For the next few days the large, red disc of Mars filled the clade with red light that seemed to fill every nook and cranny. I turned to look back towards Earth, trying to find the tiny blue dot, but all I could find was the distant sun.
“It’s like the damn arctic here,” Jessica said from behind me. I jumped. She slipped around the corner of a nearby yurt and glanced upwards. “I hadn’t thought about the fact that day and night wouldn’t be around, here in space. I miss the regular feel of it. I wonder if the aliens in charge here can turn on some kind of nights and days for us.”
“Maybe the others know. The ship said it was showing us planets on the way out of the system, like for tourists. Maybe the clade will change behavior after we leave the solar system.” I looked down the hill at the organic-looking bubbly buildings that ran along the river. We’d all spent the last two days moving luggage to the crude wooden building at the center and putting food in shelves. Mimir followed me around, but usually seemed content with lounging around the inside of the yurt as much as possible.
“Are you scared?” Jessica asked, changing the subject.
“Scared? Of what?”
Jessica nodded at the yurts. “Mr. and Mrs. Captain America in there.”
I looked down at the ground. She was trying to figure out where I stood. “I don’t know. Alan… he thinks the things we’ll find here will change the world.”
“If they can figure out how those earbuds that translate everything work, they’re probably not wrong.”
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t want to cause myself any trouble, I was trying to find a middle path in case Jessica reported back anything I said. Though, I didn’t think anyone dressing in that much black and using that much eyeliner was going to rat me out. “But what if the All Tree doesn’t want to easily give up its secrets?”
Jessica looked around, then lowered her voice. “Look, the bubble buildings? They call it Riverbend. Alex told me that. He snuck out last night. You should go check things out. It’s very different over there.”
I shook my head. “They promised me I could use their device to talk to my parents again, make sure they’re okay. I’m not going to cause any trouble. I’ve caused enough trouble recently, I need to keep my head right.” And I glanced over at Mimir, who still slipped around the camp. The ravid, or whatever he was, didn’t seem to have minded being booted out. It mainly just followed me around whenever I stepped out of the tent.
Maybe Alan was right.
But then again, Mimir had seemed to protect me when Alan jumped at me. So whatever Mimir was, it had done me no harm.
I got a pitying look full of dark mascara on super-pale skin. “They have you by the short ones, don’t they?”
“What short ones?”
“Your pubes, idiot. Where it hurts?”
“Yeah, they got me by the pubes,” I muttered. “They got all of us by them pubes. All of us all penned up here.”
Jessica snorted. “Only if you give a crap about your parents.”
“You’re still here,” I pointed out.
“For now,” she smirked. “Besides, what makes you think they’ll actually let you talk to your parents? It’s a big carrot. They’re going to hold it out in front of you as much as possible. They’re going to try and see how many days you can have it dangled in front of you.”
“They wouldn’t,” I protested.
A giant earthquake rocked the entire clade. Jessica and I both ducked, then looked around.
“Look up,” I told her, and pointed. The clear top of the Clade shivered and rippled. It looked like what you see when a pebble struck water. Ripples of the clear ceiling structure moved out in massive waves from a dent near the top of the Clade’s ceiling.
Jessica grabbed my collar. “Get inside. We hit something.”
“The odds…” I began, then stopped as Jessica gave me a withering look.
“I am not an idiot,” she snapped. “I know the asteroid belt is mostly empty space, not some cluster of rocks bumping off each other.”
“If you’re not an idiot, then you also know hiding in a yurt won’t save us,” I said, pulled away from her and continuing to look up.
Pieces of the clear ceiling overhead shattered as the second large ripple passed overhead. What looked like a massive slab of giant plastic shard fell toward the hilltop camp.