Longer

–TWO–

Gleem One, their present home, took its name from Gleem Galactic, the company that spawned it. The station was one of eleven in orbit, all but two private, and the only one of the lot not dedicated to ozone remediation, energy development, climate abatement, extreme sports, or defense. Gleem Galactic took its name from Laura Gleem, a rags-to-riches story—spanning three lifetimes—they wrote books and made movies about, also plays, including a musical, panned by critics, adored by fans, and hugely successful. From drug pusher to drug rep, then saleswoman-of-the-year, of what was at the time the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company. Then sales director, overseeing a half-trillion-dollar operation. Five years later, after juving for the second and final time, she became CEO.

Her first act as chief was to deep-six the old corporate name in favor of her own. Her second: invest heavily, some said recklessly, in outer space. In particular, low- to mid-orbiting space stations. Future homes for drug production was her thinking, skirting the laws and limits of production on Earth. Not to mention R & D: she foresaw the rise of low and null-grav meds. Had a lab in place years before her competition.

Gleem One just to let everybody know that there were other Gleems on the way. Gleem Galactic because that’s where her mind went when her body hurt: somewhere other than Earth.

An unexpected dividend of the station: with a little rearranging, it could double as a treatment center. Gunjita, who kept abreast of such things, had seen this immediately, and at the face-to-face with Gleem’s R & D director, Laura, on remote, she and Cav had worked it into their pitch.

So now Gleem was looking at on-site delivery. Already it had its fingers in all other things pharmaceutical, from health to husbandry, agriculture to athletics, procreation to recreation, sewage to cosmetics, so why not? Planetary consumption of drugs, fueled by equal parts need, desire, addiction, the simple habit of everyday life, had never been higher. Gravity-sensitive drugs—small molecules primarily, but also novel pro-and eukaryotic biologics—were the latest craze. The field was just getting started. None of the candidate drugs had been tested in extremely high gravitational conditions—the edge of a black hole, for example, or even Jupiter—and only a few had been tested in extremely low ones, such as outer space. Gleem Galactic was out to rectify this.

Cav and Gunjita were under contract to test H82W8, a tweaked version of one of the linchpin agents used in juvenation, in the hopes of breaking through the so-far unbreakable ceiling of two treatments for any one person. Two treatments, three lifetimes. That was the limit. Two was what you got. Two was safe. More than two, bad things happened. The reports were there for anyone to read. The pictures, if you had the stomach.

Most people didn’t.

Finding a way for three to work, and beyond that, for four, five, six … for any number of treatments … a limitless number … was the holy grail of life extension.

H82W8 showed promise, but was unsafe, at least on Earth. How unsafe? Uniformly lethal. Deadly 100 percent of the time. Lethal and deadly were frowned upon in the course of routine treatment, and accordingly, the agent had been re-engineered with a nano-accelerometer insert, a so-called gravitational sensor, which, when activated, led to a change in spatial conformation. Same agent, new shape. New shape, new agent, function following form, as it always did. The questions: one, would the drug remain effective? And two, would it now be safe, at least safe enough?

For the study they had a sample of human cells from a sample of humans, in lieu of an actual living, breathing human person. Surrogate markers weren’t perfect, but they were useful. Cells were easy to come by, and relatively easy to manage. They were cheaper by far than whole people. They gave up their secrets much quicker. They didn’t complain, at least not audibly. And you didn’t get attached to them in quite the same way as you did to a fully formed, fully realized living creature, be it human, monkey, kitty, bunny, or cute little mouse.

Cav had long been a proponent of gravitational testing of biologics. If direct contact were ever to happen with alien life, it would be life that could travel through space. One could imagine a form of life, not to mention of travel, that used gravity not only to navigate and orient itself, but for energy—a kind of food, or nourishment, which was a sine qua non of life. The more you knew about the sine qua nons of life—nourishment, balance, growth, renewal, decay—the greater your chance of recognizing it when otherwise you might not.

Before Gleem, he’d been unable to secure funding for this, despite a lifetime of success and a distinguished career, including a host of honors, prizes, and recognitions. Before Gleem came along, there was no money in micrograv bio, and the days of market-blind, not-for-profit (save intellectual profit), and knowledge-for-knowledge’s-sake research were all but extinct. They’d vanished along with the dodo of public financing, not to mention unencumbered public financing, which was truly a dinosaur. Virtually nothing existed in the field of astrobiology, which had dried up more or less completely after the Hoax.

Gleem was an oasis. Sanity in a storm.

It hadn’t hurt that Gunjita had agreed to partner with him. She was a major star in her own right. Professor, researcher, pioneer thinker, co-discoverer of CrB, the so-called altruism suppressor gene,[2] olfactologist extraordinaire. A veteran of the science wars and of the lab, even more than Cav, who’d come to research relatively late, having spent a good part of his early career as a practicing surgeon.

They had the station to themselves, an anomaly. A series of minor and major crises—a sudden illness, an unexpected pregnancy, a family emergency—had decimated the ranks of the standard five.

Gunjita found the absence of people refreshing, if odd. Labs were like families, and for many years hers had been like large, extended ones. She was used to carving out pockets of silence in the hubbub, where she could think. She did some of her best work in the privacy of her own mind. Solitude nourished her. The only possible thing that rivaled it was collaboration.

She’d been looking forward to collaborating with Cav—it wasn’t often their work coincided—but Cav seemed to have other things on his mind. Not entirely. Maybe fairer to say, his idea of collaboration was different than hers. Involved less talk—certainly less directed talk—and longer silences. This had started as soon as they’d stepped foot on the station. He’d turned quiet and even more reflective than normal. As though their research, the very reason they were there, were just a feint, a ploy.

Now Eurydice, with its strange passenger, was docked to the station, and the old Cav was back. Bubbly. Effusive. A twinkle in his eye. Say what you would, you had to love a man with a twinkle.

Laura Gleem, they said, shot fire from her eyes.

Laura Gleem, they said, was a force of nature.

Gunjita and Cav were indebted to her.

On the second anniversary of Gleem One’s launch, Laura had hosted a get-together on the station. Five handpicked invitees of diverse talents and gifts culled from a watch list of radicals, dreamers, and ne’er-do-wells generated by the DHS, purchased and tweaked by Laura’s people to exclude misanthropes, naysayers, finger-pointers, windbags, and bullies. Laura had a fondness for the number five, the color pink, and the letter k. The group included a kinesiologist, a knight-of-industry, a remnant Kallikak with something to prove, a kosher Kurdish khan turned propulsion engineer, and Kleptomania, stage name of Ruby Kincade, performance artist and roboticist, who proudly traced her lineage to the Kanuri of central Africa, a striking, outspoken woman and onetime friend of Gunjita, until their terrible falling out. Laura’s idea, simplicity itself: put ’em all together with nowhere to go for a brainstorming session. No idea too big or small, too long-or short-termed, too crazy, too pricey. No telling what would happen next. What, if anything, would take root. She had a hunch that something would, was okay if nothing obvious did. Seeds could lie dormant for years. The outcome was unpredictable. That’s what appealed to her. That, and being weightless.

Out of that keen, kilowattified, akyphotic klatch, keyed in and karmically attuned, kicking it, no, killing it, for three nights and days consec, Eurydice was born. Kraken better fit the tenor of the moment but seemed excessive.

So now, in addition to drugs, Gleem was in the mining business. Which meant the trucking business. Also, navigation. And, of course, exploration. Growing corporate interests of theirs, though still dwarfed by pharmaceuticals.

Eurydice was named in honor of Laura, who, in defiance of expert opinion and every authority on Earth—legal, medical, ethical, theologic—had taken her life in her hands, stared death in the face, and juved for a third time. Ballsy? Try suicidal. No one did it more than twice. She had not been seen in public since.

The probe had already lived up to its name once. Its systems, after crashing somewhere between the outer and inner main belt, had suddenly sprung back to life. These same systems had guided it flawlessly back to Gleem One, where it now slept. Its two anterior arms, jointed like the insect it resembled, clutched its treasure to what would have been its chest. The object of interest faced outward. The asteroid itself was not huge, but it was bulky. Cav and Gunjita’s plan: get some cord around it and reel it into the cargo bay. A tight fit, requiring a guiding hand, but doable. Once in the bay, go from there.

Cav was in the process of suiting up. Got both legs in, then an arm. Needed help with the other, arthritis having done a job on the shoulder. Also needed help with his boots. A couple of months earlier, he was helping her, or rather, two old geezers, they were helping each other.

Gunjita fetched his boots for him without thinking twice. Loosened the buckles, spread the mouths, took one in hand, bent down, about to slip it on his foot, when she was struck by a thought. An image actually, and suddenly her heart was in her throat. The thought came second: her elderly husband was a pair of boots and a helmet away from traipsing out into space.

“No way,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not doing this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Give me my boots.”

“Like I said …”

“My boots.”

She wouldn’t.

“Look at me,” she commanded.

She still had trouble believing it herself. Who she was. What she saw when she looked in the mirror. How she felt. Pain-free, comfortable, smooth as liquid when she moved, or rather glided, able to do anything without the slightest effort. She’d forgotten how good it felt.

“Now look at yourself.”

He didn’t have to. He knew what he’d see. His old, barnacled, parchment skin. His twisted back. His trembling hands. And inside, invisible to the naked eye, the ice pick that was permanently lodged in his shoulder. His weak bladder, his failing heart. So what was new? The march of time never quit.

“You’ve never done something like this,” he said.

“How hard can it be?”

“Like that. Just like that. By underestimating what you’re dealing with.”

She tapped her head, then saluted. “Judgment good. Brain intact.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“What isn’t?”

“You could float off into space.”

“I’ll be tethered.”

He imagined it happening to him, floating away, drifting free, a few hours of oxygen and warmth, then death. Kindly remembered. Quickly irrelevant. Soon forgotten. Separation complete.

Or not. Maybe not. Maybe there was no such thing as separation. Maybe there was cosmic unity, and he’d be one with the universe.

Which would it be?

It seemed worth finding out.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll monitor you.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Fact is, I hate these suits. Too hard getting in and out.”

“Your own damn fault.”

He held her helmet while she suited up.

“I know you’d love to be the one doing this,” she said.

“Next time. How do you feel? Ready to take on the universe?”

“Pretty much.”

He didn’t want to let her go. He feared for her safety. Pressed the helmet to his chest possessively, protectively, as though it were her.

“Cav?”

“Please be careful.” Reluctantly, he handed it to her.

Instead of taking it, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

He tasted fruity and a little sour. A little tangy. A pleasantly familiar taste, save for the hint of dryness and decay, like the decomposing leaves of an old book.

Hoping to banish this, she kissed him harder, lacing her fingers around his neck, pulling him toward her. A primitive impulse, inarguable and good. Pure chemistry.

The force lifted him, and together they became airborne. Pure physics. They were halted by the module’s wall. Cav, who’d been taken by surprise, was jarred into action.

He took her in his arms, or tried to. Their bulky suits made it impossible. It was like hugging dough. They began to somersault, until they hit the opposite wall.

Cav was no gymnast. The tumbling made him dizzy and nauseous. Gunjita was in hysterics. She couldn’t keep from laughing. The chemistry, so strong a minute before, was gone.

“Sorry, old man,” she said, goosing him tenderly, then donning her helmet.

Cav, meanwhile, had started to get hard. His disappointment was sharp, but fleeting. Age had made him philosophic. Sex required staying powers he didn’t always—even often—possess. Sometimes his mind wandered, and he forgot what he was doing. Sometimes his eye fell, not on his beloved Gunjita, where it belonged, but between his own legs, and he was filled with nostalgia. At other times he was grateful. Things could be better, but they could be so much worse. He could still get it up on occasion. If the fates were kind (the drugs no longer helped), it would stay up. From time to time he still thundered like a stallion when he pissed.

“There’s no hurry,” he said. “You have plenty of time. One foot in front of the other. Nothing sudden. I’ll be watching. We’ll be in constant communication.”

She nodded, and mentally rehearsed their plan. It was straightforward enough. Basically, wrap a cord around the asteroid and bring it aboard. Like roping a horse, which was on her résumé.

She’d ridden and lassoed ponies with Ruby in Iceland, Ruby’s adopted home, and where she gave birth to Dashaud. Gunjita had been present at the birth, and as often as she could throughout his childhood. She’d pushed him on the swing, carried him in her arms, fed him, put him to bed. For his fifth birthday she’d bought him a pair of leather boots, to wear while riding the horse that Ruby and Bjorn, his father, had surprised him with. She could still remember the look on his face as they trotted it out. Stunned, disbelieving, reverent. A dream he’d not dared to dream, standing there in the flesh.

She was sixty at the time, and had allowed herself to be coaxed atop a horse of her own.

Through the eyes of babes: it was love at first sight. For the next two weeks she rode every day. Ruby rode with her. Icelandic horses were prized for their sturdiness and longevity, and she learned to prize other qualities: their temperament, their beauty, and their exhilarating, extra gait.

She’d learned a few basic knots during that and subsequent visits. Hadn’t used them in ages, not since Ruby had slammed the door in her face and shut her out. Hadn’t ridden a horse since then. Fifty long years. Too painful a reminder.

She could tie a bowline, square, clove-hitch, jerk, figure of eight. Almost any of them would do. The asteroid wasn’t going anywhere. It was massive, but weightless.

She got it hog-tied easily enough. What she hadn’t counted on was Eurydice itself, which refused to relinquish its prize. Held onto it with a tenacious, possessive, no-you-don’t grip. From the beginning Cav had argued strongly and persuasively against trying to forcibly detach the object of interest from the asteroid, which could: one, damage it; and two, damage it irreparably.

Gunjita suggested decommissioning the arms.

“How?” he asked.

“Demolition?”

“Frowned upon by Gleem, I’m guessing. Plus, risky.”

“We could cut them off.”

Also risky. And difficult. “Any other ideas?”

She was floating beside the asteroid, the nose of Eurydice above her, cone in socket, firmly docked. “I can try loosening the bolts.”

He was surprised she hadn’t mentioned this first. “Are there bolts?”

She showed him on camera. He located them on a schematic of the probe. Thought it might work.

She got busy. It wasn’t long before the asteroid was freed and in motion, she alongside it, guiding it through the cargo doors into the cargo bay, where she secured it, careful to steer well clear of the thing on its surface, which at close range looked slightly larger than they first thought, also slightly thicker, with a hard, shiny surface that concealed what appeared to be a lumpy interior. She reported all this to Cav, whom she eventually joined at the window overlooking the bay.

His nose was pressed against the glass. First contact? Could this be it? He was jelly inside.

Forced himself to calm down and think logically.

He assumed that it was, or had been, living. An improbable assumption, but open to scientific verification. His null hypothesis: it was no different, essentially, from other living things.

Beside him, Gunjita was lost in her own thoughts. Her first impression hadn’t changed. The thing was not alive. Not now, or ever. Her null, quite simply, was the opposite.