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The next time the line took them close enough to a registrar, Amber reached out and waved for the accompanying Fleetman’s attention and asked if he was boarding.
“No, ma’am,” he replied firmly, which was not as unsettling as ‘hell, no,’ but was still pretty negative.
“I was told there was going to be a Fleet presence on Plymouth. I mean, the flight crew are all Fleet, right? They’re not…um…” …a bunch of Director-worshipping space-zealots?
The Fleetman smiled. “There will be a full military flight crew, ma’am. Six hundred and forty proud men and women of the first United States Deep-Space Fleet.”
“Is that all?”
“This isn’t a military operation,” the registrar inserted with a disapproving frown. He was a lot better at that than the last registrar.
The Fleetman gave him a knowing sort of glance and asked Amber if she had any other questions. She did not and the line was moving, so she shuffled on ahead and let them get started on the next colonist.
Six hundred and forty. Didn’t seem like a lot of crew for a ship the size of a football stadium, let alone the police force for fifty thousand people.
‘We’ll be way too busy colonizing to need policing anyway,’ Amber told herself, but couldn’t make herself believe it. She didn’t think it mattered how tiring life on the farm was going to be. People were always going to need policing, especially when things were new and scary and people were apt to be at their worst.
Nicci was looking at her, all wide eyes and apprehension. Amber smiled and squeezed her hand, disguising her misgivings with an ease born of many long years of practice. Worrying was useless now; the bracelet on her wrist was as good as handcuffs.
‘I’m not scared,’ thought Amber, stepping up to the head of the line at last. ‘I’m the tough one. I’m the strong one. I’m the one Nicci’s going to lean on for the next five years, so suck it up, little girl.’
They ran them and their duffel bags through the usual set of sca
“Here we go,” said the pilot, sounding comfortingly bored.
No one else made a sound.
The shuttle began to move, slowly at first, but picking up speed fast until Amber could feel the fu
The shuttle was tipping as it flew, leaning everyone further and further back in their chairs. “Just a little jump now,” said the pilot, and almost exactly on the word ‘jump,’ there was a tremendous roar behind him and a mighty lurch straight up.
People screamed in the reedy, I-know-I’m-being-silly-but-Jesus-Christ-not-cool way they sometimes did if the elevator they were on suddenly quit working or some yappy dog on a leash took an unprovoked lunge at them. Some of them laughed a little afterwards as the shuttle ripped them out of Earth’s sky. Some cried instead. Amber squeezed Nicci’s hand and watched the stars come out through the nearest window.
The roaring noise gradually died away. The shuttle didn’t slow down or right itself, but with nothing but space through the windows to orient themselves around, it seemed to do both. Quite a few people threw up in the courtesy bags provided for that purpose. ‘Spacesick,’ Amber thought, watching everyone’s hair drift.
Now the shuttle slowed, firing its engines in little lurching bursts while the real ship rolled in and out of view through the windows, impossibly huge. The pilot came on to tell them they had permission to dock and that they’d feel a little bump when the clutch made contact. These words were followed within a few minutes by a loud scraping noise and a thump that made everyone rock sideways in their seats. The lights flickered. People screamed again, laughed, cried, threw up. ‘We sound like crazy people,’ thought Amber, frowning, and she put her arm around her sister and hugged her.
They waited for what felt like a very long time without anything happening until someone at the window suddenly a
According to the pilot, they docked. The clamps engaged. The stabilizers were initiated. Atmosphere was restored—she could see that one for herself when everyone’s hair came down—and the engines were cut. The pilot reminded them not to forget their bags and wished them all Godspeed and a great adventure. The shuttle doors opened. Their safety restraints unlocked.
No one moved.
Another perky Manifestor stuck her head inside and smiled at them. “Let’s get going, shall we? Just follow the white line to the boarding hub and an usher will be waiting to direct you to your room! So exciting! Single-file, just like back in school!”
“My school used the buddy system,” someone said, sounding worried.
The Manifestor looked at him. So did a lot of people, but her smile was nicer.
“Then I’ll be your buddy,” she said and held out her hand.
And just like that, it turned back into an airplane. People started getting up, looking for their bags, muttering and laughing and getting tangled up in their seat belts, and everything was fine again. Shouldering her duffel bag, Amber waited for a break in the stream of disembarking people and then joined it, holding her sister’s hand firmly in her own. ‘Just like an airport,’ she thought, stepping onto the painted line. ‘Nothing to worry about. Keep walking. Stay calm. It’s almost over.’
The queue moved faster than the one back at the skyport. They were already in space; she supposed there was really no point in anyone dragging their feet anymore. The halls they walked through were clean and well-lit and carpeted, not at all like the grim, utilitarian ships you saw in sci-fi movies. More like a hotel, except for all the shiny metal trimming. There were no windows, nothing to remind them that they were in space. There were a few pictures on the walls in the boarding hub, but they were all of the Director—walking with various dignitaries, frowning seriously at important documents, gazing pensively into the sky, clasping hands with his loving cultists, and just generally being inspiring. Supposedly, he was putting in a lot of public appearances these days, but she hadn’t seen him anywhere around the compound.
She found herself wondering if he was even coming to Plymouth with them.
“Welcome aboard!” said the square-jawed young usher waiting for her at the end of the line. He even fired off an honest-to-goodness salute which, in addition to raising Amber’s eyebrows, brought out a gust of laughter from the actual Fleet soldiers lounging around a little further down the corridor from the Manifestors. “I’m Crewman Everly Scott of the Pioneer! And you are…?”
“Amber Bierce,” said Amber. “Space Adventurer.”
The Fleetmen down the hall laughed again and this time some of the Manifestors joined in. Crewman Scott’s enthusiasm visibly iced over. He lowered his saluting hand and looked at her, not smiling.
‘Great,’ thought Amber. ‘Now he thinks I was making fun of him.’
Weren’t you? some small part of her wanted to know. It sounded a lot like her mother.
“Sorry,” Amber said, setting her duffel bag down. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Just nervous, you know. It’s my first time going to another planet.”
This prompted another good-natured rumble of humor down the hall, but did not appear to thaw Crewman Scott much. His professional smile went no further than his clenched jaw as he sca
“H, four, right, right. I got it.”
“Bierce, Nichole S., you’ve been assigned to bed FW-1866,” Crewman Scott continued.
“What?”
“Follow the green line to the family housing bay and take the elevator marked W to the—”
“Hang on,” interrupted Amber, giving Nicci’s startled, clutching hand a distracted pat. “We’re supposed to be together.”
“—to the eighteenth floor—”
“I was told that we’d be together,” said Amber again, a little bit louder.
“—turn left and you’ll find your bed on the third hall on your right,” Crewman Scott concluded, holding out a helpful printed map of the ship. “Enjoy your flight, ladies.”
Amber did not take the map. “Are you finished?” she asked coolly.
“Enjoy your flight, ladies.”
“We were told we’d be stationed together.”
“Enjoy your flight, Miss Bierce.”
“I hope you can say that all day, because I’m not moving until I get this cleared up and seeing as I’m standing in the boarding hub of the friggin’ Pioneer, I think you can safely assume I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
Crewman Scott continued to hold out the map.
Amber folded her arms across her chest and waited.
The other uniformed people in the hall were still watching them.
“I’m sorry,” Scott said with a polite smile. This time, it made it to his eyes, but not in a very polite way. “I don’t have anything to do with the bed assignments. Please follow the green line. There are other people waiting for assistance.”
“I want to speak to your supervisor.”
“This is a starship, Miss Bierce, not a Starbucks. I don’t have a supervisor, I have commanding officers. You can speak to one by going to the family housing bay and picking up any courtesy phone. If you’ll please follow the green line—” he suggested, reaching past her to scan the next man in line.
Amber took the sca
“Miss Bierce—”
“Everly,” she countered. “Get your goddamn supervisor.”