“Once in a lifetime!” his commanding officer had said to him. That night, he met Karen at a friend’s house. Evie was born a year later, hair as red as a fireball tail.
“Daddy.” She stood beside his bed wearing a blue nightgown. Her hair was in pigtails. The room was dark, though he saw flashing lights. A machine whirred.
“Your mother,” he said. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry Karen died. He was sorry about everything.
Evie shook her head. “I remember the canals.”
When Evie turned sixteen, her present was a vacation to Titan, where Orcox had a recreation park for employees. He rented a cabana on Fels Sea, bright purple from the bornite shelf left after the precious minerals far beneath the surface had been quarried. Each cabana had a canal that emptied into the main body of water. A canoe and paddles were tethered to a short dock.
He and Evie swam, paddled, read books and shopped. He bought her a bornite necklace with matching earrings. Orcox had shipped in peacocks, too. On Earth, bornite is known as peacock ore for its iridescent wash of blues, greens and purples. Worthless for anything but jewelry, but haunting in the icy glow of Saturn’s rings. At twilight, the peacocks began their eerie screams, until the keepers herded them into the coops.
On a Saturday, Jesson took Evie in the cable car up Mount Cox to have lunch with Davis, his boss, and his daughter, Stacy. Like Jesson, Davis was a widower. The restaurant was surrounded by high windows and slowly turned. They ordered burgers. After they finished, the girls went off to watch a movie while the men drank beer.
That was the first time Jesson heard about the Septima Clare. Cox himself was supervising the construction. The Clare would be the company flagship. Everyone wanted on.
“Revolutionize travel,” Davis said. His face and arms were bronzed from a visit to the spa. Davis had never been much of a pilot, but he knew how to push paper around. “It will make the trip between Arconis IV and Mars in under five years. Less if we can up the storage capacity.”
Fuel storage was Jesson’s specialty. “That’s where you come in.” Cox had asked for him by name. “Name your price,” Davis said.
They ordered more beer. Any engineer would give his teeth to crew the Septima Clare.
Jesson held up his hand and Evie was there, smelling of floral shampoo. She had on shorts and a t-shirt. Her hair was loose on her shoulders and still wet from a swim. In the water, her hair spread out like a fan as she rose from the depths. Her mother’s hair.
“Where am I?”
Evie smiled. “You’re with me! Dad, I need the scooter. Stacy and I are going to meet some friends. I’ll be home for dinner.”
It’s not safe, he wanted to tell her. But what did that mean? Fels Sea was completely safe. The only people here were Orcox employees, their guests and the support staff. Cox was a bastard, but he treated his people well. Everything was top of the line. Jesson was happy that Evie and Stacy had hit it off.
A sob welled in his throat. There was something Evie was not telling him, something about the scooter. The soldiers were there, he was sure of it. Stabbing him so hard that he winced.
But it was too late. She was gone. Dr. Dick was next to him again with some other people, all wearing white lab coats. The Indian looked at him with mournful eyes.
“You’re awake! Wonderful,” Dr. Dick said.
Jesson wanted to punch him. Bastard. He could smell the doctor’s menthol tablets and soap and something garlicky he had eaten: Vietnamese noodles, he guessed. The other people smelled, too: mint gum and farts and cleaning fluid and a spicy perfume, like the one Jesson always bought for Karen in the duty-free, a mix of lilacs, cinnamon and freshly cut limes.
Karen was dead. On the way home from a party, a police cruiser had slammed into the tram. The officer had been chasing a suspect when his cruiser skidded, crashed through a bridge rail and fell to the causeway below. He remembered how the cruiser chassis disintegrated as it bounced toward the tram, relentless. In his youth, Jesson had been one of the most decorated pilots ever. But he couldn’t do anything about the tram, which deposited Karen directly into the path of the debris. He had been sitting three rows forward, next to a colleague. Jesson walked away without a scratch.
“I miss Mom,” said Evie sadly. “I’m sorry about the scooter. I should have checked it, like you always said. But I’m glad I’ll always be with you.” Again, she snuggled beneath his arm.
Happiness flooded him. The pain ebbed. Sometimes, he missed Karen desperately. His daughter was about to be a woman. He could warn her about machines or recommend books. But Karen talked to her about things he couldn’t even comprehend. Would Evie tell him about her first boyfriend? The new blouse she wanted? Would she talk with him like she used to talk to her mother, with low voices and secret smiles? What would Karen have told her about love?
He turned Davis down. He would retire and move back to Earth, where Evie could go to college. He’d buy an apartment nearby, where she could take weekend breaks. He wouldn’t be the kind of parent who hovered. Maybe, he’d find a woman to go to concerts and the theater with. Evie would apply to his alma mater. Someday, he might be a grandfather. He would take his grandchildren to see birds and ducks and squirrels. Until he left Earth behind, Jesson had never realized how much he enjoyed those kinds of every-day wild animals.
“Did you have a pet like Panta when you were a boy?” Evie asked. Panta curled in her arm. The bornite glimmered above her collarbone. The stone suited her. She would be beautiful like her mother, flame-haired and pale.
“Lots,” Jesson answered. “Dogs and cats and hamsters and even once a snake.”
“What did you do with a snake?”
“Mainly showed it off and fed it mice.”
“Ew!” Evie switched Panta to her shoulder, and the thorot blinked at him with huge, milk-white eyes.
“Frozen mice,” Jesson said, “though I did have to thaw them. We called him Sly. He was a pygmy boa.”
“I like animals that are soft. It’s nice when they can sleep with you. Daddy, can Panta come with us to Earth?”
Orcox had a strict ban on moving native species, except when they were destined for zoos. Evie would have to leave Panta on Mars. A great sadness came over Jesson. It wasn’t fair to lose a mother and a pet before you were even eighteen. His daughter would also leave behind her friends. She would have to get used to a yellow sun, which would burn her skin. He would make it right for her. He’d been a bad father, he knew. Karen said so. Too many missions, too many late nights away.
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