by Paul Melko
“But—”
“There was no way,” Flora said, “a ship from L4 would have reached me in time with my air supply.”
“You did the right thing,” Aldo said. “And you did it better than I could have done it.” He took a small box from his pocket and opened it. “You may not be on outside duty anymore, but you’re still a space hound.”
He leaned forward and clipped a small pin on Meda’s jumpsuit. His two other podmates attached one on Strom and Moira. Then they did the same to Manuel and me.
I twisted the pin in my hand; it was the head of spider, running down a cable.
“You latched onto that cable like a real spider,” Aldo explained. I looked at Aldo’s jumpsuits. He had a similar pin, with a sled on it. Flora had a pin with a flower. All the space hounds had pins.
“This is our way of saying thanks,” Flora said.
I felt Strom welling up and knew if the big lug started blubbering there was no hope for the rest of us. I nudged him in the side.
“Enough of that!” Aldo said. “Let’s have some food!”
The space hounds had made a potluck of zero-gee dishes that we passed around, and the pods mingled and chatted, and for the first time since we’d gotten there, we were a part of the station. I couldn’t remember why I’d not wanted to come in the first place.
During the meal, Flora leaned close and said, “Thanks for not ratting me out to Hilton. I know that would have gotten you off the hook.”
“I doubt it,” Meda said. “She’d still have argued we had no idea you would have run out of air.”
Flora laughed. “She would have. Thank you.”
Her bruises were faded and the broken bones were all knitted; she showed us the castcrete wrapping around her chest and abdomen. “Really gets in the way when I … you know.” She nodded at Aldo, and Meda blushed. Then we all did.
“You and Aldo?”
“Yes! Did I shock you?”
“No.”
Flora gave us a smile. “Yes I did.”
Before long the other space hounds drifted back to work or to their quarters, leaving just Flora, Aldo, and us.
They questioned us about our training, and I felt that they truly envied us our chance to explore beyond the solar system.
“Bears?” Flora asked. “Pod-bears?”
“Yes.”
“Where did they come from?” Aldo asked. “Someone surely made them and would take responsibility for that.”
“We searched for a week,” Meda explained. “They flew in teams of military duos to search the river, but they found nothing.”
“How can you miss three large bears?” Aldo asked.
“And the scientific facilities to build and grow them?” Flora added.
I remembered the map of their territory the bears had shared with Strom, how the river was at the far eastern edge of where they roamed.
“We tried to tell them that the bears probably were heading west, but the military duo who was in charge kept us looking near the river.”
“Military duos,” Flora said with scorn. “The military should use trios instead.”
“We don’t think he even believed the bears had been there.”
Good thing we never told him Strom could communicate with them, Manuel added.
In fact we had told no one. That the bears existed at all was incredible enough. That we could share chemical memories with them was beyond fathoming. The one person we might have consulted with—Mother Redd—never came to the camp, and after the incident with Malcolm Leto, we never got the chance to ask her.
“That McCorkle should have gone into the military instead of space work,” Flora said.
“Why’s that?” Meda asked.
“He came up with you, and while you’ve managed to save my life, he’s still doing scut work that’s one step up from automation.”
“You’d think he would catch on with all the questions he asks,” Aldo said.
“He’s a busybody groundhog,” Flora said. “Perfect for the military.”
“We’re going to lobby Hilton to let you back on outside duty,” Aldo said. “It doesn’t make any sense until the sleds are overhauled. But in a week or two … We’re still shorthanded.”
“Thanks. Though the spiders are really interesting,” Meda said.
Aldo raised an eyebrow, but my and Manuel’s grins made him realize the joke.
“That on your neck?” Flora asked. “It doesn’t look like a scar. It’s metal.”
Meda’s hand jumped to the back of her neck, touching the metal interface jack, and involuntarily we slipped closer together.
“I’m sorry,” Flora said quickly. “I didn’t … I should have taken your hint.”
“It’s okay,” Meda said. “Malcolm Leto gave it to me,” Meda added.
“Malcolm Leto, the last-of-the-Community Malcolm Leto?” Aldo asked.
“Yeah. That’s him. He tried to … kidnap me. Part of me.”
“Does the interface work?”
“Yes.”
“You could access the Ring,” Flora said.
“We never thought—I guess so.”
Change the subject, I sent. It was Meda who had been violated, but all of us had lived it in her memories and dreams.
“Can’t they get rid of it?”
“No, they tried, but they can’t.”
Change the subject!
“Can’t—”
“Listen, can we talk about something else?”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry,” said Aldo, but his eyes were on Meda, on her neck.
Silence among us for a long moment.
“Thanks for the pins,” Meda said, finally. “We’d better get back to studying.”
“Sure.”
Three days later, we were called away from the lab for a call on our desktop from Earth, from Mother Redd.
“Dears, I hope all is well with you,” she said, from the family room of the farm.
“Yes. We’ve had some incidents,” Meda said. “We’re working in the biology lab here, on cable spiders.”
“Good,” Mother Redd said, then frowned. “I’ve news for you. They’ve picked the captain of the Consensus.” My stomach dropped.
If she’s calling us, it’s not us, I said. It would have been an OG official if it was us. It would have been Colonel Krypicz.
“It’s not us,” Meda said dully.
“No, I’m sorry. It was—”
“Elliott O’Toole.” My eyes were burning, and the first wave of vertigo I’d ever felt spun the room around me. Strom took my hands steadying me.
We’ve lost the ship.
“Yes. Please don’t take it hard. There are many things you can do. Many things that you are good at.”
Shut up! I cried silently.
“Don’t,” Meda said. “We don’t want to hear that speech.”
My head ached. No starship. No voyage to the String beyond Neptune’s orbit. No chance to be what we had been built to be.
“Why not us?” Meda said.
Hilton’s poor recommendation.
We’re better than Elliott O’Toole.
We’ve always been better than Elliott.
Why Elliott?
The interface.
The rape.
It made horrid sense.
This is your fault, Meda! I sent. She turned to me, and I saw the tears in her eyes, the horrified look, and my anger fell away. I was the pilot, but we had all lost the ship.
Sorry.
“It’s because of what Malcolm Leto did to us, isn’t it?” Meda whispered.
“No, no,” said Mother Redd, but the lie was apparent. “It’s not that …”
“They can’t trust that we’ve not been compromised. They’re afraid the interface can control us, wreck the pod.”
Mother Redd didn’t answer.
“It’s not true,” Meda said. “It won’t happen again. Leto did that only because we couldn’t control the interface when it was n
ew. I was alone then. Vulnerable.”
“There are people in the Overgovernment who don’t trust any Ring technology,” Mother Redd said. “They wanted to cut you from the project immediately.”
It would have been better if they had.
The starship is Ring tech.
Useless. We’re useless.
“The Consensus is Ring technology. The Rift is Ring technology!” Meda said.
“I don’t disagree,” Mother Redd said sharply. “I know this is a shock. But you have to work yourself through it. Please understand that we fought for you as long as we could.”
Meda nodded.
“Thanks for telling me,” Meda said, turning the desktop off.
She turned then, and I pulled her into my arms. We all fell together, crying.
I’m sorry.
The morning found us hollow, spent. Strom goaded us to rise, to shower and dress.
We still have weeks of duty left, he sent. We will do what is asked of us here.
I could not reply, and even Manuel’s grunt was too much effort for me. I lay suspended in my netting, watching the terminus slide across the Earth.
“Come on, Quant,” Meda said. “We have to go to the lab.”
She’s in a stupor.
Again.
With us around?
Snap her out of it.
Anger turned me to face my pod. “Don’t treat me like that!” I shouted. “I’ve lost everything that makes me worthwhile, don’t you see?”
No! Strom sent. That’s not true.
I’m not like the rest of you. I was built, designed, created to be a mathematical savant, to understand intuitively physics. To pilot the Consensus. That’s what I do. Down there, I’m nothing. My job doesn’t exist. Without you, I’m not even human.
Oh, Quant, no, Moira sent. You’re wrong. We are none of us human without the rest of us.
I blinked back tears. Is that true?
Forever, Meda said.
Moira and Meda pampered me in the shower, dressed me, and wouldn’t even let me brush my own hair. The hollowness was still there, but it was partially filled with my pod.
A message found us in the bio lab: Hilton wanted to see us right away. I blinked, lost in the numbers and charts of tensile strength and web lattices.
That can’t be good, Manuel sent.
We stowed the equipment and logged out of the lab. Our path through the station took us by the traffic control center. A trio sat before screens marking the pageant of craft through local space. The plot of Newtonian bodies pulled me in, and I was a part of the wheeling lines, the panorama of forces.
Quant!
Moira had doubled back for me.
Coming, just lost in the …
I know. Come on.
There’s a barge coming in tomorrow.
The commander’s assistant halted us in the outer office, and we clung to the far wall outside Hilton’s office for fifteen minutes, waiting. Then the duo, Anderson McCorkle, appeared.
What’s he doing here? Strom asked.
Always asking questions about us. Always looking, I sent. I balled up memories of his comments in the hydroponics bay.
One of him, face expressionless, watched us as he entered Hilton’s office without stopping.
He seems to have finally gotten his space legs, Manuel sent.
My mind thrust facts and conjecture together. The intuitive leap formed into hypothesis, then coalesced into theory.
He’s against us, I sent. We’re in danger.
No … , Meda started, then she shared my thoughts, and we fell silent, reaching consensus.
Did he sabotage Flora’s sled?
Perhaps.
Why?
To force our hand.
Because he couldn’t get to ours.
He didn’t know which sled was ours, I sent. I had told him our sled was in the bay, but the techs had pushed it out that same day, leaving the second sled there.
Flora’s sled, Strom sent. The same flower pattern that she wore on her collar had been stenciled on the second sled.
He’s a military duo.
We’re in danger.
“You may go in,” the commander’s assistant said.
This time, all three of the commander was looking at us. McCorkle hung behind her, a faint smile on his faces.
“If I had known how compromised you were, I would never have let you on this station,” she said flatly. “Major McCorkle has explained everything to me.”
Major.
She pointed at Meda. “You have an interface jack.” She pointed at me. “You are autistic. No wonder you managed to wreck this station.”
Meda was about to protest, not about the interface jack, but about her accusation about me.
Don’t, I sent. Like black holes, the forces in this room were aligned against us. We could not play from the defensive. Wait.
Meda remained silent. I looked directly at Major McCorkle, matching his slight smile.
“You would have been reassigned at the end of your term anyway. I’m accelerating that, placing you in Major McCorkle’s custody, and putting you on tomorrow’s barge.”
“We are under arrest?” Meda asked.
The commander frowned. “Major McCorkle is responsible for you from now on. He’ll do whatever he has to to keep the station safe.”
“I repeat, are we under arrest?”
McCorkle spoke. “As if you could go anywhere.”
Ask the other question, I sent.
“Thank you, Commander Hilton, for the opportunity to work on Columbus Station. Have you found who sabotaged Flora’s sled yet?”
“Sabotage?” she said, the word erupting from her.
“Something a military duo might do, perhaps,” Meda added.
I watched McCorkle’s face contort, a rictus followed by forced relaxation. The forces in the room shifted.
Bingo.
“It should be easy to find him,” Meda added. “He’s not an adept saboteur, since he sabotaged the wrong sled and didn’t even do it well enough to finish the job.”
“It was mechanical failure,” McCorkle said.
Hilton glared at his interruption.
“How do you know, Major?” Meda asked. “We’ll be in our cabin.”
We filed out, the eyes of both of them drilling into us. That was not how McCorkle had wanted it go, but we were certain now that McCorkle had sabotaged Flora’s sled by mistake. And now Hilton had suspicions.
In our cabin we tried Mother Redd, but the desktop flashed an access error repeatedly.
He’s got us locked down.
When does the shuttle arrive?
I remembered the space traffic screen. Six hours.
No one will know we’re leaving the station with McCorkle. We’d be entirely in his power.
He was willing to kill.
We can’t afford to be in his power.
The door chimed.
Aldo, Manuel sent after peeking through the door peep.
“I heard what happened. It’s not fair,” he said. “I’ve asked for you as a permanent person on my team. A real space hound.”
“We’re scheduled for the next transport to Sabah Station,” Meda said. “Hilton is shipping us out. We’ve supposedly been assigned to Singleton Relations in Idaho.”
“Your practical isn’t over yet,” Aldo said. “What do you mean, ‘supposedly’?”
“McCorkle is taking us back to Earth. We’re in his custody.”
“That puking groundhog? Why?”
“He’s Major McCorkle.”
“Military? A spy? All military personnel are supposed to go by their rank on station.” Aldo’s face was grim.
“Can you send a message to someone on Earth for us?”
“I can, but not for another six hours,” Aldo said. “Comm is down for repairs.”
He’s locked down the whole station.
There’s no way we can get word to Mother Redd until the barge is gone.
&nb
sp; “What?” Aldo asked, noting the thoughts floating between us.
“McCorkle may have sabotaged Flora’s sled. He may have been trying to kill us. If we get on that barge, he’ll have us in his complete control.”
“McCorkle,” Aldo said darkly. “We can take care of him.”
“No, Aldo. He’s military.”
“Well, we can’t hide you on Columbus Station. And there’s nowhere to run to. A sled won’t make it to Sabah Station.”
Nowhere to run, I thought, considering the map I had made for the pod a week ago, one that included not just the OG space facilities.
The Ring, I sent.
Meda looked at me, shocked. I felt her fear, and it mingled with my own apprehension and fascination. The chance to enter it, to study its physics, drew me toward it.
I don’t want to go there, she sent.
It’s our only chance, I said.
Malcolm Leto, she sent.
It’s empty, Strom sent. He’s not there.
What if he is?
He isn’t, I sent.
She nodded, slowly. “Aldo, we’ll need your help.”
“Anything.”
The Ring.
Near the end of third shift, still three hours before the barge was scheduled to arrive, we pulled up to the sled bay. As we passed the traffic control center, we saw Klada Ross inside, talking with the controller, one of him telling a story, the controller laughing, his back to the screen. One of Klada gave me a wink as we passed.
The bay was empty save for Flora and Aldo. Aldo waved us over while Flora watched from the other bay doors, ready to distract anyone coming into the bay. It wasn’t expected; there was no third shift outside work scheduled.
“Ready?” Aldo asked. He was already suited up, and he helped us quickly get into our own suits.
“What the hell is going on?”
We turned. McCorkle was coming through the door into the bay. Flora pushed off to intercept him.
“McCorkle, you’re due in hydroponics,” she said.
“It’s Major McCorkle, and I’m off station-duty,” he shouted.
“Major? I don’t think so. All military personnel have to wear their rank, and you’re in standard-issue jumpsuits.” Flora caught him easily in the middle of the room.
“Inside,” Aldo said.
“But—”