Trace the Stars

by Nancy Fulda

  A pause. “I trust you.”

  Gina smiled. “Good.”

  She set the chute to automatically deploy as soon as it detected atmosphere, then removed the final straps.

  She could see the blinking lights of the crawler approaching rapidly from below. Careful not to touch the cable itself, she pulled the chute straps around the cable and fastened them. Then she used the last of her suit’s fuel to start moving away from the cable.

  The chute hit the top of the crawler as it whizzed past her.

  “Your chute is ready,” she said. “And Kyle . . .”

  “What?”

  I love you, was what she was going to say, but their family had never been one to express maudlin emotion. Besides, he would know she loved him when he found out there was no such thing as a detachable backup chute. “Safe landing.”

  “Thanks, sis. Same to you.”

  Gina turned off the phone. Using her gyros, she turned to face Earth one last time. The familiar thrill welled up inside her.

  Freefall was the best part of a jump.

  Launch

  Daniel Friend

  Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  So help me God, I thought. So help me, God. I do.

  “I do.”

  The cameras hovered all around me, little insects with quietly purring rotor wings. There were no flashes like in the old lawyer shows, though. The courtroom and the witness stand were already lit perfectly.

  “Where were you the day before the launch?”

  “Cape Canaveral,” I said, giving in to my nerves and putting a strand of hair back behind my ear. “I was seeing my sister off before the launch. She was sad because she’d have to leave her teddy bear behind.”

  “And how old was your sister?”

  “She had just turned four.”

  The prosecutor let the word hang in space for a beat. He turned, rubbed his balding black head, and then turned back around to face me, his fingers now stroking his neat, kempt mustache. He had finished questioning most of the preliminary witnesses already.

  The NASA program director had been called in to explain to the court exactly how the colony ship had been constructed with modules of colonists in suspended animation to protect them from the rigors of the trip; the string physicist, who had needed an assistant to translate his techno-jargon into understandable English, had testified about how every unaccounted-for gram of mass would throw off the ship’s hyperdrive exponentially, marooning it who-knows-where in deep space.

  All of it had been pretty standard, really; the information was the same stuff anyone could look up on WikiNews. The only point in rehashing it was so that it would be in the court’s official record. And, of course, to remind the nations of spectators watching the trial.

  And now it was my turn. The first question had been standard procedure; the second, and its pause, were calculated to remind the viewers in the twenty-six countries who had contributed colonists how much they had lost, how much they hurt, and how much they wanted someone to blame. I knew exactly how they felt and then some.

  “Ms. Penn, why weren’t you emigrating to Regulus with the rest of your family?”

  “It didn’t make sense at the time. I had my job here at the Cape, I had a boyfriend, and by the time that didn’t work out, it was too late to change plans. I was thinking about joining the next colony ship in a few years, but . . . I don’t think there’d be much reason to now.”

  “We all know,” the prosecutor said. “After you had seen your family, what did you do next?”

  “I went back to work. It’s a busy day before a launch; we had to make sure that the payload module’s systems checked out, we had to make the final adjustments to the mass calculations so that in-orbit fueling could continue, we had to prep the cryogenics for the people who were about to . . .”

  I tried to bite back the tears welling up in my eyes. The rotor wings of the cameras whirred. Real grief is better than any Oscar-winning performance. The prosecutor took a step closer and tried to look kindly. “Charity, we all understand your loss. We know how much it hurts. But right now we need to establish the guilt of the person who caused all this. Okay?”

  I nodded. The prosecutor continued, finally getting to the meat of the case, the reason I was up on that stand.

  “After you left your family, did you see this man at work?” The prosecutor pointed to the man in the defendant’s chair, Lee Talley.

  Lee Talley. The man the entire world wanted to crucify. The man every developed nation wanted to turn into a scapegoat for what would probably come to be known as the Horizon Disaster, or maybe the Horizon Disappearance. It didn’t matter. The point was that there were five hundred people that would almost certainly never be heard from again.

  Scrawny, young Lee Talley, with his black hair, brown eyes, tan skin, patchy goatee and plastic-framed glasses, barely two years out of college, was going to take the fall for the lives of those five hundred people. Fate had decreed it, and from the way he looked vacantly down at the courtroom floor, I guessed that he knew it too. He was the reason I was here. He was the person my testimony could condemn.

  And there I was, with my lame brown hair and stupid violet contacts and pressed pinstripe skirt, about to say all the words that would bring “justice” crashing down upon this lanky, quiet boy. Heck, he was only two years younger than me. I could’ve gone out with him if I hadn’t been with Brad, and if Lee had ever said more than two words at a time. He was always so quiet that I never really knew him, even after working together for all those months. Now somehow his life depended on my testimony.

  “Yes,” I said, “I saw him at work.”

  “You work preparing the launch payload, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “What were each of you doing that particular afternoon to prepare the stasis module?”

  “I was running the final check on the intravenous interface of each stasis alcove—the system that administers the sedatives before launch, the cryogenic preservatives during stasis, and the stimulant to wake the colonists up. Lee was final-checking the module computer systems that administer drug flow and life support when the colonists wake.” I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “He was also in charge of uploading the final mass calculations to the computer that would interface with the hyperdrive.”

  “So you’re saying that it was Mr. Talley’s job to upload to the computer the final mass calculations of the module and all its occupants?”

  “Yes, the combined masses of the module itself, every person that was about to board, and all the equipment that was to be loaded with them.”

  “This is the same mass measurement used in the calculations for the crucial hyperspace jump, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So any error, even a slight one, in Mr. Talley’s calculations would have interfered with the hyperdrive computer’s calculations, correct?”

  That strand of hair had come loose again. I put it back behind my ear. “That’s what the string physicists say.”

  “In your estimation, Ms. Penn, how difficult would it be to change those calculations on the spot?”

  “Objection, Your Honor, these questions have already been asked to an expert in the field,” the defense lawyer said. “There’s no need to belabor the point.” The cameras whirred to face him, as though transmitting back to us, through their movements, the excitement of the millions of people watching the broadcast. Then they whizzed back to cover the prosecutor as he responded.

  “Your Honor, I believe Ms. Penn can provide a unique point of view on the topic that is relevant to these proceedings; that is, what it is like to do these calculations in a work environment rather than a university.”

  “The witness may answer the question,” the judge said. “Objection overruled.” The defense lawyer’s sandy hair seemed to droop along with his eyes.

  “I’m not sure if I’m qualified t
o answer that,” I said. “Lee was hired because his degree prepared him for that kind of string calculation. I really don’t have the training for that part of the job. But I saw on other launches that it could take him a long time to readjust the calculations if something wasn’t as expected.”

  “How long a time, Ms. Penn?”

  “I don’t know; I never timed it. Several minutes, maybe.”

  “How much time did he take to check the calculations before this launch? More than usual?”

  “I can’t say exactly. It wasn’t a short one, but it wasn’t one of his longest, either. It was longer than his average time, though, I’d say.”

  “Did he mention anything being out of the ordinary about the mass of the capsule?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see anything unusual regarding Mr. Talley that day?”

  This was the pivot question. Everything in the case turned on how I answered it. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” The words echoed in my mind. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I reached up to put my hair behind my ear, but it was already there, so I put my hand down again. I answered the prosecutor’s question. I told the truth, and nothing but the truth. Just like we had planned.

  “Yes. When we entered the capsule, Lee had a small package with him. It was about the size of a burrito, wrapped in a silver foil that looked like a heat sealant. He put it in his pocket as we entered the capsule for the final check. I don’t think he realized that I saw him.”

  “And what was so unusual about that? I’ll save my colleague the trouble of a cross-examination question later and ask it now: couldn’t the item just have been a regular burrito?”

  “I don’t think so. They don’t let those in past security, technically, but he was more careful with it than anyone I know is with Taco Bueno. And the really strange part about it was that he didn’t seem to have it when we left.”

  “Are you sure about that?” the prosecutor asked, suddenly intense.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was big enough to see in his pocket. He didn’t have it when we came out.”

  “And why didn’t you say anything to anybody about this before?”

  “I assumed that it was a part or tool or something that Lee needed on the ship. Lee never says anything about his work—well, about anything at all, really—so I just assumed that it was . . . normal.”

  Of course, as soon as the investigation about the Horizon’s disappearance had been launched, I had told them about it. In exchange for my testimony against Lee Talley, I wouldn’t get charged with criminal negligence and involuntary manslaughter. I went along with it all the way. And here I was, finishing it.

  “No more questions,” the prosecutor said.

  The sandy-haired defense attorney asked me some questions, mostly, I think, for the sake of appearances. But my testimony was damning, and he knew it. And as I got down from the witness stand, I could see in Lee’s eyes that he knew it, too.

  Lee didn’t even look at me, but even so, I looked away. I couldn’t risk meeting his gaze right then. As I walked, stumbling, back to my seat with the in-house spectators, I tried to fight back my tears. The camera bots stopped looking at me once I sat down, and then whirred away to whatever argument was taking place between the two lawyers.

  Finally, I let the tears come out. Silently, I cried and trembled in my seat. I couldn’t see the courtroom floor through my own saltwater. All I could see through the tears was my baby sister’s face as she handed me her teddy bear, and I promised to take good care of her. That tiny teddy bear, with her pink and white plaid dress and her pink bow.

  All I could see was Lee discreetly hiding his package in a cryostasis alcove. I knew when he did it that he was reworking the mass calculations to include it. I didn’t even know who he’d left it there for. All I could see, through my tears, was my hand placing that tiny pink bow from my sister’s tiny teddy bear in the chamber that I knew would be hers, in a place that I knew wouldn’t be noticed before launch, but that she would be sure to find it when she woke up. What a look of joy on her face that would have been! Surely that tiny bow wasn’t a gram, was it? Surely one miniscule gram couldn’t throw off the calculations!

  I know Lee didn’t see me place it. I know because when it was his turn to testify, he didn’t mention it. He was resigned to his lot, nothing more. He was going to die, and that was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  The whole truth.

  Oh, help me, God!

  Glass Beads

  Emily Martha Sorensen

  The first evidence that aliens existed was a junk heap. A trashy old ship that was barely running, strapped with a broken hyperspace drive, barely afloat, dead in space.

  And it wandered aimlessly into our solar system.

  We didn’t realize, at first, that it was a trash heap. We went ballistic trying to contact it. When we discovered it seemed to be just dead in space, we prepared a mission to visit it. For political reasons, I was selected as one of the first explorers, representative of the Native American Consensus that had taken over North America after the collapse of the United States economy.

  My other team members were experts in engineering, programming, sociology, and linguistics. So I was set adrift from the rest of them in our three-month journey, nominally the leader, in fact treated with the cold politeness due to one of my rank who did not have the expertise.

  As we docked, the other members’ excitement was palpable. Anna Lewis, our programmer, actually licked her lips.

  “What do you think we’re going to find?” Don Sanchez, our sociologist, asked nervously. He twitched and bounced, his ADHD even more apparent now that our goal was so near. “Do you think we’re going to find anything worth salvaging? Do you think we’re going to find frozen corpses, or real, live frozen crewmembers? Do you think—”

  “I think we’re going to find what we’re going to find,” Chinue Ndiaye, our linguistic, said coolly. She was always calm and rational, and Don had irritated her more than once on this trip. They had had this conversation multiple times, and she clearly disliked him distracting her now, once again, with it.

  “Just hope we’ll be able to salvage something,” Garth O’Harris, our engineer, said gruffly. He had spent most of his trip avoiding the rest of them, his skill with people mainly at its best when he ignored them and kept working.

  Tensions were high, so as the nominal team leader, I stepped in.

  “Whatever we find, the United Nations will receive gratefully. No matter the outcome, our names will go down in history . . .”

  A chorus of groans came from the rest.

  “Jono, no offense, but we’ve heard that speech before,” Don told me.

  “Yeah, we don’t have to hear it again right now!” Anna cried.

  “Better we focus on the matter at hand,” Chinue murmured.

  I schooled my face to keep from showing my annoyance. This team had not been vetted sufficiently to make sure we got along together before sending us off to space—the United Nations had been too eager to get a team out there to study it to do more than the rudimentary of psych profiles before putting us up there. Theoretically, it was my job to keep everything running smoothly, but when tempers were high, all too frequently I was chosen as the common enemy.

  “I just want us to calm down,” I said soothingly. “Just breathe . . .”

  The pressurized hatch made a sucking sound.

  “That’s it!” Anna screamed. She dove forward to read the display. “Vacuum-sealed,” she said. “And it’s oxygen in there. Pure oxygen, nearly. We’ll have to be careful not to create too much friction. One spark could be deadly.”

  “Environmental suits,” I ordered. “Just in case.”

  Despite the tension, nobody disagreed me. Encumbrance as those could be, nobody was stupid enough to risk their lives over it. I said a silent prayer of thanks.

  Chinue went first, G
arth a short second. Now that we were here, now that we were starting, the tension was dissipating to make a well-oiled team. Anna went third, nervously bouncing in the low gravity, and Don followed last, after me.

  A series of vents came on over us, and Anna shrieked. Garth pulled out his pocket reader and checked for the composition.

  “Hydrogen. Helium,” he noted. “Not air we can breathe.”

  “Do you think they’re trying to poison us?” Don asked nervously.

  “Don’t be stupid, Don,” Chinue said. “It’s probably what they breathe.”

  The derelict looked more and more useless, the further we moved into it. The reason it had been abandoned seemed clear to me. But Garth took a different perspective.

  “Much of this is like the technology we use already,” he said gruffly, examining a doorway. “It’s twenty years ahead of our own, maybe. This is something we can analyze and make use of immediately.”

  And Chinue was riveted by the scrapes and scratches over doorways. She noticed a regular pattern and started taking notes on her tablet to analyze it.

  Despite my advice, once we’d gone over the tiny ship together twice, the experts broke into different teams. Anna gravitated towards ops, or what we assumed was like it, to see if she could get more than the environmental systems working. Garth tried to figure out the drive, or what looked like the engine, to see if it really could have come from that far away. And Don hovered near Chinue, making notes and sharing with her. Irritated as she could be with him when they were not working, as soon as they had a project to share, they were a well-oiled machine.

  I headed up to ops to see what Anna had gotten functioning.

  The rest of our journey went much more smoothly. The ship clamped onto our own firmly, we visited it daily on our journey back to Earth. Chinue seemed to be determined to work out the alien language before we got home again, and when Garth had gotten sufficient systems fixed that Anna was able to download some video records, Chinue and Don poured over them almost constantly. I had to remind them over and over again that they required more than two hours of sleep per day.