“Of course—”
“Then there’s no problem. Customs will find that, the appropriate contact will be notified, and part of the new code keeps her from finding the vacuum before it’s delivered. Simple. There. Done.”
“Good. Let’s—”
“Wait wait wait, don’t be so impatient. What does she have in now? Let... me... see... recorder-collator, good.”
“Now what the hell are you doing?”
“Cyberlinks don’t sleep the same way we do, there’s less buffer between waking and dreaming. You don’t want her remembering this, do you?”
“But you said this thing—”
“This immobilizes, it doesn’t lobotomize. A simple adjustment—”
The procession of senseless sounds and dim images crumbled into fragments and dispersed, leaving behind, upon waking, only a crawling unease that she could not quite ignore.
Clare avoided her. Nemily put it down to embarrassment over her outburst. She did not know how to reassure Clare, tell her that she did not take it personally, so she tried to ignore the new awkwardness between them. At least Toler had stopped coming around. When Nemily asked about him, Clare told her he had a new position on fourth shift. Nemily sensed Clare’s reluctance to discuss it. Not that it mattered, as long as Toler stayed away. Nemily wanted nothing to jeopardize her permit.
She went through her work distracted, unable to concentrate. Under the alchemists she would have been making explanations constantly, racking up a table of reprimands for minor oversights. On hydrogen the errors were virtually meaningless, but Nemily knew her performance was low. She attributed it to her pending emigration and all the attached concerns and tried not to let it bother her.
Five times she checked her personals and each time she forgot to go through one of her bags. She considered running a full diagnostic on her system, but the idea that something might be wrong scared her. Not now, then. Later, when she got to Aea, when it would not be a reason to prevent her from emigrating. If she had an error her permit could be frozen until it was repaired. If it could not be economically repaired, she could lose her chance to leave. She was not required to undergo a diagnostic before she left. Best to leave things undisturbed until she was off the moon.
She kept a picture of Aea tucked against one of her bags. Like a talisman, she regarded it as good luck for her, and she intended to carry it on board the transport in her jacket instead of packing it away.
Aea was the largest—and oldest—orbital, one of the three founding communities of the System Congress, including Mars and Lunase, an anchor of Signatory Space. It was an O’Neill colony, a giant shaft capped on both ends with docks and communications apparatus, enfolded by three enormous wings that functioned both as solar collectors and as blinds, opening and closing against the windows running the length of the tube to give the interior a day-night cycle. Built originally from several smaller orbitals in the years after the Exclusion, when Earth had closed itself off from the orbitals in response to their declared political independence, Aea had grown, piece by piece, into an enormous artifact hovering far out in space beyond the orbit of the moon, at the L4 libration point.
Beyond Aea other orbitals formed a stepping-stone chain throughout the inner system. Midline was between Earth and Mars. Brasa midway between Earth and Venus. Others, scattered about, interconnected by constant in-system traffic. Aea was building new habitats out among the Jovian moons and there was talk of going to Saturn soon.
Out of the mass of unasked-for cautionary advice she had been given, the only warning that seemed to have any substance was the one she had paid the least attention—departure anxiety. When the day came, Nemily experienced wave after wave of unfocused fear. She kept dropping things, rushed through routines and made mistakes, and worried constantly about nothing in particular.
Unexpectedly, Clare came with her to see her off. After the last month of almost unbearable tension, when every conversation they had tried to have turned into an argument about Nemily leaving, it surprised Nemily when Clare met her at the door to their space to escort her to Lunar Egress.
“It’s crowded,” she commented.
About forty people waited in the large room, all perched on the flimsy-looking plastic benches, arms and hands protectively around their belongings. A long counter dominated one wall, the window shuttered.
“It’s cold, too,” Clare added, folding her arms against her ribs. “Is there anything you left that you want me to do anything with?”
“No. If I forgot something you can keep it.”
“You? Forget something?”
“Have you talked to anyone about sharing space?”
Clare shrugged elaborately. “I thought of Ruann, the one who works for that wildcatter. But I might see if I can’t make it alone.”
“What about—?”
“I haven’t seen Toler in three weeks.” Clare’s head pivoted quickly, searching the room. She sighed. “I never knew so many people left.”
“From what I’ve heard, most come back.”
“I hear that, too, but you know, I’ve never talked to anyone who has.”
The metal blinds behind the counter rolled up loudly, revealing four people at consoles. One of them spoke into a microphone, his voice crackling through the room, unnecessarily loud.
“Well begin processing you through now for transfer to the freighter Colfax. Please have your permits, health chits, and Lunase IDs ready. Any delay in processing your exit visas may result in fine, prosecution, cancellation of permit, or all of the above.”
Nemily sorted her bags so that she could carry them easily in one hand. All her muscles ached from the adapt treatments, but nothing seemed much of an effort. Her gear seemed to weigh almost nothing now. She took her time arranging the straps and handles, aware of Clare’s intense stare.
“—after receiving your exit visas, proceed through the access to your left. There you will be issued your shipboard necessaries, which you will be responsible for and must return to the quartermaster of the Colfax when requested—”
Nemily stood. Clare reached out as if to touch her.
“I heard there’s an opening in oversight on the proton line down in section D-3. I thought maybe—”
“Clare.”
“—the space is so big, it might be more than I need. Maybe I can trade for smaller if it gets too much, but—”
“Clare.”
“—you need to piss, there’s a siphon on the foot end of your berth. Do not defecate. Aea wants your stool. It’s only a twenty-eight hour transit, you can hold it. If not, you’ll he scraping it off—”
“—doesn’t make a lot of sense to run all the way out to some tin can in space just to find a better position. You’ve ruined your body and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do—”
“Clare!”
“—three lines, here, here, and here. Keep hold of your personal belongings. Once through processing, Lunase denies all responsibility for property—”
“What?”
Nemily stood directly in front of Clare, looking down at her. Clare’s face showed a cascade of emotions, shifting slightly as each one claimed momentary supremacy.
“Why did it take you so long to say?”
“I don’t—”
“—if everyone cooperates, this won’t take very long at all and you’ll be on your way in no time.”
“Why now? You could have said any of this over the last three years.”
Clare winced. “I didn’t know what it meant.”
Three lines began to move, one body at a time, toward the desk. Nemily hoisted her gear.
“Nem,” Clare said, reaching out. She stopped short of touching Nemily. “If I’d said something sooner, would it have made a difference?”
“I don’t know.”
Clare stepped forward suddenly and hugged her. Nemily returned the embrace uncertainly.
“Thanks,” she said and stepped away from Clare to the far line.
> A cleric from the Temple of Homo Relmaginoratus waited at the end of the counter, dressed in the drab earth tones of his order, waving a small blue chasuble, and mumbling incomprehensibly as each person passed through, imparting a sense of overwhelming sadness at their leaving. The clerks worked steadily, processing each traveler, looking no less dour in their grey utilities, but far less threatening.
Nemily’s data cleared without a problem and she moved through the access, into a cramped hallway More personnel worked another desk at the right handing out the items necessary for the flight. A water bottle, emergency breather mask, and a safety harness and tether. From there, the hallway became a long tube that connected to the well-worn interior of the orbiter.
She wandered through the labyrinth of steerage-class berths, unable to find the slot assigned her. She recognized the first signs of panic. Without a berth they would put her off. A woman taller than Clare, dressed in a stained but bright red utility, helped her locate the assignment. Nemily slid her gear beneath the wide, thick-mattressed bed and pulled herself into the tube-like berth.
There was a fifteen-minute delay. She pulled out the picture of Aea to gaze at while she waited. The entire room lurched when the engines started, droning deeply through the hull. The degree of relief upon departure surprised her. The orbiter rattled and shook, and all the way to the big freighter Nemily kept looking nervously at the warning icons, waiting for the machine to turn around and head back. She did not relax until she collected her belongings and stepped aboard the bigger ship, to find another berth amid a maze of berths.
An hour into the initial flight the engines kicked on a second time and she nearly cried out, afraid the ship was heading back to Lunase.
Lying in her berth, held in place by mesh, she began going over all the warnings she had ever heard, especially those in the last weeks, when everyone who knew she was leaving insisted on telling her stories of people who had left and returned discontented with life outside Lunase. She recalled each one and replayed it with the perfect clarity her augments enabled. She then noticed another common thread, obvious now that she knew what to look for. The anxiety had been real for each speaker, but it was not the anxiety the words described.
It was not a fear of leaving but a fear of being unable to leave, that Lunase, no matter how far away one got, always held onto its own and dragged them back in the end.
“I’m not going back,” she whispered aloud. The bottom of the next berth was less than fifty centimeters away. She had no slate, no screen, no view of any other passenger. Steerage meant being hauled as much like cargo as possible without risking their lives. “Fm not going back.” Louder this time, with more conviction. “I’m not going back.”
She spoke quickly, a long string of assertion that took on the numbing drone of a mantra. As a child she used to go to the Temple of Homo Relmaginoratus and listened to the sycophants intone their litanies. In adolescence, the hypnotic quality of the cadences frightened her, and she stopped going. Now she spoke her declaration with the same monotone rhythm she had heard then. For a few moments she felt as if she were in the Temple. The air was cold and the chanting faint and insistent. She opened her eyes, her heart hammering, and saw the scratched bottom of the next berth.
But the chanting continued.
She listened.
All the passengers in steerage chanted. The words varied, but they all said, over and over, the same thing.
New places never make sense upon arrival.
“—g gradually increases toward the outer circumference. Where we are docking, g is minimal, less than a tenth standard. Therefore pay attention to safety instructions, do not bunch up in the access conduits, move slowly-”
There were no viewscreens in steerage. Aea remained an unseen place, somewhere “out there.” She gazed at her picture as the intercom droned on.
“—remain in your berths until you hear the claxon. Shifting g can cause injury in the confines of the passenger areas. When you hear the claxon—”
Aea’s shaft extended twenty-three kilometers. From a distance it seemed smooth enough, but up close the external constructs formed small forests of columns and poles and towers, patches of metal and composite barnacles that clung to the outer skin, and toward one end a larger ring that fit over the six-and-a-half-kilometer-in-diameter tube. It rotated once every two point seven minutes, which gave the interior almost a full g of gravity. Tiny service craft flitted about the exterior like bees.
“—deposit your water bottles, emergency breathers, and harnesses in the hopper marked in bright red as you leave. These are the property of the shipper and will be reissued. Failure to return company property—”
Aea had been sewn together from several separate torus stations. The project to bind the rings into one construct had taken less than fifteen years, but each ring represented anywhere from five to twenty-five years of time and effort.
“—no fatalities on this voyage, for which we are proud and grateful. It has been a pleasure serving you. May your stay on Aea be a fruitful one—”
The claxon sounded and Nemily who had become aware over the last half an hour of having weight, eased out of the berth and climbed down to the deck. She drew her baggage from the locker at the base of her berth, third one up from the deck, then looked back up at the stack and counted seven slots. Ladders now extruded from the dividing walls. People higher up leaned over the edge and wrestled their belongings out of the storage space beneath them. Nemily was able to reach her own easily enough, but several people seemed to be having difficulty. Everything looked different, felt different with an up-down orientation and no way to float in place. It surprised her how quickly she had grown acclimated to weightlessness.
People crowded in the narrow aisles, gazes shifting from one meaningless detail to another, pausing on the faces around them, perhaps looking for someone who did not seem afraid. Nemily did not know what her own expression looked like but several people gave her brief hopeful smiles.
The light g deceived. People moved too quickly, bounded in the air, collided with others or with the emptying berths. Nemily concentrated on imitating a careful stride. Another queue, a crowded warren, people waiting for resources or trying to get through a jam to get home. She hoped not all the data lied. Aea was supposed to be spacious inside, plenty of room, and limited its population to keep crowding down. She did not want to spend the rest of her life standing in lines waiting for permission to breathe. She tightened her grip on her gear and put one foot before the other, another half meter gone by
The data also claimed that Aea had never been finished on the inside, that life was lived amid open strutwork under the glare of constant sunlight and vertigo from the rotation of the orbital itself. Nemily had decided not to believe that part. The exterior construction had been finished for almost thirty years now, it seemed reasonable that in three decades the interior would be just as finished. Perhaps reality lay between the two assumptions. What would it be like walking across a girder with the stars visible below you?
No one talked. Between the ugly snorts of the signal all she heard was the shuffle and scrape of feet and fabric, an occasional flurry of curses as someone fell or rammed another. The claxon ended, the queue moved forward; chill air blew through the vents.
She looked up just as she passed through the hatch into the connecting umbilical. The red lettering around the rim had been scuffed to illegibility. The surface of the umbilical was a dull grey except for a path almost two meters wide beneath their feet which shone brightly, buffed to a high finish. It was an old ship.
As she emerged from the umbilical into a bright, clean chamber, Nemily searched for labels to identify the level. The docking bays formed four concentric rings around the hub. Within, she imagined, lay a maze of tunnels and chambers and factories and warehouses and corridors. What she saw here resembled the lounge back in Lunase, which gave her a brief fright till she noticed the differences—colors, signs, subtly different shapes. A low
-ceilinged room with plastic chairs attached to the walls, and everything seemed to direct attention to the pair of desks at the far end through which everyone must pass, one at a time, overseen by several people in dark green suits who looked as efficient as Lunessa workers in the same job. She gripped her bags tighter, startled by a sudden anxiety. She looked around quickly for another exit, but the only way out lay behind her, back aboard the aging freighter. The line funneled down toward the desks; people shuffled along, tired and probably as nervous as she.
Closer, she saw people placing their belongings on a platen below the right-hand desk. The platen withdrew through a flap and a new one took its place, ready for the next load. The left-hand desk directed each person through another door on the other side. She chewed at her lower lip. Only five people between her and the desks and she realized that she did not want to surrender her gear. It was all she had. To give it up—
“Please place your belongings on the platen and step to the opposite counter.”
She looked up at the woman giving the instruction. There was no malice in her narrow, dark face, just polite concern that what she must do be done well. Nemily hesitated. The woman pointed.
“Please place your things here. Step to the opposite counter.”
Nemily drew a lungful of air. She felt a shudder as she set down her bags. For a moment she felt certain that her hands would not open. She did not want the woman to repeat the instruction a third time, that would be a very bad way to start life on Aea. She closed her eyes and opened her fingers and turned quickly away.
“Here is your temporary ID chit. Please do not lose this. Your belongings have been tagged with an identifying code that matches this one. You’ll need it to retrieve your property Please step through that door for your initial interview.”
Blood throbbed in her ears. She glanced back at the platen, but someone else’s luggage now occupied the space. There was nothing more she could do. She stepped through the door.
She was on Aea.
She wondered why they called it steerage.
“Please step this way. We have questions.”
Remains Page 6