Valhalla Station

by Chris Pourteau

  “Scotch and a beer,” I said. Passwords to happiness.

  “Brands?”

  “Surprise me.” I smiled up at her eyes.

  “Maybe later,” she answered with sideways grin. “Pick a seat. I’ll find you.”

  I had no doubt. The whole place was skinned with holo-tech in the style of a Viking mead hall. Long tables with benches took up the floor space. Faux antler chandeliers full of fake candles twittered above. Somewhere, digital musicians rendered an ancient drinking song with pre-battle enthusiasm. Actually, it was coming from everywhere. The wonders of modern technology bringing to life such a historically realistic fantasy tickled me.

  People are funny. As humanity stepped out into space, they reshaped it with their own myths. Makes it more comfortable, maybe. Callisto was home to modern-day Vikings. Mickey had his Western saloon. Lander’s Reach on Mars had a thing for Europe, which was ironic since the Qinlao Faction ruled there. My favorite bordello in Darkside was a throwback to Ancient Greece called the Arms of Artemis. Even SCHQ had started out as Olympus Station before Helena Telemachus convinced Tony to rebrand it as Company headquarters. People are just funny.

  “Hey, Fischer!”

  My good humor evaporated. And I almost fell for it. The hail had come from a smaller table on the far side of the drinking hall. With the loud music and the crowd beginning to settle into their cups, it was easy to pretend I hadn’t heard my own name called out across a busy, public place.

  “Hey, Finn!”

  Slowly, I turned. A raised stein was pointed at me like a gun. The short arm holding it belonged to Jane Smith.

  “First round’s on me!” she called.

  I walked toward the offer, the envious mumblings of miners fresh off shift nibbling at me along the way.

  “Surprised to see you here,” I said.

  “No, you’re not,” she answered, gesturing at the empty bench next to her. “Have a seat.”

  Why not?

  “You following me?” I asked easily.

  I felt a body behind me, and instinct made me glance over my shoulder. It was Lagertha with her two best girlfriends on ample display. She set my beer and scotch down on the table, graciously taking her time, just in case the fake gravity suddenly gave way or something.

  “Anything else?” she asked in a way that sounded like she might be besties with Pioneer Annie.

  “Maybe later.”

  “I get off at midnight.” She leaned over again and said into my ear, “Or, y’know, shortly thereafter.”

  Yeah, this was my kinda place.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Lagertha moved on to another potential paying customer. I returned my attention and faculties to Jane Smith: “I asked you a question.”

  “Did you? Sorry, I was distracted by the carnal display of pioneer mating rituals.”

  “Funny. I like women with a sense of humor.”

  “I’d think, for spending time with you, it’d be a requirement.”

  I shot the scotch.

  “No, Fischer, I’m not following you,” she said before swigging her beer. “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly.” I didn’t demand to know how she’d recognized me. That’d be tied to who she was and who she worked for. I’d have answers to both those questions presently. One way or the other.

  “I’m here for the same reason you are,” she said.

  “You like buxom waitresses too?”

  “Pirates,” she said.

  “Buxom pirates, then,” I said, sampling my own beer. Not bad. Hoppy.

  “Damn it, Fischer—”

  I set my mug down on the wooden table and leaned in. “Call me that again where others can hear, and I’ll stove in your head with this stein.”

  Smith began to draw herself up—defense mechanism. The fingers of her right hand got nervous, but they stayed above the table. Lucky for her. I was packing. The baggy miner shirt was good for something after all. She settled down.

  “Fair enough,” Smith said.

  “Now, let’s level the playing field,” I said. “What’s your real name, Jane Smith? I want to know who I’m dealing with. Whisper it.”

  The lights in the Perch went from ambient amber to severe red. The lusty drinking song cut out, replaced by a twenty-first-century Klaxon. Mugs hung, halfway to mouths. Time slipped into slow motion. Smith was up and moving. I was slower but got it in gear.

  “Impact event. Orbital ring compromised. All station personnel, alert.”

  The calm of the automated voice overrode the quick confusion erupting around us.

  Smith had elbowed her small frame to the Perch’s doors and pushed through to the street. I stood beside her and followed her gaze upward.

  Remember the shuttles I’d seen docking earlier above Callisto? One of them had crashed into the orbital ring. The debris was still spreading outward. The sound of massive hydraulics flooded my ears. A heavy asteroid deflector shield began to segment its way up from the ground, covering the clear plastisteel of the overhead dome. It was a race between the slow-moving shield and the debris raining down from the ring. Both horses seemed determined to win.

  “That was unexpected,” Smith said. Then, looking at me: “Bosswoman’s not gonna like it.”

  Well … now, at least, I knew who employed her.

  Chapter 13

  Edith Birch • Valhalla Station, Callisto

  “Are you sure? The box says twenty bottles.”

  Sighing, Krystin Drake put the handful of potassium iodate boxes back in the crate and started again. Edith watched, counting along silently as Krystin inventoried out loud.

  “Okay, you’re right,” Krystin said. “I must’ve skipped one before.”

  Edith made a never-mind motion. “It’s easy to lose count.”

  In the infirmary’s outer office, a man laughed at something Edith hadn’t heard. The arrival of a new batch of medical supplies always energized the staff with newfound purpose. An entire palette of pills and stims and anti-inflammatory steroids had just been delivered from the Cassini’s Promise, and every item needed to be counted, scanned, and stocked in the infirmary’s stores. Once the crates had been unpacked and the supplies stacked in perfect rows, the medical staff would go back to their daily routine of treating unsexy conditions like diarrhea and skinned knees and the occasional bout of VGS. New arrivals—whose romantic self-image of being a Viking outstripped their ability to adapt to a multi-g environment—tended to suffer from Variant Gravity Syndrome, and a transdermal dimenhydrinate anti-nausea patch usually fixed that. Since there were fewer and fewer immigrants to Callisto these days, even that diversion from routine had become rare.

  Krystin patted the last box of pills and closed up the crate. “This ought to last us a few—”

  “—years?” Edith said, and both women laughed.

  This far out from Jupiter and its closer moons, radiation exposure wasn’t much of an issue. Occasionally, a miner would come back pinging the red end of the rad detector and need a ration of pills, but most of the medicine was backstocked should catastrophe strike. The same was true of most of the station’s supplies. Tetraglycine hydroperiodide–laced iodine pills for treating contaminated water, hardly needed once the community’s water treatment facility had come online eight years earlier. The more standard stuff, like saline solution for hydration, antibiotics for bacterial infections, antivirals for the other kind, vitamin shots heavy on antioxidants like A and C to help protect against radiation sickness, Vitamin D to supplement what the dome’s panels filtered out along with ultraviolet light… And yet the routineness of it all—the daily mundanity of keeping people healthy and alive in a hostile environment that, without human ingenuity, would have killed them outright—was special in its own way to Edith. The fact that everyone on Valhalla Station could take their health for granted was a tribute not only to the pioneering spirit of the colony’s inhabitants, but also to the professional dedication and competence of their onsite protec
tors.

  Edith was good at numbers, and the infirmary employed her to keep its medical supplies organized. Luther seemed not to mind her working there, something that had surprised her at first. When he pressed her to pilfer the odd medication now and then, she did so sparingly and on the sly. She hated stealing, but she considered it the price for freedom during the day and for helping others. Working in the infirmary gave her a place to go not full of her own memories. And, more than that, it felt like she was contributing something to the colony, something that mattered.

  “You know, what we do here is important,” Edith said, watching Krystin open another crate. “Maybe next to the hydroponic teams, we’re the most important people on the station.”

  “Ha.” Krystin wasn’t convinced. “If a miner heard you say that, he’d…” Her voice hit a hard stop. An uncomfortable calm stretched between them. “I’m sorry, Edith,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Edith tapped her personal access data device, checking off the crate of anti-radiation pills. She double-checked the entry on the PADD, then triple-checked it. Krystin made a tiny sound that might have been frustration or regret or self-flagellation.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Edith said, feeling bad that her friend appeared to feel guilty. What in the world had Krystin done to feel guilty?

  In the outer office the laughter returned. Edith seized on it, saying, “Sounds like someone’s inventorying the good stuff. How’d they get so lucky?”

  Krystin’s quiet humor broke the tension. “You know, sometimes I want to—”

  A harsh, grating Klaxon made them both jump.

  “Impact event. Orbital ring compromised. All station personnel, alert.”

  The alarm was so loud it hurt Edith’s ears. She stared at Krystin for several seconds, her own fear playing out in Krystin’s eyes—a sudden, shared reminder that life here was stolen from death in an airless, heatless vacuum.

  A man appeared in the doorway. His dark, graying, close-cropped beard was an arrowhead pointing down from his chin. Estevez was stitched on his white coveralls.

  “Emergency vac-suits,” he said. “Follow protocol. Do it now.”

  Krystin moved past her. “Come on, Edith.”

  “Impact event. Orbital ring compromised. All station personnel, alert.”

  Edith followed. This is a drill, she thought. They hadn’t had one in forever. This was how they kept on their toes. That was all this was.

  “Edith!”

  She took the heavy vac-suit Krystin held out to her and tried to remember how to put it on.

  • • •

  “Hurry up! Bring me that foamer!” Dr. Estevez shouted, his voice muffled inside the vac-suit. Comms were flooded with frenzied, sometimes conflicting orders over the common channel as the wounded from the shuttle and ring were brought in. Out of his head, the miner on the table was moaning, fighting them. “Strap him down, for godsake!”

  Edith stood against the wall, out of the way, watching Krystin attempt to restrain the man. An accountant couldn’t help here. Hot and bulky, the vac-suit made her body feel small and frail inside it. The sound of her own breathing, short and coarse, filled her helmet. Her breath fogged a circle of condensate on the plastic shield.

  “Help me, Edith!” Krystin said. “Hold him down so I can get these straps secured.”

  Edith hardly heard her over frantic demands for bandages and tourniquets. Old-fashioned tools for a completely modern accident. She moved forward without having to think about it.

  “Hold his arm.”

  The miner thrashed. Estevez held down one side, Edith the other. Krystin worked the straps quickly. The more she bound him, the more the man fought them. He tried to sit up, his elbow jabbing Edith high in the ribs. The vac-suit deflected most of it, but a sharp pain jutted inward. Ignoring it was easy to do. Krystin strapped the offending arm down. The midazolam the triage staff had pumped into the miner was finally taking effect. His struggles had faded to rambling, mumbled curses.

  “Now where the hell is that foamer?”

  “Here, Doctor,” Krystin said, handing Estevez the sealant. He began applying it to a large gash across the left side of the man’s head, fighting to hold it still as the patient raved lazily under sedation. He was one of two dozen survivors they’d pulled from the shuttle and the orbital ring. Twice that many had perished, mostly ring personnel vented into space by the shuttle’s impact.

  That was the current estimate, anyway. There would likely be more.

  Edith stepped back again. Maybe the midazolam had kicked in harder, or maybe Estevez’s ministrations with the healing foam were having an effect. It was like the miner on the table had become human again instead of a wounded animal desperate to escape a trap. Her eyes fell to his nametag. The name Brandt was stitched beneath the capital R with two vertical bars running through it, the Rabh Faction’s logo. That was good. He should have a name, now that he was human again.

  Estevez seemed happy with his work, told Krystin something lost to Edith in the comms traffic, and moved to the next table. On it lay a woman in blood-soaked coveralls. She’d suffered heavy trauma to her abdomen and chest.

  Edith probed the ache in her own side and felt no break. Then she became self-conscious at worrying about her small hurt while others were bleeding their lives out on the floor.

  “Mrs. Birch, we could use your help again,” Estevez grunted.

  “Of course, Doctor.”

  “Krys, get her prepped,” Estevez said, nodding at the IV line in the woman’s arm. “I need to get in there. Mrs. Birch—”

  “Edith, please.”

  “Edith, do whatever Krys tells you.”

  “Sure.”

  A single, long note calling them all to attention blanked out the comms traffic.

  “Testudo secured,” said a very human voice, full of relief. “The dome’s structural integrity is intact.”

  The message repeated, but no one heard it. A collective shout erupted as everyone in the infirmary celebrated. After a moment of wondering if she should, Edith joined in. The segmented shield intended to protect the colony from asteroids had been secured over the transparent dome that usually filtered the sky.

  “Thank the snaky-staff for that,” Estevez said, pulling at the heavy suit’s gloves. “I had no idea how I was gonna work on this woman in this goddamned monkey suit.” Over the common channel: “Keep your headsets on, but mute the mics! We need to hear the big picture out there.”

  The infirmary was soon strewn with the heavy vac-suits. Orderlies began to drag and stack them out of the way.

  “Ever assisted in surgery, Edith?” Estevez asked.

  “Um. No.”

  Krystin smiled warmly. “Don’t worry. Miguel and I will do the heavy lifting. You just hand me stuff when I ask for it. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Edith glanced around. They were short on beds, so the less serious patients lay on the floor. They were short on medical staff, too. But everyone, now relieved of the fear of being sucked into space, had turned back to their chosen profession of saving lives. “Whatever you need me to do.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Estevez said. “Now, let’s start with a mobile sterile field generator.”

  Edith looked around.

  “There,” Krystin said. “The box with the tiny tent on the side.”

  Edith picked it up and handed it to her. As long as there were pictures, she’d be fine. How hard could it be?

  • • •

  Unmoving, Edith sat on the infirmary floor. Her eyes were dry. Her legs hurt. Her brain throbbed inside her skull.

  “You did good work.” Krystin’s voice sounded depressed, but she was just tired—make that exhausted—like everyone else on staff.

  “Thanks,” Edith said. “How many?”

  “Patients?” Krystin asked.

  “Hours.”

  Krystin Drake made a sound like a corpse exhaling its last breath. Or maybe a cow farting.

  “Too many.”<
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  Where patients weren’t occupying beds or floor space, medical staff had collapsed where they’d stood. Estevez was snoring lightly in a chair, his head resting ungracefully on a diagnostic console.

  “You were right, you know,” Krystin said.

  “About?”

  “We saved lives today,” Krystin clarified with a lazy, lingering smile. “You saved lives today.”

  Edith grunted. “See? Only the hydroponic crews—”

  “Fuck the farmers!” Krystin said. Her voice had gotten its second wind. “We just took the fucking crown, lady.”

  Edith somehow found the energy to laugh. It was a little anemic, but it felt good. Except for the twinge in her side from that miner’s elbow. Brandt, she reminded herself.

  Something in the back of Edith’s brain stirred. She’d heard that name before.

  Yeah, me and Brandt, we worked that scoop like a…

  Luther’s voice. Brandt had been one of the men in his mining crew.

  “What was the number of the crew in here today?” Edith whispered.

  “What?” Krystin said from a half doze.

  “The crew number!” Edith rose and leaned against the wall. The woman they’d operated on for hours lay on the table beside her. Stable, her chest rose and fell inside a heavily sedated sleep. Edith kneeled to where the woman’s ragged coveralls, cut off for surgery, were piled in a bloody heap beneath the table. Edith rifled through until she found the upper arm patch. Crew 34.

  Luther’s crew.

  “Oh no,” Edith said.

  She moved from table to table. Her movements were jerky, uncoordinated, like she’d just reentered standard-g after a month in the weightlessness of space. The grunts of disturbed, exhausted colleagues babbled up as she stumbled over them. When she didn’t find him on one of the tables, Edith dropped to her knees and crawled from patient to patient over the floor.

  No Luther.

  Had he been blown into space on impact? Was he still alive, unhurt? Or maybe in one of the tertiary facilities converted to triage work when the infirmary filled up…