Firmament: Reversal Zone

by Pennington,J. Grace

  We stood there in silence, watching as the fuzzy stars outside the clouded windows glided past.

  “I'm hungry,” Guilders said.

  “When you get the course set, you can go eat,” the Captain said, sounding a bit more like himself again.

  “But I'm hungry now,”

  “So am I, but we can survive another hour until we're well on the way. Then you and August can take turns.”

  Guilders grumbled.

  Crash stepped forward. “I can take the helm for awhile, sir.”

  Crash had never offered to do Guilders a favor unless there was something in it for him.

  “Thank you, Mr. Crash, but I prefer that Guilders remain at the helm for at least the majority of this experiment. I'll take you up on that once we're finished here. You can go eat in the meantime. Andi, you too.”

  “Yes sir,” I said, and took Crash's offered arm to follow him off the bridge.

  “I am hungry,” he admitted with a quiet smile as we stepped into the elevator.

  “I'm not...” I sighed.

  He touched my shoulder. “Are you okay, Andi?”

  “I'm tired,” I said.

  “I'll bet you are.” He moved his hand and smiled a bit more of a Crash-smile. “You're doing great.”

  I smiled back. “Am I?”

  “Of course.” This time he outright grinned, and he slouched against the back of the elevator. “Would I say it if it wasn't true?”

  I let out a chuckle. “Yes.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, probably so.”

  The mess hall was packed when we got there. It seemed like everyone on the ship except the Captain, the Doctor, Guilders, August, Whales, and McMillan was there. Crash and I found an unoccupied table near the middle of the room and sat down.

  “You think everyone who has nothing better to do is just congregating in here?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard above the din.

  He shrugged. “Might be.” Resting an arm on the back of his chair, he leaned back in classic Crash style. “Can't imagine Almira's happy.”

  As if in answer to his statement, Almira's voice rose above the noise. “You can't expect me to do all the work myself, especially with extra demands! I don't care if you're tired. Get back here and finish serving.”

  I covered my ears, reducing the uproar of conversation to a muffled buzz. After a moment, Crash touched my arm and pulled my hands down. “It's over. For the moment,” he said.

  I closed my eyes, ready to be done with eating and out of there.

  After lunch, the Captain told me I should rest so I'd be ready to help when the time came to collect the cloud, so I went into my room, locked the door, and laid flat on my back on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

  The ceiling, at least, was just as it always had been. Smooth silver metal, with barely a blemish on it. The same scratch above me and a little to the left. The same slightly bowed spot above the foot of the bed where the light made a U-shape.

  I doubted I would be able to sleep, tired as I was, but I was more than ready to be alone, away from all the insanity, noise, and confusion that was the Surveyor right now.

  An entire crew of starship personnel gone crazy. There were plenty of times that I doubted that the Captain was right when he said we would make it through. Yes, everyone was trying, and the Captain, the Doctor, and Crash were doing a fairly good job of it. I was amazed at how well the Captain had been able to do under the circumstances. But Guilders, usually the rock of the Surveyor, with his emotional outbursts, shook me most of all. How could a few chemical changes do that to a man?

  And yet, there were those moments, when Crash, August, the Doctor, or the Captain were more like themselves, just for a few minutes. Those kept me going, reminding me that the people I knew and loved were still there, underneath it all.

  Why had Guilders not had any such moments? Even Whales and McMillan and the night captain had briefly come back to themselves. Maybe Guilders had these moments when I wasn't there.

  Come to think of it, it was a little strange that they'd all seemed to have those moments after being with me for awhile.

  Did they have any when I wasn't there?

  A shiver ran through my body, leaving goosebumps behind.

  And it wasn't just the people. My memory flashed to the time just before we entered the cloud when the science station readouts had flickered. They hadn't been able to figure out why. But it had happened while I was sitting there.

  After that I'd gone to say goodnight to August, and he claimed that his panel had briefly flickered.

  As we entered the cloud, Crash had come to the bar to sit with me, and after a moment had gone back to his normal self. On the bridge shortly afterwards, the Captain had been lazy and careless until I'd stood beside him a few minutes. Stacey's apology. The Doctor's kindness. The Captain's moments of being more commanding. August's gentle moment. Crash being himself.

  All after being near me for a few minutes.

  I hadn't approached Guilders since before this started.

  I sat straight up in bed.

  The radialloy wasn't just affecting me. It was affecting what was around me. It had to be. There was no other explanation. But how was that possible?

  And what would it mean if everyone found out?

  I shivered again, and my body went cold. Everyone was going to want me to be near them, or whatever piece of machinery or electronics they wanted working. My first thought was to tell the Captain and the Doctor, but then I worried—in their current state, could they be trusted not to let anyone else know?

  I honestly wasn't sure.

  I caught my breath and whispered, “God, I don't know what to do. Please show me what to do.”

  I felt nothing; no revelations; no sudden clarity.

  Now I definitely couldn't sleep. I spent the next few hours lying on my bed, trying to think everything through.

  I needed to test this theory. Try standing near a few people or instruments for a few minutes; see if they responded. If so, I needed to figure out who I could tell, and how best to use this.

  Sticking close to the Captain was obviously a better idea than he'd realized. That was probably a large part of why he'd been able to function so much better than most people, and why we'd been able to stay fairly focused. I might also be able to help some of the equipment if need be.

  For a moment I wondered why my wristcom still wasn't working, then I realized that with no other coms working there was nothing to receive any transmissions.

  Why me? The technical answer was obvious. I'd contracted Langham's disease before I was born, and my biological father had discovered the radialloy was the only cure before the rest of the metal was destroyed. It kept me alive. And because of all this, I was now the clearest-headed person on the ship for the time being. Thus the responsibility fell to me.

  But why me, Lord? Why not some other, stronger girl?

  A voice spoke from the intercom near me. “Andi, we're about to try to gather some of the cloud. The Captain wants you present.”

  I climbed out of bed and went to the com to answer. “Be right there, Mr. Whales.”

  “Airlock one,” he added.

  I rode the elevator up one floor and hurried to airlock one, where the Doctor, the Captain, Whales, McMillan, Crash, and Guilders were gathered, along with a technician who was unrecognizable under the thick space suit.

  The technician held the ring in his padded hands, and he was in the process of receiving last-minute instructions from Whales. Guilders stood apart from the rest, his arms crossed.

  I sidled up to him. “Hello, Mr. Guilders,” I said.

  “Hi.” He didn't look at me, but just kept watching the group.

  “How are you holding up?” I tried.

  “How do you expect?”

  It was a rhetorical question, of course, but I answered anyway. “Well, I don't think anybody's doing very well right now, so I know it must be difficult.”

  I watched for a reaction
, but he only nodded.

  I tried a different tactic. “So did you figure out the adjustments we need to make to go in a straight line?”

  “Almost,” he said. “I'm afraid I'm still skeptical of the plan, though.”

  He didn't say it angrily. More—stoically. My hopes rose. “It is a long shot, but... do you have a better idea?”

  He hesitated, and this time, he looked at me. His bushy white eyebrows furrowed. “I admit that I cannot see a better alternative at the moment, but I am still cautious.”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, I felt my face relax into a smile. Mr. Guilders! I was right. It was me.

  “Clear the airlock,” the Captain ordered, and everyone except the technician filed out. The door closed behind us, and I waited, fidgeting with my wristcom.

  Ensign King's voice came over the intercom, detailing us on the process.

  “Airlock engaged, sir. Checking Griggs' cable... it's secure. Release is working. Griggs is at the access. Access opened. He's moving out, sir, cable is secure. It's all white out there... can't see anything but white... I've... never seen anything like it...” King's voice nearly broke here, but he seemed to make a great effort to steady it. “He's... using the generator. He has it now. He's tugging on his cable. Reeling him in... he's in... access sealed. Airlock engaged.”

  We all waited, breathless for a moment, as the airlock door slid open. Technician Griggs stood there, his helmet unsealed, a dazed but triumphant expression on his face. “I have it, sir!”

  We looked at the generator he held up for our perusal. The copper ring now held a white bubble, half a meter in diameter. We approached slowly, and I peered at the white stuff inside the field.

  Cloud was the best word for it. It looked like water vapor, but smokier. It was pure white, and it floated freely inside the field that held it in place.

  A moment of silence backed our observation.

  Crash broke it by stepping forward and touching the force field, resting both his hands firmly on the surface. “Looks like we have it.”

  The Captain turned to the Doctor and Whales with a smile. “Gentlemen, you...”

  A swishing sound cut him off, and without warning, the lights on the generator flickered off and the bubble lost its shape. Before anyone could make a move, the white, cloudy substance expanded, like smoke taking over the room.

  Everyone began yelling. Questions about what had happened punctured the atmosphere as too many hands tried to turn the generator back on. Griggs claimed he'd done nothing, the Captain raced to the intercom to ask if anyone knew what was going on, Whales pulled out a scanner. The slight sickly sweet smell of the cloud permeated the room.

  I just stood, motionless, hardly hearing anyone, and hardly seeing anything except what was happening around me.

  The white wisps floated towards me and stopped a meter away in every direction, leaving me in my own little bubble of clear air. As I backed up, the white mass moved with me. I stretched out my hand and couldn't touch it. It moved away from me like the north side of a magnet from the south.

  “Doctor...” I breathed rather than said.

  No one heard me. The commotion went on, barely visible now through the haze.

  “Doctor?” I said more loudly.

  No one heard me.

  “Doctor!” I called.

  The room went quiet. I could barely make out anyone through the cloud—they were only blurry shapes now. I picked a shape and moved towards it. As I walked, the vapor moved out of my way, never getting much closer than a meter.

  As I neared the person, I realized it was the Captain. The whiteness between us got thinner and thinner until he was crystal clear before me.

  I looked up at his face, then to both sides at the space around me, then back at him again.

  He took in a breath. “By Jupiter…”

  Chapter XIII

  They tried to gather some of the cloud back into the force field, but it wouldn't work. It simply refused to generate. While Whales and McMillan tried to figure out why, the Doctor kept me in a corner and talked to me.

  “You aren't surprised, are you?” he asked.

  We'd been talking for five minutes, so he was nearly his normal self by now.

  “I... sortof figured it out.”

  “When?”

  “Just a few hours ago. While I was resting.”

  “I knew I felt calmer around you.”

  It was a very weak attempt at humor. I smiled a bit. “So what do we do now?”

  The Captain walked up and interrupted our conversation. “It looks like we had another signal canceling out the generator. But McMillan can't trace it, so we have no way of knowing who did it...”

  “Can't we check security footage?” the Doctor suggested.

  “Which cameras? And for what? We don't know which direction or what we'd be looking for.”

  I closed my eyes. “But who would want to...?”

  “I don't know. Gerry...” He spoke the Doctor's name, but he looked at me.

  “Yes, the radialloy is affecting more than just her. Looks like it affects things near her as well.”

  The Captain frowned. “I really don't want this getting out. Whoever did this, and whoever... was responsible for the other night... might want to use her.”

  The Doctor nodded.

  “I'll tell them all to keep it quiet,” the Captain said, nodding his head towards the other men, who were still gathered around the generator. “Then we'll talk about what to do next.” He sighed.

  I tuned out his announcements as I sank into thought about the incident. The person responsible for this setback must have known where, when, and how to cancel out the generator's signal. Wouldn't that mean that it had to be one of the eight people who'd known about the plan? The only people who were supposed to know were me, the Doctor, the Captain, McMillan, Crash, Whales, Lieutenant Bradshaw, and Griggs. Ensign King had known the basics, but he wouldn't have enough details regarding the generator to figure out frequency.

  But all nine of those people had been present.

  Could they have done it while in the room?

  My chest tightened.

  The Doctor laid a hand on my shoulder, breaking through my disturbing thoughts. “You holding up?”

  “Yes sir,” I said, though I had a feeling that my tired voice didn't match my words very well.

  He gently squeezed my shoulder. “You're doing fine.”

  I tried to smile.

  Guilders approached and stood next to me. “Figured I might as well stick close to you,” he grumbled, and though the tone was unlike him, I detected the barest hint of his normal quiet humor.

  “Might as well,” I replied.

  There was silence for a moment—silence between the three of us, but still chaos in the rest of the airlock as they tried to trace the source of the problem.

  Then Guilders spoke up again. “I have an idea.”

  “Yes?” I said, looking at him.

  “Well, you know I don't like this scheme of Harrison's. The Captain's. To adjust our course.”

  “I know.” I smiled a little.

  “I think I might know a way to fix the problem. See, I was concerned that even though we know how to go straight, we won't know which direction to go. We've found two of Dooley's messages so far, and I think they were roughly half an AU apart. That's not too far. If you stood next to the communication station for awhile...”

  “You think the help she can give is strong enough?” the Doctor asked.

  Guilders just shrugged, and they both looked at me.

  “It's worth a try,” I said. “I'll talk to the Captain.”

  ***

  “How long will it take?”

  The Captain shook his head. “I don't know. She's just going to sit here for awhile, and I want you to watch the panel for activity. It may not work. But I agree that it's worth a try.”

  Yanendale nodded.

  I was seated in the comm marshal's chair, deemed t
he best position because my knees were right under the panel, giving the radialloy the best chance at dissipating the cloud particles and getting the sensors working.

  In theory.

  “Keep your eyes on the readout,” the Captain said. “Romero and I are going to check the security footage from outside my door, to see if we can figure out who was responsible for the incident the other night.”

  “Yes sir,” I said, and Yanendale uttered the more casual, “Okay.”

  The Captain left the bridge. To my relief, the atmosphere remained quiet and constrained, rather than loosening into chaos.

  For about seven minutes, nothing unusual happened. Then the panels began flashing in odd colors and patterns, not working, but doing something.

  “That's the same thing that happened at the science station,” I said.

  “Keep watching,” Guilders snapped from the helm. “See if it gets any more helpful.”

  We kept watching, and gradually the indicators stopped flashing and glowed their normal colors, with only the occasional glitch. Yanendale stood next to me and bent over the panel, keeping his gaze fixed on the readouts.

  The doors at the back of the bridge slid open, and I turned to see the Captain saunter in. He didn't bother to announce “Captain on the bridge.”

  “We saw half a dozen people enter my quarters,” he announced carelessly. “I had no idea it was such a popular place.”

  “Anyone who had no business being there?” August questioned.

  “Not really. Baker went in to clean, the laundry arrived, Stacey went in to get some records, Mann suddenly got a conscience and returned the book he borrowed a year ago, Chambers picked up some charts, and Stiles oddly walked through the door back and forth several times before moving on. But I hear he's been doing that all over the ship, and since he's normally a pretty carefree and slack guy...”

  “Some OCD?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So... it could be any of those people,” I mused. “But none of them seem like especially strong suspects.”

  “No, not really,” the Captain agreed.

  “Looks like there's a message about... half an AU away,” Yanendale reported, straightening up.

  “How do we know it's not the first one we received?” August challenged.