Losers in Space

by John Barnes

  “He took the Fendrisol?” I ask. Without Fendrisol, happistuf replicates in the brain like yeast in bread dough, and you spiral into the laughing dive very quickly.

  Wychee gestures at the screen. “All of it.”

  Fleeta’s confusion deepens, but she never loses that joyful expression. “But I have to take it. Every other day, nowadays. I’m close to the margin. If I don’t take it, full terminal degeneration will start almost right away.”

  Wychee’s fingers pound the keyboard as if she thought she could force it to give her the answer she wanted. “We can synthesize most of the other stuff he stole, like morphine, and the antidepressants and antipsychotics. But Fendrisol is extracted from farmed orcas.”

  Fleeta giggles in sheer glee. “It’s okay. I’ll miss you all, and everything, but I’m going to feel happier and happier.”

  “We’re all going to get home, alive,” I say, trying to style Resolute Will of Iron, which I used to be good at.

  I guess not anymore. Fleeta’s hysterical peals of laughter spoil the effect. She goes giggling off to the bunk room.

  Wychee breaks the silence. “What can Derlock be doing? Fendrisol isn’t something anyone would ever take recreationally; it slows down the effects of happistuf, and at high doses it’s toxic enough so you can use it to kill yourself. That’s all. Everything else he took had recreational potential and was something someone might deal. Fendrisol was the only purely medical drug he stole.”

  Glisters sighs. “Besides, how does he expect to get off the cap with what amount to four or five sizable crates of drugs, keep them all concealed, and then sell them? It feels like he’s doing something on purpose and I can’t see what.”

  I think about that. “Knowing Derlock, there’s some reason for stealing that Fendrisol. I don’t think it was to kill Fleeta, because he didn’t care about her one way or another.”

  Wychee says, “You know, there’s the old story about the guy who crosses the border in a big shiny new car every day for a year; the border patrol always searches, never finds anything, until they realize he’s smuggling cars. Maybe Derlock stole the stuff with recreational potential because he hoped we’d just figure the Fendrisol was one more drug in a long list of what he was stealing. Neither he nor Emerald has ever used any of the recreational drugs much, and you’re right, he couldn’t have hoped to sell it. I think he stole the plain old drug-drugs to hide his real objective—which was the Fendrisol, not anything else.”

  “He took extra minutes to grab Fendrisol,” Glisters says, “but he didn’t take oxygen tanks or an electrolysis rig—so somehow, getting the Fendrisol was more important than air. And he didn’t tell Emerald about it. He wants her to think they’re okay for air when they’re not.” He glances from one to the other of us. “I think the worst part of this story is yet to come, and maybe I should be happy not to know it yet.”

  June 28, 2129. On Virgo, upbound Earth to Mars. 174 million kilometers from the sun, 69 million kilometers from Mars, 40 million kilometers from Earth.

  Glisters finishes building his antenna when F.B. still has six days to go in the tank. He seems more sad than happy; when I ask him about it, he says he’s just thinking how much F.B. and Stack would have enjoyed working on this project with him, and how it’s exactly the day when F.B. was supposed to leave on the cap. “It would have been the biggest adventure of his life,” Glisters says. “He’d’ve been so proud.”

  Then I’m sad.

  Glisters’s device is a weird-looking contraption, a post about as tall as himself with three crosspieces at 60 degrees from each other so that the points form a hexagon or a Mogen David. It’s pitted with half-centimeter–half-spherical holes, each capped with a glass lid covered by a tiny gold dot. Underneath each of them is a fast processor so that each of them is constantly, independently reporting the direction from which any signal is coming, and all of those hundreds of feeds then come in over a big quantum-optic bus to the processors on board the ship, which sort out and decode signals and pick spots we can try sending to. And every bit of it, Glisters built by hand.

  “For a guy who spent all his time in class farting off and sketching sequences of titty shots, you’ve come a long way,” I tell Glisters.

  “You’re not a bad commander for somebody who used to be a drunken sex kitten, yourself,” he says. “Wanna go find somewhere where we can play with my antenna? I want to erect it as soon as we can, but I want it to be working right first, and I trust you with it more than anyone else.”

  “Hi-effin-larious. I’m glad you found a career outside pornography.”

  We test it in the Pressurized Cargo Section; it transmits and receives along the cargo handling deck beautifully. We try along the floors in Vacuum Cargo Section 2, and it’s still good. Glisters leaves it set up there so he can experiment with controlling it with software from the cockpit; there are a couple of days of fussing. At last he says it’s about as ready as it will ever get.

  Glisters built it to be easy to mount, so installing it outside won’t be nearly as complicated.

  He shows me how to do it; you’re on belay the whole time, and there are just two clamps to fasten at the mounting position, which is farther out toward the edge than before, but it’s a straight, easy climb. After he shows me, we take turns trying out his procedure in Vacuum Cargo Section 2.

  Glisters does it with one minor error and I do it with two (“always one hand on a grip” sounds easy to remember but it’s something else again in practice).

  “Well,” I say, “I’ll just practice till I’ve had ten flawless run throughs in a row, and then do it.”

  Glisters shakes his head. “I’m going to practice and do it. Not you.”

  “Don’t be silly, you’re indispensable,” I tell him. “The ship wouldn’t run without you and if anything goes wrong—”

  “You and Wychee have been through every tutorial that is actually important,” he says. “The day after the accident, sure, you couldn’t have gotten along without me, but nowadays, I’m not indispensable. You are. The ship can run without me, Susan, you have the people to run it with, but it can’t run without you here to listen to everyone, find the thing everyone can agree on, keep everyone working together and not fighting, carry us all through our depression and loneliness—”

  “Sheeyeffinit.”

  We agree to let Wychee settle it, as the ranking officer not involved. Besides, she’s sensible enough to see things my way. (Strangely, Glisters seems to think she’ll agree with him.)

  Wychee listens to both of us. “You’re both wrong. After F.B. comes out of the tank, and has a few days of practice, he’ll be able to do this.”

  “Absolutely not—” I say, as Glisters begins, “He shouldn’t—”

  “Both of you shut up. You’re both right about each other. The rest of us need you. And as for the rest, Marioschke is being braver and more competent than I would have believed possible, but to do something like this? She’d be scared out of her mind. Obviously Fleeta can’t. I could pretend that you’ve all learned to run the supply system and the farm and keep everyone fed, and Marioschke could probably handle the farm, but you’d be living on raw vegetables for six months and considering how I have to nag you about not screwing up my inventory, I’m not getting killed and letting you make the mess you’re going to die in. So it should be F.B. He’ll do his best, and you know he can do it.”

  July 8, 2129. On Virgo, upbound Earth to Mars. 182 million kilometers from the sun, 57 million kilometers from Mars, 43 million kilometers from Earth.

  When F.B. comes out of the tank, Wychee fixes fettucine alfredo, hummus on soft rolls, and tapioca pudding in deference to his still-sore mouth. Before he’s had time to digest, he wants to go to the pressurized hold and get to work on learning how to put the antenna into place.

  We insist that he take some time. He practices in almost every waking hour for six days—not just the way it’s supposed to go, but every scenario we can think up for things going
wrong. “My biggest fear right now,” I mutter to Glisters, “is that he’ll figure out how afraid I am for him.”

  Glisters shrugs. “Wychee was right, he’ll do it perfectly no matter what, and it’s great to see his confidence. But my heart will be in my throat the whole time he’s out there.”

  We schedule it while Glisters has the conn. I’m standing by in a pressure suit, ready to go for a rescue or backup; Wychee helps F.B. do his suit checkout. At last he climbs into the airlock, gently pulling Glisters’s homebuilt antenna after him.

  F.B.’s voice is clear as a bell in my headphones. “Inside-the-lock checklist complete and verified, cycling the lock.” I feel the shudder through my feet as the ship retrieves air from the closet-sized tunnel. “Opening the outer door. Antenna on belay and moving properly. I’m on belay and belay line is running free. Advancing through outer door. I have my first exterior handhold. Advancing along the line of handholds, no problem,” F.B. says. “Approaching the mount point. Clipping my second belay into place. Glisters, the antenna is acting like it’s wanting to fall off sideways, so I might not talk for a minute, kind of need to concentrate.”

  “Take your time,” Glisters and I say, simultaneously.

  “Plenty of time,” F.B. concurs. “Positioning the antenna under way.”

  My helmet visor is up and I’m still breathing ship air, and can watch Wychee, who has her eyes shut and appears to be holding her breath; Marioschke, who looks like she’s trying to twist all her fingers off against each other; and Fwuffy, placidly floating with a peaceful expression, trunk slowly stroking the sides of his face, occasionally tucking into his mouth. I’ve never seen him do that before.

  After an eternity—I realize I’ve been holding my breath, too—F.B.’s voice makes us all jump. “Positioning the antenna complete. It’s in the socket, first clamp fastened. Second clamp fastened. First clamp confirmed. Second clamp confirmed. Request power up and system check.”

  “Power up and system check starting now.” Glisters’s voice over the phones doesn’t quite conceal his excitement. “Power on. All processors booting up. Receptors reporting as processors come on line. All processors booted up and running with full complement of processors. I have signal! We’ve got 400 faces from Mars, 9,000 faces from Earth and the moon. Come back in carefully, F.B., you did it.”

  Calmly, methodically, reporting each step, he unbelays the antenna, coils those lines, takes off his second belay, climbs back, makes sure his main belay has cleared the outer door, and starts the entry sequence. A few minutes later the vents pop, air rushes into the lock, and the door opens. He slides out, pulling up his visor.

  “Time for a party,” Wychee says. “F.B., I’m going to do the best soft-food meal in history tonight. Then as soon as your teeth and jaw are all healed, we’ll have an even bigger meal of whatever you like.”

  Fwuffy shakes his head, flapping his big ears, and blows a little air through his trunk. “And I saved you wots of fwesh bananas.”

  As we all airswim back to the cockpit—the celebration has to be there because now that his precious antenna is working, Glisters can’t be pried out with a crowbar—I ask Fwuffy, “When we were all worried about F.B., why did you rub your trunk all over your cheeks like that? And put it in your mouth?”

  “It’s embawassing.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “It’s okay, it’s just… childish. When I’m fwightened and anxious I want to twumpet wike my ewephant ancestas. But that’s so woud and wude. So they twained me to do that instead of twumpet.”

  “Fwuffy,” I say, “you can’t imagine how much we all appreciate that.”

  “Actuwawy, I can. My heawing is maw sensitive than yaws. I didn’t want to heah me twumpet eitha.”

  19

  560 NEEDLES, 6,000,000,000 PIECES OF HAY

  July 8, 2129. On Virgo, upbound Earth to Mars. 182 million kilometers from the sun, 57 million kilometers from Mars, 43 million kilometers from Earth.

  FOR SOMETHING I wouldn’t have recognized as a party a few months ago, it’s a good party. Wychee outdoes herself on soups and blintzes; she says, “I’m just glad the people on Mars will already have resigned themselves to never getting this stuff.”

  Marioschke gives F.B. a major dose of shining eyes, completely undoing his newfound poise. It gives Wychee and me, the only gossips at the party, something to roll our eyes about. Fwuffy curls up like a gigantic contented cat, always happier when people get along. Fleeta rocks and giggles; her constant conspicuous happiness doesn’t seem nearly so spooky today—it just sort of adds to the atmosphere.

  “—change the key to the codes every few seconds,” Glisters is saying to F.B. It sort of figures that F.B.’s hero would be supplying F.B. with the best girl-avoiding technique known; I decide to wade in and not let him.

  “Submillimeter wave communication, always the way to a lady’s heart,” I say to them both. Marioschke is head to head with Wychee and not listening to us—probably getting some coaching.

  “Lady?” F.B. says.

  I nod in the direction of Marioschke; he freezes for a second, the way a guy does when you tell him someone he’s interested in is interested in him. Particularly a guy who is scared to death of girls. “‘… front her, board her, woo her, assail her,’ if you remember that class.”

  F.B. gulps; I don’t think he squared his shoulders half that hard when he went out to put the antenna on, but he pushes off and airswims over to her.

  “What class?” Glisters asks me.

  “That lit class all the kids with actor parents end up taking,” I say. “It’s from Twelfth Night.”

  “I was going to read that but I was afraid I wouldn’t understand it if I didn’t read First Night up through Eleventh Night.”

  I make a face at him; he nods toward where F.B. and Marioschke are sitting on a window, now, talking into each other’s eyes, and we trade quiet thumbs-ups. “Actually,” he says, “I was kind of thrashing out the communication problem and using F.B’s ears to do it, before springing it on you.”

  “I thought putting up the antenna meant we had solved the communication problem.”

  “You might say it finally allows us to have one. It might be weeks before we’re actually communicating with anyone out there, and that might use up any time they’d have to set up a rescue mission. We kind of have to prepare people for the possibility that we will be going home the long way round, and have to take the whole twenty-two months past Mars.”

  My first impulse is to be angry at him, and my next is to whine about it not being fair, but being commander, I swallow all that and say, “Okay, you’d better explain it to me.”

  Notes for the Interested, #15

  Universal encryption, PermaPaxPerity, and why making sure that everyone gets a chance to be seen means Virgo can’t be heard

  There’s only so much electromagnetic spectrum, and nothing can make there be more. In 2130, with regular communication among hundreds of spacecraft, dozens of space stations, millions of satellites, and three settled worlds, bandwidth (the available part of the spectrum for any one user) will be in short supply. It already is today; you run up against the bandwidth problem when it seems to take forever to download big files, when there are interruptions in your streaming video or audio, or when a multiplayer game “freezes.” The pipe is only so wide (or there are only so many lanes of traffic), and only so much can go through at a time.

  One way to solve this problem is handshaking. Using the tight beams already mentioned, aim the signal only at antennas that say they want it, so everyone pings before talking, and beams information only to the antennas that agree to take it.

  Another way is packetization: break the information into packets and put an “address” on each packet, so that the receiver only “unwraps” the packets addressed to it, and many receivers can share a single channel. This is how cell phones and the Internet share bandwidth today.

  Finally, unique encryption puts eve
ry message in its own unique code, which makes the sorting simple at the other end: all the packets that can be decrypted with the same code are part of the same message. Right now in the 2010s, computers in high-security networks already encrypt and decrypt so fast that voice and even video can be transmitted in this way.

  Long before this story began, as available bandwidth became scarcer and scarcer, handshaking, packetization, and unique encryption became universal. The PermaPaxPerity Authority immediately saw that this could be used to identify the source of every hook in every meed, and to keep tracking the parts of it no matter how often it was re-splyctered, which made it easy to track recognition scores. The UN began to require everyone to use the same standardized tight beams, packetization, and unique encryption. So that hackers cannot make themselves celeb-eenies by setting up bots to flood the system with counterfeit meeds carrying phony creator IDs and time stamps, the code keys are changed every few seconds on all the faces. There are about 1,000 faces (organized streams of messages, the equivalent of a 2010 radio station or website) within a channel, and each channel corresponds to one physical beam of submillimeter waves.

  This is great for all the regular, ordinary people in the solar system. But it also means that to talk to anyone, Virgo must ping billions of faces organized into millions of channels and break their codes to find out whether that face accepts outside signals. Almost all of them are simple one-way faces presenting news or entertainment meeds.

  “So, cue up Wychee doing her imitation of Pop and pounding the table about bottom lines and all that, Glisters,” I say, trying not to panic, though the bleak frustration in his face makes me want to shake him. “I understand enough to see you’re not making it up and can’t do anything more than you’re already doing. How much time is this going to take and how badly does that mess up our chances of rescue?”