Phytosphere Page 3

  “And Jake’s okay?”

  “Jake’s fine. He’s loving all this… this craziness. He thinks it’s cool.”

  “Did they give you more hours at the nursing home yet?”

  She looked away. “The lady who was supposed to leave might not leave now.”

  “Oh… because if you need a little help… and I don’t want you to think of it as charity…but with Gerry stuck on the Moon… Neil and I just thought… you know, if you needed a little extra help to tide you over, we’d be happy to…”

  Glenda’s lower lip stiffened. “No… I think I can manage.” Glenda, just cave in, swallow your pride, you need the money. “I have a little put away for emergencies.” Lies, lies, lies.

  “And you’ve got enough to pay for Hanna’s medicine?”

  “Oh, yes… of course.” Shift away from your own neediness, Glenda. Focus on kids. “How are the girls, Louise?”

  “We’re always worried about Morgan.”

  “Morgan’s a sweetheart.”

  “I just wish she’d learn how to read. She’s ten years old. She should know how to read by now.”

  “Kids have their own schedules for that kind of thing.”

  “Glenda… if you get into trouble… or if this thing goes on for any length of time and you need some help, just call us. Don’t be proud. I can’t stand the thought of you and your kids going without.”

  “We’ll be fine, Louise. Really we will.”

  But as she disconnected the call, she felt worried again. Why did she have this senseless pride? Why was it so important for her to show Neil and Louise that she and Gerry could make a go of it, and that they could cope in the face of adversity? She pushed these thoughts from her mind, as they were the same old ones she always had, nothing new. Better to take a positive outlook; this whole thing was going to blow over, she was going to get more hours at the nursing home, Gerry was going to come home from the Moon and find a great job, and they would work it out and have the same kind of picture-book marriage Louise and Neil did.

  But in the meantime…

  In the meantime.

  She went back to the cupboard and looked at the food. She had a vision. Of a green world turning brown. Of food disappearing. Of massive famine.

  Surely it wouldn’t come to that.

  But if it did…

  She walked to the basement door, opened it, went downstairs, glanced around at the junk, and spied Jake’s old toy box, red and yellow, made of chipboard, with a clown face painted on the front. The basement light went on as she passed the sensor. She lifted the antique, rolled-up maps, the ones Gerry had collected over the years—not because he used them, just because he liked them—opened the toy box, and saw a lot of action figures, toy vehicles, and a toy xylophone. She emptied the toys on the floor, took the box upstairs, and placed it on the counter.

  “That’s my toy box,” said Jake.

  “Do you mind if I use it?”

  “What do you need it for?”

  “I’m going to bury some treasure. You can help, if you get ready in time.”

  “Mom, we don’t have any treasure. We’re broke.”

  “I think we should bury some food.”

  “Why?”

  “Just in case we need it.”

  “Why don’t we keep the food in the cupboard, where it belongs?”

  “Because I think we should have a backup cache.”

  She took cans and jars of nonperishable food from the cupboard and placed them in the toy box. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Jake staring at her, his corn-flakes forgotten, a hint of fear tracing apprehension on his smooth young face.

  “Why bury food?” he asked.

  “Just in case things get bad.”

  “Things won’t get bad, Mom. You just have to believe that they won’t.”

  “You sound like your father.”

  “You don’t have to bury food.”

  “I’m the mother. It’s my job to look after you. And I take the job seriously.”

  “But why bury food?”

  “Because I don’t want anybody coming into the house and stealing it.”

  “Why would they steal it?”

  “Jake, how many times do I have to tell you? There are bad people in the world. And if bad people get desperate, they become extra bad. If this shroud lasts any length of time, everything’s going to stop growing and food’s going to run out. You think anything’s going to grow with that thing up in the sky?

  Plants need light to grow. Two weeks of total darkness, and that’s it, there goes next year’s crop.”

  “Uncle Neil will talk to the president before that happens.”

  “If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard.”

  She finished stocking the toy box with jarred and canned foods, and was surprised by how heavy it was once she lifted it. She went out the back door and ventured into the yard. The green sheet of the shroud mottled its way from horizon to horizon. A few clouds floated beneath it. The green was so dark in spots that it verged on black. A raccoon lumbered by at the end of the yard and disappeared into the bushes, all mixed up about night and day.

  She carried the box into the woods and found a spot among the sycamores. The leaves on the trees rustled in a cool breeze—too cool for this time of the year. How strange the trees looked, silhouetted against that green sky. She put the box down, walked back to the toolshed, and got the spade. She carried it to the spot between the sycamores, broke the earth, and dug.

  The earth smelled rich with living things. She dug some more and, in digging, knew she had made an admission to herself. This wasn’t like the regular and small disasters that befell people on a daily basis, making their lives miserable for a while, then finally drifting away like a bad dream. This was the Apocalypse. And she wanted food for when the Apocalypse finally came.

  She arrived for her short morning shift at the Cedar-vale Nursing Home and Long-Term Care Facility an hour later. Old people played chess in the hallways, the lights were up bright, and the inmates were dressed in sweaters or jackets and enjoying themselves, as if the shroud were cause for celebration. She nodded a polite hello to the elderly volunteers in the information kiosk, passed the coffee stand, continued down the hall to Section H, climbed the stairs, and finally reached the Palliative Care Department, where people went to die. She waved to Elma and Karen, two nurse-receptionists, but they were too busy with the phones and didn’t notice her pass. Didn’t matter. Had to speak to her supervisor, and speak to him fast.

  She found Whit, a tall black man, at his desk going over the master schedule.

  “You too?” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Everybody’s asking for time off.”

  “No… I don’t want time off. If you need me to work a few extra hours…”

  “I just might.” He motioned out the window. “Everybody’s concerned about the weather.”

  She looked out the window and saw the shroud moving across the sky like a green shadow.

  “You knew my husband was stuck on the Moon?”

  “You were saying.”

  “And that the university let him go?”

  “That’s tough. I’m sorry about that, Glenda.”

  “It’s just that I’m… I’m running a bit short. And Hanna’s got her asthma prescription to fill. And I don’t know what the policy is, but I just thought if I could…if you could give me an advance on my pay. Just to tide me over the next couple of days.”

  She hated this, begging for money. But better she beg Whit than Neil and Louise. Whit looked to one side and his forehead creased. He took a deep breath and sighed, then glanced up at her with sympathetic brown eyes.

  “It’s all automatic, Glenda. Payroll won’t even accept hours worked—not from me, not from any supervisor—till the Thursday after the pay period ends.”

  Her lips tightened in irritation. “And there’s not some special form you can e-mail them?”

  “You have nothing in t
he bank?”

  “I live paycheck to paycheck, Whit. That’s the way it is.”

  “How much do you need?”

  “Enough to buy Hanna’s medicine and some extra food.”

  “Will two hundred dollars do?”

  “I was hoping for three.”

  “I could make three.” He took out his wallet.

  She was disarmed by Whit’s generosity. “Whit, I can’t take your money.”

  He withdrew a touch-sensitive cash chit, keyed in the appropriate amount, and handed it over. “I don’t want your kids suffering, Glenda. You can pay me back whenever. But if you’re looking for groceries, you may have to go all the way to Raleigh. Dee was telling me there’s nothing around here. The shelves are bare. People are hoarding.”

  “So I heard. I plan to make the trip after work.”

  “Then take my money, and think nothing of it.”

  4

  The Armstrong Convention Center was seven stories underground, on the south side of the lofty Apollo Way. A scale model of Apollo Eleven angled upward through the brightly lit space above a fountain that was timed to shoot fifteen streams of water every three seconds. The convention center itself was a domed oddity, chiseled into the rock of the Moon, the rock laminated with polycarbonate.

  Gerry and Ian entered via the center doors and passed a coffee shop, a money-exchange place, a travel office, and a number of clothing stores. They soon came to the North Atrium’s moving walkway. The air smelled of marijuana and, glancing up to the next level, Gerry saw two showgirls in costume, rhinestones pasted to various suggestive parts of their bodies, passing a large zebra-striped joint back and forth as they chatted amiably to the cyber-enhanced security guard at the neon-outlined security kiosk.

  He and Ian came to the end of the walkway and took three extremely long escalators down to the third lower level. Here they passed a gargantuan tank full of genetically enhanced dolphins, which would come to computer interfaces and conduct rote conversations with tourists for a few dollars. Gerry stared at the dolphins. He had a sudden urge to be near the ocean. He pictured the surf at Nag’s Head, and wanted to be walking barefoot in its foam.

  As they entered Section A of the H. G. Wells Ballroom—the walled-off Section B was at present home to an A.A. meeting (he knew them well)—one of the mayor’s aides came forward with a waferscreen and asked Gerry and Ian to write their names, a list of affiliations, areas of expertise, and educational credentials in the spaces provided. Gerry did this, then looked around the room. There seemed to be a preponderance of showgirls and tourist workers here. He was touched. People were eager to help Earth.

  In the far corner he saw technical types, several in suits, a number in lab coats, possessed of that curious brand of killer intelligence all technical types had, sitting in a circle arguing about something with the splitting-hairs vehemence customary to their tribe.

  “Is that the AviOrbit contingent?” he asked Ian.

  “That’s them. They’re all good guys. I don’t see any of the new pilots, though.”

  “So these are engineers?” Gerry tried to keep the flagging spirits out of his voice.

  “Yup.”

  “They build interplanetary spacecraft?”

  “Right.”

  His voice sank into further hopelessness. “But have no grounding in pure, abstract science.”

  “Why don’t you go over and ask them?”

  “Let’s just listen to what people have to say. I don’t want to get into a big, long conversation with people I don’t know.”

  The mayor’s assistant walked to the podium and handed the waferscreen to Hulke. The mayor scanned the data, flipping through it electronically with a touch of his right index finger. He finally stopped at one page in particular. He then had a few words with his assistant, who pointed across the rows of brown stackable plastic chairs to Gerry. The mayor looked at Gerry, then at the waferscreen, and finally nodded to himself, as if he found Gerry’s presence encouraging.

  At last the mayor clapped and got everybody’s attention.

  “Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I see here that we have several extremely talented professionals from a variety of major organizations and institutions throughout the solar system. So I’ll try to up my usual rhetorical style. I’ll attempt to be a little more formal. I welcome you to the Moon. I guess I’ll start with a few caveats, quid pro quos, and fine-print stuff, just because I know some of you must have some misconceptions about the Moon. For starters, we do things in a small way here. We’re a tiny community; fifteen thousand permanent residents in Nectaris, and only another ten thousand in the secondary communities.” He spoke as if by rote. “Which means we have nothing in the way of money. I just want to make sure you all understand—this thing is volunteer.”

  Several nods assured him that the volunteer nature of the effort was well comprehended.

  “Good. I see we have some friends from AviOrbit. I knew Ira would come through for us. But I doubt AviOrbit can contribute much in the way of a budget either, so don’t get your hopes up, just because the techies have arrived. And I see that Professor Luke Langstrom is visiting us from the University of Mars.

  Sorry, Dr. Langstrom, but the money for this project will pale in comparison to some of the legendary research grants you’ve worked with. It’s the casinos that have all the money. Not us in council. Professor Langstrom, for those of you who don’t know, was the first to isolate evidence of prehistoric life on Mars in a series of experiments he conducted forty years ago in the Pegasus Cavern System of the Valles Marineris.” He turned to the gathered media. “You see, I know these things too. So the next time you call me ignorant, just remember that.”

  Gerry cast a curious glance at Langstrom, who was well into his seventies, had white hair, bushy silver eyebrows, and sat slouched in his chair with a confident but whimsical grin on his face, as if he found the whole lunar effort to destroy the shroud amusing. Langstrom would have been a kindly old grandfather type if it weren’t for something bitter in the eyes, and stingy about his lips. What kind of life had he lived on Mars, wondered Gerry? Did he even care about Earth?

  “Also visiting us this week is Associate Professor Gerald Thorndike, of North Carolina State University.” The mayor consulted a lot of additional notes. “Gerald Thorndike is the younger brother of Professor Neil Thorndike, a name many of you in the science community will no doubt know.” Here it was again, his name, always linked to Neil’s. “My assistant has written here that Neil Thorndike was the cowinner of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year, and also winner of the Davison-Germer Prize, and that he’s one of the senior members on the United States National Science Board. We’re extremely honored to have his brother here today. Gerry, welcome to the Moon.”

  Gerry felt uncomfortable with this backhanded introduction. People clapped. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been presented as Neil Thorndike’s brother, not as a scientist in his own right. He stood up and took a perfunctory bow, wanting only to get on with things.

  He sat down, and Hulke introduced some people from AviOrbit, rocket scientists the lot of them, but maybe a few, he hoped, who had knowledge of basic Earth sciences. Hulke then launched into a recap of everything that had happened in the last two weeks: how negotiations had broken off with the Tarsalans, how all Tarsalan visitors and delegations had returned to the mothership—the TMS as it was called—and how the shroud had grown day by day despite military attempts to destroy it.

  “At this point, I’d like to let the scientists take the floor. Professor Langstrom, if you could go first. We’d appreciate any thoughts you might have.”

  Langstrom raised his hand dismissively, continuing to smile in his amused way. “I hardly think I’m the ranking scientist here,” the Martian said, taking out a pipe and stuffing it calmly with marijuana. “Gerry Thorndike is. Let the man who has something in jeopardy speak first.”

  There was a tone in Langstrom’s voice that Gerry didn’
t like, as if he were somehow blaming Gerry for the shroud.

  “Dr. Langstrom, you flatter me,” said Gerry.

  “I’m a Martian. Have been for the last sixty years. I think we should hear from an Earthman. After all, it’s Earth that’s in peril.” Again, that tone.

  Gerry hesitated. “If that’s all right with the mayor.”

  Hulke looked at Gerry the way a showbiz manager eyes new talent, with a mixture of hope and despair.

  “By all means, Dr. Thorndike. If you think you have something to say.”

  “Because I have been thinking a lot about the shroud lately.”

  Especially because his wife and family were still on Earth.

  “Then come to the podium, and let’s hear it.”

  With mounting confidence, Gerry rose from his seat and walked to the podium. He was conscious of his size, tall but lanky, six-four, and how his six-four frame couldn’t seem to get the hang of lunar gravity. As he reached the mayor, he smelled alcohol. He shook hands with Hulke.

  The mayor’s hands were cold and moist. “Just give them something to hope for,” he murmured, as if he believed the situation were already lost. “The rationing thing isn’t as good as I’m telling everybody.”

  What he saw in the mayor’s eyes was fear. Okay. So things were worse, a lot worse, if the mayor’s eyes were any indication. Things had reached such impossible levels that they actually had to consult scientists. Gerry turned from the mayor, gripped either side of the lectern, and gazed out at his audience.

  He could see that they were all counting on him, not because he was Gerry Thorndike but because he was Neil Thorndike’s brother; even the showgirls looked as though they had heard of Neil.

  He cleared his throat.

  “The shroud,” he said, immediately slipping into lecture mode, as he had in Jarrell Hall at NCSU. “What is it?” He looked around his audience as if he expected someone to answer him, pausing on purpose to get their attention, then continuing with the obvious follow-ups. “Is it alive? Is it dead? Will all the blooms finally join up and cover the Earth? And if the shroud envelops Earth, will any sunlight get through? Will it let heat through? If it lets heat through, will it trap heat, the way greenhouse gases do on Venus? Will the Tarsalans employ the shroud for a fixed period, or will they allow it to remain in place indefinitely? If it remains in place indefinitely, what will the consequences be—socially, politically, and environmentally?”