Author's Note:
This continues to be written and published a few paragraphs at a time over several days on Bluesky. Posts there are limited to 300 characters.
*
In the shielded heart of the Pendragon, a light changed from green to orange. Six passengers slept like the dead in technological coffins, within which the temperature was maintained at precisely 4°C. Dead, but not dead, their hearts beating twice per minute. All except Shula Mistral da Terra, whose heart was pounding at nearly twice the appropriate rate. Precisely calibrated medical instruments noted an alarming rise of body temperature to 7°C, and recorded brain activity consistent with REM sleep.
A light changed from green to orange, an audible alarm sounded, and a message was sent to the Pendragon. Shula Mistral, of course, was not aware of any of this. Her stirring, fragmented consciousness spiralled almost obsessively in a craving for elusive logic. One memory in particular. Her research supervisor, the professor, shaking his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Shula," he said. "There are only six spaces and you are the most junior member of the team."
Shula suppressed a scream. "But I'm the one who found it!"
"You are, it's true," he said in a magnanimous tone, "and you will certainly get credit for that discovery, once we are ready to go public, but you must be patient. It has already been decided who will go."
"You haven't filled the sixth place yet," she pointed out through gritted teeth.
Six spaces. The professor himself would lead the expedition, and he had selected and announced the names of four others too - all men, of course. But Shula was the one who had spent three years sifting through a year's worth of probe data. She should be going too.
The professor shrugged. "It's policy, dear. The Wolf system is categorised as deep space, and the research council will not fund unmarried female researchers on deep space missions."
Shula wanted to cry. It was to escape such casual misogyny that she had left Colony Mistral.
"I know, I know," the professor said. "It's deeply unfair to you, but you have to understand how important it is in the colonies to protect fertile young women like yourself. This research expedition is likely to last several months. You could use that time well."
It was a sentiment she had heard too often. Return to Mistral, allow some young man to impregnate her. Mistral might be nothing but a ball of ore-rich rock with an icy coat, but the medical facilities there were first class. It would be a safe place to bring a child into the universe. "I'm not going home," she insisted.
The professor sighed unhappily. "There is one possibility," he said. "The funding rules will permit a married female researcher, provided her husband - or husbands - accompanies her. We have already placed an advertisement for such a woman. I would not object to you fulfilling that role."
Shula was speechless. All her life, she had avoided relationships. She had thrown herself into her research partly as a way to avoid having to interact socially with men. It wasn't that she found them unattractive, but the men in her life were always so focussed on impregnating women. She hated the idea of being seen as a womb first and as a person a distant second. The possibility of marrying was an event in her distant future. Being contracted, even temporarily, to five men would have been comical as the plot of some romantic fiction, but... this was no fiction.
The advert was real. Once she knew what to look for, she found it easily. "Wife sought," Shula read. "A one-year contract with five men. Must be certified for deep space. Research experience required." Shula was qualified. She was single, certified for deep space, and had research experience...
... but did she really have to marry her own professor to get the very opportunity that should by right be hers anyway?
"Bastards!" she screamed, her hands itching to break something. A friend of hers had once joked that women were only good for two things: taking to bed; and being bred.
The orange light turned red and the volume of the alarm increased until a fingertip pressed the emergency resuscitation button. "Wake up, Shula Mistral da Terra," said the Pendragon's captain. "Maybe you can answer some questions for me."
*
On the bridge of the Pendragon, Ahsan studied the large display and pondered those same questions. Why all the mystery? Why charter a salvage vessel? Why set course for a dangerous gas giant at the very edge of charted space?
Seven weeks had passed since the Pendragon jumped into the Wolf system. During those seven weeks, Cub had grown from a black dot into a mesmerising orb with bands of blue and brown and white, broken by angry red storms.
Ahsan understood very little of it. Being in space was a constant surprise for him, despite having lived in space for almost as long as he could remember. In the warrens of many-ringed Station Eight, it had been possible to live with only minimal awareness of the precarious nature of life there.
Even when working at the port and going EVA, there had been something reassuring about the presence of the ice giant Yeti, whose vast, deep ocean of water was the lifeblood of Station Eight. He had never imagined that one day he would be at the controls of a starship, light years away from the nearest human colony. Not, of course, that he had any confidence in being able to fly the ship or navigate between the stars, but he was getting better at following simple instructions.
Captain Therese had taught him much, and he had become reasonably proficient with the robotic salvage equipment, spending hours each day in practice. That was in addition to his daily routine as a cabin maid, tidying up after the rest of the crew, and preparing food and in the galley. And exercise, of course. Four times a day in the wheel, cajoling lazy muscles back to full strength. The worst part of working at Station Eight's port was always returning to the artificial gravity in the rings after hours of weightlessness. On the Pendragon, weightlessness was the norm.
"This is Ahsan," Captain Therese said, leading a young woman onto the bridge. "Ahsan, this is Shula Mistral da Terra."
She wasn't pretty, Ahsan decided, feeling instinctively threatened. But she was a real woman, young and presumably fertile, and therefore rare and valuable in the eyes of men. Although, to be fair, she had just woken up from being nearly frozen for two months, and even half an hour beneath a hot shower was probably not enough for her to feel properly alive again. And maybe the weightlessness didn't help either.
