He grimaced, which turned into a grin and held up his thin pale hand up over his eyes and pivoted his head to indicate that he was surveying the competition. “You are different to all of them,” he announced.
Aurora mirrored his grin. “Thanks mate. That’s the best compliment I’ve had in centuries. Could that difference you mentioned be you’re starved for choice? I’d imagine in your day you’ve had any woman you wanted.”
And it was true. August, even dragged through the muck like he’d been, still retained redeeming features. For one he moved, even in low gee, with an easy confidence that was the more powerful for being understated. At the same time, he could come off as a big dag. Even matted and unkempt his hair looked that stupid that the threat in him was muted and it was difficult maintain barriers against him. It didn’t help that Aurora’s libido seemed to be flickering on after months in deep freeze and years in captivity. So, there was that.
“Seriously, that’s all it is, isn’t it?” She felt sorry to point out his delusions, but she’d seen herself in the mirror, especially after the wear and tear of Mars. Of course, these days he wouldn’t claim any prizes either, but he would recover. “As soon as you set foot back Earthside I imagine you’ll be swarmed.”
“That’s true,” he agreed casually, yawning. “But still, you’re different.”
“How’s that?”
“You don’t want anything from me.”
“You’re not far wrong.” But of that Aurora wasn’t entirely sure. On some level, mostly physical though off and on with other parts of the package, she was starting to want something from him with a confronting intensity that she was sure had something to do with having just come back from the dead and also being truly starved for choice. There was no question her body desperately wanted his to be in it. This had been the case for weeks, and with a growing force. And all she had to do to get there, as was generally the case with men, and definitely the case with August, was to get out of her own way. Unfortunately, for many, many, many reasons that was a horrible idea.
August sensed her ambiguity and shrugged indifferently in a way that said, “you don’t want anything from me, but you still need me.” And then he snort-laughed, which was obviously not the effect he was looking for.
Aurora laughed too loud back. To hell with pretence, this was the first good mood she’d had in awhile.
Then they sat back in some webbing smiling with each other for a while, chatting a bit about life, not too full on, and in turns quietly acknowledging the Earth hanging between them on the wall.
“How do you know him? The monk? Kalsang?”
“Kalsang. We’re mates. He’s as good as they come.”
Her answer seemed to annoy August. “It doesn’t look so big,” August said waving towards the Earth as he got up.
Something about the way he said that was like a splash of cold water. The arrogance. Whole planets were trifles to this man’s ego. It brought back in a rush everything about August that Aurora hated. How had he gotten off the hook about his decisions on Mars? Just because she was tired and needed to pretend, didn’t excuse her acting like some schoolgirl. Someone she loved had died because of this man.
“I do need something from you.”
“Anything.”
“Answers.”
“Sure.”
“First off, with my broadcast at the AGM, do you use people like that often?”
August gave her a thoughtful look. “I use anyone and everything that comes my way to get where I need to go. I don’t make any excuses for that.”
“Were you ever serious about protecting indigenous life on Mars, or was it just something you pulled out to use me?”
“I did think about it. I still do.”
“And yet it doesn’t stop you.”
August looked annoyed. “You know the most about this right? Has anything you’ve ever reported directly confirmed any part of your theory?”
That hurt. “It’s not just my theory.”
“Sure. But did you find anything? After everything, years, millions spent, anything?”
“No.”
“We have standard xenobiological sterility protocols. You yourself conformed to those when you were on Mars.”
“Screw you. It’s not the same thing. We are scientists. The kind of people who come through that space hole of yours. Who’s going to control them?”
“Over some hypothetical?”
“I’ll give you a hypothetical. What don’t you know about this wonderful invention you’ve downloaded from the other side of the galaxy?”
August flinched, and Aurora knew she’d struck a nerve. “You don’t know, do you? There is technology in there that human science won’t understand for maybe hundreds of years. You’ve just gone and whipped it up following the recipe, haven’t you?”
August began slowly pulling his hair, an action she’d noticed him doing when agitated. “Something this important, you can’t expect us to just sit on it?”
“So then, maybe you’ve doomed us all. Did you think about that?”
“It’s operating technology, I’m sure the aliens have investigated it.”
“Have investigated it? Been careful? Like we have? I’ll bet there’s more chance of that thing blowing up in our faces than there being life on Mars. Can’t you see? We shouldn’t muck around with things we don’t properly understand.”
“It doesn’t work that way. It’s the nature of life to expand.”
“Keep it in your pants mate.”
“What? Look, I want to do all this the right way. Humans will do what they are going to do. Even with the Ecolution, do you think that people are going to stop degrading the only world we can live on? We are only doing it slower. We have this very small window to point those attentions off away from the Earth. After that we won’t have enough resources left and we will be stuck.”
“That’s what you were thinking when you wiped out our scientific budget on MASO. That that was a good way to protect life on Earth by killing off life on Mars?”
“I did no such thing.”
“Of course, you didn’t. Someone who works for you did.”
“No. Listen to me,” he commanded. “I did no such thing. And I would not have made that decision.”
“Then, how?”
“I continually told people that Mars was the first-place people would want to go with our wormhole, so we needed to be prepared.”
“What do you think people were going to read into that?”
“Your budget should have been increased, not cut.”
“With all the big bucks floating around for Mars, or were you spending them on something else?” She had him there.
August put on a show of considering what she said, but Aurora could see the effort that involved.
“People sometimes take what I say and run with it.”
“You think?” All that power. How could he be so blind to the responsibility that came with it.
“It doesn’t matter. In the long run we will have done things right.”
“My Dad used to say, ‘In the long run we’re dead.’ That conversation of yours almost killed me and it killed my friend.”
“Wait a second. You’re blaming me? Me? I read your mneme logs. Wait. Those were your decisions. Not even yours really. You went Out.”
“Piss off.”
“No. Aurora. That was horrible. I don’t mean to say that. Look, it was an accident. And you were sick.”
Aurora dropped her head. All these reasons, so familiar to her and they didn’t help.
“I’m sorry.”
What for? For her madness, or for his lack of accountability. She wasn’t sure which was more tragic.
A small hole appeared in the middle of the holoscreen of Earth with a loud bang and an alarm sounded. The skin of the ship resounded with a clatter that reminded Aurora of a summer hail storm pounding on a tin roof.
“Micro-meteors!” August shouted.
Aurora s
canned the reverse side of the room for the exit hole. She reached down in a corner and held up a small pebble. “It didn’t make its way through. See the dent?” She pointed at a black mark on the wall. Kalsang bent over to inspect it with her.
“What are you two idiots doing?” thundered August. “Into the Safe. We can’t clean up if we’re dead.” And as if to prove his point another hole banged open in the floor right next to Aurora’s foot.
This was real. Adrenaline fired through her as time both speeded up and slowed down. More cosmic bullets swished by, one grazing her shoulder and opening a gash. Kalsang pulled her to the floor with him, forgetting that the micrometeors could just as easily come from below. He had blood on him too, although Aurora wasn’t sure if it was his or hers. The hiss of escaping gas was loud. Her lungs were already struggling in the rapidly dropping pressure. The cocoon of illusion separating them from the vast and deadly vacuum around them had been punctured. They might die in seconds.
August motioned them over. Together they yanked open a thick nanogem alloy hatch on the bulkhead. While August bravely held the hatch for them they squeezed into a cramped space that forced their bodies to curl into one another. Imminent death retreated with a twist of the latch locking the hatch down behind them.
It was dark. The Safe had only been designed for one person. There they waited until the banging from the micrometeorite shower ended as abruptly as it began.
Kalsang was all right. It was Aurora’s blood not his. He moved sparingly and tucked tightly into the corner, taking up little space. His soothing rounds of mantras seemed build a protective shield around them. August was something else. After hours bundled on-top of one another he was completely wearing on her nerves. His hair angled into her face and got up her nose. He twitched and squirmed and whinged. He even went so far as to imply that they were somehow invading his space, taking up his oxygen, since they were on his ship. As if they happened to be in the Safe on the Kalsang’s ship the story would be different.
After a long time spent mushed against August and contemplating murder, the all clear alarm sounded and August, with exaggerated movements, pulled out the evacuation suit capsule from its compartment. What he discovered when he had it opened caused him to howl. Only the helmet remained in the capsule, the rest of the suit was missing.
“Shit,” August yelled and turned to look at them accusingly as if hiding essential survival equipment was a favorite pastime of theirs. “The suit. It’s gone!”
“Yes,” replied Kalsang in a neutral voice, “Isn’t it?”
“There isn’t enough atmosphere in here for all of us to stay much longer.” August carried on like a pork chop depleting what atmosphere was left.
“I think the both of us would be happy to leave you to it,” Aurora snapped and then she did a crazy thing. Whether it was from desperation borne of claustrophobia or from the sheer stupidity of anger or some sense of doing the right dumb thing, Aurora grabbed the evac helmet and jammed it over her head. The silicon sleeve sealed tightly around her neck, nearly choking her, and she looked through the heavily scratched and fingerprinted visor back at August. The inside of the helmet stunk of stale perspiration and fear.
“Someone? You’ve been wearing this haven’t you?” Aurora glared at August bitterly. “You didn’t put it back. This is your stuff up.” Then she realised he couldn’t hear her.
August tried to pull her back, but Aurora kicked free and crawled into the Safe airlock shaft. The hatch snapped shut, almost catching August’s hand.
One quick hiss later and Aurora felt her skin bruise all over as her blood pressed out in the near vacuum. She almost fainted from the pain but, somehow despite her panic and confusion, she found her way into the space between the Icarus and Garuda, there she activated the coupling airlock. It hadn’t been punctured by the micrometeors. Lucky. As survivable air pressure returned she swooned. Coming to was agonizing. It felt as if her body had been beaten over every square centimeter. She banged on the stuck latch of a storage locker until it opened and the two space suits within fell out at her, flailing about her like drowning rag dolls.
Painfully, Aurora inched her way into one of the suits and swore as the neck couplings failed to match to the helmet she had donned in the Safe. Pulling the neck seal of the helmet she was wearing over her head was murder, but she finally managed to pry it off together with a clump of her hair. The new space helmet went on easily. After her neurovisor patched into the suit’s computer, and after checking the diagnostic panels appearing in her neuroview, she purged the airlock and stepped back into the mayhem of their living quarters.
The micrometeors had made a dog’s breakfast of the place. Rapid pressure drops had sprung latches on storage lockers and the contents had spilled everywhere. Optical fibre and wires from burst panelling wove around the room like snakes. Worms and insects from the Terrapod roamed the air. Much of the debris was clustered around puncture points where it had been pulled by the sudden vacuum. Most of the holes were already plugged this way. Lucky again. If they hadn’t been Aurora realised she would not have survived the vacuum. She’d been so stupid.
Aurora stuffed the spare space suit down the Safe airlock for August or Kalsang to use.
“Special delivery,” she croaked, throat hoarse, as she slid down the wall and collapsed.
August emerged. He gave her a concerned, though perfunctory and painful, pat on the shoulder before turning to inspect the damage, shaking his head as if the raw chaos around them was somehow the result of shoddy workmen. Aurora watched him with a feeling of profound disappointment. This man had spent his life living off the sweat of others, casually screwing around with lives he had no idea about and was in person the biggest pain. Of course, her honest complaint was that she had been idiot enough to be drawn in by him. Although the effort was incredibly painful, Aurora struggled to her feet to stand by him. In the process she lost her footing and fell awkwardly in the slow gravity.
He caught her. She struggled against his uninvited assistance, but he held firm and she gave in only to the practicality of it.
“I can handle it.”
August looked at her sternly. “I can’t believe you’re still alive.” His voice cracked, and his eyes were red. Had he been crying?
“Give me a few minutes. We’ll see”. Aurora attempted to steady herself by slumping over a railing and broke into a coughing fit. “Stop that.”
August stopped hammering her on the back. “Oh, is that hurting you?”
Answering was wasted effort and Aurora let it go.
“Sit down. I can take care of this now.” There was deep concern in his voice, but she was in no mood take orders from him. Aurora pulled herself up as much as she could and glared at him. “Like you took care of the suit in the Safe?”
He huffed but dropped it. As she bent over to place a pressure cup over a hole, the black spots in her eyes ballooned and she began to pass out.
August carried her carefully back to the Safe airlock. “What’s going on?” Aurora slurred.
“The monk can work better than you,” he replied dryly before laying her carefully down and closing the airlock.
Kalsang greeted her warmly when she got inside, helped her out of the suit, and gently and very lightly massaged her back and head with warm, healing hands until the black spots dissipated. The casual kindness of it made her cry. Before he suited up himself he showed her how to link her neuroview into the Safe connect point.
“You will need to communicate with us through August’s suit because it is from his ship. This suit is from my ship,” he explained before he pulled on his helmet and crawled into the airlock.
Once again Aurora was alone, but this time it was not her preference. She watched through August’s helmet cam as they worked, slowly and methodically, to clear and patch the leaks. Kalsang once stopped to push through extra provisions for her, but the two men did not return to the Safe to eat with her. The reason for this was to conserve the limited air supp
ly of the Safe. Aurora felt excluded. Out of pride, she refused to talk to August through his link and from his side he did not seem to be aware that she was looking through his eyes. After many long hours of this isolation and ever-growing loneliness the memories began to trickle back. Her friends - Julia and Xiao Li. The blur of her rescue. She thought about Terry telling her about how Xiao Li had been killed trying to rescue her. She cried.
While idling and chewing a Vitabar, she patched into August’s link to check up on their progress. She winced in annoyance as his voice came into her head over the neuroview. She sat up when she realised August was speaking to someone other than Kalsang.
The man he was talking to was an odd-looking character, and somehow familiar. He wasn’t much to look at, thin and balding and over-groomed, but there was something about his eyes that somehow drew Aurora in, as if he was her trusted friend holding intimate secrets even though he had no idea she was looking in. His voice was fluid and friendly and calm. His words seem musical, falling and rising in a melodic cadence and seemed to rhyme more often than was normal, like he was speaking mystic poetry. August’s voice, even though speaking to the man in dismissive terms, gave away a hint of enthrallment.
“You were expecting me to call?” August demanded.
“Don’t be so surprised Boss,” responded the man with nonchalant deference, “I stocked your craft with enough kit to make it the long way back around. The physics of that track is exact enough to make a guess. So, yes.”
“You let me hang out here for months without contacting me. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”
“No Boss. It isn’t possible for me to imagine. Do you think I planned that sabotage? Would I connect with you until you came within a safe enough range for a clandestine laser line? I assume that’s why you did choose just now to occasion a call? Otherwise you’d have signed in from Mars via the Mirtopik grid.”
“No one even tried.” It was a strained comment. The hint of dejection in August’s voice made Aurora feel almost protective of him. There was loneliness in his power, a vulnerability that she hadn’t previously guessed at.
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