Posted 3/9/00
The drugs surged through his system like drain cleaner. The pain made his muscles contract violently, despite their fatigue. His dry throat managed a scratched, dry bellow as he jackknifed, tearing IVs and electrodes from his cold, yellowing skin. He screamed again.
Sitting up, his breath came in heavy gasps, burning his lungs. Cold sweat flecked his head and arms. His vision was still nothing more than white blobs but his brain told him where he was: recovery. He was out of hyper, which meant he was there.
"Sir?" said a gentle female voice, confusing him. "Sir, it's all right. You need to just relax. Lie back down, let the drugs do their work for a few minutes. Just take your time."
Right. Passenger flight. He laughed silently to himself to think that he'd forgotten that sort of thing. Passenger flights have staff, people to take care of you. Just another piece of culture shock in his new life. He sank back down into the booth and smiled grimly. Maybe he could get used to this.
Passengers are designed to be easy to navigate, but with the white-noise burning through his brain, it took all his concentration. He kept one hand against the wall to steady himself, and he just trusted that following it along would lead him where he wanted to go. If he went wrong, of course, he knew there would be some gorgeous twenty-year old in a crisp, pressed GEO uniform to point him back the right way with her soft, perfect voice. He wondered where exactly they found them all, if there was some school they all went to, and when they graduated they became stewardesses. Or newsreaders. He briefly wondered why he'd never met any of them.
His vision cleared enough to recognise that the flashing orange sign in front of him did in fact say Seating Area. He grabbed the first seat and strapped himself in, waist, feet, head, done. He closed his eyes and assumed the position, waiting for the drop.
Ten seconds later, he opened his eyes. His vision was now totally clear, allowing him to realise he was completely alone, except for a small handful of the gorgeous stewardesses. Fuck, he thought. He'd thought he'd been moving slowly.
A passing stewardess beamed at him "You're a quick riser, sir!". He just nodded, then waved away her offer of a magazine while he waited. Even if it took another hour for the rest of the travellers to make it to re-entry seating, he couldn't read. Not in the chairs. When you were in the chairs, all you did was think about the drop. Not the mission, just the drop; that first stomach-tearing moment when the pylons let go and the whole ton of steel dropped away into freefall, thousands of miles up in space. For five whole seconds, you fell faster and faster, and then, finally, the engines would kick in. It was the most terrifying thing in the world. It was a feeling that no-one - not even the toughest gennied supersol - ever got used to.
Well, not him anyway, he thought. And he pretty much fit the definition of your typical hard-core, genetically perfected contract supersol. Or he had done, once. But that was on another planet, and all those boys were dead now. Now, he was just another civilian. Nobody knew; the stewardesses treated him the same as everybody else. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and waited.
It was ironic, he thought. With one stroke, he'd ended his military career. And yet the first thing he'd done as a civilian was something straight out of the military routine: jump a sleeper to some out-lying hunk of the solar system, another god-awful drop, another new planet.
Poseidon, to be precise. The first and only live planet. Not a dome - a real, water-based living planet. That made it the destination of choice for the pioneering civilian these days, even if it was so damn far away. He'd hoped the crowds would help cover his tracks. He also hoped it was a good place to hide. He needed to feel safe for a while.
"Sir?" said another soft, gentle voice in his ear. He was surprised but his muscles remained rock steady. He turned just his head with clockwork precision.
"Yes?"
"Sir, are you travelling alone?" said a brunette who could have sold biowaste if she stood next to it in a bikini.
"Yes" he said, without emotion.
"Well, sir, we were wondering if you could help us out. There's a little girl travelling with us and she doesn't have any family. She's never done a re-entry before. Would you mind if she sat with you for the trip?"
His first instinct was to laugh, but it caught in his still-cold lungs and became a choked-off cough.
"You don't have to do anything in particular," she soothed, "just make sure she's OK, you know. So she doesn't feel alone"
In the chairs, you don't argue, you don't question. You sit down, you shut up and you wait.
"Fine" he said.
The woman walked off and returned holding the hand of a girl, still groggily wiping the sleep out of her eyes. Her teddy-bear motif travel clothes belied her age. He'd put her about nine, maybe even ten. Better than he'd hoped.
"Hey." he said as she pulled herself into the seemingly huge chair beside him. "You ever done a drop before?"
"Nggggk," she snorted sleepily. "Nope. Have you?"
He laughed sharply. "Kid, I've done more drops than you've had rides to school"
She smiled blearily. "I don't go to school"
"Well, whatever. I've done it a lot"
"Why?"
"Never mind. You have to get your harness on." In silence, he showed her how to adjust the chair to her height and pulled the restraints around her. The stewardess doing the final safety check only needed a cursory glance to see they were perfect.
After a while, the girl turned to him. "Is this going to be scary?".
Rane shrugged, tasting again the gorge that filled his mouth every time.
"A bit, but only for the first few seconds"
"OK" she nodded, relieved.
There was another pause. Then, restless, the girl began to squirm, trying to get comfortable under the straps. He watched her with curiosity for a few minutes, wondering why he no longer found them irritating.
"Hey kid" he said as she stopped twisting around, resigned to the fact that no position would actually be comfortable. "what's y'name?"
"Um, 's 'lizabeth"
"Hey" he responded. He extended a hand as best he could. "Rane, Rane -" he began, then stopped. He'd forgotten the name he'd used for his passport. "- is my name" he finished quickly, but the child didn't seem to notice. She shook his hand carefully, as if she'd never done it before.
"Pleased to meet you" she said with well-rehearsed precision. Then they lapsed back into silence for a few more moments.
"So, kid," he offered, "er, where're your parents then?".
"Back home" she sighed.
"They didn't come with you?"
"Nope" she said with distaste.
Rane paused. "Huh" he said, with genuine reflection. He knew the situation - she'd be sent away to be 'safe'. It happened a lot. "Tough break." The girl didn't respond.
"So you got someone waiting for you on the surface?"
"Uhuh. My aunt and uncle. Patrick and Cheryl Morrison" she parroted.
"You like them?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders far more than necessary, like she was copying the mannerism without understanding it. "I never met them. They left before I was born"
"They your only family off-Earth?"
"Um. No. But I have to go to Poseidon. They said"
"Why's that?"
"I've got, um, Enderson's bronchial dysplasia" she enunciated, showing she'd learnt the word through many, many pronunciations. "So I'm not allowed to breath recycled air, or I'll die"
"Huh"
"I'm not even supposed to breathe Earth air, you know."
"That's tough"
"Yeah. I almost died once, when I was a little girl. Because we went to London." She paused. "Have you ever been to London?"
"Nope" Rane shook his head.
"I don't remember it much - I was too little. There are some pretty churches though."
"Yeah, so I hear"
"So my parents said I had to go to Poseidon. So I won't get sick or anything any more"
"Good plan" said Rane.
The girl shrugged, clearly unimpressed. "You ever been to Poseidon?"
"Nope" he said again.
"Me neither" she said wistfully.
And for a moment, they were strangely content with this common bond. They sat in a relaxed silence as the stewardesses finished their standard safety spiel. Then the lights went out and the alarms sounded.
He leant back and closed his eyes. Then, in the darkness, he heard the girl whisper apprehensively:
"It's supposed to be pretty down there, isn't it?"
"Yeah, so I hear" he said again, without opening his eyes.
"I don't think they have any churches though" she added, thoughtfully.
He smiled in the blackness. "Probably not"
Then there was the hum as the outer doors opened, and the shuddering as the pylons took the weight. For a second there was just stillness and anticipation. Then came the deafening crunch, and the ship dropped away into nothingness. And for the first time in his life, Rane didn't scream.