Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Six

Tila was studying the map on her data pad when they left the room and tripped over a  worker in the corridor and dropped her pad. The worker, a woman wearing a Skygarden baseball cap, caught Tila before she fell.

"My apologies," said the woman. She picked up the data pad before Tila could reach it, wiped it with her sleeve and gave it back.

"Thanks," said Tila.

"Miss nimble can't avoid everything then," said Nina.

"You wouldn't have done any better," Tila countered.

"I would have looked where I was going," said Nina.

"Okay, fair point," said Tila. "At least they keep this place nice and clean." She looked closer. "Well outside my room is clean."

"You embarrassed her, she'll come back after we've gone," said Malachi. "Let's go and find the others. You haven't called Jayce an idiot for a while. He'll be getting worried."

They walked and talked through the elevator ride up. All the while Tila observed Malachi and Nina. They seemed to fit, somehow, which surprised Tila. It was almost too perfect. It wasn't that there was anything about them as a couple which seemed like an obvious incompatibility unless you thought Nina's five-year age gap was an issue. Tila had known plenty of couples on the Juggernaut, and seen more than a few relationships blossom, and seen some die.

Malachi and Nina had a lot in common. They were both intelligent and driven to learn. Like Malachi with physical tech, Nina seemed to take personal offence at a line of code she couldn't decipher.

And now they were together New Haven would benefit all the more. Nina, like Tila, had never fully integrated into New Haven until she met Malachi, choosing instead to trade her knowledge of the Juggernaut's component ships and new arrivals among many different communities. Tila didn't blame her for that. You did what you had to on the Juggernaut. But now she and Malachi were together and polling their talents for the benefit of New Haven the community would only be stronger.

They arrived and the doors opened. They stepped out of the white elevator and into the green canopy of Skygarden.

The artificial nature of the station's sub-levels was to be expected. They were in space station after all.

The garden under stars they walked into was nothing they expected.

Only a few steps away from the elevator it was hard to tell they were in space at all. It could have been any geodesic dome on any planet at night. Their only clue from here was that, if you waited a few minutes, you could track the motion of the stars against the lattice structure of the Skygarden roof.

They walked on, crunching along a gravel path beside high banks of grass and under tall trees chosen for their long trunks and broad canopies. Smaller trees, bushes and shrubs had been planted in tiers underneath the trees, layering the greenery from sky to ground.

Two butterflys flitted past, somehow making progress despite their seemingly random flights. Above them, birds sang.

"It's so warm in here," said Nina, removing her jacket. "So humid."

A squirrel ran across their path and vanished behind a tree.

"It's all the plants," said Malachi. "They've turned this place into a greenhouse."

They passed a café cut into the earthy hillside. People sat and talked or worked or flirted while they shared cakes and sipped hot drinks. They café area seemed to live in a pool of sunlight, but there was no sun in the sky. All the light in here was artificial. She looked up as they passed through the café and saw the yellow lights and heat lamps concealed behind branches and leaves.