The Seeds of Time by Kay Kenyon Page B

hatchway Posie had just vacated. He swung down the ladder and headed for the coffee spigot.
    “What the hell happened?” Clio asked.
    “Not much. Shaw was in the launch bay, and the hatch to the landing pod must have failed, or he opened it withoutchecking on the lander’s pressure. The room sounded like it was coming apart.” He looked at Clio. “So did he.”
    “Jesus,” Estevan said.
    The launch bay was the loading area and access point for the landing pod
Babyhawk
, which coupled up to the ship just aft of the crew quarters.
Babyhawk
was the crew’s express service from ship to ground and back again. Normally, she rode the ship unpressurized except for prelaunch and when carrying crew.
    They heard Shaw then, screaming, as they carried him down the passage to medlab.
    Meng stuffed the cards back in their box. “Sounds like he’s alive, anyway.” She headed up the ladder to crew station.
    “Mother of God,” Estevan said, after she’d gone. “That witch has no heart, you know?”
    “Meng’s OK. Just keeps to herself, that all,” Hillis said.
    “You kidding? That woman wouldn’t care if Shaw was wallpaper in launch bay right now.”
    Hillis poured a cup of coffee from the spigot. “Sure she would. She hates a messy ship.”
    “No, I’ll tell you what she really hates,” Estevan said. “It’s having her poker game broke up when she’s winning. She’ll hold it against Shaw, you wait,” Estevan said. He followed Meng up to crew station.
    Clio moved toward Hillis, and he pulled her close to him. She rested her head on his shoulder. “Think he’ll live?”
    “Like Meng said, least he’s screaming. It’s when they’re quiet that you worry.” He released Clio and started poking around in the refrigeration hatch for something to eat.
    Clio watched him, the old Zee thing forgotten. All through the Niang voyage, Hillis had sought Clio out, seemed to want her company more than ever. And Clio wanted that company. Sometimes she and Hillis slept in the same bed, just slept, or talked. He clung to her at first, not talking about future Earth, just clinging to her. And so Clio held him while he talked, talked about Green politics, abouthis work. About his family and growing up. The East Coast, the fancy schools, the big family with not one close sibling. His father, a remote, depressed federal judge. Hillis looking for meaning among the easy privileges of wealth, finding it, finally, in the early conservation movements, escalating to Green politics, ecowarrior sentiments. Leaving law school for a botany degree. His family’s disappointment. Looking at him with strangers’ eyes.
    Clio would look into Hillis’ deep blue eyes, searching for him, but finding instead an absence. A grieving, retreated, Hillis. Until Niang.
    Hillis snapped the top off a carbo tube. “We’re not going to let this stop us,” he said. “Shaw’s down, and we need a second pilot on the shuttle. Russo won’t send it down without a backup pilot. So that means either her or you.” He squeezed half the contents of the tube into his mouth, then threw the tube into the trash.
    “Russo won’t send me,” Clio said. “We’ve got to Dive to get home. She won’t send me.”
    “Well, it’s not going to stop us.” He sat in a chair, resting his head on the bulkhead, eyes closed, exhaustion draped over his features. “Turquoise,” he said. “The jungle’s turquoise. It’s as though the plant life has gone beyond green. It’s moving down the spectrum of visible light. Like playing scales, in cosmic time. It’s the music of evolution, Clio. Music.”
    Clio looked at him. He had forgotten about Shaw already. Whereas she was still trembling. His long frame was stretched out, one arm thrown back to cushion his head, an unconscious, sensual pose. And he spoke like a man in love; he’d taken one look at Niang, and fallen in love.
    “So all of a sudden Recon’s OK, huh? Niang’s gonna save us?” Clio said.
    Hillis shrugged.