Star Wanderers: Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus V-VIII)

by Joe Vasicek

  Her expression was cold, but her eyes were full of fire. Like her mother, she sat on the edge of her seat, eager to catch Jakob in his own words. His throat constricted, and his vision began to blur. It was hard not to feel like everyone in the room was standing against him—even his own wife.

  “I’ve been working my ass off ever since we came here to Alpha Oriana,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “Do you think I haven’t looked for something better? Or what about the rest of you, sitting around the apartment all day?”

  “You don’t think homemaking is work?”

  “No, but does it really take five women and three grown men to keep this place clean and livable?”

  “Enough,” said his mother-in-law. “Jakob, if you don’t want to go to the Coreward Stars, where exactly do you propose we go?”

  Jakob took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm himself. “Well, the New Pleiades isn’t too far. There’s been a lot of migration out that way—I’m sure we could find something.”

  Svenson already had his wrist console out, checking the claim. “You’re right,” he said, “but the going rate for passage looks pretty high—almost five times the price for a one-way ticket to New Sol.”

  “That’s too much,” said Opa Jirgis, shaking his head.

  “Well, then let’s apply for one of the colony ships,” said Jakob, throwing his hands out palms up. “There are plenty of colony missions to the Far Outworlds that are eager to sign up people. We’d get passage free, possibly with the option to homestead.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” asked Leah. “We’d be starting over at a place without any settlements. What about our kids?”

  “I’m sure everything will be fine. They don’t send out those missions without plenty of supplies.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Svenson. “I’ve heard a lot of horror stories. Besides, there’s no guarantee we’ll find a colony ship that will take all of us. The Coreward Stars are still our best bet.”

  “He’s right,” said Oma Salome. “Not all of us are young anymore. Better that we stick together, and go somewhere that’s well suited for all of us.”

  But we can’t go Coreward, Jakob thought, his sweat turning cold. If we do, we’ll never see the Outworlds again.

  “If you want to live the rest of your life trapped under a dome, breathing the same recycled air as a hundred million other people, then by all means, let’s take the cheapest option and leave our community behind forever. But if—”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” said his wife, rolling her eyes. She folded her arms and shook her head. “You were the one who took us from our community at Delta Oriana—the one who made us leave our home forever.”

  “I did it to save your lives!” Jakob shouted. “What part of that don’t you people understand?”

  “We never should have left our beloved birth star,” said Giuli, crossing herself. “Nothing but evil has come to us at these stars of the unbelievers.”

  “Do you think we could go back to Delta Oriana?” Leah asked. Her face lit up with the hope of someone who doesn’t know any better.

  All at once, the room erupted into argument. Everyone started talking at once, while some of the younger kids began to cry. For her part, Salome just glared at him.

  “Sometimes I don’t know why I still stay with you.”

  Jakob’s nostrils flared, and his jaw began to quiver. “Then go, for all I care!” he shouted, reverting without thinking back to Gaian.

  As he stormed out of the room, Mariya reached out to stop him. “Dad,” she said, “I’m sorry—”

  He shrugged her off and walked past her, stopping only to put on his shoes before leaving the apartment.

  * * * * *

  The rimside bar closest to the immigrant quarter was unusually quiet when Jakob arrived. A couple young women eyed him from the far side of the room, but he ignored them and sat down in one of the booths. When the serving bot hovered over, he ordered a bottle of hard whiskey. As he poured himself a glass of the dark, noxious liquid, he stared out the window at the main corridor. A couple of Imperial soldiers walked past, their assault rifles conspicuously strapped to their backs.

  Not many ships coming through these days, he thought to himself. It was true—with the Imperial takeover, Outworld traffic had taken a huge hit. There was a tension in the air, especially in the poorer areas of the station. The Imperials were changing things, and it wasn’t yet clear who would win and who would merely survive—if they survived at all.

  Jakob had never experienced a station-wide riot before, but he knew that the soldiers were patrolling the corridors for a reason. From what he’d gathered, almost a quarter of the regular union workers had received the same termination message that he had—and that was just the dockyards. Rumor had it that the manufacturing centers were going to be squeezed next, which meant a lot of angry people without work if it was true. And then, there were the population controls and mandatory relocation plans—

  “Hey, man,” came a familiar voice, shaking him out of his thoughts. “Long time no see.”

  He glanced up just as Arai slipped into the seat across from him. He set down two mugs of beer, then noticed the whiskey.

  “Ah—getting a head start, I see.”

  Jakob muttered something unintelligible, even to him. Arai chuckled.

  “How long have you been waiting here for me?”

  “Not long,” said Jakob. “This is my first, I swear.”

  “No problem, man—I know how it is. We’re all in the same starship together.”

  I doubt that very much, he thought, thinking back to the argument back home. He took a long swig from his bottle and leaned heavily on the table.

  “The union guys are really upset,” Arai continued. “They thought they had some security from this kind of stuff. Turns out, the Imperials don’t really care.”

  “Unions,” Jakob muttered. “What kind of an Outworld settlement has unions?”

  “One with thirty thousand people, I guess.”

  He sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Back on Delta Oriana, we never had to deal with that kind of stuff. Everyone looked out for each other, and if any extra work needed doing, we all pitched in and did it. Not like here—no one tried to rip each other off like here.”

  A few moments of silence passed between them. Jakob drained his glass and poured himself another one.

  “A lot of the guys are thinking about taking work at some of the mining operations on Jarilna,” said Arai. “Me, I’ll probably try to sign on with a hauler crew. I’m not so young anymore, and I’ve got a wife and kid to support.”

  “You and me both.”

  “What about you? What do you plan to do?”

  He emptied his glass again and set it down heavily on the table. “I don’t know. We can’t stay—you know how it is.”

  “Yeah. It’s been tough for all of us.”

  “Well, it’s tougher for us Deltans than most. I applied for all those same jobs as the other guys—every one turned me down.”

  Arai frowned. “Even the mining jobs? Last I heard, the Imperials actually want to expand those operations.”

  “Yeah, well, the system natives don’t want us to be a part of it. And when the manufacturing facilities close down, you can bet they’ll have their pick of the labor.”

  “Stars of Earth.”

  Another patrol of soldiers walked past their window. The leader, a clean-shaven young man with dark olive skin and sharp features, eyed Jakob suspiciously as they passed. Jakob returned the gaze, not really caring whether the man thought he was a threat or not. It was hard to care about anything anymore.

  “It’s getting bad,” said Arai, setting down his half-finished mug. “I heard there was a guy from first shift who walked out an airlock. Just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Huh,” said Jakob. He lifted the bottle to his lips and turned the bottom up. The alcohol burned his throat on the way down, making him swallow hard.<
br />
  “Yeah. That’s the only one so far, though—thank the stars for that.”

  “Well, it makes sense. If you’ve gotta go, that’s probably the best way to do it.”

  Arai frowned. “What are you talking about, man?”

  “I’m just saying, as far as suicide goes, walking out an airlock makes a lot of sense. It’s clean, quick, and fairly painless. Heat doesn’t radiate too fast in a vacuum, so you aren’t going to freeze to death, and while you might have a couple of veins burst from the sudden drop in pressure, all the air gets sucked out of your lungs in the first few seconds, so you pass out pretty quick.”

  “The hell,” said Arai, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you’re considering it.”

  “Not at all,” said Jakob. “I’m just saying, as a way to kill yourself, that’s an effective way to do it.”

  With his mind clear from the alcohol, it was amazing just how much everything made sense. A man from first shift walked out an airlock—well, why shouldn’t he? If there was nothing left to live for, what was the point of consuming all the food and oxygen that could be put to better use by someone else? Of course, it was all very sad, but that was just the way the universe was. The stars didn’t care—and if God cared, he certainly didn’t show it. Better for a man to take his destiny into his own hands than leave himself to the mercy of a vast, uncaring universe.

  “Listen, man,” said Arai. He set down his mug again and looked Jakob in the eye.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know it seems tough right now, but you’ve got to stick it out. Things will get better—you’ve got to keep that hope alive.”

  Jakob threw back his head and laughed. “What, you think I don’t know how to take care of myself? Listen to you—you sound like, like—”

  “Like your wife?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Wait—no. Stars, no. If you were her, you’d push me out yourself.”

  He laughed again, but Arai didn’t laugh with him. That made him feel sad, which made him angry, since he hated it when the guys saw him sad. He stopped laughing and nursed the bottle, taking another swig. Just a little more, and he’d finish it off.

  “That’s not funny, Jakob. You’re scaring me.”

  “Scared? What for?”

  “For you, man. I don’t want to check my news feed tomorrow and find that another one of my old work buddies has breathed vacuum.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

  “I’m serious. Before you step into that airlock, call me. I don’t care what time it is. Even if it’s the middle of my downshift, I’m here for you, man.”

  Jakob nodded, though more to get his friend off of his case than anything else. He knew how to take care of himself. He’d been doing it for years now, taking care of a whole damn family even. A whole damn starforsaken family.

  And a wife who didn’t give a shit about him.

  “We gotta take care of each other, man. That’s how things work in the Outworlds. You take care of me, I take care of you.”

  “Right,” Jakob muttered. But we aren’t in the Outworlds anymore.

  “So you’ll call me if you’re in trouble.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah, I’ll call you.”

  “Promise.”

  “Yeah, I promise.”

  Arai nodded and leaned back. “That’s good. You know what they say: the only laws in the Outworlds are the promises we make to each other.”

  “Right,” said Jakob. And he knew how empty those promises could be.

  * * * * *

  When nightshift came, Jakob didn’t go home. Instead, he stumbled out the bar down the main rimside corridor, barely able to walk straight. It’s these damn space stations, he remembered thinking later. Damn stations, always spinning.

  He woke up on a stiff mattress with a buzz in his ear and a splitting headache. He groaned and sat up, bumping his head against the ceiling. The sharp pain made him swear and rub his forehead.

  Where the hell am I?

  He looked around and saw that he was in a small, boxlike room compartment that was only about a meter high and slightly longer than his body. The walls were a warm off-yellow color, the mattress navy blue. A narrow LED strip ran along the corner, illuminating the tiny space—it must have been activated by a motion sensor, since Jakob didn’t remember any lights before he woke up. The only exit was a hatch by his feet, while a holoscreen monitor near his head read: SLEEPCUBE 801-473. YOU HAVE 96:00 MINUTES REMAINING.

  Sleepcube, Jakob read, trying to gather himself. The timer kept ticking, only making the dizziness worse. His stomach felt sick, and the place smelled of alcohol and vomit. A stain on the mattress by his chest told him why.

  Someone must have found him and put him up in a sleeping unit down by the rimside docks. That was kind of them—though at Megiddo Station, they would have brought him into their home and cared for him there. The tiny modules were mostly for starfarers whose ships were in drydock or otherwise undergoing repairs. Jakob had never been in one before, but he knew how they worked. A public unisex bathroom would be just outside, probably at the end of a corridor.

  He crawled out the hatch and stumbled to the bathroom, leaving his sleepcube open. When he found a toilet, he spent a good ten minutes retching into it. At least, it felt like ten minutes—maybe it was longer, maybe it was shorter. No one was waiting for him when he came out, and that filled him with a loneliness that was almost overwhelming.

  The loneliness made him think about his wife. Sometimes I don’t know why I still stay with you. Her words were like jagged shards of glass tumbling in his mind. He bit his lip to keep his eyes clear, even though no one could see him. His teeth drew blood, filling his mouth with the dark, metallic taste. That snapped him out of it.

  He stepped out of the bathroom and returned to his sleepcube to retrieve his wrist console and boots. Those were the only personal belongings he’d brought with him from the apartment. He supposed he should be getting back, but something kept him from going back, even though he felt awfully sick. A drink to clear out his hangover—yes, that was what he needed.

  The main rimside corridor was just as empty as he’d remembered from the day before, though there weren’t any patrols or soldiers in sight. A couple of starfarers chatted in front of the gates, probably where their starship was docked. Jakob caught a glimpse of it out the narrow windows—a beautiful ship, not much larger than the Medea. The other docking terminals were empty, though. He walked a little further and passed a small janitor-bot cleaning the floors, but other than that, there were no signs of activity anywhere in the corridor.

  Those docking gates each open up to an airlock, he found himself thinking. I wonder if the codes from the dockyard are still good?

  He walked up to the closest one and punched in the code on the gate’s access panel. To his surprise, the doors hissed and slowly parted. With his headache, the sudden noise was like a knife to his forehead. He blinked.

  The codes still worked.

  He lifted his hand to close the door, but stopped just short of doing so. Something about the airlock seemed to call him, as if his old ship were waiting for him on the other side. It was foolish to think that way, of course—he’d passed the Medea on to his sons long ago—but he found himself stepping into the airlock anyway, his own feet moving of their own will and not his own.

  It had been a long, long time since he’d stepped into an airlock like this one. The walls and floor were made of smooth, polished durasteel, and the lights along the ceiling were set behind almost four centimeters of plasteel glass. He took a deep breath of the cold, stale air, no doubt pumped in from one of the oxygen reserves. It still smelled slightly of copper.

  A hiss sounded behind him, and the gate slowly closed, leaving him alone by himself in the windowless room. He knew he should leave, but his feet felt rooted to the spot, and his headache made him want nothing so much as to keep from moving. He stood there until the nausea quieted somewhat and his mind began to clear.

  What had Ara
i said about airlocks last night? Their conversation seemed so long ago, he could hardly remember. He and Arai had talked about something important, but with his splitting headache it was hard to remember.

  He walked over to the second door, the one that opened up into space. It looked so familiar, like hundreds of other doors he’d seen in his youth as a star wanderer. He ran his hands against the smooth metal plating, and found it cold to the touch—icy cold. Strange to think that less than a meter of durasteel separated him from the void of space.

  If my life is a prison, he thought to himself, then here’s the way out.

  A chill shot down his spine, from the back of his neck to the ends of his toes. His heart began to beat a little faster, and without thinking he lifted his hand to the second access panel. It would be so easy to open that second door. He’d done it hundreds of times before. Just a quick moment of violence, a loud but brief sucking noise, and a few seconds of unbearable pressure until he passed out from asphyxiation. If there was nothing left for him in this place, perhaps it was for the best. At least it wouldn’t leave a mess for anyone to clean up.

  What am I thinking?

  His hand stopped short of the access panel, trembling so much it barely seemed under his control. Taking one step backward, he leaned against the wall and began to breathe heavily. In that moment, the coppery air tasted sweeter and more pure than any he’d ever tasted.

  He turned around and left the airlock as quickly as he could manage. His legs were numb, so he felt as if he were floating down the corridor. His palms felt clammy, and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. His headache and nausea were nothing more than minor annoyances now, almost like the fleeting symptoms of a cold. He shuddered again, and walked a little faster.

  When he arrived at the family apartment in the immigrant quarters, his headache was little more than a low throb. He took a deep breath and palmed open the door, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of peace and security as he stepped inside. His anger from the day before was all but forgotten, a dark but fleeting moment from the past. Everything about the place—the rich, familiar smell of Deltan incense, the orderly rows of boots and slippers next to the door, the sound of a baby crying in one of the back rooms—it all combined to overwhelm him. This was his home.