Chapter 12

She drifted through dreams, the world around her shifting more rapidly than she could keep up with it. At first she was in the main cabin of the Curious Machine, looking out at a star field that receeded rapidly no matter how much power she coaxed from the engines. Then her seat buckle released, and she was floating up toward the ceiling, which was now the top of a clear plastic cage. She braced her hands against the dome and looked around. The other crew members were in the cage with her: some pounded on the door to get out, some were grappling with the magging gloves, and a few hovered just below her, looking up with hungry gazes. She wasn't sure which ones were which, because their faces kept shifting.

Finally, one grabbed her ankle and pulled her down into the fight. She tried to push against the assailant, but her hands slipped and slid off of his because they were wearing the magnetic gloves. She tried to aim a blow at her opponent's face, but her fist disappeared into an empty darkness where the face should have been.

Jass woke gasping for breath, and slammed into the bottom of the upper bunk when she jolted awake. She swore under her breath, and waited to see if it had awakened Martina, but there was no response. She checked the time. Oh-six-hundred-eighteen by ship's time. It was still another forty minutes before she needed to be awake to prepare for launch, but there was really no point in lying there for that time, she decided. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and tried to find her way around the room in the dark.

She found her clothes and changed, shivering in the cold air of the room. She pulled on her magboots and slipped out into the early morning air.

If she closed her eyes, it felt almost like early morning inside the Spirit City dome. The air was cold and still, and there was a hint of moisture in the air that would dissipate as the dome warmed. The asteroid rotated quickly enough to form short natural days, but at this distance from the sun, the difference between night and day outside the dome was scarcely noticeable. During the day period, the dome air was heated by internal heaters and lit with artificial light. During the night period, most of the lights were turned out and the heaters turned down to just above the minimal temperature needed for the health of the human residents and their machines.

Most of the walkways were empty, the miners either asleep or in the middle of a shift, but a few people were working in the main dome, repairing minor items or replacing burned out lightbulbs, or other tasks that she didn't recognize. She was beginning to be more comfortable with the strange swimming motion one used when walking in Cybele City, but didn't think she'd ever learn to love it.

Unexpectedly, she found her eyes brimming with tears of homesickness. Cybele was too strange, too inhospitable. Every action had to be considered, every motion planned so as to avoid disaster. She missed the ease of Mars, the spontaneity that she took for granted when sprinting through the streets of Spirit City in the early morning or at night with the stars wheeling overhead.

In a moment, the feeling passed, and she inhaled deeply. It was a new day. It was a new start for the Curious Machine and her crew. It was time to wake the others and move forward.

The others were beginning to wake by the time Jass got back to their quarters. Elena had sent a message telling them that their breakfast would be waiting in the dining hall. When they arrived in the hall, they were greeted with bowls of scrambled eggs, hot buttered toast, and juicy sausage. None of the miners were present, having changed shifts earlier in the morning, so the hall was quiet.

As they finished their meal, Elena arrived. “I hope you've enjoyed your stay with us. Your ship is fueled and ready to go. Mr. DeWitt, I've sent the fuel quotes to your head offices on Mars as well as the to office of the company that operates the Pequod, so the process for reclaiming your costs on fuel has been started. Ms. Marshall, the same goes for the oxygen stores. I think you'll find everything is as per our agreement.”

The crew gathered their bags and began the trek back to the ship. When they reached the small room on the outside of the farthest dome, they removed their magboots and reclaimed their shoes. Jass was glad to leave the boots behind; the nagging sense that her feet were sticking to the floor was not one that she would miss.

“Before we get settled in for launch, I want everyone to give the ship a once-over,” she instructed the crew. “Go to your areas and check to make sure that everything is in place. If you were scheduled to get new cargo or have anything refilled, make sure that it's been done. Check in with me via the comms. If there's a problem with something, we need to know it now.”

Jass made her way through the tunnel to the main cabin, and began checking the basic systems. Reports periodically came from the other crew members, until the ship was pronounced ready for flight. Jass walked back through the tunnel and shook Elena's hand. “Your city treated us well, and you have our deepest thanks. I hope to make this a frequent stop on future travels.”

The orange-haired woman grinned and returned the handshake heartily. “We'd like that. The mines here are scheduled to run out in the next few years, so we may be moving on to another one of the nearby asteroids, but we'll be on the charts.” Then the grin disappeared, and she pulled Jass close to whisper in her ear, “We've heard that there are more Federated agents out there, damaging ships and their cargoes. Be careful.”

The words sent a shiver down Jass' spine, but she nodded and thanked the woman for the warning. With a final wave, she walked back through the tunnel and helped Kristin seal the airlock from inside the Curious Machine.

The two headed up the corridor and entered the main cabin. Jass checked to make sure that the crew was strapped into their harnesses for launch, then sat down and buckled her own harness.

“Ms. CeSaran, do we have the Cybele base on comms?”

“Comms are open and clear. Going to speaker now.” Jass heard the faint hiss as Kara turned on the speakers in the cabin.

“Cybele base, this is the Curious Machine, requesting clearance for launch.”

“Curious Machine, this is Cybele base. You are cleared for launch, and godspeed.”

“Thanks again for the hospitality, base. That's a party we won't soon forget. This is Curious Machine, signing out.”

“We copy that, Curious Machine. Safe journey. Cybele base, out.” The speakers fell silent.

“Here we go,” Jass said, feeling the engines of the Curious Machine thrum to life. The thrusters that had landed them gently on the asteroid began to fire, and she felt the ship begin to lift off the pad. In a few moments, they were soaring across the asteroid again, Cybele City rolling beneath them. As the city fell away behind the ship, the main rocket engines fired, pressing the crew back into their seats and propelling the ship forward into the field of stars.

“Mr. Dewitt, please lock in the course for Gaspra Station.” Jass felt her body press forward against the harness as the first engine burn ended.

“Acknowledged and done,” Aaron replied, punching a sequence of commands into his console. “Course sent to engines, awaiting captain's approval.”

Jass glanced at the route on her console and pressed the button that released the sequence of burns and course corrections to the engines.

“Next main engine burn in twenty seconds,” Aaron called out. “Engine burn in...ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. Engine burn initiated.”

The familiar rush of acceleration pushed the crew back into their seats as the rockets fired, launching the Curious Machine out into the Asteroid Belt.

After the main engines had finished firing to set the course, the ion engines cut in, and Jass gave the signal to release the launch harnesses. Merriam immediately headed back to his lab to check on the experiments that had been running and to start the new ones. Kristin floated down to the cargo bay to make sure that nothing had shifted during launch, and several others went to the galley to eat their lunch.

Denjiro and Jass stayed in the main cabin. Den floated on his back near the front of the cabin, looking out of the window at the star field ahead. “You know, when I was a kid, my parents took us on a cruise of the asteroid belt. That was when someone had put that 'resort' up on one of the nearer asteroids. It was the new, hot thing, and so we started out from Earth, stopped off at Mars, then toured the belt for a few weeks before landing at the resort.”

“I remember hearing something about that place. Didn't it go bankrupt in record time?”

“Yeah, pretty messy situation for some of the investors. It was poorly run, but the worst part was the customers that it drew in. My folks had been investing in space travel stuff for ages, and had gotten pretty familiar with how things work out here, but most of the tourists didn't know.”

“Oh no...so they expected artificial gravity, glowing nebulae out of the view, things like that?” Jass laughed, picturing the arguments that must have ensued upon arriving at the resort. “No wonder they lost so much money so quickly.”

“Anyway, we were headed there on this cruise. I think I was about seven years old, and of course, I was even more space-obsessed than my parents. I watched any sci-fi show that was set in space, read the entire space section of the local library, and had models of the solar system strung up all over the house. But somehow, it had still failed to convey the sheer scope of the place. I was so disappointed when we got out here in the belt, and you couldn't even see anything. I had built it up in my mind as a dense asteroid field, with tumbling rocks filling every meter. I was so disappointed when we got out here and I realized just how vast and empty it really is. My dad taught me how to think about scale, using the information about our route, and showed me how to find out the real distances between objects in a scale drawing.”

“It's hard to really accept that the universe is really that big until you get out into it,” Jass said, letting herself drift up and out of her seat. “It was the same growing up on Mars. Even when you know better, you keep thinking that the size of things is smaller than it really is. It wasn't until I left Mars orbit entirely and went on my first run to the Belt that I got a sense of the scale. I don't even know how to communicate it to someone who's been land-bound their entire life.” She stretched, feeling a few vertebrae crack as she did so. “Oh, that feels better! Zero g is a lot easier than that crazy stuff on Cybele.”

She pushed a foot against her console, propelling her to join Denjiro at the window. “You know, I think that's the most I've ever heard you say about your family. They're still on Earth, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, they never saw any need to live anywhere else. It's funny, considering how many immigration ships their company runs.”

“If you don't mind my asking...” Jass paused, then pushed ahead. “I know your family has ridiculous amounts of money. Just being able to go to that resort, not to mention taking a cruise to go there, is enough to see that. So why did you take this job? It barely pays enough to keep someone in an apartment and food on Mars.”

“Nothing special, actually. It's the very old story of the crazy kid whose parents think he should have gone into business. My family has always supported space travel and innovation in that field, but on a large scale. They encouraged my youthful interest in space, hoping that I'd be able to start in the family business right after college. But in high school, I got obsessed with machines and rocket engines. I talked to any engineers who would give me the time of day, joined a local rocketry club, learned to build my own engines.” He flipped over and slowly brought his feet down towards the floor until he was floating beside Jass. “It was a fight to get to study what I wanted to in college. They weren't thrilled about my choice to move to Mars and go to the University in Spirit City, but they agreed to pay for it, as long as I minored in business.”

“I wondered about that minor. Seemed like an odd thing for a rocket guy to study.”

He nodded, smiling. “College was pretty easy for me, actually. I used some of my free time to get myself set up with an apartment off-campus. By the time I graduated, I'd gotten a job with one of the low Mars-orbit supply companies. When I told my parents, they were furious. I got a lecture about the honor of the family, and how degrading it would be to work at the kinds of jobs I was interested in. They told me about the benefits of the job that was waiting for me back on Earth. When I finally convinced them that I had made up my mind, they left, cutting me off from all access to their money. I'd set up my own bank account months before, of course, but it did take a little getting used to.”

Silence fell for a moment. The stars outside the window gleamed brightly, and Jass wondered which ones were really stars, and which ones were asteroids catching the sun. It was impossible to tell at this distance.

“You know,” she commented, turning to face Denjiro, “most twenty-two year olds don't have the kind of mental toughness to face up to pressure like that. Why did you?”

He shrugged. “I've always gone my own way. The only reason that my parents thought I would be following their plans was because the two meshed for the first eighteen years or so. They never really thought about me going off and doing my own thing, and I didn't think that they might have a problem with it, so I never said anything. It all boils down to a miscommunication, in the end.”

“Do you ever get to see them? Do they call, or send messages, or anything?”

“My mother does. My dad is always 'too busy' at work. I haven't been able to visit Earth on my salary, and they only tell me about their visits to Mars after they've left. I have a younger sister who sends a lot of video messages. Here, let me show you.” He picked up his handheld computer and pulled up a video. A young woman with silky black hair pulled back in two ponytails waved and spoke rapidly in Japanese, grinning broadly.

Jass smiled, watching the video. She didn't understand a word the girl said, but her enthusiasm was obvious. “How old is she?”

“Sixteen. She was only eight when my parents and I fought, but they've never stopped her from communicating with me, and I send her stuff from time to time. Her name is Fuyuko. She says she wants to go to Mars University, too, but I doubt they'll let her leave Earth for that long, not after what happened with me.” He touched the screen gently. “She never had any interest in the family business, she's not really cut out for it. Right now, she wants to study fashion design. Last year, it was music. It'll probably be theater next. I have no idea what she'll actually study when the time comes, but it will probably be whatever my parents are willing to pay for. I wish she'd do what I did, and turn down the security in favor of whatever she really wants to do, but I don't think she can. And there's no way I can afford to pay for her school if our parents were to cut her off, too.”

“Are you ever going to go back to your parents' business? I mean, the spacer life is rough, and you may want something easier when you're forty or fifty.”

He shook his head and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “No, I don't think so. Maybe I'll take a job on an orbiting station or something, but this really is what I want to do. I spent one summer interning in my dad's office. It was within view of the launch pad that most of our immigration ships took off from. With every single launch, I ran over to the windows to watch. No one else even looked up from their desks. By the end of the summer, it had become something of a minor scandal, the fact that I couldn't sit at my desk when there was a launch outside. I can't just watch while other people come out here, Jass. It's not in me to live on solid ground anymore, or not for long, anyway.”

She grinned. “Spacer for life.”

He laughed and pushed off back toward the corridor to the rest of the ship. “That's me! Spacer for life!”

Jass went back to work, but kept thinking about the girl with the ponytails, the laughing girl who might not get a chance at creating her own life without money that didn't come from her parents.