Noriama: Chapter 10
There are no windows in space.
Victoria bemoaned this fact as she stared at the wall of the Croatoan. She had been able to see the stars and the planet Earth — before they boarded the Croatoan from the ISS — but what she wouldn’t have given now to be able to look out the window and see Noriama Station.
Noriama Station was the unimaginatively titled solution to an insidious problem: how to transfer two-hundred colonists, along with thousands of tons of equipment, materials, and supplies, from orbit to the surface of Proxima.
Every obvious solution carried its own problems. Designing the rockets to be capable of landing on Proxima’s surface would exponentially increase the weight of the rockets — both because of the engines and the fuel required — far more than was feasible. A team of shuttles would reduce the required strength of the landing rockets, but would require fuel for both landing and lift-off, making such a ferry service equally unreasonable.
Noriama Station was the answer. The first rocket launched towards Proxima b was specially designed so that when it achieved orbit, the rocket could turn on its end and point itself directly towards Proxima b. Modular sections would then be unboxed, attached, and built outward from the rocket’s cramped hull. To save space, many of these modules were created out of sturdy plastics folded into tiny spaces, to then inflated into full-sized rooms and covered with strategically placed support braces.
In less than a month, the rocket became the core of a geostationary space station. The second rocket provided vital equipment and energy to support the coming engineering efforts.
Then the third rocket, measuring one kilometer long and half a kilometer wide, would arrive. It’s skeleton crew would break out over two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers of impossibly strong carbon nano-tubing, bound with specially designed silk-steel Kevlar. A powerful drop-rocket would carry one end of the cable relatively safely to the surface, along with a cadre of construction robots.
The fourth rocket brought the remaining equipment, and in less than a month, Noriama Station had its own space elevator, capable of raising and lowering over a thousand tons of weight in a single journey. The counterweight that prevented the station from crashing to Proxima? The leftovers of the other KAP rockets attached together and stretched out above the station like a flower.
Victoria would have loved to see it.
But there were no windows in space. Glass was fragile compared to metal and plastic, and required extra treatments to prevent harmful radiation from spreading through the ship.
Besides, Proxima was tidal locked, and the station was positioned on the permanent dark-side of the planet. She wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.
Coupled with that, Victoria reminded herself, they were still millions of kilometers away. It felt odd to say they were ‘almost there’ when there was still so much distance to travel, but as far as the computers were concerned, they were close enough to do a great deal of work.
‘They,’ of course, didn’t mean Victoria.
While five years ago the Croatoan had been traveling through the galaxy at half the speed of light, now they were drawing closer to Noriama station at meters per minute. Minute adjustments in the Croatoan’s velocity were calculated very carefully, lest catastrophe soon follow. Her three teammates were in constant motion, fulfilling duties and engaging procedures that would ensure the continued safety and reliability of the mission.
It was here, on Proxima, where the mission became extremely complicated. Without knowing what had happened, the team needed to be ready to do any number of things, based on what they observed. If Noriama was still alive, they had methods to establish communication. If the OLCR was damaged in some way, they had repair procedures. If Noriama contacted them, there was an entire manual devoted to the diplomatic necessities of the ensuing conversation.
None of these were necessary. Noriama was dead.
They had known this for almost a year. Once they were close enough to get detailed readings that weren’t obscured by the volatile sun, the data they collected was conclusive. The Noriama space-station, floating directly above the colony, was cold — not a flicker of the heat that would accompany a functioning reactor or active computer. The colony on Proxima’s surface was likewise absent any heat or vibrations that would suggest a functioning life-support.
“An archaeology mission, then,” Sughouri had frowned.
Victoria wasn’t convinced. “Couldn’t the colonists have…I don’t know, invented something that emits less heat or light?”
“Less? Possibly,” Sughouri frowned. “No heat? No. Physics doesn’t work like that.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Kristiana interrupted. “Most of Noriama colony is buried beneath a lot of dry Proxima soil and rock. It’s possible if they’re running on very low power that the heat is being absorbed and dissipated before we can get a clearer reading.”
“How could they survive with power levels low enough to be that invisible?”
Kristiana shrugged. “They may have built some form of suspended animation beds, like ours. We know something launched the freighter, after all. We don’t know the colonists are all dead, we just know the colony isn’t active the way we expect.”
And they wouldn’t know for sure, not until they got close enough. For the remaining year of deceleration, their days were filled with drilling different options and procedures. They debated the merits of different assumptions, and quarreled over the myriad choices they could make. Sughouri was perpetually optimistic, offering solutions that bordered on the absurd, while Kristiana remained pessimistic, opting for the simplest and cruelest answers. Zuri was usually quiet, focusing on her AI pets, only to interject with complicated and detailed options that no one else had considered. Victoria, for her part, kept asking questions when the others veered off into technological details that were beyond her education.
Now, they were only a half-hour away.
The waiting was the hardest part. It was bizarre to Victoria that this would be the case; She had been waiting for two and a half years for this, what was another hour? But it was hard, floating in space above the target of their mission, knowing the answers were down there, waiting to be found, and not being able to do anything.
“The problem is the power,” Zuri’s digital voice was flat. “Without either the station’s or the colony’s reactor activated, I can’t do anything.”
“Can you turn on the reactors?”
“If Noriama’s computers were functioning, I could connect into the main systems and do anything I’d like, but as I said, no power.”
“What about the backup solar panels?” Sughouri asked. Victoria understood it as turning Noriama’s hand-crank. In emergencies, Noriama station’s communication laser could be refocused to send that power to Noriama Colony, targeting specially designed photovoltaic panels. “We could use the Croatoan’s laser, or the OLCR instead of the station.”
Zuri frowned hard at her screen. “We could provide power, but we couldn’t turn the computers on without direct physical access.”
“So there’s nothing we can do up here,” Kristiana folded her arms, “and if we can’t turn on either the colony’s or the station’s central computer, we’re stuck. So. What options do we have?”
Victoria appreciated Kristiana for that; officially, she was the team’s leader and captain. She was in charge, and even if she wasn’t, the Mission Plan had clear guidelines for ‘what was next’ in any situation.
But Kristiana had never bothered being in charge. Every decision, every choice, was a discussion. There had never been a vote, she ruled by consensus. No, not even ruled, she guided the team towards consensus.
Zuri waved her hands. “The obvious solution is to send someone over to Noriama station to turn on the reactor. From there, we use the elevator to drop the CHR-3 nexus to Proxima, to turn on its reactor.”
“We can’t dock without the station’s power being on,” Sughouri scratched her thigh. “One of us is going to have to space walk over and unlock the door for us.”
There was a pause, then Kristiana shrugged. “Unless anyone else does, I don’t see a better option.”
“Volunteers?” Sughouri raised her hand. “Oh, just me? Gosh, you’re all so kind to give me this opportunity. Namaste.”
“Silly girl…” Zuri shook her head, barely hiding her grin.
Sughouri’s first space walk had been a transformative experience for her. Years ago the ISS needed a new observatory module installed, and she had been dispatched to assist. The whole process was scheduled for eight hours over two days, but it took much longer due to a conversion error during the manufacturing of the umbilical.
After they found the error and done as much as they could, her team had two hours allotted space walk time, and nothing to do with it. Her teammates decided to go back inside, but Sughouri chose to remain staring at the stars, the moon, and the Earth.
It had an effect on you, to see all across the Earth with a small turn of the head. To see something that you knew was vast, that looked so vast and strong and powerful, as all encompassing as only the whole of the Earth could be, but distant. The Earth filled your vision, but something in you knew that it should fill even more. As large as it was, it looked too small.
You couldn’t see boarders or boundaries. You couldn’t hear different languages or see different skin colors. You didn’t feel hate, or fear…all that was left was a profound and heart-aching love.
They called it the Overview Effect.
Sughouri had gone on four space walks after that, and she always spared a few minutes to stare at the Earth, the moon, and the stars. Now she was going to go on her sixth space walk ever, above an entirely new planet.
Only hours ago, free-fall had returned, the Croatoan now floating relatively still near the station. It would take them all some time to get used to complete weightlessness again, but for Sughouri it was like coming home. She had logged more hours in space than any of them.
After getting checked over by Victoria, now Zuri was helping her into her space-suit. It had been specially designed for her legless body. Instead of separate sleeves for her thighs, the lower body of the suit was a hard-shell sheath that held her thighs together. It was surprisingly comfortable, considering it made her look like a stubby worm.
Once the helmet was fitted properly, the on-suit systems were activated. “Testing, testing. You all hear me?”
“We all hear you,” Kristiana’s voice filtered into Sughouri’s helmet. “So watch your language.”
“Ah? So Which one should I use? I know seven.”
“The one you know the fewest curse words in.”
“Who do you take me fore? I know all the curse words in at least twelve languages. Suit checks complete,” Sughouri said, once she was finished. “EVA green. All the vents are clear, pressure’s good. Thanks for your help, Zuri.”
“We’ll be in position in another ten minutes,” Kristiana said. “Hang tight.”
The Croatoan was moving as close as safely possible to Noriama Station. Then, Sughouri would traverse the rest of the distance, about a thousand meters, to the single-person airlock. After breaking in, she would get to the main control center, turn on the reactor, the computers, and the coms; and then Zuri could connect to the station and turn on the automatics that would ensure the Coratan’s safe docking.
“Okay,” Kristiana’s voice broke in. “Prepare to stop. In five. Four. Three. Two. One. All stop. On a dime. You’re welcome. Ready to fly?”
“Born ready,” Sughouri grinned as she tugged once, hard, on her tether. “Pop this can and set me free.”
She could hear the atmosphere fleeing the airlock as the mechanical pressure system pumped it back into the Croatoan, the hiss getting fainter and fainter as vacuum replaced air. Finally, the world around Sughouri was silent.
“Opening the airlock door,” Kristiana said.
The first thing Sughouri saw was that the stars were different. Were they? Or was Sughouri just expecting them to be different? Would she recognize the stars from Earth if they had moved, or was it psychosomatic?
Real or illusion, the stars did not look familiar. They twinkled in a manner foreign and alien. They clustered in a way that was subtlety and inescapably wrong.
The second thing she saw, she couldn’t see.
Their briefing had been thorough: Proxima Centauri was a red dwarf, 14% as large as Earth’s sun, and .15% as bright. Proxima b orbited at .05 AU from the sun, much closer than Mercury. Because of its size and distance, Proxima b was tidal-locked to its sun. It rotated as slowly as it orbited, like the moon orbited the earth. This side would never see sunlight, while the other side of the planet would never see darkness.
Intellectually, Sughouri knew what to expect when looking down towards Proxima b. Intellectually, she had also known what to expect when looking down at the Earth.
Emptiness. The stars vanished behind the jet black void of Proxima b. With no moon to reflect the sunlight, the dark side of Proxima b was nothing more than a bottomless hole in the darkness of space.
“Sughouri?”
No borders, no civilizations, no land mass or seas or visible atmosphere. A black hole that gave nothing in return.
“Sughouri!”
“Yes?”
“Are you alright?”
Sughouri blinked and looked around. What had happened? She was outside the spacecraft!
Fighting the sudden panic, she reached to her belt and tugged at her tether, feeling the reassuring rope at her side. A small tug was all it took, and she was back inside the airlock.
“I’m fine,” she breathed. She was only a few meters away.
“Your vitals were skyrocketing. Were you panicking?”
“I said I’m fine, doc.” Had she pushed herself out of the airlock? Fallen forward into space to get a better look at the emptiness below? “Just a bit of excitement, that’s all.”
“Do I have to give you an order?”
Sughouri took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see anything really, but… it’s completely dark. Perfect shadow. I guess it was a bit of a shock.”
“You okay to make the jump?”
“You’re the doctor, you tell me.”
“Your blood pressure’s still a little high…”
“Aw, come on, coach, lemmie in! I can do it!”
“Yeah, you’re fine. Just be careful, and try to keep calm.”
“Sure,” Sughouri positioned herself properly. “Can I get a spotlight?”
“Flood’s on,” Kristiana answered. A single circle of light flickered on in the distance. The faint reflective glow of Noriama Station faded into view around the tiny disk. “That should be covering the air-lock section. Can you see it?”
“Yep. Thanks.” Unclipping the tether from her belt, she clipped it back onto the hand-rail. “I’m pushing myself towards Noriama Station…now.”
When done purposefully, Sughouri found the act of moving through space a surreal one, rather than terrifying. There was no sense of movement; just the walls of the Croatoan airlock moving gently away and the station slowly moving closer. Sughouri wasn’t moving at all, really, it was the rest of the universe that was moving around her.
You could get anywhere in space with any amount of speed; there was no friction to slow you down. There was, however, a limited amount of nitrogen in Sughouri’s EVA, so they had planned to only gave her one meter per second of velocity. No sense in being careless, and Sughouri didn’t want to worry about rationing her movements when she was closer to the airlock.
That had been the plan, but now she found herself accelerating to a full meter and a half per second. She would be at the airlock in a little over eight minutes.
Had it been wise? Perhaps not, but the sooner she could feel the station’s metal and plastic through her glove, the better she’d feel.
As she approached, the sharply focused light bled along the lines and contours of the station, providing faint shape and shadows to the space-station.
It was just what she expected from the schematics; familiar in function as the ISS, if different in form. There was the Habitat module, and there the laboratory. A Cargo-bay there where minerals could be stored after being brought up from the surface before being loaded onto a freighter to be sent back to Earth. And there was the Space Elevator cable, stretching down towards…
Sughouri shut her eyes, and forced herself to breathe calmly until she could open them again. She had naming rights. What should she call it? The Underview Effect? The Different Effect? Absence Effect?
Well, she had time to think of a good name.
The Pain was easier to manage when there was something to focus on.
“I’m telling you,” Victoria’s voice was infuriatingly calm, “It won’t do any good. You know what she’ll say: that she figured time was of the essence, she made a judgment call, she didn’t go over the safety margin…”
“She adjusted the plan,” Zuri signed, her nod to the need for privacy. “There is nothing more dangerous then that in space. Small mistakes can mean instant death, or worse, prolonged death.”
“She needs a reprimand,” Kristiana agreed, ignoring the throbbing in her skull.
“Fine,” Victoria raised her hands in surrender. “But not yet; wait until we dock. Social punishments during high-stress situations can cause the problems they’re trying to fix.”
Kristiana rubbed her temple while chording the comms back open. “Sughouri? You managing okay?”
“Just fine, thank you,” Sughouri’s voice was tight from exertion. “This lever is stiff.”
“You’re stronger than any of us,” Kristiana smirked. “Don’t expect anyone to lend you a hand.”
“Oh, I gave up hope of that long ago. There!” Sughouri’s triumphant laugh drifted over the com link. “Noriama’s airlock is opening now.”
“Great,” Kristiana closed her eyes briefly, conjuring the schematics of Noriama Station’s airlock from the Croatoan’s computer. “Once you’re inside, there should be five clips on the left hand rail. Clip yourself in, and we’ll start the door-closing procedure.”
“Four clips.”
“Sorry?” Kristiana opened her eyes.
The camera feed from Sughouri’s suit swung about to face the hand-rail, proving her honesty. “I only count four clips on the rail.”
“Where’s the fifth?” Kristiana glanced at her teammates, who shrugged without answering.
“What makes you think I know anything?” Sughouri answered. “I just work here. There. I’m clipped in.”
“Excellent,” Kristiana stared at the camera feed. “The manual exterior door controls should be to your left.”
The image of the airlock swung to the right, settling on a triangular yellow plate set into the wall. “Found them,” Sughouri’s voice lilted as a gloved hand reached out and pried the panel open. A metallic lever — the same shape and size as the exterior one — gleamed in the lamp light. For a moment, the only sound was Sughouri’s grunts of exertion as she pumped the lever up and down, building the pressure in the airlock door.
A minute later, her gloved hands released the lever and pressed the red button marked ‘close.’ The camera swung back to the right in time to see the levers on the side of the airlock pull the door shut.
Sughouri sighed. “Okay, door’s closed and sealed.” The camera swung again, revealing another door opposite. “Interior door is…hold on…no power to this door either. A spacewoman’s work is never done, I guess. Let me prime the pump…”
Kristiana closed her eyes again. The throbbing was growing again.
“Almost…There!” Sughouri sighed in triumph. “Interior door is open. I felt a bit of a push when the seal broke. I think there might still be atmosphere in here.”
The team watched in silent fascination as Sughouri stepped out of the airlock and into Noriama Station proper.
“You fellows seeing this?” Sughouri asked as her camera swung left and right.
“Nothing to see,” Zuri said.
“Tell me about it. Looks brand new. Outright virginal.”
“Nothing unexpected about that,” Kristiana massaged her temples again.
“I would have thought there would be…I don’t know, a loose pencil or something?” Victoria muttered. “This looks like the station wasn’t even being used.”
“That’s how it should look,” Sughouri’s voice popped from the com link. “A floating pencil could hit something vital. Break a valve. Hit a switch. Anything loose or out of order is a danger to the whole station, which is interesting in itself, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?” Kristiana asked through the pain.
“Well, This is how the station should look. If something had gone wrong, shouldn’t we see some sign of it? This doesn’t look like there was any panic or emergency…This looks like the colonists just…left.”
The team was silent for a moment, watching their screens as Sughouri advanced deeper into the station. Her movements were slow and methodical, carefully floating though station hallways designed to be just large enough for people who weren’t wearing space-suits.
Finally, the camera lighted on a small metal sign bolted to the wall: ‘Main Generator.’
“Found it,” Sughouri’s voice was cheerful. “Give me five minutes for a visual check…”
Kristiana closed her eyes again, tightly.
“Everything looks okay. I’m plugging into the maintenance port…booting up fine…Diagnostic running…nothing seems wrong. Looks like the generator was just turned off. Permission to attempt start-up sequence?”
Kristiana took a deep breath. “Did either of you see anything worrisome?”
Zuri shook her head. “I agree with Sughouri.”
“Don’t look at me,” Victoria threw up her hands. “You three are the astronauts. If I can’t perform surgery on it or psychoanalyze its trauma, I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Fine,” Kristiana nodded. “Sughouri? Go ahead.”
The gloved hand appeared on the screen, flicking switches and twisting knobs. “Okay…preparing the generator, tapping into the emergency start up power banks…There. One small button-press for a woman…”
Sughorui’s gloved hand pressed the button, and lights began to flicker on, crawling across the generator’s control panel like excited ants. “Cycle one complete…cycle two…cycle three…And there’s four. Emergency power is on, levels nominal, computer rebooting…It’s alive…alive I say! Mwhahahaha!”
“Okay, cool it, Frankenstein,” Kristiana smiled. “Get to the central computer and turn it on.”
It only took six minutes for Sughouri to reach the main computer banks and make sure they were receiving power. Less than a minute later and Sughouri reported back: “Main computer banks active and booting. Should be good to go in a few minutes.”
Now it was Zuri’s turn. With the computers active, a simple remote connection was all she needed to gain complete control over the entire station.
But five minutes later, Zuri hadn’t reported.
“Zuri,” Kristiana asked, “Have you managed to connect to the computer?”
Zuri didn’t answer at first, her hand twitching as she sent chord after chord through her keyer to the system. Then, she heaved a sigh, gripped her chin with one hand, and typed a response.
“Sughouri, I need you to put eyes on the main control room.”
“Sure thing, boss.” The camera swerved as Sughouri pushed herself away from the generator and back through the tight hallways. “Anything in particular I’m looking for?”
“The main control room.”
“…Right. On it.”
Kristiana clenched her jaw as a sudden jolt of pain struck her neck. She didn’t want to hate Zuri — and in point of fact, she didn’t — but in spite of the best training, conditioning, and medication, she still found the gritty old woman irritating. The way she never said anything until she was ready, and yet expected everyone else to simply do what she asked. It wasn’t a full-blown superiority complex, but a mild condescension that made it seem like she couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever need to know what she was thinking.
Two minutes later, Sughouri was floating through the small portal into the control center of the station. Her camera panned the room, ensuring everyone on the Croatoan got a good view. “Everything looks present and accounted for,” she said.
Zuri pressed a hand to her mouth, her brow furrowed, while her other hand chorded command after command. Kristiana didn’t know what she was doing, but she could tell it wasn’t working. Through her Netter connection she could feel the Croatoan throw error after error.
Zuri chewed her lip. “Sughouri, go to the console on your left, and login to the system.”
“Sure,” Kristiana could hear the confusion that Sughouri could never communicate through the transcribed response that crawled across Zuri’s screen. The camera wobbled as Sughouri reached out to type with thick gloved fingers.
Even without a direct connection to the station, Kristiana could immediately see something was wrong. “Hey,” Sughouri protested as she pressed the keys again, “I’m not getting anything. The keyboard may be broken.”
“It’s not,” Zuri sighed. “Try breaking out of the terminal, and I’ll walk you through the next steps.”
“What does that mean?” Victoria asked.
Kristiana frowned as she answered: “I think Zuri’s worried the hardware has been damaged. She can’t connect and is trying to see if the station computer is still working. She’s getting Sughouri to do a full system check.”
It only took ten more minutes before Sughouri’s voice took on an edge. “Look, I’m still not getting anything, and my suit is getting a little tight on oxygen. Can I get an op-rep?”
Zuri sighed, and chorded her answer. “Everything you’re telling me is that the Noriama station computer is on, but none of its working. Plug into the console and let me bootstrap in.”
“Okay,” Sughouri fumbled at the side of the console, working to connect her suit to the station computer. “Give me an operations-report, please. What am I doing here?”
Zuri huffed. “I can’t talk and work at the same time.”
Kristiana broke in. “Hold on, Sughouri, you’ve still got half an hour of air. Plenty of time to get back if you need to.”
“I don’t like working in the dark, is all,” Sughouri’s voice was tense over the comms.
“Nor me,” Victoria broke in with a forced levity in her voice, “and I don’t know half of what you’re all doing. Sughouri, do you understand what Zuri’s asked of you? Can you explain it to me?”
“I suppose,” Sughouri said, her voice still tight, but she never got the chance.
“Got it,” Zuri’s digital voice interrupted. “Sughouri, if you’d like to fetch the black box, we can —”
Kristiana waved her hand, cutting Zuri off. “You were asked for a report, a while ago. Please explain what all you were doing.”
Zuri grimaced before nodding. “Right, sorry. I couldn’t connect to the station’s computer, so I used Sughouri’s suit as a relay. This didn’t work either. I thought something was wrong with the hardware, so I connected the Croatoan’s AI into the station. It let me remote access to the station hardware, and it confirmed no material failures.”
“So it’s a software failure?” Kristiana asked as she finished activating the automatic docking program. “Something wrong with the station’s operating system?”
“In a way,” Zuri shrugged. “It’s not there. The whole computer system has been wiped clean.”
A sharp pain shot through Kristiana’s head.
“It’s like there was never a computer system to begin with,” Zuri continued. “The BIOS is working, but the hardware connections are gone. Even the boot partitions are missing.”
“How did that happen?” Victoria asked. “Were the hard-drives damaged?”
It wasn’t a foolish notion; a large dose of radiation or an electromagnetic field could have caused irreparable damage, but Zuri had said the hard-drives were empty, not corrupted. The BIOS was fine. The boot partitions weren’t blank, but missing.
“Without knowing more details,” Kristiana answered, “we have no way of knowing. Sughouri, unplug yourself and find the station’s black box.”
“Sure thing,” Sughouri muttered as her thick gloved hand pulled her suit free from the console. In moments she was floating up through the central hub of the station, heading for the tiny module that had been set aside for one purpose only; to house and protect the station’s black box.
The team watched as Sughouri unscrewed a thin panel with a tool from her belt, and pulled it free from the wall.
“Well…shit.”
Kristiana leaned forward, staring at the large alcove where there should have been a bright red briefcase-sized device that was Noriama Station’s secret diary.
“Oh…kay,” Sughouri turned, scanning the small module with her light. “Any ideas where it wandered off to?”
“Could it have fallen out?” Victoria’s innocence was not endearing.
“See that orange lever? that’s part of the locking mechanism. It’s specially designed to not just pop open, and right now it’s closed. Someone purposefully took it out.”
“Why?”
Kristiana closed her eyes again, massaging her temples. If they knew why, they might have been able to figure out where the box had been moved to. So why would anyone un-plug the Station’s black box? And why replace the panel once they had done so?
“I’m still wondering how,” Sughouri’s voice drifted through the Croataon. “It shouldn’t be possible; there are fail-safes and special key-locks ensuring only certain people can detach the box from its housing, so unless someone found a way around all those fail-safes, it had to have been removed by either the chief officer of the station, or the elected leader of the Noriama.”
“You think one of them did it?”
“I think no one else could have. Not without a lot of visible signs of…well, anything.” Sughouri sighed. “Okay, I’m a patient girl, and I hate to leave on a low-note, but I’ve only got so much atmosphere in my tanks, right?”
“Right,” Zuri dropped her hand in a frustrated huff. “There’s nothing else she can do for the moment, is there?”
“Not that I can think of,” Kristiana shook herself out of her thoughts.
“Okay,” Victoria cleared her throat, “Then here’s the question: is Sughouri spacewalking back? Or are we docking the Croatoan?”
Kristiana winced. She had never pinned her hopes on flights of fancy, but there had always been the possibility that the black box would have explained everything. A full history of how Noriama had failed, collapsed, and destroyed itself would have made everything else unnecessary. They could have gone home in a week or less.
Docking felt…final, somehow. It was an affirmation that they were going to stick around until all of Noriama’s secrets had been plumbed, and the mystery solved. It wasn’t that she wanted to go back to earth. She wasn’t even entirely sure why it bothered her so much.
“Okay,” she nodded. “Sughouri, go plug yourself in again so Zuri can activate the docking umbilical. We’re linking up.”
Kristiana’s head throbbed.