The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-I

by Jonathan Strahan

  "I need to go get the other cadets settled in, and then I'll come back and see how you're doing," he said, covering me up with a Mylar blanket. "If you need me before that, just hit send." He handed me a communicator. "And don't worry. A little thing like spacesickness won't get you thrown out of the Academy."

  But I want to be—" I began, but he was already gone, and the thought of getting up off the bunk to go after him, or even of pressing the button on the communicator sent the room toppling over again.

  I'll just lie here very, very quietly till he comes back, I thought, and then insist on seeing the Commander, but I must have been asleep when he came back, because when I opened my eyes, the Hyperventilator was unpacking her kit on the other bunk. "Oh, good, you're awake," she said. "We're going to be bunkmates! Isn't that incred! I'm Libby, I mean, Cadet Thornburg. Are you feeling better?"

  "No," I said, though I was, a little. At least I was able to sit up. However, when I tried to stand, the room gave a sudden lurch, and I had to grab for the wall, and it, the other walls, and Libby seemed to be leaning ominously toward me. I reared back and nearly fell over.

  "It's because of the Coriolis effect from the spin on the space station. It makes everything seem to tilt toward you. Isn't it incred?"

  "Umm," I said. "How long does it take to get used to it?" It must not be that long. She was moving around without any trouble. Or maybe that was one of the things IASA tested for in their four-tiered screening process.

  "I don't know. I wanted to get a head start," she said, stowing clothes in the locker above her bunk, "so I practiced in an artificial-gravity simulator before I came. Three weeks, maybe?"

  I would never last three weeks. Which meant I had to get in to see the Commander now. I pressed the communicator button and then spent the time till the fourth-year got there working on standing up, walking over to the door, and fighting the urge to grab onto something, anything, at all times.

  The fourth-year looked surprised to see me on my feet. I told him I wanted to see the Commander. "Don't you want to wait till you feel steadier?" he asked, looking at my vomit-spattered clothes. "And have a chance to clean up?"

  "No."

  "Okay," he said doubtfully. "What did you want to see the Commander about?"

  If I told him, he'd stare blankly at me or say everyone with spacesickness felt that way. "There's a problem with my application," I said.

  "Oh, then, you want the registrar."

  "No, I—" I began and then decided the registrar was exactly who I wanted to see. He'd have the applications on file, and when he saw I didn't have one, he could correct the mistake immediately. "Okay, take me to the registrar's office."

  "That's not necessary," he said. "You can message him from here." He switched on the terminal above my bunk.

  "No," I said. "I want to see him in person."

  "Okay, wait here, and I'll see if he's available."

  "No," I said, letting go of the wall with an effort. "I'm coming with you."

  It was the longest walk of my life. I couldn't seem to overcome the feeling that everything, including the fourth-year, was about to pitch forward onto me and/or that I was about to float away, and I periodically had to latch onto handgrips and/or the fourth-year in spite of myself.

  "It's because the gravity's only two-thirds that of Earth," he said. "You'll get used to it. You're lucky it's not a full g. The more rotation, the more Coriolis effect. Any less, though, and there's bone loss. Two-thirds is a happy medium."

  "That's what you think," I muttered, showing no signs of getting used to it, even though he led me through what seemed like miles of tube-like corridors and locks and ladders, ending finally in an office not much bigger than my cabin. A guy who looked like my dad was seated at a console.

  "What can I do for you, Cadet Baumgarten?" he asked kindly.

  I poured out my whole story, hoping against hope he wouldn't give me another of those I-don't-understand-what-language-you're-speaking looks.

  He didn't. He said, "Oh, dear, that's terrible. I can't imagine how that could have happened."

  Relief flooded over me.

  "I'll look into this immediately. Cadet Apley," he called into an inner office, "find me Cadet Baumgarten's file." He turned back to me. "Don't worry. We'll get this straightened out."

  A young woman's voice called out to him, "The files for the new cadets haven't been transmitted yet, sir."

  "Well, tell them I need them as soon as possible."

  "Yes, sir," she said.

  "Don't worry, Cadet Baumgarten," he said. "We'll get this straightened out. I intend to launch a full investigation." He stood up and extended his hand. "I'll notify you as soon as we've determined what happened."

  I ignored his hand. "How long will that be?"

  "Oh, it shouldn't take more than a week or two."

  "A week or two?" I said. "But you've made a mistake. I'm not supposed to be here."

  "If that is the case, you'll of course be sent home immediately," he said, showing me the door. "In the meantime, may I congratulate you on your rapid adaptation to artificial gravity. Very impressive."

  If I could have thrown up on him, I would have, but there was no cake left. Instead, I planted myself in front of him as firmly as was possible in two-thirds g and said, "I want to make a phone call."

  "Cadets aren't allowed phone calls for the first two weeks of term. After that, you can make one two-minute earthside call a month," he said.

  "I know my rights," I said, trying not to sway backwards. "Prisoners are allowed a phone call."

  He looked amused. "The RAH is not a prison."

  Wanna bet? "It's my legal right," I said stubbornly. "A private phone call."

  He sighed. "Cadet Apley," he called into the inner office, "set up a Y49TDRS link for Cadet Baumgarten," and handed me a satellite phone. "Two minutes. There'll be a six-second lag. This will count as next month's call," he said, and went into the inner office and shut the door.

  They were probably listening in, but I didn't care. I called Kimkim. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't know they were taking cadets straight up to the Heinlein. Are you okay?"

  "No," I said. "Did you find out my mom and dad's lawyer's name?"

  Seconds passed, and then she said, "Yes, I talked to her."

  "What did she say?"

  More seconds. "That an Academy appointment was considered a legally binding contract."

  Oh, frick.

  "So I went online and found a lawyer who specializes in Academy law."

  "And?" Creez, this lag was maddening.

  "He said he only handled cases of cadets who'd been eliminated from the Academy and were trying to get reinstated. He said he couldn't find any record of a case where a cadet had wanted out."

  "Did he say how these cases he handled got eliminated?" I asked, thinking maybe I could do whatever it was they did.

  "Failing their courses, mostly," she said. "But, listen, don't do anything that might mess up your chances at UCLA. That's why these cadets file lawsuits, because flunking out of the Academy pretty much ruined their chances at getting into any other university."

  Worse and worse. "Listen, you've got to figure out some way we can talk." I told her about the one call a month.

  "I'll see what I can do. They didn't take your phone away from you, did they?"

  "No," I said.

  "Did they say anything about how this call worked?"

  "They called it a Y49TDRS, whatever that is."

  "It means it's relayed through tracking, data, and relay satellites," she said. "A Y49 shouldn't be too hard to patch onto, but it may take—"

  There was a buzz. "Call over," an automated voice said.

  * * *

  I spent the next day and a half checking my phone for messages and hoping Kimkim hadn't been about to say, "It may take months for me to come up with something," or, worse, "It may take extensive modifications to your phone's circuits," and worrying that if the registrar had been list
ening in, it didn't matter. They'd jam whatever Kimkim tried.

  Then classes started, and I spent every waking moment trying to keep up with cadets who'd not only taken astrogation and exobotany, but knew how to dock a shuttle, read a star chart, and brush their teeth while weightless. First-year cadets had to spend half of each watch in the non-rotated sections of the RAH, learning to live and work in microgravity. Most of them (including, of course, Libby) had taken classes in weightlessness on Earth, and the rest had clearly been chosen for their ability to float from one end of the module to the other without crashing into something, a gene I obviously lacked. The second day I sneezed, did a backward triple somersault, and crashed into a bank of equipment, an escapade that gave me the idea of pleading a bad cold and asking to see the doctor—a medical discharge surely couldn't hurt my chances at UCLA—but when I went to the infirmary, the medic said, "Stuffiness in the head is a normal side effect of weightlessness," and gave me a sinus prescription.

  "What about chronic vertigo?" I asked. I was actually down to only a couple of episodes a day, but it had occurred to me that "inability to tolerate space environment" might be a way out.

  "If it hasn't disappeared a month from now, come see me," he said, and sent me back to EVA training. Luckily, I didn't sneeze during my spacewalk and go shooting off into space, but being outside and linked to the RAH only by a thin tether reminded me just how dangerous space was.

  Well, that, and the fact that those dangers were the second favorite topic of the cadets at mess and during rec periods. If they weren't talking about the difficulty of detecting fires in a weightless environment (there aren't any flames, just a hard-to-see reddish glow), they were recounting gruesome tales of jammed oxygen lines and carbon monoxide buildup and malfunctioning heating units which froze students into cadet-sicles. Or speculating on all the things that might happen, from unexpected massive solar flares to killer meteors to explosive decompression. All of which made it clear I needed to get off of here soon. I messaged the registrar during my study period, but he said he was still waiting for the cadet files.

  There was still no word from Kimkim. I checked my phone every time I had the chance and tried to send her periodic Maidez's, but each time the display said, "Number out of range," which was putting it mildly.

  I messaged the registrar again. Still waiting.

  You're still waiting? I thought. At least he had an office of his own. He didn't have to share with Miss Ohmigod, This Is So Incred! Libby adored everything about the Academy—the sardine-can cabins, the rehydrated food, the exhausting schedule of lectures and labs and exercise and freefall training. She even loved the falling-off-a-log vertigo. "Because then you know you're really in space!"

  And she wasn't the worst one. Several of the cadets acted like they were in a cathedral, wandering the corridors with their mouths open and speaking in hushed, reverent tones. When I mentioned that the place smelled like a gym locker, they looked at me like I was committing heresy, and went back to the cadets' favorite topic of conversation, how lucky they were to be here. By the end of a week I was ready to walk through an airlock without a spacesuit just to get away from them.

  I was also worried about how I was going to talk to Kimkim if and when she figured out a phone connection, and about finding a safe place to stash my phone so the registrar couldn't suddenly confiscate it. I checked the RAH's schematics, but there was nowhere a person could go to be alone on the entire space station. Every classroom and lab was used every hour of every watch, so were the mess, the gym, and the weightless modules, and when I'd gone to the infirmary, there hadn't been separate examining rooms, just a tier of cots.

  There was temporary privacy in the shower (very temporary—water is even more limited than the phone call times), and there was supposed to be "private time" half an hour before lights-out, but it wasn't enforced, and Libby's half of the cabin was always crammed with cadets discussing how exciting it had been to learn to use the zero-g toilet. I began to actually miss Coriander.

  I checked the schematics again, looking for anything at all that might work. The inner room of the registrar's office might in a pinch, though when I'd gone over to ask him what was taking the files so long, I'd been told the section was off-limits to first-years. So was the docking module, and all the outer sections were exposed to too much radiation to make them practical.

  The only other possibility was the storage areas, which in the super-compact world of the RAH meant every space that wasn't being used for something else—floors, ceilings, walls, even the airlocks. The diagrams showed all those spaces as filled with supplies, but it occurred to me (during a private-time discussion about the joys of learning to sit down in two-thirds g) that once those supplies had been used, the place they'd been might be empty.

  I noted some of the possible spots and for the next few days spent my rest period exploring, and finally came up with a space between the plastic drums of nutrients for the hydroponics farm. It wasn't very big, and it was above the ceiling, but luckily it was in the freefall area, and I'd finally figured out how to propel myself from one location to another in it without major damage. I half-drifted, half-rappelled my way up (over?) to the ceiling, squeezed into the space (which turned out to be a perfect size, big enough, but too small to drift around in), replaced the hatch, and spent a blissful fifteen minutes alone.

  It would have been longer, but I remembered a class was scheduled to come in sometime soon, and I couldn't afford to get caught. When I got back to my cabin, I memorized the freefall-area use schedule and checked for a message from the registrar.

  There wasn't one, but on my schedule was "Conference Registrar's office. Tuesday. 1600 hours." Which meant I wouldn't need a hiding place after all.

  * * *

  "I've gone over your application," the registrar said, "and everything appears to be in order."

  "In order?" I said blankly.

  "Yes," he said, looking at the console. "Application, entrance exams, endurance test results, psychological battery scores. It's all here."

  "Application?" I said, standing up too fast and nearly shooting over the desk at him. "I told you, I didn't apply!"

  "I also sent for the interviewer assessments and the minutes of the selection committee. You did in fact apply—"

  "I did not—"

  "—and were duly appointed."

  "I want to see that application. It must be a forgery—"

  "Conflicted feelings among new cadets are not unusual. A strange new environment, separation from family, performance anxiety can all be factors. Did you perhaps have a friend who also wanted to get into the Academy?"

  "Yes, but. . .I mean, she wanted in the Academy, I didn't. I didn't—"

  He nodded sagely. "And now you feel by accepting your appointment you're betraying that friend—"

  "No," I said. "I did not write that application. Let me see it."

  "Certainly," he said, hit several keys, and the image of the application came up on the screen.

  "Theodora Jane Baumgarten," it read. This is like a bad dream, I thought. Birthdate, address, school. . . Before I could read the rest of it, the registrar had hit the next screen and the next. "You see?" he said, blanking the last screen before I could get a good look at it. "And quite an impressive application, if I may say so. I think you'll make an excellent addition to the Academy."

  "I want to see the Commander," I said.

  "She'd only tell you the same thing." He hit several more keys, and the terminal spat out a slip of paper. "I've made an appointment for you with Dr. Tumali. He'll help you sort out any conflicting feelings you—"

  "I don't have any conflicting feelings. I hate this place, and I want to go home," I screeched at him, and stormed out, slamming the door behind me. Well, sort of. Slams aren't terribly impressive at two-thirds g, and after I'd done it, I realized I should have demanded another phone call instead, this one to my mother. She'd said she'd secretly hoped I'd apply. Maybe she'd decided to do i
t for me. Or maybe Coriander had, as some kind of hideous joke. Or Mr. Fuyijama. The more cadets he had, the better Winfrey High looked.

  But even if they'd filled out an application and forged my signature, they couldn't have faked the entrance exams or the interview. It made no sense, and I had no time to think about it. I had an essay due on asteroid mining and a lunar geography exam to study for. "Help," I messaged Kimkim.

  The display lit up. "Number out of range."

  * * *

  Three days later, when I had decided I was going to have to do something drastic to get myself expelled, and forget UCLA, my phone rang in the middle of rest period. "What was that?" Libby said drowsily.

  "A killer meteor," I said, switching the phone to "message."

  "Are you there?" the display read.

  "Yes," I messaged, "hang on," and took off at a run for the freefall area. And nearly got caught by a group of second-years playing weightless soccer. I had to wait till they'd finished and left to swing up to my hiding place, hoping Kimkim hadn't concluded she'd lost me in the meantime.

  As soon as I was inside the space, I switched the phone to "voice," and said, "Kimkim, are you there?"

  There was no answer. Oh, Frig, I thought, and then remembered the lag.

  "I'm here," she said. "Sorry I took so long. I had trouble setting up an encryption so the Academy can't eavesdrop on us."

  "That's okay," I said. "I need you to get a look at my Academy application."

  "I thought you said you didn't apply."

  "I didn't, but the registrar showed me something that looked like one. I need you to find out what kind of signature verification it's got on it, an R-scan or a thumbprint, and what site notarized it."

  "You think IASA faked it?"

  "IASA or somebody else. You didn't submit an application in my name, did you?"

  "I resent that," she said. "If I was going to fake one, I'd have faked my own."

  She called back two days later in the middle of tensor calculus to tell me she couldn't get to my application. "I was finally able to hack into the Academy's database and the cadet applications files, but I can't get into yours."

  "Because it doesn't exist," I said after I got to my hiding place.