Analog SFF, June 2006 Read online

  Parry nodded, and Ellen whistled again.

  “Damn. Look, Mike, I've gotta go. I'll see you when I get back."

  “Good luck, man."

  David killed the connection and jogged across the bay to Ellen. Concerns about the mission crowded out the vague sense he was forgetting something.

  * * * *

  The clock counted down toward the end of their acceleration phase. The mission clock ticked quietly alongside it, depressing red figures announcing a twenty-six day wait until their arrival in Mars orbit. David, restless after nearly four hours in his seat, checked the voltage and current gauges attesting to the condition of the acceleration magnets on the McAuliffe's underside. They all registered normal, and the propellant and battery levels glowed green. With the ship's attitude controlled by the navigation computer, David felt like a fifth wheel, but he kept his hand hovering near the manual override, just in case.

  His earpiece crackled. “HEO to McAuliffe, prep for beam shutdown in five minutes, over."

  David thumbed the transmit key. “Copy that, HEO. How're we looking?"

  “We show you at thirty-eight point four clicks per tick, McAuliffe, trajectory five by five. Mars concurs. Range passing two hundred and seventy six thousand kilometers downrange. Right on the money, over."

  David touched the data onto the navigation computer screen. “Copy that, HEO. Remind us to duck when the Moon comes along, over."

  Laughter rang in his ear. “Will do, McAuliffe. Prep for beam shutdown in three minutes twenty. HEO out."

  In a little over three minutes, the magbeam—a three-hundred-thousand-kilometer-long bolt of lightning connecting them to the distant HEO station—would shut down, ending their four hours of acceleration. The cloud of argon gas ionized by the magbeam glowed invisibly in their wake, the thrust it imparted on the McAuliffe's acceleration magnets pushing David down into his seat with almost a fifth his normal weight. It would be the last time he felt weight for a long while. The Earth's heartbreakingly beautiful blue and white disk receded in the viewer; Mars still lay invisibly distant somewhere ahead and to the right.

  Beaume grimaced in the copilot's seat, his muscular frame too bulky for the cramped cockpit. He was wearing cologne, and David wondered which of the women it was meant to impress. Even Beaume must have realized Porter was way out of his league, and David smiled as he wondered how long he would take to discover that the preternaturally beautiful Ellen was also gay. He'd warned a few optimistic, young astronauts off her in the past, but looked forward to Beaume finding out the hard way.

  David would have preferred to see Ellen in the cockpit, but Beaume needed to get acquainted with the controls. Interplanetary flight protocols just weren't part of the training for lander pilots, however talented. Besides, Ellen was still orienting their unwanted “observer” to the vagaries of life on the McAuliffe. So far, Dr. Porter hadn't left the lav for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch, and they weren't even at zero gee yet. If she didn't stop heaving soon, he'd order her drugged up until she adjusted. He was tempted to order it anyway, just to keep her out of his way. He ran a hand through his close-cropped grey hair and tried to relax the muscles in his neck and shoulders. His head throbbed.

  “Past your bedtime, gramps?” Beaume said.

  David shot him a savage look. “Do you intend to do any work on this flight, or are you just gonna park your ass in front of the vidscreen all day like you do on those landers?"

  Beaume grinned and stretched expansively, his shoulders muscles rippling.

  David ducked aside. “And put your damn restraint belt on. I don't need you bouncing around the cockpit when they turn the beam off."

  “Ooh, sorry,” Beaume said, not moving. “This is so much more dangerous than flying an F-18. Just imagine what could happen if I got a jolt at a whole point-two gees. It could crush my eyeballs to jelly and snap my spine."

  No, asshole, but I could. “Just put the damn belt on, or it goes in your performance report as a safety violation."

  The radio burst into life. “HEO to McAuliffe, come in, over."

  David touched his earpiece. “We read you, HEO, over."

  “HEO to McAuliffe, prep for beam shutdown in one minute, over."

  “Copy that, HEO. Initiating shutdown procedure, over.” David thumbed the 1-MC control to transmit across the whole ship. “Longrie to all crew. Brace for transfer to zero gee in forty-five seconds.” He slotted his headset into its receiver.

  The overhead speaker crackled. “HEO to McAuliffe. Shutdown proceeding in ten, nine, eight—"

  David took hold of the jolt bar above the instrument panel and looked levelly at Beaume. He held out until six, then reached for his restraint belt and slotted it deftly home over his chest. On zero, a slight jolt forward signaled the shutdown of the McAuliffe's thrust. David flicked controls to deactivate the acceleration magnets and propellant feed, set the batteries to begin recharging from the solar panels, then unbuckled his restraint belt.

  “Gin said something about you being too cautious,” Beaume said. “Maybe that's why she asked me onto the crew: girl needs a bit of excitement in her life again."

  David stopped, one hand clenched white into the back of his seat. Restraining himself, he reached for the communications panel. “Longrie to all crew. Magbeam shutdown complete and propulsion secured. Out."

  David shot along the narrow aisle toward the galley area, anger making him push off harder than he intended. He wanted an aspirin and a bulb of coffee. By now he should have been lying next to Gin in her quarters on the LEO platform. Maybe Beaume was right. Maybe he was an old geezer flying an outdated bucket of bolts on a pointless, cover-your-ass mission. Thirty years as an astronautical engineer, and here he was, reduced to flying suitcases of itch ointment to Mars with Gin's jerk of an ex-boyfriend. He could have been mopping the decks on the platform for all the good he was doing.

  He swung into what served as the McAuliffe's kitchen and common area, hooked a foot into a toehold, and popped the lid on the first-aid kit. A series of racks held an assortment of medicines in single-use packets, all filled to the top—except the aspirin rack, conspicuously empty. Cursing, he slammed the lid closed.

  “That didn't sound good.” Behind him, Ellen guided Porter into the cramped space. The two women glided to the table, and Ellen propelled Porter into a seat. The Assistant Director of Space and Aeronautics at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy looked green.

  David rolled his head around to loosen the tension in his neck. “Aspirin supply got left behind. Shipful of emergency medication, and I can't get a damned aspirin."

  “Just hook your foot under the bar down there.” With her charge anchored at the table, Ellen glided smoothly from the room. She returned a minute later and handed David two aspirin. “I always carry my own, just in case."

  David smiled wryly. “Remind me to give you a raise when we get back. Do me a favor and go make sure Beaume doesn't accidentally fire off the thrusters or jettison our water supply, will you?"

  Ellen gave him a grin and a mock salute. “Yes, sir! And did you remember to tell Anna you'd miss the big day?"

  David released a string of profanity. He'd promised his daughter he wouldn't let space prevent him from attending the most important moment in her life this time. So much for promises.

  Ellen arched an eyebrow at him. “I'll enter that in the logbook as a ‘No.’”

  As she floated away toward the cockpit, David rummaged in a supply cabinet for a bulb of coffee. Sleep would have been better than caffeine, but Beaume's taunt rang like a bell in his head, precluding any chance of rest. He glanced at Porter.

  The good doctor hunkered over the table, her knuckles white. The dark, rich chocolate of her hair accentuated the paleness of her skin. Not even her peach lip-gloss could mask a bloodless face. She stared vacantly at the wall, her pupils bare pinpricks.

  “Can I get you some coffee, doctor?"

  She shook her head without look
ing up. David tossed his bulb into the galley's microwave, twisted the dial, and muttered in frustration when nothing happened. He was damned if he was going to spend twenty-six days on unheated STS reconstituted food, so he snatched up a screwdriver.

  Porter finally moved her eyes, watching him as he probed around the back of the microwave. “If Beaume isn't qualified, should you be letting him fly the ship?"

  David left the screwdriver hanging in midair and glided across the galley. “I'm not. We're on an inertial trajectory; just coasting. We can't even change our course without a magbeam powering us. Nothing much to do now but monitor communications and life support and watch the batteries recharge."

  He returned with a handful of tools. After a few moments poking inside the microwave, he replaced the back, reconnected the power, and smiled as it burst into life. “I take it you haven't spent much time in zero gee?"

  “It doesn't take a space jockey to decide whether a system is running safely and efficiently, or whether it represents the best use of taxpayers’ money. And I do have a postgraduate degree in physics."

  The microwave pinged, and David extracted his coffee. “If the politicians were worried about safety and efficiency, we wouldn't be sitting in a geriatric ship headed out to Mars at twelve hours’ notice. We'd have a modern, properly maintained shuttle with a dedicated crew on permanent standby for emergencies."

  She took her eyes off the wall and met his, avoiding the galley's tiny porthole. “Another fancy toy needing tens of millions of dollars to maintain, just so a handful of ‘special’ people can play at being pioneers."

  “The Mars colony is run for the benefit of everyone, not just the people in the space program."

  “What nonsense. What would you say if there were a catastrophic event like the ‘21 Yellowstone eruption, and the government was too busy indulging your pipe-dreams to build safe shelters on Earth? ‘Sorry you died, folks, but we just had to see whether there was life on Mars?’”

  What would I say? How about ‘Sorry I abandoned you, Dad?’ Maybe space wasn't worth it. David threw the aspirin down his throat with a swallow of STS coffee substitute. “My shift's over. If you're too sick to go to the exercise suite today, you can skip it, but you'll need to be in there by tomorrow at the latest. I'm going to get some sleep."

  * * * *

  David swore as the edge of the circuit board sliced his index finger. He scrounged a rag from his back pocket and applied pressure to the cut. The first-aid kit probably wouldn't have any bandages. Like every ship, the McAuliffe boasted a thousand different subsystems. Half of them he'd upgraded himself during his years of tinkering, but the rest were as reliable as politicians in election year. He'd spent almost every waking hour in the fortnight since launch fixing niggles and glitches.

  Ellen glided up and offered him a beverage bulb. “How goes the repair?"

  He took a swig and gave her a black look. “What the hell is this?"

  “Sorry, boss, it's the only caffeine we have left. It's tea with cream, just the way you like your coffee."

  “I take my coffee with cream and sugar."

  “Not on this boat. And you'll be taking it black tomorrow."

  David sighed. No coffee, no cream, no sugar, but enough chicken soup to feed an army. Heaven only knew what else had been left behind between Beaume's junk sale and the scramble to make room for the exalted Dr. Porter. At least she had the good grace to stay out of his way. He spotted Beaume swimming along the corridor toward them. If only we could have left him behind instead of the coffee. His shoulders tensed as the pilot drew closer. He wasn't sure he could make it another eleven days without slugging the guy. Once Beaume realized David's authority over him didn't extend beyond the end of the mission, he'd gone from being merely insubordinate to openly offensive.

  “Ship still falling apart faster than you can put it back together, Longrie?” Beaume didn't quite stop in time to avoid bumping against Ellen.

  She slid away. “Anything else I can get for you, boss?” she offered. “Need any parts from stores?"

  “There aren't enough parts in the whole system to fix what's wrong with this piece of junk,” Beaume said. “Gin's crazy thinking it'll get us to Mars. I sure ain't taking it coming back."

  David glowered at the pilot. “You want to jump ship early, the airlock's just behind you. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be on watch in the cockpit?"

  “Sure, but I came to tell you Gin's on the horn."

  “You could have used the intercom."

  Beaume raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “You mean it's working again?"

  Ellen gave him a disgusted look. “Give it a rest, you idiot. You broke it in the first place, trying to wire in your stupid music system."

  David gave the petite engineer a glance, wondering if Beaume had finally made his inevitable pass at her.

  The pilot snorted. “Don't talk dumb. I've done it a thousand times before, and it's never caused trouble."

  David pushed himself upright. “This isn't one of your new commercial landers. You can't jump into the wiring without checking the layout first. This ship needs care and experience, not some cowboy fumbling around where he's not qualified to go."

  Beaume stiffened. “Hey, who the—"

  David cut him off. “Just keep your damn fingers out of systems you don't understand, all right? I've got enough to do without cleaning up your messes."

  He finished tidying up the circuitry and pulled himself in the direction of the cockpit. Beaume eased a shoulder against the companionway wall, putting himself in David's path. With no handhold to grab, David cannoned into him and spun away from the pilot's greater bulk, rolling over and bouncing painfully into the wall. Beaume laughed.

  David's patience snapped. He checked his spin with an outstretched hand, braced his foot against the wall, and thrust himself towards Beaume, right fist first. With two hundred pounds and an amateur heavyweight's technique behind it, the uppercut sank in under Beaume's ribs and doubled him up. David took a wild left hook easily on his guard, and responded with a sharp double jab to the bridge of the nose. Beaume's head went back, setting him up beautifully for the crunching right cross that followed the jab as night followed day.

  It didn't land. Ellen seized his arm on the backswing and, her foot anchored under a trip bar, pulled him around to face her. “Enough, both of you! David, stop acting like a kid and go get Gin's message!"

  Beaume recovered his balance, coughing. “Yeah, get into your stairlift and go see what your night-nurse wants."

  David tried to lunge for him, but Ellen kept him pinned back. “Shut your face before it gets damaged, Beaume,” she snapped. “I'm sick of the pair of you."

  David pushed off for the cockpit. A knot of wiring lay draped across the cockpit deck, vanishing into the back of a homemade stereo box. David yanked the wires unceremoniously loose, booted the stereo into the companionway, and set about reconnecting the intercom. The few minutes’ work gave him time to compose himself before he played the message from Earth. Gin looked years older. Dark half-circles discolored the skin under her eyes, her mouth was pinched, and her hair hung slack and dull.

  “Bad news, David. We have new cases appearing by the hour, and much more serious than before. Apparently some of the contaminated water was used to brew coffee. When it's ingested, it migrates slowly to the nervous system and eventually the liver and kidneys, where it has devastating effects. Two of the early cases are comatose, and the infirmary's medical supplies are running low. They can keep people stable, but they need the antidote to flush the toxin out of the tissues. We're sending more antidote on another shuttle, but she won't arrive until two months after you. Once you dock at the Mars orbital platform, get your supplies to the surface as quickly as possible, to tide them over until the relief shuttle arrives. You'll need Xavier to fly the station lander down. Both colony pilots are grounded."

  Surprised as much by Gin's appearance as her news, David took a moment before sending a reply.
“Message received, Gin. Don't worry—we'll get the supplies there for everyone who needs them."

  David swiveled up from the pilot's chair and came face to face with Dr. Porter, drifting silently in the cockpit doorway.

  “Still think it's just a milk run?” she asked.

  * * * *

  David tossed his soup bulb into the galley disposal and drifted toward the door. It was his turn on the exercise wheel, and he welcomed the diversion. After twenty-five days, they were all on a short fuse. Porter remained sullen and uncommunicative, Beaume obnoxious and cruising for another fight, and even Ellen's determinedly cheerful humming grated on David's nerves.

  “David?” Ellen's voice crackled over the intercom.

  “Yes?” he barked. What's broken now?

  “You have an incoming message."

  He pushed off and cruised forward to the cockpit. Ellen started to unbuckle from the pilot's seat, but David waved her down. She snatched her handheld as it drifted away. He could make out enough of the screen to recognize a graphic novel. What happened to the days when people read real books written with real sentences and paragraphs, requiring the reader bring some imagination? Now it's all picture books with captions.

  David switched on Gin's recorded message. If anything, she looked worse than a few days earlier, when she'd reported three more colonists slipping into critical condition—bringing the total sick to thirty—and informing him the infirmary's medical supplies were almost exhausted. But this time a wan smile played across her lips. “Congratulations, David! You're a grandfather! Jodie Melissa Smith was born at 1:42 this morning, weighing eight pounds three ounces. Mother and baby are both doing great. I sent a balloon bouquet in your name. Take care. I miss you."

  Ellen whooped and punched his arm. “Congrats, old man! This calls for a celebration! And I know just how to do it. Follow me."

  She led him back toward the galley, pounding on Beaume's door as she passed and disappearing inside the cabin where she bunked with Dr. Porter. She emerged a moment later with two Hershey's chocolate bars and Dr. Porter. Beaume, rubbing sleep from his eyes, drifted sullenly behind them.