Sarah Zettel: Fool's War

There was no way the Pasadena were going to get in there. Not past the tug, not with the M.U. ship on its way out from port. And even if they could, there was absolutely, positively no way to dock with that rolling, bobbling tin can.

She was going to have to tell Schyler. She was going to have to tell him that this was one thing she could not do. If Al Shei was okay in there, she was also stuck in there.

The can rolled over once more. A crystal shower burst out of the side and something small shot into the vacuum.

Yerusha ordered the cameras to pin point the area and zoom in at maximum magnification. A mustard-yellow pressure suit tumbled against the blackness, surrounded by a blizzard of glittering stars. Hope blazed inside her. Somebody had just busted out a window. That would be very like Al Shei.

“Watch, check the screen.” Yerusha scribbled down the commands to change the torch angle. “Muhammad may have just made it to the mountain.”

Schyler squinted at the yellow figure inside the blizzard. “Intercom to Lipinski!” he cried. “We got a suit at forty-five degrees down and front. Put out a call. It might be Al Shei!”

“On it!”

Schyler scrambled to his feet. “Get close as you can, Pilot. I’m going to get a life line ready, in case it is her.”

“What if we don’t get an answer?”

He froze for a moment, and when he did speak, it was like he had to drag the words out. “If we get no answer, we leave it. I can’t risk dragging an AI onto this ship with just the three of us to deal with it.”

Al Shei tumbled on the wind like a feather. Stars whirled around her in their black pool until all she could see where long trails of light. It was beautiful beyond description. She flew without effort into infinity, toward Paradise, toward Allah and Asil.

I will meet you there, Beloved.

Uranus’ blue-grey globe drifted beneath Al Shei’s boots. She fell away from it, toward the stars. Another tumble and she could see Curran’s module falling away from her with Port Oberon loomed in the background like a sculpture by a manic artist. Ships glided around it, metallic insects flying around a bright light.

Is one of them Pasadena? she wondered. What had happened to Schyler and Yerusha? Had they gotten back all right? The station wheeled out of her field of vision. It didn’t matter, Asil was waiting for her.

Right here, Beloved.

“Al Shei!” cried a voice by her ear. “Al Shei! This is Pasadena! Respond!”

The stars traced their lines of fire across her field of vision. Had Resit called Uncle Ahmet yet? Had they told the children? Were Muhammad and Vashti mourning for her as well as their father?

They will be well, Beloved and so will we.

Exhaustion filled her. Her flight was beautiful, her destination was Paradise. “Yes,” she whispered. “They’ll be all right.”

“Al Shei, if that’s you out there, respond!”

A thousand memories chased themselves around her skull. Most of them held Asil’s voice reciting the results of soccer games, astronomy projects and home meals. Vashti would go on to be a city champion, for sure, and Muhammad, he would win a scholarship to University…

But she’d never know about it.

A flame burned somewhere off to the left. A silver bulb drifted momentarily past her faceplate as the universe turned around again.

With no one there to make the recordings, how would she know? If she let herself fly away forever, who would tell her what became of her children? After this, Resit would probably never leave Earth again.

“Al Shei!”

“Lipinski?” she murmured. Al Shei’s legs kicked out, as if there was a current she could fight against. “Help me.”

No, Beloved. Don’t leave me.

“Asil,” she gasped, flailing with her arms, trying to steady herself, stop the ceaseless rolling around her. “Don’t do this to me, Beloved.”

I love you. You’re tired. You don’t have to go back.

Her helmet vibrated and her ears heard “thunk!” A silver lasso glided past her faceplate. Wonderingly, she reached out and grasped the noose. She tilted backwards to look along its length and saw the bulk of the Pasadena at the other end. The rope tugged in her hand and her tired fingers tightened around it automatically. She could see a suited figure leaning out the half-open airlock. Probably Schyler. Yerusha would be in the pilot’s chair, worrying about thrust, velocity and drift. Only Schyler would be stupid enough to stand in the airlock and watch the winch do its work.

Katmer.

She closed her eyes, but what she really wanted to close was her mind. She wanted to close off the treacherous voice of love that beckoned her to the stars, but it wouldn’t be silenced.

With all the strength she had left, Al Shei clung to the life line and let it pull her back to the Pasadena.

Al Shei stood on the balcony, letting her fingertips rest lightly on the railing. The breeze, smelling of plants and dust, tugged at her clothes and brushed against her eyes. Vashti was down in the courtyard with a couple of her teammates, practising. Muhammad was in his room studying. Uncle Ahmet and Grandmother had found someone else to bother. Even Resit, back from securing Tully an eight-year work-and-surveillance sentence, had decided it might be better to keep away for awhile.

So she stood outside, using up her open-air ration without purpose. Just standing without responsibilities or duties. Just trying not to wonder what she was going to do next.

Uncle Ahmet had made it perfectly clear he would support any job she chose to take up, as long as it didn’t involve leaving the Solar system. He even offered to buy her a shuttle and set her up on the Inner Planets run, if she persisted in her need to get off Earth.

And for five minutes, she had actually considered it.

Grandmother had suggested that she consolidate her resources and purchase a husband, a good one, of course, with references, so she could go back to the Pasadena and still leave the children with a father and family.

And for five minutes she had considered that.

Resit had suggested she just snap out of it.

Which was probably the best suggestion she’d heard in weeks. Al Shei leaned both elbows on the railing and rubbed her hands together. The palms and scrub that surrounded the apartment building rattled in the fresh breeze. Tiny insects buzzed around her face. She didn’t bother to shoo them away. Her wrist band beeped, reminding her she had ten minutes to get indoors before she risked a fine for potential un-balancing of recovery efforts. She ignored it.

“Katmer?” Ruqaiyya’s voice sounded through the balcony intercom. Reflex made Al Shei want to answer “Engine here.” She caught herself just in time.

“What is it?”

“There’s a ‘Ster Matthew Havelock here to see you, Katmer. He’s a Guild Master for the Fools, he says.” Her voice was incredulous, as if she couldn’t believe anyone would admit to being any such thing.

“I know what he is, ‘Qai. Have somebody put him in the front room. I’ll come in.”

She straightened up and smoothed down her hijab . She was not upset. She was not even really surprised. That bothered some small part of her. She should have felt something more than this bland acceptance. She should have felt something more than this since she came back to Earth. But she’d stayed away from the news broadcasts and the votes and the endless, endless discussion of what the colony of AIs meant. At family dinners, she’d heard that an attack against the Guild Hall had been repelled by the Fools. The attack had been condemned by the Management Union and several major colonies who were already in negotiations with the Guild. Fools were still needed to keep trade functioning smoothly, it seemed, and the Guild was offering to train regular humans in exchange for being left in peace. She’d also heard that Uncle Ahmet’s absences from the supper table were caused by all-night strategy sessions as the Fools sent representatives directly to the banks to try to work out some sort of barter system. Uncle Ahmet was against it. He was reminding the boards about the death of his son-in-law.