Beneath the Floating City collection

by Donna Maree Hanson

  ‘You know how to woo a girl now don’t you?’

  ***

  The next morning she sat at the main station going over routine operations. Sam was below working on the Work Horse again. She hoped he didn’t touch hers, as she hated surprises. Chuckling to herself at some fond memories of automated clutch arms coming miraculously to life, unexpectedly, she flicked through the comms register. It was there that she found the message. It at once angered her and explained what was going on with Sam. It was serious too. Not news he would take lightly, she expected. After Tolstoy Patches they were to return to base. Not for reassignment. No they were to be made redundant. The advance in technology meant that it was more cost effective to deploy automated repair drones.

  She flicked off the message and continued with the pre-operation preparation, running routine diagnostics on the navigation buoys. Not only did she do bounce back signals to confirm their position in comparison to the deployment settings, she ran test of the frequency emitters to ensure they were broadcasting within specifications. Ships’ crew could identify the location through the type of beacon and the broadcast frequency of the signal. The preliminary reports made her frown so she scheduled detail scans that would provide a better report within twenty four hours.

  Sam came in, sweaty and smelling of ozone. ‘Running tests?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah just going through the routine.’ She wanted to say ‘get the fuck over it,’ but couldn’t. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to broach the subject. But she had to somehow. There had to be away to get him over this hurdle. If she could see a way forward then he must too.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked, slouching into a chair.

  ‘Just slops, I reckon. I’ve been working.’

  Dinner was awful and it wasn’t the slops. He knew she knew and she knew he knew that too. How ridiculous! Evie had to star, had to allude to the issue. There had to be a way forward. ‘Isn’t there a space station being built? Do you think they’ll need technicians?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Not the same.’

  ‘Geez Sam. Don’t do this. Don’t let it get to you. We can still be out here among the stars.’

  He was shaking his head and avoiding eye contact, pulling into himself.

  ‘You and me, we’re strong.’

  ‘No.’ He floated away from the table and grabbed hold to the viewport. ‘No. I don’t want things to change and no lecture from you is going to change that. I will fight it.’

  ‘Fight it? How? It has already been decided.’

  ‘There’s got to be a way. I’m going to find it.’

  ‘I say we adapt. We find something else to do that suits us.’

  Sam focussed on her then, the pale yellow ring around his pupils blending with the green and brown flecks. ‘Adapt?’ He rubbed his chin, an excited glint in his eyes. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Wait. We haven’t finished discussing this. Sam. Sam?’

  Evie anchored herself to the table and brooded while she sucked her coffee. She said interesting and derogatory things to her coffee about Sam, the universe is general and the difficulties she had had with the lifelong involvement with the opposite sex. ‘Obstinate bastard,’ she said loudly, wishing he could hear her in the Work Horse bay.

  Sam was absent from his bunk that night and Evie, not quite sure how to deal with him and their situation went to bed alone, refusing to let thoughts of life after a career in navigation aid maintenance ruin her natural sleep. There was time enough for nightmares during unnatural deep sleep.

  The next morning she reviewed the reports on the Tolstoy Patches navigation buoys and hurled a few more curses into the air. The reports didn’t make any sense. Some of the frequencies were way off the specifications and two of the beacons were giving strange readings on the bounce back and that shouldn’t happen.

  She queried the ship’s computer, Nestor, on the impact of the nebulae environment on the design parameters. Nestor needed to take some more readings before producing a report.

  The blare of alert on the bridge shocked her out of her seat. Adrenalin surged through her brain as she went through the protocols. Asteroid hit, hull breach, systems failure. ‘Sam!’ she called over comms. ‘We have an alert, Sam?’

  All the systems checked out. But then she knew. Her gaze flew to the internal temperature readings. Sam. Workroom. Fire.

  ***

  The air was thick with acrid smoke, drawn into the corridor through the vent. Her throat ached from screaming his name. Wiping snot and tears from her face, she struggled to stand. She couldn’t bring herself to look through the small view port into the smoke-filled bay.

  He was in the Work Horse all geared up and apparently prepped to go. Yet there had been some kind of power surge. He hung there lifeless. She banged on the door but it wouldn’t open. Then as she peered helplessly though the view port she saw why. He had cycled the lock. His horse was on the arm in preparation for launch. His head lolled, as the unit jostled him. Debris preceded him out of the lock and then he launched.

  Tearing herself away from the door, she headed back to the bridge. Nestor gave her his vitals, which confirmed what she’d seen. He was dead. Nestor was unable to override the launch of the Work Horse. Sam was gone. Just like that.

  The two-man vessel was now a one-man one. A senseless ending, she thought as anger warred with grief. Even the next day, while she sat there with stale coffee on the table, a helpless, nothing feeling lingered. She knew why he’d done it. Knew why he couldn’t go on. He couldn’t adapt. Feeling superior was cold comfort. The memory of his body hanging there, in his rig, electrocuted returned again and again to haunt her.

  On the bridge, the computer suspended it analysis of the navigation aids of Tolstoy Patches to concentrate on analysing Sam’s accident. It was strangely quiet. No Sam chatting, breathing or just being. She glanced to the mess table. Spilled coffee looking like blood. Sam’s blood.

  With a sigh, she tried to shrug off the guilt, tried to stop herself from working out the little things she’d done or not done. The closer she nestled in the curve of the view port the more she felt surrounded by stars. She closed her eyes, hiding the hurt within. How could he have done it? Left this beauty behind him?

  The console beeped sharply. Her analysis of the ‘accident’ was complete. Did she even need to look at it? Her gaze paused briefly on the readout. The image stayed in her mind, the words burned across her consciousness. It was true. He’d done it to himself. But he’d been careful and hadn’t taken her with him. She didn’t know if she was glad about that. She filed the report and sent it back to base. Let them digest that.

  The numbness of grief was still upon her, only routine kept her going, kept her not thinking about him, the loneliness, and the thoughts about the waste of his life.

  Sleep was an escape when routine didn’t serve to take her mind off things. She slept through three shifts, leaving the computer to run things. What did it matter if she didn’t eat or wash or read the reports? Who cared anyway? The company was folding, the high powered brass would be retrenched with large financial payouts. She’d be lucky to collect her leave entitlements. Cold coffee filled her cup, she sipped it, found it soothing. She idled over to the mission report readout. The unusual readings remained, in fact they were even stranger than before. Hastily, she paged through it. ‘Confirm, nav report readings,’ she instructed the computer.

  Twelve buoys marked Tolstoy patches. Only nine responded to the routine bounce. Malfunction? The buoys were nuclear powered. They’d last for an age out here. What then? Sabotage? Theft? Now that they were closer, she instructed the computer to repeat the bounce, a tight beam signal to each buoy’s transponder. She watched each signal return, noted the ninth one was weaker than previously. Heartbeats passed by, the other three didn’t return.

  ‘Are we close enough for sensors? I want to know if they are in situ?’ she said to the computer.

  Nestor’s flat voic
e answered. ‘Readings are ambiguous.’

  ‘What do you mean, ambiguous? Either they are there or they aren’t. Do it again.’

  The computer went silent for ten minutes. Evie tapped her teeth with her finger nails, while she stared out the view port. Filaments of the nebulae reached out, dissipating into the far reaches of space, way beyond the confines of her visual window. She eyed the view port’s filters and nodded. It was set for enhanced viewing, green, blue and red, the colour of the elements of life, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon.

  The console chimed. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Only eight buoys register on the sensors.’

  ‘But we had a bounce for nine before. Reconfirm bounce.’

  She watched the returns. Only eight returned this time. She calculated her estimated arrival time, making adjustments for Sam’s death. Her mind was occupied with the nebulae, perhaps there he would float forever. He’d like that or would have, his essence mingling with a new star system. She filed a report about the findings of the navigation buoys and sent it back to base. She’d be finished by the time they received it. Would there be anyone to read it? Who cared about a defunct navigation maintenance crew? No one, except her. She’d do her job. Anger rose up then. ‘You bastard, Sam,’ she yelled into the empty bridge. ‘I won’t give up. I won’t.’ The last choked off, and she was racked with a soundless sob. There was no sound for her grief. Only glowing filaments of nebulae gas to witness her pain.

  The twin nebulas filled the view port. She was tracking to the entry of the patches, angling the nose of her ship for the centre between the first two markers. Detailed specs drifted across her screen. The readings from the first two buoys were strong and within specifications. Everything looked as it should. There were elevated high alpha emissions in the area and other cosmic rays spiking. She had the computer check them against the databanks. The buoys were there for a reason but she didn’t know the history. Usually markers went up after a disaster, more like a memorial to lost lives and with the vain hope that it would spare others.

  Now she was being sceptical, deprecating her reason for living. Her job was important. Servicing navigation buoys saved lives, ships, cargo and served navigation. That was a decent purpose. The reference to the disaster was in the system. A major passenger liner had blown up here. Its systems had scrambled, leading to the death of four hundred people in the cold of space. No, she wouldn’t think about Sam.

  ‘Move to next set,’ she ordered the computer. A touch of thrust and the ship nudged forward, deeper into the channel between the two nebulae.

  The next two buoys checked out okay and their anchors in position. The remainder, though, were emitting strange returns. Buoys seven and eight had stopped responding. Number five was weakening.

  ‘Can you get us there any faster?’ she asked the computer.

  ‘The ship is already at maximum thrust,’ answered the computer flatly.

  ‘I’m going to prep the Work Horse for an EVA inspection. Let me know when we’re near buoys five and six. I should be ready by then.’

  In the utility room, she readied her unit. It was a bit of chore because its interfaces were quite intrusive. She had to insert tubes for collection of urine and tubes to go down her nose to her throat to feed her. Some of the units articular devices were hot wired into her nervous system, a bit uncomfortable but once she was hooked up, she could move like a ballerina amongst the stars, and she could affect repairs more efficiently than if she went in a standard suit. Her gear checked out. She started to re-shave her head, clearing the stubble. A clean scalp provided better adhesion for the units inserts. The unit beeped its readiness, all systems go, all food packed and all tools at the ready. She climbed in. The computer chimed in that they were closing to the eject point. Evie hurried the last of her preparations, scraping the inside of her nose as the tube went down. She winced as the saline drip went in and jostled the waste connector so that it slid into the stoma in her abdomen. When she moved, the unit moved. Lurching to the hatchway, she went through the final check lists. Her heart leaped excitedly, until the unit pumped her with a sedative. It didn’t find her excitement compatible with its operations. While she was EVA the unit ruled her.

  ***

  Clear of the ship, she stilled, savouring the first moments in space. It was like a rush of fear and awe, haloed with an overwhelming sense of insignificance. Her stomach adjusted to the zero gravity and then she could focus.

  Nudging her Work Horse toward warning buoy five, she checked her readings. The anchor had loosened and the buoy was slightly off its co-ordinates. She fed the information back up the link to her ship. A nice lumpy bit of feedback for the design engineers, she thought with clenched teeth. The ship’s computer didn’t acknowledge. ‘Nestor? ‘ But then she could see the outline of the buoy. Her Work Horse lights arrowed in, already revealing pock marks on the outer skin of the buoy. Hovering close by, she reached out. ‘How strange,’ she said, running her right articulator down the side of the buoy’s metal facing. It was scarred, three gouges attested to that.

  It was more than a debris hit. Either it was an impact or the molecular substance of the casing was breaking down. She looked around nervously. Something about the damage was creepy. Was there something out there with her? Immediately she cursed herself for a fool. If only Sam was here, she’d never have thought such an idle and superstitious thing.

  Floating near the now malfunction warning buoy, she tried to ascertain the environmental readings that may have impacted on the buoy. She’s have to write up a detailed report. Her sensors were hazy, too much radiation interference to gain readings more than a few metres away.

  Her ship drew nearer, too near. Although it monitored her progress it normally didn’t approach that close. Perhaps it was having difficulty with the radiation too. Turning her mind back to the buoy, she found that the inspection hatch wouldn’t open. The buoy was not operating at all.

  A shadow flickered as an object broke her beam of light. Her eyes widened and she immediately began to look around. Nothing. Suddenly, something whizzed past. She squinted, then flinched. ‘Nestor?’ she said through the link. ‘Scan that. My sensors don’t appear to be operating.’

  Her heart leaped. The unit pumped some beta blockers, slowing her heart rate. It took a few minutes to get her breathing back to normal. Why was she so spooked? There was nothing out there, except the warning buoys. One must have come loose from its mooring.

  ‘Nestor? Are you reading me?’ No response. She switched to the emergency channel and faced the ship. It was close. She waved. No response still.

  Shrugging off the ship’s errant behaviour, she readied herself to burn through the outer casing of the buoy she was examining. She touched the metal where her torch had been aimed. The metal oozed strangely, dripping in slow globules, like blood from a wound. ‘Now that’s weird. Computer, these buoys are standard steel-titanium aren’t they?’

  Silence.

  ‘Ship? Are you reading me?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the response. Finally she thought. ‘ Radiation is interfering with communications. I am experiencing difficulties with normal functions.’

  ‘Critical?’

  ‘Uncertain. I have to interpret some new programming.’

  ‘Programming? Err...keep me updated.’ To herself she said, ‘Why is this buoy melting? Geez.’ She poked the finger of her articulator through the metal. It pushed through with little resistance. ‘No wonder they aren’t working.’ That shadow flickered again. Pausing, she glanced around. The object careened into the buoy she was connected to, sending her and the buoy spiralling away in opposite directions. ‘What the…’

  Queasiness settled in as she rotated backwards head over feet so many times she lost count. Her thrusters allowed her to slow her spin.

  Had that buoy attacked her? It could have been a random action, caused by the momentum when it split from its anchor. She had no idea which buoy was rocketing a
round the patches. The ship still monitored her. But unusually, the computer hadn’t reacted to the incident. The patches were certainly living up to their reputation. Her leg jerked, and she felt some pain, some pinching. Hovering there, she wondered what to do next. Was there time to salvage the remaining buoys? Did she have sufficient gear to leave a temporary marker? She wished Sam was there. At least she could bounce ideas off him. Her arm felt itchy. She needed to scratch it. Perhaps it was time to go back to the ship and think about what to do next.

  ‘Nestor, I’m coming back in. Prepare a temporary warning buoy and record the following message. ‘Warning, warning, Tolstoy Patches are unmarked, repeat, unmarked. Suspect unusual amounts of radiation may affect metals and shipping. Minimal sensor capabilities. Warning, warning….’’

  A blast nearby made her somersault backwards again. She found it hard to stop her spin this time. Her movements were sluggish, her equipment unresponsive. Her ship span in and out of her vision. After repeated tries her thrusters fired, allowing her to hold her position. ‘Did that come from the ship? Nestor, acknowledge.’

  The computer was silent. ‘Computer?’ While she watched in dismay the ship started gaining speed, jerking to the left and right. It seemed drawn to her. She powered her unit, trying to get away. This is crazy, she thought. She tried sending a manual code through the uplink. She needed to kill the engines. The touch pad dented when her articulator fingers tried to punch in the digits. Panic filled her gut. This time the unit didn’t compensate with drugs. She was on her own. The ship stopped abruptly. Perhaps the code made it through after all. She gazed at the dripping, pock-marked touch pad and shook her head. ‘Computer, acknowledge. Kill the engines,’ she yelled. ‘You have to retrieve me. The Work Horse is starting to fail. I repeat Work Horse is failing.’

  Instead of responding to her hail, the ship careened downwards, spiralling down and down. Evie had her mouth open. Then she cringed, seeing nothing but white as the ship exploded. Debris swung into her, sending her spiralling.