“Not hungry,” Ishida says.
“Me, neither,” Jacobi says.
“Mandatory,” Crew Chief says. “You’ve learned a lot in the last few days and we want to set it firm. Believe me, you won’t want to miss Lady of Yue at full sail.”
Ishida, Jacobi, and Borden finish removing their gossamer. Ishida collects the threads, wads them up, and leaves a small, dusty clump about an inch wide suspended in the middle of the ball. We push out through the hole. More smart ropes offer themselves and we move forward between the white metal beams. All very efficient. No bouncing, no collisions, just straightforward transport beyond the spheres toward the big bell.
The outer hull of the ship has darkened to a deep, cloudy-sky gray.
Ishida glides past me. “Maybe we’ll ride centipede together,” she says. I can see it. A great big machine, bronze-colored and round-headed, big slit-port for an eye, with a thick, muscular body and a long crawling tail—machine or monster? Now residing as a seed in cargo stores.
SNKRZ.
Jacobi guides herself toward Ishida. “Gadget, how’s the equipment?”
“Smooth and shiny,” Ishida says. “I feel innocent.”
“Me, too,” Jacobi says, looking unsure of herself, and burps.
Ishida lifts her real eyebrow. “Sir, your being innocent worries me.”
For the moment, I also feel pretty good. That worries me. Nobody hauls grunts in comfort. There’s got to be misery. And here it is. My turn for a bilious belch.
Jacobi looks green. “Not again,” she says.
“What?” Kumar asks. He looks surprised, then turns a lovely olive. His stomach twitches. We’re all popping sweat, trailing a mist of salty drops.
More rope lines appear from the other side of the long vineyard. We’re joined by Ishikawa, then by a bare handful of Russians, but many of the ropes are empty—no Litvinov, no Mushran, no Joe and DJ. These Russians don’t speak English. Not having skintights and angels puts us at a disadvantage. We’re as dumb as we look.
Crew Chief meets us at the apex of the rope ride, holding on to a steel ring mounted around a big circular opening. “Jump off and wait here,” she says. “We’ve got crew quarters beyond. Should fit you all in.”
“Crew get a good sleep?” I ask, trying to avoid another heave.
“Nobody sleeps but passengers,” she says. “Lady of Yue is a cranky girl.”
“Who’s driving?” Jacobi asks.
“Two rabbis,” Crew Chief says.
“Rabbis?” Ishida asks.
“That’s what we call them. They keep the ship right with the law.”
I look aft and finally see Joe and DJ and Litvinov and more Russians, including Ulyanova. A gentle breeze wafts forward. Crew Chief tells us to release the circular rail and go with the flow. We tumble with the currents. I feel like a wet dandelion seed with a sour tummy.
DJ moves up beside me, spreads his arms, flaps, and twists. “You’ll believe an asshole can fly,” he says.
“Keep tight!” Bueller says.
The opening takes us into a tube about five meters wide and maybe fifty long. Halfway along, the tube turns clear as glass and we end up in an outboard bubble just aft of the weapons pods.
Lady of Yue’s skirts no longer ripple. They’ve moved forward a hundred meters, where they shroud the soda-straw vineyard and the cargo stores beyond like a stiff cape, with the gray bell as a great round hat. The whole Spook seems to have grown to maybe two thousand meters from stem to stern.
“Where the hell are we?” Joe asks, pasty and damp, behind me and DJ. Bits of cap still fleck his scalp.
There’s activity on the other side of the bell. Something large and pale and curved rises over the rim of the bell, then moves aft below the skirts like a hoop half-hidden by hanging laundry.
“Here come the garters,” Bueller says. “Aren’t they perrr-ty?”
The natural light this far out in the system is gray and indistinct. It’s going to be even darker out by Saturn. The stars, with so little competition, shine sharper and brighter than ever. We’re a hell of a ways from Earth, from Mars, from the sun. It’s lonely and empty out here.
What’s the reverse of claustrophobia—agoraphobia?
“Lady of Yue has three garters in nine sections. In part, they strengthen the holds and stability vanes aft during the next phase of flight. We’ll get to Saturn space, from where we are now, inside of three days. This is the hard part, ladies.”
We watch the garters join section by section—what we can see of them. Jacobi huddles with her squad. Our Skyrine sisters cock their heads, listening girl to girl. The guys might as well not be here.
Bueller says, “Matter down close to the sun acquires bad habits and old sin. Matter that knows sin is held back, but matter that is cleansed becomes young and fast. We have to get this far out from the sun to shed the last of it. That shit really starts to fall away when we hook up the garters.”
The Russians are stony. The last thing any warrior needs is a feeling that our strength is tied to evil ways and fucked-up souls. We know what we’ve done and where we’ll likely go because of it. Only God has promised to understand. It scares me that out here, maybe we’ve passed outside His boundaries. I hate this fucking Lady of Yue, hate all ships that carry us into harm’s way—I really do.
“Of course, it’s all temporary,” Bueller says. Again, her weird, Persian-cat look. “When we return downsun, matter reverts like a sailor on liberty. Now it’s time for pudding. After you eat, one more little nap. We’ll wake you in Saturn space about three hours from Titan.”
COOK’S TOUR
We get our pudding cups in the small cafeteria, really more of a coffee shop. The cups contain brown goo that tastes like chocolate or coffee or toffee or all three, pretty okay and makes us feel stronger. Crew Chief waits patiently.
Ishida asks Bueller why we aren’t given a chance to inspect the cargo aft—the big insect-looking things. “Does cap training kick in when we see them, or when they’re finished?”
“Won’t mean a thing to you right now,” Bueller says. “They’re seeds. They get finished on Titan. Saves a lot of mass.”
Our tummies are full. Drowse hits us as we return to the vineyard and our soccer balls.
“How long since you’ve been back to Earth?” Jacobi asks Crew Chief, eyelids drooping.
“Too long,” Bueller says. There’s a wistful something in the way she says it. She closes the hole to our ball. The interior gets dark.
“She can’t go home,” Ishida says. “Too many times out and back.”
“Too many times stripped and reloaded,” Jacobi says.
We sleep. We sleep in hopes all our sins will be gone when we wake up. Goddamn, what a sleep. If it’s all the same to you, General Patton, I’d rather shovel shit in Louisiana.
PART THREE
TITAN
Again, we feel pretty good when Bueller pops the soccer balls and we spill out. This time, there’s an undeniable extra layer of youth and freshness, a new enthusiasm that comes from whatever’s happened since the garters were applied. Yet nothing about Crew Chief has changed. If anything, her outlines seem fuzzier. I look around. None of us are exactly crystal. Big Vamoose must have affected our vision.
I hope.
Bueller takes us back to the outboard bubble. Lady of Yue is a Sally Rand kind of gal, slipping her white feathers over the best parts, showing less than you want to see, less than you need to see, but enough to keep curiosity fresh. I vow that’s the last time I’ll think kindly of this massive, silk-skirted bitch—but in fact I can’t feel too down on anything because of that damned freshness. Maybe there is a long habit of sin way back in the old neighborhood, where so many terrible things have happened. Somebody once called that Karma. I don’t ask Kumar about Karma. Too alliterative.