Now the seat was in the center of the floor, not the ceiling. Now the portholes were high up, like they were supposed to be. I strapped on the ocular instrument—giant black goggles—and did my eye exercises. When I was done I really was better. The door was in the right place, and the mirror too. On the wall were my crew members’ hanging suits. But I’d improperly tethered my own suit and its white arms and legs waved at me with animation, with a seeming sense of urgency. It gestured at the farthest porthole and I saw the edge of the Earth. It didn’t press against the porthole like it had in the capsule. It was only round and still and impossibly blue. I stared at it for a long time.
Then I realized it was in the wrong place. It ought to be under my feet. If the chair was under me, then the Earth ought to be under it, but it wasn’t. It was above my head. The room bent; I held on to the seat and bent with it. My skin slid upward. My feet were on the sky and my head in the Earth, and my skin slid up, up.
A movement at the other end of the module. A tall figure in a gray jumpsuit floated toward me, a woman, upside down. Her hand hovered. She turned clockwise, and the room bent again. An oval face appeared behind the hand.
I tasted vomit and didn’t shut my mouth in time.
Something rustled. The woman had a plastic bag in her hand; she swam through the air to catch the bubbles of sick. I held my hand to my mouth and my cheeks burned.
The woman had short hair and long ears. Amelia, I said.
Sorry about the bumps, she said, and kicked a panel on the wall. This station’s a piece of junk.
What’s wrong with it? My tongue was thick and the words came out slow.
Oh it’s all right. Better than nothing. She lightly hooked one socked foot under a panel and pushed the plastic bag into a trash compartment.
I’m glad to see you, I said. It’s been a long time.
Has it?
We haven’t seen each other in—I swallowed and tried to focus on a specific spot on the wall—six years.
Right. She released her foot from the panel and began moving back the way she came.
What should I be doing? I called after her.
Getting your space legs.
But I didn’t want to be alone with my waving spacesuit, the smell of vomit, and the porthole with the Earth in the wrong place. I unstrapped myself and followed.
24
She called out the names of the modules as she swam past them, navigating around equipment and through airlocks with ease. I tried to orient myself based on the plans I’d studied before the launch, to take note of what equipment was where, but my limbs kept floating away and hitting things. It took all my concentration to keep them close, to hold my legs together and to press my arms against my sides. But I knew we must be getting close to the module with the toilets, because I could smell them, and I felt a dry heave rise up as we went past. I swallowed hard.
Amelia stopped in a compartment packed with large fabric storage bags that looked like they might have once been white but were now dingy gray. The air was full of whirring and blowing and beeping, and we had to raise our voices to be heard.
Storage and Systems, Amelia said, and opened a cabinet with tools velcroed inside. A small screwdriver floated out and I tried to catch it. I missed.
She grabbed for it behind her head and returned it to the cabinet. She tied a wrench and a pair of scissors to her jumpsuit, grabbed a roll of duct tape, put her hand through it, and pulled it up her sleeve. We got here late, she said. We’re still doing systems checks.
I’ll help.
She shook her head and drifted slightly in the air. Not if you’re going to puke on the equipment—
I won’t.
She looked at me. We’ve only got four hours before the first supply packet arrives. I can’t babysit you.
You won’t have to.
Then let’s move.
We reached the Service Module—the SM—where a man was squeezed behind an equipment panel. All I could see was one long leg, one long arm.
Simon, Amelia said.
They still haven’t replaced this thing, he called from the panel. I can’t believe it.
Just fix it like you did last time. Amelia pulled the roll of duct tape from her arm and tapped his shoulder with it. Remember June? she said.
Simon stuck his head out from behind the panel. He was so different—his shoulders were broader and his soft wavy hair was gone, buzzed close to the skin.
Of course I do. He reached out his hand and I pushed my body forward in the air. He caught my hand and squeezed it firmly and smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. All grown up, he said.
He ducked back behind the panel and we swam on, going in a circle (the station was a hexagon of modules, arranged around the SM). In another module a woman with waving dark hair was cleaning debris out of a vent. She floated horizontally in the air, a cloud of dust and fibers around her head.
Nine down, she said. Sixty-six more to go—
Rachel’s second-in-command, Amelia said to me. She’ll save the rest of you if this piece of crap station kills me—
Hey. Rachel turned her shoulders and rotated her body in the air so she was facing me. She had large bright eyes. Her hair billowed. Do you snore?
I looked at Amelia. No. Or, I don’t think so—
Then we’ll get along great.
Very funny, Amelia said. I don’t snore.
I brought you a nose clip this time, Rachel said and she reached out as if to pinch Amelia’s nose.
No you didn’t, Amelia said, and ducked her head away.
I really did, Rachel said to me as Amelia propelled herself into the next module. I followed her into the Storage and Systems module from the other side.
Amelia hung above a piece of equipment. Can you deal with this?
I was pretty sure it was a water reclaimer, although I’d never seen one exactly like it on Earth.
The tubing’s shot, and it needs to be flushed, she said. She pulled a piece of plastic hose from a cabinet and handed it to me but didn’t let go. Her face was serious. This is our only spare, so we’ve got to make it last.
Sure, I said. But she still held on to the hose.
I get it, I said.
She let go. All right. I’ll be back. She swam away, her feet kicking at the air.
I opened cabinets and found the tools I needed. The water reclaimer had a series of small screws on its back panel, and when I removed the first it quickly floated away. I twisted my body and caught it; then I got a roll of duct tape from the tool cabinet, tore a piece off, and made a circle of tape around my upper arm. Then I proceeded, making sure each screw stuck to the tape so it wouldn’t float away.
As I worked I tried to keep my limbs close—my legs, my left arm—but as soon as I turned my attention to something else, they drifted away. The air was stuffy and I began to sweat. But it felt good to have a tool in my hands. My body had no weight, but it could still create force like it did on Earth.
The video intercom on the wall showed the interior of the SM. Two figures took up the screen, Amelia and Rachel. But only Rachel’s bottom half was visible; she must have been cleaning a vent just above. Amelia held a clipboard that was tethered to the wall and wrote something in pencil.
Amelia looked up. Rachel’s feet hovered near her head. The expression on Amelia’s face reminded me of someone—Carla.
She caught hold of Rachel’s legs and pulled her body downward until they were face-to-face. She said something I couldn’t hear, and Rachel laughed. Then Amelia reached out and tugged a piece of Rachel’s waving hair.
I looked away.
I removed the last screw, got the panel open, and began to unclip the coiled tubing inside. There were over twenty clips and each had to be stuck—like the screws—to my circle of duct tape. When they were all out I straightened the tube, pushed out the remaining water into a sponge, and then coiled it up again.