Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

Terson banked starboard, scanning the cloudless blue sky for the pod but spied instead the spacecraft’s smoking wreckage as it vanished over the horizon. A plume of steam rose into the air a split second later. “Do you see it?” he asked.

Virene didn’t answer. She sat frozen, her legs braced against the floorboards and fingers digging into the armrests, eyes squeezed shut. Her lids spasmed open and shut again at the sound of his voice, then stayed open. Her body relaxed with a loud exhalation. “You bastard! ”

“Sorry. Didn’t scare you, did I?”

“ Scare me? Why would—if you— Oh! ” She crossed her arms haughtily and turned as much of her back to him as the seat harness permitted. “Is that what you’re looking for?” she demanded, pointing at the escape pod spiraling down several degrees farther along its arc.

They reached the pod moments after it splashed down. The hull had buckled under the impact, tearing open a gash that vanished below the waterline. Terson scrambled out of the cockpit and grabbed his diving mask.

“You can’t go in there,” Virene said incredulously. “The thing is sinking as we watch!”

“It won’t take long. I’ll be careful.”

“You better be!” she yelled as he stepped off the deck. He swam to the handholds and crawled up to the pod’s escape hatch. The release resisted at first, then popped and blew the door away.

Displaced air sighed through the hatch. The pod dropped beneath Terson as the ocean, no longer impeded by air pressure, rushed in from below. Luminous webs of light reflecting from the water inside danced across the interior walls. Two of the occupied seats had broken loose and crushed the occupants to death against the bulkhead. Two more crewmen, a man and a woman, lay flaccid in their restraints while water rose around them. The man turned his head and moaned when a wavelet splashed across his face.

Terson hoisted himself into the opening and lowered himself by one arm until his toes touched the water, crossed his legs and let go. Debris swirled around his hips. Shorted power supplies filled the air with a haze of smoke and the stench of ozone. He moved quickly to unbuckle the crewman’s crash harness and pulled him out of the seat, letting the spacer’s life jacket support his weight as he towed the man back to the hatchway.

The water beneath the hatch was almost up to Terson’s armpits, and he looked at the opening with consternation. Without the crewman’s help there was no way to get him up to it—but the water could do the work for him. Terson jumped up and caught the lip of the opening with his strong hand. The crewman floated nearly half a meter below him, out of reach.

Within a few seconds, however, the water rose to the level where Terson could catch the front of the man’s life jacket. He set his grip and lifted the crewman out of the water. The cords in his neck throbbed as he raised the dead weight over his head, simultaneously hoisting himself up with his other arm until the man’s torso flopped over the edge of the hatch and gravity carried him over the side.

Virene snagged the spacer under the arm with a dock hook and pulled him alongside the hydrojet. Their eyes locked in the instant before Terson dropped back into the pod. She yelled something as he vanished, but it was lost in the hiss and crackle of shorting circuits.

The female spacer was completely under water. Terson ducked under to release her straps and she popped to the surface, buoyed by her life jacket. He pulled her toward the hatch, now less than a meter above the water line. A pocket of air somewhere below escaped in an explosion of foam and the pod rolled to compensate for its altered center of gravity.

The hatch vanished and debris rained from the new ceiling. Terson dove for the submerged opening only to be brought up short by the woman’s life jacket. He turned back to release it in time to dodge aside as the seats ripped loose in the crash swept past him with their gruesome occupants. The wreckage landed against the hatchway, totally blocking it.

Terson sucked a great lungful of air from the shrinking pocket over his head and dove, abandoning the spacer to save his own life. He tugged at the seats jamming his escape, but could not find the leverage he needed to shift them. The urge to breathe overwhelmed him and he exhaled, giving up what air remained in his lungs.

The pod rolled again, and the wreckage blocking his path rushed toward him. A piece of debris tore the mask from his face. Seawater rushed into his eyes, but not before he’d seen what lay beyond the hatch—water. The pod had sunk, carrying Terson down with it.

Virene watched in horror as the pod went under. She stared at the spot it once occupied while the gentle swell of the ocean erased the ripples it left behind.

The comprehension of what had happened struck her heart an agonizing blow. Virene raised her fists to her temples and uttered a ragged, grieving wail. She turned a slow circle, searching the empty ocean for some sign she was not alone. Huge bubbles burst from the depths, carrying up scraps of padding and insulation. A moment later the body of another spacer bobbed to the surface, Terson’s muscular arm hooked in its life jacket.

Virene snatched a dock bumper and dove in, cutting through the water like an eel. She pulled his face out of the water and lodged the bumper under his armpits. Supporting his head with her hands in front of her, she used both thumbs to pinch his nose shut, clamped her mouth over his and blew.

Terson’s diaphragm tightened reflexively. Virene pulled away as his body shook, expelling water and replacing it with air. He came to and looked around with a dazed expression. “That was close.”

Virene slapped water into his face, though she felt like killing him. “ Close? I told you not to go back in!”

“You did?”

She splashed him again. “Why do I bother? You never listened to me before; why should you start now?” Virene was too relieved to see him alive for her anger to last, however. She held him tightly when they got back on the boat, oblivious to the spacer still lying on the deck next to them until a rattle escaped from his throat.

Virene’s face went white. “Terson I-I think he just died!”

“See if you can raise the portmaster in Saint Anatone,” Terson said. She nodded and walked forward to the cockpit. Terson climbed to his feet, still shaky. The spacer hadn’t died, but Terson suspected he wouldn’t reach shore alive. He carried the man down to the main cabin and wrapped a blanket around him, then retrieved the woman’s body.

“There will be a medic waiting in port,” Virene said when he climbed into the cockpit. Her color was back, but her speech and movements were uncharacteristically directed and formal.

“I guess you’ve never seen a corpse before.”

“My grandmother, at a funeral,” she said, “but she didn’t look dead.”

The medics boarded as soon as they made fast at the marina in Saint Anatone, but pronounced the man dead after a cursory examination. “I suggest you grab anything you need,” one told Terson. “The police will seal up your boat until they decide whether or not it’s a crime scene.”

Virene came down while he packed their bags. “What about the tent and the rest?” she asked when she saw the luggage.

“We’ll go back for it later,” he said.

“So much for the honeymoon,” Virene scowled.

“I know a nice place up the coast,” Terson offered.

Virene buried her face in his shoulder. “Tell me nothing like that could happen to you.”

“I could,” he said softly, “but I’d be lying.”

“So lie.”