The man was silent. He looked at his own body wrapped in the antibacterial gown.
‘If it weren’t for Anan… I mean, who’d go back to that shithole?
‘I fully understand. I am also a daughter. If my father suffered from this same rare disease, I’d no doubt make the same choice. But this is a debt that can’t be settled on Earth. There, the balance is simply out of reach…’
The man stared in silence at the woman for some time. Perhaps he wanted to tell her that her father could never suffer such a disease because her family’s genes were meticulously scanned. Even if her father so fell ill, he would never face a lifetime of intractable debt. Her family was rich. The poor barely lived on the same planet as they did. They were a different species.
But he said none of this.
‘Can I see Anan?’
‘Of course. She received a full checkup before completing surgery.’ The woman’s warm tone returned as she seemed to think of something. ‘We will use our best resources to save her.’
There was a hidden message in what she said that made me uneasy, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it might be.
The man’s POV shifted quickly, almost like some transition animation, as he was moved to another intensive care unit. After several rounds of disinfection and dust removal, the man was dressed in a white isolation suit then moved down an aisle to another room.
A young girl with a shaved head lay on a bed breathing gently. Her face was relaxed. A picture book was spread over her chest. Even the book had been treated with antibacterials.
The man stood by the bed, quietly watching the girl. He dared not move for fear that even the slightest movement would pull the white plastic isolation suit from his body, make a noise or wake up the girl.
My eye was drawn toward that colorful picture book. I tried to focus on what was painted on its cover but failed. The harder I tried, the faster my focus dissipated. I eventually gave up, turned back to the girl, but found the details of the girl’s face now too were eroding like a sand painting in the wind… until there was only blankness.
This was all like something out of a horror film and it filled me with a strange heartache. I wanted to flee, but the more panicked I became, the closer the man’s vision zoomed into the blankness where the child’s face had been, like a celestial body that couldn’t escape its gravity well.
I noticed then the slightest discrepancy in the scene. If I were indeed looking from the man’s perspective, I should have seen the triangulation of his nose, but there was none.
What did that mean?
The dream seemed to be coming to an end. Everything was in free fall toward the blank face until it became so huge, like the surface of an asteroid, and I knew I would soon wake again, remembering nothing. I tried desperately to hold on to some detail, something vital, some key that could help me unlock why everything felt so wrong.
In the end, I failed.
4.
Freckles got deleted.
I don’t mean her meatbody, rather our memory data of her existence. In the hour since I had woken up, Freckles had become an insignificant name. Even her face was blurred. All the feelings I had once attached to the flesh-and-blood human – desire, annoyance, sadness, and let’s shamelessly admit a little love – were blown away like sand. And it wasn’t just me. It was all of us.
The company had been moving things around in our minds, for safety and efficiency.
So the girl became just another entry in the system, a coded lesson reminding future generations not to make the same mistake.
‘… For carbonaceous bodies to be classified as C-type asteroids, we require high-sensitivity spectra covering optical to mid-infrared wavelengths 0.5 to 3.5 micrometers in length, in order to detect absorption bands at 0.7 and 3 micrometers. This is how we determine if asteroids contain water. Absorption bands of approximately 0.7 micrometers do not directly indicate water itself rather charge transfers in iron-bearing material, such as water, existing in C-type asteroid. Even then, presence of an 0.7 micrometer absorption band doesn’t allow us to accurately estimate water content in an asteroid or its spectral color…’
This entry kept popping from the mouth of the beautiful new girl, like a string of tongue twisters. In my mind, I gave her the nickname Magpie.
Suddenly she stopped, raised her head and looked at me confused. Her face, slightly red and sweaty, spewed out her question. ‘I don’t get why it’s not more direct to detect the presence of the 3-micrometer absorption band?’
I shot a friendly smile. ‘The high background radiation in the mid-infrared spectra makes the presence of the 3-micrometer band weak and difficult to detect.’
‘Oh.’ She looked as though she’d lost all interest in the question. For a hunter, that was a dangerous sign.
Water was the fundamental element for survival in our vast universe, so asteroids with water were always primary collection targets for miners, but in some cases this proved fatal.
Magpie was speaking from a cylindrical metal cage just wide enough for a human body. Her waist and hands were strapped to swiveling branches. Her feet were spinning on the ‘hamster wheel’, which was what we crew called this piece of equipment. It was the safest and most effective way to combat osteoporosis and muscle atrophy in our one-third-gee environment.
As her mentor, I had to correct her movements from time to time. Even slight errors accumulating over time could lead to fractures or fasciitis.
*
Bathing on a mining vessel was like mixing vegetables and salad dressing in a sealed bag. Magpie climbed out from her bathbag naked, wiped her firm calves in front of me as though no one was there. For some
