Lifeline

Bright stars shone like ice picks through the crystal port above, and light the color of melted butter seeped from banks of lamps at the intersection of the wall and the ceiling. Recorded bird song broke into the air at regular intervals.

As Ramis wandered about, a fountain splashed slow drops through the canopy of green. He saw traces of cleared vegetation, bare spots in the imported soil, furrows that had been scooped deep enough to expose a gash of the metal deck.

The small harvest from the Japanese garden could never sustain Orbitech 1. Even Ramis could see the scope was all wrong—too much food needed in too little time.

Along the periphery swelled several masses of wall-kelp, recently planted and growing well. The thick strands of coarse greenery were reaching up the wall toward the crystal port that allowed sunlight into the atrium. Ramis wondered if the wall-kelp would eventually dominate the other plants in the garden, swallow them up.

He found himself walking by the fountain again. Droplets of water curled from the apex back to the stream, falling in slow motion. He felt serene, quiet and peaceful, as the fear faded back like fluttering wings on the edges of his thoughts. The garden insulated him from the crowds, the horror of the RIF the people had gone through.

His thoughts turned to home, then to Earth, to the place he had lived before coming to the Aguinaldo. His memory of the Philippine Islands grew dimmer with each passing year.

Salita … was he still alive? His last evening with his lanky older brother rose like a ghost to the front of his mind—the Philippine president’s reception at the Hotel Intercontinental for all the departing Aguinaldo colonists, the throngs of people lining Manila’s boulevards. Though he was only ten years old, Ramis had managed to sneak Salita into every whirlwind event. No longer barefoot, dressed in the finest barongs, the two had stayed up most of the night before Ramis left, chatting and drinking San Miguel in their hotel room. Ramis felt tough and mature to have his own room, to drink beer with his brother, to sit and talk with Salita as though they were men.

Salita had squirmed back and forth on the bedspread, mussing it, then running his fingers over the red fabric nubbins. His skin was creamier than Ramis’s, and his brown eyes looked like weak coffee instead of having irises so deep they swallowed the pupils.

Ramis took a long drink of his beer. The inside of his head already seemed to be ringing with a TV test pattern from the alcohol. Salita pocketed the packs of matches in the hotel ashtrays. Ramis took off his stiff, polished dress shoes and thumped them on the floor.

When Salita frowned at the wall, unwilling to look at his younger brother, Ramis could see the angular contours emphasized on his face. For a moment he could clearly see what Salita would look like as an old man.

Ramis said, “I wish you were coming up with us.”

“I do not want to go.” Salita wiped his mouth and cradled the beer bottle between his thighs. “I will be glad to untie myself from our parents. They never loved me much anyway—not like you.”

“You talk like a crazy water buffalo.” Ramis shuffled his bare feet on the carpet, wiggling his toes. Outside the door he could hear rowdy attendants running down the hall. “They let you do what you want, Salita. They do not hover over you. You are free. They will allow you to stay here, and you are only sixteen. I think you must be the special one, not me.”

The expression on his brother’s face didn’t change. Salita stared at the wall. The inactive stereo tank in the corner remained a neutral gray, absorbing all light from the room. “And you, my little brother, would not know a fact if it rose up and bit you on the butt.” He drew moodily on the San Miguel bottle.

They heard more sounds from the celebration below, but Ramis was wrapped up in his own little world. He stretched his hands over his head and yawned, uncertain how to distract his brother from his depression.

“Come on, Salita—finish your beer. I need to sleep.” With the first planeload of colonists leaving for the Australian launch site the following morning, the shouting and merrymaking outside would soon be over as well.

Salita threw back his head and gurgled the remaining beer, but reached into the ice pack for another.

“Salita, I said I’m tired—” Ramis heard a whine in his voice. He had wanted it to sound like a stern reproval.

“Sit down, little one.” Salita motioned with his new beer, and Ramis dropped back to the floor with a scowl. Salita took a pull on the bottle before speaking. Ramis had to lean forward to hear his words.

“You are tough, Ramis, and I am proud of you. But sometimes you do not look at what is right in front of your face. People will think you are stupid if you fail to notice the obvious. I was your age when I realized why I was always treated so coldly at home. Just look at me!”