Love and Other Metals

by K. P. Redmond

  The big work surface in front of us—which holds the casing—is actually part of the robot. Up to now it’s been used mainly to hold down boxes of oranges and potatoes, but now that the area is needed, we pushed all that foodstuffs over to the other side of the room and fastened them down with bungi cords. The metal clamps hold and turn the big pump casing to whatever angle we need. The only thing the robot can’t do is swing a hammer. Finally, there’s something I’m qualified to do. Not standard operating procedure, but when you’re in space sometimes you gotta improvise.

  “But ain’t you interested in him?” I ask, readying the ball-peen hammer in my wrist, squinting at the sprayed dot as the robot arm moves out of my way. I rehearse the motion of hitting the dot without touching it, yet.

  “No…no. I can’t really say why. It’s like he doesn’t have…substance or something. And he’s so beefy. To be honest, he’s kind of frightening.”

  I pull back my arm and let fly with the ball side of the hammer, hitting the dot dead on. “Check again,” I say.

  Katya scans the spot again, nods and wipes it down with a solvent-soaked sponge. “I think that’s good enough. Thanks Straker.” She looks up at the arms above us. “Mea, install the turbine on the shaft and check the clearance.”

  The robot responds and starts an elaborate set of movements. Katya and I each take a step back as a pair of Mea’s arms swings the big, multi-bladed turbine assembly over to the casing, rotates it to a horizontal orientation, and slowly lowers it down, precisely centering the hub over its mating piece. Earlier we had replaced a half-dozen of the turbine blades and balanced it out. “I can’t put my finger on it,” I say, “but I think there’s more to Louis than he lets on. It’s like he’s holding back or something.”

  “Why would he do that?” asks Katya.

  “Don’t know,” I say. “He must have his reasons. Like when we had that fight—it was like he was holding back. He was angry but he never hit me. I think he coulda kicked my ass. And sometimes I catch him and the captain having private conversations. When I come by, they shut up.”

  Katya shrugs. “Well, if he’s got some secrets or hidden reservoir of ambition, I’ve never seen it. Everything about him just screams ‘dumb jock’.”

  “Clearance is within specifications,” announces Mea.

  “OK good,” says Katya, nodding her head. “Mea, seal the case and attach the manifold.

  “OK”, replies the robot.

  I step to the right as the manifold—looking like a huge twisted knot of fat metal pasta—comes sliding up beside me. The arms whine and click as they fuss with the assembly: lifting, placing, rotating nuts and bolts. “Well I ain’t here to advocate for Louis…” I continue.

  “I know what you’re doing,” interrupts Katya, her hazel eyes looking at me over the edge of the white surgical mask on her face. “It’s all right. I don’t dislike Louis. I just don’t feel that way about him. I mean, what has he been doing with his time? He’s been out of high school for years, so why doesn’t he have a degree? And as I said before, he’s kind of…unsettling.”

  I shrug. “Well, I gotta say I’ve been around some bad boys. I know the way they look at you. I don’t see that look in Louis. At least I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound very certain. Plus, I think he works out too much. It’s weird.”

  “It’s good to know that muscles ain’t everything,” I say, holding up my own arms as if in a bodybuilding contest.

  Katya chuckles as she puts her probe away in one of the cabinets. “Mostly I just don’t need a man in my life right now. I’ve spent years getting to where I am. I want to have my own ship someday, and then how could I have a family? I’ll be spending most of my time in space.”

  “Yea, I get that,” I say. “It’s just that…well, I grew up without a family. I guess I’ve always been jealous of anybody who had one.”

  Katya frowns. “I never thought about what it must have been like for you. But tell me the truth, didn’t your dad leave you a fortune?”

  “Not a dime,” I say. “Honestly. I mean, there were some assets but the city sold them off to pay for my care.”

  “What about your mom?” she asks.

  “She’s in an AFP prison somewhere on the Marble. Not sure where. Convicted of unauthorized science.”

  “What? That’s barbaric. ‘Unauthorized science’; who makes up these crimes?”

  “The Alliance does, I reckon. They clamped down on the seastead pretty hard; lots of people went to jail. I’ve seen the videos but of course they’ve all been sanitized by the Alliance.”

  Katya shakes her head. “Does she ever mail you?”

  “Don’t think she’s allowed to. Or maybe she don’t care; I can’t say. Anyways, I haven’t heard from her. She’s ancient history as far as I’m concerned.”

  Katya sighs. “Sorry Straker. Stick with the Corps. Work your way up. Things will get better for you.” She reflects for a moment, then pulls off her mask and strips off her gloves. “We can take the clean suits off now. The casing is closed.” She looks over at one of the robot’s cameras. “Mea, mark this unit as ‘emergency use only’ and place it in the unpressurized stores. Put the other broken turbopump in the junk pile for recycling.”

  “OK,” replies the robot.

  I pull off my mask and take a deep breath. “Much better,” I say.

  “Throw your gear away. We’ll print new suits if we need to do this again.”

  “Glad to. Not the most comfortable outfit.”

  “Just be glad we only had to replace a couple of water pumps. If the injectors had been hit, we’d be dealing with uranium hexafluoride. We’d have to work in full radiation gear. Just bending your elbow would make you sweat.”

  We both pull off the clean suits, bundle them up and throw them in the burn bin. Katya is back to her black officer’s jumpsuit and me in my khakis. I actually feel sorry for Louis. He’s mining for water in a dry crater. But I sure ain’t gonna be the one to tell him.

  * * * * *

  We’ve been living with this pimple of a patch on the galley bulkhead for the last 30 hours or so. It’s a serving platter covered by a plastic trash bag held down by pressure, and augmented with copious interlacing strips of duct tape for good measure. The captain and Nastez made the patch with what they had on hand and this is what they came up with. Nobody likes it. It’s a constant reminder of how vulnerable we are out here, so far away from everything and so exposed to random rock storms. The crew take their meals in the galley in silence, watching the patch all the while, vigilant for any sound of movement that might indicate that it is about to give way.

  So while the captain and Katya work on reenergizing the port engine, Louis and I are helping Nastez make a permanent repair to the hull. Nastez pulls on his loose-fitting evasuit envelope as I hand him the chest piece. Nastez connects the suit to the chest piece and powers up the fabric, causing it to undulate for a few seconds for calibration, then it steadies out and forms to his body. Nastez backs up into the rigid backpack with its electronics and life support systems and rescue jets, then runs diagnostics. Louis hands him the helmet; Nastez pulls it on and latches it down. He wriggles his hands into the gloves, and straps on his tool-strewn utility belt. Louis and Nastez patiently go through the checklist while I listen. Everything is AOK. Finally, Nastez steps into the airlock and gives a thumbs up.

  Louis closes the inner hatch and dogs it down. We watch through the airlock porthole as Nastez pulls the end of the fat umbilical from its feeder mechanism and plugs it into his hip connector. The headlights on his helmet light up with the umbilical’s power.

  “Comm check,” says Louis to his headset. I’m wearing a headset too but just so I can monitor—I ain’t supposed to talk unless spoken to.

  “Five by five Louis,” replies Nastez. “Everything checks. Lights all green.”

  “You ready to open up?” asks Louis.

  “That’s affirm; go ahead,” replies Nastez. He grab
s the foam gun from his belt and waves it like a semaphore flag.

  Louis crams down the yellow button on the panel next to him. I can hear the chime of the annunciator and hum of the pump sucking the last of the atmosphere from the chamber on the other side of the porthole. Then Louis presses another button, and the loud clunk of a latch arm sliding back makes me jump. Nastez unlatches his side of the hatch and pulls the door towards him. The hatch opens in its rounded rectangular jam to reveal the endless blackness outside. Turning slightly sideways to clear the umbilical past the hatch door, and with the foam gun in his hand, Nastez flips down his dark visor and steps out into the nothingness as if striding off to an office meeting. “There he goes,” says Louis, his nose to the porthole glass.

  “What’s it like out there?” I ask.

  Louis’s eyes light up. “It’s…big. Everything is big. The ship is big, the sky is big. Billion stars. You really gotta know the evasuit inside and out because you have to trust it. We’ll get you trained up.”

  I nod. I’ll be in one of those suits soon enough. We stand there watching the open outer hatch door for a few minutes. Nastez is lost from view. The jerky sliding of the umbilical from its spool is the only testament to the fact that there’s a man out there.

  “How did the pump repair go?” asks Louis.

  “OK, I reckon. We repaired one unit and scrapped the other one.”

  “Did you and Katya talk?”

  Oh. That’s what he really wants to know about. “Yea, we did. I don’t know Louis…”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “I don’t know if you’re maybe not barking up the wrong tree.”

  “What? Barking up a tree?”

  “Sorry. Got that expression from a movie. I guess dogs bark at trees; not sure why.”

  “Did she talk about me?”

  I sigh. “Hate to tell you this, but I think you got your heart set on a career woman. She’s just not looking to mate up. Not with anyone.”

  Now it’s Louis’s turn to sigh. He puts his big hand to his head and runs his fingers through his hair. “I know she’s a career woman, dammit. That’s fine with me. I don’t know how to get through to her.”

  “Well, don’t give up,” I say. “I hear persistence pays off with women.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Another movie I think.” With that, I leave Louis at his panel and shoot myself towards the flight deck. I got no good advice to give him. What do I know about women?

  * * * * *

  Right now, all hands are awake and on duty; the first time since we left Luna. It’s not really procedure to do that, but everybody is still wound up from the meteorite strike and no one wants to miss the excitement of the final repair. Most of the displays on the flight deck are showing Nastez’s progression towards the hole in the hull, with different perspectives coming from different cameras. I plant next to Katya’s station. She can see Nastez’ health telemetry as well as his helmet camera. His heartrate and breathing rate are elevated but you can’t hardly blame him. Louis floats in and stands behind us. He and Katya don’t exchange any words.

  “Are you watching this, Louis, over?” Nastez asks.

  Louis keys his headset; I listen in on mine. “Roger First Officer, Louis is here, over.”

  “Do you see what I have in my hand, over?” asks Nastez.

  “The foam gun?” replies Louis.

  “Yea, the foam gun. I want you to watch how I apply it. And when I tell you to, I want you to remove the serving platter from the hole. Do you copy, over?”

  “Aye, I copy, stand by to remove platter, over.”

  Nastez uses a couple of carabiners and some webbing to fasten himself to the side of the ship outside the hole. From his helmet camera I can see the extent of the damage left by the rock storm: a long and wide slash lacerates the skin of the ship where a rock hit. It evidently impacted at a shallow angle and bounced off into space, but not before penetrating the hull. The steel lip around the hole is a perfect ellipse; symmetrical and smooth as if it had been designed that way, attesting to the tremendous speed and impact of the meteoroid.

  “What you must be aware of Louis,” continues Nastez, “is that this foam expands its volume by a factor of about 10, so you don’t want to use too much. Start with a minimal amount—you will have time to add more if you need to.” Nastez injects the dark foam in a thin circular bead around the inside periphery of the hole and pulls back. The foam expands rapidly, as if inflating, or like a blood sucking insect growing more engorged with each passing second.

  I stand there amazed, wondering when it will stop. The foam eventually slows down after completely filling in the hole. Nastez touches off his sculpture by adding another dab in the center where the foam is the thinnest. “It’s still tacky,” he says, “but it won’t be for long. It dries fast. Once it dries, it will be almost as hard as the steel of the hull. So go pull that platter off the wall now or it’s going to be there forever, over.”

  “Pull the platter, aye, over” Louis replies, and pushes off towards the galley. I follow.

  The duct tape-garbage bag-and serving platter assembly that adorns the galley bulkhead is already bulging inwards from the pressure of the foam. I unstick the tape and ball it up, Louis pulls off the garbage bag—which shreds where the foam has already bonded with it, and then pulls off the platter, although it takes a good bit of effort. He hands the plastic and the platter to me. The foam has mushrooms out a little on our side of the hole, which will make it even stronger. I get a little bit of the foam on the side of my hand.

  Nastez is right; that stuff dries in seconds and it’s mighty tenacious—it holds the atmo like a champ. Just the thing to repair a spaceship hull mid-mission. But the smell of the stuff is something else. I stings my nose like snorting acetone, worse than the solvent back at the mine, making me sneeze like a howitzer. “You didn’t warn me about the smell,” I say to Louis.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t smell nothing,” says Louis, sounding like a wounded duck while holding his breath.

  “How do I get this crap off my hand?”

  “You’ll need a grinder.”

  Oh great. Louis keys his headset: “First Officer, Louis. Air pressure holding steady, good fix, over.”

  “Copy that Louis,” replies Nastez. “Captain, Nastez.” he continues. “The repair is complete. I’ll go ahead and inspect the rest of the hull if that’s all right with you, over.”

  “Nastez, Captain. Copy that Number One. Continue at your judgement. Nice job, congratulations. Captain out.”

  “First of all, let me address the question of language learning,” says Doctor Surya Kapoor. He has finally gotten around to reviewing the video and files I sent him. He’s sent back his own video, since real-time communication at this distance is, for all practical purposes, impossible. “I have reviewed all the logs,” he continues. “Your mysterious stranger did utilize the language software, and almost like any other learner would. Back and forth, questions and answers. The surprising thing was the speed. It seems to me that the unknown person was using computing power on his side to speed up the process, storing the lessons on his side, and maybe continued to learn offline after the link was shut down.”

  Mister Doctor goes over some of the learning metrics; it’s kinda boring and off topic too. Both Katya and I are watching the video play out on her console. It’s frustrating that I can’t ask questions since this is a canned response to my earlier message. I try to make mental notes of questions I have. Mostly I’m trying to understand why the other guy or girl is acting so strange. I still ain’t sure that all of this is might not be because of me transmitting to the government. Trying to watch my step. For now, all I can do is watch the video play and stay chill.

  Doctor Kapoor’s face and tone show both amusement and apprehension, I think because he’s not sure if he should be delighted by his ‘students’ thirst for knowledge or alarmed by the ease with which the student dominated the
system. We all got caught with our pants down on this one.

  As he speaks, the doctor is sitting in what looks to be the main room of his apartment back in Shacktown. It’s nicer than most; certainly nicer than any place I’ve ever lived. Smooth walls, Earth-tone colors. Behind him and to his right are shelves of knick-knacks; souvenirs of the previous life on the Marble that he and his wife led. Some actual books, even. The dining area was off to the left, the table still cluttered with dishes from a recent meal. I can’t tell if it would have been breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

  Mister Doctor turns and directs a question to his wife, Venecia. “So we don’t believe this person knew English before the instruction. Isn’t that right, Missus Doctor?” Venecia is at the rear of the room, patiently feeding their daughter Alia. Pretty Alia. Alia who could run faster than any other girl in class—and most of the boys—and who was always first with her hand up when a question was asked.

  Alia is swallowing spoonfuls of some kind of liquefied food. She holds her head at an unnatural angle, wedged against a supporting pillow, a napkin tucked into her green t-shirt to catch the puree that dribbles in globs from her chin. She eats but her eyes are dead. Her mind long ago drifted off to a mono-color world of her own. It’s depressing to watch, especially since I knew her before she got sick. I try not to think about it.

  “Yes Mister Doctor,” Venecia replies, “either this person didn’t know English or he did know English and went to an absurd amount of trouble to fake it. There were thousands of exchanges in the log, and that’s just from the English instruction.” Missus Doctor goes back to feeding Alia.

  “Yes, that was just a warm up,” continues Mister Doctor, “this person took lessons in French, Arabic, Italian…actually 24 languages in all, all that we had data for. And then, of course, they stole virtually our entire database of general information. Very, very odd…very odd indeed.”