Belters

Chapter 15:

Chapter 15:AD 2100 Inner Belt – Daniel Frazier

Jacob opened his eyes to see Ava’s unusual shade of light green bloodshot eyes staring back at him.

“What happened?” He tried to sit up, but a firm hand held him secure to the mattress. His face itched from the tubes that ran into his nose, and an IV trailed into his right arm.

“Yo, dude, you died.” Ava’s voice had changed. Gone was the stress from earlier. Some of her misplaced cheerfulness had returned. At once, the exuberance wore on his nerves. His head felt like it had been sat on by an elephant.

Jacob recognized the Frazier’s infirmary. He was certain they hadn’t been rescued, if any of that nightmare was even real. He doubted this was any version of heaven, though perhaps hell. “What? What do you mean…? Let me up…” He wasn’t held down by a hand, but he was strapped on the medical couch. Bound tightly, he wasn’t going anywhere until the straps were released.

Ava leaned back, and the strange woman from the Miyajima floated behind her, watching the pair. Her blanket had been replaced. Sweets now wore platformed sliver combat boots and patterned black on white pants with a black tank top. Jacob knew the garish outfit. Ava had worn it the first time they met.

His friend kept chattering onward. “Your heart stopped for over ten minutes… Sweets here saved your ass. She did CPR…”

Margaret spoke in her usual calm manner. “Consider us even.” It was the first he’d ever seen the stoic woman crack a sincere smile.

“I didn’t know it was a contest. Wait, so I started the reactor?” The majority of events remained lost in a fog, but he remembered that part, the pain of it all.

Sweets shook her head. “No… Technically I did, but your error gave me a clue where not to touch. So your pain was instrumental to my success. If you need the stroke to your ego, you may have it…”

“And here I thought I was a hero.” He tried to sit up once more. “Why do you have me tied down?”

Sweets continued to explain, “There was a fear the damage might have caused more harm than the medical computer was able to diagnose.” She cleared her throat. “We didn’t want you floating off while we rested.”

He understood Sweets’s words, but the meaning didn’t register at first. “Rested… how long was I out?”

“Some time.” Sweets looked at the scanners.

“How long, damn it…? Is the Frazier safe?” Jacob wanted to ask if he was safe, but the words seemed so self-centered coming from a hero.

Ava cut in, “Two rest cycles… forty-eight hours. Listen, that isn’t important, you needed the rest. But I need to ask you the important question…”

He had lost two days. Hopefully, some work had been completed. The women would not have lounged about while he slept, no matter how involved he wanted to be. He asked, “What question?”

Ava leaned back in, her words whispered softly, like the question was forbidden knowledge. “Did you see the light… have a near-death experience, or maybe a visit from a long-dead loved one? What is death like?”

“Sorry, no… no light… or anything else…” What did the crazy Martian expect him to say?

“Damn… nothing? No dreams over the past two days?” Ava released the straps as she spoke.

“Only intense pain.” He thought for a moment, trying to recall the lost memories. “Maybe a bright light… with the pain…” Each memory needed to be pulled out. “I remember a shitload of pain.”

“Wow, a near-death experience.” Ava clapped her hands together. Her reaction completely over the top.

“That was probably the two thousand one hundred sixty volts of power that you touched. Main power is a real killer.” However childlike Ava acted, Sweets remained analytical. The difference between the two as they stood near each other was startling.

He was finally able to raise himself to a sitting position. “Then why am I not dead…? I expected death to be a tad more… final. Why am I talking and thirsty as hell?”

Ava adjusted the bed for him. “Not sure… I am glad you didn’t head into the light… You’re one lucky S.O.B. That is for sure.”

Margaret shrugged. “Could be you’re just lucky, but I believe a combination of the cold and CPR kept your brain alive until we could get your body functioning once more.”

He nodded, not fully understanding what happened while he was out. “So the ship is safe?” Jacob asked once again.

Margaret handed him a flask of water. “Somewhat. Let’s call it safe-ish. We still have a huge list of things not working, but we will not freeze, and we got plenty to breathe and rations. We should last until we are rescued.”

“So your ship reported in before the event?” Jacob took a long drink of the cool water. The liquid did little to quench his dry mouth.

“I’m not sure.” Sweets studied the deck at the foot of the medical bed.

Jacob wasn’t finished. “How long before you are reported missing?

“At most, ten days.” Sweets never averted her gaze from the deck.

“When help will come.” Ava butted in.

“I can’t answer that. I am not familiar with the last transmission of our location. If the event shorted out so many systems on this ship, chances are high the Miyajima never got off an S.O.S. In theory, we might never be found without active coms working.”

“Then we need to fix that.” Jacob removed the few remaining straps and floated from the bed.

“I agree.” Sweets nodded.

“Am I cleared to help out? I’ve goofed off too long.” He removed the O2 tubes from his nose and the IV from his arm.

“The scans say there should be no permanent damage—” Sweets paused before finishing her thought. “Except what you already knew about.” Strange, the woman blushed after the last comment.

Jacob wasn’t surprised. It was a common enough effect. His disability, the chair specifically, made people uncomfortable. The sight of anyone stuck in a wheelchair became less common every year. Medical advances continued to cure those who could afford the treatments.

Off the O2 and free of the bed, he started to feel lightheaded. “Tell me, are the scrubbers on the list of items to fix?”

“Yes, and coms… Well, a shitload of things aren’t working.” Ava pushed herself back, giving Jacob some room.

“I think the air mix is wrong… Something isn’t right with life support. Do either of you feel… odd?” Jacob fought his urge to laugh at the sound of his voice.

Ava giggled. “Stranger than glowing like a lightbulb?”

“The nitrogen might be building up in our blood.” Sweets nodded. “I feel off. I thought it was the radiation treatments.”

“We need to check the scrubbers and life support…” Jacob followed Sweets into the corridor.

Ava floated out of the medical spaces. “Yes, dear…”

They needed to fix the life support quickly, or they would only grow more irrational. Ava was already showing signs of narcosis or something similar.

“We might need the emergency O2 breathers if we keep feeling… odd.” Jacob called behind him.

The floating Sweets changed direction aft, toward the engineering decks. “Agreed.”

“I’ll get some ready.” Ava floated toward the suiting out room.

The Frazier wasn’t dead yet, but they had a long way to go before they might consider themselves safe. Jacob doubted the ship would ever fly again without extensive repairs in drydock.

AD 2100 Inner Belt – Virgil

In the few hours Tian and Lea had been apart, the programmer did the unthinkable. Walking the corridors, people called to the androgynous person like an old friend. Tian called back, somehow knowing each person’s name they encountered.

During the journey to Ceres, Lea never noticed Tian’s natural ability to make connections with fellow travelers. For the standoffish Lea, it seemed a minor miracle. Tian seemed to care about everyone they met.

Once in the mess, Lea was even more impressed. A great deal of the crew family was there. Those between shifts had gathered. A huge celebration was in the making. One by one, Tian introduced Lea to the ship’s family by name and occupation and the passengers by name and job description. By the third introduction, Lea was lost in a cloud of names and duties she would never remember. What surprised her more, Tian poured them both a cup of hot black liquid.

One sip and Lea realized it was real coffee, not the normal sludge transport ships tried to pass off as real. One sip and a small part of her relaxed. Amazing what a simple luxury like coffee could do for a person’s mental state.

“You have done so much… surely you learned where we are going… or why?” Lea asked. The awe was evident in her voice.

Tian’s voice lowered, whispering like a conspirator. “No one knows but the captain… and maybe Doctor Abe… Perhaps that should be said the other way around…”

“That sounds hinky… Doesn’t all this secrecy sound mysterious to you?” Lea whispered back. Lea was used to tightly controlled ships, but she never expected a family ship to be so anal about company secrets.

A shrug. “Not really… with all the corporate espionage and piracy that takes place, FlyRight holds a great deal of their actions guarded…” Tian stretched back. The chair, welded to the deck, remained in place.

With the Virgil currently accelerating at a comfortable half-G, the ship experienced an artificial gravity of sorts. It would last until the burn completed and max speed was reached. Then the crew and passengers would need to suffer through zero gravity until deceleration. Space travel was boring for most and at least predictable. With this size of a ship, Lea hated to guess how long they could stay away from a station for resupply.

Tian kept up the chatting. “The family is used to this. The Virgil has worked many times with FlyRight, and often no word of the cargo or mission will be announced until after coms have been secured and first supper is finished.”

“First supper?”

“Sure, it’s a Virgil family tradition. The first meal after leaving port is a huge feast. That’s what’s going on here… Master Baal spares no expense. The crew prepares all manner of delicacies from Earth for the first supper after leaving port. No one really knows how long we will be away from station. This ship… this ship is outfitted for very long hauls. Longer than I ever thought possible…”

“And last supper… sounds like what they give a condemned man.” Lea savored a sip of the hot black gold.

“Nothing so morbid… the ship will celebrate the last meal before reaching dock with another feast is all, and afterward, coms are turned back on for the crew.”

“I guess I will need to wait for my answers then… Any guess as to why you were reassigned?” Lea cupped the mug in both hands, anything to calm a growing feeling of dread that filled her heart. She needed a place to hide, but her desire for revenge kept nagging in the back of her brain.

Tian nodded. “The orders cited my unique soft skills…”

“Your what?”

“My language skills and the fact I can learn new languages quickly… When I was a kid, doctors told me I can see connections where others can’t… I now think they were wrong.”

“You never told me… How many languages can you speak?”

Tian scoffed, “That isn’t a fair question, really… There are so many different levels of fluency. But I can speak the five major ones without an accent.”

“Five major?”

“Most spoken… Mandarin, English, Hindustani, Spanish, and Arabic… A few more I can get by in… I am pretty good with all the Romance languages. A couple from the African Union give me heartaches. The clicks… I find hard to make.”

“You’re kidding…” Lea thought she did well with her three languages. The thought of holding so many words in her memory caused her head to throb.

Tian then started speaking in what Lea understood to be Mandarin. The words flowed from her, the tones and inflections perfect. After a breath, she switched to the sing-song voice of a language Lea was unfamiliar with before finishing up with Arabic.

Lea only understood a few of the words, but she could tell Tian had mad skills with languages. She gave the programmer a slow clap. “I must say, I’m impressed.”

Tian’s cheeks flushed red. It was the first time Lea had seen such humility from the programmer. “For me, languages are like writing code… It just makes sense.”

Lea asked, “You said something about doctors…”

“Yeah… I probably should leave that out… But we are friends, right?” Tian smiled.

Lea nodded. Her friends list was short, one more would probably fit.

“When I was younger, I had a few problems adjusting… getting along with others my age… My parents sent me to a slew of doctors, thinking there was something wrong.”

“I’m sure they had the best intentions.” Lea needed to say something. The failure of parents and her own experiences with family wasn’t a subject Lea wished to remember, let alone discuss with others, even a new friend.

“Yeah… I now think they were mostly quacks, taking my parents’ money and telling them what they wanted to hear. That is why I started learning so many languages… all to talk to people better.” Tian lowered zer eyes to the cup gripped in shaking hands.

“Are you all right?” Lea asked.

The programmer looked up and smiled. “Yes… just dealing with some bad memories. My language skills didn’t help me make friends with the other kids. If anything, it made things worse, but… it did help me make friends with adults.”

“I’m sorry. Children can be such monsters.”

“They only learn it from their parents… It’s okay. Besides, adults are normally so much more interesting.”

Lea took a sip of the coffee, not wanting to contradict her friend. In Lea’s experience, adults were simply children with better toys and more power to hurt others. They rarely showed the mental maturity they should for their age.

“Besides… once I figured out the quacks were all wrong, it made life so much easier.”

“How so?”

“It is obvious we are all connected. That much makes sense, but I’m not sure I see those connections. Really, anyone can find them if they look. I think I can see the breaks in the connections. My soft skills are repairing those breaks between people… reaching out and touching others’ feelings… Some call it empathy.”

The conversation suddenly made Lea extremely uncomfortable. Perhaps there was a reason Tian latched onto her on the lift. Maybe she sensed her broken connection with the rest of the world around her.

The programmer laughed. “What the hell do I know? It’s all new age crap, anyway. I’m the way God needed me to be, and I shouldn’t complain about the gifts he bestowed on me.”

Whispering with a cautious voice, Lea asked, “Are you a theist?”

“How can we be where we are and not be?” Tian gripped something hidden under the coveralls.

Lea assumed it some sort of religious icon. She smiled and sipped from her cup. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” She reluctantly added, “You might be on to something… about the connections.” It was better to let the other comment pass for now. There was no need to discuss religious beliefs and the… insanity of faith.

“Yeah… Maybe…” Tian took a drink of coffee. “Listen. You never said why you’re here… What skills does a pharmaceutical inspector have that this science mission might need?”

She was happy for the change in subject but not to that topic. It was one of many questions Lea feared coming up in harmless conversation. “Tell me what the mission is, and I might be able to tell you… I don’t know why Doctor Abe offered me a position… I’m not really sure why I took it.”

Tian gave Lea a knowing grin that, for some reason, made her skin crawl. “Fair enough.”