“She’s not in great shape,” Calvin said. “She’s alive. We’ve been waking her up but she isn’t staying awake long. She’s been taking pain meds too.”
“Like father like daughter, huh?”
“You imagine the sores you’d get sitting in the same place in a p-suit for ten days.”
“Yeah, well, I know what mine smells like after ten days.”
Calvin laughed. “I bet you do.”
You don’t have smell sensors built into these yet?”
“On the newer models.”
“It’s a bad idea. Calvin?”
“Still here.”
How had he forgotten? “Wake up Lark now. I don’t care how. Get her to fire the main motor for a few seconds.”
“Oh, right, we discussed that—”
“Check my position first and see if I’m out of the way. Henry too.”
“You’re okay. You’re almost underneath Shooter, but Shooter’s tilted. I’ll get her to fire the motor, then guide you around to the channel. Hey, Lark!”
He kept climbing. Lark and Calvin negotiated. She spoke too low for his hearing, but she sounded angry.
He didn’t see the exhaust itself. He saw a line of pale plants glow brilliantly, dissolve into colors, then explode in flame as heat reached the air veins. It ran for twenty seconds, and when it went off, vines still burned.
“Thanks, Calvin, I can see it myself,” he said, and angled around.
He had to pull himself into the forest to reach the channel. The vines were growing back . . . but the going was suddenly much easier.
Kyle pulled up and over a half-charred leaf and stem-knot at an intersection. From here he could see a much bigger knot—and a darkly corroded metal claw, like a skeletal hand straining to break free. Shooter. The little ship was even more overgrown and tangled than when he’d seen it from the observatory. Flowers had sprouted everywhere, decorating it, making it look like a party bauble. He stopped a second and just looked, his heart flooding with the knowledge that he was going to make it. Calvin babbled in his ear—talk for the audience about how emotional the moment was.
“I’m afraid to go and look,” he said. Lark still wasn’t responding to him.
He didn’t feel his back or his body at all the last kilometer, just the soft give of the creepers in his hands and feet, the balance of his torso as he struggled to keep his center of gravity over the center of the stem. “Lark be safe . . . Lark be safe.”
He was within thirty meters of the marble when the vines tangled around it shuddered and jerked up and down. What? Was the knot unraveling?
“Hi, Daddy.” Her voice was weak. She was using one of Shooter’s arms to wave at him. He breathed out, and then screamed triumph.
Calvin and his crew had spent hours trying to figure out what he should do. He had a belt knife—thin and insubstantial. It easily cut the edges of leaves, and wouldn’t even dent a stem. He had a few hours, maybe more, maybe less. He was too tired to make sense of time.
Trying to untangle the ship appeared useless. Nevertheless, incident command had commandeered nearby computers and run thousands of simulations. They led him through the vines, one by one. Pull this part out of under—there. Yes. And then go around to the other side. Tug. Sure you can. Good. Now—see the one with the longest bell of flowers? Break that off. Pull here. Tie that down.
In the background, Calvin was talking Lark through a series of checks. He heard her talking back to Calvin, telling him to quit being so pushy, and Kyle laughed.
Kyle had made a new knot of vines, feeding the vines he was liberating from around Shooter into it to keep them from simply re-engulfing the bubble. His back was to Shooter. He heard a ripping sound.
He turned just in time to see Shooter lurch a few meters lower in the thinned-out net of stems that surrounded it. The ends of an arm dangled from above. Kyle had a rope tied to the marble. He pulled himself along it, fast, letting the vine he had been working on swing back towards Lark. It flapped out above the marble, safely out of the way. The door was free. By the time he got there it was swinging open.
His hand took his daughter’s hand.
She was almost dead weight. Her boots flopped against the side door as he pulled, but her hands were gripping. He held her under one arm and looked inside. A backpack sat by her chair.
“Bring the backpack?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“Weak.”
“It’s going to take her a little while to learn how to move normally,” Calvin said.
“How long?”
“We don’t know. Some experts say not until she gets out of the suit. She’s feisty enough to recover faster.”
Kyle talked to Lark. “Can you put your legs around me?”
She used to do that when she was a kid. He tucked his arm under her butt so she was sitting against his waist at the side, and she put her arms around his neck.
Well, he had one hand free. Now what? He shifted Lark to the front of him, sat on the stem he had climbed up, and slid. It was slower than walking—the suit material dragged wrong against the stem. The risk was real—if he wore out the suit material there was no fixing it up here. He stopped them, trying to think of a better way. Henry would think his own way out of a problem.
“Sit on a leaf, Daddy.”
It worked. He cut off a long thin piece of leaf, and tied it between his legs and up around his waist. He felt like he was wearing a diaper. The surface was slicker on the creeper stem. It held up until just before they got down to the first big knot, when the leaf shredded under him and he carried Lark to the knot, walking carefully, afraid that he’d launch them into space. Lark switched around to his back and he climbed carefully over the tangle of stems and vines. Cramps were making her whimper.
On the other side, he cut another leaf. He said, “The leaves are a good idea, honey.”
“I know the Styx.”
It took five hours to get back to the habitat. Lark gained more ability to move, and her hold on him was less tenuous. She still couldn’t stand or climb on her own.
When they reached the habitat, it was empty. Kyle had been afraid he’d find Henry dead in the habitat. Or that Henry had left his suit for Lark and jettisoned himself into vacuum and death. The empty habitat was unnerving. He stuffed Lark into the habitat without re-pressurizing it, leaving her in her suit. He went out and refilled his suit’s reservoirs, and sloshing full of sweet broth and water, he ducked back into the tent. Now he pressurized it and peeled Lark’s suit off of her. It actually stuck to her calves, ripping layers of skin off so they looked raw. He took his own suit off, and fed Lark on broth and water. She drank more than he expected.
“Where’s Henry?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Calvin, will you tell me yet?”
“Nope. Sleep.”
Kyle barely got the words “damn you” out before he was, in fact, asleep.
The next thing he noticed was the habitat shaking. Lark was able to help him get her suited. She only screamed twice, once for each raw leg. They depressurized, and Henry tumbled in the door, carrying the suit he’d modified for Lark.
“You went all the way down there?” Kyle asked.
Henry sounded weak. “Someone had to do each thing. I knew you had the brains to get her safely.”
Kyle grinned. They re-pressurized and stripped out of their suits. Lark poured herself into Henry’s arms, finally looking energetic. Henry looked very proud of himself. His smile was bigger than usual. Kyle stole a peek at Henry’s vitals. His blood pressure was way too high, his respiration was shallow and fast. “Sleep, Henry.”
Eight full hours later Kyle opened his eyes. Lark was crying, looking down at Henry.
“He’s not moving,” she sobbed.
“Calvin, what have we got for Henry?”
“Sleeping. Maybe in a coma. He might have had a stroke. We can’t tell from here. Doesn’t matter—the verdict is he can’t possibly make it. D
own will be at least half as hard as up.”
Lark crawled over to Kyle and cried in his lap. Kyle patted her head and found he was crying too. Ideas and condolences and tributes started coming in. Kyle turned off his radio; Henry would prefer silence. Besides—he wasn’t dead. But how were they going to get him down?
“Remember when you sat on the leaves?” Lark said.
“Sure.”
“Do we have rope?”
Kyle winced, thinking of the supply basket. “Calvin, do we have rope?”
Calvin’s voice. “They refilled the basket.”
Lark’s backpack had a better knife in it. She led Kyle out to cut off whole leaves. “These are bigger than I needed to get down the stem,” Kyle said.
“They’re not for you. They’re for Henry. They’ll cushion him,” Lark explained. “We’re going to use the spaces, not the stems.”
“Huh?”
“To climb up, you had to use the stems. To climb down, we can do better. We’re almost weightless, right? We tie Henry between us. We wrap him in leaves to cushion him if we screw up.”
“Hell with leaves, let’s use the probes. They didn’t have the strength to carry us up, but they could carry Henry down. Then we can use your idea, but we won’t have to worry about carrying Henry.”
He was rewarded with a rare touch from Lark. “I want to come back,” she said.
“Both marbles are busted.”
“Climb back.”
“You want to do this on purpose?”
“There’s things I need to know about what’s happening here. Besides, the real tourists will need guides.”
“What real tourists?”
“There are ten climbers on the next ship. Hundreds wanted to come—they had to do a lottery.”
“We’re leaving.”
“Justine Jackson is coming here.”
“I’m content to watch her.”
“They’re paying a premium.” She named a figure.
She could pay for her own school! “Do I have to climb these things again?”
“You’re being requested.”
Kyle grumbled. Calvin laughed at him. He and Lark rigged Henry carefully in place of the supply basket. They charged his suit with water, oxygen, broth. Kyle tied the med-kit to his back and tied the basket and its other contents to the vine. It would grow home.
Shooter would grow home too, to be stripped for salvage. It wouldn’t do to leave its diminished fleck of antimatter loose in the sky.
*
Henry beat them down by two days. He was at the table when Lark came in for her party wearing the yellow dress. Suriyah must have fussed over the table for hours; everything was perfect.
“Henry, couldn’t they find you a wheelchair?”
“This place isn’t outfitted for cripples, Lark. Suriyah, you know I can move around. You don’t have to keep lifting me.”
“I know. Next you’ll be climbing the Styx again.”
Henry sighed. “No, not that. But—you’re going, Lark. And Kyle?”
“For what they’re paying? Sure I’m going. This base’ll be open a lot longer now. At least until the Styx dies, if it dies at all. Justine Jackson—nice woman, by the way, but a little freaky—she doesn’t want someone beating her record in the Guinness Files. She’s talking about climbing the full length.”
“Kyle? Twenty-seven thousand kilometers?”
Lark burst in. “Yeah, but we’ll have a lot of support. Like swimming the Amazon, you take a boat alongside. She did that too, remember?”
Suriyah said, “You’d be years doing this!”
“Team of twelve. Big habitat, and a chef. We’ll still have a social life. Lark can attend Yale Virtual. Henry, we’re still talking, and I’m not even sure she’s funded yet, but wow! We’d have a dedicated channel for three years or so, and then chop that back to thirteen hours of just the exciting parts and a voice-over, for reruns.”
“Do you remember,” Suriyah said, “that the atmosphere is changing? You’ll be climbing through hurricanes.”
“No, don’t sweat the wind. Pluto’s atmosphere is thin as a dream and getting thinner.”
“You’re all crazy. You started crazy.” She looked from one to the other, and suddenly smiled. “Can I have your autographs? Someday they might be worth a lot. Here, on this.”
On Henry’s medical readout.
SECOND SHIFT
Kami closed her eyes and replayed Lance’s tender whisper. “I love you.”
Three words filled her. She listened again and again, memorizing the rise and fall of his voice. Glancing at the clock, she stripped the bud off her ear and pocketed it, afraid the temptation to hear him yet another time would take the tiniest bit of glow from the night.
Being this happy was as new as a dawn, as fresh as becoming an adult three years ago. Maybe it was even as good as being born in the first place. Her bones smiled.
Stupid. She knew it was stupid, knew Lance was a lifetime away from her and that every time she came on shift to be his company, his rocket companion, he was further away.
The HR girl who hired her had told her not to do this.
She liked the rebellion in it. It was only a small rebellion anyway, since her contract was good as long as Lance approved of her and the job existed.
Besides, she hadn’t done it. Not really. Love happened, right? The long nights sitting alone and talking, or even listening to the silence of his sleeping breath had surprised her into love, delighted her in a way she hadn’t expected.
Right on time, Sulieyan opened the door and started her morning routine. She plugged in an electric pot to heat water and opened the cupboard for tea. “Do you want a cup?”
Kami shook her head, hoping she didn’t look as giddy as she felt.
“No? Anything I need to know? Was the night sweet?”
She always asked that way, but this morning Kami felt her cheeks grow hot. “Sure. He’s asleep now.”
Sulieyan smiled at the unnecessary observation. The monitors on the walls relentlessly reported whether Lance slept or woke, exercised, ate, or worked.
Kami picked up her empty lunchbag, and gave the older woman a brief hug. “Gotta go.”
An hour after she got home, she pulled on her running clothes and practically danced down the metal steps outside of her apartment complex. She jogged through the bright tunnel under the maglev tracks and emerged in the park, her feet springy with her mantra for the morning “Lance Parker loves me. Lance Parker loves me. Lance Parker loves me.”
When she couldn’t take another step, she sat on the little beach by the koi pond, running sand through her fingers and making a tiny house as if she and Lance would ever live in it. The tragedy and impossibility of it all sang in her, as if she were the star in a Saturday night film.
There were other pilots—men and women—doing solo trips to the moon and back. That’s how the need for rocket companions came up in the first place. All the things about the flight and safety were handled by AIs, but computers weren’t companions.
None of the other solos had been famous test pilots and race-jet drivers first, and none of them was set to go as far. The prize was the rocks themselves; towing them back to the station being built above the Earth could make a lot of money—if it could be done on a shoestring.
The next night, Kami told Lance she loved him back. It was the first time she’d said the words. To seal them, she told him about the park and the koi pond and the little bite of fall in the air as she ran, about the one time a single gold leaf fell in front of her.
“Tell me what the air smelled like?” he asked.
His must be stale and metallic. “It smelled like water and sunshine and insects and the sand along the water. It smelled like the maglev when it sang by, and once of a wet dog that I almost tripped over.” Because she couldn’t think of anything else, she said, “It smelled like the promise of talking to you again.”
She hadn’t thought a smile was something you could hear.
“What are you doing today?”
“The air system filters need to be cleaned and changed. Fifty sit-ups and twenty pull-ups and a long trip round the world on the elliptical. And I’m working on a secret.”
“A secret?”
His secret was a poem written to her. He sent it back with his day’s records. Kami blushed when she realized the techs must have seen it. She posted it on the wall in her kitchen so she could read it every morning.
All the next year, she noticed smells and sounds in as many ways as she could, speaking descriptions into her wrist-recorder. The sun warm as a sleeping dog, the tiny perfection of the yellow in the center of a magenta azalea, the paper flutter of dogwood snow against her cheek. It became a game to come to Lance every night and give him a new description at the beginning of every shift.
*
Kami read about Lance with morning coffee after she left him to Sulieyan when they changed shifts. Tidbits. Things he said back to scientists and journalists and rock stars who wanted to know what it was like to be the first man heading to an asteroid.
She had meant this for a short job, a dalliance with the romance of rockets.
By her twenty-fifth year—her third with him—it grew harder to find Lance in the news. But not impossible. She followed others who followed him from around the world, little audible alarms that burred against her wrist to remind her he was real and alive. She followed his conversations and the conversations others had about him. The fact that the he was not entirely a forgotten hero touched her in each nerve.
She slept and ran and did laundry and surfed the nets, and late in every day she went to spend the night with Lance. What work to be with your beloved? She read him stories and he wrote her poems. She told him of beads of water on lacy spring-green leaves the size of her smallest fingernail and the brilliance of sun-struck snow on far mountains.
Cracking the Sky Page 18