The Long Forever. Eugene Lambert

no maybe about it,’ I say.

      Halfway down the steps I hear her cursing, as well as loud smashes and bangs. Murdo winks. I continue on down.

      ‘Hey, Sky,’ I call. ‘It’s only me, Kyle.’

      A half-seen something flies towards my head. Sky’s blaster. I have to use all my speed to dodge. It clatters to the deck. I snatch it up and pocket it.

      I guess I should be glad she only threw it . . .

6

       DIVERSIONS

      ‘Party’s over,’ Murdo growls. ‘Let’s get down to business.’

      Rich, coming from a guy who’s only just got up from snoring his drunk head off. Meanwhile, Anuk has had the rest of us hard at it for hours, cleaning and tidying. Our cramped quarters are way more liveable now.

      ‘What d’you want us to do?’ I ask.

      Red-eyed and clearly suffering from a head-banging hangover, Murdo flinches. ‘No need to shout, is there? We should have to space those bodies, and then I’ll alter course.’

      This last bit he says with a glare at Sky. She meets it, eyes narrowed, face like stone.

      It’s cool in the hold, but the stench of death is already nasty. Inside the cage we find more bodies than we’d expected. One of the two beaten-up crewmen is stiff and gone to the long forever. His gobby mate shouts threats at us until Cam sets his killstick to stun and shuts him up.

      Skinny guy wisely keeps his mouth shut.

      Murdo has him show us where the airlock is, in a small compartment beneath the hold. After he’s done taking Murdo through the lock’s controls, I sling the guy back inside the cage. Then three of us wrestle the pilot’s body down. He hasn’t got lighter by being dead and we’re blowing hard by the time we’ve shoved him into the airlock. Murdo taps at a grubby screen beside the inner airlock door. It closes, sucks inwards and seals.

      Above us, a red light starts strobing.

      ‘Warning, illegal override,’ a machine-voice chants.

      ‘Yeah, we know!’ Murdo slaps the screen again.

      The warning chokes off. He mutters something over his shoulder to us about opening outer doors with pressure still inside, so the body will be blown out.

      As he does, I feel the slightest of thumps.

      We take turns gawping through the clear-view panel set into the inner airlock door. Beyond the open outer door, the pilot’s body tumbles slowly away from us against a backdrop of stars. I’d heard stories that if you ended up in space without a pressure suit it would be messy. But he doesn’t explode and his blood doesn’t boil out of him.

      I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed.

      The two dead kids, Mav and Kaya, we leave until last. Somebody’s gone to the trouble of wrapping them up in canvas tarpaulins, a sort of makeshift burial shroud.

      ‘Anybody want to say a few words?’ I ask.

      At first all I get is eyes flicking uneasily away from me, but then Cam surprises me.

      ‘They died fighting . . . so we could be free,’ he says.

      Anuk repeats it. Next thing, they’re all at it. I glance at Sky, expecting her lip to curl. Not a bit of it: her eyes are shiny and she chants it as loud as anyone.

      Two more soft thumps and the red light quits flashing.

      ‘Least they didn’t die in a cage,’ she says to me.

      We clamber back into the hold and start making our way back to the crew compartment, while the machines that allow us to breathe start scrubbing away the stench of death.

      ‘Hey, not so fast,’ Murdo says, sticking his head up from the floor hatch. ‘Bring the prisoners.’

      ‘You’re not serious?’ I say.

      Sky rolls her eyes. ‘They’re slavers. Serves them right.’

      ‘No! Please don’t!’ skinny guy whines.

      Murdo laughs, real ugly, and tells us there’s an escape craft down below with four empty stasis pods. ‘Stick ’em in there and it’ll save us watching and feeding them.’

      When we look dumb, he curses and grudgingly explains what stasis pods are. Seems they work by slowing your body down into a sort of super-hibernation. Deep-space escape craft have them so occupants can survive until they’re found, which can take years. Whatever. I’m just relieved he’s not going to space the prisoners in cold blood.

      Sky mutters we should leave them in the cage to be zapped. But Murdo’s captain and gets his way.

      Curious to see the escape craft, I help carry the man Cam stunned. Skinny guy doesn’t look thrilled, but climbs down himself and keeps his gob shut.

      It’s accessed through a second airlock. Disappointingly, the inside is a small compartment, with two recesses in the walls either side, one pod above the other. Murdo and Cam wrestle the unconscious guy into the upper left. When they’re done, they step out to make room and I shove skinny guy ahead of me into the cramped interior.

      ‘Upper right,’ Murdo orders.

      Skinny guy hesitates, shaking. A shove from me gets him moving though. He clambers up and rolls into it.

      Murdo hits a switch. ‘Sweet dreams.’

      Translucent panels swish downwards to close off the two occupied pods. A dazzling blue light fills them. I smell that sharp stink you get when electrics short out. And jump back as skinny guy’s hand, fingers spread wide, slams the inside of his panel. The blue light fades away, but the hand stays planted. Frozen.

      That does not look like fun.

      ‘Let’s go,’ Murdo says, already shuffling his way out.

      Back in the hold, we crowbar open all the wooden crates that were loaded aboard on Wrath. Nestled inside each is a small unmarked metal chest. I worry darkblende’s not stamped on them, or its tech name – promethium. Murdo says I’m a gom for thinking it would be. Screens on the chests list the weight of their contents. Twelve crates, with five hundred kilos in each.

      Whatever it’s worth, Murdo bloodshot eyes go greedy.

      Minutes later, with the crates hammered closed again, he’s back in the pilot’s seat with as many of us as can squeeze inside the flight deck watching him. Sky’s not here. She stayed in the crew compartment, busy sulking.

      ‘Where are we going?’ I ask him.

      ‘Shanglo.’

      ‘What’s there?’

      ‘An old contact. Deep pockets. Doesn’t ask questions.’

      As his fingers tap and slide on the control screen, Murdo tells us Shanglo is the moon of a planet orbiting a half-dead sun. At max drive speed it’ll take seven standard-days to get there. Our curved blue course line shifts inside the glowing star map to point at a closer bit of space. The map zooms in and a new destination star pulses red. Looming over it, as if about to pounce, is what looks like an orange dust storm shot through with wisps of yellow and green.

      ‘What the hell’s that?’ Cam asks.

      ‘Some kind of nebula. Dust and gas, that’s all.’

      With a flourish, he stabs at his screen. I feel the lurching sensation as the freighter’s drive kicks in. The stars in front of us seem to smear themselves towards us. But the flight deck’s shielded, so that’s as bad as it gets. Until the view ahead snaps to a sudden dark nothingness, like a