by M M Buckner
Liam was the first to appear through the doorway, followed by Sheeba, then Vlad. I shrank against the wall. Sounds filtered from sick-ward, Kaioko and Geraldine sobbing quietly at Nobi’s beside.
In the anteroom, Vlad slumped against the steel table and closed his eyes. A pair of forceps tumbled from one of his bulging pockets and jangled on the floor, and Liam picked them up with a distracted air.
Sheeba’s eyelids were swollen, and sweat mashed her hair flat on one side. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her arms did not swing when she moved. At first, she didn’t notice me standing in the shadows. She raised her hand as if to touch Liam’s shoulder, but at the last minute, she hesitated and shied away. At the little sink, she stood vacantly, staring at the drain.
Liam rapped the blinking fluorescent tube with his fist. “Jeez. This light!” When he hit it again, the greenish tube stopped flashing and gave a steady glow.
Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose. His crooked face looked gray, and when Kaioko’s sobs momentarily rose in sick-ward, he swung his arm angrily at the rack of pinkish vials. “All my stupid mixes. They garbage.”
The tubes would have fallen to the floor if Liam hadn’t caught them. “Be calm, Doc.” He restored the rack to the table, then rested a hand on Vlad’s shoulder and examined one of the vials. “Sooner later, these mixes go work.”
Sheeba washed her face and hands at the sink, then wiped them on the front of her uniform and wrapped her arms around Vlad. Funny, she wasn’t the least bit shy with the medic. A trace of her former zeal returned when she said, “We need you, Vlad. You’re our best hope.”
Who did she mean by “we”? Sheeba and I didn’t have their filthy disease. We were execs. They were agitators. I tried to catch her eye, but she was too intent on comforting the sorry medic.
Liam arched his spine with a popping sound, and I noticed he was taller than Shee. For some reason, this trivial detail affected me beyond proportion. It didn’t seem fair. I’d gone through so much effort to be tall, and he hadn’t done anything.
In hindsight, many facts become clearer. Sheeba’s empathy with these dying juves was inevitable. She’d chosen a career of caregiving, and here were the archetypal suffering victims in need of her skill. Then, too, they were all so young. I didn’t want to believe that made a difference, but it did.
Liam crossed the tiny room and pressed his ear to the steel wall. “Gee say ‘xecs coming aboard. And we got people trapped on One and Two.” His baritone stayed low and steady, though his quivering jaw betrayed the strain he was under.
Vlad folded his arms. “Do we have a plan?”
“First, we get the people. Then we push out the ‘xecs. Gee and Kai-Kai gotta take Nobi to the garden. So I need every one of you.” Liam looked pointedly at me. I didn’t realize he’d seen me till then.
“Do we have weapons?” Sheeba asked. My peace-loving Sheeba wanted weapons?
“We got the welding rig.” Liam rubbed his chin. “Go see if you can find Juani.”
Unbelievably, Sheeba snapped to attention and dashed away like a gung-ho trooper.
A short while later, the five of us descended into the thin frigid air of Two’s ladder well—Juani, Sheeba, Vlad, Liam and me. Do you wonder why I allowed Liam to draft me into combat? We were going EVA, the chance I’d been waiting for.
“Stay quiet,” Liam whispered.
The commies were just on the other side of Two’s Down door. (The commies—listen to me. I’m starting to talk like Geraldine.)
Liam had sealed the blown-out door and reinforced it with heavy sheet metal, but Two’s ladder well was still re-pressurizing. My ears crackled and ached as denser air escaped through my eustachian tubes. The ladder felt ice-cold through my gloves. Liam warned us not to touch anything with our bare hands. Our breath made clouds.
Geraldine had given me her leaky space suit, but I delayed putting on the collapsible helmet. The nasty thing looked like a wad of duct tape dangling from my belt. Worse, the scary old suit had no self-sealing capability. One rip would mean total death.
Liam and Vlad wore the new white suits, and Sheeba wore a gray one only marginally more functional than mine. Juani shivered bravely in nothing but his inside-out uniform, work boots and gardening gloves. Apparently, these four suits represented A13’s entire inventory of EVA gear. Ye gilt, were we really planning to brave hard vacuum in these getups? Yes, for a little while, we would have to.
Liam’s plan was simple and hopeless. After we rescued the kiddies, we would exit through Deck Two’s airlock, then circle around to where Provendia’s well-armed troops were entering through the ruptured hull. The plan was to ambush the troops with chains, boots and one welding torch. Yeah, that’s right.
My plan, of course, was different. Once outside, I would grab Shee and surrender to the Provendia troops. What could be easier?
Juani tried to open the door leading into the pressurized section of Two. He looked chilled and vulnerable without a space suit, but since he suffered from spacesickness, he couldn’t go EVA. When the door’s wheel refused to budge, Liam and Vlad added their strength. Still, the wheel wouldn’t turn. Apparently, the blowout had damaged its gasket
Sheeba joined in. They made quite a sight, four people trying to turn a one-half-meter wheel. Finally, I scrambled up on Juani’s shoulders and kicked the top of the wheel with my boot. When the door let go, the pressurized air inside nearly broke its hinges. The gust threw us across the ladder well like a heap of crash dummies.
Imagine the bright light exploding from the solar plant. Feel how we squinted and covered our faces. After our long semidarkness, I felt as if my eyes were bleeding. My false optics usually adjusted for glare, but not this time—maybe because I’d missed that eye recalibration. Juani peeked through his fingers, and Vlad slowly uncovered his face. Liam unfolded two long scraps of gauze from his pocket. He tied one over his eyes and gave the other to Sheeba. Curse the graven gods, I wish I’d thought of mat.
The bevy of little trapped toads came pouring out through the bulkhead, cheering like foosball fans, and soon, everyone was hugging and laughing—molto syrupy moment. Slowly, the ambient temperature rose in the ladder well. Sheeba started handing the children up the ladder to Vlad, who cycled them in quiet groups through the safety lock. As she tickled their bellies and rubbed noses, I watched with relief. She was acting like her cheerful self again. Meanwhile, Juani hurried inside to restart the circulator pumps, and Liam cycled down to One to rescue the kids trapped there. I leaned against the wall and felt for the reassuring vibrations of whooshing and sluicing.
Eventually, we got used to the light, and Sheeba tugged her improvised mask down around her throat so she could work more easily. As she lifted the children, her slender muscles popped, and the white gauze danced around her throat like an air pilot’s rakish silk scarf. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Never had I felt such excruciating love.
After the kids were safely stowed on the deck above, Liam led us into the ops bay, where the light was less severe. The overturned desks and office supplies sprawled in massive chaos, and we picked our way through with care.
“First, Vlad and I go outside, see what the ‘xecs up to,” Liam said. He nodded at Sheeba and me. “You wait here.”
“But we can help,” I said, eager to get out.
“Right, Liam. We’re not babies.” Sheeba zipped up her suit and pulled on her gloves.
He shook his head. ‘Too dangerous.”
“But—”
“No.” He gave Sheeba a look that made her draw an exasperated breath. Then she sat on the floor to wait, and her luscious lips showed only a trace of a pout.
By now, I’d learned mere was no point in arguing with Liam, so I sat on the floor beside her. Inept as Liam might be with language, the punk knew how to get his way. So while Sheeba and I sweated in the overheated ops bay, Liam and Vlad slipped outside to run reconnaissance. Vlad would circle the tank prograde. Liam, retro. They would spy on the invading tro
ops from opposite sides of the hull.
Juani joined us with a grin and a thumbs-up. His pimply, optimistic face reassured me. He said the circulator pumps were working just fine, and the air and water were flowing freely again. Even though spacewalking gave him vertigo, he still wanted to help with our mission, so while we waited, he layered more duct tape around our crumbling air hoses and entertained us with a stupid song about yellow bricks. By chance, I found a row of punctures in Sheeba’s sleeve, and he helped me plug them with sealer glue. After that, I examined every square centimeter of her suit while Juani did the same for mine.
Damn these old suits. The manufacturer should have been sued for not installing a self-repair function. I slathered glue over every suspicious scuff mark. Sheeba remained quiet and still, which was not at all her usual style. The three adorable creases between her eyebrows deepened to grooves. Surf the moment, I kept telling myself, but these leaky suits unzipped my peace.
Vlad was the first to return. He said Provendia had a small troop carrier hovering outside, and he’d counted eight commies entering through the blown-out hull. He didn’t get close, but from the rumbling noises in the walls, he thought they were trying to drill through Liam’s patch into the ladder well. I asked why they didn’t simply enter through the airlock, and Juani said the commies were too gutless to try that. Airlocks could be rigged with gas, he said, like euthanasia chambers.
“Would you do that?” Sheeba asked.
“We already did,” Vlad said bitterly, and Sheeba whistled through her teeth.
Recalling my own passage through the airlock, I studied Vlad’s lopsided face with new respect. Sheeba asked if the troops might come through the docking port on Deck One, but Juani said he and Geraldine had jammed the doors. I knew they’d sabotaged the dock, but I wanted details, and as usual, it wasn’t hard to coax Juani into talking. He said they’d dumped five tons of fully loaded shipping pallets on top of the cargo doors so they wouldn’t slide open.
“Sleek.” Sheeba did the palm-to-palm prote handshake with Juani.
“Fully loaded with what?” I asked.
“Product, man. That pro-glu crap they eat on Earth.”
Product? Heaven still had five tons of pro-glu? That much product translated into nontrivial cash value. I made a mental note to inform the staff as soon as I escaped. If we could relabel that product with new expiration dates, we might be able to recoup some of our war expense.
Liam kept us waiting a long time. Juani said he probably went inside Two for a closer look, and Vlad said maybe the troops spotted him. I could feel Shee’s jumpiness. I rubbed her arm to comfort her, all the while knowing how little I succeeded. She didn’t want me. She wanted that agitator. She was infatuated with his—what? Good looks? No, I was more handsome. Not to boast, but any jury would choose my superbly crafted features over his gauntness.
Was it his courage then? But hadn’t I proved my mettle time after time in the zones? He had no assets, no accomplishments, no eighty-story condo. All that punk could offer was the brevity of his life. He was a short-timer, a neophyte, a young man. Was that supposed to be some kind of achievement?
Youth is for sophomores. It’s stupid and embarrassing, a time to be endured and forgotten as soon as possible. When I think back—oh yes, I can still recall those queasy, hormone-drunken days. That was long before the Crash. Yes, I remember fumbling in the dark for girls’ clothing and overturned bottles and questions I couldn’t begin to articulate. The futile rage and confusion, the teapot tempests, wrecked cars, theatrics in restaurant doorways, desperate emails, lost hearts. Now as I wait through these last moments of my life, I want to fling out my arms and rage tempestuously, “Sheeba, you can’t be in love with that juvenile!”
“Relax, beau.” She squeezed my fingers. “He’ll be back soon with good news. I feel it.”
“Um-hm.” In the sweltering ops bay, I leaned my head on her shoulder.
No sooner had my nose settled under her chin than the mighty chief’s shadow fell across us. He took off his helmet and spoke rapidly in his subdued bad grammar. He’d been all through the blown-out section of Two. The Provendia troops were trying to drill into the ladder well, just as Vlad guessed.
Vlad said, “Juani’s seedlings already ruined. We could set a plasma fire.”
“I’m thinking explosion,” Liam muttered. “Blow the hydroponic tables around. Knock a few heads.”
The groves reappeared between Shee’s eyebrows. “Will people die?”
Vlad nodded fiercely. “We hope.”
But Liam chewed the ends of his mustache, ruminating. ‘Trick is to set off a little pop without rippin’ the X wall.”
“This is so lame.” I couldn’t refrain any longer from speaking. “Why do you even bother? Look at the trouble you’re causing your employers. They built this satellite, and they subsidize all your costs of living. You owe them your loyalty. How long have you been holding back those pallets of product?”
“Nass.” Sheeba edged away from me.
“Well, Shee, dammit, be fair. Who started this war?”
Liam caught hold of my collar and pulled me closer. He kneaded the smartskin fabric between his fingers as if testing its quality. His blue eyes glittered like cut glass.
“Gee say you a commie spy. Is she right?”
“That’s nonsense. I’m a tourist, the same as Sheeba. You trust Sheeba, don’t you?” Why had I opened my mouth? Now, he might not let me go EVA.
Sheeba wriggled her shoulders and tried to signal me, but I couldn’t read her meaning. She looked angry.
“Are you with us or against us?” Liam said.
I swallowed. “I’m with you.”
He released my collar but continued to hold me with his eyes. Quite a commanding power the kid had. “Prove it, Nasir. I want to believe you.”
Liam moved toward the door, and Sheeba followed, glancing doubtfully over her shoulder to see what I would do. Of course, I hustled along with the others. My entire escape plan depended on going EVA.
Inside the ladder well, the drilling noise echoed almost as fiercely as the sonic lathe. I pressed my hands over my ears and thought of the fresh pair of disposable eardrums waiting for me in Kat’s shuttle. When we cycled down to Deck One, I found myself back in full Earth-normal gravity, back at the bottom of the spinning bucket where I’d first awakened with a broken leg—how long ago? Four days?
Liam led us through the Up door this time, into the cargo bay. When we stepped over the sill, the first thing I saw were the bales of dried pro-glu stacked all the way to the low ceiling. The shipping pallets rested squarely on top of the huge sliding doors where Provendia’s freighters were supposed to dock. Five tons, Juani had said. It was hard to imagine anyone pushing through that much weight. Still, Provendia’s troops were notoriously resourceful. I was trying to estimate the number of bales when Liam’s low voice caught my attention.
“Sheeba, you want too much from me. I said no.”
Strange words. The sound drew me closer. In a closet-sized work area just off the main cargo bay, Liam and Shee were standing face-to-face, and he was running his finger gently across a gob of sealant crusted on her space suit, just at her collarbone. The sight stopped me cold.
Sheeba caught his hand and pressed it to her lips. “You need me, beau.”
Beau. That was my name. Sheeba child, what were you thinking? I found it very hard right then, very hard to forgive her for that. No doubt, brutal emotions played across my face, but no one was looking at me. Juani and Vlad were busy with some nitrogen cylinders.
Liam murmured so softly, I almost missed what he said. “Your suit’s not safe. Wait here, and if the commies break through, you get your chance to help.”
“I want to come with you,” she said.
Then he kissed her. “No.”
He glanced around and saw me watching. When he moved away to help Vlad lift the cylinders, I got a clear view of Sheeba’s dark golden face. She was glowing.
&
nbsp; 17
DISTANCES CAN FOOL YOU
“It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem and In my esteem, age is not estimable.”
-LORD BYRON
A death sentence is never definitive. The judge may schedule your execution, set the date and name the hour with a ponderous knock of the gavel, but it’s guesswork. First there are appeals, stays, reprieves. Then abject pleadings for pardon. Of course, you’re not innocent, but you probably know someone in office. You write letters, call friends. As you run out of options, you pray the killing apparatus will break down. You look for hiding places in your cell, under the cot, for instance, or up behind the ceiling fan. You make lists of promises. You dream of your past. Perhaps a time comes when you grow tired of waiting and yearn for death—but I doubt it.
Life is a lie we make up to hide in. I didn’t see Liam kissing Shee. I imagined it. Where’s my memory delete key? I want to punch the damn thing and forget. As I sit here waiting in the anteroom, my body feels vigorous and lucid, yet in a finite number of minutes, Heaven will pass beyond Earth’s shadow, and I will die. Can that be possible? Look at these hands, the fingers still work beautifully. Look at my strong, pearly nails. These hands are too good to throw away. Perhaps I can dig a hole through this steel deck with my fingernails. Perhaps I can cry out again for Sheeba.
Sheeba who glows in the dark.
In the cargo bay, she leaned against the wall, listening to the steel with her eyes shut, while Liam and Vlad went spacewalking to set their explosion. In the dimness, her olive skin merged with the shadows, and her fingertips drew circles in the oily black fungus, unconsciously revealing the graffiti underneath. Her lips parted. Perspiration darkened her uniform. She was mesmerized by the zone.
I wanted to grip her shoulders and shake her awake. This thrill won’t last, dearest. As soon as you get back to civilization, you’ll come down off your surfer high and see that juve for what he is—a prote agitator. The zone is a fantastical outland. It’s not our reality. It’s the Reel.