Tags
aliens, Bluehorse, Clay, Clay Gilbert, colonies in space, Earth, Gies, light speed, mouthholes, Ngugma, Paul Gies, Paul J Gies, primoids, Rachel, Rachel Andros, Science Fiction, space
4.
Clay blinked. He let out a breath. His computer was restarting: that seemed positive. There was an empty silence from his drive, which was not there, having presumably exploded some tens of thousands of kilometers in his rear. His sensors were still extremely spotty: the big screen that enveloped him and usually showed him stars and planets with expandable labels and magnification was now nearly all black. Directly in front of his face, his computer readout was informing him of its cryptic progress: DUMP PREP STOPPED. 13200 TB FREE. RESOLVING ERROR 88004.
It seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, and then he was looking at the welcoming turquoise chaos screen that was its substitute for the sensor display. “Comm,” Clay said. The word COMM appeared. “Comm Rachel,” he said. RACHEL FOUND.
“Rachel. I’m okay. I had to eject drive. I was moving at six percent, so I will plan on continuing to do six points until you or somebody comes to get me.”
Four seconds later, a blue disc appeared on the comm screen. Rachel’s voice began: “Clay, I’m,” but what she was remained in doubt because with no further sound effect the screen went black.
“Life support,” said Clay.
The Ghost was unresponsive. He began shaking his joy stick, pushing and sliding his screen, saying various commands: nothing. Finally, he put out an ungloved hand and placed it palm flat on the screen. He lay there feeling: feeling the complete lack of vibration.
He gulped. He took a breath, held it, let it out. He wondered if he still had CO2 conversion, or if he was going to suffocate in his little closet, in his coffin zipping along at 18,000 km/sec. But he realized after five or ten seconds that he was wearing his vac suit. He ran a quick diagnostic and found the suit still fully operational. He pulled his helmet on and put the visor down, then pulled his gloves on. Ahhh. Now he could coast along at six percent of the speed of light for days, weeks, months before the energy ran out to convert his waste, solid and liquid and gas, into fresh air, water and nutritious wafers.
He thought about that. Six months, perchance. And then, and only then, would he die in the black of space, unless, of course, Rachel came and got him, Rachel or the Primoids.
But the Primoids—how much could he trust them, anyway? Even the rebels—it was awfully hard to trust someone whose language he had absolutely no comprehension of. Why should they care about him? He had blown away any number of Primoids himself, in space, in fights unimagined by the geniuses who had dreamt up the Human Horizon Project. Why shouldn’t he expect to die in space himself? If the enemy, the other, the Imperial Storm Trooper Primoids got him—why wouldn’t they put him on trial for his crimes and horribly execute him? By, for instance, just guessing here, putting him in a dead space ship and propelling him off into the universe to starve and suffocate in six months?
So that left Rachel, who was out there, probably still alive, possibly capable of beating her own demons, and maybe, just maybe, not so permanently ticked off at him to just let him go.
So. Sit here in the dark and wait for rescue. In a few hours or days he would pretty well know if anyone was going to oblige him, and then, if not, he could relax and wait to run out of juice or water or oxygen or food wafers.
“Computer,” he said aloud. His vac suit beeped: a miniature display opened inside his visor. “Dang,” he said. “Ship’s computer.”
The ship’s computer is unavailable, the vac suit replied to him in a gentle female voice.
“Comm.” Comm is unavailable, said the vac suit.
“Dang. Crap. Bleep, bleep, bleep.” He shifted, in body and in mind. He thought a moment, then shrugged, found and flipped open a little port hidden on his display and put his right pinky finger into the hole. “Vac suit,” he said, “drain ship’s battery.”
Do you want to drain ship’s water and solids? the vac suit asked.
“Yes,” he said, “do that. Please. Thank you.”
He could feel something now—the flow of liquid through the skin of his vac suit around his finger. His reserve tank was filling up, figuratively and literally.
“Well, that’s something,” he told himself. “Vac suit, chess. Level eight, white.”
The vac suit complied. He began playing a conservative game as white, but he suddenly found himself behind, taking back moves he never should have made, giving up a pawn here, a pawn there. He was distracted and distraught and it was snowballing.
He canceled the game. He lay back and stared at the black screen. He tried to figure out what he was feeling and suddenly he realized the name for it.
The name was panic. He was panicking. There was really nothing else to do.