by R. Lee Smith
“Seriously, I have to spell this out for you? The Director has God knows how many investors convinced that this deep-space disaster of his is a five-year swinger’s party. If they show up with their money and find a fucking weiner roast, they’re going to make him very unhappy and he will make his underlings unhappy and that shit will roll downhill until it hits us. Who cares how big she is? Someone will be into that. Pass her.”
Amber got her health clearance. She took it to the local branch of Manifest Destiny and got a room for her and Nicci to share at the compound for thirty dollars a week and a thumbprint. It took just a few hours to load up their things and sign out of the apartment. She left all the big stuff behind for the super to steal and got on the shuttle that took them to the busport that took them to their new, temporary home. It was a nine-hour drive with seventeen other hopeful colonists and nobody did much talking. That night, in their new beds and their old sheets, Nicci cried. Amber slept.
* * *
Time came back.
She had eight weeks to kill with nothing to do. She went to all the seminars the Manifestors offered. She took a class in agrarian infrastructure, and another in canning, figuring they’d be useful skills to have on the new planet. She went to the gym every day, but gained back five pounds. She would have gone back to the Candyman for another thirty pounds’ worth of needles if she had the money, but she didn’t, so fuck it. Once the ship took off, it would be too late for the Director to hang out his No Fat Chicks sign.
Finally, their boarding orders. They were boarding the corporates first, the gold class second, and the families third, in alphabetical order, so Amber and Nicci were scheduled for eight in the morning on January 17th. There was an orientation lecture on boarding procedure. Amber went. Nicci stayed home and cried.
On the last day, Amber packed. They were allowed to bring whatever they wanted for free, provided it fit in one of the standard Fleet-issued duffel bags. Anything other than that, they charged for. Amber put in the three spare colonist’s uniforms first, leaving only the one she’d be wearing for boarding. Then she rolled up a few sweaters, some jeans, socks, underwear, her favorite tee and, with what little space she had left, the most useful study material from the seminars, and two coffee cups. She stared at it for a while. She packed Nicci’s duffel for her, rummaging through the apartment stuff for more than two hours to find the shoebox with their photos. She removed the pictures where Bo Peep was too obviously strung out and put the rest in Nicci’s duffel bag. Then she cried, but she did it quietly in the bathroom. It was almost morning, almost time.
It was almost over.
“Here we go,” muttered Amber. She dried her eyes and switched out the light, saying, with absolutely no sense of premonition, “Plymouth or bust.”
3
That day, Amber learned early that standing around in an skyport was pretty much exactly like standing around in an airport. This was probably because, regardless of the Director’s many efforts to make it look futurific and exciting, it was an airport, only with a space shuttle behind it instead of a bunch of planes. The actual ship, the Pioneer, was already in space, where it and the rest of the Director’s fleet had been built.
As ‘strongly advised’ in the seminar, she and Nicci took the transport two hours in advance of their boarding time, only to discover that the line was already stretched out of the maze-like queue and wrapped three-quarters of the way around the terminal. It was not the best weather for standing in line. The Manifestors, or maybe just the airport people, had set up several canopies, but the rain got in anyway, splashing in fat, random splats against her arm, her neck, her eye. Outside of the canopies, the rain quickly plastered her official Manifest Destiny flightsuit to her body, and since it was white, it exposed not only each and every unsightly bulge of fat, but also the pebbly bumps of her nipples and the hem of her panties and God alone knew what else.
The conditions were bad enough; the company was worse. All around them were young couples hiss-fighting their way through the nerves, bickering teenagers, screaming babies, and every shade of human misery in-between. Adding to the fun was Nicci, who kept insisting it wasn’t too late yet, they could still go back and maybe talk to the super, just talk to him, Amber, and maybe get their old apartment back and they could make it work, they really could. By the time she reached the terminal doors and bared her face to the gust of heated air blowing down from the overhead fans, Amber was ready to tell her to go wherever the hell she wanted to as long as she shut up when she did it. And that made her feel sick all over, because she knew her sister’s fear wasn’t only genuine, it was normal. They were doing something that had never been done, had never even been tested in any real practical way. Fear was a perfectly reasonable reaction, but it still didn’t change the fact that they were homeless, jobless and alone. Whining about it was not going to change anything.
They made their way back and forth through the ropes of the queue holding hands. Manifestors walked happily up and down beside them, offering hot coffee and smiles and sedatives for those who needed them. A young mother not far from Amber abruptly ducked out of line with her small son, only to be met by three Manifestors who politely but firmly reminded her of the contract she had signed, the amenities she had already accepted, and the criminal charges awaiting her if she left. The mother began to cry, the son joined in, and both were ushered swiftly away. Not out the door, Amber noticed, but deeper into the terminal. They did not come back. Maybe Nicci was watching too; she stopped asking to go home, but the hand that gripped Amber’s trembled the closer they got to the head of the line.
Halfway there, they were met by a registrar—not one of the skyport’s, a Manifestor—pushing a cart loaded with baskets of flat and featureless metal bracelets. She was accompanied by an honest-to-God Fleetman. Seeing him in his plain military uniform was, even more than the queue or the rain or the space shuttle itself on the launching platform out the window, the slapping hand of reality for Amber. The registrar had to repeat herself before she could bring herself back from that.
“I’m sorry?” she stammered, wrenching her eyes off the Fleetman.
“I need your print, please?” The registrar lifted her scanner higher.
Amber offered her thumb. The scanning plate was warm and a little slippery. Quite a few sweaty hands in the line ahead of her, she supposed.
“Amber Katherine Bierce, do you accept the terms of the contract you have signed with the entity identified as the Manifest Destiny Society and revoke all other rights save those guaranteed you in the aforementioned contract until such time as the contract has elapsed?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that by agreeing to these terms, you have become a member of the Manifest Destiny Society and a civilian of the planet identified as Plymouth, subject to all laws of that entity and that planet, both existing and to be determined, until such time as your contract has elapsed?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that when this document is finalized, you will not be permitted to renege on its terms and any attempt to renege on its terms will be prosecuted on three felony charges of theft, fraud and conspiracy to defraud, carrying no less a sentence than fifteen years in prison and a fine of no less than two million dollars, and that failure to pay that fine may carry its own liability?”
Nicci trembled.
“Yes,” said Amber.
“Great!” The registrar turned to let the Fleetman, who was apparently doing the witnessing, tap at the scanning screen. The registrar played with it some more, then printed out a plastine label. She applied this to one of the bracelets on her cart and fit it onto Amber’s wrist, pinching it to make it tight. “There you go! Enjoy your flight! May I take your print, please?” she chirped, turning her sunny, Manifestor’s smile on Nicci.
Amber watched the Fleetman run his restless, military stare out over the crowd of would-be colonists. He looked bored. When his eyes met hers, she said, “Are you coming with us
to Plymouth?”
“Hell, no,” he replied. “They had to pay me double just to do this much.”
That earned him as dirty a look as the registrar seemed capable of manufacturing on her perky, young face. He shrugged one shoulder in something like an apology, tipped Amber a wink when the registrar resumed the legal stuff, and went back to crowd-watching. Nicci got her bracelet. The trudge through the queue continued.
Not just ‘no’, but ‘hell, no’…
The next time the line took them close enough to a registrar, Amber reached out and waved for the accompanying Fleetman’s attention and asked if he was boarding.
“No, ma’am,” he replied firmly, which was not as unsettling as ‘hell, no,’ but was still pretty negative.
“I was told there was going to be a Fleet presence on Plymouth. I mean, the flight crew are all Fleet, right? They’re not…um…” …a bunch of Director-worshipping space-zealots?
The Fleetman smiled. “There will be a full military flight crew, ma’am. Six hundred and forty proud men and women of the first United States Deep-Space Fleet.”
“Is that all?”
“This isn’t a military operation,” the registrar inserted with a disapproving frown. He was a lot better at that than the last registrar.
The Fleetman gave him a knowing sort of glance and asked Amber if she had any other questions. She did not and the line was moving, so she shuffled on ahead and let them get started on the next colonist.
Six hundred and forty. Didn’t seem like a lot of crew for a ship the size of a football stadium, let alone the police force for fifty thousand people.
‘We’ll be way too busy colonizing to need policing anyway,’ Amber told herself, but couldn’t make herself believe it. She didn’t think it mattered how tiring life on the farm was going to be. People were always going to need policing, especially when things were new and scary and people were apt to be at their worst.
Nicci was looking at her, all wide eyes and apprehension. Amber smiled and squeezed her hand, disguising her misgivings with an ease born of many long years of practice. Worrying was useless now; the bracelet on her wrist was as good as handcuffs.
‘I’m not scared,’ thought Amber, stepping up to the head of the line at last. ‘I’m the tough one. I’m the strong one. I’m the one Nicci’s going to lean on for the next five years, so suck it up, little girl.’
They ran them and their duffel bags through the usual set of scanners, checked their thumbprints against their bracelets, gave them each a smile and the opportunity to opt out and be arrested—Nicci opened her mouth, but Amber squeezed her hand and she closed it again, shivering—and then they were sent down the tunnel and onto the shuttle, which was, in spite of its size and the cool lights and the seatbelts that locked them in and had no release button, just a big airplane. It smelled like one, especially when all the other people got squeezed in around them; it sounded like one, once the pilot droned out the weather conditions and how it affected their launch time; it felt like one when they taxied away from the terminal and turned onto the runway.
“Here we go,” said the pilot, sounding comfortingly bored.
No one else made a sound.
The shuttle began to move, slowly at first, but picking up speed fast until Amber could feel the funny tugs of lift under its wings. She squeezed Nicci’s hand again, but her sister did not respond—not with a word, not with a shiver, not even with tears. The shuttle bumped up once, twice, and then lurched into the sky and stayed there. Amber tried to look, but the nearest window was six nervous people away and it mostly showed her the wing anyway.
The shuttle was tipping as it flew, leaning everyone further and further back in their chairs. “Just a little jump now,” said the pilot, and almost exactly on the word ‘jump,’ there was a tremendous roar behind him and a mighty lurch straight up.
People screamed in the reedy, I-know-I’m-being-silly-but-Jesus-Christ-not-cool way they sometimes did if the elevator they were on suddenly quit working or some yappy dog on a leash took an unprovoked lunge at them. Some of them laughed a little afterwards as the shuttle ripped them out of Earth’s sky. Some cried instead. Amber squeezed Nicci’s hand and watched the stars come out through the nearest window.
The roaring noise gradually died away. The shuttle didn’t slow down or right itself, but with nothing but space through the windows to orient themselves around, it seemed to do both. Quite a few people threw up in the courtesy bags provided for that purpose. ‘Spacesick,’ Amber thought, watching everyone’s hair drift.
Now the shuttle slowed, firing its engines in little lurching bursts while the real ship rolled in and out of view through the windows, impossibly huge. The pilot came on to tell them they had permission to dock and that they’d feel a little bump when the clutch made contact. These words were followed within a few minutes by a loud scraping noise and a thump that made everyone rock sideways in their seats. The lights flickered. People screamed again, laughed, cried, threw up. ‘We sound like crazy people,’ thought Amber, frowning, and she put her arm around her sister and hugged her.
They waited for what felt like a very long time without anything happening until someone at the window suddenly announced they were going in. Everyone tried to lean over everyone else and look. Amber hugged Nicci and watched the lights dim and glow, dim and shiver.
According to the pilot, they docked. The clamps engaged. The stabilizers were initiated. Atmosphere was restored—she could see that one for herself when everyone’s hair came down—and the engines were cut. The pilot reminded them not to forget their bags and wished them all Godspeed and a great adventure. The shuttle doors opened. Their safety restraints unlocked.
No one moved.
Another perky Manifestor stuck her head inside and smiled at them. “Let’s get going, shall we? Just follow the white line to the boarding hub and an usher will be waiting to direct you to your room! So exciting! Single-file, just like back in school!”
“My school used the buddy system,” someone said, sounding worried.
The Manifestor looked at him. So did a lot of people, but her smile was nicer.
“Then I’ll be your buddy,” she said and held out her hand.
And just like that, it turned back into an airplane. People started getting up, looking for their bags, muttering and laughing and getting tangled up in their seat belts, and everything was fine again. Shouldering her duffel bag, Amber waited for a break in the stream of disembarking people and then joined it, holding her sister’s hand firmly in her own. ‘Just like an airport,’ she thought, stepping onto the painted line. ‘Nothing to worry about. Keep walking. Stay calm. It’s almost over.’
The queue moved faster than the one back at the skyport. They were already in space; she supposed there was really no point in anyone dragging their feet anymore. The halls they walked through were clean and well-lit and carpeted, not at all like the grim, utilitarian ships you saw in sci-fi movies. More like a hotel, except for all the shiny metal trimming. There were no windows, nothing to remind them that they were in space. There were a few pictures on the walls in the boarding hub, but they were all of the Director—walking with various dignitaries, frowning seriously at important documents, gazing pensively into the sky, clasping hands with his loving cultists, and just generally being inspiring. Supposedly, he was putting in a lot of public appearances these days, but she hadn’t seen him anywhere around the compound.
She found herself wondering if he was even coming to Plymouth with them.
“Welcome aboard!” said the square-jawed young usher waiting for her at the end of the line. He even fired off an honest-to-goodness salute which, in addition to raising Amber’s eyebrows, brought out a gust of laughter from the actual Fleet soldiers lounging around a little further down the corridor from the Manifestors. “I’m Crewman Everly Scott of the Pioneer! And you are…?”
“Amber Bierce,” said Amber. “Space Adventurer.”
The Fleetmen down t
he hall laughed again and this time some of the Manifestors joined in. Crewman Scott’s enthusiasm visibly iced over. He lowered his saluting hand and looked at her, not smiling.
‘Great,’ thought Amber. ‘Now he thinks I was making fun of him.’
Weren’t you? some small part of her wanted to know. It sounded a lot like her mother.
“Sorry,” Amber said, setting her duffel bag down. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Just nervous, you know. It’s my first time going to another planet.”
This prompted another good-natured rumble of humor down the hall, but did not appear to thaw Crewman Scott much. His professional smile went no further than his clenched jaw as he scanned their thumbprints again, checked whatever came up on his little screen against their papers, then against their wristbands, and finally gave them both an official nod of approval. “Bierce, Amber K.,” he said. “You’ve been assigned to bed FH-0419. Follow the green line to the family housing bay, take the elevator marked H to the fourth floor, turn right, and bed 19 is down the first hall on your right, okay?”
“H, four, right, right. I got it.”
“Bierce, Nichole S., you’ve been assigned to bed FW-1866,” Crewman Scott continued.
“What?”
“Follow the green line to the family housing bay and take the elevator marked W to the—”
“Hang on,” interrupted Amber, giving Nicci’s startled, clutching hand a distracted pat. “We’re supposed to be together.”
“—to the eighteenth floor—”
“I was told that we’d be together,” said Amber again, a little bit louder.
“—turn left and you’ll find your bed on the third hall on your right,” Crewman Scott concluded, holding out a helpful printed map of the ship. “Enjoy your flight, ladies.”
Amber did not take the map. “Are you finished?” she asked coolly.
“Enjoy your flight, ladies.”
“We were told we’d be stationed together.”