SOMETHING WAS ALIVE in the crawlspace above aft berthing, and damn it all, it was Akiko’s job to slither up there and clear it out.HEADSPACE
SOMETHING WAS ALIVE in the crawlspace above aft berthing, and damn it all, it was Akiko’s job to slither up there and clear it out.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. In this case, illegal drugs.
With fumbling fingers, she unwrapped a tranq patch and slapped it on beneath the waistband of her jumpsuit. She braced herself against the wall for a long moment, breathing through the terror that came at the very thought of that narrow tunnel.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, she got by just fine. Haulers like the Tolleson had nice, wide hallways. Her crew berth was as large or larger than what she’d get in some residential stack down in Kyoto. Enviro duty meant sys-monitoring most days, and filters could be changed through hall or room access.
Then the one percent moments came along and slapped her upside the head.
Her heart rate slowed as the tranq did its thing. The overwhelming sense of doom diminished. Thank God that whoever busted into her room last week and stole half her stuff missed the tranqs hidden beneath a floor panel.
She stared up the ladder to the hatch in the ceiling. “Let’s do this.”
The work chit had described several passengers’ complaints of moving noises in the ceiling. Akiko had her suspicions. The ship’s last hop involved the transport of about fifty small animals for a colony on Capulet. The critters had been too temperature sensitive for the freight locker, so they’d been given a berth of their own. If anything had been flagged as missing, it wasn’t Akiko’s place to know.
The air shaft was about a meter in diameter—big enough that she could pivot around if necessary instead of backing up. Even blissed-out, she took comfort in that wiggle room. Akiko tapped her comm. Lights flicked on along the length of the tunnel. She squinted.
Something moved at the far end.
Her tools clanked against the tunnel as she crawled along, her knees tapping hollow. The thing came towards her.
That’s when she realized how incredibly stupid she’d been. She’d been so freaked out about the tunnel, she hadn’t thought about what might be in there. Any creature going to a colony world likely possessed some genetic modifications, whether to cope with the environment, boost agriculture, or poison intruders.
The creature entered the light.
“Damn,” Akiko muttered.
The ginger kitten had an odd, ambling gait that showed the sharp jut of its hips. God, the thing was half dead, and way too small. A runt, maybe, or just plain wasting away. Its mouth opened in a silent meow. A stubby tail stood upright as a flagpole.
“Hey,” she crooned, holding out a gloved hand. Before even reaching her, the critter began to purr. A trusting thing, then. Socialized. “How the hell did you get up here? That hop was too short for you to be born aboard. How did you escape? Did someone try to steal you, strip your ID, stuff you up here?” Damn, she’d need to check those quarters. There had to be some kind of break in the grate.
The little body rumbled in a fierce purr. Even through the thick lining of her gloves, Akiko felt the hard ripples of ribs. This thing had been stuck up here a week, at least. They had been in port for several days, and no one would have heard the kitten until they loaded up.
Now what the hell was she supposed to do with it? She did a quick check beneath the tail. Him.
No way would Captain Haanrath let her keep a pet on board; everything had to have a purpose. The man was downright obsessive with his protocols. Hell, even evac drills took place every other Tuesday at 0600; drug tests were Fridays when underway, and six hours prior to any docking. He timed it to the minute. Too bad he wasn’t so efficient in catching the burglar on board.
Haanrath would throw the kitten in a crate down in the hold. Akiko cringed. Good God. She hated being in tight confines, and couldn’t wish that on any other creature.
They were three days out of port. She could make do until then, smuggle him off, find someone to give him a home. How she’d do that, Akiko had no clue. This kitten was black market now. Haanrath might be the king of obsessive-compulsive, but she tended to operate by the book, too. Illegal tranqs aside.
“You’re nothing but trouble, know that?” she muttered to the kitten. His teeth bared in another silent meow and he butted his head against her knuckles.
“Trouble.” The name suited him.
*
Trouble immediately claimed her bunk, though he couldn’t make up his mind if he preferred the rumpled sheets or the worn-down nest in the middle of her pillow.
Akiko made a quick trip to grab a tray and recycled paper pulp from the enviro lab in the bilge, and hit the chow line for some meat. She largely favored carbs, so still had plenty of protein allowances on her ration card.
She couldn’t play spectator as the kitten snarfed up chicken chunks formed into perfect triangles. With a full buzz-on from her tranq, she climbed back into the shaft and sterilized the whole tube before any complaints came in about the sharp ammonia stink of cat piss.
A quick check on the berth used to store the animals confirmed a busted grate, probably from the hard corner of a cage. She used the commlink at her wrist to zap the repair chit over to maintenance.
It took another hour to do her normal duties: filter changes, climate moderation, so on. Normal day, other than finding an average-looking Earth critter almost dead in a duct.
She’d just finished up when a ship-wide message from Captain Haanrath landed on her commlink. She read and cringed. Now he was giving bonuses to anyone who helped drum up business in port for the Tolleson or her sister ship in refit, the Maryvale. He owned both ships and always talked about bottom lines and ninety percent capacity quotas and other bull. What did he expect the crew to do, walk the station with flashing placards? If the man wanted attention for the ship, he needed to do something lewd. That always gained media attention.
‘Course, Haanrath’s idea of lewd probably involved adding cream to his coffee.
She grabbed her own chow and headed back to her berth.
Trouble had decided on the pillow after all. He flicked one ear in response to her arrival. Akiko snorted. Typical male. Could probably sleep through a muster drill. She rested a hand against the kitten’s side. Already, the hard lines of his ribs had softened. Trouble had probably eaten his body weight in rehydrated fowl. Even so, he was small enough to fit in her palm.
Akiko gnawed on some boost-bread while she checked over the room. The makeshift litter box had been used. Good.
The bliss of the tranq dwindled away to bone-weariness. By morning, she’d be back to normal; by the time they docked at Assisi orbital, her blood test would look dandy, too.
“Do you know how to share?” she asked with a yawn. Trouble didn’t budge. Akiko sighed. She could just scoot the kitten over a few inches, but he looked so damn cozy.
To hell with it. She pulled her blankets off the bed and rolled her own makeshift pillow. The thin carpet was hard beneath her shoulder, but she’d slept on worse mattresses in her day.
There on the floor, the quiet vibration of the engines reminded her of a purring cat.
*
Klaxons caused Akiko to bolt upright. Sirens screeched from her wrist, the wall, the hallway outside. Where—what—how? Her mind snapped to awareness as decades of training took over, her focus on the sharp pitch and the pattern: evac.
It was not Tuesday.
“Damn, damn, damn.” Akiko slapped the commlink on her wrist to shut off the closest screeching.
Captain Haanrath’s voice boomed over the continued alarms. “This is not a drill. Repeat, not a drill. We’re experiencing catastrophic engine failure and estimate less than three minutes until rupture. Passengers, to your pods. Crew—”
Akiko shoved the emergency closet doors open. Her suit awaited, pants splayed open, coat wide, fish bowl helmet in easy reach.
“—don your gear, do everything as we drilled. Two minutes until pods disengage. Distress signal initiated. Godspeed.”
Godspeed. An old school atheist like Haanrath, calling on God? This was the real deal.
She hopped backward into the closet, pulling up the tabs along each leg as she straightened. The suit was designed to be form fitting but flexible for work on the hull—not like she’d ever been outside before. Not her domain. As she shoved her arms into the sleeves, she looked out into her room.
Trouble still lay curled up on her pillow. One of his ears cocked back in annoyance at the noise.
Oh, God.
She secured the suit to her neck. Her commlink chimed to signify proper sealing. Akiko grabbed the helmet and lurched out of the closet. The boots clunked, her feet dragging at the unfamiliar weight. Trouble reared back as if to flee. She clutched him with a mighty gloved hand, shoved him in the helmet, and then pulled it over her head. The fuzzy ball of warmth pressed against the right side of her face. The helmet clinked and sealed with a soft hiss.
Trouble squawked. He turned, a needle-sharp claw catching her across the nose, then the lip. No time to worry now if he had gen mod poison claws. Akiko spat out a paw. Orange stripes filled her vision.
“Calm down,” she snapped.
Years of training tumbled through her brain. Don the suit. Get to a pod; failing that, get to an airlock and rely on the suit. Jettison before the ship blows.
Akiko propelled herself through the door. Another white-suited figure rushed by. Further down, someone yelled. The ass-end of a kitten pressed on her left eye.
Haanrath’s voice boomed out, “Explosion imminent. Pods disengaging in twenty seconds, I repeat—”
She lunged for the nearest airlock. The door zoomed shut behind her, another door before her. No time to think, no time to panic, she punched the fat red button on the wall.
Akiko couldn’t help but scream as she was sucked into space. Her voice filled the confines of her helmet and sent the kitten into a renewed frenzy. White stars blurred as she spun, and she’d continue to spin that way to infinity if she didn’t stop it. She had the sense to smack the booster controls on her arm. The crazed spiral slowed, and she turned to look back at the ship—as much as she could see, around the cat.
The Tolleson was already a gray mass, growing smaller. Leaving her behind. Panic spiked in her chest. Dear God, she had just jumped into deep space. Was this all real? What if—
The pods split off, followed by other glints—crew like her berthed too far from the pods, all suited up to survive the vacuum of space.
She checked her commlink. The individual signals were too weak. No one in range.
Behind the furry body and the data across her visor, the ship fragmented.
No violence to it. No sound. Instead of a single gray hulk, it became several. Each spun off on a new trajectory.
She stared, awestruck. She breathed. Faster, faster. The warming gels layered in the suit kicked on, protecting her against the iciness of space, but her body was plenty hot. Her face flushed, the drenching sweat instantaneous.
Akiko was floating in space. Alone.
Here she was, in a suit. A tight suit. The claustrophobia of it strangled her.
Inhale, exhale. Faster, faster. Her lungs couldn’t expand. The fabric was too tight. And there was a cat, a cat right there, right on her face. God, what had she been thinking?
She needed out. Out of this suit. The logical part of her brain whispered no, that’s death, don’t do it, but logic had nothing to do with the reality of deep space; because maybe, maybe, the frigid nothingness would bring a more merciful end than floating out here for days or weeks—God, how long could she last out here? How long until she lost her mind?
Or had she already? A tranq. She needed a tranq. She needed something.
A stubby tail stabbed her in the eye and caused her to recoil.
Akiko’s heart threatened to pound its way free of the suit. A thin film of condensation lined the inside of the visor. Sweat gathered at her neck and threatened to drown her even as the suit wicked away moisture. She’d die out here. Her heart would race and give out, or it’d be the cold, or starvation, or—
Trouble’s raspy tongue stroked her cheek and shocked her out of her diatribe. Akiko closed her eyes. That little tongue lapped up tears and sweat all the way up to her eye.
It was easier, seeing only the blackness beneath her eyelids. She focused on her breath. In, out. She could taste the moisture in the air, and fur stuck to her lips, her skin.
The cut on her nose stung as Trouble’s tongue scrubbed it clean—God knew the bacteria he laced into her bloodstream. He didn’t need a gen mod to make her sick.
She kept her face still as he groomed her other cheek. Not like she could stop him.
Then, as if exhausted by his effort, he laid down. His furry body wedged against her mouth and nose and nigh suffocated her. For some reason, that didn’t panic her now. She blew out through her mouth. He moved back towards her cheek some more, his body rumbling in a purr.
“If we do die out here,” she whispered, trying to work some fur off her tongue, “I hope my ghost or something is around, just so I can see the reaction of whoever finds us. Whoever finds this woman floating in space with a kitten on her face.”
Purring was her reply.
“Yeah. I didn’t have the heart to throw you in a cage, and then I stuff you in my helmet. I guess I have a good excuse to be a hypocrite.”
She closed her eyes and just breathed. She had never been in a suit for more than ten minutes before, for drills. The floating sensation reminded her of how her body felt sometimes right as she fell asleep. Drifting. If she couldn’t see the stars, see the bleakness of space, she could almost pretend. Almost.
Someone would find them. Haanrath had sent out a distress call. Even more, the suits and pods had beacons. This was a trade route—not major like a direct hop from Earth or Mars, but it had traffic. For the Tolleson, Assisi was only a few days out, but other ships could make it faster.
Trouble squirmed again. His mouth found a tendril of hair and he began to lick and tug.
“Hey.” She tapped the dome. “If you hack up a hairball on my face, I’m not going to be happy.”
He enthusiastically ignored her.
Actually, he could do a whole lot worse than hairballs, but even that possibility didn’t bother her. Not now.
*
Akiko slept. Dozed might have been a more appropriate term. The panic returned more than once. Her eyelids burst open, took in the view as she remembered where she was, and how. Her heart rate kicked up as if it could power a reactor. Fat drops of sweat coursed from her brow.
But there was always that raspy tongue to catch her sweat and tears, that furry body that all too often threatened to suffocate her. She clenched her eyes shut again.
Akiko spoke to Trouble in a mutter, her lips compressed as tightly as possible, or she’d find a leg or paw stuck in her mouth. With her eyes shut and her heart pounding, she told him about her life. About her dad, the spacer who appeared with utter randomness throughout her childhood; her mom, a corporate phlebotomy tech who flew between Seattle, Kyoto, and Lunar One on a regular basis, and granted Akiko her first taste of flight.
“The Tolleson’s been home for five years. It is—was—a rust bucket, but it was my rust bucket.” She blinked back sudden tears, wondering at the fate of the crew. “There haven’t been as many passengers the past few months, since the peace treaty on Mars. Haanrath has been gung-ho about finding more business. Guess it doesn’t matter now. If he made it—if the others made it—maybe we can work on the Maryvale. Maybe.”
God. Everything was a maybe. Maybe she’d live, maybe she’d find a new home, a new job. Maybe she’d die here with a kitten on her face.
As if sensing her new dismay, Trouble purred. His front paws kneaded her jaw, those dagger-like claws catching her skin. She winced and smiled at the same time.
Trouble was there. She wasn’t alone.
Calmer now, she was ready to face the truth. She opened her eyes and accessed the commlink. Her oxygen supply and booster fuel meters gleamed in green lines against the faceplate. White stars blurred as her body continued a slow spin through space.
Trouble meowed; she felt the waft of his hot breath more than she heard it. He pivoted again, restless, probably hungry.
“I’ll buy you a Martian filet mignon,” she whispered. “Best cut of beef you’ll ever find. They raise miniature cattle in the domes there, a bison hybrid, so it’s lean.”
The commlink beeped. Akiko’s head jolted back in the helmet. Someone had pinged her system.
Far away, the dot almost blended with the stars. As it loomed closer, she made out the hard lines of a long-hop freight hauler, Uluru class. The thing could have held ten Tollesons in its broad belly.
“This is the Martian-registered Quintus. By your beacon, we identify you as Akiko Danielson, Chief Enviro of the Tolleson. Confirm?”
Tears squeezed from her eyes. “Yes. I’m here. I’m uninjured, but I’m not alone.”
“Ma’am? We’ve picked up the rest of the Tolleson’s manifest.”
Thank God, thank God. “No, not another human. I have a cat with me. A kitten, actually, in my helmet.” Akiko’s voice caused Trouble to start purring again. Loudly. No way the other ship could miss that.
There was a long pause. “Repeat that, please, ma’am?”
She did. And she repeated it again when Haanrath himself came onto the line. He didn’t judge. He didn’t have much of a response at all, actually. He just wanted to confirm the status of both of them, as if it was commonplace for crew to float through the deep with a kitten in their helmet. He’d wait until later to tear her a new one.
Trouble continued to purr as a massive arm extended from the hauler and plucked them in a cage-like grip. He purred until they entered the airlock and gravity returned. The sudden weight dropped Akiko flat, as if her body had gone boneless. Trouble squawked in alarm.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Feet filled her vision. Strong hands gripped her arms and pulled her up. The two crew women of the Quintus half-carried her into a small chamber off of the main bay. She sank into a chair. While one woman assisted Akiko in unfastening the helmet, the other ran a scanner over her body.
“Cursory health exam shows no anomalies beyond facial lacerations. We’ll do a more thorough examination in a few,” said the one scanning. A smile quirked her face as she looked Akiko in the eye—as much as she could, around the cat. “A kitten, like that. Never would have believed it.”
The other woman reached to lift up the helmet.
“I’ll handle it,” Akiko said, waving away the help. “I don’t want him scared by strangers.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
Captain Haanrath’s voice caused her to bolt up and salute. One of the crew caught Akiko before she crumpled.
“Sit, Chief,” he ordered, granting the two other crew a nod as they passed by. The door clicked shut behind them.
“Everyone else is accounted for, sir? Are they okay?”
“Had a few banged up, but nothing serious.” Captain Haanrath looked like he’d aged twenty years in a matter of hours. “All these years, I kept patching that ship up, and now she’s too far gone.”
“There’s still the Maryvale.”
He nodded, eyes creased in sadness. “Still going to be hard to keep afloat, business as it is. It could take years for the insurance off the Tolleson.”
Very gently, Akiko tipped the helmet from her head, angling it up like a bowl. She lowered it to rest against her thighs. Trouble peeked over the top of the helmet, meowing in his silent way.
“So this is your stowaway,” said Captain Haanrath.
“His name is Trouble, sir,” said Akiko. She opened her lips, ready to say she planned to foist the kitten off on someone in the next port, that she never intended to break policy in such a way, but she couldn’t manage the words. It felt damned wrong to say such a thing after Trouble saved her out there. Even so, no captain would let her keep a pet on board—especially Haanrath.
Could she give up space travel, just for a cat? She cringed. There had to be a good home for him somewhere, even if not with her.
“Trouble.” His gaze was shrewd. “This cat was listed as missing on a recent freight manifest. If he had escaped on board, we thought he would’ve turned up by now. He’s a gen mod.”
Akiko stilled, thinking of her cuts, thinking of her proximity to Trouble. “What kind of mod?”
The captain extended a hand towards her. Trouble’s ears perked up. Haanrath’s fingers loomed about twelve centimeters away when Trouble changed. He poofed up to quadruple his size, filling the helmet. A lion-like roar belched from him as a paw swiped at the captain. Haanrath leaped backward and almost into the door.
Akiko stared.
To her astonishment, Haanrath grinned. “Your Trouble here is a newly-mature guard cat. For transit, he was blinded by drugs, but they must have worn off some days ago. He imprinted on you. He’ll guard you and anything with your scent.”
“Oh.” As she watched, Trouble’s spiny fur dwindled down to normal. He glanced over his shoulder at her, as if for approval. A goddamned guard cat. They sold for a mint. The things were engineered for brilliance and deceptive brute strength. So much for finding another home for him. Guardians imprinted for life.
Guess she didn’t have to worry about anyone busting into her berth anymore. When she had a room again. Or belongings.
A sudden spark lit Haanrath’s eyes. “He might be the key.”
“Key, sir?” she asked.
“Our promotion problems. A cat that survived deep space in a helmet? That’s a story. We’ll have the Maryvale out in a few weeks. Word of what happened is going to spread. It already is, on this ship. It’ll travel from here. We’ll be the ship with the crewman and cat who survived a jettison together.”
His logic dizzied her. “I . . . you’re saying I can keep Trouble, sir? But Trouble—he doesn’t even really belong to you or me, does he?”
“No one has to know the cat in question is that missing guard cat, Chief. No one will know unless they try to break into your quarters.”
“If they survive the attempt.” Akiko stared down at Trouble. He mouthed another meow, and she shook her head, grinning. “I thought you always played by the book, sir.”
“Sometimes survival calls for a change of books.” Haanrath’s cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink as he squared his shoulders.
Akiko scritched Trouble between the ears. “Looks like we’re stuck together, you and me. You’re a spacer now.”
The ginger kitten’s eyes closed to happy slits as he purred approval.