I'm serialising this story on a weekly basis, with a new chapter/episode published every Sunday*. You can read Missing Planet online or you can contact me directly and I'll email you the story so far in ebook format (epub, mobi or PDF). Please read the foreword for more information.

Donations: If you like my writing, please consider donating a small amount to me, because then I'll write more novels and continue to distribute them freely. You can contact me directly via words@ministryofprose.com to find out how to donate (PayPal, Bitcoin, bank transfer, brown bags full of unmarked cash, etc.).

* For a given value of 'Sunday'. I may occasionally miss this deadline due to work, illness, holiday or other factors.



I began writing this novel in 1978. That's when I first wrote a short, space-based story, painstakingly hammering out the words using my mother's old portable typewriter. I still have that first sheet of typewritten text, replete with mistakes, corrections and smudges.



So, that was 40 years ago. In the meantime I grew up (at least physically), got married, had two lovely daughters and became a writer myself, working as an IT journalist and web content provider. Not an awful career by any means, but my fiction-writing itch has remained unscratched until now.



This novel is dedicated to all the science fiction writers whose work I devoured as a child, as an adolescent and - unfortunately to a lesser extent - as an adult. There are dozens of them, and you will find passing reference to them and their creations within this novel. That's my homage to their impact on my life.



If this novel were a film I think it would be 12-rated. There's nothing too adult in it, but there are some themes that may benefit from adult explanation or guidance. Both my adolescent daughters, Nina and Elena, read each chapter before it's published, and they don't appear to have suffered any serious side-effects.



This novel remains my copyrighted work. I give permission for it to be distributed - without charge - to people who might want to read it. You may share it with your friends and acquaintances, in fact I encourage you to do so. You may not charge for it, nor edit it or republish it, nor pass the work off as your own. Please keep it complete and intact, including this foreword. In short, please respect my work.



Thank you for reading this novel. I hope it sparks your imagination and brightens your dreams. That's what science fiction is all about.



Alex Cruickshank, February 2018



NB. I do not use social media. My only online presence is at Disruptive Influence and my business writing website, Ministry of Prose.





For those who've asked or wondered, I'm writing Missing Planet without a plan and with no editing. I never return to previous chapters and I have no idea what will happen next. Every published chapter is the first and only draft.



To quote the late, great Douglas Adams in his introduction to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "The story grew in the most convoluted way, as many people will be surprised to learn. Writing episodically meant that when I finished one episode I had no idea about what the next one would contain. When, in the twists and turns of the plot, some event suddenly seemed to illuminate things that had gone before, I was as surprised as anyone else."



I know exactly how he felt.





This story is science fiction, therefore it contains science. Some of the science is currently valid and some of it... hasn't quite happened yet.



Readers of a scientific disposition are welcome to get in touch with me to correct any factual errors. It's a quarter of a century since I graduated in Physics with Astrophysics and I wasn't the most attentive of students.



Readers without a scientific background may wish to skip the science bits, but I'd encourage you to at least skim-read them. Science isn't as hard as it's sometimes portrayed, and it offers a wonderful way to make sense of our world.



It's also the only discipline that permits - indeed encourages - admissions of wrongness. Science is a series of leaps from one conjecture to the next, any of which may be proved false by new evidence at any time. Accepting this is the only way to gain new knowledge. There is no place in science for ego or hubris.





The petite, dark-skinned woman stood on a metal platform that jutted out from the side of the space station. The air was warm, though it should have been close to absolute zero. In fact there shouldn't have been any air at all, but there was, and a light breeze ruffled her dress and her black hair.



Above her head, distant stars whirled slowly by. She knew them as she knew her own face, and paid them no attention. The moon was off to one side, lit partly by the sun. Below her was the Earth, though she didn't glance in that direction either. She wasn't ready for that sight. Not yet.



She sighed deeply and reached over to unclip her safety belt's carabiner from the unbreakable line that was a standard feature of all the space station's outdoor areas. As she did so, a voice came out of the shadows behind her.



"I think I can see my house from here."



The woman spun around quickly but saw nobody.



"Who's there?"



One of the shadows by the closed door hatch subtly changed shape and became humanoid. It moved toward her, but stopped some distance away as she took a step backward, closer to the edge.



"Who's there, I said?"



"You don't know me, professor. People call me Styx. I'm here to talk to you."



"I don't want to talk to you. Go back inside."



A pause. Then: "You won't fall, you know. We're in a stable orbit so there's no pull to Earth. We only feel weight due to the G-field motors."



"Of course, I know that. But the field is directional and limited. One strong push will take me away from the station."



"Maybe, but then you'll just bounce off the inside of the bubble and float around like an idiot until they send out a drone to collect you."



The professor took a deep breath, filling her lungs with air from outside the space station. And at this point, an explanation of that apparently impossible fact is required.



By far the biggest barrier to early space travel and exploration was the human mind. Having spent hundreds of thousands of years evolving on a wide open planet with air all around it, homo sapiens' grey matter didn't take too kindly to being trapped inside a tin can surrounded by endless vacuum. Sooner or later, most astronauts felt an overwhelming urge to step outside. This wasn't a problem when wearing a space suit, but those afflicted generally dispensed with that vital detail. Space claustrophobia was real and often terminal.



Only the most disciplined or bone-headed individuals could survive for much longer than a year in space without experiencing severe mental breakdown, often ending in suicide, murder or both. Since the nearest potentially habitable extra-solar planets were more than seven years away at state-of-the-art spacecraft speeds, this was a big problem.



Space Corps veterans were vital to any voyage into deep space, of course, and they either felt no claustrophobia or were able to handle it - or hide it. No problem there. But humanity would never conquer the stars with only a subset of the Earth's personality types. The melting pot of wildly conflicting character traits is what had prevented the species from going extinct long ago. Without that variety, any attempt at planetary colonisation was doomed to failure.



It took all sorts to establish a colony. Sometimes apparent weaknesses turned out to be strengths. Without the empaths, artists, creators, home-makers, freaks and families there could be no outward march of humanity. For decades, only military personnel could survive the mental pressures of long-haul space travel, but they were useless as colonists and always turned on each other in the end. Swords do not make good ploughshares, and neither do fully-automatic heat-seeking plasma cannons. Yet all attempts at sending a broader cross-section of humanity into space had burnt out like sparks trailing from a dying firework in the night sky, sometimes literally. The human race couldn't escape its limitations. Colonies needed colonists, but colonists weren't cut out to be astronauts.



That all changed with the invention of the air-field generator. A by-product of research into defence against ballistic weapons, this device altered the human aspect of space travel almost overnight. It let anyone step outside for a breath of fresh air. It was that simple. Air-field generators allowed spacecraft to be surrounded by a bubble of heated air that moved at the same velocity as the ship itself. The field required little energy to maintain, but acted as an invisible hermetic seal against the vacuum of space.



With a little adjustment the air-field also became a robust barrier against solar radiation, cosmic rays and low-mass space debris. So the additional payload of the shield generator itself (and the extra CO2 scrubbing equipment for the increased volume of air) was offset by the reduction in heavy shielding that had previously been necessary to prevent space travellers dying of radiation sickness, cancer or chronic holes.



Engines and comms antennae poked through carefully-sculpted gaps in the 'bubble' and the field could be manipulated as necessary. It was an elegant solution and had made its inventors exceedingly rich. Now anyone could walk outside, no space suit required. The human brain was mollified and space claustrophobia was banished to the history books. Space travel was suddenly an option for almost every personality type. Some travellers even took up gardening in specially designated areas on the outsides of space stations and colony ships.



The professor calmly exhaled.



"The bubble will open for me. I have this."



She held up a black necklace with a small pendant attached, one side of which was glowing red. It was an air-field transponder, colloquially known as a dog collar. Worn around the neck, it was used to send a signal to the air-field generators. Any astronaut who needed to get outside the bubble - for repairs to comms equipment, for example - would wear a dog collar inside their space suit. As they approached the bubble wall, the air-field generators would manipulate the field to create an airlock, a bubble within the bubble. This allowed space-walkers to get out and in with the loss of only a small amount of the ship's air.



"But once you're outside the bubble without a suit..."



"I'll freeze instantly, yes. And the air will be forced out of my lungs, my eyeballs will explode, everything in my body will rupture or desiccate or disintegrate. My corpse will continue its trajectory around Earth for weeks, maybe months. But without corrective propulsion my orbit will slowly decay, taking me into Earth's atmosphere, slowly at first, then faster as gravity takes hold. What remains of me will eventually burn up as the friction of the thickening air heats my erstwhile flesh to thousands of degrees. A shooting star in the sky, assuming anybody looks up at the right moment."



Styx was silent for a while, apparently deep in thought. Then she said, "When you put it like that, it sounds quite romantic. Can I have your shoes?"



"What?!"



"Your shoes. They're lovely and I think they'd fit me."



The professor stood open-mouthed, incongruous in flowing red dress and red stilettos, on the extended viewing platform. Below her, planet Earth hung in the sky like an improbable Christmas bauble, with the day/night line, known as the terminator, almost directly under her feet (for given values of 'below' and 'under', since those terms don't mean much in space).



Styx continued. "A little overdressed for the occasion, aren't you? I mean, suicide isn't like a fancy-dress ball. It's strictly a private party, one invitation only. So you don't really need the shoes. It'd be a shame to see them burn up on re-entry..." A tiny pause. "... like you will."



"Who are you?"



Styx chuckled, avoided the question. "Hey, you know what they say? 'In space, no-one can hear you scream.' Well, not unless you leave your commset broadcasting on channel 13, obviously. Then everyone will hear you scream. Briefly."



The professor continued to stare at her, still slack-jawed with shock.



Styx cleared her throat, then said in a gentler voice, "I know who you are. I also know why you want to kill yourself. I'd prefer it if you didn't, and so would a lot of other people."



"Why? Nobody cares. That's why I'm here."



"Oh, they care. At least, they will. Look, can we discuss this inside? I've never been fond of heights. Or depths, whatever. Just give me ten minutes of your time and if you don't like what I have to say, you can always come back here and jump."



Styx paused again and smiled. "But if you do, I meant it about the shoes."



She turned and walked back to the door hatch. It slid silently aside, spilling warm light from inside the station onto the platform.



"Wait!" exclaimed the stunned professor, still trying to make sense of the past few minutes of her life, minutes that were supposed to have been final and absolute but now seemed far less definite. "I'd swear that hatch was closed all the time I was out here. Nobody came or went. Nobody uses this platform anyway. The one by the Hawking Lounge has a better view. How did you find me?"



"I was here before you, professor. I knew you'd be here. I even knew when you'd arrive, so I didn't have to waste too much time hiding in the shadows and staring down at that grubby little blue-green ball beneath us."



"But... but that's impossible!" spluttered the professor. "I didn't plan this. I mean, I knew I wanted an end and I still do," she continued defiantly, as though Styx had somehow robbed her of the rightful ending to her traumatic life. Are meteors happy? she wondered momentarily, surprised at the thought. Then she spoke again.



"But I didn't know when, where or how. How is it that you knew those answers before I'd even asked myself the questions?"



Styx paused in the doorway, half across the threshold, the light silhouetting her face. "I had help," she said. "More than that I don't want to say right now, not here. But I promise I will explain. How about a drink?"



She moved inside the station. The professor hesitated outside, thinking furiously and in fact feeling furious in general. She felt that she had every right to her black, angry mood.



Styx noticed this and held up her hand in peace, or perhaps contrition. "One drink. I'm paying. Just ten minutes, professor. That's all I ask."



A moment of indecision lasted for a fraction of eternity, then abruptly ended. The professor stepped back into the station and felt, rather than heard, the door hatch slide closed behind her. She sighed in resignation.



"Now I suppose you'll take me to Security and they'll lock me up for my own protection, then ship me back to Earth for psych-analysis, right?"



Styx stared at the professor, clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and went silent, frowning.



"Well? What are you waiting for?" asked the professor.



"I'm counting to ten. You don't know me, so I'll forgive you... this time. But know this: I keep my word. I never lie. If I'd been intending to hand you over to those apes I'd have said so. I only want to talk to you. What you do after that is your own concern."



She looked genuinely annoyed, or maybe, thought the professor, even upset. What a strange person. And what the hell am I doing? I should be floating through the bubble by now. I should be dying.



That thought shook her. I'm dead. In that alternate time-line, the one in which this strange woman hadn't appeared, I am already dead. Dead. She wrapped her tongue around the word. Dead. Dead. It was such a short, trivial word for something so profound. Dead. The sound of an axe chopping wood. Dead. A door slamming shut. Dead. The sound of wet earth dropping onto a coffin. Dead. Are meteors dead?



Drifting out of this reverie, she saw Styx watching her intently. She reached a decision. Bending down, she took off the red stilettos, which was a relief as this was the first time she'd worn them. They didn't fit properly and her feet were already sore.



"Here," she said as she handed them to a surprised Styx. "They're yours, whatever I decide. Let's get that drink."



She padded off in the direction of the station's leisure zone, the Round Lounge. Styx grinned to herself and then followed, skipping a little to catch up with the small but upright and determined figure of the professor.





The Round Lounge was aptly if not entirely accurately named. It was located in a segment of the large ring that encircled Heinlein Station's central column like a doughnut, attached to its cylindrical host by four long, structural tubes that doubled as access corridors.



The ring itself was technically known as The Wheel, but to everyone onboard it had long since become the 'tron (short for cyclotron) due to its similarity to a giant particle accelerator. In the early years of the station's existence, the 'tron had been the living and working area for almost all onboard personnel. To understand why, a brief physics lesson is required.



Orbiting spacecraft experience no net force. Styx was right about that. The station's angular velocity cancelled out its acceleration due to Earth's gravitational pull. This state is called free-fall, though that's not a helpful term unless you're a physicist, since nothing's really falling.



What it means is that everything in an orbiting vessel floats around unless held in place. That's what the first astronauts had to put up with. Living without gravity was inconvenient, to put it mildly. Quite apart from having to eat and drink from tubes, space pioneers quickly lost muscle mass since there was nothing for their bodies to push against. Every item had to be tethered or stored securely. Fluid leaks were potentially disastrous, since bubbles of floating liquid could cause short-circuits and electrical fires. Movement was achieved by bouncing off surfaces, a skill that was tricky and painful to learn. Weight disappeared but mass and inertia remained (as did the bruises), and the less said about the toilet arrangements the better.



There was a solution to this problem: simulated gravity. By spinning a wheeled space station around its long axis, everything in the doughnut ring was pushed outwards. Anyone who's ever seen a motorcyclist in a 'wall of death' show, or watched children spinning around inside a cylindrical cage on a fairground ride, will understand the principle. It's not gravity but it has a similar effect. The rotation pushes everything outward. Actually that statement is factually incorrect, but it's a useful lie.



Heinlein Station had been designed to spin. Its construction had taken almost ten years, but once it was finished, small rocket engines on the outside of the wheel gently accelerated its rotation to provide a comfortable level of fake gravity. The outer wall of the wheel was its floor. Corridors curved gently upward into the distance. People stood, walked and slept with the outside of the wheel 'beneath' them. They were actually whizzing round as though in a spin-dryer, but the force they felt was 'down' toward the constantly rotating floor. It wasn't true gravity but it was better than nothing.



There were some quirks, though. A space station is much smaller than a planet, so the amount of weight felt by the station's inhabitants varied depending on where they were. People felt heaviest in the wheel, got progressively lighter as they climbed up the ladders through the tubes to the central column (known as The Hub, continuing the wheel analogy) and, once there, found themselves floating in free-fall. In fact anyone standing upright in the wheel would experience less 'gravity' at their head than at their feet. That's also true on Earth, but the effect is tiny because Earth is huge. On Heinlein Station it was noticeable, particularly if standing up too fast after a sleep cycle. Still, it was much better than free-fall, especially when it came to using the toilet.



That was then. Things are different now.



As Styx and the professor entered the Round Lounge, their 'floor' was actually beneath them in Earth terms, as though the planet had extended a tendril of gravity up to the station just for them. The outer wheel surface, originally designed to be the floor, was now a wall fitted with large, evenly-space windows. And the station wasn't spinning. An explanation for all of this can wait until they've ordered their drinks.



"What will you have?" Styx asked the professor.



"I don't know. I don't usually drink alcohol, as it clouds judgement and negatively affects analytical processes."



"Sure does," grinned Styx. "And sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered. I'll choose something for us both."



Styx walked over to the bar while the professor found a quiet table. There were no corners in the 'tron, but alcoves set into the curved inner wall of the Round Lounge provided at least some privacy. The bar ran for about 20 metres along the outside wall, large windows behind it letting in starlight and oblique rays of sunshine, attenuated by the air-field to a safe intensity.



Looking around the curved room, the professor saw groups of people lounging in comfortable chairs surrounding low tables. Nobody so much as glanced at her. They all had their own thoughts, their own troubles and challenges. Lucky them, she thought. Occasionally there was a peal of laughter, but mostly just the quiet background murmur of people talking.



Styx was remonstrating with the barman, not angrily but enthusiastically. He hesitated, shrugged and then added two more shots of whatever it was that he was holding into both glasses. Oh great, thought the professor. This is going to hurt. Can meteors get drunk? The professor watched Styx carefully as she walked over to the table, a smile on her face and a tall glass in each hand. The stilettos had disappeared, presumably into the black, featureless bag slung over her shoulder.



Styx was taller than the professor but not by much. Bulkier, though, and it looked like muscle under the loose, casual top and trousers. Short brown hair, facial features that placed her anywhere between 25 and 35 (the skin young, the eyes oh-so-old). She was indeterminate, hard to place or even describe. She would be able to fit in anywhere, thought the professor. Even if I'd met her before I'd probably not know it.



"62kg, since you're wondering," said Styx as she carefully placed both drinks on the small table and sank down into one of the plush chairs.



"What?"



"You were analysing me. That's fine. I'd do the same in your situation. Good. It shows you're thinking clearly." She paused. "Though that may change after this drink."



"What's in it?" asked the professor, looking at her glass of semi-opaque amber liquid with distrust. It glooped lazily.



"Oh, mostly healthy things like fruit juice and herbs. It's my own special recipe. A pick-me-up, you might say. It's not alcoholic." She took a sip from her glass, then grimaced. "Well, not very alcoholic."



The professor made no move to sample her own drink. She was a mess of conflicting emotions and could barely control her voice, but managed to say, "I want some answers. Who are you and why did you... interrupt me?"



"I told you my name."



"Sticks? That can't be real."



"Not sticks like branches. Styx like the river. It's what they called me at the academy and the name kind of stuck. Their little joke. It meant that anyone who crossed me was dead." She grinned. "Don't worry. I've calmed down a lot since those days. My real name is Briar, though I don't use it. Not much better, really."



"I think it's a nice name. I'm Susan," said the professor in a shaky voice. For no reason apparent to herself, she started to cry. A meteor with a name? Stupid girl.



Styx looked around the room. She must have been aware of Susan's tears, but made no comment.



"I remember this place when that was the floor," she said, gesturing towards the wide windows. "That was before they invented the G-field. You worked on that, didn't you?"



"Is there anything you don't know about me?" asked the professor, suddenly angry.



"Quite a lot, I expect," said Styx calmly. "So, you invented it?"



The professor composed herself, wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands and took a deep breath.



"Not invented. Discovered. It was in the late twenties, after we worked out that gravity wasn't a single force. We were trying to develop an anti-grav device based on one of the wave components, but that was a wild goose chase. Still is, as far as I know. All we managed to do was generate a field that increased gravity over a small area. I thought it was useless, but..." She glanced around. "I was wrong."



Styx smiled. "I'll say you were. The G-field has made my life so much more luxurious. Localised gravity: you just don't know how much you'll miss it until it's gone. Much better than all that stupid spinning."



Susan frowned. "We still don't properly understand it. It doesn't follow an inverse-square law. It's almost linear for a short distance and then suddenly decays. I don't really trust it."



She took a sip of her drink, which managed to be both wholesome and bitter at the same time, then straightened her back and glared at Styx.



"Six of your ten minutes left, by my count. Say what you have to say."





"Six minutes?" Styx paused for thought, or maybe for dramatic effect. "That should be enough."



Susan settled back in her chair, unidentified ingredients in the drink helping her to relax a little.



Styx began. "You may not know me, but you probably know why I'm here. I don't mean here specifically with you, but here as in not dirtside." She pointed in the general direction of Earth, not visible from where they were sitting.



"Like you, I don't fit in. I knew that as soon as I was old enough to read, to understand what was going on. All that biotech, all those modifications to the self, the implants, the mindtech, all of it. It repulsed me. Those people down there are no longer human."



The professor's mood changed. She was interested now, listening intently. "Go on," she said. "I want to hear everything."



Styx was surprised at this change of attitude. "Everything? Really?"



"Yes. Everything."



After a long pause, as though weighing up what she should disclose, Styx said, "Well, there's not so much to tell. I rebelled, without any idea of what I was doing or why. I rejected that society, that way of existing - I won't call it living. And so," she snorted in derision, though Susan could see pain in her eyes too. "And so they tried to cure me. Even my parents thought there was something wrong with me that could be fixed. I was sent to specialists, analysed, tested. So many tests," she sighed.



"It turns out that my brain is different. Well, I knew that but it took them years to come to the same conclusion. They could identify the differences, the deviations from anything they called the norm, yet there was nothing they could really do about it. Lucky me."



She took a deep breath, then a deep draught of her drink.



"I mean that. I was lucky. The differences in my brain structure are so fundamental that to attempt to change them or fix them would destroy me as a person. You know about the ethical rules for brain structure modification?" she asked.



The professor nodded. Earth's government portrayed itself as ethical, moral and above reproach. To maintain that lofty status, which Susan privately considered a delusion, there were rules concerning the modification of delinquent brains. Minor adjustments, such as reducing impulsive aggressive actions, were permitted because they had a direct effect on the safety of society. Like neutering a cat, the treatment was considered acceptable because the social benefits outweighed the disadvantages, though the cat might disagree. But to materially modify primary personality traits was legally and ethically out of bounds.



"So they couldn't touch me," continued Styx. "I did eventually get to read my full report, courtesy of a lab tech who I encouraged to take a shine to me." She treated Susan to a brief, self-satisfied smile. "I was always good at persuasion. The report confirmed that I have that trait in spades, along with a lot of other stuff about high intelligence, ability to induce loyalty, self-confidence bordering on arrogance, fast mental and physical reactions, and a total rejection of authority.



"That last bit is the weird part. It's not like anyone taught me to be that way. I mean, my parents were model citizens and they tried to raise me to be one too. But it wouldn't take, and the scans showed why. There's an activation matrix that kicks in when most humans are told what to do by someone in a position of perceived authority. I don't have it. So all those screwy social experiments that happened in the pre-ethics era - you know, pretending to be prison guards, electrocuting people, that kind of thing - just wouldn't work on me."



Another pause, another little smile. "If someone in a white coat asked me to electrocute a random stranger in another room, it's not the stranger who'd have to worry."



The professor frowned. "But this is learned behaviour, isn't it? Nothing that they couldn't undo with, well, you know what methods they have."



"Nope." The smile was more smug this time. "Not for me. My neural connections are physically different. To fix me they'd have to rewire my brain. They might even have been able to do it, but the result would be, well, not me. Completely different person. Even the medtechs baulked at that. If society starts fundamentally reprogramming anyone who doesn't fit in, what separates us from the machines? Answer: nothing, except that those things live forever and are stronger, smarter and faster. That way lies human extinction. So, no major modifications to personality, no human reprogramming. And no place for me.



"They didn't know why I was this way. They wanted to keep me in for further study but I told them where they could put that idea, and I had a good lawyer. My parents weren't poor." Another smile, but a sad one. "The suits couldn't keep me locked up against my will. Ethics again, you see. They'd tied their own hands."



A sigh. "But they couldn't keep me around, either. You know what dirtside society is like. Structure, obedience, everyone in their place, no deviation outside of strictly monitored leisure activities - and some of that stuff is certainly deviant," she chuckled. "So I had to go. No problem for me, as I wanted to go. Wouldn't have stuck around for any money. Dirtside was driving me nuts."



Susan was intrigued, all anger temporarily forgotten. "So how did you get out?" she asked "You were only a child."



"I was 13 by the time all this had played out. I signed up."



The professor was astonished. "Space Corps? At the age of 13?"



"Youngest recruit ever, youngest to graduate from SC academy, highest honours of my year, almost the highest of any year. At 17 I was ready for active duty. Whatever the flaws of my deviant brain," she gave Susan a lop-sided smile, "it seems I'm the perfect soldier."



"But SC has authority, organisation, rules," said the professor. "How could you possibly have adapted to those?"



"I subverted them. As I said, one of my off-spectrum personality traits is persuasion, charm... actually they called it cognitive social manipulation in the report, but that's just a fancy term for being able to get people to do what I want. I knew my only way off-dirt was to get through that academy as quickly and efficiently as possible, so I applied my talents to achieving that goal. Authority is only a problem if it's backed by power. I neutralised that power wherever I could and, where I couldn't, I made sure I avoided coming into its sights. It wasn't that hard. There were hundreds of recruits, most of them raw, and the authority structure had its work cut out moulding and shaping them. I made life easy for them and for the most part they left me alone."



"For the most part?"



"Yeah. Those trainers were not stupid. I made a couple of mistakes in the early days, underestimated their abilities or overestimated my own." Her eyes were focused far in the distance, her mind in the past. "Some of those guys were very smart. It was a big surprise for me as I'd never met anyone like that before. They weren't grunts. They... well, it could have ended badly for me. They had my medical records, of course, and had been keeping an eye on me. But I was well-behaved from then on, a model recruit. I diverted their attention whenever I could. Also, they wanted me to succeed because it made them look good. I used all my talents to smooth things out. I can be very persuasive when I try."



The professor stared at her, face emotionless. "Yes, I had noticed."



Styx burst into laughter. "Oh, come on, it's not that bad! It's not like some weird kind of control. It's just that when I look at people I see their hooks, their motivations, drives, fears, all that stuff. It's like there are levers coming out of their heads and I can adjust those levers to get what I need by helping them get what they want."



"Like a psychopath?"



Styx twitched and stared at the professor. She was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Yes. That's right. Exactly like a psychopath. The only reason I'm not actually a psychopath is because I don't want anything. I don't crave power, wealth, influence or anything like that. I just want to be left alone. That's not an easy thing to want these days."



"So you manipulated and controlled me into coming back inside?" asked the Professor, taking another sip from her glass. Dead meteors don't drink, she reminded herself.



"I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Another perspective is that I saved your life. You're welcome."



There was humour in her eyes but also a flash of anger that the professor was ungrateful. This flipped a switch in the professor and her own anger returned in a flood.



"What do you know about me? Why do you care? I could have ended all this... this... existence or life or whatever it might seem like to you but to me is just the dragging out of pain and anxiety and stress and... and I don't know why I agreed to come in with you but I don't think you have much time left and so far, whatever you may think, you haven't convinced me of anything, anything at all..." Susan trailed off as she ran out of breath.



After a brief but not unfriendly smirk, Styx said, "I did. I brought you back in, perhaps against your will in some respects. I'd argue that your will was compromised by misleading information and unhelpful emotional influences, but yeah, you make a fair point. I strive for autonomy myself and I do not lightly constrain it in others. Do you want to die?"



Styx swiftly pulled out a knife from somewhere Susan hadn't even seen. One moment her hand was empty, the next it was holding a long, matt-black blade, serrated on the back, razor sharp on the cutting edge and curving up to a stabbing point. It was long enough to pierce her heart, thought the professor, then tried hard to unthink that thought.



"Do you want to die?" Styx repeated. "I can do that for you, right now, with much less pain than dying in the cold vacuum of space."



The point of the blade was directed at Susan now, held perfectly motionless just below her chin. In spite of her earlier actions, the professor was scared. Did she really want to die? Jumping off the station into empty space, going through the bubble and becoming a frozen meteor was one thing. Aside from that initial push, the result was beyond her control. A series of events far removed from the step that led to them. She wouldn't have been killing herself, just taking one small step. The rest was consequence.



But to actively choose to die, to have this strange woman pierce her vulnerable throat with that ugly knife, to choose to break the sanctity of her skin and feel the life-force drain out of her. Not a small step but an action, a choice, a firm decision to die. This was something else.



I don't want to be a meteor.



"No."



The word was spoken quietly but it filled the space between them. "No," said the professor again. "I don't want to die. I don't know what I want. I wanted an end to existence then. But now? I don't know."



The knife vanished. As before, its movement was too fast to see. One moment it was there, an eye-blink later it wasn't. There was much more to Styx than first appeared, thought the professor, which was quite an achievement since what first appeared was already a lot to take in.



Styx stared down at the floor for a little while, then spoke. "I can kill you. There would be no recriminations for me. I won't do it unless you ask me to, but if it comes down to it then I can kill you quickly and with the minimum of pain. Keep that in mind."



"Thank you," Susan found herself saying, surprised at her own response. Bizarrely, having the option available reduced her desire to take it.



Styx nodded in acknowledgement. "I think I'm out of time. What do you think?"



The professor stared at her empty glass. "I think I'd like another drink."



Styx grinned at her, then got up and went back to the bar.





Susan watched Styx buy a second round of drinks. She hadn't offered to go to the bar herself, happy to let the other woman deal with the bartender again. The interaction was more intense this time. There was more obvious flirting, with Styx touching the man's arm before picking up the drinks he'd made for her.



That kind of behaviour was a closed book to Susan. She understood the dynamics, the biochemistry and psychology involved, but she couldn't have stepped into such a role if her life depended on it. For her it was like the flight of birds: she understood the science perfectly, but no amount of arm-flapping was going to lift her into the air.



Styx returned to the table with the drinks, larger ones this time, though the murky contents appeared the same to Susan's untutored eye. "On the house," said Styx with a smirk. "No big surprise."



"Do you know him?" asked Susan, in awe of the other woman's self-confidence.



"Not yet," came the laughing reply, and Susan felt her face blush with embarrassment. Styx was not just from a different world; the universe she inhabited was almost unrecognisable to the professor.



Susan's thoughts drifted to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, in which every decision, observation or change was believed to create an instantaneous branching of universes. It sounded ridiculous and was one of many reasons why she privately believed that physicists were missing something fundamental about the quantum world. But when it came to Styx, Susan could almost believe that the strange woman had arrived from a different universe which had somehow merged back with this one after branching away in the distant past.



Or, she thought bitterly, maybe Styx was in the right universe. Given how well she fitted in and was adapted to her environment, Styx was probably right at home. It was Susan who had inadvertently skipped into the wrong quantum world. Yes, that made much more sense. She had never fitted in, right from childhood. She had always felt wrong, an outsider, a misfit. Somewhere there was a parallel universe into which Susan slotted perfectly. Or at least this Susan would. That universe presumably already had its own Susan, feeling similarly disconnected and discontinuous. Maybe there were legions of her, an infinite number of Susans in an infinite number of parallel worlds, all of them feeling out of place and unwelcome, all displaced one step away from where they should be, the distance of a fraction of an atom yet further than the span of the visible universe.



She pictured herself standing between two mirrors, her alternate selves reflecting to infinity on either side, all of them disconnected from each other and reality. What a depressing thought. She took a sip of the drink in front of her and let all thoughts of parallel dimensions slip away.



"So," she said. "Let's get this over with. How and why you were waiting for me?"



Styx put her own drink back on the table and composed herself before speaking. "Professor, you've been up here for three months. That's longer than any of your previous visits to Heinlein. I knew you hadn't booked a return shuttle, yet you had no outbound trips scheduled either. Based on that information it seemed likely that you intended either to stay on the station indefinitely or, well, make your own way back to Earth without the convenience of a ship's hull between you and the void. Since you've made no attempt to socialise with anyone, it seemed unlikely that you were up here for the scintillating company."



She looked at Susan with one eyebrow raised.



"That doesn't explain why you were waiting for me outside."



"No, it doesn't. As I said, I had help. I know some talented people up here. One of them has an unusual ability when it comes to predicting people's behaviour."



"Who?"



"Nobody you know. I'll introduce you later, if you feel up to it."



Susan was silent for a long time, absorbing the implications of everything Styx had said. Now that the shock of their initial meeting had worn off, she felt two strongly conflicting emotions: a feeling of being cheated of an end to existence (that still nagged at her) but also a sense of relief.



Styx was the first person to have spoken to her in real conversation since she'd left Earth, in fact since long before she'd left. Casting her mind back over the previous year, all her interactions with people had been through her work, on a formal or professional basis. She knew she'd been the driver for that, having swiftly and fiercely shut down any attempts at conversation that threatened to move to the informal and personal.



It hadn't always been easy to maintain her barrier. She knew, without arrogance, that she was objectively attractive. Attention came with attraction and she'd gone out of her way to dress down and discourage any conversation beyond the formal. This had earned her a reputation as a cold-hearted robot (she smiled inwardly at that) but it was worth it for the protection of her personal space.



It had also, she thought, earned her the freedom to take her one-way ticket to oblivion without hurting anybody close to her, because there was nobody close to her. But Styx had revoked that ticket, metaphorically torn it up and thrown the pieces over her shoulder, grinning while she did so. Susan didn't know whether she should thank the other woman or punch her. She suspected that attempting to punch Styx wouldn't achieve anything positive, but wasn't feeling much gratitude either, so she settled for sullen resentment. She wasn't proud of this attitude, but her mind had its own agenda and would not be overruled.



"What do you want from me?" asked Susan, unable to keep the sullenness out of her voice.



"Well, now I've saved your life, your soul is mine. Eternal servitude will eventually pay off your debt to me."



This was delivered deadpan but there was a twinkle in Styx's eyes as she said it. In a gentler voice she continued, "I don't want anything from you that you're not willing to give. As far as I'm concerned you're free to do whatever you want, including going back to that platform and finishing your high-dive trick, if that still appeals to you."



She waited for Susan to respond, watching her intently for signs of emotion. None were forthcoming so she continued. "However, I - that is, we - could use someone with your abilities, your brain. Something's happened out there," she gestured vaguely behind her, indicating deep space, "that we haven't seen before. I think you could help us understand it. You might even find it interesting."



Resentment lingered in the professor but was now tinged with curiosity. Whatever else she might be, Susan was a scientist at heart, and craved knowledge. She reflected that Styx obviously knew this and was dangling a carrot in front of her, a carrot grown especially for Susan. It was an appealing carrot nonetheless.



"I'm listening," she said.



"So I see." Styx paused again to gather her thoughts. Susan took the opportunity to take another sip of murky liquid from the glass in front of her.



The second drink tasted stronger than the first, the extra volume made up of active rather than passive ingredients. Idly, Susan wondered what they were. A bubble of gas (carbon dioxide, she supposed, but who knew?) made its way slowly up the inside of the glass, bumping into green vegetative matter (whose idea was it to put plants in drinks?) on its way to the surface, where it merged with two others before popping and releasing microscopic fragments of fluid into the air in a neat hemispherical pattern that quickly evaporated into nothingness.



How odd, she thought. My thinking is derailed, deranged, determined? No, not determined. Indeterminate, interpolated, misdirected, misinterpreted... What?



A sudden rush of anxiety gripped her and she forced herself to speak, fighting a thick tongue and slow reactions. "What have you done to me? What's in this drink?"



Styx frowned. "Same as before. Why?" She had barely touched her own, and now looked at it suspiciously. She sniffed it. "I don't smell anything unusual, but... hang on." She dipped her finger in, licked the smallest amount of the clear liquid and rolled it around her mouth, looking thoughtful. Quietly she said to herself, "So that's the game, is it?"



Susan barely comprehended what happened next. Even in her subdued mental state she was aware that Styx moved incredibly quickly, like a striking snake. One moment the other woman was sitting opposite her, the next she was halfway to the bar, her arm already completing a throwing motion. The bartender was alert to her, reaching down under the bar for something, but his determined expression changed to stunned shock as an object hit him squarely in the forehead, flicking his head up and backward. By the time it came forward again, Styx was already vaulting over the bar, landing on him feet-first.



The professor's world began to swim and blur at the edges, the colours bleeding out of it, and soon she saw nothing more. She sagged sideways and slipped off her chair, banging her head on the soft, carpeted floor. Unconsciousness beckoned and she went without a care.





The ceilings of residential cabins on Earth-orbiting space stations are some of the least interesting in existence. This fact didn't deter Susan from staring up at the one above her for what might have been 30 seconds or 30 minutes for all she knew. Her eyes casually traced and retraced the outlines of the exposed cable ducts and pipes, painted white in a nod to interior design considerations but otherwise uncovered. This was a working station, so maintenance access always trumped aesthetics.



The largest pipe traversed the ceiling from one end of the room, beyond her feet, to the other end above her head. Water or air? she wondered vaguely. Water, probably, though she couldn't say why she believed this to be the case. Something about the diameter and apparent gauge of the material must have triggered an engineering memory.



Memory... memory... She sat up, wide awake. Styx! The drugged drinks! What happened? Where am I?



Looking around the small room revealed few clues as to her location. A glass of water (something that appeared to be water, she corrected herself in light of recent events) stood on a bedside table that was bolted to the wall. Why the bolts? A legacy of the station's early free-fall days? Though that made no sense. A table is of little use when anything you place on it simply floats away. Oh, it has drawers, she realised. That would explain it. There were also marks on the wall by the bed where self-restraint straps had once been fitted.



Even though it was possible to sleep almost anywhere in free-fall, and the concept of a soft pillow made little sense, most groundhogs found it easier to sleep the way they had on Earth. Old habits died hard, especially those from childhood. So the station had originally been designed with real beds, all fitted with sets of adjustable straps that the construction workers could use to hold themselves in place while they slept in zero gravity. Once the station had been spun up to provide artificial gravity, the straps were no longer necessary.



Not everyone had appreciated the change from free-fall to spin-gee, Susan recalled. Over time, some of the station's workers had adapted to free-fall, even revelling in their lack of weight. It was, after all, a lot like flying. When Heinlein Station had been spun up to speed, a small but significant number of its former occupants had already shipped out, seeking other environments in which the physical constraints of gravity didn't apply. Susan shrugged. It took all sorts.



Hang on, though, she thought. All the residential cabins on Heinlein Station are in the 'tron. In the old days, the cabins' floors would have been what's now the outer wall. Apparent gravity had been flipped through 90 degrees when the G-field projector was switched on and the Station spun down, so all the beds had been dismantled and reassembled on the new floor. But not this bed, judging by the location of the strap-mounting marks. She must be in a different part of the station. Not in the 'tron. Odd.



That's assuming she was still on Heinlein Station at all. Her memory was completely blank after the point at which Styx had been heading towards the barman with apparently murderous intent. She didn't know how long she'd been out. Her internal clock had nothing useful to tell her. They could have shipped her anywhere, whoever they might be.



All of these thoughts passed through her mind in moments, before being discarded instantly as the bedroom door slid silently sideways and someone came in. Rolled in. The wheelchair's occupant effortlessly steered the chair into the cramped space. Susan briefly thought to herself that here was someone for whom free-fall would definitely be preferable to gravity, then the person in the wheelchair spoke.



"At the risk of stating the obvious, I see you're awake. How do you feel?"



The woman's voice was calm, steady, low and clear. It came into Susan's head like a thought, as though projected into her mind directly without the usual inefficient transfer to and from sound waves. The woman's lips had moved, though.



"I'm... erm..." Susan began, then pulled herself together. "I think I'm fine. I don't really know. I..." Her words trailed off into silence. She stared at the woman, who wore a simple grey tunic that ended at mid-thigh, the fabric sewn neatly closed over the stumps of both legs. Susan's eyes flicked up to the woman's face, taking in the friendly, open expression, light skin, blue eyes, no hair. None at all. No head hair, eyebrows or even eyelashes. Hard to judge her age without hair. Mid-forties or older, Susan guessed. There were fine lines around the woman's eyes that spoke of pain and experience.



"It's OK. You're safe here. I'll answer any questions you may have," said the woman. Again, although her lips moved, it seemed that her words were arriving without the need for speech. Susan frowned. "Are you using telepathy?" she asked bluntly.



The woman laughed in surprise and amusement. "No, child! I'm no telepath. I won't say there's no such thing as a natural telepath, but I'm certainly not one. I don't have the necessary brain implants to do it electronically, either. Just words, that's all I have."



"Then how are you getting inside my head?" asked Susan directly.



"I'm not. What you're experiencing is voice control and empathy, that's all. I've learned to modify my voice to suit different circumstances and people. It's not magic, just training. The tone of what we say is at least as important as the words, if not more so. You probably know that intuitively, although the scientist in you might reject it as illogical. Which it is," she continued after a short pause, "but then so are humans. Speech is the most powerful communication method available to us, but the delivery matters at least as much as the content."



Her posture changed, became more formal. "If you prefer, I can talk to you like this."



The difference in her voice astounded Susan. All the warmth had gone, replaced by a cold, almost robotic element that carried nothing kind, in fact no emotion at all. It was a voice devoid of empathy, consideration or understanding. While Susan tried to pull herself together and reconcile her conflicting perceptions of the bald woman in the wheelchair, a now-familiar face poked around the side of the door.



"Ah," said Styx. "Welcome back to the land of the living, or at least the land of the autonomously animated. I see you've met Psycho."



"Psycho?" Susan's eyes flicked worriedly from Styx's smirking face to the impassive woman in the wheelchair, a wheelchair that, Susan was now uncomfortably aware, blocked her only exit from the tiny room.



Styx laughed good-naturedly. "Don't worry, her bark is much worse than her bite. Right, Legless?"



The woman in the wheelchair transformed again: posture, face and attitude all melted and reformed somehow, without really changing at all. Gone was the humanoid robot, back was the smiling woman with the empathic, almost telepathic voice.



"I'm sorry," she said to Susan. "I didn't mean to scare you, only to-"



"You didn't," interrupted Susan, not entirely truthfully. "But you did confuse the Hell out of me." She tried to hold her voice steady and was surprised to find that she succeeded. Staring the wheelchair-bound woman in the eyes, she demanded, "Who are you and why did she call you Psycho?"



"Good questions. Shall we discuss them in more comfortable surroundings?" The woman was already deftly reversing her wheelchair out of the small room. "There's food and drink out here," she said, nodding over her shoulder. "Take your time to get dressed. Come out when you're ready."



The door whispered shut after her and Susan was alone. Her first reaction was to burst into tears. She tried to fight them back and failed, but gained a small victory over herself by crying silently. Damn it, she thought as she angrily wiped her eyes. I don't deserve this.





Looking down at herself, Susan noticed that she was wearing pyjamas. They were white and had small blue kittens printed on them, forever chasing balls of pink wool just out of claw-reach. They were several sizes too big and definitely not hers. "What the...?"



There was no sign of the dress she'd been wearing earlier that day, or yesterday, or last night, or a hundred years ago, or whenever it was that she'd been about to take that one small step, the one Styx had prevented her from taking.



Susan looked around the room again. Piled neatly on the floor at the foot of the bed were what appeared to be clothes, next to a pair of practical indoor shoes. She picked up the clothes and unfolded them. Standard station work-gear, top and trousers, designed to fit tightly but not too tightly, to be comfortable and practical with no loose material to catch on any exposed edges. The style of clothes she wore almost every day. They were her size and so were the shoes. Sighing in resignation, she took off the pyjamas and got dressed. Unable to fight her instincts, she folded the pyjamas and placed them neatly on the bed. As she did so she saw a printed label in the pyjama top which read Property of Briar Jones.



"Seriously?" she muttered to herself. "That brash, self-possessed lunatic wears kitten pyjamas?"



Shocked as much by this discovery as by anything else that had happened to her recently, Susan composed herself as best she could and walked to the door. It slid open at her approach and she stepped through into a much larger room.



The woman in the wheelchair was facing her, the far side of a plain white table on which were laid plates and bowls of food. Sitting to one side of the table, chewing on what appeared to be a synth-chick leg, was Styx. She gave Susan a cheery smile, beckoned her toward the table and carried on eating. Susan didn't immediately accept the invitation. First she stared around the room.



It was big. Its walls were curved, not gently like the Round Lounge but more tightly, with a radius about a quarter of that of the 'tron. The room wasn't completely circular, though, describing roughly two-thirds of a cylinder. The rest of the wall bulged inward. Tables, workstations and cabinets lined much of the wall space, while the middle area contained sofas and comfortable chairs scattered haphazardly. From one long window came a bright white light. Standing on tiptoes and looking out and down, Susan could just glimpse a section of the Earth.



"I'm in the hub, right?" she asked the two other women.



"Full marks," said Styx. "Lower half, below the 'tron in dirtside terms."



"I thought this space was used for storage and labs?" inquired Susan.



Styx shrugged. "Yeah, mostly. This was a lab once, investigating... what was it, Psycho?"



The other woman stirred. "Bone density variation under microgravity conditions," she said. "By which they meant bone density reduction, obviously. They found what they expected to find, no big surprise. Stay in free-fall too long and your bones get weaker." She shrugged. "The experiment ended, the lab techs packed up and went back down, we moved in."



"Who's we, exactly? No, back up a minute. Who are you and why am I here?"



Styx glanced over at the other woman, who nodded to her. "OK, I'll take this," said Styx. "You're here because it seemed the best place to bring you after that..." she muttered some words in a different language under her breath, "...after the creep at the bar tried to drug us. You're safe here, safer than anywhere else in the station."



"What was in those drinks?" asked Susan.



"What I told you, plus a sneaky little addition of his own," said Styx. "It's been analysed, confirming what I thought when I tasted it properly." She muttered angrily to herself, "Can't believe I missed it at first. Must be getting slow."



Then she shook her head and continued. "Anyway, it was a strong sedative, fast-acting but no serious lasting effects. Wears off after about eight hours, which is how long you've been here."



"Why me? Or us?"



"Well, he's locked up in the brig now," replied Styx, "awaiting a one-way trip back dirtside. Nice big bruise on his forehead from the glass I threw at him. Lips are sealed. Won't talk to anyone, and since we're all so civilised up here," her eyes flicked to wheelchair woman as she said this, "I wasn't allowed to do my own interrogation. Shame. So we won't know for a while, but he'll be put through the wringer back on Earth. All ethically, of course. He'll tell them what he knows."



Her eyes widened in mock surprise and horror. "Maybe he was part of a clandestine society planning to capture us and discover all our secrets!" she chanted in a girlish, sing-song voice, then subsided back into her own persona and shrugged. "But for my money it was misguided lust. He wasn't thinking with his head. Anyway, sit down and have some breakfast."



Susan hesitated. She was suddenly aware that she hadn't eaten for a long time. She had an empty stomach and a nagging headache, both of which demanded food. And yet...



Styx cut across her train of thought. "Don't worry, it's safe," she said, grabbing a carrot stick from a bowl, dipping it in some kind of beige sauce and taking a big bite. "Prepared by people we trust. Which isn't to say that you should trust them, or us for that matter, but as I pointed out earlier, if I wanted to kill you I could have done so, and anyway you were on your way to oblivion when I found you. So really, what have you got to lose?"



Susan sat down at the table, convinced not so much by Styx's rambling logic as by the rumbling in her stomach. She ate in silence for several minutes. It was good food, simple but filling and nutritious. The throbbing in her head subsided and she began to feel more human. The other two watched her in silence, Styx occasionally grabbing another piece of food from the table and casually munching it. The other woman didn't eat.



After scraping the remnants out of a bowl of what tasted like a reasonable approximation of chocolate mousse, Susan felt a lot better. She turned to wheelchair woman, three questions forming in her mind. Without preamble she fired them off: "Who are you, why does Styx call you Psycho, and why am I here?"



Wheelchair woman smiled at her. "I'll answer your second question first, if you don't mind. Styx calls me Psycho because of my background. I'm a psychologist, qualified in all types of psychology: cognitive, developmental, social, organisational, criminal, military and clinical." She smiled at Susan. "But really she calls me Psycho because my name's Jane."



The professor was puzzled. "What? That makes no sense!"



Jane continued. "For cultural, social, linguistic and phonetic reasons that I will gladly bore you with given the chance, the majority of nicknames contain two or more syllables, at least in English. Single-syllable names are sometimes even lengthened to fit this rule, creating nicknames that are, counter-intuitively, harder to say than the original name. But 'Janey' doesn't work. Styx is an exception due to the hard ending."



"Not to mention the fact that anyone calling me 'Styxie' would only do it once," said Styx, grinning malevolently.



"Given my speciality," continued Jane, "it was logical for me to become Psycho. I don't mind. It adds a sense of menace that's completely contrary to my character, but that's another hallmark of nicknames. Think of the legend of Robin Hood, with his companion Little John, who emphatically wasn't."



Her smile turned melancholy. "The alternative was to become 'Legless' and naturally I wasn't keen on that. Psycho seemed the better choice." Her voice lowered to a stage whisper. "I might even have suggested it myself, subliminally," she said conspiratorially. "After all, who'd want to be Legless forever?"



"But I heard Styx call you that," said Susan.



"She's earned the right," said Jane quietly. "Without her, I wouldn't be here at all. Losing the use of my legs was a small price to pay, under the circumstances."



"Which were?" asked Susan.



"A story for another time. It was long ago but I can't pretend that the memory doesn't still hurt. If you and I spend more time in each other's company, I'll tell you what happened. One day."



"Why would I want to spend any more time with you?" asked Susan, her anger returning. "So far it hasn't exactly been a picnic. Rescued from myself - I suppose I should feel grateful for that but I'm not sure I do - then drugged and trapped in here by you two."



"Trapped? You're not trapped," said Styx in apparent surprise. She pointed to a second door set into a section of the wall that curved inward. "Out through there is the elevator. You can be back in the 'tron in just a few minutes. Right back where you started yesterday. Your cabin is still where it was. Here's your dress." She threw a tightly-folded bundle to Susan, who caught it clumsily. "All you've really lost is some time and a beautiful pair of shoes," she said, grinning again.



Susan rose to leave, hesitated, then sat down again. "Answers first," she said, feeling more confident with a full stomach and an apparent escape route that she could use if necessary. "Why am I really here? Why and how did Styx find me?"



Jane looked at her intently, so intently that Susan found it hard to meet her gaze for more than a few seconds. It felt as though the other woman's eyes were boring into her head and reading her insecurities off a printed list pasted to the back of her skull.



"Styx was waiting for you because I told her where to find you," Jane stated.



"How? I didn't know even know myself until I got there."



"Consciously, no, I'm sure you didn't," replied Jane. "But consciousness isn't a great help in predicting behaviour, as you probably know. Most decisions we make are determined unconsciously long before we make them. Consciousness isn't entirely absent from the decision-making process but it's more like a sanity check, putting a stamp of approval on a pre-selected choice of action. You may not have consciously known what you were planning, but your unconscious mind certainly did."



"So you read my mind?" asked Susan, in cynical disbelief.



"No! I told you, I'm no telepath. But I didn't need to be. The unconscious mind is cunning but self-absorbed. It doesn't do much to cover its tracks, except in exceptional circumstances. It's like a small child: when it wants something, it tries to grab it. With most humans it's possible to understand the unconscious mind by observing behaviour, especially when that behaviour changes from the norm."



"Has mine?" asked Susan quietly, already knowing the answer.



"Oh yes. As you know, there aren't many private places on Heinlein Station. This is a semi-military installation, Space Corps alongside civilians. Tricky mix, so we're all watched nearly all the time. Cameras, microphones and more subtle monitoring techniques. You're only really safe from eavesdropping when in your own cabin. Even then, if you're a person of interest, so to speak, your cabin is likely to be bugged too. You knew all this, right? It was in the contract you signed when you shipped up here."



"Yes, I knew," sighed Susan in resignation. "It didn't seem important at the time. So are we being bugged here too?"



Jane glanced over at Styx, who held up a hand in the universal symbol of 'wait a moment' while she finished chewing a mouthful of food. She swallowed, then said, "Probably not. That's the best I can say. I've checked this place for obvious bugs and found nothing, but realistically I can't be sure without getting a full nanoelectronics team in here to analyse everything. Even then, I wouldn't be 100% sure. Still," she went on, with a wicked grin, "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right?"



Jane continued with her explanation. "We'd been observing you for the past few weeks. We wanted your help but needed to understand your motivations and allegiances first. It quickly became clear that you were having mental health issues. Your behaviour was erratic, sleep patterns disrupted, you were withdrawing from everyday interactions, even pleasurable ones. Depression seemed likely, with a strong possibility of suicidal tendency. I had someone monitoring you full-time. When you came out of your cabin yesterday in that dress and those shoes, I was pretty sure what you had in mind. I'd already narrowed down your probable chosen method, since you don't like violence and hate being a burden to others."



She paused and gave Susan a smile that was intended to be friendly. "I must congratulate you on your choice, by the way. Suicide and cadaver disposal in one go: very efficient. I expect stealing the dog collar was the hardest part."



Susan didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She was horrified that her actions were apparently so predictable, yet a small but growing part of her was grateful that she'd been diverted from her planned meteoric demise. In the absence of a clear frame of mind she asked quietly, "What exactly do you want from me?"



Jane looked at her intently again, then stated simply, "We want you to help us find a planet that isn't there."





For a time the only sounds in the room were the faint hum of the air distribution system and a chewing noise from Styx, who had by now cut an impressive swathe through the food on the table. Susan stared at Jane, trying to make sense of what the strange, bald woman had just said. Then she burst out laughing. The situation had become so ridiculous, so insane, that her only possible response was to laugh hysterically. Styx smiled and had a brief chuckle herself, but Jane remained impassive.



"You want me to find a planet that isn't there?" Susan asked eventually, once she had recovered her composure enough to speak. "Sure, no problem! It's over there!" She pointed randomly out of the nearest window. "Or maybe over there!" This time she pointed upward. "Or maybe it's hiding right behind you!" she said, pointing at Jane and collapsing into laughter again.



This time Jane smiled faintly, indulgently. "You've been through a lot," she said. "It might be best if you take some time to yourself, go back to your cabin and rest for a while. We can talk about this later, when you're feeling better."



"I feel just fine," retorted Susan, no longer laughing. "I don't need rest. I need an explanation. Are you actually capable of giving me a straight answer, telling me the truth about why I'm here? Or are you going to keep talking nonsense?"



Styx cut in. "It's not nonsense, prof. Crazy as it sounds, Psycho's telling the truth. You and I don't know each other very well yet, but if you trust me even slightly, believe me when I say that she isn't a liar. We really do need to find a planet that isn't there, although that's putting things a touch dramatically." She glanced sideways at Jane and winked, then said, "A gift for melodrama might be one of her few faults."



Jane smiled genuinely at this comment, then laughed too. "I guess that's fair. I suppose I've spent too much time delving into the human consciousness. Drama is built-in. We are narrative creatures and create stories even when there are none to be found. For a moment there I forgot your background, professor." She glanced at Susan with a look that hinted at something more, surprising the professor. But before Susan had time to react, Jane continued. "What I said was technically correct, but it would be more accurate to state that we would like your help to find a planet that isn't where it's supposed to be."



Susan sat silently, composing herself. Although she would be loath to admit it, she was now truly interested in what Jane had to say. Astrophysics wasn't just part of her work; it was part of her soul. Her recent adventures and perils were temporarily forgotten. "Extra-solar, I presume? You haven't mislaid Neptune or anything else within the solar system?"



Jane nodded. "Neptune's still where it's supposed to be, last time we checked, and all the other planets in our system are gliding gracefully around on the ecliptic plane, more or less, as they should be. No, this is further afield. You know about the Tau Ceti planetary system?"



"Yes, of course. At least six planets of which two are gas giants, the others balls of rock roughly Earth-Mars size. Orbital periods varying from a few weeks in the case of the innermost rock-ball to..." Susan's eyes glazed briefly as she consulted her memory. "...to several Earth years for the outermost gas giant."



"Impressive," said Jane. "You live for science, don't you?"



Susan shrugged. "Not entirely, but it's always been a huge part of my life. So what's the problem?"



"The problem," said Jane, "is simply that the six-planet system is now a five-planet system."



Susan stared at the woman in the wheelchair and digested what she had just heard. "How do you know this? I need more data."



"Of course you do. I wouldn't expect you to take my word for it, and anyway I'm not an astrophysicist so I'm not even sure of the facts myself. But I know someone who is. Styx?"



The professor turned to gape in amazement at the reclining woman who had finally finished eating. "You?"



Styx laughed once more. "Hah! Me? An astrophysicist? No, prof, no chance! I can navigate my way through the sky but when it comes to understanding how and why the stars and planets do their merry little dance, I haven't the faintest clue. But I do have this, which I think might help you. We received this transmission a few days ago from Professor Moore of the Sondar observatory on Ceres."



She tapped at a small terminal and a male voice filled the room. "You've seen the occultation data, no doubt?" he began. He sounded calm and mature yet vaguely perplexed. Susan mentally pictured him as being in his fifties or sixties, a friendly uncle figure, someone from the history books of the 20th century. She could imagine him sitting in a leather armchair and smoking a pipe, then chided herself. No leather armchairs on Ceres. No pipes either. Not much of anything on Ceres, including atmosphere, which was why it had been chosen as the location for the solar system's most technically advanced multi-spectrum astronomical observatory.



The voice continued. "We've been monitoring thousands of extra-solar planets for decades but nobody's ever seen anything like this. The orbital period of TC2 has been 107 days, give or take a few hours, ever since we first spotted it in '32. Now it's gone. First point of transit was due three days ago. It didn't happen and it still hasn't happened. The host star is shining bright, full intensity, spectrum normal. No sign of our baby, not even as an orbiting cloud of dust."



The tone of his voice went from puzzlement to amusement. "I guess TC2 just got fed up going round and round and decided to go for a stroll. The guys here don't seem to share my sense of humour, but really what can any of us say? That planet was there, regular, predictable, dependable. Now it's gone without a trace."



The voice clicked off and there was silence for a few moments. Then Jane asked Susan, "Could the Ceres team have made a mistake?"



"Unlikely," replied Susan. "I've never met Professor Moore but I've read a lot of his papers. He's well respected and known to err on the side of caution. He doesn't jump to conclusions. If he says TC2 isn't there, then it isn't there."



"And I have met him," cut in Styx. Both other women looked at her in surprise. "He taught a course in astrogation at Space Corps Academy," explained Styx. "He was a good teacher. Paddy's sound."



"SC is sending a ship out to Tau Ceti," said Jane. "A warship. They've asked us to go along. They're paying well - they always do - and we have discretion to hire any additional crew we need. We want you to come with us."



Susan was shocked, first by the invitation and then by the concept of the voyage itself.



"That's stupid! What's the point of heading towards a planet that isn't there? No, not just isn't there; wasn't there! It's 12 light years away, so the data you're getting from Ceres is already 12 years old! What do you expect to find?"



"We don't know," replied Jane quietly. "That's the point. If we knew what to expect then we wouldn't need to go, would we? You're a scientist, you should know that. It's the unknown, so by definition we don't know."



"So why a warship?"



Styx shrugged. "Standard procedure. Who knows what we might bump into? Probably nothing, but maybe there'll be swarms of malicious bug-eyed monsters or hordes of robotic killing machines hell-bent on our destruction..." Her voice trailed off as she saw Susan's look of incredulity. "Well, y'know," she said, a little embarrassed, "A girl can dream, right? Anyway, it makes more sense to take decent fire-power with us than get there and regret not having it."



"But you'll be gone for years! Even with an Asimov drive you can't exceed the speed of light, and when you take the acceleration factor into account it's even worse."



Susan looked at the others. She had their full attention. In a calmer voice she continued. "Do you know how long it takes to reach the maximum velocity of a crewed Asimov ship? Assume a sustained acceleration of 1.5g, which is pretty much the maximum humans can handle for long periods without permanent harm. To reach 90% of light speed at that rate of acceleration would take the better part of a year, then just as long to slow down again at the other end, then there's the actual journey time itself which will be well over a decade! That's by Earth clocks, of course. It'll feel shorter for those onboard due to time dilation, but it'll still take years."



"True," replied Styx. "but what's the maximum acceleration of a standard Asimov ship without a human crew?"



"Theoretically, 9.3g last I heard. A little higher if you strip out all unnecessary mass. That would cut the subjective time considerably, but it's irrelevant. Anyone exposed to that acceleration would be killed, crushed by the pressure."



"Anyone alive, sure," said Styx. "But we'll be dead."





"Would it save time if I simply declared myself insane right now?" asked Susan. "You want to send a warship full of dead people on a journey of 12 light years at an acceleration of almost 10g to a planet that isn't there? And you want me to come along? Actually, scratch that. I'm not the insane one."



"It's not quite like that," said Jane. "Not exactly dead, more-"



"Oh, I get it, don't worry. You're talking about deep suspended animation, aren't you? Not just short-term induced coma and metabolic slowdown, but the full package: fluid replacement cryogenics. Am I right?"



"Yes, that's right," answered Jane. "I thought you'd catch on. It's the only way we can use the full power of an Asimov warship."



The invention of the Asimov drive had transformed space travel almost overnight. Spacecraft equipped with these powerful new engines could accelerate well beyond the maximum limits of the human body. Used carefully, they cut journey times from Earth to other planets and moons dramatically, but they could never be used to their full potential on living human beings. That's because humans are frail creatures, unable to take high acceleration for long periods.



One 'g' is the acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface: 9.81 metres per second per second. That's what gives humans - and everything else - weight and not just mass. But although mass stays the same when acceleration increases or decreases, weight does not. 1kg of mass weighs 1kg on Earth. In free-fall, 1kg of mass weighs nothing (though it retains its inertia). At an acceleration of 2g - in a powerful spacecraft, for example - an 80kg human feels a weight of 160kg. At an acceleration of 3g they would feel a weight of 240kg, and so on up the scale. Any longer than a few seconds at 4g or higher would kill most humans, since the body's respiratory system and major organs would be unable to function due to the increased pressure. The full acceleration of the Asimov ships had the potential to dramatically reduce the time taken to travel between planets, yet that was of no use if the crew died of acceleration soon after launch.



One bright spark had the idea that the acceleration effects on human bodies could perhaps be mitigated by placing G-field projectors in the nose of a ship, acting to counteract the acceleration. But G-fields consumed large amounts of energy and the requirement increased as a cube law. A two-gee force required eight times the energy of one-gee. Three-gee required 27 times as much. The short range of influence was also a problem, since beyond a couple of metres the field strength tailed off fast. In addition, the significant extra mass of the G-field projection equipment meant that any ship carrying it would be much heavier, reducing its acceleration potential. This was a multiple trade-off that meant the G-field was of little use in combating the negative effects of acceleration. It was only really useful for providing artificial gravity in vast space-borne structures that didn't go anywhere and could tap into endless supplies of solar energy, like space stations located conveniently near G-class stars.



So cryogenics was the only practical solution to the Asimov drive acceleration problem. By freezing the body and halting all but the bare minimum of metabolic function, a human could be made into a near-solid object, impervious to high acceleration. Once the journey had been completed, this frozen statue could be carefully thawed out and returned to life; reanimated, to use the popular terminology. The idea was simple in principle and had captured the minds of science fiction authors for decades, but carrying it out in reality was far from straightforward.



"You probably know more about the FRC process than I do," continued Jane.



"Enough to know that it's fundamentally unsafe," stated Susan. "It was tried with some of the early colony ships but reanimation rates were... I think the official report called them 'sub-optimal', which is a nice way of saying that a significant number of potential colonists never woke up, and some of those that did ended up with permanent brain or organ damage."



"The process has been improved considerably since then," said Jane. "The cryofluid composition was modified based on those early results and the success rate is now much higher."



"I know that," insisted Susan, "but it's still not 100%, is it? People still die by FRC, just not as often as they used to. Around one in 700 don't make it. I don't like those odds."



"That may be true, but we can't stay awake for however many years it'll take to get to Tau Ceti," cut in Styx. "We'll be on a warship, not a colony vessel. No room to move around, stretch our legs, socialise and keep ourselves sane. We either go there as frozen bodies or we don't go at all."



"Then that's an easy choice, isn't it?" said Susan. "I'm not going."



"Styx, would you leave us for a while?" asked Jane. "I'd like to talk to Susan alone, in private." She looked at the professor directly for one long moment, then said, "If that's all right with you, Susan?"



The professor shrugged her acquiescence. With a nod of understanding to both of them, Styx got out of her chair and walked to the small bedroom in which Susan had so recently awoken. The door slid closed behind her, leaving Susan and Jane alone. Neither spoke for a while.



"I know your secret."



The words came quietly and without emotion, like a neutral observation of the weather, yet they cut straight into Susan's self-discipline like a red-hot knife. She stared at Jane, slack-jawed in astonishment. Shocked to her core, she managed to stutter, "But... but Styx-"



"I said I know your secret," said Jane calmly. "I don't think she does. At least, she hasn't heard it from me."



"So you're going to blackmail me into coming with you," said Susan. It wasn't even a question. She assumed the worst and was quickly becoming resigned to her fate.



"No, of course not." Jane's brow furrowed in consternation. "Why would I do that? I want your help, your freely-given assistance. Either you come of your own free will or there's no point in you coming at all. I would never blackmail you into coming. I'd never blackmail anyone. I'm sorry if I've given you the impression that I'm capable of such action. I'm not. Neither is Styx."



"Then why tell me that you know my secret?" asked Susan, baffled by Jane's behaviour.



"Because I think this expedition might help you find what you need," the other woman replied.





For what felt like an eternity to Susan, Jane stared at her, eyes unblinking. Once more the professor had the impression that the wheelchair-bound woman was looking straight into her eyes and reading her mind, with no effort whatsoever. It was extremely disconcerting and Susan felt herself shivering with apprehension. Then the bald woman spoke again.



"Your secret is safe with me. I have no desire or inclination to tell anyone else. Even if I did, I'm bound by my own moral and ethical code. Nothing about your personal history will ever pass my lips."



She looked down for a moment, then continued. "For what it's worth, I understand why you feel the need to keep quiet, but I don't believe your secret is so devastating. You might find it helpful to-"



Susan interrupted angrily. "Don't. Just don't. You don't know what it's like. You can't know. There's no way I could ever tell anyone. I wish you didn't know, but there's nothing I can do about that now. How did you find out, anyway?"



Jane shrugged. "It wasn't hard. Actually I wasn't even trying to find out. I needed to know more about your background before asking you to join us on this merry little trip to the stars. If we're going to be spending years in each other's company-"



She held up her hand to silence Susan, who was about to interject.



"If, I said. I'm not taking anything for granted. But if so, I had to know that you were someone dependable. Temporary mental health issues aside, what I found in your records convinced me that you are - dependable, I mean. But as a consequence of that investigation into your background, I also discovered your big secret."



"Was it so easy to find?" asked Susan in horror. "Does everyone know?"



"Unlikely," replied Jane. "It's not as though it's actually written down. There are some gaps and anomalies in your records that on their own prove nothing, but taken together hint at something more meaningful. You have to remember my speciality. I'm trained to notice when expected behaviour doesn't match actual behaviour, and to discover why. It took me some time to come to a conclusion but I was pretty sure it was correct."



"Pretty sure? You mean you don't actually know for definite? You said you knew my secret!"



"I was 99% sure. Your reaction when I told you just now provided the final 1%. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We all have secrets, things that people don't know about us. Often we believe that they are incredibly important and that it would be damaging to our relationships, even our existence, if anyone found out. Mostly that's not true. It's just a twisted form of arrogance. The simple fact is that few people have time to consider the quirks and secrets of others, as they're too busy worrying about their own. For the most part we are self-absorbed creatures."



"Oh, really?" said Susan, sarcastically. "And what's your secret?"



Jane raised one eyebrow, or at least the part of her face where an eyebrow would have been if she weren't completely devoid of facial hair.



"Good question." She smiled to herself. "Very good question. I asked for that, I guess."



She sat silently in thought for a few moments, then called out, "Styx? Come back in, please."



The door to the small bedroom slid back again and Styx came out. "All done?"



"Not exactly," replied Jane. "Susan would like to know a little more about me. I think a demonstration is in order, to help win her trust. How quickly can you make this room secure?"



It was Styx's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Really? OK, sure. Give me a minute." She glanced at the professor. "You're going to see something special, prof."



Styx moved quickly and methodically around the room, clearing the plates and bowls from the table and placing them in cupboards, which all held retaining racks. She gathered up terminals and other objects from flat surfaces. These also went into cupboards and drawers, each of which clicked firmly closed afterwards. In less than a minute the room had been cleared of all loose items except the cushions on some of the sofas and chairs.



While Styx was working, Jane had taken out a pair of very thin gloves from a pocket in her clothing. They were odd-looking, with translucent backs and dark grey palms and fingers. They caught the light as she pulled them tight over her hands, shimmering under the room's soft lamps and the illumination that spilled in through the window closest to Earth.



In answer to Susan's unspoken question, Jane said, "Gecko gloves. These ones are unpowered, suitable for indoor work and light lifting or climbing. I have a powered set for more strenuous tasks but they aren't so convenient to carry around."



Susan felt more confused than ever by this statement, but before she had time to ask questions, Jane announced, "Ready, Styx."



Styx sat down opposite Susan and said, "You might want to hold onto your seat, professor." Then, in a louder voice she instructed Heinlein Station's AI. "Station, apply retaining mag field at floor level in here, then kill localised G-field on my mark. Three, two, one, mark!"



Freed from Susan's weight, her seat cushion expanded underneath her. She felt herself rising as the foam recovered its uncompressed shape. She gripped the arms of the chair and saw that Styx was doing likewise with hers. A brief wave of nausea passed over her as her intestines adapted to the loss of artificial gravity. She was aware that the gentlest of movements would suffice to push her out of the chair, which was held in place by an electromagnetic field that pulled its metal feet down to the floor. The same was true of the other furniture in the room and, she had to assume, Jane's wheelchair, since that was resolutely immobile.



Jane smiled at Susan. "You asked about my secret. Well, I'm sure I've appeared tired to you. That's because I am: I don't like gravity and I do my best to avoid it, real or artificial. It exhausts me. I spend most of my time in free-fall. I even sleep that way. I have a small room here on Heinlein, actually more of a wardrobe, really. Styx calls it my coffin. I sleep upright with the G-field disabled."



Styx cut in with a grin. "Vampire Bat was another possible nickname for Psycho, but it didn't trip off the tongue so well."



Jane smiled again, seemingly much happier without artificial gravity. Susan didn't share her appreciation for free-fall and was feeling decidedly uncomfortable without the familiar pull toward the ground beneath her feet. "OK, I get it," she said, fighting down another wave of nausea. "You prefer free-fall. That's not much of a secret, is it?"



"No," replied Jane. "But this is."



Without another word she took off. In front of Susan's astounded eyes, Jane launched herself vertically out of the wheelchair at speed, pushing down on its arms to gain lift. As she flew toward the ceiling she raised her arms above her head, palms upward. The gloves gripped the ceiling firmly and Jane's arms absorbed the impact without any apparent strain. She looked down at Susan and said, "This is my element."



What followed was a performance that fixed itself permanently in Susan's mind. No dirtside dancer she'd ever seen had moved as elegantly as Jane did now. With a finesse that stunned the professor into gaping silence, the bald, legless woman moved around the room at pace, using floor, walls, ceiling and windows to change direction and moderate her speed. Susan was awed by her elegance of movement. Jane twisted her body in mid-air time and again, contorting herself so that she always landed palms-out, gripping each new surface for just long enough to change her momentum and move off in a different direction. She never faltered, always found her place. "She's like a dolphin," thought Susan. "She's completely at home in zero-gee."



With one final push, and a flourish that was more for appearance than function, Jane floated gracefully back into her wheelchair, landing so softly that it barely rocked as it received her. She nodded to Styx, who gave the command to the Station to reapply the G-field. Weight returned to Susan and she sank back into the seat cushion, amazed by what she'd just observed.



"I could have asked for replacement prosthetic legs," said Jane, only a little breathless from her exertions. "Full nerve linkage, stronger than real legs, internal power source, and so on and so forth. Very expensive, but SC would have covered the cost." She paused. "I didn't want them."



Susan frowned but was so overwhelmed by Jane's performance that she couldn't articulate the obvious question.



"People have asked me why I choose to remain disabled," continued Jane. "Yet to me, you bipeds are the disabled ones. We are our brains. We all live inside our own heads. My body has everything I need to keep my brain alive and I'm more mobile than any of you."



"In free-fall," replied Susan, finally able to speak.



"Yes, in free-fall," said Jane firmly. "Who in their right mind would want to be anywhere else?"





"Well," said Susan after she'd recovered from the spectacle of Jane's zero-gee acrobatics. "That was certainly impressive, but it doesn't make me any more keen to freeze myself solid and blast off into deep space."



Jane looked at her in sympathetic comprehension. "I didn't think it would, but I had to be open with you. I've shown you something that's private to me, something that only a few people have seen. You already know Styx's background, so she tells me."



The professor nodded in acknowledgement. "She told me a lot, yes. In spite of the spiked drink I haven't forgotten it."



"So," continued Jane. "You know at least that we aren't hiding anything from you. You know facts about us that could potentially be compromising if you told them to certain people. We've placed our trust in you, because we believe you are trustworthy."



"Really. Not to create a feeling of obligation in me, then?" asked Susan sarcastically.



"Hah, she's got you, Psycho!" laughed Styx. "Prof is smart, just as I told you. Going to have to up your game with that headology of yours." She grinned at Susan and winked her encouragement.



Jane smiled sardonically and replied to Susan, ignoring Styx's comment. "Is there any difference? If I wanted to create a feeling of obligation in you, would my actions be any different to saying and doing things because I trust you? No. I'd act the same in both cases. But you're right to question my motives. I would too in your position, but they are really very simple: I want you to come with us. I will provide all the information you need in order to encourage you to make that decision. I won't lie to you or intentionally mislead you by omitting information that might sway your choice one way or the other. Without informed consent your presence would have no value. There's no room in a warship for deceit or resentment."



"Fine words," responded Susan. "But I still don't see what's in it for me. You mentioned that I might find what I seek, but I don't see how that's possible on a trip to nowhere."



"I've already explained," said Jane. "What have you spent your entire life pursuing? Knowledge, understanding, the bringing of light into darkness, illumination of new facts and truths. You've pursued the unknown to make it known."



She became more animated as she spoke, waving her hands in emphasis of her points. "This is the ultimate unknown! A planet has gone missing! You heard Professor Moore: billions of tons of rock have simply disappeared without a trace. We can't even conceive of possible causes for such an event. It's the ultimate unknown!"



Susan bit her lower lip in thought, her eyebrows furrowed. "And you want me to come with you because...?"



"Because you're the best multi-disciplinary physicist in the solar system," said Jane. "That's not flattery. It's simple truth. Nobody knows astrophysics better than you, but then there's your work in field dynamics, particle physics, general theory, quantum energy systems and all the rest. It's ridiculously impressive. I mean, how many doctorates do you hold now?"



"Including the honorary ones?" asked Susan. "Seven."



"Exactly. You are by far the best qualified scientific advisor for this trip, this mission," said Jane. "And I meant what I said earlier. I do think you will find what you need out there."



"In any case," interrupted Styx. "You're certainly more likely to find it out there than here on Heinlein Station, or down dirtside. And look on the bright side, prof. You get to have your cake and eat it. You wanted to be frozen in space, right? This way you get to fulfil that desire and then come back to life again!"



Styx's voice jarred in Susan's ears. The fake upbeat sentiment annoyed her, made her feel that Styx was mocking her situation. Yet underneath the annoyance, part of her realised that this irrepressibly upbeat woman was correct. Whatever she wanted in life, she knew it wasn't to be found on Earth, nor on Heinlein. She had to look outwards, further afield, to find inner peace - assuming that was even possible. Emotions surged and roiled inside her, mixing fear, hope, anger and excitement.



Susan's internal conflict wasn't lost on Jane. "I can see this is hard for you," she said kindly. "There's another option that might work. Come with us as far as Mars. There you can meet the other members of the crew, talk to them, get their perspectives on this mission. Mars isn't far to travel, and if you decide not to come any further with us, SC will arrange a trip back to Heinlein Station or Earth for you. How does that sound?"



Susan looked at the other two, feeling undecided. On the one hand they were the first people to have treated her as a real person for a long time. They were odd, certainly, but it was a good feeling to be wanted, even needed. She'd forgotten what that felt like. And they had saved her life. True, they'd saved it for their own purposes, but that didn't change the fact that without these two, Styx and Psycho - sounds like a bad comedy act or a kids' cartoon, she thought wryly - without them, she'd be dead. She was already having trouble believing that her mental state had sunk so low as to have ever thought suicide was a good idea. Well, I guess emotion trumps reason even for me, she shrugged to herself. No big surprise there.



"If it helps, we could-" Styx said, but Susan interrupted her.



"Don't. You've told me a lot already. Let me think about it. I'm not saying I will come with you to Mars, but I'm not saying I won't, either. Right now I'd like to get out of here. I have a lot to think about."



The other two smiled at her. "Of course," said Jane. "Thank you for bearing with us and listening to what we had to say. Whatever you decide, if we can help you out in future, just ask. You're not alone any more."



Susan was surprised how moved she felt by Jane's statement. Alone is what she'd been for most of her adult life. She still wasn't sure that she trusted these two bizarre women, but they had already filled an empty space in her mind that she hadn't realised was there. For the first time in years, perhaps in her lifetime, she felt that she had someone she could call on in a crisis. "Chances are they'd just make it worse," she thought with a grimace, "but at least they'd be there with me."



Clutching her folded dress, Susan stood up, nodded at the other two women and walked towards the elevator. She pressed the call button and then turned. "How will I...?"



"Station knows how to find us," said Styx. "Just use your terminal."



The elevator arrived and Susan stepped inside, then turned to face the other women.



"OK... and thanks," she said, as the doors glided shut.



The journey back to her cabin passed in a blur. She had no recollection of the trip in the elevator or the walk along one of the arms into the accommodation section of the 'tron. She didn't notice as her cabin door opened, nor was she aware as it slid closed behind her. She was on autopilot, her mind elsewhere. 12 light years elsewhere.



In spite of her scornful reaction to what she'd heard, she was hooked on the idea of the mission. Studying astrophysics from the pointy end of a telescope was one thing, she thoug