In the Quick

by Kate Hope Day

  I climbed back to my seat and strapped myself in. My stomach calmed a little, but I still felt…what? Untethered. Adrift. More like a speck of dust than a person. I thought of my uncle and all the things he knew about the history of our universe, the history of space travel. About the machines that made living in space possible. But he’d never left Earth. As of this moment I’d gone farther into space than he had.

  23

  I blinked inside the dazzlingly white airlock outside the Sundew, the cargo station where I was posted for the next six months. My breath was loud inside my helmet; I held on to a handrail with one hand and my feet waved around below me. There was a long scrape and a pop as the capsule that had brought me disengaged from the Sundew and began to inch away. Some numbers on a screen counted down from one hundred, and when they hit zero, I took off my helmet and gloves. A hot metal smell—like my uncle’s soldering iron—filled my nose.

  Out the porthole the capsule became smaller and smaller, and I had a strange feeling of being left behind. But three other people were on the other side of the interior hatch door, and I only had to press the button beside the door and it would open. I angled myself in that direction and pushed it, but nothing happened. I waited. My limbs drifted, my organs shifted inside my body. I tried to right myself, taking hold of a handrail with one hand and hugging my helmet to my chest with the other. I pedaled my feet.

  A voice came from above, a woman’s. Hold on in there. There was static. Got a faulty seal. Give us a minute—

  The airlock shifted to the left. I thought it was in my mind, because surely they weren’t going to rotate the airlock with me in it. But it really was moving, turning under my feet. A low whine filled the air.

  Hey, I yelled. Hey!

  I strained to keep my grip on the handrail and my helmet slipped from my hand and spiraled away. My hip hit the porthole, harder than I thought possible in zero gravity; my wrist twisted and I cried out and let go of the handrail. I bounced against one wall, and another. My helmet spun back at me, fast, and I batted it away.

  Then all at once the rotation ceased. My helmet stopped too and hovered in the air like a balloon. I got hold of the handrail again, breathing hard. I rotated my wrist, felt tears at the corners of my eyes, and blinked them away.

  All done, the voice said. And then the hatch door slid open.

  Beyond it was a minimally lit gray module. The door slid shut behind me and my eyes adjusted to the dim. I smelled stale air, plastic, urine. Every surface was covered in panels and equipment, labeled in at least three languages; there was no ceiling, no floor. No differentiation between up, down, left, right.

  I rubbed my twisted wrist. The air was warmer than I’d expected, slightly balmy even, and full of a low buzzing hum.

  The woman’s voice returned, near my feet. Sorry about that.

  There was a video intercom just under my left foot. But the screen showed only an empty seat, its restraints loose in the air.

  It’s okay, I said. But it wasn’t okay. Focusing on the screen below made my stomach press against my skin. The buzzing in the air seemed to get louder, or nearer, or something. I tasted sour, and I clamped my mouth shut.

  Compression seat’s to your left, the voice said, and I pulled myself in that direction as fast as I could, my teeth clenched against the rising vomit. By the time I got myself into the right module I was sweating. I struggled out of my suit, a torturous task without gravity, convinced I’d throw up inside it. The neck ring scraped my skin and pulled my hair; my wrist and hip smarted with every movement, and I was nearly weeping when I finally got free.

  In my underclothes and socks I grabbed a bottle tethered to the wall and took a drink. When the liquid moved in the right direction, downward, I was grateful. I wiped my face with a wet towel from a box stuck to the wall, and it was cool against my throbbing head. I took another. I scrubbed my lips and found brown blood. In a square mirror next to the wipes my eyes were red like a rabbit’s. I opened my mouth. During liftoff I must have bit the tip of my tongue.

  I strapped myself into the compression seat, secured its one-piece with elastic and Velcro, and pressed a button I thought was right. It filled with water, squeezing each of my limbs, starting at the top and working its way down. It pushed the blood from my head into my shoulders, and my ears cleared. The throbbing behind my eyes ceased. Then it pushed the blood from my shoulders into my torso, and my stomach calmed. Once it reached my legs I felt almost normal.

  Now the seat was in the center of the floor, not the ceiling. Now the portholes were high up, like they were supposed to be. I strapped on the ocular instrument—giant black goggles—and did my eye exercises. When I was done I really was better. The door was in the right place, and the mirror too. On the wall were my crew members’ hanging suits. But I’d improperly tethered my own suit and its white arms and legs waved at me with animation, with a seeming sense of urgency. It gestured at the farthest porthole and I saw the edge of the Earth. It didn’t press against the porthole like it had in the capsule. It was only round and still and impossibly blue. I stared at it for a long time.

  Then I realized it was in the wrong place. It ought to be under my feet. If the chair was under me, then the Earth ought to be under it, but it wasn’t. It was above my head. The room bent; I held on to the seat and bent with it. My skin slid upward. My feet were on the sky and my head in the Earth, and my skin slid up, up.

  A movement at the other end of the module. A tall figure in a gray jumpsuit floated toward me, a woman, upside down. Her hand hovered. She turned clockwise, and the room bent again. An oval face appeared behind the hand.

  I tasted vomit and didn’t shut my mouth in time.

  Something rustled. The woman had a plastic bag in her hand; she swam through the air to catch the bubbles of sick. I held my hand to my mouth and my cheeks burned.

  The woman had short hair and long ears. Amelia, I said.

  Sorry about the bumps, she said, and kicked a panel on the wall. This station’s a piece of junk.

  What’s wrong with it? My tongue was thick and the words came out slow.

  Oh it’s all right. Better than nothing. She lightly hooked one socked foot under a panel and pushed the plastic bag into a trash compartment.

  I’m glad to see you, I said. It’s been a long time.

  Has it?

  We haven’t seen each other in—I swallowed and tried to focus on a specific spot on the wall—six years.

  Right. She released her foot from the panel and began moving back the way she came.

  What should I be doing? I called after her.

  Getting your space legs.

  But I didn’t want to be alone with my waving spacesuit, the smell of vomit, and the porthole with the Earth in the wrong place. I unstrapped myself and followed.

  24

  She called out the names of the modules as she swam past them, navigating around equipment and through airlocks with ease. I tried to orient myself based on the plans I’d studied before the launch, to take note of what equipment was where, but my limbs kept floating away and hitting things. It took all my concentration to keep them close, to hold my legs together and to press my arms against my sides. But I knew we must be getting close to the module with the toilets, because I could smell them, and I felt a dry heave rise up as we went past. I swallowed hard.

  Amelia stopped in a compartment packed with large fabric storage bags that looked like they might have once been white but were now dingy gray. The air was full of whirring and blowing and beeping, and we had to raise our voices to be heard.

  Storage and Systems, Amelia said, and opened a cabinet with tools velcroed inside. A small screwdriver floated out and I tried to catch it. I missed.

  She grabbed for it behind her head and returned it to the cabinet. She tied a wrench and a pair of scissors to her jumpsuit, grabbed a roll of duct tape, put
her hand through it, and pulled it up her sleeve. We got here late, she said. We’re still doing systems checks.

  I’ll help.

  She shook her head and drifted slightly in the air. Not if you’re going to puke on the equipment—

  I won’t.

  She looked at me. We’ve only got four hours before the first supply packet arrives. I can’t babysit you.

  You won’t have to.

  Then let’s move.

  We reached the Service Module—the SM—where a man was squeezed behind an equipment panel. All I could see was one long leg, one long arm.

  Simon, Amelia said.

  They still haven’t replaced this thing, he called from the panel. I can’t believe it.

  Just fix it like you did last time. Amelia pulled the roll of duct tape from her arm and tapped his shoulder with it. Remember June? she said.

  Simon stuck his head out from behind the panel. He was so different—his shoulders were broader and his soft wavy hair was gone, buzzed close to the skin.

  Of course I do. He reached out his hand and I pushed my body forward in the air. He caught my hand and squeezed it firmly and smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. All grown up, he said.

  He ducked back behind the panel and we swam on, going in a circle (the station was a hexagon of modules, arranged around the SM). In another module a woman with waving dark hair was cleaning debris out of a vent. She floated horizontally in the air, a cloud of dust and fibers around her head.

  Nine down, she said. Sixty-six more to go—

  Rachel’s second-in-command, Amelia said to me. She’ll save the rest of you if this piece of crap station kills me—

  Hey. Rachel turned her shoulders and rotated her body in the air so she was facing me. She had large bright eyes. Her hair billowed. Do you snore?

  I looked at Amelia. No. Or, I don’t think so—

  Then we’ll get along great.

  Very funny, Amelia said. I don’t snore.

  I brought you a nose clip this time, Rachel said and she reached out as if to pinch Amelia’s nose.

  No you didn’t, Amelia said, and ducked her head away.

  I really did, Rachel said to me as Amelia propelled herself into the next module. I followed her into the Storage and Systems module from the other side.

  Amelia hung above a piece of equipment. Can you deal with this?

  I was pretty sure it was a water reclaimer, although I’d never seen one exactly like it on Earth.

  The tubing’s shot, and it needs to be flushed, she said. She pulled a piece of plastic hose from a cabinet and handed it to me but didn’t let go. Her face was serious. This is our only spare, so we’ve got to make it last.

  Sure, I said. But she still held on to the hose.

  I get it, I said.

  She let go. All right. I’ll be back. She swam away, her feet kicking at the air.

  I opened cabinets and found the tools I needed. The water reclaimer had a series of small screws on its back panel, and when I removed the first it quickly floated away. I twisted my body and caught it; then I got a roll of duct tape from the tool cabinet, tore a piece off, and made a circle of tape around my upper arm. Then I proceeded, making sure each screw stuck to the tape so it wouldn’t float away.

  As I worked I tried to keep my limbs close—my legs, my left arm—but as soon as I turned my attention to something else, they drifted away. The air was stuffy and I began to sweat. But it felt good to have a tool in my hands. My body had no weight, but it could still create force like it did on Earth.

  The video intercom on the wall showed the interior of the SM. Two figures took up the screen, Amelia and Rachel. But only Rachel’s bottom half was visible; she must have been cleaning a vent just above. Amelia held a clipboard that was tethered to the wall and wrote something in pencil.

  Amelia looked up. Rachel’s feet hovered near her head. The expression on Amelia’s face reminded me of someone—Carla.

  She caught hold of Rachel’s legs and pulled her body downward until they were face-to-face. She said something I couldn’t hear, and Rachel laughed. Then Amelia reached out and tugged a piece of Rachel’s waving hair.

  I looked away.

  I removed the last screw, got the panel open, and began to unclip the coiled tubing inside. There were over twenty clips and each had to be stuck—like the screws—to my circle of duct tape. When they were all out I straightened the tube, pushed out the remaining water into a sponge, and then coiled it up again.

  A pinging alarm sounded. Amelia and Rachel weren’t on the screen anymore. I straightened my body in the air.

  Amelia reappeared and began rummaging in one of the tool compartments.

  What’s happening?

  The first packet. Two hours early. She closed the compartment and secured it with its Velcro strip. Stay here, she said. Finish this. She pushed herself back through the airlock.

  I waited a minute to see if the alarm would stop. It didn’t and Amelia didn’t come back, so I returned to the tubing. I got the hose in and flushed the system and waited while it filled. The bubbles in the tank didn’t behave like bubbles on Earth, didn’t rise to the top. They changed shape, from round to oblong to pear shaped, but they didn’t merge with one another or pop. They hovered like jellyfish.

  My eyes felt heavy watching them. I’d been awake for…I attempted the math but my brain moved slowly. I blinked. I tried to rouse my body, to move deliberately. But my hands and feet were sluggish. My eyes kept migrating to the bubbles as they stretched and fattened in the tank.

  I let my limbs float. My eyelids lowered.

  You’re leaking, someone said near my ear.

  I opened my eyes. It was Simon. The bubbles weren’t in the tank anymore—they were in the air. A constellation of droplets swam around my head.

  Oh shit. I waved my hands, lamely attempting to catch the beads of water swiftly floating away, shiny and globular.

  You forgot to reconnect the intake tube, he said.

  I scrambled to correct my mistake. I stopped the leak, grabbed a towel, and started chasing the water droplets.

  When you’re done head that way. He pointed to the next module. The packet’s about to dock.

  Water was moving toward an instrument panel, and I swam fast to catch it.

  25

  They were all in the airlock outside Cargo 2 when I got there, Amelia, Rachel, and Simon. There was a slight bump, and then a scraping suck, and the supply capsule docked.

  I held on to a handrail and forced my eyes to stay open.

  Rachel eyed me. Maybe you should head to your bunk, she said.

  Don’t you need me? My voice was hoarse.

  Take thirty minutes.

  They’re only giving us three hours to unload. Amelia tapped my cheeks with her two hands. Wake up! You’ll be fine.

  The empty hold was huge in comparison to the station’s tight modules and airlocks, and even more dimly lit. It was a different sensation being weightless in such a large space. There was no equipment in here, no wires and tubes waving. Nothing to bump into. Just scraped-up gray walls marked with faint yellow text—indicating loading zones in three different languages, English, Russian, and Japanese—and cargo restraints secured flat.

  Simon moved ahead to the exterior door and began checking the seals, and Rachel handed me a pair of gloves.

  Amelia swam toward us with two crowbars tucked under her arm.

  Damn, Simon said from the other end of the hold. He’d opened the exterior door, but the supply capsule’s hold was so packed you could barely see inside. Runner lights glowed dimly from the deck, but a huge crate, wider than the exterior hold door, blocked our view.

  They do this every time, Amelia said. They forget we unload back to front.

  Simon prodded the gia
nt crate with a crowbar and it creaked but didn’t budge. Someone’s going to have to crawl through, he said.

  The crate was secured to the deck with restraints and there was only a narrow space between its top and the hold door.

  June will do it, Amelia said. Won’t you—

  Are you sure? Rachel frowned at me.

  I’m okay. I swam to the top of the crate and my mind focused and my limbs woke up. I can do it.

  Good, Amelia said.

  Once you get on the other side, watch your feet, Simon said. Don’t step on any of the restraints.

  I pulled on my gloves, hovered for a second, and then began inching through the dark opening.

  I felt the heat of my breath in the narrow space as I crawled my hands along the top of the crate. I smelled glue and metal and foam rubber. Eventually my fingers reached an edge and open air. Another crate was secured to the deck just beyond and I tried to judge the width of the gap between them, from my middle finger to my elbow.

  You can shift it forward, I called. I looked over the side of the crate. And to the left. There’s enough room to angle it out I think. It’s wider than it is long—

  You’ve got to undo the restraint, Amelia called. We can’t get to it—

  I was going to have to dive between the two crates. Would I fit?

  I’ve got it secured on our end, Simon called. It’s not going anywhere.

  I put my arms in front of me, tucked my head, and wriggled into the gap. The sound of my breath and the creak of the boxes surrounded me. I groped for the restraints, the runner lights bright in my eyes. My hand found the cold metal of the release. A single dried bean floated past my face. Then another.

  What’s happening? Amelia called.

  I loosened the release, and the crate wobbled in the air and bumped against my back.