery envelope rises slowly into the rarefied sky.

"But that little girl..." Lisette whispers. Pierre nods. "I know. We'll look carefully. Maybe we'll be lucky."

Sharon sits on the edge of the wooden bench, watching the light slant down to pool on the marble tiles. Her legs dangle above the floor, and she swings them for the pure joy of the motion. For a moment, she remembers, and then her legs stop, hanging motionless. Finally, slowly, they begin to move again.

The door beside the bench opens and a young woman in a suit walks out. "Come with me, Sharon."

They walk into a large, darkly paneled office where a bearded man and a blond woman wait. The suited woman crouches beside Sharon. "Do you know these people, Sharon?"

She looks at them, puzzled. "I think so. They were on the mountain. I rode with her."

"This is Lisette and Pierre Jermand. They were the climbers who rescued you. Now, Sharon, I know this is hard, but I need to know if you understand. What happened to your parents?"

She fidgets. "They died in the crash. I miss them, Miss Croyden. I wish they could come back."

"Can they?"

"No." She sniffles.

"Pierre and Lissette remembered you from that day. They've asked if you might want to be part of their family. What do you think?"

"Part of your family?" Sharon asks.

"That's so," Lissette replies, sitting on the floor in front of Sharon. "Pierre and I have always wanted a brave daughter like you, and well, now here you are, needing a family. We would take good care of you, and you could come live with us in France."

"Would I be French?"

"Is that what you want?"

"I don't know." She scowls with thought.

"If you want to be you can, but you don't have to be."

Sharon looks up at Pierre. "What about him?"

Pierre smiles and stretches out a hand. "I am so glad to see you alive, and I would be even more glad to have you for my daughter, if you wish it." His hand enfolds hers, and she is pleased by the dry, warm weight of it.

"I'll do it," Sharon decides. The judge looks pleased, and Lisette and Pierre gather around Sharon and hug her. Sharon laughs for the first time in weeks.

She wakes in sudden darkness. The memory of her parents is printed on the silence, and she expects, for a moment to see them. Then her eyes drift closed. A tiny tear forms at the outer edge of one eye.

The rock gym is crowded that day. From the balcony, Sharon watches, leaning over the edge to watch the belayers at work, listening to the raucous music. Cold sunlight slants in from the glass roof casting the shadows of the beams across the strangely formed walls and their protrusions.

She drinks from her juice and watches Pierre struggling with a hard route. He falls again and gestures a thumb down to be lowered. He unties, occasionally stopping to pantomime moves that illustrate what he hoped to try, or what failed. She listens to Lisette's laugh, which carries even over the music. She smiles as Lisette ties in and flows up the route like a dancer. She caps her juice and puts it carefully on the bench. Then she heads for the mat-floored bouldering cave, where she can climb to her heart's content.

"I'm scared," Sharon whispers. Pierre smiles kindly. "You could stay behind," he replies, eyeing the huge wall of limestone above them.

She looks at him, face tense and hard for one so small. But she shakes her head. "I want to go. I'm scared. But I want to go."

"It's not so hard," Lisette says, squatting beside her. "You've done harder in the gym. But this will be long. You have to belay once from a hanging anchor. Just like we talked about before. And if you get scared, we'll come back down. Oui? Pierre will lead first, you will climb after him, and I will be last. You will trail this rope," she knots it to the back of Sharon's harness, " and this is the rope you will use to belay me. Pierre will be there and he will help remind you of anything you need. And then I will be with you."

"I'll try to remember everything, mama," Sharon replies. Lisette's smile is a broad response.

There is the cool breeze and the sound of protection clanking as Pierre makes his way up the first pitch lower slab. Sharon knows she will never forget this day.

Kyle Trafton took the time of his life, and made a moment where he could stand before the viewport, looking out on the cold, dim, wall of Saturn. He takes that moment, and runs, compressed, the years of his life, tasting them as a continuous flavor. It has been so hard.

The young polymath at Icarus, five years ahead of his tutoring cycle, would never have believed the redirection of his effort. Now, space is the reality of his life -- he lives for the time outside his home asteroid. But it is only a counterpoint to the controllable microworlds of simulation that sometimes break, sometimes grow and prosper. But when the dynamics of the asteroids led him to the dynamics of the rings, the first sight of their image changed his life so successfully that there can be no question of where he wants to go. When he had trained with Orbitech, and watched Sharon's first expedition end in failure, he tasted the lure of doing that which others had tried and failed.

He puts out of his mind the jealousy that grips him as he reads about and watches her. Instead, he remembers how he fought the asteroids, using his rigorously programmed simulations like a sieve to uncover wealth. It had built him a reputation, though he never knew it then, or cared later.

But, unlike Sharon, he was never interested in people. At first they bored him, because they couldn't see what was so interesting and obvious. Later they earned his contempt for their fawning, stupid attitudes toward his wealth. If they knew the secrets he had discovered about the dynamics of the early solar system -- secrets not to be published, secrets that were the foundation of his simulations -- they would know that the wealth was a foolish, trivial consequence.

And by the time he is ready for Saturn, he has few friends left. The members of his team are professional, and so is he. The robots are to be their sherpas, in an unprecedented strategy against the rings.

But there is no special bond. No close friends working out their lives in space. There is only the challenge and the victory. The process is immaterial.

The victory...

Phil leans over and squeezes her shoulders. He knows.

She sighs and rolls her head slightly, eyes half closed.

"Why don't you take me for a flight down to Guantanamo?" he asks.

She smiles up at him. Someone else might have misjudged her, thinking she should go home, where she could stare moodily at the holos of the last Ring climb, thinking...

But her smile fades, as she wonders what she is missing. Why go to the Rings?

The rope is taut at her harness, vibrating with the motion of the rhythmic strokes of the axe and her front points. She pauses for a moment, and looks upward. The faint contrail of a shuttle strokes the sky, tens of thousands of feet above. Beyond that are the stars. You couldn't climb high enough to get to the real top, even here in the Canadian Rockies.

But a few hours away, there will be the tent, on a thin platform carved from the snow; there will be the welcome cup of tea, the silent smiles and the tingling muscles. And that is part of it.

But more -- there is the fear. And the overcoming of the fear with reason. The extension of the step into new realms. At the ledge, the last push; the climb or fall. Or the grueling retreat in the face of the storm. Survival in places where one was, most emphatically, not wanted. And more than survival. Success.

And even more. There is companionship. The friends made... the friends lost.

She applies the axes again, stands on her crampons, and rises another foot.

Rain streams down the workroom windows, and lightning detonates the landscape. She runs the sequence again, frustrated, failing to see how to smooth the animation properly.

She steps back from the board, to sit on the arm of the couch and stare at the motion of the simulation as it loops through. Just not natural enough.

The door chimes. She looks at it, speculatively.

"Gordon!" she exclaims, delighted.

"Hi, Sharon."

"Take your coat?"

"Please." He sloughs the rain-coated garment into her hands.

"I was just working on a new animation for the Zeus."

"Oh, good." He smiles his expansive smile. "How is it?"

She makes a face. "Slow. Fake. When am I going to get to wear a real one?"

He curls an arm around her shoulder, a gesture that always makes her uncomfortable, because she knows how much Gordon means to Erin, and she desperately hopes that it is not a sign of more than a fatherly affection. "Real soon. In fact, that's why I'm here."

She turns to face him, gently slipping out of his grasp. "Oh?"

"It's almost baby time, Sharon. I'm going to the Belt, and Erin wants you there, too. I thought it would be a good time to get the Zeus on you for a few weeks under field conditions. Maybe some prospecting, some refining, a few trial ore splits? Even a net, if you want it."

"Oh, Gordon, you're a lifesaver."

He is surprised.

"I've missed Erin terribly, since she left."

Ah.

"And I've really been wanting to get out again. I guess my winter's just about over."

He smiles gently. "I'm glad."

Distant thunder rips quietly. "Something to drink? Smoke?"

"I'll have a J, thanks." He sits on the couch arm and watches the animation. "So what's the problem?" he asks, as she passes him the smoke.

She peers over his shoulder. "Oh, just not smooth enough; nothing that can't be fixed with more frames. I'll take it out with me, and background generate the interframes. Give me something to work out on the trip. When do we leave?"

"Day after tomorrow. I'll fly us out to L5, and then we'll catch the American HighOrbit from there. Be in the Belt by the end of the week, I'm sure." He pauses, assesses her face. "Anything the matter?"

"Hm? No, not really. I think I'm just impossible to please. When I'm alone, I'm lonely. When I'm around people too much, I'm desperate to get away."

His lips thin, then split again. "Well, that's why you're good at what you do, right? Need to be alone, like to work on a team. Like to teach, need to create. You're happy when you've got a rhythm, doing what you need, when you need it; you're just off stride with this thing with Rael and Trafton, and Erin gone. How're things with Phil, by the way?"

"Oh, he's fine. We're in the middle of another argument. That doesn't help any. But he's out on his own with his pottery, and he's doing well -- just got a contract from Iglesias for six commissioned pieces."

"You could bring him, if you want."

"Oh, no. He doesn't want to be dragged around the system on my tether. Honestly, Gordon, he's not much of a spacer, anyway."

He levers himself into the chair, and looks over to where she stands. "Is that a problem?"

She sighs, exasperated, and throws herself into the heavy-set bagchair beside the board. Lightning flickers beyond her fine-featured profile. "Well, of course it is. And it isn't. I mean, we're both just busy people, and we can't see each other, sometimes. And when I go on a trip, it isn't for a week, it's for a month, or two, or three; sure, he's lonely. So am I. So we're not living together, even if it isn't casual. There's no hold, even if we do make demands."

"In short, yes."

She laughs, bitterly. "Listen, Gordon, do you know anybody in my line of work who isn't single? I wonder how you manage it, sometimes."

Erin smiles nervously, as Anne nods to the techs.

"Eight centimeters, Erin. You're doing fine."

The muscle is stretched fiercely across Erin's face. "Oh, yeah. Bloody wonderful. Tell me, is it always this much of a blast?" She gasps with a pang.

"More fun than a twelve dee overhang at three gee, I always say."

Gordon takes her hand. "There's nothing to worry about, love."

Sharon looks curiously at the sight of Erin's grateful smile. She has never seen them so intimate. She is faintly ashamed at her thoughts of a week ago.

The lights are a restful, foliage-dappled deep yellow, reminiscent of sunset in an old forest. The vegetation is everywhere, and its fresh scent does much to dispel Erin's fear. And there are her friends, Anne, pert in a fresh blue jumpsuit, and Sharon, looking concerned and tight, the taut planes of her face almost immobile. Cold beauty, Erin thinks for a moment before the pang arrives again.

Gordon enfolds Erin's spindly hand in his enormous fist, slowly rubbing his thumb across her knuckles for comfort. She breathes carefully around the pain as it rises and clenches her belly.

Then, she has a sudden vision of what it would be like to be lonely here, among strangers, and tears come to her.

"Keep breathing, hon." Gordon insists. "Pant five, breathe."

"I'm breathing, you blooming idiot." she curses. "But that's not it. Listen," she whispers. "You guys. I love ya."

Gordon smiles, and looks over to where Sharon drifts against the nets. "Hey, Lazlo, she says she loves you too."

Sharon move slowly in the low G. "Must be some kind of occasion." But though her words are light, her mouth is tense. Erin is breathing tautly again; then she looks over, and mutters. "Yeah, some occasion. Whoop!" she screams. "Anne! Anne! I feel something." She stares down between her legs. "Oh, my. I never expected that!"

The baby's head has emerged, and Anne is checking it carefully. She looks up and beams at the mother. "Looks great, Erin. Cord's placed right, heartbeat OK -- well, I guess I won't go out for coffee, now."

"Yeah, yeah.... Oh!" She starts panting furiously. I'm about to change my life.

Gordon cradles the baby against his chest, tears floating off gently into the room. Sharon looks down at Erin, holding her bony hand firmly. She has never seen her friend so pale. Erin's hair is straggly with sweat, and she lies gasping, still, as Anne completes her work.

Content, Layout, and Images Copyright © 1999 by Mark Cashman except where indicated (NASA photos)