Earth

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she answered, giving him a measured look he could take as neither insult nor invitation. It didn’t work. He sauntered forward, planted one foot on the seat next to her, leaned forward, and rubbed the close-cropped fuzz covering his cranium.

“Water serves the sun, don’t ya know? We’re supposed to let it come on come on come. It’s just one of His ways o’ lovin’, see? Coverin’ Earth like a strong man covers a woman, gently, irresistibly… wetly.”

Fresh patches of pink skin showed where over-the-counter creams had recently cleared away precancerous areas. In fact, Ra Boys weren’t many more times as likely to develop the really deep, untreatable melanoma tumors than other people. But their blotchy complexions heightened the image they desired — of dangerous fellows without respect for life. Young studs with nothing to lose.

Teresa felt the other passengers tense. Several made a point of turning toward the young toughs, aiming their True-Vus at them like vigilant, crime-fighting heroes of an earlier era. To these the boys offered desultory, almost obligatory gestures of self-expression. Most of the riders just turned away, withdrawing behind shadow and opaque lenses.

Teresa thought both reactions a bit sad. I hear it’s even worse in some cities up north. They’re nothing but teenagers, for heaven’s sake. Why can’t people just relax?

She herself found the Ra Boys less frightening than pathetic. She’d heard of the fad, of course, and seen young men dressed this way at a few parties Jason had taken her to before his last mission. But this was her first encounter with sun worshippers in daylight, which separated nighttime poseurs from the real thing.

“Nice metaphors,” she commented. “Are you sure you didn’t go to school?”

Already flushed from the heat, the bare-shouldered youth actually darkened several shades as his two friends laughed aloud. Teresa had no wish to make him angry. Dismembering a citizen — even in self defense — wouldn’t help her now-precarious position with the agency. Placatingly, she held up one hand.

“Let’s go over them, shall we? Now you seem to be implying the rise in sea level was caused by your sun deity. But everyone knows the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting because of the Greenhouse Effect—”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Ra Boy interrupted. “But the greenhouse gases keep in heat that originates with the sun.”

“Those gases were man-made, were they not?”

He smiled smugly. “Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides from cars and TwenCen factories, sure. But where’d it all come from originally? Oil! Gas! Coal! All buried and hoarded by Her Nibs long ago, cached away under her skin like blubber. But all the energy in the oil an’ coal — the reason our grempers dug and drilled into Old Gaia in the first place — that came from the sun!”

He bent closer. “Now, though, we’re no longer enslaved to Her precious hoard of stolen fossil fat-fuel. It’s all gone up in smoke, wonderful smoke. Bye-bye.” He aimed a kiss at the clouds. “And there’s nowhere else to turn anymore but to the source itself!”

Ra worshippers were backers of solar energy, of course, while the more numerous Caians pushed wind power and conservation instead. As a spacer, Teresa ironically found her sympathies coinciding with the group whose appearance and style were the more repulsive. Probably all she had to do was let these fellows know she was an astronaut and all threat and bluster would evaporate. Honestly, though, she liked them better this way — loud, boisterous, reeking of testosterone and overcompensation — than she would as fawning admirers.

“This city ain’t go

“Fecund jungle’s go

The growling motors changed pitch as the bus approached another stop. Meanwhile, the leader leaned even closer to Teresa. “Yessiree, blistery! The Old Lady’s go

Poor fellow, Teresa thought. She saw through his pose of macho heliolatry. Probably he was a pussycat, and the only danger he presented came from his desperate anxiety not to let that show.

The Ra Boy frowned as he seemed to detect something in her smile. Trying harder to set her aback, he bared his teeth in a raffish grin. “Rough, wet loving. It’s what women like. No less Big Mama Gaia. No?”

Across the aisle, a woman wearing an Orb of the Mother pendant glared sourly at the Ra Boy. He noticed, turned, and lolled his tongue at her, causing her fashionably fair skin to flush. Not wearing True-Vus, she quickly looked away.

He stood up, turning to sweep in the other passengers. “Ra melts the glaciers! He woos her with his heat. He melts her frigid infundibulum with warm waters. He…”

The Ra Boy stammered to a halt. Blinking, he swept aside his dark glasses and looked left and right, seeking Teresa. »

He spotted her at last, standing on the jerry-rigged third-floor landing of the Gibraltar Building. As the waterbus pulled away again, raising salty spumes in its wake, she blew a kiss toward the sun worshipper and his comrades. They were still staring back at her, with their masked eyes and patchy pink skins, as the boat driver accelerated to catch a yellow at First Street, barely making it across before the light changed.

“So long, harmless,” she said after the dwindling Ra Boy. Then she nodded to the doorman as he bowed and ushered her inside.

She had one stop to make before her meeting. A walk-in branch of a reputable bank offered an opportunity to unload her burden.

Usually a cash transaction would cause raised eyebrows, but in this case it was customary. The smiling attendant took her crisp fifties and led her to an anonymity booth, where Teresa promptly sealed herself in. She took a slim sensor from one pocket and plugged it into a jack in the side of her wallet, which then served as a portable console while she sca

Her father’s eyes crinkled with smile lines and he looked so proud of her as he silently mouthed words she had long ago memorized. Words of support. Words that had meant so much to her so often since he first spoke them… on every occasion since when she found herself bucking the odds.

Only none of those other crises was ever nearly as dire as the business she’d gotten herself into now. For that reason she held her hand back from touching the sound control or even replaying his well-remembered encouragement in her mind.

She was too afraid to test it. What if the words wouldn’t work this time? Might such a failure ruin the talisman forever, then? Uncertainty seemed preferable to finding out that this last touchstone in her life had lost its potency, that even her father’s calm confidence could offer no security against a world that could melt away any time it chose.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” she said quietly, poignantly. Teresa wanted to reach out and touch his gray-flecked beard. But instead she turned off his image and firmly turned her attention to the task at hand. From her pocket she drew one of two data spools, inserting it into a slot in the counter. Picking a code word from the name of a college roommate’s pet cat, she created a personal cache and fed in the contents of the spool. When the cylinder was empty and erased, she breathed a little easier.