Josh Roseman: The Clockwork Russian and Other Stories

“I’m going below,” William says after a long moment. “The repair crews are going to need coffee.”

Andie nods, but doesn’t look at William. He goes down to the cargo bay, where the crews for this quadrant of the colony will come together and receive their assignments. William hears the supercargo complaining about the damage the main door will suffer from all the cars and trucks driving over it, but everyone — including the supercargo — knows that being attacked is a part of life, especially if they’re searching for water. After all, William’s not the only meteorologist on the continent, and if he can find a storm, so can others.

The colony fights off a band of raiders in small, fast boats — and destroys half of them — but isn’t bothered for the rest of the week. At night they go faster, but every other day the ships slow down, the solar collectors they plundered from a city in what used to be Arizona recharging as many batteries as possible. William still remembers when the colony laid siege to the city, forcing them to give up the collectors and threatening the families of the engineers: come with us and make the collectors work on our ships, or we’ll kill the people you love.

It hadn’t been the colony’s finest day, but even William had realized the necessity of alternate forms of fuel. Nomadic colonies were more likely to survive because they could go and find resources they needed, but the unfortunate tradeoff was that they needed resources to be nomadic. The solar collectors solved many of their problems. Plus, William knows, with water as precious as it is now, being able to find it and get to it is safer for everyone; bringing the colony to the water means no one gets ambushed bringing it back.

In thirty years with the colony, William has been part of more than one ambush party, stealing water to survive. He much prefers using his computer models to find water and bring the colony to it.

“We’ll be there in a couple of hours,” he tells Rina. She hasn’t responded in seven years. “This will be a big one, the biggest since… well, probably since I lost you.” A photograph of her smiling face looks up at him from the desk in his cabin. “You’d have loved it, Rina. Lightning, torrential downpours, the works. Nothing’s actually pointing in this direction — the apprentices all say it’ll be near Lake Michigan.” Or what’s left of it, he amends mentally; there hasn’t been more than sludge and debris there since the Event, since the planet was blasted for two days by radiation and heat from a solar storm no scientist predicted. It had killed almost three-quarters of the population and left most surface water undrinkable. Climate change had done the rest.

“The hydrology crews have the collectors ready to deploy, and the container ships have been scrubbed. Finally we’ll have water that doesn’t taste like metal. And we’ll all get to bathe.”

Rina’s smiling face doesn’t change, even when William strokes the surface of the photograph. He remembers the rain that came in their first year together, right after they were married; they’d joined hundreds of others, stripping off their clothes and exulting in the cool water misting down from the sky. He’s found the colony bigger storms since, but that type of rain — there are maybe four storms like it each year, and William usually gets them in range of one, sometimes two — makes his heart grow warm.

William is an expert at finding rain, but Rina had been something special; when Rina found a storm, it was always a monster, washing away months — sometimes years — of accumulated dust and sand and dirt, filling the container ships almost to capacity, and giving everyone hope that maybe this time things will be different, that maybe this time the weather has finally changed for the better.

It never does. It never will. William knows that, and, deep down, so does everyone else.

William’s comm rings. He touches the photo again, puts it back in the little box in his top drawer before answering.

“Come up to the bridge.” It’s Andie. “The Commodore needs to speak to you.”

Andie uses her influence to be assigned to the contact team; she’s driving the white van, William seated beside her. Two security guards are in the back row of seats, and in the middle, controlling the main gun, is a wiry young man, probably on his first mission.

In the side-view mirror, William sees the ships of the colony grow smaller. Repeater screens show the approximate location of the other colony and, up ahead, the single vehicle the Commodore negotiated for them to meet. It’s a dirty red truck, bigger than their van but less aerodynamic; William’s seen a few like it in Demetrius, mostly used for transporting groups or medium-sized cargo. It could probably hold a dozen soldiers, though the scanner reads only five heat signatures. “Looks like they’re holding to the agreement,” he tells Andie. Then, to the gunner, “what do you see, Paolo?”

“One cannon,” he says, his voice through the door-mounted speakers a little quavery — definitely his first mission. “And, I think, two submachine guns as well.”

“Stay locked onto their gunner, Mr. Ruiz. If this turns bad, I don’t want them shooting up our asses.”

“Yes, Commander.”

William hears the gears of the gun moving as Paolo takes aim. “I think they just want to talk, Andie,” he says. He wants to reach for her hand, resting on the shifter, so invitingly close, but the two guards don’t need to know they’re more than shipmates, more than colleagues.

She makes a derisive noise. “You’re our best meteorologist. You found a storm that’s not supposed to be here, that there aren’t any signs of. But the Jairasu are here anyway.”

The implications of that name are heavy in the air, especially for William. “I never told the Commodore — or anyone else — that I was the only one who could find the storm,” he says. “And anyone who can program a computer can, with enough time, learn to read the data like I can.”

“We need this storm, Lieutenant,” Andie snaps. There’s nothing in her voice to indicate that she was ever more than his commanding officer. That hurts, but he has to let it go. She’s in command mode now.

The van coasts to a stop; Andie leaves the engine running. The guards open the side doors and jump out, weapons pointed at the ground. Two soldiers — one with a shotgun, the other holding two pistols — step out of the red truck. Andie nods to William and touches his shoulder; he turns to her and sees the worry in her face and he wants to hold her, to tell her it’ll be all right. Instead he follows her lead, disembarking from the van. It’s been a long time since he’s stood on ground that isn’t moving; he forces himself not to sway, not to show weakness.

The front doors of the truck swing open and two more people step out. The passenger has two pistols in his belt, grips forward for a cross-draw, but it’s the driver who grabs William’s attention.

“Rina?”

Rina’s bright-blue eyes are chips of stone in her dark face. Her hair is cut close to her head, bare arms more muscular, body leaner than before.

William, for his part, can barely move. He’s staring at Rina’s smile, at bright-white teeth bared in an expression not even close to friendly. She takes in the rank stripes on his shoulder. “Still a Lieutenant?” Her words lilt, voice musical. “And who is this?”

“Commander Andie Shepherd,” she says. “You called this meeting. Why?”

When Rina looks to Andie, William finds himself able to breathe again. He tries not to gasp in the dry, dirty air. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to be alive : seven years ago, Rina was on patrol duty when the colony was attacked by the Jairasu , a converted luxury liner with eight overweaponed gunships zipping around it in formation. Demetrius turned and ran, pursued by three Jairasu ships; one of the colony’s gunships was obliterated before they made their escape. No colony William knows of, including his own, has ever been strong enough to take on the Jairasu.