Archive for the ‘Kat Beyer’ Category
An Incident at the Mars Debates
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
Captain Daneham met his wife in the following way.
He was at the House of Commons, watching the Mars debates; he’d gone alone, and the Shadow Minister for Space was wittering away about fuel sources, as if all that hadn’t been sorted ages ago.
Two girls in moonsuits were standing nearby, and, unable to pay attention to the old windbag any longer, he watched them instead. They were whispering and laughing softly. The tall one was what he would call Junoesque, a regular Amazon, who wore her stars and bars as if born in a rocket, while her friend had close-cropped red curls, a naughty pixie face, and a shockingly careless way of wearing her uniform—sleeves rolled up and unpolished boots. When she turned his way he saw the Mechanics’ 101st patch on her chest pocket and understood. Posy bunch of know-it-alls, they were, but too good at their job by half.
He watched them, and they watched him, while down among the green leather seats of Parliament history was made.
Then came the quick, sturdy tap of boot heels, and a flash of brown leather, followed by the flick of a blue-black ponytail.
“Sorry we’re late—got held up,” said the girl with the ponytail. “Miss anything?”
“Only old al-Rashid going on and on,” said Juno, and the redhead laughed. “Where’s Sarah?”
“In the loo, she’ll be along in a minute. Literally, we got held up. Four lads and two guns in an alley.”
“No!” Juno stared.
“Good heavens. Are they all right?” Asked the redhead.
Ponytail laughed; he could hear the adrenalin draining from her.
“One won’t walk again, I’m afraid. The others are probably still up the station explaining things. You know what she’s like.”
Captain Daneham couldn’t help but stare himself. And then she came around the corner, brown hair with a touch of red in it, checking her purse, looking up at her friends with the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen, as if she wondered what all the fuss was about.
He couldn’t help himself. He stepped forward, saying, “I beg your pardon, but I couldn’t help overhearing…”
The rest of his stumbling speech was drowned in the sound of shouts and roars from the benches below, the noise of history—but he did manage to get out for a drink with them afterwards, once colonization was decided upon.
Send in the Truth Smellers
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
The two ships hung in the open silence of space as if they were already depicted in a tapestry: the Gaian ship glittering with fretwork and enamel and the perlescent oval of the Free and Independent Peaceful Coalition of Jupiter’s Moons. The Negotiators’ Bubble between them emptied; the negotiators had called it a day (because that was easier than calling it a biorhythmic activity episode).
“Here they come,” said the Fire Keeper as the Gaian team came up the gangway. “Hope your weird plan worked.”
“Me too,” said the Senecan Sachem, holding out a glass of water to the Speaker.
“No deal yet,” she shrugged, and took a long drink.
“Any complaints about the – additions – to your team?”
“They thought we were weird bringing teenagers with us, but figured it was just a cultural thing.”
Behind her the three youngest members of her team traded their ceremonial robes for tattered jeans and buckskin shirts.
“What did you think of the Jupiter people?” said the Speaker, turning to them.
“I don’t know,” said the youngest teenager, and then stood with his mouth open.
The tallest boy shook his head and asked, “Can I say it however?” looking only at the Speaker.
“Just don’t swear in front of the grandfathers.”
“Okay. Frankly, they were kind of full of it.”
The third teenager nodded gravely, carefully restarting each of her seven holotoos.
“They talk like my mom,” she said. “You know, like they learned it out of a blog on how to get what you want without ever really asking for it or whatever.”
The Sachem looked toward the treaty analysts.
“You have anything for us yet, Hannah? Adsila?”
“The kids are basically right. It looks really nice on the surface, but it’s a load of… things you shouldn’t say in front of the grandfathers.”
After dinner, in private, the Sachem said to the Fire Keeper, “I was right, wasn’t I?”
He got a grunt.
“I got the idea when my youngest grandson got upset about something. Those kids are really on alert any time an adult is hypocritical. It’s perfect. They look harmless – at least with the robes on – like what the Speaker said – a Cultural Thing.”
“They’re so eloquent, too,” said the Fire Keeper.
“Oh, shut up. I want to give them some name nobody will bother to translate. What’s Onandaga for ‘truth smeller?'”