Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

“While the reactor is at cruising power?” Too late, Mariska realized that she had spoken without permission. This time Beep was more forgiving.

“I’ve damped it down.” He nodded at the energy rack. “Besides, how else am I going to sort ice from ore?” His grin was bleak. “But thanks for your concern, young Volochkova. I do realize that radiation isn’t my friend.”

Didit laughed nervously. The others glared at Mariska as if she were trying to kill them: They were fine with letting Beep risk the exposure. After all, he was senior monkey.

“So, FiveFord and Glint, get Apple and Cherry started for the porch. Didit, lower the air pressure in the airlock to four-tenths of a bar.” He pushed off and floated over them. “Young Volochkova, you come with me to Service and help prep the suit. That way you can wash all those worries about my safety.”

On their way downspine, Beep caught himself at the hatch to Wardroom A. “I need my coolwear.” He waved her on. “Power my suit up and start the checklist. I’ll be down in two kicks.”

There were a dozen spacesuits bungeed to the walls of Service. Most of them hadn’t been touched in years. As part of their cargo chores, however, Glint and Richard had powered five of them up regularly during the run to make sure they still worked. They were all low pressure, which meant Beep needed to prebreathe oxygen before the spacewalk to keep from getting the bends. Since Beep had been aboard the Shining Legend for more than a decade, he had a custom-fitted suit. Mariska opened it, plugged its battery cord into the fastcharge outlet and started its power on self-test. She was moving through the rest of the checklist when Beep flew in.

He had the hood of his coolwear pulled back, but otherwise it covered his entire body. The white of the fabric made the deep flush on Beep’s face stand out. When Richard exerted himself, he just turned red. Beep was practically purple and was sucking in huge gulps of air

Mariska could see beads of sweat at his hairline. “Beep,” she said, “tell me you’re not high.”

“Borrowing some courage is all.” He landed in front of the oxygen bar. “And don’t be warming my ears about it.” He clapped the mask over his face, and glared at her.

Back in Command, she had suspected that something was wrong with him. Now she was certain of it. But there was nothing she could do, so she went back to the checklist. After fifteen minutes, he pulled the mask away and thrust the override card at her. “Hold this while I suit up.”

She took it and he raised his arms. Mariska grasped his waist. She could feel the pulse of the coolant in his coolwear, which was designed to keep the spacesuit from overheating. She raised him over her head and jiggled him through the suit’s opening

He fit his arms into the sleeves but then paused. “How many oxygen bottles do I have?”

“Two,” she said. “Checklist calls for two, primary and backup.” She didn’t understand why he was asking. Two four-thousand-cubic-centimeter bottles had been the standard design spec since before she was born.

“How many are left?”

She shrugged.

“Go look.”

Mystified, she opened the locker, counted thirty-seven filled and fourteen empty bottles. She reported this.

“Worth knowing.” He finished sealing himself into the suit. “Worth remembering. So, let’s dance.”

She handed him his helmet to carry, unbungeed him from the wall and tugged on the suit’s tether. He bobbed behind her like a man-sized balloon as she pulled him downspine to Storage D.

The air was already thinning in the airlock and it felt colder than it actually was. Beep turned on his boot magnets, enabling him to stand upright in front of her. She was expecting him to fit the helmet onto the suit’s collar so she could lock it down. He surprised her.

“Not yet, young Volochkova. Time for a quick chat. You have the override?”

She offered it to him. He shook his head.

“I’m leaving it with you for now. That means you’re in charge in case anything spills. I am thinking that you can make the hard decisions. At least, Natalya could.”

Mariska wasn’t her mother; for some reason Beep still wouldn’t accept that. “But Richard is senior to me. And Glint…”

He snorted. “FiveFord could drown in a glass of water. He should go back to Earth and dig holes with all those muscles. Only he’d probably fall in. And Glint… poor Glint is broken.” He pointed at the override. “You show them the override and tell them I said.”

“What is this, Beep?” She tucked it into the pocket of her coverall.

“This?” He smirked. “Just a little walk. La-la-la . But before I go… Remember the fakes I showed you? Ah, I thought you might. So that was just a little joke. The fakes never existed, or at least, you saw all there was of them. All that I made.”

“ You? ”

“I like to stir the soup, Natalya.” His laugh had a chemical edge. “The runs are so damn long, too damn boring. Hard to stay interested. So we play tricks. It’s tradition, how bucket monkeys keep from going crazy.”

Mariska felt suddenly dizzy in the thin air, afraid to say what she was thinking. “Why tell me this now?”

“I’d say it was conscience, if I had one.” His mouth tightened. He raised the helmet over his head and stared into it. “Time to go.”

“Wait.” She caught at the front of his suit. “That was a lie about the raw ice, wasn’t it? And the leftover salt—that can’t possibly work. And you—you’re going to get a crazy dose of radiation….”

“One less mouth to breathe.” Beep stuck his chin out at her. “You’ll know what to do when the time comes.” He lowered the helmet onto his head. She wanted to hammer on it, get him to stop, make all of this go away. Instead she locked it to his suit.

By the time she got back to Command, Beep had already turned Banana downspine and was accelerating toward the buckets. The others watched the screen that showed the crawler’s camera, but Mariska was fixed on the overview that the Eye saw.

“He’s going kind of fast.” Richard was beginning to suspect what Mariska already knew.

“Then tell him to slow down,” said Didit.

Beep must have turned his boot magnets off. On the Eye, she saw that they had come off the racing crawler and his only contact was the joystick which he grasped with both hands. His legs swung upward relative to the surface of the ship until he was upside down. He looked like a gymnast doing a handstand as the crawler hurtled toward the buckets.

“Call him,” said Richard. “Glint?”

“Doesn’t work.”

“It’s dead. He must have disabled it.”

Glint’s hand trembled as she pointed at the Eye’s screen. Didit was sobbing.

“Override it.”

“With what?”

“ Stop him .”

At the exact moment the crawler crashed into the bucket, Beep released his hold. His momentum flung him clear of the Shining Legend , tumbling helmet over boot.

They watched as he applied gas thrusters to correct his wild rotation.

They watched him spread his arms to embrace the darkness as he shot away from the ship.

They watched in shock as he faded to a speck of space debris and was gone.

“Still, you could have stopped him,” said Richard.

“How?” Mariska was tired of their accusations. The weight of what she had done—and not done—was crushing her.

“You could have.”

Glint was no help. She had kicked her slippers free of the deck burrs and was floating aimlessly around Command. She seemed not to notice when she bumped into things.

“But we still have ice,” said Didit. “Who’s going to fetch the ice?”