Amber Houston

Now that is a river!”

Amber had to agree with Roy there. What they’d found made even Dandelion’s mightiest waterway, the River Archimedes, look like a trickle. Its choppy waters were a rich emerald green, fluffed up into white here and there as the wind toyed across it, and it absolutely leadened the air with the heavy scent of humidity. There was even a haze of steam drifting across the waves.

That humidity really wasn’t helping with the heat. Out on the riverbank, without the shade of those silvery trees to ward it off, the sun was an oppressive furnace nailed to the sky. The refreshing dip they’d taken up at Site A was already a distant fond memory. The here-and-now was nothing but sweat and sunlight.

Roy, being a big source of heat himself and therefore truly suffering, was gazing into the water like a man dying of thirst.

“Y’know what?” he declared after a minute. “That shallow there looks calm, an’ I’ve gotta cool off!”

“Again?” Nikki smirked, amused. “Can’t go ten minutes in the sun, huh?”

“I don’t think that’s safe, Roy…” Amber fretted. She was surveying it with her U-Tool, and although the surface looked sluggish and slow, that was a lot of water, and some of it was moving so fast that not even a strong and experienced swimmer would be safe. Water was dangerous, that much had been drilled into them by Walker over and over again.

“Nothin’ here’s safe, and we’re gonna be stuck here for years!”

“No, I mean…this isn’t like Site A! Those currents are way more dangerous!” Amber showed him her U-Tool.

“I’m not stupid, Amber. I’ll sit here in this pool. And I’ll tie off a rope, okay?”

Amber didn’t have an immediate follow-up argument, which Roy took advantage of. He dumped his pack, fished out their climbing rope, and secured it to a tree a meter or two back from the bank. After testing it with several mighty heaves, he whooped happily, ripped off his clothes with that same well-practiced flourish, and gleefully waded into the water.

“Well, what’s the worst that can happen?” Nikki asked philosophically.

“Eaten by alien crocodiles?” Amber fretted. “Swept out to sea and drowned? Venomous animals hidden in the mud? Parasites?”

“Jock itch?” Nikki smiled. “Quit worrying!”

Amber didn’t. Instead, she prowled the bank with her U-Tool, scanning the water for hazards. She found animals by the hundreds. Mostly schools of “fish” that were doubtless totally different from an Earth fish in several important ways, but which swam in the water and never came up for air, so were nevertheless fish for all practical intents and purposes.

The biggest her U-Tool highlighted was maybe as long as Roy’s arm, but it hurriedly got away from him when it strayed close.

To her relief, he didn’t spend long in the water and hauled himself back up onto the bank after just long enough to cool himself down. He bent over and scrubbed at his scalp to send droplets flying everywhere, tilted his head sideways to get some water out of his ear, then bee-lined to his clothes and started putting them on.

“See? Not dead! Grab me the anti-parasite pills and some sunscreen, please!”

Amber sighed. Inwardly she was almost angry enough at him to snap a do it yourself! Instead, she dug in his bag and found the requested items. “You do know what Walker would say if he saw you do that, don’t you?” she chided him instead.

“Yeah. He’d say, ‘risk is a necessary component of exploration.’ And he’d be right, too. We can’t spend the next…I dunno…years here afraid of our own shadows! And”—Roy paused and gulped down the anti-parasitic medicine, along with a swig of bottled water—“I’m also not gonna risk passing out from heatstroke. There’s no way you two could carry me back if I keeled over.”

Amber glanced at Nikki and, finding no support there, gave up. “…As you say,” she said instead, taking a slightly sullen leaf out of DANI’s book.

“C’mon, don’t be like that—!”

He got a ringing slap on the arm from Nikki. “Hey! You,” she instructed her brother, “need to learn a little tact. And you,” she added while rounding on Amber, “need to stop worrying! We have just as much Ranger training as you.”

“More, even,” Roy agreed, completely failing to heed his sister’s advice.

“And we work in high-G engineering! We know safety, Amber. Trust us.”

There was a lengthy and awkward pause, which Roy eventually broke.

“…Sorry if I scared you,” he offered. “I just…really had to cool down. You don’t want me gettin’ heatstroke, do you?”

Amber sighed. He did have a point, there.

“No,” she said. “I guess not. And you’re right, I just…I’m sorry, too.”

He shrugged and contemplated the shirt in his hands for a moment. “It’s okay.”

That was one of the nice things about Roy—even though he wasn’t great with emotions that weren’t boisterous enthusiasm or overwhelming affection, if he said something like that, he meant it. And he wasn’t one to hold a grudge, either.

Amber, glad the moment was behind them and eager to get back to business, glanced back down at her U-Tool. “We should mark the trail back to the launch.”

“Yup.”

“That-a-way, I guess?” Nikki gestured back up the stream bed.

“Yup!”

“Let’s go,” Amber declared. “Hey, uh…do you think we’ll be able to rig up a proper bathhouse or something up at Site A?”

“Oh, yeah!” Nikki seemed enthused by the idea as she wiped a healthy splash of perspiration from her forehead. “That’ll be my pet project, you watch. A nice air-conditioned thing, with cold showers and a lukewarm pool…”

Amber smiled and followed Roy up the stream bed. That idea sounded divine. “I think I can live with that,” she said.

----------------------------------------

Marking the trails and clearing them up took the whole afternoon, and they emerged from the woods just as the best of the light was dying. Launch seven-three-two’s landing site had been comprehensively transformed into a tent city. Tarps had been tied to its flanks and pegged out to provide shelter, and while the older Rangers offloaded, cataloged, and sorted the cargo, the younger ones were busy with camp chores.

Their quad bike had already been unpacked and was charging its power cell off the launch’s generator. A second power cable was supplying what looked to Amber like a pair of sturdy metal boxes: their Recycler, and their Printer.

Already the Recycler was emitting a deep hum and violent sounds as it gnawed the quad bike’s aluminium crate into rubble for the Printer to reform into something else. Roofing sheets, structural bars, wall panels, storage containers, and the like would all be useful in building the colony outpost quickly, and what else were they going to do with all those empty metal boxes? They needed sturdy shelters, not useless trash.

Amber had to admit, their lifetime of training was paying off.

It wasn’t that the Rangers had specifically learned every fiddly detail of what to do, when, and how. What they’d learned was how to follow instructions, how to work together, and how to assess a problem and implement a plan.

It sounded simple, but it had obviously made the difference between a couple dozen castaway kids crying uselessly in the dirt, and a young force of competent colonists who’d used the day well and erected a legitimately impressive camp.

Complete, as it turned out, with hot food and music: Doug Locklear had a strong and pleasant singing voice, even without the aid of a guitar, and was belting out a song that constantly swooped toward a rude word before veering off at the last second, much to the entertainment of the Rangers around the cooking fire.

Walker welcomed the trio with his real smile back in place and invited them to join him at the large camp table he’d set up for his desk. He’d unrolled a SMAT across it, weighted down at the corners by his U-Tool, a coffee mug, and a couple of stones.

SMATs—Smart-Mats or Smart Multi-Application Touchscreens, depending on who you asked—were flexible screens that could be rolled or folded for transport, but when unrolled could be a map, a monitor, a sketchpad…anything a touchscreen could be, in fact. The reverse side was a solar panel, they didn’t crease, they were waterproof, and their maximum light output was dazzling. All in all, they were a handy thing to have, but definitely on the “wants” list rather than the “needs” list.

Walker had a set of meals ready for them, and the trio—Roy especially—attacked the food on sight at his invitation.

“Good work today,” Walker said. He waved at the SMAT, which was showing off the mapped area around their launch. “I think you’re right; I think that waterfall is a good site for our outpost. It may even be a good candidate for building a township, but that depends on what the other troops find in their area.”

“Isth a ravaasstphe,” Roy said through a mouthful of food.

“…A what?”

Amber swallowed her own mouthful. “It’s a ravine. But Roy’s got it into his head that maybe it might also be a crevasse, so he wants to call it a ‘ravasse.’”

That seemed to tickle Walker. “I kinda like that.”

“Shee?” Roy demanded.

Amber grimaced. “All I see is you spraying me with rice. Close your mouth!”

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Roy swallowed hugely, gasped for air, and grinned. “See? Ravasse!”

“I doubt the others will find a better spot, Walker,” Nikki said, reading Amber’s mind and ignoring him. “It’s got potable water, ready-made water pressure, a river downstream for waste disposal…”

“It’s defensible,” Roy added, before ripping open his Salisbury “steak” packet.

“And plenty of building materials,” Nikki finished. “I sampled the local trees; my U-Tool said the wood’s totally useful as a construction material. And the local slate is perfect for flooring and roofing.”

Walker nodded, and with a swipe of his hands he zoomed out the SMAT’s view. Their campsite became a yellow blip on a continental map. As Amber watched, a new blip pinged into existence far to their north-east. Their own blip was barely inland of the continent’s western shore.

“Got a few things to go over,” he said and pointed over his shoulder at the launch. “Seven thirty-two can talk to DANI just fine, when we have line of sight…which is a bit less than half the day, with a latency of more than an hour. We can talk to the nearby launches, too, but the signal could be better. If we’re going to coordinate Ranger troops across an entire continent, we need a better comms system.”

“That means I need to haul the array up a mountain, doesn’t it?” Roy guessed.

“No, it means I need to haul the array up a mountain,” Walker corrected him.

“Um, Walker, sir? I, uh…the array’s heavy. And, uh, well, I’m stronger than you.”

“Yes, which is why we need you here building the outpost. Meanwhile, I’m more experienced in wilderness…”

Roy looked like he wanted to make a point, strongly so, but he held his tongue.

“Say it, Roy.”

“Uh, no disrespect sir, but we’re all pretty much equally inexperienced.”

Walker chuckled. “Okay, that’s fair. I guess I’ve never been off the ship, either. But, remember: I taught you everything you know, but that’s not everything I know.”

He saw their troubled expressions, paused, and rasped his fingers across his stubble. His beard was several days old by now. “Okay. Storytime. Sorta.”

Roy immediately perked up and folded himself into a cross-legged posture, food somehow forgotten for the moment. Amber metaphorically pricked up her ears and straightened her back, too.

“Back on the ship, rangermastering was a full-time job, and most of it was planning. We planned the hikes, exercises, and lessons, but we also planned for contingencies. Every conceivable thing, if we could imagine it. And yes, one of the contingencies we discussed was this exact scenario. In fact, this is better than the worst of what we planned for, because the ship’s still intact and it’ll be back one day.”

He swigged from his water bottle, then began prowling back and forth with his hands behind his back. “Do you know what an ‘oligarchy’ is?” he asked. Amber blinked at the sudden change in direction.

“It’s a political term,” she said. “It means, uh, rule by a small and select group.”

Walker nodded. “Exactly. Now, realistically speaking, there are only two forms of government: oligarchies and republics. There are others, but they’re inherently unstable, and sooner or later they devolve into one of those two. If you’re incredibly lucky, you get a republic.

“In an oligarchy, a tiny group of people have all the power, and most people have next to none. This can work very well if the leaders are benevolent…but sooner or later, one of their successors won’t be, and then the people they rule have little or no power to replace them. In a republic, on the other hand, things are done according to a set of rules, procedures, and laws that apply equally to everybody. It can be inefficient and messy, but it tends to be much fairer. But even the most stable and well-founded republics eventually devolve if the body politic doesn’t maintain them, and that leads us to the conundrum.”

“What conundrum?” Amber asked.

“Us.”

Nikki frowned at him. “Huh?”

“The Rangermasters. We’re…” Walker paused, then inclined his head and looked as though he was about to admit something painful. “Look, we love you kids. We gave everything in our lives over to mentoring and preparing you for this. We earned your trust in order to teach you, and we know wherever we lead, you’ll follow…but that puts us in a position to really abuse your trust. We’re ready-made oligarchs.”

He sighed and finally stopped pacing. “I’m not gonna lie to you three. We decided a long time ago that we’d need to build a leadership class among the first colonists, but we thought those leaders would be, well, adults. Adults well-versed in the theory. Instead, we have…you.”

Roy looked at Amber, then back down at his food. “Us, sir?”

“Yes. And specifically, right here and now, we have you three.”

“Us three.” Nikki looked skeptical.

“For different reasons, but yes. I specialize in training candidates who show strong leadership potential, which you three have shown in abundance. You’re raw, inexperienced, and not really ready for the responsibility yet, but…well, here we are.”

Roy frowned down at his neglected meal and set it aside for the moment. “That’s why DANI encouraged me at sport and in engineering, isn’t it?”

Walker nodded. “Mm-hmm. And it’s why you, Nikki, got unlimited workshop and tutor access, and why you, Amber, enjoyed such a close, one-on-one, personal relationship with DANI.”

“Why us, though?” Amber asked.

“Aptitude, to be blunt about it. I don’t think I need to tell you three exactly how good you are, but you need to at least admit it to yourselves.” Walker took a deep breath and let it out. “The Rangermasters are here to be your mentors and advisors. But we absolutely cannot be your leaders. We took some very…personal…measures to ensure that. And yes, we’re valuable…but we’re ultimately expendable.”

“Walker—” Roy began, shocked, but Walker shook his head sharply.

“There’s nothing I could teach you that another Rangermaster couldn’t, or even DANI, in a pinch. My unique contribution is that I’m good at handling high achievers. That’s just personality management. What you need now is a different kind of experience, and that’s not unique to any of us. Meanwhile there’s a comms relay that needs hauling up a mountain on an alien world we haven’t mapped a fraction of.”

He smacked a palm down on the SMAT. “There could be anything out there! There could be critters twice as big as bears and as ornery as a blood-frenzied shark. There could be ape-things that’ll tear a man limb-from-limb just for straying into their territory, or stinging insects that lay eggs in your heart. And given why we’re here? Well, you know the math. You think that thing the ship dodged was a coincidence?”

“No,” Roy admitted after a moment. “I think we were shot at.”

“Why would anything shoot at us?”

Amber had been thinking about that one, too. She didn’t like the conclusion she’d drawn, but she hadn’t been able to come up with a better one. “To protect something,” she said. “Something here, on Newhome.”

Walker nodded. “We don’t know for certain, but yeah. I bet you’re right. What we do know for a fact is we’re not alone, and something out there isn’t friendly. Maybe I could keep you all safe, but I know someone who’s much better at that game than I. Don’t I, Roy?”

He gave Roy his most direct challenging glare.

Roy seemed reluctant to accept it, but he met Walker’s gaze. “Yeah. You do. Sir.”

Satisfied, Walker nodded. “Right. Which is why you are going to stay here to build and protect this outpost, while the expendable old man climbs a hill.”

“You’re not expendable, sir!”

“Yes I am, Roy. I’m middle-aged, childless, and sterile. My only legacy is the Rangers. But you? Time for more hard truths. You hero-worship me, don’t think I haven’t noticed that. That needs to stop. You are better than me at basically everything but experience. We put you on this troop, nudged you toward engineering, encouraged you in the martial arts, sports, teamwork, your social life, everything like that, because that’s an aspect of leadership you’re going to need. You’re my replacement, Roy.”

“The same goes for you, Amber,” he continued. “You trust the McKays like family. We didn’t plan that but, well, we certainly didn’t stop it, either. But despite that, you sometimes underestimate them and others. Take their counsel. Nikki, and especially Roy, are smarter than you think.

“And you two?” he rounded on the twins. “Listen to Amber. I overheard that stunt you pulled at the river. You know what? She may not have been completely right, but you rolled right over her like a bulldozer. That stops now. She’s got depths. Heed them.”

He let the twins squirm for a second before nodding and subsiding.

“One last point. When I come back, we’ll talk about things like government and all that, eventually. If not, DANI will; listen to him. But for now, do not tell anyone about this conversation. They’re in your troop because they’re leaders, too, but none of them have earned our trust or our confidence like you three. They will eventually be your officers. Keep that to yourselves.”

“…Yes, sir.”

“And stop calling me sir. I go by my first name for a reason.”

Amber could almost hear the way Roy wanted to give a yes, sir to that, too, but he caught himself. She looked past him at Nikki and saw that her friend had gone quiet and thoughtful. Nikki noticed the attention, however, and snapped back to the here-and-now.

As for Walker…it was as if he’d just dropped a lifetime burden. He sat down at last and grabbed his own meal pack.

“Anyway. That’s enough big stuff for tonight,” he said. “Did you come up with a name for the outpost site yet? Other than ‘Roy’s Ravasse?’”

“It’s a perfectly good name!”

“I’d argue that it lacks…what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Gravitas?” Amber suggested. Walker thanked her with a nod.

“Besides, no way am I letting only you be immortalized,” Nikki interjected.

“The ship’s name came from a quote, right?” Amber asked. “Maybe we should see if we can find a good quote to use.”

“That just shifts the problem back a step,” Walker pointed out. “Instead of deciding on a name, first we have to decide on who to quote.”

“I had an idea. Touchdown Falls,” Nikki suggested.

“Serviceable…” Walker agreed.

“Kinda straightforward, though,” Amber said. “I mean, it’s way better than naming it after anybody’s ravasse, but…”

“What’s wrong with my ravasse?” Roy asked.

“It’s huge and stinky?”

“Hey—!”

Walker was doing his best not to laugh, and failing. “Okay! Okay! We’ll sort out the name some other time!” he exclaimed. “After all, it might just be a temporary site before we consolidate to someplace else.” He looked up at the sky and noted the way the sun was more set than not. “And it’s going to get very dark out here in short order. You three should probably find your tent. Tomorrow will be just as long.”

“Will you be leaving in the morning?” Amber asked. He nodded.

“The sooner the better. We need that comms relay up. Though I could really use a shave before I go.”

Roy, who’d been scarfing down his dessert pastry, gulped hard to swallow it and spoke up. “I, uh…I have a diamond razor.”

Walker raised an eyebrow at him. “You do, huh?”

“I snuck one into my bag on seven-thirty-two last year. Figured, well, if this ever happened…I’d just, I dunno. I’d hate to go without a shave.”

“So you made contingency plans too, huh?” Walker smiled approvingly. “What about you, Nikki?”

Nikki cleared her throat. “I, uh, maybe stashed one, too. For my legs and stuff.”

“Nah, it’s for her beard.” Roy pantomimed stroking his chin and promptly caught a sharp elbow to the midriff. Amber couldn’t resist sharing a grin with Walker as the usual McKay anarchy descended again.

As it turned out, she’d been given a tent with both of them. She was definitely going to have to establish some cuddle-boundaries, but for tonight, she was glad for their presence. After all those punishing days in the launch, followed by a day exploring an alien forest in the oppressive heat, the simple familiarity of being used as a teddy bear finally restored some normalcy and helped her rest.

They were woken in the gray light before dawn by a clean-shaven Walker, who returned Roy’s razor, then loaded up and headed out before the other Rangers even woke up. The message was clear: You’re in charge now.

They got to work.