She lobbed a toolkit at him, and he bobbled the catch. “Okay,” she said, tapping the deck with a foot where the jump seats were folded and recessed. “First we remove the jump seats.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to plate the deck, here and in the bridge”—likewise forward in the ship—“with lead. Aft of this level, everything will be shielded.”
In cargo hold three: the cold-sleep pods in which the six of them would sleep away the long trip. In cargo hold two: the embryo freezers, artificial wombs, and seed banks they would need at their destination. And in a corner of cargo hold one, Marvin’s computing complex.
The prospect of years on autopilot made Dana’s skin crawl.
“What about the…other end of the…holds? For when we…decelerate?”
“After we flip, the main fusion reactor will be between us and the oncoming radiation. The reactor’s shielding should suffice.”
“How will we fasten…the lead?”
“A dab of glue,” Dana told him. It struck her that she had all but ceased to notice Antonio’s halting speech and odd emphases. So were his verbal tics worse today? Maybe. He struck her as even edgier than usual. “Acceleration will pin down the sheets anyway. Once we have the shielding in position, we’ll mount the jump seats to the raised floor with nail guns.”
“The seats…will have nowhere to…stow anymore. This cabin is…going to be crowded.”
“One more reason to finish prepping and get into the pods,” Dana said.
“You remind me…a little…of her. Very focused.”
You think I’m focused? But Antonio had never before volunteered anything personal about himself, so Dana chose not to quibble. “Who is that?”
“Tabitha. My wife.” He took hold of his wrench by its socket, spinning the handle round and round, the ratchet clicks as arrhythmic as his speech. “I miss her.”
Dana began loosening the bolts of the first jump-seat assembly. “What happened? But only if you feel like talking about it.”
“A tornado.” With his free hand, he began stroking his chin scar. “My fault.”
“How can you blame yourself for a tornado?”
“I taught at Cambridge. We were…happy there, but…I chose to take a sabbatical at…Purdue.” In a flurry of ratchet clicks, he started unbolting another jump seat. “North Americans talk about a tornado alley. Indiana is…in the middle of it. A tornado hit our…house. It collapsed. Tabitha…Tabitha…”
“I’m so sorry, Antonio.” That’s how he got that scar, Dana supposed, and why he never had it removed. She guessed the accident was also why he had left Earth twenty years earlier. “But it’s no one’s fault.”
“Isn’t it?”
All she could come up with was, once more, “I’m so sorry.”
“Let’s…get these seats out.”
“Sure.”
In silence, they finished unbolting the four jump-seat assemblies and lifted them from the deck. They leaned the seats, still folded flat, against the curved, exterior bulkhead. Then their task moved to cargo hold one, restacking cargo to get at the bundles of lead sheets.
They had seemingly unending cargo to shift. Vitamins and nutritional supplements. Freeze-dried emergency rations. Grain seeds: wheat, corn, rice, and crops she had never heard of. Vegetable seeds, fruit-tree seeds, and seeds for trees to provide lumber. Guns and ammo, for whatever wild animals they might encounter on the new world. (At least Dana didn’t think anyone expected them to find aliens at their destination, or that the six of them would wage war if there were.) Spare parts for ship, shuttles, and spacesuits. Grab bags of hardware, from electronic and photonic integrated circuits to literal nuts and bolts.
If only there had been time in dry dock to retrofit shielding into the bow, where it belonged.
If only she had the luxury of time for “if only.”
Antonio kept bumping into and dropping things. Even at one-third gee most of the crates were heavy, and at any acceleration (or with none, for that matter) their inertia was substantial. Twice Dana lunged to grab something he had fumbled.
Under acceleration, the ship’s central corridor had become a ten-meter-deep shaft. If he should drop a lead sheet in or down that shaft….
Dana made the command decision: Antonio was too clumsy for this job. Maybe he had realized that going in. Maybe that was why he had been so anxious.
She said, “No offense, this isn’t the task for you.”
“I’m sorry. I do want to contribute.”
“I know you do. And you have, or none of us would even be here.”
“If it’s okay, I’ll scan ahead of the ship.”
“That’s a good idea.” Dana brushed sweat-slicked hair off her forehead. “We’ve got new long-range sensors. It would be a big help if you could confirm the calibrations. Call on Marvin if you need help. But don’t touch any other console.”
“I promise not to break anything.” Antonio managed an awkward smile before leaving for the bridge.
She pressed the intercom button. “Blake, Li, I need you in cargo hold one. Earth muscles, and all that.”
“Be there in a minute,” Blake responded. Li just showed up.
Blake finally arrived. “What do you need?”
“First, you can help me tote this stuff forward.” Dana rapped the stack of lead sheets. Li hefted one—and winced as it wanted to keep going. “Sorry, Li. This won’t be easy.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Dana said, “Li, stand near the top of the ladder. Blake will take the middle and we’ll get a bucket-brigade thing going between here and crew quarters.”
“Lead buckets filled with lead,” Blake said. “Good times.”
“What did you leave Carlos doing?” Dana asked him.
“I told him to inventory spare parts in both engine rooms.”
“And how did that go over?”
“Inventorying is a task beneath the dignity of the Francis Crick Chair,” Blake said as he grabbed a lead sheet from the stack. “I can live with that.”
Li paused in the hatchway. “May I offer an observation, Captain?”
“Of course.”
“Carlos is scared,” Li said. “I don’t mind admitting it: I’m scared, too. It’s the literal end of the world, Captain. You have your military training to fall back on. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Carlos doesn’t have that. When he falls back on academic snobbery, or any other familiar behaviors, it’s no surprise.”
“I see your point,” Dana said. “But you heard
