Dying For Space

by S. J. Higbee

  On that noisy, scary journey back to my room, I hadn’t given much thought to exactly what I’d be doing during my confinement. Lose myself in the stack of Procurement files constantly piling up at my workdesk, maybe. Or browse through the Music section of the library, perhaps. These ideas drifted through my head as the crush surrounding us slowly funnelled me along the corridors and the atmosphere became less hostile.

  When we returned to Elsbeth’s room, my belongings had already been packed up on a trolleybot. Just as well. Norman’s techs had Elsbeth’s workdesk gutted and disassembled in bits all over the floor – along with poor Fido.

  So much for a father’s sentimental attachment to his beloved daughter’s possessions!

  I was busy not listening to Jessica’s bitter commentary – not too difficult given the way the full-blown procession accompanying us swirled and tangled as conflicting rumours about where we were next headed buzzed through the crowd.

  “Miss Elizabeth’s room is being dismantled by the techs. So we are taking her to some temporary accommodation,” Len’s voice rang round the crammed space.

  Word had evidently reached Norman about my supporters, as I noticed a steady stream of black-clad Shadows mingling with the melee. Smiling at everyone till my face ached and hoping that no one was going to blix up the fragile peace, we slowly poured through the corridors. Our progress was further hampered by the wretched trolley-bot, which didn’t cope well with the crowds and kept stopping or reversing. It wasn’t until we came to a halt by the door, that I realised I was being moved back to my original room.

  “As a measure of our regard for Miss Elizabeth, we are posting an honour guard to stand watch alongside the Shadows.” This announcement by the merc who’d originally accosted Len was greeted by cheers and loud clamours to be added to the roster. Along with grim scowls from the Shadows.

  Holed heavens, hope they stay safe. The General won’t like this one little bit. I’d like to be able to claim that my concern for what Norman would do to these kind souls caused me to protest that they should return to their quarters – that I’d be just fine. But the coward in me was cravenly grateful they were there, so I kept quiet.

  Once the trolley-bot was finally manoeuvred through the crowd without breaking any shins, I was ushered into the big, empty room with a sneering grin by Len’s comrade and the door slid shut behind me. While I unpacked, I told myself that it was stimming to be back here. That I’d never wanted to leave this room, anyhow. Which was the truth. However, returning under these circumstances didn’t make the yawning space feel any cosier. I’d become used to Elsbeth’s homely clutter. Even her pink and silver décor now seemed sparkly and welcoming, rather than garish…

  It got worse. When I sat at the workdesk, I realised that I’d been locked out of all the main operating systems. No Procurement. No Library. I couldn’t even access the shops and order so much as a tab-ring. With a sinking heart I opened my memory shelves, where I’d left behind music, games and even the occasional book – only to find that some space chimp had wiped them clean. I’d been shut up with absolutely nothing to do…

  When I flicked on the holo-com – surprise, surprise, it wouldn’t work. I gritted my teeth, while Jessica cursed inventively enough for the pair of us. I was tempted to complain, but as she pointed out, it would just cause trouble. It was likely that the folks who’d taken it upon themselves to guard my room would want to fix the situation. Whereas the Shadows would probably try to stop them, as it was clearly on Norman’s orders I’d been completely isolated.

  I paced up and down the room, furious and afraid. How could I have been so stupid? Instead of keeping all the info I’d learned tucked away to use at a time of my own choosing – I’d spilt everything I knew right out in the open in front of far too many witnesses. Even if he wanted to, Norman couldn’t overlook the incident. Too much had been said.

  What’s he going to do with me now? I wasn’t sure. By the way he’d reacted at the end of our encounter, I realised he still believed we were solid.

  Of course he does, Lizzy. You were sent to him by God, remember…

  I shivered. He was clearly madder than a space-spooked cat. And as far as I was concerned, staying alongside him as his obedient daughter wasn’t an option on any level. My love for him – always a complicated mess of resentment, longing and desire to please – had finally winked out. And whatever he felt for me wasn’t love. Guilt, yes. And regret, for sure. A desperate wish to be able to undo that one wicked act. But my stepfather’s career had been sabotaged; my lover maimed and sent away; and my ties with my family completely severed – just so that William Norman could stop feeling so bad about having killed his family.

  I wore a path in the thick carpet while these and similar thoughts bounced around my skull. A lot of rage was directed against myself. How could I have imagined he really loved me all this time? When I saw how Fina…? No, it goes back further than that. Mum… I knew that Mum still loved him.

  I recalled the way her face lit up whenever he looked at her. He knew she still cared for him. She’d borne his daughter and married a man she didn’t love because he told her it was for the best. And he entirely took it as his due that my mother was slowly rotting in a loveless marriage, tied to a domestic life she hated by yet more children she didn’t want. No wonder she tried to drown her misery with wine! Why hadn’t I taken a hard look at how he treated those closest to him?

  But no – I allowed myself to be persuaded by promises of a career in his outfit as his daughter. How weak! How pathetic! In my fury, I kicked over a small table, wishing it was Norman’s head. Or mine.

  Hey, Lizzy… Prone it down. Hearing Jessica’s voice was a solid relief. Okay. You allowed yourself to be sucked in far too lethally close to this zilcher. But he’s got charm enough to talk a ʼnaut into spacewalking in the nude. A whole posse of clever, important people have made the mistake of trusting him. Get over it. Question now is, how are you gonna break out of his orbit?

  An excellent question. And one I couldn’t answer.

  He’ll be watching you, for sure. No way this room isn’t monitored. How d’you want him seeing you?

  I skidded to a halt. Another excellent question. And one that I should’ve thought of myself. The General would be grinning around one of his stinking cigars at the sight of me endlessly pacing.

  I’d learnt about the nature of revenge at a very early age. Growing up with Eddy had taught me that getting hot and angry meant making mistakes. The way to be revenged on bilgecrud like Eddy was to bite down on that anger. Let it grow cold and sharp. And then act when he least expected it. That’s how I’d survived to make Eddy afraid of me during our childhood. And that’s how I would prevail against General. Use his weaknesses against him.

  Welcome back! I’m now seeing the girl who safely returned us to Shooting Star from Basement Level in one piece…

  During those two everlasting days, Jessica’s encouragement and Sergeant Gently’s drills were an airline. In training, we’d done these drills so many times, we could’ve performed them in our sleep. Indeed, some of us did. Between working through my repertoire of songs and doing push-ups, sit-ups, jumps and Gently’s own weird version of an old Chinese exercise called tai chi, which is basically a slo-mo warm-up as far as I can make out – I managed not to puddle down into panic during my captivity.

  As Jessica pointed out, Norman’s tactics were classic. Confine your enemy with nothing to do, allowing her to chew over the possibility of what might happen. He probably expected me to be weeping with relief by the time he’d come barrelling in, sucking on a cigar and all set to hug the marrow from my bones.

  On the evening of the first day, there was an incident regarding my supper. The two-tone chimed and the door slid open. One of the Shadows was holding a groaning supper tray, when Douglas, one of my volunteer honour guards whom I recognised as a stock-picker in Axil’s workforce, stepped forward. “Hey. ʼFore you hand that over, lemme have a taste of it.”
>
  The Shadow jerked the tray away. “You want food, you stop this prodding honour guard crud and flood off to the main mess. This here is Miss Elizabeth’s.”

  Cold doubt clenched my guts, stopping the saliva filling my mouth at the prospect of a tasty meal. Norman wouldn’t have me poisoned, would he?

  Nah. Might have you drugged so you started acting and talking star-crazed, though.

  “You want to rethink what you’re implying, you prodding piece of offal?” snarled the Shadow.

  Douglas’s grin was sharp enough to slice dark matter. “Prone it down, puppy. I was doing your job alongside the Colonel when you were still sucking your momma’s teats.”

  Bet he was, too. No one calls him the Colonel, these days…

  He picked up a spoon and stuck it into the gravy.

  The Shadow yanked the tray away so fast, the plate slid off and bounced along the pale green carpet, decanting the meat, veg and thick brown gravy in a long messy trail, closely followed by the glass of wine.

  “Now look what you did!” Though the Shadow didn’t seem as angry as I’d expected. Glancing at me, he pressed the door shut in my face with a tight grin.

  Shaken, I promised myself that when I was out of this room, I’d make the time to find Douglas and thank him for thinking of tasting my food. Because I’d watched the Shadows sparring in one-to-one combat and they were fast and graceful. No way should my meal have landed on the floor – unless the guard wanted it there.

  When the two-tone chimed again, a fresh tray was in the Shadow’s hands and a posse of cleaner bots trundled through the door to clear up the mess. Behind him, Douglas winked at me and gave a small nod. It was clean. He’d tasted it.

  “Thank you so much.” Looking at Douglas as I said it, I took the tray from the Shadow and the door slid shut.

  After that, I made sure to ask whoever was on honour guard to taste my food.

  It was a long night. During the evening, I’d exercised until I was dripping with sweat, had a long, hot shower and tumbled into bed weary, congratulating myself that my strategy had worked.

  I surfaced just before midnight, after dreaming about being trapped in a shattered farmhouse, calling and calling to Wynn but getting no answer… It took me several minutes to realise exactly where I was. Even then, I stumbled from the bed and was halfway through pulling on my sweats, before I remembered that I couldn’t just open the door and tiptoe down the corridor to the gym for a bout of BalanceJoust.

  Despair swept through me. Sinking to the floor, I put my head in my hands. There was no escape from the demons riding my dreams.

  Of course there is, Lizzy. C’mon. Sing with me.

  No… I can’t…

  But Jessica wasn’t taking no for an answer. She had me standing on the bed, and together we sang the slow, sad songs our ship-mates back on Shooting Star always wanted at the end of a long night’s drinking. In that half-lit room, unaccompanied apart from Jessica’s voice in my head, I sang out my heartbreak and grief. Poured out all my unshed tears into the long, sobbing notes, falling cadences and mournful words. And while we sang, the hurt around my heart shifted and eased, so that by the time we came to the end of the last song, I was tired enough to curl up on the bed and sleep for another five hours.

  What I didn’t know at the time – I swear it – was that the guards outside the room had got into the habit of flipping on the room-com every fifteen mins throughout their watch. If they heard me moving around, they didn’t bother to patch through to the Monitor Room. At some stage during our singing, a Shadow flipped the switch – and didn’t turn it off till I’d finished. Apparently.

  The next day crawled by at the speed of a dozing snail, but I gritted my teeth and tried to stretch out all those necessary chores that normally take less than no time. While appearing as if it was the keenest fun. Or attempting to, anyhow. Probably didn’t fool Norman or anyone else, but leastways I wasn’t pounding on the door, sobbing to be let out.

  When the two-tone chimed and the door started sliding open just after lunch, my stomach tightened. Bracing myself for Norman’s huge presence to whisk into the room and suck all the oxygen out, Number Two had crossed the floor, greeting me before I’d fully hauled myself together. “Hallo, Elizabeth. How are you?” He hadn’t been looking his best last time I’d seen him, but right now he looked like something sicked out’ve a black hole.

  “Better than you, that’s for sure.” I gestured for him to sit before he fell down. “Mercury’s dust, George, what’ve you been doing to yourself?”

  He shook his head at me, as if I was a naughty girl. “Whatever made you jab at him like that, Elizabeth? Mother Earth’s sake – it was like listening to your sister on a bad day!”

  I’d held it together while cooped up in this room. Just. But I was not in the mood for a verbal smacking. “Having his piece of jetty-trash looking down her pointy nose at me didn’t help. But – in case you’ve forgotten – I didn’t start any of it.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that one,” his voice was flat. “You won’t be seeing her, again. She’s gone.”

  And I’m guessing she didn’t leave Restormel upright and breathing. I swallowed, feeling sick and suddenly afraid. “I’m sorry.”

  He gave a curt nod. “You should be.”

  Hang on, Lizzy. You didn’t so much as lift a finger to hurt the girl! You done nothing to apologise for. Don’t you let Mr Second-in-command tell you otherwise. Just cos his scuzzy conscience keeps him up at night! Jessica was right.

  “Oh really?” I raised my eyebrows in my best impression of the Cap in sceptical mode.

  “Don’t you sit there like this has nothing to do with you! It’s seven shades of chaos out there!” He was red in the face and shouting, “While you’re sitting in here busy looking tragically innocent and singing for your admirers at midnight!”

  Is he straightline with this, or is it a performance for the General?

  “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about. Maybe you would do me the courtesy of proning down sufficiently to inform me what the problem is.” I felt disappointed, having always respected George and counted him as an ally, if not a friend. And here he was, sounding no better than Norman.

  His knuckles were white as he clenched the armrests, leaning forward. “Were you singing for an audience in the middle of the night – yes or no?”

  “I woke up after a night—ˮ

  Careful, Lizzy. Don’t give the General too much ammo.

  Thank you, Jessica.

  “…woke up unexpectedly in the middle of the night.” Despite my best intentions, my voice rose, “I’ve no workdesk, library access or music files. No way of visiting the gym. So I sang. On my own. In my room. Is that prohibited, also?”

  “Unaware that your little posse of hangers-on were busy listening in the corridor outside – and tabbing your performance for the rest of your followers, I s’pose?”

  “How would I know if anyone was listening? I can’t see through walls. And if you don’t believe me, check the monitors. This bilgescum is not worthy of you, sir.”

  “What about the business going down in Procurement? I s’pose you know nothing of that, either.”

  Dread shortened my breath as I thought of the loyal band of workers down in my department. “What business? What’s been happening? Are they prone? Because if anything has happened to them…”

  His stare could have frosted an icicle. “Is that a threat, Elizabeth?”

  Step carefully, Lizzy. Don’t know where he’s going with these questions.

  “Of course not. But I am the Director of Procurement, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “They’ve gone on strike. They all refuse to work until you are reinstated.”

  What!

  “The whole place is wrong side up. That shrine of yours is groaning with flowers, toys – even candles. And every time some of the stuff is cleared away, there’s trouble. Your honour guard,” he spat the words as if the
y were poison, “are now wearing red sashes and giving each other special salutes. D’you understand what you’ve gone and done, Elizabeth? You’ve created a faction within the P’s whose primary loyalty is to you, rather than the General.”

  “I’ve done nothing! I’ve been stuck in this room.”

  “So why are all these ugly lies running loose about how poor Elsbeth’s death wasn’t an accident?” He jabbed a finger at me. “That Officer Dain was killed by one of the General’s Shadows for trying to get too close to you?”

  I was shaking with anger and fear. Norman’s nasty little secrets have finally surfaced and are majorly spattering his rep. He’s going to want someone scapegoated for that one – is it me? It sure looks like that’s the way things are shaping.

  I wasn’t going down without a fight. “As I keep telling you – I have been incarcerated in this room, so how can this be down to me?”

  George just shook his head, looking worn and grief-stricken.

  Seeing his expression, my scattered fear was replaced with giddy, horrified certainty. Norman is going to flush me away and Number Two is going along with it. As always. My popularity is too dangerous and he’s also going to claim that the rumours regarding Elsbeth and Romeo came from me, to wrest control from him…

  As George approached, I swallowed. Is this the moment I die? Surely he won’t kill me here? How will they get my body out?

  I flinched as he patted my shoulder. “Take care, Elizabeth.”

  “Be seeing you.” I felt a keen sense of loss. I’d liked and trusted George. But he didn’t look back as he strode across the room and out through the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Just after I’d handed my supper tray to Axil, who was on duty outside my room, I heard a scuffle from one of the flyer-sized closets lining the wall. On opening it, I was confronted with the vivi-bear Norman had given me another lifetime ago. Somehow the creature had been activated and was marching up and down the empty space. Except it wasn’t empty.