Resilience

by Fletcher DeLancey

  Rahel listened with half an ear, distracted by the sudden realization that other than Zeppy, the intrusive broadcast of emotions had stopped pounding against her.

  Cautiously, she lowered her blocks.

  They were still there, all the emotions of the Gaians within her range on the other sides of these walls. But her awareness of them was muted. It was as if this space were the emotional equivalent of an acoustic dead zone, where feelings were emitted and then canceled out.

  She took a deep breath and thought it might have been the first one she’d enjoyed since boarding this ship. The freedom was exhilarating. Her headache, a constant and growing companion since the first day of her punishment, receded just enough for her to realize how she had unconsciously adapted to the pain.

  Zeppy stepped onto a ramp and ducked as his tall hair brushed the underside of a pipe.

  “Is that why you have your hair like that?” Rahel asked. “A sort of warning system?”

  He let out a guffaw. “It wasn’t my intention, but it surely does do the job.” Turning around, he added, “I have a tech who’ll do anything to avoid taking jobs in the chases. He’s bald. Every time he goes in, he comes back out with a new knot on his head. You’d think that after all the years of working here he’d know where the pipes are, but—” He slapped a hand against the pipe. “Nope. Bangs his head every damn time. So yeah, we think good hair is an evolutionary adaptation for working in operations.”

  The pipe under his hand carried reclaimed water; Rahel could hear it sloshing through in rhythmic pulses. All around her were similar sounds of a living ship: power humming through cables and conduits, occasional creaks and crackles, the whoosh of precise mixtures of gases through ducts. Here, too, she could smell the more mechanical scents she had expected upon first boarding the Phoenix. The clean, woodsy scent of the ship’s corridors and living spaces had startled her until Captain Serrado proudly explained how the profusion of plants throughout those same spaces acted as a filtration system, carefully chosen to neutralize inorganic scents and freshen the air. They also served as carbon dioxide scrubbers, and many were used as a source of fresh food.

  But this space—this was what she had imagined a starship to be. Close, crowded, pungent, and brimming with the sounds of life. The engineering section had been full of the sounds of machinery, but she liked this more.

  She loved the emotional peace.

  “Lhyn was right,” she said, gazing around. “This is more like an artery than a heart. It’s . . . impressive. And cozy.”

  Approval wafted off his skin. “Didn’t expect you to see it that way. Most people don’t like the chases.”

  “I grew up in the alleys of the Whitesun docks.” At his confusion, she added, “Places respectable people were afraid to go. But I was never afraid of them. They were my home. The alleys were where I learned to be who I am.”

  He nodded. “Some of my techs could tell a similar story. Just between you and me, the ones who learned their craft the hard way? They’re the best workers of all. And they don’t complain when I send them into the chases.”

  “Chases. What does that mean?” She tapped behind her ear, where the lingual implant resided. “I know that’s what you call these spaces, but it doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s from back before the spacefaring days. A chase was the lane between fields on a farm. Or an access road between adjoining properties.” He held out his arms. “Now it’s the access space between adjoining sections of a deck. The lanes between living quarters, offices, labs, storage—this is where the Phoenix lives and breathes.” With a snort, he dropped his arms. “Not in engineering. Didn’t you notice on your tour how big their heads were?”

  She laughed, charmed by such unexpected approachability in a high-ranking officer. The chief of engineering hadn’t been nearly this affable. “I’m new here. I’m trying hard not to offend anyone.”

  “So you’ll discreetly say nothing, I know. It’s all right.” His eyebrows rose again. “Although you said a lot when you took down Pearson and his goons.”

  Her amusement turned into a groan as she thought of the punishment awaiting her after lunch. “If I had it to do over again, I’d have let them take me down.”

  He looked her over. “I don’t think you could. I know your type. I know Pearson’s type, too. He needed to have some respect pounded into his head, and those kinds of lessons . . .” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Let’s just say that officers can’t always teach the lessons that should be taught. We’ll occasionally look the other way when someone else does it for us.”

  She remembered Captain Serrado’s clipped speech and irritation while reading off the list of injuries. But there had been something else, too, something Rahel hadn’t been able to name because it felt so out of place. Now, sensing the same thing from Zeppy, she had a name for it: satisfaction.

  “You’re glad I put seven security officers in the medbay?”

  He stared at her, then slapped his hand against the overhead pipe. “I can neither confirm nor deny that. Come along, let me take you to the brace shaft. If you like this, you’ll love that.”

  She followed him down the narrow chase, marveling at this space that felt so much like a secret discovery. She couldn’t spread her arms without touching the walls, and though she understood how some people would find it constricting and frightening, she felt right at home.

  Up ahead, the chase ended at a metal door that was distinctive for having only one panel, versus the two that made up most doors on the ship. It made sense given the narrow dimensions of the space.

  Zeppy tapped the pad and grumbled when nothing happened. “Thought I told Swanson to fix these. She must have missed this one. They had a short in the power supply.” He lifted the small orange panel to expose a keypad beneath, then quickly tapped out a code.

  Rahel watched, feeling vaguely guilty but unable to stop herself from memorizing what was obviously an access code. She knew from prior studies that every door on the Phoenix had a face recognition scanner. When a crew member was programmed for that door, or that department, tapping the lock pad initiated a facial scan so efficient that the pause between the tap and the door opening was undetectable.

  No one had gotten around to explaining what happened if the scanner didn’t work. Now she had the answer—and Zeppy’s access code as well.

  The door slid open and Zeppy stood aside, his emotions bright with anticipatory pleasure. “After you.”

  She turned sideways to edge past him and gasped at the sight.

  A circular shaft dropped beneath her feet for thirteen decks and extended over her head for sixteen more. Affixed to the curved wall behind her was a ladder that ran the entire length of the shaft, passing through holes in the landings that punctuated each deck.

  Like the chase, the brace shaft was lined with pipes, conduits and cables. But it was at least five times wider than the chase had been, and that, plus its vertical nature, gave it a spacious feel.

  “Why is it here?” she asked as Zeppy joined her on the landing.

  “Keeps the ship from flying apart under a stress load. Brace shafts are a structural necessity when you’re building a ship with thirty decks. We run critical equipment through here, too. Double use of the same space.” He stepped onto the ladder and wrapped his hands around the side rails. With a sudden burst of merriment, he said, “See you on nineteen.”

  He made a quick hop, braced the sides of his boots against the outsides of the rails, and slid down the ladder without touching a single rung. Two decks below, he slowed and gracefully stepped onto the landing. “You coming?” he called up.

  She stared down at him with a grin she could not control. “How do you stop?”

  “It’s mostly in the feet and elbows. Shift so that more of your boot soles are rubbing on the rails; they act as brakes. Wait,” he added, and tapped a control on the wall.

  Over the background hums and whooshes, Rahel heard a sliding sound as a plate sli
pped forward and locked itself against the ladder at his feet, neatly closing the hole in the landing that the ladder passed through.

  “Well, that takes away the thrill,” she grumbled.

  She hadn’t meant for him to hear, but he chuckled. “Captain Serrado would have my head if I let anything happen to you. Besides, this is a safety regulation.”

  Which he hadn’t observed himself, she noted, but refrained from saying it aloud as she climbed onto the ladder. Holding on tight, she braced her feet on the outside rails—and went nowhere.

  “Too strong for your own good,” Zeppy said with a laugh. “I heard that about Alseans. Loosen your grip.”

  She had already figured that out and was sliding down before he finished speaking. At first it was slow, until she found the right amount of pressure with her forearms and feet. Then she zipped down with a whoop of pure happiness, though the freedom of speed didn’t last nearly long enough before she had to brake. She was determined to stop before hitting the safety plate, and her dismount wasn’t as graceful as his. But that was a matter of time and practice, both of which she intended to find as soon as possible.

  “That was fun!” she said, breathless with glee. “Can we do it again?”

  He smiled at her. “I heard security was after you, once you got through training. Now I see why. Want to go for three?”

  “Decks? Yes!”

  “All right, let me go first. You’ll need to start slowing after the second deck.”

  “Understood.”

  “Less than two weeks and you’re already picking up Fleet speak,” he said approvingly. “You’ll fit right in. As long as you don’t make a habit of talking about what senior officers feel.”

  “Or anyone else?” she asked, acknowledging the gentle admonition. “I don’t mean to make people uncomfortable. It’s just—you broadcast everything. I don’t know which things you care about and which things you don’t.”

  He scratched his chin. “I suppose that’s a little harder to learn than ship’s schematics. Might be the best policy to not say what you sense until you know it’s all right.”

  She remembered Shigeo’s assumption that she was here to serve Captain Serrado in exactly that way: saying what she could sense. Perhaps the best policy was simply to keep quiet until an officer asked for her input. But if she didn’t tell them what she could sense, how would they know what to ask?

  “You’re thinking too hard,” Zeppy said. “Maybe that wasn’t my place to say. Maybe you’ll be good for us. A big dose of brutal honesty, like backwashing the water pipes.”

  Laughing at his own joke, he tapped the control pad behind the ladder. The safety plate at their feet slid open, while three decks below, another plate closed. He swung onto the ladder with a jaunty ease, braced himself, and slid down. As before, he came to a perfect stop above the landing, then stepped off as lightly as if he had just walked down a flight of stairs.

  Rahel’s whoop of joy was louder this time as she enjoyed the extra deck of flight. She gripped too hard and too soon, nearly biting her tongue with the abruptness of her braking, then laughed as she dropped the rest of the way.

  “Have you ever done all thirty decks?” she asked.

  “Nobody’s done thirty decks, and you’re not going to be the first.” He opened the door into the chase. “Next stop is the switching block.”

  She followed him, a wide smile still on her face. That had sounded like a challenge.

  5

  Trust

  Dr. Wells cornered Rahel as soon as she arrived for her punishment shift. “Look, I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but I’m still your doctor. I don’t ask how you’re feeling to annoy you. I ask it because I need to know.”

  “I’m fine, just like I was yesterday and the day before that.” Rahel withstood the appraising stare, relieved that her time with Zeppy had reduced her headache enough to render it easily masked.

  “All right. If you start to feel—”

  “I’ll tell my doctor.” Rahel turned away. “If you’ll excuse me, I have beds to strip.”

  This shift was the worst one yet, the unrelenting pressure of heightened Gaian emotions battering down her blocks a full two hours before she could flee. The moment it ended, Rahel raced out of the medbay lobby and went looking for the nearest chase access. She found it across the corridor from a particularly beautiful display of Filessian orchids and tiled artwork, something she would normally appreciate but now saw only as a directional marker. Her head pounded as she waited, pretending to admire the mosaic while crew members passed behind her. At an opportune break in the traffic, she lifted the access panel, tapped in Zeppy’s code, and entered the chase.

  For five steps, she strode as quickly as she could, desperate to escape into this haven with its soothing noises and close walls. Then the tight band around her forehead eased, bringing a relief so profound that her breath hitched. She stopped and leaned against the wall, gulping air as if she had been underwater.

  Once her body had adapted to the lack of pain and she could breathe normally again, she set off down the chase. It soon intersected with another chase running in a perpendicular direction. She paused, picturing the ship’s map she had been studying, and turned right. Her guess proved correct when she came to yet another chase, this one a short branch ending at a familiar-looking door. Zeppy’s code worked its magic, and the door slid open to reveal the soaring space of a brace shaft.

  Her morning plan of practicing on the ladders no longer had any appeal. Exhausted, she sat on the landing with her back to the wall and let the emotional quiet soothe her ragged edges. It was ironic that she would find peace in a place so full of noise, but there was a soothing feel to these hums and gurgles. They were the sounds of a ship that lived.

  She had loved the breathing of Wildwind Bay as it surged up and down against the pilings of Dock One. The Phoenix was a very different creature, but it breathed as well. It had merely taken her this long to learn where she could hear it.

  For ninety minutes, Rahel stitched herself back together in her newfound sanctuary. She might have slept there overnight had she not promised to give Lhyn a lesson in Alsean outcaste culture that evening. Walking back into the emotional noise of the corridors felt like leaving a cozy home to enter a raging, destructive winter storm.

  The next afternoon, memories of that peaceful retreat were all that kept Rahel going through the worst headache she had ever experienced. By the middle of the shift, she could not turn her head at a normal speed without setting off agonizing flares that threatened to shut down her consciousness altogether.

  The physical limitation made it difficult to complete her latest assignment of cleaning a surgical bay, but she eventually managed and walked out with her tools in one hand and the bag of medical waste in the other. Focused on the effort of maintaining her fragmented blocks, she was surprised by the sudden appearance of four Fleet Medical staff, two pushing a gurney while the others hurried alongside, snapping out numbers and orders to each other. She hadn’t heard them coming and threw herself to the side, but not in time. The leading edge of the gurney clipped her hip, sending her spinning. Fireworks exploded in her brain, tools flew in all directions, and the bag of waste hit the floor and burst open.

  “Sorry!” one of the doctors called. A nurse kicked the bag aside to make room, and they thundered past without another glance. Their heightened emotions trailed after like the wake of a fast-moving boat, slapping up against Rahel’s exposed and raw senses, but it was the fear that threatened to capsize her.

  She had glimpsed the older man lying on the gurney, his eyes open unnaturally wide and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. His terror was primal, the bone-deep panic of a dying creature that clung to life despite knowing it was over. Rahel had never felt anything like it.

  Her chest tightened, forcing her to lean against the wall and gulp air. There was a pressure in her throat, straining for release, but she could not allow it. She could not allow anything
. She was a hair’s width from total collapse, and this was not the place for it.

  The debris strewn across the floor was terrible evidence of her weakness. Distracted by her pain, she had forgotten to seal the bag. The nurse had been extremely clear on the importance of isolating medical waste, and she had just spread it all over a highly trafficked area.

  With shaking hands and a roiling stomach, she slowly crouched and began to collect the disgusting waste she had already cleaned up once.

  “What happened?”

  Dr. Wells stood at the edge of the mess—the last person who should have seen this. A blazing lecture was surely on its way.

  Rahel ignored the question. Speaking was not an option at the moment. Cleaning the mess was her single focus.

  “Rahel?”

  She dropped a wad of bloody cloth into the bag, so intent that she didn’t notice Dr. Wells move until two hands were on her shoulders. They pushed her back on her heels even as she tried to reach for another wad of red-stained cloth.

  “Stop it . . . stop . . . Rahel, stop!”

  The loud command in High Alsean startled her into stillness.

  “Are you going to tell me you’re fine now?”

  She kept her gaze on the floor, where the lack of visual detail aided her tenuous control.

  A vehement stream of words burst from Dr. Wells, spoken in a guttural tongue that Rahel’s language chip could not translate. The grip on her shoulders shifted to beneath her arms and began to lift.

  “Come on. Get up, I can’t lift you by myself. Rahel!”

  The shreds of shielding she had pulled together were not enough to hold back alarm from such a close source. But that couldn’t be right. Nothing unsettled Dr. Wells.

  Her focus broken, Rahel raised her head. “What’s wrong?”