Genesis

trapped him against the deck, plowing him along. He felt some tiny seam give, and the air pressure in his suit began dropping.

He shoved hysterically, fighting his way out against the impossible mass, kicking off and fetching up against the miles-high inner hatch. He slammed it with his fists, breath and consciousness slipping away-forever, he knew, if he didn't get air soon.

The hiss got louder, and he located the stressed spot just as it began to go, holding it together with his hand, hooking one foot on some kind of cross member, hammering and hammering with his free fist. He didn't notice the jarring of the outer hatch.

Nor did he notice the return of gravity until it flipped him off the inner hatch. He sagged against the armored door, now only able to thump it feebly, the world going red in his vision, then increasingly dark.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

That suppressed longing of the Flower of Life, which desire generates the incalculable power of Protoculture, has its human equivalent. The interlude of the castaways is rich in insights as to those Greater Forces, so much more powerful than mere guns or missiles, that manifested themselves in the Robotech War.

Jan Morris, Solar Seeds, Galactic Guardians

Rick almost fell to the deck on his face. The inner hatch had risen without his noticing it, and there was air all around him. Unfortunately, his helmet was still sealed.

Minmei raced for him, screaming something he couldn't hear. He reeled and staggered. At last, between them, they got the helmet off; he devoured air, his chest straining against the flight suit, sobbing on the exhale, but alive.

Minmei got a shoulder under his arm, steadying him as he sank to all fours. 'I was so worried! I thought-' She didn't finish it.

'At least… I got the tuna back in,' he labored. Catching his breath a bit, he straightened up and looked back over his shoulder into the lock, at his catch.

The fish had been thrust back when he kicked off from it and had been completely severed by the outer hatch; only the glassy-eyed head remained in the lock, and everything behind the gills was out drifting once more on some new vector.

'Or some of it, anyway,' he amended. He wondered whether Minmei's aunt had taught her any recipes appropriate to the occasion.

'Hu-uuuh!' Rick observed, and sank to the cold deck.

Ushio jiru, a great delicacy, was more suited to the preparation of the porgy, exploiting the flavor and use of piscine parts Westerners usually discarded. The version Aunt Lena had taught Minmei, however, did not start 'Take one fish head one and one-half yards long.'

That didn't make Rick's mouth water any less as the hapless fish sat staring at them out of a big vat; Mockingbird's jet fuel flamed through jury-rigged burners, and a delicious smell wafted out through the compartment.

'Why are you sitting there with such a sad look on your face?' Minmei prodded Rick. 'You caught a fish in outer space! You were wonderful out there!'

Glumly, he sat with face cupped in hands. He'd underestimated her and had made a pact with himself to be honest with her from now on. 'Thanks, but that little fishing trip ruined our chances of going out along the ship's hull.' He showed her the rent that had appeared in his suit in the last instants before she had opened the inner hatch and saved him.

'We have no way to fix it. I don't know what we're gonna do.' He hugged his knees, forehead sinking down against them.

'Maybe we could cut a hole in the roof and then climb right up,' she proposed-anything to keep him from losing hope.

His head came up again. 'I've already thought about that. I took some tools and climbed up to the ceiling yesterday. But it's like armor; I couldn't even make a dent in it.'

Minmei gave the mountainous fish head a poke with her long sheet-metal fork. 'What about an explosion?'

'What would we explode? The last of our fuel will run the camp stove a while longer, but it wouldn't even warm up this armor all around us.'

Minmei prodded the fish head a little, trying to set it so it wouldn't topple. They'd lashed together some pitchforklike cooking tools, but those were pretty clumsy. They couldn't afford to spill the ushio jiru or waste any of the fish head; they might not have any other source of food for a long time.

She looked at the flame beneath the vat and wondered what would happen to them when the food, the fuel-perhaps even the air and water-finally gave out.

Minmei's tally of the days had grown: four verticals crosshatched with a fifth, and another group of five, and two more besides, for a total of twelve. Neither of them mentioned the count anymore.

They would leave the stove on, a tiny orange-yellow flame, for just a little while after the compartment lights went out each night. It was unwise from the standpoint of conservation, of course, but it helped their morale a lot, talking for a while in the peaceful quiet of their tent before going to sleep. Rick found himself looking forward to those moments all day as he dragged himself around the maze, his hopes dashed over and over by dead ends.

But he was already thinking about the moment when the stove would flicker out for the last time. There was always the wood from the many packing crates, of course, but Rick wasn't sure what danger an open fire might constitute to the air supply. He was already mapping steam and hot water lines, looking for the best and nearest place to do their cooking, and trying to interpret the utility markings in order to improvise a little light during the night cycles and recharge his flashlight once Mockingbird's batteries were completely dead.

'And so I practiced as hard as I could-I didn't do much of anything else, I guess,' he told Minmei. He was lying with his head pillowed on his arms, staring up at Mockingbird. Minmei lay across from him on her pallet, resting on one elbow. The soft light made her skin glow and her eyes liquid and deep.

'My dad grumbled a bit,' he went on, 'but he taught me everything he knew, and I came back to win that competition the next year. And I won it eight times in a row, even though I was only flying an old junker plane.'

He stopped, wondering if it sounded like he was bragging. Then he dismissed the thought; Minmei knew him better than that. And he felt like he'd known her all his life-no, like he'd known her always.

She sighed, laying her head on her hands, watching him. 'Rick?' she said softly. 'Do you think I'll ever get to fly with you again?'

He put all the conviction he could into his answer, trying to sound matter-of-fact. 'Why, sure! Once we get rescued, I'll take you up whenever you want. That is, if you'll sing for me now and then.'

She lay back, gazing up at the play of firelight on the inverted cockpit canopy. Their isolation had become their world, filling dreams as well as days.

Sometimes I dream of falling in love. She'd never dared mention it to him.

Minmei began singing, a song she'd written and never shared with anybody before. It took him a second to realize that he didn't recognize it.

'To be in love