Cibola Burn

“Oh good. What are you talking about? Why would his anti-cancer meds work on something from a different biosphere?”

“It means there’s a Dawkinsian good move down around cell division somewhere.”

“That’s one of those xenobiology things, isn’t it? Because I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.”

Elvi patted her hands in the air. The pleasure running through her blood felt like being carried by light.

“I told you about this,” she said, “that there are good moves – maybe even forced moves – in design space because we see things that show up again and again all through different branches of the tree of life.”

“Right,” Fayez said. “Which is why we can come to New Terra and find things that have eyes and stuff.”

“Because bounced light has a lot of information in it, and organisms with that information do better.”

“Preaching to the choir, Elvi.”

“But that’s not the good part. Holden’s on medications that selectively address fast-dividing tissues. Skippy’s a fast-dividing tissue.”

“Who’s Skippy?”

“The organism. Focus here. That the onococidals work against it means there’s something like flight or sense organs near the mouth that’s going on at the level of cell division. Even though the proteins are totally different, the solutions they’re coming up with are analogous. That’s the biggest thing since we came here. This is huge. Where’s my hand terminal? I have to tell the team on Luna. They’re going to lose their minds.”

She moved forward too quickly, stumbling into Fayez. He pressed the terminal into her hands. She sat beside him.

“Are you bouncing up and down?” he asked. “Because you sound like you’re bouncing.”

“This is the most important thing that’s happened to me in my life,” she said. “I’m floating.”

“So this means we can treat the eye thing, right?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, probably. It’s not like oncocidals are hard to synthesize. Just most of us don’t need a constant course the way Holden does.”

“You are the only woman I have ever known who would figure out how to keep a bunch of starving refugees including herself from going blind and be excited because it means something about microbiology.”

“You should get out more. Meet people,” Elvi said, but she felt a little pull of guilt. She probably should try to get people treated before she started talking to the team on Luna. It was still just a hypothesis anyway. She didn’t have any data yet. “Connection request Murtry.”

Her hand terminal chimed that it was working. A gust of wind made the plastic window flutter. It sounded a little different than usual, and the constantly falling rain sounded louder. She wondered if the sheeting might be coming unsealed. There could be death-slugs creeping around the room and she wouldn’t have known. Wouldn’t have seen them. Something else she’d have to ask Holden to check. The double-tone of connection refused made her grunt.

“Who’s working on the drops?” she asked.

“Upstairs? Um. Havelock, I think.”

“Connection request Havelock.”

The hand terminal made a single chime and then stopped. She wasn’t sure if it had gone through or failed.

“Mister Havelock? Are you there?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s not a good time, Doctor.”

“You’re coordinating the drops? I need to see if we can get —”

“Is this something where people are going to die if I don’t fix it in the next five minutes?”

“Five minutes?” she said. “No.”

“Then it’s going to have to wait.” The hand terminal made the falling tone of a dropped connection.

“Well, that was fucking rude,” Fayez said.

“He probably has something else going on,” she said.

“We’re all under a little stress here. Doesn’t mean he has to be a dick about it.”

Elvi lifted her eyebrows and nodded, knowing as she did that he couldn’t see her. “Connection request Holden.”

The tones cycled until she was afraid he wouldn’t answer either. When he did, his voice sounded terrible. Like he was drunk or sick. “Elvi. What’s the matter?”

“Hi,” she said. “I don’t know if you’re busy right now, and you’re not really responsible for getting supplies to us, but if you have a minute, I’d like to —”

Fayez shouted, interrupting her. “She knows how to make us not blind.”

There was a pause. Holden grunted. She imagined it was the effort of standing up. “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

“Bring Lucia,” Elvi said. “If you can find her.”

“Is Murtry going to be there?”

“He’s not answering my connection requests.”

“Hmm,” Holden said. “That’s good. I don’t think he’s happy with me right now.”

~

Lucia sat at Elvi’s side, holding her hand. It should have felt like an intimacy, but in context, it only seemed to indicate that she was giving Elvi her full attention. A physical analog to eye contact. Holden was pacing around the room, his footsteps sticky-sounding with the mud.

When she was done, Lucia made a ticking sound with her tongue and teeth. “I don’t know how we’d manage dosages. I don’t want to give people so little that it doesn’t have an effect.”