Losers in Space

by John Barnes

  She opens the hatch, and we climb into the nose spire, a 40-meter tall, narrowing cone that doesn’t rotate, because “for docking a cap or maintaining an antenna on constant focus, it’s nice not to have the rotation,” Destiny explains. “Of course that means we have almost no gravity, except a whisper of attraction from the actual gravity of the rest of the ship. It’s a regular school project for the kids to time how long it takes a marble to fall down the nose spire and calculate the mass of Virgo from that.”

  We pass through one more hatch into a pitch-black room; then Destiny says, “Open nose spire observation bubble.”

  Petals of steel peel back around us and fold under us; at once I can see we’re in a transparent bubble 5 meters across. “The tourist-brochure version of things is that this is a geodesic dome of synthetic sapphire facets,” Destiny says, “connected and reinforced with carbon nanotube structural members that are about as thick as a human hair. The steel antimeteorite cover is in place whenever there’s no one in here.”

  “What happens if a meteorite hits?” I ask.

  “With most of them you get a bright flash of light and a scratch on the sapphire, like, oh, that one and that one.” The scars are no more than a centimeter long, shallow oval pits. “A big one might punch a hole and leak air, so we’d have to replace the panel; that’s why there’s a shield. A really big one could kill us, I guess, but then a big enough one could vaporize the whole ship. No reason to worry about it, really. This wouldn’t be a good place to live because of the radiation levels, but 20 hours here is like a dental X-ray, so some of us come here to enjoy it.”

  It’s like floating in space without a suit. A black spot on the glass, where it opaques, tracks me so that it always blocks a direct view of the sun; I can see that Destiny has a similar spot keeping the sun off of her. Destiny shows me a couple of silly games with making the spots merge, cross each other, and so on, like artificially generated shadows on the wrong side of our bodies.

  She says, “It’s almost time. Now look back that way.”

  Beyond the immense reach of the pod, above the curve of one iceball and the towers of the engines reaching up beyond it, a sphere hangs. It looks like a perfectly smooth moon, mostly in dark blue shadow barely lighted by reflection from the ship, but with a brilliant white crescent in sunlight.

  Then the dark side flashes into a cloud of glare; white flame billows in a sheet from the far, day side. When the surface rotates toward us again, a wispy red eye whirls past. “The laser from the moon?” I ask.

  “Yep, that’s it, from the moon,” she says. “They’re bringing Iceball-4 into range—the last one we need before we course-correct for Mars. They flare off a little surface ice to adjust the course.”

  “Uh, what would happen if one of those laser shots missed the iceball and hit Virgo?”

  “The surface fiber optics would catch it, the same as they do all the sunlight, and shunt the excess power into the forward radiator, right down there.” She points to a big ring around the nose spire. “The radiator’s working fluid can go up to molten iron temperatures if it has to; it would gradually release the extra heat as infrared. Basically any extra energy—misdirected laser, solar flare, sudden nova from some nearby star, the death rays of the Booga Booga Space Invaders—would go around everything valuable, and come out the radiator here.” She grins at me. “We’re not about to be blown to pieces or cut in half.”

  I make a face. “I didn’t mean to sound—”

  “No shame. It scares me too. Every time I pilot a pellor out to an iceball, I remember how thin the wall is between warm little pressurized water-filled me and the cold, the radiation, and the vacuum. But I still plan to die of old age.” She’s peering at me like she sees something wrong.

  I’m terrified she’ll ask, Is something bothering you? Or maybe I hope she will, so I’ll tell her, and Derlock be damned. But she doesn’t ask.

  The day goes by too fast. Back in the crew bubble, we play spherical handball. At one point in the window of her cabin, Iceball-4, Earth, and the moon all line up close together, and she gets a great picture of me with that in the background. (But even though she’ll put it up, nobody will ever splycter it; it’s got no interest, it just looks like me, happy.)

  We catch up on old jokes and embarrassing stories about when Pop was a kid. I want it to go on forever.

  We’re just finishing our peanut butter pancakes and scrambled eggs—what I called an “Anny Dezzy Pangcake Sangwidge” when I was four. Pop swears it was the only breakfast I would eat voluntarily for a full year after she shipped up. A noise like a muffled siren interrupts. Destiny says, “Acknowledged.”

  “Destiny, Commander Kanegawa says there’s some bad news the kids need to hear about, and Susan should join them in the noseward commons.”

  She glances at me. “Should I come along too?”

  “The commander requested that specifically.” Soft disconnect chime.

  “Hmm. Susan, if the commander wants to break the news herself, it’s big, and we need to move.”

  Obviously we’ve been caught. I airswim after Destiny, trying to think of what I’m going to say to her when she finds out.

  At the lounge, all the moes are styling bored/annoyed. We’re the last there; I’m still trying to think of how I will say I’m sorry when Commander Kanegawa says, “This is about two of your classmates. The headmaster of Excellence Shop radioed us with the news that Bari Sylbrith and King Tzieschkarin died last night.”

  Destiny’s arm around me is strong and comforting. No moe reaches for anyone’s hand or gives a hug. Everyone’s in it by themselves—except me, folded in Destiny’s arms.

  I ask, “Was it a happistuf overdose?”

  Kanegawa nods. “I take it you knew they had a problem.”

  My voice comes out as a squeak. “Bari used to be my boyfriend. We just de-declared a few days before we came up here. He was… he was planning to take the laughing dive. That’s why he didn’t come with us. That’s why I de-declared.”

  The commander looks like she’s making herself talk. “Apparently they took a very dangerous combination—happistuf and Torporin.”

  Everyone looks puzzled; Stack ventures, “I’ve never even heard of Torporin.”

  Kanegawa looks even more uncomfortable. “It’s rarely used recreationally because it’s just the first drug in the suspended animation sequence; it’s a high-powered hibernifacient, it makes people sleep very deeply for a long period of time. Not a lot of fun, I gather, for the people who want a drug to be fun. But it interacts fatally with Fendrisol, the happistuf inhibitor.”

  “That’s why they can’t just put me in suspended animation till there’s a cure,” Fleeta says, looking down at the deck. “Besides that, happistuf keeps right on forming even when you’re in suspended animation anyway.” Destiny reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder.

  Commander Kanegawa continues. “Apparently the boys took a big dose of both, and the ambulance crew tested for happistuf and some other drugs, but not for Torporin. Trying to undo the damage as fast as they could, the medics gave them a big injection of Fendrisol; it killed them almost instantly.”

  Then everyone says a lot of polite things, until finally I can go back to Aunt Destiny’s quarters.

  She just holds me. “Oh, Susan, I’m so sorry. Everyone has some terrible things like this in their lives, eventually, but you’re awfully young for it.”

  Me? Awfully young? Decadent, jaded, seen-it-all me? I haven’t cried like this since my old Labrador, Stanley, died two years ago; maybe not since Mom told me that hearing about my life, after she got divorced, made her so jealous and angry that she never wanted to see me again.

  It’s so good to have Destiny with me. And I do feel way too young for this.

  4

  BREAKFAST WITH THE RIGHT HALF

  Seventeen hours later. April 24, 2129. On Virgo, upbound Earth to Mars. 149 million kilometers from the sun, 169 million kilometers from Mars, 2.9 million
kilometers from Earth.

  DURING THAT WHOLE day of lies, the most uncomfortable lie I tell Aunt Destiny is that I’m afraid I’ll burst into tears in front of my friends if she sees me off at the cap dock, so could we please just hug good-bye here in her cabin?

  At the cap dock, all our carefully planned ruses are unnecessary—there are no crew there, only the moes, simmering-pissy and sneaking glares at Derlock. Figuring it’s where I’ll get the most accurate reporting, I squeeze over next to Emerald and mutter, “Why isn’t any of the crew here?”

  She mutters back, “One day of the moes was more than enough. Tell you later.”

  We pick up our concealed bags from the cap and slip back out. Derlock hits the red-yellow-green keys, close/seal/ready-for-launch, as he ducks out. The door thrums shut behind him.

  We push off from the wall and float 25 meters to where an airlock connects to the tail disk of the pod.

  I’d have expected F.B., Marioschke, and Wychee to be awkward airswimmers, but I’m surprised at how awkwardly Derlock and Stack bounce around in milligravity. On the other hand, Emerald airswims like a natural. Maybe she went to space a lot as a kid, the way Glisters, Fleeta, and I did.

  Glisters has our route memorized, so he glides ahead, graceful as a cat walking a roof ridge. Emerald and I, the unofficial rearguard/catchers, fly in comfortable tandem. In between, it’s all awkward chaos.

  We’re still in the ring corridor when the catapult sends the moe-less cap out of the ship. It’s only maybe a half-second of 5% gravity—like being tugged briefly by one-twentieth of your Earth weight—and Glisters, Emerald, and I glide slightly to the right, correct course, and continue, but the moes in the middle tumble and tangle with each other, even throwing Fleeta’s good balance off. Derlock falls out of that aerial scrum and bumps against Glisters, who guides him back into airswimming position. Derlock thanks him with an elbow to the ribs and a very insincere “Sorry.”

  Glisters winces but doesn’t say anything.

  “Hey, Emerald,” I whisper, “how did they get them around for the tour?”

  “Me, Glisters, and Fleeta took the tour,” she whispers back. “The rest were so pissy and nasty that the crew just stuffed them into a room to watch meeds and eat all day. And by the time they did that, Rojdeff had lost all patience and was barely civil. Do you think we’ll have to nursemaid them like this forever?”

  “Stack will get his wings pretty quick.”

  “Unh hunh.”

  Neither of us says a word about the others. We find the path to the coretube that Glisters is looking for and begin a complicated, awkward group struggle through the corridors; I could do it by myself in three minutes.

  Finally we drag Marioschke off the last ladder she’s clinging to, pull Stack back to the railing after he overswims, and climb into the coretube. We airswim 20 meters, open a hatch into the Pressurized Cargo Section, and emerge onto a narrow railed platform just below the coretube on Cargo Wall 98. On Cargo Wall 99, tailward across from us, a vast array of crates, barrels, cubes, and odd shapes like eggs, balls, and pie wedges, cling to the wall in a dozen different colors. Almost 100 meters below us, the window keeps flashing from harsh sunlight to dim starlight, every hundred seconds or so.

  “How do we get down?” Marioschke asks, nervously, clinging to the rail and frantically pushing herself back down as her feet float off the platform.

  Glisters says, “Basically, if we just step over the rail and let the section wall bump into us, we’ll slide down and hit the bottom with about as much force as you’d get falling off a low stool on Earth.” He adds, “However, it would take us most of an hour to fall to the bottom, so I suggest doing this.” He grabs the railing with one hand, puts his feet on either side of his hand holding the railing, bends over the edge like a bat hanging from a rafter, and pushes off. I follow suit; it’s more like flying than swimming, and it’s great, zooming down to the window in maybe 20 seconds, plenty of time to turn around and land on our feet on the sunlit window, looking up.

  Fleeta and Stack are coming down after us, Fleeta grinning because it’s fun, Stack grimacing and flailing. As the windows darken again, I catch Stack. He overcorrects, almost knocking me down. “Sorry, I need practice.”

  Fleeta doesn’t need catching, exactly, but Glisters helps her land. “You’re practically a gentleman,” I tell him.

  “Don’t tell the other guys.”

  Derlock is next, tumbling slowly, trying to airswim into the right position. None of us moves to catch him, so he bumps backward against the starlit window, bounces a couple of meters like a goon, and lands on all fours with a thud. Wychee comes down in a slow tumble, turning over twice, which she styles all huffy, impatient, and put-upon, but she lands on her feet, waving Glisters off; F.B. is the exact opposite, tumbling gracelessly in a bony jumble of arms and legs, landing in a silly-looking headstand and flopping onto his back on the window, but obviously having a great time, and thanking me too profusely as I push him back to keep him from bouncing.

  That leaves two people. “Emerald,” I call, “are you okay up there?”

  “About to be.” Far above us, Marioschke is suddenly tumbling end over end, sputtering and furious, barely descending at all, bouncing between the walls. Emerald shoots by her, pinging from one section wall to a blank spot on Cargo Wall 99 to the other section wall, repeating the cycle to build up speed, then to brake, till she zooms in for a perfect landing among us. “Slick,” I say. “I’ll have to try that myself.”

  “How are we going to get Marioschke down?” Glisters asks.

  “I came down here to ask you. After trying to talk her into it, I gave up and just pried her hands off the railing and shoved her by the head,” Em explains. “I think it pissed her off.”

  Above us, Marioschke bounces off the section wall, maybe two meters below the platform.

  “Push off the wall,” Glisters shouts. “Toward us.”

  She kicks hard but only tumbles faster. “I guess one of us could jump up and stabilize her, but I’d be afraid of having her grab on or hit me,” I say.

  “Let’s gang up on her,” Emerald suggests. “Glisters and Susan go up above. Stack jumps up and wraps her—just aim straight for her, you don’t really have to swim or navigate. Glisters and Susan dive from the railing and grab Stack, so that their momentum starts everyone moving downward, and then bounce off some walls on the way down and pick up more speed. The rest of us, at this end, will pull you all in for your landing.”

  It semi-works. Marioschke flails so much that all Stack can do is convert the rapid tumble to a slow roll, and when Glisters and I dive on them, grab Stack’s shirt, and carry them with us, we’re only adding our own momentum, so they don’t move fast, and we’re centered so we don’t get a chance to pick up momentum by bouncing.

  Even though Marioschke won’t hit the deck hard enough to break an egg, she’s fighting like it’ll kill her, so Emerald jumps up with a rope from her pack and ties it to Glisters’s feet, and the rest reel us in.

  Once Marioschke’s feet are on the handling deck, she calms down, but she’s pretty sullen as we bounce noseward to Cargo Wall 8, where we’re planning to make our camp.

  The empty ledge we’re camping on is only 10 meters up. Marioschke whispers to me, “If I shut my eyes, will you catch me and pull me onto the ledge?”

  I say yes, jump up, light on the ledge, and turn around. Marioschke shuts her eyes and jumps; I catch her and pull her over the edge, airswimming to steer her back onto the ledge. She bounces slowly over to where the ledge joins the cargo wall, right at about the midpoint of the section so the ledge floor curves up and away from us in both directions—the maximum distance from any place where she can see down. She unrolls her sleepsack, gets inside with all her clothes on, and turns to face the wall.

  “Hey,” I whisper. “If you need to be alone, that’s fine, but before I leave you alone, are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” She sounds miserable. “I was so panicky in
free fall, too scared to move, and I was crying and yelling about that, and I really wanted to see the farm section, Susan, thank you so much for telling them I’d want to. But I acted up so much they just stuffed me away in a lounge with the other bad attitude people.”

  “When we come out of hiding there will be months and months on the way to Mars,” I point out. “And in a couple days you’ll have your space balance and you’ll be fine getting around. You’ll get to see the Forest, and the farm sections, and everything. Probably they’ll even let you help. You’ll see, it’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah.” She doesn’t sound like she believes me. “Susan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for being nice to me sometimes. I know I’m a pain in the ass.”

  “Good night, Marioschke.”

  She mutters “g’night” and curls deep down into her sleepsack, styling ultra DO NOT DISTURB.

  The rest are already tying bags and sleepsacks off to brackets; the ledge is about 5 meters across and runs the width of the section, and stacked crates are scattered around on it. While I’m getting my stuff tied down, everyone else breaks out the drugs and music to give Glisters a party to shoot.

  When I look up, Glisters is flying from “Look at this!” to “Get this shot!” as everyone acts like they’re having crazy fun. He looks harried and exasperated.

  All my practice and training says to dive in and grab focus, but instead I jump over a 10-meter stack of crates, grab a bracket to change direction, and touch down noiselessly out of sight of the others. I bounce along the ledge to the corner it makes with the section wall, pull my butt down onto the edge with my hands, and sit with my feet dangling over, watching the stars and sun alternate through the glass-covered water below.

  I just want to think about Bari for a while.