REAP 23

by J J Perry

  “Zhivago, what day is it?” Savanna called out.

  “You declared it to be the first day of the year, Commander.”

  “No, I didn’t. I asked what day it is. Don’t confuse me.”

  “It appears that you do not recall your words from an hour ago.” Then a recording of her speech broadcast from his speakers.

  “Eden, huh? I don’t remember that.”

  “Your memory is adversely affected by the pharmacology you used.”

  “Copy that,” she murmured to herself. “Have you established telemetry?”

  “No, Commander. I have unreliable communication with the hub through the docking connection.”

  “What is the status of the ship?”

  “Moderate structural damage. The hub computer is offline. I cannot ascertain if it is functional. Fire damage on floors two and three, contained. Power production is limited and falling.”

  “What is the status of the exit?”

  “Cannot ascertain.”

  As she attempted to nurse, she continued running through a checklist of concerns. Zhivago could not respond with data for many of the questions. She jerked her IV out and held a finger over the oozing spot. Michael was quiet. She put him down and painfully clambered down to the stairwell door. After feeling it to ensure it was not hot, she opened it. She found no smoke, no evidence of fire except the smell. She ducked through the threshold and crawled to the mess hall and Recreation area where the heat shield had failed and breached the hull of the ship. Few of the materials used in construction were flammable below four hundred degrees centigrade. The fire was out, and there was a sunken discolored area about three meters wide.

  She bent down to inspect more carefully and noticed a different smell to the air. She could see nothing other than fire damage; the interior tile too hot to allow her to probe or inspect further. She scrabbled to the Engineering room. It had the smell of ozone. In the corner of the room, at floor level of both flight and horizontal modes, was a door about one and a half meters square. It led to the outside door. It had safe and fail-safe electrically activated opening mechanisms. She could not get the door to open, activating these. There was also a cumbersome mechanical opening process. It took fifteen minutes to open the door, longer because she was weak and in pain. There was a shallow passage of half a meter to the outside door. Likewise, the electrical, motorized opening procedure failed. She worked for half an hour trying the mechanical process without luck. She left, stopping by the food room for herself and a couple of bottles of sugar water for the kids.

  When she returned, the plaintive, shuddering wails of both babies ratcheted her guilt higher. She picked up her daughter and rubbed the tummy and chest of the boy. They quieted somewhat. She put the infant to her other breast and patiently tried to feed her. It eventually worked out but not satisfactorily. She tried to feed the boy again to keep him quiet without much luck. Then she found a way to prop up both the little ones and tried to feed them the sugar water. She found some success but again not what she wanted. At least they were quiet.

  She searched the floor for a bottle of pills for pain and was soon rewarded. She took one and lay down on the floor to rest and wait for the drug to work.

  After an hour, she got up feeling minimally better, maybe not at all. She was cold and shivering. More fresh blood had dripped from her uterus down her thighs. She took a towel to a sink and found the faucet was horizontal. Turning the tap, no water emerged. There was a sucking sound as air was drawn into the pipe. She turned it off. She found saline, poured it on the towel, and scrubbed her legs and perineum mostly free of blood. Wanting to get dressed, she searched and found her underpants. They were soaked, so she threw them aside. She went to her quarters, navigating the horizontal stairwell, and found underwear and put them on, holding a pad to absorb the blood. She pulled on her pants and a warm tunic. She snugged a thin blanket around her shoulders, still shivering slightly. She returned through the same arduous passage, resolving to open the stuck doors. She walked over to Maricia and reclosed her cold eyelids. She curled up on her mattress and fitfully slept a few minutes until a baby woke her up.

  Hours passed in this pattern of interrupted sleep, decreasing pain, and bone-deep fatigue. She was breast-feeding the girl the next day when Zhivago’s voice interrupted the quiet.

  “I have cut power to all but the vital systems. Would you prefer to have ventilation or lighting, Commander?”

  “What is the air quality?”

  “Marginal overall but stable.”

  “How long will the power last if ventilation is stopped?”

  “Perhaps another two or three days, depending on light use.”

  “How long will you be functional?”

  “Approximately two days.”

  “The exit portal is stuck and will not open. What other options are there for getting out?”

  “Recommend lubrication of exit portal door and adding leverage if available. No other exit is designed in the ship. However, air quality indicators indicate a hull breach on the second level.”

  After nursing, she offered a bottle to her daughter, but it was ignored. She placed back in the incubator and shuffled to Engineering. In the access shaft, she found tools including the stowaway box that had stalled the lift early in the mission. To call it a box now would be a misnomer. It had corroded almost completely. A collection of rusty clumps were scattered up the shaft for meters, spread by the landing. It reminded her that she saw the tools about a year ago in her mind but fifty centuries of time for them. She crawled most of the length of the shaft until she spotted a crowbar that she recalled being in the box. It had not been made of steel but of the titanium alloy like most of the metals used in the ship and had not corroded into dust. Crawling back, her knees screamed for padding. Her belly throbbed. Exiting the shaft, she wanted to rest before working. She did not. She found lubricant and then opened the interior access and sprayed all around the external door. She gave the fluid a chance to penetrate by lubricating all the stuck doors between Engineering and Medical. She donned work gloves and the crowbar and started working on the door, prying and hammering before operating the manual opening mechanism. It still did not work. She repeated her efforts for a few hours until the manual mechanism suddenly shattered into several pieces. Shattered as well were her hopes of escape.

  She sat down, feeling deflated like a prisoner whose tunnel twenty years in the making just collapsed. It was so apropos for her life, another cynically perverse absurdity, the ultimate paradox, she thought. They travel trillions of kilometers only to die because the door is stuck.

  17.4

  It would be dark in this hellhole when the power was out. The air would get worse, and they would each fall asleep and die. She could see panic in the distance heading in her direction, but she turned away, walking slowly back into the grating sound of wailing. As she passed the food room, she detected again a different scent she now thought was of mold. She wondered if she were having an olfactory hallucination. Perhaps some food was going bad. She stopped.

  This was the area of heat shield failure. She went back to Engineering and picked up the crowbar and a good tool kit before returning. She located the burn zone and lay on her stomach to inspect it. She got up and turned out the lights. Using a flashlight, she relocated the damage, got on her belly again, and then shut off her light. She peered into darkness for several minutes. As her eyes accommodated to darkness, she saw a glow. The smell was dirt! The odor of soil and burned vegetation wafted up her nose. The little glimmer was the hope, the possibility of escape reappearing. She stood and, by the light of her lantern, made her way back to Medical, turning off every light she could.

  After feeding Michael, she rubbed balm on both nipples. They were getting sore. Her breasts, normally average plus in size, were expanding. She made certain she drank often. This also meant more trips to the commode that woul
d not flush. Oh, the things they omitted when they signed her up for this adventure.

  This was worse than high-altitude climbing, an exercise in pain tolerance, fatigue, endurance, and privation. Here, there was no peak to climb and no one to tell about it if there were. There was just survival when the odds were stacked so much against you that it seemed pointless to keep trying at times. Like now.

  The hole in the ship that lets in light and air might be a pinprick or picnic table in size. It was their only chance but probably another disappearing summit, like so many others. What was waiting for her and her little dependents outside? Better not to think too much about it, she thought.

  The lubrication worked on two of the interior doors, finally allowing her to walk between Medical, quarters, and mess sections without clambering through the spiral stairs. With access improved, it took only a few quick trips carrying kids, blankets, and other supplies to relocate to where she needed to work on escape.

  Fortunately, some of the power tools were battery operated and fully charged. She drilled a line of holes and then hammered and pried until there was an opening in the charred floor large enough to crawl through. This took the second half of the day. She turned out the lights and looked for the glow. It was not there. Either it was night outside or the hole was blocked with debris from her labors. Exhaustion prevailed, and she slept for hours, waking to nurse, feed, and change the babies. Her shoulders, arms, back, and legs hurt. She felt every muscle when she got up, hoping it was morning. She looked for the glow. It was back. As dim as it was, it brightened her outlook.

  Two tool batteries were used up, and two remained as she resumed work. Normally, it would have been impossible to cut through or break the materials used in the construction of the ship. The fire had done wonders at weakening the hull. She worked at a disadvantage, her head down with limited leverage. It was slow, painful, discouraging labor. After interminable work, nursing, and infant care punctuated by bruises, bumps, cuts, and scrapes, she grabbed a large handful of soil. It must have been night outside. Her mind rejoiced, but her fatigue couldn’t allow more than an exhausted half smile to reach her face.

  She nursed as she dozed in utter exhaustion, afraid she would roll on top of one of the infants but unable to come up with a better plan. There was not much good air left, and time was critical. She took care to eat and drink a lot, and her milk, thankfully, was in. The kids gobbled it up.

  It was dim inside. Savanna had disconnected or turned off all lights except a few tiny bulbs that provided barely enough illumination for maneuvering if needed. She finally could not stay awake. They all slept for at least four hours and then another three or so before getting up.

  The lighting remained dim despite turning on more bulbs. The ship’s power was almost gone. In near darkness, she worked. The electric tools were useless now, batteries depleted. The glow from sunlight outside slowly grew brighter as she enlarged the opening. She sawed, pried, twisted, pushed, pulled, and bent for each millimeter of progress. After hours, the hole had grown from ten centimeters to thirty. She shoveled large spoonfuls of soft, loamy, fragrant soil into the ship now in complete darkness. The opening needed to be almost twice as large. Light was waning. She had blisters and had worn through one pair of gloves. Feeding and changing were the only acts of attention the infants were getting. They objected often.

  Savanna leaned against a wall in what she thought was late afternoon, nursing Yvette, when the room bumped and shook. The floor tilted, and soil welled up into the opening, blocking the scant illumination. The ship had settled. Both babies started crying. Savanna finished the feeding session in perfect darkness and went back to work. She hauled dirt by the bucketload away from the opening. Eventually, she restored a pastel glimmer that gradually faded. Sunset. She had the opening to forty centimeters in the darkness of night and could get her head and shoulders into the tunnel. Backing up and placing both feet on the upper aspect of the hole in the ship, she pushed with all her remaining strength. Thermal tiles popped off and skin of the ship peeled like popping a blister to relive pain. The opening was finally large enough to allow them to exit. Fresh air wafted in, warm and humid, full of smells she could not remember or had never sniffed. It was a new world, with plants and animals she had never seen. The only world the two little ones would ever know, provided they lived long enough to know anything.

  The question was whether to spend the night inside the ship or out in the dark and unknown terrain. The sound of thunder answered.

  17.5

  Michael Adam was not happy. He kept crying and fussing all night, sleeping in snippets. Savanna heard rain falling hard for brief periods in the absolute blackness. After another long, sleep-deprived night, a faint glow returned to the tunnel. When the light had grown sufficiently, Savanna saw water pooled below the opening. She took a bowl and bailed until the water level was low enough to create a passable opening out of the ship. The dirt tunnel still remained small. On her belly, in the mud, she dragged more dirt into the ship until she reached a point where she could move it forward out of the hole. Covered in mud, her head slowly emerged into blinding sunlight. Blinking, she saw a grassy field surrounded by dense vegetation on two sides and a river barely visible, mostly blocked by the ship. She stood, savoring the sights, smells, and sounds. A small hill loomed at the fore, covered with long grass and brilliant flowering plants of various yellows, reds, and blues. Blue sky was above with puffy white clouds sailing cohesively above. As she squinted it occurred to her that she had not seen any sunlight in a year and a half by her time frame, which excluded hibernation. She had never seen this sunlight. A flock of small birds flew nearby, turning together by some hidden force, keeping them synchronized. She breathed deep the air scented with tropical vegetation, rain, and mud. It filled her with enormous happiness, exhilaration like she had seldom, if ever, felt. Walking around for half an hour, she found an area where they could camp.

  She crawled back down the tunnel and brought the children out one at a time. It took all day to haul things out of the ship—mattresses, clothing, infant care items, and food. In her moving, she discovered a lantern that had functional batteries and was able to get around in the otherwise smothering blackness. Near sunset she made her last trip of the day. She stopped in Medical.

  “Zhivago, are you functional?”

  “I am partially functional. Power is low.” His words came slow and low in pitch.

  “We have exited the ship, the babies and I.”

  “Have you located the arrival kit?”

  “No. Where is it?”

  “It is stored in Engineering, port side, floor level bin 3. There are four packs. You should retrieve all of them.”

  “Will I be able to access the hub computer if I could get power to the grid?”

  “I have not been able to determine if it was damaged during landing. Otherwise, it would be possible.”

  “Could you display pictures of my family?”

  “I have insufficient power.”

  “I cannot access the guide for land survival. Is there part of the protocol I have not completed?”

  “Given the events, all protocol requirements are complete.” Zhivago’s voice deepened and slowed.

  “Is there something I am forgetting?”

  “There may beeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” Zhivago’s voice died in a soft squeal that faded slowly away. The ship that had been so busy, full of love, conflict, and noise was silent.

  Savanna went back to Engineering and removed the four large packs one at a time, squeezing them through the small opening. When she entered to get the last one, the hip shuddered again, tilting the floor but this time lifting the aft up, making the exit larger. When she was finished, it was night. Both babies screamed back at the birds and crickets. A chorus of insects sang as she sat in a chair under a canopy, feeding one baby at her breast and the other with a bottle. A gentle warm breeze stirred the le
aves. Tears slid down her cheeks from a heart conflicted with loneliness and relief, sorrow and gratitude that they were alive. If I had energy, I would be afraid, she thought just before falling asleep.

  18.0

  LANDING PLUS

  SEVEN YEARS

  “Happy birthday, you two,” Savanna said. “How old are you, Yvette?”

  “Seven.” The girl that answered had curly, black hair over a coffee-brown face with light brown eyes. She wore a necklace of white snail shells over a bare chest.

  Savanna’s hair had not been cut in a couple of years and was half gray, mostly at the roots. It splayed wildly over a leather hide beaten thin and soft with hours of work and sewn into a shirt. Her skirt was the same. The trio sat outside a small building of vertical small logs topped by a roof of palm fronds and long grass. They were in a clearing surrounded by trees and bushes. A line of hollowed trunks brought water, which fell half a meter into a pebble-lined culvert that carried it away to a wandering creek audible but not visible in the distance. “What would like for your birthday, Mikey?”

  “I want to know how old you are, Mom.”

  “I still don’t remember. I have been alive forever, it seems. So many years that you can’t count.”

  “I can count to a thousand.” The boy was towheaded with pale olive skin, Maricia’s blue eyes and her Danish jaw, and Raul’s brow and Spanish nose.