I’m an animal as well as a spacefarer.
I seem to have lost my calluses, and just a half hour of playing becomes too painful for my finger pads. I put the violin away, then plant myself in front of 06’s window and stare out. Space is disorienting and obliviating. I could stare into it forever.
An hour left.
You’re going nuts, Ambrose.
I immerse myself in the harvesting training reels, studying again and again the protocols, the emergency fallbacks for every possible outcome. Surely enough time has gone by.
When I approach the corridor that leads to theAurora, the orange portal is closed.
I wait.
“OS, tell me how many hours it’s been since I invited Kodiak to dinner.”
“Five hours and sixteen minutes,” Devon Mujaba’s voice says.
That voice! “How much more do you think I should give him?” I ask.
“So far you have given him sixteen minutes more.”
“Fair. Is he just on the other side of his door?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Tell himI’veauthorized the orange portal to open whenever he wishes.”
“Acknowledged.”
“How long has it been now?”
“Seventeen minutes.”
I must be getting tired, because my hand goes to my wrist, as if we were within reach of the comm towers on Earth, as if I could bracelet-message Kodiak, or Minerva to complain about Kodiak. “Tell him I’m going to go eat, but he’s welcome to join me.”
“Kodiak Celius has requested to remain muted unless it’s an emergency.”
“I take it my mealtime happiness is not an emergency?”
“That is correct.”
My already brittle smile crumbles. I walk down my curving stair, back to full simulated gravity. “It’s okay,” I tell OS. “I could use some time alone.”
OS laughs mechanically.
“Who programmed you to laugh?” I ask. “You never laughed during training.”
“Your mother.”
Wow. My mother directed my operating system to laugh at my jokes. “Miss you, Ma,” I whisper as I settle into 04. I never called her “Ma” back on Earth. The very thought is preposterous.
I pick out a lentil curry, noticing as I do that Rover has already replenished the manicotti I ate earlier. I place the pouch into its heating slot, cycle through to the curry heating option, and watch the timer count down from ninety. Isit down, get a fresh sleeve of water, and open the roasting-hot bag of curry like a bag of chips, cursing when scalding bean slurry dribbles down my thumb.
Suddenly I’m furious. I hurl the pouch against the wall. It makes a violent green-brown spatter against the pure white surface, like I’ve taken a shotgun to some cartoon Martian. I suck on my burnt thumb.Fuck you, Kodiak Celius.
A heavy tread. I stagger to my feet.
I’m no longer alone.
