1
ALICE
I didn't think anything could be more boring than spending year after year, stranded in deep space on a ship with no reading materials, no television, no nothing.
Clearly the universe is out to make me eat those words, because being stuck in an escape pod is ten times more boring than that.
I lie on my back on my seat, my butt pressed to the side of the pod and my legs in the air, my head hanging over the edge, and I stare at an upside-down Kaspar, my only company for this last week. He's cleaning his gun. Again. He does this every day. Pretty soon he'll pull off his boots and shine them. Then he'll check the readings on his data pad that's practically useless. He'll pace back and forth in the closet-sized cabin of our escape pod and then will sit down across from me and pick a fight, just to have something to do.
It's the same every day. It's also making my nose twitch, because the cleaner he uses makes me sneeze.
I glare at him from my spot on my bunk, wishing there was more room to move around in the escape pod. Wishing there was a bit more everything in this stupid pod, really. The thing's no bigger than the size of a walk-in closet, with a tiny boxed-in space at the far end of the cabin for a bathroom-slash-sonic shower. Other than that, our two “bunks” line opposite sides of the pod and there's controls covering every inch of wall space. There's one window to see out into deep space, I guess to help with claustrophobia. Other than that, there's barely enough room for Kaspar to stand up straight or to stretch his legs. Even now, his knees are practically brushing against my hair as I lounge on my bunk.
He glances over at me, finally putting his weapons away and tossing the plas-film towel aside. "What?"
I stick my tongue out at him.
Kaspar just rolls his eyes and hauls off one of his boots.
It's the tight living quarters that are making us both crazy, I think. It's not like we were super best buds when we got pushed into this pod. I'm pretty sure he still holds a grudge against me for my honeypot actions and I'm worried about Jade and Helen and Ruth. Neither one of us is particularly pleasant. Add in boredom and it's a deadly mixture.
So I decide to pick a fight, because what else am I going to do? "Do you have to do that right now?" I ask.
He scrubs his shiny boot, that floppy lock of hair falling over his brow as he leans forward. "Do what?"
I roll my eyes. "Shine your boots? We haven't gone anywhere in a week. It's not dirty. There's literally no point in shining it."
Kaspar gives me a narrow-eyed look and continues right on with his shining. He's a bit of a neat freak, this one, always making sure everything is exactly in its place on his person, adjusting his clothing so there's not a wrinkle. The only thing that's ever out of place with him is that stray lock of hair across his brow that gives him a rakish look. He gets on my nerves.
Actually right now everything gets on my nerves.
He spritzes the plas-film rag with cleanser, and I sneeze. Glare at him. Sneeze again.
Kaspar ignores me.
"Is it time to eat?" I ask.
Kaspar checks his data pad. "No."
I make a growling sound of frustration in my throat and resist the urge to stomp my foot against the wall of the escape pod. "This is the worst! How can you sit there and be calm when we're starving to death?"
"This is your first time in an escape pod, isn't it?" Kaspar's voice is coolly amused.
I clench my jaw. Does he think I've just been gallivanting around space, hanging out in a variety of escape pods all my life? He knows I was on Earth until I was kidnapped and that I woke up on the Buoyant Star. He knows I spent the last three years there, and now I'm here with him. "I'm not a big fan of being hungry," I say crabbily.
"This pod is about keeping you alive, not about luxury," he says, running that cloth along the heel of his boot. "We're lucky that we have tabs at all. It could be a lot worse."
"There's worse than tabs?" I ask, flipping around and sitting up. The blood rushes through my head as I do, but I welcome the sensation, because it's something new at least. I glance over at the “tabs” dispenser on the wall. Escape pods aren't apparently equipped with food rations like I thought they would be. Instead, there are “nutritional” tabs that meet the basic requirements of the average alien body and are designed to keep you alive. It means that I'm getting enough, calorie wise, to keep my body going, but my stomach is empty and it makes its unhappiness known repeatedly. It growls all day and all night long—not that there are days and nights in deep space. It's miserable.