The Dust

Void

The rounded edges and padded walls of the ship reminded him of a home for the insane, and Haim thought that it was probably not that far from the truth. Even after centuries of life among the stars, the thought of a void mere feet from the exterior decks made him feel cold. It was the cosmic anxiety of looking from a lit room into the night.

They were leaving from Nuada, and the acceleration to leave the gravity well had popped his crash-couch neighbor's knee out of its socket. Haim thought of it only as looseness. He thanked his luck that it hadn't happened to Julia, who had been on the medical deck anyway.

He supposed he loved her. At first, when they had just gotten married, he had his doubts. He had stayed faithful—anything else was inconceivable to him—but there had been no magic sensation of love like the radio songs talked about. Instead, he found himself feeling lonely. He had poured himself into his work, ostensibly for his wife's benefit. Their son had taught him to love, and he loved his family now in the way that he had expected to.

He hated the jumpsuits. They were supposed to help with the stresses of acceleration and temperature management, and they were complimentary. It wasn't like they'd had enough money to really bring a full wardrobe with them anyway. Nonetheless, it bothered him to see the contours and curves of his wife's body and think that everyone else could too. He had some thought for his own modesty as well, but nobody was going to be looking at him too long.

He reached out for her hand, feeling fingers close around his. The familiar bump of the ring—over the jumpsuit—was a reminder of whose hand he was touching.

"I have to go now. Work."

He would be alone again.

Technically, even as a commercial traveler he had access to all of the civilian parts of the ship, but Julia would be on the medical deck, which was limited to crew and necessity. He sighed. She always told him to go out and explore the ship, talk to people, not spend time alone in the void of his head.

She was so bright, so cheerful. That's why he worried about her; the same light he saw had to be visible to everyone. They had to want her, so badly. He reached for the sealed bottle. He wondered if it was like the sort of bottle that they would eventually use when they had kids; spill-proof with a rubber nipple to let fluid out only once someone sucked at it. He drank the water, swallowing carefully in the free-fall of space travel, trying to avoid an uncomfortable mistake. It quenched his thirst.

Haim supposed that he should go and see the passenger decks. He stretched, resenting the tightness of the suit, feeling the weight of the toolbelt he wore. He had managed to get a pistol—nothing huge, but a large enough one to be worthwhile—planetside. It had been difficult to get it through the spaceport screening, but after what he'd heard about Jefferson of late—and the hazards of the gangs on the starliners—he decided that it would be good to have a backup plan. However one painted it, however, the gun was heavy in the microgravity. It wasn't a lot of weight, but it was dense and threw off his center of mass.

He wondered how the mechanics could be so graceful. Their suits had maneuvering rigs, so they could probably compensate. He keyed the door to their cabin open, watching as the hydraulic door slid open. Each cabin was supposed to be self-contained, so in the event of a catastrophe there would be a pressurized space for people to wait for rescue.

In practice, that depended on the maintenance workers and how much the starliner owners cared about the regulations. Expensive as paying out to victims' families was, accidents happened so rarely and the effort of undoing wear and tear was sufficiently odious that the cabins would rarely be truly self-sealing. A small hole, however, wouldn't kill people for hours or even days. If rescue would arrive, it would come by then.