Walking on the Sea of Clouds

by Gray Rinehart

  It didn’t take Barbara long to unpack the few personal items she’d brought. Van’s suggestion sounded good, but she decided she wanted some water before she tried a power nap.

  In the kitchen, a tall black woman in a burgundy jumpsuit sat at the small table. They nodded at each other, but Barbara didn’t interrupt; the woman was finishing a plate of vegetables with some kind of savory touch to it. The spicy scent was a welcome relief to the underlying locker-room odor of the training facility. The woman’s face was so dark it seemed to drink in light, and her eyes shone with peculiar clarity; she was obviously a Group Two trainee and not one of the newcomers, but Barbara hadn’t studied the files on the preceding group. How do you know who to study, when over half of the group will wash out?

  Barbara picked up a mug from the counter. Most of the dishware was communal property, and worked on the “clean it if you use it” principle.

  “You probably want to wipe that out first,” said the woman behind her.

  The mug looked clean enough.

  “Just a habit we’ve gotten into,” the woman said. “Not everyone takes the same care washing up as you might like.”

  Barbara said, “Thanks. Where are the towels?”

  The woman held up a small baby blue towel, about the size of a washcloth. She raised her eyebrows. “Sell you this one for five hundred dollars.”

  “What?” Barbara’s voice came out much too loud for the small space; she looked down at her feet for a second, surprised and a little embarrassed by her outburst.

  The woman chuckled. “I’m kidding. Here.” She tossed it, and Barbara caught the rough synthetic.

  “Thanks,” Barbara said, in a small voice. She turned to the sink and wiped out the mug, her face hot with an embarrassment that confused and annoyed her. She touched her ID ring to the sensor plate by the faucet—it would note the water usage on her account—filled her glass and sipped it, slowly.

  Behind her, the woman said, “You act like you’ve been keeping a water account all your life.”

  Her face a little cooler now, Barbara turned back and smiled. She tossed the cloth back and said, “Thanks. I expected something like it before we ever had the briefing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I read a lot of science fiction when I was little. I don’t remember if it was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but one of the Heinlein stories had a bit in it where a visitor to a lunar base was surprised that he had to buy an air chit when he first arrived.”

  “I remember that.”

  “Okay,” Barbara said, “great. I knew somebody here would get it—I figure we’re all some kind of nerds, or else we wouldn’t have joined up.”

  “I just said the same thing the other day.”

  “My dad always said great minds think alike. I’m Barbara Richards.” She stepped to the table and stuck out her hand.

  The woman reached nearly halfway, then hesitated. She looked at Barbara’s hand, then her own, then at Barbara’s eyes, and her eyes were tinged with apprehension. Barbara wondered if she’d done something wrong, but gradually—tentatively—the woman completed the action. Her grip was strong.

  “Stormie Pastorelli,” she said, and smiled. “Pleased to meet you. Your husband was on the setup crew, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was the one who did a half-gainer off the big truck, right?” Pastorelli smiled—did she mean it as a joke?

  It’s not funny. Barbara withdrew, slowly, to hold the mug with both hands. “Yes, he was.”

  Pastorelli shook her head as she got up.

  Barbara turned the mug a little, afraid that if she held it still her knuckles would turn white. Her defense mode kicked in—what Van called her “adrenalestrogen.”

  When she reached the sink, Pastorelli asked, “So, is he okay?”

  Barbara exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “He will be,” she said. “He’s lost a few seconds off his 40-meter-dash time, but otherwise he’s fine.”

  Pastorelli touched her own ID ring to the tap and drew half a cup of water. She took a sip, swished it through her teeth and swallowed, then dribbled a little on the plate she had practically licked clean. She wiped the plate with the cloth she had loaned Barbara, then put the plate in the drainer. She drank the last of her water, wiped out the mug and upended it in the drainer as well. She clipped the cloth to a D-ring hanging from her jumpsuit.

  “I think, if it’d been my husband, I would’ve been torn between smacking him for being careless and babying him to get him better.”

  Barbara’s hand shook with released tension. She drank down the mug of bland water. “Well, I considered more drastic options than just slapping him.”

  Pastorelli laughed. “Yeah, I might be that irritated, too. But as long as Frank came back to me alive, I’d forgive him anything.”

  Barbara forced a laugh; her tension hadn’t abated yet. She said, “Sometimes we love them too much, don’t we?”

  “I think so.” Pastorelli looked at her watch. “Barbara, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got a date with a computer. The AC didn’t tell us you and your group were coming in today, so we’ve been scrambling to re-balance the air system to accommodate you.”

  “Sorry about that, Ms. Pastorelli. If I’d had your number, I would’ve called—”

  “Don’t do that. Down here, or up there, it’s ‘Stormie.’ And it’s not your problem. The trainers look for any excuse to make you work, and they’ll use anything they can as a training input. And I mean anything. So stay bright-eyed and you’ll be fine.

  “But, for the time being, try not to breathe too deeply, okay?”

  Barbara agreed, and Stormie left. On her way back to her cabin, Barbara succumbed to the power of suggestion. She yawned.

  * * *

  Tuesday, 13 February 2035

  Lunar Colonist Group 2, Training Day 72

  Lunar Colonist Group 3, Training Day 9

  Frank daydreamed of open skies.

  He had just replaced the active element of one of the bio-filters—an organic matrix with the acronym MACEF that he and Stormie couldn’t agree how to pronounce. It stood for Monocellular Atmospheric Circulating Emulsion Filter; Stormie said the word “mace” and followed it with an “eff,” but Frank preferred to say “massif,” as in an underwater mountain. She complained that his accent made it sound like “massive,” but he always knew what he meant. The filter units’ single-celled inhabitants fed off of the longer-chain hydrocarbons that all the people, plants, and animals exhaled; units were in place at either end of each habitat, and had to be replenished from lab cultures at regular intervals. One of the first things Stormie did after the fire on training day three was insist that they would start two more cultures in different places in the real colony, in case the habitat with their lab lost pressure and the main cultures died.

  Stiff and sore from weeks of sleeping on the training facility mattress, Frank stretched his back as he reached down for the slotted filter cover. He wrapped his hands around his ankles and pulled until his back popped. He gasped at sudden pain concentrated in his kidneys, as if he had fiery kidney stones the size of golf balls.

  “You okay, old man?”

  Frank did not recognize the voice, so it must be one of the new trainees. He bristled a little, but supposed he may have looked—and sounded—like an arthritic old man.

  “Yes, quite all right,” Frank said. “It is nothing to be concerned about.” He stayed in that position, bent in half, for a little longer—he was unsure how much it would hurt to stand. He tried to remember the last time one of these minor agonies had assailed him: more than a month ago, surely. He looked in the direction of the man who had spoken to him, and was surprised to find the fellow kneeling by him.

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, really, it is all right. I will be fine. A spasm, it will pass.”

  The newcomer tipped his head to the side as if he doubted Frank’s story; in fact his doubt was clear in the way he n
arrowed his eyes. Frank was not a good liar, but being suspected in this way was another surprise; most men he had met would accept that kind of casual lie without question. It was a social habit they got into from their youth, one that Frank had not learned until later and that still did not come naturally to him. Stormie would have read his dishonesty in his voice and his face, but Frank was not used to other people being able to read him.

  The man nodded. “I’m Gabe Morera. Agronomy.”

  Frank stood up … it took a long time, as if he were an old steam shovel trying to lift a heavy load. Morera stood, too, and Frank matched the man’s solid grip. “Frank Pastorelli. Air and water. I suspect we will work together a lot.”

  Morera smiled. “I hope so. Maybe I should start by helping you with whatever you’re doing.”

  “Thank you,” Frank said, and waved him off, “but the pain will pass quickly enough.”

  From behind him, in the hatchway, a man called, “Gabe, you coming? It’s your turn in the Turtle sim.” Frank turned, and recognized Van Richards from the briefings he had given to the assembled trainees.

  “Yeah, I’m coming,” Morera said. “I was just checking on my life sciences partner, here.”

  Richards gave Frank a noncommittal wave. It could have been a greeting or a dismissal, but Frank did not know.

  Frank turned back to Morera. “Thank you, but please, do not let me detain you.”

  Alone in the corridor again, Frank screwed the cover plate in place. The close quarters of colony life would engender both the stresses of interpersonal contact and countless opportunities to help one’s fellows. It could bring out the worst or the best in every person, and Frank hoped he would not only experience the best, but have the strength to demonstrate it.

  He was grateful that he and Stormie had found ways to share their reserves of strength with one another. In times of need, each could count on the other to provide the extra measure to get them through any trial.

  Like volunteering to take the picophage treatment again. As he considered the prospect of facing those flames, he bowed his head and thought of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the young Hebrew boys who withstood the fiery furnace. He chuckled and shook his head at the incongruity—that they endured the flames because of their purity and righteousness, as opposed to Frank and Stormie being in the wrong place on the wrong night—and the fact that Stormie would never appreciate the reference.

  Thank you, Lord, that we need not endure that again.

  Stormie was much improved over the last few weeks since the shots and blood tests stopped. The headaches and nausea abated, she slept better, and she had returned to her normal routines. More than that: her libido had returned, to Frank’s great pleasure. And, he hoped, hers as well.

  The cover plate secure, Frank turned on the MACEF fan. The small breeze cooled his face; the soft whir of the peristaltic pump was barely audible beneath the fan noise. He put away his tools, and went across the corridor to the kitchenette for a glass of water.

  Scott Herbert and the Chu couple, Liquan and Marilyn, came through the hatch from the near junction. It was odd to see them together, since they were competing for the same slots in the colony. Liquan and Herbert’s wife, Angela Beacon, were both electrical engineers who wanted to work on the colony’s nuclear, solar, and thermal differential power plants.

  Several of the remaining sixteen prospective colonists in Group Two were competing for the same jobs; Frank supposed the Group Three trainees were likely competing as well, but they did not concern him.

  Herbert, for instance, was vying with Rex Stewart to be one of the foremen directing the tunnel operations that would expand the colony into the outer wall of Mercator Crater. What kind of pressure must they be under? Frank sipped his water, thankful that he and Stormie were not competing with any other company for the air-and-water contract. They just had to pass the training, not beat out other prospects.

  “Hi, Frank,” Marilyn Chu said.

  She was an independent contractor, too: principle owner of Lunar Analytics. Stormie had reviewed her services and rates weeks before they entered the training phase, and Marilyn and Stormie had managed to negotiate some volume discounts for LLE’s analytic work. Frank guessed that might give Chu Liquan some preference toward the position of power engineer … maybe Angela Beacon was a backup candidate, in case Liquan did not make it through the training. Or maybe … Frank set aside the automatic rundown of training area politics before it confused him further.

  “Hello, Marilyn,” Frank said. “Hello, Liquan, and Scott.”

  “Let’s ask Frank,” Herbert said to the others. One nodded and one shrugged, so Herbert turned to Frank.

  “What do you think about turning one of these habitats into the main kitchen and recreation area for the whole lot of us? There’s so few of us left, it shouldn’t be a big problem.” Herbert looked older than his forty-eight years, and it seemed almost comical how he puffed himself up when he talked—as if he dared anyone to contradict him. “It’d be much more efficient to have one big kitchen and do everything there.”

  Frank smiled down at the older gentleman. It was a harmless enough suggestion, until he considered how difficult it would be to refit the plumbing if this habitat suddenly needed more water and more waste removal. That, he decided, would be a big problem indeed—and one that he and Stormie would have to solve.

  Frank nodded in a polite pause. It seemed as if Herbert and the others did not work as long hours as he and Stormie, and most of their hours were on simulators rather than doing real work, so they had the luxury of time to discuss inane ideas. Frank’s pectorals flexed and his shoulders rose at this notion that might make things easier for some people but would make more work for him and his wife.

  “That is an … interesting idea,” Frank said, “and I am sorry I do not have idle time to stay and discuss it. I have several other MACEFs to service before the day is over.” He put the mug in the drainer beside the sink and gathered his tools. “I will only say that I suspect the project may be more intensive than you realize, and I think you ignore the redundancy of the habitats. If you put all the food preparation into one habitat, what if that one is damaged? Now, if one module has a problem, the ones around it are its lifeboats.”

  Herbert made room for Frank to step into the corridor, but said, “Yeah, but how is that changed by rearranging the kitchens? You could still leave another one or two in place, for emergency use.”

  “Perhaps,” Frank said.

  “More than perhaps,” Herbert said. “I think as soon as Angela and I get up there, I’m going to suggest it. Chu here thinks it’s a good idea, don’t you, Chu?” He slapped Chu Liquan on the shoulder. Liquan shrugged, and Marilyn rolled her eyes.

  Frank lifted his tool belt in a farewell gesture, grateful that he had an excuse to return to work.

  * * *

  Friday, 23 February 2035

  Lunar Colonist Group 2, Training Day 82

  Lunar Colonist Group 3, Training Day 19

  Stormie sat in her cabin, alone, reading e-mail before going to the lab, when the ticklish “trouble is coming” feeling crept into her stomach with clawed feet. She had just finished eating a biscuit—wishing the whole time for honey and wondering if she could get the agronomist Frank had met to convince the AC to ship up some honeybees for pollination purposes—and the pieces filled her stomach like billets of soft, hot iron. A moment or two passed, then a yelp of pain came from the direction of the module’s kitchen.

  She leaned out the doorway and looked down the narrow hall. “What’s the matter?” she called.

  Rex Stewart, the tunnel engineer, stepped into the corridor. He held one hand awkwardly at shoulder height, supported by his other. “Got a sec?” he asked, then stepped back into the kitchen.

  Stormie jogged down the corridor. Big drops of congealing blood stained the floor. Rex, paler than usual, sat at the small table putting pressure on his left hand. Fresh blood seeped from between his finger
s.

  Stormie petrified slowly, as if she were congealing like the blood on the floor. What did he expect her to do? She knew as much first aid as anybody, and certainly wasn’t afraid of catching anything from Rex—but the Santa Barbara episode left her hesitant, concerned about the smallest thing that might go wrong. She and Frank were down to single digits in terms of training days: she didn’t want to do anything to risk Consortium censure, or a fine, or worse.

  “Do you want me to call someone?” she said.

  “No, I’d rather you help me bandage this thing.”

  Her feet refused to move.

  “Come on, young lady,” Rex said. “Today would be better than tomorrow.”

  “Maybe I really should call someone.”

  “Oh, please. Get over here and help patch me up.” He laughed lightly, and smiled as if he were inviting her to afternoon tea. “I know some of the others still treat you like a pariah, but there’s nothing wrong with you that a little fresh air won’t cure.”

  Stormie let her training take over. She pulled the first-aid kit off the wall and opened it on the table. Gloves on, she reached out to take his hand. “What did you do?”

  She half expected—no, more than half expected—Rex to flinch, but instead he met her halfway and put his hand in hers.

  “Reliving my younger days,” he said. “I used to play around with knives a lot—even before I went in the Navy. I got good at a few tricks, used to make an extra buck or two off Marines or new shipmates from time to time. That was almost twenty years ago.” He winced as he opened his left hand. The meaty part between his thumb and forefinger opened with it, and new blood flowed out. It looked warm.

  It was hot as lava where it touched Stormie’s gloved hand.

  She gasped, closed her eyes and swayed as she fought away a cascade of remembered pain. She caught herself on the edge of the table, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t know if the suturing gel will work, the way that looks. You may need real stitches, maybe more than a few.”

  “Okay, then, stitch me up.”

  Stormie looked away from the blood into Rex’s blue eyes, and saw no guile. He trusted her as he would trust any of the other colonists, and she found that a precious gift. What he wanted her to do, though …