Going Interstellar (collection)

DESIGN FLAW Louise Marley

“Hey, Itty Bit! Haul ass, would ya?”

Isabet floated up into the maintenance tube, pushing with her feet until she could grasp the first hand rung. “You think you could do it faster, Tie Dye?”

He gave an irritated grunt. “That’s Mr. Dykens to you, Tech.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, wriggling herself further along the tube. “When you call me by my name, I’ll call you Mister. Maybe.”

“What was that?” he shouted behind her.

“Or maybe not,” she added, under her breath. “Fat bastard.”

It wasn’t as if he—or any of the other engineers—could come after her. The tube was no more than twenty inches in diameter, and Dykens wore an extra-large utility suit. The other engineers were not as big as he was, but not one of them could have squeezed into the tube, and certainly not with a tool belt strapped around him. It was up to her and the other ring techs, Ginger and Skunk and Happy and the others, to slither along the maintenance tubes, to check the joints and monitor the ’stats and the flow meters. Tie Dye could yell at her all he wanted to, but if anything went wrong with the containment ring, the North America would be dead in space, antimatter leaking out every which way. Dykens’s big butt would be as dead as anyone else’s, stuck out here halfway to the habitat, in orbit around Ganymede, whining as their food and air ran out. It was obvious he had never huddled in a shelter for days without food.

She sure as hell had.

Isabet blew out an angry breath as she slid deeper into the tube. She kept telling herself it didn’t do any good to be pissed at him. It was just the way he was. He wasn’t the only one, either. It was true of a lot of the crew. For one thing, most of them thought ring techs were superfluous. They conveniently forgot the failure of the North America’s first containment ring and the resulting discharge of expensive antimatter, all because the mechanical sensors were off by a fraction of a millimeter. And then, leaving aside their short memories, the other crew members seemed to think that because ring techs were small, they could push the techs around. Crew members grinned when they saw them, as if the ring techs were kids playing grown-up. The other crew members patted their heads and made jokes about their extra-extra-small utility suits. Ring techs were housed in quarters barely big enough to stand up in. They slept in cots so cramped the techs called them coffins. They were allowed only three showers a week, while the rest of the crew got five.

Command didn’t seem to particularly care that three hundred crew depended on six techs. It was Government that insisted on the use of human monitors as backup. Command had to do as it was told, but as far as Isabet and the others could tell, once the ship was under way, the ring techs had been all but forgotten.

It made her blood pound to think about it, but then, a lot of things made her blood pound.

It took ten minutes to reach the ’stat that was on her assignment list, and by the time she did, she felt better. She liked the solitude of the tube. No one could get to her, no one could bother her. It was calming. She flipped up the cover of the ’stat and eyed it. It wasn’t part of the protocol, but she always did a visual scan first. Tie Dye would be surprised to know how much Isabet understood of what the ’stats recorded about the containment ring. She could have told him all about pressure differentials and temperature variations and magnetic flux. She didn’t, though. She tried not to talk to him any more than she had to.

Everything looked fine. She pulled the remote from her belt, pinning herself to one side of the tube in order to get her hand down and then up again. She clamped the remote into its holder, and waited the three seconds it took to record the reading. Finished, she started the long backward slide back to Engineering.

She meant to ignore Tie Dye when she got there. She really did. But when he took the remote from her to pass on to the chief, he brushed her chest with his big, freckled hand. It wasn’t an accident. His fingers lingered on the front of her utility suit at least a full second.

“Back off!” she spat at him. She slapped at his hand, but he pulled it out of her reach. Her fingers curled, longing to claw his fleshy cheeks.

His phlegmy laugh made her skin crawl. “Relax, Itty Bit,” he said. “Just checking to see if they’re as small as the rest of you. I would say—” he grinned wider, showing his big yellow teeth. “I would say the design is consistent!”

“I’ve told you to keep your hands off me,” she said. “I’ve filed a complaint with Command, so you better watch yourself.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. You did it twice, in fact. Waste of time, wasn’t it? You need to understand command priorities.” He stopped grinning, and shook a finger at her. “You ring techs are lucky to have work. One day they’ll invent their way out of the problem with the monitors, and leave you and the rest of them on Earth where you belong. That’ll save a lot of air and food out here.”

“If they could, they would, Tie Dye.” Isabet spun away from him, and kicked off down the corridor toward the mess.

He called after her, “Get used to it, Itty Bit! It’s the way we do things here.”

Over her shoulder she snapped, “Get used to it? This is my third voyage.”

“You should know, then,” he said. “Like I said, you’re one of the lucky ones!”

It was true enough. Isabet and Skunk and Happy and the others were fortunate to have their jobs. Skunk, whose Icelandic name none of them could pronounce, had fled his home as his village disappeared under the cold waves of the North Atlantic. He’d been living on Government rations since he was six, and it showed in his short stature and wispy hair.

Happy Feet had been a dancer Earthside; when he got too old for that, he applied to be a ring tech, and was accepted because of his small size and agility. He joked that he was only here so he could eat. He said, with his high-pitched laugh, “I’d rather soak up G-rays than eat G-rations!”

Ginger almost didn’t fit the profile of a ring tech. She hadn’t starved. She was just naturally small. She had once had a business, something to do with books, Isabet thought, but the Global Depression had wiped out her business and scattered her family. Bony and worn down by sorrow, she was grateful to be aboard the North America. Too grateful, in Isabet’s view. She took Tie Dye’s abuse without the slightest resistance.

Isabet knew she was the luckiest of all. She was also the youngest and the smallest. Abandoned as an infant—a doorstep baby—she had been kicked out of the orphanage at the age of sixteen to find her own way. The orphanage called it graduation, but all it meant to her was being turned out on the street with few resources. In one of the shelters, she saw a poster about the positronic reactor ships and for the first time, learned that there was an advantage to having been starved as a baby. There was work for a person of small physique if that person had the guts to go into space, crawl through the narrow maintenance tubes every day, and risk gamma ray poisoning as well as all the other dangers of space travel.

Isabet had guts. She didn’t have much else to work with, but her courage and native intelligence won her the job, and she liked it. The voyages to Ganymede were a lot more comfortable for her than the required months of gravity Earthside between trips. It wasn’t just that her pay ran out before it was time to return to the ship. On the North America she didn’t have to fight for a bed in a shelter and then sleep with one eye open and a knife in her hand against the threat of rape or theft or worse.

She scowled as she told Ginger and Happy and Skunk what Tie Dye’d done. “The worst part is,” she concluded, “he’s right. I complained to Command, and they never even answered me.”

“Probably never reached ’em,” Skunk said glumly.

“I think it did. I think they just don’t want to hear it. He’s good—a containment expert, in fact. They need him more than they do me. I’m dispensable.”

“That’s not fair,” Skunk said.

“It’s not right, either.” Isabet wriggled impatiently against the straps that held her on the stool. “Our contracts provide for redress of grievances.”

Ginger sighed. “You’re the only one of us who ever reads those,” she said.

Happy Feet spread his hands. “I, of course, don’t actually read,” he said slyly.

“Oh, you do, too,” Skunk said. “I mean, you can.”

Happy waggled his eyebrows and did a little freefall dance, feet and hands flashing so that he rose against the restraining straps like a puppy pulling at his leash. “Waste of effort,” he said blithely. “I just dance!”

“In the maintenance tubes?” Skunk said sourly.

Happy chuckled. “If you could only see me.”

Skunk shook his head. “I don’t know how you stay so cheerful. We’re trapped here. No better than slaves.”

“We’re not slaves,” Ginger said.

Isabet said sharply, “That’s right. We get paid, we have opportunities, and responsibilities. We should be treated with respect.”

“I don’t think Tie Dye agrees,” Happy said.

“You better be careful with him,” Ginger warned. “If he catches you alone someplace—”

“Yeah, I know. I can take care of myself.” Isabet paused, tilting her head, listening. “Notice that?”

“What?” Skunk said.

“The ship. We’re getting ready to brake.”

“How can you tell?”

“The vibration changes. You can’t feel it?”

The other three shook their heads. Happy said, “I can’t believe you can tell.”

“You just have to be sensitive to it. Three days now, and we’ll be there.”

“I don’t know how you know that,” Happy Feet said.

Isabet patted his thin cheek. “Reading, Hap. Reading. That thing you say you don’t do.”

The four of them gathered in the aft observation area as Ganymede began to swell against the blackness of space, with the great disc of Jupiter a vague, immense shadow beyond it. As the ship adjusted attitude, they sank to the deck, briefly weighted, then rose again. It was like being aboard an ocean-going vessel, and Isabet saw Ginger swallow and press her hand to her lips. “It’ll pass in a little while,” she said, touching Ginger’s shoulder. “We’ll be in electrogravity soon. It’s magnetic, so we’ll pick it up from the habitat.”

Skunk said, “Wow, Isabet. I don’t know how you know all that.”

“My third voyage.”

“Yeah, but—electro-what?”

“Electrogravity. There’s a great video about the habitat, Skunk. You should see it.”

Ginger nodded, but she still looked a little green. Happy moved close to her other side, and steadied her with his arm. Isabet turned back to gaze with pleasure at the lavender-tinted disc of Ganymede. The poles of the moon glistened faintly, and the pockmarks of craters layered the surface. Isabet pressed her palms together, entranced. This was her reward for putting up with the indignities of the North America, with the insults of Tie Dye and the rest of the crew. She never tired of it. She only wished—

“That’s it?” Ginger said, pointing to the disc.

“That’s it,” Isabet said happily. It was somehow massive and delicate at the same time, and it seemed immune from the ugliness that had overtaken Earth, the crowding, the fouled air, the threatening seas. She sighed with pleasure. “That’s Ganymede.”

“It’s so dim,” Ginger said. “I thought it would be brighter.”

“We’re a long way from the sun,” Isabet said. She felt a faint disappointment that Ginger didn’t share her admiration for the magnificence of the alien world. “Wait till you see Starhold,” she said. “You won’t think that’s dim.” She yearned to see the inside of the habitat, but she didn’t say so. There wasn’t much chance of that happening, and the others wouldn’t understand.

A half hour passed, with Ginger gulping nausea, and even Skunk groaning once or twice. Isabet felt the acceleration as the ship changed its trajectory, but her stomach didn’t react. She clung to the bar beneath the window, and waited with gleeful anticipation for her first glimpse of Starhold One.

“There it is!” She pressed as close to the icy plexiglass as she could, peering out into the layered darkness. It was tiny at first, a star among stars, only discernible because she knew it had to be there. The North America rolled as it aligned with the docking ports. Isabet fastened her gaze on the habitat’s yellow and amber lights. She could pick out the lighted column of the vacuum elevator, revealed in fragments by the myriad windows. The habitat, silver and ovoid, shone dully against the backdrop of space. Layers of fuel cells spiraled around it, making it look like a gigantic seashell.

“Is that it?” Ginger asked. “That egg-shaped thing?”

“Yes,” Isabet said. “That’s it. Starhold One.”

“Why One?”

“Because there will be others, as we go further out,” Isabet said. “Space Service already has plans for two more. They’re mining Ganymede, and building an antimatter plant.”

“Why?” Ginger asked.

Isabet, startled, glanced across at her friend. Ginger stared vaguely at the habitat, but without real interest. “Why what?”

“Why build others? What good are they?”

“What good?” Isabet’s voice squeaked with surprise. “We need them if we’re going to explore space, get out into the universe!”

Ginger shrugged as if the whole idea were of no interest.

“Ginger!” Isabet said. Suddenly it seemed vital that her friend understand the immensity of the achievement. “We’re building an interstellar ship, you know. It’s going to be five times the size of North America, and carry a crew outside the solar system! It’s the most amazing thing human beings have ever done, the biggest ship ever built—and to power it, we need lots of antimatter.”

“Geez,” Happy said. “That’s gotta be one really big containment ring.”

“Enormous,” Isabet said with satisfaction. “Imagine working on that ship, Happy! Going out into real space, instead of just between Ganymede and Earth.”

“Naw,” he said. “They’ll fix the monitor design by then. They won’t take us.”

“I’m going to find a way to go,” Isabet insisted.

“I don’t know.” Ginger sighed, leaning against the frame of the window. “We have enough problems at home, don’t you think?”

“Don’t worry about it, Ginger,” Skunk said. “We’ll never live to see it, anyway.”

“Come on, Skunk!” Happy cried. “Why so dour?”

“Because it’ll take decades, and ring techs don’t live that long.”

“We’re tested all the time,” Isabet said absently. “We’re fine.”

“Tested!” Skunk said bitterly. “You realize the norms for us are twice what they are for the rest of the crew?”

“Are they?” Ginger said, pulling back from the window as if it were the source of the poisonous rays.

“Skunk’s exaggerating,” Happy said.

Isabet turned her head to her friends. “No, Skunk’s right. They say, though, that when we’re Earthside our readings return to normal levels.”

“Do you believe them?” Ginger said, her voice rising.

Isabet shrugged. “I guess.”

“Believe if you want to,” Skunk said. “But don’t have babies.”

“None of us are having babies.” Isabet turned back to the window to watch Starhold grow. It was both massive and graceful, with a halo of light that faded the stars. She had studied the diagrams of its construction, pored over the blueprints of its hydroponic level and command deck with its crown of communication and power arrays. She had seen the cubbies and the gallery level in the video, and the men and women smiling into the camera. They looked friendly and smart. Starhold, to Isabet, looked like a home, the home she had never had. She thought she would willingly take a blast of G-rays if she could go in and see it for herself.

Isabet pushed off the inner surface of the maintenance tube, keeping her feet and hands free to maintain her momentum. She shot out into Engineering so that her feet bounced on the floor, grabbing the gravity borrowed from the habitat. Laughing, she straightened with a little hop. It felt good to have weight, even though it was only half gravity. She turned, bouncing on her toes, and found Tie Dye standing with a scowling woman Isabet hadn’t met before.

Isabet unclipped her remote and held it out to Tie Dye. She grinned up at the woman. “Hiya. Looking for me?”

The woman wore the insignia of a supply officer on her utility suit. She folded her arms, as if to discourage familiarity. Like the rest of the crew, she looked as if she had never lacked for nutrition in her life. She was tall, her skin smooth, her hair thick and shining. Isabet resisted the urge to touch her own ragged mop. She cut it herself, keeping it short to hide how coarse and dry it was.

Tie Dye said, “That’s Isabet, but she’s too small.”

“They’re all small, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, but she’s the smallest.”

“Let’s find the rest of them, then.” The woman turned toward the hatch that led to the ring techs’ quarters, Tie Dye behind her.

Isabet said, “Wait! At least tell me what it’s for.”

Tie Dye snapped, “Mind your own business, Itty Bit.”

At that, the supply officer stopped. She glanced briefly in Isabet’s direction, then directed her scowl at Tie Dye. “I thought you said her name was Isabet.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Itty Bit’s a nickname.”

“Which I loathe,” Isabet murmured.

The woman’s eyelids flickered in acknowledgment. Her scowl deepened. “You want to watch yourself, Dykens. You’re a topnotch engineer, but you’re getting a reputation.”

Isabet chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying not to laugh as Tie Dye’s half-bald scalp reddened. When the officer turned back to her, she stood very straight, trying to look as tall as she could. “What’s up?” she asked brightly.

The officer measured Isabet with her eyes. “You are a bit small,” she said. “But we need to replace one of our warehousemen. He wrenched his back.”

“What’s the job?”

“Moving supplies into Starhold. There’s a lot of them, and some of them are heavy.”

“They’re on dollies, though, aren’t they? I can manage.”

Tie Dye opened his mouth, but Isabet hastened to speak again before he could make some pronouncement on her abilities. “I’m strong, ma’am,” she said, ignoring the roll of Tie Dye’s eyes at her sudden courtesy.

The officer’s hard gaze swept over Isabet. “You want to do this?” she said. “It’s going to be hard. It’s a year’s worth of supplies.”

Isabet nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I do want to. Nice to do something that’s not squeezing through the maintenance tube.”

The faintest twitch of the officer’s lips greeted this confession, disappearing almost before it registered. Tie Dye grunted, and started to say something, but the officer put up one admonishing finger, and he subsided. “Report to the supply deck in half an hour, Tech,” she said. “Thanks for volunteering.” And as Tie Dye heaved an exasperated sigh, the officer said in a dry tone, “You get to volunteer, too, Dykens. It’s a big job.”

It was a big job, as the officer had warned, and it was made harder by the pull of electrogravity. Isabet gritted her teeth as she pushed and pulled, maneuvering a dolly full of cartons over the rubbery rim of the lock and into the loading bay of the habitat. The lock was sealed with a ring that looked a lot like the maintenance tube she spent so much time in. It was smaller, of course, and a whole lot shorter. It arched up—electrogravity meant there was an up-and-around the lock that connected North America’s hold with Starhold’s loading bay. Isabet gazed curiously at it as she passed beneath. The seal had to be perfect, of course, or they’d all be spaced in no time, but it still seemed a clumsy way to connect the two vessels. She recognized the backup systems set into the walls of the sealing ring, and wondered how they checked them. She couldn’t imagine anyone from Starhold was small enough to fit into the ring.

The loading bay bristled with robotic arms and cranes. They could have installed power boosters on the damn dollies, she thought. Maybe Starhold wasn’t all that different from the North America after all. Why bother with power boosters when they had cheap labor like hers? Not that she minded. And at least Tie Dye was grunting and sweating as hard as she was.

She rolled her dolly toward one of the inner doors. It opened at her approach.

“Hi!” A pleasant-faced, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway. He wore civvies, a bright orange shirt and a pair of striped pants, and his gray hair was caught back in a ponytail. He cocked his head at her, and gave her a welcoming smile. “I’m the stores manager,” he said. “I’ll give you a hand.”

“You’re not in uniform,” she blurted.

He laughed. “No, we’re not military. Here, let me take that.” He stepped around her, and took the handles of the dolly in hands that didn’t look used to this sort of work. “You’re not doing this alone, I hope!” he said. He pushed the dolly a few feet. “This is heavy!”

Before she could answer, Tie Dye came into the bay behind her, pushing another dolly loaded with sealed barrels and bales secured with nylon cord. He worked the dolly over the rim and brought it to rest near the door. “Got somebody to unload this stuff?” he asked the gray-haired man.

“I’ll do it myself. I’m Link.” The man put out his hand. Tie Dye grasped it, and then Link offered his hand to Isabet, too. Startled, she took it. His hand was as soft as it looked, and she was a little embarrassed about her hard small one with its bitten nails. She watched Link in wonder and envy. His casual attitude, his colorful clothes, all made the habitat seem more magical than ever.

“If we can get this off the dollies, the different departments will come for their own stuff,” Link said.

“Sure,” Isabet said at the same time Tie Dye delivered a “guess so.” She gave the stores manager a helpless look.

He winked at her, and stepped up to unbuckle a restraining strap. Tie Dye said, “Itty Bit, go back and make another trip. There’s another dolly loaded up.” She turned toward the lock again. “And get a move on,” he said, unnecessarily. Over her shoulder, she cast him a look of loathing. Link, too, gave him a look, but she couldn’t read it. She shrugged, and turned her energies to the next load.

It took hours to shift the cargo, a year’s worth of supplies for more than fifty habitat staff. The round trip took four months each way, and the North America needed four months Earthside to re-line and then refill the antimatter containment ring. The habitat had an extensive hydroponic level and recycling plant, but its staff depended on these supplies for survival.

Isabet was glad Link was there, directing the placement and stacking and ordering of the containers. Once, when they were taking a breather, she asked him about the sealing ring and how it was maintained. He pointed out the instrument panel. “See that? It opens up, and we send in a crawler.”

“What does the crawler do?”

“I’ll show you how it works.” He crossed to the panel set into the sealing ring. He stood on one of the laddered handholds, and with a quick motion popped the clamps from one side. The panel swung neatly open to reveal an orderly constellation of small screens set into the inside. Folded against the interior of the tube was a spidery object of metal and plastic. Link swept his hand over one of the screens and it came to life, glowing with blue light. He pointed to the metal object, and Isabet climbed up beside him to see it better. “That’s the crawler.” He touched the screen and the crawler stirred, its narrow limbs opening until it filled the ring.

“Are those the sensors?” Isabet reached out her hand, but Link caught it before she could touch the crawler.

“Careful!” he said hastily. His fingers were warm and strong, though his skin was so soft. “I should have warned you. The legs are really sharp. It’s a design flaw, but the engineers haven’t addressed the problem yet. When it needs maintenance, someone has to put on asbestos gloves just to pull it out.” He pointed behind him, at the opposite side of the lock. “The exit from the tube is over there.” She glanced over her shoulder, and saw a matching panel set into the opposite wall.

Link touched the little screen again, and the crawler retracted with a series of metallic clicks that made her think of sharpened knives knocking together. “It’s safe now,” he said. “It’s only dangerous when it’s extended.”

“What does it do?”

“Traverses the sealing ring, checking for pressure differentials.”

“Leaks.”

“Right.”

“That’s what I do, on North America. For the antimatter containment ring. I crawl though the maintenance tube to make sure the seals are holding and the monitors are working.”

He grinned at her. “I don’t think even you could fit into this ring.”

She cocked her head to one side and eyed it. “I could squeeze in,” she said, and laughed. “I’m glad there’s no need. Your crawler looks like a grasshopper made out of razor blades!”

“You’re not the first to think of a grasshopper when they see it. That’s part of the problem. Too many pieces that can break.”

Tie Dye said, “Itty Bit! Get your ass back to work. I don’t want to be here all day.” She felt a faint surprise that he didn’t bother to hide his attitude from Starhold’s staff. He probably figured it was her fault he had to spend so much time shifting cargo. She’d pay for that later, but she didn’t care. It was worth it to meet someone from the habitat, to hear details of life on Starhold. These people were the first step on the path to interstellar travel, and it gave her shivers of pleasure just to think about it. To realize she was having a hand in it.

Tie Dye had been angry at her for weeks. She had turned him down early in the voyage. He had said to her then that she should be glad anyone would give a girl like her a second look, with her ugly hair and skinny legs. He wasn’t mollified by the fact that she took no other lovers. The shelters had soured her on sex of any kind, even with friends, but she couldn’t see why she needed to explain that to him. The other ring techs figured it out early, and left her alone.

Sometimes she wondered if Tie Dye knew what it was to be someone’s friend. She never saw him in conversation with others of his own rank.

Link’s presence meant Tie Dye had to keep his hands off her, and that was good. He bumped her several times, usually an elbow in some soft part of her anatomy, or a hand fumbling unnecessarily around her ass as they transferred a container from one place to another, but she sidled away from him each time without protesting. She wanted to make a good impression on the affable Link. It felt good to be polite, to be respectful. Though the work was tiring, she didn’t want the day to end.

Link asked her, when they were walking back toward the hold, about life on North America. She answered carefully, then asked him a few questions about the supplies. Link was generous with his answers, explaining how the seeding program worked, or how the dehydrated foodstuffs would be reconstituted in Starhold’s kitchen. He was nice, and warm in a fatherly sort of way. Isabet wished she could introduce the other techs to him, show them what it was like to be treated like—like she was as much a person as anyone else. Even Tie Dye.

She was curious about the foods they couldn’t grow hydroponically, and Link explained at some length about protein sources. She made a suggestion about a way to make a sauce out of tree nuts, something she had picked up in the kitchens of the shelters, and Link listened with respect, nodding. “You worked in the kitchens?”

“Yeah. Yes. In the shelters.”

Tie Dye leaned against the wall as they talked, looking impatient. When they had unloaded the last of a stack of aluminum canisters, Link said, “Isabet. Would you like a tour of Starhold?”

The idea was so exciting that she forgot to school her features. She felt her face light up, and Link chuckled. “You’re welcome, too, Mr. Dykens,” he added. “Let me offer you a cup of tea in our common room.”

Tie Dye said sourly, “No time. Not for Isabet, either. She has work to do.”

Link said mildly, “She’s been working all day. Just as you have.”

Isabet stared at her feet, confused. No one had defended her in a very long time. Such consideration tempted her to let her heart soften, to allow a tiny crack in her customary shell. She knew better than that, of course. And there was Tie Dye’s scorn to remind her.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Tie Dye growled. “Gotta check the containment ring every six hours, like it or not.”

Isabet said, half under her breath, “It’s not my shift, Tie—uh, Mr. Dykens.”

Tie Dye said, “Oh, it’s Mr. Dykens now?”

Link said, “You can spare her for half an hour, surely.”

Tie Dye said, “Nope. Gotta get back to the ship. Nice of you, though.”

Isabet suddenly wanted to see the inside of Starhold more than anything in the universe. She wanted to turn away from Tie Dye’s sullen presence, and accept Link’s polite invitation. She longed to step into the vacuum elevator, that clever device they called the slip, and propel herself from one level to the next. She wanted to breathe in the scents of the hydroponics level with its trailing vines, inverted flats of vegetables, even fruit bushes tucked beneath the sills of the space windows. She wanted to see the cubbies, and the showers, and the common room on the galley level. She said, louder this time, “Mr. Dykens, I’m off duty till tomorrow.”

“Well, then,” the affable Link began, but Tie Dye grabbed Isabet’s arm.

“We’re going,” he said. His fingers pinched her flesh, and her cheeks flamed. She could have pulled away, but she didn’t. She couldn’t bear for the Starhold man to see her shame, to know how insignificant she really was.

Dropping her eyes, swallowing the bitter medicine of her pride, she walked back through the loading bay toward the lock, and the North America’s hold. She felt Link’s questioning gaze on her back, and her face burned hotter.

Tie Dye dropped her arm as they stepped over the rim of the seal. She glanced back once. Link had disappeared, gone back into Starhold without her. She stopped, and put her back to the drab gray surface of North America’s lock. She jutted her chin at Tie Dye above her folded arms. “When are you gonna let up on me?” she demanded.

Tie Dye, who had moved ahead of her, whirled. His face suffused, and his voice rose. “I haven’t done a thing to you.”

“Bullshit! You get in my way at every opportunity, you insult me, you make extra work—and now you can’t let me have even a half hour of freedom.”

He took a step toward her, balling his fists at his sides. Isabet was suddenly aware of how big he was, how thick his arms and thighs were, how mean the expression in his small eyes. She stiffened her back, but she took a swift glance around, looking for a way to escape.

“You had your chance,” he sneered. He came closer, and she could smell the tang of perspiration, feel the heat of his temper. “I was gonna be nice to you, Itty Bit! I was gonna be real nice, but you weren’t having any of it.”

“I don’t do that,” she said. She spoke as stoutly as she could, but she couldn’t control the tremor in her voice. He advanced until he was within arm’s length of her. She said, “I tried to tell you, Tie Dye. I don’t do it with anybody.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Everybody calls you that!”

“Not you, Itty Bit. Itty Bitch.” He reached for her, his meaty hand seizing the back of her neck, yanking her away from the curving wall of the lock. There was something about the hardness of his hand and the heat from his body that told her he meant it this time. He would force her. But she had sworn she would never be forced again. She had vowed to herself she would die first.

She writhed in his grip, trying to free herself. His other hand came up, reaching for her waist to pull her against him. There was no time even to think about what she was doing. He couldn’t hold her head, though he tried to grab at her cropped hair. She dropped, slid down his body, his legs. He cursed as he kicked at her, and caught her in the side. She rolled away from him, once, twice, the gray floor hard against her shoulders and knees. He lumbered after her, staying between her and the door leading from the hold into the safety of the ship. She leaped to her feet, spinning in a circle, searching for another escape.

She spotted the instrument panel that monitored the sealing ring, and dashed for it. Tie Dye came after her, his heavy feet making the whole lock vibrate. Her ribs hurt where he had kicked her, and her scalp stung where he had pulled her hair. There was no time to think about that now, no time to wonder if a rape would finally get Command’s attention. Like a monkey, she leaped up the laddered handholds toward the panel.

The panel was a good three feet above Tie Dye’s head. It took her only seconds to reach it. As Tie Dye flailed at her, she popped the clamps. The panel swung open, showing the many-legged crawler folded tightly into the cramped space. Belatedly, she realized she should have chosen the other side of the tube, but there was no time now.

“Get your hands off that!” Tie Dye roared. He braced his foot on one of the handholds, and started climbing toward her.

There was only one thing she could do, and even as she thought of it, she was already doing it. She turned on her side, sucked in her stomach, and slid past the crawler’s sharp angles into the cool darkness of the sealing ring.

Behind her, Tie Dye swore and banged his fist against the panel frame. She wriggled further into the ring so he couldn’t reach her foot and haul her back.

She would wait him out. It was tight, her hiding place, and unlike the maintenance ring of the North America, it was dark. She couldn’t see a thing, but she could breathe. She could take it. He would give up eventually, and leave her alone. She would slip back to her quarters and lie low until his temper wore off. She’d done that before.

It was a good plan, but she soon understood the flaw in it. She had underestimated the full force of Tie Dye’s rage. He was an engineer, a good one. He knew how to make machines work. She was just settling into the least bothersome position when she heard the slither and click of something coming up the ring behind her.

The damn crawler! Tie Dye had launched the crawler. She thought of the thin blades of its legs opening, stretching, moving it along the ring. She shuddered, imagining those blades cutting through the soft soles of her shoes. He was serious this time, deadly serious. She was no stranger to trouble, but this had to be the worst.

Panicked, she wriggled further into the ring, feeling her way in the blackness. The crawler’s mechanical sounds were like the clicking of someone’s arthritic knees, and they came steadily closer, driving her forward. Was it her imagination, or did the ring narrow as it circled the lock? She could hardly move her shoulders, and only just find purchase with her feet and the tips of her fingers, pushing herself along. The maintenance tube of North America had lights, and room for her to move her elbows, bend her knees. This was a nightmare tunnel of blackness and constriction, a coffin indeed. If she were an inch wider, a pound heavier, she would be trapped. Her breathing quickened, and her mouth dried.

Shit, she thought. A rock and a hard place. There was no choice, nothing she could do but press on. It was all too much like the shelters, choosing between two or more evils every damn day of her life. When she got out of here, she promised herself—and she would get out of here—she was going to make Tie Dye’s life a living hell!

Anger served her better than fear. She scooted forward through the tube as quickly as her thrusting toes and scrabbling fingers could move her. She felt the chill as the tube arched above the lock, and she refused to think about the black, cold emptiness on the other side of the layers of plastic and rubber and metal. The ring grew even tighter, until she thought she might be stopped, but then, as she wiggled one shoulder and then the other past the most constricted part, she found there was room again. There was still no light, and the sound of her breathing filled her ears almost enough to shut out the gentle scrabbling of the crawler coming behind her. At least she was moving. She was gaining. She held her breath for a moment to listen. She was sure the sound of the crawler had diminished behind her.

It was then that she felt the slight movement, as if an infinitesimal breeze had touched her cheek. She froze for several heartbeats, holding her breath, trying to determine what it was. The sound of the crawler grew louder again as she paused.

The darkness seemed to accentuate the sensation, so subtle she could have imagined it. It was more a feeling than a fact. It was a bit like when she could feel the North America preparing to brake, a faint suggestion of something changing, something happening. It was subtle. But it was real.

It shouldn’t be there, but she had no doubt, as she began wriggling forward again, that she had felt it.

The crawler should, too. It should stop, and set up an alarm.

It didn’t. The damn thing really did need redesigning.

Gasping for air, praying she could reach the opening before the crawler did, she drove herself harder. For what seemed interminable moments, there was nothing in Isabet’s world but her own rasping breaths and the mechanical click and slither behind her. She wriggled, and wriggled, and wriggled, until she thought the skin of her hands and shoulders and knees must be raw. She peered forward, trying to see the glimmer of light that would mean she had reached the panel, and could escape this confining tube.

And face Tie Dye again. But there was something more important happening now, more at risk than just her problems with Tie Dye. She had a leak to report.

She sucked in a shocked breath when her hand struck a smooth surface and it suddenly glowed. She had found the instrument panel. She could see that immediately. It was mounted on the inside of the door that was her only means of escape. Tie Dye had shut her into this bloody tube, and she realized, as she struggled to push it open, that he must have secured the clamps on the exit, too.

He meant her to die in here. She knew he was angry, and mean, but murder? How did he expect to get away with it?

She couldn’t give up now. There had to be a way to open the panel from inside, to release the clamps. The design couldn’t be that bad. She tried to think, but the crawler was coming up behind her, giving her no time.

She scrabbled with her fingers, and the touch screens came awake, one by one. She could barely lift her head enough to see them. She saw the temperature measurement, inside and out, she saw the maintenance records—stupid place for them—and the crawler’s interface. The screens faded when her fingers left them, and she frantically pushed with her palms, her fingertips, searching for the right one. If she could find it, if she could input a problem, a big problem, then the alarms would go. Someone would come. She could get out of here.

If the crawler hadn’t sliced her to ribbons first.

And then she found it. It looked familiar, measurements from pressure gauges set at regular intervals around the sealing tube. She found the alarm button at the bottom, the part of the screen she and the ring techs were never supposed to touch, and she pressed it as hard as she could with her thumb.

The screech of the alarm in the lock drowned out the approach of the crawler, but she knew it was coming. Her nerves burned with anticipation of its sharp metal blades cutting into her. She forced herself to focus on finding the crawler’s command screen. She ran her hands desperately across the panel to keep the screens awake, to keep the blue glow alive so she could—

There it was. Upper right corner, with a convenient little graphic that looked exactly like the grasshopper that had first come to her mind when she saw it. Finally, a design that made sense! She stabbed at it with her finger, and it lit up, showing her the buttons. With a gasp, she turned off the crawler. The sudden cessation of its movement, the end of the threat, left her weak and trembling.

She lay still in the tube for another half-minute, waiting for the pounding of her heart to slow. The glow of the screens on the instrument panel faded, one by one, until she was in complete darkness again. She listened to the alarm shrilling outside, imagining the running feet, the terror that alarm must strike into every heart aboard Starhold and the North America.

When the panel burst open, she found herself staring straight into Link’s eyes. His pupils swelled with shock at the sight of her. She said swiftly, “I know this is weird. I’ll explain everything in a minute, but first, there’s a leak in the sealing tube—not fatal now, but it’s going to get worse. Starhold needs to separate from North America, and right away.”

She was still in Link’s arms, her toes not yet on the floor, when Tie Dye came charging back into the lock, three other engineers hard on his heels. His face flamed at the sight of Isabet being extracted from the sealing tube. He shouted, “What were you doing in there? You’re going on report!”

Link, as if Tie Dye hadn’t said a word, set Isabet firmly on her feet, then turned her away from the crowd of engineers and technicians converging on the lock to begin the emergency disengage process. Tie Dye, nearly choking with fury, had an emergency protocol he had to follow. He was getting orders, and he was too busy obeying them to come after Isabet.

Link didn’t steer Isabet back toward the North America. He drew her in the opposite direction, into the habitat she had so longed to visit.

Isabet said, “It’s a slow leak. But your crawler should have detected it.”

Link said, “Add the sensors to its other problems. We’ll move the redesign up the priority list.”

“I have some ideas about that.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

They stopped just inside the hold, watching the frantic preparations for disengagement. He glanced down at her. “You want to get back on the ship?”

“No,” she said. “Not really.”

“You want to stay here?”

Breathless with sudden hope, she nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I mean, yes, please. I really do.”

“I suspected as much.” Side by side, they watched the swarm of people preparing to seal the locks and separate the two vessels. “This could have been a tragedy,” he said.

“Yes. A leak like that grows pretty fast once it gets started.” She saw Tie Dye turn to stalk back into the ship. She wondered who would be in more trouble, Tie Dye or herself.

It would all be sorted out at the command level, no doubt. In any case, there wasn’t a damn thing Tie Dye could do now.

Link guided her into the vacuum elevator, and Isabet grasped the knack of traversing the layered decks in an instant. As they floated downward, he pointed out the level where the cubbies were. “We’ll find a free one for you.” He promised a tour of the gallery and the laboratories before they reached the lowest level, where he deposited her in the hydroponics area. “You can watch the ship leave from here,” he said, pointing to an observation window.

Her nerves still on fire from her near-miss, she watched the North America pull back from the habitat and revolve in preparation for its return to Earth. She leaned against the chilly plexiglass and imagined Tie Dye standing impotently near the space window to watch Starhold disappear as the ship revolved and prepared to get under way. She started to grin.

Were Skunk or Ginger or Happy Feet watching in wonder as the ship’s positronic reactors fired and the ship began to vibrate? Did they look around, asking about Isabet, or did they know she was stranded on the habitat? Just in case, she waved her arm in farewell. She kissed her hand to the ship for good measure.

Yep, she was stuck here. For the duration. Twelve months, at least. Helluva way to score a vacation.

She laughed aloud as the North America’s rockets bloomed, driving it away toward Earth.

When she had seen enough, she turned from the window, and stepped out into the ship. With a deft twist of her feet and her hands, she shot upward toward the gallery level. She would ask Link for work to do, find some way to be of use. Maybe in the kitchens, or maybe she could work on redesigning the crawler. It didn’t matter. She’d meet some other people, get to know the place, this first step on the path to the stars.

She was going to feel right at home.