CHAPTER 5
Effie hung in space. They were moving just above the broken thruster. Above in the sense that their feet were oriented towards it at least. The propulsion system a few puffs of gas as they fired the thrusters upwards to bring them into intercept course with it. They accelerated at an unsettling speed towards the surface of the station. Had they misjudged the angle?. They looked at the solar array next to the thruster and realised that they had misjudged the closeness of the panels. Apparently the last time they had done this, perhaps not even as Effie, the array had been larger, the design of the station hadn’t changed much the past two centuries, but sometimes arrays needed replacing and these were smaller than the last, meaning they had actually been much closer to the station than they thought. They twisted around and fired on half thrust for 2 tiks and then twisted again to the side to change their trajectory so as not to hit the array itself. They collided with the station somewhat ungracefully, but in one piece. They shook off the impact and used another burst to head towards the hand holds near the array. Then they clipped a tether to the rail next to the hand holds to avoid having to use the thrusters anymore on half their usual amount of brain power.
They reached the array about 3 krots later and set about evaluating the issue. It looked as if, in the vacuum of space, the mechanical arms designed to extend and adjust the position of the array had fused together at the joints, something which was possible without air to form a less reactive surface layer. ‘great,’ they thought, ‘another repair before I get to the thruster’
Keeping a steady hold on the pieces of the array, they took the EVA drill from their belt with one hand and, grabbed the edge of the arm with two others. Friction heat caused the metal to glow as the drill was applied, the force of the drill sending vibrations through Effie’s suit forcing them to us their hand holds to pull themselves closer to avoid being pushed away from the array. After about two krots of drilling, the fused joint cracked free. The jolt as the arm started moving again went through the entire structure, moving with all the steady force of a trebuchet on an ancient battlefield, the array began to extend and turn, greeting the morning, starlight like a metallic gold and silver flower.
Unfortunately, Effie was still hanging on to the arm when this happened.
Effie let out a noiseless yelp as they were yanked upwards with the arm. They switched their grip from the arm to their tether as they hurtled upwards into the void. Sticking with the arm was unviable, it was too big and their suit too clumsy.
The tether was their lifeline, if they let it be snapped by the motion of the arm, they were done for. They kicked lightly away from the array as it unfolded into its full glory. Still heading into the blackness but now out of the influence of the mechanical device. Now all they needed to do was hold the tether and wait for their movement to stop. Why, oh why did they decide to do this without full cognitive ability, they would easily have remembered to keep clear of the moving parts if they’d had their full wits about them, what would they do if they lost half their brain and most of their body in a simple spacewalk. ‘stupid, stupid stupid’ the tether went taught and snapped them free of momentary panic. There was nothing to do about it now, just try to get back in one piece. They closed their auxiliary eyes and gripped the tether with all their limbs to distract from the rapidly spinning views of first the station, then the planet below, then the blinking light of the systems star, then the endless ocean of stars and darkness eons away in every other direction.
The tether pulled back on them They reopened their eyes and saw the station, spinning gently below them. They were glad they had shut off their gag reflex before coming out here.
They first checked to see where the drill had gone. Mercifully, it was still tethered to their suit but was drifting around a meter away. They carefully pulled it towards themselves, so as not to accelerate it to dangerous speeds and then place it back on their belt. Then they quickly pulled themselves back to the station surface and headed towards the damaged thruster, and checked the stations wireless self-diagnostic system to make sure the more distant parts of the outer hull didn’t need fixing in some way. This was something they should have done before leaving the airlock, but they had been so hurried to get this done, they had forgotten. This was a serious lapse in discipline on their part, they mentally scolded themselves, if the reading had indicated more damages then they wouldn’t have had enough oxygen to get to the far side of the hull anyway. Regardless, there was still time to fix the thruster. A quick evaluation showed that a micro-meteor had puncture on of the fuel tanks containing the one of the reagents, much as the damage report had suggested. They first patched the hole with some fast expanding sealant foam and then placed a metal plate on top of it which they then welded in place with a plasma torch. Some minor work with the sander to flush it with the surface and then trigger the refuelling system and it was then time to head back inside, and yell at the other Effie for having this stupid idea.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
They pulled on the tether till they were back on the station surface, detached the tether from the station rail, leaving only its connection by the airlock. Then they activated the motor on the other end, letting it draw them back to safety.
The other Effie, the one who had, perhaps unwisely allocated themselves the bulk of the critical thinking and academic understanding was at this time, halfway through their final report. “…will definitely need to be revised to avoid any risk to Milieu organisms in the rejuvenation project, however, this change will not take long, as it is a simple matter of engineering a unique antigen which will signal the agent to shut down.” They finish writing the report and then activated the stations comms system “Lowram, the report is ready, could you and the rest of bio-medical get started on it, I have a really good feeling about this one”
The thin, weedy voice of Lowram Fenditch Fenkal, the chief liaison of the stations life weavers came back “About time, been doing nothing but counting our cilia since the last set of markers were issued, send it down, and I’ll bring it to the Cabrolac,” he hesitated a moment before remembering his manners “Thanks Effie” he finished before cutting the line, before they could respond.
Now, it was time to get back to the carpentry project. If they could get the other Effie to rejoin with them. They pressed another button on the keyboard to get the EVA suit they had used “Writing Effie to Maintenance Effie, have yo- euwaagh” their sentence was interrupted by Maintenance Effie coming up behind them, pick them up, and punting them out of the comms room door and 5 meters into the hallway outside, slamming into the opposite wall, with a boneless splatt!.
“What kind of stupid idea was that?”, they yelled at them, “I nearly got stranded in empty space and then where would you have been? A miniscule head with half your neurons missing? I have most of the engineering knowledge, you’d have had to relearn everything, we worked so hard to learn in spacecraft apprenticeship, first year engineering school, even the aero-space training from Arasynthway”
Writing Effie peeled themselves off the wall with a sucking sound and groaned “weeeelll, strictly speaking we didn’t work to learn most of that, our progenitors did, and I am sure we could relearn”
“you mean you could relearn, I’d be lost in space forever, and that’s all besides the point, I’m saying you risked sentencing yourself to months or years of recovery and relearning all because you were in a hurry”
Maintenance Effie didn’t have a face, just a pair of auxillary eyes on stalks protruding out from between their shoulders,, but those eyes were somehow conveying all the fear, anger and exhaustion of a full faced scowl
Despite themselves, writing Effie bristled in indignation at the tone their other self was taking. “We knew exactly what we were doing when we made the decision, you’re just angry because you had a frightening experience, calm down”
Maintenance Effie stood tense for a few more moments. Then pulled all their limbs inwards for a moment, curling into a tight ball and then expelling a susurration of small gas expenditures from the ends of their limbs as they extended back out. This was a muscular tensing and breathing exercise Effie used when they were too filled with pent up emotions to cope. Writing Effie changed their tone to try and encourage this shift in mood. “Now,” they said in a gentler voice “do you need a moment to talk about what happened, or do you just need space?”
Maintenance Effie has sunk down from their upright position, reminiscent of vertebrates, to a stretched out mound of limbs, their eyes sunken into their jelly-like body cavity, staring up at the ceiling. “I was so scared,” was all they said at first, then “ there was a fused joint on part of the solar array, I had to get it free before I got to the thruster, but the array unfolded as soon as I got it loose, I got tossed into the void and I couldn’t do anything but hope my tether would hold.”
“Right, ok, I understand why you are so upset” replied Writing Effie “We made a bad decision, and it put you in danger, I am sorry for the part I played in that as the primary cognitive section.”
They waited a another few Krots whilst the emotional turmoil within both of them subsided. Then Writing Effie crawled over to Maintenance Effie and kindly said “you know, if we don’t reintegrate and get back to our quarters, the wood will dry out and then we’ll have to start all over again”
The soggy mass of their other offshoot let out a fluting sigh from on of the assorted siphons and gas valves and then rose up on their assorted muscles and gaseous bladders and replied “You know what? You’re right, we should go”
Writing Effie crawled atop what might be considered Maintenance Effie’s shoulders. The ligaments and skin dissolved at the points their necks met and fused together, 4 krots later, the wiring of their nervous systems properly reconnected and a newly rejoined Effie arose.
It was always slightly jarring, reconciling two sets of memories in parallel with each other, but the disorientation passed quickly as they slotted them into separate mental compartments in their internal model of the world. The myriad of whispered voices of the memories of the many other people Effie had descended from or bonded with were jostled around by the process like rain drops sending ripples through a pond. Though they had mostly been quiet since they had awoken, now, ancient duplicate personas of centuries passed stirred from the depths of Effie’s thought to provide their template’s commentary on the current goings on.
‘Oh, great,’ Effie thought, ‘Still, time to go finish my carving’ a ‘yes’ ‘no’ ‘what carving?’ chorus of thoughts not quite their own stated in response.