chapter 27
WATER-WEIGHT
The desert looked much as Pavel remembered it from childhood. Browns and tans, pinks and peaches, and everywhere, dirt. He
brought the ship down to the east of the San Bernardino mountains where Brian Wallace assured him, despite appearances, a
small community flourished. Observing the terrain, Pavel wondered how anything could flourish here. He still found the desert
beautiful, but it appeared threatening as well to his now-adult eyes. There were few signs of water—a handful of shriveled-looking
trees—Joshua trees, he recalled, and small desiccated shrubs which clung to the ground as if shrinking from the desert sun.
Then there was the additional and invisible danger of radioactivity—the real reason no one lived here anymore. Pavel had already
applied tattoos which would keep a count of the daily doses of radiation taken in by the party of five, but he had no really effective
counter-remedy to offer. Modern medicine’s best treatment consisted of avoiding places such as this. It troubled Pavel. He could
only hope their stay would be of short duration.
“Astonishing resemblance to your planet, eh?” said Brian Wallace to Ethan and Harpreet.
“It is what our world might be,” replied Harpreet. “With adequate water.”
“Hmm,” mused Wallace. “Looks a wee bit lacking in water to me.”
“Let’s have a look round,” suggested Pavel, peering out the window before pushing upon the hatch.
A blast of heat, fierce and dry, entered the cabin of the craft.
“Gracious,” murmured Harpreet.
Wallace laughed. “A person underestimates the intensity of the heat,” he said. “It’s like one of those heat-blowers the barber uses
aimed straight at the face, isn’t it?”
Pavel leapt ahead, reaching down to grab a small rock. He fingered it for a moment, savoring the rough surface, the heat it had
already captured, and then he threw it as far as he could, listening for the satisfying thunk.
Ethan, all the while consulting the screen on his chair, spoke to the group. “I believe this direction will lead us most swiftly to
encounter the residents of the area,” he said, pointing to the right.
Pavel rejoined his companions and the five ambled toward an outcropping of what looked like hillocks.
“They’ve no notion of proper houses out here, do they?” asked Brian Wallace.
“Proper in such an environment would of necessity differ from what would be considered proper in most other locations,” replied
Ethan.
Pavel grinned. Jessamyn’s brother could interject unintended humor into any situation.
They crested a tiny rise. Ethan, pointing ahead and left, said, “The dark spot is the entrance to a domicile.”
“Hands loose at our sides, then,” said Wallace. “Don’t look threatening.”
Pavel pulled his hands from where he’d stuffed them in his pockets.
As they marched toward the dark opening in the ground, something diminutive emerged from the space. Something human. A small
child, shouting.
“Renard, Renard, Renard!” the child cried. “Alice said you weren’t coming back but I knew she was wrong and I told her so a
thousand times and now she’s going to have to—”
Abruptly, the small boy stopped running and shouting some ten or twelve meters away. He stared at the strangers. “You’re not
Renard.” For a brief moment his body language suggested tears. Then he placed tiny fists upon his tiny hips and demanded, “Who
are you?”
“Friends,” replied Harpreet. “Or, rather, we hope to become friends. Is there an adult about, child? With whom we might speak?”
The boy turned tail and dashed back to where he’d come from. Pavel beheld a rough-hewn set of stairs leading belowground,
looking much as though they had been carved by winds. Wallace strode forward, calling out a halloo which went unanswered.
“Well, I suppose it’s wait outside, then?” asked Brian Wallace.
“That would be our least-threatening course of action,” replied Harpreet.
A moment later, the small boy reappeared mid-way up the stairs. “Come inside,” he shouted before disappearing below once more.
Pavel took a step toward the entrance and the others followed. They seemed to have entered a residence, but no one appeared to
greet them. Pavel was at the point of asking aloud if anyone were home when Wallace cried out.
“Well, isn’t that hospitable?” he asked with delight. A basin of water sat upon a counter, surrounded by small drink cups.
“No,” called Dr. Zaifa just as Brian prepared to dip one of the cups into the basin.
“Nay?” asked Wallace, his hand halfway to the water.
“It’s not ours,” she said simply. Turning to Ethan, with whom she’d been forming a sort of friendship, Dr. Zaifa asked, “Where you’re
from, would it be bad manners to take a drink from someone’s home?”
“It would be unthinkable,” murmured Harpreet.
“Wet rations are assigned per person,” added Ethan. “One does not simply drink a ration belonging to someone else. It would be
considered theft.”
Pavel restrained Wallace, shaking his head. “We don’t drink. Not unless it’s offered. This is a desert, man.”
A woman stepped forward as if emerging from the wall. Dressed in the same tans and browns of the desert, she might have been
standing there all along.
“You’re not thieves, then,” she said. “So what are you?”
“We’re visitors,” said Pavel.
“Greetings, friend,” said Brian Wallace.
From a shadowy corner of the room, a man emerged to join the woman.
“I see no friends here,” grunted the man. “I see intruders—two young, one old, one fat, and one cripple.”
Wallace chuckled softly, patting his belly.
Pavel, however, took offense at the man’s use of cripple to describe Ethan. “This is how you greet strangers? With insults?”
“There is no offense in his descriptions,” said Ethan. “They are accurate, however incomplete.”
“Sir, we apologize for entering your dwelling without permission,” said Dr. Zaifa. “There was a child—”
“It ain’t my place,” said the man. “It’s hers.”
“Where’d you come from?” asked the woman.
“Here and there,” said Wallace, smiling pleasantly.
“You’d best see the Shirff, then,” she responded. “C’mon. Follow me. Roy? You just make sure as they do.”
Roy grinned, placing one hand upon a knife stuck through his belt. The boy, emerging from under the table where the water rested,
stared at the strangers with wide eyes.
“What’s a cripple, Roy?” asked the young boy, skipping alongside the man.
“It’s when a feller can’t pull his own water-weight,” replied Roy.
Pavel was on the verge of snapping an angry retort, but Ethan placed a hand upon Pavel’s arm and shook his head no.
Pavel contented himself with clenching and unclenching his fists instead. It had been two years since he’d thrown a punch, and that
had been a mistake, but he felt as though this situation warranted one. He’d met some intelligent people working in hospitals, and
Ethan outsmarted any of them. The Marsian could more than pull his own water-weight.
“I saw them first,” said the boy, skipping ahead to stare at the strangers. “I thought it was Renard coming home.”
“Hush, Samuel,” said the woman. “It’s not proper to speak of him.”
“I know,” said the child, head hanging to one side. “But I’ll still think about him, even if he decides not to—”
“Hush!” said the woman again.
The “Shirff” being apparently out to parts unknown for the morning, the five visitors were invited to bide their time awaiting him in an
underground chamber similar to the one they’d left, but with a gated passage.
“We didn’t do anything,” muttered Pavel.
“It’s much the same welcome ye might expect if ye came unexpected to me cousin’s island,” replied Wallace.
“The Isle of Skye?” asked Pavel.
“Nay, me cousin the chieftain runs Madeira and a few other wee islands, she does. As Head of Clan Wallace, she’s very fussy about
the security of those she oversees,” Wallace explained.
Pavel grunted in response and then looked over to the holoscreen Ethan had pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked his Marsian friend.
“I am examining schematics detailing the consumption, regulation, and reclamation of water in Yucca,” replied Ethan.
“That’s … the name of this place?” asked Pavel. “Yucca?”
“That is correct,” said Ethan.
Roy entered with someone new. “This here’s the Shirff,” he said. “Rise out of respect, now.”
Wallace, Pavel, Harpreet, and Kazuko rose. Ethan paused and then moved his chair several inches higher, which caused the Shirff
to chuckle.
“Greetings, strangers,” he said. Then, turning to the two desert-dwellers, he asked, “Will you stand witness to my conversation with
the new arrivals, Roy and Marie?”
The two nodded.
Samuel let out a loud sigh.
“And you, too, Samuel,” added the Shirff before returning his attention to the visitors. “Now then, what brings you to the desert?”
Harpreet presented their interest in requisitioning a deep-space satellite dish, Wallace adding his willingness to finance the
endeavor.
The Shirff nodded. “You didn’t happen upon us accidentally, then.”
“Nay,” said Brian Wallace. “Me cousin’s done business with ye in the past. Do ye know the name of Cameron Wallace?”
The Shirff pulled absently upon his substantial mustache. “Well, sure I know who Cameron Wallace is. We built a radio system for
the clan chief not three months ago.”
“I’d heard as much,” replied Brian. “She spoke well of the workmanship. However, I’ll not hide from ye that she and I are not on the
best terms at present. I’m as great a disappointment to her as an empty whiskey bottle is to a sober man.”
“I don’t see as that should stand in the way of our doing business with you in the meantime,” said the Shirff. “Like as not the two of
you will patch things up before long. You’re family. We all need one another in times like these.”
“Aye,” replied Brian Wallace. “Couldn’t have spoken a truer word.”
The Shirff crossed his arms, stared long and hard at Harpreet, and finally nodded. “You’ve got yourself a contract, then, ma’am.” He
spit into his palm and held his hand out to her.
Not batting an eye, Harpreet spit into her own palm and the two shook hands.
Pavel had never seen an odder way to seal an agreement and had to hastily covered his laughter with a small fit of coughing.
Samuel, who’d stared wide-eyed at the strangers during the entirety of the negotiations, tugged at his mother’s shirtsleeve. “Can we
go now?” he asked. “The sun’s about to set and I want to look out for … someone.”
“Hush,” said Marie to her son, looking embarrassed.
“Are they coming to the bonfire?” demanded Samuel. “It’ll be a big celebration,” he added for the benefit of the newcomers.
“What are you celebrating?” asked Pavel.
The Shirff ruffled the small boy’s hair and shrugged. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it, Samuel?”
“Renard’s coming back,” said the little boy, thrusting his lower lip out. “I know it.”
Dropping to one knee beside him, the Shirff spoke in an over-loud whisper to the boy. “I sure hope you’re right about that, but let’s
keep it to ourselves, shall we? Your ma didn’t raise you to speak of the departed, now did she, son?”
The little boy cast his eyes to the ground. “No,” he said. “She raised me good. But sometimes words just wiggle out before I can
stop them.”
Still in an exaggerated whisper, the Shirff replied, “I know some adults with the same problem. You keep working on it, Samuel.”
The Shirff stood and addressed the five visitors. “Now, then, let’s talk water, shall we? What can you offer as might persuade desert
folk to part with their food and drink?”
The negotiations for satellite dish construction had not, apparently, included daily sustenance for the group.
Marie excused herself and Samuel. Roy remained with the Shirff, his hand still resting beside his knife.
At Pavel’s side, Ethan spoke quietly. “Our addition of five persons will tax this community.” Ethan pointed at the water reclamation
schematics he’d pulled up earlier.
“Hey,” said Roy, taking a sudden interest in Ethan’s screen. “How’d you get that information on your holoscreen?”
“He’s a genius,” said Pavel, his dark eyes glowering. “I doubt you or I would understand the explanation of how he did it.”
“That’s our water reclamation,” complained Roy. “Shirff, he’s got his grubby little fingers all over it, movin’ stuff around.”
“What you observe is an artificial copy of your system,” said Ethan. “I am merely testing an idea to upgrade your settling pond to a
higher level of efficiency.”
The Shirff chuckled and Roy’s chest swelled.
“I’ll have you know,” said Roy, “That we’ve got water loss due to evaporation down to three-point-five percent. I’d like to see anyone
else do better.”
“Would you?” asked Ethan. He swiveled the screen so that Roy could see it without having to strain. “And would you consider an
evaporation loss of point-zero-two percent to be an improvement?”
Roy made a sound between a snort and a grunt. “Course I would. But that’s plain impossible. And I oughta know—I run the settling
basin.” He turned to the Shirff. “Sir, I’d like you to order this feller out of my reclamation program.”
“I am not interfering with your operations,” said Ethan. “I have merely suggested improvements.”
“That’s quite friendly of you,” said the Shirff, moving closer to inspect Ethan’s screen as well. “Roy, you’ve got to admit that’s friendly.
” His tone invited Roy to reconsider any further use of confrontational language.
Ethan looked up from his screen and spoke to the Shirff. “Sir, I have transferred my recommendations to your central processing
unit where you may take them under consideration.” He hesitated and then added. “I have looked briefly at other water systems in
your settlement and am prepared to make further suggestions to improve efficiency.”
“Well, I’ll be,” said the Shirff, examining the recommended changes. “You surely know your way around a decant pond.”
“Mayhap he does at that,” admitted Roy.
Pavel grinned broadly.
The Shirff held out a hand. “You just earned water rights for five for the next … well, I have to admit I don’t know for how long. There’s
no precedent for this sort of thing. I’ll have accounting take a look first thing tomorrow morning. Welcome to Yucca, friends.”
~ ~ ~
Pavel looked at Harpreet beside him, her dark skin catching flickers of firelight, a small smile upon her mouth. She struck Pavel as
the sort of person who would fit in anywhere. The sort of person who could stand before his aunt and remain unimpressed and
unruffled. The sort of person he wished he could be.
Turning his gaze back to the fire, he rubbed his hands together. The desert by night was much cooler than he’d remembered. Of
course, he’d probably been asleep in a camp-cocoon for hours by this time when he was a child visiting the desert.
The company gathered round represented, Pavel now knew, the entire settlement of Yucca—some twenty families. That the visitors
had been allowed to join the others at the bonfire was no insignificant matter. From what Pavel had been able to gather, they were
awaiting the arrival or non-arrival of a young man his own age—the much-anticipated Renard of whom Samuel had spoken.
“I know of several ancient Earth cultures who practiced this sort of survival testing for their young members,” Harpreet remarked
softly. “Perhaps you have heard of something like this?”
But Pavel shook his head. The only ceremony he knew of for becoming an adult was the first-body exam he’d taken. Even though
less than three calendar months had passed, it seemed as if that had been years ago.
Harpreet continued. “To survive in the desert for three days alone is no small feat. I should not like to attempt it upon my world.”
Pavel nodded agreement. He wouldn’t want to wander out into the desert alone either. But there was a part of him that envied
Renard. To be able to prove himself in such a fashion—to deserve the respect of his fellows—this Pavel earnestly desired. You’re
nothing but a city boy, his mind whispered. Soft through and through.
“Of course, you have accomplished more,” continued Harpreet. “To have survived apart from the life you were raised to for so many
months already. Renard was raised to this existence. But what you have done? Well, it is no small thing, my son.”
Pavel flushed. It felt a small enough accomplishment to him.
From somewhere outside the pale of the firelight, a low sound thrummed.
“A cello,” sighed Brian Wallace. “Lovely instrument, that.”
And it was. Pavel thought the growing strains sounded like a voice, deep and resonant and tinged with a sorrow too profound for
words. As the sound grew more insistent, Pavel’s eyes located the source. A single cellist played alone, wringing sweet and
anguished notes from the instrument. Swaying ever so slightly as he played, the musician embraced the cello, holding it to him like a
lover, fingering the frets with an intimacy born of many years’ familiarity. They knew one another, thought Pavel, the player and his
instrument. It made Pavel ache for someone who would know him that well, draw from him those notes so clear and beautiful.
When the piece ended, Pavel looked around to see if clapping was appropriate, but the desert folk applauded in a different way.
Beside and behind him, people rubbed their palms together. It made a sound like a soughing wind, gathering and then dying off.
The cellist bowed deeply before beginning another piece, a merrier one that brought children wriggling from parent’s laps to dance
about the great fire.
And then, just as Pavel recognized that one of the dancers was taller than his fellows, a cry went up around the circle.
“Renard!”
“It’s Renard!”
Pavel found himself smiling, even though Renard was a stranger. The enthusiasm was contagious, and when all about him began to
clap (apparently they did clap for some things), Pavel joined in.
After a minute, Renard held his hands up and all fell silent.
“I am Renard, son of Ambrose and Keiko, foster-son to Marie and Roy,” he said. “I have returned to Yucca after a three-days’
sojourn in the deserted places. I ask this community to receive me as a full member. I vow to carry my own water-weight and to
relieve those whose burden has grown too great when the chance falls to me. Will you have me as your full brother?”
Having said this, Renard turned so that his back was to the seated community, his face to the fire. He held his hands slightly out
from his sides. Almost immediately his hands were taken up by two who slipped forward. Then, one by one, the adult members of
the community stepped to the fire to link hands, creating an ever-enlarging circle about the bonfire. The children skipped around the
circle, sometimes darting under the linked hands. At last an old woman smoking a clay pipe was the only citizen still seated beside
the five strangers. Then, slowly, she stood and walked to close the gap by taking the last two hands.
“Renard, I declare you a citizen of Yucca by unanimous consent,” said the wizened woman, pipe clenched between her teeth as she
spoke.
A round of whoops and hollers echoed around the fire as people rushed forward to congratulate, hug, and otherwise smother
Renard.
After several minutes had passed in this manner, Pavel saw Samuel tugging hard at one of Renard’s hands. The young boy
succeeded in pulling Renard toward the strangers.
“This is my foster-brother,” said Samuel, beaming from ear to ear. “He came back to us. I knew he would.”
“Of course I chose Yucca,” said Renard, scooping Samuel up and tickling him. “Who are your new friends?” he asked, staring from
the little boy to the five he didn’t know.
“Strangers,” said Samuel, his eyes wide. “But they’re okay,” he added in a loud whisper.
Ethan spoke the question Pavel was thinking. “Was the choice yours to make? To return or depart?”
Renard’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the same choice everyone here has to make, once they’re grown: Join the community or leave it for
conventional life. We take three days on our own to decide.”
“Or die in the desert,” said Samuel with relish. “You could have died, too, you know.”
Renard laughed and tossed Samuel into the air. “And miss the party?”
A laughing group of young men and women Renard’s age came by and swept him off to where dancing had now begun, a fiddler
and drummer having joined the cellist.
“Well, about time for bed, is it then?” asked Brian Wallace.
Pavel itched to stay, but this wasn’t his party; these weren’t his friends. And so when Dr. Zaifa and Harpreet nodded and Ethan
turned his hoverchair from the fire, Pavel fell in behind.
But as he drifted to sleep in his borrowed bed, Pavel thought of the laughter and dancing by firelight, of the wild and sweet sounds
the cello had made, of the firmness of purpose in Renard’s declaration, and he wished he’d been born an impoverished son of the
desert instead of a privileged nephew of Lucca Brezhnaya.
~ ~ ~
The five strangers became Renard’s first official responsibility as full citizen during the course of the next days. With Renard’s help,
Zaifa, Ethan, and Wallace were kept busy planning and beginning construction of the deep-space satellite dishes for transmissions
to Mars. Renard understood manufacturing to a degree even Ethan admired. But Pavel found a better reason to befriend him:
Renard liked racing. Whenever Pavel rose early enough, Renard would come by to suggest a set of laps around one of several
courses. Renard’s smaller ship was swift and maneuverable, but Pavel took risks that often paid off in a win.
When Renard discovered Pavel’s background in medicine, Pavel was sent round to set and re-set bones, provide basic dental
care, and make his best guess as to odd skin rashes. Harpreet assisted, offering her particular brand of wisdom to adults and
children alike. It was rewarding work, and over the course of the next week Pavel felt more and more like an accepted part of the
community.
Through these interactions, Pavel became fascinated by the sort of life the desert-dwellers had created, so far from government
control.
“It’s the radioactivity makes it all possible,” said Renard one morning after a race. “An instance of a curse becoming a blessing, I
suppose.”
Pavel blinked as the two watched the sun cresting a set of rocky hills. “I’ve seen the high rad numbers,” replied Pavel. “And I’ve kept
my eye on the numbers every time I do an exam, but it’s like no one’s affected. Heck, even the five of us look just as normal as if we’
d spent no time here at all.”
Renard smiled, pulling his long hair through a tie. “It’s the tea. I wondered when you’d ask.”
“The tea?” asked Pavel.
“Only full citizens are instructed in its preparation,” replied Renard. “So don’t ask me how to make it.”
“Oh,” said Pavel, understanding dawning upon him. Along with his friends, he’d been offered a bitter drink twice daily. Their hosts
had said it helped regulate health, and Pavel had been meaning to analyze its components. “I assumed it was some kind of aid
against dehydration,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to get some under a spectroscope.”
Renard frowned. “Best not to examine the tea. Folks might take that as suspicious behavior. The tea is what keeps us alive out
here.”
Pavel nodded. More than ever, he was curious about the tea’s constituent parts, but he saw the wisdom of keeping his curiosity to
himself. They were here as tolerated guests.
But after a few more weeks had gone past, Pavel found himself itching to know what herb or root or mineral it might be that went into
the brewing of the mysterious tea. He determined to ask the Shirff for permission to analyze an undiluted sample.
So, when a morning came that Renard didn’t show up for racing, Pavel trekked over to the Shirff’s dwelling.
“I’ve got a question from a medical standpoint about the tea we’re drinking every day,” Pavel said. “But I don’t want to investigate
without your say-so. Would you be amenable to giving me a sample I can analyze?”
“Interesting question,” replied the Shriff. His cool tones ought to have been a warning to Pavel.
“I figured you’d be the one to ask for permission,” Pavel said.
“Shirff here’s not in a partic’lar answerifying way today,” said a familiar voice.
Pavel looked about for the source and saw Roy rising from a shadowed corner of the Shirff’s dwelling.
The Shirff raised a hand to silence the man and gazed at Pavel, head tilted slightly to one side, a frown creasing his brow. “Roy’s
been insisting you looked familiar, like he’d seen you somewhere before. This morning he showed me a picture.” The Shirff stared
long and hard at Pavel. “Can you tell me what exactly the Chancellor’s own nephew might be doing in these parts asking after
secrets kept by settlements as like to bide on the shady side of Terran law?”
Pavel swallowed. And tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t land him or his friends tied to a cactus and left to die in the desert.