Search & Recovery: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

beyond.
    The covenants had been no big deal, mostly because there were small craters and hills on this part of the Moonscape. If someone wanted to build there, they would have to make the subdivision a “natural” one, incorporating all of the natural landscape—something more expensive than it seemed since Moon dust was always a problem inside the domes.
    Her favorite feature of her father’s house was the balcony view of the Moonscape. Blasted and barren, with only small signs of civilization across it. The tracks from whatever had driven across the moon dust recently, a few of the Growing Pits to the east, the high-speed train to Littrow to the west.
    If the dome settings were just right, she could see the white-and-blue blur of the high-speed train, the lights of Littrow in the distance, glowing across the black-and-gray Moon. And she remembered, whenever she saw that, how much she loved this place, and how terrified she was for it.
    Millions had died a week ago. Millions . The domes were devastated, community leaders murdered, the violence on a scale that even now she had trouble imagining.
    And yet, on the microcosmic scale, she knew what it was like. Four years ago, against her father’s wishes and her brother’s advice, she had suited up and gone into the bomb site. She had wanted to stand where the Shenandoah Café had been, where that sidewalk that her mother had walked along had been.
    The area had been black with soot from the chemical fires that had flared before the oxygen all escaped from the hole in the dome. The sidewalk still existed, twisted and gray from Moon dust. The Shenandoah Café still had its famous counter and the mural behind it, a mural that got salvaged thanks to the efforts of Berhane and the Café owner’s family.
    She had found so many things—shattered coffee mugs, spoons, a single shoe—but she had never found her mother.
    For nearly three years—after the bombing, after the funeral, after everyone else had seemingly put the entire crisis behind them—Berhane would imagine her mother walking through the front door of this house and asking everyone to forgive her. Her imaginary mother would say that she hadn’t realized how much time had passed. She had lost her memory, lost herself, but she had found both again, and she was back.
    Then they found her DNA, and Berhane had mourned all over again.
    Only a year ago.
    And now, this.
    Berhane stood on the balcony, cupping the coffee she had had sent up from the kitchen, picking at a muffin made with real blueberries from the Growing Pits, and sighed.
    She was so tired, and yet she couldn’t rest. She needed to do something. She’d been throwing money at every charity she could think of, but hadn’t felt like she had done anything.
    It actually felt like cheating.
    She set the coffee on a nearby table, then went into the bedroom, grabbed a sweatshirt she’d commandeered from her brother’s room on the night of Anniversary Day (it was the only way to bring Bert back home, at least for the evening), and slipped on a pair of loose pants.
    She left her feet bare.
    Then she went back onto the balcony, got her coffee, grabbed a handful of muffin, and headed out of the suite.
    Initially, she thought she’d take a tour of the house, just to stretch her legs without going onto the grounds. Sometimes, looking at the Moon-centric art that her father had collected over the decades made her feel better.
    But today, she knew it wouldn’t.
    Instead, she thought maybe she’d cook something. She hadn’t done that in more than a week. And cooking focused the mind, even if it was only for a short period of time.
    She padded down the front stairs, her feet sinking into the deep, warm carpet. The warm coffee spilled a bit over her hand, and she licked it off.
    Voices echoed across the foyer. She frowned, called up the clock inside her right eye, and saw that it was barely eight in the morning. Her father usually started his day at nine, with a