Pele makes a rapid tour, gives a few suggestions, which are seriously considered and often executed. She could be in any of the many ships, private and government-backed, that she has had the privilege to serve on over the past fifty years.
Bean, ten, is the youngest. Ta’a’aeva’s on-board fourteenth birthday drew a record-making number of viewers just last week, and she is oldest. Most have at least one college degree. Pele has interacted with all of them, and henceforth—but there is no way to understand this enormity—neither she nor they will ever know any other humans.
“Don’t worry,” says Eliott. “We have done this, virtually, a million times. We know all the contingencies.”
“And my decision?”
“Scenario 174.”
She knows she could ask any of them and they would know that number, all the others, and what each would have entailed, just as she knew what Venus Room meant.
The ship announces, “Crew, prepare for nuclear ignition.”
Pele steps into the nearest empty booth on the wall of the circular space, which cocoons her, leaving her face free. For a wild, silly second, Pele is reminded of nothing so much as being strapped into a tilt-a-whirl at the state fair, waiting to be spun through the air, held to the wall by the force of gravity.
She can hear their conversation in her headphones, and sees a good number of their faces. Only a few look appropriately grave. Some grin. She hears a wild, shrieking laugh, and some self-congratulatory talk of victory, as if this is a virtual game they have won. Perhaps it is.
How can they imagine the horrors Pele foresees? They are so terribly young. They have had no chance to learn about life, and now they never will. The freedom of Earth, the freedom of choosing another road, and another, and another. The delight of communicating with and learning from a rich, diverse population. The road they face is hard, narrow, and probably impossible. Doubt, anger, and regret rage through her; she struggles against the restraints, her chest a dark, sad weight. She has saved them only for an impossible task.
She always blacks out at five g’s, but until then, she desperately thinks, plans, wonders, What can I do to help them survive?
Pele is six. She sits crosslegged on a large, cool rock across from her brother Jack. Their knees almost touch. The waterfall, which the kids often visit, is small, but makes a pleasing sound as it rushes over rocks. The tumble of fresh water washes the air. Small dark fish hang in the shadows. Fallen red lehua blossoms drift on the surface.
Jack is fifteen, one of the Hsus’s three natural children. Dapples of light brighten his straight, black, shoulder-length hair as wind shifts the forest canopy above them and blows it across his face. He is the only one of the children she has anything to do with. The others just seem like a lot of noise.
“Okay. Let’s try again. Look at my face. Can you tell how I feel?”
She stares intently at Jack’s teeth, sorting the long call of the i’iwi, the amakihi’s chatter, the sweet song of the apanane.
“No, Pele. My eyes. Raise your chin. Look.”
She does. He draws his eyebrows together, glares at her. “Tell me—what am I feeling?
” She shrugs.
He thrusts his face forward, retaining the ferocious look, and says, “I am angry! Now I will make you feel angry. Pele, you are stupid!”
She leaps to her feet and lunges down at him, fists forward. He catches her wrists, one in each of his hands. “That is anger, Pele. You feel angry. I feel the same way. I am angry that you tried to hit me! Tell me what my face looks like! My mouth! My eyebrows! My wrinkles!”
As he holds her wrists in mid-air, it dawns on her. “I can tell how you feel by looking at your face?”
He lets go and nods. She drops back onto the rock and rests her chin in her hands. The water is dark green, then clear and sparkling where the sun hits it.
He says, “Now you look worried. You’re thinking. What are you thinking?”
She says forcefully, “I am wondering why you are bothering me. I am thinking that this is too much work.”
“It’s work for me too. But I like to work with you. You’re my sister, and I want to help you.”
“I don’t need help.”
He says, very gently, “Please look at my face for just a minute.”
She does, reluctantly. “You are looking right at me. Into my eyes.”
“Tell me how my face looks.”
“Your eyes are open very wide. Your look is strong. It almost hurts me.
It makes me feel …”
He nods encouragingly. “Feel what?”
“I don’t know. Is there a word?”
“I am trying to tell you with this look that I care about you.”
She wonders how she can memorize a look, and how Jack’s look would seem on someone else’s face. It all seems quite impossible. “Why?”
“My older brother lived here when I was little. He was our parents’ biological child too. He could never look at me. I loved him. He’s a grownup now. His name is Edmond Hsu. He’s a mathematician, eh? You can see his work online. He started college when he was twelve and lives on the mainland now. I was always sad that he would never look at me. Mom told me that I shouldn’t be sad, that he didn’t know what we were feeling and thinking.”
“So?”
“I think that you can know, Pele.” He smiles.
She looks back at the pool. “Then what do I feel now?” She knows that she feels vaguely out-of-sorts. She is not sure what any of this means.
“Grumpy.” He jumps up. “Come on. Bet I can beat you back to the trail-head!”
She gets up more slowly
