Days Until Home

by Mark Gardner

  It had taken the last six contracts to get all her people into position. She had fun with Jessica and others, but they were just warm bodies for her to lie with. God, I miss Sapphire, she thought. When Sapphire came to her with the plan, Adelaide thought it madness. Their parents had been colleagues, and they were all on-planet when the war ended. Sapphire and Adelaide were both too young to fully grasp what had happened in a world too big for them to understand.

  The outcry over the Lunar Church’s use of atomic weapons against the Australian Defense Force didn’t end with the utter destruction of Luna Three. Oh, no. The people of the Earth tracked down all the lunar church missionaries. Their wrath was swift, and the punishments final. Sapphire and Adelaide were considered by the Earthers to be too young to be proper members of the extremist church. Whispers of brainwashing and indoctrination were bandied about. The people of the Earth took pity on the two young girls, and they were remanded to the state.

  It was a pair of nine year olds against the world. The church may have died twenty years prior, but Adelaide’s scars of bitterness at government overreach and the destruction of her home hadn’t faded in time like the psychologists had promised they would. She and Sapphire parroted what they wanted them to say and bided their time until they reached maturation. They were scrutinized more so than other children their own age, and when they both joined a conglomerate’s citizenship program, their lunar origins were called into question. Sapphire joined the administrative program, and Adelaide joined the engineering fast track. Everyone expected them to fall behind the physical rigors of the training, but their lunar births had been tempered by their new lives in Earth’s gravity. Adelaide and her sister had lived longer on the Earth than they had on the moon.

  This could be my last contract as an MPA, Adelaide thought. She shoved off from the bulkhead and strode purposefully down the passageway toward the propulsion plant.

  Scenarios kept forming and disbanding in her mind as she made her way aft. Sapphire clearly had the advantage over her when making plans and adjusting them as they unfolded, but Sapphire was a hundred and ten million miles away. Adelaide was on her own. Her plan was always to smash through opposition and to win by sheer force. Be it a hammer or a smile, Adelaide did what needed to be done.

  Our timetable may have been accelerated, she typed into a point-to-point comms device. It bypassed the ship’s mainframe and used a microwave signal to link the devices to a secure peer-to-peer network. We should spend the night together.

  Your place? came the response a few minutes later.

  No, Adelaide replied, Jessica will be off shift tonight. Let’s use your quarters.

  I’ve got a roomie.

  I’ll take care of that, don’t you worry, Erika. Adelaide powered down the device without waiting for a response. The corridor had more bodies since she was getting closer to crew quarters. Walkers, gawkers, and talkers, the ChEng would’ve called them. Eyes were averted when she passed crew members. The veterans of the Kerwood knew she kept her quarters nestled between the bi-directional electrostatic xenon ion engines. She smiled. Rank doth have its privileges, she thought as she keyed her entry code into the panel beside the door to her berth.

  Adelaide unzipped her coveralls and bunched the top around her waist. She pressed on a panel on the bulkhead, and a mirror swung out. From another recess, she pulled off a panel and extracted several feet of stiff copper mesh. She attached a device to one end and pressed a button. The copper mesh instantly went limp. Adelaide was careful not to disturb the electrical contact. She wrapped the limp mesh over her shoulders, around her breasts, and across her back.

  Each crew member had a subcutaneous positioning device embedded between their shoulder blades. All the tech on the ship ran with proximity sensors. The computer knew where everyone was at all times. Technically, she didn’t even need a passcode to her quarters. The doors were keyed to only open to a fixed list of proximity signatures. Adelaide had long ago modified that list to include more than the official tally.

  Satisfied that the copper mesh was in the correct position, she tugged the device off the end. The mesh went from flaccid to turgid in three seconds. She pinwheeled her arms, and did a few squats, followed by bending and stretching. She was satisfied she had full movement and tugged at the regulation T-shirt that kept the mesh from chaffing her skin.

  She walked to the door, and it appeared that the ship was oblivious to her presence. Smiling, she returned to the hidden panel and pulled out a velvet-lined box. She snapped it open and gazed at the sapphire ring inside. She pinched the foam and pulled it out with the ring. A folded inch of copper mesh was revealed. She touched the mesh to the device from before, and the mesh slackened.

  She unfolded the now soft mesh with the precision of both practice and practical application. The positioning device hidden within was about a quarter of an inch long, and about an eighth of an inch around. She procured a length of single-sided adhesive and secured the new positioning device to the surface of her copper wrap. She re-shouldered her coveralls, zipped them up, and examined herself in the mirror.

  Once satisfied, she replaced the hidden panels and strode with confidence to the door. A light on the panel beside it emanated a soft glow when her pirated signature was in range. She waved her palm over the lit panel, and the door unlatched, recessing into the bulkhead.

  She stepped through the door in time to hear the 1MC chirp. “Main propulsion assistant, please report to propulsion plant.”

  She pulled a device out of her coverall pocket that looked similar to the clandestine device she had used earlier and spoke into it. “This is Bähr, ETA, three minutes.” Adelaide pocketed her communicator and walked toward the plant, no one the wiser to her plans.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Days Until Home: 42

  The sensation of removing a vacuum enviro-suit after a fourteen hour shift was the closest thing to pure pleasure Viktor ever experienced.

  First, he had to walk backwards into his locker, hooking his backpack-like life support system onto the wall so it could disconnect the various electronics. His bulky outer suit came off next, a ten minute process that required twisting the torso off the waist, unsnapping the seemingly endless pressure clips at the seams and along his hands, before pulling it all over his head. After that, the pants came off easier.

  That left the three underlayers. The micrometeoroid garment, which crumpled loudly like plastic as it came off and went into the locker. The bio layer, which contained his waste bag, water supply, and liquid cooling flow system. All of it had a habit of shrinking when he perspired, which was every time he put the damned things on, so fifteen minutes of twisting and struggling and he was down to his underwear.

  He sat on the bench of the Kerwood’s change room, allowing the cool air to hit his exposed body. He was red and splotchy all over, with crease lines crisscrossing his skin. They were done. The last load completed, all the excavation equipment returned to the cargo hold. He took long, deep breaths, savoring the satisfaction. If Helena could see him in that moment, she’d frown, cross her arms over her breasts, and demand to know why he never looked that happy when he was with her.

  The sound of the door banging open broke the reverie. Jimmy waddled inside, his own enviro-suit covered in grey bits of asteroid. He grinned at Viktor and spoke in a muffled voice behind his helmet.

  Viktor raised an eyebrow and tapped his own skull. Jimmy rolled his eyes, and then twisted the helmet off. “Every time, boss. I swear I do that every time.”

  “You should be more conscious of your environment,” Viktor said.

  Jimmy sat heavily onto the bench. “Oh I’m conscious, alright. I’m conscious of the fact that we busted our butts and finished an hour early! Time to get off this potato rock.”

  For once, the kid’s enthusiasm didn’t grate at Viktor.

  Jimmy removed the various clasps from his suit. He eyed the older Russian. “Hey. Vicky. Listen, about what happened yesterday…”
/>   Viktor waved a hand. “Forget it.”

  “No, see, I feel bad. Connie told me you rushed over to the site. Is it true?” He paused. “You steeplechased your way to save me?”

  Viktor sighed. After Connor wrote the kid up he’d been apologizing every hour on the hour. Viktor hated the retroactive sympathy more than the recklessness of the act itself.

  “Da,” he said. “It’s true.”

  Jimmy whistled through his teeth. “Connie showed me the position logs, but I wasn’t sure if he was foolin’. You were only a few meters per second of delta-v from hitting escape velocity.”

  Viktor blinked. “Connor exaggerates.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Nope. If you had a young man’s quads you’d be your own heavenly body orbiting the sun around two-point-two AU. The way I figure, boss, that’s gotta be some sort of record. You know? Long jumpers on earth ain’t got nothin’ on a crazy Russian in the black.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy.”

  “All I’m sayin’ is, you oughta look it up. Put your name down in the Guinness Book of Galactic Records.”

  Viktor had enough. He pushed to his feet and threw on some fresh clothes, which weren’t all that fresh. “I need to talk to Connor.”

  “We could call it a ‘Crazy Viktor,’” Jimmy called after him as he left the change room.

  Viktor’s muscles ached with comfortable exhaustion and the comparative ease of walking around suitless. Like an animal who had shed its shell.

  He smiled to himself. Their job was done. It was time to go home.

  The return trip always felt like a waste to Viktor, time that would have been better spent working. If the Ceres Resource Hub project ever got through the approval process, then miners wouldn’t need to make the trip from the belt to the inner planets every time, but that was still years away. It didn’t help that the corporations pledging funding for the station were always at each others’ throats, squabbling over contract rights. Everyone agreed the pie needed to be cut up, but everyone wanted the best piece.

  But none of that mattered to Viktor Sharapov. He was even looking forward to the return trip, for once.

  Can I even call it retirement? he wondered. Fungus farming was notoriously hard work: monitoring moisture levels, constantly checking soil samples, harvesting spores three times a week. So long as he was doing it with Helena, in control of his own life, he didn’t care.

  The Kerwood was like an ant hill, everyone rushing around to finish up their final tasks before departure. Viktor shouldered his way to the broom closet Connor called an office.

  The Irishman faced his video screen, shaking his head. “No, no, no. Washers first, Harry. Then the bolts. If you do it wrong the crates won’t…” he trailed off as he saw Viktor.

  “Got a second?” Viktor said.

  Connor said, “Do it right, Harry,” and then turned off the microphone. He leaned back in his chair. “A second? No. I don’t have a second, Viktor, because we’re leaving an hour early and everyone seems to have forgotten how to do their job.”

  Viktor closed the door and sat in the lone chair across the desk. “You’re the one who wanted the excavation site packed sooner than originally planned.”

  Connor held out a palm. “I know. I’m not blaming you, just complaining out loud. Captain’s got a bug up his ass about leaving, so the slagstorm’s rolling down the chain of command.”

  “Ahh.” Viktor sniffed the air. “What is that—?”

  “Ahha!” Connor smacked the table triumphantly. “The air is heavier, right? I had engineering come up here. Turns out there’s a minor xenon leak. They said I was crazy, that xenon is odorless, but I’ve got a nose like a bloodhound. And before you panic, no, xenon is not toxic. We’re safe in here.”

  “Ahh.” Viktor hesitated.

  Connor lowered his eyebrows. “Well? Spit it out.”

  “The company profit share,” Viktor said. “I want to talk about…”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Connor muttered.

  “…how it will be distributed among the workers,” Viktor said. “We need to switch to a proportional system.”

  “I told you I would raise it up the pole when we got back.”

  Viktor pulled out his hand terminal. It showed a bar graph, with names listed on the X-axis. “I sorted through the suit position logs, and cross-referenced them with worker shift data and the hourly crate count. Even though total hours worked remains consistent across all miners, that’s not the best metric to use. Some miners only pulled half as many crates as others.”

  Connor looked at the graph and raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you’re at the top of the list, considering all your smoke breaks.”

  Viktor opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  Connor saved him by barking a laugh. “Jesus, Viktor, relax. I’m not going to write you up for that, so long as you don’t blow yourself up. Then you’ll get a mark on your record.”

  He nodded awkwardly. “Thank you. But the data show—”

  “I know all about the data. What do you think ops managers do all day? Sifting through spreadsheets and finding inefficiencies is half my job.”

  Viktor pointed to the graph. “Then you can see how myself and Jessica deserve a higher percentage of the credits. Whereas someone like–…” he hesitated half a second, “like Harry deserves a smaller portion.”

  He’d been about to say Jimmy, but didn’t want Connor to think he was taking yesterday’s prank personal.

  “Harry’s getting cut as soon as we get back,” Connor said, “but I get your point. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You said that on Vespa last contract. You told me you would look into it, make some phone calls.” Viktor spread his hands. “Yet nothing.”

  “Yeah, I know what I said.” Connor sighed. “It’s not so simple. Efficiency shares may make sense in a vacuum—hah, no pun intended—but there are problems. Such a system is essentially incentivizing miners to work faster, right? That’ll take the lollygagging out of guys like Harry, but it’ll rush others. Maybe it rushes them more than what’s tolerable. Push them to cut corners, ignore certain protocols to make sure they get the biggest share. What if we see an arms race of safety violations? Then I have to start cracking down, which’ll only work as long as my eyes are on `em.”

  Viktor felt himself deflate like a balloon. “I did not think of it this way.”

  Connor ran a hand through his auburn hair. “Yeah. Look. I appreciate the work you do. Same for Jessica. But—”

  The intercom in the speaker crackled to life. “Attention all crew. This is Captain Hayes. Departure time has been moved up. Anyone not in their launch chairs in twenty-eight minutes will find themselves bouncing around like a human pinball.”

  The intercom went silent.

  Connor frowned at the ceiling. “Gets jumpier every damn day.” He regarded Viktor. “Look, I may not be able to make efficiency shares a permanent thing, but I do have some leeway in profit distribution on a per-mission basis. You’ll get your extra profit share for this mission. I promise. I’ll put it in when we get home.”

  Viktor suppressed a smile. “I appreciate you taking the time to…”

  But Connor had already turned back to his computer screen. “Harry, what the slag did I tell you? Check all four corners. I don’t care if they’re stacked, when the Kerwood’s under thrust, if they so much as move a millimeter…”

  Viktor allowed himself to smile as he returned to the hallway. He and Helena would have what they needed, now. No more contracts. No more orbital transfers to the belt.

  He made his way to the galley, along with what looked like most of the ship. The crew would be confined to their launch chairs for eight hours during the departure. Standard safety procedure. Anyone who had a meal scheduled during that time would miss it so it was either get your ration early or go hungry for the duration. On larger celestial bodies, like the inner planets or Jupiter, Viktor would have left his stomach empty for the departure burn rather than
stain his shirt with vomited leftovers. But for Egeria-13’s miniscule gravity well, the departure would be hardly bumpier than a bicycle ride.

  He followed the crowd until it reached an intersection, where a body suddenly crashed into him from the right. He stumbled into two other miners.

  “Watch it, guy,” said one miner. The other cursed at him in what sounded like Spanish.

  Viktor mumbled an apology and turned to look at who had run into him.

  It was one of the engineers, judging by the grease all over her jumpsuit. Her name tag said Bahr. Anger flashed on her face for an instant, no, not just anger. Fury. Uncontrollable fury, a fire in her eyes that promised malice and pain.

  It lasted only a moment, and then a mask went over her face.

  “Sorry!” she said cheerfully. “Need to watch where I’m going. Too much to do, you know.” She pushed past Viktor and the other crew in the opposite direction.

  The miner next to Viktor snorted. “Grease monkeys. Treat us like we’re pack animals.”

  “No respect,” said another. “The whole ship’s that way.”

  Viktor watched the engineer disappear behind them. “It is not so bad. Everyone is just busy.”

  “Busy pushing us around, you mean.”

  “We’re strangers to them,” Viktor said. “Contracts change, people change. The crew that stays with the ship is always wary of strangers. It is natural.”

  “Whatever you say,” the miner mumbled.

  Viktor wanted to protest more, but the sound of shouting reached their ears as they neared the galley. Everyone was crowded around the door. Viktor shouldered his way through.