Reunion

by Christian Schaller

Six months later.

Click.

Six months later, and it was still hell out there on the plains.

Click.

It was a synthetic sound, artificial, unnatural. A good imitation of a camera shutter snapping open and then closed, sure, but cameras had long ago stopped having shutters to snap.

Click.

A crater five kilometers in radius.

Click.

The sun, smaller than the one the photographer had gown up under, poised in its last moments before going to sleep beneath the horizon, perched solemnly on the far edge of the crater.

Click.

Twisted metal girders, thrust into the soil after a haphazard tumble across two or three kilometers, perched serenely on the near edge.

Click.

Concrete slabs.

Click.

Up-thrust sections of pavement.

Click.

Homes split in half.

Click.

Afterimages of people's lives.

Click.

The ghosts of six million innocent men, women, and children.

Cassandra Hitomi stepped away from her camera and its stand, her environmental suit's boot kicking up a fine red powder. Martian soil or dried blood, she wasn't sure.

She shook her head; no, of course it wasn't human blood, just Martian soil.

She stepped back to her camera and snapped more pictures of the sun setting over Kurtzenheim Crater. Spacecraft occasionally drifted into the frame on reentry or takeoff, long glowing trails in the former case, fat, white columns in the latter.

"Hey, boss?" The voice came over the speakers in her suit, crisp and clear. Cassandra wished the same people who had synthesized her camera's shutter snap had synthesized optional static on the line; nothing had the right to sound crisp and clear out here.

"Boss?"

Cassandra sighed, stepping away from her camera again. "Hai, moshimoshi," she said.

"Aw, how cute! I love it when you do that!"

"Fuck you and get to the fucking point, Brad."

"Mmmmm... I don't know what's sexier, the 'hai, moshimoshi' bit or you swearing like a sailor," replied Brad.

Cassandra hefted the camera off its stand and started packing it up. Whatever Brad had to say, he'd get around to eventually. Meanwhile, the photo shoot was over and the sun had set. She thought she might as well get some work done while Brad stumbled through what would almost certainly be another in a long series of awkward attempts to ask her out on a date.

"You know," she said, aiming the business end of a compressed air gun into the camera case, "I've spent time with a lot of sailors -- both on Earth and in the Merchant Guild out in space -- and they really don't swear." She squeezed the trigger, blasting Martian dust out of the case. "Like sailors," she added.

"They were Japanese sailors on Earth, right?"

"Yep."

"Do the Japanese swear?"

She dropped the camera into the more-or-less clean case, the cover of which slammed shut on her gloved wrist. She swore.

"Apart from that, I mean," Brad added.

Cassandra sighed and put on her best Japanese schoolgirl voice. "Oh, no, O-Burado-sama, we just giggle a lot!" She feigned a giggle.

"Ah, kowai desoo neh!"

"It's 'desu,' with a short, sharp 'oo' that you should drop anyway if you want to sound like you're with it, and you're damned right it's scary."

"Eh? I thought I said 'cute.'"

"Nope. 'Scary.'"

"Oh. Well, it is kind of scary, too."

Cassandra began breaking down the camera stand. "Brad? You were gonna say something?"

"Oh, yeah -- sorry. I was going to say you have company. Um, a fan."

She paused, the tripod's legs half-folded. "A 'fan'? Is that code?" The Federation had been pretty jumpy lately -- with god cause, their capital in ruins after those idiots from CEGA and those even bigger idiots from Jupiter had rushed in six months ago to do God knew what. If they had meant to stop the war, they had certainly succeeded. Still, though the Federation was understandably jumpy, it had responded favorably when the IGS had requested permission to do a photessay of the aftermath of the war. It seemed odd that they might suddenly send security agents -- which is what Cassandra thought "fan" might mean.

"No, no code," Brad replied. "Well, sort of, actually. Um, you'll see. You'll like it, I promise. Just get back here to base, okay?"

Cassandra sighed. Brad promising she'd like it virtually guaranteed that whatever it was, it would annoy her.

Cassandra's ATV crested the final ridge, spinning its wheels as it grabbed air. She kicked up a lot of dust when she landed, and her bones jolted with the impact, but the rugged little three-wheel ATV kept on racing for the prefab buildings of North Refugee Shelter 37. NRS37 was one of hundreds of such temporary shelters erected and staffed by the Solar Cross within days of the destruction of Kurtzenheim. Now, six months later, it was no longer in use by the Cross. All the other shelters had been packed up, ready to be redeployed the next time the idiot giants of the Solar System decided to throw a temper tantrum and destroy millions of lives. NRS37 had been left behind for a while longer as a base camp for survey missions and, now, the IGS.

A space shuttle squatted near the base. It hadn't been there when she'd left for her sunset photo shoot, so it was probably how her 'fan' had gotten to base. She squinted, trying to read its ID beneath the makeshift landing pad's spotlights. "Ansel Adams," it said -- one of the IGS shuttles.

Interesting.

Cassandra practically tore off her environmental suit the moment the airlock had cycled through. She hated the things; they were too confining and stuffy. Still, they were better than the full vacuum suits she'd had to wear when she was an assistant in the survey of the ruins of Copernicus Dome on the Moon.

She paused, her hand hovering over the switch that would open the inner door. Would her entire career with the IGS be based on recording the carnage left behind by CEGA and the Jovian Confederation?

She hit the button.

"Onee-san!" A small, humanoid bundle with -- green? -- hair launched itself into the air and sailed into Cassandra's reflexively outstretched arms.

Kelli Anne.

"Onee-san! Onee-san! Onee-san!" her younger sister shouted, cheering and crying at once. Kelli Anne wrapped her diminutive legs around her much taller sister's waist, burying her head against the latter's neck, hiding in Cassandra's long, blond hair.

Cassandra hugged her sister gently at first, then tightly, kissing her lightly on the back of the head. She was stunned to see her brilliant little sister at the IGS camp. She's known her sister's IGS mission had been completed successfully and they were returning to Earth, but she'd had no idea they were at Mars already.

Little had changed since Cassandra had last seen her sister. They were both three years older, Kelli Anne 32 and Cassandra 35. Kelli's long pigtails were gone, her hair cut in a short bowl-cut that would have looked terrible on Cassandra. Her hair was indeed green now instead of blue. She still seemed like the same little girl she'd always been, though, at least at first glance. 32 years old and jumping into her sister's arms like she was twelve.

Cassandra stroked Kelli's hair a little bit, then tried to set her down.

The younger Hitomi wouldn't let go. "Nope. Not yet. We've got three years of 'Todaima!' to make up for, onee-san."

"Okaerinasai, already. Okaerinasai, you little goof. Now let go; people are staring." Cassandra half-heartedly tried to peel her sister's arms off from around her shoulders, throwing an exasperated smile at her fellows, who had gathered to see what all the fuss was about.

"Don't care," Kelli pouted. "I missed you."

"Well, you shouldn't have stood me up at Alexandria, then," Cassandra pointed out.

"Oh! So cruel!" Kelli detached herself from her sister and dropped to the floor. She stuck out her tongue. "I didn't stand you up! We had to leave!"

Cassandra laughed lightly and winked. "Well, at least I can finally breathe." She feigned gasping sounds. She and Kelli Anne had been hoping to catch up on Alexandria Station in orbit around Earth before Kelli's ship, the IGSSS Mnemosyne, departed for the edge of the Solar System. Unfortunately, due to circumstances that were never clear to the public, the ship had been required to depart early and they missed their lunch date.

Kelli stuck out her tongue again.

"Come on, toots, let's grab something to eat in the mess," Cassandra suggested, happily putting an arm around her sister's shoulder and leading her into the base. A threatening snarl in the direction of the base crew -- especially at Brad -- warned everyone to stay away from the pair as they reunited.

Through the night, Kelli Anne's frenetic story telling pace wound slowly down until, by dawn, it was a staggered mumble. "And...Ly-chan...dummy...G-chan...me...kiss...," she murmured softly as she pitched over onto her side, exhausted and fast asleep on the rec room's lounge.

Cassandra, barely awake herself, rubbed her eyes and shook her head, trying to maintain consciousness. It had been a long, long night as the two sisters had gotten reacquainted over coffee, sandwiches, and some small cakes Mr. Nasby, the Mnemosyne's cook, had made for Kelli Anne to take down to Mars. Kelli had been the only crewmember able to take immediate shore leave; everyone else had needed to attend to the varied duties of preparing the ship for the final leg of its voyage. They would come down in a day or two, but for the moment, it was just Kelli Anne, which suited Cassandra just fine.

She stood wearily from her chair and stretched. All of her joints seemed to pop and crack at once with the effort. Most of the evening had consisted of Kelli Anne telling her every single thing that had happened during the three-year voyage, with Cassandra getting almost no words in edge-wise.

As usual.

She sighed and stood over her sister, studying the sleeping woman. Correction: the sleeping girl in the woman's body. Correction: the sleeping princess. She felt suddenly guilty at that thought, and then she felt angry at feeling guilty. She could imagine their mother, Kaoruko, scolding her, which she always did when they were young and Cassandra lashed out verbally over the unfair ways Kelli Anne was favored over Cassandra -- what seemed to the adults to be trivialities.

That brought to mind the argument she'd had with their mother when Cassandra had returned home to visit for the first time during her first semester at college, when she'd told her that she had met all kinds of irritating, prissy girls that reminded her of Kelli Anne. She had casually mentioned that if Kelli weren't her sister, she'd probably hate her. That hadn't gone over well. Her mom hadn't been able to grasp that Cassandra wasn't saying she actually hated Kelli. It had been yet another conversation between Cassandra and Kaoruko that had ended in her mother's tears.

Her sister started to roll toward the edge of the lounge, and Cassandra darted the short distance to catch her before she fell to the floor.

"Dou. Mo. Ari...o. Goza...su," Kelli murmured.

Cassandra smiled wryly. Even in deep sleep, Kelli Anne was a perfect lady, thanking her rescuer with grace. She hefted the smaller woman in her arms and headed for her quarters. "Might as well get you into a proper bed, kiddo," she whispered.

She opened the door to her quarters and gently maneuvered her sister into the small room, managing to close the door behind them without making too much noise. The room was dark, but Cassandra, like all the women in their mother's line, had a nearly perfect memory and knew exactly where everything was in the room. She carefully set her sister down on her bed.

Something was out of place, she realized. A few moments later, she identified it: her sister's overnight bag. She turned on a small light and inspected the contents, finally finding Kelli's pajamas.

Cassandra laughed softly. "Here I am, 35 years old, and I'm getting my practically comatose 32-year-old sister dressed for bed." Slipping the top over Kelli's neck, she added, "You really are a spoiled little brat, you know that?"

"Doumo arigatou gozaimasu," Kelli said.

Cassandra stopped short and peered closely at her sister. She seemed still to be asleep, but the thanks had been perfectly audible. She blew lightly across her eyes to see her reaction.

Kelli moaned and rolled away.

"Still asleep," Cassandra concluded, shaking her head in wonder and slipping into her own pajamas. She crawled into bed with her sister and pulled the sheets up over them.

Lying in bed in the dark next to the sleeping Kelli Anne, Cassandra reflected on their years together. It had been difficult -- sometimes agonizing -- growing up in the shadow of her younger sister. In every other family she'd known, it was the other way around: the younger sibling was always compared to the older. Her friends had teased her relentlessly over that fact.

The adults had always favored Kelli Anne. She had gotten the best presents, the most expensive kimonos, the prettiest dolls. She was the pride and joy of the Hitomi clan, and Cassandra was just another Hitomi girl. She was as smart, talented, and beautiful as any Hitomi female had ever been -- and they all were, too, and had been as far back as anyone could remember; the family name was written with the characters for "virtue" and "beauty," even though they were more commonly used for a female's given name. Kelli, though, was cuter and cleverer, and that made all the difference.

The fact that Kelli Anne hadn't been born in shame probably helped, too.

Cassandra's earliest memory was of Kelli Anne and Kaoruko returning home from the hospital, Kelli Anne wrapped in a pink blanket adorned with bunnies and squirrels and kittens. Her uncle, Yuuichi, had exclaimed, "At last! A proper daughter for Kaoruko!" There had been a ruckus of some kind following that, but Cassandra had already run deep into house before anyone could talk to her.

Cassandra had never known her father. Kaoruko refused to discuss him with her, even after Cassandra had become an adult. No one in the family would talk about it, reassuring her that Kaoruko would tell her some day. Cassandra didn't know if he had died, run off, or what. Kelli Anne's father, Jouji Watanabe-Hitomi -- all men marrying into the family were required to take their bride's name, the family elders were quite insistent -- had adopted Cassandra when he had married Kaoruko, but it was hardly the same as having her real father. The comments the family members had made while she was growing up had assured that.

In Jouji's defense, he had tried his best to be Cassandra's friend. He even started a whole manga after her, like he done with his biological daughter. Atashi no Neko no Kasandura (My Cat Cassandra) was popular and funny and cute, but why Cassandra had to be a cat and Kelli Anne got to be the Solar System's greatest space hero, Uchuu Boukensha Shoujo no Kerii-Kerii (Space Explorer Girl Kelli-Kelli), Cassandra never understood. It was more injustice, as far as she had been concerned while growing up.

Sighing heavily, Cassandra tried to stop thinking about it. Those days were long gone.

She rolled over onto her side, and Kelli Anne immediately snuggled up to her, still asleep. Cassandra put her arm around her sister and drifted to sleep herself.

Author's Afterward

Kelli Anne Hitomi was my character in John Prins' play-by-e-mail Jovian Chronicles roleplaying game. Her sister, Cassandra, was in the distant background (or on the videophone) at times, but never actually managed to hook up with her. I always wanted to see Kelli from Cassandra's eyes, hence this piece.

If it seems kind of disjointed, it's because it is. Setting it on Mars six months after the events of The Chaos Principle came to me while I was writing material for the Second Edition Lightning Strike Rulebook, for reasons you'll see once you get yourself a copy of the book. I could have spent a great deal more time with, say, Kelli narrating the Mnemosyne's adventures, but then this story would have grown to enormous size, so I just fast-forwarded to the end, with Cassandra thinking about her sister as she drifts off to sleep after an all-night jam session.

Just FYI, "onee-san" means "elder sister." "Todaima" means "I'm home." "Okaerinasai" means "Welcome home." "Doumo arigatou gozaimasu" is a pretty polite way of thanking someone. Some people might try to tell me that "boukensha" means "adventurer," and not "explorer," but I don't care. The English translation of the title has taken liberties. Artistic License.

Modified December 7, 2000

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