by Allen Ivers
Several different mechanisms kept Leo tied to the hull of the Murci -- advanced technology like the state-of-the-art nylon tether sewn onto his back, a few hundred years improved on the old rope tied to the waist.
He had all the safety precautions of a mountain climber. If that rope were cut, one absent push would send him into oblivion to ponder his life choices until his oxygen finally ran dry. Gateway Station used little jetpacks and magnetic gear, all of which were too heavy for long-distance missions. Leo got a single tether. He used to call it getting keel-hauled. Not so funny today.
The nearest hatch to the Shuttle was about twenty yards aft of the docking collar. This secondary hatch could be used for the shuttle in a pinch, but was largely there for this precise purpose: exterior access for maintenance and inspection. It was the servant’s entrance.
Leo would have to bounce himself and about fifty pounds of now-weightless, but cumbersome, gear out to the shuttle, perform all of his checks, and then reel himself back in with a motorized winch.
Thankfully, there were redundancies built in, with a winch both on his kit and at the hatch. Someone had seen enough file footage of B-horror movies to know what happens when they have just the one. In addition to all of that, there were hand-holds cut into the Murci’s belly if one had to actually haul themself along the keel.
Would it be the keel in space? There was no down out here. What was it then, the rigging?
If he oriented himself to his own horizon, Leo’s little metal world was downright adorable against the majesty of the Martian surface below… above him. Some science nut once told Leo that Gateway Station was big enough to have its own gravity and actually changed the Earth’s tides by half an inch.
Who has that kind of spare time, to measure that? And what does that do to the people? Leo had a pet theory that depression spiked in the mid-21st century because of the mild shift in the gravity well, like a species wide seasonal affective disorder.
Everyone, everywhere knew something was off and couldn’t quite place why.
In Leo’s pack were replacement ceramic tiles for the shuttle’s worn pieces. They were Arkansas cousins of the old Thermal tiles used in the first lunar missions -- pretty much exactly the same.
Turns out physics hadn’t changed much in a hundred years. The replacement procedure, on the other hand, had gotten downright routine. All he had to do was pry the old panels loose, lay down curing cement, and gently place the new panels in. If done correctly, the whole spacewalk would take under an hour from start to finish.
In that time, he’d be alone, positively daring that little space bug to grab onto his helmet again.
Could it survive in a vacuum? It had no trouble moving in zero G. Super cold, cosmic radiation, lack of nutrients or atmosphere -- all considered deadly to biological life.
He should be safe. Maybe he was the only one that was. Sitting out here in his pocket environment, the only place properly secured from the threats behind him, like hiding under the bed. Untouchable and unseen.
The fuel filter was a simple swap from the docking collar, although everyone was just looking over their shoulder through the whole thing.
Ten minutes of Leo, Piotr, and Rook at the first contact site, heads on swivels, waiting for the Bad Thing to jump out for one big scare. It would laugh and laugh at the shit floating in their underpants. Maybe then it kills them? Maybe it retreats to jump-scare again? Who knows what this little bugger wants?
Leo had to occupy his mind with something. Maybe if he thinks of this like a cartoon, it’ll be less terrifying when the Starfish fuses with his spine and makes him a willing servant to Powers he cannot comprehend.
It would be that friend, the one we all remember. That buddy from college or hometown or the first job that indulges the worst impulses, that eggs on the villainous part of the brain. Mischief and mayhem in the clothing of camaraderie. And then shifts all blame and responsibility when the hammer finally falls.
Mathers did not have to paint the broader picture for Leo to grasp the guilt that wracked him. Everything he remembered doing, he also remembered enjoying – what crimes had he committed with that most immutable lust?
Leo needed something for his nerves, badly. But the book says astronauts can’t be high when walking into space to do important maintenance.
Nobody likes the book. The book is an asshole. The books has regulations for the color of underpants. Fuck the book.
The shuttle may as well have been a parasite on the side of the Murci, the pilot fish beside the shark. The sleek and atmospheric friendly shuttle married to the skeletal fingers of the larger, stranger creature.
It looked so odd to Leo. Were they even designed by the same team? It looked as though the shuttle had drained the Murci for sustenance, like a little spaceship vampire sapping the vitality from the greater peer, leaving behind just a husk of former glory.
It’s not good when the spots on the shuttle needing love are visible through a helmet from ten yards away. He could clearly see the thermal panels that were loose, shaved thin, dangling like a hangnail. Worn out tires on an aging muscle car.
Leo would’ve let out an aggravated sigh and gone to work on the metaphorical lug nuts, but he was on the clock, and an unforgiving clock at that. With each passing second, the lives of the people down below grew further from safety.
A chirp grabbed Leo’s attention, as his suit monitor tracked his heart rate breaking the apparently dangerous 120 mark. Twice a second is fast, but somebody in a lab must’ve just been so worried about numbers -- they read somewhere that this number was significant and they spent all night hammering out code that would tell everyone else about this random bit of trivia at the most inopportune time.
It’s not like Leo was going to be doing manual labor in a heavyweight suit under dangerous conditions. Hell, he had all these naps planned, reading a good book. General recreation. Exertion was just not a possibility whenever he needed to step into an unforgiving void. No idea why people would be freaking out about his heart doing what it’s supposed to do.
Leo shook his head, slapping the computer on his wrist as though that would actually turn the alarm off. No such luck.
He finally settled underneath the shuttle, getting a close examination of the damage. He half expected to see some kind of raptor claw marks or horrible goo, something to warn him a moment too late of a horrible fate awaiting him.
But nothing. Just the normal wear and tear, three panels. They had worn down and shook loose on the last launch cycle. It’s a miracle the ship didn’t tumble out of control on its atmospheric exit, but a reentry with tiles this slackened would be explosively catastrophic.
When gliding into atmosphere at a couple thousand feet per second, a single deviation on the glide ratio could send the multi-billion dollar metal kite to a sudden abrupt stop.
The damaged panels had to be carefully removed, lest he damage their neighbors or the hull underneath. Scrape or divot the hull, and the panels would never sit flat ever again.
They weren’t heavy, almost like packing foam. Extra mass would deter flight, obviously. Each panel had to be gingerly scraped free, before new ones could be applied.
The cement for the panels took a bit of time to cure. Making this entire venture very tightly scheduled with the whole ‘Flee for the Hills’ playbook they were running.
The computer chirped, more insistent this time. Heart rate had passed 150.
See, that was bad. He needed to slow down, breathe deep. Nothing good would come of him having a panic attack during an exterior maintenance job.
Breathe deep, from the gut, hold the air for a moment. Count to five. Then let it out.
Say the words, out loud.
“I can be calm,” he grunted, a mantra he uttered out of routine rather than belief. Fake it till you make it.
The crackle of his radio: “Leo, how’s it look?” Piotr had a dour tone to his voice.
Suppose that was Leo’s fault, given the dressing down
he gave Piotr earlier.
Leo forced a sigh, finishing his breathing exercise before answering, “Laying the last of the cement now, then to check on the landing gear.”
“Just got off the horn with Gateway.”
Oh, goodie. “They even believe you?”
“They’re advising us to immediately break away and return home with all haste.”
“So they’re going to claim credit for what we were going to do anyway. Nice,” Leo grumbled. “Do you have new information, or did you call me up to distract me?”
A long pause before any answer. Maybe that was too harsh? No taking it back now.
Piotr grunted into the radio before he spoke, “It’s just real quiet in here, y’know? It didn’t used to be so quiet.”
Nobody was talking anymore. Everyone was just listening, waiting for the slimy Starfish to turn them on their friends. They were throwing sidelong glances at each other, concerned that it already had. The very presence of the thing had blown all trust right out the window.
“We’re goin’ to be okay, Piotr.” Leo didn’t really believe it, but maybe he could make somebody else buy in.
“At this moment, I’ll settle for still moving.”
Nothing more to say. What else could be said? Leo’s bag wasn’t words; it was wrenches, flatheads, and putty. He knew how to tighten, how to bind, even knew some welding. He had training in spacewalks, underwater construction, and some architecture back in school.
He didn’t like people. People were complicated, convoluted, unexpected. They had histories and logic unique to themselves that they imposed on others. They were emotional and irrational and above all, confusing. Leo was a plumber.
This wasn’t something he could fix.
Dad would know what to do. He knew how to talk to people. Most people.
“You got family, Piotr?”
No idea what made him say that. It wasn’t his favorite topic, and making everybody else dwell on what they have to lose can’t be the most motivating. They’d never talked about it before.
It was a ship-wide ‘understanding.’ To leave Earth, passengers either had nothing to stay for, or were leaving something behind. Either way, nobody wanted to talk about it.
Piotr was a special case though. He wasn’t a passenger set to be a permanent resident of Manifest. He was crew. Just the bus driver.
Piotr swallowed the awkwardness of the question, before answering, “Yeah, a sister. You?”
“Naw.” Leo huffed into his helmet, the gasp of air fogging his helmet for a split second.
Leo pressed the last panel into place. He dug into his bag for the ‘buzzer’ -- a scanner that would check the underside of the shuttle for any irregularities. It was the most high-tech horizontal level he’d ever used.
That’s when the words started to spill out. He wasn’t even sure if Piotr was listening anymore, or even if he was transmitting. He didn’t care. The crack in the levee had given way to a flood that swept away all reservation.
“My dad worked on the Murci, you know? Back at Gateway, and even planet-side. Knuckle-dragger like him, and he got to go turn screws on the first spaceship that would go to another planet. It was like working at Star Fleet, y’know? He got to boldly go. Years and years, that’s what I knew of him. Long shifts at the shipyard, sometimes whole months up at Gateway. Then he goes out one day. And he doesn’t come home like he’s s’posed to.”
It had been Leo’s job that day to make dinner. Meat pie -- pulled pork, peas, and carrots under a crust of mashed potatoes and cheese. The fanciest thing he knew how to make.
No real reason, just wanted to surprise Dad. He wanted to see the man smile.
“What happened?” Piotr asked, halfway knowing the answer.
The words fell out of Leo’s mouth like they were trying to get out of prison, “He got pulled over leaving the job site and the cop shot him twice in the chest. He died in the ambulance.”
Dinner got cold. Leo left it on the table for a week. Took that long for somebody to come tell a ten-year-old boy that Dad wasn’t coming.
“What happened?”
“I told you what happened.”
“No, you…” Piotr paused, mouth hanging open somewhere on the other end of the line. Treading carefully. “How did it happen?”
Now there was something Leo hadn’t thought about in a while. Scrape open that wound.
“He barely matched the description of a guy wanted for beating his wife. Partner thought he saw something, said ‘gun’ and… and it happened fast.”
“That’s fucked, man.”
“It was an accident. Honest to god accident. Cops were just doing their job,” Leo brushed it off, with the sentiment that had excused his father’s death. “Can’t blame anybody.”
“Who told you that?”
They weren’t his words, after all. Who had told him that? The lawyers? The judges? The infuriating crisis councilor? Or had it been a desk sergeant the night they found him?
Can’t blame anybody. Maybe….
Leo sniffed away the tears. They’d only float around his helmet and it wasn’t like he could wipe them with his hand right now.“It was fifteen years ago, Piotr. Let’s not go on a deep dive. Okay?”
“You don’t blame somebody, you’re gonna blame everybody.”
Leo shook his head, forgetting that Piotr couldn’t see him. “I don’t blame you.”
The buzzer shook in his hand, confirming a complete scan. He glanced down at the little display on the end. Perfect. But he couldn’t even muster a smirk for a job well done. Still had to inspect that landing gear, and even with all of that work, everyone could still die.
Down there, up here. No point in celebrating. All he did was tick a box on a checklist.
Leo glanced down towards the Red Planet. The landscape slid by under him, its thin atmosphere just a sheer curtain draped over the edge of the horizon and out of sight. There was something austere and beautiful about the alien spectacle, a simple texture of canyons and plains far as the eye could see.
The indiscernible fingerprint of a land untouched, uncultivated, uncivilized. Wild, but welcoming. Like finding a flower patch in the middle of a dark forest, a low mist hanging on the rustic red petals. An exotic place, but safe and warm.
Dad wanted to see this. He probably never would. He was a man who made very fancy steel boxes for smarter people doing smarter things. But he wanted to. And somebody else took whatever meager chance he had.
Somebody made that choice for him.
“We’re not going to let this thing stop us, are we, Piotr?”
“What?” Piotr had been lost in his own thoughts, own misery and memory.
“We’re going to decide what happens to us. We’re going to kill this fuckin’ thing, you and me. What do you say, Cabbie?”
A moment’s pause, as that simple commandment made its way into the blood, stirred the heart. “Kick ass, Janitor.”
Chapter 12
Murcielago
There was no reasonable way to make sure something the size of a translucent house cat was present in any given compartment. There was no metric for oxygen consumption, no pressure differential, no motion trackers or tricorders.
They could either bunker in for an extremely long voyage separated from their only sources of food and water; or, they could search compartment by compartment for this parasite, and stab it with many sharp pointy sticks they didn’t actually have.
Maybe just give it a jail cell. Assuming it couldn’t worm its way through the cracks.
The notion had been floated to simply vent the air in every other compartment and wait for a suitable lethal exposure time, but it was decided that this would damage some living areas and do very little to calm everyone’s fears. Determining the critter’s exact locale and sealing it off was the only way to guarantee safety.
They vented the air anyway, and after a half an hour of vacuum exposure, they began their search. The crew was broken into two teams, and they wo
uld sweep the Murci from aft to stern. With each pre-fab structure, every channel cleared, they would seal it and vent the air, securing each subsequent area until the whole ship was covered.
That was the theory anyway. If they found this thing, it would almost certainly defend itself, and Leo knew somebody was going to get the raw end of that exchange.
In reality, this was the most blind way of choosing lots.
Leo was paired with Rook and Kieran. Doc Gamble didn’t trust Piotr and Leo alone together. Suppose they’d either end up making out or at the very least not pay attention to what they were doing. Or maybe she was just sick of Rook’s moaning and groaning.
Lord knows Leo was done with him, as Rook carefully eased himself down the sixth ladder with the same winging and sluggish attitude of a man on his third hip replacement. The simulated gravity this far back on the ship was at its heaviest, but that was still only a half G.
If he could only move it along like both of his legs worked. If Leo hadn’t known the man’s slothful proclivities for the last three months, he’d have chalked this up to anxiety. After all, they had an appointment with a mind-controlling starfish.
Kieran was much more patient for Rook’s hesitation, more out of personality quirk than acceptance. Rook’s angst might be justified given the circumstances, but Kieran was just being himself, permanent grin beveled on to his stone-cut jaw.
This was the deadliest scavenger hunt to this large child, like the gravity of the situation slipped in one ear and out the other so fast that it whistled.
Once Rook was clear of the ladder, the meat head slid down like he was still on the playground at home. All the exercise doing some good for someone, at least.
“What… what should I look for?” Rook stammered out of his balding skull.
“You tell me,” Leo snapped. “You’re the ones that saw it.”
A snort from somewhere in the stratosphere as Kieran laughed. “You’re the one that kissed it.”
Leo glared at him, as harsh as he knew how, “Not even a little funny.”
But Kieran couldn’t stop himself from laughing, “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”
