Home by Michael Schulkins

Author:Michael Schulkins [Schulkins, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

“Are you gonna try to jump down, like you did before?” said the earl Hazel. We were beyond the mouth of the cave where the airlock was located, clinging to the cleft in the cliff face.

“No,” I said. “I believe I’ve learned my lesson. ‘Leap up, crawl down, stay alive,’ is my motto from here on in.”

“I’ll come get you. And fix your suit.”

“No thank you,” I said. “You’re just angling for another prat fall.”

“Well, yeah.” I thought I detected a giggle.

I turned the control knob on my radio to its maximum setting, and the constant stream of static became a roaring river. The Sun was at his tyrannical best by then, nearly overhead, and pouring his never-ending fire directly onto our heads.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” I called. “Ahoy the Clemens—ahoy the Bemis-Clemens Expedition. Can any of you hear me?”

I listened intently to the river of static, hoping to catch a hint, a mere whisper, of a familiar voice, but heard nothing beyond its crackling flow.

“Lawrence, Chalk, Calvin Bemis. Can anyone hear me?” Once again there was no response.

The earl Hazel said, “They could be over the horizon. They wouldn’t hear you then.”

“Yes. I know,” I said. If they were, then they had given up on me, or left me behind, or both. “I’d hoped they would be prowling the cliff face, or at least the base of it. How long have I been inside—in Home, as you earls call it? Do you have a reliable clock in the place? You seem to have everything else.”

The earl said, “We know what time it is by what chores we’re supposed to be doing.” She didn’t sound all that pleased with the arrangement.

“Supposed to be doing?” I said.

“Well, wo’ Myrtle can’t be everywhere at once.” I couldn’t see it from where I hung clinging to the rock, but I felt certain that she was sporting her Christmas grin.

I repeated my forlorn call to my companions, with no result.

“Hey, I do my share,” she amended.

“I’m sure you do.”

“I like cleaning the resonance chambers, even though it’s kind of disgusting. But what I really like is to go outside.”

“But no clocks.”

“No. I think it’s less than, whaddaya call it, twenty-four hours anyway,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know. I gather I was unconscious for part of the time.”

“Not very long.”

“I just don’t understand why they’re not out looking for me.” I repeated my call into the aether, then stopped to listen intently. Once again, I heard nothing but static.

“They wouldn’t leave you behind. You’re their captain, their Captain Samuel.” She was trying to be kind to me all of a sudden. It was a bad sign.

“Oh, they have a spare,” I said. I tried to imagine for a moment what it would be like to spend the remainder of my life at Home. If nothing else, I would be clean, I figured. “Only I expect I’m the spare, in fact.” She said nothing. “Do you think it would help to climb to

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