Gregory Bennett - Fish Tank

There was a brief transmission delay before Blevin responded. “Call me Mark, please. We don’t stand on ceremony here. Well, the report I’ve got says the leak rate was slowing for a while as the pressure dropped, but all at once the pressure went back up, almost to normal, and the leak rate stepped up with it. At the same time relative humidity in the lab went up to 100 percent.”

“It sounds like one of the aquariums broke open,” Jeanette said.

Another brief delay. “That’s what we think, too. From what we can tell, all the punctures are in the dry section of the lab, but we don’t think it’s so dry any more. Is that going to cause a problem for you? Can you still patch the leaks?”

She thought about the emergency patches in OceanLab’s equipment lockers. “No, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. The water shouldn’t bother the adhesive on the patches.”

“How about the fish?” she asked.

“We don’t know. We don’t have a good model for the effects of explosive decompression on fish. Half my folks argue it was a trivial pressure drop, only a fraction of a bar. The other half keep pointing out what happens when we try to bring deep-ocean fish to the surface too fast. We really won’t know until you get there.”

“OK, Mark; I understand. How long do I have before it’s hopeless? Is there enough time for me to stop the leaks before the rest of the fish die? It’ll take me at least an hour to patch the leaks, assuming I can find them as soon as I arrive.”

“We’ve run out the predictions, Jeanette. It looks pretty bleak. The lab will be near vacuum before you complete your rendezvous. There might have been some hope if you could have launched from Rantoul on schedule, but that opportunity is gone now. In any case, we’d like you to put top priority on retrieving specimen one ten stroke nine one, the big octopus. Dead or alive.”

One ten stroke nine one? Oscar. Oh, Oscar! By rolling her shoulder, she managed to snake a hand inside her helmet to wipe her eyes. She sniffed back a tear and answered. “OK, I’ll do that. Uh, Mark, could you let me think for a while?”

“Sure, Jeanette. Call us if you need us. My folks tell me once you’re free of Rantoul, we’ll be able to talk to you direct on your S-band radio during the first half of your flight. And good luck! Seattle Aquarium out.”

“Flutterbye One out.”

The Sun rose again as Central Station’s launcher rotated into daylight, but it could not dispel her gloom. Try as she might, she was unable to drive the image of her octopus friend from her mind. Oscar, frightened and confused, with no way to understand what was happening, was suffocating. One of the tanks broke. Was it his? Was he already dead, a mass of contusions from gas bubbles expanding in his little cephalopod arteries?

Of all the creatures in all her laboratories, Oscar was her favorite. The apes in FreedomLab provided continuous amusement, but they just weren’t as personable as that little octopus. Oscar loved to play. He spent his days chasing fish and stalking lobsters. One of his favorite games was to gather little air bubbles floating in the zero-g aquarium until he had one big bubble. Then he would climb inside and sit there in a compact lump, watching Jeanette while he paddled around with a few tentacles protruding through bubble wall.

Every time she entered the lab, he would rush to the aquarium’s glass partition to greet her, waving his tentacles in excitement. Complex patterns of color, reds and grays with hints of blue and green, rippled along his body in time with his waving. Sometimes he entertained her by spreading out all eight tentacles from his air bubble, becoming an eight-pointed star dancing through the water. Other times he glided rhythmically back and forth on his jet, swooping in graceful loops with a trail of bubbles marking his passage the way a precision astrobatic team trailed glowing smoke.

OceanLab had one port in its wet lab, a leftover from its early days as life sciences research facility on a long-retired space station. On the video from the lab, Jeanette had seen Oscar spend hours looking out the port whenever she wasn’t aboard. She often wondered if he were looking for her, waiting for her to return.

She would return, but she feared that this time there would be no Oscar pressed against the glass waiting for her. There was nothing she could do about it. Nothing but wait. And cry.

“Flutterbye One, Rantoul Departure Control. Five minutes to launch.” The voice startled her awake. It was the old man again. “Still there, Jeanette?”

“I’m awake. Board’s all green. Strapped in. Engine check… good engines. OK, brakes free. Good comm with the launch cradle. Flutterbye One ready for launch.”

“Flutterbye One, three minutes and counting. It’ll be quite a boost, Jeanette, three and half g ’s almost all the way to the end of the cylinder before release. Hold onto your lunch!”

Her instrument panel counted down to zero, and the acceleration hit her. She felt her scooter bend beneath her and then snap back. The outer shell of Rantoul High Colony raced past, waving up and down above her. The acceleration was constant, but it felt like pressure was building up continuously against her back. Her scooter’s oscillation tightened into a tooth-numbing vibration. She mentally thanked Duke for the job he did in adjusting her padding; there were no pinch points, just a heavy hand flattening her against the back of her space suit.

The Sun blazed into view past the end of the colony, dazzling her before she could close her eyes. Then suddenly— Kerchunk! Release! Zero g! Her scooter throbbed in response, giving her a wild ride until its mechanical oscillations settled down. With reflexes honed by more than a hundred launches, her mind automatically adapted to the disorientation as she reswallowed her stomach.

Away from the colony, she had no reference points to attach her mind to. Only the faint motion of the star-field, residual rotation left over from the space colony’s lethargic spin, gave her a clue that she was not lying still in space. She tapped a button to stop the rotation so her antennas could seek out their targets. By flipping a cover over the forward viewport, she blocked out the Sun, darkening the cabin so she could better admire the blue and white half globe of the Earth hanging in space above her.

“Flutterbye One, good trajectory,” Departure Control reported a few seconds later.

“Thanks for the helping hand, Rantoul,” she answered. It was what she always said at the start of a tour. “See you in a few!”

“Have a good flight, Jeanette. We’re turning you over to Earth traffic control. Rantoul High Colony Departure Control Out.”

She watched her comm display automatically cycle to the frequency for Groundhog Central. “Flutterbye One, Colorado Springs, with you in transit via NavStar Forty Seven. We see a good trajectory for OceanLab. You’ll have a rendezvous bum in 319 minutes.”

“Colorado Springs, Flutterbye One. Roger. Good comm and traj. Request to go off tracking for direct link to Seattle.”

“Flutterbye One, off-track comm’s approved. They’re waiting for you.”

“OK. Recontact in one hour. I’ll monitor for an emergency breakthrough message. Flutterbye One out.”

Her comm panel balked when she punched in the Seattle aquarium’s calling code. With a sigh, she rolled her scooter until her antenna could establish a good signal with the northwestern United States. Groundhog Central used satellites for the link but the aquarium’s big antenna was above her on the Earth itself. Along with assurance it had acquired the signal, the comm panel told her she had an incoming call.

“Miz Ryan, Seattle Aquarium here.” The caller spoke quickly in wavering tenor tones—a young kid, excited or nervous about something, maybe both.