Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

The domain master asked, “Can Lamra bud again, Sarah?” She blinked. He did have a girl for the telling question, and she hadn’t looked ahead in that particular direction. She gave him the only answer she could. “Not know, Reatur.”

“Only a thought.” He shrugged a Minervan shrug, with arms and eyestalks. “Even if so, I wonder if I should risk her again without you humans here to help care for her. But I like the idea of more budlings from her, could they be got in safety.”

“Not know, Reatur,” Sarah repeated. With a last bow, she went on, “Must go back to flying house now, to help get ready to go home.” She almost hoped Reatur would want to talk more. It was freezing inside the castle, but it was freezing and windy outside. But the domain master waved her on. Sighing, she fixed her hood so only her eyes showed, then trudged out into the latest blizzard.

The small sun shone bravely in the green-blue sky, glittering off endless miles of snow. The snow fell on Athena, no less than on the ground. Irv Levitt, who was sweeping it off the spacecraft’s left wing, leaned on his pushbroom and asked, “How long do they think the weather will hold?”

“Two days,” Emmett said. “Which means our next launch window to rendezvous with the rocket motors upstairs is this afternoon. I intend to use it. We’re early, but-”

“Yeah,” Irv said. He understood that “but” perfectly well. Another storm like the last one, and Athena wouldn’t just be covered with snow. It would be buried in snow-not ideal circumstances for liftoff.

He started sweeping again. His answer had been short for another reason, too: he still wasn’t anywhere near comfortable around Emmett. It would have been a lot worse, he knew, had Sarah seemed to want a return engagement with the mission commander. As far as he could tell-how far was that? a question often in his mind-she didn’t. He kept his distance from Emmett, anyhow.

How well that would work once Athena was in space was another question. Everybody would be in everybody else’s pockets again, and everybody, as he knew only too well, had good reason to be angry at somebody. They were all supposed to be very civilized people. He hoped the psych tests were right, because they were going to need to be very civilized, at least till they got home.

From the other wing, Pat called, “Done here.”

“Good,” Emmett said. He peered through snow goggles toward Athena’s tail, where Sarah and Louise were also busy with brooms. “Now we’re getting down to what the deicers can handle.”

Irv saw the pilot glance his way but kept on pushing his broom. No, he thought, he was wrong: poor Pat didn’t have a reason to be angry at anyone, except the Russians or the Skarmer or whoever had killed Frank. But, thanks to him, Sarah had plenty of reason to be mad at her, which amounted to the same thing.

One of the better reasons for monogamy that nobody ever talked about, he thought as he shoved snow off the wing, was how bloody complicated everything else got.

When he looked up again, the wing was clean. Sarah and Louise, brooms shouldered like rifles, were marching in step up Athena’s fuselage, laughing as they came. If Louise knew what he knew… Oh, shut up, he told himself fiercely. For a wonder, the internal dialogue did.

“Let’s button this bird up,” Emmett said. He waved the rest of them into Athena ahead of him. Irv was stowing his brooms when the airlock doors clanged shut, first the outer, then the inner. He had heard those clangs hundreds of times, but this time they were special. The doors would not open again, not on Minerva.

The crew trooped forward, into the control cabin. The seat Irv had used for months was again, suddenly, an acceleration couch in his mind. “At least we’re used to gravity this time,” he said. “Taking off won’t be the hideous shock landing was.”

“Shall we call the Russians and tell ‘era goodbye?” Emmett said. He was not looking for an answer; he had already picked up the microphone. “Athena calling Tsiolkovsky, Athena calling”

“Tsiolkovsky here, Rustaveli speaking.”

Bragg switched to Russian. “Zdrast’ye, Shota Mikheilovich. Could you patch me through to Colonel Tolmasov? We are lifting off this afternoon; I want to pass on my respects before we go.”

“So you give us the honor of staying longer on Minerva than you, eh?” Rustaveli paused, perhaps to think of more English words, perhaps merely to set up his reply. “You may as well; the only thing anyone will remember is that you landed first.”

Bragg grinned. “Is that a kind thing to say?”

“No, only a true one. Do you deny it?” Rustaveli said. A moment later, he added in a different tone, “I have Colonel Tolmasov. Go ahead.”

“Sergei Konstantinovich?”

“Good day, Brigadier Bragg. What can I do for you?” As usual, Tolmasov’s English was excellent but bloodless.

“Not a thing, thank you. This is just a call to let you know we are lifting off this afternoon.”

“Are you?” Surprise brought a bit of life to the Russian pilot’s voice.

“Snow,” Bragg said simply.

“Ah, yes, quite. The hills south of Hogram’s domain have thus far shielded us from the worst of it, but I do not think that will last much longer here, either. The best of luck to you, Brigadier. I expect we shall have a good deal to say to each other, when we finally meet back on Earth.”

“I expect we will.” Bragg hesitated, went on. “Better to meet on account of this than in our planes, eh, Sergei Konstantinovich?”

“Yes,” Tolmasov said at once. “And yet-”

“-you’d like to fly against me, anyhow. Da, you’re a pilot.”

Back where Emmett couldn’t see him, Irv shook his head. Bragg and Tolmasov reminded him of a couple of big cats roaring at each other across a moat.

After Emmett signed off with Tolmasov, he turned that tigerish tone on his own crew. “All right, people, now we check this beast one more time, the standard preflight and everything else we can think of.”

They did. When at last they were through, the pilot sounded almost disappointed as he said, “Looks green. Let’s do it.”

“Initiate turbojet sequence?” Louise asked crisply.

“Initiate,” Emmett said. Her finger stabbed a button. For a moment, nothing happened. Irv glanced at the boards for red lights, saw none. Then, through the thick padding of his seat, he felt vibration begin; muted thunder spoke from Athena’s engines.

Outside the spacecraft, he knew, the thunder would be anything but muted. “I hope Reatur has everyone well back, the way he promised,” he said.

“If they weren’t a minute ago, I guarandamntee you they are now,” Sarah said. Irv nodded, at the same time wondering, Guarandamntee? It sounded more like Emmett than his wife. But what if it did? After two years cooped up like this, everyone’s habits rubbed off on everyone else. You worry too much, he told himself, and worried some more.

“Power buildup?” Emmett asked. He was watching the readouts as closely as Louise, but was too conscientious a pilot not to follow routine.

“Nominal,” she answered, going through the ritual with him. The thunder grew. “Thrust optimum for taxiing,” Louise declared. Emmett shoved the stick forward. Irv had just started to wonder if the landing gear deicers were doing their job when he saw the landscape start to slide backward in the monitor and felt the soft, irregular bumps that said Athena wasn’t taking off from one of Houston’s glass-smooth runways. Kicked up snow made the VIEW AFT screen a meaningless white blur.

The snow ahead hid surprises, too. Far from being soft, one of the bumps made Irv’s teeth click together. The whole spacecraft shuddered. “Come on now,” Emmett said, as if gentling a restive horse. Like a horse responding to its rider, Athena leapt ahead, leapt “Airborne!” Emmett yelled.