Green Comet

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Tallgrass gets to run on the grass.

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Chapter Twenty-Four – Tallgrass

Sage and Professor Tailor were watching Tallgrass romp on the grass. He was running full tilt from one end of the rectangle to the other, his little body stretching, and his face lit by an ecstatic grin. Also watching were two members of the custodial staff, the same two who had brought Sage’s chest of drawers six years earlier. They’d come out of their office down at the end and were standing with their arms crossed, but with indulgent smiles.

Tallgrass had a special dispensation to be on the grass, even though he was not a professor or anyone else important enough to be allowed. Part of the reason was who his mother was, and part was the Professor’s influence, but mostly it was because he was so cute and so full of life that people just loved to see him enjoying himself. Not everyone. There were some who thought a Plainsrunner’s offspring had no business inside the gates, much less on the grass, but they were outvoted. Besides, as the maintenance staff said, he was too small and too light to do any real damage. Not yet, anyway. Sage smiled as she remembered him coming off the grass one day when it was time to go. He was panting and bursting with energy when he said, “I hope I stay small forever.”

The Professor’s eyes followed the boy as he said, “He’s growing up quickly, isn’t he? It seems like no time at all since you first arrived.”

“Yes,” said Sage, “and no.” When he raised his eyebrows at her she said, “So much has happened that it feels like it must be longer, and yet the time has flown by.”

“Yes,” said the Professor. “You have had a very full few years, haven’t you? From country girl to celebrity astronomer.”

She frowned at him. “Celebrity astronomer,” she muttered.

“Well, that’s what they’re calling you. I saw it on the news this morning. They called you author, screenwriter, celebrity astronomer and day flier killer.” He smiled at her frown.

“Oh, my ancestors,” she said. “Will I never live that down?”

“I don’t know why you would want to,” he said. “Your fame is what has allowed you to do the things you want to do.”

She nodded, grudgingly acknowledging that. “To think,” she said, “that all I wanted to do when I first came here was to learn. And it’s been a constant torrent of learning ever since.”

He nodded. “I remember that girl. I thought I was going to buy the artifact from you, and that would be it, but you ended up taking over completely.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” she said. “I remember it as running as fast as I could just to survive. I grabbed every advantage I could because I needed every one I could get.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry if it seemed as if I was using you.”

Tallgrass went tearing by in the other direction, grinning at them as he passed. They waved at him and the Professor said, “Not at all. This has been the best time of my life. My career has never been so fulfilling.”

“It’s been the same for me,” said Sage. “I’ve gone from being a hopeless exile to, well, a celebrity astronomer.” They laughed together, then she said, “I wanted to learn, but the amount and the pace of learning almost overwhelmed me.”

“Well,” he said, “your life completely changed. You had to re-learn almost everything.”

“Yes,” she said. “Up on the prairie we had no electricity. We walked everywhere we went. Messages had to be carried from village to village. The traders were one of our main means of communication, but they never told us about any of your new technology.”

“No,” he said. “They knew it was taboo for you people. They never took so much as a flashlight with them.”

“Right,” she said. “Then I come here and I learn about electricity and flashlights. Then about wagons that pull themselves.” She widened her eyes at him. “Then the ships that sail out on the ocean. And airplanes. Airplanes that are much bigger than day fliers and that fly much higher even than them.”

He nodded. “It must have completely overturned everything you thought you knew about the world.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “But it never overwhelmed you. You took it in and you adjusted, and you came out stronger for the new knowledge.”

“I’m glad it looked that way, but the truth is I felt like I was faking it most of the time.”

He chuckled. “If that’s true then you’re a champion faker. You had me fooled, and you’ve certainly impressed a lot of people in the process.”

“Then people are easily impressed,” she said. “Celebrity astronomer, indeed.” Quietly, she added, “The thing that almost sent me running was radio. I grew up thinking it was the ultimate evil, and when I learned that you city people were using it …”

Tallgrass went by the other way, but he was slowing down and his grin was a little more labored. They waved and the Professor said, “What made you stay?”

She thought about it as they watched the little runner, then said, “A combination of things. I had nowhere to go. I’d been discovering that our myths and legends were a little simplistic when faced with the reality. And I really wanted to learn. Especially about the gliders.”

“And you liked being a celebrity astronomer?”

“You be quiet,” she said. “I was nowhere near that when I learned about radio.”

They smiled together as they watched Tallgrass trotting back to them. In a quiet voice, he ventured, “Are you never going to tell me who the father is?”

Still looking at her son, she said, “I think you know who his father is, Professor.”

“Do you mean …” he stammered. “Am I the one?”

She looked sideways at him and nodded.

“But why didn’t you say? I should have known. I could have … done something. I could have helped.”

Tallgrass was close then and she only had time to say, “I didn’t need any help,” before he was there, basking in their praise and their love.

They saw the groundskeepers walk out to inspect the grass, paying close attention to where Tallgrass had made his turns. The boy’s eyes were wide with anxiety during the inspection, and when they waved and gave the high sign he capered in a circle of joy. He’d be allowed to play on the grass at least one more time.

The Professor took the opportunity to say, “I know you didn’t need me Sage, but I would have liked to have helped anyway.”

“I know,” she said, “but it was something I had to …”

They were interrupted by sound and motion at the gate on the opposite side of the grass. Tallgrass looked and called out, “Uncle Digger,” and began running. He slowed down when he saw that there was someone with him, but when Digger called his name and held out his arms, he sped up again.

While they watched the reunion, the Professor said, “Who is that with him?”

“I don’t know,” said Sage, “but something about him seems familiar.”

They watched as the pair walked down, then across the end, and then back up their side, Tallgrass repeatedly trotting ahead and back to them. When they finally got close enough, Sage gasped and said, “Street?”

Digger called out, “Look who I’ve brought to see you, Sage.”

When they got there Sage gave Digger a hug, then offered her hand to Street. “It’s nice to see you again, Street. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Digger said, “He was asking after you. We usually get together when he gets back from a trading expedition, and he wanted to know how you were doing. So I told him to come and find out for himself.”

She turned to Street and asked, “And why did it take you so long to get around to it?”

His handsome face was abashed and he turned his eyes to the ground. “You didn’t look like you needed me horning in. You were doing fine and I didn’t want to spoil it for you.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I looked up to you,” she said sternly. “I used your strength and bravery as an example to get me through the hard times.” She was frowning at him when the Professor discreetly cleared his throat. “Oh yes,” she said. “Where are my manners? Professor, this is Street. You might remember me talking about him. Street, this is Professor Tailor. We work together. And you’ve already met my son, Tallgrass.”

They shook hands and the Professor said, “You needn’t have worried about Sage. I don’t believe you could have spoiled it for her if you tried.”

Digger laughed out loud and Street smiled, remembering the girl he met by the sentinel tree. His smile broadened when he recalled how she talked to Tiny. “No, I think you’re right, Professor,” he said. “I guess I should have known, eh? After all, I did meet her that once.”

All three men laughed, while Sage frowned. Tallgrass looked anxiously back and forth, then he began to frown too. He had no idea what was going on, but it looked as if his mother didn’t like it, and if she didn’t like it, then neither did he. He was getting set to do something when Sage noticed.

“It’s okay, Tally,” she said. “It’s friendly laughter.”

Tallgrass looked at the Professor, who nodded and smiled. He looked at Digger, who did the same. Street tried to look harmless and sincere when he looked at him. Street said, “It’s true, son. We all think your mother’s the greatest.”

Tallgrass continued frowning at him. “Then why were you laughing at her?” he asked.

“We weren’t,” said Street. “Well, we were, but it wasn’t to be mean. It’s because we all know how great she is.” He looked around for help.

Digger and the Professor chose to stay out of it, so Sage said, “Sometimes friends tease each other, but it’s all in fun. It doesn’t mean they don’t like you.”

Tallgrass thought about that, then said, “Then why did you look unhappy?”

“Well …”

The Professor grasped the baton. “Even though it’s done in fun, nobody likes to be the one singled out.” He patted Tallgrass’s neck, and his stomach lurched when he realized he was touching his son. “It was good of you to stick up for her, Tallgrass. That’s what we do for people we care about.” He smiled at Sage and the two men. “If you hadn’t, though, I don’t think it would have been long before she stuck up for herself.”

Tallgrass looked at Sage, and she said, “That’s right. I was just going to let them have it when you saved me the trouble. Thanks.” She grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

He frowned a little longer, then grinned. He said, “You’d have really let them have it, wouldn’t you Mom?”

“Darn rights,” she said. “They wouldn’t have known what hit them.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at the men. “You wouldn’t have known what hit you.”

Street threw his hands up. “I’m just glad you stepped in when you did,” he said.

Digger and the Professor nodded, and Tallgrass said, “Yeah!” Then he took off and ran a big circle on the grass. They watched him for a moment, the Professor with especially soft eyes.

Sage turned to Street. “So, how is everybody? My mother and father?”

“Your village is doing fine,” he said. “They were happy when I told them we saw you. Well, most of them, anyway. I think they were mostly glad to hear that you survived.”

“I see,” she said, surprised. She had thought they hated her. “My father?”

“Yes, I had a good long talk with him. He was really happy and relieved to hear you were all right. And I’ve been back there once since, so I was able to tell him how well you’re doing here.” His eyes flicked away and back. “He and your mother are separated. I guess they couldn’t keep it together after …”

She was surprised that this news didn’t surprise her. “Did you see Tallgrass?”

“Yes,” he said. “The first time, he came and asked if we’d seen you. He obviously really cares for you, Sage.”

“And the second time?”

He hesitated, then said, “He’s with someone.”

“Who?”

“You wouldn’t know her. She’s from the tallgrass prairie, over by the mountains. Like his own grandmother.”

“Are they happy?”

“I think so. They have a daughter, not much younger than your Tallgrass.”

“That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad he’s happy.” She was wearing a wistful smile as she watched her own Tallgrass trotting back to them.

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Sage takes on the world.

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Chapter Twenty-Three – Fame

The newspaper didn’t agree with her. Even though they originally came to her to do a story about the prodigy who won a place at the university against all odds, they ended up doing a feature about the girl who survived a month alone in the wilderness. Of course it included the story of her killing the day flier, complete with pictures of her holding her spear and wearing the necklace. For an interesting juxtaposition, they took the pictures on the university grounds. The primitive and the civilized. She indulged them, but she refused to stand on the grass, nor would she allow them on it in spite of their insistence that they needed a better angle. Nor did she allow them into her quarters, because that would have disturbed the Professor. She did allow them to take pictures of her in the library. The primitive reading. They needed the university’s permission, but they only had to promise to publish pictures of the Head Librarian and the University President for that.

The feature was a success, and not long after that the city magazine called. They did a big glossy spread contrasting the intellectual academic against the tough country girl. She refrained from pointing out that it was the same intelligence that made her successful in both cases. She had already learned that they showed little interest in the nuances, subtle or otherwise. Next came the inter-metropolitan magazines that were sold in many other cities along with hers. She was able to choose among them and she chose the one that offered to pay her the most. They also claimed to have the widest coverage with the most subscribers. She was interested in the money because it could buy her security and independence. She didn’t let it blind her, though. She made them commit to giving substantial attention to the university and to Professor Tailor. He wound up with a lot of job offers, but he chose to stay where he was, at a significant increase in benefits. The university didn’t mind because they were in more demand and could raise their rates. Sage felt bad about that unintended consequence and, when she was in a position to do so, established a very generous scholarship.

Next came the book deal. Once again she was faced with competing offers and relied heavily on the advice of the university and their recommended experts to choose the best one. As it turned out, the one she chose was the only one that didn’t try to get her to turn over the rights to her story in exchange for a larger cash advance. She was glad of the advice because without it she would never have seen the trap, and she would have been left out in the cold when the movie deal came along.

That was almost too much for her. The disruption of her life and the demands on her time made her want to pull out and go back to being a simple cleaner. All the distractions were affecting what she thought of as her real work, and the damage to her pride in her work ethic had her wanting to call it all off. Fortunately the Professor was able to talk to her and convince her that, with her money, she could hire someone to take over her cleaning duties and not need to give anything up. She burst out from under the gathering clouds, kissed the Professor’s cheek and got hold of Digger. He was able to find someone, a shy young woman who was willing and needed the work, and Sage was able to concentrate on her new duties.

The movie was successful and it spawned a sequel. Sage was on the books as author – with a ghostwriter – co-screenwriter and technical advisor. Her fame led to more magazine articles and more books and more movies. It seemed as if once it got going, it became self-sustaining. Fame led to more fame, and success to more success. If Sage was embarrassed by it, and she was, she didn’t let it show publicly. She was embarrassed because it felt as if she was being rewarded far out of proportion to the effort she was putting in. She didn’t show it because the money, in addition to securing her life, allowed her to help Digger and fund her scholarships.

In spite of all the turmoil, she was able to find the time to continue working with the Professor, which she considered her most important work. They made some progress with the artifacts. Sage, from the broad mass of knowledge she was absorbing, came up with suggestions for the symbols etched on their backs. The Professor’s, a circle apparently orbiting another circle, was already suggested to represent the lightest element, hydrogen. She agreed and suggested that they say so in a paper. Hers, a large circle with two smaller circles embedded in it, like a simple face drawn by a child, didn’t resemble any element. She told the Professor that she thought it might represent a water molecule, and they co-wrote a paper about that, too. They also speculated that the material they were made from was carbon. They were hesitant because it seemed metallic and they had never heard of metallic carbon, but they published anyway. Their tests indicated carbon, and that’s what they reported. They would let the scientific community work it out.

When the book deal came through and she received her first cheque, Sage decided that it was time to move out and get her own place. She felt she had enough money now, and soon she would have a degree in astronomy and could find a job, so it would be a safe move. She loved her place on the campus and she liked how it was so convenient to her work, but the time had come. She wanted the Professor to have his room back, for those nights he worked late and didn’t want to have to go all the way home to sleep. Also, if she had her own place she would be able to take in some of Digger’s people. It bothered her that she was receiving so much good fortune and she wasn’t repaying the man who had made it possible.

She would move out and get things going in the right direction, but first there was something she wanted to do. She was just coming into oestrus, and she started to work on the Professor. At first he didn’t know what was going on. Then he did know, but pretended he didn’t. Next he let on that he knew, but pretended that it was inappropriate, with him being her employer. And how would it be if they made all the cliché rumors true? He resisted, however feebly, but she persisted. When they passed each other, she always made sure to brush against him. When they were at the workbench, she pressed close, shoulder to shoulder, their heads close, breathing mingled breath. He didn’t stand a chance and soon they did what came naturally.

She moved within days, and when her pregnancy became obvious, and later when her son was born, there was enough uncertainty around the timing to make the nasty rumors impotent. She didn’t reveal who the father was, not even to the Professor, and she let herself be seen with enough men, from Digger to film producers, that it might have been anyone. That led to talk about the loose morals of the northern girl, which wounded her natural sense of rectitude, but she only used it to enhance her already overblown public image.

By the time Tallgrass was born, the mystique around Sage was so well established that single motherhood was on its way from a state of disgrace, to a courageous choice.

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Sage surprises a lot of people.

Is Laird the only one reading this? Please let me know in the comments whether you’re enjoying it. And subscribe so you don’t miss anything.

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Chapter Twenty-Two – Work

Professor Tailor got his cleaner, and Sage got her education. During the day she cleaned, and the laboratory had never looked so good. She didn’t stint. Even after she had been doing it long enough for it all to become routine, she never did it perfunctorily. She got the grit out of the cracks in the floor. She dusted everywhere, even the places that would never be seen. She removed the cobwebs from the highest corners of the ceiling. The high windows at the back of the lab, over the narrow alley between the building and the wall, she polished so thoroughly that the glass seemed to disappear. The only thing she didn’t clean was any area where the Professor was running an experiment.

She didn’t confine her activities to the lab. The foyer, with its big windows and beautiful wooden floor, was polished up to showroom standards. She wanted everyone who entered to get a good impression. In his office she was more circumspect. Although the room got the same attention as the rest of the place, she didn’t touch his desk. She knew that he always had things on the go, works in progress that he left out until he was finished them, so she didn’t disturb anything.

Upstairs was the same. Even though she was the only one who went up there, she kept it to the same level of perfection as the rest. She remembered how the wood and the fittings shone and gleamed the first time she saw them, and she tried to make it even better.

She even went outside once a week to do the outsides of the windows. The lower ones were fine. She could put her front hooves on the sill and reach the top corners that way. It was the upper windows that were the problem. She had to get the Professor’s help to find the scaffolding that would get her up that high. At first the workers – the same ones who had brought her chest of drawers – refused. They said it was their job and they would do it, but after a few weeks of her badgering them to get it done, they gave her access so she could get the scaffold herself. She also set it up in the narrow alley at the back so she could do the lab windows.

While she was working outside she naturally interacted with people walking by on the sidewalk, and the occasional professor on the grass. Of the students, some were friendly, some were shy, and some were scornful. She soon learned to identify the ones on scholarship. They were sometimes friendly and sometimes shy, but never rude. And they didn’t carry the air of entitlement that came with so many of the others. Of the professors, most ignored her, but a few spoke to her. Most of those had only polite comments, but a few would joke about how she could do their place when she was finished here. Some of them ended up hiring her when she took them up on it.

All in all, other than some annoyed maintenance staff, some cleaning contractors whose work she took, and the inevitable umbrage of some of the privileged students, she got on with people well. The staff stopped snickering behind their hands whenever they crossed paths. In part it was because their manager talked to them after the Professor talked to him. When Sage asked him why they were always grinning at her, he was outraged. In part it was for her sake, but in part it was because it implied impropriety on his part. So they were chastened, but they were also learning a grudging respect for her. They were impressed by her work ethic, and they also heard hints and rumors about how she got there. Maybe she was an unsophisticated primitive from the back country, but she was a strong and brave and industrious one. Most gratifying for Sage was the change in Derrick, the Professor’s pupil, who overcame his prejudice and became her friend.

At night and on the weekends she pursued her education. The Professor got her enrolled in official courses that would get her a standard education. There may have been a few smirks among the other students when they learned she couldn’t even read, but by the end of the first year she was helping them with their studies. It was soon obvious that, in addition to her diligence, she had a powerful innate intelligence. By the end of the second year she was ready to take the qualification examinations.

She did well enough to qualify for a scholarship. In fact, she scored in the ninety-ninth percentile of everyone who had ever taken the exams. She showed that she was deserving, but the university was reluctant to admit her. They were worried that it would diminish their reputation if a mere country girl could so easily get in. They were prepared to give the seat to yet another boy from a monied family. Then the Professor explained that there were other universities that would gladly take her, and her artifact, and him, and his artifact. Reminded of the prestige they would lose, they made a great show of welcoming this girl from the north country, and establishing their progressive, merit-based, egalitarian reputation.

At last Sage could join the Professor in his work, although by then it wasn’t much of a change. During the two years it took her to get the qualifications necessary to act as a lab assistant, she had already performed most of the duties of one. Since she was cleaning the glassware anyway, she might as well set it up for the experiment. Knowing where everything was, it was logical for her to order supplies. Once she learned how to read and write, why shouldn’t she keep his notebook for him? The only thing she didn’t do was actually participate in the experiments. At least not directly.

Being there while he was working, she was naturally privy to his thoughts. It was only a matter of time, and not long at that, before he started talking to her. Social chatter at first, but inevitably it turned to his work, either the work at hand or anything else that was on his mind. It didn’t take him long to see that she was getting it. Once she had an idea of what he was talking about, and some understanding of the jargon, she could converse reasonably on anything he brought up. He was continually impressed by her agile mind, and continually reminded that he had done the right thing by sponsoring her.

Her talents made her a valuable partner in the laboratory. First she was just a sounding board for his ideas. Then she was asking acute questions that helped illuminate the problem. Finally she was making insightful contributions to the solutions. All the while she was busy with mop or broom or rag. No matter how deeply she got involved with his work, she never forgot her work. Not only did she have high standards for herself, she also kept in mind that she was there as a cleaner, and she owed it to the Professor to not overstep her position.

Sage didn’t confine her learning to the classroom and the lab. Once she knew how to read she began to practice on the books in her room. The advanced physics was still a little beyond her at that time, but the astronomy, leaving aside the mathematics, was fascinating. She learned that she was living on a planet orbiting an orange dwarf star. Her planet was the third one out from the star, and the next one in, roughly the same size, was also in something called the habitable zone of the star. What a revelation! She hadn’t thought of stars as having planets before now, much less habitable zones. And the idea that there was another planet in her star’s zone was intoxicating.

She asked the Professor about it. Could there be life there? Could there be people there? Were the legends true? Did the people of this planet once fly up there and go to the other planet? And now, after a great catastrophe that brought down the people’s prideful ways and kept them in darkness for those ages, could the people on the other planet be sending these artifacts as messages?

The Professor smiled with proud indulgence at her bright flame of curiosity. He told her that many great minds had asked these questions, and so far they had no definitive answers. But, he said, there were tantalizing clues. Archeologists were finding evidence of massive structures that were much older, and buried much deeper than the more recent ones they had been studying. There were rare artifacts, mere fragments, that seemed to indicate a time of high culture and technology much farther in the past than anyone had thought possible. No one could say for sure, but the legends of great deeds and a long fall in the deep past might contain a germ of truth.

Her curiosity was fully inflamed now. Before she became an official lab assistant, she devoured every book in her room, then the rest of the Professor’s books, then she started in on the university’s library. She found out that the city had a library too, so she started going there. That’s where she found the more speculative ideas, including an entire genre devoted to aliens from other stars who had come here and brought down destruction on their heads.

She had been experiencing many things these past two years that she would never have imagined in her previous life, but she still stopped now and then to marvel at it. Here she was, a simple country girl, finding herself involved in some of the grandest inquiries of the smartest and most important people in the world. It seemed to her that that might be even bigger than killing a day flier.