by CK Burch
″Are you saying that I'm reacting badly? To you saying another woman's name in bed?″
″No – ″
″Stephen! How the hell do you want me to react? Do you want me to just pretend that it never happened? Maybe I ought to shout my ex-boyfriend's name while you're fucking me next time. Would you like that?″
″Stop,″ he said. He was telling her what to do now. God, she hated that. He was just like the rest. Men, always telling her what to do. Always trying to have their way.
″I can't believe you'd say such a thing,″ she said, and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them because he'd had them that way only a few moments before. Bastard!
″Sydney,″ he said, slowly, enunciating his words carefully. ″Look. I don't think you're reacting bad. It was a mistake on my part. But we're in a high-pressure situation right now with the dive, the communications systems down, we're trying to snag this artifact and bring it on board, it's been a hell of a few days. All I'm saying is that this probably isn't the best time to talk about this.″
She sighed. He was right, though she didn't want him to be. What the hell was wrong with her? Bringing this up, right before the dive, with everything going on. She wondered when the last time she'd gotten sleep was. She couldn't remember. ″You're right,″ she said. ″God. I'm sorry. I'm feeling frazzled. Worse than frazzled. Fragile. Like I'm just crackling up around the seams. You know?″
″Yeah,″ he said, and stepped forward. ″I'm not so hot myself. Well, maybe. If this dive goes wrong, we'll get really hot.″
″Stop it,″ she said, and playfully smacked him in the chest. But she smiled. He had a perverse sense of humor, if not morbid sometimes. But she liked it. She did have awful taste.
″So. Later. When all of this is over, maybe we'll talk. And you know, we've only been doing this 'us' thing for a couple of weeks now. We haven't gotten below the surface level yet. If that's what you'd like, then I'd like to take a shot at it.″ His eyes were bright, brown, and hopeful. ″Until then, I think it's extremely important that we concentrate on everything happening around us. The whole crew seems to be cracking from the stress of this fucking mission.″
″I think you're right,″ she replied. ″Doctor Tybalt seems to be holding it together alright, though.″
Straub hesitated. Just enough for Kerrick to notice. ″Right,″ he said.
Kerrick smiled as though she hadn't noticed anything. Because she didn't want to acknowledge that Straub felt Doctor Tybalt was cracking under all this pressure as well. He didn't trust Tybalt. Clearly. Okay, that was fine. That just meant that she would have to keep her eyes on Stephen Straub to make sure he didn't capitalize on that. Because of course he would; he really was just like any other man she'd ever met. There would be no later. There would be no talking about anything. Oh god, was he going to try and take credit for the artifact find? Kerrick did not let her smile waver in the slightest. She reached forward and hugged him as her mind raced with thoughts of what was possibly going through Straub's brain, why he might distrust Doctor Tybalt, why he would take advantage of her, of either of them, and why he'd made any attempt to assuage Kerrick in the first place. Stephen Straub was up to no good. He was a predator. It was coming out of his system like poison in the air. But Kerrick was smarter than that. She would catch him at his own game. She would make sure that he didn't get his way.
They parted and he smiled at her. She smiled back.
You can't fool me, she thought.
They both turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor towards them. Kerrick smiled at the sight of Doctor Tybalt, but it disappeared as Straub asked, ″Why is she wearing a hazard suit?″
She stopped smiling because she didn't know either.
***
Doctor Tybalt hadn't told anyone else about the final part of her plan to capture the artifact, simply because she knew that they would have said no.
Yes, they were going to have the artifact float downward into the cargo bay using the energy cables the Icarus was equipped with. Yes, the radiation scrubbers would be able to take care of the high amounts of thermal radiation both the artifact and the cargo bay would be flooded with. And yes, if the artifact had been the only thing in the cargo bay, Straub actually would have been right: wide-burst would have been the way to go about decontaminating the bay and the object in entirety. But she hadn't told him that she would be in the cargo bay as well, and if the scrubbers were set to wide-burst they would also coat her in decontaminant, possibly infecting her worse than the thermal rads would. Field-stream would limit the scrubbing to the object itself, and the decontamination systems the ship already had would purge the rads in the bay without any extra ill effect on her body. Which meant that she would just have to ensure the object was securely in the bay, allow the scrubbers to work, and survive long enough for decontamination to take effect. Simple enough.
She fiddled with the HES helmet as she walked down the hallway, leaning to and fro as the turbulence outside buffeted the Icarus. She'd worn one enough times to be able to work one, but they always felt too goddamn constricting. Once upon a time her parents had pushed her to be a gymnast. That's what her mother had been. So at the age of six, young Catherine had been sent to gymnastics camp, training and training and training and flipping and jumping and hating every fucking second of it because her mind was elsewhere doing mathematics and geometry problems. In a way, she was kind of glad that her parents put her through all that; it had opened up her mind while allowing her body to do other things, and she'd found her passion after that terrible summer. Science. Math. Trig. Numbers. The stars. Space. But she'd learned to keep her body free, mobile, able to move how she wished. She hated being constricted and these damn hazard suits did just that, no matter what fucking advances they made on these things, it always felt like moving with limited reach and molasses speed.
Kerrick and Straub were standing outside the entrance to the cargo bay as she approached, both of them looking at her with a mix of confusion and fear. Then, realization worked its way over Straub's expression and he raised his palms outward.
″What are you doing?″ he asked. As if he had to ask.
″I'm going to make sure the artifact makes its way into the cargo bay,″ Tybalt said. Straub was near-sighted. He had no vision, poor guy, just lived in the moment, and that's probably why Kerrick had taken a liking to him. Honestly, Tybalt couldn't see whatever it was that Kerrick did. At the moment Straub was looking at her with that dumb look on his face whenever concepts were going right over his head, which usually meant theoretical paradigms or something as simple as a spacewalk. Which was essentially what she was about to go do right now.
″Doctor, the amount of radiation you'll be exposed to could kill you,″ Kerrick said. ″The energy cables will be able to snag the artifact and bring it inside without your assistance.″
″Yes, they will, but the thing that no one remembered is that someone needs to operate the energy cables manually from within the cargo bay,″ Tybalt said. She held up the helmet. ″Hence the suit.″
For a moment, neither of them were able to speak. Tybalt gave them an extra moment to process what was going on. Was it risky? Absolutely. Did she have to do this? Absolutely.
″Doctor, you can't do this,″ Straub said. ″You'll be fried.″
″The HES is designed to take heat up to two thousand Kelvin, radiation up to fifteen hundred Gray. The Sun will be behind the ship, so with the amount of heat and radiation actually coming through I should either be well within safe parameters or just thereabouts. Relax, Straub. Walk in the park.″ She smiled, but she was keeping her mind focused, because this wasn't going to be a fucking walk, in the park or otherwise. It was going to take a lot of concentration and effort. Yes, the energy towing cables needed to be aligned and operated manually. How everyone else had overlooked that detail during her explanations, god knew, but fortunately no one had thought of it and now she was going to go about her plan. The potential amount of i
nformation that the research of the artifact could provide was worth it.
Another wave caressed the ship and they all swayed with it. Both scientists stared at her in shock.
″I'm going to need both of you to monitor radiation levels within the cargo bay while I'm there,″ Tybalt said. ″If it looks like the needle is going to go into the red, I'm going to activate the radiation scrubbers early, try and dissipate as much of the rads in the bay as possible even while the bay doors are still open. If you can override the decontamination systems that might help as well. Straub, you can hack the emergency systems, am I right?″
″You're absolutely insane,″ Straub said. ″Doctor, I'm not going to participate in this. You're putting yourself in the direct path of lethal radiation doses to snag a piece of rock. I'm not going to assist you in potentially killing yourself or endangering the rest of the crew. I'm going to call the bridge and tell the captain what you're doing.″
″Stephen,″ Kerrick said.
″Doctor,″ Straub replied, and for once he was keeping himself firmly in the right state of mind. ″We can't let her do this.″
″If it's the only way to retrieve the artifact – ″
″The artifact is not important enough to risk directly exposing the entire ship to thermal radiation. If she can't bring the artifact in, or close the cargo bay doors, the amount of rads could flood past all the safety measures and fill up the whole ship.″ He rubbed his forehead. ″I have to contact the captain. We're going to have to pull out of the dive.″
″We can't pull out of the dive now,″ Tybalt said. She wasn't sure if that was true or not, but that didn't matter. She just had to sell it. ″We're already plunging through the chromosphere. With any luck this will be over with quickly and safely. You want to make sure I don't kill myself? Fine. Do it by monitoring those radiation levels and hacking the emergency decontamination systems. Activate them if the levels get too high. That will hopefully keep the lethal dosage at bay long enough for me to get the artifact in the ship.″ She took a step forward. ″I'm going in that cargo bay one way or the other. You and Kerrick can help me, or I can do this on my own. I think there's less risk if you help me.″
″Not by much,″ Straub said, ″but yes. There is.″ He sighed and looked over at Kerrick. Kerrick showed no sign of resistance, thank god, because if the two of them had turned on her she would have had no idea what to do. Then Straub turned back. ″I want it noted that I disagree with this. From both of you. Should this go wrong and anyone inquire, I'm against you doing this, Doctor Tybalt. But I'm going to assist you because I don't want to see you get yourself killed.″
″Noted,″ Tybalt said. She looked at Kerrick.
″Yeah. Noted,″ Kerrick replied. She didn't look good. She looked sick, or depressed. She had her arms around her midsection like her stomach was ill. Maybe it was from the rocking boat. Seasickness. Or maybe it was just her beginning to freak out over everything that was going on, the culmination of which being this crazy plan. Tybalt was smart enough to realize that the plan was crazy. Implausible, illogical, but yet not impossible. Catherine Tybalt put no stock in the word impossible.
She placed her hand on the other woman's shoulder. ″Relax. This is going to work just fine. And when we're done, you'll have the distinction of being the first scientist to make xenoarchaeological notes on the find of the century.″
Kerrick perked up slightly. Not much, but it was a lot better than how she had been looking only a few moments before. Good. Tybalt needed them both ready for action.
″The emergency systems won't need hacking. Not much,″ Straub said. ″All I'd have to do is push them a little bit. Override the airlock safety protocol.″ He was rubbing his chin and thinking. Also good. He wasn't really that stupid, just no foresight. Once he got his brain in gear he turned into that promising scientist that Tybalt had hand-picked to come with her on this expedition. She chuckled to herself; god but how they had abandoned the original purposes of being here. So much for data collection. But then, this artifact, this find, really was more important. Tybalt could see the Dyson bubble, formed and built within her lifetime, the first of its kind, what she'd been working towards her entire academic life. It was within reach. She couldn't let this go.
Straub looked her in the eye. ″How do you know I'll be able to hack the system?″
″I read your file,″ Tybalt said. ″You broke into Harvard's systems, changed that one kid's grade average from four point zero to two point five. He shouldn't have messed with you.″
″That's classified. I was told it was stricken from the record.″
″Data never really disappears,″ she said. ″It just gets shunted into different places. You're not the only one with some dirty hacking secrets, Doctor Straub.″ She opened the bay door and crossed the threshold. ″We should be at the max dive level within the next few minutes. Keep your comm handy, Kerrick. I'll contact you when we reach our target, and Straub, when I give the signal, override the protocols. Otherwise – ″
″I have a good feeling that I know what that otherwise will look like,″ Straub said. His eyes flicked back and forth momentarily. ″Doctor, I don't know about this. It's been a while since I've done even a simple hack. This should be easy. But – ″
″No buts. This is it. Man up, Straub. And not one fucking word to the captain until this is over."
Both scientists nodded. Straub continued to look uneasy, but at least he was going along with it.
″Well, then. Let's make some history.″ Tybalt reached over and activated the door pad, and the barrier between her and her project team closed. She was alone in the cargo bay.
Less than three minutes to target.
***
On the bridge, as Captain Markov watched over everything, Commander Collins grew even more uneasy.
Part of it was the rocking back and forth of the ship, which she'd experienced in other examples of cosmic turbulence, but this she felt with a strange power. This was awful. Wild ride my ass, she thought, and was leaning over the railing separating the bridge consoles from the captain's chair, holding on for dear life. Beside her, Sergeant Laguardia stood still as a statue, her arms calmly behind her back as she stared straight ahead at the theater screen. Goddamn uppity bitch. Probably just showing off that she was better than Collins was. Well, fine. Let the ″security chief″ do just that. Collins was absolutely dandy with leaning over the rail while the ship was wracked with tremors.
The other part of her unease came a moment later as Captain Markov said, ″Okay people, we are now crossing the threshold of the last known safe dive. We are in experimental territory, keep all eyes on data and radiation/temp levels, I want to know at all times how Icarus is holding up.″
After he said that, a low, moaning creak came from below, like a house settling, and the bulkhead was attacked by pressures and heat it had not before seen.
Let's hope these new shields work, Collins thought. Then she realized she'd never considered that they might not. It was a much different thing to consider unfortunate possibilities outside of a high-pressure situation than from within it. Fuck. But she kept her eyes on the theater screen, watched as the angry solar flames reached out and licked at the ship daring to cross the penetration bubble of the chromosphere, felt the waves come again and again as Icarus held her course, and as the spectrum wavelengths of the Sun changed from hot orange to deep, translucent amber at their current proximity, she couldn't help but say aloud, ″My god, it's beautiful.″
″It certainly is, isn't it?″ Markov didn't bother trying to keep the awe out of his voice, either. Maybe he'd been on a couple dozen of these, but if it was like this every single time, then it would take a helluva lot more to make anyone jaded to it. Even for a seasoned vet like the captain. Plasma particles raced by the screen, electromagnetic fields were highlighted by fractals over the view. It was beautiful; it was more than beautiful. It was perfect.
″One minute to the artifact,″ a voice sounded from behin
d her.
″Thank you,″ Markov replied. He lifted his comm. ″Mac, we're one minute to our pickup point. It should put us just a few meters above our theoretical safe dive point, how's the ship looking?″
″All lights in the green thus far!″ The chief engineer's voice was small and tinny coming from the handheld device. ″Heat shielding stable and holding! Engines are running a little hot, but there's no dangers at the moment! Coolant systems are holding! If we're gonna do this, Captain, we're all set to do so.″
″Keep your frequency open. I'll be back. Markov, out.″ He pressed the holokeys on the personal comm.
″Tybalt,″ was the reply.
″Markov. How go your preparations, Doctor?″
″Radiation scrubbers are set and prepped, energy cables at the ready. I'm prepared to depressurize the cargo bay once we're in position. Easy as pie, Captain.″
″Sir,″ one of the bridge crew, Hutchins, said. ″I'm showing someone is still inside the cargo bay.″
Markov frowned. ″Doctor,″ he said carefully, ″what is your position?″
"By now I'm sure you've guessed that," she replied.
Collins was aghast. What the hell did Tybalt think she was doing? The commander leaned forward. ″Captain – ″
He raised his hand to cut her off. ″Doctor,″ he spoke again, once more with slowness, easing over the syllables with a diplomacy that Collins didn't think was deserved. ″I'm going to ask you to remove yourself from the cargo bay. The artifact will be towed in by automated sequencing, and it's not worth the radiation damage you'll be risking by staying in there.″
″The towing cables are manually operated,″ Tybalt said. There was a lot of smugness in her voice. ″Or did you forget that fact, Captain?″
The look on the captain's face suggested that yes, as a matter of fact, he had. God fucking damn scientists and their need to throw themselves into desperate situations. Collins made her way around the railing and next to Markov. He looked pissed. ″Captain,″ he said, ″if we utilize the override command sequencing we can shut down the cargo bay doors from here. She won't be able to open them, regardless of whether or not the cables need manual operation.″