"The other cabinet is locked, too. With a note."
"I know. I've been briefed. Six months. That was the deal you made, right?"
She sighed.
"I'm here to help you through that. I've been there, Lydia."
"No one's been on a one-way mission, Rick."
"Okay, you've got me there. And I've never been so set on ending my life. But I've been in a dinky little capsule wondering why the heck I said they could put me in it. I can sympathize to some extent. And I'm here for you. Whenever you need."
"Whenever? You have no life?"
"I do. But I also have a cot here if the day goes long, and there are lots of good restaurants in town, as you know. Most of them deliver. I'm here for you while you get adjusted. I swear it."
She didn't answer and he didn't break the silence, didn't give her some mindless chatter or laugh nervously. He just waited.
She liked that. "Okay."
"Good. Are you near the mirror?"
"Yeah."
"Let your hair down—so to speak."
"What?"
"Seriously. Let it down. I know you practiced washing your hair in the zero-G simulator. But somehow letting it loose feels different when you're up there."
She grabbed a handhold and pulled herself over to the area that held her personal items, all fastened to the wall or safe in cabinets and drawers, velcroed down so they wouldn't move around. The mirror was wrapped in soft material, no chance of cutting herself with it—and she knew it was safety glass, would break into little blunt-edged dice, not jagged shards, if it broke.
She stared at herself in the mirror, then took the band off that was holding her hair in a pony tail. Her hair began to float, and she laughed—he was right, it did feel different than it had in the sims. Still looked ridiculous, though.
"What a nice sound. It's not quite the same for a guy, crew cuts just aren't as dramatic a look."
She'd had the option of a high and tight but hadn't wanted to let them cut her hair. "It feels so strange."
"So I've been told."
She gathered her hair back up and put it in a ponytail. "I'm not brave, Rick."
"I think you are."
"You don't know me very well."
"I'll get to know you. And I think you'll see I'm right."
Lydia stood in the training facility, wondering again why she'd agreed to this. Underwater tests, zero-G sims, how to do the most basic tasks while floating—essentially a crash course in being . . . what? Not FSA, maybe more like the old-time NASA astronauts. FSA ships had artificial gravity, but Leighton wasn't about to waste one of those on Lydia and his iffy AI. She was going to be stuck in zero-G for five years, two of them awake—if she made it the whole way, which was certainly not on her "things to do" list.
Other than keeping the AI company, Lydia had no role on the ship, no mission-critical tasks to learn. Mission Control would take care of communicating with the AI on any systems issues, course corrections, or adjustments to the mission parameters.
"Specialist Ramirez?"
She turned and saw a tech motioning her over to a small chamber that looked like what she'd seen of the Vesta probes. "More floating?" She hoped it wasn't the vertical treadmill again. She knew the thing was crucial but hated using it.
He gave her a sympathetic look. "Not today. Today you get to meet Vesta." He pointed at a main control panel. "This is a mock-up of the ship as you'll see her. We want you to get to know where everything is."
"Lot of work to build this. You couldn't just put me on the ship?"
A new voice filled the room, a female voice. "The ship is being readied for launch. You would be in the way, Specialist Ramirez."
"The AI?" she whispered to the tech, who nodded.
"I can hear you, Specialist. I have been told to respond to the designation 'Vesta.'"
"Okay." She looked at the tech, who was walking to the door. "What do I do?"
"Learn. Vesta's going to continue your training. She's a great trainer, and we believe this early introduction will ease your transition when you wake from hibernation and have only her to interact with. You two won't be strangers."
Or she'd wake from hibernation and jam the drugs Leighton had said would be waiting into her veins. It was good to have options.
Lydia sat in the exam room of the clinic, wondering why the doctor hadn't come in yet. The nurse had done all the final tests, and Lydia's results had come back normal—or as normal as expected for someone checking into this facility.
Finally there was a knock on her door and she murmured, "Come in," the stupid way she always did, as if the doctor needed some kind of permission to enter his own domain.
But it wasn't Doctor Manning that entered. It was a man in a Federated Space Association uniform. She had no idea what his rank insignia meant, but he carried himself like he was God—and she was a bug.
"Who are you?" She'd show him the bug had some bite. "Where's my doctor?"
"I'm Captain Leighton. Your doctor is presumably attending to his other patients." He sat down in the chair by the door, and she realized he was putting himself lower than her—probably on purpose. But why?
She stared at him until he took a deep breath and said, "I took a gander at your folder. You once applied to be FSA."
"A long time ago. And I was rejected. Surely my folder told you that, too?"
"Oh, it did. Do you want to know why you were rejected?"
"Not really."
"Well, I'll tell you anyway. Some recruiter wrote 'Not FSA material' on your application."
She looked down.
"Given where we are, I guess they were right." He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other.
"What do you want?" This wasn't how her day was supposed to go. A final test or two, a prick of a needle, and then oblivion. End of story. Not some stick-up-his-ass officer visiting the euthanasia clinic to tell her why she wasn't cut out to be FSA.
"I want to make you a deal."
"I'm not really in deal-taking mode anymore." She gestured around the room. "It's why I'm here."
"Understood. But on your intake forms you indicated you wanted to dispose of your remains through donation to science."
"So?" She'd been feeling altruistic. "I can change that if it's making you uncomfortable for some reason."
He stood up, walked to the bed, and stared her right in the eyes—for an uncomfortably long time. She forced herself to not look away, no matter how long he wanted to stand like that.
He turned abruptly and walked to the window, his hands crossed behind his back. "I don't want you to change the details of the handling of your body. I just want you to donate it before you die."
"Excuse me?"
"I want you to change the way and place you commit suicide."
There was a long silence as she tried to process what he'd just said. Finally she laughed—a little hysterically—and said, "What?"
He turned, his expression hard. "I have no idea why you've decided to kill yourself, and I really don't give a rat's ass. But the fact is: I need you." He handed her a small tablet; on it was the picture of a little ship.
She could just make out the name. "Vesta V?"
"That's right."
She handed the tablet back. "The first four were unmanned probes. Tiny tin cans searching for minerals and anything else of interest." She saw his expression change and tried not to sneer. "I may not have been qualified for the FSA, but I still keep up."
"Good." He leaned against the windowsill. "We're testing a new AI. It's designed for deep-space missions and we're on our umpteenth version—it's been a frustrating ride."