Kitra, page 15
He pulled up a chair and sat across from me. “We need a certain amount of power to go into and out of Jump. We don’t have quite enough fuel to generate the power for Jump to Vatan.” His eyes glowed. “But the capacitors could make up the difference.”
I looked at him incredulously. “You can do that?”
“Sure. Juice is juice.”
“And you just, what, plug them in?”
“It’s a little more work than that, but essentially, yeah.”
I tried to process what he was telling me. It made sense, but I’d never heard of anyone doing this before. I wondered why it wasn’t standard practice on ships to have a backup battery. Maybe it was; it’s not like my experience was super extensive. One thing nagged at my mind, though, something that would keep the plan from working. I struggled for a second before it came to me, my brain still feeling fried.
“Don’t we have to charge them?” I asked. If we had to use fuel to energize the capacitors, then they wouldn’t be any help. Power was a zero-sum game.
Peter’s eyebrows rose. “Oh no. I did that before we left Vatan. They’re fully charged.” He smiled again. “It’s best to be prepared.”
I snorted, just a little. That’s what he’d said last time we were in this room together. So there was a way home after all. I tried to get excited about it but all I felt was lousy. He hadn’t been ignoring me in the wardroom; he’d been making a plan to get us home. And I’d yelled at him for it.
“What can I do?” I asked. My voice caught.
“You?” Peter asked, his voice gentle, eyes shining. “You’ve done enough, Kitra. More than enough. It’s my turn now.” He put his hand on mine. “You sleep. Sleep for a week if you want. I’ve got this.”
I looked at his big fingers over mine. It still amazed me that he could do such delicate feats of engineering with those.
“That’s fantastic,” I sighed, rolling onto my back and closing my eyes.
And I was out like a light again.
“I hate to ask, but are you sure this will work?”
Chapter 15
Launch Plus Sixteen (Standard)
I slept all of the next day and much of the one after that. Sure, I woke up now and then to go to the bathroom, and once to wolf down a bowl of soup someone had left for me, but each time I couldn’t wait to hit the sack again. It wasn’t until the third morning that I opened my eyes and felt caught up. My mind was clear, and my worries seemed manageable again. I could think in straight lines.
My first stop was my stateroom for a quick wash and change of clothes. I went to the wardroom afterwards and flipped through the options on the Maker. Marta’s schnitzel pockets were on the list now, so I printed one of those, blew on it to cool it down, and ate it in four bites. I was just swallowing the last of it when Pinky padded in from the bridge.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked, resting easily on a tripod of legs.
“Like myself again.” I even sounded human. “You?”
“Oh, pretty good shape. Subject to change, of course.” He turned his spherical body into a cube for a moment by way of demonstration. An old joke, but I smiled anyway. It was good to see him. “Peter’s gotten a lot done,” he said. “Have you seen it?”
I shook my head, licking crumbs off my fingertips. “I just got up. And after what I said to him the last time we were in here… I’m a little embarrassed.”
He jerked a big thumb aft. “Go check it out. It’s impressive.”
I brushed off my hands and made to go out the back door. Pinky stopped me with a big hug from behind, pseudo-arms curled all around my middle. He rested his head on my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay. You scared me. All of us”
I turned around to embrace him properly, squeezing him tight. “I’ll try not to do it again.”
Pinky let me go and reached up to give me a pat on the head. “Okay,” he said. “Now you can leave.” He turned and walked back toward the bridge. I smiled fondly at him, watching the two grooves along his middle where I’d hugged him slowly fill up again as he headed out of the room. Then I went aft.
Peter’s contraption was in the very back of the ship, in the service corridor under the Drive. This hall was normally kept empty; that’s how it had been when we first inspected the ship at auction, and aside from cleaning the dust out and re-covering the floors with gray carpet foam, we hadn’t done much with the space. Now it was filled with a pile of components and tubing that, honestly, didn’t look much different from when they’d been a bunch of separate pieces of equipment in the cargo bay. It was obviously a kluge, looking more like something out of the 19th century instead of the 29th. In the middle of it all was Peter, squatting over where the mess plugged into the wall.
“I hate to ask, but are you sure this will work?” I immediately regretted the words. I should have started with an apology.
Peter stood to face me, wiped his high forehead and put his hands on his hips. “Yes. It’s basic physics. The hard part was just coming up with a housing for the capacitors.” He pointed to the big cylinders that sat in the middle of the contraption. I didn’t want to think about how many gigawatts of power had been sitting in those batteries the whole flight. Navy ships used them to power ion guns that would rip ships apart at a range of 100,000 kilometers. What if they’d blown up while we were shaking around inside The Giant?
Well, it was a moot point. If they could get us home, that’s all that mattered.
“Is there any way to test it?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said, and pointed to the wall where cables fed from his kluge to jury-rigged sockets. “I’m wiring it as a fall-back to the power supply battery system. It’ll show up on our screens as extra energy.”
“I mean, how will we know it works under live conditions?” I asked.
“Ah.” His grin was lopsided. “We Jump.”
I snorted. “That’s reassuring.”
“It’ll work,” he said. “Honestly, that’s not what you need to worry about.” His tone was still light, but his expression had darkened some.
“Oh?”
“You saw Pinky’s map,” he said. “Vatan’s still at the end of our range, and fuel use isn’t perfectly predictable. Pinky and I have done the math the best we can, but…”
I frowned. “You’re saying we still might not make it all the way home.”
“We should. There’s a lot of juice in those batteries.”
“But we might not.”
He nodded. “Yeah. We might not.”
I bit my lip. Then, “What happens if we don’t have enough fuel for that?”
He shrugged. “Ships that get lost in Jump don’t make reports.”
A beat passed. “Do the others know?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I told them while you were sleeping. They’re all right.”
I reflected on that, watching the contraption blink and hum quietly to itself. I licked my lips and said, at last, “Hey. I’m sorry for yelling at you the other day. I don’t know what got into me.”
He smiled ruefully. “I don’t blame you. I’ve been kind of a jerk.”
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head.
“It’s true.” He looked earnestly at me. “I’ve spent most of the last two weeks sulking, waiting for Majera to fall apart, for us to die.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m a coward,” he went on. “Always have been. You know that. Space scares me, hyperspace really scares me.” He lowered his voice. “Losing Marta scares me.” I looked away at that. “No, it’s not your fault,” he added quickly. “It’s mine. You worked so hard to keep us going, when we had no clue what to do. You found the refinery on Jaiyk. You flew us through that gas giant and got us the fuel we needed to go home. Me? I’ve had my head up my ass.”
He pointed at the contraption. “I hope this makes up for it. To both of you.”
I stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug, blinking away tears. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Peter. I know it’s been hard. You must have been scared to death.”
I felt him shake his head. “No. I’ve decided I’m not going to be scared anymore. Whatever happens will happen. If we don’t make it, at least I’ll be with friends.” He pressed me away gently and put his hands on my shoulders. “But I’ll tell you this, if we make it back,” he said in almost a whisper, his voice quavering just the slightest bit, “the school had better give me credit for this project.”
I choked on a laugh, then decided to let it out. He joined me with a quick chuckle. It was clear Peter was putting on a brave face, but that was way more than I could ever have expected from him. Maybe more than I deserved.
“I’ll make sure of it,” I promised.
Launch Plus Seventeen (Standard)
Peter and Fareedh told me their kluge was fully hooked up and ready to go early the next day. I called us all to our stations right after. With our food and air supplies so limited, the sooner we left, the better.
The Window was split into three vertical panels. The middle was the real-time view, currently displaying the new constellations I was starting to get used to. The Giant was behind us now, thankfully out of sight. The left side of the Window was taken up by the local star chart. Pinky’s sphere now showed three colors at its edge: a new red shell extrapolated the extended range our capacitors gave us. Vatan lay in that shell. On the right, directly over Pinky, was our in-system navigation map.
“We’re ten radii away from the gas giant,” the alien said. “Minimum safe Jump distance.”
“How’re we looking otherwise?” I asked.
Peter spoke up, “Fuel is at 85%.”
“Air recycling system at 88% efficiency,” Marta said, a note of chagrin in her voice. “Not what it could be, but it should last a week with our current reserves.”
I eyed the navigation chart. “Let’s drift a bit,” I said. “Might as well risk as few safety margins as we can.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” Pinky said. “I’ll make the numbers work for when you give the order.”
The order. All I had to do was say, “Let’s go.” My voice caught in my throat, and I coughed instead. What was holding me back?
I glanced over at The Tree for reassurance. All of its symbols glowed a cheery green with the exception of the refueling subsystems, which were grayed out, thanks to our trip through The Giant. There was a little pop-up showing our battery charge. It used the standard icon, a long and cylindrical container with a little bump on the end filled with blue to indicate charge level. I never knew what that icon was supposed to represent; it certainly didn’t look like any battery I’d ever seen. The pop-up read 436%, and not only was the blue spurting out the top in a big spray of liquid, but there were little animated figures in swimsuits playing in the shower. I smiled. Fareedh’s doing, I was sure.
If I still had the capacity to smile, things couldn’t be too bad. I took a deep breath and exhaled, decision made
“We’re probably far enough out now,” I said. “Peter? Want to do the honors?”
I looked over at him. He nodded with a tight smile. Then his eyes widened, and he exclaimed, “Almost forgot!” He reached for the bottle of anti-nausea capsules on his panel. He popped a couple in his mouth and swallowed. “Anyone else want some?”
“I think I’m good,” Fareedh said. “I’m ready for it now.”
“Tough guy,” Peter said. “Marta?”
“Sure,” she said, taking two from him.
“Pinky?” Peter held the bottle out.
“No drugs for me,” the alien said. “I’m a fan of clean living.”
Peter rolled his eyes but if he had a choice comeback, he kept it to himself. “On your command, Kitra,” he said. I noted he didn’t offer me any capsules, which was kind of flattering.
“On my mark,” I said, then swallowed. “Three. Two. One. Mark.”
This time, we were all watching the Window as we made the transition into Jump. A hole appeared in the sky, a circle of darkness quite different from the blackness of space. The stars seemed to crawl away from that hole, slowly at first, then racing. It wasn’t really the stars that were moving—we were flinging ourselves into that hole, an all-consuming nothing that lay in a direction the human mind couldn’t imagine. I was ready this time and shut off the screen before Jump space filled it. The cramps hit right after, doubling me over, even braced as I was for them. I wished I’d taken a pill after all.
“We’re in Jump,” Peter announced, a little raggedly.
“I noticed.” I was still catching my breath. “That was a rough transition. Are you sure everything’s all right?”
Peter didn’t answer for a while, checking over his panel. Finally, he said, “All systems report within tolerance.” He turned to look at me. “It’s the oversized battery,” he explained. “It punched us through to Jump space hard.”
“Not too hard, I hope,” Fareedh said.
“I…I don’t think so. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. We won’t be doing that again on this flight.” Peter pointed at the battery pop-up. The little people had disappeared, and the icon was empty.
“What’s our fuel at?” Marta wanted to know.
“46%” Pinky replied.
I swiveled the chair to look straight at Peter. “Is that enough?”
He tried to smile, but his eyes remained solemn.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Chapter 16
Launch Plus Twenty (Standard)
The next several days were a drag, just like the first time we Jumped.
Before the trip, I’d had the idea that the seven standard days in Jump would be the best part. Other than ship maintenance, there were no responsibilities, no worries. Nothing happens in Jump, but nothing can happen to you. I figured it’d be a non-stop party with tons of good food, fun holos, and long games. Sure, I was in the piloting business for the exploration, but that was no reason getting there couldn’t be half the fun.
There’s nothing like the feeling of impending doom to kill a good mood. We tried to keep our spirits up, but Peter’s words were always in the backs of our minds. The fact was, no one knew what was waiting for us at the end of the week. Whether we’d have enough fuel to get out. What effect the harsh catapult into Jump would have on our exit. We only knew that we might not have much time left.
I was brooding on this grim line of thought as I entered the wardroom for breakfast the third morning after going into Jump. No one was there yet. The table was bare, and most of the shelves were retracted. It was funny. Before the flight, we’d had all of these plans to decorate the ship with custom posters, murals, souvenirs, stuff like that.
The room wasn’t entirely empty. Sprawled across the port wall on the lone shelf that was out was a set of four smudged transparent containers with little dark boxes attached to their sides. They hadn’t been there yesterday. I walked over for a closer look.
Each one was about a half-meter wide, a little less than that in depth, all filled with moist dirt. Terrariums of some kind, I guessed, though there weren’t any animals in them. A greenish-gray film covered the soil in the containers. The black boxes affixed to the containers each had their own little sayar screen. From the numbers and graphs on them, I deduced that they were environmental regulators, keeping the air make-up, pressure, and humidity at certain levels. I realized a moment later they were set to Jaiyk’s levels. The green stuff was the same sludge I’d found on the beach.
I whistled low. Marta had really gotten a lot out of my little sample!
I heard footsteps behind me and knew it was Marta without even looking. We all had our own preferred footwear that made distinctive sounds against the floor. Peter wore slippers; Fareedh had his sandals; me, my work boots. Pinky didn’t wear anything, of course. But Marta usually wore low heels, even shipboard.
“Aren’t they great?” she said, coming up beside me.
“The containers?”
“Yes, the samples. They’re doing nicely.”
I shrugged. “If you say so. Looks like sludge to me.”
She gave my left shoulder a gentle punch. “That’s because you’re not a biologist. I’ve isolated three different species so far.”
I looked over the containers. “I still don’t see why you needed to set them up in here.”
“Well,” she said, tapping at the screen on one of the Jaiykariums. “My room is full, and I wanted them some place I go often so I wouldn’t forget to check up on them.” Then she chirped, “Ooo!”
I looked over at her. Her curly hair was swept back behind her head leaving a couple of locks framing her round face, and she had on a purple sundress with a subtle gold pattern to it. She was pointing to the aft-most box. It seemed more smudged than the others. I stepped up to it and saw that threadlike tendrils of the stuff had crept halfway up the sides.
“I’m playing with different temperatures and wavelengths of light,” she explained. “Looks like I found a winner, at least for this species.”
“Um, are you sure this stuff isn’t going get out and take over the ship?” I asked, only half-kidding.
Marta wrinkled her nose. “No, silly. If it got out, it’d die. The oxygen would kill it.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” I eyed the stuff warily, then shrugged. Marta knew biology.
It was quiet, the ship’s air circulators and the gentle hum of the specimen box environmental controls a soft background noise. I became conscious of Marta’s body heat, radiating close by. I casually took a step away, sideways.
“Kitra,” Marta said, her tone serious. “Is something wrong?”
I turned to face her. “Uh… what makes you think that?” I asked.
“This is the first time we’ve talked to each other alone in two weeks.” There was a little crease between her big green eyes.
I realized I had started rubbing the fingertips of my right hand together, and gripped the nearby chair to stop. “It’s just been busy, you know?”
“If it’s about,” she hesitated, “what I said before, I’m sorry about that.”
