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1.21

25 November


St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery

South Polar Mineral Territories

Lunar Surface



Callen Hughart reluctantly released Raimy in the morning, in time for him to get suited up and leave on schedule.

“Drink lots of fluids,” he advised sternly, “and get plenty of rest. No joke. You should be in that tube another three days at least.”

Then he hugged Raimy goodbye, and said, “I hope you’ve learned something from your time here.” And then all of the monks were saying goodbye, and it was surprisingly emotional. They’d only known Raimy for a few days, but in close quarters, and with a lot of drama.

“I wish,” H.H. said to him, “for your next investigation to go easier.”

“And I do hope you get to Mars someday,” said Purcell Veloso. “Lord knows you deserve it.”

Last to say goodbye was Michael, who told him, “Outer space requires a degree of self-reliance rarely seen in other environments, but it also lays bare a truth that’s otherwise much concealed: we survive only through a web of mutuality. Without Orlov Petrochemical my brothers and I would be dead in a year. Without Harvest Moon, in a month. Without each other, in a day and a half. This is no less true on Earth, and if you learn nothing else, I hope this at least you’ll carry with you. I’ll bid you farewell, my friend, assured that ‘well’ is exactly how you’ll fare. But do please write letters. Life up here is not always so interesting, and we’ll follow your adventures as closely as your feed permits.”

“Thanks,” Raimy replied, unsure what else to say. “I definitely will.”

Meanwhile, things were awkward with Bridget, who avoided eye contact and barely said twenty words to him all morning. “Hi” and “yes” and “thank you,” and in an unguarded moment when no one else was listening, “The summer before I went away to college was the hottest of my life.” Raimy wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, or what to do with it, and given the situation he wasn’t going to have the privacy to ask her about it for a week at least. Assuming it was even ethical to follow up on that particular lead. He might just let it go.

And of course things were really awkward with Katla who, once stripped to her underwear and enclosed in her spacesuit, had her hands zip-tied together in front of her, and then roped to her ankles with an A-shaped arrangement worked out by Andrei, that would allow her to walk in Lunar gravity.

“You suck balls,” she said to Raimy, more than once. She said it to Andrei, too, and then finally let loose with something like an explanation.

“I loved Anming, you know. You bastards think I didn’t? But there was no way to save him. I loved Etsub, too—he was one of my favorite people. We would have done well at Antilympus. I and he, teammates until we died. It would have been just fine. But I wanted better. For my whole life, for the whole rest of my life. It has to be what I need.”

She paused, then said, to no one in particular, “Oh, don’t give me that look. Like you’re all so much better? You do it, too. We all do. We all make that choice, to live the life we want, not the one that’s handed to us, or we’d all still be in villages full of sheep. That’s what separates—”

“Shut your hole,” Andrei said to her mildly, and then latched her space helmet down, effectively stifling her.

“Radio check,” Bridget said into a headset. “Check, check. Katla, if you can hear me please respond. Roger. Roger that.”

“Get fucked,” Katla said, loudly enough that Raimy could hear it both through Bridget’s earpiece and through Katla’s helmet bubble.

Bridget winced and took the headset off. To Raimy she said, “The network is active.”

“Okay,” he answered. As satisfying as it might be to leave Katla sealed up without a radio, it was too much of a safety risk, and inhumane besides.

“I could go with you,” Andrei said to Raimy, in a tone suggesting otherwise. He was still in his novice’s robe, and looked wholly unprepared to put on a spacesuit.

At that moment, Raimy was pulling his own suit top down over himself, and trying to mate it with the waist ring of the bulky pants. This was surprisingly difficult to do, and, seeing his struggle, both Bridget and Andrei leaned in to help. Bridget held the pants in place, while Raimy pulled the coat down and Andrei worked the rotary latch. Finally, they got it.

“There’s room for you on the ship,” Bridget agreed.

“Yes,” Andrei said, “and Harvest Moon has offered me Anming’s seat, already paid for. All the way back to Earth, if I want. If I dare. But I think I stay. It takes years to become monk, did you know? Many chances to change mind, to back away before making vows. I wait here while heat dies down and people forget about me, and I figure out what I want.”

Raimy reflected on that. He’d never quite thought of Andrei as a genuine suspect, and yet, now that the matter was concluded, he was not quite able to think of him as an innocent, either. Andrei had done a strange and daring thing, and an illegal one by almost any measure. With good reason, yes, but still. How many people, faced with those circumstances, would respond in that way? Could someone that restless really be satisfied by someplace so . . . restful?

“I hope you find your peace,” Raimy told him sincerely.

“And I hope you find yours,” Andrei replied, lowering Raimy’s helmet into place and sealing the latches.



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