Caretaker Read online

  “Makes sense,” Kaia said, shifting on the couch.

  “I ran the disinfecting sequences six times every day here in the caretaker’s hold. I worked out four or five hours a day. I had the computer calculate to the gram what nutrients I needed and ate only foods that satisfied those nutrients. All kinds of neurotic behavior.” He laughed. “It was exhausting, though, and I was eventually too lazy to keep up all that effort. It makes me wonder, though, how the situation would affect different people.” He leaned forward. “Hey, there’s a question I’ve wondered about: how do they train someone to be a caretaker? How do you prepare someone to be alone for years and years?”

  A faraway look crept into Kaia’s eyes. Ethan knew she was thinking about McNeal. He felt sorry he had asked.

  After a long pause she spoke: “it’s called isolation training. David compared it to solitary confinement. Every group of recruits has a bit different experience. He said that for him it started one night near the end of his summer training. They held a big party for all the caretaker candidates. Gradually during the evening they were called out one at a time. He was taken through a maze of corridors with doors along them. He heard the music and laughter of the people at the party getting further and further away, until all he could hear was the buzzing of the lights above and the sound of feet on the floor. They finally opened one of the doors and asked him to wait in a small room. Nobody ever came back for him. He eventually tried the door and found it locked. He said that for all the months he was there, he kept hearing the sound of that party fading behind him.”

  Ethan thought how similar his own experience had been. Suddenly taken away from the joy and anticipation of his life and secluded here. He knew those echoes.

  “Eventually, when the recruits get hungry enough they figure out how to run the 3000 and produce food. When they get cagey enough they learn how to summon the exercise equipment. They learn, through all those processes, how to deal with the computer and how to get what they want from it. They also learn,” she paused and looked at him, “how to be alone. They have no idea how long they’ll be left there. It could be months or years. Most can’t handle it. After weeks or months they crack. Those who don’t break down go on to the next stages of training. That's when they learn the practical skills needed to be Caretaker—the mechanics of the ship and how to navigate should a disaster happen, stuff like that.”

  “That would have been helpful,” Ethan mused. “So, what makes the difference? Why do most crack and so very few make it through? What is it?”

  Kaia looked away. “David said he thought it was . . . motivation.”

  “Internal motivation? The ‘I can do it no matter what’ military variety?”

  “Maybe. For some. For others it’s making someone proud or, as you said, belief in the nobility of the position.”

  “I don’t think that’s true of me. Why didn’t I crack?”

  “I should think that would be easy enough to see.”

  Ethan shrugged at her.

  “Your family, Ethan. You have a very personal investment in the role of Caretaker. You had to hold together and be sure they make it to Minea.”

  By the time she finished her sentence, Ethan’s mind had filled with the image of Aria, as it had so many times over the last five years. Her red-gold hair, pale skin, and the few freckles across her nose came to him in sharp detail. When he looked back at the small, dark form on the couch, there were tears in his eyes. He felt that was happening a lot lately. Something about reintroducing a human into his life had reignited emotions that he’d had no use for when he was alone with the computer. It was strange, feeling things so deeply now.

  “You’re right, of course,” he said, clearing his throat. “I couldn’t have let them down. I . . . can’t let them down. Or, at least, that’s how I feel. But logically, they probably would make it there anyway. Seriously, Kaia, I do nothing on this ship. Why is there a Caretaker anyway?”

  She blinked. “You don’t know? The Persephone? You didn’t watch the footage?”

  Ethan shook his head. “There’s a lot of footage in the library,” he said defensively.

  “The Persephone was one of the first ships we sent out. It was an early colony ship with about 600 people on it. It was the third ship on which everyone was in stasis. The other two had been sent to the colony on Copernicus and arrived without any problems.”

  Kaia shifted again and he noticed how her slim form folded neatly into the corner of the couch. Her lips seemed a little dry as she spoke, and he remembered that she would need special attention to hydration for the first few days after stasis. He stood and walked over to the materializer to get her a cold drink of water.

  She raised her eyebrows as he walked away but went on with her story. “About two thirds of the way to Copernicus, something went wrong. The control center on Earth saw the malfunction but was completely powerless to fix it. They determined that a tiny fan had lost power in the central control room, one wire disconnected. If someone had been on board, a quick solder would have fixed it. Instead, as the panel heated, it caused catastrophic failures in the system—” Kaia paused, surprised, as he handed her the water, and she smiled at him before she took a sip.

  “Drink it all.” He instructed. “You’ve got to be careful not to get dehydrated.”

  She smiled again, finishing the glass, and set it on the chest to her left. “Thanks. I didn’t realize it, but I needed that.”

  He sat back down, and she continued.

  “The affected panels controlled the circulation of the stasis fluid. The people at the control center watched the footage weeks later, when it made it back to Earth, and had to watch as one after another of the passengers received contaminated fluid and died in stasis. The whole ship was lost. When it landed, every passenger aboard was dead.” As she said the last word, Ethan saw a look of pain shoot through her eyes. She closed them, and the delicate muscles around her mouth trembled. Keeping her eyes closed, she was quiet for several long seconds before she spoke in a wavering voice, “One person on board, awake, could have repaired the fan and saved all those people. One Caretaker.”

  Ethan nodded. The story scared him. He thought of all his passengers, all that fluid being circulated and recirculated every day, the temperature control system that kept them from freezing or boiling, the delicate mixture of substances that kept them sleeping, dreaming of their new home. Such a complicated system, and yet, he knew that if something went wrong, the computer could use him, guide him, to repair it and get them safely to Minea.

  “I do want you to teach me about the ship,” he said suddenly, the passengers’ faces still swirling in his mind. “Not just for something to do, but so that I’ll know what to do if something goes wrong. I want to know about all the systems. Will you show me?”

  Kaia nodded. “So the Caretaker needs a caretaker?” She smiled a weak smile.

  Ethan smiled, too. “Looks like it.”

  Chapter 5

  The lights in the Caretaker’s hold had dimmed, and Ethan sat on one end of the wide leather couch, gazing at Kaia on the other.

  Her eyelids were drooping. Ethan knew he should suggest that she get some sleep, but he couldn’t bring himself to end their conversation. Part of him—a very silly part—was afraid that she wouldn’t be there when he woke up, was afraid that this whole marvelous conversation was a dream.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she yawned for the third time.

  “Don’t be. You must be exhausted.”

  She laughed, a sound like crystal glasses clinking together. “Exhausted from sleeping for five years.”

  He couldn’t stop another question from slipping out. “What was it like? Stasis?”

  Kaia’s brows furrowed. “It wasn’t like sleeping, exactly. It was . . . I remember feeling very very heavy. Like I couldn’t move because there were lead blankets covering me. Sometimes I felt like I should wake up, like I had something to do, but as soon as I tried to think what it was, I sli
pped back into unconsciousness.”

  “Did you—” he hesitated, “did you dream?”

  “Yes. I dreamed sometimes. Sometimes it was just darkness.” Kaia shivered involuntarily.

  “It was bad?”

  “Awful. I don’t ever want to do it again. I thought I’d just fall asleep and then wake up after five years. I guess they can shut the body down but not the brain. I dreamed . . . a lot . . . about David. I felt the anticipation of seeing him again, and this urgency to find him, even when I was unconscious. Five years of longing is—” she stopped. “But then, you know about that.”

  Ethan felt his stomach twist. Felt the pain that had been ever-present these last five years flood over him again. He swallowed and nodded.

  They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, both full of their own loss. From her gray eyes, a few tears escaped. Her small shoulders drew in as she crossed her arms, hugging herself. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with a desire to pull her close and comfort her. The power of it brought his breath up short. He looked away and then stood up and walked a few paces across the oblong room, leaving her with her sorrow.

  “We should get to sleep,” he said, when he thought his voice was strong enough. “You take the couch. I’ll sleep back here.” He looked up. “Computer, the massage table, please.”

  A panel in the ceiling slid open noiselessly, and a long, narrow table descended. “Do you prefer Swedish or Shiatsu, Mr. Bryant?” the computer asked.

  “Neither. I only require the table. I will be sleeping here.”

  “The couch is more suitable for sleeping, Mr. Bryant.”

  “The couch, computer, is occupied.” Ethan shot a weak smile at Kaia.

  “The surface area of the couch is well able to handle the mass of two persons of your dimensions,” the computer continued.

  “That will be all,” Ethan said decisively.

  The computer fell into silence.

  Ethan sat on the edge of the table, facing Kaia. She had curled onto the couch, her knees tucked up to her stomach, her arms still crossed. She looked so frail. He felt awkward and sorry that nothing he could say would heal her anguish.

  “You can take a blanket out of the chest there, if you want. The temperature should be perfect, but sometimes a blanket is nice. Makes it feel a little more like home.”

  “Thanks,” Kaia said softly as the lights shut off.

  Ethan lay down on his back. The familiar silence of the ship was broken by her muffled sobs.

  * * *

  The daylight cycle of the ship initiated too soon, and Ethan felt sleep slipping away as the room grew lighter. “Computer,” he mumbled, “postpone daylight for one hour.”

  The room darkened again and he rolled over, pulling the pillow farther under his jaw. His thoughts glided back towards dreams, but a small sound from the other side of the hold jarred him back to consciousness. There were never unexpected noises here.

  He squinted through the darkness and saw Kaia slip into the bathroom. The door slid closed behind her. He remembered, with a flash of happiness, that there was someone else in the hold. He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the table. There was no going back to sleep now.

  He felt the solid floor beneath him, but so many changes after years of monotony made everything feel a little surreal. The comfortable sounds of the ship, the brush of the circulated air on his skin, the dull gleam of the walls, and the bulky shapes of the few pieces of furniture all hummed with new energy now that someone else was sharing the space.

  The computer sensed that he was awake and brought up the lights.

  Ethan crossed to the materializer and ordered some orange juice, which he drank while trying not to be too impatient.

  “Computer,” he said, “when Kaia comes out, provide two plates of buttermilk pancakes, butter, and syrup; Dutch bacon; and eggs over-easy. And two glasses of cow’s milk.” She must be hungry, Ethan thought. He certainly was after their long day yesterday.

  “Confirmed, Mr. Bryant,” said the computer.

  Ethan called up his exercise program as a diversion. A panel slid back in the floor and he stepped onto the pressure-sensitive, moveable pad. The program initiated and he bowed to his opponent: Bruce Lee, a kung fu master from the twenty-first century. The first few blocks were easy—warm-up, really. But soon Lee was whirling and ducking in front of him, and Ethan felt his breath coming hard as he tried to keep up. He broke into a sweat and felt the room cool to compensate. He focused on the simulation, turning as his opponent circled around him, lashing out when he saw the slightest chance to land a blow.

  When the bathroom door slid open, it took him a moment to pull his mind back from the workout. Kaia came out and stood watching him. He turned to toss her a wave. While his attention was diverted, holographic Bruce Lee delivered a virtual roundhouse kick.

  “Knock out,” declared the program. Kung fu music played. “Workout complete.” The main lights came up in the hold, and Ethan saw that Kaia was trying to suppress a smile.

  “How many years have you had to perfect your fighting style?” She ran a hand through her damp hair.

  “Not enough, apparently.” Ethan shrugged.

  “Your meal is ready,” the computer reminded him. He glanced over to see his order steaming on the materializer.

  Kaia brightened. “I’m starving.” She crossed to scoop the trays up and carry them to the low trunk in front of the couch.

  Ethan had barely reached the couch, and she had already begun eating. She glanced up at him as she put another bite in her mouth and closed her eyes. “Delicious,” she said.

  “Delicious” in Xardn flashed in Ethan’s mind:

  It always looked a little like a donut to him.

  Ethan was glad she was eating. It seemed important, considering her recent loss and that she was still recovering from 2,000 days in stasis.

  “This is my favorite breakfast,” he said, “but the stewed fava beans run a close second.”

  She glanced up at him, wrinkling her nose slightly. “You chose well—” she began, but the computer cut her off.

  “Day 2007report.”

  Ethan instinctively quieted and listened.

  The computer went on, “Passenger status, Hold One: normal. Passenger status, Hold Two: normal. Passenger status, Hold Three: normal . . .” The computer continued through the remaining passenger holds, the major equipment, and the ship’s systems. It finished up, “Calendar items: Ethan Bryant’s Birthday.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened. He glanced at Kaia. She was looking at him in surprise.

  “Your birthday?” she asked incredulously.

  He nodded. “I forgot. There’s been a lot going on.” He smiled sheepishly, but there was a disquiet rising in him. He remembered now.

  She smiled at him. “Happy birthday, Ethan!” She ordered two cupcakes from the materializer. She was grinning as she set one in front of him and started to sing.

  He tried to smile. But suddenly the joy was gone from the day.

  Kaia noticed and stopped her song. “What’s wrong, Ethan?”

  He started and then stopped. How to explain? “It’s just . . . I’m thirty.”

  Kaia scoffed. “That’s not so old.”

  “No, I know. But I planned on a very different birthday. I was going to be on Minea. My son would have been five. I would have been living.” He felt his voice break a little on the last word.

  He couldn’t stand to sit there. He stood and strode to the wall and then turned and walked to the opposite wall. A bitterness grew in his throat. His words spilled out. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Kaia. This isn’t how I’m supposed to spend my life. Alone. Doing nothing. I know it can’t be any other way, but every time I think about the five years I’ve spent in this hold, every time I think about the forty-eight in front of me, I just—”

  Ethan slammed a fist into the wall. The pain of it shooting through his knuckles and the small bones on the back of his hand was both a release and
an admonition to calm down. He took a deep breath and leaned against the cool steel. “I just feel so cheated.” It felt good to say it aloud.

  The hold was quiet. When he finally glanced at Kaia, her eyes were on his. The depth of understanding in them made him immediately grateful to her.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, softly. It was nice to be able to say how he felt, nice to have someone to hear him, to listen, to know.

  Her voice was gentle when she responded. “I’m sorry, Ethan. About all of it. I know this isn’t the life you chose.”

  He tried to smile, surprised at how deeply glad he was for her company.

  Kaia looked at him for a long moment. A new connection passed between them—an appreciation. Suddenly, Kaia fidgeted and dropped her gaze.

  “You said last night that you wished you knew more about the ship. Do you still want to learn?” she said, standing to take her breakfast dishes to the recycler.

  Ethan felt weary. He felt drained and a little sorry for himself. But he wanted to be with her, to forget his birthday and all the bitter disappointments of the last five years.

  “Yes. Show me.”

  * * *

  It felt wonderful to finally have something to do, something to learn. Ethan spent the day exploring the ship with Kaia, who turned out to be a conscientious teacher. She answered all his questions and had been meticulous in covering all the different systems of the ship. She prepared little tests for him, like turning the artificial gravity on and off and reprogramming the computer to recognize her by her name instead of by her passenger number.

  In the faint early light, he opened his eyes with the anticipation he remembered from Christmas mornings. He hadn’t felt this way since his childhood. He rolled onto his side and looked across the hold. The blanket on the couch was tossed back, and the room was empty. This only heightened his anticipation.

  “Computer,” he said, “where is Kaia?”

  “Level Three, Mr. Bryant, in the cooling room.”

  Ethan headed out of the hold.