They were hard on each other, strong for each other, and it was wonderful to have any chance to feel amused. Ruth kept her face turned toward the viewport, baiting him.
“What can you be thinking?” Ulinov demanded. “What haven’t you seen through that hole a million times before?”
The interior of the lab module would have been impassable in gravity. Her gear extended in bulky towers from three of the cube’s six surfaces, bolted down between the original equipment and computers. It was a monochromatic jumble— off-white walls, gray metal panels. He expertly threaded his way toward her and touched his foot against the ceiling to correct his spin.
Commander Nikola Ulinov was large for a cosmonaut, his rib cage wide enough to hold two of Ruth, and his square face had spread to epic proportions due to the redistribution of body fluids that occurred in zero gee. He apparently thought his size gave him a psychological edge and often crowded her, like now.
His odor was how Ruth remembered Earth, a full and textured smell. Good, real. Inviting. She finally glanced at him, wondering why he still bothered to act the gruff Soviet bear.
He seemed to notice and tried a new tone. Truly he was more of a wolf, nimble and cunning. He spoke quietly now: “Tovarisch, must I cover this hole? Will I assign someone to watch you? Why are you not understanding the importance?”
The warm spark of mischief in her heart faded. Maybe that was best. “I’ve done all I can.”
“India transmitted new schematics only yesterday—”
“I’ve done all I can here.”
He said nothing. He never did after she insisted she’d been beaten. It was a good trick, letting her stew in her shame and frustration. She used to blurt promises to work harder. Now they hung together in silence.
At last, Ruth risked another look. Ulinov’s wide brown eyes were aimed not at her but out the viewport, where a vast corona of yellow-white illuminated the dark curve of the planet.
“The snow’s melted enough,” she said. “Colorado should be able to clear a stretch of highway for us.”
He was gruff again. “There will be no returning to orbit.”
Ruth nodded. Plague Year, they were calling it now, changing the calendar, changing history, and the decision felt right in so many ways. Everything was dead and new all at the same time. It had been a very different life eleven months ago when she rode the last shuttle launch out of Kennedy Space Center, the final launch. The supply rockets put up by the Europeans a week later didn’t count.
“We are remaining as long as we can,” Ulinov said. “The president ordered us with good reason.”
And you want to stay a part of your war, she thought.
Ulinov’s motherland, like so much of the planet, must now be unimaginably empty. The remnants of the Russian people had fled to the Afghanistan mountains and to the Caucasus range, a sheer jag of rock thrust up between the Caspian and Black Seas, where they were entrenched in a confused, ferocious struggle against the native Chechens and refugee hordes out of Turkey, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq. It might have been worse except the Israelis had airlifted south to Africa and the high peaks of Ethiopia.
Peace had at last come to Jerusalem and the Middle East.
The space station still received sporadic broadcasts from the Russian population, demands for orbital surveillance or American military support or, sometimes, wild declarations of bloodthirst directed at their Muslim enemies. Ulinov transmitted high-res photos every day, weather and orbits permitting, and diligently relayed each request for supplies — and he had sworn his allegiance to the United States.
As daylight lanced through the viewport, Ruth touched his shoulder. Foolish. Reaction sent them both drifting slightly. She increased her grip to keep them together. The surface of his jumpsuit was as cold as his self-control, but his gaze flicked to her hand and then roamed her face. His expression softened.
Ruth spoke first. “Zero-gee working conditions aren’t an advantage if I don’t have what I need. I’m past the limit of what I can achieve with reconstructions. Badly translated reconstructions.”
In the rush to get her away ahead of the invisible tide, ground crews had misplaced her samples of the nano. Most likely someone hadn’t understood why they were loading human body parts. The machine plague was most easily and safely preserved inside chunks of frozen tissue.
She said, “Colorado’s using an old electron probe and India lost a lot of software. The breakdowns they’re sending are incomplete.”
Ulinov seemed to shake himself, then pulled free from her. “Every time you report progress.”
Ruth didn’t know what to do with her hand. “Sure. I’m still learning.” She gestured at her equipment, then jaunted to the machining atomic force microscope, which had always reminded her of a stout dwarf standing at attention. Its smooth body terminated at what would be the shoulders, where low collars protected a working surface — the broad cone of its “hat” contained computer-enhanced optics and atomic point manipulators. They’d had to install the MAFM sideways across the lab, and Ruth had spent so many hours at the device that she oriented herself alongside it by habit, though doing so meant that she and Ulinov no longer shared a local vertical. Impolite. Ruth barely noticed, staring at the MAFM’s blank display grid.
Lord knew it was wrong to admire the genius behind the nano. This invisible locust had laid waste to nearly 5 billion people and left thousands of animal species extinct.
Plague Year. It wasn’t just human history that had crashed. The savage effects to the environment would be centuries or more finding balance again, if that was even possible. In many ways Earth had become a different planet and they were only beginning to see what would happen to the forests, the weather cycle, the atmosphere, the land itself.
“If you are still learning,” Ulinov began, trying a new angle with her, but Ruth said, “The design technique is extremely innovative. I could putz around with my models for another five years if you want.”
“This is a joke.”
“No.” She tried to be gentle with the truth. “Colorado’s electron probe is barely strong enough to disassemble a nano of two billion AMU, much less reverse-engineer it, and the glitches in India’s programs make their schematics almost useless. This machine may be the best equipment left in the world.”
“But yet you have stopped your work.”
“Uli, I’ve done all I can here.” Ruth had never felt this way toward the same person, real warmth shot through with resentment. It made her nuts. The decision to stay in orbit was not his to make, but Ulinov had always been an outspoken proponent of keeping the ISS crew onstation as long as possible, when he could have added his voice to hers instead.
She understood his position. She respected his commitment and his code of honor, and honestly believed these traits were her own best strengths. It was the basis of their attraction and at the same time it was probably what would keep them apart.
* * * *
Their little slugfest might have gone on longer except that they’d already been knocking heads for weeks now, ever since the snowpack across the Rockies began to fade.
He left. She kicked back to her window. Watching the patchwork of Earth’s surface roll past engaged enough of her brain that she soon reentered a practiced state of meditation, allowing her subconscious to chew over the locust’s design. It almost felt as if she was outside on EVA, alone in the vacuum, sketching diagrams like constellations and pacing through those intricate shapes, pulling sections apart for closer examination.