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1.20

24 November


St. Joseph of Cupertino Monastery

South Polar Mineral Territories

Lunar Surface



In what seemed a distinctly un-monkish move, Purcell and Groppel printed up some nylon cord and, after letting Katla use the bathroom, tied her securely to a chair, stuffed her in the airlock, and then tied the airlock shut for good measure. Even if she somehow managed to free herself, there wasn’t much harm she could do in there with her bare hands.

“She could bludgeon the pressure controls with the chair,” Michael worried.

This possibility was discussed—right in front of Katla—and eventually dismissed, on the grounds that the likeliest outcome was her own death by suffocation, and even if she somehow damaged the controls so the airlock couldn’t depressurize properly, she’d only be trapping herself in the monastery. And then a repair crew from Shackleton would come on over with a whole ’nother emergency airlock module, and she’d be shipped back to Earth right on schedule.

“I’ll check on you every few hours,” Purcell said, in a concession to basic human decency, but his tone suggested he was doing this more for God’s benefit, or his own immortal soul, than because Katla deserved it.

“Sleep well,” Groppel called in to her, just before the inner hatch was sealed.

These brothers were angry.

And no wonder: Katla had killed two people under their care, and gravely injured a third. She’d also blown up one of their modules, wasting precious air and water in the process.

“It’s appalling,” Michael said, “that our noble grounds should be put to such wicked use, so early in our history. This is not what we’ve given our lives for.” Then he turned his glare on Raimy, and said, “You, sir, will submit yourself to the infirmary, forthwith and posthaste. I won’t stand for any more deaths this month, so under the Articles of War, you may consider that an order.”

“Under the what?”

But Michael was simply pointing toward the infirmary, his face as stern as Raimy had ever seen it.

And so he spent the night in the autodoc tube, with an IV drip in his arm and a catheter up his wiener. Sealed in at one full atmosphere of pressure—nearly twice the ambient pressure of the monastery itself—he wore a freshly printed hospital gown with some sort of clown pattern on it. Thus humiliated, he endured the scrutiny of Brother Doctor Callen Hughart, who hovered nervously, peering in through the tube’s window and, via the intercom, asking questions like, “Do your eyeblinks feel normal? Do you feel a need to move your bowels?”

Truthfully, Raimy felt a lot like he’d been kicked half to death and then sandblasted, but Bridget kept stopping by to shoot video for his feeds, and nearly everyone else at the monastery stopped by to check on him at least once. In the face of that kind of public scrutiny, he was not about to admit weakness. Thus, he kept answering, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“Your heart rate is nae fine,” Hughart glowered. Indeed, according to Raimy’s monitor it hadn’t once dropped below ninety beats per minute, even after two doses of something called Fear Away, a “third generation calmative.” The stuff did take the edge off his jitters, but that was mainly a physical effect; it didn’t do much for the waves of emotion still rolling through him.

In a quieter moment, Hughart told him, “Your blood pressure is coming back up. We’re getting you rehydrated, so don’t be surprised if there’s some puffiness or even edema here and there. I can’t do much about the bruising, I’m afraid.”

“Do I look bad?”

There were no mirrors in here. In fact, there were no mirrors anywhere in the monastery, except the VIP guest rooms, so Raimy had not seen himself. Oh, he could see his arms and (if he craned his neck) his legs from the knee down. They looked all right to him—a perfect acorn brown. But his face felt swollen, and he couldn’t open his eyes all the way, and his nostrils and ear canals were itchy with a crust of dried blood.

Ducking the question, Hughart said, “You’d be better off if the decompression had happened more slowly. As it is, you’re fortunate we keep our atmosphere at six hundred millibars, and the partial nitrogen at two hundred. If we’d been running a full Earth atmosphere, your injuries would be a good bit worse. I still don’t know why you’re not deaf.”

Raimy snorted. “I’m a diver, Callen. It’s not the first time I’ve busted both eardrums. But I’ve got good eustachian tubes.”

Meaning, the tubes that connected the inner ear to the throat—critical for pressure equalization, and a diver’s best friend if they were in good working order.

“Are they draining now?”

“Yeah,” Raimy said. “Like a mother.”

“Hmm.”

“Can I get something to drink?”

“Absolutely not. You’re getting fluids through your arm until I’m certain there are no hemorrhages in your digestive tract. We’ll reassess in the morning.”

Finally, after a long time, Hughart got tired and laid himself down, fully clothed in his habit and slippers, on the examination table beside the surgical tube.

“Just resting a moment,” he said. But within a few minutes, he was snoring.

It was late—nearly midnight—but Raimy felt wide awake. He’d refused sedation, and now he was paying the price, stuck in a tube and wracked by a combination of guilt and relief and fear and boredom.

Fortunately, by a stroke of good luck he’d had his rollup in his pocket when all this went down, and he’d insisted—over numerous objections—on bringing it with him into the tube.

He could not resist checking the headlines on HNN. His name was there, along with Anming’s, and Katla’s. second moon murder nearly claims arresting officer—developing story. The facts were sparse but mostly accurate. More detail was promised as it became available. He wondered if Brother Michael had given a statement, or planned to, or whether that duty was reserved for higher church officials. The article didn’t say anything about how he’d arrested the wrong person, how he’d gotten Anming killed for no reason. How the monastery had suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage because of him. In fact, the word “heroic” was used more than once, as was “miraculous.”

Though his eyes ached and burned, he could not resist also checking the Antilympus leaderboard, and found, with mild surprise, that surviving in the actual vacuum of actual space had moved him up into second place. He’d squeaked—just barely—in front of Tim Long Chang (of National Geographic fame), but the billionaire Ian Doerr was still ahead of him, by a wide margin. He didn’t begrudge it; Doerr was not only capable of sponsoring himself, and more capable than Raimy of attracting additional supporters, but he was probably also the better man, or at least the better administrator. He wasn’t a cop and a lawyer and all that Earth bullshit, and he hadn’t gotten himself blown out an airlock through sheer stupidity. And Raimy’s lead on Tim Long Chang was slim, and already shrinking, and he didn’t begrudge that either, because who didn’t like Tim Long Chang?

A wave of peace settled over Raimy: he simply wasn’t going to Mars. He’d been so stressed about it for so long—had sacrificed so much toward that goal, and pursued so little else—that it shocked him how easily he let it go. Having come so absurdly close to death, he suddenly felt lighter and freer than he had in a long time, or maybe ever.

His next thoughts were of Bridget, and rather than ruminating or waking up Hughart and asking to see her, he silently opened up the message interface on his rollup and sent her a good old-fashioned text message, which kicked off a whole exchange.


RAIMY: Was going to sleepy emoji we can’t see each other 2nite.

BRIDGET: Tht’s ur biggest concern right now? Srsly?

RAIMY: I was going to sleepy emoji we can’t see each other, but its mch bggr than that. It sddenly occurs to me, UR ship emoji to Mars. Definitely 100%

BRIDGET: Be lying if I said that wasn’t my 1st thot. As soon I knew U were safe. As soon I knew Katla was guilty. It’s going to be me and Geary Notbohm, from Transit Point Station.

RAIMY: & definitely not me.

BRIDGET: U don’t know that. Theres still time.

RAIMY: It’s fine, Bridget.

BRIDGET: Well damn. I kind of hoped we had a future. Can I interest you in two exploding head emoji years, followed by an awkward broken heart emoji?

RAIMY: And watching U on globe emoji satellite emoji, falling in red heart emoji w/ someone else? It’s tempting.

BRIDGET: You almost skull emoji tonight.

RAIMY: Yeah. All thngs considered, I feel amazing. I’m in the bonus round, now. Evrythng in my life frm now on is bonus.

BRIDGET: I thought you were dead. For several minutes, that’s what I thought. And it made me so upset, Raimy. So sad I couldn’t.

BRIDGET: . . .

RAIMY: Couldn’t what?

BRIDGET: Couldn’t have you as my consolation prize. If neither one of us went to Mars, we could at least have been together, or tried. But now . . . I don’t think I want to get any more invested in you than I have been. The offer is retracted. I’m sorry. The heart knows what it wants, and I don’t want to get mine broken, for pursuing a dream that’s in my grasp. I’m so sorry.

RAIMY: RU breaking up with me by text message?

BRIDGET: Were we ever togethr even? Oh Raimy. God damn.

RAIMY: It’s fine, Bridget.

BRIDGET: We could have been good.

RAIMY: We could have been great. We will be great, in other ways.

BRIDGET: Do U hate me?

RAIMY: Quite th opposite. It’s all fine. Very beautiful to be alive. I’m @ peace with the world, and wish U UR best life. And me mine, whatever that may bring.



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