Genesis

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rick almost fell to the deck on his face. The inner hatch had risen without his noticing it, and there was air all around him. Unfortunately, his helmet was still sealed.

Minmei raced for him, screaming something he couldn't hear. He reeled and staggered. At last, between them, they got the helmet off; he devoured air, his chest straining against the flight suit, sobbing on the exhale, but alive.

Minmei got a shoulder under his arm, steadying him as he sank to all fours. "I was so worried! I thought-" She didn't finish it.

"At least… I got the tuna back in," he labored. Catching his breath a bit, he straightened up and looked back over his shoulder into the lock, at his catch.

The fish had been thrust back when he kicked off from it and had been completely severed by the outer hatch; only the glassy-eyed head remained in the lock, and everything behind the gills was out drifting once more on some new vector.

"Or some of it, anyway," he amended. He wondered whether Minmei's aunt had taught her any recipes appropriate to the occasion.

"Hu-uuuh!" Rick observed, and sank to the cold deck.

Ushio jiru, a great delicacy, was more suited to the preparation of the porgy, exploiting the flavor and use of piscine parts Westerners usually discarded. The version Aunt Lena had taught Minmei, however, did not start "Take one fish head one and one-half yards long."

That didn't make Rick's mouth water any less as the hapless fish sat staring at them out of a big vat; Mockingbird's jet fuel flamed through jury-rigged burners, and a delicious smell wafted out through the compartment.

"Why are you sitting there with such a sad look on your face?" Minmei prodded Rick. "You caught a fish in outer space! You were wonderful out there!"

Glumly, he sat with face cupped in hands. He'd underestimated her and had made a pact with himself to be honest with her from now on. "Thanks, but that little fishing trip ruined our chances of going out along the ship's hull." He showed her the rent that had appeared in his suit in the last instants before she had opened the inner hatch and saved him.

"We have no way to fix it. I don't know what we're gonna do." He hugged his knees, forehead sinking down against them.

"Maybe we could cut a hole in the roof and then climb right up," she proposed-anything to keep him from losing hope.

His head came up again. "I've already thought about that. I took some tools and climbed up to the ceiling yesterday. But it's like armor; I couldn't even make a dent in it."

Minmei gave the mountainous fish head a poke with her long sheet-metal fork. "What about an explosion?"

"What would we explode? The last of our fuel will run the camp stove a while longer, but it wouldn't even warm up this armor all around us."

Minmei prodded the fish head a little, trying to set it so it wouldn't topple. They'd lashed together some pitchforklike cooking tools, but those were pretty clumsy. They couldn't afford to spill the ushio jiru or waste any of the fish head; they might not have any other source of food for a long time.

She looked at the flame beneath the vat and wondered what would happen to them when the food, the fuel-perhaps even the air and water-finally gave out.

Minmei's tally of the days had grown: four verticals crosshatched with a fifth, and another group of five, and two more besides, for a total of twelve. Neither of them mentioned the count anymore.

They would leave the stove on, a tiny orange-yellow flame, for just a little while after the compartment lights went out each night. It was unwise from the standpoint of conservation, of course, but it helped their morale a lot, talking for a while in the peaceful quiet of their tent before going to sleep. Rick found himself looking forward to those moments all day as he dragged himself around the maze, his hopes dashed over and over by dead ends.

But he was already thinking about the moment when the stove would flicker out for the last time. There was always the wood from the many packing crates, of course, but Rick wasn't sure what danger an open fire might constitute to the air supply. He was already mapping steam and hot water lines, looking for the best and nearest place to do their cooking, and trying to interpret the utility markings in order to improvise a little light during the night cycles and recharge his flashlight once Mockingbird's batteries were completely dead.

"And so I practiced as hard as I could-I didn't do much of anything else, I guess," he told Minmei. He was lying with his head pillowed on his arms, staring up at Mockingbird. Minmei lay across from him on her pallet, resting on one elbow. The soft light made her skin glow and her eyes liquid and deep.

"My dad grumbled a bit," he went on, "but he taught me everything he knew, and I came back to win that competition the next year. And I won it eight times in a row, even though I was only flying an old junker plane."

He stopped, wondering if it sounded like he was bragging. Then he dismissed the thought; Minmei knew him better than that. And he felt like he'd known her all his life-no, like he'd known her always.

She sighed, laying her head on her hands, watching him. "Rick?" she said softly. "Do you think I'll ever get to fly with you again?"

He put all the conviction he could into his answer, trying to sound matter-of-fact. "Why, sure! Once we get rescued, I'll take you up whenever you want. That is, if you'll sing for me now and then."

She lay back, gazing up at the play of firelight on the inverted cockpit canopy. Their isolation had become their world, filling dreams as well as days.

Sometimes I dream of falling in love. She'd never dared mention it to him.

Minmei began singing, a song she'd written and never shared with anybody before. It took him a second to realize that he didn't recognize it.

"To be in love

My hero he must take me where no other can

Where silver suns have golden moons,

Each year has thirteen Junes,

That's what must be for me

To be

In love."

"You've got a beautiful voice." He'd said it before; though he tried to think of some flowery new way to tell her, it always came out the same way.

She looked over at him again; he couldn't tell if she was blushing or not. "Thank you, Rick." She averted her eyes for a second, then looked to him again. "If I could do one thing with my life, it would be to sing. I couldn't live without singing."

"It's always been planes for me," he answered, even though she already knew that. "All I ever wanted to do was fly." Then he felt awkward for repeating what he must have told her a hundred times already.

But Minmei sat up, embracing her knees, nodding gravely. "I know how you feel, Rick. Sometimes you can't be happy unless you do what you dream about."

"So you're sure that being an entertainer is what you want from life?"

"Yes, I guess." She added in a rush, "But what I really want is to be a bride."

He was suddenly alert and wary. "Ah. You mean, married?"

She nodded, the long hair shimmering in the stove's light. "In my family, there's so much love-well, I've told you that already, haven't I? You'll simply have to meet them! They're wonderful and-that's the kind of joy I want in my life."

"I guess you'll probably make somebody a terrific wife," he said noncommittally.

She was suddenly sad again. "Thanks, but now I'll never have the chance."

"Don't you even think that, Minmei! I know we're gonna get out of here somehow!"

"It's been twelve days. And I'm sure they must have given up searching for us by now." Her voice had shrunk to a whisper. "We'll never get out of here."

He didn't know what to say. Before he could decide, there were squeaks and chitters and a faint rattling.

"It's those mice again! I'll get them this time!" Relieved at a chance to work off his frustration, he grabbed an empty can and sprang to the opening of the tent.

He hurled the can, and it clanked and bounced in the darkness, scattering the mice.

She was standing next to him. "We're never going to make it out of here alive. We're going to be here forever."

Her hands were clasped, and she was gazing sadly into the darkness. She suddenly sounded bitter. "We've been here too long. They've all forgotten about us by now."

"Minmei, I don't want to hear that kind of talk!"

"It's true! We've just got to face it." She stood with her back to him, looking out into a void darker than deep space. "We'll live our entire lives right here in this ship. I'll never know what it's like to be a bride and start a whole new life."

She was weeping, unable to go on, her shoulders shaking.

"Minmei," he said gently, "you will. I'll show you."

She sniffed. "How can you do that?"

"Um, we can have a ceremony right here. We can pretend."

She turned and came back to him, cheeks wet. "Oh, Rick, do you mean it?" He nodded slowly; Minmei wiped away her tears. "Then let me borrow your scarf?"

She unknotted it and drew it from around his neck, a long, white flier's scarf of fine silk, spreading it and carefully arranging it as a bridal veil.

"Minmei, you look beautiful. I–I guess I should be the groom, huh?" he said haltingly, then rolled his eyes at his own stupidity.

Minmei said nothing, holding her hand out. He took it. "Is this what we do next?"

She started to nod, then broke from her role, close to tears again. "Oh, Rick, why doesn't someone come and find us? I want to go home!"

"But you will, I promise you."

She squeezed his hand hard. "I'm just so scared." It sounded so small and forlorn in the huge, empty compartment.

"I know; so am I." He took her shoulders in his hands. "Come on, I'm telling you: We're gonna get out of here! There's got to be a way! We can't give up! I've never been a quitter, and you shouldn't be either!"

She pulled back out of his reach. "Stop it. That's all just silly talk! You know what's going to happen! We're going to die here!" She turned away, sobbing.

Rick stared at her, not knowing what to say. She was not quite sixteen, very much in love with life. "Minmei, it's not silly talk. I really believe it. You mustn't give up. I'm doing my best." He gestured vaguely. "I'm sorry."

She turned back to him. "No, Rick; I'm the one who should apologize. It's just that-" She threw herself into his arms. "I'm being so stupid-"

He held her close. "That's not true."

She turned her face up to his. "Kiss me, Rick."

"If you're sure…"

She closed her eyes, and they kissed.

It seemed to them that their lips had barely touched when there was a concussion that shook the deck, shook that whole part of the ship, like the crack of doomsday, nearly sending them sprawling. The Mockingbird and their camp disappeared under tons of metal alloy. They barely kept their feet, holding each other in their arms.

Suddenly there was something-the Leaning Tower of Robotech! Rick thought wildly-canted to one side in its lodging place, having penetrated the deck above, the one totally immune to Rick's tools. Light shone down into the compartment.

Not just light; it looks like SUNLIGHT! Minmei thought, though she didn't understand how that could possibly be. Wasn't it night all over the ship?

Long shafts of artificial light-flashlights-probed down into the dust and smoke of the sealed-off compartment. There were voices.

"What was that? An enemy missile?"

"Looked to me like a bomb!" Human figures were gathering around the jagged entrance hole of the metal juggernaut that had struck daylight into Rick and Minmei's prison.

"Naw," somebody drawled. "New converter subunit from the ceiling level, according to Control. Mounting gave way."

The beams played this way and that while the castaways watched, too astounded to speak. Then one light found them, and another, and in a second four or five converged on them.

"Hey! There's somebody down there!"

"It looks like a coupla kids!"

They held each other close, not sure what might have happened to the rest of the universe in twelve song days and nights. The harsh flashlight beams sent shadows away from them in different directions.

Then a familiar voice said, "Why, that looks like Minmei down there!" It came from a squat, broad figure gazing down at the very edge of the abyss.

Minmei's grip on Rick tightened. "It's the mayor! Rick, Rick, we're saved!" She hugged him but then let go, moving into the center spotlight to wave.

Rick dropped his arms to his side and wondered why he wasn't as ecstatic as he thought he'd be.

It took only a few minutes to get a crane rigged with a bucket to lift them out; there was construction equipment all over that part of SDF-1. They were lifted up into more intense light than they'd seen in nearly two weeks. But that was hardly noticeable, insignificant against the shock of the new world in which they found themselves.

"Are we dreaming or something?" Minmei clung to the bucket's rail. "What in the world is going on here?"

They were looking around them at broad streets and tall buildings, signs, lamp posts, marquees, and throngs of people. They were looking at Macross City, except that far overhead was the expanse of a spacecraft's metal "ceiling." A far-reaching lighting system had already been set up to give Earth-normal illumination. The crowds were pointing at them and gabbling and yelling.

"I can't believe it," he muttered. "The whole city's here."

The bucket set them down to one side of the hole in the deck. Minmei was about to climb out when she gasped and pointed. "Oh, Rick, look!"

He remembered the corner well; he'd done enough crashing around on it in a Battloid he couldn't steer. Except these buildings all looked new, bright with fresh paint.

"The White Dragon and Aunt Lena's house are right here!" She was already clambering out of the bucket.

There's no place like home, Rick thought sourly, not remembering whether or not he'd clicked the heels of his ruby slippers.

He felt a little woozy, and there were a lot of confusing images, one on top of another, after that. A tiny dynamo came dodging out of the crowd. Jason threw himself into Minmei's arms, and the cousins hugged each other and cried.

Mayor Tommy Luan was slapping Rick on the back and saying things like "As you can see, m'boy, the entire city's been rebuilt! Now, we've got to get you rested up and hear what happened to you; you've been gone for almost two weeks!"

Minmei's Uncle Max had more to add, pumping Rick's hand with the powerful grip of a lifelong worker. "I appreciate the protection you provided our baby girl!"

"Uh, don't mention it," Rick said vaguely. He suddenly wanted very much to sit down. Then he caught other nearby voices.

People were gathered around Minmei, Macross City people who knew her and regarded her as part of their extended family, not a castaway and a stranger-not as they would regard Rick.

"Oh, it was so frightening down there," she was telling her audience, wide-eyed. "You have no idea!"

"Oh, I can imagine," a woman said, while people nodded and murmured in agreement.

A godlike voice echoed through the strange, metal-boundaried world of the new Macross City, startling Rick. "Attention! Message from the bridge!"

He thought it was a voice he'd heard before somewhere, but he was too disoriented to place it. "The disturbance in Sector Seven-X was caused by a construction accident. There were no injuries. The damage will be cleared up very shortly. All divisions revert to normal status."

Where'd I hear that voice before? he wondered.

Minmei was regaling people now; she had the crowd in the palm of her hand. "Oh! And the mice!"

The onlookers laughed in anticipation, though they had no idea what the mice story was all about. Rick waited for her to catch his eye and draw him into the center of attention, but she was focused on her performance now.

A bad dream, he told himself, not sure if he meant the long wait below or coming back to a too-bright, too-loud, too-strange world.

"Well, m'boy, you must be one happy fella right now, by golly, huh?" Tommy Luan said, and slapped him on the back again in a man-to-man fashion. The mayor was built like a barrel weighted with cannonballs; the slap sent Rick teetering over to the deck.

It felt nice and comfortable there. He didn't have the strength to get up anyway and didn't think anybody would miss him if he just napped for a little while.