I return to the center of town and take a seat with line of sight on the council building’s front doors. I choose a bench to the side so that no one exiting will immediately notice me. When we were here earlier, I didn’t see any guards; there’s no need to worry about making anyone suspicious about what this out-of-towner is doing watching the seat of government. Still, it feels a bit like casing a joint, which doesn’t help the low levels of anxiety I’m feeling.
People come and go, but finally, a woman walks out who, after a moment of observation, I can identify as Deirdre, thirty years older than when I saw her a few months ago. She’s still got high, round cheeks, but her face is lined. In her sixties now, her hair has gone slate gray. Most of it is pulled back into a loose bun, but some wavy strands have escaped, framing her face. It’s a style I’ve seen on her before, usually when she’s been in tense meetings all morning.
In the twilight, I see her wave to someone inside the building and then begin to walk down the street. I stand and begin my approach. I deliberately make noise with my stride and my cane; I don’t want her to be startled by someone suddenly appearing by her side. As I get closer, she stops for a second, tilting her head. Then she gives it a quick shake, dismissing whatever gave her pause, and resumes along her way. “Deirdre!” I call out.
She comes to an abrupt halt, dropping her handbag in startlement. Then she turns toward me. “Mariah?” I continue toward her, intending to pick up her purse and return it to her, but she scoops it up off the ground before I reach her. Her shock has quickly turned to alarm. “Wait… wait… what’s happening?” She slips her bag over her right shoulder and then rubs at her left arm.
¡Ay! That’s right, miasma blocker shots can cause hallucinations. It’s a known side effect, and probably a very common experience in this society. It did not occur to me that this would be the hurdle I’d have to overcome. “Yes, it’s me,” I tell her. “This is not a hallucination. I came along, and I only woke up a couple months ago.”
“No, no, I’ve just had a stressful day…” She lets out a long breath. “I’m so sorry, sir. Did Jack put you up to this?”
Jack? Not just Marina knows about me, her son does too? I’m momentarily speechless.
“I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone I knew back on Earth,” she continues. “You know how us planetfallers get sometimes.”
I step right up to Deirdre. We weren’t the kind of friends who were physically affectionate; we never exchanged hugs when we saw each other. It would have felt out of place in the work cafeteria. But right now, I lay my hand on her right arm, demonstrating that there is a real person here. Looking her in the eye, I say, “I am Mariah Esteban Thorne, and I am here on Chiron. I stowed away. I took information that I learned from you and used it to operate one of the spare cryopods. And I came. I know you wouldn’t have approved, but I’m coming clean to you now.”
Deirdre gives her head a little shake. “I have been working too hard lately,” she says quietly, clearly talking to herself, not holding a conversation with the person in front of her. “I need to take a break, but this planet is not going to protect itself. And apparently we’re going to get invaded!” Ah, so she’s heard that already. Xiao might’ve filled her in after we left. “It’s a known side effect,” she reminds herself. “Probably whoever I got the blood transfusion from had a miasma blocker recently. That’s all this is. I should stop talking to a hallucination.” She pulls her arm away from me and turns in the direction she was headed before. “I need to prepare myself for this important diplomatic meeting tomorrow.”
“All right, fine, I’m a hallucination. No reason we can’t talk,” I say, accompanying her as she resumes walking. “Maybe I can help you think it through. Bounce ideas off me, just like you used to with Mariah.”
She glances over at me. “You look just like him, too. My memory of him hasn’t changed a bit. But really, let’s be logical. Mariah wouldn’t lie about things. Stow away on the ship? C’mon. Such a nice young man.”
“Maybe you didn’t know Mariah quite as well as you thought you did. Though I’m touched that you remembered me enough to tell Marina about me.”
Deirdre chuckles. “Of course a hallucination would know how I know Dr. Citali. This all makes sense.” We walk together for a while, and she’s willing to chat with me. The whole time, I’m just hoping to break through to her that I’m really there. She even addresses me as Mariah now and then, although occasionally she says things like, “Oh, that is exactly how Mariah would put it!” which remind me once again that she doesn’t believe I’m really me.
I let her bounce ideas off me related to her day at work, but my hope for a breakthrough is fading as quickly as the light of the two main suns. Finally, I can’t take it any more. I step around in front of her, stopping her. “Please, I really need your help,” I try again. “I really am here, and I’ve been changed by this planet in a way that nobody really understands. Marina’s done what she can to study it, and we’ve brought data. Your cryopod design kept me alive during exposure to miasma for thirty years. But it’s changed me, and I need your help to understand it.” Distressed, I plead with her, “I’m really here.” My eyes burn purple, with conviction and with whatever substances course through my veins now.
Deirdre pulls a bioscanner from her purse. Seeing that, I hold my right hand out between us and… resonate. Motes of indigo sparkles coalesce above my palm. The device goes haywire, maxing out all its metrics. “Okay,” Deirdre breathes out, looking down at the scanner. Then she looks back up at me. Our eyes meet, and suddenly she throws her arms around me. The hug startles me, and before I can return the embrace, she steps back. With her hands lingering on my upper arms, she looks me up and down. “Mariah! What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t win a spot. What did you mean—Did you sneak onboard?”
Having now regained some equilibrium, I smirk at that. “Well, technically, I just walked right onboard, and nobody got around to stopping me.”
She stutters and stammers, then settles on, “I thought you died like eighty years ago.”
The smile fades from my lips. “I know. I’m sorry that I deceived you about my plans.”
“And… I’m sorry, but… the planet changed you? That’s not typically what long-term miasma exposure does.”
“Are people typically attached to life support for thirty years while they’re exposed to it?” I counter.
“No. And that’s also much longer than the cryopods are rated for. You know that!”
“I know.” I didn’t do that part on purpose. “Cleve seems okay,” I tell her. “He also was in a cryopod for an extra thirty years. But the seal on his unit was intact, and mine wasn’t. We have the data with us, the medical readings for Cleve and me both, for the full time. That’s one of the reasons we came. Aside from the whole army thing, we would have come anyway.”
“Right, that.” Deirdre regards me. “Oh my God, Mariah. So not only did no one expect you to be here, but you woke up in Morgan territory?”
“Yeah, that’s where our module crashed.”
“Morgan was your supervisor, wasn’t he? Small world!”
“He added himself to the roster last minute, too,” I tell her.
“You know, I didn’t think he had a spot either, but I didn’t really keep in close touch with him. Wait, how do you know that?”
“I saw the computer in our module.”
Deirdre is surprised to hear that Morgan’s cryobed was in the same area of the ship as my spare one, but after a moment of reflection, she comments, “Of course, he didn’t have the resources back then that he does now.” All this talk has reminded her of the problems looming on the horizon. “Oh Mariah,” she sighs, “what are we going to do? There’s an army marching toward us. I didn’t really sign up to be a head of state. I just wanted to do science.”
“Don’t worry about that army until tomorrow,” I tell her.
“Are you sure? It sounds like they’re kind of close. But then, you would know. When are they going to be here? When do I need to start worrying about it? Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but for today? The suns are setting; let me show you something.”
“Sure,” she agrees with an interested smile I have seen many times before.