Putting Up Roots

Chapter Seven

Morning on Solferino. It was like the first day at Burnt Willow Farm, when Josh had been so tired and had slept so heavily that when he woke he didn’t know where he was. This was even more confusing. He had that early-morning feeling, but the light through the little porthole-like window carried the ruddy glow of late Earth evening.

Josh climbed out of his narrow bunk. Before they went to bed, thin walls had extruded from the floor to divide the single big room of the dormitory into half a dozen separate cubicles. Those dividers must have been soundproof because he could hear nothing, not even the sound of the Laskers’ breathing in neighboring cubicles.

He slipped on his shoes, went to the window, and stared out. He was facing the rising sun—was that direction still called “east” on Solferino? Grisel, peeping over the horizon, showed as a thin crescent of a gigantic red disk. He watched the bloated sun creep higher, thinking of what Brewster had told them. Maybe he ought to be outside, breathing the planet’s health-improving air deep into his lungs.

Was it safe to do that yet, without a breathing mask? Gage had said it might need a few more days.

As Josh had that thought, he saw a movement on his left. Someone—was it a girl?—had appeared briefly before heading beyond his field of view.

If that was Dawn, and she had gone outside without her mask—

Josh hurried from the cubicle and ran to the building’s main door. He reached in for a mask from the dispenser, but the machine apparently knew more than he did. It wouldn’t release one.

“A mask is unnecessary,” said an impersonal voice. “Your biological parameters are within the acceptable range. Do you need a mask for some other individual?”

Josh didn’t bother to answer. He continued out through the door. The machine was smart enough to figure out that no answer was equivalent to a negative.

Everything, buildings and fence and cargo aircar, had a drenched, soggy look to it. The stalks of the low-growing plants were bent over and heavy with moisture. Either it had rained in the night, or dew here was heavier than anything Josh had encountered at Burnt Willow Farm. The air was breathless, without the slightest hint of a breeze.

He began to hurry to the left, where he had caught that fleeting glimpse of a girl’s figure. Before he had taken half a dozen steps, a sweet and familiar aroma filled his nostrils.

He stopped, rigid with astonishment. Triple-snap. He had last encountered that on the grubby back streets of an Earth city. Of all the smells that he might have expected on Solferino, it seemed the least probable. He saw Sapphire Karpov, leaning against the wall of the building. She was staring blank-eyed at the rising sun, the little twisted cylinder dangling loosely from between her lips. What was going into her lungs was anything but health-giving.

Josh made a rough, throat-clearing sound to announce his presence.

She turned slowly, the cylinder drooping from the corner of her mouth. Her scowling glance told Josh that whatever truce might have been in operation the previous evening was now over. Close up, he could see a faint scar that he had never noticed before, running from the left side of her mouth across her cheek and toward her ear.

“Yeah?” Sapphire peered at him through slitted eyes.

“Where did you get that snap?”

“None of your damned business.” She took a long, luxurious draw, inhaling to the bottom of her lungs. “But as a matter of fact, I brought it with me. It wasn’t easy. I’ve got to be careful with these, ’cause I’m down to my last dozen.”

“What happens afterward?”

“I don’t want to think about that.” Sapphire removed the tube from her mouth and stared at it. “Maybe the last hit will kill me. That’s what you hear all the time, snap is a killer and triple-snap is worse. Maybe I’ll kill myself. Withdrawal symptoms are supposed to be a bitch. Maybe I’ll kill you, just for the hell of it. And that big hairy creep Brewster, too. Him and his asking all our names. He was rattling our cage on purpose last night. I’d like to kill him—just like I ought to kill my goddamn father.” She took another deep draw and shuddered from head to toe as it hit. “Oh, hell. I don’t know and I don’t care. Bug off, Joshua Kerrigan. I’ve not got a thing to say to you. Or maybe I do—just one. Keep your dirty paws off Topaz. If you don’t, you’ll find out if Solferino will cure crushed nuts.”

“Topaz?” The switch in subject bewildered Josh. “I’ve not said one single word to her.”

“You think I didn’t see you two sniffing round each other last night? You think I didn’t notice her bringing you food? If you believe I’m gonna let you mess with my little sister, you’d better think again.”

“She didn’t talk to me.”

“I saw her doing it.”

“What I mean is, it wasn’t me she wanted to talk to. She was interested in Dawn, not in me. Oh, jeeks.” Josh remembered the original reason he had come outside. “Have you seen Dawn—this morning?”

“Sure.” Sapphire again sagged back on the wall, her eyes closed. “She went out the gate.”

“The door of the building?”

“Nah. Not the door, you dummy. The gate. The gate in the fence.”

Josh hadn’t even noticed a gate. But there it was, slightly ajar. When he went toward it, he saw the sign, keep closed. But that wouldn’t have meant a thing to Dawn.

Or would it? He remembered Topaz’s unanswered question, “Can you read, Dawn?”

He opened the gate and went through, nervous about what might be on the other side. He found himself in a dark world of red gloom and purple shadows. It was as though the two-inch stems of the clearing, released from human constraints, grew here to giant size. They were as thick as his wrist and reached up above his head to form a canopy about eight feet high. The top layer was translucent, ribbed and continuous, like open paper-thin umbrellas. The plants competed for light, filling in every square inch of space except in places where a rounded balloon shape somehow cleared everything within three feet of it. There, shafts of sunlight speared down to illuminate an ankle-deep ground cover of succulent sickly-yellow stalks. They reminded Josh of fat, slow-writhing worms. He flinched as he stepped on a bunch, but they proved to be crisp and brittle. When he moved to peer at the exposed side of one of the balloons, fat stalks snapped beneath his feet. He felt a spurt of juice wet the calf of his leg and smelled a pungent, peppery odor.

If touching wild plants on Solferino was dangerous, then he was in trouble. Josh stared upward, and found that the balloon was not as smooth and featureless as it seemed from a distance. Its upper part had vertical corrugations on the surface. He could see tubes, like veins, ascending. Waves of contraction swept rhythmically up them, one after another at regular intervals, as though the tubes were throats and the plant was swallowing upward.

A light patter of raindrops above his head strengthened the feeling that he was crouched in a forest of mauve umbrellas. Did they furl when high winds came, or close at night when there was no sunlight?

The umbrella forest seemed so peaceful that Josh hadn’t given a thought to animal life. A rustle of brittle stalks behind him changed that in a moment. He spun around, sure that no matter what Bothwell Gage might say, he might be attacked.

It was Dawn. She seemed at ease in the purple gloom, slipping toward him like a graceful ghost through the tangle of thick stems.

He reached out to the side of the balloon plant to steady himself, and was astonished to find that it was warm. He jerked his hand away as if the rough surface might burn him.

A warm-blooded plant? Well, why not? On Solferino, anything seemed possible. He felt as out of touch with things here as Dawn had been on Earth.

“What have you been doing?”

She didn’t answer—he hardly expected her to—but she was cuddling something close to her chest. It was a stuffed toy, a pudgy, misshapen little elephant covered with tiny silver beads. Josh wondered how she had managed to smuggle it all the way from the farm without anyone finding it in a baggage check. Sapphire had done the same thing with her triple-snap. Maybe he was the dumb one. Maybe all the other trainees had found a way to bring with them something they specially liked or needed.

Then he noticed that the little stuffed toy was moving. A blind head turned toward him. The trunk waved, and membranes like delicate, iridescent ears spread wide on each side. He heard a series of clicks and chirps. The silver beads expanded like opening flower buds, turning the outer layer to bright orange feathers. The creature was suddenly twice as big and nothing like an elephant.

“Dawn—put it down.” But as soon as he said that, he changed his mind. “No! I mean, don’t put it down. Don’t let it go. Come with me.”

They had to hang on to the animal, take it back, and make sure that it hadn’t hurt Dawn to hold it. Suppose the scaly beads or the orange feathers were poisonous?

He reached out his hand. She took it in one of hers, still holding the thing—elephant, dragon, lizard, whatever—to her breast with the other. But she offered no resistance when he towed her toward the gate.

If only Brewster were up and about, and somewhere that they could talk to him…

Josh pushed Dawn into the clearing ahead of him. As soon as they were through the gate he realized that finding Sol Brewster would be no problem. The man was standing outside, staring up. So was Sapphire, without a triple-snap tube in her mouth. So was Sig, so was Topaz—they were all there. They had noticed what Josh, in his worry about Dawn, had been deaf to.

He could certainly hear it now, and he could see it, too. Another lander, smaller than any that Josh had encountered before, was approaching. While the whole group watched, the little vessel drifted in. It settled lightly, rolled forward, and came to a stop no more than twenty yards from where they stood.

Compared with Sol Brewster’s arrival the previous day, what followed was an anticlimax. The woman who emerged had nothing of Brewster’s overpowering presence. She was short and fat, with vague blobby features and mousy fair hair. You wouldn’t look at her twice in a crowd. The yellowish tinge to her complexion suggested that free fall agreed with her even less than it had with the Lasker brothers. Her approach to the group was not so much a walk as an uncertain waddle.

Even so, Sol Brewster seemed disconcerted. He stared at the approaching woman, his jaw slack and his mouth open.

“What the devil,” he said.

The new arrival glanced at the rest of the group but walked at once to Brewster. She made an obvious effort and stood up straight. “Mr. Brewster? My name is Winnie Carlson. I am reporting for service.”

“What the devil!” Brewster said again. He paused, took a deep breath, and went on, “What’s happening here? What are you doing on Solferino?”

“Huh? Sir, are you Solomon Brewster?”

“I am.”

“Good.” The woman smiled. “Then I’m in the right place.”

“You are in the wrong place. I wasn’t expecting any new people.”

It was the woman’s turn to look bewildered. “You weren’t? I’m sorry, sir, but the information should have been provided to you. I was sent here by Foodlines HQ. They told me Solferino has been a maintenance technician short for nearly five months.” She patted half a dozen different suit pockets, and at last brought out a small card. “Here. Take this, if you don’t believe me, and have a computer read it. It spells out my qualifications, work experience, assignment dates, duties on Solferino, everything.”

Brewster took the input card but he didn’t look at it. Instead he said, “You’ll work for me, and do exactly what I tell you?”

“Yes, sir. Those are my instructions.”

“And you were never on Solferino before?”

“No, sir. All I know about this planet I got from reading about it. I did a lot of reading while I was waiting to be transferred out.” Winnie Carlson glanced nervously around her, as though comparing what she had read with everything from the distant purple hills to the tall fence and the cluster of orange-yellow buildings. “I have a list of the original equipment that was shipped here, and I know the maintenance schedules. Some of your machines are long overdue for service.”

“True.”

“I can take care of that, sir. Also, I was told that you have trainees here.” She nodded toward Josh and the others. “They should be taught how to look after equipment. I can set up service rosters to include them. Subject, of course, to your review and approval.”

Brewster hesitated. “We’ll discuss that later. But just now I want to talk to you in private. I agree that the trainees ought to be working, but I’m not sure I trust some of this crowd to blow their own noses. Come on.” He started toward one of the buildings.

“Sir!” Josh’s cry was urgent. He was afraid that his chance to ask about the animal was disappearing.

“What do you want?” Brewster turned his head but did not break stride.

“That, sir.” Josh pointed. The silver beads had closed tight, and the delicate ears were furled. The creature again looked more like an midget elephant than a lizard. “Is it dangerous?”

Brewster offered one quick look. “Of course not. Perfectly safe. Everything around here is safe, didn’t Gage tell you? That’s only a spangle.” As he vanished through the door he added, “Don’t eat it, though. Your internal flora and fauna may not be quite right yet.”

As Brewster and Winnie Carlson vanished inside, the others moved to crowd around Dawn. Even if she had reacted normally to questions, they came too fast to answer.

“A spangle. What’s a spangle?”

“Where did you find it?”

“Eat it. Yuck. Were you going to eat it?”

“What are ‘internal flora and fauna’?”

“Are there any more where you got it?”

“Look at the little trunk.”

“It’s opening its wings!”

And finally, overriding everyone else, “Don’t touch it!”

That came from Sapphire. Ruby was reaching her hand out to stroke the silvery beaded back. Ruby ignored her sister and touched the spangle anyway.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said. “I want one just like it. He told us it isn’t dangerous.”

“You can’t have one,” Sapphire said automatically. But then she looked at Josh. “Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t.” Josh gestured to Dawn. “She did. In the woods outside the gate.”

“Mm. Fat lot of use that will be to the rest of us.” Sapphire turned to Dawn as though she was going to pose a question, then scowled and shook her head. “I won’t waste my time,” she said, and took Ruby by the hand. “It’s all right, Rube. We’ll go together, see what we can find. Anyone want to come with us?”

“I’ll come,” Amethyst said. “Who else?”

Josh and the Lasker brothers shook their heads. “Don’t want no dumb animal,” Rick grumbled.

“Yeah,” Hag agreed. “Bet it stinks.”

Sig said nothing, but when Rick and Hag wandered off toward the far side of the clearing he went with them. Josh noticed another closed gate in the fence. He watched the brothers open it and go through. What they would like, and what they were willing to admit they liked, might be two different things.

Josh was left with Dawn, Topaz, and the little native creature. After what Sapphire had said he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to Topaz, but she took care of the problem for him.

“Can I?” She spoke to Dawn in a completely normal way, as though she expected the other girl to understand her and respond. Without waiting for an answer, she reached out and gently lifted the spangle from Dawn’s grasp.

The trunk waved and the orange flowers began to open, just for a second, then the animal settled down into Topaz’s cupped hands. “What do you think it eats?” she asked Josh.

“I’ve no idea.” That seemed to him a pretty weird question. Who cared what it ate, provided it didn’t take a bite out of you? But Topaz, studying his reaction, said, “Have you ever had a pet of your own?”

“No.” His mother regarded all pets as dirty and a nuisance, but that was none of Topaz’s business.

“Well, if you had, you’d realize that the first thing you have to know is how to look after it properly.” Topaz did something that gave Josh the shudders. She put the finger and thumb of each hand on the spangle’s head and gently opened its jaws so she could peer inside. “Mm. No help there. Just sort of flat plates. Maybe we ought to bring different things from outside the fence, see if the spangle will eat any of them.”

Josh was not keen on the idea of another visit to the purple gloom beyond the fence. Bothwell Gage and Sol Brewster might say that everything was safe, but how did they know? Solferino was a whole planet. There was no way that Foodlines staff or machines could have explored every part of it.

Dawn banished his worries. “No,” she said. While the others stood and stared, she took the spangle away from Topaz and headed for the gate.

“What’s she doing?” Topaz asked.

“I don’t know.” But Josh was suddenly convinced that Dawn had listened to what Topaz was saying, and understood it. She was opening the gate and walking through it. She disappeared.

“I’d better go make sure she’s all right.” But before Josh could move, Dawn was coming back. She was no longer holding the spangle. She came to where Josh and Topaz were standing and looked right through them as though they were not there.

“Want to go,” she said as she passed. “Breakfast.” She moved on into the building.

“What did she mean?” Topaz asked. “That the spangle wanted to go free, or that she wanted it to go?”

“Or does she mean that the spangle wants breakfast, or that she wants breakfast?” It occurred to Josh that he was falling into the same trap as Topaz—the delusion that what Dawn said meant anything at all. Aunt Stacy, who ought to know her stepdaughter better than either of them, had other ideas. Dawn’s statements were just the mumblings of a badly retarded person.

But suppose that Aunt Stacy had her own reasons for thinking that way? Suppose that Topaz was right? She seemed to have a real understanding of Dawn. Being autistic wasn’t the same as being retarded; everything Josh had read made that clear. The brain might function as well as normal, or even better; it just worked differently.

That led straight to something that was really none of Josh’s business. But he blurted it out anyway.

“Did you know that your sister is on triple-snap?”

“Sapphire?” Topaz was perfectly calm—or pretended to be. “Yes, I know that. Ruby doesn’t, and I don’t think Amethyst does, either. I’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.”

“Snap really screws up your brain. And triple-snap is worse.”

“A lot worse. I don’t think it has hurt Sapphire permanently—not yet, at any rate.” Topaz frowned at him, thick dark eyebrows above clear hazel eyes. “I’m surprised that you know anything about snap. Surely you don’t get exposure to it out on a farm.”

“I was raised in the city—a lot of cities. Dawn is the one who grew up on Burnt Willow Farm. I’ve seen a lot of druggies in the Pool, no jobs, no prospects, nothing to do but hang out and look for the next hit. Sapphire has to get off it. It will kill her.”

“You think I don’t know that? That’s why I was so glad to come here. I thought there’d be no pushers, no way for her to get any.”

“I don’t think there is. She said she’s down to her last twelve tubes. After that she doesn’t know what will happen.”

“It’s going to be really tough for her. She insisted on coming here, you know. She didn’t do it for herself. She did it for me and Ruby and Amy. Saph acts like she’s our mother.”

Josh thought of the earlier conversation, Sapphire accusing him of messing around with Topaz. He asked hurriedly, “What about your real mother? You have one, don’t you?”

“We have a mother, sure, and a father, too.”

“So why does Sapphire think that she—”

“Or maybe I mean we had a real mother and a real father. I remember what it used to be like. We had our own house, and we had a cat, and we were going to get a dog. We even had a name for him.”

“Was there an accident?”

“You might call it that.” Topaz sounded bitterly thoughtful, as if she had been over this in her head a thousand times. “They were both teachers, really smart. Everybody says Amy got their brains—she’s the brightest one of us, if you hadn’t already figured that out. She’s our walking data bank, she’ll tell you anything you want to know and a good deal that you don’t. Anyway, four years ago our parents entered a contest to name a new food product. You ever hear of Scooners?”

“I’ve eaten them. They’re not very good.”

“I know. But they won a trip together for naming them. It was to a place with gambling casinos. When they got back, they didn’t talk about anything else. My father said he had a way of beating the odds of the system, and when he explained it to my mother she got really excited, too. They went back and tried it.”

“Their system was a failure?”

“No. I wish it had been. Unfortunately, it worked very well.

They bought us all sorts of goodies. Next weekend, they went again. It worked again. They had all sorts of plans, a bigger house away from the city, lots of land, a flower garden, horses for each of us. But that time they lost. And after that they kept on losing. I don’t think they ever won again. They couldn’t stop, though. It was like they had gone crazy—they both got hooked on gambling as bad as if it was triple-snap. Within six months they lost their jobs, they lost the house, and long before that they’d started to tear into each other. And us. Last year, Dad broke Saph’s jaw when she tried to stop him hitting Ruby. He said he was sorry, and he took her for treatment, right away. But if you look close you can still see the scar. Right after that Saph started using snap.”

Topaz paused. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. I’m gabbing at you. Sorry. Saph tells me I do it all the time.”

“That’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“Tell me about your parents. What are they like?”

“I don’t have a father. But my mother.” Josh took a deep breath. “My mother is just great. I’m really lucky.”

“Will she be coming to Solferino?”

Topaz had been busy cooking the previous night; she must not have heard what Josh had told the others.

“I guess so,” Josh said slowly. “Yes, I guess she will.”

“When?”

“Well…”

Josh didn’t know how to answer that. While he was still hesitating, Rick Lasker came rushing through the gate at the other side of the clearing. He shouted excitedly the moment that he saw Topaz and Josh.

“Hey! Come over here, both of you. You’ll never guess what we found! Hurry up!”

Josh had never thought that he would be happy to have a personal conversation with Topaz interrupted by one of the Lasker twins. But he was.