Junkyard Heroes

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Do you think he’ll ever be heard, by anyone?” Torill asked Paul one night, when General Peters’ thundering rhetoric finished.

  “We’re listening,” Paul pointed out.

  Torill rolled her eyes. “Because we’re absolutely in a position to change the course of history.”

  Paul looked at her oddly, then returned to his rehydrated casserole, silent and introspective as he often was.

  The final recruiting process went on. Because the ship would be held at one standard gee, Luna citizens and Martians, or anyone living in the Belt, could not be included. They simply wouldn’t be able to handle the gravity over the long term. It was a fact that had given Torill a few sleepless nights. Only, no one could argue with physics, no matter how big their guns.

  The week before launch, when everyone was aboard the ship and most of the supplies, too, Torill arranged for a special shuttle and took Paul out to see the ship up close and in all her glory.

  “It will be the last chance to see her before she goes,” Torill told him.

  “Of course I’ll come,” he replied. He raised a brow. “Did you think I would refuse?”

  “You always have before.”

  He didn’t respond and Torill wondered if she had been too insistent. When it came to the ship, she often did live up to her unofficial reputation as a ball-breaker.

  However, Paul was standing at the airlock when she arrived.

  * * * * *

  Torill asked Lucas to find the best close-quarters in-fill pilot he knew to fly the shuttle. The pilot he found looked as if she had barely graduated to adulthood, yet she handled the shuttle with a deft hand that let Torill relax, and finally to ask her to do a very slow drift along the full length of the ship, right along the station side, around the huge engine exhausts, which were station-sized all by themselves, then along the sunside, which no one ever got to see from Boston Station, or on approach from Luna or Terra.

  When Paul saw the old shuttle, he raised his brow. “Bit of a rust bucket, isn’t it?” he’d asked mildly.

  “It has real windows,” Torill said. “Screens won’t do for this. You could sit in my office and watch a screen there and get the same effect. I want you to see her with your own eyes.”

  Now Paul was sitting as far forward on his seat as the belts would let him, peering through the big observation ports, as Torill gave him a running commentary, with odd comments donated by Lucas, who was sitting in the jump seat behind the co-pilot.

  “I don’t think I had realized how big it was,” Paul said.

  “There is living space for five thousand people,” Torill said, “although the mechanics and equipment needed to sustain a survivable environment take up most of the room.”

  “There is still lots of room for people,” Lucas said. “There are even marketplaces where they can meet.”

  Paul raised a brow. “So humans are going to export money to the Beehive? That’s a shame.”

  Torill shook her head. “There’s no need for money. They will be provided with basic needs automatically, in return for keeping the ship maintained.”

  Paul smiled.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “My sweet, you’re an engineering wizard, but you’ve overlooked a natural human need to do more than just survive. Humans need purpose.”

  “They’ll have it,” Torill said complacently.

  Paul shook his head. “It’s a grand experiment, only I’ve been organizing humans for nearly sixty years. They never follow the original blueprints. It would be nice to be able to see how a money-free society survives, three or five hundred years from now.”

  “Ye of little faith,” Torill chided him.

  “Not that any of us will ever find out,” Lucas said. “It will take a thousand years to reach Asellus Borealis. Even this crop of passengers will be quite dead by then.”

  They rounded the rear of the ship, the engine ports looking like small planetoids next to them.

  “Shields up,” the pilot murmured and the windows darkened. The pilot banked the shuttle and the sun slid into full view, making everyone wince until they got used to the glare.

  “Wow…!” Paul breathed, as the full length of the ship was revealed in bright daylight. On this side there was no gantry or skeletal frames holding the ship steady. Just hectares of steel hull and smooth design lines.

  Torill sat back, enjoying the view. She had seen this side more than once as the ship was being built, but it had been over a year since the last time. The completed hull had a solid smoothness to it that made the ship look dependable and more than strong enough to survive a thousand years.

  Her heart stirred. She had made this. Fierce pride gripped her throat and made her eyes ache. She had done it. She had made the ship happen. Now, even Paul was finally seeing what she had achieved.

  That made it better. That made everything worthwhile—all of it, including the stars themselves that were killing her.

  She reached for Paul’s hand, her vision blurry from the unshed tears. He gripped her fingers hard, his head turned to take in the side of the ship as they floated along the length of it.

  Torill waited.

  Finally, they were at the bridge end of the ship, with the curved nose.

  Paul leaned forward, the belts bringing him to a halt with a jerk. “Wait,” he said sharply. “We’re too close…I can’t see it properly.”

  “Swing around again, please,” Torill told the pilot. “This time, from a quarter click out.”

  The shuttle turned neatly on its jets, drifted out the requested quarter kilometer, then turned again.

  Paul stared at the fuselage behind the bridge section.

  They had finished the exterior work only twelve hours ago, at Torill’s urging. They had done a nice job, too. She would make sure they got their bonuses.

  The name of the ship was picked out in twelve-meter high letters, stretching along the smooth side.

  Endurance.

  “You changed the name,” Paul said softly. He looked at her. There was a little furrow between his brows. “Isn’t that supposed to be bad luck or something?”

  Torill shook her head. “Terra Alliance Ship Mayflower just felt wrong. I hate that we can’t take people from Luna and Mars and the belt, in the first place. Claiming the ship in the name of Terra alone just added to that. So I changed the name. Now it feels right.”

  Paul stared at the letters. “It’s a good name,” he said slowly. “No TAS in front of it…it doesn’t need them, does it? It stands just fine by itself.” His hand tightened around hers.

  “Back to the station, please,” Torill told the pilot. She leaned back in the chair, suddenly tired. It was over. It was done. Now there was nothing left except to see the Endurance off on its wondrous voyage.

  * * * * *

  Torill let the AI open the door for her when the entry chime sounded. Then she tried to scramble to her feet, for it was Paul at the door to her private quarters, where he had not stepped even once since he had arrived at the station.

  “No, don’t get up,” he said quickly, holding out his hand. “You look tired,” he added, peering at her closely.

  “It’s just tiredness,” she assured him. “I run out of energy without warning these days. I can go along just fine, then it’s like someone pulled the plug and I wilt. It’s very annoying. Here, you’ll have to sit on the table, as there’s nowhere else. It will take your weight.”

  He sat and rested his forearms on his knees, his hands woven together between them. His blue eyes were warm. “I just wanted to tell you that I get it now.”

  “You…get it?”

  He sat up and pushed his hand through his hair. “When you first started this project I thought you were mad. Hell, everyone did. I don’t have to tell you the details. We argued them out more than once.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “We did it as thoroughly as we do most things.”

  “I thought you were building an escape hatch, that you were copping out
.”

  “Yes, you made that very clear when you left for Luna. I was obsessed about the Mayflower. I had no faith in the endurance of the human spirit despite the tribulations we were facing. I was bailing out on humanity itself.”

  “Like Noah and his arc,” Paul said softly. “Leaving everyone else behind to drown. Then I saw the name on the ship today…and now I understand.”

  A cold hard lump that she had not been aware had been there at all seemed to shift and dissolve inside her. Her chest eased. Her breath came easier. Warmth spread through her, even spreading to her fingers, which were chilled all the time these days. “You do? Really, Paul?”

  He leaned forward again. “You’re sending the spirit of humanity out there the best way you know how. It’s not lack of faith that made you build the ship. It’s a belief in humanity’s endurance, in our ability to survive, to thrive even on a journey of this magnitude.”

  Her tears spilled before she had time to hide them, or blink them away. He really did understand.

  “I’ve been such a fool, Torill,” Paul breathed, wiping her cheeks.

  “You have,” she whispered, which was all her tear-clogged throat would allow.

  He kissed her and somehow, she found herself in his arms, on his lap, and he was hot against her. Hot and strong and here.

  Paul kissed her one more time. “Launch is in six days, yes?” he breathed.

  “Yes. February 22nd.”

  “Then I have just enough time.” He stroked her cheek.

  “Time for what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  * * * * *

  Paul disappeared after that…except at night, when he would share her narrow bed and hold her. Those were the sweetest hours of her days. Yet he would not speak of what he was doing, despite her questions. The mystery drove her crazy.

  Torill concentrated on final preparations for the launch, instead. There was more than enough to do. It sometimes felt as though the entire solar system was focused upon their little station. There were media cams, live feeds, delayed streams, interviews and more interviews. In between explaining about the Endurance’s thousand year journey and the intended destination, Torill and Lucas and the other senior directors on the project would deal with last minute conferences with Ragnar Beckett, the captain of the Endurance, and his senior staff.

  Beckett was a strong leader with the heart of a philosopher. He had understood Torill’s ambitions with barely any explanations needed. “You’re sending out a seed of hope,” he’d told her during his job interview. It had been that comment more than his overwhelming qualifications that made Torill argue for him to be offered the job in the face of other, even more qualified candidates.

  Now Beckett was gently but firmly pushing the station project staff off his ship and taking control of the people on board. “We have to live and work together without outside help,” he’d told Lucas. “Better we get started on it straight away.” He allowed formal visits, right up until the launch day, as long as his authority was recognized whenever they came aboard. His attitude reassured Torill.

  Beckett was hosting a formal launch party in one of the market areas on the ship on the day of the launch. All the senior station and project staff were invited. Six hours before the party, though, Paul eased Torill out of her office and across the gantry to the airlock. There was a ship’s guard there, checking who went in and who went out against a clipboard of names. He merely nodded at Paul and gave Torill a semi-salute, surprising her.

  “You’re the reason they’re here,” Paul said, taking her hand. “They know that.”

  He led her through the ship’s interior, onto the little open train that used mag tracks to transport people and supplies from the one end of the ship where the airlock was, to the other end, with various stop points in between. There were other people on the benches, forcing Paul and Torill to share a bench with two others.

  Everyone seemed to know everyone else. They chatted freely and happily amongst each other, talking about their work and their roles on the ship. Torill eavesdropped shamelessly, fascinated with the way everyone seemed to get along.

  At the far end of the ship, just behind the bridge, was the area that Torill had designated in her mind as the professional area. The sciences that would be needed to keep the ship going were located here, their studios and laboratories given small suites each.

  The area that Paul took her to was a tightly sealed, sterile laboratory section, where a pretty assistant handed them plastic disposoralls and slippers. They were also required to go through a light sterilization process and their hair was sealed.

  Torill submitted to the process with rare patience. Paul clearly had something up his sleeve. She would play it out, just to find out what that was.

  She met him in the robing area. The pretty assistant had been replaced by a man with silvery sideburns and bright eyes, wearing the same sterile clothing as Paul and she were.

  “This is Antoni Garland,” Paul told her. “He is the chief geneticist and director for the Accouchement Clinic.”

  “Ms. Darya, it is a great pleasure to finally meet you in person,” Garland told her, his eyes twinkling. “You are the architect of this…glorious opportunity.” He shook her hand vigorously, making her whole body shake.

  Torill took her hand back.

  “This way!” Garland called, hurrying out of the robing area. He led them into a section of the clinic that had an old-fashioned manual door, with a drop lever to open it and a mechanical security panel.

  “Mechanical equipment cannot be hacked,” Garland told her. “It is virtually impossible to gain entry without proper clearance, so we can control the environment.” He pushed the door open. “Come in.”

  Torill stepped in, her curiosity high. The interior of the room was divided off into high benches. Each bench held sealed and transparent capsules the size of an average desk, sitting on top of units that hummed quietly. The room was very nearly dark, with just enough light to see and not trip over.

  “Here, here, this one,” Garland said, hurrying over to one of the capsules. He pressed a control on the unit beneath and a soft red light shimmered over the top of the capsule. “Indirect light, so the child is not disturbed before it is officially born.” He smiled at Torill. “She is quite beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Torill looked through the capsule, startled. There was a baby inside. A human baby, fully formed, floating in a clear liquid. It was curled up, a thumb in its mouth, with an umbilical running to the side of the machine.

  This, then, was the maturation process that could quicken children from embryos. There were very few people even on Terra, where the process was quite normal now, who had been lucky enough to be allowed into an accouchement chamber to see it for themselves.

  “Is the baby…ready?” Torill asked in a hushed voice. She didn’t want to disturb the child.

  “Very soon now, she will be,” Garland said. “She will be the first child born on the Endurance.” He glanced at Paul.

  Paul’s fingers curled over Torill’s shoulder. “She is ours, my love. Yours and mine.”

  Torill gripped his fingers. Suddenly, she felt weak and very tired. The tears, that never seemed to be very far away these days, stung her eyes. “This is your surprise,” she whispered.

  Garland rested his hand on top of the capsule. “We did a bit of tinkering with the DNA before the fetus grew too much. Your child will not have the genetic weakness for radiation that you do, Ms. Darya. Actually, everyone born on the Endurance will have the same resistance built in—it won’t protect them completely, but it will reduce some of the risks of space travel.” His smile faded. “There will be quite enough other risks, after all.”

  Torill turned and hugged Paul, even though Garland was right there. Paul held her tightly, just as unconcerned about appearances.

  “She will need a name,” Paul whispered.

  Torill wiped her cheeks quickly and stepped away from him. “We are to name her?”
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br />   Garland nodded. “Just this once, for this very special child. In the future, the couple assigned to parent the child will have that privilege.” He looked at them both enquiringly.

  “Torill,” Paul said instantly.

  “No.” Torill shook her head. “Then there is nothing of you in the name.”

  “You will need a last name, too,” Garland pointed out. “Unless you want to use your own last name?”

  Paul shook his head. “The parents in the future won’t have common last names to pass on, so we won’t either.”

  “Combine them,” Torill said. “Combine our first names to make the last one.”

  “That seems fitting,” Garland said. “Torillpaul, paultorill…oh dear, it is a bit unwieldy, though.”

  “Half and half,” Paul said. “Torul.” He grimaced. “Odd.”

  “No, your name at the front,” Torill said. “Parill.”

  Paul smiled. “Parill. Mmm. Except you get the back end of the deal, so we should use the front half of your name for the first name. Tor-something.”

  “Toya,” Torill said.

  “Toya Parill.” Paul glanced at the capsule. “Hello, Toya.”

  Garland was entering something on a hand-held, his fingers moving rapidly. Then he looked up at them. “I think I got that down. First names combined for a last name, and the parent who supplied the back end of the name uses the front half of their name to suggest the first name.”

  “I didn’t mean everyone should do it!” Torill said, startled.

  “Why not?” Garland said. “We will need some sort of naming convention, as the surnames we have had handed down to us throughout history will no longer serve us. This—” and he hefted the handheld, “—fits with our unique circumstances.”

  Torill rested her hand on the capsule, just as Paul was doing. She looked up at him. “This was the nicest surprise you have ever arranged for me. Thank you.”

  Paul just looked at her. His throat worked, but he didn’t speak. Finally, he just nodded.