Walking on the Sea of Clouds

by Gray Rinehart

  She frowned. “You know it’s mud season. And don’t say it with so much gusto, I might think you mean it.”

  “I’m not afraid of that,” Van said, as the thought of shoveling anything up in the frozen north quenched his enthusiasm. “You know me too well.”

  * * *

  Wednesday, 30 May 2035

  “Frank, when’s the last time you heard from Jim?”

  Frank looked up from the air filter he was servicing. For over two weeks, ever since it became clear that they would not get to the Moon as soon as they wanted, he and Stormie had helped the Clarke station crew work on their environmental systems. The air filters were similar to the ones installed in the colony. The water systems were a different story: even reduced gravity is still gravity, so the orbiting station relied on an array of pumps to keep effluent and filtered water moving in the right direction—or moving at all. Though they continued to add inflatable modules that would eventually form a toroidal structure—Frank could hardly imagine how much more confusing the maze of passages would be as the station grew—it would still be years before the assembly was big enough to spin to simulate gravity. At least smaller scale “tin can on a string” experiments had shown promise that such simulated gravity was effective, if fraught with its own peculiarities.

  He tried to remember the last message he had received from their partner. James had called—audio only—to congratulate them a few days after they had settled in on the Clarke station. Since then they had only exchanged e-mails, though for some of those messages they recorded and transmitted brief videos. Frank regularly got copies of James’s correspondence with the Consortium, but because they were always business- and contract-related his datapad collected them in a separate directory and he rarely looked at them. Had it been … a week … since he had received anything directly from their partner?

  Frank clipped the filter housing to the worktable and pulled his datapad out of his pocket.

  “Here it is,” he said after a moment. “A message on the twenty-first of May—Monday a week ago, as I have heard you say—with a request for an estimate of how much time we were working on station environmental equipment. James wanted to charge the Consortium for our work above and beyond our contract. I sent him an answer two days later—a week ago today. I have heard nothing since.”

  “Don’t you think that’s strange?”

  “It is a bit unusual, yes,” Frank said. “Why? Has your ‘trouble meter’ been measuring some disturbances in the Force?”

  Stormie smiled; even with her face a bit rounder due to fluid distribution in freefall, Frank loved her smile. She said, “I’ve been picking up trouble signals almost constantly since Santa Barbara, but nothing that’s pegged the meter recently. Little fluctuations now and then. I guess I’m more curious than concerned.”

  “I am sure James has a good reason.”

  Stormie pulled the rotor out of the small circulating pump she was servicing. She eyed the end of the shaft suspiciously. “I think the bearings are wearing out on this one,” she said, then turned to Frank. “I’m sure Jim’s working on something good—he’s always working on something good—and I hope he can get us some payments for this work. I’d do it anyway, it beats sitting around and it makes us look good. But when is he going to get us on an outbound flight?”

  “I do not know. Have you asked him?”

  “No, I didn’t want to bother him anymore. I bugged him enough at the end of our first week here, I figured I should lay off. But if he doesn’t figure out something soon, I’m going to start working it from here.”

  “We have no control over the flight manifests. What would you do?”

  Stormie raised her eyebrows a little. She put the pump parts in the tiny worktray and closed the lid. She leaned forward and wiped a bit of grease from her fingertips. She unzipped the top of her coveralls, turned a little so Frank had a nice view, and played with the lacy fringe of the cup of her bra. “I think I might have to seduce the loadmaster, or the Port Authority equivalent, or somebody.”

  Frank took a deep breath and held it for a second, unsure how to respond. Finally he said, “I do not think I approve of that.”

  Stormie laughed, took her feet out of the restraining straps, and pushed herself through the air to him. He caught her, spun her into place, and kissed her.

  “No,” he said, “no matter how you try to convince me, I do not think I could approve.”

  “Then you need to convince our partner to do his job and get us out of here.”

  “Very well, my dear. I will go see if I can arrange some communication time.”

  Stormie smiled again. “I happen to know that the comm center has a slot open in about thirty minutes.” She took Frank’s datapad and scrolled through a couple of screens. “No, it’s not open anymore. Some outfit called Lunar Life Engineering’s got it booked.”

  Frank frowned at her, but his frown did not last. “‘More curious than concerned?’ You are too clever by half, my wife.”

  “Which only makes you luckier that you found me,” she said.

  “How could I not find you? You were the only person in our class to wear a ‘Bring Back Planet Pluto’ tee shirt.”

  “And I’m glad you noticed it.”

  Frank slipped his hand inside her coveralls; she flinched but did not giggle as he hit a tickle spot. “Well, it was quite noticeable,” he said.

  She laughed and grabbed his wrist. “You can notice some more later. For now, go make a phone call.”

  Knowing what was best for him, Frank pushed his wife back toward her workstation—with a gentle slap on her rear—made sure all of his tools and equipment were stowed, and wormed his way to the station’s communications terminus.

  The Clarke station had grown enough in the past five years that it could accommodate up to two hundred people comfortably, if the aeroponic gardens were producing at full capacity. At the moment it held a little over half that, including transients like Frank and Stormie who were trapped by one circumstance or another. The other transients were orbital construction personnel on rotation from building the next asteroid prospecting vessels, and a small contingent of asteroid miners who were still rotating in and out of the space station instead of the Mercator colony. Even with so much theoretically empty space, Frank found it difficult to maneuver anywhere without literally bumping into people—he simply had not mastered snaking his way through the habitats in micro-gee.

  He made it to the communications center with three minutes to spare. As Stormie had arranged, the terminal was clear and Frank was set up to dial down to whomever he chose. He synched his datapad to the communications computer, chose voice only instead of voice-and-video, and input James’s home office number. He left a message.

  He left a message on James’s separate home number, though he thought James’s home and home office both rang over to his mobile number. He tried to access the miniserver in James’s office, to grab his calendar and see if he had any appointments elsewhere in Santa Barbara, but the server did not respond to his pinging.

  Frank was scrolling through other contact numbers on his datapad when the “incoming call” chime sounded. It was a video call, but he did not recognize the ID. He touched the “accept” icon on the screen and said hello to the unfamiliar man wearing an Asteroid Consortium polo shirt.

  “Mr. Pastorelli, I’m Wenbin Huang in the AC accounting office. My computer alerted me that you are dialing direct to Mr. Fennerling’s home.”

  A subtle tinge of nausea crept through Frank. Of course the Consortium would keep track of their communications, but why would they care enough to break into his comm session? “Yes, I am.”

  “I take it, then, that you have not contacted his sister.”

  The tinge of nausea grew exponentially, into waves that took him back to the first hour they were in freefall.

  “Mr. Wenbin, I am confused. Why should I call his sister?”

  The Consortium executive’s hand went to his collar,
as if he wanted to straighten a tie that was not there. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pastorelli, but I see you are used to the Chinese order of naming. I had given my name in Western order for your convenience.” He laughed, as if it were funny, and Frank joined him out of courtesy despite the transmission delay. For a brief moment Frank wondered if too much social accommodation could be as bad as too little, but he was a gentleman by upbringing and disposition and decided not. He might occasionally have to clean up a bit of social grease when the machinery of life threw it out, but that was preferable to repairing stripped and broken gears when the social engine ground to a halt.

  The AC man’s laugh faded into a grim smile. “Did you not receive our messages about Mr. Fennerling’s condition?” he asked.

  Without gravitational cues, Frank had only his visual and tactile senses to orient his sense of balance. The seat braced him because his feet were pulling up against the strap on the bulkhead, and the screen in front of him was correctly positioned in relation to the chair. But a flood of vertigo hit him and he gripped the edge of the console to steady himself.

  “Mr. Huang, I am sorry,” Frank said. “I meant no offense. But, I am not sure what you mean.” He moved aside windows and dialogue boxes on his datapad until he could open his directory of Consortium messages. The first few looked like standard contractual gibberish, but the more recent messages had ominous words in their subjects like “Emergency Room” and “Stroke” and “Next of Kin.” Frank’s perception narrowed to the little screen so much that he missed the first part of what Huang Wenbin was saying.

  “What was that?” Frank said, grateful that the miniscule signal delay from geosynchronous orbit would stop the agent before he prattled on another couple of seconds.

  “I said call me Wenbin, please,” he said. “I am sorry we did not contact you directly, but we assumed Mr. Fennerling’s sister would apprise you of his situation. She may have been reluctant to speak with you, but I encourage you to call her directly for more details.

  “When you did not respond to our e-mails, I programmed my computer to alert me if you made any off-station calls to Mr. Fennerling or his sister. We planned to contact you by direct voice by the end of the week if we did not hear from you regarding your company’s new financing arrangement.” He looked at a display or datapad in front of him and continued, “Last Tuesday, the twenty-second, Mr. Fennerling suffered an ischemic stroke—a blood clot in his brain. An alert health club worker called 9-1-1 and the medical technicians confirmed his stroke symptoms. He was taken to emergency care at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, where they administered a tissue plasminogen activator to dissolve the clot. He was further evaluated while his next of kin was notified, but he did not respond to the drug treatment as hoped. The doctors then used a manual method to excise the clot—”

  “Excuse me,” Frank said. “A ‘manual method’? Do you mean they operated on him?”

  Huang Wenbin shook his head. “Not exactly. I do not know the technical details, but these involve devices inserted via catheters through large blood vessels—not brain surgery. I understand that several methods are available, but I’m not sure which they used.”

  “How is James now?”

  “At last report, they had moved him from an acute care facility to an inpatient rehabilitation clinic. I am not sure how long he will have to stay there. That’s another question that his sister should be able to answer for you. Do you have her contact information?”

  “Yes,” Frank said. He scrolled up and down the list of unread e-mails, reading the story of James’s incapacitation in the subject lines but getting another message as well: something was wrong with the company’s finances, and James was trying to get it fixed.

  “Excuse me, Wenbin?” Frank said.

  “Yes, Mr. Pastorelli?”

  “Please, you may call me Frank. You mentioned a new financing arrangement, and I see that you—the Consortium—and James have exchanged some messages on financial terms. I am not aware of any new financing.”

  Huang Wenbin sat back slightly and raised his eyebrows even less. “I see. I believe most of the terms are in place, and Mr. Fennerling had secured the infusion of capital you needed, but I cannot speak to any details that Mr. Fennerling may have kept to himself. I suppose I can affect a slight delay in our discussions while you confer with him. I am not sure how far he has to go in his recovery. Shall we set a time to discuss it? Say, Saturday?”

  Frank’s mind, accustomed more to soil and water contamination than to anything financial and still trying to cope with the image of James incapacitated by a stroke, snapped into negotiating mode. “Wenbin, I have no idea if that will give me enough time to understand the arrangements James may have made. Could we make it a week from Monday?” He had no reason to believe the AC accountant would wait so long, but it seemed a reasonable counter proposal.

  “Frank, I appreciate that you need more time to go over the financials, but the eleventh is too far out. What if we said Tuesday the fifth?”

  That might be possible, but asking for extra time would not hurt. “I would prefer if we could do it the eighth instead,” Frank said.

  Huang Wenbin pursed his lips, then nodded. “Agreed. Shall I call you to discuss preliminaries, or can we rely on e-mail?”

  Frank winced, but only in his mind; he kept his face as impassive as he could. “E-mail is fine, Wenbin. I will adjust my settings to allow your messages to get through. I am sorry now that I had sequestered so many messages that I ended up ignoring them. But for now, I believe I should call James’s sister. And I think my wife will want to be part of that call.”

  “I’m sure she will. Until the eighth, then.”

  Frank signed off, disconnected his datapad, and started opening e-mails. He would get Stormie and call Holly later; for now, he needed to start figuring out what James had been doing with the company’s finances.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe someone didn’t call us before now,” Stormie said. Frank had found her running through filtration calculations with Judy Richmond, the station’s environmental engineer, told her the news, and dragged her back to the comm center to call Jim’s sister. She’d barely had time to process the basic situation before Holly Lawrimore, nee Fennerling, came on the line.

  Stormie wished Frank had ordered a video feed, so she could see what the woman looked like. She imagined a female version of Jim—slender without being skinny, dignified features. Her voice gave away her fatigue.

  Frank introduced them—Stormie said hello herself—and apologized for not calling sooner. He blamed it on a miscommunication with the Consortium, which seemed technically accurate from what he’d told Stormie. Holly replied in kind: she apologized for not calling herself, but said she’d spent most of her time the last few days attending to Jim’s immediate needs. From her sniffling, Stormie guessed how much the situation had affected her.

  “Where is James now?” Frank asked. “In a clinic of some kind?”

  “Yes,” Holly said. “It’s a rehab clinic, part of the hospital system but it’s smaller and they say it’s more specialized.”

  “How long will he have to be there?”

  “They said at least a couple of weeks. Maybe up to a month.”

  “Holly,” Stormie said, “the AC didn’t tell us exactly what happened. Can you tell us?”

  “Only what I know, and that isn’t much. He might have been having little strokes for a while now, mini-strokes—they call them transient ischemic attacks. That’s what the trainer at the little gym he goes to thought he was having, but they called the ambulance anyway and it’s a good thing they did. When they scanned his brain at the hospital, they found the clot quickly enough.

  “He was in the hospital a day and a half before they got in touch with me. This past Saturday they moved him to the other place. It’s almost just like the hospital, only smaller, and of course he doesn’t like hospitals to begin with because of his accident—” she broke off for a second until she reg
ained her composure. “He doesn’t speak very well yet and he gets really agitated when we can’t understand him. He still has trouble handling little things, so he can’t type yet either. I hate seeing him like that.…” Her voice trailed away in soft sobs.

  Stormie grabbed Frank’s hand; he squeezed back, and after a few seconds he said, “Holly, we are very sorry to upset you. If it would be better to call back later …”

  “No,” she said, struggling with her sniffles, “it’s fine. I’m just tired, so I’m not holding it together very well.”

  “I think you are doing fine,” Frank said, “and I am sure James is grateful for your help.”

  “What else would you like to know?”

  Frank raised his eyebrows at Stormie. She asked, “Do they know where the clot came from?”

  “They think it worked up from his legs,” Holly said. “One of them, anyway. He was good about working out his upper body, but he didn’t do much to keep good circulation in his legs. He didn’t see the point. I think he does now.” Her little laugh sounded bitter.

  “How bad is his condition?” Frank asked. “How long will it take for him to recover?”

  “They said it was bad, but not catastrophic. When we finally got to the hospital, the doctor showed us the images from his MRI. The thing in his head looked like a little splotch, like you get if you fling a drop of spaghetti sauce on the wall by accident. Doctor said it looked like a little jellyfish to him.

  “The doctor had me hold Jim’s hand and trace numbers in his palm, but Jim couldn’t ever tell what number I was doing. And sometimes he’ll fling his arm in a funny way because he can’t keep track of where his hand is unless he really concentrates. The doctor called it ‘tactile neglect.’ That hasn’t gotten much better yet.

  “They say it’s going to take a while for him to get better, and he may never be completely okay. The doctor was real happy about how quick he got to the hospital and they got those drugs into him. I was surprised they would do anything for him, since he could barely sign his name on the form—I saw it, it looked like a drunk kindergartener had written a pretend name on it. Anyway, Jim had been smart enough to have some kind of pre-approval paperwork at the hospital for emergency care—I guess he did that after Alyson died—so they gave him those drugs. But they didn’t dissolve the clot all the way.”