"That's it!" Rick cried. "Come here!" He lunged for her, and she slipped through his arms.
"Oh come on!" Wendy yelled. "You walked right into that one!" She screamed with delight and giggled.
Pierce and Stellan watched a fifty-seven-year-old man chase a twenty-year-old girl who didn't look a day over fourteen around the well-shaped airlock hatch.
Pierce thought about old friends, and he knew these ones would never let him down. Stellan, least of all.
He looked to the man he'd come to know as a brother then and clapped him on the shoulder. As Rick tackled Wendy and rolled around on the dirty metal deck with her in a bear hug, smiling and laughing, in suits that were worth more than their yearly salaries, he knew he could count on them all. Wherever these bad feelings came from, they would face them together. It felt good to be confident in his friends.
"Captain," Adelynn Skinner said, stepping from the shadows. Rick and Wendy's laughter ceased when they heard her voice. They had no idea she'd been there. "I'd like to accompany the boarding party if you don't mind."
"No," Pierce said. "I don't mind."
One of the other men who stood quietly around the well-shaped airlock in his ENV suit was Thomas Foster, and he would look none of them in the eye.
Four
The boarding party slipped one by one down through the airlock corridor, a temporary tube in place like an intestine that allowed them to pass between ships. They couldn't help but feel like digesting food.
Fingertips and boot heels brushed the skin of the tunnel, and it trembled. They each descended carefully and nimbly in a slow gracefulness only afforded by weightlessness, pushing off from the circular metal ring frame.
"Do you think they baked?" Wendy said.
"Is this another fat joke?" Rick said.
Wendy laughed. "No, I'm just hungry."
"Do you all like your ENV suits?" Pierce asked.
"Sure," Wendy said. "Why?"
"Peace of mind," he said. "I'd just like to know you'll enjoy your coffin should we tear this thin polymer membrane that's the only thing between us and a burial in the black."
"Buzzkill," Wendy sang.
They landed in a room very similar to the one they left on the Atlas; only, the world had turned upside down. The well-shaped airlock port spit them out from the ceiling, and as they hit the deck, their boots engaged their magnetic locking systems to keep them grounded. Each foot fell heavily as they wandered the chamber like robots.
They had arrived in another world. The entire sheen of their environment changed. The very air was sharper, crisper in comparison to the Atlas. Stellan thought he might look down at the floor and see his own eyes reflected as if on the broad side of a blade. The walls, floors, and ceiling had a silvery blue, almost mercurial quality to them that screamed of vibrancy and youth, even though the Shiva, much like the Atlas, was an old fleet asset.
Seeing the Shiva made them realize the Atlas' metal had a brown tint to it like cancer eating aged bones.
Even still, they missed their home already.
The airlock hatch above them closed with a sound like a sheathing sword. Stellan wondered if it had ever closed on anyone. It would split a man in half without a stutter, hitch, or slip.
"Just like dropping out of the Atlas' asshole, isn't it?" Rick said. No one responded because everyone thought it, as they did every time.
The feeling of passing through to another world was undeniable, but Stellan thought the Shiva felt different this time. The excavator was a floating city in space, housing thousands of crew, built to tear planets apart piece by piece. A celestial body in itself, it usually felt more like solid ground. This time, it felt more fragile. He didn't know what it meant, but he felt like something could slip or give way here. It wasn't safe.
He looked at Pierce, who did not move but stood relaxed, his arms raised at his sides in the zero gravity. His aging eyes, which had seen many conflicts unfold and no doubt could see them coming, were closed. Stellan wondered if Pierce had already begun to ignore the premonitions of danger he'd felt on the Atlas. He didn't think so.
The room rumbled, and compression hit their bodies like springs. Gravity returned, and pressure and air followed. The HUDs on the insides of their visors told them with blue text that pressure, oxygen levels, and temperature were rising.
"It's much quieter than the Atlas," Adelynn said absently and to no one, merely an audible observation.
"I like the hissing and humming," Rick said. "That's how I know it's working." His back turned to her, he didn't see her flash her green eye at him as if he'd insulted her. Her blue eye followed along benignly, an elegant companion.
Before them, a door loomed like a giant closed eyelid. As critical environment levels reached norms, the eyelid stirred from its deep sleep. Its heavy metal gears and joints squealed and yawned. The Shiva beckoned.
Beyond the splitting doors, an array of motionless faces greeted the Atlas' boarding party. They recognized Commander Emra Ashland standing resolute at the head of the Shiva's welcoming party, her fingers interlocked in front of her. Her mouth, beginning to show age, like a piece of driftwood, sun-cracked at its corners.
"A lot of new faces," Wendy said.
"Mmm hmm," Rick responded.
Stellan counted those he knew, and he only recognized the Commander and maybe one other. It had been six months since they'd been to this excavator. During that time, the Atlas had serviced another excavator breaking down another planet. They'd seen a planet of metals and silicates reduced to a cluster of worthless asteroids like a handful of peanuts in a serving dish. He supposed if they could destroy a whole planet in that time, Ashland could replace members of her crew. He recalled that their chief of security had been close to retirement, and deck hands transferred out of excavator service frequently, exhausted from the long tours in the deep black. Though, he didn't think it likely that the six men who lined up behind Ashland would all be replacements for men they'd seen periodically for years. Still, new faces they were.
The Atlas' boarding party marched forward and crossed into the Shiva, their footsteps much quieter with the magnetic systems turned off as rubber sole met steel. They removed their headpieces with a hiss of escaping air. Wendy tightened her ponytail. Adelynn's hair fell on its own, and she left it.
Stellan looked up to see the ceiling. The Atlas was finishing docking procedures and slowly lowering into place. Soon, the facility's ceiling would open, and the Atlas' entire belly would fill the hole. Its rib cage of bay doors would open wide, and the gravity cranes would suck up the entire payload. Then the bay doors would close, and they'd go home.
The measure of the room they entered was magnificent. There was no end in sight. In fact, it went on for miles, only equipment, loaders, packaged material, and personnel to obstruct their view.
The groups stood toe-to-toe, and Pierce and Ashland saluted each other.
"Captain," Ashland said.
"Commander," Pierce said. "It's good to see you."
They shook hands, and Ashland smiled a genuine smile. The color in her cheeks flourished, and Stellan thought even her weary eyes brightened. The wrinkles in her face loosened, and he thought she looked relieved.
"Mr. Fairchild, I'd like you to meet our new senior deck hand, Horton Albright," Ashland said. Horton was young, his cheeks and jawline still boyish and round. His hands looked soft. "Please work with him to initialize loading procedures."
"Ma'am," Rick said with a nod. He shook Horton's hand, and they walked together into the great expansive loading bay, disappearing among the crowds of rushing crew. Wendy and Tom followed, her face upturned, his downcast.
"Keep an eye on them," Pierce told Stellan, but he understood the Captain meant for him to keep an eye on Skinner. "Keep them out of trouble."
Pierce and Ashland walked side-by-side, and Stellan could feel the pull between them, like the magnetic bed that tensed up the entire station when the tram whispered out of the tunnel. Pierce's ha
nd moved to the small of her back, and she didn't react, not to push him away in alarm or even to fire him a glance of warning. Everyone knew there was something between them, but Stellan wasn't sure they were just going to her quarters to enjoy each other's company as usual.
He knew Pierce, and he knew Pierce wasn't happy with the mess the Shiva had left in orbit. Pierce would probably say something that would ensure there would be no love this run.
It was all in the way she moved. There was a stiffness, like she was afraid of something. Her knees jerked slightly, as if she would jump at a start. Curiosity tugged at his gut. Curiosity was an instinct he used, a tool like a hearing aid that helped him be more observant, so he could sense trouble before it came.
Trouble would be all they would share, and he was sure Pierce would tell him all about it when they returned to the Atlas. That thought satisfied his curiosity for the time being.
Adelynn stood with her arms crossed and her weight shifted onto one leg, her hip jutting and her posture crooked. Uninterested in the apparent inappropriate relationship, she paid no attention to Pierce and Ashland. Instead, she watched the deckhands cross the bay toward a shuttle. She observed the loaders in mechanized suits grab packed crates and haul them away. She examined the doors to the refineries open with rolling clouds of smoke and fumes.
She stood, unmoving, for a long time, silent, just watching. She never said a word.
Five
Pierce followed Ashland into her cabin, and something told him that she needed his help. It wasn't any one thing that spoke to him. A conglomeration of queues created an overall sense that something wasn't right, and now, little details made him question if this was the Shiva he remembered.
Ashland had braided her ponytail hastily. She nervously rubbed her palms together like they were dirty. Her neglected conference table displayed an error message. A sock hung from an open drawer like a tongue. All of these things were out of the ordinary for Emra, the woman Pierce had come to know as a creature of order and habit.
"So," she said, "did you bring it?" She walked around her desk, running fingers over the glass top and steel frame. Her leather chair sighed as she sat, and she peered at him with kind, round eyes. When they were together, those eyes changed. In front of her crew, they were narrow and strong. With him, they opened up and became softer. She was happy, and Pierce thought things could only be so bad if she was happy. Of all the things that seemed awry, at least her eyes hadn't changed.
"Maybe," Pierce said playfully from a small chair in front of her desk. "You tell me what's going on first."
"Gordon Pierce," Ashland said with a scoff and a headshake. "Always business before pleasure."
"Business with you is my pleasure, Emra."
Her smile faded. "Not this time, I don't think. Why do you think something's going on?"
"Let's start with the new asteroid field in the Apophis system." Pierce didn't want to ruin their time together. It had been too long, but he owed it to his men to raise their dissatisfaction with their commander. In service, complaints climbed the ladder until they reached the right person. It wouldn't have been right for him to fail them.
"I told you. The crust is brittle."
Pierce waved a dismissive hand. "Whether the Council told you to dig deep or not, I don't care, but you didn't sweep. It could have cost us the Atlas." He didn't need physical evidence to be certain of her orders. He just needed to see her get defensive, and then he knew she wasn't being truthful, that she was hiding something. He wasn't about to accuse her of lying, though. Not only was she his commanding officer, and not only did he want to make the most of their time together, but she was a woman. He had learned years ago women didn't respond well to accusations. They required a more delicate approach.
"Don't be so dramatic."
"Emra, it could have been me."
As if she hadn't considered Pierce would be the last one off the Atlas if it needed to be abandoned, surprise stunned her face.
She opened a drawer in her desk from which she pulled a small black brick, and she held it out in her palm. It was smooth and solid with a polish that gave it a lustrous shine like obsidian, but the light reflecting from it was not quite right. Pierce's eyes couldn't quite focus on the brick, and gazing deeper, pressing his concentration, he arrived at the idea that the brick was refracting or distorting light somehow. It was absorbing the light and turning it into darkness.
When Ashland set the brick down on the glass desktop, Pierce expected a solid clang, but it barely made a sound.
"We're having trouble breaking down its chemical makeup," she said. "It's very light and brittle. That's about all we know about it."
Ashland's gaze upon the brick lingered a little too long and a little too deep. Her face appeared reverent, and her head tilted to the side, listening to something Pierce couldn't hear. Her pupils dilated, and Pierce thought, for only a moment, she was being drawn or falling into it. She was letting her mind go to it.
"What do you think it is?" Pierce asked cautiously, uncertain he wanted to break her trance. His words woke her, and she blinked, putting on a smile again.
"Just a rock."
"It looks igneous. Could it be organic?"
He could feel her eyes wanting to return to it, and on some level, maybe it was in his mind, he thought he felt a vague pull, too.
"How many years have you been making runs out here?" she asked.
"I think it'll be a decade soon."
"People talk about the madness," she said. "Do you believe it?"
"The talk?"
"That we lose ourselves. That we get spread thin." She wiped one palm against the other, and Pierce became unsure it was only a nervous gesture.
"I don't know," Pierce said.
"Have you ever seen anyone just lose it?"
"Yes," Pierce said, immediately thinking of Edward, but he decided not to bring Edward up. After all, they wouldn't really know anything until he woke. It was enough to ease Pierce's conscience. Besides, neglecting to mention certain details was not the same as lying, which he knew she'd been comfortable with.
"Daniel Landenberg," Pierce said. "A few years back. Stellan brought him to me, and I was skeptical then. So I told him to go back to work. He shot another one of my men with a crane. It blew off one of his legs."
"I remember that," Ashland said, her voice trailing into recollection. "You turned him over to Wellcare, right?"
"Had to. Had no other choice at that point."
Wellcare was a government-run administration that, as the Council claimed, took in the diseased, sick, and mentally unstable for treatment and rehabilitation. Publicly, their intent was to return societal drains back to civilization once they could be productive members of society. No one Pierce ever talked to knew anyone who'd ever come out of one of those places. Some thought it was a type of genetic cleansing with a friendly face.
"Skeptical then?"
"Still, I suppose. I don't believe anything on stories alone. I don't disbelieve either, though."
"So you think it could be real?" Ashland said, sounding hopeful.
"It could be, yes. It also could be that some people just can't handle the isolation and that madness is an excuse for weakness."
Unexpectedly, Pierce's words didn't please Ashland, who bowed her head and slouched her shoulders, withdrawing.
"What about you?" he asked.
"I never saw anything that made me believe in it," she said, "until we came out here. My crew has been acting strangely all over my ship. We've had more breakouts of violence in the last couple of days than we have in the last couple of years. Fights, beatings, harassment, rapes, and today, my senior engineer, Mr. Fairchild's counterpart, airlocked himself."
Pierce sat unmoving, his face unflinching as a stone. On the outside, he offered Ashland no sympathetic or exclamatory response. Inside, however, electric current lit up his nerves and locked his muscles. Ashland thought it was the old resolute Pierce she knew, but he simply w
as stunned and speechless.
"Anything on the Atlas?" she probed, searching for some company in her confusion. For a moment, Pierce couldn't answer. The message broke down somewhere between his brain and his mouth.
"No," he said, reaching forward and touching her hand with a comforting smile. "I'm sure it's just coincidence, Emra. People see two things together and assume they're related. It's human nature. It's probably how all the stories of the black madness got started. One guy has a legitimate breakdown out on the rim, and suddenly, it could happen to anyone."
"You think so?"
He smiled. "I do."
Ashland closed her eyes, and she wiped away a tear. Puzzled, he wondered why she would want him to convince her that the black madness was real, that it was the reason for the strange behavior on her ship.
He stood and walked around the desk, her round, soft eyes following him. She had never looked so vulnerable, and tears welled under her sea-foam irises, red blood vessels streaking across her corneas like lighting. He found her weakness beautiful.
He bent down behind her, crossing his right arm over her chest and his left arm over her abdomen, resting his chin on her shoulder. He kissed her on the neck, and then she craned to interlock her lips with his.
They were silent for a while. Neither pursued any further physical contact. It was just nice to be together, to remove themselves from their duties and responsibilities and just feel another person whom they loved, feeling that love reciprocated like a cycle of emotional healing.
"What should I do?" she asked.
"A superior officer asking me for guidance," he joked. She elbowed him playfully in his gut. "I've always found inspiration more effective than the fist. Don't force them in line. Give them a reason to fall in on their own."
"Hard to believe you were a military man."
"It wasn't at all what everyone thought it was. And anyway, you can lead dogs, but you can't lead men. You have to give them a reason to follow."
"I'd feel a lot better if you stayed for a few days," Emra said. "Tell your men to take their time."
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