Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Carmen nodded. “A little,” she admitted.

  Amy smiled. “Got some Tylenol for that, if you want.” She fished a packet out of a pocket and pushed it gently through the air. It floated the distance between them, and Carmen caught it easily.

  “Water?” Carmen asked.

  “They’ll come around with some drinks in a while. But for now, you can run back to the galley – next compartment back. Ask for a water bulb there.”

  “Thanks for the help!” Carmen said.

  She turned to look at Jacob again, who seemed a little less ill. She was excited about the idea of getting out and about, and seeing some more of the ship. So far, all she’d seen was this room. They were going to be stuck on board for two days – she might as well explore a little.

  “You up for looking around a bit?” she asked Jacob.

  “No,” he said with a wry grin. “Maybe in a bit. Feeling a little better, but I think I’ll just sit here a while and get whatever amounts to space legs. You go ahead.”

  Didn’t have to tell her twice. Carmen always did better on her own, anyway. She flashed him a smile in return – no harm in being polite. Then she kicked off gently in the direction Amy pointed. Or she meant to, anyway. But instead of jetting gently in the direction she wanted to travel, she realized that she was drifting off to her left. She was going to crash into the row of chairs, and she gritted her teeth in embarrassment.

  There had to be a way to stop herself. She tried to twist about, so she could get her feet where they could hook on to something. But all she did was start spinning as well as drifting. That little burst of nausea she felt when her stomach first reacted to zero gravity came back with a vengeance as the world spun past her eyes.

  “Whoa there,” Amy said, gently catching her by an ankle. “Take it slow. You’ll be popping around like a pro by the time we reach Luna, but it takes time to get used to moving around up here.”

  “So I see,” Carmen said, feeling a little sheepish.

  “Still feeling OK?” Amy asked her.

  She really wasn’t, Carmen realized. Her stomach was the worse for wear after the tumble, and her head was really pounding. But she figured the former would quiet if she could just avoid making like a human carousel, and the latter she could fix with the Tylenol and some water.

  “Yeah, I’ll be OK,” she said. It wasn’t really a lie. She would be OK.

  “All right then, off you go. I’m headed back to the cockpit to relieve the pilot. He gets grumpy if he doesn’t get his coffee. You get along.”

  Carmen got. This was a big ship, and there was a lot to see. She wanted to get about seeing it – as carefully as possible. This time, she moved more carefully, keeping one hand in contact with something at all times, moving hand over hand. She wasn’t surprised to see there were a lot of handholds and contact points spread over the interior of the ship. But she was grateful all the same.

  When Carmen reached the hatch at the far side of the compartment, she caught a rail bolted to the wall and brought herself to a stop. She pulled her tablet from a pocket and brought up a map of the ship’s interior that she saved there before boarding. It seemed like it might come in handy, and she hadn’t quite had time yet to commit it to memory.

  The nose of the ship was the cockpit, where the pilot and co-pilot stayed. After that were passenger compartments. There were two levels of compartments, one stacked atop the other. Upstairs, they had two rows of small semi-private rooms, two bunks to a room. Actual places to lie down and sleep. Carmen figured by the time she reached the moon she’d be dying for a chance to lay down in a real bed. The bottom two compartments were significantly less posh. They amounted to rows of chairs, which could be tilted back far enough that you could almost stretch out in them. She messed around with the controls before takeoff. It looked like something one could probably fall asleep on, if you were tired enough. But it wasn’t going to be very comfortable.

  Luckily, they’d be at the lunar base in about forty-eight hours. So the discomfort wouldn’t last too long.

  Back from the passenger area were the passenger service sections. There was a galley, for preparing food, and a dining area where passengers could eat in shifts. The map showed a few other rooms in that section of the ship. There was an infirmary, for example, and a few storage rooms.

  And then there was the rear half of the ship – all taken up by cargo space. A lot of the cargo this trip was the supplies for her father’s work. And her work, she reminded herself. She was determined to prove she was along for more than just her last name!

  Maybe she could slip back into the cargo space to see how those canisters fared during takeoff. If things had shifted, fallen... It could set back their work if certain pieces of equipment were broken or damaged. And time was of the essence. She felt each hour pass by like she was watching sand sift through an hourglass. Carmen had seen the videos of some of the worst affected cities. Houston was a disaster area, and many other cities were just as bad. The worst part about a global epidemic was that nowhere was really safe. People were dying all over.

  The sooner they could get to the moon and start working on a cure, the better.

  She slipped the tablet back in her pocket and pulled herself closer to the door. An electronic sensor spotted her and opened the hatch, the door receding into the wall with a hiss of pressure equalizing. Carmen pulled herself through. The next room was interesting. Staff were folding open tables in the dining area, preparing for people to arrive – but the tables were on the ceiling, and all the walls! She felt a moment of disorientation, watching a table unfold on what felt like the wall next to her. She shook her head gently. No up, no down, remember? She tried to wrap her head around the concept, and how it would impact every bit of day-to-day life here. At least on the moon, they’d have gravity – even if it was only a fraction of Earth’s. Here, life was very strange.

  Carmen nudged herself away from the door gently. The huge room presented an interesting puzzle. The galley - where presumably she could get some water - was almost directly across from her. But how best to get from here to there? If she pushed off too hard, she'd never break in time. But she didn't want to end up suspended in mid-air. She'd already been rescued once in the last fifteen minutes. Requiring a second save from another crew member would be more embarrassment than she could stand.

  This wasn't space. Carmen knew the air in the compartment would slow her down. But how much? She wasn't sure. It was hard to gauge how fast to push off. There might be another way, though. She eyed the tables and chairs, all carefully attached to the hull. They had to be for the passengers, to give them the feel of a meal. The tables all had velcro on their surfaces to keep things from drifting away, and the seats all had straps to hold someone in place while they dined.

  A gentle nudge pushed her off toward the nearest table. She caught hold with her right hand, and brought herself to a stop. Carmen exhaled, smiling. This was going to work! She shoved off toward the next table, pushing a little harder this time. Again, she caught herself just fine.

  "Heads up!"

  She looked to see where the voice was coming from, and spotted a man wearing the shipsuit of a crew member. He had pushed off from the same doorway she'd come through, but he hadn't given himself a gentle nudge. He'd kicked away hard, flipped end over and, and was gliding past her feet first. He caught the edge of a chair with a grace that made her envious and brought himself to a stop just a couple of feet from where she clung to the edge of her table.

  He was around thirty, she guessed. Red hair, cut short - most of the full time spacers seemed to keep their hair cropped fairly short, she'd noticed. He had a little beard growth, just some stubble from a day or two without shaving. And he was wearing a smile that made her stomach do flips.

  "Trying to get over to the galley?" he asked.

  "Yes," she replied. She wasn't doing that badly, either. She'd figured out how to get there, right?

  "Want to take the fast way?" he asked, sti
ll smiling.

  “Um. OK?” Was she babbling? What was he asking about? What fast way?

  “You’ll need to let go of that,” he said, gently pulling her fingers from the table. “Hold on to my hand.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his. His hand was larger than hers, warm, and solid feeling. He slid closer to her, and gently took hold of a loop on the side of her suit. Then he kicked hard, carrying them both away from the table, out into the middle of the room.

  Carmen held back a squeal of glee, but only just.

  It was like flying. The closest thing she’d ever felt to how she imagined the birds must travel. They flew across the room, tables zipping by under and above them. He looked at her, and must have seen something of her joy in her expression, because his face lit up with a smile that touched her heart.

  Then they were almost across. He swung his legs around, bent his knees a bit, and absorbed the impact from the landing into his legs. They both began to rebound, and Carmen started to wonder if they’d drift back out and need a rescue. But he caught a rail with one hand, still holding her with the other, and swung them both down to the large window looking into the galley.

  “What can we get you?” asked a man in a white ship’s uniform inside the kitchen.

  “Just water for me, please,” Carmen said.

  The white-suited man looked at her companion. “Coffee for you, right Patrick?”

  “Yup. Black, and -”

  “Sweet. Yeah. You ask for it the same way every time, Pat. Not gonna forget.”

  The galley crewman handed her a small plastic ball, about the size of a softball. It was translucent plastic, filled with what looked like water, and felt squishy. He placed the thing in her hands carefully, and she held on to it with just as much care. It looked a little like the squeeze bottles of lemon juice you might see in a supermarket, complete with a pull-out drinking spout on one end. The familiar shape and unfamiliar purpose was a little jarring, but she carefully pulled the drinking bit out and experimentally brought it to her lips. She sucked gently through the tube and got a trickle of fluid - cold water. Sucking harder got an even faster flow.

  She was thirstier than she'd realized, and drank half the bulb before she remembered the tylenol. She downed the two tablets with some more water, although she was pretty sure her headache was already less severe than it had been. Carmen was glad she seemed able to adapt quickly to being in space. She might be up here for quite a while.

  The two crewmen were still chatting, so this seemed like a decent time to slip away and check on the medical supplies back in the cargo area. She glanced back at the one who'd helped her across the room - Patrick. Her hand still felt warm where he'd held it, and she rubbed the spot self-consciously. Carmen turned away, hoping that she wasn't blushing enough to be noticed.

  The cargo section was just to the rear of the one she was in. She spotted a tube-like corridor leading in the right direction, and pushed herself off gently in that direction. She managed to land about where she aimed and stopped herself by grabbing a rail. She'd get the hang of this yet!

  The tube was easy. It was designed for crew to get from one end to the other without too much trouble. The lighting flickered on as she went down, automatic sensors detecting her movement and turning on the lights. The ship wasn't some maze you could get lost in, after all. It was more like a huge airliner.

  At the far end of the tube was a closed hatch, and this one didn't open as soon as she reached it. She looked around for the display - all passengers were briefed before takeoff on basic ship safety, which included checking the atmosphere display on all closed hatches. You didn't want to open a door if there wasn't enough air on the other side.

  But the display was showing green - which meant equal atmosphere on both sides of the door. Why wasn't it opening for her? She examined the display panel, and saw a little padlock symbol. She pressed the symbol, and it vanished, to be replaced by a display of numbers, like a pin-pad. Password locked. To keep out whom? Everyone on this mission was carefully vetted before launch. It wasn't like people were going to steal anything. Where were they going to take their ill-gotten gains on the moon, anyway?

  She recalled an old trick from college, and wondered if the same thing might work here. The panel was a flat pane of glass. Carefully, she pulled herself close to the glass, took a deep breath, and exhaled. Her breath misted the glass – except where oil from peoples’ fingers lingered on the glass. Sure enough, there were four buttons with oil on them: one, two, three, and four. She chuckled. It couldn’t really be that simple, could it? But then, she seemed to remember reading somewhere that the most common password was ‘password’. So maybe?

  She pressed the buttons on the panel: one, two, three, and then four, in order. The door beeped, the lock symbol vanished from the screen, and the hatch hissed open. She was in! Before the door could change its mind – and before someone spotted her and told her not to go back there – she pulled herself through the doorway and into the cargo hold.

  It was always easier to beg forgiveness for something than it was to ask for permission.

  Chapter 2

  CARMEN STAYED close to the wall in the cargo area. She’d never been down here before, but the map on her tablet said that it was one extremely large room. It was hard to tell that from where she was, though. The entire are seemed filled with crates, lashed to the walls and floor with thick nylon straps. Between the rows of cargo containers were alleys that she could float through – but not a lot of space for seeing what was about.

  In fact, the place was pretty simple. The containers were laid out in rows, with alleys between the rows. She pulled herself along, looking to see if she could figure out how the place was organized, but whatever system they used was beyond her. She was still curious about finding her father’s lab gear, but it looked like everything was packed in pretty well back here. There wasn’t going to be much risk of things flying about and being damaged.

  Something clinked, the sound of metal on metal echoing up through the rows of crates.

  The sound caught Carmen’s complete attention. What could it have been? Something badly packed and falling over? Maybe there were rats in here, floating around confused without gravity. The image of rats drifting about in the hold, pinwheeling their little legs as they tried to run in the air made her chuckle.

  She was curious, so she pulled herself along down the row of crates, in the direction she thought the sound had likely come from. And then there was another clattering sound, a lot like the first. It was close – had to be in just the next row over. She drifted that way.

  It was the wall of the cargo area. And not just any wall. Just ahead of her Carmen could see the huge cargo airlock – a set of double doors big enough to handle the enormous crates stored inside. They looked large enough to pass a small shuttlecraft. Right now, the inner door stood open, while the outer airlock door was closed.

  Another clatter. This time, Carmen could be sure. The sound was coming from inside the cargo airlock.

  She drifted closer, some instinct telling her to keep quiet. Once she reached the edge of the airlock, she grabbed hold and snuck a peek inside. At first, she didn’t see anything. Then she saw a bolt pop out of the wall to join three others floating in the room. It popped out with enough speed that it banged into the far wall with that same metallic clang that she’d heard several times now. Four bolts floating in the air – and now an entire panel was being pushed away from the wall.

  Behind the panel was a man.

  He was dressed in heavy duty work clothes. Boots, heavy khaki pants, and a heavy work shirt. She didn’t see any identifying marks on the clothes; they looked like just normal clothing someone might wear every day, if that someone was working with their hands most of the time.

  Then Carmen saw his face, and she sucked in her breath hard. He was sick. Not just sick – he was sick with the alien virus. She was pretty sure of it. He had all the symptoms – the fever slick face, flushed c
heeks, dripping nose, and even the raccoon black eyes. That last was a late state symptom. The brain was starting to bleed, and pressure from the bleeding was forcing blood out into the sinuses.

  The man would be dead within hours. But in the meantime, he was likely to be irrational, even dangerous. That was a side effect of the bleeding – once the virus got into the brain, the victim could have periods of delirium or hallucinations.

  For a moment she was flat out terrified. She’d never been this close to someone infected with the virus before. If he so much as coughed near her, she’d catch it, too. And no one had recovered yet. Everyone who got the virus died.

  She couldn’t let her fear stop her from acting, though. The entire ship was in jeopardy. She didn’t know how this man had gotten aboard – the ship had been searched, the area specially quarantined. Every precaution was taken to ensure that all passengers and crew were clear of disease, and that no one who’d been infected went anywhere close to the ship. Somewhere along the line, someone had to have helped this man. It was vital they figure out how he got aboard. But for now, it was even more important to ensure that he stayed put. If he got out into the ship, everyone aboard could die.

  She looked around for the airlock control panel. There it was – set into the wall on the far side of the open door from her. She started slowly working her way hand over hand around the edge of the door. But the doorway was huge – it was going to take her a long time to get around to that panel. It might be more time than she had.

  Carmen was sweating, her fingers slick, which made it even harder to hang on. Any moment, the man was going to spot her fingers, and rush out at her, and she’d be dead. She peeked at the panel – still so far away!

  “Hey! You there!” the man shouted from inside the airlock.

  He’d seen her! No time for anything else now. Carmen aimed herself at the spot where the control panel was, and pushed off hard from her perch. She glided through the air across the open access – watching the man carefully as she went. Luckily, he seemed too started to take action, and he was too far away to infect her. Now if only she could stop herself once she reached the panel.