Zero Limit

by Jeremy K. Brown

  “I won’t need that long,” she said.

  “Cait?” said Ben. “I’ve seen that look before. You’re not planning anything stupid, are you?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she replied firmly. “I’ll send whatever authorization you need. You just take care of her, you understand me?”

  “You got it, Cait,” Ben said. “But unless you can sort this out in a month—”

  “Leave that to me, Ben,” Caitlin said. Now the tears were starting and her voice had grown unsteady. “Where is she? Can I see her?”

  “She’s asleep,” Ben said. “It’s still early here and she had a long night. I can wake her if you—”

  “No! Let her sleep. But you look out for her, you hear me? You look out for her.”

  “With my life, Cait,” said Ben, and she knew he meant it. “With my life.”

  The connection was broken, and Caitlin felt the anger well up like a geyser. She let it come. She looked at the blank screen and wanted desperately to put her fist through it again and again. But she wouldn’t.

  There was a call she had to make.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “So that’s the deal.”

  Vee, Tony, Diaz, and Shaw were all seated around the kitchen table in Caitlin’s unit. The fluorescents cast the room and their faces in a sickly yellow-green hue. But even in the dull, alien light, Caitlin could clearly read their concern. Tony spoke up first.

  “You sure you can trust this guy Ross?” he asked.

  “No,” Caitlin told him honestly. “But taking this job is the best chance I’ve got of getting to Emily before the system does. I’ve got to take it, no matter what the risks.”

  “You’ve got to take it,” said Tony. “What about the rest of us?”

  “Of course not,” Caitlin told them. “No one here has to come, and I’m not going to force you to. I can go down to the docks and hire a crew if I need to.”

  “A crew of greenhorns, you mean,” Vee said, snorting. “People who don’t know your timing, your rhythm, or the first thing about what they’re doing.”

  “Let’s be honest, honey,” Tony said to Vee. “It’s not like we know a whole lot more. We’re rego miners, not asteroid wranglers.”

  “We all have spaceflight training,” Caitlin reminded him. “And the company has had us running asteroid redirect sims for a year now, just in case we ever get clearance to start trying to mine the damn things.”

  “Exactly,” Tony said. “Sims. Are you willing to risk everything based on what you’ve only done in a simulation?”

  “For me, it’s worth the risk,” said Caitlin. “And think of what we all have to gain. I’m not the only one who gets a pass home, remember. Even you, Diaz. I know you can’t necessarily come to Earth, but Ross said he’ll give you your pick of jobs, maybe even your own crew.”

  The room was silent a moment as everyone took in what Caitlin was proposing, weighing out the risks versus the reward in their minds.

  “The bottom line is,” Caitlin continued, “I can’t do this without you. I mean, I will if I have to, but this is my chance to get home, and the only way I know how to make that work is if I have you all with me. I know it’s a lot, asking you to risk everything for me and my kid, and I wouldn’t blame you if you all walked out that door. But this is me with my hat in my hand.”

  Diaz shrugged his shoulders in a relaxed, convivial gesture. “You don’t have to sell me,” he said. “I roll with you, Mama Bear. No matter what.”

  “You know I’ve got my reservations,” said Tony, “but I think a ticket to Earth for Vee and me is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Besides, if you do pull this off and make a killing without me, Diaz will never let me live it down.”

  “You’re smarter than you look, Big Tone,” said Diaz. Tony gave him a wink and a nod, then he looked over at Vee, who turned her eyes to the ceiling.

  “I’m with Tony,” she said. “I’ve got reservations too, but we’re a family. We take care of our own, so if you need us to get your back, then you’ve got us.”

  Caitlin smiled, quietly emotional, grateful for this crew, these people. They were her crew and they’d just proved it to her. She looked at Shaw.

  “What about you?”

  “It’s cool with me,” said Shaw. “I don’t have much to live for these days anyway.”

  “All right then,” Caitlin said drily, worried about Shaw’s state of mind. “We ship out in three days. I checked, and Ross has already gotten everything squared away with Guanghang. So get home, get organized, and get some rack time. You’re gonna need it.”

  Everyone stood up and headed for the door. Before she left, Vee turned back and gave Caitlin a hug.

  “We’re gonna get you home to that girl,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried,” Caitlin said, hoping that she sounded at least somewhat convincing. “I’ve got you with me. You’re the angel on my shoulder.”

  Vee gave her a wink and headed out the door. “You keep thinking like that, and we just might make it through this.”

  She walked out into the hallway, and Caitlin closed the door, resting her head against the surface, feeling the coolness of the aluminum on her skin. She was worried about what lay ahead, terrified. But she had no other option. Her father used to say that, to a brave man’s eyes, danger shines like the Sun. Caitlin didn’t know if he said such words because he believed them or because he wanted her to believe. God knows she wanted to feel brave right now, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that the danger in front of her wasn’t bright or shining. It was dark and hulking. A dead star in space.

  “Caity-did? Where are my glasses?”

  “I saw them on the kitchen table, Dad.”

  “No,” Brandon Taggart says. “I just looked and they weren’t there.”

  “Keep looking . . .”

  A few minutes later, Caitlin’s father comes into his room, his glasses in hand.

  “Found them!” he says. “They were next to my keys. You know why I put them there, don’t you?”

  “So you’d remember where they were,” says Caitlin, giggling. Her father is always misplacing something: his wallet, his keys, his glasses. She is often tasked with finding whatever has disappeared, with the looming promise of monetary reward. But usually her mother finds the lost items. Her dad is always in awe of his wife’s ability to find even the most hopelessly misplaced object. “She could find a haystack in a stack of needles,” he says. Years later she will learn this is just “Dad humor,” the desire for leaden one-liners and puns that infects every man within five years of reproducing.

  “That’s right, kiddo,” he says. He walks to the closet and withdraws a suitcase. Unfolding it on the bed where Caitlin sits cross-legged, he begins to pack. Caitlin watches him work.

  “Will I like it there?” she asks finally. “On Earth?”

  “Of course,” says Brandon. “You’ll love it. I’ve got a nice place picked out for us in Oregon. You’ll be able to run on the beach, swim in the ocean. Maybe we’ll even get a dog.”

  “But it’s going to hurt, right?” she asks. “My bones and everything? I’m not used to the gravity down there.”

  “It’ll be an adjustment, sure,” he says. “But you’re only six. You’ll adapt quickly. And you’ve been taking your vitamins, right? Following all the exercises the doctor showed you?”

  “Yeah,” says Caitlin, then her mind shifts gears to a topic that she has been scared to broach, worried about what her father will tell her.

  “Will I have to get glasses?”

  “It’s possible,” her dad says. He was never one to fence with the truth, a trait she herself will one day inherit. “Some people’s eyes don’t adjust to the change in pressure. But you’re strong, Caity-did. I bet you’re going to surprise us all. Besides, even if you do need specs, I’m sure you’ll look great in them. Here, try ’em on.”

  He puts his own glasses on her face with a boop sound, and the world immediate
ly goes fuzzy, everything becoming just a ruddy smear on the lenses. She takes them off, squealing, then thinks a moment, watching her dad put his life into the case, one article at a time.

  “What about you?” she asks. “Will you like it there?”

  He stops packing and walks over to her, kneeling so they are eye to eye.

  “That depends,” he says. “Are you gonna be there?”

  “Well, yeah,” she says. “Of course.”

  “Then I think I’m gonna like it just fine.”

  He smiles at her and she smiles back.

  “But it’s not going to be like here, though,” she says. “You won’t be the boss.”

  He looks at her, and she can feel the warmth in his gaze.

  “You don’t miss anything, do you?” he says, then stands up to continue packing. “You’re right. I won’t be running the show down there, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Helium-3 might be the wave of the future, kiddo, but right now, it’s too expensive to make it worth a damn to most of the world. Down there, everything’s still running on that dirty old black stuff. That’s just the way that it is. Besides, it won’t be so bad. I’m not the boss around here, am I? And we get along just jake.”

  The thought of Caitlin’s mother, lovingly considered the true boss of the household, pleases her. But another thought crosses her mind, and her expression changes to one of worried thoughtfulness.

  “I heard you and Mr. Terrell fighting last night,” she says. “I heard what he said.”

  “Is that a fact?” her dad says. “And what did you hear him say?”

  Caitlin looks down. “That you were climbing your way down the ladder of success.”

  “Well, Jason Terrell and I are climbing different ladders, sweetheart.” He picks up a picture and tosses it into the suitcase. Caitlin sees that it is a photo of herself with her parents during their last vacation to Lake Armstrong. “And, as far as I’m concerned, I’m sitting pretty, right at the top.”

  Her dad reaches down and scoops her up in his arms.

  “Family first, kiddo,” he says. “Always. Now come on. Let’s go see what the boss has planned for dinner . . .”

  Caitlin’s eyes snapped open, and for a moment she wondered if she’d even shut them to begin with. Sitting up, she grabbed her tablet and checked the time. Two hours until she had to be at the docks. With a sigh, knowing that sleep was no longer an option, she got up and tried to run, hoping the adrenaline would push the fear out of her system. After logging a few miles, she hopped off and hailed Ava, asking her to try to call Ben.

  “Hey, Cait,” he said. “It’s early up there. Something on your mind?”

  Since her meeting with Ross and her subsequent decision to take on the Thresher mission, Caitlin hadn’t had a moment to call and tell Ben and, more importantly, Emily, what was happening. Although, if she really were going to level with herself, she supposed that wasn’t entirely true. She’d had moments here and there, but she had simply been too terrified to take advantage of them. What would she say to her daughter?

  “Hi, honey! I’m about to risk my life doing something that’s possibly stupid and definitely dangerous and illegal. But the good news is, I’m coming home! Whether it’s on a luxury transport or in a plastic bag, I’m coming home! Now, do you want to read The Runaway Bunny before bedtime?”

  So she’d held off calling. But now, with the mission’s departure so close, she felt like she had to tell her.

  “Is Emily there?”

  “No, sorry, Cait, she’s at school. What’s up?”

  Everything came out in a rush of words. The asteroid, Lyman Ross, the mission, the chance to come home—Caitlin told him everything. As she talked, Ben tried to take it in, a man gathering spilled ball bearings. When she was done, Ben pursed his lips, considering everything.

  “Lot to process there,” he said at last. “But you know what it sounds like to me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sounds like something that Caitlin Taggart was made for.”

  Caitlin scoffed at the idea and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Not this time.”

  “I remember the first day we were on the ground in Iraq,” Ben said. “We were somewhere on Highway 1 on patrol to Mosul, I think, and some goddamn Enders pop up out of nowhere, just light us up like it’s a damn shooting gallery. And right away, the man standing next to me gets his arm blown away by an M14, just taken clean off like a branch being snapped from a tree. Now remember, this is my first deployment, so I do what any non-com puke would do and I freak out.”

  “Not the first time, and not the last time,” Caitlin teased.

  “Fair enough,” said Ben. “Fair enough. But then, out of all the smoke and the blood and the noise, there comes this woman. This fierce, wild-eyed . . . hell, I’ll just say it, Amazon, coming like a bat out of hell. And she takes the wounded man, ties off his arm and gets on the M240 and pushes back the Enders almost singlehandedly until the helos come in and airlift us out of there. And the best part?”

  “They managed to save the arm,” said Caitlin, lost in her own memories of that day.

  “That’s right,” Ben said. “That was the day I knew that when Caitlin Taggart decides she’s going to take something on, she latches on and doesn’t let go. And, if anyone tries to tell her different, well, then God help them.”

  He paused.

  “Now you go and you kick that big rock’s ass, then you come home to your girl, you hear?”

  Somewhere in Caitlin’s belly, invisible hands stirred up fear and anxiety. Was she going to cry? Throw up? The next words were almost impossible to utter.

  “Emily,” she finally managed. “If I . . . then you have to . . . you have to tell her—”

  “You’re gonna tell her yourself,” Ben said. “I’m not taking any deathbed confession from you, Taggart.”

  “OK,” Caitlin said. “But if I die, and I don’t get to tell her, I’m going to make it my mission to come back and haunt you for eternity.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” said Ben. “I had you living in my head for four years during the campaign. That was enough.”

  They shared a brief laugh, and Ben fixed his gaze on her.

  “Your dad would be proud of you, you know.”

  “Oh please,” said Caitlin, waving a hand at him. “What do you know about it? You never met him.”

  “You sure about that?”

  He winked, leaned forward, and severed the connection. Caitlin was alone again, but his words stayed with her.

  Your dad would be proud of you.

  Then, almost as an echo, her own father’s words bounced back in answer.

  Family first, kiddo. Always.

  “Ava?” she said suddenly.

  “Yes, Caitlin?”

  “I have to go away for a while,” she said. “Maybe for good. And, if that’s the case, I just wanted to let you know that . . . it’s been nice having you to talk to.”

  “Thank you, Caitlin,” said Ava. “I have to admit, I’m surprised at this outpouring of emotion. It’s not like you.”

  “Well, what can I say? You’re one of the only friends I’ve got up here.”

  With that, Caitlin stood up, pushed back her hair, and breathed deeply.

  Time to get to work.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The last time Caitlin had seen the Ponca City docks, she had been inbound to the Moon to settle her mother’s estate. Back then, she had expected to be back in less than a week and on board a transport home to Emily without so much as a glance out the window. That had been a year ago. Seeing the area again now, Caitlin didn’t feel that the docks looked all that different. Still the same busy, bustling place. Voices shouted instructions, orders, and demands in equal volume. Sparks rained down as hull plates were patched. Ground personnel waved hand beacons to direct docked ships to their maintenance and refueling positions. Thanks to the embargo, there was a lot less civilian traffic, but the luxury liners
still did brisk business. Embargo or no embargo, money always granted people access. Passengers disembarked from various ships, scanning around for signs to point them in the right direction. As Caitlin walked in, she saw the Ecliptic sliding into her moorings overhead, sleek, black, and cigar-shaped, like a finger slipping into a wedding ring. She shook her head as she watched the liner dock. With all the places to go to on Earth, she would never understand why anyone would pay to vacation here.

  She kept walking, looking up at the rego transports firing up and beginning their transit back to Earth, the worker tugs buzzing around them like mayflies. She watched as the Iron Horse cleared the dock and burned its escape thrusters, heading starward. She thought about the men and women on board and where they were headed, and something stabbed her deep inside her chest.

  Above the roar of thrusters, the hiss of mooring clamps, and the beeping of cargo loaders, an automated voice droned over the speaker system, welcoming disembarking passengers with cheerful dispassion.

  “Hello, and welcome to the Moon. Visitors, please follow the yellow line to customs. If you are here on a work visa, please follow the red line to the labor division to receive your assignment. Outbound travelers follow the blue line to your designated transport. Thank you; and whatever your destination may be, may the stars always be visible.”

  Caitlin rolled her eyes and looked down at the concrete floor. Her line wasn’t yellow, red, or blue. There were no maps to her destination, which, she supposed, was exactly how her employer wanted it. She looked around, trying to figure out which direction to take.

  As she searched the area, Caitlin noticed the one thing that had changed about the docks since her last visit, namely, the increased presence of ICC enforcement. Shock troops were everywhere, their faces sheathed in black, eyes covered by goggles, and bodies encased in Kevlar. They scanned the docks slowly and purposefully. Caitlin noted the machine guns resting on their hips. Some people believed the guns were just for show, that a weapon couldn’t fire in space. But Caitlin knew better. The ammunition contained its own oxidizer, and thus no atmospheric oxygen was required to fire a bullet. So, if the shock troops wanted to use their weapons, there’d be nothing to stop them. Keeping that firmly in mind, Caitlin tried her best to avoid eye contact, hoping not to be noticed. Unfortunately, she was too late and one of the troopers approached her. He stuck out a gloved hand and spoke to her in an authoritative tone, his voice modulated by his mask.