The Stars Down Under

by Sandra McDonald

  “Chief Myell didn’t make it to the ceremony,” Romero said. “Is he okay? I know what they did to him at the gym.”

  “What did they do?” Jodenny asked.

  Her tone of voice made Romero look uneasy. “You know, taking his stuff. Trying to hassle him for not going to chief’s initiation. Everyone knows that’s why Captain Kuvik gave him the jobs no one else wanted.”

  Funny how Myell hadn’t mentioned that part.

  “And then that fistfight—” Tingley started, then fell silent.

  It took some persuasion on Jodenny’s part, but soon she had the story of the fistfight, the locker-room theft, and, even worse, the rumors of an assault in the basement. Neither Tingley nor Romero was clear on what exactly had happened, but most people blamed Chief Talic for some kind of prank.

  “He kept denying he had anything to do with it,” Romero reported. “Maybe, maybe not. He’s kind of old-fashioned. You didn’t know, did you?”

  “Sorry,” Tingley said, sympathetically.

  Jodenny didn’t want sympathy. It wasn’t their fault if her very own husband neglected to tell her crucial details of his day. She wished she could reach through the nearest ouroboros and shake him by the shoulders for being so secretive.

  I didn’t want to worry you, he would say, as if that excuse meant anything.

  Abruptly she rose. “Congratulations on your wedding,” she said. “But remember, this isn’t your honeymoon, it’s your first duty assignment. Duty first, personal lives second, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Romero said.

  Tingley nodded earnestly.

  Jodenny went back to the cabin and stayed awake, staring up at the rattling fan, for most of the night.

  At oh-seven-hundred the comm clicked. A man’s cheerful voice said, “Wakey wakey. All hands rouse out. Morning has commenced. Today’s weather will be sunny and dry. Beach attire is authorized for those lazing about the pool. Crew members to duty stations, and passengers are reminded to eat a healthy breakfast. Launch countdown is now T-minus-two hours and counting. Thank you and have a nice day.”

  “What the hell was that?” Farber asked, and switched on the cabin’s overhead light.

  Jodenny used her arm to shield her gritty eyes. “Morning call. A tradition that’s been thankfully abandoned on the Big Alcheringa.”

  “Every morning he’s going to do that?”

  “Every morning.”

  Farber muttered something unintelligible and locked herself in the bathroom.

  They were about to go to breakfast when Teddy Toledo came by, carrying a rucksack and wearing a chief’s uniform. Jodenny stared at the patches and ribbons he’d appropriated to decorate it. She supposed he looked the part, with his short hair and overall fitness, but the idea of him impersonating a chief made her unaccountably itchy.

  “Brought you what you wanted from your house,” Toledo said, unmindful of her stare. He put the sack on her bed. “Think I got everything. Oh, and something else.”

  The sack moved on the bed. Karl the Koala poked his head out and made a faint mewling noise.

  “How cute,” Farber said dryly.

  Jodenny scooped Karl up and let him cuddle in her arms. He smelled like clean bedsheets and eucalypt leaves. “You should have left him at home.”

  “It was pretty insistent,” Toledo said.

  “Scratch belly,” Karl said, and tugged on Jodenny’s shirt.

  Farber asked, “Why the launch delay?”

  “Valve problems,” Toledo said. “Apparently nothing new around these parts. Word is, Team Space squeezes as much profit as it can out of the Fortune-to-Earth run, keeping what they make on cargo and passengers and putting as little as possible back into maintenance.”

  Farber blanched. “That makes me feel safe.”

  “Ship’s safe enough, just not very pretty,” Toledo said. “Captain Balandra has a good reputation with the crew. Chief’s wardroom’s happy enough. Should be a fast trip to Earth and back.”

  “Once we actually get going,” Jodenny reminded him.

  Breakfast was an excellent buffet of pancakes, waffles, fruit dishes, and omelets. Afterward all passengers were asked to return to quarters for launch. Farber gripped her chair with both hands during the countdown.

  “Have you ever been in space before?” Jodenny asked her.

  “Not so much,” Farber said.

  Three, two, one. The transition out of orbit was a little rockier than Jodenny expected, but still a marked improvement over doing nothing at all. She vidded a picture of Fortune and felt stomach pangs as it retreated into the distance. Down there somewhere was Bainbridge, and a Mother Sphere that held the key to Myell’s return.

  “You better be here when I get back,” she murmured.

  She switched off the vid and let the screen stay dark.

  It took about an hour for Farber to get violently spacesick. One of the ship’s medical assistants swung by with some medication. He said, “No worries. Happens a lot around here. Good thing we’ve got gravity, eh? Otherwise the vomit would—”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jodenny said.

  “I’m never going into space again,” Farber said as she lurched off toward the head.

  Jodenny grabbed her exercise clothes and left Farber to her misery. On the way to the gym she passed the passenger lounge, which was crowded with the Fraser family, the bickering Zhangs, and the business travelers with their farkar game. After five kilometers on the treadmill, she showered off, grabbed lunch from a vending machine, and sought out the library. The deskgib there had a connection back to Fortune. She was still able to access the Supply School’s public site and read the profiles on Captain Kuvik and Senior Chief Talic.

  Kuvik had an impressive biography and a stern, commanding photo. Talic’s record wasn’t as impressive, but he had made ten Alcheringa runs and been awarded three commendation medals.

  Bastard, she thought, just as the gib fizzled out and died. She tried the power button and thumped its edges, to no avail. When she pulled out the unit to check the connections, someone behind her said, “You could get electrocuted doing that.”

  The speaker was a kid about twelve years old, with long brown hair framing his thin, frowning face. He was short and skinny, all elbows and knees, and he was wearing long brown shorts that had black stains on them.

  “I won’t electrocute myself,” Jodenny said. “There’s a built-in safety.”

  “Safeties fail.” He scratched his nose. “You should put in a maintenance request instead of rip apart the console.”

  “I’m not ripping it apart. Who are you?”

  “Malachy. Who are you?”

  “Ellen.” Jodenny slid the gib back into place and tried the interface again. “See? I fixed it.”

  “It’ll just break again. Nothing on this ship stays fixed for long.”

  He said it with an unhappiness that spoke of long experience. Jodenny asked, “You’re sure?”

  “My mom’s assigned here. I make this trip a lot.”

  Jodenny was accustomed to crew having families on the Big Alcheringa, where a full loop took a minimum of nine months. She’d thought the short runs to Earth would enable more people to leave their spouses and kids behind.

  She turned to the gib, hoping he would go away. He lingered by a bookcase, chewing on a hangnail.

  “I have some work to do,” she said.

  Malachy asked, “Are you a technician? Most civilians don’t know how to fix gibs.”

  Jodenny replied, “I’m only a passenger. With work to do.”

  He continued to linger. Jodenny decided he was probably a lonely kid, no one to play with, neglected by his mom. Socially inept. Not athletic. Some caring adult maybe needed to take him in under their wing, but that caring adult would have to be someone else.

  “You could work in your cabin,” he said. “Unless you didn’t want your roommate to see what you were doing.”

  “You could work in yours and stop bothering me,” s
he retorted, and after a moment he went away.

  She concentrated on the gib for a full moment before her guilty conscience nudged her out of her seat. She found Malachy sitting at a corner table, meticulously drawing on a tablet. He was using his right hand to shape images and his left to manipulate color, texture, and pattern.

  Jodenny said, “That’s beautiful.”

  He didn’t turn from the tablet. “I’m working.”

  She sat down at the table. “I’m sorry. I was rude.”

  The corner of his mouth turned up in an unhappy little quirk. “People usually are, when they first meet me. I get on their nerves. Then they meet my mom, and they’re all nice again.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She’s the captain.”

  Malachy Balandra. Well, then.

  Jodenny said, “I’m still sorry, and that has nothing to do with your mom. This trip is making me a little unhappy.”

  “You don’t want to see Earth?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.” Jodenny eyed the drawing. “Is that a dinosaur?”

  “No.”

  “Some other kind of reptile?”

  “It’s a Komodo dragon.” He eyed her crookedly, came to some kind of internal decision, and slid closer to her chair with the tablet in tow. His knee bumped against hers. “They’re extinct on Earth, but you can find them in the Seven Sisters.”

  “Are you a naturalist?”

  To her surprise, he pulled the tablet back. “No. I like science.”

  Jodenny wasn’t sure what he meant, but before she could ask he said, “I have to check in with my mom,” and dashed off with the tablet in his arms.

  She returned to her side of the library, mulling over Kuvik and Talic again, wondering if she could persuade Myell to file a complaint against Supply School when he returned. Part of her wondered if Captain Fisch’s group hadn’t encouraged some kind of harassment to make Myell more amenable to the Sphere project. She typed up notes on what Tingley and Romero had said, then put a password on the text and tried assigning it to her passenger account. The gib asked for her PIC, but Jodenny couldn’t immediately find it.

  She patted her pockets. She’d used the card to access the gym and the library. It had been poking her hip while she was fixing the gib. Jodenny checked under the table, traced her route to Malachy’s table, and inspected under the chairs there.

  She remembered him pulling his chair closer, the almost imperceptible brush of their knees touching.

  The little bastard had stolen her card. Captain Balandra’s son was a thief.

  * * *

  Space was limited on the Kamchatka, and officers and chiefs worked out of their cabins. Jodenny tracked down Lieutenant Sweeney in officers’ berthing. His hatch was open, and he was sitting at a desk covered with paperwork.

  “Miss Spring,” he said, pushing it aside. “Delighted to see you. Enjoying your trip?”

  “I need a new PIC,” she said. “The quartermaster said I had to get you to authorize it.”

  “Bureaucracy, rules, regulations. Have a seat.”

  Jodenny preferred to remain standing rather than sit on his bunk. “No, thanks. I’ve been sitting all day.”

  “Tell me about it.” He reached for a form. “If it’s any consolation at all, you’re my second customer today. Those little cards are easy to lose.”

  “I didn’t lose mine. It was stolen.”

  His smile faded a little. “Really? You’re sure?”

  “I had it one moment, and a few minutes later it was gone.”

  “They’re easy to drop.”

  “Mine disappeared after I met a boy who said he was Captain Balandra’s son.”

  Sweeney bent over his form and filled it in with a pen. “Malachy’s a great kid. Did he show you his artwork?”

  “He did,” she said, and waited.

  Sweeney checked off a small black box and initialed a line of text. The air vents in his cabin didn’t rattle, but they made a high-pitched whine that was almost, but not quite, too faint to hear. The second locker had an ensign’s nametag on it, and the desk was precisely arranged.

  “Here you go,” Sweeney said. “Take this back to the quartermaster. Any suspicious charges show up on your account, just let me know.”

  “Are you going to tell the captain, or shall I?”

  Two ensigns passing by outside cast curious glances into the cabin. Sweeney scratched the side of his head, pursed his lips for a moment, and closed the hatch.

  “Malachy Balandra is a mixed-up kid with a mom who’s trying her best,” he said. “There’s nothing you can tell her about him that she doesn’t know already. If you want a direct apology from her—”

  “Not from her,” Jodenny said. “From him.”

  Sweeney gave her an intent look. “You’re a librarian, right? You must deal with kids all the time.”

  “Did you read up on my passenger info, Lieutenant?”

  He blushed. “I check everyone’s.”

  Jodenny doubted that. “Kids who screw up aren’t going to stop screwing up if you coddle them.”

  Sweeney leaned back against his locker. “Let me guess. You got in trouble as a kid yourself. Then you found a role model and straightened up and became a better person.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Is that your official Team Space response?”

  “I’ll talk to the captain,” he said. “Malachy’s going to deny it, like he has every other time. She’ll apologize, and worry some more about him. You’ll disembark at Earth and go about your business, and never think of us again. Would you like to have dinner with me?”

  “No,” Jodenny said, opening the hatch. “I’m committed to someone else.”

  “No wedding ring.”

  It hung on a silver chain around her neck, tucked deep inside her shirt. Jodenny said, “Don’t need a ring,” and left him with that.

  She was halfway to the quartermaster’s when she realized what he had said.

  “When are we coming back?” she demanded of Farber when she reached their cabin.

  Farber was lying in her bunk, still pasty-faced and miserable. “What?”

  “We’re not booked for the return trip on this ship, are we? Lieutenant Sweeney thinks we’re getting off at Earth. Captain Fisch promised me two weeks, no more—”

  “Relax.” Farber fumbled for her vomit bag. “We have seats on the Yellowstone. It’s a bigger liner, scheduled to return sooner than the Kamchatka. Don’t you think you could trust me a little bit?”

  With that, Farber threw up. Karl made a squeaking noise and burrowed under Jodenny’s blankets in distress. Jodenny fetched Farber a glass of water and said, “You want to see the doctor again?”

  Farber said, “No. I just want to die here in privacy.”

  Jodenny took that as permission to leave.

  On second thought, she took Karl with her.

  * * *

  Everyone loved Karl.

  “Oh, how cute,” the Fraser daughters cooed when Jodenny visited the passenger lounge. They each wanted to hold him and cuddle him and stroke his fine golden fur. They cried, “Moms! Can’t we get one?”

  Mommy Alys was a bit reserved on the idea, but Mommy Kate promised to think about it. “Where did you get it?” she asked Jodenny.

  Jodenny replied, “He was a gift.”

  “All you ever give me are lice,” Mrs. Zhang said, pinching her husband’s arm.

  “What more do you deserve?” he asked, rubbing the spot.

  The lounge was a long rectangular compartment with several sofas, wallvids, game consoles, card tables, and even an old-fashioned pool table. Malachy Balandra was playing Izim. He slunk out the door before she could confront him. She thought about following him, but he was fast on his feet, and knew the ship a whole lot better than she did.

  “That’s the captain’s son,” Mommy Kate said, following her gaze. “Seems like a good kid.”

  “Seems like,” Jodenny agreed blandly.

>   Sitting at the farkar table were the four business travelers Jodenny recognized from the night before. They introduced themselves as Lou Eterno, Louise Sharp, Baylou Owenstein, and Greg Smith, who said, “I get to be an honorary Lou. Hullabaloo, to be exact.”

  “Join us in a game and you could be another honorary Lou,” Baylou said. “You can be Lu-lu.”

  “No, thanks,” Jodenny said.

  But a short time later Lou Eterno excused himself to go read, and three remaining Lous recruited Jodenny to play a game of pool.

  Jodenny eyed the table. “I don’t know the rules.”

  “Neither do we.” Louise Sharp raised a glass of beer. She was a tall woman with magenta hair and dangling gold earrings. “Hit things into pockets. That’s our plan.”

  Hullabaloo said, “Be my partner. I’ll show you how to do it.”

  “What are we playing for?”

  “Jellybeans,” Louise said. “The high stakes chocolate-bar wager comes later.”

  Jodenny sized up a pool stick, rubbed the end dutifully with chalk, and followed Hullabaloo’s friendly instructions. Her aim was okay, but twice she hit the cue ball so hard that it jumped off the table.

  “Got a little pent-up frustration there?” Louise asked, not unkindly. “Hullabaloo, go get the girl a drink.”

  “I’m fine,” Jodenny said.

  Two hours and three beers later, she and Hullabaloo had lost all their jellybeans. Hullabaloo didn’t seem to mind. He was her age, maybe younger, with a smile aimed most of the time at Baylou, who seemed to enjoy the attention. Karl was busy napping on the sofa in the lap of the youngest Fraser daughter, who was watching a movie.

  “Thanks for bringing him,” Mommy Alys said. She’d been watching the game from a nearby stool. “We promised the girls a dog when we get to Earth.”

  “You’re not going on vacation?” Jodenny asked.

  Mommy Kate, curled up in a corner chair with a book, said, “Moving.”

  “Permanently?” Jodenny didn’t mean to sound so surprised, but debased Earth hardly seemed fit for a young family. Then again, it didn’t seem like a suitable vacation spot, either.

  “As long as they’ll have us,” Mommy Alys said, and dropped a sweater atop the sleeping child.

  The overhead comm clicked, and an emergency klaxon began to wail. Jodenny’s fist tightened on the pool stick so hard that she was surprised it didn’t snap in two.