Higher Ground by Becky Black (notion reading list txt) 📗

time he did something about that. He leaned across toward Zach, who looked startled and delighted only for a moment, then closed his eyes as Adam’s lips touched his.

Adam kept the kiss quick and light. They couldn’t easily move closer together sitting as they were with legs wrapped around the railing uprights to keep them from slipping off. And the night was young. The musicians below were coming to the end of the first piece, and as the audience broke into applause, Adam pulled back, smiling at Zach. A brief kiss but worth applauding.

“Is talking about the dome too much like work talk?” Zach asked after a moment.

Adam shrugged. “No, I think that’s okay. We’re discussing the history of the place we live in.”

Were they, though? Zach’s question had been about the future, not the past. Would Adam sign on to an early stage colony? Be a founder? Many of the people who’d founded Arius still lived here. Some were buried here. Had given their lives to the place. Could Adam ever do the same?

“I sometimes wonder,” Adam said, “if you signed up for a contract like that, do you think it would be better to have someone beforehand—a partner, I mean—or would you pair up with someone during the time?”

“I’ve never thought of it,” Zach said. “There’s no guarantee you’d find someone to pair off with if you came alone.”

“True. But you might become a lot less fussy than you would be when there really are plenty more fish in the sea.”

“Lower standards?”

“I guess.” Adam rested his chin on his hands on the rail in front of him. “On the other hand, imagine if you came with someone and then broke up with them. All that time stuck with your ex!”

Zach chuckled. “Tricky, yes.” He rested his hands and chin the same way as Adam. Down below, a teenage girl with a flute took the stage. “Is it true what I’ve heard, that the Terraforming Authority encourages couples like us to sign up?”

“Couples like us?” Adam tried not to sound alarmed.

“I…I mean, people like us,” Zach said quickly, his face flushing. “Men who are in a couple. Or women. Not that we’re… I mean same-sex couples rather than opposite-sex ones.”

Adam tried not to laugh at Zach’s babbling. Foot in mouth there, boy. “No, I see what you mean. That’s what I’ve heard too. It’s because they don’t want too many people having children at the very early stage of the colony. Children use resources but don’t contribute.” He glanced at the stage and the girl on it. “In a material sense anyway. An early stage colony can’t afford much of that.”

“Ah, yes, I see the logic,” Zach said, sounding very serious, like he was trying too hard to recover from his gaffe.

They fell silent as the music from below caught their attention, the notes of the flute seeming to dance and swirl through the foliage around them.

“She’s good,” Zach said quietly.

Adam just nodded, not taking his eyes from the stage below. The girl was maybe fifteen. She could be the granddaughter of an early stage colonist. There were already three generations of colonists here, even though it still counted as a young settlement.

“The length of time this all takes awes me sometimes,” Adam said. “Individuals play a part for a year or two or five or fifty, and then they’re gone, and the colony goes on, growing all the time. It’s like being a stalk of wheat in a field. Here for a while, then gone, but the field keeps on growing more wheat year after year.”

“The colony’s only been here forty years. That’s not so long.”

“No, that’s a long time. And just think of the Terraforming Authority, the power they have. Governments come and go, but the Authority just goes on and on.”

“Is that something that interests you?” Zach asked. “I know it’s a bit of a hot political issue back home.”

“Me?” Adam shook himself from his thoughtful mood and grinned at Zach. “I’m only interested in plants and partying. And geophysicists with strange pickup lines.”

“That’s a rather specific preference. I’m surprised you meet any of those at all.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I just did, only yesterday. He’s kind of odd but so cute.” Zach blushed furiously at Adam’s words, and Adam laughed until Zach shut him up with a kiss.

Unlike the last one, this kiss was only the start of a series, which lasted for an hour, for the rest of the concert. Adam felt the urgency in Zach, but he didn’t encourage it. Not tonight. Plenty of time later. Anyway, they might be out of sight up here but were still technically in public.

When the last of the music ended and the audience applauded for the final time, Adam moved back from Zach, who looked at him, lips swollen, hair tousled, and eyes rather hazy.

“Let’s get some supper,” Adam suggested. Zach blinked at him before his eyes cleared, like a man waking up. The glow of the lights, diffused and made green by the plants growing over them, gave him an eerie look, a supernatural cast to his skin, his eyes deep in shadow.

“We can, maybe, um, eat at my place,” Zach said, his voice hoarse.

Adam shook his head, knowing that wasn’t an invitation only to eat. “Not tonight. Let’s go sample the delights downstairs.” He pointed down at the Dome Bar below. They did decent light suppers. He didn’t let Zach’s disappointed look sway him. Dating, Zach, he thought. Dating. Anticipation. Maybe Zach rushed into things. If he did, Adam intended to teach him the pleasure of waiting long enough to work up an appetite.

* * * *

“So, I’ve heard you’re seeing that Dr. Benesh.”

Adam looked up, startled, from where he was running his scanner over a stalk of wheat. The farmer grinned at him from under her sun hat. Adam smiled back at her.

“Nothing travels faster than gossip, does it?”

“Not around here, no. Went to the concert in the dome with him