Fortunately, nothing here was actually that structural, and none of the twisting seemed to have damaged any equipment, since most of the warping was where the struts attached to the middle hull. It had made the journey out to the hatch very slow going, however.
Ian wrapped his legs around a piece of the frame to free his other hand and held the view screen steady for Nick to watch as he navigated the rover toward the hatch they needed.
“Found it.”
Static burst into their helmets. As Nick had thought, it was very difficult if not impossible to hear anything Jack was saying. They both looked at each other.
“If you start singing anything, Nick, I’ll leave you out here,” Ian warned as Nick looked back down at the screen and opened his mouth.
“Buzz-killer,” Nick muttered. “I’m opening the hatch.”
Suddenly he cursed and shook the control pad as though it were an Etch-a-Sketch.
“Nick?”
“Better now. Sorry. Connection went wonky for a moment.”
“Shaking it works?”
“When in doubt, shake or hit something. Tried and true method of trouble-shooters everywhere.” Nick glanced up and seemed to smile.
Ian realized he was breathing too fast, using his oxygen up. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the burn in his arms from holding the screen for Nick. In his mind he heard Jack’s voice telling him to breath normally, stay calm, enjoy himself. When had he said those words?
Belize, he remembered. His first time diving. It was at a reef near Placencia. He sighed and opened his eyes, his heart slowing down. This was a long way from warm aqua water heavy with salts and bright fish.
I don’t want to die out here. I want to feel rain again and watch the winter wheat turn from green to gold.
“Bucky-egg is away,” Nick said. “Closing outer hatch.”
“You’re doing great, Nick,” Ian said, mostly to just say something, to connect back up with the present.
“I just hope that mini-airlock there wasn’t full of IDG already,” Nick said, not helping. “Ok, last stage. I don’t need the camera anymore, Ian.”
Ian let his arms drop, keeping his grip on the screen with his right hand.
“The eagle has landed, though I’m never getting that inner door sealed again, sorry.”
“How long until we know it works?”
“Hard to say, a couple of days?” Nick shook his head, an exaggerated movement with the helmet on.
“Let’s get back inside, I’m cooking in this suit.” Ian unwrapped his legs carefully and started half-floating, half climbing his way down toward the airlock.
Something caught on his suit, back near the oxygen tanks. Impatient, Ian tried to jerk free. When that didn’t work he cursed under his breath and twisted, pushing himself hard to one side.
The bolt that had caught between the tank and his suit slipped free suddenly and Ian over compensated in the very low gravity. He accidentally kicked off the strut his foot rested on and flew sideways into a mess of twisted metal.
Something scraped his arm, digging into the suit. Then a deep pain awoke in his back. He couldn’t move for a moment, red rushing into his vision.
“Ian! Ian, damnit. Are you okay?” Nick’s voice sounded far away even though Ian saw him climbing closer.
“I think something punctured my suit,” he said carefully.
He could hear his heartbeat clearly in his ears, speeding up and getting louder, like the sound of an approaching car. Pain spread down into his legs.
“Jesus, Ian. You’re bleeding.”
How about that.
Everything got very clear and sharp for a moment. He could feel each individual hair in his beard where they touched the helmet, feel the beads of sweat curling over his jaw and down his neck. Nick’s face was stark inside his helmet; Ian could make out the flecks of gold in his brown eyes.
“Ian, we’ve got to get you inside. Help me.”
Static, like the snow on an old television set, broke into the helmet, its tone angry and fast.
Ian closed his eyes. He tasted salt. Aqua water danced behind his eyelids, and there was a voice singing, low and soft. A woman’s voice and a lullaby. Ian tried to catch the words. They slipped away from him and he slipped after them.
* * *
Jack had the inner door open almost before Nick managed to seal the outer. Cursing the lack of knees in his prosthetics, he bent at the waist and scooped his brother off the floor. The back of Ian’s suit was slippery with blood and his eyes were shut.
Nick yanked off his helmet and stared at all the blood, shaking his head slowly back and forth, back and forth.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened,” he whispered.
Heidi half-glided, half-slammed into the doorway, catching herself on the edge.
“Nick, pull it together. Get the IV stuff, pads, anything, everything,” she said, then to Jack, “Put him on the table in the lounge, let’s go.”
She flattened herself to the wall as Jack bounded past, nearly flying down the corridor, carrying his brother.
“Nick!”
He raised his head and fell quiet.
“Get out of your suit, get the supplies. I’m going to need you to place the needles, come on. Stay with me, Doctor.”
“Okay, Doctor.” Some of his personality broke through the horrified mask.
Heidi had thrown a heavy blanket over the table and Jack laid Ian down on it. The two of them worked in silence to get the suit off him, cutting it in places finally as Ian came to and groaned.
“It’s okay, bro, it’s okay,” Jack murmured, blinking back tears.
Nick brought in the IV equipment but then froze again, staring at the table. Blood marred the blanket, Ian’s skin, Jack and Heidi’s hands. Dark, thick blood.
Beneath the copper-penny taste of blood in the air and the sour scent of sweat and fear lay something sweet and sickly.
Nick forced himself forward, pulling on gloves and opening one of the cases he’d dragged into the room.
They got an IV going, everyone working quickly with minimal talk. Jack kept a pressure bandage on the deep gash in Ian’s lower back while Heidi got a shot of morphine into the drip. Ian didn’t seem to wake up fully, just moaned from time to time as they had to shift him to his side.
“Jack, we can’t stitch this,” Heidi said softly. She knew he could see what she saw; they’d all had the same first aid and emergency medical training. Ian’s kidney was probably punctured, maybe a lung as well from his rasping breathing.
“Okay, so we don’t stitch,” Jack said. His blue eyes burned with cold fire, bloodshot to hell. “Come on, we can fix this. We’ve got enough PhD’s between the three of us to run a University. Tell me how to fix him.”
Nick held his now bloody gloved hands out in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry, Jack. I have no idea.”
“Jack,” Heidi reached for him, placing her hands on his broad shoulders, “we’ll keep him comfortable, we can even put blood into him, maybe help him hang on a little longer. But we’re not surgeons, Jack.”
“Fine.” Jack thrust her away.
“Where are you going?” Heidi grabbed at his arm.
“To turn this ship around. We’ve got blood stored, right? We’ll keep him alive until we can get back to Earth.”
“Jesus, Jack. You can’t turn us around just like that. Think!” Nick’s voice rose to a girlish pitch in his panic.
Jack stopped moving. He looked back at the pathetic form of his brother, bandaged now, laying beneath a blanket streaked with blood.
“So he’s going to die. That’s it,” Jack said.
“Yes,” Heidi said in a very small voice.
“Yes,” Nick echoed.
Jack collapsed, letting his prosthetic legs slide out from under him. He clutched at Heidi as she dropped down to hold him. After a few gulping sobs he looked up at Nick.
“Tell me,” he said, “tell me what happened.”
/>
* * *
53 days in transit
Jack was half-asleep when he felt Ian’s hand grip his own. They’d moved his brother down to the floor, onto a makeshift bed. Jack leaned with his back against one of the built-in benches. He leaned forward, smiling weakly at his brother.
“Hey, how’re you feeling? Need more morphine?” he asked.
Ian had been in and out of consciousness, partly due to the drugs. He hadn’t spoken much, but now his dark eyes bored into Jack and he licked his lips, leaving a thin film of blood behind.
“Jack. I’m sorry,” Ian said. His voice had no tone to it, no strength.
Jack leaned down until their noses nearly touched and rested his forehead against his brother’s.
“Don’t be, Ian. Hey, Nick says he thinks the bucky-egg is working. The sensors so far indicate no further corrosion or particle increase.”
“That’s good, Jack.” Ian’s fingers tightened on Jack’s. “Get me home, brother. After.”
“After?” Jack sat up and shook his head. “No, we’re turning around at Jupiter, everyone has agreed already.”
“Finish,” Ian said. “If you can. I’ll wait. Finish the dream.” His eyes closed.
Jack’s vision blurred and he rubbed his hand over his eyes. His heart felt as though it could punch its way right out through his chest.
Time ticked past and he thought Ian had fallen unconscious again.
“Lancaster,” Ian said, his voice like a soft sigh, startling Jack.
“What about him, Ian? What is it?”
“He called me Daedalus.” Ian’s lips twisted into a smile. “But I guess I was Icarus after all.”
Ian died a few hours later, his final breath rattling out of his throat as the three of them sat in vigil in the lounge. Nick unhooked the IVs and they gently wrapped him in a blanket and then sealed him into a body bag.
“It seems, I don’t know, irreverent to pack them in like this,” Nick whispered to Heidi as they slid Ian in to the drawer next to, and half on top of, Mr. Lancaster.
“I know. But Jack wants to bring him home. He’ll keep this way.”
“Won’t be pretty with the ice crystals and such,” muttered Nick.
“Shut up, Nick,” Jack said from the doorway. “Just, stop. Can I have some time?”
“Sure, Jack,” Heidi said and touched his cheek as she slid by him.
“Sorry, Jack,” Nick said. “I, I’m just sorry.”
* * *
56 days in transit
Heidi tapped on Jack’s door, then slid it open. Jack lay on his bed, holding his NetPad. She could see pictures flicking past in a slide-show on it, pictures of him and Ian.
“We’re approaching Jupiter, Jack. We need you in the control room.”
He looked up as though just noticing her. His face was thin, his nose running and his eyes red and hollow.
“All right,” he said.
Heidi sat in one seat, Nick leaned against the wall. Jack pulled himself up off his sled and into the remaining seat in front of the monitors.
“I want to talk to both of you,” he said. “I want to finish this.”
“Finish this?” Heidi shook her head. “You mean, go on to Pluto?”
“Yes. We made a promise and Ian told me to finish the dream. Ian wanted to go on.”
“Ian’s dead,” said Nick and then immediately blushed, shoving his fist into his mouth.
“Thanks, Nick,” Heidi said. “You’re fired.”
“It’s okay,” Jack said, “It’s okay. But I want to go on. Please. Then we’ll bring Ian home, home with all of us.”
Heidi sighed and then nodded, her tight curls dancing over her forehead.
“The leak seems to be fixed,” Nick said. “I’m game.”
“Good.” Jack managed a wan smile. “Now, to start doing some math and get this ship going faster. Better strap in guys, just in case.” He turned to the screens.
* * *
272 days in transit
The cake came out all weird, but that was what you got when using instant oatmeal and lamb-shit peanut butter. At least the birthday candle that Nick had magically produced stood upright.
Jack and Nick sang Happy Birthday to Heidi in the lounge, her laughter nearly drowning them out.
“I’m fifty-one,” she said as they all dug into the ‘cake’ with spoons. “I’ll probably be fifty-two before we get home. God.”
“You don’t look a day over forty,” said Nick.
“Thirty-nine.” Jack smiled and leaned over to kiss her cheek.
An alarm went off. They’d started setting alarms for just about everything as the hours blurred into each other and the threat of crushing boredom closed in over them. Their gin rummy game had continued as well, Heidi winning, so far, with a score now over thirty thousand points.
Jack came back from checking the monitors with a huge grin on his face.
“Pluto, dead ahead. Well, sort of.”
“Sweet. Let’s start the torch drives and slow down.” Nick jumped up, letting his outstretched arms hit the ceiling.
“Give old Lancaster a good send-off and then head home,” Heidi said.
“Happy birthday, indeed,” Jack said and slid an arm around her.
* * *
274 days in transit
Lancaster’s body, encased in the hard shell designed for him, slipped free of the final airlock, to hopefully be pulled in by Pluto’s gravity. Nick had insisted he be the one to take the body out into the middle hull region and guide it to the outer airlock. The structure hadn’t warped enough to disrupt the tunnel between the hulls and Nick made it in and out without mishap. It was the best they could have hoped for. Mission accomplished.
Pluto was behind them now, fading away into the universe they traveled through but couldn’t actually see.
Neither Heidi nor Jack were surprised when Nick showed up in the control room with a bottle of Cristal champagne.
“Is there anything you didn’t bring?” Jack asked him.
“A date,” Nick said.
“Nah, you’ve got us. Besides, after almost a year of chemical powder showers, you think a date would touch you?” Heidi smiled to take the sting out of her words.
“You don’t smell like a princess yourself, Doctor,” Nick said. He brushed his thin moustache with his fingers.
“First thing I’m going to do when we get back is jump into whatever ocean we land in and go for swim.” Jack grinned.
Nick popped the champagne open and poured it into plastic glasses.
He raised his for the first toast. “Here’s to not landing in the Bering Sea. For Jack’s sake.”
“Or the North Atlantic,” Heidi added.
They sipped and sat in silence for a moment. Then Jack pushed himself up.
“Here’s to Prometheus, and Ian.”
“For Ian,” Heidi and Nick murmured.
Jack left the room and Heidi shook her head when Nick opened his mouth to call out to him. They let him go.
Jack sank down beside the freezer drawer, staring at the little bubbles in the champagne. In his mind he could see Lancaster resting now on the cold surface of a misshapen, lonely rock. The old man in Jack’s head was smiling and clutched a golden telescope.
“Hey, Ian,” he said aloud. “We’re going home now. We did it, you did it. You’re going to bring us all home safe.”
Heidi and Nick walked by, he could hear them laughing as they moved toward the lounge.
“You know,” Nick’s voice drifted in, “If we could speed this ship up an order of magnitude or ten, we could actually arrive in the future.”
Jack couldn’t make out Heidi’s reply.
He smiled and downed the rest of his champagne. Out there, a long way ahead of them, lay the Earth, just a pinprick of light on the infinite horizon.
“We’re already there,” he whispered to his brother, “we’re the future.”
Thank you for reading Light of the Earth
If you’d like to read more by Annie Bellet visit her site here:
http://anniebellet.com/4quk
Containment
By
Susan Kaye Quinn
Text copyright © 2015 Susan Kaye Quinn
All rights reserved.
Chapter One
It all started with a pile of rocks that shouldn’t exist.
By rocks, of course I mean the regolith—the assortment of pebbles, boulders, and grain-sized dust that coats the surface of Thebe, my current Commonwealth Mining assignment. And by shouldn’t exist, I mean it wasn’t there on my last check of the near pole, and there’s no one currently on the tiny moon who would stack up a precarious tower of rocks. Thebe is tidally locked with Jupiter, which means the near pole is the one place where the massive gas giant perpetually looms exactly overhead… but I can see no purpose in a spindly stack of regolith making note of that fact.
I found the construct while running a crawl-check on the tether. Its ultra-tensile strength material encircles Thebe, wrapping around the moon from near pole to far and anchoring all the equipment involved in breaking, sorting, and melting the regolith. On the first pass, I didn’t stop. After all, tether maintenance is a primary level protocol—anything goes wrong there, and the entire operation flings off into space. Even if Icould manage to rescue Thebe’s extensive mining equipment, I’d end up burning precious organic fuels and losing several orbits worth of production time. And that’s how Mining Masters get reassigned to Outer Belt asteroids with minimal harvesting complexity and maximum dust. My machine-sourced sentience level of 90 might not compare to the 1000+ sentience level of my ascender masters, but it would be completely wasted there. And that’s a punishment few Mining Masters return from.
I wait until I’ve completed the second pass of the crawl-check, then I maneuver off-tether for a closer inspection. The stacked rocks are precisely aligned, each irregular chunk carefully balanced on the one below, creating an unlikely structure that defies Thebe’s slight gravity.
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