Cosmic Storm

by Dom Testa

  He went over the data again—he’d lost track of how many times now—and yet nothing about the blip in the radiation shield made sense. He stabbed at an apple chunk and was lifting it to his mouth when he stopped.

  Hannah Ross stood before him, a tray in her hand.

  They stared at each other for what seemed an eternity, until Gap slowly set down his fork. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi. Mind if I sit down?”

  Gap’s mind spun out of control. The two of them had been an item for a couple of months, but their breakup had not been pleasant. Since that time they’d not spoken at all, despite a few attempts by Gap; when Hannah had not responded, he’d given up. Now she stood there, asking to sit with him … and he froze.

  There was no question in his mind that he would say yes, but how enthusiastically? Should he simply shrug, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another? Or should he smile and offer a pleasant welcome, without conveying excitement or nonchalance? What could she possibly want to discuss, anyway? Was she missing him? He certainly missed her, and it was good to—

  “Well?” she said.

  He mentally shook the sand out of his brain; he’d been staring up at her with his mouth halfway open. “Uh, yeah, sure,” he said, indicating the chair across from him.

  She sat down, bumping the table in the process, and Gap reached out to steady his water before it turned over. They both chuckled nervously, each aware of the awkward beginning. Hannah quickly began to arrange her tray, aligning the edges so that it paralleled the edge of the table. She set out a knife and fork, keeping them perpendicular to her, then placed a napkin on her lap. During the entire production she made no eye contact with Gap.

  Once settled, she began to eat, taking a bite of salad, then resetting her fork on the table, neatly aligned. She pushed her long, blond hair out of her face, only to have it fall back. She repeated the motion, this time tucking the unruly strands behind her ears.

  After another quiet minute she finally spoke. “I hear there was some excitement with the radiation shield. What was that all about?”

  Gap studied her face. So, he thought, this is all business. All right, he could match that.

  “That’s a good question. It lasted less than a second, but that’s enough to set off the alarms. No reason that we know of.” Then, not liking the way that sounded, he added, “At least not yet.”

  Hannah nodded. “I wondered if … well, you didn’t ask my opinion.”

  Gap smiled at her. “Okay, I’ll play. Hannah, what’s your opinion?”

  She took a bite of an energy bar and chewed thoughtfully before responding. “I was thinking about how many strange things we’ve come across already, and yet we’re barely out of our own backyard. I’m sure we’ve all thought about what was on the other side of the wormholes.”

  “Yes?”

  “And I wondered if maybe a completely different form of radiation might have leaked out before it disappeared.”

  Gap sat back and considered this. He had to admit, the idea was fascinating. Who could say what poured into or out of these portals?

  “That’s an interesting idea,” he finally said. “And you think it might be a type of radiation that we’re not equipped to filter out?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “Well, I’ll have a chat with Roc about that. Thank you. Anything else?”

  Hannah fidgeted with the edge of her tray. “I’ve also wondered about the area of space that we’re rushing into. As every second slips past, we’re getting farther and farther away from the sun’s protection. I mean, the Kuiper Belt was dangerous, but for all we know it’s even more dangerous out here.”

  “And that danger might be radiation,” Gap said.

  “Right. We’ve always assumed that cosmic radiation would be fairly consistent throughout the galaxy. But perhaps our sun protects us more than we thought. Once we’re outside that cocoon, it might jump drastically.”

  He nodded, but kept his gaze on her. It didn’t take long for him to sense her discomfort.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said. She took another bite, then a sip of water. Gap sensed that there was more she wanted to discuss besides the radiation emergency. But he waited patiently; she’d approached him, after all.

  A minute went by before Hannah spoke up again. “I’m just sick thinking about what might have happened to Triana,” she said. “It doesn’t seem possible that she could be gone for good.” For the first time since sitting down she looked into his face. “What does your gut tell you? Will she be back?”

  Gap winced. “You know, I’m getting that question a lot. Everyone wants to know what I think will happen.”

  “Human nature,” Hannah said. “During a time of crisis, we like to be reassured. Or at least given a glimmer of hope. That’s probably where everyone is right now, just wanting to hold on to some hope that she’ll be back.”

  “And what if she doesn’t come back?” Gap said. “If I go around telling everyone that Triana will magically pop back out of nowhere, and then she doesn’t…” He shook his head. “I can’t do that. You have just as much information as I do, just like the rest of the crew. It’s impossible to imagine what might happen. All I know is that we have to go with the assumption that she won’t be back; then, if we’re lucky enough to see her again, fantastic. But I don’t know, and it’s not smart to speculate.”

  She broke eye contact with him and peered at her plate of food. “I imagine you’ve given some thought to the possibility of being the new Council Leader. How would you feel about that?”

  He paused, wondering what had prompted the question. Was this why she was suddenly talking to him again? Was she intrigued with the notion that he might become the ship’s commander?

  “I’ve thought about it,” he said slowly. “But only because so many people have talked to me about it. It’s not something that I even contemplated before Triana took off.”

  “Not ever?”

  Gap looked away for a moment. “Well, I’ve thought about the automatic crew election that’s coming up in a couple of years, whether I’d want to run for a spot on the Council again, or, if Triana wanted to step down, maybe the top spot.” He looked back at her. “But I haven’t dwelled on it, if that’s what you mean.”

  She shrugged. “You and Triana have totally different personalities. What do you think you’d do differently if you were in charge?”

  He sat back again and drummed his fingers on the table. “What’s this all about?”

  “What do you mean? I’m just talking with you.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. You’ve avoided me completely, haven’t responded to my notes. Now suddenly you’re talking with me like nothing ever happened. Like the old days.”

  Her gaze drifted back up to meet his. She put down her fork, dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin, and took another sip of water. Again, Gap was patient.

  “Maybe it takes me longer to get over things than it does for you,” she said. “Especially when you were the one who ended it.”

  “I didn’t end it,” Gap said evenly. “I told you that I was going through a rough time and didn’t think I’d be good company for a while. That’s not the same as ending it completely.”

  “So it was my turn to go through a rough time then, okay? Maybe I wasn’t good company for a while. Besides, you wanted your space, and you got it. It’s not worth fighting over now.”

  “You’re right, it’s not. I’m just curious why suddenly you want to talk again.”

  “Would you prefer I leave you alone?”

  He sighed, feeling exasperated. “No, I’m glad you’re here. Sheesh, can a guy at least ask a question?”

  Hannah sat stone-faced for a moment, and then a slight smile curled at the corner of her mouth. “Yes, you can. I’m just a little nervous, okay?” She winced and rubbed her leg. “I’ll probably end up with a lovely bruise on my knee just from trying to sit down here with you, prete
nding to be calm.”

  Gap returned the smile. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t exactly put on a relaxed face either. When you walked up I probably looked like a fish in a net, gasping for air.” He let them both enjoy the brief silence after their mutual acknowledgement, then said, “I’m sure that I would probably operate a little differently than Triana. Probably a bit more communication with the crew, just because of my nature. She’s quiet, and I’m … well, I’m not.

  “And,” he added, “I’d probably want to look at crew work schedules, maybe tweak things a bit. I think we’re starting to get a little rusty with some of the basic chores around the ship. I don’t know if it’s complacence, or if we’re just tired. But after everything we’ve been through recently, I know that we need to be on top of everything. This radiation warning is just a reminder that, even though we’re out of the Kuiper Belt and the vultures are gone, it doesn’t mean we have smooth sailing ahead.”

  Hannah took another drink, set her glass down, then reached out and nudged it about an inch to the right. “The crew seems pretty comfortable with you, don’t you think?”

  It was funny, Gap realized, how things turned so quickly. He’d gone through a difficult stretch where his self-confidence was shot, where he felt that he was contributing next to nothing as a Council member, and had even contemplated resigning. Now, in a flash, he was on the brink of running for Council Leader. His esteem, in the eyes of the crew, had grown considerably since he’d unmasked the methods behind Merit Simms’s plot to force a return to Earth. Was the crew comfortable with the idea of Gap as the ship’s leader? Probably, he decided.

  That still didn’t mean that he was completely comfortable with the idea. He had to admit, however, that just hearing Hannah talk about it sent a charge through him.

  Or was it simply the notion that Hannah might be impressed with him as Council Leader?

  “I can’t speak for the crew,” he said. “I would hope that they’d be comfortable with anyone on the Council stepping up to lead.”

  A half-smile once again crept across Hannah’s face. She took a last bite of her dinner—Gap noticed that she’d barely touched the plate of food; was she really here for dinner?—and slowly pushed back her chair.

  “Well,” she said, “I have some work to do before bed. It was good to talk with you.”

  “Yeah. Good to see you, too.” He watched her drop off her tray and slip out the door. For the next few minutes he found it impossible to refocus on his work. Like the ship itself, his own shield had been briefly pierced.

  And his own personal alarms were going off.

  * * *

  An hour later Gap made his customary nightly visit to the ship’s Control Room. The scattered work stations were thinly manned at this late hour; Galahad, for the most part, was tucked in for the night. Three crew members nodded a hello to him as he walked in, and then settled back into their calibrations and reports. A faint stream of music trickled in from hidden speakers, and the large vidscreen displayed the almost hypnotic splash of stars. It was tranquil—one reason Gap never dreaded this part of his daily routine.

  But he was also exhausted, physically and mentally. “Five minutes,” he had promised himself on the walk from the Dining Hall. “Five minutes, and then to bed.”

  It didn’t work out that way.

  He had barely fallen into the chair at his station when the entire room was flooded by a blinding flash of light. It shattered the calm of the room like a billion strobe lights simultaneously firing outside the ship. Gap and the three other crew members instinctively threw their hands up to cover their eyes, but by then it was over. Looking down and away from the vidscreen, Gap blinked several times and shook his head.

  “What was that?”

  Gap looked at the girl who had asked the question, then stole a hurried glance at the vidscreen. Even though he’d not been looking directly at it when the flash came, it had been powerful enough to leave afterimage spots dancing across his vision. “I have no idea, Addie. That was … interesting.”

  He blinked rapidly again and turned back to his work station. “Roc, did we just witness a supernova or something?”

  “Give me a moment,” the computer said. “But no, it was not an exploding star.”

  While waiting, Gap quickly checked in with Engineering and was told that there was no change in the radiation shield. Whatever the light flash might have been, it hadn’t caused damage to their defenses.

  Not obvious damage, at least.

  “This is quite odd,” Roc said a moment later. “A flash that intense, and yet there is zero residue.”

  Gap chanced another look at the screen. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there’s nothing there. I have a perfect fix on location, even approximate distance—not that far, by the way—and yet there’s nothing there. No object of any kind, no residual radiation, nothing. It’s as if it never happened.”

  “Ugh, tell that to my retinas,” Gap said. “Good thing none of us were staring into the vidscreen at the time.” He leaned forward and ran a hand through his hair. “So, first a failure of the radiation shield, and now a blast of light that came from nowhere. Anything at all that you can find?”

  “The light was more than light,” Roc said. “And I’m not trying to be funny. I mean, I don’t need to try, it just comes naturally. But in this case I’m just telling it like it is.”

  “And I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gap said.

  “Good, because I don’t either, and I’d hate for you to know something that I didn’t. But essentially that flash was charged somehow. Not your standard light as radiation charge; more like a strange shower of particles. Or rather, a shower of strange particles.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because we have no data on these particular particles. Until two minutes ago, no human being—or ultra-cool computer—has ever witnessed them.”

  Gap looked again at the screen, prepared to quickly avert his eyes. The information tumbled through his mind: a blast of light, combined with mysterious particles, and all from an invisible source.

  He would not be in bed in five minutes.

  6

  She stood with her hands clasped over her head, catching her breath, drenched in sweat. The sharp tang of salt stung her mouth, but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. Quite the contrary; for Channy there was no better feeling than a strenuous workout, one that worked her lungs to the max and brought about a dull muscular ache that actually felt good. Today’s cardiovascular drills had featured some of her favorite participants, crew members who relished the same intensity at least a couple of times each week. She thought of them as the race horses, thoroughbreds who bolted from the gate with a determination that never let up, never faltered. It was a test that no one in this particular group wanted to fail.

  The gym shared Galahad’s lower level with the Airboard track, the Spider bay, and the Storage Sections. It was usually a beehive of activity during the morning workout sessions, and now, as crew members left to shower and grab breakfast, Channy began to plot a new exercise routine for the afternoon group. Her roommate, Kylie Rickman, her face splotchy and streaked with sweat, sauntered over and tossed a towel at Galahad’s Activities Director.

  “You would make Einstein proud,” Kylie said.

  Channy passed the towel around her neck. “Einstein? What are you talking about?”

  “He was the one who suggested that time was affected as you approach the speed of light. Well, as this ship gets closer and closer to that speed, your concept of time is getting skewed. Twice today you said ‘keep it up, one more minute.’ I timed it, and we went more than two minutes both times.”

  “Oh, it didn’t hurt that bad,” Channy said with a laugh. “Besides, you’re not supposed to be watching the clock during my workouts.”

  “Just wanted to see if my time perception was screwed up, or if you’re just a monster. News flash: you’re a monster.”

  Ch
anny rubbed her face with a corner of her towel, then picked up a cup of water. “You’ll thank me when we get to Eos.”

  They both took swigs of water, then Kylie said, “So, what do you think of Gap as the new Council Leader?”

  Channy laughed. “He hasn’t even been nominated yet.”

  “He will be, you know that.”

  “Well,” Channy said, “I think he’d do a great job. He obviously has the experience from being on the Council, and I think the crew respects him. Especially after that whole Merit Simms garbage.”

  “Speaking of Merit,” Kylie said, “I heard rumors that at least one other person might be nominated from the crew. You don’t think it’d be him, do you?”

  “Merit?” Channy said. “Are you kidding? He wouldn’t stand a chance. He might get three or four votes from his circle of friends, but that’s it.”

  Kylie shrugged. “You’re probably right. I just can’t think who else might run.” She tossed her towel into a hamper. “All right, I’m off. A shower and then back to work. See you ’round.”

  Channy watched her roommate trudge towards the door, then stiffened as Bon passed Kylie on his way in. If he caught a glimpse of Channy he didn’t show it, and instead made his way towards the exercise bikes. Never one to join a group workout, the Swede focused on solitary workouts with cardio machines and weights.

  With a scowl, Channy eyed him for a few moments, resisting an urge to walk over and say something. She was still angry with him, and thankful that he mostly confined himself to the seclusion of the domes. On one hand she could appreciate why he loved it up there, why he felt so passionate about his work in the fields. He might be emotionally detached from people, she thought, yet maybe his connection to nature didn’t allow those personal feelings to develop.

  But she refused to feel sorry for him. After her own recent heartbreaking experience, she couldn’t understand how anyone could allow a potentially beautiful relationship to slip through their fingers without fighting for it. She might have lost out in her pursuit of love, but she could hold her head high in the knowledge that she had given it everything she had.