To read A Painful Split - Part 1, please click here.
Four bonnies tapped their troller engines and moved through slow space toward the Riri Current. Warui’s prep and mechanical work was expensive, but so was everything at the Aubyrn Inn. At least the money went to something other than sex and booze.
“So uh, Warui.” said Noah. “I didn’t where you’re from, any evolutions we should know about?”
“Other than his negotiation skills.” said Maryna.
“I’ve seen his kind before.” said Gabriel. “I did a foodstuffs drop to Bustani a few laps back. Very thin atmosphere.”
“What’s that do for us out here in the currents?” asked Noah.
“I’m sure if there’s something that can help us he would say, or he would show us.” said Maryna.
“Look,” said Warui, clasping his hands behind his head, “The prince is right, Bustani has a thin atmosphere, so that means we process oxygen differently.”
“Differently how?” asked Noah.
“Differently better.” said Warui. “Differently like I have four lungs.”
“I knew there was a reason you were so damn tall.” said Noah.
“How long can you hold your breath?” asked Gabriel.
“Two extra lungs means twice as long as any of you.” said Warui.
“Uh huh, let’s not have to use that.” said Noah.
“If I swim it doubles the price.” said Warui.
“Figures.” said Noah.
“And what about you, prince?” asked Warui.
“Gaziira, right?” said Maryna.
“Godzilla?” said Warui.
“Means he was born in the currents.” said Noah. “Literally.”
“It’s true, we spend a part of our orbit in the currents, so the beautiful one made some changes to a few of us.” said Gabriel.
“I don’t get it.” said Warui.
“You will.” said Gabriel. “If you can keep up.”
“Ok, ok, tech check before we hit the flow. I want everyone strapped in, suits on, helmets snug, view shields tight. We can cover the finer points of Gaziirite evolution another time.” said Noah. He and Maryna floated in the same style of bonnie and ran through their familiar pre-float checks. Their bonnies were reliable all-rounders with moderate shaped fins that gave them solid stability in the current while still allowing maneuverability through difficult swells and surges. Most Bonnies were large enough to accommodate a single operator at the controls and included a cramped cot for longer floats or room for a second person in the event of a rescue. They were designed for utility, not luxury. Any additional weight meant less ability to maneuver in the currents and more cost for troller fuel and technology.
The lack of comfort was something Warui lamented, but he was a mechanic, so he had an excuse to carry more gear. He modified the interior of his bonnie to have a larger cot, more spacious cockpit, and smaller, less sensitive fins. It was a tradeoff Noah would not have made and meant Warui might have to take a slower path through asteroid gardens or across turbulent flows. At least the bonnie looked strong. But then there was Gabriel’s bonnie. It looked fragile, it looked unstable; and it looked fast.
Gabriel’s custom built bonnie cost more than the other three ships combined. Instead of military-grade composite for the body, Gabriel used a woven fiber with small ballistic shields in exposed areas. His reclining seat served as his cot and the lithe, tight body design with long, sharp fins meant he could cut precise paths in the flows. It was the bonnie of a perfectionist, an artist, and it worried Noah that one small error could result in serious injury or death. If a bonnie, spacescraper, or any other ship lost its line in the flow, if a viamorr was ejected out of their bonnie, there was no technology to save a human life other than an old fashioned physical rescue. Personal safety suits helped keep viamorrs alive, but riding the flows without a bonnie was a fast route to death.
“Gabriel, you gonna let me float that thing after this?” Noah asked over the crew’s comm.
“That thing is going to break apart the first time you hit an asteroid.” said Warui.
“Good thing I doubled your pay before we left.” said Gabriel. “Noah, if you want to try and fit into this beautiful floating machine, you will be doing it in a very slow stretch of current.”
“I think we know that wasn’t made for the boogey flows.” said Noah. “Warui, keep up back there. Haven’t hit the currents and you’re already behind.”
“Nobody wants a mech out front. I’ll be there when it’s comfortable.” said Warui.
“Hope you’re comfortable enough, ‘cause we’re almost there.” said Gabriel.
“Ryna?” said Noah.
“Another minute and we will hit our entry line.” said Maryna. “Let’s meet up current right at the first major eddy. You all know it?”
“The roid that looks like a big stump.” said Gabriel. “See you there.”
Gabriel felt the flow born tingle of his skin and scalp shift within the currents. He felt the particles, the shifts in microgravity, and danced between sections of flow as a fish in a stream. Floating was his way along the beautiful path, his personal calling to become one being beyond experience with the almighty beautiful one.
“Hey, Scout, wait for....” said Noah. He watched the sleek bonnie in front of him angle upcurrent and align its fins into the coruscating flow, particle sparks flew in wondrous plumes and the bonnie floated out beyond his sight in the direction of their first eddy. Noah pointed his bow, angled his fins, and let the physics of the currents do the rest. He held his hands on the crossbar that served as a steering counsel and angled his grip so that his right hand stayed at a forty five degree angle to his left hand. He let the varying pressure from the current absorb into the fins, up through his hands and into his core. It felt good to be on the float, even if it was for free.
Maryna clicked on the Galaxial Positioning System to track their route and run projections. Each bonnie had a basic form of GPS, but the navigator carried more computing weight to run projections of flows and show a wider array of mapped and unmapped routes. The large highways of the currents had most asteroids, debris, and surges mapped out but the new sections, the smaller stretches, were unknown. To attempt a first float was to find a way through the currents without a defined route.
Maryna’s light blue skin and red hair were part of her evolution, but her gift was a photographic memory. It wasn’t GPS, but it made the catalog in her mind a library of routes, floods, asteroids, and spatial understanding. The downside to her innate knowledge of the currents was the timing. Too much to think about at once brought on anxiety and stress. She ran through the trajectories of the crew in her head and was satisfied they would all make the eddy on the far side of the current. Even Warui, who hummed some tune of his home world while reclining with his feet up on his crossbar was on the right line. It was a good thing the small fins on his bonnie were more forgiving, feet weren’t the best thing for handling a crossbar.
Noah pulled into the eddy behind an asteroid in the slow, holding current. “Everyone good?”
“All good.” said Warui. “Nice little float.”
“Mech, you can put your seat up, now.” said Noah. “Scout, you can wait until you’re released to float. When you pull out like that it puts the whole team at risk.”
“This was like walking across a room. There is no danger ferrying to this eddy.” said Gabriel.
“Your room stays the same. The currents change. Don’t forget it.” said Noah.
“Mine was a perfect line.” said Gabriel. “It’s good you all caught up.”
“Save it for when you actually have to scout something.” said Noah.
“Just show me where.” said Gabriel.
“I’m about to. Just give me a second to find our next eddy.” said Maryna.
Warui adjusted his seat. “That’s more than a second, Navi.”
“No rush.” said Noah.
“I could be three roids deeper already.” said Gabriel.
“It’s not about where you could be, it’s about where the team is.” said Noah. “This ain’t a solo float. Deal with it.”
“There.” said Maryna. “Next eddy on your GPS.” Maryna flipped over the coordinate projections to the crew. It was one thing to know the location of the next break in the currents, a slow eddy where bonnies could gather and regroup, but it was another thing to float there.
“Goodbye.” said Gabriel as he peeled out of the eddy into the main flow. Maryna pulled out second to watch Gabriel’s line and Noah dropped behind Warui to watch the progress of the crew. He pushed and pulled, tilted and leaned, raised his fins to shoot out across the current into their next eddy.
“Woah.” said Warui.
“I don’t even recognize it.” said Noah. “Ryna, what do you have?”
“Looking,” Maryna flicked through the GPS. “This can’t be right. Lead, permission to use troller fuel?”
“Granted.” said Noah. “Let’s all get up and out for a view. I want eyes on this.”
The viamorrs engaged their trollers with a light hit to the engine and angled up out of the currents. In most cases, ships floating the currents could choose to breach up and out of the flow to rest, scout, or escape a flood. But it wasn’t called slow space for nothing, what took ten minutes to travel in the currents took days in the areas beyond the flow. The entire route through the galaxy spanning Riri Current took around ten years on the float, but thousands via troller engines alone. With all the small micro flows and waves, spydraulics and floods, GPS was helpful, but scouting with actual eyes was preferred.
“That’s not the Pinch.” said Warui.
“The Pinch is gone.” said Maryna. An asteroid the size of three spacescrapers sat lodged in the middle of what used to be the Pinch. Flows and sparks flared off the sides of the asteroid as it disrupted any historical routes through the former path. Without passage through the Pinch, it would take years for a ship to move through slow space using a troller. “Floating dark now, but here’s the most promising course.”
Noah flipped Maryna’s suggestion onto his navigation display. “That flow is tighter than the Pinch used to be. We go in there, we’re committing. Leaving the flow even thirty seconds apart would put days between us.”
“Weeks in a flood.” said Warui.
“That won’t be happening.” said Noah. “Gabriel, you know where we need to go. We need enough space to make sure a spacescraper can follow us. Let’s see what all daddy’s money can buy you in that bonnie.”
“I will find the beautiful path.” said Gabriel. The bonnies adjusted their angle and popped a hit on their trollers to re-enter the current. The radial fins on Gabriel’s bonnie lifted away from the hull into the strengthening current and his bonnie took off toward the tunnel of flows circling, twisting, and spiraling in a tendril around the edge of the asteroid obstruction. Gabriel and his bonnie blinked over the glittering horizon of a sharp turn in the current, committed to a first float or a long death.
“Got the route, Ryna?” asked Noah.
“Yeah, here it is. He’s… well you can see for yourself.” said Maryna. “We have to make all those rotations?”
“Not if there’s an easier route. Let him have fun for now, but don’t forget we’re scouting for a spacescraper.” said Noah. “Not a highlight reel.”
Warui popped his reclined chair up in the cockpit and looked at the GPS data sent back by Gabriel’s bonnie. The line rose and fell, twisted and turned, rode along the thick glowing tongue of current to the next eddy. Warui imagined the corners he would have to cut in his rotund bonnie and pulled on his worn helmet, tightened the straps on his personal safety suit, and shook his head. “Damn mzungus.”
Noah called over the comm for the crew to gather in an eddy and watched Maryna and Warui make their way across the open current. Gabriel floated between asteroids and ferried his way across to meet the crew.
“Scout, no need to take unnecessary risks. Just get to the right locations.” said Noah.
“Life is not all about getting from one place to another, Lead, we must enjoy the float.” said Gabriel.
“Make pretty lines on your own time. Life in the currents is about surviving.” said Noah.
“We’re all still alive.” said Maryna.
“Ryna, what’s this roid garden lookin’ like?” asked Noah.
Maryna eyed the twists and turns of the current canyon and mapped each asteroid in her mind.
“Give us the most beautiful route.” said Gabriel. “I am bored.”
“Boring is good.” said Noah. “Give us the safest route.”
“Should I recline again or should I expect a route trajectory?” said Warui.
“Navi?” said Noah.
“There are two routes through.” Maryna sent route trajectory points to the crew. “There are a few ways through the first half with enough space, but the crux will require us to take one specific line, here.”
“Can my bonnie fit?” asked Warui.
“We’re scouting for a spacescraper.” said Maryna. “If it doesn’t fit Costa Feed’s ship we need another route.”
“I’ll find it.” said Gabriel. He peeled out from behind the asteroid eddy and rolled his bonnie to dampen the force of the flow, dashed and danced between hard edges and slow swells. In one moment he was on the same plane as the crew and the next he rode a surging tongue between two asteroids, fins adjusting with the lightest touch on the crossbar. The crew followed their scout’s line and asteroid hopped from eddy to eddy in the current.
Before a strong section of flow, the viamorrs bunched up in an eddy to allow Maryna time to plan a likely route. With suggested coordinates in places, line vectors projected, Gabriel thrust first into the surge. Noah saw the poor angle and watched Gabriel’s bonnie turn sideways, pushed and rolled by the current. Without control of the fins, with no way to angle the bonnie, Gabriel was at the mercy of the currents. Rolling a bonnie in an asteroid garden was no way to have a long career as a viamorr. It was worse when the person losing their grip was the one who was supposed to the strongest pilot, the scout.
Noah angled his bonnie and floated the current, tapped his troller to pick up speed to stay close enough to Gabriel’s rolling, somersaulting bonnie. He edged closer to Gabriel’s bonnie and kept his eyes on the fins, saw the slightest adjustments and watched Gabriel angle the bonnie downcurrent, heard his deep fresh inhale on the comm.
“You ok?” asked Noah. “Bit of a hard edge there.”
“Just waking up.” said Gabriel.
“Next time you want to wake up, just ask. Fuel ain’t free.” said Noah.
“Sometimes the beautiful path is ugly.” said Gabriel.
“That makes sense.” joked Warui over the comm. He and Maryna slid into an eddy with Noah and Gabriel.
“Everybody good?” asked Maryna.
“We’re fine.” said Gabriel. “Might need some new route projections.”
“On it.” said Maryna. “Hold on.”
Warui adjusted his seat, Gabriel fidgeted with his crossbar grip, and Noah leaned his head back.
Noah gave Maryna some time to think before reminding her what she was thinking about. “Navi, our route. Around the Pinch.”
“Ok, ok.” said Maryna. “The reliability on these are not good. Too much debris, a lot of spydraulics at odd angles. Gabriel, I’m sorry I can’t get you more.”
“It’s a first float, that’s how it works. I will find the path.” said Gabriel.
“The safe path.” said Noah. “If you end up in slow space in current that fast we’ll have a hell of time trying to match your location.”
“I’m more worried about those big floating rock things.” said Warui.
“In a floating tortoise like your bonnie I would be worried too.” said Gabriel.
Noah watched him move past the eddy line and out into the current. “No swimming, Scout.”
Gabriel grasped his crossbar in both hands and leaned, torqued through the faster moving current. He felt the building momentum of power beneath him, the centrifugal force of the galaxy, the powerful push of the currents. The minute changes in the flows around him caressed his flow born skin and scalp. Gabriel slid his bonnie sideways between two stationary asteroids and banked ninety degrees to follow the main flow.
Gabriel opened his eyes and laughed, “Hahaaaa the way is beautiful my friends, come now!” He held his hands on the crossbar perpendicular to the current and absorbed the shock as he torqued back behind an asteroid to watch the rest of the crew file through the hazard. “GPS loading… now. Watch out for that turn!”
Maryna landed with grace and turned her bonnie in to rest next to Gabriel. Warui followed with a plunge across the eddy line, the twinkling current rose up and covered his bonnie before he crept his way into the bottom of the slow moving current with the others. Noah took the safest route, the highest probability of survival generated by the three first viamorrs through the surge. He turned his bonnie to the left while he banked at the ninety degree turn and twisted the bow in line to the eddy where he pulled in with his hands up.
Gabriel raised his eyes. “That’s a fine line, Lead.”
“Sometimes the safest is the best.” said Noah.
“Gabriel, you are officially the first viamorr through that spydraulic. And as the navi, I think it’s big enough. You must name it.” said Maryna.
“She’s right, what do you have for us?” added Warui.
“Ohhh yes I will call it… I shall name it… the Other Cheek.” Gabriel paused for effect. “Because when you hit that turn, the only way to make it beautiful is like our Lead did and leeaannn on that other butt cheek.”
“Just don’t put my name on it.” said Noah.
Warui laughed, “Noah’s Left Butt Cheek.”
“The name is scarier than the flow.” said Maryna.
“The Other Cheek. I like it.” said Gabriel.
“Add it to the charts, Navi.” said Noah. “Without our mech’s additions.”
“With pleasure.” said Maryna, typing in the entry to the GPS.
“Despite the dumbest new first float name, nice work everyone. Ryna, great route. Gabriel, loved the line. Warui, you’re a bit of breaching dolphwhale in that bonnie but whenever my mech can make it through alive while only using two of his lungs, I’m happy. Let’s grapple up, that’s enough for today. I want a mech check on our fins and crossbars and I want a report on troller fuel. Ryna, get that next route going.” Noah fired his grappling line from his bonnie to the asteroid and settled in to the soft, lazy current behind it. The team dangled behind the asteroid like seaweed pods from the oceans of surface worlds.
“It’s a good place for camp, look.” Maryna motioned behind them downcurrent. The glowing flows peeled back and revealed the burgeoning background of the galaxy, stars stretching out in the billions. The obstruction at the Pinch writhed and twisted, held fast by the spydraulics of the currents. But something else cut through the flow, a deep black nothing sliced the bright disturbances of the currents in half.
“Maybe you spoke too soon.” said Warui.
“A split.” said Maryna. “Not on any of our charts.”
“Oh no no, my beautiful one…” said Gabriel.
Noah followed their eyes to the edge of the Pinch and saw the empty, black nothingness, a space between the currents, a break in the flow. It was not slow space, it was not current, it was a void in the fabric of reality. It wasn’t rare to find a split on an advanced route in the currents, particularly on a first float, but a split this size could crack a spacescraper. The momentum gained moving across the blackness made re-entry into the currents dangerous. With the wrong angle a bonnie could break in half, but there was more concern over the psychological forces.
“Can we go around it? Can we float up and over?” asked Warui.
“That’s a lot of troller fuel, the only place we’d float to is slow space. A spacescraper would take more than a year to troll through like that. Slow space is not an option.” said Noah.
“At least we’d be alive, could hope for a ship to come by.” said Warui.
“That could be years.” said Maryna.
“We don’t have years. Domm needs food. The Pinch needs a new route. We gotta run it.” Noah rolled the ring on his finger, rubbed the small etched map of the currents along its surface and whispered to himself, “This is why I love you. But this time, you won’t take one of my crew.”
Noah cinched the straps on his personal safety suit and helmet, gripped his crossbar between his middle finger and thumb. He imagined there was some kind of redemption on the other side of the split. Somewhere beyond the bizarre psychological untethering in the warped negative being of the space between the currents. Maybe Marco would surface from the gloom, the GPS data from his bonnie leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to his body. Perhaps Cait would come back, fix up Noah’s bonnie and his life. At least she had a life. She was right to leave the crew. She had kids, her husband had a job on a spacescraper, she didn’t need to risk her life finding first floats. Marco’s death was her wake-up call. Noah didn’t blame her. He blamed himself. It was a lead’s job to get his crew in and out of the currents alive. Finding work and sponsors was all secondary. Lives came first. Life was why Noah was going to go over the split first, because if he would risk his crew’s life, he’d risk his first.
“I’m going first.” said Noah. “I’ll send back the route info so you all know the best angle for re-entry.”
“No, no, have I not floated the beautiful path? Lead, have we not made each eddy?” said Gabriel. “The scout goes first. You promised me. I paid for my first float it is my right!”
“No, this is our first float. All of us. You paid me to lead and any mistakes mean we all pay. And I’m not risking any of you on this. We don’t know the re-entry angle, we don’t know the strength or size of the spydraulic on the other side. I haven’t even mentioned the actual split. If anyone is going to get cracked in half it’s going to be me. I’m going first, that’s the end of it. Warui, you’re second, when you land we will set up safety for the others. Gabriel, third. Ryna, play lead and bring up the rear.”
“The sooner the better.” said Warui.
“The mech before me?” said Gabriel.
“It ain’t time for no beautiful path, kid.” said Noah. “This one’s for the adults. And Warui here will take the safest damn route possible because he has to.”
“Ok, Lead.” said Ryna, ignoring Gabriel. “Float straight and keep your head.”
“GPS coming soon… see you on the other side.” said Noah.
Noah reviewed his coordinates and released his grappling line, angled his bonnie into the current. He leaned forward and straightened out his bow, drifted toward the strongest tongue of flow. The glittering, swirling substance of the currents disappeared into the maw of the split and Noah thrust his hands back on the crossbar, leveraging his bonnie up and out into the space between currents and slow space. What would take a ship in slow space months to traverse by troller engine took Noah less than a minute of free fall in the place of unknowing. Splits were made of a cosmic substrate that made minds do strange things. Vision twirled and warped, memories layered over dreams and consciousness poured into the depths of perspective. Noah floated into the void.
Noah watched his bonnie and hands elongate and flex, sliced into shafts of light and sounds. The Noah aware of Noah watched the bonnie move, locked in its line between two angles of the currents. Voices echoed in his head and he heard his own voice speaking to him. Noah was Marco, he saw with his eyes and watched the primordial presentation of an errant bonnie hurtling out toward him and saw Noah as Marco punch in notes to the GPS and Marco bent, broke, shattered and closed his eyes and Noah opened his. Consciousness fluttered back and Noah knew his bow was angled too parallel to the flow angle for a safe re-entry into the emerging currents. He pumped with his arms on the crossbar and angled his bow closer to the perpendicular. The writhing, shining flows and force doused his diving bonnie.
Noah felt the breath leave his lungs and his arms flew back from the gravitational impact of the re-entry. Blood trickled down his forehead. He felt the raging, angry flows of currents batter his bonnie. The spydraulic caused by the current’s pouring forth from split to reality rolled him over end on end, gripping him in one place. Maybe the violent g-forces were what he deserved, the inevitable balancing act of the universe on his life, his retribution for Marco’s death. Noah tried to angle his bow downward, pointed it deeper into the spydraulic, a last attempt to escape the holding current. He jammed on his troller engine and lost consciousness.
“Something’s wrong.” said Maryna.
“How long is that?” asked Gabriel.
“Almost two minutes.” said Warui. “I’m gonna go.”
“No!” said Maryna. “The data is loading, we need his route info or you will end up right on top of him.”
“If we need to rescue him, we need the coordinates now.” said Warui.
“I’ll go.” said Gabriel.
“Wait.” Maryna looked over the flow projections and the route of Noah’s bonnie. The data was scattered, the split bent angles out of shape and Maryna ran through false leads and dead ends in her mind. She tried to layer different trends on top of probabilities and extrapolated the random GPS points from Noah’s bonnie. The more she tried to focus on the route the more she thought of Noah, the more she thought of Marco. “Ugh!”
“How long?” asked Warui.
“Too long.” said Gabriel. “We’re at two minutes now. Either he’s losing his mind in the split or his body is being crushed in the current. You must make a choice my beautiful friend.”
Maryna gave up on the calculations and reminded herself that Noah knew the risks, embraced them. Splits were part of the job. She watched the trends float through her vision, the line and angle left of Noah lit up her eyes and heart. She punched the projections into the GPS. “Warui, go!”
Warui floated into the current, set his line from Maryna’s calculations and dropped off the edge of the split. Consciousness exploded and he was in pieces. Four lungs formed around him, each beating organ held a member of the viamorr crew banging, choking, drowning within them. Warui had a place to go within, it was a mind’s eye he made as a child hiding in the vineyard slums of Bustami. The vision of lungs and cells shifted away back to the inhabited reality and the flows of the current rippled toward him. He eyed his re-entry point, the swirling surging blinking spydraulic where the force of returning a bonnie to the flowing substrate was the lowest, where the currents gave him a chance to keep his body in one piece. Warui’s breath swept out of him. He punched his fins close to his hull to lower the re-entry forces and the bonnie bobbed, tipped, moved back toward the main flow.
Warui raised his fins downcurrent from the spydraulic and flipped on his comm. “The line is good! Punch it harder current left.”
“Good work, Navi.” said Gabriel. “Beautiful!”
“Do you see him?” asked Maryna.
Warui squinted into the glowing edges of violent current. “I see his bonnie.” He leaned into his crossbar toward a limp, broken hull. “Lead, Noah, you ok? Can you hear me?”
“Keep trying, we are coming.” said Gabriel.
“Find him!” said Maryna.
Warui pulled up next to the floating, folded, torn bonnie and peered inside a cracked, open view shield. The crossbar was broken in half, the seat bent, and the restraint system empty. Noah was gone. Warui waited for Gabriel and Maryna to land after the split, their resurfacing was smooth on the left side of the spydraulic.
“Status?” said Maryna. The raging currents hummed across their bonnies, violent flows twisted in arcs around their route.
Warui hung his head. “Noah took a swim. The currents have him now.”
Noah figured heaven was a long float, but the view on the way was magnificent. He clung to an asteroid draped in surging current, back against the cold rock. Above him the currents folded and twisted in and out, channels too small to navigate wrapped their own routes around the clogged center of the asteroid blocking the Pinch. He watched his crew gather in an eddy across the flow with his broken bonnie. They appeared smaller than his chances of surviving. The flows between them were full of sieves and hazards, asteroids and spydraulics. Noah figured having three people at his funeral was more than expected. He checked his limbs and personal safety suit, the small red light on his shoulder blinked, sending a location to the crew’s GPS. He turned it off, stopped any brazen attempts to save his life. There was no sense in risking anyone else. This was how viamorrs died. How Marco died. Noah fumbled at the edges of the dream that was his consciousness in the split. Marco’s face, a second errant bonnie, his GPS. Noah wondered if he would see Marco again when they were both dead.
Noah watched his viamorr crew release his bonnie into the currents and angled it up to slow space. It was good they were moving on. Two more small specs of metal moved out, dead drifting bonnies spun and angled to leave the currents to the expanse of slow space.
“What the hell?” Noah wiped his visor. A lone bonnie floated toward him. It was big and bulky with small dainty fins, but it danced and hopped and flowed between the asteroids and surges like a giant tortoise dancing in a stream. Noah pulled a grapple line out of his safety suit and fastened one end to the rock. He checked the connection to his harness and stood up, crouched his legs. “No fucking way.”
Warui’s bonnie tread current, burning up troller fuel, on the edge of the new route around the Pinch. If Noah was going to have a chance of surviving, he had to make it past the tributary sweeping its way the wrong direction toward a spydraulic too turbulent to survive. The view shield of the approaching bonnie opened and Gabriel’s polished helmet twinkled behind the crossbar. Noah recognized Warui’s tall form crawling forward to the bow of the bonnie, the furthest point toward Noah. He held up his hands and counted down. Three… two… one.
Noah took a deep breath and leapt toward Warui. Their grapple lines on either side held fast to their anchors. Noah’s safety suit took the force of the violent current and the flow shifted and thrust Noah further away from the outstretched arms of his mechanic. Stars clouded Noah’s vision and he held out his hands. Warui extended his arm to grab Noah’s wrist and pulled Noah’s body close, released the line tethered to the asteroid.
“Hold on mzungu!” yelled Warui.
The momentum from their jump swung them downcurrent of Warui’s bonnie and Maryna stood on the bow waiting for the line to retract. “Hold it still!”
“Hurry!” yelled Gabriel. He felt a drop of sweat on his brow, gravity twisting him upside down in a place with no directions. His solid, stable hands gripped the crossbar and his arms shook with fatigue. “Now!”
The grapple line retracted to the nose of the bonnie and the viamorrs landed in the cockpit. Maryna grabbed their safety suits and pulled them both into the cot behind the pilot’s chair in a pile of limbs. Warui moved himself out of the way and slammed the view shield down, sealed the ship. Maryna waited for the seal to click and ripped off Noah’s helmet.
“Is he ok? Is he breathing?” asked Gabriel.
Noah coughed and heaved and turned to throw up. “Shoulda left me. Ryna you risked the whole team.”
“Shutup and say thank you.” said Maryna, cradling his exhausted head. “It was the right call.”
“Did we make it? Are we through the Pinch?” asked Noah.
“More like around it. But yeah, we found a route, and we got all the readings to plot a course for the spacescrapers.” said Maryna.
“And you sent it to Billy?” said Noah.
“Sent.” said Warui.
“And copied to Costa Feed.” said Gabriel. “The food is on its way to Domm.”
“Where are the other bonnies? I saw them float into slow space.” said Noah.
“Yeah they’re gone. This little life of luxury is all we have left.” said Warui.
“Shit, that’s gonna cost me.” said Noah. “I’m glad to be with you all, but what the hell made you try that rescue? Three people in one bonnie? A jump drift?”
“We’re viamorrs. That’s what we do for someone in need.” said Maryna.
“For our crew.” said Warui.
“For our lead.” said Gabriel.
Noah laughed, “You know what Scout, floating this bonnie like you just did, in current like that. I dare say, it was fuckin’ beautiful.”
Noah leaned his head back and pulled off his glove. He slid the etched map ring off his finger, held it up to his eye and looked through. It was a silly thing, being married to the currents. Maybe Ayla was right, maybe it was a little weird. An unforgiving force in outer space wasn’t exactly affectionate. The ring kept the distractions of other women away, sure, it made him look responsible to sponsors, yeah. But after all of his first floats and failures, his joys and adventures, the currents never loved him back. The currents never rescued him. Noah let Maryna hug him, grasp his hands. They weren’t rich yet, viamorrs most often weren’t. But they’d found a new route around the Pinch, a first float.
“Ryna, do me a favor.” said Noah, handing her his ring. “Get rid of this.”
Maryna held her breath and cracked open the view shield, threw it out into the currents. “It was stupid, anyway. Everybody knows you’re not actually married.”
“Yeah… yeah.” said Noah.
“Besides,” said Maryna, “you have a family.”
“I’ll float with you in any current.” said Noah.
“You better wait until we tell you the name of that new split before you commit.” said Warui.
“Do I have a choice?” asked Noah.
“Nah.” said Warui. “We’ve already decided. Family decision.”
“It’s our right after that rescue.” said Gabriel.
“Ok, give it to me.” said Noah.
“Noah’s Pain.” said Maryna.
Gabriel engaged the trolling engine to back out of the currents into slow space where the viamorrs waited for pick-up. After floating in the currents, the Aubyrn Inn was a year away by troller engine and ten years away around the main flow of the Riri Current. But Noah wasn’t thinking about women or bourbon, his heart had already been broken too many times to make a new scar for Ayla. Noah clawed at the edge of a dream, the finest point of his mind tickled by the unreality in the split. Something hung there in his consciousness, something new in the flow of his thoughts.
Marco didn’t die because Noah sent him over a split, or because he took the wrong line. Marco was murdered. There was another bonnie with him in the split, deliberately placed to ruin his re-entry line. The cockpit of Marco’s bonnie flashed in Noah’s mind and he looked at the blinking GPS screen, the projections from his route. It was a distress signal, a blinking beacon showing the way to Marco’s killer. If only Noah could remember the coordinates.