Singularity's Ring

by Paul Melko

  Uh-oh, Meda sent. Jerk?

  The time derivative of acceleration, I sent helpfully. The second derivative of velocity. The third derivative of position.

  We jolted the whole station?

  How much?

  “A little,” I said, and the pod’s concern finally made it through to me.

  Did we hurt the cable?

  It’s moving up a couple meters per second.

  “Oh, crap!” Meda said. “This isn’t going to look good.”

  It looks great, I sent.

  Meda glared. We need to get down.

  We need to check on Flora, Strom sent.

  I looked up. The zenithal windows were blocked by Flora’s loosely held craft. Since the sled’s thrusters had misfired, we’d heard nothing from Flora. She may have been severely hurt.

  “Flora, are you there?” Meda said on the private channel.

  Try the suit radio, Quant sent.

  Meda nodded and pulled the suit helmet over her head, cutting herself off from the intrapod pheromones.

  “Flora? Are you listening?” I could hear the tinny conversation from Strom’s helmet, which he held in his hands.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Broken ribs, bruises. The sled’s fucked. Vomit in the console does that.” She snorted. “I haven’t vomited in years.”

  Meda chuckled. “We have a little of that over here too.”

  Silence for a moment, then Flora said, “That was nice flying.”

  I felt myself blush. Strom tousled my hair with a huge hand. I batted it away, smiling.

  “Thanks,” Meda said.

  “Any ideas on how we get down?”

  I signaled to Meda with hand gestures, indicating we should attempt to connect the two sleds at their airlocks. Verbal speech, chemical thoughts, and pheromones were all part of how a pod thought and spoke. When none of those were possible, we could use our own modified version of the hand language, Pod-C. All First State children were taught Pod-C in the creche.

  “We’re going to try connecting the airlocks,” Meda said.

  All the sleds had single-person airlocks with universal connectors on the outside. I turned a camera on the sled. Flora’s airlock was on the far side. There was no way to maneuver to the other side, while one claw kept the sleds attached and the other clung to the cable. If we let go of either to adjust their position, one or both of the sleds would fly into space. A tricky problem.

  I signed to Meda again.

  “Do your claws work?” Meda asked.

  “Maybe,” Flora said. “No, the claw is not responding. Not much is.” There was a pause. “Apollo. We’re almost out of air.”

  “What?”

  They should have days left, I sent.

  “I didn’t fill it up all the way. I didn’t think we’d be out that long.”

  “That’s a real grounder thing to do,” Meda said.

  Flora chuckled. “Tell me about it.”

  “How much do you have left?”

  “An hour. An hour more if we suit up.” I heard the reluctance in her voice. Suited up, the trio would be sundered, out of communication except by voice. Voice communication was too … shallow. No memories, no feelings, just low data rate.

  Aldo won’t be here before she runs out of air.

  I mapped out the problem in my mind, built the image and passed it around.

  Flora’s claw didn’t work. Our claws could not be disconnected for the time it took to connect the sleds. We had little reaction mass left.

  Ferry them over in their suits.

  I looked around at the already cramped sled. Three more bodies would be a tight fit, but possible.

  “Flora, can you suit up and come across?” Meda asked.

  “We have two broken legs and I don’t know how many broken ribs. It won’t be easy. Maybe.” If they were injured, the pod would be even more reluctant to separate.

  We need to link up and get back to the Station.

  I had it. The railcar, I sent.

  When we had gone spider-head hunting, Aldo had ferried us to the cable and we had attached our sled to the cable with the railcar claw attachment. Then we’d crawled the cable, plucking off spider heads and tossing them in a bag.

  If we could get a railcar attachment on the cable now, it could move us down the cable at ten meters per second. We’d be back at Columbus Station in a few hours.

  They still need air.

  Bring them across.

  How?

  Do it by hand, I sent. I’ll suit up—

  We’ll suit up, Strom amended.

  —use lines to latch the sleds, and connect the two locks. We mount the railcar attachment to the claw that was holding Flora’s sled, and off we go.

  No one objected, except for Manuel, who wanted to go with Strom and me.

  Someone has to man the claw, I sent. Strom painted an image of Manuel with claws as hands.

  “Thanks.”

  Moira helped me with my helmet, while Meda buckled Strom’s. Moira planted a kiss on my cheek, and said, “No one can fly like you. No one will pilot the Consensus like you.”

  Elliott O’Toole wants to try, I sent. Elliott, our classmate and competitor, was right now interning on the moon at the aluminum smelting plant. I didn’t like thinking about his captaining the Consensus instead of us.

  Moira left me with a private image of a triple pendulum, an elegant thought-postcard. I smiled, and drew the helmet down, cutting myself off from the rest of them.

  “Don’t worry, Quant,” Strom said over the suit radio. “We’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  I nodded. Strom was the one who could spend the most time away from the pod, but also the one who hated most to be away. We touched gloved hands, and I entered the sled airlock first.

  It cycled, and I listened to the clunk as the air was removed, until there was too little air to hear anything but my own breathing.

  Then the outer door opened. My visor darkened in the face of the sun’s glory, even though most of me was in shade. Three meters above was Flora’s sled, two meters away was our claw, grasping a docking ring embedded in the sled’s hull. I saw one of Flora looking at me through a window, and I gave her a quick thumbs-up. She waved back.

  The gentle tug of centripetal force reminded me to connect my line to the sled. I half fell, half somersaulted out of the lock, and watched as the door closed. Cut off from the rest.

  I felt a momentary pang, then took another line and drifted across to Flora’s sled. My plan was to connect the sleds by a single line and let the weak centripetal force twist Flora’s sled around so that we could winch it down, airlock to airlock. I caught a hold not quite as elegantly as Manuel would have, and tied off the sleds.

  I jumped back and helped Strom connect his lifeline.

  I said to Meda, “Tell Flora to expect a jerk. Manuel, release the claw attached to Flora’s sled.”

  The sled’s hull vibrated as the claw’s motors turned. Flora’s sled drifted away slowly, pulling the slack out of the line, and then stopped with a jiggle. Strom took the winch line from the claw and jumped across the gap. He disappeared around the far side, and all I could see of him was the movement in his line.

  “Manuel, pull the winch in slowly,” he said.

  Flora’s sled began to rotate. Strom reappeared, clinging to the side of it. We tethered the sleds together again with short lines, aligning the airlocks. Strom entered our airlock, and I the other. I attached another line to the airlock door and passed it to Strom. He looped it around a ring in our airlock and passed it back to me. We began to pull.

  “Watch your fingers,” Meda radioed.

  Slowly the sleds came together. At one-tenth gee, the sled’s weight was manageable, but its mass remained large. If the sleds rammed, it would be disaster.

  The sleds kissed. I surveyed the alignment.

  “Lined up. Connect them.”

  Bolts slid together with a thunk that echoed in the frame o
f the airlock. The connector began to fill with air.

  The inner door to our sled opened, and I and Strom climbed back up. Moira pulled off my helmet, and I breathed deeply in relief. Thoughts and emotion washed over me, and I was relieved to be with my pod. My back ached from the long minutes of tension. I wasn’t the same alone.

  As the door to Flora’s sled opened, Meda crawled down and shook hands with Flora’s interface. Manuel had maneuvered the second claw to clutch the cable just like the first, and then taken the first off the wire. The railcar attachment was almost in place.

  The smell of foreign thought and emotion filled the sled. Flora was sharing our air now. We were safe for a good twelve hours, more than enough time to make it back to the station.

  Manuel pushed the railcar against the cable, clamped it, and released the claw.

  Here we go, I said.

  The railcar motor started, and the coupled sleds began to move ponderously, slowly. In minutes we were up to full speed, heading straight back to the station. There was no other direction to go.

  We had just enough reaction mass to thrust to the sled bay at the top of the station. While we were donning our suits to release the sleds, a swarm of trios came through the bay lock and began pulling them apart.

  “Thanks again,” Flora said, as her outer lock slid closed. As I sat in front of the controls, my fingers twitched. All of us were exhausted and empty. But still exhilaration bounced between us. We’d rescued her, and we’d done it on our own. Space was our home, and what more proof than this.

  The crew pushed Flora’s sled into the large airlock. They’d work on the broken sled in the pressurized sled bay. I started thrusting the sled toward our normal slot.

  “Belay that thrust, Tango-Five-Five,” came a voice over the radio, the station traffic controller. I checked our velocity, and we waited, scarcely sharing a coherent thought.

  After a few minutes the crews came back and pushed our sled onto a docking airlock. As we piled out into the station hallway, Aldo was there to greet us.

  “You’re off duty and restricted to your quarters and the galley.” My stomach lurched. No outside duty meant we were cooped up inside, studying.

  “But—” Meda said.

  “It’s Hilton’s orders.” The station commander. We’d had one interview with the gruff woman on arrival and hadn’t seen her since. She’d wanted us there as much as the rest of the space hounds.

  Why are we off duty? I asked.

  Maybe it’s standard when there’s a space accident, Moira sent, but more than one of us thought the idea dubious.

  Showers, Meda sent, deferring all argument.

  I followed my pod as we pulled downward to our quarters. I wanted nothing more than to clear the smell of vomit off my body. I was spent and knew the pod felt the same way. Mental and physical exhaustion, and this dismissal, this confinement, hurt more than anything.

  We waited for two days, only leaving our berth to go to the galley for meals, trying to find the times when no one else was there. But that was impossible in a place as small as the Station. The space hounds just ignored us, the same reaction they’d had for the first three weeks we’d been on station. We saw none of Aldo or Flora. The one person who seemed oblivious to it all was McCorkle; sitting alone, he hailed us in the cafeteria once, but after a quick greeting, we slipped away.

  He’s as much of an outcast as we, Moira sent.

  Why? I asked, but no one had an answer.

  In our quarters, as our anxiety grew, we studied and sent e-mails to classmates. We used the station near-object telescope to watch the Consensus. Scaffolding and cranes surrounded it, and its sleek shape was almost impossible to make out. Five years until it was ready to travel to the Rift. Then two years of travel to Neptune. Then how many years to explore what was on the far side. All our lives were preparation and waiting.

  Finally, the summons came from the station commander, and we pulled up to Hilton’s office.

  The commander’s assistant nodded us into the commander’s office, a room no bigger than a sleeping quarters, smelling of thoughts, hard thoughts, and long hours of work.

  Hilton arrived ten minutes later, all three of her pushing through us, invading our thought space, and taking a place at her desk. She was a trio of identical, dark-haired women: small, wiry, with a sharp face and dark eyes. She didn’t smile or greet us. One of her logged on to the computer and started working. Another hooked her legs through a strap on the wall and began reading reports. The third picked up a file and opened it.

  “Six months of station-keeping reaction mass expended. Two sleds in need of overhaul. Six weeks of work to realign the counterbalance cable. Failure to maintain comm. One trio in the hospital. Twenty klicks of cable that’ll have to be refurbished. Twenty-six sprains and breaks during the jerk. Three hundred hours of experimental work lost. Fifty samples broken. Days and days of lost time doing structural checks.”

  Meda opened her mouth.

  “Do not interrupt me. Your ‘rescue attempt’ has jeopardized my schedule. You have lost me weeks of effort that I am never going to get back. Weeks. You are unauthorized for space rescue. You are a student. You are on work-study here. I don’t care who your builder is. I don’t care what strings your mentors pulled to put you here. You fucked my station up. Do you hear me? I do not like it one bit.”

  Frustration coursed among us. Incoherent, angry thoughts jounced about, but Meda said nothing. Hilton’s eyes fixed on me, and I felt a jolt. It wasn’t polite: looking at another person’s members when speaking to the interface.

  “This is my fault,” Hilton said, still looking at me. “I should have determined what sort of pod you are, what your parts were.”

  What is she saying? Manuel asked.

  She’s talking about me, I sent.

  “I don’t think—” Meda began.

  “That’s apparent and clear,” Hilton interrupted. “You don’t have four good brains among the five of you.” Again, a look at me, and I felt a hot tear streaking down my face.

  How does she know? Strom asked.

  Isn’t it obvious? I sent, angry.

  No, Moira sent.

  No, Manuel and Meda and Strom added.

  Consensus quick and total. I blinked my tears away.

  Hilton stared at us for a moment longer, then said, “Speak, if you have something to say for yourself.”

  “No one could get to Flora in time,” Meda said. “We had to save her.”

  “Aldo was right there. Aldo is certified in sled rescue. You are not.”

  “Aldo was on the end of the tether. And he wasn’t moving. And he was five kilometers farther away than we were.”

  “And Klada was five klicks closer.”

  “He was caught in the falling tether!”

  “I can afford to lose a tether. I can’t afford to lose two sleds and two crew members. You made a rash decision and the whole station suffered for it.”

  “We saved her.”

  Hilton slammed the report down. “L4 has a rescue shuttle that could have reached her in eighteen hours. That would have been eighteen hours of discomfort for Flora. But it also would have meant no impact on my schedules!”

  “But—”

  She doesn’t know about Flora’s not loading enough air!

  Don’t tell her, I sent. She was so mad, no mitigating factor would slow her down.

  “But what?”

  Meda glanced at me, then said, “But we didn’t know about the L4 rescue shuttle.”

  “No, you didn’t! If you’d taken a minute to think and consult, we wouldn’t have this mess. If you had maintained comm, we could have told you about the rescue shuttle.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s only one reason you’re not on the shuttle to Sabah Station, and that’s because of Aldo’s and Flora’s request. You are one step away from flunking this practical. One step away from me sending you back to Earth with your asses in your luggage. As it is you’re off
outside duty. You’re assigned to Dr. Buchanan in the biology lab. Dismissed.”

  We fumbled out of the office, stunned and silent. I could think of nothing but the fact that we would fly no more. Grounded, useless. Strom guided me gently to our quarters.

  A week ground by, full of arachnoid DNA and splices and esoteric designs for better, faster, cheaper cable spiders. We were not even allowed to do genetic manipulation, but rather were put to work testing the tensile strength of the sample cables Dr. Buchanan would milk from each of his subspecies of spider.

  We were surprised by a knock on our door.

  Meda opened it to Aldo’s somber face.

  “Care to join us for dinner?”

  No! I sent. I didn’t want to be around anyone.

  Meda glanced at me, then said, “We’re going to eat later, thanks.”

  “You’ve been avoiding the busy times in the cafeteria,” Aldo said. “You shouldn’t. But that doesn’t matter since I reserved the private dining room for us.”

  “I didn’t know there was a private dining room on the station.”

  “There wasn’t until last week. Just got flown in prefabricated. So?”

  “Really. We’re okay.”

  “I think you should. It’s not just me.”

  Meda drew back and the pod touched.

  He’s making a gesture.

  We should go.

  I don’t want to be reminded—They looked at me; they wanted to go. I finally dropped my reluctance.

  “Okay.”

  The private dining room was indeed new. A door had been placed in the station wall across from the cafeteria, and it opened onto a beautiful wood-paneled room that could seat eight trios easily, and with a wonderful view of Earth out the window.

  To my surprise, a half-dozen space hounds were there, including Flora and Klada, and a few other station workers we knew by sight: all outside-working trios.

  “What’s all this?” Meda ask, while we tried to hide the embarrassment pheromones.

  “We know what Hilton said,” said Aldo. “And we know what you did.”