April 6: And What Goes Around

by Mackey Chandler

  "You anticipate supply getting that short here?" Jelly asked.

  "Honestly, I don't know," April said, "but Gunny and others have made me aware others do notice conspicuous consumption. I don't wish to alienate anyone. It seemed politic."

  "You look the same because of the therapy, but you're growing up," Jelly said with a nod.

  April was conflicted. Jelly had said it with approval, but she had still been embarrassed to admit she cared what the public thought of her. Even the limited public of other Home citizens.

  Chapter 17

  It felt odd being in the number two seat. Barak had never pictured himself having opportunity to visit the bridge and observe during a burn much less sit at a hot board. He'd never have felt free to ask Jaabir for the privilege. Even when he first came aboard it was obvious there was a huge division of status. Jaabir and Charlotte considered themselves professionals, barely had any regard for Deloris, Alice or Harold, and saw Barak as a muscled menial on the level of a janitor or scullery maid.

  "Here's the planned program," Deloris said. "We will fire the engine to which Barak and I ran a new line. The opposite engine will also be fired so we do not induce a tumble. I've loaded the sequence we got from our controllers. It will start at minimum thrust and hold it for a minute. Then if the sensors all read within the normal range they will ramp up to eighty percent thrust, hold it there for a minute and terminate. If at any time we get a red light on the board I will shut down both engines."

  "What do I have to do?" Barak asked.

  "I'm cloning my board to yours. If something goes horribly wrong, and I sit here with my mouth hanging open, doing nothing, you may tap the big red square marked ABORT," Deloris allowed.

  "I think I can handle that," Barak agreed.

  "After the test all the sensor data will be beamed back home and they will do a thorough analysis. If everything looks good in the morning we will do a partial rotation and stop then rotation. After taking a star sighting and having it confirmed from Home we will start a thirty percent burn tomorrow evening to lift us out of Jupiter's plane of rotation. It will be timed to retain our orbital motion on a sunward vector. That will last forty-four hours and we will go ballistic again for a bit more than nine days. Then we'll do a reorientation before sighting again. If we need to we'll adjust and do a longer burn towards home.

  "We can expect to do at least two corrections on this end and a long voyage home. The braking burn will be longer since we gain velocity going insystem, and we will run out an antenna that swings onto our surface and anchors on our last burn. That will keep us in contact with Home the last few weeks. If all goes well we should be almost at rest near L2 the middle of August. A fresh crew can relieve us and nudge it into place once we are that close." Deloris made it sound almost easy.

  "Why aren't we running the engines up to full power?" Alice asked.

  "Because we grabbed a little smaller snowball than the maximum we could have, and we aren't in as big a hurry to get back because with a half crew we have more supplies available. We also aren't going to use the Yuki-onna's engines to actually move the snowball. We'll push just enough to keep our nose planted in the ice without keeping tension on our anchor cables. It'll save the stress and hours on the engines in case something goes wrong and we still have to abandon the ball and take the ship back to survive. Coming up on burn in two minutes," Deloris said. That cut off any further questions.

  "Count down in the corner of the screen," Deloris told them.

  When it reached zero the readings on several screens changed, but they felt nothing. One monitor showed the engine they had worked on but there wasn't a spare camera to actually watch the opposite engine yet. There was plenty of data feed off it though. The engine spat out a white hot line of plasma that looked like any ship's engine using Jeff Singh's tech. It wasn't until the engines were near the full eighty percent power they felt a slight hum through their couches. It had barely began before it ended.

  "Did you run the Yuki-onna?" Alice asked. "I'd have thought it would be louder even at low output."

  "It wasn't worth doing for only two engines at eighty percent. They were sure we wouldn't put enough strain on the anchor cables to matter. OK, our new data is on the way to Home. Anybody for some lunch?" Deloris said.

  * * *

  Gunny came in looking amused, and shoved his pad in front of April's face. She reached and held the edge to steady it as she read, but she didn't take it from his hand.

  "Jeremiah Fogley, after a sudden illness. Rev. Fogley conducted services at his church Sunday December 21 and complained of feeling ill after skipping an after services dinner. He was found dead in bed in his apartments the following Tuesday morning. A Christmas evening service and memorial celebration of his life will be conducted 0100 Pacific time by his assistant pastor Zachariah Bentley."

  "It's an obituary," Gunny said when she didn't react.

  "Well yeah, I understand, but when did you pick up the ghoulish habit of reading the obits?" April asked. "I thought that was a really old person's habit."

  "Not at all, but I added Jeremiah to my searches when we saw him expose the flu on TV." Gunny reminded her. "Do you remember now?"

  "Oh yeah. The guy that danced around. He seemed awfully fit and healthy. Do you suppose maybe somebody did him in for exposing the truth about the flu?" April asked Gunny.

  "Nah, I think the simplest explanation is he was a flaming hypocrite. He fits the profile what with the income his church produces. I bet he had life extending gene mods himself and caught it. A lot of people would file this under karma though."

  "That's sad. What's with the biblical names?" April asked. "Or is that just coincidence his number two guy was Zachariah?"

  "No coincidence. Members of his church are expected to take a Christian name when they join. Not just a church name but have it legally changed too," Gunny said.

  "Why? What difference does it make?" April wondered.

  "I'd just be repeating what they say to tell you. It's doesn't really make any sense to me either, but that's one of the things that they feel differentiates them from others." Gunny said. "But other churches used to do it long ago. If you were Hawaiian or African or Scandinavian or Asian and got baptized into a Christian church they gave you a proper Christian name. Of course everybody still called you by your same old name. You've heard of nick names haven't you?"

  "Yeah but I only thought they were pet names or abbreviations like calling Dr. Ames Jelly or Louisa Barnes Lisa, not anything religious," April said.

  "Or me being called Gunny from my work. Reasons for things change too. I doubt you'd get away with keeping April with that church. April is from the Romans, notorious heathens." He looked amused at something but just smiled at her.

  "Don't you dare say it," April said, before he could slap the notorious label on her.

  "No indeed... My Lady," Gunny said, hoping to get a rise from her. Instead she just inclined her head briefly and acknowledged the honor. Well, wasn't that interesting?

  * * *

  Mo finished the layout of the new tunnel for seed production. He did an ultrasound scan of the walls to confirm there were no hazardous fractures. He entered a work order for his two man crew to seal and foam it, string power along the roof and fit a lock frame. Not a fancy powered one but a simple manual isolation lock. He was ten minutes over time for the shift and walked back to where his cart was parked. His crew had left at shift end although that left him alone. He never made them stay as he figured it would kill morale. It was a very narrow window of risk for him. So far nobody had noticed the time stamps on suits being racked or carts being parked and jumped on him for the safety lapse.

  It was another twenty minutes back to common pressure. Mo never pushed the cart as fast as it would go. He parked his cart tight against the tunnel wall outside pressure and keyed in the status for it. They had no reason to cycle the carts into pressure. Most of the time they even manually unloaded them if they had supplies rath
er than cycle the one lock big enough to hold a cart. When he went in pressure he racked his suit and made sure it was plugged in. He really didn't want to shower. Better to shower in the morning and get back in the suit as clean as possible.

  Mo walked to his room and just hit the stinky parts with a sani-wipe. That would hold him until the morning and he pulled on shorts in which to sleep. There were two canned meals left. Chicken and Dumplings and Beef Stew. He really needed to remember to get a few.

  There was a tap-tap-tap on the door. He wasn't expecting any one. "Hang on!" he called and pulled on a fresh suit liner. Mo was still too Earth modest and wouldn't answer the door in stretch shorts.

  When he opened the door it was a little blond girl. It took a couple seconds as tired as he was to remember who her parents were and that her name was Danae. She was about the age of his boy.

  "Dad says you've been eating self-heating and you needed a decent meal brought to you." She was holding out a small thermo-pak straight armed. "It's stuffed cabbage today and good. I made sure they put red sauce on the rice. It's pretty boring without it."

  "Thank you," Mo said. "That does sound better than canned chicken and dumplings." She made a face to show what she thought of canned chicken and dumplings.

  Mo took the pack one handed. "Hang on, I'll get you some money for courier duty."

  "No! Dad told me you work your butt off for us and I can do plenty of other stuff for money, but sometimes you do just do stuff because somebody needs a hand." Danae took off down the corridor without any delay. He could hardly run down the corridor after her and press the money on her.

  "Thank you!" Mo called after her.

  She just lifted a hand to acknowledge it without looking over her shoulder.

  Would his boy Eric do that, just as a kindness? Mo hoped so, but he wasn't there to teach him nearly enough. He didn't want to ask his wife directly if she taught the kids charity, but he could mention about Danae in a positive light to his family. That should provoke the thought if it wasn't already happening.

  * * *

  Barak sorted through his messages. His mom was chatty and listed a whole bunch of art projects with which she was involved. She rarely included pix, describing them by preference. He hadn't told her about their troubles on Yuki-onna. He'd kept sending messages but just told her when they did a burn or what he worked on. He'd installed a few cameras covering areas Jaabir seemed indifferent to for unknown reasons. He was pleased to see Jeff and April hadn't said a word about his problems to his mom, or it would have shown up in his mom's messages by now. Apparently she didn't see anything in his messages to tip her off that things on the Yuki were not at all what had been planned..

  Jeff sent a follow up message that had a bunch of filler to make it sound like the one line in it that mattered wasn't the whole point. That was – "I've had lunch with a few of the snowball investors and have not heard anything of concern." He didn't say concern to whom or what, so the message couldn't be a problem later if revealed. It wasn't a blatant – We're doing what we can to fix this and see you safe -sort of a message that might be pointed to as proof of undue influence. For not saying anything specific it made Barak feel much better. Just knowing it was a concern to Jeff and he was actually doing things was plenty. If Jeff was doing something he didn't need to know the details. He had every confidence if Jeff was acting it would be effective.

  April sent her usual note, but she sent one almost every day and didn't complain if he skipped two or three days. She told Barak more about what Heather and Jeff were doing than herself, and almost always lamented how she missed being face to face daily with Heather. She reminded him of times Heather and she used to sit on the couch with Barak stuffed between them. Yeah, that stuck in his memory too.

  Barak replied with similarly cautious wording to Jeff, and thanked him. April he reminded of some details of her visits when he was younger that she hadn't mentioned yet. Like when he'd been modeling for his mom's sculpture. He wanted her to know he remembered them fondly too. He desperately wanted to say much more about how much closer they'd become recently, but felt awkward. Alice had once accused him of not being romantic, but that wasn't true. He just wasn't eloquent. He wasn't the sort to run on and on or compose poetry. He was afraid he's just sound needy or pushy. She sometimes signed off with – "Love you." Not every time so it became trite. He did sparingly too. But he loved Jeff and he loved his sister Heather. Love was a much stretched and abused word in English.

  He wanted to mention the last night he's been with her before he left, not back when he was little. To ask if she remembered how he'd teased her about bringing a puppy as a home-warming gift would be insulting. He knew damn well she remembered, and how shocked she'd been to find out nose to nose that he was the puppy. But April was smart. She'd remember things on a very thin hint. A word was plenty. So when he ended the text he didn't say I Miss You or Love You. He ended it – Woof! - Barak... She'd know exactly to what that alluded. He could imagine her reading it and pictured precisely the slightly taken-aback look she'd get on her face when he surprised her with that ending. It left him smiling.

  * * *

  Margaret was at her security station early. The shuttle from ISSII was coming in and she needed to have each of the passengers declare a name and touch a DNA reader to enter. It was late in the off shift, slowest time of the day before the main shift rush, but she got a premium for covering it and no duty the next day so that suited her fine. Margaret had a lot of seniority in security but in a small department everybody wore a lot of different hats and nobody entirely avoided unpleasant duty.

  The security station was in zero G outside the station bearing and in sight of the airlock. The small shuttle from ISSII would connect directly to the airlock without a tube like a big landing shuttle or spaceplane. The passengers would leave the shuttle cabin, step into their own airlock and a bit more than two meters later exit the station airlock. Passing through four doors, although the gap between the outer doors of each lock was only a hand's breadth when it was grappled up.

  Margaret was wearing the two tone blue uniform they used in contact with the public. She had short hair so to retain her beret in zero G she sprayed the edge periodically with a semi-adhesive that made the surface tacky. People used it on soft bags and lunch boxes, all sorts of things without a clip or line they wanted to position and not have drift off.

  Home's security department was not averse to firearms, but given the proximity of vacuum she wore a Taser. It was however a full powered Air-Taser that didn't use wires. It projected a charge along two parallel beams ionized in the air. It was not only lethal at the highest settings but could disrupt or destroy electronics. It lacked the normal yellow stripes of a non-lethal weapon.

  The lectern she stood behind as a security station helped grounders orient when there was no up or down and they got befuddled. The top surface was a handy place to put her sensor package and the touch pad. It was also armored for her to duck behind. It had little grab bars around three sides so people entering could plant their feet the same directions as hers and hold on.

  Without some preferred orientation offered many of the Grounders locked up in speechless incoherence when faced with others moving and speaking in random orientations. They also couldn't read facial expressions when presented too far off their axis. It didn't help that some station dwellers delighted in flooding them with conflicting sensory input just to see their glassy eyed shock. That didn't make her job checking them in any easier.

  The manifest from ISSII said seven passengers and two crew. Margaret was talking to the seventh and became aware the fellow waiting behind was not crew. Not all crew wore uniforms, but there was something about him that said he wasn't as proficient in zero G as a professional spacer should be. Not a fumbling Earthie but not a rigger or pilot by any means. He kept easing along instead of waiting, and was now actually passing behind the last passenger she was checking in. What is worse she had a red line on her sensor boar
d showing he was running a fever.

  "A moment," Margaret said to the fellow gripping her lectern. Lifting a single digit to signal a pause. "You sir!" She raised her voice sharply. "Do not go further until we have spoken."

  The fellow was using the line they rigged along posts for the less proficient and squatted to made a desperate jump for the entry bearing when she called him on trying to ease by. He was off line and was going to hit the bulkhead beside the opening. Margaret drew and held the Taser our straight armed, taking plenty of time to aim carefully.

  The man in front of her ducked wild eyed as she extended the Taser just past his ear. It's not like he could maneuver or zig-zag once he'd jumped. She touched the trigger lightly and it painted a blue-green dot on his back. She squeezed gently to take it past the aiming pressure and fire.

  Margaret had the weapon set for a high stunning power level, and beside the hooded light that blinked red at her rapidly when it discharged it was set to confirm the discharge with a discrete buzz. The beam was nowhere near the power level needed to be visible in air.

  The fellow who had ducked turned and looked along the line drawn by her arm. The jumper crumpled loose limbed against the bulkhead on the other end of the chamber.

  "My God, I thought you were shooting me!" the fellow said with his nose still barely clearing the top of the lectern.

  "Stay right here," Margaret ordered the cowering fellow. "That man shows a fever on my sensors and he isn't on the manifest. You've been exposed to him in the shuttle and we are going to have to isolate you and run down all the other passengers who rode with you too."

  "Oh crap. I have a work schedule and appointments. This is going to screw everything up."

  Margaret was busy calling Jon in the middle of his night and didn't acknowledge the man. "Jon, we've got a gate crasher here, sick. He wasn't on the manifest and he bolted for the bearing when I called him to stay put."