Archangel Down. by C. Gockel

Author:C. Gockel [Gockel, C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C. Gockel

Noa caressed the tiny hologlobe she’d found on the end table next to the couch. It fit easily in her palm and her fingers left streaks in the dusty surface. Light flickered from within the globe. James re-entered the room, bowls of soup in hand, and Carl Sagan followed in his wake. Perhaps enchanted by the fragrance of the soup, the werfle’s bewhiskered nose twitched as he sniffed.

“That looks to be old,” James said as the picture in the hologlobe emerged like a scene rising out of fog. It was one of the old globes that only had one holo in them, too. You could tell by the way the colors were muted. “What is it?” James asked.

Noa shook her head and put it on the coffee table in front of the couch, her mouth watering at the smell of soup.

As she took her first slurp, the sound in the globe crackled. “I met Jun at a transport station in Nigeria.” The ‘smoke’ in the globe solidified and a man and woman appeared. The man looked East Asian; the woman was African in appearance with skin as dark as Noa’s. She wore a Japanese yukata, but the bright yellow, blue, and geometric-patterned garment appeared to be cut from traditional Nigerian cloth. They both had sparkling augments in their temples smaller than modern ones, without all the external drives for app insertion.

Noa smiled. “That’s my great-great-great grandmother and grandfather! Eliza never knew them.” Her head tilted. “I wonder why Eliza has this?”

Noa traced the phantom figure of the man in the holo with a finger. He was visibly ethnically Japanese, with a slightly hooked nose, almond-shaped eyes, slender chin and slight frame. “Both our families were purist groups,” her great, great, something grandfather said.

The image of Noa’s grandmother within the globe shook her head. “Purist groups, they’re like religious sects, they always urge women to have a lot of babies. Controlling women’s fertility is how they maintain their existence. But ever since I was a little girl, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to be in any of the careers that were slightly acceptable to girls—I wanted to build rocket ships!”

Noa’s smile faded. She could see why Eliza might have this. Purist groups, religious sects … her own home planet. It was true, she supposed. If Noa’s own parents hadn’t been outsiders here, that would have been her life. As it was, she’d still felt the pressure to conform to that lifestyle. Nice girls didn’t “borrow” antigrav bikes, hop onto freight cars, or spend years mastering martial arts. Nice girls were demure, modest and let the men in their lives take the risks while they tended the home fires. Maybe her risk-taking personality as a kid was just a counterbalance to that pressure? To prove to herself that she could be brave and fierce? And maybe the reason why she’d wanted to be a pilot, and then later, part of command, was because it was the furthest from the status in Luddeccean society she could imagine being? She put her spoon down.

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