Free Clade by Mark Budz

recognize in the room. Dapper. Dressed in a natty tan suit sans vest, but sporting a bolo tie of twisted snake-skin tipped with silver-anodized rattles at both ends, the two glossy braids anchored at the neck with a turquoise-studded clasp the size of a belt buckle. The man’s hands are wrinkled and liver spotted, parched by UV and inscribed with veins the color of blue ink. Smaller blood vessels trace entoptic intaglios just beneath the skin, mandelas of random hypnotic squiggles that are hard not to stare at.
    “Have a seat, Rigo.” Ajisa gestures amicably toward the remaining chair in front of her desk.
    Rigo plops down next to the man, who regards him with double-barreled gunmetal blue eyes under gray hair. It looks as if a dust bunny has taken up residence on the crown of his skull and been plastered in place with coffee-colored spit. Rigo turns to Ajisa. “What’s up?” he says, trying to keep his voice casual.
    Ajisa settles into the plump gelbag behind her desk. “This is Arnez Whipplebaum, from Xengineering.”
    The old man thrusts a hand at him. “Pleased to meet you.” Rigo expects a molasses-slow drawl. Instead the accent is British, the grip gnarled but effete— the kind of hand that is clearly a product of natural selection, has evolved over several generations to fill the specialized social niche of hoisting a teacup in a precise manner at a precise time.
    “Arnez is implementation manager for the Kuiper project,” Ajisa tells Rigo. “He’s in charge of the Tiresias test phase.”
    Rigo turns to Whipplebaum. “Does this have anything to do with the data I sent yesterday?”
    “The infrastructure on the comet is very nearly complete. We’re preparing to go live, so to speak. Deploy the ecotecture.”
    “Is there a problem?” Rigo says. Might as well get everything out in the open, up front.
    “No,” Whipplebaum says. “And, frankly, that’s what has us worried.”
    “It does?” Rigo shakes his head, confused.
    “We’re concerned there might be errors we’re missing,” Whipplebaum explains. “Overlooking. The problem is, we can’t postpone the inevitable any longer. No more excuses. It’s time to put up or shut up. Walk the talk, as they say.”
    Uh-huh. “What does that have to do with me?” Mouth dry.
    Whipplebaum steeples his hands in front of his lips. “You’ve been working with the plants on a day-to-day basis for six months, now.” Hard to tell if it’s a question or a statement. “You’re familiar with them in a practical, hands-on way that no one else is at this point. Dirt under the fingernails, and all that.”
    Rigo rubs the back of his neck to hide his discomfort. “I guess.”
    “Simply put,” Whipplebaum says, forging ahead, “we’d like to have a gardener on hand for the installation. Make sure everything is properly up and running before the colonists actually set foot in the ecotecture.”
    A gardener. Is that what he is? “You want me to go to the comet?” Rigo says.
    Whipplebaum’s head bobs, as if attached to a spring. “Precisely. We’d like to have you in situ during the transplant process.”
    It takes a moment for him to catch up with Whipplebaum. “But there aren’t any seedlings ready to plant. Those are several months away.”
    “Right. Instead of growing the warm-blooded ecotecture on the comet, to save time we’ve decided to relocate some of the mature plants.”
    Rigo tries to picture them being moved en masse, lifted into low orbit on one of the geosynchronous elevators and then transported to the comet. “When?”
    “Tomorrow morning. You’d shuttle up the day after that.”
    A last-minute decision from the sounds of it. “That’s not much notice,” he says.
    “Things are moving ahead rather quickly,” Whipplebaum admits, as if he too has been left out of breath by the unexpected pace of events.
    “How long would I be there?” Rigo asks.
    “Not long.” Whipplebaum waves a hand, the movement a leafy flutter. “A day