13

 

May 9, 2052 (Launch plus 110 days), 09:22 GMT.

 

Ginger and Mouser bounce along beside me as I check the biomes for low-g damages. SINDAS’s damage reports took two hours, and that’s only what she knows from her sensors. She listed 239 areas requiring site inspection. Bots scurry around us, heading for clean-up work.

I feel shaken from my experience. Things look different. I’m different. Thoughts are tugging at me, like those scarlet sassafras seeds did on my walk from Charleston. But they’ll have to wait. There are level-one emergencies at hand.

Restoring water levels was the most urgent need. I ordered ocean levels increased and heat and wind cycles changed for the rainforest and mangrove swamp. Besides water problems, the wind knocked things out of place. High wind cycles are necessary for plant growth, especially for trees to grow strong limbs. But in low-g, the winds fling things that are normally weighted down.

In the ag biome, I pick up a hummingbird feeder that was blown down. Red sugar water drips from a crack in the plastic tubing. I slap a piece of duct tape over the crack and re-hang the feeder. Before I’ve taken two steps, a neon hummer whirs past me to sip at the feeder.

In the chicken pens, straw is strewn all over. Hens stand, pecking in clusters as though nothing has happened. The rice paddies are barely damp. I order SINDAS to pump more water into them. I walk through the mechanical tunnel, checking motors, repairing fouled vacuum pumps, and freeing clogged intake valves.

In the fog desert, some of the taller cacti list to the side. Temperature sensors and wind vents are clogged with sand. I wipe the big clumps off and brush the grains of sand away until SINDAS reports they’re functioning at acceptable levels.

I steel myself and enter the ocean. The sand is soggy underfoot. Wet sand has been sloshed against the walls and clings in damp cakes. A crab skitters across the sand, leaving a scratchy trail. There’s no way to increase the heat here; the coral reef has a narrow heat tolerance and we can’t risk getting white spot on the coral. Unlike a real ocean, the water on the beach sand doesn’t drain quickly into the sea. We’ll have to put up with water being out of circulation.

I retreat from the ocean, and as I’m walking down the corridor to the mangrove swamp, the thought comes to me that we can increase the wind in the ocean biome and that will have some drying effect. Where did that thought come from? I tell SINDAS to do the calculations and find out how much we can increase the wind without dampening the wave action that keeps the reef alive.

I shoo Ginger and Mouser back before entering the mangrove swamp. They’ll get covered with foul muck if they play in here. The swamp looks like a hurricane went through. Dead leaves are spattered on the walls and cover the hanging lights.

I step off the path and sink to my knees in the muck. The gentle buzz of a bee sounds in my ear as it speeds by me seeking a new pollen-filled flower. Blurting calls from tree frogs echo through the forest of trunks. I think of the frogs as little green .0919s, clinging to the trees and filling the air with their percussive calls. Every biome has its unique sound, its hum of life. After three weeks, the sounds and smells in the biomes communicate subtle messages of system health or dysfunction.

I find small turtles on their backs and crabs caught in snarls of grass twisted through the knees of the mangrove trees. Clumps of cattails tilt to the side. I rescue shrimp washed up onto the muddy path that runs between the trees. As I flip over another turtle, I feel the vibrancy of life, the pulsing heartbeat of the swamp. I pause for a minute and drink it in, letting the moist air and soft gurgle of the water fill me. Thoughts from yesterday tug at me again and once again, I shove them away, telling SINDAS to do more wind calculations here. We’ll get extra rain from the new temperature gradients, but we might as well try to blow some of these leaves down to the chocolate brown water.

In the low-ceilinged savannah, fourteen hanging lights are shorted out. The thick grasses are drenched and a bare trickle of water runs over the mud in the stream. Air vents are blocked with mats of dead grass and leaves. As I clear obstructions from the vents, I instruct SINDAS to send more water into the stream and ponds.

The rainforest, as SINDAS had reported, is awash in humidity. In nearly half-g, water from the waterfall sprayed out over everything. Trees and shrubs drip. A black-necked garter snake winds over the sodden gravel path. Water’s puddled in the garden plots. SINDAS will increase the heat and blow the warm, moist air from the rainforest through the thorn scrub and into the mangrove swamp. The cooler temperature there will increase precipitation and put the much needed water back into circulation.

As I step out of the biome, I greet the furry onslaught from the poodles. When they calm down, I pop ideas for Houston into SINDAS’s memory. I’ve worked on this mission for ten years, and I’m not going to stop now. I believe in it.

The president will shut down FarSpace when I return, but someday people will return to space. And that future FarSpace ship can be built to recover from a low-g emergency.

Suddenly, I’m thinking of the One with the thin, twisted crown. I try to shove the thought away, but I can’t. Mouser whines and Ginger jumps at my feet. I look down the corridor toward the hab. I don’t want to go there.

The pups scramble ahead, drawing me along in their wake. I don’t want to go, but it’s as though I’m burning with a fever. I have to look at the story—the one Uncle Ralph and Aunt Clara used to read me about the Son of God. I’m sure SINDAS has it in her memory. She could recite it for me, or pop it on a holo-screen. But I don’t want to hear her voice. I don’t even want to tell her about it.

The poodles dance and bark in the main room of the hab, as if they know where I’m going. They jump up on a soft chair and curl up together.

Then it’s quiet in the hab. I look at the spiral stair that leads up to the sleeping rooms. I’ve never been in the nauts’ sleeping rooms. I don’t want to go there, to see traces of Mac, or notes from Ihor, or work Naomi left unfinished. I don’t want to see Vicente’s football trophies or Ushamla’s tea service. I was damaged goods, and they cared for me. I can’t shake the weight of sorrow within.

Reluctantly, I climb the spiral stairs. Carmen’s room is first, the one most accessible, because she was captain. She’ll have what I need.

Her room has soft tan walls, with two brightly-colored serapes hanging on them. I can’t look at the dresser. She’ll have photos of Rosabla and Ángela, and I can’t bear to see them. On the end table, between her bed and the reading hammock, is a real book with an old, cracked, black leather cover. It looks like the Bible Uncle Ralph and Aunt Clara read from.

I pick it up, sit in the hammock, and let it sway for a minute before I set my feet firmly on the floor. I need to read the story. Why did He come to me in the midst of the blackness of space? Will I ever see Him again, hear His voice?

I look at the Bible and don’t know where to turn. How do I find the story about the barbed crown and the cruel cross? I know it’s not at the beginning of the book, nor at the end.

I hear Uncle Ralph and Aunt Clara in my mind. “He’s the Son of God. He’s our King.”

I remember His great and gentle love for me, and I get a glimpse of what they believed. But He was tortured. He died. What kind of king is that?

Carmen has a multi-colored cloth bookmark in her Bible. I open to the pages it marks and there is the story, as if it were waiting for me. I read it slowly, like Uncle Ralph used to do, sounding out the words gently. This Man was not guilty, but they crucified Him. They didn’t overpower Him. He allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross. What kind of man would do that?

I’m unsettled. Suddenly, I can’t read any more. I jump to my feet and the hammock sways behind me. I lean over to put the Bible back on the table. The thought comes to me that if I leave it here, I’ll have to come back here again. I scowl and stomp out of the room, the book in my hand. When I reach the living area, the pups bound down from their chair and jump at my feet.

I’m tired. I’m frustrated. He’s unsettling, this Son of God.

“I suppose,” I tell the poodles, “that you find this amusing.”

They look at me, heads cocked to the side, puzzled expressions on their faces, as if they’re right on the edge of understanding human words for the first time. “Right,” I say, “as if that’s going to happen.” Then I’m laughing and they’re jumping and licking my hands. I squat on the floor for a poodle-fest, feeling like a new person.

 

****

 

17:54 GMT.

I’m heading back to the ag biome, to call it a day, when SINDAS interrupts. “Level-one emergency, Captain. Report to Houston immediately.”

I turn around and head to the Tri-Comm with Ginger and Mouser trailing behind as if they hate the destination. When I arrive, I turn on only the audio feed. “Houston, Grant here.”

I’m expecting Ferris’s voice, but I hear, “Dr. Chapman, this is the president. You’re behind schedule. What’s taking so long to get that pulse comm fixed?”

I’m tired and frustrated. The last thing I need is a bureaucrat from home hassling me. I bite back an angry reply. “With all due respect, Mr. President, my priority is survival, not your schedule. We’ve had gravity and rotation problems. I’ll get to the pulse comm soon.”

“I didn’t realize the ship was that poorly built.”

I’m close to losing it. A thought from out of nowhere sparks in me: It’s one thing to follow Dr. H’s advice and be angrier, but probably not a good idea to practice on the president of the United States. A quick laugh escapes from my mouth.

“Dr. Chapman, are you laughing at me?”

“No, sir. I’m laughing at the humor of my situation.” I want to tell him that I’m the captain of this ship, and if he has any respect for those under his command, he’ll not call another level-one emergency because he wants to talk. But I chicken out. “If that’s all, sir, I’ll get back to my duties.”

“Just get that pulse comm fixed this week so we can bring you back home without further delay. That’s our number one priority.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

 

****

 

May 16, 2052 (Launch plus 117 days), 19:42 GMT.

I spent the morning programming SINDAS. I tracked down the AI routines that taught her to recognize goats and chickens and adapted them so she could recognize poodles. SINDAS had a complete natural history encyclopedia in her library banks, so I programmed her to recognize everything known to humankind. Not that she’ll have much occasion to identify rhinoceroses, but it made me feel better.

After lunch, I spent an hour in the fog desert, cleaning drip irrigation lines that had been clogged with sand. The fog desert was quiet, like Marsha, the kind of quiet that seeps into you and brings you a warm, peaceful feeling. I wondered what Marsha would say if I told her about being filled with the warmth of God. She’d probably be glad because she has that warmth in her.

Now I’m in the lab, bent over the pulse comm. My shoulders are tensed, and I feel like I could chew boulders and spit out sand. I’m raging at the president. He’s pressuring me to return on his schedule, for his glory. It makes me want to stomp on something.

I clamp down on my frustration. The last twenty-three connections are delicate, and I need to be steady. I thread a coated wire through the spaghetti-like tangle, crimp the stripped end to the connection terminal, and then touch it with the hot iron to zap the connections with a quick drop of solder.

I finish the eleventh connection and am placing the soldering iron on its stand when Mouser jumps up on my leg. He grabs my shirt tail with his teeth and tugs. I’m tense from the repairs, furious at the president, and I explode. “Mouser, cut that out!” He slinks back in the corner.

I don’t let him off the hook. “The president’s all over me to do this. You don’t want the data sent back; you don’t want me to return. You and he both think you’re the alpha dog. But all the work falls on me, every bit of it. Back off, buster. Stay in that corner until I’m done!”

He growls at me. I turn back to the connections.

I’ve finished the fourteenth, when I hear Ginger and Mouser scampering behind me. “Cut it out, you two.” They quiet down for a minute. But when I’m threading wire through a difficult jumble of components, they start chasing each other. “Stop it!”

Both poodles bowl into me, knocking me over and sending the pulse comm flying in the air. My arms stretch out to catch it, but I’m falling in the other direction. I slam to the floor and hear the crash of the pulse comm hitting the wall.

I roll over and sit up, seething. I hate every president and blasted dog in the universe. Mouser looks at me as if to say, You’re not supposed to go back home. Continue the mission.

I’m filled with rage. I grab Mouser. “You’re not the alpha dog. You don’t get to decide. I’m stuck in this tree, and I’ve decided to go home!”

Beside me, Ginger snarls.

I push Mouser away and climb to my feet.

Ginger barks at me and I shove her with my shoe. She skids across the floor.

“Get out of here, you nagging dogs. Get out!”

They race away, yelping, and suddenly the lab is quiet.

I pick up the pulse comm. It looks like a number 5,798 with the digits stretched and broken. Components dangle from the base on twisted wires. There’s at least three crushed chips.

“You blasted dogs! I hate you and all your kin.”

Then it sinks in. Ginger’s pregnant, and I kicked her.