Humanity in the Deep

Roger weaved his way through the ship. Most everyone was on the same floor or block. It almost felt like his old apartment complex. Well, if everyone there had known each other and were friendly. The quarters were tight, but no one he had saw was really angry. He got the idea that many of them treated boosting as an excuse to relax and hang out with friends. Even if they wanted to, most people couldn’t do much work during the burn anyway.

He was greeted by several people as he passed. Glancing at the signs on the hatches, he finally found the one that read: “Blue|1|58”.

He waved his wristcomp on the sensor. Shortly afterward, a large man opened the hatch. “Hello,” he paused for a second, then said, “You’re Roger Powell, aren’t you?”

Roger was still not used to everyone knowing him on sight.

“It’s done?”

“Got it right here.” Roger pointed at his wristcomp on his right wrist. William put his into tablet mode then said, “Voice ID: William Beauregard.” While holding his thumb over the scanner on the wristcomp.

“Transfer fifty coins to Roger Powell.”

Roger saw the system ping him, and he accepted the transfer. He then pulled the full resolution image file up on his wristcomp and swiped it to William.

“Now, let’s see what it looks like at its proper size.” He rubbed his hands together. “Come on, I’m sure the missus will love it.”

Roger stepped into the room and saw an older woman going through a box. She extended her hand and said, “I’m Claire. I do hope my husband didn’t put you out too much.”

“It was no trouble, ma’am, although I can’t say I’ve ever drawn a chainsaw or a dragon before.”

She leered at her husband.

He got the image up on the large wall screen. It showed him riding a dragon over a farming landscape with a chainsaw in one hand and reins in the other. William looked pleased with himself.

He slapped Roger on the back and said, “Good work, son, easily worth double what I paid.”

“Thanks,” Roger said with a smile on his face.

Claire said, “Thanks for the painting, even if my husband is a putz.”

Roger left, glad he had let Kat talk him into delivering it by hand, instead of electronically.

---

After almost two weeks at a full G, and four more to go, Roger would be happy when they reached their cruising speed of one-tenth light speed. Then the rings could be spun up, so everyone could return to their usual quarters and offices.

Roger stood back and looked at his work, Leif Erikson on a Viking longboat sailing the sky. The sun was behind the boat, and the water almost looked like a rainbow. Not his most creative project idea, but it had been requested several times. Engineers were strange people.

He was working on the texture of the wood for the longboat when he heard Kyle walk up behind him and say, “Nice boat.”

“Thanks.”

“How’d the empire costumes go over?” Roger said without turning around.

“Pretty well, thanks for the help.”

Roger had offered some suggestions on work Kyle was doing as a tailor. Apparently, a handful of people were making a space opera during transit and wanted uniforms for some sort of evil empire.

“Want to have dinner with Kat and me tonight? Nadica is going to be out, and I’m cooking.”

Roger turned around and looked at Kyle, who put his hands up and said, “I called in a favor to get use of the kitchen, going to cook in it now. Kat invited Chief Pilot Nodel. She wants to make a good impression, not sure why. She even insisted I not try out something new.”

Kyle was infamous for half of his new recipes turning out amazing, and the other half best left to the algae to recycle. Eating one of his latest creations was like playing food roulette.

“So, you in? She really wants you there.”

Roger thought for a second, then said, “Sure.” He ate with the three of them most nights, and he probably would have done it again that night anyway. Kat must really want to make sure he would be there for some reason.

---

Roger finished the last of his lasagna and put his fork down.

Nodel was shorter than he had imagined. The Commander was wearing his uniform; he had the look of a man who was always expecting something to happen.

“...so then we board the boat, thinking that something has gone horribly wrong. They were drifting and emitting their emergency beacon, you see.”

He took a drink from his glass before continuing, “They’d not responded to any calls, so we do a line dock and get on board. Didn’t even have to use our torches; they hadn’t locked the outer seal.

“We made our way to the cockpit, and what do did we see? Two kids having sex! Somehow, they’d stolen the boat and turned the transceiver off and the beacon on.”

They all laughed while Kyle cleaned up the dishes from the tiny room he had reserved for the night.

Nadica was off watching some show with her friends. He missed her but was glad that she was with friends of her own age for once.

“How are you settling in, Roger?” Nodel asked, after suddenly turning to face him.

“Not bad. It’s different, but not in a bad way. Everyone’s helpful, even when they don’t gain anything from it. Several times I got lost, and all I had to do was ask the nearest person for help, and they showed me where to go.

“Although, to be honest, being able to just paint without worrying about having money for rent or food was worth coming by itself. I still find it amazing that Gina just gives me vague guidelines about what to paint and where. She’ll suggest a certain painting for a certain spot but never presses.”

Nodel said, “That’s just the way we do things. We trust people to do what they do best. She knows she’s not a painter, so she lets you take the lead. At least until you do something to show you’re not worthy of her trust,” Nodel replied.

Kat snorted, “That’s not going to happen; he works too hard as it is. Everything he paints is beautiful. What he needs to do is learn to step back every now and then. I once had to drag him away from his brushes when I caught him working nonstop for sixteen hours.” Kat put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed while he blushed.

“Son, listen to her. You need to take care of yourself.”

Nodel then told them, “I studied art for a while when I was younger and trust me when I say you show more than just talent. You have a real skill gained the only way it can be gained: hard work. Too many people have talent but never invest the time to make it into a real skill. You have, and just as importantly, you’re a real artist. You bring something new and different into each work.”

Roger sat silent for a moment, feeling a bit embarrassed.

“I do apologize for the false pretext, but I wanted to talk to you in a social situation without any pressure. Kat suggested you as a pilot candidate, and I wanted to get your measure myself.”

He recalled Kat telling him that several trainees had been flunked out of training.

“Seriously? You’re that desperate? I never even learned how to drive a ground car. How could I become a pilot?”

“First, you adapted quickly to zero-G, much faster than almost anyone I know of.”

Kat added, “You were skip-running almost as good as me in a matter of days.”

Nodel joined in, “It takes most people weeks to skip-run, if they ever do. Some passengers never do learn to function in zero-G. They hide out in the rings for the whole trip and scarf down pills when we aren’t spinning or boosting.

“You also have no problem concentrating, nor learning a skill deeply, and improving yourself. Those are all traits I look for in pilots.

“Lastly, you’re also one of the few people who can do your job when moving. You can even hold classes on mining bases or aboard boats. When we get to a build like this, we’re spread throughout the system. Some of us set up mines, some set up surveillance and mapping sat’s. Some are in the bigger boats for months at a time, picking up ring or comet material. There’s a slight lag of minutes or hours from one outpost to another. Loneliness and boredom are always problems. If you’re a pilot, you can teach classes as you go.”

Kat touched his arm, looked deeply into his eyes, and said, “Commander Nodel won’t pass you if you’re not good enough. It’ll be fun, and we can be in the sim games together.”

Roger had trouble seeing himself as a pilot, but he also once had trouble seeing himself off New Europe.

He put his hand out and clasped with Nodel, “I will try.”

---

One day after the acceleration burn ended, Roger started sim piloting runs. He had only begun learning two weeks before and still had more procedures and such to learn, but they wanted him to use what he was taught as soon as possible.

He was not doing too well.

Having so many different types of boats did not help things. They had large boats that could land on a planet, and boats that could barely hold a dozen people.

“Co-pilot has the stick,” Roger said with more confidence than he felt. He gave one last burst with the plasma drive then started to coast to the asteroid that was dead ahead.

He watched it get more prominent on the screens. When he judged he was close enough, he flipped the boat around and used the jets, managing to cancel out most of the velocity.

When he was close enough to see the windows near the docking port, he turned the boat around carefully by nudging the controls.

Putting his hand on the jet controls and thrusting the boat laterally for a few seconds, he thought he had it. The boat then started to spin. He tried to fix it but just ended up making things worse.

It crashed into the asteroid.

The screens went blank then displayed, “Simulation failure, do you wish to restart?”

Roger sat back and relaxed. It was the fourth time he had failed that sim. Commander Nodel said his progress was encouraging, but Roger had his doubts.

He suddenly felt hands on his shoulders and almost jumped out of the chair before seeing it was just Kat.

“You look like you crashed another boat.”

“I keep over correcting.”

She leaned forward and put her arm across his chest, and said, “You’re getting better. We have plenty of time to learn how to do a lot of things.”

He could feel the heat from her breath on his neck when he rapidly said, “I have to go. I have a commission to finish.” He gently lifted her arm, up and he left the cockpit.

His heart would not stop racing until he was out of the compartment.

---

He was halfway to stores when he saw Kyle. They were upship of the hab rings and in zero gravity. “Sim didn’t go well, I take it?”

Roger never ceased to be amazed at how well Kyle could read people. “No, crashed the boat again. I’m starting to think I’m not cut out to be a pilot.”

They mag-walked to stores to buy food for the week. A few seconds later, Kyle said, “Nodel wouldn’t be spending time training you if he thought you were a lost cause. You didn’t learn to paint in a day; you won’t learn to fly a boat in a day.”

As they entered, Kyle said, “I did pretty well this week, time to get some steaks,” as he slapped Roger on the back.

When Roger had arrived, he assumed that everyone was an engineer or at least a technician, that everyone helped maintain the ship. But that was no truer for the Erikson than it was for a city. Kyle was a tailor and a cook, that was how he earned his money.

From what Roger knew, Kyle had planned to become an officer, then he put everything on hold when his parents died, and his sisters needed him.

They picked up several steaks as well as the rest of the food Kyle was going to cook and headed back.

---

Putting the groceries away made Roger feel at home; at least one thing was the same everywhere. His place was next door, but their place felt more like home.

Kat came in, “Late, as usual, I see.” Kyle said without turning around.

“Busy, I swear,” she said while grinning.

“So.... Roger, want to help me train? Going to see if we can place in the Pong matches.”

“Pong?”

Nadica piped up from the corner, “It’s a game played during transit in one of the middle-sized cargo bays. Several transparent walls are set up through the bay in such a way as to provide a maze that has several large open spaces. The players have to rush through to get the ball to the goal while only touching it for two or less seconds at a time.”

She then went back to reading.

“Another competition?”

Kyle sat down and said, “Competition, so long as it’s healthy, pushes people to improve like nothing else. One of the problems with a ship this small is that there is not much room for it. Gina and the other practical psych’s try and encourage us to get in what we can. And the exercise, of course, is good for anyone spending time in zero-G.”

Roger thought about the commissioned painting he was working on, but he could get that done later. He would rather be tired than disappoint her.

“I would love to, Kat.”

---

When he first saw the Erikson and realized how large it was, he had difficulty getting over how anything that moved could be that big. Then he grew used to it, and he thought about how small it was compared to large cities. Despite that, hardly a week went by without him going somewhere new and feeling that it was unimaginably large again.

The large compartment already had the transparent walls set up. Goals were in the middle of the bulkheads to the left and right. Between them was a 3-D maze.

While he was looking at the room, he felt Kat slip her hand in his. He turned and looked into her eyes, and saw her smile.

He was happy.

On New Europe, he had kept himself busy painting. Even when he couldn’t sell anything, he painted. He never really thought past the next month. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember the last time he had been genuinely happy.

“Thanks for helping.”

“No problem,” he said as he pushed himself out into the middle of the room.

He did his best to look her in the eye and said, “I’ve never had a friend like you before, not that I’ve ever really had friends.”

“What?” She said asked softly.

“I...never really had a friend on New Europe. I had my father and Evelyn, but she was more family.”

There was A hint of deep sadness in her eyes that embarrassed him, but he found a way to continue.

“I guess...I want to say thank you. You didn’t have to be my friend, but you did.”

She had been moving to him for the entire conversation, she jumped off one of the bulkheads and gently hugged him.

“I’m your friend, Roger, and I’m here when you need me.” Roger hugged her back with all the strength he had.