Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

More documents

Recommendations

Info

ANALOG chemical mysticism. They watch in awe as the emerging life waves a green banner of hope and fulfillment. Enzo was no less hopeful as he planted the packets of worm eggs in skin flakes. A batch of mature worms from Amata would have been easier, but rail-gun acceleration turned complex organisms into mush. Eggs were much more robust and if they weren’t frozen, would make orbit in fine shape. Enzo watched the mix for weeks, but nothing moved. No worms, no soil, just powdered dead skin. Olya frequently stopped by to check up on the research—which accidentally led to the next conspirator in the tomato drama. Enzo had borrowed a magnifying glass to inspect for weld undercuts and had “forgotten” to return it. Olya sat at the desk and held it above the dormant worm farm, searching for life. “Is this worm egg?” she asked. Enzo stood and took the magnifier, looking over her shoulder at the contents of the desk. The aerial view of Sidorova cleavage caught his attention, if only for the slightest of moments. “You don’t need magnifier to see that,” Antoniy laughed. His unexpected appearance in the small room startled and embarrassed Enzo. He straightened quickly and his collar zipper snagged several blonde hairs from Olya’s head, yanking her back and exposing the worm farm to Antoniy’s full view. “Moosor?” Antoniy immediately recognized the powder. “You are hoarding moosor? This is strange.” Enzo and Olya babbled with competing explanations, protesting entirely too much to assert any innocence. He watched them quietly, then walked to the desk, fingered the small pile and turned to regard his shipmates with a puzzled expression. “Tomatoes!” Enzo exclaimed. “Soil grown tomatoes for Dmitry.” He came clean about the entire plan. Olya held her breath. Antoniy, revealing a hidden sense of humor, thought the idea of presenting Dmitry with a tomato taste-test was “Vot eto da!” Enzo’s private quarters become a clubhouse for the three while they fretted over the dormant worm farm. Olya and Antoniy sat at the desk, using the magnifier to examine the bowl of filtrate for signs of activity. As had been true for the previous week, nothing could be seen. “I’m worried about this,” said Enzo. “This station is too small to keep secrets. What happens when people find out?” “Nobody to find out from me,” Olya said. “I want surprise for Dmitry.” “Chyort voz’mi!” exclaimed Antoniy, looking at the clock and bolting out the door. “Late for shift!” Which resulted in the opening scene of a major station-side love scandal, complete with associated gossip. In the hallway, Antoniy received a refresher course on the effects of rapid acceleration, precession and movement against direction of spin in the tight confines of a space station. These forces normally resulted in a collision— in this case with Katya Sidorova. Russian cursing and apologies echoed back into the room as Katya and Antoniy tried to regain their proper orientation. Olya mistakenly peeked out the door. Katya looked up from her position on the floor. Speakers of any language could understand the ensuing Russian invectives between the sisters. Katya had not expected to meet Antoniy in such a forceful way and was especially not pleased to find Olya peeking out of the door he had just exited. Thinking with her red hair, Katya jumped to the worst of conclusions and berated her sister for romancing Antoniy. The volume quickly rose to uncomfortable levels and echoed through the station, with Antoniy unhappily stuck in the middle. “Blyad!” screamed Olya as she jetted off toward the kitchen. “Blyadishcha!” answered Katya, running in the opposite direction. Silence from the hall leaked into Enzo’s quarters. Antoniy had slipped back into the room in an attempt to hide from the sisters. The explosive situation in the hallway had dissipated before Antoniy turned to Enzo. “I go to work now. Perhaps EVA might be safer.” He slunk out the door. Enzo’s clubhouse became a therapy room. Olya frequently replayed the event and shared stories of Katya’s irrational behavior. Antoniy focused on the worm farm. Enzo was an engineer, not a therapist, so he wisely spent much of the time nodding his head in vague agree- 12 MARK NIEMANN-ROSS
ment. Station retellings of the Shakespearean drama were proliferate and inaccurate. Dmitry reacted with Slavic silence, which annoyed Olya who found reasons to blame Katya. Dmitry seemed unsure of the relationship between Antoniy and Olya—they had been spending a lot of time together. Time spent farming worms, but he was unaware of this detail. Perhaps Dmitry was just frightened of Olya, either her explosive temper or possibly her smoldering good looks. Katya aggressively didn’t speak to Antoniy, but found opportunities to make him feel sheepish. As they were still working on the Italian installation, those moments were frequent. Enzo replayed one awkward session on video for Amata. On the recording, Dmitry floated on EVA, accompanied by R-Eva, operated by Antoniy. Enzo could be seen consulting blueprints next to Antoniy. Katya appeared in an inset window of the monitor, confirming connections at the module joint. “Dmitry, connection not functional,” Katya said. “Please tell R-Eva move it to socket B13.” Dmitry shifted his position to look up at Antoniy/R-Eva, and then looked back at the panel he held. Normally, Katya would have made an impish remark directly to Antoniy. Now she directed her conversation to Dmitry, who had to relay it to R-Eva and finally to Antoniy. Antoniy could hear everything, but anger or shyness prevented his direct reply. The video lasted for one minute, thirty-two seconds, but recorded an eternity. On an orbiting station, awkward moments have a lot of space to fill. * * * “. . . she always took last of ice cream and Mama let her,” Olya said. She had been venting to Enzo and Antoniy about her younger sister for the last hour. Enzo tried to read in his hammock. Antoniy avoided eye contact. “I need return to kitchen. Dinner waits.” Olya stood and departed from Enzo’s Therapy Room and Dormant Worm Farm. The cabin was blissfully quiet for forty-two minutes before the excitement started. “Gospodi!” Antoniy quietly whispered from the desk. Enzo didn’t look up from his reader—Antoniy had been calling false alarms for A CUP OF DIRT JUNE 2013 the last week. “Little worms!” Enzo shifted his gaze to the desk. Antoniy turned the bowl of filtrate with one hand, the other holding the magnifier to his eye. Turn the bowl, stop, turn back, fiddle with the focus dial, turn the bowl. “Gospodi!” Antoniy again exclaimed. Antoniy’s false alarms were usually momentary, followed by “Nyet” and a sniff. This time, Antoniy did see something. Enzo rolled off the hammock and stood, looking through the magnifier. “Oh my God!” agreed Enzo. The white filtrate contrasted with the small red lines crawling across the surface. No mistake—worms. Worms, searching for food. Enzo hadn’t kept any kitchen scraps around for weeks, but now he suddenly needed nutrients. He turned for the door. “Stay here!” shouted Enzo. “Don’t let them get away!” Workers from the third shift filled the galley, but seeing Enzo breathlessly appear in the kitchen doorway gave Olya every reason to ignore the crowd. “Research!” whispered Enzo. Dumping the contents of the mixer, Olya grabbed a handful of mixed food trimmings and minced them to soup. Like a bartender in a high-class restaurant, she deftly tossed the puree into a clean glass and handed it to Enzo. “Research!” agreed Olya. “Go!” Enzo proceeded down the corridor at a faster pace than advised in the station manuals, bouncing off walls when his enthusiasm exceeded available gees. He directed his attention entirely at the small glass of vegetable puree, resulting in his vector abruptly intersecting with the Captain’s. He tumbled, but managed to keep the contents of the glass contained. Containing the angry Captain proved to be more difficult. “Where’s the fire, Enzo?” queried the Captain. Her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. “Do we need to post speed limits?” Enzo used his finger to wipe up the small bits of vegetable from the floor, walls, and her uniform. “Sorry,” he said, hoping to truncate the conversation and return to his starving worm farm. “What’s in the glass?” she enquired. “Does Olya have a new milkshake flavor?” 13
Page 3 and 4: Vol. CXXXIII No. 6 Next Issue on Sa
Page 5 and 6: tle about them in online discussion
Page 7 and 8: ecord, I have yet to find one in 19
Page 9 and 10: enough that her blonde hair stuck t
Page 11 and 12: to other projects. “If Antoniy di
Page 13: Unfortunately, “research” was n
Page 17 and 18: And on cue, Olya entered the room a
Page 19 and 20: drink. Apparently it’s a health d
Page 21 and 22: four miles . . . assuming bridges w
Page 23 and 24: have had some history of seismicity
Page 25 and 26: la, and a host of other cities are
Page 27 and 28: Ray Bradbury’s classic short stor
Page 29 and 30: used his thumb to slide a bean up t
Page 31 and 32: The walkway glowed in front of them
Page 33 and 34: Wavefronts of History and Memory Th
Page 35 and 36: sleep in the command couch. The shi
Page 37 and 38: een broken by an ill-timed surprise
Page 39 and 40: skull. My pulse catches in my throa
Page 41 and 42: Jeff Sanford and several colleagues
Page 43 and 44: one we just saw was perfect.” Bri
Page 45 and 46: loved it when I read it the first t
Page 47 and 48: Hydroponics 101 Farmer slept in the
Page 49 and 50: of course, if you look deeper in th
Page 51 and 52: much clearer entreaty, he rubbed he
Page 53 and 54: precarious one—each shining bead
Page 55 and 56: term payload for things you dropped
Page 57 and 58: has flown seven times, and we insta
Page 59 and 60: ters, which will have to be cleaned
Page 61 and 62: my months of training had given me
Page 63 and 64: “Tell me anyway.” Pana understo
Page 65 and 66:
the local database had been synced
Page 67 and 68:
Asking no questions, she stepped as
Page 69 and 70:
The story so far: The planet meets
Page 71 and 72:
isn’t subtle.There are six crew a
Page 73 and 74:
“Let’s get some breakfast,” h
Page 75 and 76:
seat, Rikki called, “I’m ready
Page 77 and 78:
from the kitchen pushing a serving
Page 79 and 80:
Continuous measurements covered onl
Page 81 and 82:
meet rugged cliffs. The river, gray
Page 83 and 84:
other, if unofficial, reason he was
Page 85 and 86:
forecasting. That will help our cro
Page 87 and 88:
architectural rendering. “You see
Page 89 and 90:
“Off young women, anyway. That do
Page 91 and 92:
That basic neural hardwiring would
Page 93 and 94:
“In a while,” Antonio said abse
Page 95 and 96:
Children fell silent, some staring,
Page 97 and 98:
“Yes . . . now.” Something in A
Page 99 and 100:
We’re going outside.” Rikki did
Page 101 and 102:
what, maybe a square klick? You can
Page 103 and 104:
ed above. Second are books that wou
Page 105 and 106:
Farside Ben Bova Tor, 400 pages, $2
Page 107 and 108:
et just cannot take too much more o
show all

Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?