Analog SFF, May 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Swells?” Amy and Becca said together.

  "The waves. Waves out at sea are traditionally termed ‘swells.’ Anyway, when the wind pushes up waves they don't die away immediately. They keep propagating. So even though the hurricane won't come over us, we still have to deal with its waves."

  He looked at his watch. Evidently he was as old fashioned as Amy in that respect. “Well, it's almost time for the exsuit drill. Let's wander down there."

  Amy took a last look at that placid-appearing seascape as she started down the little curving stairway. The idea that a hurricane was lurking just over the horizon didn't make her feel any better about her situation. And finding out that even Becca was more nervous than she'd let on didn't help, either.

  Amy and Becca went first into the station's little bar. They paused uncertainly; the room looked completely dark to their sunlight-adapted eyes.

  "Well, look who's here, guys.” A woman's voice came out of the darkness. “Some of our charges. You girls old enough to drink? George, check their IDs.” A few guffaws followed her words.

  Amy's eyesight finally cleared to where she could make out shapes in the dim light. A woman with long blond hair was evidently the one who'd spoken. There was no mistaking the hostility in her pose and in her speech.

  "Tongue-tied, sweetheart?

  Amy bit down the automatic hot reply with an effort. It wouldn't help to get into a fight her very first day on the station.

  Unseen by the woman, Matt had followed them into the room.

  "Enough, Martha,” he said. “We've got a job to do."

  Martha started, and then saw Matt. “Well, I guess you do at that.” She walked over and looked Amy and Becca up and down, rudely and deliberately.

  "Enough, Martha,” he said again, quietly.

  "Okay, if that's the way you want it, Matt!” She flounced off, moving a bit unsteadily, and it wasn't all from the rolling of the deck under her feet. She brushed roughly by Amy on her way out the door.

  The others looked away, most pretending to study their drinks.

  "Sorry, ladies.” Matt was speaking just a bit loudly, obviously intending to be overheard. “Unfortunately, a few people seem to have forgotten that we're being paid"—he stressed the word slightly—"to do a job. But we're professionals and the job will get done. Right, folks?” Now he addressed the other table directly.

  "Right,” came the answer from several throats. One or two seemed grudging, but the other voices seemed genuinely embarrassed.

  "Now,” he said, turning back to Amy and Becca, “what would you like?” We have a selection that spans the known Universe. The nanofabs aren't just good at spinning ceramic."

  He walked up and got their selections, returning to the table. Amy was embarrassed, but he waved off her protestations. “It's all included in the bill already. Even our staff drinks for free. Of course, it is a perk that can be abused."

  Amy knew she'd had too much to drink, but it still seemed that the floor—the “deck,” she'd learned—was moving more than it should. It was hard to stay on her feet, as it heaved up just as she would take a step. Her anger didn't help, either.

  Becca looked up in surprise at the noise of Amy's entry back into the cabin.

  "I thought you had other plans for this evening."

  Amy angrily said, “He told me to go get my exsuit!” She staggered and nearly fell as the deck under her feet pitched. “He said he couldn't be responsible. Of all the sorry excuses..."

  "Oh, Amy, don't play the woman scorned. Because you aren't. That's just how Matt thinks. He's always worrying about the station. And about the people in it."

  Becca continued, “I think you're blowing it badly, sister. He obviously was playing for you. He was just being polite to me."

  "I think he was just making a point to the staff!"

  Becca shrugged. “No doubt that was part of it. But I think you should get the exsuit anyway."

  Amy was starting to have second thoughts herself, especially on hearing Becca's assessment, but her pride was fully engaged now. She took an anti-alcohol pill—and, on impulse, a space sickness pill as well. Then she plopped herself down on her bunk and stretched out.

  * * * *

  Amy woke up in midair with a shock. She brought her arms up reflexively to protect her face as she crashed into the floor—and slid around on the deck as the room swung wildly and erratically. Instinctively she grabbed the bedpost to steady herself when she found herself beside it.

  Abruptly the PA system came to life. “Now hear this! Now hear this! All hands don exsuits. Repeat: All hands don exsuits. This is no drill.” And then it repeated the archaic formula over and over again.

  Becca had strapped herself in the upper bunk, so she didn't awaken till the message resounded.

  Amy flicked on the cabin lights and their eyes met momentarily. Then Amy broke eye contact and went over to the locker to break out the suits. She found it a struggle to put on—Becca, who was used to space suits, had a much easier time—but the pitching deck unquestionably made things much more difficult for both of them.

  At length she was done. On impulse, she then opened the door to the cabin and made her way out. Becca looked up in surprise, but before she could say anything the door had clicked shut.

  * * * *

  Amy forced herself to knock on the cabin door. “Come in,” the door said. Astonished, she walked in—musthaveasurveillancecameraandaspeakerathisdoor—she thought. It made sense in hindsight. She was going to have to get used to ubiquitous electronics, she supposed. Even now, Earth wasn't this wired.

  Matt looked up from his console beneath a suite of monitors. His expression was initially blank—apparently he was linked in. He must have a headband under his exsuit helmet. Of course: his desk would also be the command center. There was no point in his cabin being in a different place from where he worked, especially since he might need to get to the console in a big hurry.

  She saw his expression change as his attention turned to her, and for a moment she just wanted to turn and run. But she made herself speak. “I'm sorry, Matt. I didn't act very rationally. And if you tell me to just go back to my cabin, I will understand.” Her voice was muffled through the mask; she didn't try to use the face-mike.

  He smiled briefly. “Thanks for coming back. But it's going to be busy for a while. Very busy.” He gestured to the chair by him—where normally an assistant would sit, she supposed. “Strap yourself in. Don't try to be moving around any more in these seas."

  "These are the swells from the hurricane?"

  "Yes. It's going to be rocky for a while, but they should pass on through in the next twelve hours or so. We'll..."

  A loud chime interrupted them. Suddenly she felt his attention shift away from her as though a light had been shut off. Matt was now staring intently at one of his monitors, tweaking it—she saw the magnification change. She could also see him speak intently into his face-mike, but not being tuned to that channel, she had no idea what he was saying. Sound didn't carry well through the masks anyway, and he wasn't facing her.

  Finally he turned back toward her. “Sorry. It's going to get rougher."

  "It's going to get worse than this?" Amy said.

  Matt pointed at the monitor he'd been studying. It looked like a black-and-white pattern of ripples—she couldn't make head or tail of it.

  "Sidescan radar image. Of the sea surface. There's a huge wave train approaching that was left by another storm. A storm on the other side of the planet. When it meets the swells from this storm, we've got the potential for some very big waves indeed, from constructive interference.

  "I've got to implement full emergency procedures. All personnel fully strapped in, all loose objects tied down or enclosed, all drawers, doors, cabinets, and so on fully latched. And all hatches battened down so that we won't take on any water. It could get extremely bouncy."

  "Amy,” he continued, “what you can do is make sure there are no loose objects here. That would
be a big help. Then go strap yourself in.” He gestured at the bunk.

  Matt stayed at the console for another half hour anyway. She saw flickers of activity on some of the surveillance cameras, crew bracing themselves to double-check all latches and fasten down all loose material—and the occasional overlooked object shooting across the field of view, usually with someone in hot pursuit.

  The swells were noticeably larger, too. She felt herself pitching up and down, seemingly meters at a time, and in all directions to boot. She couldn't help herself—she was afraid. Terrified, in fact, with the raw physical fear still inspired in humans by rampaging nature.

  At length Amy felt a presence in the harness beside her, and her hand squeezed tightly. It helped a lot.

  * * * *

  "Oh my God!"

  The monitors showed a mountainscape of waves in the thin, gray, light of dawn. They were seething chaotically, even though the sky held only tattered clouds. This was what they'd been enduring for hours now. But something else had caught her attention: a long, single towering wave, crested with white, that stood out above the others, like a distant snow-clad mountain range looming above foreground foothills

  Except it was a moving mountain range, and it was racing toward Waterstation.

  Amy's cry had brought Matt around, and they both stared mesmerized at the gigantic mass of water. As it loomed over the station, they both gasped, for below it was a trough as deep as it was high, a looming black pit. The station started to slide down into it, and then it paused momentarily.

  Then Waterstation dropped like a stone. They both oofed at the impact, which momentarily slammed them deep into the bunk; and now the ride made the previous rolling seem mild. They felt the station tumble over, right momentarily, and then tumble again. They would have been flung across the room like ragdolls had they not been buckled in. The room—and the monitors—also went dark momentarily; then the monitors flicked back to life. The room light, though, was replaced with a wan glow that just showed outlines.

  "The stalk broke,” Matt breathed, in wonder. “We're now just tumbling."

  Amy couldn't stifle a whimper. He hugged her awkwardly, with one arm.

  "We have positive buoyancy,” Matt said. “That's why we shut and latched all the hatches. And the emergency power kicked in, just as it's supposed to. But we'll tumble like a sock in a washer."

  "At least we're still strapped in.” Even as he spoke they felt the entire station upend again.

  "What can we do?" Amy asked, trembling, trying not to let her voice break.

  He hugged her again. “Ride it out. That's all we can do. The waves won't last forever, and we'll float. We just won't always float upright. The stalk's not holding us up anymore."

  She spared a glance at the dizzying views on the outdoor monitors over Matt's shoulder. At least half were under water at any one time. And the churning seascape out the other half was even more disorienting: a pitching view of vast gray mountains of water that abruptly would plunge to dark valleys into which the station would slide like refuse down a drain. At least no other monster rogue, like the wave that had snapped them off the stalk, appeared again.

  It was like a demented carnival ride that just kept going and going and going. . . . And there was no way to anticipate the accelerations, either. All you could do was stop trying to anticipate, just to keep braced in all directions as much as possible.

  She didn't want to think what would be happening to someone who wasn't already fastened in. At least whatever could move had been located and stowed hours ago. They shouldn't have to worry about flying missiles, at least in their compartment.

  At length it seemed that the pitching was settling down a little. At least they hadn't turned over in a while, and the monitor views were largely of seascape rather than underwater.

  Matt gave her a last squeeze. “I have to go check on the station. I'm sure there are lots of injuries—I hope nothing more than broken bones,” he said. “But it's quiet enough now we need to start moving people to the infirmary."

  "I'm not looking forward to reattaching the stalk,” he continued wryly.

  "I can help,” she said. “I don't have anything more than bruises. And it's better than just waiting."

  He didn't object, which she took as agreement.

  * * * *

  After sending Amy off toward the infirmary, Matt braced himself in front of the monitor bank, plugging in his link again. As he tried to contact the rest of his team, he mentally scanned status reports, checking data readouts and surveillance cameras while occasionally speaking into the face mike. At least intrastation communications seem intact, although obviously they were back to radio for communicating with the mothership. He paused, though, at one set of readings. On his attention, the data became clearer, but unfortunately no more abundant. Of course, there were no convenient surveillance cameras there either—and even more unfortunately, it was exactly the place he'd been most worried about.

  As he'd told Amy, there was still room for “hands-on” investigation, and now was such a case. With some trepidation Matt unlinked and headed down to the “bilge,” as someone'd said it should be called. It was the low point—or at least it was when the station was riding upright—and despite his confident pronouncement to Amy, he worried that the station might have cracked on that impact. It hadn't been designed to be dropped like that. And some of the telemetry from the area was suspicious, showing anomalously high conductivities.

  The sort you might get if acidic water was sloshing around in the bilge, for example.

  He opened the compartment door and shined his pocket light in. Even though he'd been half prepared for it, the sound of water splashing—and the sight of it, sloshing back and forth across the floor with the still wild seas, leaving wet glistening deck behind—was a shock. Was it from a leak, though? He stepped through the hatchway. As the station tilted toward him with the next swell, the water rushed back and pooled around his exsuit boots. He brushed the surface with his finger, opened his mask briefly, and touched his tongue with his finger. A sharp sour taste curdled his mouth, confirming his worst fear. Low-techbuteffective, he thought sardonically.

  Well, there was a procedure for this situation, too. He started implementing it and briefed his team accordingly over the face-mike.

  * * * *

  Amy rested momentarily. Sure enough, there were lots of broken bones, including a few compound fractures and even a broken spine. Even with the residual chop, though, they'd been able to move the worst injured into the infirmary, and at least get the rest more comfortable. She was amused that the chop now seemed bearable, even mild, whereas she would have thought it was violent beyond comprehension when she first arrived.

  There was nothing the ‘doc in the station couldn't fix, but it took time. The problem now was that too many people were waiting, some with life-threatening injuries, for a robot that could not be hurried. Then the power flickered again, and half the LEDs went dark. Only the infirmary stayed fully lit.

  And Matt came in, looking grim. “The station is cracked,” he said. “There must have been some brittle failure when we fell and hit the water. Some of this witch's brew that Teresa calls an ocean is seeping into the station."

  "So we're sinking?” Amy caught her breath again.

  "Not yet. I've isolated the leaking compartment and put it under positive pressure. But we need to evacuate anybody who's nonessential right away. Starting with the injured, or at least the injured that can be moved. And we've lost half the emergency power, because I've had to shut down everything in that compartment."

  "There are too many injured for the station's ‘doc now anyway,” Amy said. “So getting them to the mothership would be great. But how?” she finished simply.

  "We have to get back to the cable. If we can't reattach right now, we have to improvise a rescue. Some sort of breeches buoy."

  "A what?"

  "Like a pair of pants in a ring. Used for rescue. People can wear it and be
hauled up, even if they're incapable of holding onto anything, and even if they're in exsuits."

  "Are we going to lose the station?"

  "I hope not. We'll get the nanofabs on it ASAP. But the injured are first priority. And anyway, we're going to need the mothership's resources for the nanofabs. I don't even know if we have any that are tolerant enough to acid."

  Amy had a thought. “Well, if we have to get back to the stalk anyway why don't we just drop a cable and hook the station back up?"

  Matt smiled slightly. “That would be ideal, wouldn't it? The problem is that we have nothing strong enough on short notice. This station isn't that big, but it still weighs thousands of tonnes. The fastenings have to be molecularly perfect—and even so, there needs to be strain relief. That all broke during the accident as well."

  Amy had nothing to say.

  * * * *

  "There it is!” someone shouted. The broken end of the stalk was highlighted on a monitor. An elevator car already waited on the end, swinging back and forth slowly like a pendulum bob. A crew stood by there with an improvised winch and a breeches buoy hastily sewn out of ceramic fabric. The waves—"swells,” as Amy had learned to call them—were still three or four meters high, but compared to the water mountains they'd endured they seemed like ripples in a bathtub.

  What was more disconcerting was the view filling the underwater monitors. All that was visible was a seething mass of carnivores, nightmare shapes that seemed to be all teeth. With the hull field off due to the need to conserve power, they'd swarmed in immediately with their instinct for targeting any solid object in the water. They couldn't get a grip on the station's rounded hull, but already they'd slashed the water and each other to bloody froth.

  The station cautiously eased toward the stalk, maneuvering clumsily. Its water jets had never been intended for anything but station keeping, and no software existed for using them for propulsion. So they had to wing it—"seat-of-pants driving,” one of the engineers had said. Amy had never heard the expression before.