Gram · Big Sister
Little Sister in the sky did not yet appear particularly large, nor could one yet
feel stronger or more frequent breezes, the telltale signs of the upcoming
once-in-four-generations vigorous combing of Big Sister’s hair. But a period of unusual
storms was definitely coming, and the weird feeling in his spine, bordering on pain,
told Elder Gram that this turn would be especially memorable. Two months from now, maybe
three, before the weather would strike with full fury as the two planets frolicked
through the point nearest to Mother, almost catching one another on their shared orbit.
“Screw that shit.” He sighed and drew the gray blanket tighter across his legs, as if
the spring had suddenly receded into winter. As if he could feel the cold in his lower
body anyway.
He ran his fingers along the scar stretching from his right triceps to the back of
his hand. The fall that had shattered his T12 vertebra and torn open his arm all those
decades ago had not been the result of an exceptionally violent storm—more the sum
of unfortunate coincidences. Still, he disliked these rare seasons with their
unpredictable climate. Mostly because of the recurring pain. Not to mention how sick and
tired he was getting of the Sisters’ Kiss, the stupidest festival in the history of
mankind. One he had helped invent.
This was supposed to be his last one, but his body disagreed. Skipping time through
torpor had ceased to be an option more than a decade ago. His last one had almost turned
fatal, and they had to pull him out prematurely if he were to be revived at all. The
unit was still there; maybe they could even bring it back online. But not for him.
A mild breeze ruffled his hair. It brought the smell of petrichor from the valley
below and the faint sound of rocksong from the weathered cliffs far in the east. He
closed his eyes and, inhaling deeply, took it all in. It was progressively more
difficult to enjoy these small indulgences with an aging body and growing discomfort.
Little Sister would not be the worst place to retire. The lower gravity would make it
easier for his frail frame. Medical facilities were decent. Yes, the weather there was
even shittier, but he could wait the worst out underground and still have the option to
get outside and get to know the strange little world firsthand.
“I’m coming, you little shit,” he grumbled at the small blank half-disk over the
eastern horizon—the other half shrouded in the shade of its long night. Although
he had dedicated his life’s work to pushing society forward, he despised change on a
personal level. But studying the local soil might be interesting.
Gram turned to wheel back into the house to do some more cataloging of his dirt
samples while waiting for his ride. The sound of tires on gravel approached before he
reached the doorway. The battered old rover rounded the corner of the wooden structure
and came to a halt in front of the porch ramp.
“Sorry, man, got held back at the cellars. Unloaded a crapload of roots from the
Konishis,” said Loryn as she shifted the gear into neutral and jumped out to help Gram
board.
Getting him into the car took barely a minute. The two of them had been through the
exercise so many times over the years that they had developed a choreography. Gram’s
light body and Loryn’s strong physique allowed for an almost rhythmic ballet: bend down,
hug with left arm, right hand under knees, count “one-two-three,” and jerk, and lift,
and position the frail human cargo on the shotgun seat in one smooth arcing motion. Not
even breaking a sweat.
“So, the Konishis, huh?” Gram looked out of the window as Loryn turned the rover
back. The wheelchair rattled in the hold with every bump.
“Know, eh?” She seemed excited. “Had to tell ’em it was enough when the hold was
almost full. They wouldn’t keep any for themselves.”
“Fuckers had to lose a kid to pull their heads out their asses and start
contributing.”
“They were nice.”
“And selfish. Never pulling their weight. Till now, I mean.”
“Sure they had their reasons.”
“Bullshit.”
“Come on, old man, cut them some slack.” She slapped him across his thigh, sending
one unfeeling limb bouncing off the other. She turned to him, grinning. The recent sunny
days had brought out the first freckles on her round cheeks. “What matters is there’s
less to worry about should the fruits and grain get ruined.”
Despite his pessimism, he liked her youthful vigor, even when she sounded recklessly
optimistic.
“I hate turnips anyway,” he grumbled under his breath. A few seconds later, they both
burst out laughing.
“But I do hate them,” he said in a normal voice after the moment had passed. “And I
hate missing the kid. He was smart. It was so stupid, trying to weather that bitch of a
storm on their own.”
“Never saw it coming. Nobody expected it.”
I did.
Gram touched his scar again, then adjusted in the seat to ease the dull throbbing
around his spine. It was still subtle, but the weather patterns were already shifting.
The scene continues. Read the first chapter as a bonus in Carolyn.
Dan · The Able
After regaining consciousness, Dan relaxed his entire body, inhaled, exhaled, and
started counting to ten in his mind, as the thawing protocol recommended.
One. Two. Three. Four…
Wait a minute… Okay, take another deep breath, start over, then open your eyes.
No. Something was wrong.
It should have smelled like a hospital. Sterile, technical, hint of ozone. Chatter of
the techs discussing his vitals, muffled by the still-closed lid. Just like after the
short calibration run on Luna. Or after the real deal, a ten-year initial suspension
aboard the Able. This was definitely not sterile. There was no chatter. And instead of
ozone, there was the smell of rot. He forced his eyes open and shivered. Feeling cold
was to be expected, but not this much. The next wave of shivers nearly turned into
spasms.
Cryosuspension never promised to be a pleasant experience. The focus was on
functionality—to keep a person alive. After each of his previous freezings, Dan
had woken up cold, famished, and confused. But he had woken up to the sterility, the
ozone, and the slight chill of an early spring morning. Not this time. The smell of rot…
Jesus! His throat wanted to scream, but it was not yet ready to make sounds. All he
heard was the rush of fresh blood in his ears, driven by panic and the dreadful
suspicion that parts of his body had decayed over the centuries on ice. As the thawing
proceeded, the sepsis from the necrotic limbs would kill him within hours.
Another cold spasm ran like a tsunami from head to toe. Weird. He could actually feel
the icy fingers everywhere…
He felt for the bump of the positioning controller under his left middle finger and
pressed it until the backrest lifted his torso into a semi-sitting position—as
much as the lid of the coffin allowed. The faint whirr of the mechanism was the first
sound he heard besides the frantic drum of his own circulation. Quick visual check. His
body looked frail, shriveled from the cold and the pre-freeze fasting. A bit too
cyanotic, but pink was gradually taking over. No dark spots marked his skin. He flexed
and relaxed his shoulders, back muscles, buttocks, hamstrings, and calves. He wiggled
his fingers and toes. They seemed to be intact, too. So the rot, it was probably not
him.
Another lungful of the chilly air. The smell of decomposition was still pervasive.
The hermetic seal of the coffin had disengaged with the start of the thawing procedure
in order to equalize the inner and outer atmosphere. Outside air had been seeping in
from the moment the warmed blood was pumped into his veins, pushing out the non-freeze
solution that kept his vessels and cells from bursting.
Dan tried to clear his throat. It felt better. He cleared it again, then coughed. His
fingers fumbled for the controls and let the lid swing open. The backrest sat him all
the way up, and he looked around in the dim light.
“Jesus.” This time it came out loud, his voice a rasp. There were no techs to assist
him, no chatter, no other sound besides his own blood drowning the faint hum of air
scrubbers and a rhythmic machine droning in the background.
Only small spotlights, one over each coffin, lit the cryogenic life-support bay. The
space was quite narrow, more of a corridor than a storage room. The floor curved up
sharply in both directions. Within the limited line of sight, six other coffins lined
the wall to his left, one next to the other, with only a narrow separation between them.
All were open, all of them lit by their spotlights. Next to each, at least as far as he
could tell, lay an untouched towel and white overall set neatly upon a small shelf. The
rest of the bay with more of the pods rose out of view behind the curve.
His cryounit was close to the end of the room. To the right, there was another open
one, also lit up, towel and clothing next to it. Obscured by shadows, he could barely
make out the remaining two beyond it, their illumination switched off.
Dan knew it would be futile to try to convince himself that everyone from the already
open, lit-up caskets had walked out and headed to the infirmary for their post-thaw
check naked. Nobody had walked anywhere; that was clear.
The scene continues. Read the first chapter as a bonus in Carolyn.
Alexi · Heinlein
The methane rain that had been pattering on Alexi’s back and hamstrings for the past
ten minutes eased up and turned into a gentle drizzle. Her spread wings caught a
convective updraft to regain some of the elevation that Heinlein had drained from her
over the previous smooth, spiraling descent. For several minutes she had ridden the
winds without beating her wings once—the low gravity and thick atmosphere doing
the work.
Alexi loved the serenity of free flight—nothing but herself and the frigid
landscape of Heinlein. No propulsion, no machinery surrounding her, no responsibility
for the daily job of cargo transfer. This was just her. Her muscles, her time, her
thoughts, drifting above her home moon.
Pulling her hands toward her face, she changed the geometry of the wings. In a single
motion, she wiped her mask and extended her arms. She squinted at the massive disk of
Bee above the horizon and watched the cloud bands of alternating colors swirl across the
gas giant’s illuminated face. It framed her right hand, too small to eclipse the planet
completely. The light played games with her fingers and reflected off the material of
her glove. Wisps of evaporating raindrops gave the image a surreal look, underscored by
the hum of wind reaching her ears.
She pulled her arms back, nearly slapping her thighs, then reached for the wind
again. The beat made her ride the updraft faster. A twist of her hips and torso aligned
her point of view once again with the horizon. She spread her arms to find the perfect
balance between aerodynamic lift and gravity.
A gust grabbed her right wing and pushed it hard, sending a stab of pain into her
shoulder as her arm got twisted unnaturally behind her back. In a violent spin, Bee and
Heinlein alternated in front of her in wild succession. Clasping her hands behind her
back, she folded the wings and used a slight extension of her elbows to get the rotation
under control.
Feeling the drafts with her entire body, she let her instincts find the optimal path
out of the turbulence so that she could work the surrounding air again. A tingle of
excitement ran up her spine, the same as during her most recent haul, when she had
steered her freighter away from that vent over Bradbury. When she had improvised her own
gravity ladder to make it home without missing the landing slot. When she had broken
protocol. Again.
The scene continues. Read the first chapter as a bonus in Carolyn.
