by Glenn Damato
It happens so fast, without thinking. I pull Ryder close, I hug him, press into his solid right shoulder. With everyone watching.
Worse than stupid!
That does it. In their minds, Ryder is the friendboy. They all believe that’s why he said what he said.
Ryder isn’t done. “Cristina has my vote. Jürgen will make a good captain sometime in the future. Before then, there’s gonna be one or two truly sucky days. Cristina is who we need for those sucky days. I know this from personal experience.”
The vid from Independence jiggles and for a moment there’s Jürgen’s face: eyebrows drawn together, dashing look faded.
Vijay clears his throat. “Does anyone have any additional questions for either candidate?” No one does. “Now we cast our votes. This we will do anonymously. I have created a public folder named ‘Captain.’ There are two checklists, Cristina and Jürgen. You can open the folder in the privacy of your sleeper and indicate your choice. The folder will only count the number of checks. The number of checks must total twenty-eight.”
Someone asks, “What if the vote is fourteen-fourteen?”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens. Will ten minutes be enough time for everyone to submit their vote?”
My stomach! Next election, no meatballs.
Ryder points his finger from across the control center. “You’re going to win.” His arm is around Alison’s waist.
I wedge next to the big window and let the sun warm my face. The others duck into their sleepers. Paige will vote for Jürgen. That makes four votes to count on? With Vijay that leaves ten more needed, out of how many? No use thinking about it.
It doesn’t take ten minutes. It takes four.
Jürgen is elected captain.
TWENTY-THREE
Our guidance system doesn’t work, our oxygen generators are screwed up, no one really cares, and on top of everything, we’re all sick.
It’s worse than the flu. I want to sleep, but there’s too much to be done. As if extreme lethargy isn’t enough, everyone’s nose oozes syrupy mucus in every color of the rainbow. Ryder dubs it Super Snot.
Shuko blames our weakened immune systems—the stress of adapting to a new environment, plus mild dehydration, irregular sleep, and recycled air. He could give out decongestants, but that won’t do any good because there’s no gravity to drain our nasal cavities. He recommends increased fluid intake.
The lack of gravity fools the body by reducing the sensation of thirst. The only drinks that still taste good are orange juice and the milky chocolate-coconut frappe, both on the menu only in the morning. So it’s water followed by more water.
Jürgen’s already on the com as we jam into the control center for dinner. His voice lacks its usual crisp tone. “Blair asked me to reassure everyone these nasty head colds aren’t dangerous. We just need to wait it out. On a positive note, Eric has good news about the oxygen generators.”
Despite his sniffles, Eric’s eyes are cheery and alert. His words gush as if he can’t wait to get them out. “Me and Darien stabilized everyone’s OGS. It was a matter of finding the right heat balance. Notice that all three of your units are running in parallel.”
The master panel does show all of the oxygen generators on line—but at low outputs.
“Running at twenty percent capacity so we keep the electrolyte temps under the shutdown limit, and the H2 discharge stays warm enough to prevent the line from freezing up.”
“Brilliant!” Ryder cries. “Can we breathe now?”
Laughter peals from the com. “Breathe, brother, breathe!” Eric shouts. “These units are actually marvels of compact, weight-saving engineering. Taking along six weeks of liquid oxygen would have required heavy tanks and insulation. The planners solved that by electrolyzing ordinary water, which is eighty-nine percent oxygen. This saves tremendous weight, which means the TMI can get us to Mars faster, which means shorter exposure to cosmic radiation, and we can land with more supplies and equipment.”
Eric grins during the applause. This is his reward. A challenge met, expertise appreciated. Yes, the main reason he’s here.
Speeches over, we’re back to our normal routine. They stare at me—Shuko, Ryder, Alison, all of them. “Per Jürgen, I’m still Sergeant-at-Arms. Get ready to review your individual training progress as soon as we’re done eating.”
Mikki licks her spoon. “No one told you?”
Ryder pats her shoulder. “I’ll tell her.”
The odor from the printer is obnoxious. “Tell me what?”
Ryder fidgets against the table. “This is probably not as critical as it sounds.”
“Get to the point.”
“Assistants to the captain need a two-thirds confirmation vote.”
“According to our Charter,” Alison adds.
“You’re not telling me—”
Alison touches my knee. “I voted to confirm you.”
Ryder nods. “So did I. You needed nineteen out of twenty-eight. Didn’t quite get there.”
I clench my arms tighter. “How many?”
“Doesn’t matter. In fact—”
“Thirteen,” Mikki says.
“So they got another Sergeant, huh? That’s fine.”
“He picked Walt Cunningham on Independence,” Ryder tells me. “The title is now Training Coordinator. Senuri is Jürgen’s Discovery Team Coordinator, and Tess is his Administrative Coordinator, whatever that means.”
Walt Cunningham is a smug little tipo. I’d guess he enjoys telling people what to do. Oh, and he worships everything about Jürgen.
“And they got two-thirds?” I ask. “I never voted.”
Mikki takes a huge bite of what looks like stuffed pita. “They got their nineteen without you.”
I slap my palm against the table. “Fine.” There are more important things to think about. Three OGS units running, all of them at eighteen percent capacity. The compressed reserve is at ninety-seven percent.
Shuko emerges from the equipment bay hatch. “If you check the logs, the reserve supply has been coming on-line intermittently since four this morning.”
“Let me guess. You talked to Eric. He’s aware of the situation. And everything’s under control.” I face the rest of them. “Am I still the flight director on Liberty? Or did you vote me out of that, too?”
“You’re in charge here, Cristina,” Ryder assures me.
“We’ll do our exam packs. On top of that, we’ll find an alternate source of oxygen. Shuko, how much of the stuff do we breathe?”
“Five kilos a day, the six of us.” He glances at Ryder. “Assuming moderate activity.”
“So if we electrolyze six liters of water, that’s a day’s worth right there. We got a couple of portable electrolyzers, but they’re designed for the moon so they need at least one-sixth Earth gravity to function.” I jab my finger toward the panel. “We can’t assume these things are gonna hold together for the rest of the flight.”
Ryder taps my arm. “Keep doing what you’re doing. Act as if.”
“As if what?”
“As if you won.”
Mikki says, “She didn’t win.”
Ryder lowers his voice. “Half of us are on your side. What would you be doing if you got a few more votes over the pretty boy?”
“Installing the new star tracker. That should have priority over the OGS.”
“Then do it. Act as if. Trust me on this. People might see things differently at some point. Jürgen has an ego so big I don’t know how he squeezed it through that little airlock. Act as if. He doesn’t want to appear not in control, so he’ll go along.”
Shuko asks Alison to assist in switching the carbon dioxide scrubbers and purging the off-line unit. They disappear through the hatch.
Ryder leans toward me and whispers, “After all his smooth talk , his promises, his looks, his way of schmoozing, after all that, you almost beat him. And he knew it. Did you see his face? I think he was wishing for one of those absorbency gar
ments.”
I can’t stop smiling. But this isn’t the time to be funny.
Ryder continues. “We gotta pick our battles. Maintain a low profile, but still get things done. Jürgen is the master of managing perceptions, and we’re all used to having our perceptions managed. That’s why he got the majority.” He locks eyes with me. “Can I ask you about something?” He points to the pocket with the rosies. “I’m just a little curious.”
Why is he probing now? I withdraw the bundle of beads and let them float and swirl between our faces. The tiny silver cross glistens in the sunlight. “Rosies. They belonged to my father.”
Mikki snickers and pushes off toward her sleeper. “They’re called rosaries, dumb ass.”
Ryder throws her an annoyed look. She murmurs, “Sorry,” as she slides her door shut.
I loop the beads around my fingers. “Whatever they’re supposed to be called, to me they’re my father’s rosies and they were precious to him. He kept them hidden, except he would take them out every night and hold them while on his knees. He never told me much about that.”
“He was protecting you,” Ryder tells me softly. “Religious icon. Prayer. You know that much, don’t you? He would have explained more when you got older, when you were big enough to understand the need to keep it quiet.”
“They were wrapped around his fingers when he passed.” Speaking it doesn’t bring the same pain as thinking it. “I took them, put them in my pocket. I was ten.”
Ryder grasps the silver cross between his thumb and index finger. “At a minimum, this right here, all by itself, would have kept you out of university.”
I slip them back into my pocket. “Makes no difference, then.”
“But you studied hard, took the toughest courses, hoping you could somehow compensate for your low Score.”
He has me cold. “I was a lot younger and really stupid.”
“The eternal optimist. Thinking knowledge and intelligence would override that Score.”
“Bottomed at two-oh-eight, couldn’t seem to go any lower.”
Ryder winces. “They don’t call it a Trust Score for nothing. No one trusted you. Why did you come out here? Just to be able to mouth off? And carry those beads around without worrying about them being taken away?”
“Those aren’t good enough reasons?”
“You were the last one they brought to the Ninth Circle, hardly there for a day. They had enough pre-selects. Why do you think they stuck you in at the last minute?”
Jürgen said his grandfather picked me. He didn’t say why. And he didn’t appear happy about it. Is that why I’m not too crazy about Jürgen?
“It wasn’t for my education, if that’s what you mean. Do you enjoy reminding me?”
“The rest of us haven’t figured out how to live without the Stream and the sudden lack of surveillance and harassment. We’re not used to deciding for ourselves what we should do. I’m guessing you developed that skill a long time ago.”
Paco. I have Paco to thank for that.
“The rest of you better make the adjustment,” I tell him. “Because I can’t babysit twenty-nine kids all by myself.”
“You’re doing fine. That’s what I want to get across. Keep being you. Forget about the election. Most of all, act as if.”
“Even without a genuine university degree?”
He squeezes my shoulder, almost fingers my neck. “You have guts. And guts are enough.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I caress our newly printed star tracker, a glossy black sphere of borosilicate glass and alumina ceramic nine centimeters across, including the flat base.
We printed it, we’re using it. We being Ryder and I, plus anyone else who joins our little rebellion. I told them we require a functioning navigation system in order to make necessary course corrections, and we know how to fix it. The only matter to be worked out: What needs to be done and in what order.
Paige watches me. “You need permission from the captain.”
“I’m the flight director on this spacecraft. I’ll do what I think is best.”
“You’re required to obey—”
“I’m not required to do shit. If you think I’m breaking the Articles, ask Jürgen to charge me. I’ll get a trial with a jury.”
Vijay has taught me useful things.
“Look at the GNC!” I growl at her. “Do you see an estimated time of arrival? It doesn’t even know where we are! So no, it’s not safer to do nothing. We’re going to fix this problem.”
I get Indra on the com. “You said you could script the GNC and the tracker so that it boots with the correct time.”
“The script is ready, Cristina. It adds the correct number of milliseconds to the value we have, and does the same every time it rolls over.”
Ryder grabs my upper arm. His forehead is coated with drops of sweat. “I’ll switch our GNC mode to local.”
He’s thinking ahead; Eric won’t be able to override it remotely. Shuko checks the airlock control panel, so he’s on our side. Alison sets up the printer to make a connection cable.
It doesn’t take long before Eric discovers our plan. “If you don’t want me to override your GNC I won’t touch it. If you’re so determined to do this, go ahead. Your life! I just want to find out what kind of course correction it decides to do, assuming it still works after you’re done screwing with it.”
Not a word about Jürgen.
The most daunting aspect of this task are the BioSuits. We had a week to test them and nobody ever did. We need more help, at least one more rebel.
Jessica Egan on Resolute is our most experienced suit expert. I ask her to walk us through the process without telling her why. She doesn’t ask, but she can probably figure it out.
Jessica’s triangular, elfin face fills a vid screen. “I studied biomechanics at the University of Tokyo. These suits were developed for the Chēngzhăng lunar crews. They’re lighter and more flexible than the old-style inflated bubble suits from the Russian and American space programs.”
Ryder rubs his suit. “Let’s do it. I can’t wait to get out there.”
Jessica continues. “Compared to the old types, these suits are simple and safe. No nitrogen purge required because you’re breathing the same gas mix and pressure as your spacecraft cabin. Over a hundred people used these suits for fifteen years during Chēngzhăng without a single fatality.”
Shuko mumbles, “No fatalities they admit.”
The suit material is thin and delicate between my fingers. “This feels easy to puncture. Suppose it rips or gets a hole. Won’t the air leak out?”
“These suits don’t hold in air,” Jessica answers. “A tear, even a centimeter wide, is harmless. A bigger hole is painful but not fatal. The actuators maintain a constant mechanical pressure over your body, except for your head, which is kept under pressure by the helmet. The squeeze isn’t too comfortable at first, because the actuators have to learn your exact body shape. Speaking of which, strip naked before you put on the liner. No clothing besides the liner, not even underwear.”
Ryder wriggles out of his flight suit right in the middle of the control deck. I take my BioSuit into my sleeper. First comes the blue-gray liner, a one-piece elastic coverall that stretches tight against every bit of skin below my neck. The suit manual said the liner protects the inner surface of the BioSuit from abrasion and body sweat.
Next comes the BioSuit itself. The front has a heavy zipper and the inside is lined with a velvety material that glides over the liner. Crunchingly tight! With the zipper shut I barely fit. How much tighter with the actuators squeezing?
Ryder’s BioSuit conforms perfectly to his wide shoulders and narrow waist; yes, this equipment was created based on our individual body measurements.
“Let’s talk temperature moderation,” says Jessica. “The Chēngzhăng suits used water-tube cooling because the lunar daytime temperature is over two hundred degrees. We don’t need water cooling because our problem is protection against
cold.”
There are dark gray insulated coveralls to wear over the BioSuits, thermals, designed to retain our body heat. They’re filled with multiple layers of perforated mylar and other material covered with a durable Dacron weave to protect us from the rough edges of Mars.
I hold the thermals up to the vid so Jessica can see. “Is this thick enough to keep us from freezing out there?”
“You’re going to be cold at first,” she answers. “Especially since all the layers are porous to moisture. Except for your head, your body sweat will evaporate when the airlock is vented. Trouble is, in a vacuum, you won’t have any temperature moderation other than controlling sunlight exposure. On Mars, temperature regulation is accomplished with a fan that circulates air between your BioSuit and the thermal coveralls. No way to do that in the vacuum of space. To be honest, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with your temperature. How long do you think it’ll take to install the tracker?”
“All I need to do is glue it to the side and plug in the cable. Five minutes tops.”
There’s a life support backpack to power the actuators and provide breathing air and communications. Jessica shows us how to verify the battery and oxygen charge and let the system do a power-up self-check. A display on the suit sleeve indicates all green. The rest of the equipment—the new star tracker, the connection cable, and two safety tethers—is ready.
“We need some way to cushion the tracker against mechanical shock,” Ryder says. He swings toward his sleeper and emerges with an absorbency garment. “Shuko, I’m taking one of yours. At least it hasn’t been used.”
The helmets are the old Chēngzhăng style, with a soft head compartment and a hard, curved face canopy of clear sapphire. Jessica instructs us how to establish a seal. The life support pack activates, and a stream of cool, plastic-smelling air swirls around my face. The visor displays yellow numbers that confirm the system is operating and maintaining acceptable oxygen, carbon dioxide, and humidity levels.
