I did some wandering around, looking into different places, exploring as much of the ‘ship as I could. Obviously the Cockpit, the payload bay and the engine rooms were out of bounds for passengers, but I have seen everything else; all I could really.
Still, space travels are mostly boring. It takes about three days to get as far from any given mass – such as a planet – as necessary to bend the space; it then takes another three days or so to get from the place where the ‘ship reappears to the final destination. Summarized, our journey was bound to be six days, minimum. You had to have something to do to survive the boredom. It was far worse than seafaring on the Old Earth in the Old Times. Back then they had the sea and the breeze and the birds, but here, there was nothing. Quite literally.
But this is the thing with boredom: when you are bored, you want some distractions, any distractions, and then you realize that with certain things you would rather not have the pleasure.
On the fourth day of our journey, the sirens went off. I panicked, but then I recalled the procedure and returned to my room. A male voice instructed us to put on our space suits, immediately, so I did, I locked the helmet in place, ran a diagnostic and sat on my bed waiting for the green lights to appear.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking.” Bloody loudspeakers – except that this time, it was not loudspeakers but the space suit radio. “Due to a recycling unit malfunction, there has been a substantial loss of atmospheric pressure in the ‘ship. The hull has not been breached. There is no immediate danger to life and no reason to panic. I would like to ask you to remain in your assigned quarters and wear the space suits including helmets at all times until further notice. Please liaise with the ’ship’s AI in case of any problems, be it malfunction of equipment or psychological discomfort. Thank you.”
Wonderful. No hull breach: good. No immediate danger: good. Loss of pressure and the need to wear the space suit for an indefinite amount of time: less good. I really did not like the feeling of a space suit; I did not like the oxygen tanks on my back, the helmet which only allowed you to see in one direction, the gloves which made your fingers about four times as thick as normal and did not allow you to handle everyday items. I did not like the relatively heavy magnetic boots, and I certainly did not like the bloody head-in-a-fishbowl feeling the ‘suit was giving me.
Oh, well.
The next thing that happened was a loss of artificial gravity. Not that I immediately took off or anything, because I was sitting and not moving when it happened, but I started to feel a bit dizzy, then a lot dizzier, and then, the next time I moved, I launched myself towards the ceiling.
“Oh fuck,” I said to no one in particular and I used the handles provided on the walls and the ceiling to stabilize myself. I didn’t like space suits; I hated zero gravity.
Soon after I found my way back to the floor, the situation became even more interesting.
The light above my door shone. I managed to get to the door relatively quickly, not killing myself in the process, and open the door. It was the captain.
“You are a doctor of medicine,” she verified, using a closed short distance circuit of our ‘suits.
“I am, yes.” The answer came with a caveat, though. “But it’s been a while since I practiced.”
“Doesn’t matter. Come with me, there’s a medical emergency.” I followed as soon as I heard the keywords medical emergency. Space ship captains normally have wide authorities and can make anyone do almost anything under the threat of severe punishments for disobedience, but I didn’t need an incentive like that.
The sick bay was in the state of total mess; things were everywhere, tools and containers with medicaments and even pieces of clothing were floating around without any order. But that was neither what I noticed first nor what I paid attention to.
“Oh fuck.” There were two people obviously trying to restart a third person’s heart. “Oh no!” I made a quick jump to approach them and assist them. I immediately forgot everything, the captain, the rest of the world, my dislike of the situation, my funny movements and thick fingers and the lack of feeling in the space suit gloves. It was not important anymore. The only important thing was to save a life.
That, I did not manage to do.
Sixty-five minutes later, it was clear that the dead man would not be any less dead, no matter what we would do. I swore and then I swore some more, but there were no tears. Not yet. Back in my hospital days I always used to cry when I lost someone, and now I was sure I would cry later, but there appeared to be more important things to do first.
Like calling the captain and telling her that somebody just died on board her ‘ship.
Now that we were not desperately fighting for the man’s life anymore, there was time to make a quick chat and a very brief introduction. The two people were Maria and Anthony, nurses assigned to the ‘ship for this journey.
“The fact that Dr Marlow passed away is acknowledged,” Mess said as soon as she appeared in the sick bay. Her voice sounded right next to me, but of course that was because she was using the short distance circuit which transmitted her voice straight inside my helmet. “I will make an appropriate entry in the log.” She turned to me. “Alix, meet my two nurses, Maria and Anthony. This,” she pointed towards the dead man, “is my medical officer, Dr Leonard Marlow. As you can imagine, you are now the only doc on board.”
I didn’t say anything; I was considering what would follow. Was she going to ask me to stay in the sick bay and be a temporary doc? That would be funny as technically, I was at the time not a practicing doctor but a researcher and a scientist, and it had been a while since my hospital days.
“I am very impressed how well you handled the situation,” Mess continued, “especially given you have no zero-g training and no experience with attending to a person wearing a space suit. I would therefore be eternally grateful if you could stay here for the time being and replace Leonard. This is just a temporary measure, obviously, and does not make you a member of my crew.”
“Sure.” Shit. There it was. I immediately felt uncomfortable with the literally endless possibilities of how crisis could unfold and how my lack of sufficiently current experience could cost us. If I was our best option… Oh dear. “I suppose Maria and Anthony will show me around.”
“Of course,” Maria confirmed her willingness to help me.
“Yes, that’s what I was going to say,” Mess continued. “First of all, we need to put this place in some sort of order. Maria, Anthony, could you please help Alix do this. Please also explain to Alix how things work here, and please log an explanation on what happened from your perspective – both what happened to Leonard and why is this place upside down.”
Both nurses confirmed and went back to placing Leonard’s body in a body bag. Bloody goddamn zero gravity; one could not even provide the dead man with the traditional courtesy of covering his body with a white sheet and waiting an hour or so before officially zipping him in the black non-woven textile.
“Good. Kaa, please remind me to log an explanation of the sick bay situation. Anthony, could you please show Alix how to deal with the paperwork. She is not a Flotilla officer, so you will have to guide her through it. I will double-check and countersign everything once you have it ready.”
“Will do, captain.”
She turned to me. “Let me know if there’s something you are not sure how to deal with, okay? I appreciate that I am not putting you in an easy position.”
My medical licence had been revoked on Iokasta for my alleged subversion and sedition and technically, I was not allowed to do an actual doctor’s job; I was a researcher. In addition, I had no idea how to handle anything on board this ‘ship: the procedures, the available equipment, the current adverse conditions. I felt a bit stressed, but for a few reasons, I did not want to add to Mess’ pile to deal with, or cause any panic. “I will try to manage,” I said with as much confidence as I could scrap.
“I am off, then.” And she disappeared.
I was impressed with her calmness. An hour ago, when she summoned me, there was a sense of urgency, but no panic. Now, she lost a crewmember, and while she was obviously affected by that, she did not lose it in any way.
In the next hour or so, with Maria’s and Anthony’s help, I was able to deal with the paperwork, the log entry, the sick bay clean-up, and one dead body.
“Hello. You are Alix, I suppose.” A male voice; not Mess, then; and guessing by the size of the space suit, not the big security guy, the one who took me to the ‘ship’s prison on my first day. I didn’t know anyone else from the crew, so I was yet again facing something unfamiliar. I hoped the feeling of strangeness would go away soon.
“Indeed. How can I help you?”
“Hello. My name is Frank, and I am the navigator and the second-in-command of this ‘ship.” He did not shake my hand because you don’t do things like that in a ‘suit, but he turned so that I could see his face through the transparent part of the helmet. “Could you please follow me. The captain wanted you to attend the chief officers’ meeting.”
“Sure.” Maria and Anthony apparently heard what Frank just said, so I made a farewell gesture towards them and left the sick bay. We quickly proceeded through the corridors and ended up in one of the rooms the passengers should never, ever enter: the Cockpit.
“Alix. Thanks for coming.” That was Mess. I quickly looked around. There were seven of us: myself, Mess and Frank, then the big security guy (who had a baton, a ray gun and a pair of handcuffs on his belt even when wearing a space suit) and three people I did not know. These were two males and a female, probably; it was not straightforward to tell in the ‘suits.
“Boss. You sure about this?” asked one of the guys unknown to me. He meant my presence, that was for sure; it took me a while to locate who was actually speaking. “The authorities won’t like this.”
“They come and stop me,” Mess said. Somehow she managed to sound both indifferent and defiant. “In case someone didn’t notice, I am the captain of this ‘ship. I will do whatever is needed to get her home safely.”
“Fair enough.” The guy laughed. “I am not questioning your decisions! I just don’t want Mr M to cause you problems.” He spoke with an accent I did not know.
“Captain, the Regs require me to point out to you that this is a Flotilla officers meeting, but there is a person present who is not a Flotilla officer.” This was the security guy.
“Acknowledged, Hank. Kaa, please log Hank’s warning and that I understood.”
“Logged,” said the AI.
“Anyone else has anything to say?” Mess’ voice said that better not.
“Captain, I didn’t mean…” the security guy began. She made a gesture to stop him.
“I know, Hank. It’s cool. Don’t worry. Anyway, let’s start.” Mess extended her hand towards me, but did not turn to me. “This is Alix. She does not have a surname; don’t ask, it’s complicated. She is one of our passengers, and she happens to be a doctor of medicine, the only one on board right now. I asked her to become our temporary medical officer. I am sure Maria and Anthony would cope, but with 280 passengers and all the trouble around, I am more confident when we have someone with a proper medical diploma there in the sick bay.”
Five people gestured towards me in acknowledgement. I also made a ‘hello’ gesture.
“Is that why you invited her here, captain?” Frank asked.
Mess confirmed this.
“I am not sure this is a good idea. It’s just… she’s a civilian, and she will panic, won’t she? I am sure of it.”
“Alix is going to help us with a serious problem and deserves to be fully informed of the situation. Besides, Alix can hear you, you know.”
“I do apologize.” Frank looked at me. He did look mildly sorry for questioning my status – and referring to me in third person in my presence.
“Fabulous. Anyone for a second round of doubts?”
There was a mix of ‘nos’ and ‘sorrys’ from everyone.
“I would like to make a short introduction, then,” Mess said when they finished murmuring. “Alix, this is Frank, or Lieutenant Matinelli, my second-in-command and the chief navigator.” Mess pointed her gloved hand towards Frank, whom I had met already. “This is Hank – Major Hanseraq Eiríksson – who is my security officer.” This was the big guy; I have met him before as well, but we hadn’t been introduced. “Lieutenant Kip Polansky, my chief engineer.” This was the guy with the funny accent. I wasn’t quite sure how an Australian accent should sound, but for some reason Lieutenant Polansky sounded close enough. “Second Lieutenant Mette Sørensen, the purser.” The female. She looked like a stereotypical cook, a big woman with a friendly face. I realized I have seen her before, she was the person responsible for catering, meeting the passengers three times a day in the ‘ship’s dining hall. “Second Lieutenant Balvinder Singh Thomas, our payload officer.” This was a man with a religious headwear under the helmet.
“OK, let’s start, then. Kaa, please log what people say from now on.”
“Aye,” the voice said.
“Alix can explain what happened to Leonard. Please.”
I did what I was asked to do. I told them about his heart failure, about how we tried to restart him for more than an hour, about this being nobody’s fault; the usual stuff. I felt I would definitely cry that night, when going to sleep, but I tried not to show that.
“Thank you.” Mess seemed moved; everyone seemed moved. I realized I just talked about someone who they had probably known for quite a long time. This was immediately confirmed. “In the year or so Leonard was with us, I learned to respect him, appreciate his experience, and actually quite like him. His first trip with this ‘ship was a disaster of a sort, but since then, he became a valuable and valued member of my crew.”
The other five officers added a few words of their own, while I kept my gaze low so as not to disturb their moments of sorrow. Then, they held a 30-second-long minute of silence for the man.
“Moving on,” Mess said finally. “Kip. Your update, please.”
“Sure, Boss. So, there were three problems to start with. There is the failure of Recycling Three; that one is done. Not possible to fix it, but I stopped trying, as I don’t think this is a problem really; more of an inconvenience I’d say. Then, the G-mesh. That’s back to operational, and I can turn it on any minute. Just give me the right order and voilà, I will make your gravity happen.”
“Good. I will make an appropriate announcement and we put it back on, otherwise people will throw up their guts. Is eleven hundred realistic?” 1100 was in forty-five minutes. It was not even noon and how much had happened already.
“As good as any other time, Boss. The G-mesh is good to go.”
“Bal? Need more time to fix anything so that the payload does not crash?”
“No problems in the payload bay, captain,” said Balvinder. “Just… If Kip could do it slowly, and not like the last time.” I was not sure what the man was referring to, but Kip obviously knew, and he did not look happy about the reminder.
“Well, yes, cool. Will take care of it, Bal. So, now for our main problem, our lovely Right Front. I need more time to make that baby work with me and not against me.”
“Could you please be more specific?” Mess asked with a smirk. I did not even know what the Right Front was.
Kip started to talk. He talked a lot about various failures, about what he thought could be broken, about all the things he tried to address the mysterious trouble the ‘ship was experiencing and whether it helped, and about how much that affected our ability to bend the space. It was obvious that while Mess knew fairly well what he was talking about, the rest of her crew had no clue. The only thing I was able to work out was the nature of the Right Front: it was an engine, not a conventional one but one which would help bending the space for us. One we could not do without.
“Look, Boss. Fuel, we’re good. Hydrogen, we’re good. Grease, we’re good. Security switches are on and all green lights. Fuses are either replaced or not blown. What should move, moves, what should not, does not. The obvious things have been checked, fixed, rechecked and fixed again. From my engineering perspective all looks hunky dory – apart from the obvious fact that the Right Front is just such a pussy. What to do, I don’t know. Kaa has no idea either. The things I had done last time to make it all work did not help this time, and I guess I will just have to keep trying. My engineers are there right now, working on all the stuff I told you about already, but who knows if that helps? I don’t.” And he threw his hands in the air in a desperate gesture. There was still zero gravity, so it made him spinning away from the rest of us; everyone laughed; no doubt he did that on purpose.
“Fine,” Mess said after this frustrated tirade. “I guess asking you ‘how long’ or such will be of no use.” He shook his head, an exaggerated gesture in a space suit. “I will make the appropriate announcements about the G-mesh, we switch it on at eleven hundred, then I’ll come and find you, and you, me and Kaa will try to figure the Right Front out together. Let’s see if I can add any fresh super clever ideas.”
“Works.”
“Mette. Your update on the state of the food, water and recycling, please.”
“All good, captain,” the big woman said. “We’ve got enough of all essentials. Recycling Three only concerns the inner atmosphere, so even without it I am not short of anything. Water levels are good and not getting worse; we have about twenty-eight days before we have to get to the e-rats, and with the e-rats, we have another forty, at least.” Her stereotypical appearance extended to her voice: she sounded like everyone’s mother.
“Anyone else has anything to add?”
There was silence. I raised my hand to make it obvious I had a question. “I don’t understand this very well,” I said when Mess nodded to encourage me to talk. “But – are we going to die?”
“Possibly,” Mess replied. “Hopefully not, but one never knows.”
“Can we go back to Iokasta?” I continued. It would be extremely unpleasant for me, but the rest of the ‘ship’s company would be fine, so…
“No.” There was a moment of silence. “No. You weren’t in the previous meetings, so you understandably don’t know this, but what happened is that due to the Right Front malfunction, the space was bent around us, but we fell out of the crease in a wrong place. We worked out where we are, but getting out of here is something else.”
“Thanks.” I appreciated the open answer. I looked at Frank; he was looking at me, probably waiting for me to panic. I smiled at him to show him I was not panicking at all. In a way, I was actually happy. If I die, I die free, that’s what I thought.
“Good. Everyone knows what they are doing? Kip will take care of the Right Front; I’ll help him; Frank will be in charge of the Cockpit for the time being; Alix will be our temporary medical officer and will take care of the sick bay and whatever happens there; Bal will make sure that the payload does not cause any trouble once we switch artificial gravity back on; everyone else goes about their business as usual. Understood?”
“Yes, captain,” was the reply of most, apart from Kip (‘Yes, Boss’) and me (a nod instead of a verbal answer).
“Good. Everyone knows their tasks, let’s be about them. Kaa, we are done.”
“All logged, captain,” the voice confirmed. In the meantime, I was wondering how many people there were in the crew.
Mess made a gesture towards me to make sure I’d wait; everyone else except her and Hank was gone in less than ten seconds.
“You need a crash course in emergency procedures,” Mess said. “Hank will help you with that. It should take about an hour and a half, and don’t worry, if there is something the nurses cannot take care of, they will call you.”
“Fine.” I followed Hank somewhere towards the centre of the ‘ship.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking.” I knew about this announcement, and still I jumped. I needed to do something about it.
The announcement that followed was the one about switching on the artificial gravity. People were to return to their quarters immediately and secure all freely floating objects, no matter how small, and before 1100, they were to lie down on their beds or the floor (the grey thing, not the blue thing) and wait for the gravity to kick in.
Hank did not care about that. He took me to a room which contained lots of guns, all of them secured to the walls or placed neatly in transparent cabinets, and he started talking to me about the safety protocols and how things worked.
I was so focused on his explanations of how to operate the emergency equipment and evacuate the ‘ship that I nearly missed the return of the sweet pull of artificial gravity.
Two hours later I was back in the sick bay, feeling like I knew everything and nothing at the same time, like I already forgot everything important, like I didn’t understand a thing; like Hank was talking for two hours straight and I remembered precisely nothing; like I still had to learn an awful lot. Maria was showing me details of how just about everything in the sick bay worked, and my head was exploding. I was familiar with the civilian, planetary version of most of the equipment, but this was a space ship, everything looked different, everything was smaller and/or more sophisticated and/or adapted for zero-g, vacuum and other space specifics, and all this was just overwhelming.
Maria and I were next to one of the two pressure rooms and she was showing me how to use this facility in case of loss of pressure (like now) when I heard a familiar voice.
“Hello? Anyone around? I think I need medical help.” I already got used to the fact that people who sounded just next to my ear were not necessarily so close. We immediately abandoned my training and I focused all my attention on Mess.
“Good news is that the Right Front is nearly ready to go,” she said. “Bad news is that now I need you to fix me, and keep me going.” I noticed that the left arm of Mess’ space suit between the elbow and the wrist was damaged and showed signs of emergency repairs.
“Time to go and try one of the pressure rooms for real,” I uttered and took Mess to one of the very few places where she could take off her ‘suit to show me what happened.
There was a lot of blood to start with, and in my head, I symbolically thanked the space god for giving us back the artificial gravity. When Mess removed the ‘suit, I examined her forearm and immediately saw a series of nasty-looking cuts. It looked almost like some clawed monster had repeatedly assaulted her.
“Explain to me what happened,” I asked her firmly. I absolutely needed to make some scans to see if anything else was wrong with her, for example brain damage or internal bleeding after being hit with something heavy, but if she could tell me in advance, that would help a lot. And if not, for example because of inability to make herself clear, that would be valuable from diagnostic point of view.
“We were in the engine room, doing some repairs on one of the subunits of the Right Front. I was helping Riff, one of Kip’s engineers. Suddenly a cover of another subunit disengaged and fell. I was not quick enough to get out of its way entirely.” She shook her head. “We did not even touch that one. I don’t know why it went down. Kip is investigating, but it’s not his highest priority just now.”
“Did the thing hit you?”
“No. Not really. When it started falling, I was warned and got away – almost. It just fell down on my elbow and took me down and scratched my arm. Riff lowered g locally and pulled the thing away, he immediately fixed my ‘suit and activated the basic medical circuit, and then he told me to go here.”
“Yes, he did the right thing.” I looked around. Three minutes ago, Maria showed me where everything was, and I still remembered. I pulled out three things: a gel disinfectant, a tube of regene-glu, and some sterile gauze.
“How much does it hurt right now?”
“Not at all, but that’s because my arm is numbed from elbow down. The ‘suit did that.”
“I see.” I started working on Mess’ injuries, not using any more anaesthetics. I also made a mental note about the need to study all the medical functions of the ‘suits – just in case.
“I guess you now have to go and do some captain-of-a-starship stuff, but it would be good if you could give your left arm a rest for at least a day,” I told her when I was done with her. Regene-glu was an all-purpose miracle, neatly packed in a tube, but it could not do the impossible. “Before you leave, I would like to do a quick whole-body scan, to see if there is some unexpected damage.” I noticed I had switched into my doctor mode: speaking with the confidence and authority of someone in the know. People hardly ever resist this.
“Any point arguing that that’s not necessary? I have to go back and continue working on saving my ‘ship.” But of course Mess tried to resist. This was like a soap opera stereotype of space ship people – heroes who had nothing but disregard for their health.
“Not as long as I am your temporary medical officer.” I shook my head. “In the meantime, I’ve read the part of the Regs concerning medical officers, even the substitute and temporary ones. I now know what my responsibilities exactly are, and you will do as I tell you, or else.”
“I am quite impressed that you found time to read this stuff, and that you bothered. Fine, let’s do this. You are probably right anyway, better safe than sorry.”
“That’s right,” I approved of this attitude. It did not take me long to get her out of the ‘suit completely, do my checks, then let her get a new ‘suit from one of the sick bay emergency boxes.
“She actually did what you told her,” Maria observed when Mess left. “When she has these eyes, it’s very difficult to make her stop for more than 5 seconds, because she thinks we are in crisis and the ‘ship is more important than anything. How did you manage that?”
“Just told her she had to do it, I guess. Maybe it’s because I am a guest here, she did not want to be difficult.” That’s what people did, sometimes, right?
Maria laughed. “Yeah, or maybe your will is stronger than hers!” she said, and we got back to her explaining to me how to use the sick bay facilities efficiently.