Gregory Bennett - Fish Tank

There was nothing to be done for it; she had to relent. “Oh, Oscar. All right. You can hang on right where you are; I’ll just have to endure it. I can use the suit without my underwear, but I’m going to get a lot of bruises. Maybe even frostbite from the lack of thermal balancing. And you just stay out of my helmet!”

She added an afterthought: “And for godsake don’t get scared and start releasing ink!”

The bleary fog in Jeanette’s mind was worse than the atmosphere inside OceanLab by the time she was ready to contact Colorado Springs for guidance. She told herself she should have skipped a second photo tour outside the laboratory. Her piloting had been clumsy. Her dulled reflexes would have been reason enough not to risk it, but banging around in an overlarge suit without the stability provided by her custom longjohns, and having a cephalopodal passenger to boot, made flying with her backpack almost untenable. More than once she had put her suit into a tumble, and every time Oscar went crawling around, trying to get away from the strange sensations. He did not like even the gentle accelerations imparted by her suit’s jets.

Repeatedly stopping to wipe condensation from her face plate had slowed her down that much more. By trapping a few globs of water in her suit and overriding her suit’s humidity control she had managed to keep the atmosphere moist enough for Oscar, but now she was paying the price.

She had finally made it back to her scooter with a prayer on her lips and an octopus clinging to her neck.

With the photo tour complete, she was strapped into Flutterbye like a rider on a motorcycle, talking with Earth Traffic Control. Her voice sounded thick and slow inside her head. To avoid being crushed when she inflated her back bladder, Oscar had moved to one side with his tentacles wrapped around her waist. He was a squirmy belt, and apparently not at all happy with the pitch dark recesses in which he found himself.

“Flutterbye One, good readback on the engine bum. You’re cleared for launch in two hundred seconds exactly.” The space traffic controller sounded like the same man she had talked to on her way down. She was surprised when he abandoned his militarily precise diction. “But you don’t sound good, Jeanette. Are you all right?”

She explained her condition, including her fears concerning sea urchin venom.

“I understand,” Earth Traffic Control replied. “Do you want to declare an emergency?”

“No, no. I’ll be OK.”

“Then I’m declaring one for you. Flutterbye One, stay on this frequency throughout your flight. We will patch a relay if you want to report to the Seattle Aquarium. Minimize your control inputs; your vessel is go for automatic maneuvers through rendezvous with Rantoul, H.C. Save your energy for the docking, Jeanette. And good luck.”

When Flutterbye decided it was time to the launch, the initial boost was very gentle, less than a quarter standard gravity; but Oscar’s reaction surprised her. He had squirmed nervously when she tumbled her suit, but this time he crawled around in panic. Jeanette shivered at his touch and said as soothingly as she could, “You’re safe, Oscar. Don’t worry. And don’t ink. Please don’t ink.” No wonder that he was scared. This was more acceleration than he had ever experienced. He was searching for a place to hide.

The vision of where she had found him hiding in OceanLab popped into Jeanette’s mind. Frantically, she deflated her back bladder, yanked her hands inside her suit, and reached down for Oscar.

“Don’t even think about it!” she admonished the writhing octopus.

Oscar clung to her hand, braiding a few tentacles all down her arm. Maybe he’ll calm down if he can see out. Slowly, she moved him up her body. With her back bladder deflated out of the way, she could lean back to provide more room, room enough to push Oscar’s eye turret up past her neck ring. She clenched her lips tight and let him lean his leathery bag of a head against her cheek. It wasn’t as bad as she expected. He was cool to the touch and smelled of fish, but otherwise almost cuddly.

He seemed more calm then, even fascinated by the view through her faceplate. The increased airflow in her helmet might have helped; his breathing seemed less frenetic. Almost reluctantly, he released his grip from lower down and contented himself with holding loosely to her arm. “Just relax and enjoy the view,” she purred. “You’re a real space traveler now, Oscar. Welcome to the Thousand Miles High club.”

They flew the return trip to Rantoul High Colony like that, with Oscar nestled against Jeanette’s cheek while she tried to keep up a running narrative of the constellations of stars and spacecraft that came into view. Jeanette found she could not remember the names of some of the objects in the sky, names which should have been familiar to her. But Oscar did not seem to mind her lapses. He just stared out her faceplate, occasionally shifting his grip. After a while she did not even bother to move his tentacles when he searched for something more convenient to hold on to. Once she had to nudge one of his legs away when he became inquisitive about the controls for her suit’s jet pack, but only once. Oscar learned quickly what he must not touch.

“Flutterbye One, Rantoul Approach Control. Respond please. You are on a collision course. Mayday mayday mayday.” Words, fust words. Go away, words. “Flutterbye One, Rantoul Approach Control. Jeanette? Respond please. You are on a collision course. Mayday mayday mayday.”

“Wha’? Huh? Oh. Yeah. I think I passed out. Was dreamin’.” Jeanette heard someone talking with her voice. It must be her, talking to that nice old man in the Rantoul traffic control center.

“Jeanette? Thank god!” Yeah, it’s the old man. He’s nice. I like him. “We’ve been talking to your scooter, but we feared the worst. We’re not getting any biomed data from your suit.”

“Tha’s cuz’m not wearin’ any un-derpanz.” She giggled. Oscar attempted a party-whistle, but in the close confines of the space suit, he just wound up bumping her face with a tentacle. “Got m’ boyfren’ here, too. Say hello, Oxer.”

“Flutterbye One, listen carefully. You have to wake up. Your scooter is on a collision course with Rantoul. If you cannot control your craft, we will have to deflect it from its current trajectory. An empty cargo pod is ready to launch to do just that. You will be destroyed by the collision.”

“OK,” Jeanette responded dully.

“We have been talking to your scooter and have a maneuver set up. It will take you to a rendezvous point near the end cap where we can tow you in. But you must enter the execution command. Do you understand, Jeanette? Just enter the maneuver execute command.”

The old man wanted her to do something. She liked him. He wasn’t like that mean old bitch, Maisie Johnson. “Sure, I can do that. Hang on, Oxer. Here we go.”

She pushed the button. Flutterbye spun around and started hitting her. She was too tired to hit back. Oscar didn’t like it at all. He grabbed her so hard it hurt.

“Not now, Oxer. I have a headache.”

Wiping the mist from her face plate seemed like hard work; she had to concentrate on the task. The space colony loomed huge in her windows and slid past. Then it jumped. Suddenly she was looking at the South Cap freight yard, from outside.

“What’re we doin’ out here, Oxer? See that li’l door? Tha’s where we wanna be. S’OK. We’ll jus’ fly there.” It seemed like a reasonable plan. She could just park Flutterbye where it was, and fly over to the airlock on her suit jets. Methodically she unfastened her straps and climbed out of her scooter. With a kick, she propelled herself in the general direction of the space colony. Everything started spinning.