by Kate Rauner
He jumped up and took a step toward the fliers, which were now enveloped in a pale, translucent sphere. They stared for a long moment.
"Nothing's happening," Fynn said.
"Chemical reactions are slow in the cold."
"The ghost moved fast enough. Why isn't it blowing away?" Fynn raised his hand, fingers together, but the air felt calm again. Maybe the ghost hadn't moved against the wind.
"Hey." Fynn bounced on his toes, right off the ground. "You said it would eat you. Only living things eat. The ghost is alive, isn't it?"
"No." Drew flapped his arms out and let them drift to his sides. "I don't know. I was just surprised. Did you record a video? I need to study what's happening here."
"No, I didn't record a video. I was too busy pulling you out of the ghost." Fynn waved a hand. "We need to get our fliers back."
Fynn walked to the strange bubble and reached a hand toward it. Then, thinking he didn't want to lose a finger, instead slid a boot forward. It passed through the glowing surface without resistance. His toes didn't feel chilled. Not like when he stepped into the lake. He jumped backward in a slow arc and stood by Drew.
"Can it damage the fliers?" Fynn asked.
"How should I know? I studied earthly biochemistry. Earthly genetics. I don't see a place for this thing to keep any genes."
"Look, I shoved my toe at that thing and nothing happened. It touched your boots and nothing happened. I'm gonna grab the fliers."
"Hang on a minute. I'm turning my helmet camera on."
Fynn leaned into the thick air and pushed close to the engulfed fliers. Without a pause that might sap his nerve, he snagged the closest flier's handlebar and slung it halfway across the beach. Then did the same with the second flier and kicked back so hard he toppled over when he landed.
Drew mounted a flier and lifted off, skimming the sand to pull Fynn onboard. He circled back for the second flier, snagged it, and shot straight up.
Fynn hugged the second flier and flipped on its blower.
As they hovered above Spiral Bay, rain shafts thinned and clouds lightened. Below them, ice rocks reflected orange sky glow and the pale ghost melted into the sand.
They landed, and Fynn dug at the spot it had occupied. "Where'd it go?"
Drew kicked the black sand. "If our ghosts are that quick to sense metals, maybe they can find meteors on the surface. The colony's gonna need meteors for their mineral content."
"This far out in the solar system? We're a million kilometers from the asteroid belt. Saturn's nothing but a ball of hydrogen, and why should there be anything more than this." Fynn kicked the dark sand, leaving a hovering puff of particles.
"Hey, I'm the pessimist on this team. You're supposed to be the romantic. Allegedly, there's a core of iron, nickel, and silicon in Saturn and all its moons, so probably traces of heavier metals too."
"Under kilometers of ice."
"Not very handy, true. How about asteroids caught in Saturn's gravity? That's what Tyra is looking forward to. Flying through the rings to search for metals and minerals. Some rocks must have gotten kicked out this far after billions of years. And some must have crashed into Titan. Meteors should be lying on the surface. That would explain all the methane."
Still on his knees, Fynn twisted for a better view of his friend, who didn't seem to be joking. "What needs explaining? Titan has seas of methane."
Drew swung his arms wide. "Exactly. And where'd it come from? Sure, hydrogeology can account for some minerals reacting with water and carbon, but living systems would do a better job. There are microbes on Earth that produce methane."
Fynn swiped at the sand. "We're definitely not on Earth."
"I need to study the possibilities," Drew said. "I've got all my textbook files, and I'm smarter than I look."
"Well, thank goodness for that."
Drew dropped down next to Fynn and grabbed his shoulders so their faceplates lined up, so Fynn looked into his gleaming eyes. "I'll study Titan's composition before I come down again."
Fynn slumped. "You're leaving?"
"There are more Kin to awaken, and I promised that I wouldn't be gone long. I'll text Evan, tell him to wait for me after he brings down the next group. While everyone's in the mess hall, I'll sneak around behind the men's barracks to the dock. Easy."
"But you haven't tried the Gravitron yet, and it's just like an amusement park ride."
Drew straightened his back, looming as tall as he could manage while on his knees and deepened his voice to a faux somber tone. "I have important work to do onboard the Herschel."
Once he started goofing, Fynn knew there'd be no serious conversation. "We'll investigate the ghosts some more next time," he said with a resigned smile.
Chap ter 10
D rew buffed course towels against the newly awakened man and babbled, as he had throughout the process, about whatever popped into his head. Audio stimulation was supposedly as important as tactile stimulation. Maybe. No one was sure, but it couldn't hurt. A medic anchored himself with one foot under the pod frame and Drew drifted away, giving him room to monitor the man's life signs.
Drew stretched to ease his sore shoulders, congratulated himself on another successful awakening, and took a moment to admire the outcome. He'd worked twice as hard to make up for his vacation on the surface.
The man's pale skin was uniformly reddened from the rubdown, even bruised in a few places. Bruises were better than permanent numbness.
Although, perhaps it was possible to overdo tactile stimulation. "Sorry if I scrubbed too hard."
The man smiled weakly as if puzzled, a normal expression for anyone coming out of stasis. He'd feel like he'd contracted a terrible flu for a couple days, but the medic nodded with satisfaction and moved on. Drew helped the man into coveralls, looped his personal bag over one arm, and gave him a gentle push upward. The man drifted along the pod levels on his way to crew quarters as if he was climbing a ladder.
All twelve awakened Kin and their handlers floated upward through the dimly lit core, human bubbles in a metal flute of dark champagne.
Tyra snagged a hold on the pods above him. "Aren't you coming?"
"I'm going to vacuum as many blobs of escaped stasis fluid as I can before they drift into the ventilation system. Only take a few minutes. Go ahead. I'll meet you in quarters."
Drew unclipped a portable vacuum from the frame and darted around the pods. The active ventilation ducts were levels above him, so wobbly spheres of fluid hung almost motionless in the damp, stagnate air.
It was a useful task, quickly completed, but also an opportunity to collect more samples. Drew hooked his gear on a frame and dug into his pocket for a medic's glove, as tight fitting as a second skin, and a glass vial half the size of a finger. Below each pod hung a long bag filled with drained stasis fluid. Drew spun the connection hose loose, pushed the vial over a drop that accumulated on the nozzle, sealed the bag, and wiped everything clean. After sampling two more bags, he kicked off.
In the tank farm between the pods and quarters, the colony's cryogenic chambers held an array of engineered microbes. They were the reason Drew was here, the reason the Cohort Council sent him to university for a genetics degree. If the manifests were accurate, an impressive selection of bugs waited for him, along with a leading-edge lab currently stowed in one of the ring segments. He'd produce everything from cooking oil to polymers in that lab. There were even microbes to extract ions from solutions and excrete pure metal crystals.
Fascinating work for as long as he lived on the station, but it would be life inside a tin can. No blue skies, no forests or oceans, no cities. None of the freedom everyone on a living planet enjoyed. Shivers ran through him, and not just from the bubble of cold air enveloping the chambers.
A sour taste rose in his mouth, and sensations forced their way into his mind. A fear of being trapped, of nearby tanks toppling. Stop, stop, stop. The crew would laugh at his imaginary fears. Tyra would laugh at him. Deep breaths.
Long, slow, deep. Positive affirmations. "Panic can't hurt me. I'm in control. I will achieve my goals."
Someday, somehow, he'd find a way home to Earth. He couldn't be the only one who felt this way. A couple hundred Kin had been kidnapped just like him, and some of them must want to go home. Once the space station was spinning, once Kin traveled routinely between the surface and orbit, he'd find allies.
The cybernet contained no records of stasis fluid composition or manufacturing techniques, but with samples and enough time, he'd figure it out. Greta Lund stored samples on the surface for him to analyze later as part of her effort to understand why stasis sometimes damaged or killed people, but the question would be moot in a month. Once all the Kin awakened, she might lose interest. Drew had to have his own samples.
Thick, insulated gloves hung on a clip nearby. He pulled them on, opened an inspection port, and with the tap of a finger, sent one vial after another into the chamber.
The crew appreciated Drew taking on the dull task of cleaning ventilation filters. Anyone who complained about how long he took ran the risk of being asked to wield one of the vacuum units themselves, so no one would comment if he spent extra time storing his samples.
***
When Evan returned from shuttling the latest awakened Kin to the surface, it was suppertime, and Liam called the crew to quarters. With seven extra medical assistants, the table wasn't big enough for everyone, so several hung like bats from the overhead. Erik prepared beverages as quickly as the steel machine could brew, while Drew managed the meal buckets.
"For your dining pleasure, tonight's menu features chicken stew. I've also opened a bucket of biscuit pucks. Finally, this last bucket claims to be fruit salad, but I warn you. I've never figured out how to rehydrate it without turning it into mush."
He'd already screwed takeout ports into each lid, so he shoved a nozzle into the first bucket and vacuumed stew into a serving pouch. If he was careful sliding the pouch to the heat-sealer, no powdered sauce escaped.
Liam spun away from the overhead to land on the deck and grip the table's edge. Everyone stopped sipping their beverages and waited.
"Not many pod levels left to awaken," Liam said. "So what do each of you plan to do next?"
"I'm a pilot." Tyra tapped her chest with one delicate hand. "I stay with my shuttle, so I stay onboard." Evan and Kana quickly agreed.
Liam nodded. "Me too. Stay as a pilot. That's expected. Now, you medic assistants. Never planned for you to help with awakenings, but you're here now, and get to decide where you go next."
"The surface, definitely," one woman said. "As soon as our work here is done, I can't wait to see the domes." A couple assistants next to her agreed.
A square-jawed guy Drew knew from barracks raised his hand. "I'd like to stay." His words tumbled out. "I never was much of a gardener. Be more useful here than I'd be picking tomatoes down below. I studied the videos on pressurizing the ring, so I know I can help." He turned wide eyes toward Liam.
"So, stay," Liam said. "Don't need my permission." His gaze shifted to Knut, the oldest of that group, a short man with an ear-level fringe of gray hair.
"Let me think about it," Knut said. "I might have a more objective perspective from orbit, but I could, however, gather psychological profiles more readily in the domes."
Drew maneuvered around to the gray man's side and settled a pouch of biscuits in his hand. "You never said you're a psychologist. You should have been the first awake because do we ever need you. It's Kin against Kin down there. A lot of heads need shrinking."
Knut played with the bag for a moment, squeezing to work hot water into the thumb-sized biscuits. "I'm a research psychologist. I have several hypotheses I hope to investigate as our colony matures. Medics are the ones trained to provide individual therapy."
Erik turned away from the coffee machine. "Up here, no one needs therapy. We wake people and send them down as quickly as possible. We'll return to staff the medical lab once the station is spinning, but for now we're going down to the domes, aren't we?" He looked at the other medics for their confirmation.
"Colonization is stressful," Knut said. "That's well established. But I didn't expect to see symptoms so soon. Tanaka's loss is something I never considered. His death is a trauma severe enough to destabilize our people."
Drew jumped in again. "Tanaka's the one who started the trouble. Even on Earth, with all that stuff about us being the only true humans, and his invented genealogy. He made us hate the mongrels."
Knut stiffened, squashing one of his little biscuits. "Tanaka is a great man. He saved the last pure Kin. You're one of those who went away to college, aren't you? You've swallowed the mongrels' claims of human history."
During a moment of silence, the pilots hijacked the conversation, eager to explain the day's progress. Drew returned to preparing meals. He glanced sideways at Knut, who didn't look up but swiped through something on his pad.
His hands tingled as Drew vacuumed diced fruit into a serving pouch. Knut sounded like an adjunct or a trustee. Most Kin knew Tanaka from occasional visits and inspirational speeches, so some of them were sure to fall in line with the trustees. Knut must have had some education outside the barracks school, but he'd swallowed Tanaka's line anyway. Drew couldn't expect any help from him.
Chap ter 11
M aliah stood with Magnus on the tower balcony, watching Kin below. With two hundred people in the domes, even Max had stopped complaining about his crew size. Emily was running a morning and afternoon shift, and the recycling equipment hummed along like always. Leisure time was something they hadn't enjoyed before.
Laughter reached Maliah over the whir of ventilation fans. Teenage girls, awakened without injuries, joined the boys to compete in long jumps. Muscles newly out of stasis were Earth-strong, and they leaped like super heroes.
Maliah would be happier among those competitors. Centrifugal treatments were helping, but she didn't feel like a super hero.
Magnus shifted closer to her. "The tumblers pulled mattresses out of their barracks. That's how equipment gets damaged or lost."
Maliah snorted. "Nothing can get lost here. There's no place to lose it. Besides, they need mats for gymnastics exercises."
"The floor's plastic. It gives."
"I see both units' teachers, so they have permission." A teacher was assigned to lead each kids' barracks unit. Children wouldn't elect their own leaders until they turned eighteen. Oh, that was a fun time, with units scrambled as individuals hit the magic age and eagerly moved to adult barracks. Sometimes a close-knit group would start their own, new unit, and individuals might cycle through several before settling down.
Maliah smiled, but Magnus' thin nose twitched as if a bad smell had wafted by. "The teachers are a bigger problem. They were stasis-bound while Tanaka forged our new discipline. They act as if they're still on Earth. Our trustees reported that they're asking other unit leaders about elections for a barracks master."
"Were you in spaceport so long you forget how Kin lived on Earth? Barracks settled arguments and organized rallies. Ran the kitchens, too, you'll remember. You cohorts handled occupations. It worked for everyone."
"Do you advocate abandoning Doctor Tanaka's instructions to us?" Magnus face was blank, but Maliah knew he was looking for something to condemn. Something about her to condemn. He claimed to accept Maliah as Tanaka's heir, as the Kin's spiritual leader, but he still viewed himself as the security cohort. Somehow, he was ready to forget that Tanaka had taken over that role too.
Maliah had no idea how his trustees would view her conflict with Magnus, or how other Kin would. But Tanaka was inspiration to them all and he was her ally.
She smiled and was pleased to see a shadow of confusion, a slight furrowing of the forehead, touch Magnus' expression.
"You don't have anything to do, Magnus. That's your problem. Perhaps you should be assigned to a crew. Maybe I should give you a useful job."
He swept a hand toward the
crowd below. "You're not considering the dangers of idle time. If whispers of discontent spread, our destiny will be lost. I can ensure that doesn't happen. Tanaka thought I was useful enough."
Tanaka had used this man for security at Earth's spaceport. More than that. On Titan, he'd brought Magnus to live in the tower as an adjunct. The night her father died, Tanaka had sent Maliah to the cybernet room to turn off dome cameras, but Magnus had stayed with him.
Remembering made her heart pound.
Magnus' eyes, unblinking as a snake's, remained locked on hers, and Maliah startled out of her thoughts.
"The newcomers missed hearing Doctor Tanaka's wisdom," she said. "I'll play a clip from one of his videos every evening to instruct and inspire them. But now, I think I'll go to bed early. That should make Maj happy. She wants me to rest. You can tell her when you go down to your room."
Maliah turned without waiting for a response, closing the door behind her to leave Magnus on the other side. He'd have to use the spiral stairs to reach the adjuncts' second floor apartment.
Once she was safely inside, Maliah rolled her shoulders and shook the tension from her body. It was a relief to be alone, away from everyone watching her. Safe, she hoped, from Magnus' plotting. Because surely he was plotting.
Inside, Maliah faced the ornate plastic desk. Once, Tanaka sat there with a smile on his grandfatherly face and urged her to be strong. She opened her pad to the final entries in his journal where he talked about her father.
Her father wanted to contact Earth, had hoped the mongrels that developed their stasis pods could save Kin from death and sickness. Tanaka rejected any attempt. We didn't need Earth. Titan would purify the Kin.
They'd argued over the schedule too, over Tanaka's schedule for the colony. Her father insisted on changes. And now, she had accepted changes, accepted this rapid awakening of Kin. If only she could talk to Tanaka and ask for his blessing.
