by Ginger Booth
Now firmly affixed, she braced her boots flat against the side of the shuttle. She and Ben held the lines for the open side of the net, the first that needed to exit from the water, and the hardest to pull. “One, two, heave!”
Her first arm’s pull was hard. The next overhand was damned near impossible. But Ben was stronger. When his edge started to crest into the air, her resistance lightened, and at last they had the front of the net out.
“One pull only, you guys,” she called to Teke and Eli, voice raised despite the in-helmet comms. The rat-a-tat-tat of falling rain, their flapping clothing, and the roar of wind and sea was loud even in her helmet. They managed to loose their corners, mostly by virtue of the wave falling away beneath them.
“Ben and me only!” She hauled with her right again. “Altogether now, heave,” one, two, “heave!” Her elbows were beginning to ache, and her hands growing blisters despite the gauntlets. But the labor grew far easier once the saggy center of the net finally sucked free of the churning grey waters below.
Fishing was hard labor. Sass suspected a fisherman in Alaska would consider her a wimp for complaining.
Slowly the net rose, mounded with slimy weeds. Through her streaming helmet she caught a few flashes of flat silver – and not a small beast either. Their ratcheting guylines wouldn’t give up their progress, so a couple times she called a break, giving them a chance to shake out their arms and catch their breath.
Finally the mess of webbing thudded to rest against the shuttle, only a forearm’s reach below the airlock threshold. Ben called the halt this time. He unfastened himself from the grab bar, and shifted inside to lie prone on the airlock floor, Teke and Eli displaced into the back corners. He reached in with his gauntlet and started pulling seaweed out of the way, tossing it to the wind.
Sass’s eye caught on the tempting glimpses of that flat expanse of silver. Smaller than the sturgeon, it was still one prodigious fish. It took her a second to realize Ben had quit moving, his hand dropped to the seaweed.
That’s not safe. Mr. Big Fish no doubt had teeth. “Ben? Get your hand out of there! Ben? Rego hell!”
21
In the airlock, Teke was quick on the uptake as always. He hauled Ben backward by his boots. Eli flipped him over while Sass still struggled frantically to free herself from her bungee mooring.
“Eli! Teke! Talk to me!” she demanded.
“Pressure failure. Atmo exposure. Where’s the leak?!”
Academics ran slow in outrageous emergencies. Captains excelled at them. “Tourniquet on the elbows! Now!” Sass shouted at them.
“But –!” “Fine!” the professors of botany and physics replied, as Sass extended one slippery boot ball-of-the foot onto the door seal.
“What the rego hell?!” Kassidy demanded. She was their medic, after all. But she was also bungee-secured outside above the doorway, in no position to help.
“Ben’s down. Get in here ASAP but do not, repeat NOT touch the net!”
Fortunately Teke finally glanced up at Sass. He quickly braced himself in the doorway so he could pull her in by the arm.
“Thank you. Tourniquets help any? Eli?”
“I – Maybe. I’m losing him.”
She pushed past Teke, who remained braced in the doorway trying to figure a way to haul Kassidy in by her boots. Sass fell to her knees beside Ben and looked to his face before his vitals. Yeah, that was definitely atmo exposure. She checked suit pressure next. Good nitrox was being rapidly restored. Therefore, stranding Kassidy outside while they did a crash airlock cycle wouldn’t help. “Teke, get her in here. Loose the net if you need to. Meaning cut the lines.”
“Not stupid, Sass,” Teke retorted.
“I prefer ‘Aye, captain’ in an emergency!” she barked at him.
“Aye, captain! Kassidy, hold up while I cut the net loose.”
“What?” Eli asked. “No! At least grab some seaweed!”
“Belay that!” Sass cut him off. “Nobody touches the net contents! Kassidy in ASAP!”
“Oh. Right,” Eli muttered. “Kassidy, his air is restored. Well, his arms are cut off –”
Sass ignored the rest of what he said. No, the tourniquets to the elbows were just an emergency measure to get air in his helmet. But if he had skin exposed, the high-oxygen atmo just poured in slower. She grabbed for Eli’s specimen bags. She bagged Ben’s mitt on her side, sealing it with space duct tape. Eli caught on and rapidly did the same on his side. Then they released the tourniquets.
Ben’s air quality dipped briefly, then restored to normal. Unfortunately, his life signs remained reedy.
“Kassidy, hurry up,” Sass crooned.
As though in answer to her prayer, Teke stepped backward onto her hand, kicked her in the kidney, and Kassidy appeared in a perfect 10-point landing. She bowed.
“What ate Ben?” she inquired, peering into the webbing as she closed the airlock on herself. This wasn’t dangerous. The outer door had sensors that bounced open like an elevator. The instant the door closed, she hit the button to cycle the lock.
“I wasn’t done cutting off the net,” Teke complained.
Kassidy shrugged unconcern and squatted at Ben’s head. Sass shifted to make room for her. “Then we bring it with us.” Flippancy aside, their medic checked over Ben’s vitals. She pointed to the cycle telltales above the inner door. “Tell me when it’s green.”
“Green,” Eli reported a couple seconds later.
Kassidy immediately pulled off her gloves and helmet, then Ben’s helmet, while Sass opened the inner door, and pulled people and gear out of her way. “Sass, I need him in the auto-doc stat. Go, go, go!”
Judge hastily shifted out of the pilot’s seat as an intent blond captain flew at him. The second Sass had the ship moving, she hit the comms to Merchant. “Joey, Sass. Shuttle coming in hot. Need a clear run to med-bay. Contaminated. Request Walker to carry.”
“Aye, sar!” Joey belted out. “Uh, who’s down?”
“Your captain.”
“Rego hell.” Joey shut up and got busy preparing for their arrival. Which was just as well, really. The ramming speed at which she flew straight at Merchant, then braked exactly in time, would have given the poor guy heart failure.
Shuttle roll, translate sideways, latch, shuttle roll vertical again, and lock. The second Sass hit the final button to secure to the larger ship, Walker overrode the airlock’s outer door and swooped Ben up into his arms. He jumped to the hold floor. Sass heard his footfalls down below. He took three strides and fewer seconds to slap his captain into the auto-doc, Kassidy’s lighter tread at his heels.
Sass sat there breathing hard for a moment. Judge pointed to her helmet. She huffed a soft laugh at herself and removed it, then cautiously pulled off her gloves. “On Ben, it was the palm side of the gloves. Dissolved through.”
Judge nodded solemnly. “I’ll be careful cleaning up. Bag his gloves for testing. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Send Quire with it, anyway. I got me some decontamination to do.” With Ben’s life on the line, they’d skipped a few steps.
She shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded. “In med-bay. Thank you, Judge. You’re a good man.”
“Yeah. For future reference, cap, I’m also one hell of a pilot. Could’ve done that for you. Faster.” He slowly grinned.
That surprised a laugh out of her. “Thanks. Needed that.”
She used a hand on his shoulder to lever herself up, then followed to med-bay. Teke had run ahead. Eli quietly nodded respect. He’d stay and see if he could figure out what went wrong for Ben.
“Hey, Ben!” Sass beamed warmly and gently smoothed damp locks of light brown hair off his forehead. The auto-doc’s legions of nanites did good work. His color was vastly improved, and his hazel eyes fluttered open. They slowly focused onto her with a smile.
The smile died into puzzlement as he took in his med-bay surroundings. “Um?”
“You’re in the auto-doc. You got exposed to Sylvan air an
d some killer seaweed.”
“Huh. I can’t…”
“You’re paralyzed below the neck at the moment. Don’t worry. That’s just the auto-doc holding you still for repairs. No nerve damage, I think?” Sass looked hopefully to Kassidy for confirmation, who shrugged. “You’ll be fine! Want to talk to your husband?”
Ben’s face took on a crooked smirk. “Sure!”
Sass soon got Cope on the comms. She’d already briefed him on their status, but he’d begged to speak to Ben the instant he was conscious.
“Hey, buddy! Good drugs?”
“Yeah! Huh. Where are you?” The loopy captain sought to find the source of the voice.
“I’ll put you on screen,” Sass offered. Kassidy glowered at her as she took over the medical monitor for video chat. But there were two auto-docs in Merchant’s cramped med-bay. Sass trusted she could watch on the other monitor if needed. Auto-doc progress wasn’t much of a spectator sport. Ben was out of danger, with estimated time to complete repairs another 14 hours. Which seemed awfully drastic for sticking a gauntleted hand into seaweed.
Kassidy got the other monitor going and displayed the schematic of his hands. Oh. Yeah, regenerating such dexterous nerves took a while.
Ben was staring at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Talk to Cope.”
“You don’t lie so good.”
Fortunately Cope took over. “How do you like fishing?”
Ben flashed a smile. “Was fun! Do that again. Except… Who’s flying my ship?”
“Judge is acting captain,” Sass soothed. “We’ll be back at Sylvan One in a few hours. No worries.”
“Not Wilder,” Ben asserted.
Cope laughed. “Definitely not. It’s all under control, buddy. You can relax.”
“I dunno.” Ben’s crooked leer was back. “I say dumb stuff under drugs. When I get home, we have sex, right?”
“If you want,” Cope agreed, eyes laughing.
Sass waved a come-along at Kassidy. “We can give you some privacy.”
“No, stay!” Ben insisted. “You did the…screen…thing. You’re useful. Is it weird having me as your boss? It’s kind of fun giving you orders.” He laughed.
“Careful, buddy,” Cope warned. “You’ll be telling them you’re a closet frill next.”
“I am! A closet frill. I’m not really a frill though. Just…” Ben lost the train of that argument. “Is Nico having sex with a robot bird?”
“I don’t want to know,” Cope assured him. “But when you’re off the drugs, you can ask him.”
“Because we like the boyfriend. Bird friend. Because Nico likes the bird more than us.”
“For now,” Cope allowed. “Though the more I know him, the more I like the bird. Maybe in a human shape.”
Ben scowled. “I like him as a bird. His neck is all curvy. I want a bird neck like that to hug you with.”
“You are so stoned, baby.”
“I can’t feel my hands, Cope. I think a fish bit my hands off and they’re not telling me. I think the paralysis is permanent. But then instead of a wheelchair, Nico will make me a long-necked emu body so I can walk again. And I can hug you with my neck. And I’ll be an AI like Sass. You’ll still love me when I’m an AI robo-bird, won’t you?”
Cope propped his head on a hand to follow all this. “I love you now.”
“And always?”
“I don’t always love you now. But sure.”
Ben’s brow crumpled. “Are you not telling me something?”
“Buddy, you’re not an AI, and I won’t give you an emu body. But that’s OK. Because the auto-doc will fix you up.”
“And you’ll make love to me tonight.”
“Promise,” Cope agreed.
“Sylvan sucks,” Ben confided. “Too dangerous. Even Denali wasn’t this bad.”
The humor drained from Cope’s expression on the monitor. “Denali was this bad, and worse. But no worries, buddy. Just get well.”
“We brought these people here to die,” Ben countered. “Fools. For what. Money?”
“Hey!” Sass interrupted. “The Denali had an impossibly beautiful dream, of leaving their hell-hole of a planet and coming to a gorgeous new one. I like it here!”
Ben slowly shifted focus to her. “You never stop dreaming. That’s why I’m your boss now, instead of you my boss.”
“Buddy, stop,” Cope urged.
“No, Cope, she never grew up. Or she did grow up, but then she died, and the AI rebuilt her as a teenager forever. Gullible.”
Sass rose in annoyance. “OK, now I leave.”
“No, don’t go!” Ben begged. “You’re useful. You did the…thing…on the…thing. And I love you forever. I mean, not like Cope cuz that’s gross. I mean, you’re pretty, but not to me. Now Tikki, he’s sexy as hell. And Cope too, kinda.”
“Please stop talking, buddy,” Cope urged. “Sass, don’t listen. It’s the drugs. Think the Schuyler Jailbirds will win this season?”
“John Copeland, I’ve never given a good goddamn about the Schuyler Jailbirds. But if Frazzie hasn’t gotten laid yet, I bet she will by the time we get back.”
Cope scrubbed his face with both hands at this mention of their daughter’s virginity, or incipient lack thereof.
Sass interjected, “How happy for her! Such a major milestone in a girl’s life. Right, Cope?”
“Murf-yeah,” Cope muttered. “Can you raise the drip rate and put him back to sleep?”
“No,” Kassidy judged. “This is just getting good. Ben, I’m filming you for blackmail purposes.”
“Do I look pretty?”
“Yes,” all three chorused. “You look gorgeous, buddy,” Cope added. “Always do.”
“You’re sweet. Can we have sex soon?”
“Just as soon as you’re back,” Cope promised. “But I ought to work now. Take good care of him for me, ladies, will you? And try to forget everything he says. It’s his sense of humor. I shudder to imagine his father on these drugs.”
“In vino veritas,” Sass murmured. “He’s being honest.”
Cope rocked his head yes-and-no. “Not really. It’s a game. He traces moonbeams to their logical fallacy conclusions for amusement, then bounds onto another rainbow just to see where it goes. Glimpses of how he thinks, not what he thinks. He doesn’t mean anything by it. Cope out.”
Sass gazed with disfavor on her addled boss, who beamed back at her. “You’ll never marry Clay, will you?” Ben asked.
She sighed and looked to Kassidy in appeal, who shrugged. “I’ve often wondered the same, Sass.”
Ben smiled. “Because you’re a instigator bitch. Right, Kassidy?”
Sass shook her head. “Computer, lower lights to nighttime settings in med-bay. Sleep sweet, Ben.”
“I’ll stick pins in you while you’re unconscious,” Kassidy promised. “Won’t that be fun?”
“Wow, I’ve never tried S&M,” Ben shared. “Except in virtual. Does that count, kinky sex in VR?”
Sass smoothed his hair again and kissed his forehead. “All experiences count, Ben. Even drugged ones, so long as you remember them.”
“He won’t remember a word of this,” Kassidy assured her. “Not consciously.”
Ben refuted this. “I’ll remember Sylvan sucks. It’ll eat Denali and everything beautiful they created. All the pretty geisha will die. Bad planet.”
“It’s not your fault, Ben,” Sass crooned to him. “Other people get to be heroes too, remember?”
“They’re not good at it like we were. We were awesome when we saved Denali Prime, weren’t we? But this time we’re not saving them. We’re killing them. For money.”
Sass patted his cheek and left the room.
She wasn’t killing anyone, she reassured herself. Sylvan was stunningly beautiful, a dream come true. She facilitated adventurers willing to tackle impossible odds and win. Ben wouldn’t say these things in his right mind. And what if he did? She followed her conscience, a
nd he followed his. She wasn’t his mentor anymore, they’d flipped roles. She felt no compunction to please her boss.
And yet, his loopy criticisms did niggle at her. Especially that part about her being a perpetual teenager, gullible and following foolish dreams. Maybe she could ask him when he was –
No. He didn’t mean anything by it, she told herself firmly.
She strolled to the bridge, determined to second-guess herself and be thoroughly cynical while advising Judge at the helm in his role as acting captain. Of course, Judge tossed her agenda out the window by asking no questions, flirting shamelessly, and comparing notes on the bars they’d visited among Pono’s rings.
Eventually Eli dropped by with his verdict. Not only was the world ocean off-limits, but Cope should spend some quality time repairing surfaces on the shuttle and possibly Merchant’s sidewall. The chemical compounds in the ocean were a potent brew. The mere spray had damaged the container anchors and webbing. The seaweed concentrated the toxins and dissolving agents. The neurotoxin that knocked Ben unconscious likely came from the saltwater fish.
“Could that make him hypercritical?” Sass mused. “He was pretty harsh in med-bay.”
“Did he call himself a frill?” Eli advised. “That’s pure Ben, leaking his insecurities.”
“Oh.”
22
Sass felt seriously underdressed when Ben and Cope arrived at Thrive’s shuttle dock two days later for the hand off meeting. She and Clay wore their nicest coverall, and she’d put on some lipstick. The Acosta-Copelands both wore beautifully fitted suits over quality fine sweaters, no ties. Their shoes – all too noticeable from her perspective at the foot of the ladder – didn’t match the fine textiles. Cope wore his perennial steel-toed cowboy boots, Ben tooled leather loafers. Once down, they nodded solemnly.
“The Selectmen are waiting in the galley,” Sass told them, sweeping an arm to invite them toward the stairway. The Denali finally lived in high-occupancy tents now, so those guests wore pressure suits and sleep-deprived expressions.