CHAPTER FOUR
Cesar awakens later to darkness and distant laughter. Many orbitals synchronize their rotation with Earth so that they have the same light-dark cycles as wherever they are originally from. He knows Ithaca is parked above the Gulf of Mexico.
Cesar also knows that from the Earth below, Ithaca twinkles like a star. A belligerent star that made it clear long ago that it wants nothing to do with the Earth.
He lies in bed listening for a few minutes. Soft music and conversation drift in from the main house. Cesar estimates a large party, maybe fifty or sixty people. He decides to investigate and looks for his pants and boots. He finds them cleaned and piled neatly next to the bed. After a few wobbly steps, he’s happy to find some of his strength returning.
Cesar keeps to the shadows, wishing only to observe.
There are a few women but it is mostly men. The women are dressed well, for a party, but not extravagantly. He sees Argos making his way through the crowd with a mop and a bucket and can’t help but smile. He should have known.
If there is one rotten board of Ithaca ranch still standing, Argos will still be here. Argos is a few years older than Cesar himself. The man started working on the ranch as a teenager when Cesar was barely big enough to sit on a donkey. They had some wild times before Cesar left.
Argos was loyal to a fault, but not exactly genius material. If Cesar wants to keep his identity a secret, he needn’t fear of Argos catching him out.
Then Cesar catches sight of Penelope, shining like a jewel. He admires her from afar. She is still the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Well, maybe not the most beautiful, but definitely the one he likes looking at the most. She is on the arm of a very elegant man, a man without gray in his hair or a hitch in his step, Cesar notes jealously.
Of course she remarried, he thinks.
Such a woman would not be left alone, especially up here, out in the dark. Women are still scarce, particularly rich and beautiful women who know their way around a shotgun.
Penelope laughs graciously at something the elegant man tells her, then excuses herself to enter the house. Cesar has strategically positioned himself behind a very large rosemary bush. He is far from the crowd, but now he spots two men walking towards him from the back of the house. They stop on the other side of the bush.
They discuss who they think will win the upcoming Nullball tournament, oblivious to Cesar’s presence.
This year’s tournament will be held on Ithaca for the first time. Nullball is basically an adaptation of American football or rugby except it is played in freefall wearing spacesuits with tethers.
Nullball started out as a training exercise played in the null gravity cargo holds of the orbitals. It was designed to help people become comfortable moving in spacesuits and using tethers so they would make fewer mistakes when they were in void space where every misstep can be deadly.
It evolved into a fast-paced high-impact game that both Spacers and Earthers follow enthusiastically. One of the men on the other side of the bush favors Ithaca, but the second says it will be one of the larger colonies clustered in the Lagrange points or else the Hathor Miners. After that conversation dries up, they switch to a subject that Cesar finds much more interesting.
“So all of these men are here to court the famous widow?” the first man asks with amusement. He sounds young but with a gravely voice. Cesar can see neither of them clearly from his side of the bush.
“In a way,” the second voice replies ponderously. “But they have been going on for over six years, these ‘courting’ parties. Every week. There are even more people here since the sabotage attempts. Have you heard about that? Yes? Well, even with that, the widow seems in no great hurry to choose. Some say she still waits for her ‘war hero’ husband to return, though he must be long dead.”
This second voice sounds older and has a trace of an accent Cesar can’t place. He smells cigarette smoke. Smoking is very uncommon in the orbitals. It was impractical and dangerous in the first tiny colonies with their unreliable air scrubbers. Even now, on a large colony like Ithaca, too many respected the importance of clean air or at least respected that fact that most of their neighbors found smoking extremely offensive. Which is probably why these two snuck out of the party to indulge.
The first voice comments, “She is a beauty, but beauty alone cannot account for so many men here. Most of them are not from this colony, either. What other charms does she possess to inspire so many to make the voyage here?”
“The most charming thing of all—money.” The older man laughs. “That little woman in there is one of the richest Spacers you will ever meet. Definitely one of the most powerful.”
The younger man objects, “But I keep up with Orbie politics. She is not part of them. She is hardly mentioned.”
The young voice must be an Earther. Cesar is surprised. Few Earthers came up, even ten years after the War ended. He must have arrived on the same transport ship Cesar did, though he didn’t look familiar. Not surprising as Cesar was surly and sick for the trip so he kept to himself.
“You need to remember that Spacers don’t like being called Orbies any more than you like being called a dirt-humping bastard, son,” the older man says sharply.
Then more gently, “No, the lady does not actively play politics, but you can bet all the politicians jump when she sends an Ether wave. She’s a separatist, one of the powerful ones. Many on Ithaca are interested in getting hooked back into the world Ether, but she fights it every time it is proposed. They only get short wave from the Spacer Ether here. Daily news downloads, if you can imagine anything so provincial. But she has large quantities of the one thing every orbital needs eventually and since we refuse to get it from Earth, she gets to do want she wants, even live on this absurd ranch.”
“Really? But she doesn’t even own this colony.”
The second man laughs, “She doesn’t have to. She owns the only herd of cows in space. Even for Earth, her herd would be large. This colony is the only one really designed or equipped to handle a large herd. So we all seek to either buy her out or marry her. So far, she’s choosing neither.”
Cesar can hear the older man carefully grinding his cigarette out.
The younger man says, “Well, we had the steaks for dinner. They do taste fantastic, but I had no idea you Spacers were such carnivores.”
The he moves towards the house enough for Cesar to see him. He is tall and thin, dressed in the height of Earther fashion with a complicated scarf wrapped around his throat and long flowing locks.
The older man puts a hand on the younger man’s shoulder to stop him. With his other hand, he pulls a flask out of a pocket and offers it to the younger man who enthusiastically agrees.
Wincing from the bite of the liquor, the older man rasps, “Son, it’s not just the meat. It’s the milk and cheese. Practically half of this colony is devoted to making cheese. Fully a quarter of Ithaca’s core is devoted to curing leather. She can ask any price she wants for a hamburger or a block of cheese and we all line up to pay. That bowl of cheese dip on the kitchen table in there would cost a year’s salary in some of the outer colonies.”
The younger man laughs, “Of course. He who controls the tasty tidbits controls the world. It’s a concept that kept my family alive through the Worlder Wars. People might cry for their lost art, but they’ll fling themselves on a live grenade for the man who can make chocolate so divine it makes you believe in God again.”
The Worlder Wars, that time when it seemed the Earthers would kill themselves off trying to kill their neighbors, came just before the Spacer War.
Now the older man moves into view. Cesar takes in the leather boots and the hint of a belly that the man’s well-cut jacket almost hides. The man must be from some prosperous colony to flaunt his wealth this way. After the Spacer War, there were enough rumors of cannibalism on the more desperate colonies to keep most people from looking like they had fat to spare.
The older man shakes his head. “That may be true, but her true power is manure. Not to put to fine a point on it, but most colonies are so poor, they have to import shit.”
“Oh, please,” protests the younger man, looking mildly offended at the topic.
The older man seems unfazed as he takes another swig. “Manure is the best way to replenish the soil’s nutrients and keep the biosphere running smooth. If you are too broke to sustain herbivores, you got to get manure from somewhere and this right here is it. The widow Vaquero is the finest purveyor of crap in the spheres.”
The older man stomps the dirt for emphasis.
The younger man looks shocked. He runs a hand through his hair and shrugs. “Well, I can see it. The whole Orbie nation is crap, so why shouldn’t Madam Vaquero be the Queen of Crap? You would think she’d change her name, though. After what her husband did.”
Cesar winces. He wondered that himself. Truth be told, he allowed a tiny flame of hope to flicker in his heart when he heard they still used his name. If she didn’t reject his name, maybe some day she’d forgive him? Probably not, but it still gave him hope.
The old man laughs as he stows his flask in a jacket pocket. “Ah, you don’t know her. That woman would find more ways to fling her husband’s atrocities in your face if she could, just to see you squirm. She’s a hard one, God love her.”
Cesar remembers his pet name for Penelope when they first married. He’d called her “kitten.” How could his kitten be the woman these men knew?
“Perhaps I myself can charm her in to hurrying her decision,” the younger voice laughs as they return to the house.
“I wouldn’t wish that fate on you, but don’t let that stop your trying,” returns the older man.
“Maybe with all the trouble this colony has had lately, she’ll actually think about selling out.”
Cesar catches no more of their conversation.
She’s not married.
He is ridiculously pleased by that fact.
“But there’s no way she stays single pining for my sorry self,” Cesar tells himself, trying to shake the optimistic little daydream of reconciliation out of his head.
He remembers their parting and the angry words she’d said. Perhaps after marrying a worthless specimen like himself, she decided that getting another man in her life just wasn’t worth the hassle? He can certainly understand that.
Cesar quietly returns to his room in the bunkhouse to try sleeping. He tells himself that he will leave this place as soon as he is better. Obviously, Penelope and Trevor are doing just fine without him. Telling the boy that his father has been alive all this time will only cause them pain.
On the other hand, there is something not quite right about that party, something a little ominous. And what was all this about sabotage attempts and trouble in the colony?
Perhaps he better stick around a little while to make sure Penelope and Trevor are all right? Cesar knows that what he really wants to do is stay right here and watch his wife and son greedily, like a housewife obsessed with her favorite Ether reality show. He is glad for any excuse to indulge that desire.
Much later in the night, Cesar hears doors shutting and the bustle of people going to bed after the party. He hears whispering voices, mostly women but a few men. He works so hard to keep himself from wondering if some man is spending the night with Penelope that he doesn’t sleep a wink.