Beacon 23: The Complete Novel (4 page)

• 8 •

At least I already have on the walk suit, and after a week of sleeping in it, the thing reeks of
my
sweat, not someone else’s. It’s this positive outlook on life that got me through three and a half tours of duty and the last six months of my first beacon stint. I’m a chipper guy, once you get to know the raw, dark dread and petrified fear that lurks in my breast and that I battle with every waking moment and that sometimes has me sobbing into my palms when no one is around and makes it really hard to be in crowds or to stand any loud sounds and has me thinking I’ll probably never be in a functional relationship again, platonic or otherwise. Once you get that, you have to say to yourself, “Hey, why’s this guy so damn happy all the time?”

I load a few supplies into the lifeboat (medkit, extra tank of O2, all-in-one meal, jug of water) and make sure the sampling case is locked in its compartment. Running checks on the engines and life support reminds me of my piloting days, back before I got grounded and forced into infantry. Drunks are an asset on the front line, the army taught me. In the air, we’re a nuisance.

As I’m warming the thrusters and wondering what’s alive out there in the asteroid field, I find myself craving a laser pod or two under my wings. And then I have to remind myself that this rusting bucket doesn’t even
have
wings. She’s shaped like an outhouse—only doesn’t smell as nice. She flies like crap, too, I am reminded, as I seal the hatch and decouple from the beacon. I maneuver with a wobble until I get a feel for the stick. Craning my neck, I look back at my little home in outer space, and the sight of her gives me vertigo.

I live in that?

The beacon is just an off-white can in an oil slick of black. Char marks and black spots dot the hull from micro impacts, and I can see a star through the new hole in the upper solar array. Flashing lights on the top and bottom of the beacon and out on the edges of the arrays signal a hazard to navigation to no one in particular. My sector is empty, save for the beacon. Even the bulk of the wreckage is gone; only the curls of metal and tinsel of carbon fiber indicate that anything happened here, like an intersection after a car crash with its scattering of glass and broken taillight covers.

I should get out more, I realize. The perspective feels good. NASA regs state that we should go for a walk once a week to inspect things, but I’m told no one does that. It’s easier to sit with our heads against the GWB, enjoying the buzz and hoping nothing bad happens to stir us from our miserable comfort.

The multi-display on the dash flickers as I lose uplink with the beacon for a moment. I slap the side of the unit, and the video returns to normal. I’ve got the beacon’s bio scanner repeating to the display so I can track the blip. I keep waiting for it to disappear. I can feel my beacon operator down in Houston tracking all the telemetry and drumming their fingers on their desk, wishing I’d hurry up and get them more data. At the neighboring desk, an operator is probably dealing with beacon 512 and a pesky blackwater pump with a mind of its own. Next row down, someone is telling beacon 82 that their traffic lane is being diverted, and a tug will be out next week to relocate them. Suddenly, Houston is nothing more than a customer support call center, tending to the small emergencies across a fleet of expensive metal drums that dot the expanse of the cosmos. Heh. Maybe
we’re
the taskmasters, not them.

The collision alarm sounds as a large asteroid tumbles and spins my way. It’s a long way off, plenty of time to correct course, but as I do so, I can see why the alarm has given me so much notice: this tin can drives like a unicycle, and the lone wheel is that spinny one on the shopping cart with a mind of its own.

Around the back side of a small moon of a rock, about thirty klicks from the beacon, I get a lock on the bio source. It’s just five hundred meters ahead, and it’s drifting toward the beacon at a decent clip. Like it was coming for me. I reach to zoom the HUD for a visual and find my gloved hand pawing at empty space. There is no HUD. I’m not in my Falcon. Crazy how long little twinges of habit like this can last. I have to make do with leaning forward against my harness to strain with my eyes.

There.

Among the maze and jumble of rocks, an object with neat manmade lines and corners. Looks like a standard cargo container, the kind that gets loaded into the belly of short-hop atmo ships in those busy cargo spaceports above settled planets. She’s painted bright green and has marks of impact across her side, along with writing in a few different languages.

I slow the lifeboat—little crystals forming from the forward jets of air—and unfold the articulating arm that tucks in under her nose. As I get closer, I see a constellation of objects drifting alongside the container—its contents, no doubt spilled after a collision with one of the many tumbling rocks. A toilet seat spins past. Dozens of them. Splinters of wooden crates. Gossamer moths of ladies’ dresses, many still on hangers, oddly keeping their wrinkled shapes as they drift past.

I enter an asteroid field within an asteroid field. If the larger assemblage of rocks represents some proto-planet that never quite formed, then this is like a department store that never achieved critical mass.

Turning the lifeboat toward the container, I flip on the forward spotlights, which barely pierce the dark interior of the metal box. I wonder, briefly, if I’m going to have to go in there. And it occurs to me that until someone licks AI, this is why NASA needs monkeys in space. To make stupid monkey decisions like these.

I check the multi-display again to see what the bio scanner is telling me. The signature looks different. More faint. I slap the screen and the entire image wavers, but the little red blip in the center remains a shadow of its former self. Whatever was alive out there won’t be for much longer. And now that I’m here, so close to whatever it is, I feel the need to rescue it. I just wanted it to go away before. Now I want it to hold out a little bit longer.

I turn the ship from side to side and watch the blip. That helps to triangulate it, to make sure the source is coming from inside the container. A large plastic postal service bin tumbles past, spilling envelopes and small packages. There are more of the damn toilet seats. They clunk off the hull, but pose no threat. And the red blip slips to the side of the screen. Somehow, it has moved past me.

Turning the ship, I watch the screen until the blip is centered again. I peer at the spot and see only the small cluster of packages and mail items. So I won’t be rescuing anyone. It was a silly fantasy anyway. What I’m probably tracking down is a batch of cookies from someone’s grandmother, cookies that have now grown hairy with space-resistant mold. A letdown for me, though NASA goes bonkers for mold, so my operator will be thrilled.

A dozen meters from the assemblage, I unfold the articulating arm. I open my visor to see better and release my harness so I can lean forward and peer through the windshield. Using the arm, I gently wave back and forth through the trail of packages, knocking them on new trajectories. I keep glancing down at the screen to see when the blip moves. But when I see the object with my own eyes, I know. Somehow, I know. Through a torn cardboard package, I see a wooden box, bigger than a toaster, rich red like cherry, and gleaming with varnish.

It’s not just the vivid beauty of the object, caught in the lifeboat’s spotlights, nor the grain of wood—a sight for sore eyes. It’s the way the box has broken open that makes me think the sign of life picked up by the sensors might be leaking from the ruptured package.

I pass through a haze of envelopes and bound packages. Reaching with the arm, I seize the box, and then I turn the lifeboat ninety degrees; the blip stays perfectly centered on the screen. This is the object that disrupted the reverie of my day. Its signal is faint and fading. I close my visor and pull the articulating arm back inside, bringing whatever I’ve found into the safety and comfort of my atmosphere.

• 9 •

I wait to inspect the box in the airlock, back at the beacon. If there’s any contamination, I can purge the airlock and decontaminate myself before entering the living space or removing my suit. I’m not hopeful though. The blip of life on my display was already fading fast when I brought the object inside. I’m starting to think someone’s order for a pet frog or worms to go fishing with was cracked open when that container took a tumble.

I set the box down on the changing bench in the airlock and drop the medkit satchel on the floor. Rummaging through the medkit, I find the biogen scanner. There’s a massive red warning stamped on it: “DO NOT REMOVE HELMET BEFORE USE.” Which makes me think they should have the warning on the inside of our visor, not on the scanner. By the time you’re reading this warning, you’ve already acted responsibly. I fumble with the infuriatingly little power switch on the scanner, wondering how many space monkeys have removed their thick gloves before operating this thing and how bad a job NASA does at creating and placing warnings.

It finally powers up. I wave the scanner over my suit, around my helmet, up and down my arms, then slowly bring it toward the box. I orbit the box twice. I can feel the scanner humming in my palm. An amber light flashes while it takes its readings, and then, finally, the light goes green.

Green means everything is okay. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it means. Or does green mean,
Yes, we found something hazardous
? No, that wouldn’t make any sense. I’m just second-guessing because this is scary shit, and I remind myself that if there was anything in the air that would react with my body, it would’ve reacted with the scanner. What I really want right now is a second scanner to scan
this
scanner. And maybe a third.

My hibernating little OCD self seems to be stirring. He only does this when he’s pretty sure I’m about to die a horrible, grisly death. I saw a lot of this guy in the war. But during the last week, he’s been that old college roommate who just drops in one day, crashes on the couch, and next thing you know he’s living with you and leaving the milk out on the counter.

Ah, fuck it. I either die in the airlock breathing in some toxin being mailed to a politician, or I sit around until a large hunk of debris punches a hole in the wall, sucking out every bit of my atmosphere. I debate whether or not to hold my breath. Is the massive, wheezing inhalation that follows worse than all the small little puffing breaths I might take instead? (I often debated this when a squad mate would lay a fart with a howl of laughter. Breathe normal? Or put it off and then risk sucking that fart so deep into your lungs that it stays there forever, little fart cells melding way inside the core of you?)

I go with the sipping breath technique, lips pursed, almost whistling as I breathe in little gasping bits of air. Trusting that damn scanner, I pop my visor. The breathing technique makes me a little dizzy. At least, I think it’s the breathing. My OCD roommate is screaming in my skull, yelling, “Told you so!” and assuring me we’re both about to die and that it’s all my fault for not listening to him.

I pop my helmet and tug off my gloves. I breathe more normally, and the dizziness subsides. My roommate shrugs, munches on a cold slice of pizza, and turns back to the TV. I return my attention to the little box.

There’s a pair of shears in the medkit for cutting gauze and snipping away walk suits. I use these to cut the cardboard box that’s still partially concealing the gleaming wood. I’m careful not to destroy the label, as I’m sure NASA will want to know who the package was going to and where it was coming from. Glancing at the name, I see that it was heading to a university on Oxford. The initials are SAU. Never heard of it. But there are only a few thousand universities on Oxford, and I could probably name two. The recipient is a Prof. Allard Bockman. The sender’s name was damaged by the impact, but I’m sure NASA will be able to track the barcode.

I set the cardboard aside and study the box, which is gorgeous even in its damaged state. An ornate pattern carved around the perimeter looks like a chain of links, all intertwined. It’s imperfect enough for me to imagine it was done by hand, but it’s precise enough that I recognize the talent and care put into it. Or maybe a machine made it with just enough variation to fool me into thinking it was done by hand. You never know what’s real these days. How do cynics find joy in even the simplest of things anymore?

The first thing I inspect is the damage. I probe the destroyed corner with my thumb; there are jagged splinters everywhere. It occurs to me, suddenly—my roommate drops his slice of pie and jumps from the couch in alarm—that the hole may have been created from within, rather than punched from without. Maybe something escaped!

I set the box down and take a step back, nearly tripping over my helmet. For a moment, out of the corner of my eye, one of my gloves looks like a giant white spider. I shriek. I remember the fear I used to feel in the army from seeing a sword-leech in my bunk—and then the much greater fear from
no longer seeing the sword-leech in my bunk
—and electricity rushes up my spine.

There’s an itch by my knee.

And something moving along my hip and up my ribs.

I claw at the suit I haven’t taken off for a week, trying to remember where the buckles and zippers and snaps are. Working my arms and legs free, I realize the itching is probably from having the damn thing on for a week, and that I’ve been itching constantly for days. And that the only thing likely to kill me in that suit is the damn stench.

Naked and sweating, breathing hard, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of NASA garb inside out and scattered like a tux on a wedding night, I try to remember a guy who used to pick up a rifle and run toward a legion of Ryph with balls of plasma blooming on either side of him, eruptions of dirt, dogfights in the atmo, and kinetic missiles zipping down from orbit.

Who is this limp-dick, shell-shocked, mamby-wamby space monkey I’ve become?

Was this me before boot camp?

This was me back in high school. The real me. What the hell did the army do to me?

That’s when I hear the scratching noise. Coming from the box sitting on the airlock bench.

And a small voice that does not seem to be coming from inside my head.