Under Strange Suns by Ken Lizzi

4
    A IDAN CARSON HOISTED THE FAMILIAR WEIGHT of the green canvas duffel bag over one shoulder as the bus whined away. The bus stop provided an ideal vantage point for taking in the spaceport sprawling over the desert before him. The low, glass-sided buildings nearest him looked smaller than they actually were against the immensity of the New Mexico landscape. These were the administrative offices, passenger terminals, and hotels. Taller, fancifully futuristic short spires jutted above this first grouping: the showpiece headquarters of the more prosperous launch companies. Farther out squatted more modest structures: supply sheds, emergency vehicle garages, and the like. The size of the buildings increased beyond those to massive hangars and maintenance bays. And beyond the vast collection of edifices–a small city, really–spread the spaceport proper. Runways drew perspective lines in the desert, dwindling to vanishing points. Launch gantries reached skyward, like the scaffolding and sky-cranes of a never-to-be-built metropolis. Hydrogen powered rail-gun launchers like a labyrinth of half-completed roller-coasters, covered the slopes of a rising group of stony brown hills. The lofty red and yellow girders of the air traffic and launch control towers, sprouting radar arrays and radio antennae, clustered roughly in the center of it all.
    A brief impulse to pick up a visitor’s map caused him to quirk his lips. Captain Merit loved to base adventure maps for the team’s weekly Dungeons & Dragons games on colorful tourist guides the team members picked up on their travels. Well, no more of that. The party would have to do without its cleric/ranger.
    The spaceport hummed. Vehicles and pedestrians swarmed over tarmac that shimmered in the desert heat. As he stood there a payload hurtled down a rail-gun track, up the curving end and away, disappearing into the pale blue sky with supersonic report like a .50 rifle. Supply trucks were huddling about a towering rocket like worker ants catering to the queen. The bustle of modernity, of civilization, made Aidan a trifle uneasy. On one hand, the contrast to the environs he’d been immersed in for most of the last two years was refreshing, an image of efficiency and technological competency. Forward looking. On the other hand, this vestige of America’s recent past felt unreal, like a historical recreation of a bygone age, earnestly recreated but ultimately a little sad, a nostalgic grasping after what could never be reattained.
    Aidan flipped up the Kevlar reinforced flap protecting the army issue datapad strapped to his wrist, and consulted the screen, confirming the address of his destination and calling up a direct route. That he even had the datapad after his discharge spoke to the greater disarray of the country. Before DC there was no way in hell the Army would let him walk away with the datapad any more than it would with a rifle, or night vision gear, or any of a dozen other expensive bits of gear he had signed for over the years. But the rest of the world was falling apart. Why should the military be any different?
    He looked up, picking out what he believed was the building indicated by the datapad, a nondescript aluminum shed tucked into the maze of similar structures about a kilometer from the bus stop. He shifted the duffel higher up his shoulder and began walking.
    The massive glass walls of the spaceport’s iconic buildings engulfed him, his reflection cast greenly back. He wished he could stop in for a cold beer, but his funds were limited. Pay had grown intermittent the last few months. He had spent a good chunk of his savings on the bus ticket. Most of the rest he’d sent to Summers’ widow. Also, he probably shouldn’t show up for an interview with the whiff of barley pop on his breath, and he’d only just make the appointment on time as it was.
    He left the eye candy behind and entered the warren of the purely functional structures, nodding to the people whose