Beacon 23: The Complete Novel (11 page)

• 19 •

Cricket whines and turns in circles, and at first I think it’s from me being hard on myself, but I’ve never seen her act quite like this. I notice as she turns that she keeps glancing at one of the portholes. Maybe she can feel the troop transport passing by, that carrier filled to the brim with dark thoughts. I go to the porthole and peer out, craning my neck to look down the length of the asteroid field.

At first I don’t notice it. It’s not until the long flashes come that I realize the beacon isn’t so much winking anymore as palpitating. Dot-dot-dot. Dash-dash-dash. Dot-dot-dot.

S.O.S.

Cricket mews.

“I see it,” I tell her.

I grab the HF and key the mic. “Unknown beacon operator, this is beacon 23, is everything okay over there? Over.”

I wait. The QT is still showing the last message from NASA. I key in:
SOS w neighbr
, then hit “Send,” “Confirm,” and “Yes I’m goddamn sure.”

I wait.

I watch the light.

Two or three seconds go by.

I could pace in circles and wait for NASA to tell me to check it out, but you don’t need orders when there’s a distress call in space. I served in the navy before I was forced groundside. If anyone hails for help, you help them. None of us could survive out here without a system like this in place.

So by the time my operator in Houston is seeing my message and setting down his coffee and wiping his ridiculous mustache, my feet are already hitting the living module deck one level down, my palms burning from the fast slide. The next ladder drops me into the life support module, then one more ladder takes me to the lock collars. I grab my walk suit and helmet from their hangers and dash inside the lifeboat. Before I can key the door closed, Cricket bounds down from the module above, landing on the grating like a large cat.

“Stay,” I tell her, holding out my palm. “Stay.”

Cricket tilts her head and cries. She takes a step toward the lifeboat.

“No,” I say. “You stay.”

Normally she does whatever I ask, or whatever I really concentrate on her doing. But this is one need she seems to always put before mine: the need to follow me. Before I can give her another order, or lock her out, she dashes through the open airlock door, brushing against my leg, nearly knocking me over. By the time I get the airlock secured and get up to the cockpit, she’s sitting in the navigator’s seat, peering through the canopy like she knows we’re going somewhere, like she’s done this a thousand times. Or maybe like she knows what happens next.

•••

I wiggle into my walk suit while the autopilot steers us toward the beacon. The throttle is at max, which ain’t much in this bucket. And maybe now’s a good time to admit that I haven’t been in a very good state lately. But this is progress, I think, to realize I’m going a bit mad. The dangerous phase is when that’s happening and you can’t see it. When you
think
you’re sane, so the crazy is all invisible. The reason I wear a rock around my neck is to be reminded of my propensity to lose my grip on reality. Rocky hasn’t uttered a peep in a while. I’m getting better, I swear.

I glance over at Cricket, and another thought occurs. What if I’m overstating the whole mind-reading thing? What if I’m making up a pattern of when she nuzzles me and when she doesn’t? And here’s the truly fun part about going a little crazy: even the obviously sane things you do can be called into question. Is that beacon in front of me real? Did Scarlett really come back into my life, tell me I could help her win the war, and then disappear again? There’s a faint stain on the deck by lock collar Charlie, and I can’t tell if it’s rust or her blood.

I reach over and pet the warthen. There’s no doubting this, at least. This is real. And the beacon ahead of me looks pretty damn real. I leave the thrust at full to close the distance, and my mind drifts back to my army days. I can feel the wake of the troop ship that passed through, all those boys and girls heading for the front to be dumped into a trench. I feel the recoil of my rifle as it takes a life. Geysers of soil explode into the air and fill our nostrils. There’s the metallic odor of blood as soldiers with hope cry for a medic, soldiers without hope cry for their mommas, and soldiers with guns bring tears to the other side.

I wonder what Scarlett meant by us ending this war. Wars like this don’t end until one side is ground to dust. It’s crazy to me that naïve people like Scarlett even exist, that they can live in this galaxy, see what we all see, and cling to foolish notions like they do. And yet there are legions of them. Protestors. Picketers. Alien-lovers. Conscientious objectors. Traitors.

Yeah, I’m a traitor. But I’m the worst kind. I don’t believe like the rest of them do. I just got tired of it all. I couldn’t fight anymore. You fight because your squad needs you to. When the last man standing beside you goes down, you don’t need a bullet to take out your knees; the depression does that for you. I’ve seen the biggest troopers felled by the heavy darkness. I’ve watched them curl up in the mud and just stop moving. I remember hoping that’d never be me. And here I am.

There’s a number on the side of the beacon. I can read the large blocky digits as I close to within a couple klicks: 1529.

Damn.

When I see that number, I don’t think of how many beacons there are out there. I don’t do the dollar math and think of the poor taxpayers. I don’t get all cosmic and think of how big this galaxy is and how much we’re spreading out into it. No, I think of how many people are out there, living alone like me.

Too many.

Approaching within a klick of the beacon, which is still flashing its SOS, I can’t see anything obviously wrong with it. There’s no atmosphere jetting from an impact hit. No orange glow across any of the portholes from a fire inside. In fact, the beacon is obscenely pristine. There’s not a char mark on her. Just unblemished, beautiful steel painted NASA white with neat rows of rivets and gleaming solar panels that probably run at 100% efficiency compared to my beacon’s 48%.

But my beacon isn’t the one with the distress signal. Closing to within a hundred meters, I grab the stick and turn the lifeboat sideways while still carrying all that forward momentum. It’s a crazy maneuver in a bucket like this. No idea if the side thrusters can even halt my current velocity. I put them on full and eyeball the distance to the lock collar, guiding the approach until I bang into the beacon and hook the magnet with a three out of ten on the pilot-o-meter.

Cricket growls at me like she thinks I’m being generous.

Throwing off my restraints, I leave my seat and hurry to the airlock. As I key open the lifeboat’s inner airlock door, I see the red light flashing above the control panel. There’s no atmosphere handshake from the other side. Something is very wrong with this beacon. Closing my helmet, I shut the lifeboat’s airlock behind me, keeping Cricket at bay, and then key in the universal override code. I’ve got a bad feeling as the door to this beacon opens. And even through my helmet and the thick airlock doors, I can hear Cricket howling with fury on the other side—pissed that I’m leaving her, perhaps. Or just knowing that I’m a fool to go.

• 20 •

The lock module is empty. Bare. The hatch to the other lifeboat is open, so I check inside. If there was a loss of atmo, this is where any survivors would go. But this beacon has a lifeless feel. Sterile. Like a vacuum. Any hope of finding someone over here vanishes. The neighbor’s Maserati just has its hazards going off. I glance at my O2 levels in the suit and head for the ladder, knowing NASA would at least want me to turn off the emergency signal and investigate. One flight up is the life support and mechanical module. My boots clang on the rungs, the sound muffled by my helmet.

The mechanical module might as well have shrink-wrap on it. Everything gleams. There are no loose wires dangling from all the add-ons and repairs cobbled together over the years. No oil streaks running down the pumps from worn-out seals. No blistered and peeling paint. No rust or signs of age. She’s like a shaved-head recruit standing there, holding her neatly folded fatigues, not a scar on her smooth flesh. Gazing at the room around me, all I can think of is the grief to come. All I can see are the bolts whizzing like bullets in the cosmos around us. All I want to do is throw myself over her grav generator and shield it with my body, keeping everything safe, not letting a damn thing touch her—

There’s a bang somewhere above me. Distant. Muffled. Like the debris heard me and reached out and slapped this nubile recruit. Like our drill sergeant caught me smiling at her. I grab the ladder leading up to the living quarters and clomp up the rungs. More newness here. I touch the sleep sack. Wish I could pop my helmet open and see what they smell like out of the factory, before dozens of people have slept in them.

Another bang, nearer now. This one startles me, because even through the suit, I can feel that the bang is
inside
the beacon, not against the hull. That’s when I notice the duffel bag in the galley. Personal effects. Through the porthole, I can see the
dash, dash, dash
of an open-mouth O as the light outside continues to flash in alarm.

I grab the next ladder and climb up into the command module. I’m not alone. Two legs jut out from under the command dash, sheathed in white NASA sweatpants. Two bare feet. Ten toes splayed upward. Unmoving. Like a body pulled halfway out of a morgue drawer. The upper half of the person is concealed. I think of what it would be like to die like this, asphyxiating, choking on empty, burning lungs. I’ve thought about that a lot.

I approach the body.
This one’s not your fault
, I tell myself. I couldn’t have gotten here any quicker. I need to pull the body out to inspect it and determine the cause of death. Reaching down, I grab one of the ankles, and the body spasms. Kicks. There’s a shout and a bang. More kicking at me, legs scrambling like they’re riding a bicycle, and then hands gripping the edge of the dash, a face appearing, loose strands of hair over wide eyes and an angry mouth. The muffled sound of someone shouting at me: “What the fuck?!”

•••

We stare at one another. It’s a woman. Her lips are moving. She has no helmet on, which makes mine feel silly. I reach to open the visor, and there’s only a slight twinge of fear that maybe she’s an apparition, and maybe I’m not in a beacon at all but out in the cold vacuum of space, and I kinda hope that this is true—

But I breathe atmo when I pop the visor. And I hear the end of her last sentence:

“—the hell’d
you
come from?”

She waits for an answer. This is an easy one. I got this one.

“Beacon 23,” I say.

We stare some more. This is awkward.

“I’m— I saw the distress. Are you— Is everything okay?”

“I was just fine until you scared the ever-living shit out of me.” The woman brushes some of the loose hair off her face. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Some distant part of me knows that this is because I’ve been alone for a long time, and because the last person I loved recently died in my arms, and because I’m just glad this person isn’t dead, but there’s another part of me that thinks she really might be that gorgeous.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“What’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on, those idiots in Texas’ve built near on two thousand of these buckets, and they still can’t send them out without all these glitches. Can’t one of these things boot up and work the first time? Is that too much to ask? It must be too much to ask. Hand me that spanner.”

There’s an open toolkit on the deck, just under the dash. I hand her the spanner, and she ducks back out of sight. My walk suit feels bulky. I shrug under the weight of it all. I feel like taking off my helmet.

“So they sent you out here to operate this thing, and it doesn’t even work?” I ask.

“They never work,” she tells me. “Not at first.” Her voice is a bit muffled by the cavity she’s working in, and a bit by my helmet. “And I’m not an operator.” She peers out at me from the gloom. “Do I look like an operator to you?”

She looks like a normal person to me. Does that mean “no”? Does that mean I don’t look normal? I guess I don’t. I decide to leave my helmet on. I’ve got a week’s worth of growth on my chin, and my hair is a shaggy mop that wouldn’t pass muster in the army or at NASA.

“I guess not,” I say.

“I’m a tuner,” she says. “I get these things working so your lot can survive in them. But right now, I’m trying to get all the sensors that’re telling this bucket everything’s wrong to understand that everything’s not wrong. She’s all haywire.”

“A tuner,” I say. It’s the first I’ve heard of them. Sounds like something a piano needs, not a trillion-dollar piece of astral navigation machinery.

The woman leans out of the cavity again, sitting up. Her hair is matted down in places with perspiration. Most of it is in a ponytail. Light brown, with a hint of red. And emerald eyes. I’m an unblinking fool. And the walk suit is damn hot.

“Yes, a tuner,” she repeats. “Pass me that bolt, please?”

I break my stare and look where she’s pointing. There are small bolts that I recognize, the ones that hold the control consoles to the main panel. I hand her the bolt, but only after slipping one of the lock washers on it. She narrows her eyes at me like she just watched a monkey perform a trick. “I’m Claire.” She holds out her hand, which is streaked with grease. I shake it. “What d’you go by?”

I laugh. Nerves, I guess. “Lately, I go by
That Idiot
. In the army, they just called me Soldier. But back in flight school, we were given call signs.”

She laughs. “What was your call sign?”

“It wasn’t a very good one,” I warn.

“Lay it on me. Another bolt, please.”

I prep and hand her another bolt. “My call sign was Digger.”

Claire’s laugh echoes from within the cavity. I shift in place while she works.

“It was supposed to be Tomb Digger,” I explain. “Which is . . . you know . . . really badass. But my flight instructor didn’t like me, and he saw me rub my nose one time, and said I was a nose digger, and that from then on I’d just go by Digger. So that was it.” I shrug, even though she’s not looking.

“Tell the truth,” she calls out. “You were picking your nose, right? Not just scratching it. Give me the lock nuts.”

Her hand emerges. I place the three lock nuts in her palm. “I may have been picking it,” I say. “I’m not proud.”

“No, you’re not. I can tell that about you.”

I can’t determine if this is a compliment or not. It definitely doesn’t
feel
like a compliment.

“So where’d you serve, soldier?”

“All over. Orion. Humbolt. Dakka. Did my first tour on Gturn.”

Claire whistles. “They always had you in the shit, didn’t they?”

“Hip deep.”

She wiggles free from the space, and I move back to give her room. She has on a white NASA tank top. No bra. A trim and muscular physique. Not what I expect in an egghead. She starts working on one of the main consoles, and I watch, following what she’s doing. Looks like a master reboot sequence, but she’s rewriting the config.sys before it goes through, coding faster than I can type.

“Let’s see if this works,” she mutters.

The lights go off around us. Pitch black. There’s a distant
thunk
from the massive power relays two floors below. Pinpricks of light make themselves known through several of the portholes as my eyes gradually adjust. There’s something sensual about this, exhaling and inhaling in that dark space with someone else. I can feel her presence like I have radar. I can tell there’s another person in the darkness with me, that I’m not alone. I stand frozen, afraid to move my limbs, afraid of what I might do with them.

The lights come back on. Claire is staring intently at one of the portholes. I look as well. The pulsing, fluttering, palpitating, unsure lights of the shocked and alarmed have returned to that steady metronome, that constant and confident pulse.

Claire smiles at me.

“Much better,” she says.

I agree.