shevette's book!
Book #2 of three
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shevette's book!Book #2 of three
CHAPTER 11 |
It had been a great day. Kinda. There were always some small problems when a family of four take it upon themselves to drive to the frontier and have a picnic. We had forgotten to bring along some folding chairs to sit on, we had plenty of food but almost nothing to drink.
We had bought some flavored water but I guess we left it on the ground where dad had set it. I had still been inside the store and he thought I had put it in the car when I came out and I had thought he had already put it in the car when I was ready to go. I hoped someone had found it and enjoyed it. We were too far out to go back for just some water.
Shela had a fit because she had to use the restroom out behind a rock. It served her right. Next time she would remember to use the rest rooms when they were available.
Mom had suggested that I call Jack, my boyfriend and ask him to join us. I was glad when he couldn't make it. I knew mom's hope was that we could find a way to hide my status somehow and lead a normal life. I would be willing to settle for that if I could be sure that my friends and family would never be hurt.
I would never experience life like a true CB but it might be worth it to take part in the simple pleasures. I wasn't a wild woman by nature to begin with. I got out...some. I had devoted much of my time to school work. I liked learning things. That might change now. I wasn't going to go to school to satisfy the needs of others. I had some rights.
I was laying on a rock near the folks trying to work on my tan. The towel I was lying on was thick and plush. I had on a red bikini to match the car. I wished I could have worn my black one. I would have gotten a bit more tan wearing that one. The problem was the folks didn't know I had one that skimpy. Hah, the problem was I would never wear it outdoors. It was so small that it made me feel too uncomfortable to take a chance that someone might see me in it. I had worn it for Mike one night before we had made love. He had liked me in it.
I decided to not think about boys. How could I involve myself with a guy knowing full well that if he knew I wasn't real he would have puked. I hoped mom would come up with some kind of a solution. She had a good head on her shoulders and she had always impressed me with her problem solving capabilities. If it hadn't been for that I would still be sitting at home sucking on my thumb and trying to figure out what to do.
I was glad I came. The frontier was so powerfully imense. It was so beautiful. The further we encroached on it the more precious it became. We would never fill it all. I sat up and looked across the huge plain. I pulled my hat down to shade my eyes. In front of me about a thousand feet down was a huge, flat, yellow, desert. Twenty kilometers away was the start of a line of orange mesa. I could see arround them to another large group of grey-white mesa. Behind them was a formation of white mesa then a red formation and a yeollw set on and on as far as the eye could see. The visable horizon was 400 kilometers away. It was breath taking.
From where I was I could see tracks from all sorts of vehicles going in all directions. Most were straight but there were a few that were all curvey from where people had been spinning thier cars arround and arround. Shela had remarked how it looked like every track ever made was still there.
"They are." I told her. "Every track that had ever been made down there is still there because there's nothing to erase them."
"You mean they'll always be there?"
"For always and always, shrimp."
"How about before when there was water on the ground and in the sky, Sue?"
"That was called rivers and oceans when it was on the ground and clouds and rain when it was in the sky."
"I remember that! How do they know there was that much water here?"
"They found old shells from little animals that used to live in the oceans before the whole planet dried up."
"How'd they know they lived in an ocean if nobody had ever seen one before?"
"Because someone remembered that that was how it had been back on earth. Earth was two thirds water, I think. They had water everywhere. There were oceans, rivers and even rain. Rain was what they called it when water fell from the heavens."
"What's rain really like?" She wanted to know.
"I've never seen any. I don't know." I admited.
"Howcum' we don't ever get any rain? It's a gyp!"
"No, we're lucky. It was all the water that caused rain and wind. The wind would get so strong sometimes it would blow whole cities away. Rain was bad because it flooded everything."
"Wow!"
"We are very lucky to live on a planet where the weather never changes, hardly."
"Well what happened to all of our water? Did it go underground?"
"No. Water is made of two chemicals called Hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is real light and it has a tendancy to float above the air. When water would evaporate, you know what that is, sometimes it would seperate and the hydrogen would float off. It kept getting higher and higher until it touched space and that's where it stays just barely hanging onto the planet."
"Well, where'd the water underground come from?"
"It was left there from when this planet was covered with water like earth."
"I think earth is just something that gown ups made up. I don't believe there ever was such a place. Do you, Sue?"
"Sure, why not? Why would someone make up a lie like that, shrimp?"
"Why'd they lie about Santa?"
"I dunno. You'll tell your kids there's a Santa won't you?"
"Why?"
"Didn't you like the idea of someone bringing you gifts?"
"Kinda." Shela answered drawing the word out she knew where I was headed. She was a bright kid. "I'm gonna ask mom for something more to eat. Wanna come?"
"Naw go on, be carful that you don't eat anything that'll make you too thirsty. Don't forget we left our water at the store."
I don't know if she heard me or not she was running across the rocks towards mom and dad. I was surprised that she had talked as long as she did. She wasn't one to stand still for very long at all.
I began thinking about what had happened to all the water on Seco. It was wierd to think that most of our hydrogen had just floated off and was in low orbit arround the planet. It was a blessing. If it wasn't for that the suns would make it impossible to live out in the open. As it was it was always beautiful out. We always had a nice bright warm sky durring the fiveteen hours of daylight and at night the sky was always a beautiful purple. What a show the sky put on for us at every sunrise and sunset.
I spread some UV protectant on my legs. I had gown quite a bit in the last few years. Getting boys wasn't a problem any longer, except for the fact that I never seemed to have time for them. School had been very demanding on me. I wondered if mom would be able to come up with something that would let me stay in school then I decided that I wouldn't. My time was too precious to spend doing tests and reading books.
I tried to figure out what I should be doing if I had my choice. There would be boys. I would be somewhere along the frontier with boys. It would be wild to explore parts of the world. I could go into space. Naw it was a dead field.
We still had saucers that were used for exploration but we had built precious few. The old starship had long ago been stripped for it's metal and high tech equipment.
It was amazing when you thought about it. The fact that the starship had been built a millienia ago and we couldn't build another one now no matter how hard we tried. We must have been lazy in the time since we had been on this planet. Well no, we had gotten away from the phisical sciences. We had developed the social sciences. We had had no war scince the early days.
I brushed a fly away from my face. We had brought life to this planet. When humans first set foot on Seco there were no life forms here at all. The only signs of native life had been shells from ocean creatures and fossels of plants, bugs and something called lizzards and an animal that could move through water the way we moved through air, fish. All of those animals and plants had died when the water had dried up. It was a mystery how all the water on the surface had seperated and the water trapped underground hadn't gone to the surface and dried up too. There had been that and the fact that there wasn't any life living in the water underground. Something dramatic had happened to this planet all at once.
There were many theories but the two most popular were that either a huge meteor had crashed on the planet and covered the whole planet in dust and killed everything or perhaps there had only been one sun at one time and a second sun had been 'captured' which killed everything. Who knew? It would have been interesting to know what had happened but I wasn't worried about it. We had a great planet to live on. It had done well by all of us. Our crops and livestock flourished. It was amazing that all the many forms of life on Seco had all come from earth. Flies were an example of lifeforms that had been brought by the starship. It hadn't been planned that way. They had probily gotten mixed in with the livestock. There were other unexpected passengers; all sorts of microbes, bacteria, viruses, germs, even birds.
Every lifeform that came and survived contributed to the survival of the colonys. We had been very lucky. One less virus or microbe and life would have been a lot different, if anyone had survived. Nobody likes to get a virus but even they had helped us.
I rolled over onto my stomach and undid my top so that my back would tan evenly. I was happy even though I still felt tired. I had a book and I read. Something caught my eye. It was a police hover car. I watched it swoop down and follow a vehicle way out on the desert. It didn't pay to speed even way out here. I had a lot of respect for our police. They put themselves on the line every day they went to work. The hover car was making the vehicle it had been following stop. Somebody had goofed up. I smiled wondering what they had done. Speeding probily. I sympathized with whoever it was that had gotten caught. I watched as they talked. Soon the hover car took off and left. I looked back to the vehicle. It was headed back the way it had come. I wondered what had happened. No telling.
I returned my attention back to my book. It was dull. Soon I was asleep again.
***
I woke in pain. I knew the minute I woke up that I had gotten a tanburn. Slowly I turned on my side. I was burned to a crisp! From my heels to my shoulders I was red. My arms weren't too bad and The back of my neck and head had been spared by my hat. I would need some pain spray fast!
"MOM! Mom!!!" I called.
Nothing...
I picked up my bikini top and put it on. My skin felt hot and sticky. I would be in tough shape the next day. I slipped my feet into my tennies and began the climb down to where the car was. I laughed to myself. What a dummy I was. The kids at school would laugh at me all day Monday. I deserved it. Well it had been a nice day on the frontier. Too bad I had burned my back because I had gotten a nice refresher for my tan in front. I prayed I wouldn't peel. I prayed we had some tan burn spray with us.
"Sue!..." I heard ahead of me. It was mom.
"Hey!" I shouted back. "I hope we have some spray. I fell asleep and boy am I burned!"
"I think it's here. I remember laying it out. You don't look too bad..."
"It's my back. First I can't get enough sleep and now I'm dozing off every time I turn around. You don't suppose that medicine is supposed to act like that do you?" I was close enough that I didn't have to shout any more. Mom was looking through a large bag. Dad and Shela were no where in sight.
"No, you're just run down. You'll be fine in a day or two. Young people never have any patience. Slow down and enjoy the moment. Here it is." mom pronounced proudly holding up a can of pain spray. She sprayed it on me while promising me that I would more than likely peal. It was cold but it felt good. I had her spray me several times.
"Where's dad and the shrimp?"
"I think he's trying to determine how she is likely to respond if she found out the truth."
"He's not going to tell her is he?"
"No, he'll just ask her what her feelings are in a round-about way. He's good at that. Shela won't be able to guess what he's up to. Don't let it worry you."
"I can't help it mom. I don't want her to get hurt."
"She won't. The thing that I can't understand is why you are down so bad on CB's?"
"Shouldn't I be?"
"No, CB's are people too. You're just as much a person as I am aren't you?"
"No! Of course not. What are you saying? I think you are trying to convince yourself that I'm just like everyone else. That's very nice but it's the wrong thing to do. I'm not real. I'm getting used to it. You need to accept me for what I am and not a real person. You are asking me to live up to a standard that I can't possibly imitate. I've got to be me. If I were a brick I would rather be a part of a shithouse wall than try to pose as a diamond."
"It's not the same, Sue. I feel like it's my fault because I didn't teach you to respect CB's. I don't feel like I'm better than you or anyone else. We are all equal in God's eye."
"In God's eye I am invisable, mom. When I die he won't even talk to me."
"Why not, Sue?"
"He won't talk to a brick will he? He won't talk to a car or a house. He won't talk to me either."
"Don't say that!"
"Well it's true! Pretending won't change things!"
"I can't believe that he would treat you like you didn't exist. You are a thinking, warm, caring human being. He loves you."
"That's not what the colony fathers say."
"What do they know? Have any of them ever died and talked to God? No, they are human just like you and me. They can make mistakes too."
"Mom you aren't using your head. You know how it is. We all know what happens to CB's. We don't even alow them to be burried in a graveyard. What am I saying? The city fathers don't allow people like me a burial. I will be subject to rules that you and dad and Shela won't have to abide by. There are places I won't be allowed to go and things I won't be allowed to do. That's the way it is. There's nothing you and I can do so let's just try to live as best we can inside the rules that are there to protect each of us. Ok?"
"No it's not ok, Sue. I'll aways treat you as I have in the past and so will your father and I'm sure Shela will too. It's only right!"
"No it's not, mom. You know what happens to people who try to fight the system. You've got to promise me that we'll decide how to handle this together or I swear I'll have to run away from home. Please don't make me do that."
"I won't honey. We will decide together what to do."
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