Chapter 14
Day One
(age twenty-four)
Rowan didn’t look surprised that she’d come back. He gave her backpack a funny look, like he’d expected it to be bigger, but then he was all smiles, welcoming her aboard. Kelli didn’t trust that smile. She imagined a mermaid’s smile, beckoning below the waves, hoping someone would drown.
“I’ve commed ground control and set up our trajectory,” he said. “T minus half an hour. We’re just refueling and doing the automated pre-flight maintenance checks; when that’s done, we’ll unclamp and taxi to the launch pad.”
“Okay,” said Kelli. She felt a little faint. The ship’s forest-green and plum-purple walls, eight by eight feet on each side of the corridor, seemed to close in on her. This was really happening. She’d never been off Callisto. “What should I do until then?”
“Pick a bunk and strap your backpack down nearby. Get settled. When the launch starts, you’ll want to either strap into your sleeping bag, or come sit in the copilot chair.
All the bags are acceleration rated as long as you’re zipped up in them with the straps on—I can help you with that if you’re not sure.
Copilot chair might be a little more overloading, but it’d mean you won’t be alone.
Launch can be a lot your first time. Oh, and you’ll want to take a couple of these. ”
He pulled a blister pack of tiny pills out from a storage bag and popped two out into his hand, then held them out. Kelli scowled. She didn’t actually think Rowan would hurt her. But people weren’t supposed to take pills from strange men.
“They’re long-lasting anti-nauseants formulated for zero-grav,” Rowan said. “I remember how you used to get motion sick on the hyperloop. Zero-grav feels like jumping off of something and never quite hitting the ground. I don’t want you to barf all over my ship.”
Kelli’s scowl stayed in place, but she gingerly took both pills.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose as her hand brushed his, and she pulled back as quickly as she could.
Rowan watched her with an amused expression.
She’d told him not to touch her—but technically that had been her touching him, not him touching her, and she didn’t know what else she was supposed to do.
Make him lay the pills down on a flat surface?
It would have made her look finicky, and it was too late now.
“Um,” she said. “Water?”
“Right.” He rummaged around and handed her, not a bottle, but a weird bottle-sized baggie with a straw poking out. After a second of experimentation, Kelli figured out how to work the plastic valve inside the straw and suck water out. She swallowed both pills through that method.
He showed her around, reviewing the things she’d want to know while aboard, either for safety or for basic daily living.
He pointed out the controls for the airlock, engines, and life support, which she shouldn’t touch, and which wouldn’t do anything drastic in any case without his password.
He showed her the storage closet; the exercise equipment; the outhouse-sized compartment of the bathroom.
He gave a quick rundown of what to do if an alarm went off, which mostly consisted of, don’t panic and don’t get in my way.
Thinking about alarms did not make Kelli feel any better.
On Callisto everyone was aware what to do if there was a gas leak, a decompression, a wall breach, a fire.
Any of those things might kill the whole colony.
But if they happened on Callisto there were emergency response professionals who would come and help, safety compartments to shelter in, a colony-wide PA system for status updates and instructions.
In space, Rowan’s ship would float by itself, hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the nearest safe harbor.
What were these preflight maintenance checks about, anyway? Were they really good enough?
But she didn’t know what do to about that, besides follow him around and note where everything was. After checking out all the bunks, she picked the study. She wanted to poke around in that study a little more on her own. Find out what else Rowan was hiding on those data chips.
Then there was a beep—not an alarm, although Kelli jumped a little, but a timer on Rowan’s watch. He looked almost as startled as she was. He’d always been the type of person who lost track of time.
“Okay,” he said, “it’s go time. Did you decide on your bag or the co-pilot chair?”
“The chair,” said Kelli.
He led her up the ladder through the hatch in the ceiling, which was the one place his tour hadn’t taken her yet.
Above the main level, the ship’s crewed compartment split into two rooms, each only half the height of the main rooms: long enough to lie down in, high enough to sit upright, but not high enough to stand.
One, at the back, was a lovingly kept nook, upholstered in wine-red, taken up by a red sleeping bag and a few of those ubiquitous storage bags.
That was where Rowan had said that he slept, near the cockpit.
It was also decorated with a few cheap pieces of art.
Nothing tawdry, which surprised her—just starscapes, a mountain, a mirror.
And a tiny printout, taped up in one corner, of Orlando.
There was something awful in Kelli that wanted to stare at that room for a long time, but she shouldn’t.
People’s rooms were private, even if Rowan hadn’t bothered to put in doors or curtains or anything.
She forced her gaze in the other direction, to the cockpit, which was a little bit bigger than the sleeping nook, but only just. It was also all sideways.
The top of the ship was covered in an arc of thick, multilayer, bulletproof glass, surrounded by an incomprehensible array of screens, dials, buttons, and controls.
Two padded chair-like contraptions lay on their backs below this arc.
Whoever got into them would have to crawl in, lie down supine, and swing their legs over the seat.
In that position, they’d face up toward the window in a parody of sitting.
Kelli didn’t even know how to drive a groundcar. She had no idea what any of those controls did, or why there needed to be so many.
Rowan looked at her, amused. “You can still change your mind and go for the sleeping bag.”
“I’m fine,” Kelli snapped. He crawled into the left-hand seat, which was where most of the controls were. She crawled into the other chair, trying not to let on how vulnerable she felt as she got settled on her back beside him with her feet up.
Kelli didn’t want to go back to the study.
She didn’t want to huddle in that odd sleeping bag, through the violence of the launch, without even being able to see what was happening.
Would Orlando huddle in his ship’s hold while the suspicious mermaid took him to the Salt Sacristy’s inner sanctum?
No, he’d stand by the prow with the wind in his hair.
Kelli had never felt actual wind—just the chilly breeze that came out of Callisto’s air recyclers, which felt awful to her, like someone standing too close and blowing on her skin.
But she felt sure, in her heart, that real Earth winds were better.
Rowan pressed a button and a pair of over-the-shoulder restraints lowered onto both of them, like the ones that locked people in on a theme-park ride.
Not that Kelli had ever been on a theme-park ride.
They were heavily padded and as soft as the chairs.
They enclosed her like a gentle hug, leaving her arms, legs, and face free.
She swallowed hard and stared up at the window.
Right now there wasn’t much to see outside—just the gray expanse of the hangar ceiling.
“Okay,” said Rowan. “We’re gonna taxi for a bit, then ground control will count me down and we’ll take off.
There’ll be some bumping and jostling and a few gees of acceleration.
You’ll feel like you’re getting pushed down really hard in your seat.
You might see some fire or smoke outside.
That’s normal. Deep breaths. If your ears start to hurt, swallow a few times.
Don’t touch the controls, and don’t interrupt me. Got it?”
“I don’t have to do anything?” said Kelli, embarrassed and relieved.
“Nah. In fact, unless you have pilot training I didn’t hear about, it is illegal for you to do anything. I’m licensed to fly this thing solo.”
“Oh, good,” said Kelli faintly.
Rowan gave her a sidelong grin. “Oh, and try not to scream. We’re going to be live on air.”
Before Kelli could splutter out an answer to that, Rowan flicked a switch, and a radio crackled to life. Kelli dug her fingers into the meat of her thighs, resisting the urge to snap out some annoyed words for the person on the other end to hear.
Or was it a person? The staticky voice that rang out across the cockpit sounded automated, impersonal and smooth.
“Vessel Wildfire, report,” said ground control.
“Vessel Wildfire reporting for launch.”
“Confirm: all mandatory maintenance checks are complete?”
Rowan glanced down at the controls. “Confirmed.”
“Confirm: refueling is complete and all fuel lines disconnected?”
“Confirmed.”
“Confirm: planned trajectory remains as submitted? Submitted trajectory is a boosted Hohmann transfer to Io.”
Kelli realized with a guilty start that she hadn’t asked Rowan where they were going. Io seemed as good a place as any. She marveled at the feeling of all these scripted confirmations, hinge after ominous hinge.
“Confirmed, boosted Hohmann transfer to Io.”
“Confirm: all intended passengers are aboard and all others disembarked? You have submitted travel paperwork for Rowan di Pietro, pilot; passengers: zero.”