Tag: Kitty Margrave

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Narrative

Of Zeerust and Enjoyment

Cindy usually didn’t come over to this module to study, but tonight there was something about sitting in a recliner chair by a fireplace that made the task all the more pleasant. Even if the recliner wasn’t much more than a fabric sling on a reclining frame, and the fireplace was electric with digital sound effects, they created an atmosphere of cozy warmth that made her reading assignment more enjoyable.

Literature classes up here were always interesting. Unlike back on Earth, her teachers didn’t automatically dismiss science fiction as “escapist trash.” Far from it, several of them explicitly included sf books in their curriculum, using them to show how the Literature of the Possible created sufficient interest in spaceflight and other advanced technologies that a whole generation would work to make it actually happen. She’d found it especially amusing when one of her teachers gave the class excerpts from several early astronauts’ memoirs in which they mentioned reading or watching science fiction about space travel in their younger days.

On the other hand, there was the down side: namely, that reading for class was always different from reading for fun. You had to pay closer attention to the text, especially if it was something new to you, and that could actually take away from being able to immerse yourself in the story and the world and just be there.

Which was probably why she noticed Juss Forsythe puttering around at something behind her. Deciding it was a perfect excuse for a break, she looked up. “Hi, Juss.”

His solemn expression was washed away by one of those big grins his geneset was famous for. “How’s it going, Cindy?”

“OK, I guess. I mean, I’d always heard about Frank Herbert and the Dune books, but I never actually got around to reading them until we got assigned them for lit class. Well, at least the first one, and the first four if we can manage it. Our teacher doesn’t think much of the rest of them.”

“So how are you liking them?”

“It’s pretty heavy reading. Some of the language is a little old-fashioned, and I thought there was some kind of experiment that proved that true precognition couldn’t exist.”

“You’re talking about the Chang-Mendolssen Experiments, aren’t you?”

“I think that’s the names I heard. Something about superdeterminism.”

She could tell she’d hit the right answer when he gave her a vigorous nod. “Although I’ve heard some arguments that Herbert’s interpretation of prescience is based on the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics rather than superdeterminism. Basically, the whole business about being able to see into the future freezing the future in that form suggests that prescience causes the wave front to collapse. But these days there’s more and more evidence for the Many Worlds Interpretation, which completely disallows the possibility of foreseeing a definite future, only a manifold of possible worlds.”

“Wow, that’s fascinating. Maybe I ought to write my essay on the quantum mechanical underpinnings of his portrayal of prescience.”

“If you have Jenny Taylor as your teacher, she really likes getting essays that dig into the science under the fiction. And if you want, I can help you track down sources.”

“Thanks. That’d be great.” Cindy shot a pointed glance at the life support monitor on the wall, with the clock readout above the standard indicators for partial pressures of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. “Right now, I’ve got another thirty percent of this book I need to get to get read before I go to bed.”

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Beneath the Wall of Sleep

Although there was a fair-sized crowd in the library today, it was astonishingly quiet. The crowd was scattered among tables and carrels, studying singly or in twos and threes.

Brenda Redmond had come up here to pick up some material she needed for this afternoon’s class. But when she saw Kitty Margrave over at one of the study carrels, she recalled how Cindy had seemed rather upset this morning at the station.

Cindy had been trying to keep her professional face on, but she was still young enough that she didn’t have as much control as she thought she did. That little quaver in her voice, especially on the phone when she was sending callers to the appropriate office. The tendency to rush just a little whenever something difficult came up. It was only noticeable if you really were looking — but Brenda knew Cindy well enough to recognize the tells.

Except she was doing well enough that I didn’t want to raise the issue, because it would come across as criticism.

Which made Brenda wonder if she really ought to raise the question with Kitty, or if it would be better to leave well enough alone. In ordinary times, Brenda would’ve asked Betty Margrave, but the chief of Safety and Security was far too busy right now to be distracted by concerns about what might well be an ordinary personal upset.

And then Kitty looked up from her carrel. “Hi, Brenda. Have you heard anything new about what’s happening with Amy?”

“Actually I was wondering whether something was worrying your sister. Cindy seemed a little uneasy today at work.”

Kitty glanced around. “Well, it’s been a few days since we’ve gotten anything at all from her. Not even those weird, stilted messages that sound like someone’s dictated the words she’s to say.”

“That is worrying.” Brenda considered what their next step should be. She still hadn’t heard anything back about Robbie’s situation either, and she wasn’t sure which one was touchier.

In some ways, not knowing anything can let me hope that she’s found some kind of modus vivendi with her parents’ prejudices. Those weird stilted messages make me think of the elective I did a while ago on the Great Terror, and how they’d sometimes make prisoners write several postcards to their families, all about how they’re doing well in the labor camps, to hide the fact that they were actually about to be executed.

“Do you think we ought to ask Eli if he can find out whether Amy’s OK? I mean, he’s family–“

“But he’d have to have formal authorization to be able to break into secure systems, which means we’d have to go through IT, and possibly have to go all the way up to Captain Waite. I’m not sure he’d want to authorize it. Every time one of our people goes poking around government databases dirtside, it raises the risk that the Administration will take action.”

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Before the Storm

Cindy Margrave had been just as glad to get assigned to the six-station weight machine for today’s exercise session. Having to count her reps gave her something to occupy her mind, unlike time on an exercise bicycle or one of the other machines.

Still, it was only a temporary respite from everything that was on her mind. She’d overheard altogether too much worrisome stuff while she was doing her shift as receptionist to Shepardsport Pirate Radio this morning. Autumn Belfontaine had been in and out of the newsroom, talking to her news staff, or talking on the phone to people who knew where. She’d even called Lou Corlin out of the DJ booth to help her with something in Japanese, although Cindy didn’t know whether it was from Edo settlement or from the Home Islands.

Some of the stuff Autumn was talking about had sounded pretty technical. Cindy knew a lot of astronomers and space weather watchers were getting concerned about the Sun’s magnetic field, but her own knowledge of astronomy stopped at the basic course she’d taken from Dr. Paulding last year.

However, she did know one thing — the vibe was just like back in Houston when there was a busy hurricane season. The sense that the current hurricane in the Gulf wasn’t likely to be the only thing they had to worry about, and everybody had better be prepared for the possibility of lengthy disruptions of basic services.

Which is probably why Aunt Betty’s been so scarce of late.

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Further Searchers

Brenda didn’t like running late on important things, like classes or her mandatory exercise hours. However, she wasn’t going to abandon Kitty to her own devices, not when the girl was clearly terrified for her friend on Earth.

At least Linnea at the gym was understanding. She’d lost her husband a few years ago in the cyber-attack on Slayton Field, and knew the terror of incomplete information in a bad situation. However, Brenda’s senior teacher was not as likely to be flexible — but then, they were trying to teach basic literacy skills to a bunch of little kids, which meant they needed consistency.

I just wish Sprue would get his butt over here. I know he’s got that new project he’s keeping so mum about, but surely it doesn’t take that long to touch base with the principal researcher, or whoever’s his main contact.

Brenda reached for her phone, then checked herself. The last thing Sprue needed was for his phone to chime incoming text right while he was talking with his boss. Sure, SMS was an asynchronous means of communication, but the urge to grab one’s phone and check could be difficult to resist.

Instead, she looked at Kitty’s messenger app yet again, as if this time would suddenly give her the ability to sort some sense from the garbled mess of alphanumeric characters. It really looked as if the packets had become corrupted as they passed through one or another server on the way between Earth and the Moon.

She’d seen some text spam that looked like that — supposedly there were ways to hijack some phones’ OS and turn them into zombie machines for DDOS attacks. She wished Lou Corlin could be here, since he worked for IT. However, this was his air shift, and she was not going to take Kitty down to the station just to talk to Lou.

And then the module airlock cycled, and in walked Spruance Del Curtin. “Sorry I’m late, but I wanted to talk to Dr. Doorne. You do realize she’s a specialist in signals processing. I was hoping she might have some suggestions.”

“So did she?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Brenda realized just how snarky she sounded.

“A few possibilities, but they may require seeing if the message is still on the server, or if it was erased there as soon as it was downloaded to the phone.”

At that moment Kitty’s phone chimed. There was another message from Amy — or at least her telephone number. However, it didn’t look anything like the last several messages, which had been increasingly fretful. Instead, it was relentlessly upbeat, and had a feeling of having been dictated to her: We have been moved to a new guardian. Do not worry about me. I am healthy and safe, and am keeping up with my schoolwork. Be careful, and keep studying.

When Brenda was younger, before she’d had kids, she’d gone through a period of reading a lot of true-crime. There’d been several cases in which people were kidnapped and forced by their kidnappers to make phone calls or send texts claiming that they were going somewhere for a while, in order to delay suspicion.

She showed the text to Sprue. “What do you think?”

“How old is she supposed to be? This doesn’t look like something a middle-school kid would write.”

He looked straight at Kitty. “I think we’d better take this to your Aunt Betty. If something fishy is going on, she’s a lot better equipped to handle it.”

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Searching

Being Chief of Security for a major lunar settlement did have its perks, Betty Margrave had to admit. For one thing, it gave her access to databases not available to ordinary citizens. Databases that might help her track down Kitty’s friend Amy.

However, the further Betty searched, the more concerned she became. Ordinarily she should’ve had the girl’s location pinpointed within a few searches, especially since Kitty had given her the phone number.

Just how bad were things getting down there? Houston was a major port city, with ships coming and going every day. Maybe not the level of traffic as they’d experienced during the Energy Wars, when they’d been shipping POL’s to the troops in the Middle East, but the port of Houston still handled a lot of traffic — which meant people coming and going, a perfect situation for the spread of a dangerous new virus.

Which is what makes Slayton Field so high risk too. Betty pushed the thought out of her mind. She knew her opposite numbers in Grissom City were keeping a close eye on the situation — just yesterday she’d been teleconferencing with Greg Shipton and Cather Hargreaves on just that subject, going over quarantine procedures for a spaceport that had to be kept operating to support the myriad scientific and mining outposts scattered across the lunar surface.

Still, that little thread of worry crept along the back of her mind. Carl was to fly over there tomorrow, to deliver biologicals and pick up some minerals. According to the flight plan, he and his pilot would stay in the lander the entire time they were there, and interact with ground crew only by radio. He was probably safer there than in takeoff or landing.

In the meantime, she had a girl to track down. The last Kitty knew, Amy had gone with the parents of a friend while her own parents were both taken to the hospital. However, her cellphone metadata wasn’t showing her as being at that location.

In fact, for the last fifteen hours there was no metadata at all for her. Could the logging systems be that badly behind? Or could her phone have been confiscated and turned off for some transgression, real or imaginary?

Which left Betty with the problem of how to find out, when she was uncertain whether her authority up here would translate into anything meaningful down there.

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Things to Worry About

There were times when Brenda Redmond wished she didn’t have the morning drive-time air shift at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. It was a news-heavy shift, which meant getting to hear all about everything that was going on in the world — which these days meant everything going wrong in the world.

And the news report Autumn Belfontaine had been delivering right at the end of Brenda’s shift was particularly worrisome. If a worker in the Indian Space Agency’s pre-flight quarantine facility could pass the diablovirus to their astronauts and infect the entire Japanese LEO space station and lunar ferry, how safe were America’s facilities? Especially considering that it wasn’t just NASA any more, with McHenery Aerospace and several other private companies launching crewed spacecraft from commercial spaceports. They were supposed to follow the same pre-flight quarantine procedures as NASA astronauts — but there’d been issues of corner-cutting on other safety procedures, so who was to say they weren’t getting lax there too.

All it would take is one person.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Drew had been down at Coopersville, but he was stationed at Slayton Field. Grissom City was not only the largest and oldest lunar settlement, but also the busiest spaceport city. Which meant Drew would be right on the front lines in terms of his risk of exposure.

But she couldn’t let her worries about him leak into her communications to him. She knew the risks — it came with being a military spouse. And it wasn’t fair to the other pilot-astronauts’ wives for her to worry too obviously when they had their own burdens.

Better to focus on the things she had some level of control over. Her work, her training and gym time, her teaching responsibility. And taking care of the kids, of course.

Her phone chimed: incoming text message. She pulled it out, halfway hoping it was Drew.

No, it was Kitty Margrave. Call me. We need to talk.

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Waiting Is the Hardest Part

The next morning Cindy Margrave was still thinking about all the things that Colonel Hearne had talked about. The difference between high-trust and low-trust societies, and how that affected everything from how governments actually functioned to the availability of basic public utilities. Internal and external locus of control and how it determined how individuals and societies responded to stressors. How the lengthening of supply lines affected the interpretation of the Commerce Clause over the two and a quarter centuries since the ratification of the Constitution.

She’d intended to review her notes after she got back to the apartment, but Kitty was so visibly upset that she needed some comforting. Yes, Aunt Betty had said she’d try to find out what was happening with Amy’s family, but with no guarantees of how much information would be forthcoming or when, Kitty was struggling with a real fear that the promise might prove hollow.

It wouldn’t be so bad if certain people hadn’t used “later” as a way of saying “no” without actually saying it. Especially Mrs. Thomas in second grade, who’d say you’d be able to have something if you just waited patiently, but would always conveniently “forget” when you tried to actually get it.

Did the adults who pulled that stunt really think that children had such short memories that a promise made a month ago would’ve evaporated from their minds by the time it was to be fulfilled? At least none of the teachers up here ever tried to pull crap like that — but then, a lunar settlement pretty well proved everything Colonel Hearne was saying about high-trust societies. To survive, everyone had to trust that everyone else would do their jobs, and do them right.

Guys up here might play hard and pull outrageous pranks, hit on every pretty girl that caught their fancy, but nobody ever screwed over a buddy. Anyone who crossed the line was apt to get a dose of what Uncle Carl called “wall to wall counseling.”

Speaking of getting hit on, the Shep pack was hanging around the entrance of the dining commons this morning. With most of the senior Sheps either on missions or quarantined down at Flight Ops, there wasn’t much to put the brakes on their antics.

At least Cindy didn’t have to run that particular gauntlet, and not just because she was with Kitty, who was far too young for that. Although Uncle Carl was just their uncle because he married Aunt Betty, the fact that Cindy and Kitty lived in his household gave them the same lineage right as their cousins, which made them off-limits.

Cindy found an empty table and settled herself and Kitty in. Maybe they could get at least a little chance to talk.

And then up walked a familiar Shep. “Hi, Cindy. Do you mind if I join you?”

In another place and time, she probably would’ve said, as a matter of fact, I do mind. But Spruance Del Curtin was a colleague from the station, and snubbing him would not stand her in good stead with management. So she put the best face on the matter that she could. “Go ahead.”

At least he had the courtesy to make a little small talk before going into the real reason he wanted to sit at her table. “I hear Colonel Hearne went on a tear last night in Constitution class.”

Cindy had to restrain her urge to laugh. Tales had a tendency to grow in the telling, and it looked like this one was no exception, no matter how much senior staff reminded everyone of the dangers of spreading rumors.

“Actually he just went off the syllabus and talked about a lot of philosophical stuff about governance and society.” Cindy realized she had an opportunity here. If she could convince Sprue to help her study her rather disorganized notes, maybe she could make sense of everything the Hero of the Falcon had said.

Play on Sprue’s Shep ego, make it impossible for him to say no without sounding like he wasn’t up to the task. And she did have the advantage of knowing that nobody would give her the side-eye or act like there was something more going on than there was.

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And Bitter Tears

It had been a long, difficult day, and Betty Margrave really needed a rest. Here they’d just finally managed to get their own Internet connectivity problems straightened out, and now Reggie was helping Vitali Grigorenko up at Gagarinsk with their Internet outage.

It probably didn’t help that her husband wasn’t able to be with her, even when he was back in town between missions. Betty understood the necessity of quarantining the pilot-astronauts, since no matter how careful they were, they did have interactions with people from the other settlements, and with people from Earth.

You’ve gotten through his deployments when he was still on active duty with the Marine Corps. Months on end with him halfway around the world, nothing but e-mails and weeks-old letters. There’s really no reason it should be bothering you so much.

And then she opened the door to their apartment and heard sobs. She looked around, wondering whether one of the kids had gotten hurt but didn’t think it was bad enough to bother Medlab. And then she saw Kitty sitting hunched over a laptop, tears streaming down her eyes.

Good god, girl, if you’re bawling because some boy dumped you, get over it. It’s just a breakup.

She caught herself before she could actually say the words. No, better not assume, even if she was tired and not really in the mood to have to deal with the sheer intensity of teen and tween emotions. Kitty had lost enough already — her parents, and now two homes and sets of friends — and while she’d been trying to put a good face on things, it was a very fragile mask.

Betty sat down beside her niece. “What’s wrong, Kitty.”

“I can’t get hold of Amy.” There was barely-controlled panic in that voice, for all that Kitty tried to hold it level and sound mature.

Betty tried to place the name. Ah, yes, one of Kitty’s friends back in Houston. They still communicated occasionally, although sometimes Betty wondered if the girl was going behind her parents’ backs to keep in contact with a friend who’d be regarded as tainted by being in a household headed by a clone of Alan Shepard.

A few careful questions brought forth the story of Amy’s frightened texts right before the malware had taken out Shepardsport’s Internet connection, how Kitty and Cindy had enlisted Brenda Redmond to guide them through giving Amy advice on dealing with her parents’ sudden illness. For a girl who’d barely be in middle school back on Earth, Kitty had handled it very well, and had borne up patiently while communications with Earth were cut off. But now that texts were clearly being delivered to Amy’s phone once again, but not being read, the girl was on the verge of panic.

Small wonder, considering how much could be going wrong. Even if she had been taken in by a friend’s parents, it’s possible that she wasn’t able to stay. Or that she’s been able to stay healthy herself.

No, there was no use speculating. Long ago she’d learned the danger of letting one’s mind onto the hamster wheel of worry — she wouldn’t have stayed sane as a military wife if she hadn’t.

Right now the best thing she could do was comfort Kitty, reassure her that she’d done quite well in her efforts to help her friend. And then, when Kitty was calm enough to hear that she might need to wait, discuss what resources might be available to find out what was going on.

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The Sound of Silence

When Cindy got to the dining commons for supper, she noticed Kitty sitting all by herself. Unusual, since her younger sister usually sat with her circle of friends unless it was Family Night.

Although Cindy had been planning on joining her regular study group and continuing their discussions from class, she decided she’d better make sure things were OK with her sister. She sat down beside Kitty. “How’s it going, kiddo?”

“Worried.” Kitty pushed her beets around with her fork as if trying to find the willpower to get the next bite down. “It’s been almost three days now since I’ve heard anything from Amy.”

“Which means you have no idea what her situation might be.” Cindy cast a look over at the tables where the married pilots and their families sat. “I think a lot of people are worried right now. We know that things are not good on Earth, and we have good reason to believe that the authorities are trying to cover up just how bad things are getting.”

She stopped, realizing she was about to repeat what she’d overheard Uncle Carl and Aunt Betty talking about last night. Not just that Flight Operations was considering quarantining pilots even if they hadn’t had any contact with the crew of Luna Station, but also some very disturbing messages both of them had received from people working at Johnson and some of the other NASA centers around the country.

Except she hadn’t been part of that conversation. She shouldn’t even have been listening in, and sharing that information with Kitty would only compound her lapse of civility.

If Kitty noticed the sudden pause, she made no remark on it. “I just wish I knew what were going on.”

“I do too. But with the problems IT’s been having with our Internet connection, we’re not getting much in the way of news from Earth.” Again Cindy had to pause and think about how much she should say. At the station she’d overheard a lot of stuff, and she had good reason to believe that a lot of it was not for public consumption. “I’ve heard a few people have been able to get e-mail messages through, but that’s mainly because of the way e-mail works.”

Even as Cindy was struggling to remember how Lou had explained the principles of e-mail server operation, a familiar voice asked, “May we join you.”

There stood Brenda Redmond, children in tow. Beyond her, Cindy could see that the other tables were rapidly filling up. With her husband stuck at Slayton Field, Brenda would be looking for familiar faces — and a table that still had three seats available.

“Oh, hi, Brenda.” Cindy hoped she wasn’t blushing too badly. “Sure, have a seat. We were just talking.”

“Thanks.” Brenda got her children seated first, then sat between them. “Have you heard anything more from Amy?”

Cindy and Kitty exchanged those awkward glances, trying to determine who should speak first. Brenda picked it up. “If you’d rather discuss it in private, drop by my apartment about 9PM tonight. I’ll have the kids put to bed, and we can talk about the situation in private.”

“Thanks.” Cindy gladly let Brenda move the conversation to more neutral topics: work, classes, settlement life in general.

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An Alarming Silence

Cindy had been up later than she’d intended the previous night, and now she could tell she was paying for it. Twice already she’d fallen asleep sitting up while trying to eat breakfast. At least Uncle Carl was still off on a mission and Aunt Betty was spending more time at her office than anywhere else, so Cindy didn’t have to deal with their disapproving looks. On the other hand, her cousins were most definitely noticing.

But what was I supposed to do? Especially since it was pretty clear Amy needed to talk, and I didn’t want to just leave Kitty to deal with it by herself.

Which raised another troubling issue — as of yet, Kitty hadn’t been able to contact Amy. She’d promised to text as soon as she got up for school, but there hadn’t been so much as a ping.

You weren’t supposed to be using your phone in the dining commons, since this was supposed to be a place for in-person socializing. But Cindy knew her younger sister had her phone on her lap, positioned just right to be able to see it, and was surreptitiously sending texts every so often.

At least her mandatory exercise hour didn’t start for another half hour, so she could take her time eating. Cindy was already running late for her shift at the receptionist’s desk at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. At least Autumn Belfontaine had given her a pass to run late if she needed to.

On the other hand, there was always the risk the boss would come in and find her absent. Especially the big boss, since Shepardsport Pirate Radio was technically considered part of Engineering, and Ken Redmond was notoriously unsympathetic about personal problems.

Which meant she’d better get going. Cindy leaned over to her sister and whispered, “When I get to the station, I’ll use the desktop computer to try to run some network checks. When I find something out, I’ll text you.”

“Thanks.” Kitty’s voice sounded unsteady, for all she was trying hard to put a good face on things.

As Cindy headed for the door, she wondered if she should just call in to the station and tell Autumn that she was going to take the day off. But with nothing definite to go on, it seemed way too much like self-indulgence to take the day off.

Just past the door, she was aware of someone sidling up to her. Dang it, but the Sheps were supposed to treat her as family, not someone to hit on.

But when she turned to tell him off, her gaze met a round face utterly unlike the long face of a Shep. “Uh, hi, Spence.”

Spencer Dawes smiled, not the big grin of a Shep, just an upward quirk of the lips that actually was more warm and inviting. “It looked like you could use the company. What’s wrong?”

Cindy moistened her lips and considered how much she wanted to say, how much was Kitty’s story to tell. “My sister’s having some trouble contacting an old friend back on Earth.”

That got her a nod of sympathy. “I’m hearing they’re having some communication troubles. If you’d like, I could have Juss see if one of his brothers would be able to stay with your sister.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

Spence gave her another reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, it’s no problem. You’ve got lineage right to ask me for help. And I think you could use some company walking to work.”

Much as Cindy wanted to argue, she knew he was right. Spence was a clone of Edgar D. Mitchell, Alan Shepard’s Lunar Module Pilot, and therefore in the Shepard lineage. And right now, having to make small talk with someone would help take her mind off a situation she couldn’t do anything about.