Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

seat, Rikki called, “I’m ready to switch places
again.”
“I’m ready for lunch,” he countered, abusing
the meanings of both ready and lunch.
Antonio had abandoned his tractor to handpick
specimens from a nearby gravel deposit.
He had been gathering rocks, everywhere he
went, since the onset of spring.
Blake had not asked why, lacking the energy
for another of the esoteric circumlocutions
that with Antonio too often passed for an explanation.
An answer might start with the Big
Bang.
“Join us for lunch?” Blake shouted, gesturing
at the bobbing pontoon bridge that linked
the delta to the shore.
Antonio looked up, not quite in Blake’s direction.
“No thanks. I’ve got things to do.”
“What’s with the rocks?” Rikki called.
“You’ll be sorry you asked,” Blake said sotto
voce.
But all Antonio offered, with his attention
already returned to his collecting, was, “I
don’t have postage stamps. Or . . . blueberries.”
Through the colony’s array of safety cameras,
Li watched the peasants traipsing home
from their day’s toil. She never called them
peasants, not aloud, but how else did one describe
those bound to the land to feed and
serve their master?
She never called herself their master, either.
It sufficed that at a subconscious level they
knew. And anyway, she preferred Dark Empress.
It had a certain cachet.
Above the two-tractor caravan, the sky had
turned foreboding. Then the clouds opened
up and rain spoiled her view. She had to imagine
them wet, muddy, and miserable.
Well, the phosphate mines in the asteroid
belt were dry enough.
She could almost envy Carlos and Dana. Li
would kill for a change of scenery, not to mention
a break from this oppressive gravity. Appearing
indispensable had its price.
The caravan neared the edge of the settlement
proper, the garage’s overhead door
creeping upward at a radioed command. That
was Li’s cue that someone, if not all three,
would swing by soon to visit the children.
Li closed her office door behind her. Whoever
came would find her, brow furrowed,
DARK SECRET
JUNE 2013
shoulders slumped, expression sad, examining
one of the babies.
Chapter 28
Rikki lie bonelessly, eyes closed, head
tipped back against the rim of the whirlpool
tub, as the hot pulsing jets massaged away
knots in her back, arms, and legs. Water and
electricity, if little else, they had in abundance.
She let the fizzing water buoy her, let it persuade
her, that for a few minutes, anyway,
gravity’s cruel dominion had been overthrown.
After hard labor from dawn to dusk, it
wasn’t a bad way to end the day.
Blake said, “You look like you’re only sleeping.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m going to get out now.”
His voice rose in pitch, just a little, at the
end of the announcement. Asking, without
asking, “Unless you want to fool around?”
“I’ll be along in a while,” she said.
Eyes still closed, Rikki felt and heard the water
slosh as he climbed from the sunken tub.
Faint but brisk, she heard the whisper of fabric
against skin as he toweled off, and the slapslap
of bare feet on the concrete floor as he
padded from the bathroom.
Then she opened her eyes.
Part of her even wanted sex: for the closeness
to Blake. To know he still found her desirable,
no matter that this godforsaken rock
had turned her into a muscle-bound Amazon.
To exorcise some of her pent-up anger.
And that anger was why most of her didn’t.
Couldn’t. Because what she truly craved, the
ache more insistent with each passing day,
was the feel of a child growing inside her.
A host of med nanites would not allow that
to happen. And Li would not permit that to
change. “For your own good,” Rikki mimicked.
“What’s that?” Blake called from the bedroom.
“Sorry. Talking to myself again.”
“It’s about time we head out for dinner,” he
said.
“Thanks.” She permitted herself several seconds
more buoyant relief. “Okay, I’m getting
out.”
He stuck his head through the doorway
with a comically exaggerated leer.
“Maybe later,” she said.
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