Ten Directions

by Samuel Winburn

  Francesca thought about Raoul and felt particularly attractive. She suddenly felt quite shut off from him, with thousands of kilometers of cold space between them. She hoped he was okay. The other guys too, but not as much. There was a lot she should have said and done but hadn’t. What kind of idiot was she? Where had all that defensive armor gotten her? Her Impenetrable Shield and useless Lasso of Truth that she never used on herself where it needed to be used? Scuttling around like a pathetic cockroach in these pipes of shit, that's where. Scuttling, that was the word for it. Trying to keep ahead of the merciless thoughts by one handhold, one butt slide, one squashed foot unstuck from an unexpected crevice, one wiped face momentarily free of gross sludge, one frantic scratch at the unreachable itch that she imagined was a colony of insects feeding between her shoulder blades, one scream!

  "Hey. I can hear you in there."

  Francesca froze.

  Marco tapped on the wall. "Right here? You're there right?"

  It was more stupid not to acknowledge him.

  "What do you think?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I'm going Out myself. I've been hearing a lot of noises."

  "You don't have to yell. This wall is so thin I could almost break through it."

  "But you can't?" He sounded worried.

  "No idiot. If I could I would have already strangled you."

  "Look, I don't mean you any harm."

  "Is that how you feel about the crew you left behind on Tsuchinshan, living for months on half rations until they get rescued? What about the crew you maybe killed blasting off from so close?"

  There was a long pause, like El Cretino hadn't quite throught all the consequences of his actions.

  "Uhh look, Signore. You are hungry, ci? I put some food and nanosorbs and some clothes I found back in your room. If you can get back to them, you can make yourself comfortable."

  "Screw you." The offer had invalidated in one hit any heroic notions she still held about her struggles of the past day, like a torpedo shot beneath the bowline of her barely floating ego. Too deflated to argue further Francesca began the hour-long crawl back to her original confinement.

  Exhausted, Francesca slipped back down the vent and squirmed out in a slimy placental mess back into the makeshift prison. In her absence, the room had been made up. Sleeping web had been secured in one corner, a clean pair of overhauls and a work shirt in a stuff sack was tied to it. A ration kit loaded with vitabars and other stuff floated free in the room, and most importantly a water cube! Francesca latched on, sucking down the water with great gulps. The most painful part of her confinement had been being immersed at times in various liquids but being afraid to ingest any of it. ‘Water water everywhere.’ Wasn't that how it went.

  Consuming a Vitabar whole, Francesca checked over her new provisions. Nanosorbs and vac, thank God! Emergency oxygen and first aid kit, with scalpel and scissors removed of course. Exercise bungees installed. A spacesuit in case of total depressurisation. Even a few green plants from the Terrapod Atrium and a view screen on saver with pretty pictures to look at.

  Marco had gone to lengths to make her comfortable, which must have required some courage on his part, never knowing when she might get back. Or maybe he had just re-screwed the vent while he worked. Or maybe he didn't because what was the point if she came back and he couldn't let her back in. Maybe he was just one of those OCD guys and couldn’t help himself. Whatever. She decided to accept his peace offering, at least until she could get her hands on him. The only thing he hadn't returned she noticed, was her neurovisor, which she understood because she could make trouble for him with that, but which also meant that her stay was going to be impossibly boring. She wouldn’t be able to read any of the comic mnemes stored on her neuroview. At least she could work out.

  Francesca rubbed nanosorbs over her body, the microtubules magical capillary action sucking the greasy and gummy grossness off her body and leaving a film of a sand-like nodules that were easily slurped up with the vac for later recycling in the Terrapod. It was a bitch when it got in your eyes though, which set her off blinking like some mad person with a tic for a while.

  When she was fed, cleaned, clothed, and rested there was a tentative knock on the door.

  "Come in,” she said hopefully, standing to the side of the door ready to pounce.

  "Signore, I must respectfully decline." Marco wasn't as stupid as she’d hoped.

  "If you aren’t here to finish what you started, what are you doing here?"

  "Uh, I'd like to talk to you."

  "Estupido. You are waiting for my permission when I am your prisoner?"

  "Ci. All right." There was an irritatingly long pause.

  “You want to talk, but then you shut up. Good, get lost."

  "Signore. What you said. Do you think that I killed anyone?"

  This guy was unbelievable. The asshole steals our ship and then wants absolution for it.

  "What am I? Your confessor?"

  "No. No. I guess."

  "Look, if you didn't kill anyone - I'm not saying you didn't. How couldn’t you risk their lives by leaving them on an unstable comet? Especially as it gets closer to the sun - that thing could outgas anywhere. What are they going to do? You should have thought of that maybe?”

  “Ci.”

  “Talk to whoever that was telling you how to snitch our ship, or someone else who cares."

  "Ah Raffaello. Ci. We used to be friends."

  Francesca saw an opening, a wedge she might work on between Marco and whoever was directing him, that she could use to get some information. "Used to be? Why are you helping him if he isn't?"

  She could hear Marco tearing up.

  "Ma famiglia. I have a family, you see?"

  And then she got the whole story whether she was even remotely interested in hearing it or not. Basically, just as she had thought, the Revs had picked up on August Bridges’ amazing invention. Okay maybe it was copied from the aliens, but they sure would’ve had to invent a pile of new tech to make it work. Anyway, the Revs reckoned it was going to destroy all life on Earth, or could at least if all the stars aligned, as if everyone hadn’t heard that line before a million times. So they were going to take it out, using the perfectly democratic method of the shooting it down with the comet impactors on-board this ship, the ones they would shoot into the other side of Tsuchinshan to loosen up the ice they wanted to mine.

  Obviously, they couldn’t count on Mister Mushy here to do the job right, so they had launched this other dude on a one-way ticket to a rendezvous spot, and then he was going to take it from there. That was as far as Marco's knowledge went, that this Souren dude was on his way. Marco had served with his old amigo Raffaello under the same Rev assisting with famine relief somewhere in Central Europe. The Revs were active in that sort of stuff, keeping connected to the Hearts and Minds to make sure the Coms didn't get the upper hand as they had managed to in Russia and in the Sovereign Economic Zones.

  Marco had been convinced into stealing their ship and driving it to the provided coordinates. The point where she lost respect for him though was that this wasn't about protecting his family like she thought. It sounded like the guy was completely homesick and although he was doing this out of some misplaced sense of duty he was just feeling sorry for himself because it meant he might not see his Momma and brothers and sisters and long chain of relatives again, or at least for a long time in the case that he went to prison.

  "Wait a second. Let me understand this because, to be honest, I completely don't. Your family isn't under any threat at all. It isn't the money because the wage on Tsuchinshan must be outrageous and you've just pissed your pension up against the wall by stealing the ship and the civil and criminal penalties will impoverish you. And isn't this a bad move if you are homesick because you won't be seeing your family again if something bad happens or you get locked up? So that isn't it. This makes no sense Marco. You, you are a stupid person that's what I think."

  "No Signore. I a
m stupid, of course, but you don't understand at all. I put my hand up for this mission, for my Rev, my Net, my Hub, the whole of Gaia. If I fail in my duty, what then?"

  Aaargh. A fanatic. Even more intolerable. "I take it back. You are worse than stupid. You have actually swallowed that panarchist bullshit."

  "Ci. I believe, and it is good to believe. This mission is to prevent the end of the world. It is worse if I turned it down, so much shame. I couldn’t face my family."

  "They probably wouldn’t give a shit,” Francesca laughed, "What the hell are you even talking about? You think your family will be more worried about their own shame or your life? End of the world, how cliché - how do you think anyone could accomplish that?"

  He couldn't say, which was typical, and even more typically because it was top secret. How many times had that one been used? Too many times, that’s how many.

  That was as far as the conversation went. Despite Marco's tired attempts to resurrect it, Francesca had had enough. He was a fool and that was all there was to it. Despite all the truth of the past excesses, climate catastrophes and a million other large and small disturbances in the Force, she was tired of living in a world where leaving on a light switch was the hard road to Hell. She had never herself signed up for the Campaigns, wearing the resulting ostracism as a badge of Honor. That this guy was basically flushing his life down the toilet for a struggle that was so far over most people couldn't remember that it had happened in the first place. There were more real things to real about - real pain, like what the families of the workers this bozo had marooned would be going through. Like what Raoul was going through, not knowing if she were dead or alive.

  She had more important things to think about now, like preparing for this Rev guy, probably Kaliyuga Rev if he was as Indian as his name sounded. Chances were he wasn't going to be a pushover like poor Marco and she didn't want to be an easy target. Jamming the door lock from the inside and donning the spacesuit Marco had left her, a tight fitting Buckygel number, Francesca re-entered the belly of the beast to explore her options.

  Some days later, through the vents in the corridor inside from the airlock room, she heard the kind of singing that could lead to ear bleeds.

  "Kya acha laga ta hai

  Acha laga ta hai

  Bhi ala ru ko sapana

  Sucha laga ta hai"

  Although she could not see him unloading his ship, Francesca could already tell a few things about this guy. For one, he thought he sounded good, which meant he was the worst kind of narcissist. Two, he was very careful about everything he did. There was no banging around and rushing or swearing, and no panting and ass scratching, only a cool efficiency in the sounds of his movements. So he was dangerous. Three, he was an asshole. She picked that up from his first conversation with Marco. It went like this.

  "Bongiorno. I'm Marco." There was a pathetic hopefulness in his greeting.

  "Macro. Hi Macro, I'm late. I'm late because you were late. Nearly an hour late and if I hadn't readjusted my trajectory to take that into account I would be dead. Now do as I say, or you will be dead."

  "Ci. Ci."

  "And stop the Eurokutta. Speak so that I can understand you. Clear?"

  "Ah, yes."

  "Not 'YES'. Try speaking a civilised tongue. 'Jee haan'. Do I have to spell it? Surprise me and don't be a moron."

  Typical. It never ceased to amaze Francesca how arrogant some Indians could be, as if they had always been the center of the cultural universe on Earth. Power, no matter how it was earned or how ephemeral, always turned people into dicks. A narcissistic, calculating dick. The guy had a very bad vibe. Francesca was glad she was not waiting around in the room for him to come knocking.

  "I'm heading to the cockpit. You secure these Macro."

  "It's Marco."

  "Whatever. Your instructions are in your neuroview. Those there need to be loaded."

  "Ci." Points to Marco for unexpected self-respect and for not mentioning her existence.

  Mi madre muerta. She had anticipated these movements and had planned her next step, but the reality was hard to face. This was how it was - the path from the airlock to the cockpit for her meant squirming back through the guts of the Terrapod, at least that is what she had memorised from a map on the inside of one vent she had explored. Clambering up a side vent she followed the pulses of air up the main Terrapod oxygenator, a slowly tapering rubbery tube with side channels that split and funnelled away like the blood vessels of some enormous beast.

  As her journey became increasingly claustrophobic, Francesca psyched herself up to the task by imagining herself into Shrinking Violet, overcoming her shyness to navigate into the circulatory system of her beloved Leviathan to save him from his own death wish. She pulled herself forward gently so as not to disturb his breathing, mindfully finding footholds on his bronchial arches and branches. Somewhere in here she would find his noble soul to save it from itself, and, while she was there, rescue his heart from that power-hungry bitch Kinetix.

  He would see then who really loved him.

  The airway narrowed further into a self-sealing valve that let the air pump into his heart but kept the blood and gunk from flowing backwards up it. Her boyfriend had a strange anatomy, but what else would she expect from the severe mutations he must have suffered from that radioactive meteorite.

  She pushed further into the darkness of his core, wriggling hard to push through since she could not shrink further, her atoms having reached the limits of how far she could compact them.

  Stuck. The valve pursed tight around her hips, regardless of how hard she kicked and pried her fingers under the tight belt around her waist. She could feel the black ooze of destiny close in around her, revealing itself by the way it slowed her movements although she could not see, her headlamp failing to penetrate the goo.

  This was how it was going to be. She was going to breathe her last breath in here, balled up somewhere deep within her lover Leviathon's breast. Perhaps she would kill him by clogging his arteries before his fight with Regulus that should have finished him instead. In the end that was all she would be - a fatal clot in a heart that still belonged to another.

  That was good. She should write some of this stuff down.

  When the distraction from her fantasy wore off, Francesca started to panic. She punched at the valve with her padded fists and cursed and shouted inside her helmet, but it was completely futile. It began to dawn on her that this was the end of her life, and she could fight her way forward no longer. The crowded backlog of fears began to work its way through her brain, ballooning her brain with frustration.

  Elena called out to her again, begging her to come back to her rescue, condemning her for her shameful powerlessness, cursing her for reaching such a stupid end and not coming back and fixing something that couldn’t be fixed.

  Overwhelmed Francesca flopped, limply acquiescing to an inevitability that washed over her like a wave. At that exact moment the air pressure that had built up behind her spat her through the valve, like being farted out of some enormous ass. It took a few minutes for Francesca to recognise her sudden freedom and forget about almost dying.

  Her next step was made for her as her foot was drawn into a peristaltic pump vent that was working the nutrient rich sludge into a nearby reaction chamber. Francesca remembered that there should be only one such vent in this chamber and that a maintenance hatch she was aiming for should be within arms’ length. She pirouetted, running her fingers along the wall until she found the clasp, and then turned it. The hatch opened, and she surfed through on a belch of brown. Francesca hauled herself over a handrail and closed the hatch, a bit too loudly. She was through. Down the corridor, she could hear Souren's singing.

  As bad as his singing was, she was grateful for it. It meant she didn’t have to worry about being overheard as she crept down the corridor to the cockpit. As she advanced she was relieved to hear Souren dressing down Marco.

  "You loaded the impactors as instru
cted?"

  "Ci."

  Francesca could see the shadow of the Indian's head shake in annoyance.

  "You had better have done them correctly as this entire operation is completely dependent on them."

  "Ci. I lowered them into the tube and locked the hatch. It was not too difficult.”

  Francesca peaked quickly around the corner to get a look at her adversary. He was pretty much as she expected from the singing, the typical thug with a tank-like build, but with longer hair than she had imagined, greased and wound into a bun on his head. And then, as she was pulling back, she spied something else. One the ledge of a console just out of immediate arms’ length was her neurovisor. She could get it, but she would be seen. Looking back up the corridor she planned her flight, mapping each hand and foot hold to give an optimal flight path.

  "I should not tell you,” Souren continued, "But seeing as you have no one to tell it to out here."

  "Ci. Is true what you say. Except for the woman."

  "What?"

  Francesca took her queue and whipped forward, gripping her visor as nimbly as she could with her spacesuit glove and propelling herself off the console back up the corridor.

  Souren reacted amazingly quickly, almost grabbing her foot as she fled, but the extra seconds he required to determine where to jump next allowed her to out distance him down the hall and into the airlock, where she lowered the outer door between him and her at the last possible moment.

  She fitted her neurovisor, it seemed to take forever before its thread-like worms burrowed into her brain. Then, with her mind lit up with the ship’s schematic, she lowered her helmet’s face shield and activated her oxygen in anticipation of Souren doing the obvious next step of voiding the airlock and jettisoning her out into space. As the alarm sounded, she activated the magnetic soles on her boots, and grappled into one of the two maintenance jet units.