Spacer's Creed

by Michelle Levigne

  Bain crept underneath his bed netting toward the curtain of his cubicle and slid it open just enough for one eye to see out. Lin sat at the control panel. She hadn't changed for bed yet. She wore that unhappy, almost-angry frown Bain had noticed that morning.

  “Afraid of that stiff-necked, egotistical—” Lin choked, like she wanted to say something else, something particularly nasty, and stopped herself in time. She shook her head and swung her legs up onto the edge of the control panel. Her feet bounced a little and she brought them down hard. She winced when her heels hit the edge a little too hard.

  “You're afraid,” Ganfer repeated.

  “Not afraid of him.” She shook her head again. “Afraid of what he'll do if he finds out.”

  “The boy has the right to know.”

  “The boy has more important things to worry about. And my job is to worry about what's good for him.”

  “Knowing you're—”

  “The rules are, I don't say anything to him for the entire voyage, and if things still look good, and the data searches reveal no other leads, and he doesn't want to go onto another ship—”

  “You'd cut your own arm off to keep him from feeling pressured when he chooses.” “There are a lot of choices I never had a chance to make when I was his age.” Lin's voice sounded ready to crack. Whether with tears or anger, Bain couldn't tell. “I want him free to choose what's best for him.”

  “What about what's best for you?”

  “I've managed all these years without a crew. I'm sure I can get used to living without anybody but you for company, Bucket of Bolts.”

  “You want him to stay, don't you?”

  “What I want doesn't—”

  “You can't lie to me, Lin.” Ganfer's voice grew soft. “I can measure your heart rate and your breathing and your temperature. You're lying to me, and you're trying to lie to yourself. You want the boy to stay. What you want matters to me, you know.”

  “I know.” Lin released her safety strap and pushed off out of her chair. She darted across the bridge to the opening of her cubicle. “What the boy wants is more important. If he'd rather serve with another captain on a bigger ship, he should have the freedom to choose without feeling guilty about leaving us behind.”

  “Even if it breaks your heart?”

  “The scuttle around most spaceports is, I'm too old and dried up to have a heart.”

  “They don't know what they're talking about.”

  “Maybe. Good-night, Bucket of Bolts.” Lin jerked the curtain closed.

  “Good-night, Lin,” Ganfer whispered, his voice coming through the sensor dome again. The lights in the bridge dimmed to night-watch level.

  Bain tugged his curtain closed, rolled over and crept back to his pillow underneath the bed net. His heart thumped so fast and loud, he feared Lin would hear and come to his cubicle to find out what all the noise was when he should have been sleeping.

  Lin did want him to stay!

  But what was she not supposed to tell him? It had to be something important, Bain knew. Something Ganfer believed he should know. Something Sourpuss Malloy didn't want him to know.

  Bain shivered, thinking about the nasty spaceport official and how much power he had to keep Bain from staying with Lin. Why was the man so angry with Lin, so nasty? It couldn't be just because Lin refused to eat with him, could it?

  Whatever it was, the secret was something that would make Bain decide to stay with Lin forever.

  His eyes felt hot and wet, and Bain realized he was nearly crying. It felt so strange, realizing Lin liked him so much that she would let him leave if that would make him happy.

  What was that secret? If he asked Ganfer, would the ship-brain tell him? Somehow, Bain didn't think so. If the ship-brain was willing to break the rule and go around Lin's decision, he could have easily turned on Bain's collar link and told him right there.

  What was the secret?

  * * * *

  Bain decided Lin was right. After only three days, even the thrill of being back on Sunsinger, learning the duties and chores and life of a Spacer became routine.

  Not boring. It could never be that. But there was a certain predictability to their schedules and duties that disappointed Bain.

  He tried to blame it on his lessons. Lin made sure he spent four hours every day working on his studies. He spent so much time studying in his cubicle that it felt small and cramped. He remembered what Lin said when he first moved in, how it would feel small after a long voyage.

  Bain tried to be excited about studying. He was allowed to go at his own pace. The right type of lesson plans made learning fun, made him eager to learn. But four hours a day soon grew to be too much. He wanted to be at the control panel, studying the ship with Lin, learning to pilot and interpret every bit of information the screens gave him. He wanted to climb up to the dome and close his eyes and listen to the music of space. He wanted to learn to fix everything in the ship, to know the ship so well that every sound, every shift in rhythm, meant something to him. Lin called it a special language between Sunsinger and herself, and Bain still felt like an alien.

  Lin let him sit at the control panel with her three hours a day, the time carefully monitored so he didn't spend a moment more or a moment less. She explained everything she did whenever she used a command or sequence of buttons or technique he hadn't seen before. Lin only explained these things once, in full detail. Then Bain had to remember. Lin only helped him if he asked, and only if he had tried everything else to jog his memory. Bain learned to make notes and keep his little data screen with him at all times.

  He took his frustrations out on the exercise wheel. His enthusiasm for exercise became a joke between them because he always darted down the access tube to the hold, and always came floating back up dripping with sweat, gasping for breath, muscles aching. Bain enjoyed working himself dizzy and sleepy—it kept him from complaining too much, even if only in his thoughts. Every time he remembered how much it hurt to stand up under full gravity after spending weeks in free-fall, he had even more motivation to exercise his muscles and stay in shape.

  Lin waited until the routine began to settle in, then she opened her store of entertainment cubes. Dramas and adventures played on a little screen in the wall in the galley every other night before she sent him to bed. They curled up in the galley with chocolate and crackers or dried fruit and tea, and let their imaginations take them to other worlds and times.

  Looking forward to that treat helped Bain endure the routine and keep his mouth shut instead of voicing his complaints.

  The nights between the video cubes, Lin pulled out her flute and practiced in her cubicle. Bain studied his harp lesson disks and practiced in his cubicle. When he had mastered the basics, the plan was to work up a duet to play for Branda when they returned to Refuge. He looked forward to that just as much as verifying that he and Branda were really relatives.

  It felt strange to think that he had family again, no matter how distant the ties. After so many months thinking he had no one at all in the universe, Bain liked the idea of belonging to someone.

  Branda was one of those Spacer folk who spent more time planetside selling merchandise than she did in her ship. But at least she had a ship. She could go to other worlds, buy merchandise at unusual markets and see new places that Bain once only dreamed about. It might be fun to travel with her, but Bain already knew he would rather spend his time in space, making deliveries, helping people, escaping danger by his wits and skills. Like Lin.

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  * * *

  Chapter Six

  Three days before they reached Lenga, Bain finally got up his courage to try something he had dreamed about for weeks. He borrowed a recorder and a storage disk from the stack Lin gave him, and made sure the recorder had a full power charge in its battery.

  That night after Lin went to sleep, Bain lay awake, listening and waiting. He watched the timepiece in the wall over his pillow as it counted off the
minutes, then hours. Finally, after Lin had been quiet for nearly two hours, Bain got up. He held the recorder under one arm and floated over to the door and the ladder to the observation dome.

  It was cold up there. The chill seeped through the air, wrapping around his toes and fingers. Bain imagined if he sat still long enough, he could see a faint mist from his breath wreathe through the air. He wished he had thought to put shoes on and maybe a jacket, before he came up here. Too late now, though. He had to do this now, or he might never get a chance.

  The stars were brighter than usual; hot spots of white ice, sharp and clear; none of the twinkling and hazing that he saw when planetside. The black of space rippled behind the stars. Bain thought if he reached out, his hand would pass through the dome and he could touch the fabric of space. Literal fabric, like soft, ancient, thick velvet. It would be warm, not icy. He chuckled softly at his imagination and got to work.

  Bain settled down in his usual acceleration couch and tucked one leg through the safety strap to anchor himself in place. He pulled out the recorder and wrapped the end of the safety strap through the handle. The battery had enough of a charge for four hours of recording—more than enough energy and time for what he wanted to do.

  He closed his eyes and relaxed and waited. Bain could only hear his breathing—a little faster than usual because of excitement—and the thudding of his heart in his ears. He frowned, impatient, but knew negative emotions would only get in the way. Bain took deep, slow breaths, trying to relax without working at it. He counted his heartbeats, waiting, trying to will comfort and relaxation into his body, from his fingertips to his toes.

  Please, Fi'in, he thought. I want to stay on Sunsinger and be a spacer with Lin. She wants me to stay. Something is wrong. I think she's afraid I won't want to stay. This is where I want to be for the rest of my life. Please.

  Bain felt warm pressure in his eyes, like he would start crying. That wouldn't help anything. Crying and feeling sorry for himself wasn't what he planned when he came up to the dome.

  Please, Fi'in, help me to be happy with what I have and where I go, no matter what happens. Help me to be grateful. Most kids my age wouldn't get to do this at all. Help me be glad, please.

  Bain forced his mind to remember all the good times, the danger and excitement and the learning of the past few weeks.

  After a while, he didn't have to force himself. Memories made him smile. The aching in his heart faded.

  A shimmering chime reached through the dome, delicate, like the first tendril of ice on the chill, black surface of a pond at the beginning of winter. Bain heard the sound, high and fine and hesitant, and he smiled. He welcomed it, and mouthed a silent prayer of thanks, as Lin had taught him. After all, Fi'in had made the music of space, too.

  The shimmer turned into a tapping sound, like tiny claws of dancing mice on the pond ice. Bain clenched his fists, trying not to breathe, trying not to lose the tenuous music. It was still too delicate, too far from his reach. He had to let it get stronger, had to be sure it was really there, around the ship, and not just dancing through his imagination.

  The tapping turned to a deeper sound, like a pulsing or the thrumming of a bow on a stringed instrument. The instrument grew bigger, the strings thicker, as the sound deepened and went lower on the scale. It turned into the moaning, sighing, windy sound that he had heard that first time. Bain felt it vibrate into his bones, soothing, energizing.

  Carefully, moving slowly as if the music were a wild animal that could be frightened away, he reached out his hand. Then one finger. Then he touched the control pad of the recorder. He barely heard the hum as the mechanism worked, recording every sound, with its sensitivity setting pushed up to the highest limits.

  Bain let the music of space carry him away. Let it paint pictures inside his mind, telling him stories of far-away places and people more fantastic and yet more real than all the characters and images in Lin's drama cubes.

  The click of the recorder shutting off startled him. Bain opened his eyes and looked down with a gasp before he could think or stop himself. The recorder had come to the end of the disk capacity. But how? He had only turned it on a few minutes before.

  “Does weird things to your mind,” he whispered. His voice echoed dully off the dome.

  The music had vanished. He knew it would be hard to get it to return. Bain had yet to learn what Lin told him would come naturally in time—the ability to relax and listen and hear the music instantly. He supposed it had a lot to do with praying, like Lin said, but he still couldn't make the connection.

  Bain climbed down the ladder head-first to look out for Lin, to make sure she didn't discover he had left his cubicle. She was as strict about him getting enough sleep every night, as she was strict about his lesson time and standing watch and his exercise.

  * * * *

  In the morning, Lin didn't say anything when he dawdled over his breakfast. She gave him a list of safety checks to complete when he finished his lessons, and then headed down into the hold. For ‘housekeeping,’ she told him with a grin. Bain knew that meant spraying the hold with an herbal disinfectant strong enough to kill any germ or bacteria the renovation crews might have missed. Lin had to do it now, to give the air time to clear and most of the smell to dissipate before they landed on Lenga.

  Bain dove into his cubicle the moment Lin vanished down the access tube. He tugged the curtain shut and pulled the recorder out of its hiding place.

  It was foolish, he knew, to hide something. Lin wouldn't invade anyone's privacy. Old habits from his miserable months at the orphanage still clung strongly to him, though. Bain sometimes woke up thinking Toly stood over his bunk, ready to drop some slimy night creeper on his face, or a bucket of water, or something else that would get him messy and in trouble with the guide parents.

  The disk slid into the recorder. Bain pushed the ‘play’ button and held his breath, waiting to hear the music that had mesmerized him the night before.

  Tiny popping, tapping sounds came out of the recorder. Nothing else.

  He turned up the volume. A heavy, rasping sound met his ears, warping and crackling with distortion. He had the volume up to maximum. What was that sound?

  Bain sighed—then stiffened. He had his answer, but he didn't like it.

  The sound was his own breathing. Nothing else. He turned down the volume before he heard any more gasping, whistling sounds.

  What had happened? He moved the recording far ahead and played it again. Still nothing. Maybe that sighing sound was a hint of the music—or just something passing by the ship.

  He was sure he had heard the music. He hadn't been hallucinating, because Lin heard the music too.

  Or had he only heard it the first time, and dreamed it the other times?

  But it was different every time. He knew it. Lin said a person's emotions and how they felt physically, as well as the speed of the ship and a thousand other variables affected the music, so it was always different. So he couldn't have just remembered the first time, and then thought he heard the music again.

  Or could he? Bain thought about that possibility until he thought he would be dizzy.

  The fact remained that though the recorder had caught every sound in the dome the night before, all it played back now was his own breathing.

  Bain fought the temptation to fling the recorder against the wall. He put it away and pulled out his reading screen and slid the first lesson tape into the slot. Maybe he could drown his problems and questions in calculus lessons.

  Disappointment and the feeling he had done something wrong and stupid did not help him at all.

  He knew he was in a bad mood or distracted most of the day. Lin said nothing. Bain wondered why. Did she know, or was she just too busy to notice? He hoped so. He dreaded the idea of Lin demanding an answer and then getting angry over what he had done—or, worse yet, laughing at him.

  She gave him a test during his time at the control panel that afternoon. Bain's fingers didn'
t want to work right. They twisted into knots every time he tried to press more than two buttons at the same time, or work a panel of switches in two different directions. Bain had to fight the urge to push out of his chair and storm out of the bridge. That wouldn't help anything. First, pushing would only bounce him around the bridge. Second, there was no way he could stomp or storm without ultimately hurting himself. Sometimes, gravity did come in handy.

  Lin didn't lecture him, and she didn't ask what bothered him. She just waited until he put the panel back into the starting configuration and gave him his instructions again. Bain wished she would yell at him. Her patience was as frustrating as the questions that kept floating at the back of his mind.

  * * * *

  “Everybody does it,” Lin said after she took her first sip of tea at dinner.

  “Does what?” Bain tried to make himself feel hungry, looking at the hot mass of noodles and gravy and spiced meat in his bowl. The steam puddled around the bowl, so he had to push it upwards, to his nose, if he wanted to smell it. The first time this had happened Bain had thought it funny. Now he thought it was stupid.

  “Try to record the music.” Lin gave him a sad little smile when he gaped at her. “I wasn't spying on you.”

  “Wasn't going to ask,” he mumbled. Bain forked up a huge mouthful of noodles, almost hoping he would burn his mouth. The truth was, he was about to ask if she watched him all the time.

  “You got caught in the security cameras on your way to the dome. They record anything that happens, in case there's an emergency, and we need to analyze it later.” Lin leaned against the back of the bench and sipped at her cup again. “I was a little worried, the way you were glooming around this morning, and then you were so distracted during your test ... I asked Ganfer if you had a bad night, or if you were getting sick. He analyzed the tapes and found that.”

  “Pretty stupid, huh?” he mumbled around a mouthful that stung his tongue, hot enough to make the roots of his teeth itch.

  “No. I said, everybody tries it.”