Sianna stepped forward and peered inside. She had gotten a quick training session the day before, but reality was rarely in conformity with training or expectations. The interior was an off-white rubber sort of material, all smooth, rounded contours. The outlines of a human body were molded into the bottom to create a form-fitting shape that was dished-out a bit wider than it ought to be at the base of the torso. Naturally. There was the issue of sanitation, after all.
“All right, time for the plumbing,” the tech said. “Off with the robe now.”
Sianna swallowed hard and undid the knot. She hated getting naked in front of other people. That had been part of what had done her in at Bermley’s school. They were very big on physical education there, with the concomitant communal showers. Sianna had earned plenty of demerits in her sometimes devious battles to avoid those.
The robe dropped to the floor, and Sianna stared straight ahead at the tiled wall, determined that the suit tech be utterly invisible. A hand Sianna was determined not to see presented her with the waste control unit, an ungainly white object shaped roughly like an oversized, rigidized diaper that opened up with a hinge between the legs. Tube couplings whose purposes she did not wish to consider came out of it here and there.
Sianna took the thing in her two hands with as much enthusiasm as she would have felt in accepting a dead rat. She opened the clamshell hinge and looked inside. The interior was coated with a clear lubricant gel intended to keep the parts of it that touched her skin from chafing. The parts of the interior that wouldn’t touch her were all odd-shaped recesses and discreet bits of valving and tubing.
It didn’t do to examine certain things too closely. Best to get on with it. She got ready to step into the thing.
“All right, now,” the tech said. “Could you spread your legs just a bit there?” Sianna forced herself to think of the cool, impersonal training session the day before, and the fact that she had had no trouble at all getting the waste control unit onto the mannequin.
All right, then, she would be a mannequin. It wouldn’t be her she was putting it on, but an inanimate object. Spread the legs. Swing the unit around and hold it between the legs. Use her right hand to push the rear half up against the buttocks—good, clinical, impersonal word, buttocks—stoop down just a bit to open up her—no, the—legs, reach down with the left hand and pull the front half up and closed. Snap the six latches shut, and the mannequin had the unit on.
It hung loosely on Sianna’s body. She switched on the inflator, and felt the unit snug up to her body in a most disturbing way. It felt cold, and stiff, and sterile. The lubricant was unpleasantly cool and slick again her skin.
All right, she had it on. The suit tech could now be allowed to exist, at least somewhat. The tech nodded her approval. “Good. Fine. Nice fit. But wait until we get you launched and you’re in zero gee before you try the thing out. The suction system will pull off the waste products while you’re in zero gee, but you’ll get one hell of a mess if you try using it on the ground. Okay?”
“Okay, yes, sure, fine,” Sianna said, her mind an utter blank.
“Good. All right.” The tech stepped around in front of her and started to point out the controls. Sianna forced herself to look down. “Suction is that green switch on the left front. Post-use sanitizer is the red switch on the right front. And make sure the suction system is on and running before you try anything unless you want big problems. But once it’s powered up, you can urinate and defecate normally.”
Normally? How the hell was she supposed to do anything normally when she was wearing a fiberglass diaper and stuffed into a coffin?
Coffin. Damnation. She had been trying to avoid thinking about that part of it. Coffins. Death. Sealed in. Closed spaces. Tiny space, no space, lost in deep space, out of control sealed in a black death box blasted into the sky—
No. Stop. Calm. Calm.
But there was no calm. There was only raging fear and the pounding of her heart, and the thought of the fast-coming moment when the tech would close the lid on her and—
God, no. Not that. She wanted to grab the suit tech by the collar and shake her and scream that this was all madness, that she was far too sane and sensible to stuff herself into that box and be blasted into space. But she said nothing, did nothing. “That’s it,” the suit tech said, completely oblivious to Sianna’s rising sense of panic—or perhaps determinedly ignoring it. “All set.” The tech seemed to have a limitless supply of meaningless little phrases of encouragement. “We need to spray you down next.”
Sianna nodded, not quite willing to speak. The spray was a combination of a skin moisturizer, to combat chafing, and an antiseptic-antifungal agent, to keep her from molding over in the confines of the module as she became increasingly ripe over the next few days.
“Okay, dear. Stand with your arms and legs apart.”
Sianna stood there with her eyes closed, legs spread, arms out straight, feeling naked and skinny and foolish and young and scared. There was a sort of gurgling hiss, and she cringed as the cool mist struck her back. She felt the spray working over her back, her legs, her sides, her stomach, her breasts, her neck. A bit of it spattered onto her face.
“Oops. Okay, keep your eyes shut. This stuff can’t hurt you, but you don’t want an eyeful of it, either. Hold on just a second.” There was the bump of the sprayer being set down, and the sound of footsteps, then the tech’s voice again, gentle and close, right in front of her face. “Easy now. Coming in with a towel.”
Sianna felt the tech cradling the back of her head in one hand, and the soft terry cloth of the towel against her face. For a fraction of a moment, she was back in the safety of her childhood, in the bathtub, her mother using a towel to get the soap out of her eyes.
“Good. Open up now.”
Sianna did so, reluctantly, and found herself back in the relentless present, the harsh lights of the suiting room—and the waiting personnel module.
“All set now, dearie. Now let’s get the shirt and leggings on and we’ll be all squared away.”
Maybe you’ll be squared away, Sianna thought. I’ll be climbing into that box.
The tech stepped back to her workbench and came back with what looked like long limp boots. “All right, left leg up first.”
Sianna did as she was told. She stood on one leg, then the other, as the tech slipped the leggings on and did up the fabric-clasps that held them on. The shirt went on in something more like the normal manner, buttoning up the front. Both leggings and shirt were made of a very warm, soft, absorbent flannel cotton—the one concession to comfort in the whole operation. They felt good next to her skin.
“How… how long?” Sianna asked.
“How long until launch, or how long a ride it’s going to be?” the tech asked.
“Both,” Sianna said. She was having a little trouble speaking.
“Two hours until boost, and it’s going to be just about a three-day ride. Long time to be in a box, but you won’t be anywhere near the record. And you should be asleep most of that time, anyway.”
“Suppose I, ah, can’t sleep?”
“Then you take a pill, and sleep until it wears off and then take another pill. Keeping you zonked out saves on life support—and boredom. All right then, let’s get you in there.” And, maybe, if we keep you asleep enough of the time, you won’t go insane quite so fast. Even if the tech didn’t say the words, Sianna knew they were there. Thrown off balance by the bulk of the waste control unit, Sianna tottered most unwillingly toward the module.