After all the briefing and preparation, getting in seemed almost too simple. Sianna simply sat down on the edge of the module, and then put first one leg and then the other over the edge, bracing herself with a hand on either side of the box as she eased herself down into the module, as if she were getting into a bathtub full of slightly over-hot water. Except getting into a tub didn’t put her on the ragged edge of terror. She sat up in the module, and found that her waste control unit wasn’t quite fitting into the recess intended for it. She wiggled herself down a bit, and it dropped into place rather neatly and a bit abruptly, like one of those puzzle games where you roll a ball into a hole.
“Lie down, dear,” the tech said. Sianna did as she was told. She found herself lying very still, staring at the ceiling. The tech leaned over her for a minute, checking this and that, attaching hoses to the waste control unit and to the interior of the module.
“All set there. Now, I want you to try the sanitation system. Red switch on the left first, then the green on the right.”
What point in color-coding the switches if she has to lie on her back and can’t see them? But Sianna reached down and found them after some fumbling. She flipped the left switch. There was a sudden, high whirring noise, and the feel of cold air blowing past her skin. She threw the right switch, and jumped a bit as warm water jetted through the unit. She shut down the water jet and let the suction system run a bit longer to help dry her off. She shut off the left switch and listened as the purifier kicked in, reclaiming the water for its next use in cleaning—or as drinking water. Even the lunatic optimist who had run yesterday’s training session and had told her how great the system was allowed as how the water wasn’t likely to taste real good after the fourth or fifth time.
“Real good. That’s working fine,” the tech said.
Wonderful. Just first-rate. What could be better. All set. Here we go. Couldn’t the woman say anything else?
“Okay, now,” the tech said. “I’m going to close up now, and this hatch isn’t going to open until you’re safe at NaPurHab. You’ll have the use of your arms and hands for an hour or so, but once you get loaded into the launcher, the restraint system is going to come on. The airbags will inflate and hold you in place. You have got to get your arms down into the recesses molded into the padding before that happens.
“You’re going to be boosted at about ten gees. More if they change the flight plan. If your arm is lying against your stomach or something when the restraints inflate, it will be pinned in place. If that happens, you’ll be lucky to get away with a broken arm and crushed ribs. Internal injuries and bleeding, more likely.” The tech pointed to a small panel light that read “prepare for restraint” set into the inner lid of the module. “When that light goes off, arms and legs in the restraint recesses, and no excuses. You ought to have three minutes warning, but people who count on ‘ought’ get dead. If your nose itches after that light goes on, don’t scratch. Do you understand?”
“Ah, yes ma’am.”
The tech smiled, reached down and patted her on the shoulder. “Good. Have a good trip, and say hi to the Purps for me.”
“Okay,” Sianna said, and waved good-bye.
The tech stood up, reached up for the lid, and pushed it down on top of Sianna. The lid slammed shut with a resounding boom, and Sianna could hear the capture latches snapping shut.
She was in this box, sealed in it, with absolutely no way out, almost before she even knew she was in it. Probably the tech had done that on purpose. No sense giving a silly, panicky girl a chance to start screaming or scrambling out.
And no way out. No way out. No way out. Sianna calmed herself. No sense pounding on the lid, or screaming. The permod’s interior was well-padded, and quite soundproof. If the engineers who had designed these things showed little interest in the psychology of the passengers, at least they had seen to it that panicked passengers weren’t going to be any bother.
There was, quite sensibly, no way to open a personnel module from the inside. The danger of a panicky transportee popping the thing open at the wrong time was far greater than the danger of a transportee not being able to get out someplace it was safe.
She lay there, staring at the module lid, determined not to panic. The permod was really just a spacesuit shaped like a box, after all, she tried to tell herself, in the most reassuring inner voice she could. Being in a pressure suit had never bothered her. She had worn one on that trip to the Moon with her parents, a million years ago. She had worn one of those tourist suits to take a walk on the surface, and you couldn’t open up one of those without help. Yes. That hadn’t bothered her. And this shouldn’t bother her. No. It shouldn’t. It was reasonable reasonable reasonable that she could NOT GET OUT.
Sianna found that her fists were balled up and she was about to start pounding on the lid of her coffin—no, her permod. Yes. Use the ghastly, artificial word. Far better than calling the thing by its real name. But it was her coffin, or might well be, if things went wrong, and she might as well be in here, locked in here. The SCOREs were going to get her and she was going to be dead. Dead, dead, dead.
Wait a second. There was an external view control, right? She could look out. Yes. That would help a lot. She stared intently at the control panel directly over her face. Which one was it? She stabbed a nervous finger at one button, then another. There. That turned the monitor on, anyway. The flat screen came to life, about thirty centimeters in front of her face. Good. Nothing on it but a status display. Air good, temp good, clock showing the time. But what about the external view? External. There! An old-fashioned selector knob. She twisted it hard to the right and—
There! Her breath came out in gasps of relief. The outside world was still there, just outside. Granted, it was nothing but a view of the suiting room ceiling, but it was there, and it was outside this tiny box she was trapped in. Trapped. No. Don’t think about being trapped. Trapped in this box for three long, long days with no way—
Hold it. Hold it. Three deep breaths. She was going to have to spend three days in this box. No sense panicking just yet. Plenty of time for that later. The permod was all toughened padding inside, the comm and display and dispenser controls carefully recessed so you couldn’t switch them on by accident. Damn thing was a miniaturized spacegoing padded cell.
Well, that made sense. A padded cell was going to be all she was good for by the end of this.
There was a clunk and a thump and a bump on the outside of the permod, and Sianna could feel it moving. She looked up at the exterior view, and could see the ceiling moving around.
This was it, she realized. She was being moved, about to be loaded into the cargo hold of the booster that would lift her toward God only knew what.
Out into space, out toward a visit with the lunatics of the Naked Purple, there to wait for the Terra Nova and a journey toward the Lone World, and whatever awaited them all there.
Suddenly spending a few days in a nice, quiet tin can seemed like the least of her problems.
Come on, she told herself. Wally was doing this. An old man like Sakalov was doing this. She could do it.
Couldn’t she?
Seventeen
Conversations with the Dead
Q: Clearly everything was put together in a rush, and the team had to be ready to improvise. What was the most surprising part of the encounter?