D.A. by Connie Willis

Author:Connie Willis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2011-03-01T19:09:26.094323+00:00

6.

I spent the next day and a half checking my phone for messages and hoping Kimkim hadn’t been about to say, “It may take months for me to come up with something,” or, worse, “It may take extensive modifications to your phone’s circuits,” and worrying that if the registrar had been listening in, it didn’t matter. They’d jam whatever Kimkim tried.

Then classes started, and I spent every waking moment trying to keep up with cadets who’d not only taken astrogation and exobotany, but knew how to dock a shuttle, read a star chart, and brush their teeth while weightless. First-year cadets had to spend half of each watch in the non-rotated sections of the RAH, learning to live and work in microgravity. Most of them (including, of course, Libby) had taken classes in weightlessness on earth, and the rest had clearly been chosen for their ability to float from one end of the module to the other without crashing into something, a gene I obviously lacked. The second day I sneezed, did a backward triple somersault, and crashed into a bank of equipment, an escapade that gave me the idea of pleading a bad cold and asking to see the doctor—a medical discharge surely couldn’t hurt my chances at UCLA—but when I went to the infirmary, the medic said, “Stuffiness in the head is a normal side effect of weightlessness,” and gave me a sinus prescription.

“What about chronic vertigo?” I asked. I was actually down to only a couple of episodes a day, but it had occurred to me that “inability to tolerate space environment” might be a way out.

“If it hasn’t disappeared a month from now, come see me,” he said and sent me back to EVA training. Luckily, I didn’t sneeze during my spacewalk and go shooting off into space, but being outside and linked to the RAH only by a thin tether reminded me just how dangerous space was.

Well, that, and the fact that those dangers were the second favorite topic of the cadets at mess and during rec periods. If they weren’t talking about the difficulty of detecting fires in a weightless environment (there aren’t any flames, just a hard-to-see reddish glow), they were recounting gruesome tales of jammed oxygen lines and carbon monoxide buildup and malfunctioning heating units that froze students into cadet-sicles. Or speculating on all the things that might happen, from unexpected massive solar flares to killer meteors to explosive decompression. All of which made it clear I needed to get off of here soon. I messaged the registrar during my study period, but he said he was still waiting for the cadet files.

There was still no word from Kimkim. I checked my phone every time I had the chance and tried to send her periodic Maidez’s, but each time the display said, “Number out of range,” which was putting it mildly.

I messaged the registrar again. Still waiting.

You’re still waiting? I thought. At least he had an office of his own. He didn’t

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