6 Spacewalk

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Stephen Whiteside
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6 Spacewalk

Post by Stephen Whiteside » Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:54 pm

6 Spacewalk

© Stephen Whiteside 22.12.2011

It was time for a spacewalk. Hocus needed to clear his head. Time to think, without interruptions.
 
Of course, it wasn't really walking at all. He would suit up with his reliable little 'jet-pak' on his back, and charge around outside the ship for a little while, then come back again. Sometimes he thought that all he needed was a dog in its own suit, and a leash, and he could be taking it for a walk in the park. Except, of course, that neither of them would be standing on anything, or propelling themselves by moving their legs. So it wasn't exactly a form of exercise, and it didn't trigger any endorphins. But it did trigger endorphins, Hocus was sure of that. It just didn't do it through exercise.
 
There was something marvellously liberating about floating out in space and looking back at your own ship. In the earlier part of the trip he could see Earth, too, but that had long ago dwindled to a pin-prick, and was now completely out of sight. So it was just the ship now - part home, part jail. He liked to go right around it, looking at it from every angle. Then he would change direction by ninety degrees, and go around the ship again. Of course, he was supposed to have a life-line also, but he didn't bother with that these days. He had absolute confidence in the 'jet-pak'. Besides, it was so much less fun with the life-line. He couldn't go right around the ship, for starters. He could only get about half way before the line threatened to become entangled, and he had to re-trace his steps. But it was  more than that. Much more. He still felt tied to the ship with the line on - because he was. Without it, though, he felt completely free. Of course, it was a delusion. His freedom was strictly temporary. He didn't have enough oxygen for more than two to three hours. Still, for that time, he was actually completely free. If he wanted to jet off from the ship and never return, he was quite free to do so. He would have several hours of blissful freedom before he lapsed into unconsciousness. Shortly after that, he would die. Still, he would have had a lot of fun beforehand.
 
But no. That wasn't his plan. He didn't even really want to travel all that far from the ship. Just being outside of it, and not attached to it, was enough. Enough to get him into serious trouble with Curmudgeon, too. But he wasn't too worried about that. The external cameras were focussed into the far distance. They weren't looking for crewmen without life-lines. And as for his work colleagues, they weren't going to dob him in. Sure, they knew about his foible, but it was pretty much his only one, and they were smart enough to know these sorts of things cut both ways. Grubbo was stealing extra rations. Hocus knew about that, and Grubbo knew that he knew. It wasn't going to be a problem for them during this journey, but it was going to make things awkward for the new settlers after their arrival, when they found their food stores depleted. And Jerky was falsifying his exercise records. They were all required to spend a certain amount of time in the gym to ensure maximal fitness, but both were putting on weight - Grubbo through overeating, and Jerky through lack of exercise. Hocus was keeping himself pretty fit, and if some time outside without the line was helping him to do that, well, it was a small price to pay. No, nobody followed the rules. Not all of them, anyway.
 
It was great to be out again.  For a long time, Hocus did not think of anything at all, just focussed on the beautiful feeling of floating around the ship. There were two things to look at when he was outside - the ship, and everything else, which basically meant the stars. Both held their fascination, for different reasons. Of course, being out in space, the ship did not have to be stream-lined, and it was covered with all sorts of nobbly bits. Hocus didn't even know what most of them were. He didn't need to. The computers held all that information. And every time he was out there, he would discover something new. It looked like a chaos of architecture - pipes and buttons and tubes and struts and bulwarks and plates and...  It just went on for ever. The colours were cool, too - mostly dark grey, but also lots of gold, silver, red, blue, green. It was quite wonderful, really. Beautifully ugly. Probably if he had understood the function of everything, it would have been a lot less attractive to him, but as it was, it was like a glorious abstract.
 
But the stars were something else again. He would often start looking at the ship, then turn to the stars. The more he relaxed, the more inclined he felt to gaze into the great infinity. He had never fully adjusted to that sight, and he imagined he probably never would. Hoped he never would. For if he did, what else would there be to live for? If no sense of mystery, then what? If the stars lost their magic for him, he would not find it anywhere else. Where else was there to look? But no, the stars had not lost their magic.
 
Questions. So many questions. The shark attacks were reasonably well known. Sharks attacking people. That was scary, but comprehensible. Somebody or something was fiddling with the sharks' programming to attack people. Somebody wanted to hurt people. Well, there were plenty of possibilities there. Some underground rebel force trying to undermine Curmudgeon's reputation, perhaps. Elements within Curmudgeon trying to do the same thing. Aliens trying to do the same thing. After all, it had happened before. It had been a long war, and had ended in stalemate. It was only a matter of time before hostilities were resumed.
 
But salmon attacking bears? How does that work? Who stands to gain from that? It was just weird. And its very weirdness is what made it so scary. What did it mean? And what else did it imply? Krill attacking whales? Penguins attacking polar bears? No, that couldn't happen, could it. Penguins were at the South Pole. Polar bears were at the North Pole. They never met. But could they? Maybe they could. Anything could happen, really, if salmon can attack bears.
 
It was disorienting. It made Hocus feel panicky. And that was where the spacewalk came in. Already he was starting to slow down, starting to feel more relaxed.
Stephen Whiteside, Australian Poet and Writer
http://www.stephenwhiteside.com.au

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