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Reflected in Mirrored Skies

by Deborah L. Davitt

Above them, stars; below, the endless roil of leaden clouds that engulfed Venus from pole to pole. Mariana Delahaye watched the radar screen and eyed the autopilot’s trajectory. Beside her, her co-pilot had his feet up on the console. “Relax,” Oluwa Jelani told her. “The computer’s done the flying for months. It’ll handle the docking maneuvers, too.” He laced his hands behind his head. “I don’t get why they need us along for these hauls.”

Mariana shrugged, overriding the autopilot. She loved the feel of the ship, the sensation of wind transmitting into her hands through the controls. She’d flown a C-17 Globemaster back on Earth. She missed it. Her current assignment felt like a glorified trucking gig. “The human mind, Oluwa,” she reminded him, “is our best backup. We’re here to ensure that computer error doesn’t cost thousands of lives.”

Ahead of them, illuminated by Venus’ slow-creeping dawn, a ship hovered. Long, white-tiled, and cylindrical, it hung inside a mesh of carbon-fiber filaments that cradled it below three parallel cigar-shaped balloons, each the length of the ship itself. And trailing behind it? A shimmering filament of silver. At this distance, it looked like spider’s silk, but was as wide as a soccer pitch, though no thicker than a human hair.

These soap-bubble mirrors floated above the clouds, reflecting light and heat, cooling the planet below. It would be centuries before the sulfur clouds precipitated as snow, the carbon in the atmosphere following. Plans called for that “snow” to be paved over with diamond. Locked in place forever. But no one alive today would see it.

“Three balloons?” Oluwa asked. “Why not just one, like a zeppelin back home?”

“Venus requires redundancies,” Mariana reminded him. “Drop below the clouds, and if the pressure doesn’t crush your ship, the heat will charbroil you, and sulfuric acid rain will dissolve whatever remains.” She touched the comm controls. “Qetesh, this is Supply Replenishment Ship 1468. We’re making our final approach, forty kilometers to your southwest. Open the barn doors.”

“SRS-1468, this is the Qetesh,” a pleasant female voice responded. “Captain Tesar sends his compliments, Captain Delahaye. The barn doors are open, but we’re not receiving the autopilot’s handshake.”

Mariana gave Oluwa a sidelong look. “Want to take her in on manual?”

The younger man suddenly pulled his feet off the console as a door on the flat surface of the cylinder opened. “Policy dictates—”

Mariana chuckled. “Policy states that someone with eight thousand flight hours logged can take it in. But even I use autopilot. Liability insurance doesn’t cover idiocy.” She clicked a button on the console. “Bring us in, Qetesh.”

She leaned back. “Now for my safety lecture. There’s no more than a thousand people in each of these habitats. Most of whom are here on twenty-year contracts, or are lifers. They get excited about new faces. Don’t let that go to your head.”

Oluwa frowned. “Why would it?”

Mariana gave him a look. Because you’re a young guy and you’ve spent the last eighteen months cooped up with only me for company. Heck, last time I was here, I hooked up myself, though . . . now’s my chance to figure out if Tesar and I have something real going on, or if it’s just hormones, isolation, and wishful thinking. “I’m just saying, if you find someone friendly, use a condom.”

“And what business is that of yours?”

Mariana rolled her eyes. “I’m staying here to get six months of gravity on my bones,” she replied bluntly. “I won’t be there to laugh when you complain that it burns when you pee on the way home.” Like her son on Earth, Oluwa liked to argue, a trait she found less than endearing.

Oluwa sighed. “Yes, Mother.”

“Can the Mommy crap,” Mariana replied succinctly. To think that I looked forward to having a trainee with me this run, just so I’d have someone to talk to.

__________________

Captain Daniil Tesar stood in the cargo bay, watching his people unload supplies from the SRS. “Welcome back, pirate,” he told Mariana with a cheerful public reserve that belied the hundreds of text messages sent between them. Two years had wrought changes; fresh gray sprinkled her dark hair. “How was Earth?”

She made a face. “Only there long enough to see my kids, and then I rotated back out again.”

“Pirate?” her co-pilot asked, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “What’s this?”

Mariana grimaced. “I’ve an interest in the Age of Sail.” Tesar chuckled softly. “Your captain might be descended from the female buccaneer, Jacquotte Delahaye.”

“Pirates,” she grumbled. “Overly-romanticized criminals.”

Tesar gestured for them to accompany him. “The autonomy that captains had in those days fascinates me. They were alone out there, and had to enforce order with little more than charisma. I consider each pirate—and each pirate-hunter—a case-study in leadership.”

Mariana nodded, but Oluwa looked bored. “If you don’t need me for anything,” the young man returned, “I’d like to go explore.”

“Don’t get in anyone’s way,” Mariana replied.

“Yes, Mother!” Oluwa called, ducking out of the compartment.

Tesar regarded Mariana. “Your replacement?”

“He’s young,” Mariana replied, shrugging. “Eighteen months without anyone to talk to will make him or break him.” She smiled and gave Tesar a nudge in the ribs. “You up for cards tonight? Maybe your XO, too—what’s his name again? Joshua Lee?”

Tesar’s smile faded. “Lee died last year. His wife had seniority, and wound up as XO.”

Her head rose. “Trouble?” she murmured.

“Something to talk about, but not here,” he replied just as softly. “Look, I’ll invite her tonight. And you can see for yourself.”

“All right,” Mariana acquiesced.

He liked her ability to adapt. A quality he wished more people in his habitat possessed.

__________________

Bitna Park-Lee frowned in the command and control center. She hated supply drops. “Venus provides us carbon in abundance,” she muttered, just loudly enough for the young officers at the navigation and communication consoles to hear her. “The 3D printers could manufacture everything we need without recourse to Earth, if we didn’t waste her abundance on these mirrors.”

The communications officer, a young woman of Yoruba ancestry, looked up from where she was monitoring comm traffic from the rest of the habitat fleet. “Sure, commander,” she agreed. “But the printers can’t make egusi seeds. And I can’t make egusi soup without the melons, so I’m stuck ordering seeds from Earth, and begging for space in one of the greenhouses.”

Bitna felt her face tighten. “Luxuries,” she sniffed. “We could do without them.”

The navigator, Jin-kyu Pak, looked up, frowning. Bitna considered him. She thought Jin-kyu might be ready to be recruited—perhaps an encounter between him and Eunseo would soon be in order? “I ordered samgyeopsal,” he noted, however. “Everything else, I can do without, but even from a can, it’s a taste of home. I know it’s a waste of money, but . . .”

Bitna turned away. He’s not as ready as I thought. “Money,” she snorted, checking on another station. “A useless habit of thought. Here we are, two hundred and sixty million kilometers from Earth, and we’re all paid money that we can’t spend. Except for on goods from Earth.” Meals and ‘board’ are provided. The money we earn can be used to buy little luxuries. Chocolate bars from the habitat exchange. But no one here makes any goods that could be traded. There’s no point to the dollars we earn here, or the rubles earned on the Russian habitat. It’s a meaningless gesture to assure us that we aren’t slaves. But none of it has meaning unless we return to Earth. We need to make our own meaning.

Her mind had spun like this even before her husband’s useless death a year ago. But Joshua had talked her out of bitter jags of depression during their first years. “Sweetheart, I know it’s disappointing, but the Mars billets were all filled. And this isn’t so bad, is it? We’re together. That’s what matters, right?”

Except that they’d been trapped inside this windowless ship for years on end, only seeing the same people, the same faces, day in and day out. Claustrophobia hit some people—they’d had a youngster go screaming out an airlock just two years ago, unable to bear the enclosed space any longer. Depression over the pointlessness of their existence had been what hit Bitna. A planet she’d never walk on. A slave to some future generation’s inheritance.

And then Joshua had died. A simple heart attack. And something inside Bitna had snapped. We’re not together. And it’s all so pointless, the way it’s being done.

She’d gone back to work early, taking his position as XO because of her seniority. For a while, her voice had been toneless in public, as she tried to work through the grief and the anger.

But then she’d started dreaming about the planet below. Dreaming that she heard its voice, like a spirit or a ghost. Her rational mind denied it. But . . . it didn’t need to be true. It just needed to be something that other people could believe. Believe in more strongly than they believed in the lies of a distant Earth. We don’t have to be slaves to the future. We can take control of our own lives. Retask the 3D printers for what we need—weapons. Tools. Sabotage the mirror production. Then, when Earth is about to write us off as a bad investment, declare our independence.

Her wrist-unit beeped. “Park-Lee here,” she said, tabbing it.

“XO? Novak here.” The head of security—one of her current lovers, and one of her most ardent supporters—sounded strained. “Can I have a moment?”

Bitna could see the encryption level on his signal. What he had to say, others couldn’t hear. She stepped into the captain’s office beside CIC, and closed the door. “What’s the problem? Be quick—I’m having dinner with Tesar and the pilot of the supply ship in an hour.”

“The co-pilot’s at issue.”

“What about him?” The plan was very specific. They needed sympathetic pilots who could smuggle in weapons, provisions, extra parts and extra medicines. Put their useless money to work in the form of bribes and payoffs. “Did Eunseo make the approach?” I groomed her myself. She should have no difficulties seducing a young man just off eighteen months of isolation on an SRS . . . .

A hesitation. “She did. That’s the problem.”

__________________

Tesar remembered the last time he’d played cards with Mariana. He and the pilot had wound up spending a most of the evening on the couch in his quarters, instead. The couch. The floor. The bed.

But these days, he could feel trouble brewing like an itch at the back of his skull. He’d invited two others to join them this evening: Dr. Leane Bierri, the habitat’s psychiatrist, and his executive officer, Bitna Park-Lee.

Bitna sat across the table from him, body language pulled in, face closed as she studied her cards. “Did you know,” he commented, breaking the silence, “that the astronomical symbol for Venus is supposed to be the goddess of love, holding up her mirror?”

“I like that,” Mariana replied with a smile. “Seems pretty on point, given your mission here.”

Silence. Conversation had limped along so far. “I was sorry to hear of your loss,” Mariana told Bitna now, clearly trying to take the other woman’s measure. “I met your husband the last time I passed through.”

“Thank you.” Distant tone. “So, you’re once again passing through?” A clear message in Bitna’s voice: Drop the subject.

Mariana’s eyebrows rose. “Not entirely. I’m going to stay on Aphrodite Station for six months. Maybe longer, if there’s a berth available on one of the habitat ships.” Her eyes flicked towards Tesar. A rueful addendum: “Kind of tired of being out there alone.” A nod at the ceiling.

“Ah, so your co-pilot will be returning to Earth alone, in an empty supply ship.” Bitna set two cards on the table with the precision of a surgeon, accepting two in return from Tesar. “A waste, I think. The SRS ships should be used to take people home to Earth.”

Mariana cleared her throat. “Ah, we do retrieve people at the ends of their contracts, depending on their gravity acclimation. And bring new colonists here.”

“No. I mean we should be sending people home en masse. The ones who don’t have the proper attitude.” Bitna’s expression flickered.

“The proper attitude being?” Dr. Bierri prompted.

“If we must remain, then we shouldn’t change this planet. We should live lightly above her, without skimming her atmosphere for carbon to wrap her in veils of her own substance. Hiding her face won’t change her. She’ll eventually rebel and destroy us all, if we try.”

“Venus didn’t destroy Joshua,” Dr. Bierri murmured.

“I didn’t say she did.”

Tesar had long been aware of Bitna’s anger and resentment; she’d requested that Mission Control send her home after Joshua’s death, but no replacement could be sent for her for eighteen to twenty-four months, thanks to the logistics of spaceflight. So she’d stewed, and her resentment seemed to be infectious. “Strange opinions, considering you requested this assignment,” he pointed out, catching Bierri’s warning head-shake.

“Joshua volunteered,” Bitna replied stonily. “He wanted Mars. The waiting lists were too long, so he put us up for Venus. And look what it got him. Little more than slavery and death.”

Tesar opened his mouth to retort, but a knock at his door forestalled him. A crewman poked her head around the hatch, her eyes wide. “Sir,” she whispered. “There’s a problem.”

“Yes?” he asked, impatiently.

A look of consternation. “A body’s been found, sir,” she replied, darting a glance at Mariana. “It’s the co-pilot from the SRS.”

__________________

Mariana stood in the clinic, looking down at Oluwa’s body, naked under its sheet. He looked smaller, devoid of the restless energy that had marked him in life. The habitat’s medical doctors had already done an autopsy, not that much of one had been required; multiple stab wounds spoke for themselves. “What did you get into?” she murmured, putting a hand on the gurney, her throat suddenly constricting. He’d been too much like her son back on Earth, she realized with a sudden rush of guilt. It had colored how she treated him—brushing off his questions and arguments brusquely.

Distantly, the doctors’ words to Tesar filtered through her consciousness. “Indications of a struggle, but no DNA under his fingernails. Evidence of recent sexual activity, but someone cleaned his body before dumping it in the waste disposal area. It would’ve gone out with the next load of unreclaimables to burn in the atmosphere. We’re lucky the greenhouse crew found him.” The doctor sounded dispirited. “I used to work an ER in Chicago, Captain. I thought I’d put my days of violent crime behind me.”

Mariana’s head rose. “They washed him in bleach and threw him away like trash.” Dull words. Forcing her mind to work through it.

“It gets worse,” Tesar acknowledged grimly. “Security cams didn’t pick up anyone moving through the corridors with a body. Or anyone entering the disposal area till the botany crew showed up. Whoever did this knows how to hijack security systems.”

Or is a member of your security team, Mariana thought. “I told him to stay out of people’s beds,” she replied emptily. “Could be a crime of passion. Jealousy.”

“Could be,” the doctor put in, moving to the other side of the gurney. “But he probably didn’t know it was coming. The first stab came from behind, but caught on a rib—” she pulled back the sheet, and Mariana’s mind went blank again. He wasn’t your son. But he called you Mother, and he laughed . . . .

She felt Tesar’s hand on her shoulder, guiding her away from the body. Gratefully, she took gulps of clean air in a side office. Then raised her head and met his eyes. “When we catch the son of a bitch who did this, what are the options?”

Tesar sighed and pushed a chair towards her. “We’re technically under maritime law here,” he explained, leaning against the desk. “The Qetesh is considered a U.S.-flagged ship, which means that for lesser offenses . . . eh. Bunk arrest or uncompensated work for limited durations. For medium offenses? Exile to another habitat. Return to Earth, but that’s . . . expensive.”

“How about murder?” Mariana countered.

He looked away. “I could sentence a murderer to death or life imprisonment. There’s no jury in maritime law. There’s just me.” Tesar exhaled, looking grim. “Life imprisonment’s a problem. A life sentence here means one less person on my crew to do the work that keeps everyone else alive. And one more person taking up food and air, so that people on a waiting list to have kids have to wait that much longer to have them.”

“So you drop them out the same garbage hatch that they slated for Oluwa,” she countered, astounded at how distant her voice sounded.

Tesar grimaced. “I could,” he acknowledged. “But I also have to get the people still aboard to line up behind that idea. Enforcing the law gains me their respect. But depending on who’s responsible . . . it might become one of those leadership case-studies I mentioned earlier. Like pirate captains needing to maintain the loyalties of their crews.”

She wanted to spit. Wanted to deny that political reality had anything to do with justice. But he regarded her with such steady patience, that she took a breath to calm herself. “What the hell’s going on here, Daniil?”

“I haven’t been able to prove anything,” he replied slowly. “But our rate of mirror deployment is down by nearly twenty percent in the past six months. Equipment keeps breaking down. Spare parts get lost, or the 3D printers jam when trying to manufacture new ones. Oxygen scrubbers go off-line.”

“Sabotage?” she asked, blinking. Who’d sabotage the very habitat that’s keeping them alive?

He nodded. “Security’s found no evidence, but that’s my suspicion. I don’t know if Oluwa’s death is related. I hope not. And I don’t know if my own XO is involved. If she’s the cause, or if her attitude is a symptom, or if it’s all just coincidence.” He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. “I’ve had Dr. Bierri listening to the crew’s concerns; a number of them seem to echo Bitna’s sentiments. Some of them just want to go home, I think. They signed twenty-year contracts and then realized that they didn’t like it here, but it’s . . . hard to cancel the contract and go back. Others . . .” he shrugged. “There’s crosstalk from the other captains that some of their crews are upset at being subject to the maritime laws of Earth. That they want elected representatives and self-governance.”

“Except you’re on a ship, with qualified people who’ve trained to operate it, and you can’t and shouldn’t be electing people who don’t have the training to run it.”

“Choir. Preaching.” Tesar grimaced. “Let’s get on with the investigation. I’ll be fascinated to hear what security has to say.”

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Host Commentary

I’m still trying to get around the idea that it’s going to take 18 months to drive somewhere, when some people get tired of a traveling companion after being on a road trip for a day or two. Lots of stories have explored the toll that boredom and damage to mental health that occur in situations like this—but this story gave us something else: Mariana and Oluwa developed a sort of familial connection, with the good parts, like affection, but also the bad parts, like discounting an argument when you think you know things better than your child.

And now there is the grief of losing a loved one. And now Mariana, shuttle pilot, mother, and mother by association, must now take on the mantle of investigator to see if she can find who killed Oluwa and possible uncover a larger problem at the outpost. Isolation damages more people than just shuttle pilots.

But we will talk about that next week.

Our quote comes from Douglas Adams. “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”