Black Hull (9 page)

“Never mind then.”

“Seventy-eight.”

That doesn’t add up at all. Maybe she is
a cellbot?

“Do you know what the life-expectancy is
now?” she asked, picking up a dumbbell, sensing his confusion.

“No clue. Was one hundred and eleven
where I’m from.”

“Try one hundred and ninety,” she said.
Mick watched her pump the plastimetal rod—he would have guessed forty.

“Spar?” she said, dropping the weight.

“What?”

“Spar—or don’t you want to eat macaroni
and cheese with me?”

“I’m not going to fight a woman,” Mick
said. He remembered hitting his ex-wife. She’d recoiled in horror, shame, and
fear. She’d looked like a wet, scared dog before an executioner. He’d made
himself a stranger to her.

She deserved it. She cheated on me.

“Would you be able to tell the
difference anyway, if I wasn’t a woman? Come on you
wuss
. Is that insult
old enough to get your blood moving?” she taunted.

“Wuss?” Mick watched her take a
defensive stance in front of him, her silver leotard catching the red light of
the gym, shading her thin, braided muscles.

“You’ll have to stop me then,” she said.
Without warning, she dove, sliding directly between Mick’s legs. Before he
could react, she had gripped behind his knees and thrust forward, toppling him
to the ground. In an instant, she had slid her butt over his torso and locked
him up.

“That’s all you’ve got?” she said, then
stood up. “Try again, you can do better.”

“I’m not dressed for this,” Mick said,
confused as to whether she’d turned him on or pissed him off.

“Take off the damned jacket,” she
ordered.

Fuck it. I’m here right now, aren’t I?
It’s fourteen. None of this will ever have happened.

Mick threw his jacket against the wall.
His white tank-top painted powerful muscles of his own, strength bulging in
agitation.

“You’re not going to cry over this, or
kill me in my sleep later, are you?” Mick asked.

“You won’t get much sleep,” she said,
and started in. They locked hands and worked for inside position. Sera curled
his wrist in, drew herself under his chest, and pushed her lower back into his
abdomen—Mick flew up, twisted, and slammed into the mat.

“Okay, I’ll give you some credit. I was
holding back,” he said.

“I’ll bet,” she replied, her smile
disappearing as she readied to move in again. Mick sprawled as she shot for his
legs. Quickly, he rotated on her back, locked her in a full nelson, and cranked
her neck to the ground.

“Ow!” she screamed. Mick jumped up,
releasing her in fear.

“Sorry.”

“Why’d you let up? I was about to break
it.”

“Really?” Mick smiled. “Didn’t sound
that way.” He was enjoying himself for the first time since he’d woken on the pod.
No—that was a lie: he was enjoying himself for the first time since before he’d
found out about Karen and
him
.

“Try again then,” he said.

She rushed in, attempting the same move
as before, shooting for both of his legs. Mick sprawled again and spun around
to her back. Before he could lock his full nelson, she grabbed his wrists and
rolled to her side. Her body mowed him to the mat beneath her, and she dug her
chin into his ribs. She twisted up, dug her arm into his neck and squeezed.

Really? She’s this strong? She looked
solid, but this is unbelievable.

Mick struggled for a moment, collecting
his last bit of air. Fuzziness rolled over him, circulation to his brain
slowing. His thoughts quieted. In a last-ditch effort to upheave her, Mick dug
his butt into the mat and pushed his pelvis up. Sera’s grip started to loosen.

“Sera!” XJ called in alarm. Mick and
Sera went limp, releasing each other, sliding on sweat.

“What is it XJ?”

“Macaroni is ready!”

The West Rail Sector snaked along the rim
of the Bessel system, a string of green moons orbiting two dueling brown
worlds. Sera brought the Cozon into the atmosphere of one of the greenest
satellites, and soon its thick air dispersed around the driving head of the
ship.

Mick stepped out after XJ, GR, and Sera.

This place is cold. A green ice world.
Jade frost. Grass of snow. I walk before the goddess of fire and ice, toward my
destiny. A place F.R.I.N.G.E. could have never hoped to reach: M82: an
impossibility. Who’d have thought the unknown radio signal was a cue—line up,
come one, come all, for heaven is realized. There is nothing beautiful about
her—but there is something different.

A vision of Karen flashed into Mick’s head—his
confusion stirred and settled into blind footsteps leading him to a decision he
could not deny. His heart had its place. That place no longer existed in the
here and now, and so he would have to go.

Green snow crunched underfoot.
Condensation fogged their helm glass. A bloated droid approached them,
glistening with green icicles.

“Sera, XJ, GR, good to see you!” he
greeted. “Come in, out of this weather.” The iced robot led them into an
igloo-shaped mound of gunmetal steel. They traveled down to a long room and
sat, discussing their transaction. “So, what’ll it be today?”

“A T-jump for him,” Sera said.

“Nice to meet you sir. I am Melbot.”

“Can you get me home, Melbot?” Mick
asked.

“I can get you wherever you wish to go,
but if you mistake your designated spacetime location, I am not liable for your
death. I’ll need to prime the T-jumper. You can’t expect same-day service on
something like this.”

“What’ll it be, Mel?” Sera asked.

“Ten thousand for a T-jump.”

“Ten thousand?”

“Sorry, the price has gone up. Demand is
rising again. Something to do with a new Utopia ordinance.”

Sera sighed, calculating how much money
would remain.

“Looks like we’ll be working a bit
longer,” she told her droid relatives.

“Labor is my primary function—we’ll get
along just fine,” GR said. “For I am a workhorse android, primed and fit for
duty.”

“You are quite the opposite, GR—a
dock-loading droid. Your specifications state: No greater loads than three
hundred kilograms,” XJ replied.

“How long then?” Sera asked.

“A day. Just a day,” said Melbot.

 
A day on this ice-world.
Purgatory.

“Alright. Get to work. Call when it’s
ready,” Sera said. She turned to head back to the Cozon.

“Do you mind if I stay, Sera? I want to
watch him work,” XJ asked.

“Yea, stay. Learn how to work the god
damned thing. Maybe we won’t have to shell out ten thousand for it next time,”
she muttered, heading up to the frozen neon ice.

“Me too then,” said GR.

“Why not.”

Mick watched the droids follow Melbot
into his engineering chamber, then went to track Sera down.

“More than you thought?”

“Doesn’t matter. I can make up the five
in no time.”

“Good to hear that. I sympathize with
you, you know—my plight’s not much different than yours.”

“Really, how so?”

“Getting to be with our families again.”

“Hah,” she replied.

“What?”

The Cozon hull bay doors opened and
closed. A rush of heat enveloped them, sealing the harsh icy wind out.

“You’ve a warm wife you’ll return to,
don’t you?”

She’s jealous. She has no one. But if Utopia
matches their belief of it, she’ll have whomever she wants. So why the
self-pity?

“Yea, I do.”

“So it’s not so similar then,” she said.
“I’m going to the pilot house, I have to plot our course to Utopia.”

“I’ll be in the bed quarters.”

“Sure,” grumbled Sera, power walking
away.

Christopher would love this ship. What a
beauty. I ought to bring back some pictures—pictures from the future.

Mick wandered off to find a camera.

“Christopher come here,” Mick said.

“Hey Dad,” Christopher answered.

“I have to go away for a while.”

“Why?”

“It’s business. Your mother will tell
you more about it. I’m doing it so we can spend more time together later.”

“Why don’t you stay home now, stay with
us?”

“I can’t. Something happened.”

“What?”

“Your mommy and me—I did something I
shouldn’t have. I have to fix it.”

“Are you leaving us? Are you getting a
divorce?”

Chilled silence paralyzed the room.

We will be. The papers will probably get
served as I’m shooting through in the Oort Cloud.

“Yes,” Mick answered.

Christopher looked away and started to
sob. Thin, trembling gasps came at first, attempts to push away that which he
could not understand. Despite his confusion, the pain that gnawed at his gut
throbbed clearly.

“Don’t you love mommy anymore?” asked
Christopher, clinging tightly to his father’s arm. “And us?”

“Of course I do, she did this. I mean,
Chris, it’s no one’s fault. People make mistakes. She made one. I made one.”

“But you said you’re going to fix it.”

“As much of it as I can. Now listen—you
look after your little brother. And your mother.”

Christopher squeezed tighter, and Selby
walked in, rubbing his nose into both of them, jealous of their closeness,
licking them.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I know. Trust me, god, I know. I’m
doing this for you. And your brother. One day you’ll understand. I’ll be back.
I love you.”
There’ll be no keeping in touch on a black hull run. He’ll be
out of high school when I see him next.

Mick held his son until Karen appeared
at the door, her eyes the sign that it was time to go. Anger mixed with guilt
and sadness: together they drew him to his feet and pushed him away from the
ones he loved more than anything in the universe.

Sera lay upon the sofa in her cabin. Her
bare leg caught Mick’s eye as he passed her room.

“What are you reading?” he asked,
peering in. Her night gown clung to her like a wet sheet.

“You wouldn’t know him.”

“Try me,” Mick said. He took a step into
the room.

I might as well give it a shot. I’ll be
gone. Never see her or this place again.

“She was born fifty years ago,” she
said.

“Who?”

“The author.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right then.”
So
much for that.
“Did you ever hear of Hart Crane?”

“Crane?” she racked her memory. “No,
just the bird.”

“He wrote poetry, two thousand years
ago.”

“Hmm,” she moaned, returning to her
book, uninterested.

“Good night,” Mick said, giving up. He
walked from her door.

“What’s it like?” she asked.

“What?” He stopped.

“His poetry.”

That’s it. I’m in.

He froze, racked his memory, desperately
trying to recall a stanza he’d been forced to memorize. He returned, appearing
again in her doorway.

“He wrote one like this…” Mick said,
pausing in thought, watching her. Sera lowered her legs from the end of the
sofa, dropped them to the floor, squared herself to Mick. He closed his eyes
before her drifting thighs.

Concentrate you fuck up.

Finally, a homework assignment from
college, a thousand years ago, danced upon his tongue—he could recall but one
stanza of the unnamed poem: