At last the vibration dwindled into silence.
“Here we go,” Quincy said.
The amber light went dark and the red one turned on. Vacuum, Raven thought. We’re in vacuum now.
Even as she thought that, the outer hatch began to swing open. And beyond it was the universe.
Raven’s mouth dropped open. She gaped at countless swarms of stars hanging unblinking against the utter blackness of space. On the rocket journey from Earth, she and the other passengers had been seated in a windowless compartment. There were video screens on the seatbacks in front of each passenger, of course, but they didn’t give a hint of the sheer magnitude of the vast universe outside.
Now Raven saw it all, stars and nebulae hanging there as far as she could see, blazing magnificently. Off to one side curved the bare-boned skeleton of what would one day be Haven II. But it was the splendor of the stars that mesmerized her. They weren’t twinkling. They hung out there staring at her, as if they were judging her, deciding if she were fit to be in their company.
O’Donnell broke the spell. He reached for the clip at the end of her safety tether and pulled it out from its housing. No noise. Not a sound. Just the slightest tremor of a silent vibration.
“I’ll attach this to the cleat outside the hatch,” she heard O’Donnell saying. “Wouldn’t want you to go floatin’ off to infinity now.”
Raven nodded wordlessly, still staring in awe at the stars.
O’Donnell went to the edge of the hatch, attached Raven’s safety line and then his own to the cleat on the station’s skin out there, then turned back toward Raven.
With a stiff little bow, he said, “The universe awaits, my dear.”
Raven stepped carefully to the rim of the hatch and then, after taking a deep breath, she pushed through into emptiness.
She knew that she wouldn’t be truly in zero gravity as long as she was connected to the rotating space station. Still, as she floated away from the habitat’s structure she felt her stomach fluttering and her throat constricting.
Then she heard O’Donnell’s voice: “Oh Lord, I love the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”
Turning in mid-emptiness, Raven asked, “What was that, Quincy?”
She could hear the embarrassment in his voice. “Oh, it’s nothin’. Just… ah, just a little somethin’ I say whenever I go outside. It’s from the Twenty-fifth Psalm.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Raven.
He floated up behind her and grasped both her shoulders. “There’s nothin’ like it. The universe. God’s creation.”
“It certainly is magnificent,” Raven agreed, staring at the wonder and glory of the stars.
He turned her to face the unfinished skeleton of what would become Haven II.
“That’s where I work,” he said, with real pride in his voice. “Me and a handful of robots.”
For almost a half hour Raven hung there nearly weightless while O’Donnell pointed out the intricacies of the structure that was being built. The bare metal assembly formed a complete circle, exactly the same size as Haven itself, but it was only a skeleton, empty, incomplete. Halfway across its diameter Raven caught the flashes of welding tools as a team of robots worked steadily, tirelessly.
Pointing, O’Donnell told her, “That’s goin’ to be the main reception area for newbies, same as we have here on the original Haven. And there”—his gloved hand shifted—“will be the command and control center. Lots of electronic gadgetry will go in there. And we’ll connect the new module to the original down there, at their hubs.”
Raven nodded and smiled in the right places, knowing that Quincy couldn’t see it through the tinting of her helmet visor but feeling that he needed some reward for this unauthorized visit.
At last she said, “Oh! While we’re out here, can I make a call to Earth?”
“From here?” O’Donnell asked. “Why not from inside?”
“It’s more private outside here, isn’t it?”
Sounding puzzled, O’Donnell answered, “I suppose so.”
“It’s for Reverend Umber,” she stretched the truth. “I’ve been so busy with you lately, I haven’t had the time to do this for him.”
O’Donnell’s tone sounded wary, skeptical, but he said, “I suppose it’ll be okay.”
Raven touched her helmet to his and gave him an awkward nuzzle. “Thanks, Quincy!”
He sputtered and floated slightly away from her.
Raven had memorized the number of the Interplanetary Council’s executive director, Harvey Millard. She switched to her suit’s private line, then spoke the string of numbers into her helmet microphone.
“I’m calling on behalf of the Reverend Kyle Umber, the head of the Haven habitat in orbit around the planet Uranus. Reverend Umber would like to request that the Interplanetary Council consider allowing habitat Haven to join the Council. He awaits your reply.”
There, she thought. It’s done. The message is on its way. She knew it would take some two and a half hours for her message to reach Earth, and the same amount of time for Earth’s reply to get back to the habitat.
She remembered something a Vietnamese businessman had told her, one night long ago as he was slowly removing her clothing: Even the longest journey begins with a single step.
I’ve taken the first step, Raven said to herself.
COMMUNICATIONS FAILURE
After their little extravehicular sojourn, Raven and O’Donnell returned to the habitat and wormed out of their nanofabric space suits, then made their way to her quarters. She put together sandwiches for the two of them while O’Donnell busied himself pouring wine from the kitchen’s scant supply of bottles.
At last they moved to Raven’s bedroom. O’Donnell seemed flustered at first, eager yet somehow at the same time hesitant—not reluctant, but unsure of himself.
“Raven,” he breathed as she unbuttoned his shirt, “you don’t have to do this, you know.”
She looked up into his flushed face. “You don’t want to?” she asked, all innocence and disappointment.
“I want to!” he exclaimed. “But… well… maybe we shouldn’t…” His face was an image of conflict.
Raven stood on tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Well, why don’t we just get into bed together and see what happens.”
“Okay… I guess…”
Raven watched him watching her as she stripped. Then she pulled down the covers and slipped into bed, with him still there, gawking.
She patted the sheet next to her. “Come on, Quincy.”
Red-faced with inner conflict, O’Donnell peeled down to his skivvies and walked around to the other side of the bed. Even with his undershorts still on, she could see that he was erect.
He’s a virgin! Raven realized. He’s never done this before.
O’Donnell climbed into bed beside her. The mattress sagged noticeably.
“I don’t…,” he began.
Raven shushed him softly as she put a hand on his chest and then slowly slid it down to his groin. He made a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan.
“It’s all right, Quincy,” she whispered to him. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
When she awoke the next morning O’Donnell was gone. His side of the bed was a jumble of twisted sweaty sheets; even his pillow was shorn of its casing. Raven sat up in bed, then got to her feet, pulled a robe out of the closet and padded into the kitchen as she cinched it around her waist.
Quincy was nowhere in sight. But he’d left a sheet of tablet paper on the kitchen table.