Caretaker Page 6

  “Pop Quiz!” he announced as they left the fourth engine room.

  “Urrgh! Now?” She rolled her eyes playfully.

  “Now. Computer, display the symbols I entered earlier.”

  “This is premeditated? I thought you just wanted to get out of seeing the nav room.”

  “That too. But I put these—” Ethan waved his hand at the symbols floating in front of them. “—in earlier to see if you’re retaining any of the content we’ve discussed.”

  “Alright. Let’s get it overwith.” Kaia pointed at the first symbol.

  “Space” she said.

  “Home.”

  “Power.”

  Ethan clapped. “Very nice! I picked the hard ones.”

  “No way. Those are easy because the others don’t look like them. It’s the pointy nouns that confuse me. So many of them look alike. You know, like those two sun ones.”

  “Ah, fintrk and samalt. Computer, show fintrk and samalt.” Two symbols appeared in front of them.

  “Do you remember which one is which?”

  “I know one is death and one is joy.” She studied them. “How can ‘death’ and ‘joy’ look so similar? They aren’t related concepts at all!”

  “So all words that mean similar things should look similar?”

  “It would be nice, yes.”

  “I told you, the symbols of any language are somewhat arbitrary.”

  “Well, at least in our language, they sound like what they mean.”

  Ethan raised his eyebrows, slightly amused. “Oh, do they?”

  “Yes!” She was getting worked up now. “Death,” she said, her voice low and ominous. Then, making her voice high and light, “Joy.” She repeated the two words.

  Ethan was laughing.

  “Don’t laugh. See, death sounds scarier than joy.”

  “Only because you know what it means.”

  “Words in any decent language sound different when they mean different things. You should be able to decipher some meaning from the sound.” She stomped her foot lightly for emphasis.

  “Okay, let’s say that’s true. Computer, give me manual control of the holoscreen and give me a keyboard.”

  A keyboard appeared, projected in the air like the symbols, but slightly lower so as to be within easy reach. He raised his hand and swept fintrk and samalt to the side, then typed quickly, tapping at the air where the keys hovered. As he typed the letters, different symbols appeared for him to choose from. When he saw the symbols he wanted, he simply tapped at them on the holoscreen.

  “Do you think these two symbols—‘limnar’ and ‘sandala’— look alike?”

  She squinted. “Not particularly. I could tell them apart.”

  Ethan contained a smile. “Okay. Limnar refers to a bunch of baby farm animals, kind of like Earth’s pigs. Sandala is used to refer to a great ruler, a king. Do you think they should sound alike?”

  “Of course not.”

  He grinned “And yet, in your own language, the words for those two entities are indistinguishable to the ear!” He typed quickly and two images appeared in front of them. The first showed several baby pigs snuggled up together. The second showed the golden bust of Tutankhamen. “Farrow: a litter of pigs. And pharaoh: a great leader or king, particularly Egyptian! The two words sound alike, but represent completely different concepts. You only think ‘death’ and ‘joy’ are so different because you know their meanings. There really is very little about the symbols themselves that look like the word. Another example: ferry and fairy. One’s a big, clunky ship, the other a dainty mystical being. They sound the same, but they mean different things. Other words look the same but have multiple meanings. Think of the English word B-O-W. It can mean the front of a ship, a weapon that shoots arrows, a gesture of respect, a big frilly decoration . . .”

  Kaia was glaring at him, and he knew he had convinced her. “You really are a geek, you know,” she growled. “A language geek.”

  “I know.” Ethan smiled at her, rubbed his hand in the air to erase the two pictures, and slid the original symbols back to the center of the hallway. “Okay. Which one is death and which one is joy?”

  Kaia deliberated, then pointed to the first one. “Death,” she said, then, pointing to the other. “Joy.”

  Ethan’s eyebrows drew together. “You are getting better,” he said begrudgingly.

  Kaia smiled broadly. “I knew it! I remembered because I pictured joy as an explosion, so it had more . . . what are they called?”

  “Cusps. Points.”

  “Right! I’m going to get this language yet.” Kaia looked at the symbols again, smiling proudly. “Now are you ready for your lesson on the stasis system?”

  Ethan sighed. “I guess. Computer, eliminate the holoscreen.” The symbols and keyboard disappeared.

  Chapter 7

  Day twelve. Two days until they reached the threshold. Ethan’s body tensed involuntarily as the thought crossed his mind. He pushed it away and rose from the massage table as silently as he could. It was early and still dark in the Caretaker’s hold. Carefully, he retrieved his satchel and slipped out of the hold into the hallway. He held the satchel in front of him so it wouldn’t bump the doorway as he slipped through. Inside was his journal and the little wooden case that accompanied it. Once the heavy door slid closed behind him, he walked several paces down the hall and sat on the floor.

  Opening the book in front of him, he leafed through it from the beginning. Over the years he had become an avid journal writer. There were pages of writing: descriptions of the ship, his loneliness, and Aria. There were large and small sketches of her everywhere, of her sleeping face, her relaxed hands, and strands of her hair drifting in the stasis fluid. There were short poems—some that rhymed and some that didn’t—about their life on Earth together and about his impressions of hurtling through space alone. He got to the last page of writing, where he’d scrawled the Xardn symbols for Kaia, and paused.

  The thought came again. It was nearly time to put her back in stasis. His stomach knotted at the thought. How could he let her go? How could he willingly forego her companionship? Since she’d awakened, he’d come to crave their easy friendship.

  Shaking his head, he tried to process it all. He wanted to write, wanted to record the miraculous happenings of the last few days and gain some perspective on the tangle of feelings he was having, but he paused thinking about Aria finding the journal somewhere decades hence. He knew his affection for Kaia would be hard for anyone to understand unless they’d spent years in isolation as he had. He couldn’t hurt Aria, couldn’t take the chance that after he was dead she’d find the journal and think he’d loved her any less than he did.

  And then he realized the solution. So clear and so easy. He could write in Xardn. He opened the glyphtol case and removed the instrument from it. He began to write:

  * * *

  When the artificial lights came up, Ethan realized he’d fallen asleep in the hallway. His head was tipped back against the wall and tilted toward his left shoulder. The glyphtol had slipped down to rest on the floor beside him. His journal lay in his lap, the open pages covered with complex curves. He raised his head to see Kaia crouched beside him, peering at the symbols.

  “This is ‘I’, right?” she asked, then, “And ‘light’?” He glanced down at the journal as she continued. “is this ‘woman’? I love the puzzle of it.” Ethan moved his hand reflexively to cover the pages. Then he closed it and reached for the wooden case in which to place his glyphtol. Slipping his stuff into the satchel, he stood and carried it back to the hold. He avoided meeting Kaia’s eyes. As he placed the items on the shelf, he finally spoke. “How about some breakfast?”

  They got their trays and sat facing each other. “What’s up today?” He knew that Kaia would have some interesting adventure planned. They had been through most of the ship, and although much of it was still a mystery to him, he was beginning to feel more oriented and more confident. He had found her t
o be a good teacher, making the details of the systems accessible through her explanations.

  “Today?” She smiled over at him. “A surprise.”

  “It’s not the waste water recycler, is it? Because that’s not a surprise as much as a shock. I explored it a couple of years in. Do you have any idea what we’re drinking here?” He tapped his glass of orange juice.

  “Hey! Don’t knock it. That thing took forever to perfect. And do you know who had to taste all the glasses of orange juice that led up to that one?”

  “Don’t tell me it was you.”

  “Well . . .” She hesitated, and he could see that she didn’t want to lose ground in the argument. “Okay, it wasn’t me, but it was some poor engineer who had to taste all the not-so-recycled waste water attempts. Show a little respect for the many brave taste buds who sacrificed to keep you happy and healthy for fifty-some years.”

  Ethan gave her a wry look. “So it’s not the recycler, then?”

  “No. It’s a surprise. Not even a fully mechanical one, so you should enjoy it.”

  “I admit it. You’ve got me curious now.”

  She smiled mischievously. “Finish your orange juice, then, and we’ll get going.”

  “I think I’ve lost my appetite. All that stuff about waste water.” He crossed and discarded his tray. He heard her speak but missed what she said. When he turned around, Kaia was across the hold, sitting on the floor close to the wall beside the door. She had procured a set of shining silver tools from the in-wall shelves and was using them to remove a venting panel. He walked to her and crouched beside her.

  Ethan watched her hands as she worked. They were small hands, delicate, covered with that smooth brown skin. They were agile, able, and sure as she adjusted the bolts holding the panel on. Kaia’s hands didn’t look as if they had enough strength to turn the wrench, but still the bolts loosened. She moved to the last bolt. His eyes moved up her arm to her turned head, traced her jawline, and saw how her teeth were set. She was putting more effort into the bolts than she wanted to let on. He moved closer.

  “Here. I can help.” He put his hand over hers on the handle of the wrench. She pulled hers back and rubbed them together as he finished loosening. The panel fell off with a crash. She grinned at him.

  “Come on!” in a second, only her calves and feet were sticking out of the shaft. Seconds more and she had completely disappeared.

  “Kaia!” he called, “you’ve got to be kidding! I’m not going to fit in there!”

  He heard her speak. She was already a good distance down the shaft, but he thought she said, “Don’t be a baby.” He growled and stuck his head and shoulders into the darkness.

  He caught up to her quickly, and the two crawled single-file through the long dark shaft. “My elbows aren’t made for this kind of thing,” Ethan complained, taking a moment to rest on his stomach as he watched the soles of her stasis shoes disappear in front of him.

  She stopped a few yards ahead. “I promise you, this will be worth it!” She could move through the shaft on her hands and knees pretty easily. He was too tall, though, and had spent the last ten minutes army-crawling and scootching along with his toes.

  “Nothing could be worth this. Do we have to come out this way, too?”

  “Of course. If there was an easier way, I’d take you there first.”

  “I’m not sure you would . . .”

  “Alright, enough complaining. Let’s get moving. You’re going to love it. Anyway, you should get used to this. There’s all kinds of great stuff you haven’t seen on this ship yet, and these shafts are the only way to get to it!” Her voice echoed ahead of her down the shaft and he missed the last few words. Groaning, he propped himself up on his elbows and followed her.

  Ethan looked up to see Kaia removing the bolts from another vent panel. She had her fingers laced through the grate so that when the last bolt came off, the panel didn’t fall. She held it awkwardly in front of her as she pulled herself out of the opening. She reached up with her free hand as she swung her feet out of the shaft. He heard her feet hit metal, and then, as he reached the opening, he heard her voice.

  “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” she asked.

  As he pulled his torso out of the shaft, Ethan saw that she was standing on a catwalk above an enormous room. He had to grab a pipe above the shaft in order to swing himself out and onto the catwalk. As he landed on it, he looked out over the expanse.

  They were above one of the stasis holds. The pink-lighted stasis chambers of their passengers reached off into the distance twenty feet below them. Like strings of pearls, the chambers glowed in the half-light of the hold. Their human cargo shone pale within them, held in delicate suspension.

  Ethan couldn’t speak. He’d never before seen so many of his charges at once, never quite grasped the volume of humanity he was guarding. He walked carefully along the catwalk, trailing his fingers along the handrail, gazing at the rows upon rows of men and women and children below him. When he reached the wall at the end of the catwalk, he turned around slowly and walked the length of it again. Finally he stopped as he caught sight of the last, empty chamber and his eyes moved to the one next to it.

  There she was. Even from this distance, and even with the strange angle, he knew Aria. The shape of her, the way the light shone on her hair. His right hand gripped the rail, and his left reached involuntarily toward her. In his mind, he saw her smiling, saw her turning to look at him, saw her wide eyes as he closed the door of the chamber. He felt her soft hair on his cheek, felt her playful kisses, felt the last touch of her hand. He heard her laugh, heard her speak his name, and heard her soft, even breathing as the fluid began to fill her chamber. His breath caught in his chest and he raised his left hand to wipe away a sudden stinging at his eyes. He stepped back and looked up at Kaia. She was standing at the same place he’d left her, gazing absently down the rows.

  He managed two words. “She’s . . . there.” He pointed down the last row. Kaia came to him, standing against the rail and peering into the distance.

  “Your wife.” She smiled up at him with a depth of sadness that brought the sting back to his eyes. He nodded.

  “The last chamber.” Then, amending, “ . . . that has . . . someone in it.”

  “I see her red hair,” she said. “And the baby.”

  He swallowed hard, nodding again. “She’d laugh that we can see her belly from here. She . . . thought it was huge. She joked that she was afraid she’d pick up a satellite on this trip because of her gravitational pull . . .” His voice cracked and he stopped, feeling guilty for sharing their private joke and missing her even more with every word he spoke. Kaia smiled.

  “She’s funny, then?”

  He nodded. “Very. She . . . she always makes everyone laugh. I was the . . . serious one.”

  “The straight man.”

  Ethan finally looked at Kaia directly. “That’s what she always said, too. ‘Every great comedian has to have a brilliant straight man.’”

  “Sounds like you were a good team.”

  “Yeah.” Ethan was coming out of it. His reason was kicking back in and his openness shutting down. He looked across the cavernous room. “So many of them.”

  “Holy cow, yeah. I never imagined it, even when I saw all the chambers. I couldn’t fathom this many people in them!” She walked quickly down the catwalk. “It’s incredible.”

  Ethan followed her.

  “I’m getting my bearings, though.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. This is alpha-theta row. If you look, you can see our oldest passenger about thirteen chambers down, on the left. He’s fifty-two.”

  Kaia looked at him quizzically. “fifty-two? That’s not so old. I thought they were accepting people on Minea up to seventy-five if they were in good health. Seems like we’d at least have some people in their sixties, doesn’t it? Out of all these people?”

  Ethan shrugged. “I just know he’s our oldest. And I’
m catching up fast. We won’t even be halfway there before I take the title.”

  Kaia’s brow was furrowed. “Weird. Who else do you know?”

  “Well, some of the more interesting passengers are clustered over in that far corner. You can’t see them, but there are three families with twelve kids apiece.”

  Kaia raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Bet it was fun getting that group into stasis.”

  Ethan smiled. “I’ll bet.”

  They looked around for a while more. Suddenly, Kaia’s face brightened. “Hey! Do you know where my dad is?”

  Ethan thought. “What was his name?”

  “Reagan. Phillip Reagan.”

  “I remember the name. I think he’s somewhere near the beginning, on beta or epsilon row in Hold One. But the door’s way up there—” He pointed toward another corner. Kaia squinted in that direction and then headed back for the hatch.

  “Let’s go down!” She called over her shoulder. “I want to find him!” Characteristically, she was gone before Ethan could say anything.

  He looked back over his shoulder towards Aria’s chamber. “I’ll come see you soon,” he said quietly. Then he climbed into the shaft.

  Ethan could hear Kaia scuffling down the tunnel in front of him. “Wait up!” he called, knowing he’d never find his way back through the right turns. He heard her pause. When he caught up, they continued on in what Ethan felt sure was a different set of turns than they’d taken before.

  “Are we going a different way?”

  “Yeah. We’re getting closer to the first passenger hold. No reason to go back to the caretaker’s hold first.”

  “You’re like a mouse in here. I think you know these back ways better than you know the main passages.”

  “I spent enough time in them. I ought to know them.”

  “Where are we now?”

  “We’re over the navigation rooms,” she said. “Here’s the main nav room.” She crawled a few more lengths. “Here’s the secondary nav room.”