Scott Mackay - Phytosphere

She paused. “I don’t know many scientists.”

“Perhaps you should count yourself lucky.”

“You don’t seem like a scientist.”

He looked away. “No. And sometimes I don’t feel like one, either.”

“Except I can tell you’re the most brilliant man on the Moon right now.”

“And how can you tell that?”

She tightened her grip on his arm. “It’s just something I can tell. This way I have. Ask Ian. He knows. I can tell you have a different way of looking at things than other people.”

“And is that a curse or a blessing?”

She stopped and peered at him more closely. “In your case, I think it’s a blessing.”

He couldn’t say why, but Ian seemed to be made extremely uncomfortable by Stephanie’s friendliness toward him.

A short while later, as Gerry got into a more protracted conversation with Dr. Langstrom about the xenophyta and the flagella, he watched Ian pull Stephanie aside and separate her from the rest of the group. The two lagged behind. He glanced back. Stephanie looked so small next to Ian, her Ossimaxed bones slender; an impossible creature, growing up in this weak gravity as an entirely different species of human, moving with the grace of Peter Pan in Neverland. Tonight, she wore magenta contact lenses, and she reminded him of a cute blue lab mouse. He sensed a mild distress in her, and understood that Ian was a problem for her.

Neil and Dr. Langstrom strolled to a bench, where they sat. Dr. Langstrom suggested that he rather liked “being in the thick of it” again, and Gerry at first couldn’t decide whether this was an appropriate remark or not, considering Earth’s peril, and formed a new notion of the Martian professor—that within his grandfatherly exterior there lurked an immense ego, and that his interest in the xenophyta and flagella wasn’t necessarily about the phytosphere, but more about Dr. Luke Langstrom showing Dr. Gerald Thorndike how smart he could be.

In any case, his true concern was for Ian and Stephanie, as they seemed to be having a real row back by the lake. He couldn’t help wondering if they might be lovers, and if he had inadvertantly been the cause of their quarrel. As the recipient of Stephanie’s overt friendliness, he had to consider the possibility that he might have precipitated a jealous tantrum in Ian. Ian gripped her by the arm, and she tried to pull away.

But he had a tight hold on her. When she looked up at him, he thought she might have been angry, but instead she looked perplexed, as if Ian’s words were now puzzling her greatly. At last he let her go. The others had drifted on ahead. Dr. Langstrom was still talking about the phytosphere and possible ways to destroy it, none of them sounding the least bit plausible to Gerry. Stephanie became subdued, said a few quiet words to Ian, then turned around and walked back up Pisces Road. Ian watched her go, then came toward Gerry.

As his old friend closed the distance, Gerry excused himself—rather abruptly, if Dr. Langstrom’s surprise was any indication—and joined the god of good times.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

Ian looked at him for several moments, apparently fighting to contain a strong emotion. “She’s tired, that’s all. She gets moody if she has too much excitement.”

In the third week of July, Glenda stepped out her back door into the darkness and turned on her flashlight. The beam cut through the gloom and fell in an amorphous circle on the trees at the end of the yard. Nearly half the leaves had fallen; the other half hung limply from their branches.

Her watch said five p.m., and it should have been light, but it was dark, and the darkness was doing something to her. She didn’t feel like Glenda Thorndike anymore. Glenda Thorndike was always bold as brass. But now she felt…perpetually unsettled.

Where the hell was Leigh? She swung her flashlight toward her neighbor’s house. She shook her head.

Was he hiding? Dead? Or had he just gone somewhere, maybe to his folks’ place?

She proceeded across the patio onto the grass. The grass smelled funky and was slippery underfoot. It had rotted, like lettuce in a fridge. She walked to the toolshed and got the spade. With the spade in one hand and the flashlight in the other, she proceeded to the rear of the lot.

The woods looked like something out of a horror movie. Her heart pulsed with fear. She was afraid of bears. They got a few down from Jordan Lake every so often. With the forest dead, would the bears be hungry and come down into Old Hill looking for something to eat? Would a hungry bear consider her fair game?

“Live a day at a time,” she murmured into the dark.

She shone her flashlight at a maple tree. After three weeks without light, the wilted leaves hung like sleeping bats, their green cellulose as pliant as limp balloons, the tree giving up the ghost as it eased into sapless purgatory. One maple might not look so strange—but they were all like that.

She stopped halfway to the woods. Did she want to go in there to get the toy box? She never went into the woods at night. But of course it wasn’t night. It was five o’clock in the afternoon.

She glanced at Leigh’s house once more. God, this darkness. It penetrated her with horrible imaginings.

She gave up on going into the woods and, leaning the spade against the fence, walked over to Leigh’s house. If she knew her neighbor was there, maybe she wouldn’t be so afraid.

His car sat in the drive, hooked to its recharge cell. The blinds on his living room window were drawn and the light was on, but the light had been on like that for the past five days. She was really beginning to think something had happened to him.

She went to the front door. The console scanned her and asked if she were the owner, a guest, or a delivery person.

“It’s Glenda Thorndike.”

She read the screen. Glenda Thorndike: acknowledged. Please wait.

So Leigh was inside? “Leigh?”

She caught movement at the side of house.

Leigh emerged from the bushes. She swung her flashlight in his direction. He carried a rifle. His face was slack, as if the last several days had taken their toll on him.

“It’s you,” he said with obvious relief.

She lowered the flashlight. “I thought you were inside.”

“You’re alone?” He peered past her shoulder. “Where are the kids?”

“In the house.” She motioned at his weapon. “What are you doing with a rifle?”

“Turn off the flashlight.” He cast a nervous glance toward the road. The corners of his lips turned downward and he raised his chin. His eyes narrowed in suspicious perusal of the thoroughfare.

“What’s wrong? Why were you at the side of the house?” She glanced out at the highway. “What are you doing?”

He continued looking at the road. “Just being cautious.”

She turned off her flashlight. “Have you been going to work? Your car’s always in the drive.”

“I’ve been off for a while now. I’m going to weather this thing at home.”

She gave him a hint of her own apprehension. “I just wanted to make sure you were here. I thought something might have happened to you.”

He turned to her. He tried to smile but his expression crumbled, and he looked as if he were going to be physically sick.

“Leigh, what’s wrong?”

“I did something stupid.”

“What?”

He looked away. “I told a couple of guys at work I had a stash.”

“A stash? What kind of stash?”

“Food. Water. Basic supplies.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We were just sitting around talking about the shroud…and how people were preparing for it. And I let it slip.” He shook his head. “I’m a total idiot.”