The Mayflower Project

by K. A. Applegate

  More went. Some with easy, confident strides. Others hesitant. One by one.

  The elevator arrived with another load. The last load. The Marine sergeant and half a dozen of her men joined. They lined the rickety platform, weapons aimed downward.

  A kid, some kid Yago hadnt noticed before, started to freak out. He didnt want to go out onto the catwalk.

  Im scared, he whispered to his parents, and clung to them.

  Go on, you baby, Yago snapped. What are you, three years old? Get out there.

  Hes always been scared of heights, his mother said pitifully to the anxious faces around her. Sweetheart, you can do it. Just hold onto the rails and take it one step at a time.

  But the kid wasnt buying. Itll break. The whole thing will break.

  Hey, Little Big Man, dont sweat it. It was MoSteel. Watch this.

  MoSteel took a hop, landed on his hands, and proceeded to walk out onto the catwalk. He turned around, gave the kid an upside-down grin, then executed a gasp-inducing move that involved leaping up onto the rickety railing itself and tight-rope walking.

  Someone, presumably the lunatics father, bellowed at him to get down, get off of there!

  MoSteel hopped back down onto the catwalk and grinned at the scared kid. Nothing to it, Little Big: You and me.

  Supposed to be just one at a time, the kid argued.

  Hey, it breaks Ill catch it and tie it off onto the whole rocket up there.

  Somehow MoSteels infectious, confident idiocy (as Yago saw it) worked. MoSteel held out his hand and the boy took it.

  Yago stewed. Should have just pushed the kid aside. Little creep. And that overgrown monkey showing off like that? Of course, he was on the list already for having knocked Yago down. Now he was on the list with a star by his name.

  Across the catwalk. Out over a very long drop. Yago was halfway across when a siren loud enough to break glass erupted at full, fearsome volume. Yago nearly jumped off.

  The welders, the workmen, everyone on the tower, all dropped tools and ran for it. Yago could see white coats flooding away, down below, rats scurrying to waiting buses and trucks.

  Theyre just clearing the blast zone, someone explained.

  Why bother? Yago wondered. Fry now, fry later.

  Yago kept moving. Into the payload bay, face-to-face now with the big lead cylinder. It looked way too much like a stylized coffin. There was a door-sized opening in it, a hatch. Yago stepped through and was handed along by a NASA person. This one was sober, at least.

  Through the hatch, and now it was no longer a fear of heights that was a problem, but claustrophobia. Yago had always hated confined spaces. His nightmares were of closed spaces. Being locked in a box, unable to escape.

  The inside of the Mayflower was about as cramped as the belowdecks of the original Mayflower. It was all garishly lit, but the light only seemed to accentuate the close nature of it.

  The pod, the Mayflower, had been built on thirteen levels, with six berths per level. Seventy-eight berths in all, crammed into a space just thirty-six-feet tall by twelve feet wide. Each of the thirteen decks was little more than a strengthened wire shelf. A tiny, winding stairway led up and down through the levels.

  Down, just below him, through the wire mesh, Yago could see faces looking up at him from within their berths.

  Coffins. The berths were nothing but Plexiglas-topped coffins. Scared faces stared up at him through the glass, scared, buried alive.

  Yago felt the panic grab him. His legs went rubbery.

  Move along, the NASA tech said. Climb up. All full below.

  Somehow Yago made his legs move. Somehow he climbed the ludicrously small stairway. Another white coat was waiting, straddling the stair and deck.

  In here. You have to crawl across. Come on, keep moving.

  Yago wanted to vomit. Impossible. He was shaking, could anyone see? Did they know? Had to keep moving, couldnt lose it, couldnt lose it.

  He clambered across one empty berth and dropped into the one indicated for him. Number fifty-one. Was that any kind of omen? What did the number mean? He should have been number one.

  It was narrow, well-padded. Long enough for a six-foot-tall man, but so narrow it pressed against Yagos shoulders.

  He lay there, looking up at the deck above him, looking up at the bottom of another berth, less than a foot and a half from his own nose. Looking longingly at the small empty space between berths, clinging to that miniscule bit of open space.

  The lid slid closed without warning. Plastic, inches from his nose.

  Dont cry, he told himself. Whatever you do, do not cry.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WERE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND LIGHT THE CANDLE.

  Jobs and his parents were the last to board. They climbed to the highest level. He passed MoSteel in berth sixty-two. His friend gave him a wink and said, Hey, Duck, you finally going to catch some rush with me, huh?

  Looks like it, Mo, Jobs said. The lid slid closed over his friends face. MoSteel made a mock-scared face.

  Up and up, past genuinely scared faces, weeping faces, and always sadness. Beneath any other emotion, deepest sadness.

  Or maybe thats just me, he whispered under his breath. The image of Cordelia, the last image of her, that horrible vision, was never far from his mind. He had known her in a confession, in a kiss, in memory. But somehow what was real and personal had been superseded by pictures, the ones she had taken. Organic memories overwritten by digital memories. He had to strain to focus on the true memory of her lips on his, and that memory was too painful to reach for.

  He ascended and crawled to one of the outboard berths. Above him another mesh deck, but more open. Up there on the final, roomier level were just two berths, flanked by racks that held two rumpled white space suits. Spares, presumably, for the crew. The flight deck was just above, through a tiny hatch. Up there the pilot and copilot were going through a rushed checklist, readying what would be the final shuttle flight.

  Jobs had never thought of himself as claustrophobic, but he was glad to be next to the stairs. He had more of a sense of room, more open space, more to look at than just about anyone. He lay on his back, said, Kind of tight, huh? to his dad. And, You okay, Mom?

  Then, from the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw one of the racked space suits move.

  Surely not. Someone else would have noticed, too. But no, no, he was the only one at the right angle to see.

  The Plexiglas lid closed over him, catching him by surprise. There were speakers inside the berth, but no microphone. Just like that hed been shut off from the outside world. The speakers gave instructions in a neutral, computer-generated voice.

  Please locate the blue tube pinned to the right side of the berth, and pull the end piece toward you.

  Jobs could just raise his head high enough to look down at his feet. He found the tube and pulled it toward him.

  Place the end of the tube in the back of your throat. The coated capsule on the end of the tube will make swallowing painless and easy. Now swallow the capsule and, using your hands, slowly and gently push the tube down until the red band reaches your mouth. Please take care not to vomit.

  Sure, no problem, Jobs grated. He swallowed, like swallowing a very large vitamin tablet. But the tube made his gorge rise. He waited till he was past it. Pushed some more. Gross. A horrible feeling.

  Now draw the transparent plastic helmet over your head, taking care not to tangle the breathing tube.

  This was like sticking your head in a balloon. The plastic was malleable, creepily soft. It stuck to his forehead and pressed down on his eyes, making it hard to keep them open. He adjusted it as well as he could, but it pulled painfully on his hair.

  He took a tentative breath. Strange-smelling air. Metallic.

  He could feel his heart pounding. Feel the blood rushing through the veins in his neck.

  Another voice. Human, this time. Folks, this is Colonel Jasper Willett, the mission commander. You were supposed to
get training for all this, folks, dry runs and so on. I know this isnt easy, any of it. But try and follow the computer directions as well as you can. Theyll be repeated.

  Jobs worked again to adjust the smothering helmet to something like comfort.

  Outside the berth the Marine sergeant loomed into view, making a final check. He felt an acute stab of guilt. She had defended them at risk of her own life. Now she would be left behind. She would die when the Rock slammed into Earth. If not sooner.

  Jobs wondered how many people would take their own lives before the end. Would the sergeant wait patiently somewhere, find a place to sip a last cold drink, maybe say a prayer, be with a special loved one?

  The sergeant looked around, met Jobss gaze, and actually managed a smile and a thumbs-up.

  Things happened very quickly then. One of the space suits moved, just a bit. Tamara Hoyle spun, leveled her weapon, and yelled something Jobs couldnt hear.

  Her back was to the other suit. A gun appeared, raised in ghostly style by the white suit, held by the rubber-tipped glove. Someone inside, invisible behind the gold-coated sun shield of the helmet.

  Jobs yelled, Look out!

  He saw a flash. Heard only a distant explosion. Saw Tamara Hoyle spin and fire all in one easy move. Three holes appeared in the space suit. No blood visible, but the suit sagged.

  Tamara Hoyle clutched at her shoulder. She pulled her hand away, saw blood.

  The speaker crackled. Okay, folks, weve just got the word to cut short the prep. We got some bad guys outside, getting a little too close for comfort. Were going to go ahead and light the candle. Commander Willett was trying to maintain the inevitably laconic NASA tone, but he was clearly worried. Anyone on board who isnt berthed needs to exit immediately and get into one of the blast-shelters. And I mean right now.

  Tamara Hoyle started to climb down the ladder but she seemed unable to make her arm work properly. Jobs saw her frown.

  Didnt they know she was still on board? Did they know? Someone had to help her. Someone had to help her.

  Tamara collapsed, all at once, fell onto her back on the deck, head jammed between two berths, legs hanging down the steps. She was almost directly over Jobss head. A red splat landed on the plastic lid, like a raindrop.

  Tamara lay staring up, mad at herself for being caught off-guard. Mad at herself for letting a little bullet stop her. It didnt hurt all that much, that was strange. She felt the deck vibrating beneath her. Saw the space suit shed shot. Someone in there. And someone in the other suit, too. The other suit was moving, looking like a marionette worked by a distracted puppeteer. Awkward. Like whoever was in it was trying to get out, or at least get off the hook that held the suit secure.

  D-Caf was trying both. His feet were off the deck, couldnt move. Couldnt go to his brother. Mark! Mark! he cried. Mark!

  He writhed, unable to do anything but hang there. Everything was dark, shaded through the suits visor. He saw three holes in his brothers suit. Maybe the bullets had missed. Maybe. It was possible, wasnt it?

  But they surely had not missed the soldier. She lay there breathing heavily, unable to move.

  And now the rumbling of the ship grew very suddenly.

  Far below, the fire was lit. It exploded downward and outward and billowed up in a geyser of flame and smoke.

  The rioters had made it through the determined resistance. They reached the launch pad just as the rocket fuel and liquid oxygen came together to explode in a blowtorch of incomprehensible energy.

  The rioters turned and ran, turned their vehicles around. Far too late.

  Superheated gas billowed yellow and orange. It incinerated the rioters in a heartbeat. It reduced the vehicles to tin shells.

  The tired, overburdened old space shuttle carrying the Mayflower mission lifted up from the pad.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  YOURE WEIGHTLESS, YOU IDIOT.

  Numbness spread outward, radiating out from the hole in Tamara Hoyles shoulder. Couldnt feel one side of her neck. Couldnt feel her arm. Her brain, too, seemed numb, vague, wandering. And now something huge was sitting on her chest, pressing her down. An elephant on her chest.

  The baby, the baby, the baby. God let the baby be okay.

  Tamara couldnt breathe. Couldnt raise her head. She was being shaken, vibrated. A roar in her ears. There was blood in her eyes, darkness blurring her vision. She saw the space suit shed shot. It hung low, the three gs were weighing it down.

  She turned her head, a slow, slow movement. The other suit, writhing, but sluggishly. The violence of liftoff made everything blur, like someone holding a jerky video camera. Things left trails. Hallucinatory.

  Her legs were dangling down the stairwell and now the deck was tilting sharply. She would slide down, was sliding, slipping. It would kill her. A three-gravity fall was not good.

  She still had her weapon, felt it in the one hand that could still feel. Had to wedge it. Had to jam it into the wire mesh, use it to hold on.

  But the deck was tilting further still, way over, like a pitched roof. And she was weak. Slow. Fuzzy.

  The gun was torn slowly, inexorably from her hand. Her strong grip not strong enough. Slipping and sliding on her own blood.

  She fell, an eruption of stars in her head, and she lay where she fell, crumpled and jammed into a ball.

  Jobs banged on the top of his berth. It was like he was lifting weights with each move. Had he been the only one to see? He was at an angle, maybe so, maybe no one else knew. Maybe it was up to him, him and no one else. He couldnt see what had happened to the Marine. He could see the other suit, though, the terrorist or whatever he was.

  The lid didnt open. Inside release? Surely theyd built in a panic-button? A release? They wouldnt lock people into these things with no way to get out.

  But now there was something else happening. Weird. Like when he had his appendix taken out and theyd given him anesthesia. Thats what it felt like, only slow, very slow-working. The hibernation technology was beginning to work. He was being drawn under, down into a state that would be far, far deeper than sleep.

  He scrabbled around, searching with lead fingers, unable to turn his head far enough to see around inside the berth. Oh, man, so sleepy. Where was the release? Where . . .

  Where would you put it, Jobs? he asked himself silently. Come on, man, where would it have to be?

  Should be an easy engineering question. Easy. Unless your brain was being shut down.

  D-Caf could see him. He could see the kid in the nearest berth on the deck below, seemingly panicking, pushing, trying to get out. It only added to D-Cafs own panic. Mark had been shot and now he was trapped. The gs were draining the blood out of his head. His feet ached and buzzed. His head was woozy, dreamy, scared, unable to focus, inchoate panic. Had to get out. Mark. Help him.

  The ship was tilted over, D-Caf was on his back now, less straight downward pressure, and now he got his heels into a seam and kicked. The suit jerked up and out of its rack. He slid down the wall and slammed way too hard into the pitched deck. His knees buckled. The wind was knocked out of him. But his brain was clearing a little. A little, not much.

  D-Caf crawled uphill, more and more uphill toward Mark. Crawled through blood. He clawed his way to his brother, weeping inside his helmet, crying, Mark! Mark!

  And then, quite suddenly, the ceaseless roar stopped. Not silence, but near silence, comparative silence.

  And all at once he could move quite easily. Too easily. He smacked his helmet into a bulkhead.

  Weightless. Im weightless, Mark, he said.

  He pulled himself cautiously up to be level with Mark. How did you open these stupid helmets? The ring. Okay, yeah, he could do it.

  D-Caf removed his brothers helmet, talking to him all the while. The helmet came off. A lava lamp of blood bubbled up from inside.

  Mark was slumped down inside. Dead. Dead beyond any illusion.

  D-Caf cried out. He shoved back and floated across the space, slammed into one
of the unused berths and bounced upward to slam against the now-overhead bulkhead.

  What was he going to do? What was he supposed to do now? Mark was dead. And the two empty berths they were going to take away from the pilot . . . The pilots were still alive. That was the problem. They were still alive.

  D-Caf was alone, completely alone now. What was he supposed to do? No Mark. No Mark to make the decision.

  The gun, Marks gun, their fathers gun was hanging suspended in midair.

  D-Caf reached for it.

  He heard a noise, an exhaust sound, air rushing.

  He slapped the bulkhead and spun around. He caught the gun, fumbled it, grabbed for it, just as Jobs came flying too fast, too hard up out of his berth, up the stairwell.

  Jobs had meant to hit the terrorist, because terrorist he surely was, with his shoulder but caught him only a glancing blow. He stuck out his hand, grabbed the gunman, spun him around, and then himself hit the far bulkhead.

  The impact stunned him. There was a shocking jolt of pain in his head and neck.

  Youre weightless, you idiot, he scolded himself, not massless. In the middle of it all, fighting an armed bad guy, he still felt a stab of embarrassment at mishandling weightlessness.

  Jobs flattened against the bulkhead as well as he could, and now pushed off with much less force. He drifted, spread-eagle. The gunman was spinning in midair, just like a top, maybe twenty rpms. Every three seconds or so the gun came around.

  Jobs drifted. The gunman came around.

  Bam!

  Flame shot from the muzzle. It canceled D-Cafs rotation, but knocked him slowly backward. Jobs was helpless, still floating, nothing within reach, slowly descending on D-Caf, who now leveled the gun.

  The hatch opened. A space-suited astronaut stuck his head in. The gunman jerked, wavered, as if uncertain who to point the gun at.

  Jobs stretched with all his might and just tapped a passing support beam. Now his drift was a spin. He could hear a muffled, faraway voice yelling. Something. Yelling, yelling.

  The astronaut slid into the room, held his hands up in a placating gesture.