Analog SFF, May 2006 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors [Authors, Dell Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magazine, 2012
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 2008-07-13T05:08:54+00:00

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6: Time for the StarsTwelve hours of hard labor stripped Outer Nine, and a night of sleep in low-gee left Shanda with only a few muscle twinges. Charles proclaimed himself crippled, but game to help off-load. Instead, they dropped him off at the Wheel and suggested a hot bath.

"Wish I could see them put the field back together," he said.

Working parties from Konigsberg and Takahashi were on their way to Outer Nine. They were going to use harvesters' steam jets to guide the cometary lumps of the field, landing them feet-first. Many of the paddlewheel leaves would be edgewise to the Sun, but would twist about within a couple of days.

"Wouldn't mind seeing that myself," said Latt. "But we got work."

This being the last week before the end of Nerdstrom's semester, there was a rush to get the fields laid by then. They had two crews out every day; Ozzy and Charles usually joined them. The simplest way of getting Ozzy home was to take him three hundred fifty million kilometers to Nerdstrom, and let him ride back to Takahashi Home with his siblings.

Shanda spent the time working on her lesson plan.

"You're not harvesting with us?" Charles asked her.

"No, I have to be ready to start teaching as soon as the next term starts." Nerdstrom's schools and colleges ran three four-month terms per year, and farmers sent their older kids to two out of three of them.

"Oh, I remember you saying that you have to teach to pay back your education grant."

Though Charles and Ozzy seemed to like each other, Shanda noticed that neither allowed the other to get her alone. It was three days before either managed it.

She was at a table in the orchard, deep in the third month of term three, when Ozzy sat down opposite her. Shanda smiled at him, trying not to let her sadness for him show.

"We'll be saying goodbye, soon enough," he said. "At Nerdstrom."

"A week or so, I guess." Most of it in a crowded ship.

"Don't suppose I'll be seeing you again soon."

Shanda's heart beat steadily but there was a pain in her chest. So this is heartache, she thought; she had thought it was a poetic fancy.

Oh, Ozzy. "I'll see you at the fair--that's three months off," she said, and the way his face brightened nearly brought tears.

"Right, yeah, see you then," Ozzy said, too hurriedly. He gave her a brief glance. "Charles is a good guy," he muttered, looking away. "Make some girl a good husband. Be happy to have him as a ... brother-in-law, myself."

"Thank you, Ozzy, I'm ... glad to hear that." She was unable to go on.

"Well, you take care. I'll see you at the fair, then." Ozzy stood hastily and was gone.

Shanda spent the next hour in her room, wiping away tears but not crying. Deep sighing breaths don't count.

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