Mariska tried not to sound impatient. “Know what?”
“It’s a beautiful planet.” Random made a circle with his hands, as if to present the new world to her. “Check the feeds, you’ll see. It’s the best ever. Even better than Earth, at least the way it is now, all crispy and crowded.”
“Okay, so it’s the Garden of slagging Eden. So what does that have to do with all this crap?”
“Crap?” He drew himself up, and then waved the pepper shaker at her. “My goods aren’t crap.” He set it carefully back in the lunch box and began to gather up the rest of his odd collection.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Mariska didn’t want to chase him away — at least not yet. “So it’s a beautiful planet. And your goods are great. Tell me what’s going on?”
He stacked the Coke bubble and the eyelight on top of the book but then paused, considering her apology. “Most of the crew of the Gorshkov are going back.” He packed the pile away. “It’s their reward, to live on a planet with all that water and all that sky and friendly weather. Going back…” he tapped the bench next to her leg “… with their families.”
Mariska’s throat was so tight that she could barely croak. “I’m not her family.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “But anything you want to trade before you go — either of you…”
Mariska flung herself at the security door.
“Just asking,” Random called after her.
When she burst into the kitchen, Al was arranging a layer of lasagna noodles in a casserole. Yet another of her favorite dishes; Mariska should have known something was wrong. She gasped when he looked over his shoulder at her. His eyes were shiny and his cheeks were wet.
“You knew.” She could actually hear herself panicking. “She wants to drag me off to some stinking rock twenty light years away and you knew.”
“I didn’t. But I guessed.” The weight of his sadness knocked her back onto one of the dining room chairs. “She stopped by right after you left. She’s looking for you.”
“I’m not here.”
“Okay.” He picked up a cup of shredded mozzarella and sprinkled it listlessly over the noodles.
“You can’t let her do this, Al. You’re my daddy. You’re supposed to protect me.”
“It’s a term contract, Mariska. I’m already in the option year.”
“Slag the contract. And slag you for signing it. I don’t want to go.”
“Then don’t. I don’t think she’ll make you. But you need to think about it.” He kept his head down and spooned sauce onto the lasagna. “It’s space, Mariska. You’re a spacer.”
“Not yet. I haven’t even passed tomatoes. I could wash out. I will wash out.”
He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why are you taking her side?”
“Because you’re a child and she’s your legal parent. Because you can’t live here forever.” His voice climbed unsteadily to a shout. Al had never shouted at her before. “Because all of this is over.” He shook the spoon at their kitchen.
“What do you mean, over?” She thought that it wasn’t very professional of him to be showing his feelings like this. “Answer me! And what about Jak?”
“I don’t know, Mariska.” He jiggled another lasagna noodle out of the colander. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
She stared at his back. The kitchen seemed to warp and twist; all the ties that bound her to Al were coming undone. She scraped her chair from the table and spun down the hall to her room, bouncing off the walls.
“Hello Mariska,” said her room as the door slid shut. “You seem upset. Is there anything I can… ?
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
She didn’t care if she hurt her room’s feelings; it was just a stupid persona anyway. She needed quiet to think, sort through all the lies that had been her life. It must have been some other girl who had drawn funny aliens on the walls or listened to the room tell stories — lies! — about a space captain named Mariska or who had built planets inhabited by unicorns and fairies and princesses in her room’s simspace. She didn’t belong here. Not in this goddamn room, not on the moon, not anywhere.
Then it came to her. She knew what she had to do. Only she wasn’t sure exactly how to do it. But how hard could going deep be? It was in her genes — her mother’s genes. Slag her. Everyone so worried that she would go deep without really meaning to. So that must mean that she could. That’s how the fossils had done it, before there were hibernation pods and proper euthermic arousal protocols.
She didn’t know what good going deep would do her. It was probably stupid. Something a kid would do. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She was just a kid. What other choice did she have?
She lay back on her bed and thought about space, about stepping out of the airlock without anything on. Naked and alone, just like she had always been. The air would freeze in her lungs and they would burst. Her eyes would freeze and it would be dark. She would be as cold as she had ever been. As cold as Natalya Volochkova, that bitch.
The Earth is up,” the room murmured. “And I am always up. Is Mariska ready to get up yet?”
Mariska shivered from the cold. That wasn’t right. Her room was supposed to monitor both its temperature and hers.
“The Earth is up, and I am always up,” cooed her room. It wasn’t usually so patient.
Mariska stretched. She felt stiff, as if she had overdone a swim. She opened her eyes and then shut them immediately. Her room had already brought the lights up to full intensity. It was acting strangely this morning. Usually it would interrupt one of her dreams, but all that she had in her head was a vast and frigid darkness. Space without the stars.
Mariska yawned and slitted her eyes against the light. She was facing the shelf where Feodor Bear sat. “Dobroye utro,” it said. The antique robot bumped against the shelf twice in a vain attempt to stand. “Good morn-ing Mar-i-ska.” There was something wrong with its speech chip; it sounded as if it were talking through a bowl of soup.
“Good morning, dear Mariska,” said her room. “Today is Wednesday, November 23, 2163. You have no bookings scheduled for today.”
That couldn’t be right. The date was way off. Then she remembered.
The door slid open. She blinked several times before she could focus on the woman standing there.
“Mariska?”
Mariska knew that voice. Even though it had a crack to it that her room had never had, she recognized its singing accent.
“Where’s Al?” When she sat up the room seemed to spin.
“He doesn’t live here anymore.” The woman sat beside her on the bed. She had silver hair and a spacer’s sallow complexion. Her skin was wrinkled around the eyes and the mouth. “I can send for him, if you like. He’s just in Muoi Zone.” She seemed to be trying on a smile, to see if it would fit. “It’s been three years, Mariska. We couldn’t rouse you. It was too dangerous.”
She considered this. “Jak?”
“Three years is a long time.”
She turned her face to the wall. “The room’s voice — that’s you. And the persona?”
“I didn’t want to go to Delta Pavonis, but I didn’t have a choice. I’m a spacer, dear, dear Mariska. Just like you. When they need us, we go.” She sighed. “I knew you would hate me — I would have hated me. So I found another way to be with you; I spent the two months before we left uploading feeds. I put as much of myself into this room as I could.” She gestured at Mariska’s room.
“You treated me like a kid. Or the room did.”