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16: A NOWER

"Youth is a blunder, manhood to a struggle and old age a regret."

—BENJAMIN DISRASLI

I hadn't seen anyone die since my youth. No, let me qualify that. Of course I'd seen casualties of war zones, but that was just the Reel. Luminous pixels in purple-and-gold metavision. When we browsed Verinne's playbacks of agitators burning, bleeding, breaking apart and flying to pieces, we coded in frames and special effects and descriptive captions, and the dying workers shrank to bit-maps of data. To us seasoned surfers, war dead counted no more than bets placed, time elapsed and winnings paid.

Okay, that's not true, either. The Reel bothered me. Lately, I'd been feeling more uneasy than ever, and sometimes when we watched the playbacks, the taste of lychee juice would well up at the back of my throat. Then I'd have to rush out of the screening room and throw up. I used to be able to hide it better, and for the sake of the Agonists, I still tried to keep up the bravado.

But not here in Heaven. That feeble voice from sick-ward harrowed me. The boy was suffering. All these protes should have been decently euthanized weeks ago.

Right, I know what you're thinking. But before you accuse me of cold-blooded murder, try living through a market collapse. Witness the sea rise over your native coastline, and watch your national government expire in a matter of days. Root frantically through your basement for an antique radio because angry mobs have ripped down all the Net links. Burn your last tank of petrol driving the back roads to Lahore, praying your wife is still alive. Then lie alone on a warehouse roof, feeding old batteries through your radio, and listen while your whole family dies in a traffic jam. After that, call me a murderer.

I couldn't get back to Calcutta mat day. I couldn't stop the panicked drivers from crushing each other's vehicles against the bases of buildings. I couldn't get there in time to unlock the broken doors. I couldn't . . .

Euthanasia is humane. It's painless and quick, and there are many things worse than death. Many things . . . You wonder how I could still think that way after meeting Heaven's juveniles face-to-face, sharing their food and listening to their dreams. True, I'd grown fond of them— some of them. But you still couldn't convince me mat their handful of short, dreary lives would ever be more important man a stable world.

Yes, I fled from the voice in sick-ward, across the anteroom and down the evil ladder to Three. I ran through the dark corridors, following the beam of my flashlight, till I found Juani lying unconscious on the floor of his generator closet. Graven gods. Had he died, too?

"Breathe, Juani. Breathe." My beam danced over his sprawling body and stopped at his gap-toothed grin.

"Man, you so slow, I take a siesta."

Freaking hell. I had to rest against the wall to compose myself. Why did the sight of this teenager's acne-pocked face bring me such relief?

"All switches off. You can mash your CAES anytime you like," I lied. Deck Four's switches were still on, but I rationalized that it probably wouldn't make a difference.

"Hey, blade, you slow but sure. Where's Kai-Kai?"

"She's with Nobi," I said.

In the near darkness, I heard the boy sigh. Then he jabbed his old keyboard as if he wanted to punish it. This time, he didn't explain what he was doing, but I could hear the compressor firing up and forcing air into the rank of titanium bottles lined against the wall. He was storing potential energy in his CAES.

But the compressor was a fossil. It sputtered and complained, and the tanks filled slowly. Minutes dragged by until a reading finally appeared on Juani's gauge. I asked, "How long will this take?"

'Till the blue light come on."

"Well, make a rough guess. Half an hour? Less? More?"

"Half a what? A Nower?"

He wasn't wearing a watch. Evidently, timekeeping eluded the precocious young minds of Heaven. Okay, I could go with that I crouched and watched the screen till the blue light came on.

"Now what?' I said.

"We do a black start. Make a plus sign for me."

"Plus sign?'

Juani angled the flashlight beam to show me his crossed fingers. The screen glow lighted his huge grin. "It means hoping for good news."

With fingers still crimped together, he punched a rapid series of keys. Then he cocked his head sideways, listening. I didn't hear a sound. No woofing, sluicing or whirring in the walls. No creaking hull. Nothing.

"Hm." Juani tapped one key several times in a row and watched the screen. Then he scrolled and tapped another rapid string of code. The lights blinked once, and a sound reared up like a wild animal roaring through its death throes. Then nothing. Darkness and silence.

"Man, don't let go that plus sign. I'm gonna try one more thing."

Before he could touch a key, a different noise started up, a thumping rattle in the ladder well. Someone was pounding on the hatch from below. Juani shot to his feet. "The chief. He want in, but I can't juice the airlock yet. Man, I hope he's not in trouble." The boy looked back and forth from the thumping noise to his dim little screen.

"Does the hatch have a manual override?" I asked.

"You mean hand-operated? Yeah. It's this red lever, and a bellows pops out of the floor. Then you go pump air with your foot"

I was already halfway to the well, casting my flashlight beam toward the red lever. I didn't ask what a bellows was. "I'll find it. You do your black start."

"Keep that plus sign tight, blade. Tight!" he called after me.

I did, too. I curled my two fingers together so firmly that my knuckles cracked. Apparently it worked, because just as I reached for the red lever, the well's incandescent lights blinked on, and the lock started running through its cycle, filling with compressed air. Juani's black start had succeeded. Thank the golden gods, I didn't have to pump air with my foot.

Moments later, the hatch slid open, and Liam and Geraldine climbed out. Liam was carrying the welder's battery on one shoulder like Mr. Universe, and Geraldine snarled, "Move outta the way, commie."

This irked me in the extreme, considering my only purpose had been to help them. I ground my teeth and let the evil wench pass. Liam gave me a civil nod.

"Have you got it sealed off?" I asked. "How long till we can repressurize?"

"I seal your runny mouth," said Geraldine. . .

Her high-pitched gibe pushed me over the edge, and I tossed out a nasty wisecrack. "While you were screwing around, Nobi was dying."

At that, they both halted, and Geraldine's emerald eyes went wide. Liam set his welder down and thoughtfully rubbed his hands, but Geraldine yelled, "You lie."

My remark was unbelievably crass, I know. You have to understand how angry that girl made me. She exercised zero control of her emotions. Liam touched her arm, but that didn't stop Geraldine. She slapped my chest with her open hand, knocking me backward.

"Your 'xec friends split our hull. Now they coming aboard to euth' us." She walloped my chest again and forced me farther back. "Stupid 'xecs, all they gotta do is go wait. Sooner later, we all be dead."

"Gee." One cautionary word from Liam shut her up. He raked a strand of yellow hair out of his eyes. 'Truly, Nobi is gone?"

"I'm not sure," I answered, shamefaced. "He sounded bad when I left"

Liam motioned with his head, and Geraldine reluctantly moved off toward the generator closet. Then the chief nodded at me. "Will you help carry this battery?"

He lifted one end and waited for me to lift the other. He'd scuffed my white space suit pretty badly, but what caught my eye was the thruster harnessed to his back—the good one that hadn't been damaged. I also took note of the helmet clipped to his belt. When he took off that gear, maybe I could lay hands on it and slip outside. If Provendia's troops really were attempting to board, I wouldn't have far to go.

With a shrug, I gripped the other end of the battery, and we lifted together. The thing weighed only a few kilos in Three's reduced gravity—Liam didn't need my assistance. At the time, I thought he was hassling me, but looking back, I believe he was trying in his mute, primitive way to soothe my feelings.

He and I carried the battery into the generator closet, where Juani was waiting with his recharger cables. While Geraldine helped hook up the connections, Liam said, "Be calm, Nasir. You safe here." It seemed as if he wanted to add something. His lips opened. The straw-colored braid had fallen forward across his chest, and with an unconscious gesture, he flung it behind his back. Then he closed his mouth and returned to the ladder well.

I followed and spied while he stowed my thruster behind the ladder and climbed up toward sick-ward. As soon as he closed himself into the safety hatch, I grabbed the thruster and checked its diagnostics. Good. All systems functional. But I needed the helmet and EVA suit as well.

So I pursued him up to Four. I tiptoed into the anteroom just in time to see him disappear into sick-ward, and I caught the door to keep it from closing all the way.

"Liam." The warmth of Sheeba's voice made me knot my fists. I hid behind the door to listen.

Liam said, "How's he doing, Doc?"

If Vlad spoke, I didn't hear it. Nobi's hoarse voice answered instead. "Chief, you don't have to whisper. I going into the garden."

Kaioko moaned, "Not yet, Nobi."

"But I want to," her brother said.

Kaioko started chirruping again, and Sheeba murmured consoling phrases. "There, now. It's okay. He's just resting."

I tried to feel scorn for all this sentimental crap, to pretend the black sorrow opening in my chest was only a stomach cramp from the awful chili. But I'd had a brother once.

Raju. Without warning, a pocket of suppressed memories opened up inside me like a gaseous burble erupting from a buried landfill. I hadn't thought of my brother in decades. Raju died mat day in Calcutta. My parents died then, too. Sometimes I forgot their names. Sanjay and Gaeti. They were trampled two blocks from their front door. My father used to cook chicken tandoori.

Vlad said, "Nobi, won't you try one sip of water?'

Sheeba whispered in a singsong chant, "It's okay. Your brother's going to be fine."

My brother didn't exist any longer, not anywhere. His memory lay deep under the rising waters of Bengal Bay. Time had moved on.

"Hold on to him, sir!" shrieked Kaioko.

And Sheeba cried, "He's gone."

At the sound of Shee's voice, I crammed a knuckle in my mouth. The pain in my chest was not grief. That boy meant nothing to me. I'd never seen him. I barely knew Kaioko. Poor, innocent Shee shouldn't have to witness this kind of thing. It was the Reel. Only the Reel.

When Kaioko burst into sobs, I felt ashamed of eaves-dropping and moved away from the door. My face burned. So the boy was dead. Score one for whose side now? I tried to summon up the war surfer's emotional armor, but there was no purple-and-gold metavision to give me perspective. I spread my hands and stared at my glossy fake fingernails. This—whatever this emotion was—it felt too actual. I turned to flee—and ran straight into Geraldine.

"Chief, the commies invaded. They inside Two." Geraldine elbowed past me, but she came to an abrupt halt halfway through the sick-ward door. "Oh gosh."

She stepped inside. They were all together now, while I waited in the anteroom, gnawing at my artificial nails. No one spoke, and even Kaioko's sobs were muffled. I imagined her biting into Geraldine's shirt the way she had bitten into mine.

Liam was the first to appear through the doorway, followed by Sheeba, then Vlad. I shrank against the wall. Sounds filtered from sick-ward, Kaioko and Geraldine sobbing quietly at Nobi's beside.

In the anteroom, Vlad slumped against the steel table and closed his eyes. A pair of forceps tumbled from one of his bulging pockets and jangled on the floor, and Liam picked them up with a distracted air.

Sheeba's eyelids were swollen, and sweat mashed her hair flat on one side. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her arms did not swing when she moved. At first, she didn't notice me standing in the shadows. She raised her hand as if to touch Liam's shoulder, but at the last minute, she hesitated and shied away. At the little sink, she stood vacantly, staring at the drain.

Liam rapped the blinking fluorescent tube with his fist. "Jeez. This light!" When he hit it again, the greenish tube stopped flashing and gave a steady glow.

Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose. His crooked face looked gray, and when Kaioko's sobs momentarily rose in sick-ward, he swung his arm angrily at the rack of pinkish vials. "All my stupid mixes. They garbage."

The tubes would have fallen to the floor if Liam hadn't caught them. "Be calm, Doc." He restored the rack to the table, then rested a hand on Vlad's shoulder and examined one of the vials. "Sooner later, these mixes go work."

Sheeba washed her face and hands at the sink, then wiped them on the front of her uniform and wrapped her arms around Vlad. Funny, she wasn't the least bit shy with the medic. A trace of her former zeal returned when she said, "We need you, Vlad. You're our best hope."

Who did she mean by "we"? Sheeba and I didn't have their filthy disease. We were execs. They were agitators. I tried to catch her eye, but she was too intent on comforting the sorry medic.

Liam arched his spine with a popping sound, and I noticed he was taller than Shee. For some reason, this trivial detail affected me beyond proportion. It didn't seem fair. I'd gone through so much effort to be tall, and he hadn't done anything.

In hindsight, many facts become clearer. Sheeba's empathy with these dying juves was inevitable. She'd chosen a career of caregiving, and here were the archetypal suffering victims in need of her skill. Then, too, they were all so young. I didn't want to believe that made a difference, but it did.

Liam crossed the tiny room and pressed his ear to the steel wall. "Gee say 'xecs coming aboard. And we got people trapped on One and Two." His baritone stayed low and steady, though his quivering jaw betrayed the strain he was under.

Vlad folded his arms. "Do we have a plan?"

"First, we get the people. Then we push out the 'xecs. Gee and Kai-Kai gotta take Nobi to the garden. So I need every one of you." Liam looked pointedly at me. I didn't realize he'd seen me till then.

"Do we have weapons?" Sheeba asked. My peace-loving Sheeba wanted weapons?

"We got the welding rig." Liam rubbed his chin. "Go see if you can find Juani."

Unbelievably, Sheeba snapped to attention and dashed away like a gung-ho trooper.

A short while later, the five of us descended into the thin frigid air of Two's ladder well—Juani, Sheeba, Vlad, Liam and me. Do you wonder why I allowed Liam to draft me into combat? We were going EVA, the chance I'd been waiting for.

"Stay quiet," Liam whispered.

The commies were just on the other side of Two's Down door. (The commies—listen to me. I'm starting to talk like Geraldine.)

Liam had sealed the blown-out door and reinforced it with heavy sheet metal, but Two's ladder well was still re-pressurizing. My ears crackled and ached as denser air escaped through my eustachian tubes. The ladder felt ice-cold through my gloves. Liam warned us not to touch anything with our bare hands. Our breath made clouds.

Geraldine had given me her leaky space suit, but I delayed putting on the collapsible helmet. The nasty thing looked like a wad of duct tape dangling from my belt. Worse, the scary old suit had no self-sealing capability. One rip would mean total death.

Liam and Vlad wore the new white suits, and Sheeba wore a gray one only marginally more functional than mine. Juani shivered bravely in nothing but his inside-out uniform, work boots and gardening gloves. Apparently, these four suits represented A13's entire inventory of EVA gear. Ye gilt, were we really planning to brave hard vacuum in these getups? Yes, for a little while, we would have to.

Liam's plan was simple and hopeless. After we rescued the kiddies, we would exit through Deck Two's airlock, then circle around to where Provendia's well-armed troops were entering through the ruptured hull. The plan was to ambush the troops with chains, boots and one welding torch. Yeah, that's right.

My plan, of course, was different. Once outside, I would grab Shee and surrender to the Provendia troops. What could be easier?

Juani tried to open the door leading into the pressurized section of Two. He looked chilled and vulnerable without a space suit, but since he suffered from spacesickness, he couldn't go EVA. When the door's wheel refused to budge, Liam and Vlad added their strength. Still, the wheel wouldn't turn. Apparently, the blowout had damaged its gasket

Sheeba joined in. They made quite a sight, four people trying to turn a one-half-meter wheel. Finally, I scrambled up on Juani's shoulders and kicked the top of the wheel with my boot. When the door let go, the pressurized air inside nearly broke its hinges. The gust threw us across the ladder well like a heap of crash dummies.

Imagine the bright light exploding from the solar plant. Feel how we squinted and covered our faces. After our long semidarkness, I felt as if my eyes were bleeding. My false optics usually adjusted for glare, but not this time—maybe because I'd missed that eye recalibration. Juani peeked through his fingers, and Vlad slowly uncovered his face. Liam unfolded two long scraps of gauze from his pocket. He tied one over his eyes and gave the other to Sheeba. Curse the graven gods, I wish I'd thought of mat.

The bevy of little trapped toads came pouring out through the bulkhead, cheering like foosball fans, and soon, everyone was hugging and laughing—molto syrupy moment. Slowly, the ambient temperature rose in the ladder well. Sheeba started handing the children up the ladder to Vlad, who cycled them in quiet groups through the safety lock. As she tickled their bellies and rubbed noses, I watched with relief. She was acting like her cheerful self again. Meanwhile, Juani hurried inside to restart the circulator pumps, and Liam cycled down to One to rescue the kids trapped there. I leaned against the wall and felt for the reassuring vibrations of whooshing and sluicing.

Eventually, we got used to the light, and Sheeba tugged her improvised mask down around her throat so she could work more easily. As she lifted the children, her slender muscles popped, and the white gauze danced around her throat like an air pilot's rakish silk scarf. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Never had I felt such excruciating love.

After the kids were safely stowed on the deck above, Liam led us into the ops bay, where the light was less severe. The overturned desks and office supplies sprawled in massive chaos, and we picked our way through with care.

"First, Vlad and I go outside, see what the 'xecs up to," Liam said. He nodded at Sheeba and me. "You wait here."

"But we can help," I said, eager to get out.

"Right, Liam. We're not babies." Sheeba zipped up her suit and pulled on her gloves.

He shook his head. 'Too dangerous."

"But—"

"No." He gave Sheeba a look that made her draw an exasperated breath. Then she sat on the floor to wait, and her luscious lips showed only a trace of a pout.

By now, I'd learned mere was no point in arguing with Liam, so I sat on the floor beside her. Inept as Liam might be with language, the punk knew how to get his way. So while Sheeba and I sweated in the overheated ops bay, Liam and Vlad slipped outside to run reconnaissance. Vlad would circle the tank prograde. Liam, retro. They would spy on the invading troops from opposite sides of the hull.

Juani joined us with a grin and a thumbs-up. His pimply, optimistic face reassured me. He said the circulator pumps were working just fine, and the air and water were flowing freely again. Even though spacewalking gave him vertigo, he still wanted to help with our mission, so while we waited, he layered more duct tape around our crumbling air hoses and entertained us with a stupid song about yellow bricks. By chance, I found a row of punctures in Sheeba's sleeve, and he helped me plug them with sealer glue. After that, I examined every square centimeter of her suit while Juani did the same for mine.

Damn these old suits. The manufacturer should have been sued for not installing a self-repair function. I slathered glue over every suspicious scuff mark. Sheeba remained quiet and still, which was not at all her usual style. The three adorable creases between her eyebrows deepened to grooves. Surf the moment, I kept telling myself, but these leaky suits unzipped my peace.

Vlad was the first to return. He said Provendia had a small troop carrier hovering outside, and he'd counted eight commies entering through the blown-out hull. He didn't get close, but from the rumbling noises in the walls, he thought they were trying to drill through Liam's patch into the ladder well. I asked why they didn't simply enter through the airlock, and Juani said the commies were too gutless to try that. Airlocks could be rigged with gas, he said, like euthanasia chambers.

"Would you do that?" Sheeba asked.

"We already did," Vlad said bitterly, and Sheeba whistled through her teeth.

Recalling my own passage through the airlock, I studied Vlad's lopsided face with new respect. Sheeba asked if the troops might come through the docking port on Deck One, but Juani said he and Geraldine had jammed the doors. I knew they'd sabotaged the dock, but I wanted details, and as usual, it wasn't hard to coax Juani into talking. He said they'd dumped five tons of fully loaded shipping pallets on top of the cargo doors so they wouldn't slide open.

"Sleek." Sheeba did the palm-to-palm prote handshake with Juani.

"Fully loaded with what?" I asked.

"Product, man. That pro-glu crap they eat on Earth."

Product? Heaven still had five tons of pro-glu? That much product translated into nontrivial cash value. I made a mental note to inform the staff as soon as I escaped. If we could relabel that product with new expiration dates, we might be able to recoup some of our war expense.

Liam kept us waiting a long time. Juani said he probably went inside Two for a closer look, and Vlad said maybe the troops spotted him. I could feel Shee's jumpiness. I rubbed her arm to comfort her, all the while knowing how little I succeeded. She didn't want me. She wanted that agitator. She was infatuated with his—what? Good looks? No, I was more handsome. Not to boast, but any jury would choose my superbly crafted features over his gauntness.

Was it his courage then? But hadn't I proved my mettle time after time in the zones? He had no assets, no accomplishments, no eighty-story condo. All that punk could offer was the brevity of his life. He was a short-timer, a neophyte, a young man. Was that supposed to be some kind of achievement?

Youth is for sophomores. It's stupid and embarrassing, a time to be endured and forgotten as soon as possible. When I think back—oh yes, I can still recall those queasy, hormone-drunken days. That was long before the Crash. Yes, I remember fumbling in the dark for girls' clothing and overturned bottles and questions I couldn't begin to articulate. The futile rage and confusion, the teapot tempests, wrecked cars, theatrics in restaurant doorways, desperate emails, lost hearts. Now as I wait through these last moments of my life, I want to fling out my arms and rage tempestuously, "Sheeba, you can't be in love with that juvenile!"

"Relax, beau." She squeezed my fingers. "He'll be back soon with good news. I feel it."

"Um-hm." In the sweltering ops bay, I leaned my head on her shoulder.

No sooner had my nose settled under her chin than the mighty chief's shadow fell across us. He took off his helmet and spoke rapidly in his subdued bad grammar. He'd been all through the blown-out section of Two. The Provendia troops were trying to drill into the ladder well, just as Vlad guessed.

Vlad said, "Juani's seedlings already ruined. We could set a plasma fire."

"I'm thinking explosion," Liam muttered. "Blow the hydroponic tables around. Knock a few heads."

The groves reappeared between Shee's eyebrows. "Will people die?"

Vlad nodded fiercely. "We hope."

But Liam chewed the ends of his mustache, ruminating. 'Trick is to set off a little pop without rippin' the X wall."

"This is so lame." I couldn't refrain any longer from speaking. "Why do you even bother? Look at the trouble you're causing your employers. They built this satellite, and they subsidize all your costs of living. You owe them your loyalty. How long have you been holding back those pallets of product?"

"Nass." Sheeba edged away from me.

"Well, Shee, dammit, be fair. Who started this war?"

Liam caught hold of my collar and pulled me closer. He kneaded the smartskin fabric between his fingers as if testing its quality. His blue eyes glittered like cut glass.

"Gee say you a commie spy. Is she right?"

"That's nonsense. I'm a tourist, the same as Sheeba. You trust Sheeba, don't you?" Why had I opened my mouth? Now, he might not let me go EVA.

Sheeba wriggled her shoulders and tried to signal me, but I couldn't read her meaning. She looked angry.

"Are you with us or against us?" Liam said.

I swallowed. "I'm with you."

He released my collar but continued to hold me with his eyes. Quite a commanding power the kid had. "Prove it, Nasir. I want to believe you."

Liam moved toward the door, and Sheeba followed, glancing doubtfully over her shoulder to see what I would do. Of course, I hustled along with the others. My entire escape plan depended on going EVA.

Inside the ladder well, the drilling noise echoed almost as fiercely as the sonic lathe. I pressed my hands over my ears and thought of the fresh pair of disposable eardrums waiting for me in Kat's shuttle. When we cycled down to Deck One, I found myself back in full Earth-normal gravity, back at the bottom of the spinning bucket where I'd first awakened with a broken leg—how long ago? Four days?

Liam led us through the Up door this time, into the cargo bay. When we stepped over the sill, the first thing I saw were the bales of dried pro-glu stacked all the way to the low ceiling. The shipping pallets rested squarely on top of the huge sliding doors where Provendia's freighters were supposed to dock. Five tons, Juani had said. It was hard to imagine anyone pushing through that much weight. Still, Provendia's troops were notoriously resourceful. I was trying to estimate the number of bales when Liam's low voice caught my attention.

"Sheeba, you want too much from me. I said no."

Strange words. The sound drew me closer. In a closet-sized work area just off the main cargo bay, Liam and Shee were standing face-to-face, and he was running his finger gently across a gob of sealant crusted on her space suit, just at her collarbone. The sight stopped me cold.

Sheeba caught his hand and pressed it to her lips. "You need me, beau."

Beau. That was my name. Sheeba child, what were you thinking? I found it very hard right then, very hard to forgive her for that. No doubt, brutal emotions played across my face, but no one was looking at me. Juani and Vlad were busy with some nitrogen cylinders.

Liam murmured so softly, I almost missed what he said. "Your suit's not safe. Wait here, and if the commies break through, you get your chance to help."

"I want to come with you," she said.

Then he kissed her. "No."

He glanced around and saw me watching. When he moved away to help Vlad lift the cylinders, I got a clear view of Sheeba's dark golden face. She was glowing.

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