[-fiction-]
by Sherry D. Ramsey
Space is dangerous. Accidents happen.
Ektober and I stare at each other through the airlock chamber window. His grey eyes are stony and riveted on mine, blue and equally unyielding. We both appreciate that beyond the airlock death is waiting, cold and dark and lonely.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure.”
Our voices are tinny, disembodied over the airlock’s comm speaker. They hang in the air like ghosts in this ship that already has too many ghosts.
Accidents happen. When Ramirez disappeared, was that the first accident? The first mystery, anyway. How does a contracted mining engineer disappear from an ore hauler moving at .4 lightspeed halfway between the Belt and Paradise Station? There are only three decks, only so many hiding places. Cargo pods brimful of ore. Airlocks that don’t close without someone inside at the controls. Cameras and monitors watching in the light, in the dark, in the times between.
Still, he was gone.
That left four of us, angry and scared. If we had suspicions, we kept them to ourselves. Didn’t speak except to snap at each other. Didn’t ask the right questions. Mistakes, just the first of many.
Accidents happen. Chen, floating outside the ship, EVA with just a tether umbilical, trying to realign the thrusters after the ore mysteriously shifted. Just a stevedore, doing his job. We should all have been at the monitors, might have seen why the last ore pod shifted again and crushed him. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe we would have had an explanation.
“Damn! Not again!”
“What the hell happened?”
“Chen! Is he–”
Three of us now, screaming at each other, then silent. The time we could have sat down and talked about it come and gone and far too late now. More mistakes. We should have stuck together then, stuck like glue, never let each other out of sight. There might still be three of us, instead of just Ektober and me, standing on opposite sides of the airlock door with a single flux laser between us.
Accidents. Glazer hiding out on C deck with just his drives for company–was it only four days ago? Then the ship going suddenly quiet, drives offline. Ektober and I seemed to get there at the same time. The horrible burns on Glazer’s suit and through his chest might have been from the plasma injector leak. Or maybe, just maybe, flux laser burns. I’m not a doctor nor a cop, and neither is Ektober. Charred, burnt flesh is a fact but not necessarily an explanation. How could either of us be sure? But there were flux lasers in the weapons locker, we all knew that. There’s one less now.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? Just like you killed the others.”
“I haven’t killed anyone–yet.”
“And yet they’re dead.”
Space is dangerous. Ektober patched up the plasma leak while I watched. He didn’t turn his back to me, even for a second. It might keep working long enough to get home. The ore hauler runs raggedly without Glazer to tend the drives. She’s not an old ship, but she wheezes through space like a run-down antique, the ore heavy in her belly. The stresses shake us both around inside like vultures eyeing the same piece of carrion.>br/>
Two of us left, not speaking then, barely speaking now, just watching. Captain and navigator. Either one of us could make it alone, run the ship and maybe make station. Got to be careful. Accidents happen. Ektober’s eyes are on me all the time, even when he’s not in the same part of the ship. I can feel them. He knows I’m watching him, too. Oh, he knows. Dangerous. Air, water, food, life; it’s all here in this tin can of a ship and outside only hot stars and cold death. Leaks, malfunctions, poisons, murder; death sometimes comes inside, too, no less cold for a thin shroud of metal and plastic embracing it.
“It was you, all along.”
“You think I–no, you’re just saying that. It was you.”
“What are you going to do?”
Silence.
The EVA suits hang limp against the steel wall like a row of hanged men, mute guardians against what waits outside the airlock. Ektober and I can both see them. They’re all empty, just like the engine room where Glazer tended the drives like they were his children. Just like the cabin where Chen slept, dreaming of home after a long ore run. Just like Ramirez’ chair at the geology console, worn soft by long hours plotting ore deposits and calculating capacities. Empty like the bridge, empty like the trust that hollows out quick when a crew all alone in space starts dying.
So it comes down to this. Ektober and I, watching each other, one on each side of the airlock door. Both thinking the same thing, I’m sure–only one of us will be alive on the hauler when she grinds her way into the spacedock. Only one to claim the salvage. Only one to sell the ore. A rich haul. If she makes it that far. But was it worth murder?
“Just tell me one thing.”
“Don’t try to talk me out of this!”
“Are you killing me because you killed the rest of them, or because you think I did it?”
Ektober can’t see my hands, but he knows I’m still holding the flux laser with one. The flux laser I used to force him into the airlock chamber. He can’t see how it’s shaking. I imagine my voice, still ghostly even if I make it to Paradise Station, explaining why I did what I’m about to do. “I just couldn’t stand it any more. I was too frightened. It must have been him…”
Must have? Is that good enough? Maybe he didn’t do it. Maybe I’d be safe enough if I just left him where he is until we make the station…
“No! You–it must have been you. There’s no-one else.”
“I didn’t kill anyone. And I don’t think you did, Risa, I really don’t.”
“Then who?”
“There must be an explanation. We could find it together…”
What is he saying? He’s trying to confuse me. Or help me. I don’t want to be left here alone. Maybe I should believe him…
…and maybe not. He knows when he sees me move that I’m going to push the airlock button. My face is wet but I don’t remember when I started crying. I don’t think I have a choice. I have to save myself.
Then suddenly Ektober shouts, a name–but it’s not my name–
And something hits me, hard. I’m shoved against the airlock door, my forehead banging hard against the window. I see Ektober’s eyes, wide with horror and disbelief, looking through the wire-gridded window past me.
I slide down the door, leaving a thin smear of bright red blood along the silvery metal. A voice behind me shouts, “Too long, girl, you’re taking too long! Push it! Just push the damn button!”
Ramirez, dead Ramirez, is reaching down and pulling the flux laser out of my hands. But he’s not dead. No, he’s here, here trying to kill off the last of us. He looks like something dead, covered with dust and dirt from the ore. Somehow he’s been hiding in the ore. Of course. He did the calculations. He supervised the pod loads. But he wants it all–ore, salvage, everything. His mad eyes blaze like supernovas against the black depth of space.
He grabs my wrist but someone kicks him in the stomach and he loosens his hold, bent double and gasping. I realize it was me and kick again.
I’ve still got the flux laser but it’s twisted in my hand. I try to bring it around, aim it at Ramirez but he kicks back. Pain blooms in my side and the air rushes out of my lungs like I’m the one going out the airlock.
The airlock! Ektober is pounding on the inside of the door. The sound booms around us like footsteps in an empty ore pod. Ramirez is wrestling at the flux laser but my finger is on the trigger and I pull it. I don’t know where it’s pointing, it could be straight at my heart but I pull and pull. White fire sears up past Ramirez’ head and he screams, but he doesn’t let go of me.
“Risa!”
Ektober is yelling my name like he thinks I’ve forgotten he’s in there. Ramirez is babbling, swearing. I can’t make out what he’s saying but it’s punctuated by gasps and groans and I realize I’m kicking him again, pushing him back. Hot spittle hits my face and I manage to twist free.
His hand slips off the laser as he staggers backward, and I point and fire again. I hit him–I think–the ore dust ignites and Ramirez flares like a torch and falls against the wall, screaming and striking one of the airlock buttons that I was so close to pushing only–can it be?–seconds ago. But which one?
When the inner door slides open and Ektober bursts out it’s like we’ve hit a time clip and everything’s speeded up. One heartbeat, Ektober grabs Ramirez, still flaming and howling; two beats, he pushes Ramirez into the airlock and slams the button to close the door; three beats and he jabs the other button, ending the screams as Ramirez bursts out into space, into the waiting arms of cold, lonely death. Out with the other ghosts.
Silence. Time slows, returns to normal, my heart keeping pace. Ektober walks over and slumps on the floor beside me, pats me on the arm. He’s breathing hard and not trying to hide it. Five minutes ago I was ready to kill him. Now we’re friends again.
“Why didn’t he wait?” I say finally. “I was going to push the button. If he’d waited I would have killed you and he could have killed me whenever he wanted.”
“He was crazy. Or maybe he thought I was talking you out of it.” Ektober looks at me, his grey eyes unreadable. “Was I?”
I feel a strange tug on my face, something I don’t recognize for a split second. A smile. I shake my head. “No. You were dead. That bastard saved your life.”
Ektober throws a mock salute at the empty airlock and gets to his feet. “Let’s try and get this rig home,” he says. “I need a good long rest. Space is dangerous.”
I let him help me up, wincing at the pain in my side. “Yeah,” I say, “dangerous.”
He walks away, and I pick up the flux laser and stick it through my belt. You never know. It’s a lot of ore. Like they say, accidents happen.
THE END
© 2004 - 2007 sherry d. ramsey; all rights reserved
about the author:
Sherry writes speculative fiction. She’s published many short stories and poems and her unpublished SF novel, “One’s Aspect to the Sun” was recently awarded second place in the 28th Annual Atlantic Writing Competition’s novel category, the H.R. (Bill) Percy Prize. Accidents Happen was originally published online in the July 2004 issue of The Martian Wave. Sherry is also the author of many essays and articles especially on the craft of writing. She is the publisher and editor of the highly successful Scriptorium Webzine for Writers. You can read all about Sherry at her author’s website sherrydramsey.com.
Be sure to read Sherry’s other works in The PCQ.
article - gardening;
poetry
- I, Galaxy
- UPLOAD
Photo credits: all photos courtesy of NASA and The Hubble; click on any of the photos to find out more about each one or see the Hubble Site.
Happy 15th Anniversary to the Hubble!
Published by the permission of the author in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces
Patchwork quilting is an exacting process. There is a great deal of planning, measuring, precise cutting and piecing. Some of us are cut out (ahem, *sorry!*) for that and some aren’t. Or perhaps it’s a discipline that we enjoy at some times and not others. 
This table cover was also made using this technique —but taken to extremes. The fabrics are swatches from decorating sample books. They were cut into random slits, woven in random directions, over-stitched and sometimes re-cut into strips and re-woven. The table base that this was designed to cover has curved sides and front and this technique worked beautifully to be able to mold it to the precise shape needed. 
This is rather old and has been washed several times. The fraying, raw edges are more pronounced, but the whole piece is quite sturdy.
You might think this essay will be about how to keep one’s collections free of dust. It’s not. While I could easily and truthfully admit to hating to dust my various collections (and everything else), what I have to confess goes much deeper.
