by Allen Steele
Don’t look back. Never look back…
Then the engine fires. My back is pressed flat against the seat as the pod trembles around me, and I’m on my way.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
* * *
I’M A LITTLE ROCKET SHIP
Alone, alone, all, all alone
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
When I was nineteen, I got the urge to take up sailplaning. That was when I was trying out all sorts of high-risk sports: rock-climbing, bungee-jumping, mountain snowboarding—anything for that cool adrenaline rush. My dad was willing to bankroll all these short-lived hobbies—maybe he hoped one of them would kill me—so one Saturday morning I went out to Spirit of St. Louis airport and hired a sailplane instructor to take me up in a two-seat glider for an introductory lesson.
The instructor was a cranky old duffer named Ted who didn’t like me from the start; he pegged me as a spoiled brat with too much time on my hands, and in retrospect he was probably correct. He didn’t mind taking my money, but he didn’t want me as a student. So he put me in the front seat of his trainer and, once the tow-plane had taken us up to 3,000 feet and detached the cable, subjected me without warning to stomach-churning aerobatics guaranteed to make sure that he would never see my face again, beginning with a steep, fast dive that gave me another taste of what I had for breakfast.
That’s sort of what leaving 4442 Garcia was like.
Through the porthole, I catch a glimpse of the asteroid falling away. My knuckles go white as I clench the armrests; a ghostly hand shoves me back into the padded couch. No turbulence, no sound, only a faint vibration against my back; it’s as smooth as if I’m back in Ted’s sailplane, yet I’m plummeting into eternity, and it’s all I can do to keep dinner in my stomach.
A red bar creeps from left to right across a panel on the dashboard before me: the gee-force indicator, showing that I’ve gone from zero to one gee in less than sixty seconds. Earth-normal gravity, and I feel like an elephant’s sitting on my chest. Another red bar below it steadily moves from right to left: the fuel gauge, telling me that the pod’s liquid fuel tanks are quickly being drained.
“Fuel reserves are at fifty percent, Alec,” Chip says. “At present rate of consumption, the tanks will be empty in one minute, forty-five seconds.”
I manage to force my head up. I can’t see Garcia anymore. “How far away are we?” I croak.
“Thirty-five point two-eight kilometers.”
Does the asteroid have any defenses? I don’t know for certain, and I didn’t think to ask Chip. It probably does; Mister Chicago would need some way to protect himself, wouldn’t he? If that’s so, then someone back there might be able to shoot me down. Up. Whatever.
“Keep going.” I hiss. “Fire the engines as long as you can.”
“This is not a wise decision, Alec. Once the pod runs out of fuel, you will be unable to maneuver.”
He’s got a point. I’ll need fuel to rendezvous with the ship I’m trying to catch. “Okay…cut the engines when we’re down to twenty percent.”
“Main engine cutoff in one minute.”
Gee-force keeps mounting; the indicator tells me I’m already pulling two gees. I shut my eyes and let it push me back against the couch. Pretend it’s just a roller coaster, man. Pretend it’s the Screaming Eagle at Six Flags. For chrissakes, don’t puke!
Have I done the right thing? I could have stayed put on 4442 Garcia; it’s close to midnight, and I’m missing the best New Year’s blowout I’ve ever seen. Maybe I’m wrong about Mister Chicago; sure, he’s nuts, but I’m his favorite deadhead, after all, aren’t I? He wouldn’t kill me just for nothing, would he? And maybe I can still patch things up with Shemp, let him know there aren’t any hard feelings. I’ll stay away from Anna, if that’s what this is all about. I could get used to having him as my boss, and mopping the same floors every day isn’t all that bad, once you get used to it. But no, Alec…you have to do something stupid like steal a spacecraft…a goddamn repair pod!…and try to jet out to God-knows-where like you’re some kinda wannabe Luke Skywalker. Shit, man, what have I done?
The vibration suddenly ceases. Wham! and I’m thrown forward against the seat harness. Fucking hurts…
“Main engine shut-down. Remaining fuel reserves at twenty percent.”
Through the porthole, nothing but stars against the blackness; when I relax my grip on the armrests, my hands float upward of their own accord.
Free fall.
My stomach surges. For a moment I’m sure I’m about to throw up, but I’ve gotten the worst of it out of my system. I shut my eyes again for a few seconds and remain still, and gradually my guts settle back down. This gives me a little confidence. Look, Ma, I didn’t spit up…
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Distance: one hundred five point four eight kilometers from point of departure. Celestial coordinates: X fifteen point seven, Y zero point two seven, Z ninety-two point one two. Azimuth…”
“Never mind. Just show me a picture.”
The center screen displays a red spot moving in a shallow parabola away from a blue jellybean. Nothing else around: no other asteroids, no other vessels. “Are we on course for rendezvous with that ship?”
“Yes, Alec. The course has been laid into the autopilot.”
“So where is it?”
The image expands. 4442 Garcia disappears off the left margin of the screen, and another parabolic line appears near the upper right corner. A blue dot near the right edge of the screen follows the traverse like a marble slowly rolling down a groove.
“This is the vessel you instructed me to intercept,” Chip says. A dotted line appears on the screen, tracing a path from the red dot to the blue dot. “Our present distance to the projected rendezvous is thirty thousand, five hundred forty-six point zero one kilometers.”
“Cool.” I relax a little. “So how long will it take us to get there?”
“At our present velocity of one point one seven kilometers per second, we will reach the rendezvous point in approximately seven hours, twenty-five minutes, twenty-one seconds.”
“Umm…okay, not bad.”
“Alec, your oxygen supply will be consumed in six hours, fifty-four minutes.” He pauses. “Incidentally, it is now twenty-four hundred GMT. Happy New Year.”
I gape at the screen. I don’t fucking believe this. I’ve managed to leave Mister Chicago’s party, walk blindfolded across the habitat, take the cable car up to the hub, steal a spacecraft I barely know how to operate, and escape from the asteroid without being detected…and now I’m told that I’ll be dead by the time my little EVA pod reaches the intercept point.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?” I shout.
“I just did, Alec.”
“I mean, before we left the asteroid!”
“I attempted to do so, but…”
“No, you didn’t! You told me that it was okay to…!”
Suddenly, I hear my own voice: “Lay in an intercept course for that ship.”
Chip: “Alec, the fuel range of this craft is limited to one hundred kilometers…”
“I know. Head for the intercept point.”
“Alec, your chances of reaching the intercept point are…”
“Just do it! Undock us, fire the engines, and keep firing until the tanks are dry.”
“I don’t understand, Alec.”
“Just do it, Chip. Get me out of here.”
“Understood. Launch sequence activated.”
I close my eyes. Never try to win an argument with a computer.
“Alec?”
“What is it?”
“I’ve just received a Priority Alpha-One radio transmission from 4442 Garcia.”
Oh, hell. Someone back there just wised up. I open my eyes again. “What doe
s it say?”
“Would you like for me to relay it to you?”
“No thanks, just give me the skinny.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just tell me what they want.”
“The message was transmitted from the colony’s traffic control operator. She wants to know if there is anyone aboard this craft. If so, do you request rescue?”
So they’ve figured out that one of their pods has gone AWOL. Maybe they think the pod was accidentally jettisoned, or something like that. In any case, I’m not so far away from Garcia that they can’t send out a ship to pick me up. My luck’s getting worse by the minute.
“Do you want me to reply?” Chip asks.
“No. Don’t tell them anything. Just shut up.”
I need time to think this over.
Not that I’ve got many options. If I tell them I need to be rescued, then I’ll inevitably have to answer to Mister Chicago. No doubt he’ll extend to me the same mercy he’s given everyone else who’s ever crossed him. But if I keep going, my air supply will run out before I rendezvous with that distant ship. So my choice is between having a cerebral aneurysm or asphyxiation…
My eyes fall on the velocity bar. It’s holding steady at 1.17 kilometers per second. Just above it, the bar showing my available fuel supply stands at twenty percent.
“Chip,” I ask, “if we fire up the engine again and use the rest of the fuel reserves, will that get us to the intercept point any quicker?”
A moment passes. “Yes, Alec. If we were to consume the last fuel reserves, then we would accelerate to three gees before terminal engine cutoff. At one point seven six kilometers per second, we would reach the rendezvous point in four hours, fifty-two minutes, eight seconds.”
“But that’ll leave us adrift, right?”
“That is correct.” While I’m still mulling this over, he adds: “A second message has been received from 4442 Garcia traffic control. She says that a rescue craft is being prepared for launch from the colony, and that we should expect it to come aside us within fifteen minutes. Do you wish to respond?”
“Hell, no.” I take a deep breath. “Fire up the engine, Chip. Get us outta here.”
“Alec, this is extremely risky…”
“Goddammit, I told you to fire the engine! Now do it!”
“As you wish.”
Once again, I’m slammed back against my seat. This time, though, I’m not prepared for the sudden thrust. My head connects with the seat back; stars not belonging to this universe scatter before my eyes, then I fall into darkness blacker than space.
Getting knocked out is really beginning to get old.
I don’t stay KOed for very long. When I come to, the chronometer tells me it’s now 00:27:42. I’ve been out for less than a half-hour.
“Chip?”
“I’m here, Alec.”
“What’s going on? Where are we?”
“You’re in the EVA pod.”
Duh. Except for the chronometer reading, nothing’s different than it was before…except, when I speak, a small cloud of vapor lingers in front of my face before dissipating. My fingers and toes are a bit colder, too. “What happened to the heat?”
“In order to conserve electrical power, I have instructed the pod to readjust the cabin temperature to eighteen degrees Celsius. The pod’s batteries have been drained excessively, and I considered this to be a prudent course of action. I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable.”
“Well…okay. If you say so.” I’ve no idea how eighteen degrees Celsius translates into Fahrenheit, and I really don’t want to know either. My fingers haven’t turned blue, but it’s just chilly enough to make me regret dropping my nice, warm robe outside the pod before I climbed in. I tuck my hands under my armpits and cross my ankles together. “So where are we? No, don’t give me the coordinates…just show it to me on the screen.”
The center screen lights up again. The red spot is a little further down the dotted line from where I last saw it and closer to the rendezvous point. The blue dot marking the spacecraft I want to meet is closer as well. Garcia is nowhere in sight. “Did it work?” I ask. “I mean, the engine firing and all that?”
“Yes, Alec. At time of engine burnout, this pod boosted its velocity to one point seven six kilometers per second. We will successfully reach the intercept point with a little more than one hour of oxygen left in reserve.”
“Cool. And the rescue ship from Garcia? What about it?”
“The pod’s long-range radar picked up a spacecraft leaving 4442 Garcia shortly after the last ignition. It traveled twenty-five kilometers from the asteroid before it turned around and returned to its departure point. I monitored its transmissions, and noted that its pilot believed that your pod is unpiloted and probably launched by accident. After taking into account your present distance and delta-vee, the asteroid’s traffic controller instructed the pilot of the rescue craft to turn back. The rescue attempt has been terminated.”
“Yowsah!” I pump my fist in the air. My trick worked: I’ve outrun the ship sent out to retrieve me, and I’ll make the rendezvous point with plenty of air left to…
One hour of oxygen.
No fuel left in the tanks.
And I’m whipping through space at nearly two kilometers per second.
Oh, shit.
“Uh, Chip…”
“Yes, Alec, I hear you.”
“What if…um, I mean…well, how do I slow down? I mean, to meet the ship?”
“You cannot slow down, Alec.”
My heart flutters in my chest. My hands come out from beneath my armpits and grasp the armrests again. “What do you mean, I can’t slow down?”
“The only possible way for a spacecraft to decelerate from your present velocity is for the craft to reverse its major axis and fire its engines in a standard braking maneuver until it matches the velocity of the craft with which it intends to rendezvous. Since the last ignition exhausted your pod’s remaining fuel supplies, this is no longer possible.”
Right. Of course. I’ll reach the intercept point; in fact, I’ll be alive and well when my pod rushes past the spaceship I want to meet. See that bit of space junk that just cruised by? That’s William Alec Tucker III, on his way to becoming a permanent addition to the asteroid belt. But don’t worry, folks. About an hour after he vanishes from sight, his air is going to run out anyway…
No sense in blaming Chip for this, either. He doesn’t have to replay our last conversation before I ordered him to make the last engine burn; I remember it all too clearly. He said that this maneuver was “extremely risky”—incredibly fucking stupid, that is—but I ignored his advice and went ahead anyway.
I slam my head back against the seat. Of course. The story of my life…indeed, both lives. I died the first time when common sense should have told me not to let Shemp drive my car when he was too fucked up to see straight. Now, I’m going to die again when the nearest thing I’ve ever had to a guardian angel told me (twice!) that what I was doing was suicidal.
“God,” I murmur, “I’m such a stupid asshole.”
God lets me dwell on this notion for a few moments. Then He cuts me a break.
“Alec,” Chip says, “there is a solution to this problem.”
After Chip explains it to me, we spend the next four hours hashing out the details. He even concocts an eyes-up simulation which I use as a dress rehearsal, even though we both know that I’ll only get one shot at this, and it’s a long one at that. By the time the red spot and the blue spot on the screen are close to convergence, I’m ready to go.
Tucked beneath the pilot seat is a small, tightly wrapped bundle: an emergency one-time-use spacesuit. When I pull it out of its envelope, I nearly abandon the plan right then and there. The suit is a black, one-piece outfit that looks and feels like a plastic body stocking; it reminds me of one of those cheap pocket raincoats you used to be able to buy for a couple of bucks at Woolworth’s. Chip explains that this skinsu
it is woven from molecular polycarbon filaments; it seems flimsy, but it’s capable of holding an internal atmosphere, keeping me warm, and resisting cosmic background radiation. A locker above the hatch contains a fishbowl helmet, a life-support unit not much larger than a daypack, and a reaction-control system that faintly resembles an old Super Soaker. Chip assures me that everything will work as advertised.
I strip off my clothes and pull on the skinsuit. It’s so thin, I feel my muscles through its fabric; the gloves are supple enough that I could flip a penny between my fingers. The life-support pack nestles against my back with a set of shoulder and chest straps; I can’t find any air hoses, but when Chip tells me to reach over my shoulder and touch a pair of studs on the pack’s top surface, I feel a vague sucking sensation between my shoulder blades as tiny apertures between the suit and the pack meet and seal themselves. Chip informs me that the suit will absorb carbon dioxide from my breath and oxygen from my sweat and the unit will recombine them as breathable air. In the inner solar system, the suit would have been powered by solar radiation and kept me alive almost indefinitely; out here in the Belt, though, it has to draw its energy from internal batteries. The suit’s good for three hours; by then, I’ll either have been rescued, or I’ll be contemplating the prospect of becoming a frozen corpse real soon now.
By now, the pod is less than thirty minutes away from the intercept point. My movements within the cabin have caused it to slowly tumble end over end through space; through the porthole, stars revolve as if I’m inside a cosmic laundry dryer. There’s just enough residual fuel left in the tanks for me, under Chip’s eyes-up guidance, to fire the reaction-control rockets one last time; that stops the tumble and reorients the porthole toward our plotted trajectory. Chip has already told the pod to start transmitting mayday signals on all frequencies, along with a message informing the crew of the oncoming spacecraft that they should be on the lookout for a man wearing a survival suit.
I pull the fishbowl over my head. When I seal the neck flap, tiny gold lights light up across my chest and down my arms and legs. I look like I’m ready to go to a disco. Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…
