Anton's Odyssey Read online

  The sequence changed, showing a boxy spaceship slowly rotating counterclockwise as it levitated through the stratosphere. “For some spaceships, a small amount of rotation or ‘yaw’ during takeoff is unavoidable,” the woman explained. “This is perfectly normal and does not pose any significant health risk. By bracing the head against the seatback, the passenger or crewmember can relieve the unpleasant sensations of vertigo or motion sickness.”

  The video showed another ship, this one cylindrical, short and wide. It spun violently. “In the unlikely event the ship strikes an atmospheric hot pocket, turbulent-mediated centrifugal yaw acceleration or ‘TMCYA’ may occur. Fortunately, this ship is equipped with stabilizer motors.” On the vid, small flashes appeared along the top and bottom of the ship. Each flash was a rocket pulse directed opposite the direction of spin. The spinning slowed down. “However, a small delay prior to motor ignition is unavoidable as the computer calculates force and trajectory. The passenger or crewmember may find this interval unpleasant.”

  The video ended and the busty bubbly blond bimbo thanked us. There was a pause, a flash across the screen, and the video repeated itself. We thought the ship was about to take off so we remained strapped into our chairs.

  After ten minutes I said, “You would think they’d have a countdown or something across the top of the screen.”

  Cotton nodded in agreement. Mother, still and silent, looked very apprehensive.

  We sat uncomfortably for an hour. I could hear other crewmembers in the passageway, walking around and talking loudly. Evidently they knew something we didn’t.

  After seeing the entire video through to the end seven times, I had the dialogue memorized. After fifteen times, I was extremely annoyed. Somewhere after thirty, I lost count and my mind began to play tricks on me. The busty bubbly blond bimbo had lost her Cub Scout jacket. Her pale blouse was made from a rather sheer fabric, and she had neglected to put on a bra. The fleshy parts of her body below her silk floral scarf and above her skirt were essentially unconcealed. Her monologue continued without change, however. I became hypnotized by the large concentric circles as they swayed ever so slightly back and forth like pendulums under her blouse.

  The video’s background changed. The abstract floating shapes and soft colors transformed into hard lines. She was in the engine room. She continued speaking but looked a bit worried. Her unnaturally large smile faded. The machines in the background suddenly zoomed forward, and her scarf got caught in a turbine and tightened around her neck. She gasped for air. Her face turned red and large purple veins bulged out of her neck and forehead. She struggled, pushing hard against the machine, but she couldn’t get herself loose. The scarf bit into her skin causing her neck to bleed. She opened her mouth to scream, but couldn’t, her windpipe constricted. What I heard was my own voice.

  Annoyed by my scream, Mother reached over and slapped the back of Cotton’s head.

  “Leave your brother alone!” mother screamed. “This is important!”

  “But I didn’t do nothing!” Cotton whined.

  “Shut up and watch the video!”

  Finally, the video program changed, showing conical engine nozzles again, only this time I could tell they were ours. “Magic Sky Daddy” was written along the top in large letters. In a window at the top of the screen was a countdown. We had less than five minutes to go. The image slowly dimmed as the station’s blast doors closed. The lights cut off, total darkness, then a strange flicker, and the image reappeared; only it looked different. The colors were softer and there were no shadows, amplified dark vision.

  The countdown reached zero. A cloud of vapor streamed from the nozzles; then a bright flash, the entire screen turning white; then darkness; then another flash. I felt the floor under my feet gently vibrate. Blue and white flames shot out the nozzle. The engines lifted a bit, and I felt the ship lurch beneath me. The walls of our living unit shook and rumbled. Cotton tried to say something but I couldn’t make it out over the noise. He looked uncomfortable. Mother’s eyes were closed. She sat rigidly, her muscles tense.

  I looked back at the vid screen, which displayed a view from the spaceport floor. I could see the flames from our engines getting smaller and smaller as we escaped Earth’s gravity. I couldn’t lift my arms and my head felt very heavy. The skin on my face pulled downward as if I had become a fat man with large jowls.

  The image changed. A camera was mounted on the ship, pointing downward. I could see the ocean and the California coast. Baja, the peninsula, began to spin, slowly at first, and then rapidly. I felt dizzy. Cotton had his head back, a lesson learned from the busty bubbly blond bimbo and our train trip earlier. His face was green.

  I was struck by a sudden wave of nausea. The noose in my chest that restrained my stomach contents loosened, and the acidic taste of sloppy joe vapors permeated upward. I planted my head back firmly against the seat rest and closed my eyes, and counted, trying anything to distract myself from vertigo’s innate unpleasantness.

  At one hundred, I felt the noose re-tighten. At three hundred, I could no longer taste my Sloppy Joes. At five hundred, my head no longer felt heavy. At seven hundred, I felt very strange, as if my arms and legs could float away. At one thousand, I finally opened my eyes. The vid screen was entirely black except a little blue marble in the lower left corner, our home planet Earth. The top of the screen flashed, “Launch successful.”

  “We made it!” I shouted.

  The words on the vid screen changed, “gravity generator activated, simulating 0.78 G’s.” I felt something shake underneath my feet. A sensation of heaviness returned to my face and limbs. We were finally in space.

  Chapter 2: Hammond

  We were sick a few hours later. I felt queasy. My head spun if I moved it too quickly. I had no appetite and could only pick at all the free food during dinner. Mother and Cotton fared much worse. They were obtunded, barely coherent, and unable to walk or even stand upright without leaning on me. My neck, back, and shoulders ached from supporting their weight as I helped them move about our living unit. I was used to Cotton vomiting with regular periodicity during his rather dubious baseline state of health, but not my mother.

  “Why is the room spinning?” Cotton whined pathetically, clutching his head as he lay on his rack. “Those were some bad Sloppy Joes!”

  “I don’t think it was the sloppy joes,” I said. “Mom’s sick and she didn’t get to eat lunch before takeoff.”

  I asked Bob the Steward if we could use the able starmen’s toilet and washateria, which was much closer to our living quarters than the one for ordinary starmen. “That’s a privilege that needs to be earned and isn’t just handed out as a convenience,” he said, smugly.

  The jano-bots ran non-stop, scrubbing away at fetid stains on the passageway carpet. Most messes were not caused by my family, which was reassuring in a way, knowing that we were not the only crewmembers afflicted.

  The security officer with the man-boobs allowed me to take bottled water out of the mess hall for my mother and brother. “As long as it’s not food it’s okay,” he said. “Water doesn’t attract rats.” It turned out his official name was Sergeant at Arms Jim Boldergat. As far as I could tell, his job was to guard the cafeteria. Every time I visited the mess hall, he was there, sitting at the table and stuffing his face with food.

  As the hours passed, the lights in the passageways slowly dimmed, simulating evening, dusk, and night. I forced mother and Cotton to drink water by the liter so they wouldn’t get dehydrated, but they couldn’t keep it down. By midnight I was so tired that I could no longer find the energy to carry Cotton to the toilet. The floors of our living quarters were slick with vomit and the air reeked. Back home I could tolerate Cotton’s normal untidiness, but the squalor in our living quarters that night was intolerable. I knew Bob the Steward would refuse to program the jano-bots to clean our quarters. I doubted he would even lend me a mop, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

  The ship nev
er went pitch black. Dim nightlights in the ceiling, floor, and walls provided just enough light for crewmembers to find their way around the passageways. The lights were spaced much further apart in the smaller, minor passageways that saw less traffic. Stealthily, I hid in the large shadows, moving only when the coast was clear.

  Bob the Steward was nowhere to be found at his office by the clean utility. No doubt he had gone to bed long ago, programming the jano-bots to work throughout the night. The door to the utility was locked. I heard a faint noise down the passageway. I leaped into the nearest shadow, hiding myself from view. A jano-bot rolled by, treads whirring quietly. The door opened automatically to permit the robot entry. I followed closely behind. In the clean utility, I took what I needed, sorbents, a mop, and a small bucket. The load was awkward. No matter how slowly I walked, the bucket would rattle loudly against the mop handle. I gave up on stealth and ran as fast as I could back to our living quarters.

  After I mopped the floor, mom and Cotton used the bucket as an emesis basin. On a panel by the door, I found the controls to our ventilation system and turned the fan up to full power, clearing the stuffy air.

  Exhausted, I fell asleep, leaving Cotton and my mother to fend for themselves. Mother shook me awake at 05:32. She looked terrible with dark rings under her eyes. The skin over her forehead had shriveled, making her look old and wrinkled.

  “You better take your brother to the medical center,” she groaned.

  On cue, Cotton rolled over in his bunk and spewed a thick green substance all over the floor, missing the bucket completely. I pulled my brother to his feet. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted, transforming into an awkward bag of jelly. With effort, I managed to keep him upright so he wouldn’t fall and hit his head.

  In the passageway, a man in an orange jumpsuit stopped to help me, but suddenly realized he was in a hurry to get to work when Cotton started retching. The muscles of my back and legs tingled and burned as I strained to keep my brother moving. Somehow I managed to drag Cotton all the way to the medical center without dropping him on his head.

  “Your brother got I-A-S-A-S?” Mary asked, spelling out the letters to an acronym I didn’t recognize.

  I shrugged. “He smells like A-S-S,” I said. “Is that helpful?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, sonny boy!” she croaked.

  Mary looked Cotton over, and then scribbled some notes onto her tablet with a stylus. She paused for a second, looking puzzled.

  “Does your brother respond to pain?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “pain is really the only way I can get him to behave. Mother usually hollers at him, but I find a headlock to be much more effective.”

  “No! I mean now, since the onset of illness?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Do you think that will help?”

  She raised her eyebrows, silently telling me I was the biggest idiot on the ship, which, with Cotton incapacitated, was possibly true.

  “Response to a painful stimulus is of diagnostic significance and is never therapeutic.”

  She poked Cotton swiftly in the ribs with the back of her stylus. Cotton groaned.

  “Is that a good thing?” I asked.

  “It is,” she said.

  Following her lead, I poked Cotton with my knuckles. He groaned again.

  “Stop that!” Mary snapped. “You didn’t understand a word I just said, did you?”

  “No ma’am.” I said. Medical terminology was way above my head. What I did know was that it didn’t seem fair that she got to poke Cotton but I couldn’t.

  Mary scribbled more notes onto the tablet, and paused again. She looked up, extended her neck, raised her nose, and sniffed.

  “Ketosis present,” she muttered, “and patient has a very strong body odor.”

  She pressed a button on the tablet. Over her shoulder I could see the screen flash red letters, “Triage Category 3. Take vital signs including orthostatic pulse and blood pressure. Page house officer.”

  “Oh, he is in pretty bad shape!” Mary said. “You better put him in the chair.”

  With difficulty, I hoisted Cotton into the seat. I had to erect the armrests just to prevent him from rolling out onto the floor. The med-bot squeezed his arm and probed his forehead.

  “Hold him up,” Mary Croaked. “Dr. Zanders wants me to get an orthostatic pulse and blood pressure.”

  I pulled him to his feet again, my back nearly locking in a painful spasm.

  “Can he stand on his own?” Mary asked.

  Cotton had another fainting spell only this time I was too weak to hold him up, and he fell back into his chair.

  “Sorry,” I said. “He’s even heavier than he looks, and I’m feeling pretty weak and tired myself. Give me a minute, and I’ll try again.”

  “No need.” Mary said. She scribbled in her tablet and muttered to herself, “unable to obtain standing pressure. Patient is qualitatively orthostatic.”

  “Go ahead and lie him down in Exam Room Three,” Mary said, “Dr. Zanders should be here any minute.”

  An hour later, Dr. Zanders walked into Exam Room Three. Cottons groans reassured me that he had survived our physician’s tardiness. Dr. Zanders seemed inappropriately cheerful, whistling to himself and smiling. He was wearing a white collared shirt and brown slacks. I guessed that his space marine uniform was in the wash.

  “What’s wrong with your brother?” Dr. Zanders asked. “He got I-A-S-A-S?”

  “He’s puking bile!” I said, quickly getting to the point. “Last time he did that, they had to do an operation.”

  “Really?” he switched on the computer and scrolled through Cotton’s medical records. “Yes, a few years back he had a bowel obstruction. At Loma Linda University Medical Center, a surgeon removed 10cm of jejunum.” Looking up at me quizzically, he asked, “Why did your brother swallow his pocket module? It’s unusual for a person his age to do that sort of thing.”

  Cotton was unusual irrespective of age. “I think it was a dare,” I said.

  “Is he always that impulsive?”

  “Yes, always.”

  Dr. Zanders frowned and walked over to my brother. He cupped his hands together and pressed down gently on Cotton’s belly with his fingertips.

  “Adhesions from prior abdominal surgery could definitely cause another obstruction,” he said.

  He pushed deeper, his fingers disappearing into Cotton’s pudge. Cotton didn’t even flinch.

  “No, this is definitely not a surgical abdomen. How long was it after liftoff before your brother became ill?” he asked.

  “Just a few hours.”

  He pointed a small penlight at Cottons left pupil, but Cotton groaned and shut his eyes tight. “Can you get him to open his eyes?”

  “Cotton, open your eyes!” I barked.

  Cotton groaned again. His eyes clamped shut tightly.

  “The doctor needs to look in your eyes!” I said, even more forcefully this time.

  Cotton shook his head. He was being a total jackass.

  “Damn it, Cotton,” I shouted, “open your eyes, or I swear I will open them for you.” There was no immediate response, but the instant I touched my brother’s eyebrows, his eyes shot open.

  “Try to follow the light.” Dr. Zanders said, swinging his penlight from side to side. Miraculously, Cotton complied.

  “Eyes look good.” Dr. Zanders said. I always thought Cotton had ugly eyes, kind of a bird crap grey in color. “No injection, non-icteric,” the doctor continued, “bit of nystagmus though.” Dr. Zanders put the penlight back into his front pocket and looked up at me. “Just as I thought,” he said, “I-A-S-A-S.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Idiopathic acute space acclimation sickness,” he said.

  I usually fell asleep in health class, so my fund of medical knowledge had been overdrawn. “What causes that?”

  “It’s idiopathic,” the doctor said, smiling.

  “What does idiopathic
mean?”

  “It means the doctor is an idiot and the patient is pathetic,” he said.

  Cotton was definitely pathetic, so at least Dr. Zanders was partly right. I really hoped Dr. Zanders wasn’t an idiot though, because he was the only doctor on board the ship. The doctor laughed. Evidently, he had made some sort of medical joke that nobody else in the room found funny.

  “The word ‘idiopathic’ means medical science hasn’t figured out the cause of something,” he explained. “Basically, I-A-S-A-S is moderate to severe nausea and vertigo experienced by persons new to space travel. Some doctors think the central nervous system has trouble adjusting to artificial gravity, but I think it’s just a variant of simple motion sickness. Although you don’t really notice it, this ship is still accelerating. We compensate by sending out small pulses of gravity waves orthogonal to the pull we feel from the floor. Nobody has ever figured out how to perfectly fine tune the small pulses, which is why I think some people get I-A-S-A-S. Usually, anywhere from 10 to 20% of new voyagers develop symptoms. That’s why school doesn’t start until day four after liftoff.”

  “Is he going to die?” I asked, not comprehending a single word the doctor had just said.

  “Oh no, there has been only one documented fatality ages ago among an older individual in poor health. The man who died would never be medically cleared for space travel by modern standards.” He looked down at Cotton. “Can he keep down fluids?”

  “No, I was forcing him to drink but he kept spewing,” I explained.

  “How much were you making him drink?” he asked.

  “Lots!”

  “No really, how much?”

  “Liters.”

  Dr. Zanders shook his head. “No no no! You’ve been going about it all wrong, son! You need him to sip fluids not force them down his throat.”

  I hated being called “son.” I didn’t know who my father was, but I was pretty sure that it was not Dr. Zanders, and if he was my father, he owed us a lot of child support money.