My eyes can move now without making me wish I didn’t have them. That’s good. Someone undressed me down to my boxers at some point. I check my implant’s time clock as I start dumping my memory back into my head. I wrote some weird stuff while I was out of it. I hope I didn’t say any of it out loud. It’s afternoon now. Two and a half days are gone, but from what I could catch and record, it sounds like it could have been much worse.
And today is Christmas. I bet Valerie will celebrate it with me. Maybe we can get some others to do it too. Do they celebrate Christmas in Botswana? I bet Lucie does Christmas, her family was French at one point. I look through the tasks that I missed the last few days and one of them was to make some presents for everyone. Well, too late on that one. My bad for putting my Christmas shopping off to the last minute.
I sync back up with my bots and feel even more like myself. I’m so small without them. The neat piles of dust from the deck regain mobility and spread through the air. I’m not sure what my fevered brain would have done with them, but Louise probably made a good call having me put them all to sleep.
To Louise: Thanks.
From Louise: Hey, sleepyhead. Thanks for what?
To Louise: Being awesome. And also magically curing me.
From Louise: It’s only magic until you know how to do it. Glad you’re feeling better. Any symptoms lingering?
To Louise: I’m a little sore.
From Louise: Just as well you missed today’s workout then. Andrea worked us so hard. Take it easy today. You don’t have to stay in bed again, but nothing strenuous.
To Louise: Yes, ma’am.
I get dressed while I have my bots warm up some soup in the kitchen. It’s handy that one of the region’s best and most common foods is pretty close to my ideal sick day comfort food. I stumble from my room to the main cabin and nearly fall into the chair. If I were smarter, I probably would have dinged for Valerie instead of trying to do this on my own. I’m definitely not back to one hundred percent, because just sitting up to eat has me tired by the time I’m done. I stagger back to my cabin and lie down on the bed for a few minutes.
While my body still feels weak, my mind seems to be OK. I grab my tablet and check my email. There are a dozen messages from Lin piled up, starting calm and ending with an almost frantic tone. I let myself smile. She cares enough to really worry about me. I pop her a quick message that I was sick but I’m better now.
I nap for a bit, not too long. Just long enough.
I head outside. I can rest on the deck just as well as in here. Someone extended the decks on all the cats so the whole convoy basically has a giant shared deck, with flexible sections between boats. Clever. I should get out of the way more often and let people take initiative like this.
I walk down the new megadeck to cheers that I’m still alive. I wave them off as modestly as I can. It’s nice when people are glad you’re not dead. Keeya and Lucie are also out walking the deck, checking up on everyone, providing drinks and pleasant conversation. I can’t feel Chad, he must be out on ordnance duty.
Evan steps over and points out to the west. All I see are a riverbank and a lot of trees.
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“Look man, it’s Thailand.”
“It looks a lot like Laos from here,” I reply.
“Well, this part of Thailand has a lot of Laotians in it. And jungles are notoriously bad at respecting national borders.”
“Go figure.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better man. You scared me for a bit there.”
“Meh, it was just a glorified cold.”
“You do know they call Dengue the bonebreak fever, right?” he asks. “Because it feels like your bones are breaking?”
Hmm, I never broke a bone to compare it to, but that sounds right.
“Well, yeah,” I answer. “I mean, I know that now.”
“You’re lucky you had Louise around or you’d be in a world of hurt.”
“She’s pretty handy, isn’t she?”
“And don’t forget that exceptional nurse,” he says with a grin.
“I had a nurse? Who?”
He gives me a playful punch on the arm, which hurts way more than it should have. I guess Louise is right, I should take it easy.
It looks like my sibs kept the whole operation running just fine without me. From the count of control boards in the crates, they haven’t missed any of the planned drops. We’re still on schedule, even if we’re no longer a little ahead like we had been. We should still hit China in time for the tech conference, and everything after that was pretty flexible on dates.
I join Jen and Becky on some deck chairs where they are popping power poles on the Thai side of the river. I even build a few. It’s relaxing enough that I don’t think that Louise or Valerie will get mad at me. The power infrastructure here is mostly based on their natural gas reserves, so every watt that we give them is carbon not going into the air. Not that gas is terrible, it’s a whole lot better than coal or oil, but a big part of Father’s plan—our plan—is making all fossil fuels obsolete as soon as possible.
It’s a pleasant afternoon listening to the two girls chatter as we sit in the shade. I’m not even sure what they’re talking about half the time. When they get going, they talk really fast and they have so many inside references that I get lost trying to follow. Like they almost have their own language. Doesn’t matter, they’re not looking for input from me anyway. Their conversation just kind of becomes a pleasant white noise after a while.
The dinner spread comes from both sides of the river tonight, with Thai curries and noodles supplementing the now-familiar Laotian food. It’s the same kind of relaxed large gathering as before I got sick. My family is kind of awesome these days.
Chad comes streaking through the sky at full speed, landing smoothly on the deck near me to a round of applause from my sisters.
“Noah! You’re up!” he declares. “Glad you’re feeling better.”
“Thanks, I’m glad too. How was mine duty?”
“Another nice wide swath all the way to Vietnam and back.”
“Good job, man. I’ll take it tomorrow.”
“No, you won’t,” Valerie says firmly, coming up from behind him with Louise next to her. “You’ll stay on the boats where I can keep an eye on you.”
“All right,” I concede. “Maybe the day after.”
“We’ll see how you do tomorrow,” Louise says.
“I better turn in early then,” I say. “I’ve got work to do.”
The lights all go out suddenly. What’s going on? I see a light floating out on the water. Green, then red, then all sorts of colors, spreading and growing. A Christmas tree made of pure light sprouts up, a hundred meters tall, lighting up the boats and the river. It’s the most spectacular display I’ve ever seen, with small intricate scenes nestled in every branch with snowmen, nativity scenes, angels, bells, giant glowing presents with big bows on top, and a dozen tableaus starring Santa Claus. Each image is more detailed than the last. And they’re all moving, lifelike, beautiful.
“Oh, Andrea!” I say, almost lost for words. “It’s amazing.”
She comes over and leans down to put her arms around me.
“She organized it, but we all helped,” Evan says. All my classmates nod and smile. “We’ve been working on it for a while now. We saw how sad you were last year on Christmas and decided you might like it. Merry Christmas, brother.”
It must be dusty out here. I’m definitely not crying.