The Lonely Whelk (4 page)

“
Are you mad, sweetie? You
don’t have to go. I mean, you’re so talented you could get a job
anywhere!” she smiled and smoothed his hair back again.

“
I could, but, ‘inaction is
made up of lost opportunity, and opportunities gained and lost
dictate the fate of the world,’“ Clyde recited. “Please leave my
room so I can get dressed.”

“
Well, okay.” She gave him
a concerned look. “Don’t get too frazzled! You have plenty of
time!”

He guided her towards his bedroom door and
closed it behind her, immediately spinning around and bolting into
the bathroom. Five minutes later he reappeared in a shirt, tie, and
boxers. His hair was wet.

“
Mom!” he grumbled. She was
sitting on his bed. “Please!”

“
Oh, sorry, dear. I just
wanted to tell you that your jacket is at the cleaners. You won’t
be able to wear it to your interview.”

Clyde took a deep breath and let it out
slowly.
Exasperation frustrates all, but a deep breath calms the
heart and clears the head
, he thought. He raised his eyebrows
at his mother. “Out.”

She frowned, and then smiled a little. “As
you wish. Don’t be late!” She strode from the room.

He pulled his pants on, tightened his belt,
and stuffed his feet into his shoes. Walking down the stairs was
tricky, due to the fact that his shoes weren’t entirely on his
feet, but he managed that, and even managed to grab a muffin on his
way out.

His mother stood at the door as he ran past.
She held out an envelope. “Some extra resumes, dear!”

“
Thank you,” he said, and,
kissing her on the cheek, hailed the first cab that drove
by.

He lived in a heavily populated section of
the city, but the house had more space surrounding it than any
other house in the area. It was so large that he and his mother
could be in it together for several days and never bump into each
other. He tended to stick to two or three rooms, though, so maybe
they would see each other more frequently if he ever bothered to
wander into the other areas of the house. How they afforded it was
a mystery to him, but he was not one to spend excessive amounts of
time contemplating the enigma. He assumed their financial state had
something to do with his dad’s unfortunate and untimely death. He
often wished he had gotten to know the man, but his mother refused
to talk about him and Clyde didn’t like to push. At any rate, they
were provided for. His mom might not feel obligated to hold down a
job, but he would prove his worth if it killed him.

“
The Globe, please,” he
said to the cab driver.

She nodded and screeched down the street,
and then rapidly came to a halt as a kid on a wheelie-board hurtled
out into the road in front of them. Clyde closed his eyes as a deep
breath filled his lungs and oxygen rushed through his body. He
imagined oxygen looked like miniature racecars barreling from his
heart to his brain and back. As long as he kept breathing and
didn’t eat too much corn syrup or processed foods, there would be
no traffic jams in his veins.

He rested his hands on his knees and stared
at the thin threads on the seat in front of him. They weaved in and
out of each other so cleanly, united and whole. Focusing his mind,
he began to recite possible interview questions silently:
What
challenges did you face and how did you handle them? What was your
biggest accomplishment? Failure? What do you expect from a
supervisor? Why did you leave your last job? How do you alleviate
stress? What projects have you worked on? What five words would you
use to describe yourself?

A few minutes later, as the cab pulled up in
front of the Globe, Clyde realized that he had been reciting the
questions, but not the answers. He sighed and handed the driver
some cash.

The Globe was an amazing building. The base
of the building began wide, but narrowed until it met the massive
sphere that rested on the top of the spike, high in the sky. It
was, according to the book
Sam’s Tourist Tips and Take-Outs
,
the tallest building in the city. The base was made of a dark
obsidian-coloured stone, and the Globe itself was made entirely
made of glass.
Sam’s
explained that the glassblower, a
Maddox Oliphant, blew the globe himself, using his own invention –
a giant raindrop-shaped fan with its own air-generation system. The
point on the top of the sphere was a warning to any invading alien
species, although no one was quite sure what the warning said.

Clyde wasn’t sure how reliable
Sam’s
Tourist Tips and Takeouts
was, but the building was incredible
and always looked like it was glowing. He took a deep breath. It
was time to interview.

He strode towards the building, chanting
silently:
one step forward and one step back: even a clumsy man
can dance.
He might be clumsy, but this time, he would
dance.

Holland curled up on the floor, sobbing.
Images flashed across her eyelids: Hawkings’ dead body in the
chair, the stars twinkling in the vast void of night on the other
side of the windows, the rows and rows of coffins lying parallel to
one another and containing the bodies of her friends — and she was
alone. Completely alone.

This was an emotional cocktail: sadness,
mixed with fear, mixed with rage, and salted with a little bit of
relief – relief that she was alive and not dead, relief that her
crew would be there soon, and relief that Hawkings had at least had
the foresight to wake her up. But the relief masked the other
emotions only for a moment, and then her mind was awash with them
all simultaneously. After listening to and feeling her feelings
wreak havoc with her body and mind, it all began to settle into
one, solid, interminable sadness. Her hands trembled, the muscles
in her back tensed, and her throat and eyes began to burn.

She didn’t count the minutes or hours that
passed; she merely focused on taking one breath after another after
another.

Finally, she took a deep breath and sat up.
She imagined her backbone was made of iron and coated with the
polymer that made the Radovine spaceships invincible. She imagined
that she was a robot, being piloted by a faraway mind, and that she
had been commanded to start working. She imagined that she was
anyone but herself, and anywhere but here.

The ship was running on autopilot, so there
shouldn’t be much for her to do yet except to start waking up the
others. But she wanted to double-check – six hundred years is a
long time, and anything could have happened. The problem was
Hawkings. His corpse sat awkwardly in the chair. Although moving
him seemed the best option, she wasn’t sure she had the strength.
Instead, she pressed the button on the side of the chair. It slowly
revolved, taking the body with it. When Hawkings faced away from
the console, she carefully stepped between the back of the chair
and the console, and could now see the screen.

This would require a few more deep breaths.
News of her son, news of her home, news of the world that danced in
its own track around its own sun — that would need to wait. Right
now, this ship and these people were her responsibility.

“
Computer,” she said.
“Status report.”

“
Hello, Holland,” said the
computer.

Holland cringed. “Hello, Lady Mastin.”

“
You may call me Computer.”
The console began to hum. Graphs and sensor readings began to
stream past, blue lines penetrating Holland’s mind but somehow
still seeming so far away. “Life support: 100 percent. Power: 98
percent. Engines: full auto. Shielding: 83 percent.”

“
Why only 83 percent?”
Holland interrupted the computer, frowning. When they left Sagitta,
the shielding was projected to be at 100 percent until they reached
their destination. It had automatic repairing capabilities which
worked on most rocks and asteroids, although it would do little
against weapons or a black hole.

“
We hit an asteroid belt,”
replied the computer. “Electronics functioning except in Corridor
11.”

“
Wait, wait, go back,”
Holland said, gesturing at the console screen. The lines froze and
she leaned in to look closer. “There was a power spike about twenty
minutes ago in Corridor 11. What is that? Is that why it isn’t
working?”

The computer hummed for a moment.
“Unknown.”

“
What do you mean,
unknown?” Holland’s frown deepened.

“
Unknown.”

“
But you’re supposed to
know! You’re supposed to know everything!”

“
Unknown.”

“
What about the people in
the Corridor 11 stasis room?”

“
Life support on secondary
power.”

“
Well, that’s okay for now.
Finish the report. Tell me about the stasis pods.”

“
Stasis pods: 57 percent
capacity.”

“
Wait, what? 57 percent?”
Holland’s breathing became jagged and irregular. Nothing made sense
and she hated it when things were out of control.

“
43 percent
drained.”

“
When we left, Computer, we
were at 100 percent capacity. And if we’re at 57 percent, that
means...” Holland took a deep breath. “Tell me what
happened.”

“
Power malfunction in
Corridor 3, 5, and 7.”

“
When?”

“
One year
previous.”

Holland gripped the edges of the console
until her knuckles turned white. “One year ago, 57 percent of the
people on this ship died? Are they really dead? Why didn’t Hawkings
wake me up then?”

“
Affirmative. You must
review the ship’s log.”

Dead. A coffin room that was really a coffin
room. Dozens of coffin rooms, in fact, that were actually filled
with coffins. When the ship had left Sagitta there had been over
50,000 people sleeping on board. More than enough to colonize the
new planet. Over 28,000 of those people were dead. Dead. On her
ship.

She cried again as her fingers scrambled to
bring up the ship’s log. As soon as Hawkings’ face appeared, she
hit pause and turned to look at his body.

“
I should probably move
him,” she said. The computer did not respond.

She flexed her hands. Moving him very far
was not likely to happen, but at very least she could get him onto
the floor and into a more comfortable-looking position. Reaching
forward, she slid her hands under his armpits and pulled him
forward. His head fell against her shoulder. A shiver ran through
her entire body; goose bumps raised the hair on every inch of her
skin. He was dead, but hadn’t been for very long.

Sliding his butt forward, she dropped him to
the floor.

There was a thump. She would never forget
that thump. It didn’t sound like much, but she knew that the
knowledge that his corpse made a thump when it hit the floor would
haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. She sobbed once and
leaned down to drag his body away from the console. He was heavy,
but lighter than she expected, which meant either he had lost a lot
of weight, or she was stronger than she had anticipated.

Her legs wobbled as she pulled on his arms.
She laid him flat on his back and pushed his arms to his sides.
Next, she closed his eyes which stared blankly towards the
star-dotted ceiling, and did her best to tidy his clothes. She
would need help to finish dealing with him, after she woke up the
crew.

Holland went back to the Commander’s seat
and sat. Hawkings’ face stared up at her from the console. He was
smiling. A tear dripped down her face as she reached out and hit
“play.”

“
Holland,” he said. “Hello.
Good morning. I hope you slept well and imagine you will never want
to sleep again. If you’re watching this without me, it’s because
I’m dead. I’m sorry I missed you.”

Holland began to sob. His face was so old –
wrinkled and more wrinkled – and grey hairs covered his head. Even
his stubble was completely grey. He sat hunched over the computer,
and as she stared at him, she noticed how his eyelids drooped
around his eyes. That one detail jarred her: he was so old, growing
close to a millennium. It was amazing that he had lasted even this
long. When they were young, they hadn’t even considered this. It
was supposed to have been a happy reunion; they had been immortal
back then.

On the screen his face turned grave. “All is
not well, I’m afraid, although Lady Mastin and Jacobs lived happy
lives. We lived for the moments when we got to wake someone up for
a few days, and Jacobs did an amazing job with the arboretum. I am
old, and lately have been feeling less than myself. I find it
difficult to move from room to room, and often spend days sitting
in the same spot, staring at the stars and playing games on the
console.

“
As such, I feel the need
to give you a bit of a rundown, so you don’t have to spend time
digging through the files. You have more pressing matters to attend
to.

“
We hit an asteroid stream
one year ago. It was undetected by our systems. Unfortunately, they
were made by an alien race – a weapon of some sort that we didn’t
recognize. The attack did severe damage to our shielding system,
although it still holds. It was decreased to 12 percent – a
critical level, but immediately after we flew by the stream, I woke
up Thompson and Davies and they managed to fix most of the
equipment. That brought the shields back up to 83
percent.”

A fit of coughing interrupted his
explanation. Holland’s eyes creased in compassion as she watched
him hack and try to clear his throat.