2015 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide Read online

  Maybe it was because they were alone in their quarters with both parents kilometers away, but that moment seemed as big as the whole ship. “I never would.”

  She sniffled, noisily wiping her nose. “Okay.”

  “Let me get you those nuggets.”

  “What did the captain mean when he said Mom and Dad had a permit for a third?”

  David sighed, not sure how comfortable he was with the idea himself. Leading her from the room he tried not to gag at the thought. “Well, Mom and Dad are pretty smart, and they’ve shown they don’t mind working hard, so the Council has decided that Mom and Dad can have another baby.”

  David was sure her squeal of delight could be heard all the way across the Big Gulf back to Earth.

  …………………………

  David knew he was dreaming since there was never an extra ration of chocolyte.

  “Davie?” The voice was familiar and very squeaky. Was she still scared of the Bogeyman? Maybe the squeak was just the ceiling ventilator again. Nothing a little squirt of oil wouldn’t solve. He’d fix it in the morning. Dad liked it when he took responsibility for repairs in their quarters.

  “Do you think I’m gonna make a good big sister?” asked Abby.

  David squinted at the clock.

  02:42

  “Let’s go.” Abby bounced up and crossed to the door. She was fully clothed—but not in sleepwear or even daywear. She wore her expeditionary clothes, the ones intended for jaunts into the less rigidly climate-controlled and comfortable areas of the ship.

  His expeditionaries were laid out on the foot of his bed with his boots. Alongside them was his phone, one end pulsing softly with newly received data. He gritted his teeth. He hated when she messed with his phone. It was one of the ancient hinged models and very fragile. “It’s three in the morning.”

  “That’s why we gotta hurry.”

  He shook his head. What on the ship had possessed him to convince Mom and Dad to leave him in charge? Did Abby do this all the time?

  “Come on. You promised,” she said.

  “Promised what? Hurry where?”

  She smacked the latch release and the door slid aside. The corridor outside was lit in dim, night-cycle red. Abby turned to him, a gleam in her eye. “Repo One.”

  …………………………

  He looked back along the length of the spar access tube. The tangle of pipe, conduit and equipment diminished to a single shadowy point a half kilometer away. No one had been this way for years.

  Abby was so going to get it when David caught up to her.

  How had Abby gotten through the door, anyway? She was smart, sure. She scared him sometimes—other kids too—the way she’d hang back, studying. Worst of all was when she would blurt out questions that made the kids laugh until they realized all the adults had stopped to look at her.

  David keyed in the code he’d just spent a month’s chocolyte rations on. The older kid from his class had promised the string of symbols was an old universal access key used by the staff officers in their own phones, but he’d refused to swear it was still valid. He’d also been smiling when he cut the connection.

  A whole month’s chocolyte. David felt sick.

  Suppose the code had expired. It was ancient. What if alarms were blaring all over the ship right now? Command would contact his parents out on spar one-eleven and they’d have to come back. They’d probably lose their permit and, if that happened, they’d take his phone for sure. David wished the wobble in his stomach was only because of the zero-gee.

  Maybe he keyed in the wrong sequence. It was a really long one. He hadn’t wanted to use his phone directly so no one could trace it back to him, but he didn’t have a choice now. Seating the phone in the lock’s interface slot, he called up the code.

  The transparent glass of the phone flickered neutral white, connecting to the door.

  INNER DOOR BREACH appeared along the phone’s edge. Below that, BYPASS and CANCEL.

  These doors were actual locks, like those on the outer skin of the ship. The systems were designed to prevent accidentally exposing crew members to dangerous pressure changes. A quick peek through the dirty observation port showed a shifting shipscape beyond the other lock door, already rolled aside. Green lights shone along its edge.

  No danger, he thought. David tapped the analog pressure gauge above the interface slot. The needle on the gauges quivered like his stomach, so it wasn’t stuck. Pressure was good on both sides.

  He held his breath and pressed BYPASS.

  The circular door rumbled aside, a dozen tiny cylinders discharging with a hiss. David pushed away as the geared edge rolled into the wall.

  How had Abby gotten through this door on her own? He pulled the phone from the interface and keyed up tracking links, still set for the beacon clipped to Abby’s expedition jacket. She’d figured out months ago how to disable the shipnet’s automated child alerts, but he knew to look specifically for her, and that feature couldn’t be blocked. David followed the map Abby left on his phone, leading straight to this very door. David found her floating beacon where it must have snagged and come off as she passed through.

  How had Abby done it if he barely had the resources to pull it off? She was brilliant, all right; a brilliant pain in his—

  Movement flashed to one side, a flimsy aluminum panel dislodging from the wall. Swatting the panel away, David caught the look of grim determination on Abby’s face as she launched herself from the tiny hiding place. She rebounded from the door frame and sailed through the airlock into the openness beyond.

  …………………………

  “Abby, no!”

  David whipped himself across the threshold, seeing clearly for the first time beyond the inner lock and into the endless air. His heart thundered in his chest and he thrust arms and legs outward, desperately trying to stop his forward momentum. David hooked a bracket with a single index finger and yelped in pain as inertia attempted to pull the digit out by the root.

  “There is no down no down no down,” he chanted between gasps. In zero gee, Dad always preached, there is no bottom except wherever you are. Everywhere else is up. Swallowing hard, David scanned the interior for Abby. She was somewhere in Repo One.

  One minute she was bawling about the Bogeyman, and the next she was rocketing into the bottomless unknown. David did not get it. And Mom and Dad were going to have another one.

  Everywhere David looked, he could only see greenery intermixed with pipework and equipment. The arboretum, left alone all these years, was a jungle. And in zero-gee, it was as random of a mess as anyone could imagine. The far side was hundreds of meters away, major sections lost in swaths of gloom from disabled lighting. Structure peeked through in places, but it wasn’t always easy to find. There was order. You just had to look passed the trees.

  Abby’s trajectory should have taken her through the gap in the foliage across from the massive plenum of intersecting ducts. A web of guy wires and flexible conduits held it in place.

  A glint of light from the vicinity of the plenum caught his eye, and he saw Abby’s tiny body diving through a wall of leaves and webbing. Just before passing through the far side, Abby caught one of the heavier flex conduits. Sparks erupted from one side as the conduit pulled free, uncoiling as Abby held on for dear life, a tiny popper on the end of an electric whip.

  The conduit snapped taut around a thick branch. Abby maintained her grip and the recoil sent her drifting back toward the plenum. At least circuit breakers had tripped, ending the shower of sparks from conduit and the plenum.

  “I’m coming!”

  …………………………

  David swung out, his stomach lurching in protest. Nothing to fear. A few meters along the inner wall were two alcoves, each containing a U-shaped MMU—the same manned maneuvering units still used for zero-gee repairs and inspections. They were mostly automated, although crew members could ride along in their saddles if needed. All David needed was in
the storage box beneath them.

  Pulling open a panel, David removed two bulky orange belts. The belts were canvas with a box in the center and two small, open-ended cylinders attached by short, jointed arms to each side. Red and yellow LEDs flickered on one belt. Low battery, but still functional. The other was all green.

  Cinching the fully charged belt around his waist, he pulled the control pendant from the box and pushed off from the wall. With a whine of tiny servos, the belt’s fans spun to life, propelling David slowly and steadily on a course to retrieve the ship’s most troublesome girl.

  They were going to blame him, he knew. Why hadn’t he kept a better eye on her, they’d ask? Why hadn’t he been a better big brother?

  “Davie.” Abby’s voice was a barely perceptible squeak among the rustling of leaves and the echoing clunks and clanks of Repo One.

  Abby shimmied along the damaged cable, anchoring herself to the intake cowl of a one of the smaller ducts, this one only about three meters in diameter.

  Was she waving at him now?

  No. Pointing.

  David craned his neck to look over his shoulder. Air washed over him as two MMUs flashed by, banking left and right. Buffeted by the turbulence, he had to fight to keep control of the belt’s tiny fans. Chest heaving, he managed to keep his eyes locked onto Abby. Can’t panic now.

  The MMUs were alongside one another again, their gas jets—far superior to the belt’s tiny fans—powering them straight toward Abby.

  …………………………

  They were probably activated because of the damaged cable. The sleds were pretty stupid, designed to repair machinery and electronic systems, not enforce curfews or patrol abandoned cargo modules for intruders.

  Fans at maximum, David sped across the gap, guiding around the larger tree trunks. The junction loomed larger than he expected. He’d done the math in his head, but things often seemed small until you got close to them. Dad called it perspective.

  Abby seemed to be getting smaller as the MMUs bore down on her. She pulled herself along a set of personnel rungs until she disappeared into the clamshell-shaped cowling of the duct. She must be terrified.

  “They’re just going to fix the cable,” David shouted, his voice swallowed up by the ambient roar.

  As the MMU approached the interface where the cable had torn free, stowed arms unfolded into a half-dozen articulated appendages and ball-jointed tentacles, each sporting a set of specialized tools. The second sled maneuvered through a tangle of branches and conduits. A magnetic clamp on a wire rope deployed, snatching the free end of the cable from the air. Reeling in its prize, tiny metal fingers went to work amidst a buzzing of grinders and laser flashes.

  David reversed the fans to brake then shut them off, his momentum carrying him forward until he grabbed the edge of the cowling and flipped himself inside.

  Two meters inside the shadowy recess, Abby hung, hands and feet tucked into the louvers of a safety grill that prevented foreign objects from being sucked inside. The grill was loose, rattling as Abby moved.

  David glared at Abby. “We’re going back right now. What in the ship were you thinking?”

  Abby drifted over to him. Outside the two MMUs were reattaching the cable in a flurry of multi-jointed limbs, like two spiders fighting over the same piece of food. “I just had to know, Davie.”

  “Know what?”

  Seconds passed and she didn’t answer. He scowled and turned away. She was probably about to start crying again. With a sudden burst of anger, David pulled himself around to face her, lips parting in preparation for a Dad-level tirade. But she was looking out into the jungle of trees and pipes.

  A third MMU was jetting their way. This one had a passenger wearing an environment suit, his helmet emblazoned with the blue and green emblem of engineering.

  “This is your fault,” David whispered, but he knew that didn’t matter. He was the big brother. He was responsible.

  Mom and Dad were never going to trust him again.

  …………………………

  “S-sir, I can ex-explain,” David stammered. For captain’s sake, he sounded like Elliot. “You see, my little sister—I mean, we were just—it’s just this jerk told her...”

  A small panel on the engineer’s MMU popped open. An arm extended and bathed the inside of the cowling with red laser light. David closed his eyes and used his free hand to cover Abby’s as the light played across their faces.

  “We can be out of here in a flash, and I’ll make sure she never does anything like this ever again.”

  The gold-encrusted engineer’s visor showed only their own distorted reflections. Funny he should be wearing full EVA gear in Repo One. There was plenty of oxygen in here and this was the good stuff before it was circulated.

  White light flashed from behind the safety grate. The smell of ozone filled David’s nostrils, and Abby coughed. Sterilizing blast to keep stray biologicals from getting into the ductwork.

  “Sir?”

  The engineer didn’t answer. He hadn’t spoken at all. Had he moved? David scanned the environment suit. The glove joint was cracked and rubber fingertips were crumbling.

  The engineer’s scanner withdrew and several manipulators extended, a set of stubby pincers grabbing the spare maneuvering belt from the clip at David’s waist.

  For the first time, David noticed a couple of working tethers snaking up slowly against the engineer’s back. They must have been trailing him as he approached and now coiled up against his back from their own inertia. With an audible clack, the end of one tether glanced off the engineer’s helmet. One of its two clips was broken and burned.

  “Sir?” David waved his hand in front of the visor.

  A tug from behind, and Abby drifted away from him, pushing herself gently toward the engineer. David tried to grab her but it was too late. She cleared the busy sled’s moving arms, hooking her toe on one side of the MMU’s passenger saddle. Eyes wide and unblinking, Abby’s face hung centimeters from the visor. Still the engineer remained silent and still.

  Abby glanced back at David, and he shook his head sharply. Maybe the engineer was sleeping after a long, hard duty shift.

  Abby grabbed the bottom edge of the visor and snapped it upward.

  Her scream pierced David’s eardrums. She kicked off and, before David could get a look at the engineer, Abby slammed into him, twisting and spinning as she squirmed away amongst the clusters of control modules and cabinets surrounding the cowling.

  “Abby.” In vain, he tried to grab her before she vanished into the tangle of equipment and foliage outside. The engineer’s MMU, jets firing to correct the transfer of inertia, rotated, bringing the engineer’s face around.

  A skull stared out of the visor. David’s heart hammered and he couldn’t make himself breathe.

  The engineer was suddenly moving away. No, not the engineer. David had instinctively pushed himself backwards, deeper into the duct. He flailed wildly, seeking a handhold. Slamming into the safety guard, it dislodged and he was completely inside before he regained control and snatched a corner of the grate.

  With a screech of metal, the grate sprang back, rusty latches snapping home.

  Keep it together. Keep it together.

  The engineer was long dead. Taking several quick breaths, David forced himself to look beyond the busy spiderlike limbs of the MMU, still hard at work on the belt, and into the visor.

  Behind the glass wasn’t a skull. Just a shriveled, chalky face. The eye sockets were shadowy holes, and the lips cracked and pulled back from large white teeth. He’d been dead a long, long time, the MMU continuing its program in automatic.

  David grabbed the latch and tugged. It didn’t budge. Bracing himself with his feet, he took the small handle in both hands and pulled. For a second, he thought the rusted rods were moving but they were only bending.

  “Abby!” He pressed his face against the grate trying to spot her. “He can’t hurt us.”

  No answe
r.

  “Can you hear me?” He watched as the MMU inserted a new fuel cell from a storage box and began to reassemble the belt.

  Pushing away from the grating, David planted his feet on the back of the cowling trying to ignore the mouth-like duct shooting off beneath his feet like the gullet of a giant worm. With all his strength, he launched himself at the grating, impacting the metal grill with a groan of metal and a cry of his own.

  David shook the grate. If anything, he’d wedged it in even tighter. “Abby, come back.”

  Outside the sleds whined and whirred as they worked, but there wasn’t a squeak from Abby. The duct shuddered and air began to pour through the grate from outside. Tiny glass beads, scattered like glitter along the inside of the duct, twinkled. Another sterilizing sweep was building and the tug of a huge air handler deep in the duct was growing stronger.

  David stretched the fingers of both hands through the louvers to stabilize himself. If he stayed here he’d be flashed with sterilizing radiation. It might not be enough to hurt him but the fan pulling air from the old oxygen farm for the rest of the ship was definitely enough to ruin his whole day.

  The dead engineer’s sled continued fiddling with the maneuvering belt oblivious to everything but its program.

  He had no choice. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he keyed it on. Maybe they could shut down the duct from Command. He’d just have to take his punishment. Along the edge of the phone flashed four words.

  NO NETWORK. PROXIMITY ONLY.

  Droplets formed in front of his face, sucked instantly down the duct. David realized for the first time since he was Abby’s age, he could still cry. “Abby, please, I need you.”

  A tiny hand clasped his fingers where they poked through the grate. Abby floated outside, her expression unreadable as her eyes darted back and forth between the engineer and him.