Up Against It - M. J. Locke [76]
Xuan slipped off his sandals and stepped out onto a deep bed of self-adhering gel-sand (real sand and dirt were impractical for use in microgee; the particles stayed in the air for days, kicking up dust devils and getting into everything). The sand felt good between his toes. He suspected that Jane herself had selected this place. It was one of his favorites: a low-gee, hanging garden, filled with trees and flowering plants suspended in water-tube meshes. The garden’s centerpiece was its aquarium, a clear, four-story, cylindrical tank suspended above an opening in the floor that led to another section of Kukuyoshi.
It was cool here, but not as cold as much of the rest of Zekeston. To Xuan, who spent much of his working life fluctuating between hypothermia and overheating, out in the Big Empty, it felt just right. He drew in a deep breath. The air was rich with smells of plant nutrients and growing things. The fact that it had been selected as living space meant it would be spared, when the rest of Kukuyoshi was shut down.
Esther, Kieu’s eldest, had taken the twins and their toddler toy sapients over to look at the fish. Within the tank swam dog-sized carp: orange, white, and black ones, and every conceivable combination of these three colors. The carp swam upside down, sideways, and every which way—as loopily as the birds and insects flew—occasionally bumping into the clear walls. The water sloshed up in great, lazy waves and broke into blobs that rose high into the air with their captive fish, before sinking back down into the main pillow of liquid. Once in a while a fish broke out into air and flopped around, gasping as they drifted slowly toward the mass of water. He wondered how many fish they lost that way. But who knew? Maybe they were evolving lungs.
The process of cordoning off of this area had begun already, he noted: a series of silken, spiderweblike structures had strung themselves across the open spaces from rows of recently grown assembler jets in the walls. The structures were filling in with translucent membrane panes—as fragile-seeming with their rainbow swirls as soap film—but in reality, he knew, they were strong enough to isolate the air and thermal systems in the areas set aside for human occupation from the rest of Kukuyoshi.
Xuan bounded over and up toward the clan, some distance away and a couple of stories up, among the suspended cherry trees.
“Need a hand?” he asked Kieu and Emil.
“Grab a pole,” Kieu said, and tossed him a bag. He snatched it out of the air, perched on a limb, and began pulling poles out and snapping the segments together.
“Have you seen Jane?” he asked, while they worked.
He had gotten a troubling transmission from their daughter Dominica. She believed that Xuan’s sister Phan Huu-Thanh and her children had been swept up in the latest round of encryptions. It might as well be a death sentence. He had told his siblings, but no one else knew yet. He needed to discuss it with Jane.
“She’s not here yet,” his little sister said. Though Kieu was eighteen years younger than Xuan, she had only begun antiaging treatments recently, and looked about ten years older than he. “It’s not so late. I’m sure she’ll be here shortly.”
The tent went up fast. They tethered it among the cherry trees, shaking loose a blizzard of fragrant blossoms, and then slung the hammocks inside. By the time they had finished, Huynh and Pham also had their tent up and the kids were done securing their belongings. Xuan got Emil’s help with his and Jane’s two-sleeper, while Huynh and Kieu started on dinner.
The four older kids—Esther, Duong, Dinh, and Mai—were playing air