Cibola Burn

“Why it didn’t happen twice,” Elvi said. “Only one kind of Schrödinger crystal. One codon map. Why? If all the materials were there for amino acids to form and connect and interact, why wasn’t there one schema that started in one tide pool, and then another someplace else, and another and another? Why did life arise just the one time?”

“So what’s the answer?” Felcia asked.

Elvi’s let her hands wilt a little. A particularly strong gust drove a wave of hard grit against the side of the hut. “Which answer?”

“Why it only happened once?”

“Oh. I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

“Same reason there’s only one tool-using hominid left. The ones that still exist killed all the competition,” Fayez said.

“That’s speculation,” Elvi said. “Nothing in the fossil record indicates that there was more than the one beginning of life on Earth. We don’t get to just make things up because they sound good.”

“Elvi is very comfortable with mysteries,” Fayez said to Felcia with a wink. “It’s why she has a hard time relating with those of us who feel anxious with our ignorance.”

“Well, you can’t know everything,” Elvi said, making it a joke to hide a tinge of discomfort.

“God knows I can’t. Especially not on this planet,” Fayez said. “There was no point sending a geologist here.”

“I’m sure you’re doing fine,” Elvi said.

“Me? Yes, I’m wonderful. It’s the planet’s fault. It’s got no geology. It’s all manufactured.”

“How do you mean?” Felcia asked.

Fayez spread his hands as if he were presenting her with the whole world. “Geology is about studying natural patterns. Nothing here’s natural. The whole planet was machined. The lithium ore you people are mining? No natural processes exist that would make it as pure as what you’re pulling out of the ground. It can’t happen. So apparently, whatever built the gates also had something around here somewhere that concentrated lithium in this one spot.”

“That’s amazing, though,” Elvi said.

“If you’re into industrial remediation. Which I’m not. And the southern plains? You know how much they vary? They don’t. The underlying plate is literally as flat as a pane of glass. Somewhere about fifty klicks south of here, there’s some kind of tectonic Zamboni machine about which I am qualified to say absolutely nothing. Those tunnel complexes? Yeah, they’re some kind of old planetary transport system. And yet here I am —”

“I need a letter of recommendation,” Felcia blurted, then looked down at her hands, blushing. Elvi and Fayez exchanged a glance. The wind howled and muttered.

“For what?” Elvi asked gently.

“I’m going to apply for university,” the girl said. She spoke quickly, like the words were all under pressure, and then more slowly until at last she trailed away. “Mother thinks I’ll probably get in. I’ve been talking with the Hadrian Institute on Luna, and Mother arranged that I can get back to Pallas when the Barbapiccola takes the ore, and then take passage on my own from there, only the application needs a letter of recommendation, and I can’t ask anyone in the town because we haven’t told Daddy, and…”

“Oh,” Elvi said. “Well. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never seen your academic work —”

“Seriously?” Fayez said with a snort. “Elvi, it’s a letter of recommendation. You’re not under oath for it. Cut the kid a break.”

“Well, I just thought it would be better if I could actually say something I know about.”

“When I went to lower university, I wrote my own letters of recommendation. Two of them came from people I made up. No one checks.”

Elvi’s jaw dropped a centimeter. “Really?”

“You are an amazing woman, Elvi, but I don’t know how you survive in the wild.” Fayez turned to Felcia. “If she won’t, I will. You’ll have it by morning, okay?”

“I don’t know how I can repay you,” Felcia said, but she already looked calmer.

Fayez waved the comment away. “Your undying gratitude is thanks enough. What’s your field of study going to be?”

For the next hour, Felcia talked about her mother’s medical career, and her dead brother’s immune disorder, and intracellular signaling regulation. Elvi began to realize that she’d unconsciously thought of the girl as younger than she really was. She had the long, slightly gangly build and comparatively large head of a Belter, and somewhere in Elvi’s mind, she’d mistaken it for youth. Felcia would have fit right in at the commons of lower university. The light shifted from beige to deep brown to a burnt umber, and then darkness. The wind calmed. When Elvi opened her door, two centimeters of fine dust covered the walkway and the stars glimmered in the sky. The air smelled like fresh-turned earth. Some sort of actinomycete analog, Elvi thought. Maybe one that was actually carried by the wind. Or maybe something else. Something stranger.