“I had a strange dream.” said Alicia as She rolled over to face Joe. “I dreamt it was hundreds of thousands of years ago. Like in that guide to Earth lecture. The one on how humans evolved? I was with a big family of people right here on the Lake. It all seemed so pleasant. We women were collecting fruit and digging stuff up and children were climbing trees for eggs. Men were running after animals. And we humans had the beach and the rivers and the baboons had the rocks on the hilltops.”
“Oh?” said Joe.
“It all seemed so natural. To be here on Earth and not in a space ship.”
“I guess it is.”
“So how is it that we live in space and the baboons are still in the rocks?”
“No brains.”
“Us or the baboons?”
They watched the Sun rise, turning the Lake Mist orange. They heard Tem or someone drumming to say breakfast was ready. But they just slept some more. The orange turned to yellow. Then white as the air squirmed and shivered in the growing heat.
“I’d better get my stuff.” Alicia realised she was about to wear the same sweaty bikini. “Can you help?”
Hand in hand they walked up the beach, then, trying to keep in the shade of trees, to the chalet. Alicia’s friends were already up and thinking of breakfast. Two of them smiled. Happy for Alicia, giggling as they helped her pack.
The third was jealous, confrontational, and naked, and asked Joe “You’re a man. What do you think of my new breasts? Are the nipples the right size?”
“Um…Well…They’re OK.” Joe wasn’t sure what to say. Thankfully he grabbed one of Alicia’s bags and they set off back to his house.
“She always comes on to men like that,” said Alicia. “Every man she meets. Its love in vain, then she dumps them. Hasn’t had a decent relationship for a century now. She tried being a man for a while, but she didn’t get on at that either.”
“Oh”. Joe thought the woman was just a desirable body. It was sort of humbling to realise he’d missed a troubled personality behind the smile. Then he thought. “Have you ever been a man?”
“Oh yes. I think everyone should spend some time in both sexes. Helps you to know humanity. And your place in it. Were you ever a woman?”
“No. Never felt like it.” Said Joe
“You should try it for a decade at least. I know all about men. But what do you really know about women?”
“Well…. Maybe one day.”
“Wait till we fall out of love though won’t you.”
They dropped Alicia’s bags in the lounge. “Well I suppose you can put your stuff in the bedroom. There’s loads of room in the cupboards and things.”
“I’m not going to find your old girlfriends underwear am I?”
“Oh no. She was ages ago.”
“Sometime you can tell me about her. Wow there is a lot of space. I’ll have to get more clothes.”
They unpacked. They made love. They saw the latest on a news channel. (A Mirconian ship orbiting the moon was declared too dangerous to move and its crew hadn’t been paid.) They ate. They lazed. They saw more news. (The scrap dealers were still refusing to leave the Chimbuzi gas mine. Mirconium may send ships to guard them.) They thought it was about time to get back home.
“I bet I’ll be writing more letters about the scrapies, as soon as I’m at work. Cheerful thought. I’ll put the house on autopilot” explained Joe, “then it can follow whatever routes are open across the Equator. You know the routes change all the time as ships land or take off and….” His words were stifled by Alicia’s kiss.
The house flew 700 kilometres up the sky blue Lake. Through the haze they could see distant blue and purple mountains on both shores while the house flew over yachts and speedboats, and between airships and houses and whatever else went by air.
From the end of the Lake to the Equator it became more built up and industrial. Manufacturing plants and accommodation towers reached up to the stratosphere from Mikumi and the Mkata Plain. By now the geo-syncs were almost overhead. They looked like large stars shining in the gathering dusk. Points and blobs of light that were really the docks, factories and warehouses of the artificial ring round Earth. Joe’s house started slipping between more and more ships, barges and planes. All soaring up or down between the ring in space and the cities that sprawled along the Equator beneath.
“I think that’s
Zanzibar over there. See all the buildings look like they stick out
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