Building Harlequin’s Moon by Larry Niven, Brenda Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

where we’ll be tomorrow; tell us what you need us to do.”
    Ali rewarded Rachel with a smile. “It’s beautiful out there, wild and rocky. Empty. I think you’ll like it.”
    They worked without stopping until Apollo set. The students shared a quiet dinner alone, sluiced sweat and dirt away with buckets of cool water they pulled from the irrigation pipes, then ducked into a big shared housing tent nestled in rocks at the end of the field. It was protected from wind and separate from the Earth Born’s camp.
    Rachel twisted and turned, uncomfortably awake for hours. Loud talk and laughter from the Earth Born threaded in and out of her thoughts, and she covered her ears with her arms. The lunch talk was the first time in six weeks of planting she’d heard anything that reminded her of her conversation with her dad about Council the night before she left home. She wished her dad was there to fix her tea, and she wished Gabriel would tell her his plans. Even exhausted, she remained aware of the breath and movement of the others for a long time.
    Harry snored.

    T HE NEXT MORNING all five of them were crammed in the little flier they’d brought out from the grove. A brush-work of saplings dotted the ground below, becoming shorter and newer as they flew over two seasons of work. Then they passed greens and reds of cyanobacteria and molds; signs of regolith being given life. The ground changed to jumbled rocks and sand, streaks of reds and browns and blacks where surface soils mixed unevenly. Small ridges and shallow craters flowed below, everything rock and sand. Rachel had seen pictures and read about the regolith deserts, miles and miles of dead land waiting to be coaxed awake. It was most of Selene, and flying over it, Selene seemed huge. She sat wedged between Harry and Ursula, and had to look past them on either side to get a view.
    They flew above one of the few roads on Selene. Dry, dusty, and rocky, the Sea Road terminated at the edge of the Hammered Sea, a quarter of the way around Selene from where they were now. Back when Aldrin was still tented, Council used the road for big equipment to lay water pipes between the Hammered Sea and Aldrin. Now, Selene’s stable heavy atmosphere encouraged flight; Council designed for it. Mostly unused, the road looked abandoned. Long stretches were still smooth glassy road surface, punctuated with hundreds of feet of sand drifts. Watching carefully, Rachel noticed how the makeup of surface soils affected the amount of drift.
    “Let’s stop for lunch,” Ali suggested.
    Gabriel banked the little plane, looking for a good landing place.
    The cramped cabin filled with a piercing warning whine. Wrist pads chimed and beeped.
    Gabriel leveled the plane and sharply increased speed.
    Ali flicked her data window to a new search and staredat it, mumbling, “We’re lucky we weren’t on the ground.”
    “What is it?” Harry asked.
    “Flare,” Gabriel said.
    “How much time do we have?” Harry’s voice didn’t even quiver.
    Gabriel answered, just as smoothly. “Two hours. We should have heard about it earlier—Astronaut must be slipping.”
    Pain sliced through Rachel’s knee as Ursula’s fingers dug into flesh.
    “We won’t get back,” Harry said.
    “Not to where we came from,” Gabriel replied, then, to Ali, “Closest shelter?”
    “I’m looking.” Ali’s voice was musically, cheerfully sarcastic.
    Rachel felt her breath coming high and fast, closed her eyes, and peeled Ursula’s hand from her knee. Everyone in Aldrin drilled regularly, but Rachel only remembered one other real flare.
    She’d been smaller, just seven. Running with her father, being swung low into a shelter in the center of Aldrin, underground. Pulled by strange hands down into a place she hadn’t even known existed. She remembered struggling to breathe standing against the adults’ legs, until finally she cried out and people shifted, making room for her. She could still hear Frank calling