by Robert Kuntz
Instead, I cry out, “What if I don’t do what You want? You’ll be mad at me and resent me.”
“No, Grant. Nothing in my heart will change toward you.”
His words are soft but they seize me. I’ll never forget them. For a moment, I can’t breathe. Everything inside me pauses. How can this be? How could anyone be like this? But I know it’s true. There’s no lie in Him, no falseness, no shading the truth or putting a good spin on things. He’s just told me something eternal: nothing in His heart will ever change toward me. I don’t know how to handle this.
A new spark of warmth quivers within me, and my anger melts away. Who is He to have this effect on me?
I look at Him. His eyes are tender, filled with a great love. His warmth surges in me. I want to hold on to it. I want to stay here with Him forever. He laughs and shakes his head. The thought comes into my mind, Aren’t you listening to SINDAS’s oxygen countdown? You need to get back inside the Gal.
As I hear these words, I know He’s changed me. There’s a part of Him in me. It’s as if I have a new sense. I don’t need to know which way is north anymore because I know—I can’t say it any other way—I know which way is Him.
11
The universe blinks back into place. Above me is the vast nothingness that reaches to the stars. Only the warmth of His presence remains.
“Preparing for return to air lock. Cycling interior doors.” SINDAS’s voice jars me.
It takes a moment for her words to register. “No,” I shout. “Don’t do that.”
I thrust my chin at the intercom switch. Over the helmet intercom, I hear the whir of the door being opened, Ginger and Mouser barking, their feet scrambling furiously on the floor tiles. I imagine them racing into the air lock, looking for me.
“Get those poodles out of the air lock.”
“Null capacity.”
“If you empty the air, the poodles will die. Get them out of there.”
“Null capacity.”
“The poodles, the dogs!”
“Null capacity.”
I want to strangle her. “SINDAS, listen carefully. Do you hear sounds in the airlock?”
“Sensors register aural frequency vibrations.”
“What is causing those sounds?”
“Null capacity; sound source indeterminable.”
“Do you detect motion in the air lock?”
“Sensors register motion.”
“What is the source of that motion?”
“Motion source indeterminable.”
“Were you programmed by a lunatic? You don’t have the sense the Almighty gave prunes.”
“Null capacity.”
I take a deep breath and steady myself. “Do you detect a life form in the airlock?”
“No human life forms detected.”
“Not human life form, you soup-brained centipede, an animal life form!”
“No goats or chickens detected in the airlock. No birds. No fish, turtles, crabs, snails…”
“Poodles, you spawn of silicon. Doesn’t your data bank have information on dogs?”
“Null capacity.”
I fight to steady myself. “Do you detect an animal life form smaller than a goat and larger than a chicken?”
“Null capacity. Oxygen depletion in forty-five minutes.”
Jepler, you vermin pus. You sent me up here with this deranged idiot with the IQ of meal worms. Then SINDAS’s words sink in. I’ve no time to argue with a maniac whose brain-circuits are made of sand. If I don’t find another way back into the Galileo, Ginger, Mouser, and their pups will die. “Where are the other air locks?”
“With plasma thrusters firing, travel to Ring Two and Beta Ring air locks is not safe,” SINDAS says.
“Where are the additional air locks?”
“Galileo has three additional air locks,” SINDAS says, as if pointing out the obvious. “PCLAD, Primary Cargo Loading Air Dock, needle sub-level three. PELAD, Primary Equipment Loading Air Dock, needle sub-level two. PHAL, Primary Human Air Lock needle sub-level one.”
“Which one is closest?”
“PHAL.”
“Do I have enough oxygen to reach it?”
“Yes.”
“Get me there as soon as you can.”
“Recalculating. Time to PHAL forty-two minutes. Prepare to unhook tether.”
“What?”
“Prepare to unhook tether. Tether length prevents successful arrival at PHAL.”
“But I’m floating up here above the ship!”
“No mechanical impairment or reason to remain tethered are detected.”
I feel my heart pounding. Slow breaths, five seconds in; five seconds out. I know I have no choice, so I unhook the tether. “Show me the route on the vid screen.”
“Retracting tether.”
I see the tether snaking away. Then, inside my helmet, a schematic drawing appears, superimposed over the blackness of space. A green light flashes near the top of the rings. I feel a sense of pride as I realize that light is my position. A yellow string shoots out from the light up the outside of the ship to the base of the needle at the top. The string stops. A series of red dots show a route through the needle framework into the inner docking bays. A yellow string shoots into the center of the ship, reaching a glowing orange square.
“Confirm colors and symbols.”
“Flashing green light indicates present position. Orange square represents destination. Yellow line indicates propulsion by jet burst. Red dots indicate propulsion on foot.”
“But I’ve never done that!”
“Simulation requires forty-five minutes.”
“Captain declares Survival Emergency. There’s no time for simulation.”
SINDAS’s calm voice continues. “Confirm Survival Emergency. Prepare for firing guidance jet.”
The guidance jet is not a jolt this time, but a punch. Panic grabs at me as the Galileo spins below me. Somehow I have the strength to shove the panic aside. I’m not sure where the strength came from, or even if it was mine. Ahead, I see the orange light blinking at the base of the needle. Slowly it grows closer until the curiously familiar-looking needle looms above me. The elongated framework of girders and beams looks like the skeleton of a cannon built by giants.
“Oxygen depletion in thirty-six minutes.”
Suddenly, I remember where I’ve seen this before. The week before we had breakfast together, Billy Jepler sent me a holo-vid showing space shuttles and cargo ships entering the needle. With brief puffs of their guidance jets, they crept down through the middle of the needle until they reached the center of the Galileo. The scientist narrating made sure we understood the innermost structure of the Galileo does not rotate. You don’t want gravity there, and you couldn’t get it, anyway. Gravity comes from spin and there’s no spin at the center of a ring.
The holo-vid showed a wingless, pregnant-looking cargo ship easing through the core of the Gal passing tethered nets that kept cargo and supplies floating in space.
I feel uneasy. There was something about that holo-vid. I don’t remember shutting it off. I don’t think I ever took it out of the viewer.
Then it comes to me. I blacked. Because of the vid. After the nauts entered the PHAL, the doors were shut, the lock was pressurized, and at the right moment in Galileo’s spin, the inner section of the PHAL shot forward into the rotating part of the space station, traveling on a spiral track to the reception area in the gravity section of the Galileo.
The narrator’s voice had been gleeful. “It’s like a roller coaster in space. It starts in zero gravity, kicks you like a mule, and rockets you into the gravity section of the ship.”
I black.
****
A blaring sound jolts my ears. I’m coughing and choking; my nose and eyes are watering from the acrid sting of ammonia. “Dr. Chapman, report. Report! Oxygen depletion in thirty-four minutes. Report!” SINDAS sounds frantic.
Through the coughing and choking, I manage to say
, “Reporting. Acknowledge thirty-four minutes oxygen left.”
I look around. I’m floating in a safety net near the top of a light pole. At its base is a blinking orange light. I ease out of the net, thanking SINDAS for steering me here. I reach out, grab the pole, and shove myself down along the pole until my magnetic boots lock on the hull of the Galileo and I have weight again. I feel heavier; the spin is increasing.
I turn slowly, checking for obstacles and obstructions. The immense framework of the needle rises far overhead. My helmet vid shows the red dots superimposed on the hull. Time for a hike.
SINDAS voice jars me. “Oxygen depletion in thirty-one minutes.”
Get moving. I step past the base of the light pole. The mag-lock on my boot jolts me as it clings to the hull. I rock my other foot free and take another step. Even at less than full gravity, it’s strenuous and awkward, the weight of the condenser, oxygen, and power pack threatening to pull me over backwards. I shuffle around a storage shed and ease under a horizontal beam.
“Oxygen depletion in twenty-eight minutes.”
I want to strangle SINDAS.
I squeeze between a light pole and a girder. I think of that scoundrel Jepler. I’m standing on the topmost donut of the Galileo. The framework of the needle looms above me, and I’m about to cross from the donut, which rotates, to the shoulder of the squat soda bottle, which doesn’t. Ahead the orange light blinks. My forward boot locks in place and I rock the hind boot free. My eyes are scanning for anything that would gash my suit, knock me off balance, or obstruct my passage. Lock and rock. Sweat drips from my face and I think to take a long drink from the water tube. I pass a massive three-story structure. From its top rises the framework that forms one base of the needle. Shadows from the grid-work fall across my path.
“Oxygen depletion in twenty-five minutes.”
I shove my foot forward. A dozen steps will take me to the inner edge. Lock and rock. Lock and rock. I come to a wide gap in the hull, the rotation edge. It’s a shadowed emptiness the width of a city street. Standing on the donut, the part of Galileo that rotates, I need to jump this gap to reach the non-rotational core of the ship.
“Mind the gap.” SINDAS’s voice sounds in my ear. “Jump up. Once weightless, shove off the girder to cross the rotation gap.”
I rock both feet free, come onto my toes and jump. The moment I do, I know I’ve jumped too hard. I’m soaring past the girder. I lunge for it, tumbling forward, somersaulting out of control. I’m going to spin off into space. I’m going to be lost in the frozen blackness. In my panic, Howard’s calm voice sounds in my helmet. “Don’t thrash about. In zero gravity, you’ll spin out of control.” I’m tumbling head over heels. My vision is narrowing. Suddenly, I see another girder to the right. I grab the girder. Before I have time to black, I shove myself across the gap toward a light pole.
I scud over the gap, a shadow crossing an empty river bed. Deep breathing; five seconds in; five seconds out. You can do this, Chapman. It all depends on you.
Below me, all is still. There’s no rotation. It seems strange. Wrong. Unsettling. I reach out, grab the light pole, and then shove myself down. My feet brush the hull. I bend my toes. My feet make connection, and the mag-lock pulls me to the hull. No rotation means no weight. My body keeps on moving, and I bend forward, fighting the momentum with my feet firmly locked to the deck. Gasping and struggling, I stop the forward motion and stand upright.
“Oxygen depletion in twenty-two minutes.”
I’m almost to the blinking orange light. In fifteen steps, I’ll reach the edge where I can head down into Galileo’s core. I lift one foot cautiously, careful to stop the upward motion before I stretch it out. My arm smacks against the light pole and whips back against me. Chapman, you’re weightless. Be careful or you’ll kill yourself. I rock and step, rock and step, until I can grab the I-beam on the edge of Galileo’s core.
“Oxygen depletion in seventeen minutes.”
I look across the vast cave before me. It’s like a giant highway tunnel in the mountains. Only instead of double-wide freight trucks, this tunnel seems large enough to swallow battleships. Beams and girders cast long shadows through the cavernous expanse.
I steel myself and look into the tunnel. I can’t see the bottom with the cargo nets, storage vats, nuclear reactor, and Trempanni drive. The tunnel is black and endless, like the one that swallows me when I black. Suddenly, I’m dizzy. The Galileo seems to tilt, as if it’s going to fling me into space. I feel like I’m falling. I cling to the girder and breathe deeply. Everything seems to be spinning, faster and faster. I want to scream, to beat on the girder until it’s a mound of metal.
“Prepare for firing guidance jet.”
SINDAS’s voice shocks me like a face-full of cold water. The spinning sensation stops. SINDAS, I will never complain about your voice again.
On the other side of the tunnel, I see a blinking orange light.
“Step off into the tunnel.”
I can’t. It’s too far down. I’ll fall.
“Oxygen depletion in fifteen minutes.”
Before I can think about it again, I rock my feet from the hull, and shove myself from the girder into the tunnel that’s the core of the Galileo.
“Prepare for guidance jets.”
“Affirmative.”
I feel a shove from the jets. I spin wildly; everything blurs.
I hear SINDAS’s voice. “Recalculating. Re-firing jets.”
The jets slam me with a jolt. The spinning stops. The jets give a gentle push and I’m headed into the wide cave past the cranes, beams, nets of supplies, and equipment.
My stomach is clenched like a fist. I don’t think I’m going to black, but I’m not having a good time. Jepler, you conniving sewer rat. You knew my phobias. How could you imagine that I would make it?
“Oxygen depletion in eleven minutes.”
I’m traveling slowly across the tunnel. The blinking orange light must be three football fields distant. I want to shout to SINDAS to give me another shove with the jets. But then I’d have to use more fuel to stop. I glance at the gauge in my helmet. Fuel reads zero. I don’t have any fuel to stop. I swallow, then realize how thirsty I am. I suck on the water tube. The cool water tastes like heaven. I look across the tunnel. This trip will take forever.
“Oxygen depletion in eight minutes.”
At the speed I’m traveling, snails could pass me. I’ll never reach the blinking orange light. I inch past tethered cargo nets filled with pallets and bundles of supplies. If those supplies are needed, I’ll have to come out here to get them. Jepler, why did you do this to me?
“Oxygen depletion in four minutes.”
I look up to the needle framework overhead. Beyond the girders, the black sky is brushed with stars. Suddenly, I’m five years old again. I’m clinging to a tree in the park. The night is black and cold. Someone’s shot out the street lights and I can’t see anything. The tree sways in the wind and I clutch it tighter so I don’t slip and fall.
“What kind of a father are you?” I scream. “You left me up in this tree.”
I’m shivering with remembered fear. My words echo in my helmet. I know they’ve not touched the vast openness of space. Yet from the cold and darkness, I hear a whisper. It’s not SINDAS. It can’t be; SINDAS doesn’t whisper. But the soft words are hers, “Null capacity.”
An electric shock spears my nerve endings. My father had null capacity. He was sucked dry by alcohol and drugs.
As if an out-of-control nightmare suddenly righted itself, I see things differently. I’d always seen my father as a number 11, sharp and red and angry, a prime number with no affinity for other numbers. I thought I was worthless to him, a 0. Now I see him. That razor-edged, red-hot 11 marches up to a tree, tears itself in half, and jams a 1 into the tree—the part of him that cared and longed to raise a son, the part he couldn’t handle but couldn’t silence. He ripped off that part of himself and shoved it up a tree because he was damage
d, diseased, drunk. He was trying to tear out the fatherly part of himself that gnawed and nagged and wouldn’t let go. He stands there, a desperate, sobbing, single blue 1. He’d jammed the best part of himself up the tree.
That was me.
Dad, if you have null capacity, then go. Go away and never hurt me again. I am not nothing. I’m Grant Jonathan Chapman. I’m here, far above the highest tree on Earth. I came out here into the blackness. I fixed the pulse thrusters. And I am going to come home.
SINDAS’s voice startles me. “Oxygen depletion in two minutes.”
Ahead, the wide doors of the air lock slide open and the doormat extends.
My feet thump against the doormat. My body continues forward and I tighten my core muscles to stop myself from falling on my face. I hear SINDAS in my helmet: “Prepare for retraction.”
“Affirmative.”
“Oxygen depletion in forty-four seconds.”
The metal framework shivers and slides slowly into the air lock. Behind me, the doors close, shutting off the black tunnel.
“Air lock closed,” SINDAS calls. “Oxygen depletion in twelve seconds. Attach ship oxygen system to suit.”
Ahead, I see the white and green striped oxygen tube hanging limply from the wall. I shuffle forward on my magnetic boots. My foot hits the lip of the floor, where it meets the metal grid. I stumble. My feet jerk free of the floor. In the zero gravity, I spin, hearing Howard’s voice in my head. “Don’t thrash…” I throw out one arm to slow my spin.
“Oxygen depletion in five seconds.”
I grab the handle of a storage locker, right myself, and then shove myself across the room. I hit the wall next to the oxygen tube, seizing the grab bar to keep myself from bouncing away.
“Oxygen is depleted.”
12
I snatch the oxygen tube and thrust it toward the locking port. The end of the tube glances off the port and twists in the air. If I’ve damaged the tube, it won’t connect with the port.
Ever-helpful SINDAS says, “Oxygen depletion plus twenty seconds.” I feel stillness around my face. No oxygen is flowing into the helmet. The air is growing stale and warm, and thinner with every exhalation.
