The Fated Sky

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  Taking a breath, I forced myself to slow down. “Slow is fast, Elma.” Rushing was just going to get my hands covered in muck again.

  From this vantage, I was able to reach the toilet’s maintenance hatch. Thank heavens it was a friction fit, so that I could pop it open. I pulled the lid off and laid it over the toilet. I was able to use the brace that held us on the seat to snug the lid down. It wasn’t a perfect seal, but it would hold most of the mess inside the toilet. I hoped.

  Once that was reasonably secure, I reached inside the maintenance hatch and slapped the cutoff switch. Nothing happened. I slapped it again.

  It’s a little embarrassing that it took me until that moment to realize the fan wasn’t running. The reason the cutoff switch didn’t work was because the vacuum flow was already off.

  The good news is that this meant that the problem didn’t arise from someone being a schlub. The bad news was that, without someone to blame for negligence, it really was my problem.

  I sighed and kicked backward out of the head, spinning in midair to face the command module. Pushing off on the guide rails, I “supermanned” myself toward the CM. With a flutter of my left hand, I angled my body so I passed cleanly through the door and drew my knees up to transfer some momentum into the beginning of a somersault. Stretching out as I came upright, I hooked a foot under one of the rails on the floor of the CM.

  Terrazas sat in the pilot chair, monitoring our distance from the Pinta and the Santa Maria supply ship. Unless something dramatic happened, our inertia should keep us all in an even progression through space. Later we’d be able to leave the bridge unmanned, but Mission Control was being properly cautious with the first part of the voyage.

  Rafael was floating up, away from the pilot’s seat. He looked over his shoulder and cleared his throat. “York. What’s up?”

  “The head is clogged.” I pulled myself over to the supply chest. “Just grabbing the tool kit.”

  “Need any help?” He pulled the zipper of his flight suit higher and pressed a hand against Terrazas’s shoulder to turn fully toward me. “I’m just finishing up here.”

  “I wish, but it’s such a small space. I’ve got it.”

  “Great.” He grinned and swiped a hand through his hair. “Holler if you need me.”

  I should have just said “yes.” There are times when my Southern upbringing asserts itself in ways that are not actually helpful. Take, for instance, the fact that Rafael is our engineer and would be better suited to fixing the head than I was, and yet … And yet, I had demurred because I was trained not to make waves.

  I had demurred because, in the South, he would have offered again, and then I could have accepted graciously. But Rafael was not Southern, this was not a social engagement, and he hadn’t been offering me iced tea—it was a job. I swear, I can be so stupid sometimes.

  But I grabbed the tool kit from its cupboard and kicked into the spindle, flying toward the head. Once there, I seated the kit in one of the sockets built into the walls of the ship. Popping the lid open, I slid out the compartment that held the gloves. Beautiful, glorious, latex gloves.

  I have never been so happy to see latex. Well. I mean … not in a work setting, at any rate.

  Ahem. With the gloves on, I pried a corner of the toilet lid up and peeked in. Yep. It had belched again.

  While I’d been up in the CM, I’d had time to think through what was going on. Mind you, before training for this trip, I could repair an airplane or hotwire a car, but plumbing hadn’t been in my skill set. The IAC believed in thorough training and redundancy, so all of us were pilots and plumbers and geologists now. At least at a basic level.

  My bet was that a piece of waste was clogging the airflow and that the fan had shut down to keep from burning out. That meant that all I had to do was to clear the obstruction and restart the fan, and then it would all be fine. In theory.

  I left my improvised lid in place and pulled myself down to the access hatch. Snaking my hand inside, I sealed the waste compartment shut. Thank goodness that the waste compartment was built in, so that we could empty the thing safely. With that sealed, I activated the dump function to send our waste matter down into the composter. That, at least, would keep the toilet from vomiting things back into the head.

  Really, I should have done that earlier. As I said, there are times when I can be stupid.

  “How’s it going?”

  Rafael’s voice made me yelp in ways that are entirely embarrassing. See, this is the thing no one mentions about space. With fans running all the time to circulate air, it’s noisy. When you float, there aren’t footfalls. Sneaking up on people is stupidly easy, even when you don’t mean to.

  I caught myself with a hand on the wall. “Okay. I just dumped the waste so I could pull the suction pump out. I’m guessing it’s clogged, and that’s what’s causing the backup.”

  “Sounds plausible.” He reoriented so his head was in the room and both of us had our legs sticking out in the corridor. “You shut down the fan?”

  “It was already off.” I reached into the access space again and loosened the pump, silently thanking the IAC for making things modular and easy to repair. We carried spares for every part of the ship, and had more on the Santa Maria. “Hand me a bag?”

  If Rafael was here, he could darn well be useful. And if he offered further help, I would absolutely take him up on it. Plastic rustled, and he slid a bag into my field of vision, already open.

  I grabbed it, wrapping as much of the open end around the pipe as I could, so that when I pulled the pump free, the mess was at least a little bit contained. The good part about zero-g is that you don’t have to worry about drips. Floating around and bumping into things? Yes. But not drips.

  I pulled the suction pump out into the light and there was, indeed, an obstruction across it. It wasn’t feces, which is what I’d expected to find. Nothing except human waste was supposed to go in the toilets, yet this was pale and translucent, like a latex glove—a latex glove with one finger, designed for a very specific purpose.

  With a gloved hand, I pulled the condom free.

  Parker.

  Sure, there were other men on the ship, but Parker had a history. I’d had to dry the tears of more than one young WASP who hadn’t felt like she could turn him down … I sighed and turned to grab another bag. I’d have to discreetly check in with Florence and Kamilah to make sure they were okay.

  Rafael already had a bag at the ready and let me plunk the condom in there. He twisted the top shut. “Hell. You shouldn’t be seeing—I’ll go ahead and finish up.”

  Almost—I almost declined again, and insisted that condoms weren’t shocking. Heck, Nathaniel and I used them regularly now. Or did. Or would. Whatever. It didn’t matter, because Rafael was the engineer on board, and it made more sense to let him do this. Drawing in a breath, I nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  He tucked the bag into the disposal slot. “Sorry you had to…”

  “I’ve seen condoms before.” I pushed back to slip into the spindle, pulling my gloves off as I floated clear. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to mention it to the guys, though? It might be awkward coming from me.”

  Rafael snorted. “Yeah. I know whose it is. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Thanks.” But I was still going to talk to Kamilah and Florence, because proper disposal of waste was the smallest part of the problem.

  FIFTEEN

  ANNOUNCER: The American Broadcasting Company presents Headline Edition with Taylor Grant. November 9th, 1962.

  GRANT: Thousands of members of the Earth First movement gathered outside the Kansas campus of International Aerospace Coalition to protest what they see as wasteful spending. They formed a human blockade across the entrances to the campus, preventing employees from entering or leaving. The United Nations was forced to deploy troops to get the protesters to disperse.

  Kamilah walked into the kitchen with a handful of fresh radishes. My mouth watered at the thoug
ht of something that hadn’t been freeze-dried or vacuum packed and irradiated. Holding the radishes in both hands, she struck a pose, lifting them over her head like the spoils of war. “I come bearing tribute.”

  “Your sacrifice is appreciated and accepted.” In truth, I was a little jealous that she’d drawn gardening on this week’s duty roster. The garden module was my favorite spot on the Niña. But this week, I was on kitchen duty. Originally, we’d rotated daily, but it turned out to be easier to plan if we stayed in the same area for a week. Selfishly, for me, it meant one week where I could keep more or less kosher. “Just set them on the counter.”

  “Need any help?” She plunked the little red spheres down on the counter. You don’t really appreciate the merits of gravity, even centrifugally provided gravity, until you are trying to cook. Especially until you are trying to bake. You need gravity for bread to rise, and I was attempting challah tonight.

  “I’m in pretty good shape—” Again with me being stupid. She and I were the only ones in the kitchen, and the guys wouldn’t come in until the dinner break, so this offered an opportunity to talk to her about Parker. “Actually, yeah. Would you wash them while I work on the potatoes?”

  “Already did it in the garden wing.” She held one up for display. “Keeps the soil there. Want me to snap the leaves off?”

  “Perfect. And then sliced thin?” Meanwhile, I was grating the potatoes into a bowl to make a kugel. “I am so glad things have changed since the early days of the program, because I don’t know if I could handle three years of food from a tube.”

  Kamilah made a face, laughing. “I tried some of the ‘meatloaf’ on a dare. I never thought I’d taste something that made hospital food appealing.”

  “The applesauce wasn’t so bad, because it was supposed to be mashed up.” I ran the potato down the grater trying not to catch my fingers. “You never saw the kibble.”

  “You aren’t serious.” Kamilah looked up from the radish she was beheading with surgical precision. “Kibble?”

  “A complete meal in a cup of kibble. Lightweight—which was a serious concern before they developed the U-MORS.” That’s an upper atmosphere molecular oxygen refueling station. “Some bright person on the UN Aerospace Committee had recommended a brother-in-law who was a military nutritionist. Only he was a veterinarian.”

  This got a barking laugh from Kamilah, making the tip of her nose curl down and her dark eyes crinkle nearly shut. She was easily the prettiest of us, with long, glossy dark hair that she wore pinned into a bun at the base of her neck. “What were they thinking?”

  “Men. Bless their hearts.”

  “I dunno. Rafael is a pretty good cook.”

  “True.” I grabbed another potato and contemplated my options for shifting the conversation. I couldn’t quite bring myself to come right out and ask her about Parker, because I didn’t want her to think that I thought she was that sort of woman. “Parker, though.”

  Kamilah wrinkled her nose, but didn’t seem bothered by the mention of him. “Do you think we could ask Mission Control to arrange the duty roster so he’s never in the kitchen again?”

  “You don’t like overcooked hotdogs and undercooked baked potatoes?”

  “It’s a good argument for rotating every day. Because, really … another week of that will kill me.” She straightened up, waving her knife. “Actually. As flight medic, I could make a good argument that it’s in the interests of the crew’s health and safety.”

  Ah! A conversational opening. I lunged for it as I oh so casually set the grater on the counter. “Speaking of health and safety … I had to clear a blockage from the zero-g head at the aft end of the spindle.”

  “Ugh. You wore gloves? No open cuts?”

  “Heh. Yes, Mother.” I pulled open the cabinet to grab a baking dish and waited until I had turned around so I could watch her face. “It had been blocked by a condom.”

  Kamilah stopped chopping the radish and lifted her head, mouth open slightly in surprise. “No. Already?”

  “What—What do you mean, ‘already’?”

  “We’re only three weeks in, and—” She shook her head. “Sorry. Sexual activity was the subject of a fair bit of conversation among the flight surgeons. There was some argument for an all-male crew, but that was ix-nayed for publicity reasons. And thank you, Lady Astronaut, or I wouldn’t get to be here.”

  My face was probably as red as the radishes. Yes, I was a married woman and yes, I am comfortable with “rocket launches” with my husband, but the idea of having a meeting about such things? As my mother would have said, perish the thought. “So, this was an IAC condom?” And then another thought occurred to me. “They aren’t—I mean … They’re not expecting us to…?”

  Kamilah laughed. “Oh, God no. Though, mind you, the general unofficial consensus was that some of the crew would probably pair off at some point, and that as long as no one talked about it and it didn’t cause any problems, then there wasn’t really any harm.” She winked. “I have a massager in my medical kit. If you have any, um, sore muscles.”

  I had a sudden need to pay very close attention to greasing the pan for the kugel. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know what a vibrator was. Nicole had had one on the moon, and had laughed at me when I had been shocked by that. I’d just never used one, even when I missed Nathaniel painfully. I cleared my throat. “What’s the solution for the men?”

  Kamilah made a gesture with her left hand. It hadn’t seemed possible that my face could feel hotter.

  I am such a prude. “I keep forgetting that you were a military surgeon.”

  “Oh, I knew that gesture since I was little.” She bent her head, sliding the radishes into a neat pile. “When you’re the only girl, with two older brothers and three younger ones, you pick up some things that aren’t so proper. We shared the same bedroom, so I heard all the conversations.”

  “Really? All six of you in one room?”

  “My parents, too.” She shrugged. “My family was not wealthy people.”

  Eight people in a single bedroom. It had been common after the Meteor, when housing had been in short supply—refugees had crowded in with relatives or strangers who were kind enough to open their homes. But Kamilah was my age. “What are your brothers doing now?”

  “Moldering somewhere in Morocco.” She wiped her knife off and laid it on the counter. “What do you want me to do with these radishes?”

  “There’s a bowl with lettuce … add them to that?” That’s the funny thing about training for a mission like this. You can spend hours every day for a year with people and still learn only the narrowest swathe of who they are. I knew that Kamilah had an irreverent sense of humor. I knew she was Muslim and from Algiers. I knew that she had an aversion to cooked carrots as strong as my own. I hadn’t known that all of her brothers had died in the Second World War.

  As she slid the radishes into the bowl, I rehydrated some powdered eggs. “So … Do you think we should talk to Florence?”

  “Why?” Kamilah’s brows came together as she set the bowl on the counter near me.

  “Well … I mean.” I pressed my lips together, then shook my head at my foolishness. Whose sensibilities was I really protecting here? “Parker has a history, and I just want to make certain she’s … I wouldn’t want him to press her.”

  Kamilah leaned against the counter, her head cocked to the side. “Huh. I’m not sure which question to ask first, so I will ask them both. Why do you think it was Parker and Florence? And what history?”

  “If it wasn’t you or me, that only leaves one other woman on the ship.”

  Kamilah stared at me and pursed her lips. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, then shook her head. “And the history?”

  “In the war … I was a WASP and flew transport into his base. He was … There were young women who were afraid to tell him no.” I opened the drawer of spices, all suspended in oil in little sealed jars and stuck to the bottom of the drawer wi
th magnets. It was a holdover from the moon where we didn’t have the luxury of artificial gravity to keep floating particulates out of the air. Drawing a breath, I pulled the jar of black pepper in oil out of the drawer. “My father was a general, and so I reported Parker. He faced a trial over it.”

  Kamilah took a long breath. “That’s why he hates you.”

  A little stabbing pain went through my chest at how obvious it was, and I nodded. “Plus, he’s never been a fan of women in the astronaut corps.”

  “Well, that’s most of the IAC, isn’t it?” She chuckled drily. “Yet another reason to wish I’d been born a man.”

  “Anyway, it’s why I’m worried that he might have … put Florence in a compromising position.”

  “Do you honestly think she would be silent about such a thing? If it were against her wishes?”

  I frowned, trying to imagine that, and kept bumping up against memories of women that I’d known who had, in fact, kept quiet about just such things. Forthright, brave women, who wouldn’t discuss them out of misplaced shame. Or fear of not being believed. Then, too, there was the way Florence handled DeBeer, by keeping her head down and just smiling. “Maybe? I mean, if it was the commander of the mission, what recourse would she have? We’re stuck together for three years.”

  Kamilah sighed and shook her head. “Well, I’ll keep an eye out, but she might not have been involved.”

  What did she—“Oh. The men? Really?”

  Again, her eloquent shrug. “It is not uncommon in all-male settings. Boarding schools. Submarines. Trenches. Unspoken and frowned upon, true, but quietly known.”

  “But … a condom? I mean—it’s not as if men can get pregnant.”

  “Elma, Elma, Elma … Let me talk to you about the role of lubrication and—”

  “My, it’s warm in here.” It was, but I overplayed my Southern accent and batted my eyelashes.

  Kamilah burst out laughing. I joined her, thankful that I had escaped more education on that particular topic than I had really anticipated. Was I curious? Sure. But not enough to want any more details than I already had.