Chapter One Homecoming
Rocket Girls 2
© 1996 Housuke Nojiri
First published in Japan in 1996 by Fujimishobo Co., Ltd., Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged by KADOKAWA SHOTEN Co., Ltd., Tokyo.
English translation © 2011 VIZ Media, LLC
Cover art by Katsuya Terada
No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holders.
HAIKASORU
Published by
VIZ Media, LLC
295 Bay Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4111-2
Haikasoru eBook Edition
CHAPTER ONE
HOMECOMING
[ACT 1]
“HEEEEY, EVERYBODY! It’s me, from Fujimi TV, Keiko-on-the-beat, your favorite reporter-on-the-street! Don’t touch that remote!
“We’ve come all the way to the Solomon Space Center here in the South Pacific on the trail of everyone’s favorite astronauts, Yukari Morita and Matsuri! And what hotties—er, astronauts they are!
“I know what you’re thinking: ‘South Pacific? That’s like right next door compared to space,’ but believe me, it’s a lot tougher getting here than getting up there. We’re talking trains, planes, boats…three days in all! Our crew is pooped, but we’re not going to let that get between us and the story.
“And let’s not forget that Yukari came here all by herself during her sophomore-year summer vacation! Pretty impressive. And chasing after her long-lost father? It doesn’t tug on the heart strings any more than that, folks.
“That’s right, she was searching for her father, but she found so much more here at the Solomon Space Center. You might even call it destiny.
“It takes a lot to make an astronaut, and this little girl—who, by the way, dropped out of, oh, only the most famous girls’ school in Yokohama, Nellis Academy, to devote her life to space—is no exception. Incredible!
“And then there’s Yukari’s half sister and backup crew, Matsuri. Raised among the local Taliho as one of their own, she’s a budding shaman and an astronaut. Not every day you meet one of those!
“This is the fourth installment of our special report on these girls, and we’ve got something really special for you today. That’s right, a broadcast live from space! Yukari, you read me? I just love saying that! Oh, Yukaaaaari?”
The fingernails-on-chalkboard reportage hopped through three land-based transmitters and two satellites and returned, bringing back a picture of...empty space.
“Huh? Are we live?” said a disembodied voice from off-camera. The picture swooped until its wide-angle lens showed the sea. Nothing but sea from the bottom of the screen to the arc of the horizon near the middle.
The camera tilted, and a girl in a white, skintight space suit appeared from the bottom of the screen. She was floating in space, a maneuvering gun in her right hand and a lifeline gripped tightly in the other.
The orbiter drifted into view by her feet. One of the hatches was open, revealing part of the pilot’s seat assembly inside.
“Hello, Earth. This is the spaceship Rambutan, Captain Yukari Morita reporting.”
Behind her visor, Yukari’s eyes were wide open. She had something like a smirk on her face. “I’d like to introduce my copilot—”
Another hatch opened, and Matsuri Morita called out, “Hoi! It’s me, Matsuri!” She waved, an exuberant grin on her tanned face. When Matsuri waved, it was a full-body affair. She shook like a dog wagging its tail.
Yukari gave a short blast with her gun to straighten herself to the plane of the picture. “The camera you’re seeing me through is attached to a utility arm on the nose of the craft. What you see at the bottom—that is, toward my feet—is Rambutan’s hull. If you could see the whole thing, you’d notice it has an oval shape and is about the size of a sedan. It only seats two, so right now we’re at maximum capacity. And, er...”
Yukari twisted, looking around behind her. “Right now we’re approaching northwestern Africa, er…about three hundred kilometers over the Canary Islands. You can see the Straits of Gibraltar coming up. A little farther and we’ll be able to see the Pyrenees and the Sahara at about the same time. Then we’ll be over the Mediterranean and Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia—I’m pretty sure there is at least one war going on down there right now.”
“But not to worry!” Matsuri chimed in. “Director Kinoshita says we’re totally out of Scud and Patriot missile range!”
Yukari grinned. “That’s right! Let me put it in perspective for you: if we were flying as high as, say, eye-level, a Scud would have a hard time getting even as high as my knees.”
What the hell are they babbling about? Nasuda frowned where he stood in the center guestroom. A single pane of glass divided him from the main floor of the control center. Just stick to the program, ladies. If they said anything about the surface, it should be the usual “From up here, there are no national boundaries.” Period.
“There are some people who compare our rockets to missiles, but frankly, we’ve got ballistic missiles whipped in terms of altitude and speed, so good luck hitting us...” Yukari’s voice trailed off as common sense finally caught up with her. “Let’s get back to the ship and see how those goldfish are doing, shall we? One moment—”
Yukari went inside and the camera switched to an internal monitor.
Matsuri could be seen sitting on the left as Yukari came drifting into the orbiter to take the seat on the right. Once both hatches were closed, Yukari’s hand reached down toward the bottom of the frame and she began to adjust something off-camera.
The two girls removed their helmets. Both of them had long hair, Yukari’s in braids on either side of her face and Matsuri’s in a ponytail down her back.
“There—now where were we,” Yukari said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “Right, the goldfish. They’re in this container-thingy...”
The inside of the orbiter was small, about the size of a pickup-truck cabin. Yukari bumped into the wall several times as she moved to a new position lying across Matsuri’s knees.
“Er, I know this isn’t exactly the graceful weightlessness of space that you might have been expecting, but as you can see, it’s rather cramped inside the orbiter—”
Yukari fiddled with a panel on the side of a shock-absorbing chair, molded to precisely fit the curve of Yukari’s spine. The back of the chair fell forward, revealing a storage rack filled with test equipment.
“This is the testing array for the goldfish. It’s very compact. The fish tank is on the upper level, here. There’s a monitoring and recording device in the middle, and the power and environmental support are near the bottom. Now for the fishies.”
Yukari pulled out the fish container and yanked the CCD camera from its Velcro anchor on the instrument panel to give the viewers a close-up. “This tank is only about the size of a lunchbox, but it holds twenty-four goldfish!” She looked at the fish. “They really pack you in like sardines—no offense, guys.” She looked back at the camera. “If we just left them in there, they’d run out of oxygen quickly, so we have to keep the water cycling. Can you make this out? They’re all swimming nicely. Right after takeoff, all the poor things could do was spin around, but they seem to have gotten used to the low-G environment.”
Yukari glanced down at her watch as she talked. Broadcast time was almost up.
“We’ll be bringing these fish back with us when we come home. Our planned landing zone is in the deep water off the Seychelles Islands. From there, they’ll travel by helicopter and plane until these guys are safely back at the Space Science Laboratory in Sagamihara. And...well, that’s it for our broadcast. So long!”
The image of the two girls faded from the screen and the picture returned to the flight tracking chart. Nasuda glanced at the NASA bigwig next to him and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t been a total disaster. He wouldn’t have understood the girls’ Japanese, anyway. Overall, the sight of them up there actually doing things had probably been good PR.
“Well, Director Holden, what do you think?” Nasuda smiled. “As you can see, we are well past the testing stage with our manned flights here at the SSA.”
“Impressive,” Holden grunted, a sneer in his voice. “You pick two of the smallest girls you could find—small even for Japanese—and specially design the orbiter to cram them in. Very impressive.”
“That may be the impression our detractors would like you to have—”
Holden turned and glared at him. “Oh, it’s public knowledge, Director.”
“But what space vessel isn’t constructed with the utmost attention to reducing load? We are not in the freight transportation business. Our one and only objective is to get people into space at the absolute minimum cost. The cost of lifting that two-seat orbiter once is only two billion yen—one fifteenth of the cost to launch one of your space shuttles.”
Holden shrugged as if to indicate he already knew this.
“If the SSA were to participate in the construction of your planned space station,” Nasuda continued, “you’d realize a considerable reduction in both cost and time. You could use the leftover funds as you wished.”
“I’m not as concerned about cost as I am about risk,” the NASA director replied. “I’ll be frank. Your SSA has only been sending up manned flights for half a year now. Your astronauts are charming little angels, to be sure, but you’re asking for a great deal of courage if you want me to place the fate of the International Space Station in the hands of two teenagers.”
“I understand your trepidation, of course. That’s why I want you to take this opportunity to see just what we’re doing in space—to remove any misconceptions you might have.”
Holden frowned. “You doing another broadcast?”
“Only one more. While we’re preparing for that, I’ll show you around our manufacturing facility. I’m sure you’d like to see our solid fuel system. It’s not every fuel that can produce a relative thrust of three hundred twenty...”
“Aaaaa—urp!”
Yukari swallowed a yawn. It had been twenty-two hours since launch. She had taken naps in shifts with Matsuri, but with nothing to do besides the broadcast, being in orbit was pretty boring.
Three hours till we land.
It was time.
Yukari had refrained from taking any solids—there were no toilet facilities in the capsule, which could make things really uncomfortable—but some things were worth the risk.
“We have time until the next broadcast, right?”
“Hoi?”
Yukari pulled a duralumin case out from beneath her shock-absorption chair. Bringing personal items on board the capsule had been strictly forbidden, but claiming “womanly needs,” Yukari had managed to win this one small concession. The case was small, and its weight limited, but the contents were entirely her responsibility and most importantly, not subject to screening.
She opened the case to reveal an assortment of carefully wrapped dim sum.
“Ta-da! Shrimp dumplings, courtesy of Tianjin Restaurant. Tasty even when chilled.”
Matsuri’s usually cheerful face broke into an even bigger smile. “Good call!”
Yukari laughed. “You know it. I had Hanrei make one of her special midnight deliveries.”
Yukari seized one of the dumplings and crammed it into her mouth. Zero gravity made everything taste bland, but after suffering through a regimen of carefully portioned, utterly flavorless lumps of protein, the oily, shrimp-filled dough balls were deeply satisfying.
“Mmph, smell that shrimp! C’mon, Matsuri, you have some.”
“Any vinegar soy sauce?”
“Now don’t get greedy. You know how hard it was sneaking these in here?”
“I thought as much,” Matsuri said, shaking her head, “which is why I brought this.” Matsuri reached under her own seat and pulled out a case, which she opened to reveal a tube of vinegar soy sauce.
Yukari gaped at her. “When did you—”
“There’s more!” Matsuri grinned, turning the case to show Yukari. “Let’s see. Mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard...all here!”
“Hey, you keep those away from my dumplings!”
Matsuri loved condiments, the more garishly colored and artificially flavored the better. Her condiment tool kit could turn the finest cuisine into junk food. Other than her flight training, this was the only aspect of Yukari’s culture that Matsuri had fully embraced.
“Oh wait, there’s one more thing.”
“It better not be relish.”
“Dessert!” Matsuri crouched down and opened the storage space beneath their life raft. “Did you know there’s a dead space beneath here?”
“Don’t they check that before launch?”
“Oh, I asked the spirits to hide it so they wouldn’t find it.”
“Um...okay?”
Yukari’s eyes went wide when she saw the giant, spike-festooned tropical fruit in Matsuri’s hand.
“A durian?”
“I found one growing in the jungle off to the side of the runway the other day.” Matsuri reached up with her hand, retrieving the survival knife from a hatch above their heads.
“Wait, Matsuri, you know how bad those things reek—”
Oh, but they were delicious. Some people made special trips to the tropics just to eat durian. The smell, however, was appropriately likened to a pool of rancid custard sitting in a sewer.
“Ooh. Perfectly ripe!” Matsuri held the durian between her knees and sank the knife into it.
“Waah! Stop! Stop! You’ll stink the whole place up!” Yukari reached out and grabbed Matsuri’s hand holding the knife.
“Hoi? What’s wrong?”
When Yukari moved, the case had drifted off her lap. Then, when she grabbed Matsuri’s hand, her knee had gone up, scoring a direct hit on the bottom of Matsuri’s case and sending its contents flying—a Big Bang of shrimp dumplings and vinegar soy sauce.
“Whee! That’s cool!”
“It’s totally not cool! We have to clean this up!”
“Look, Yukari, you can scoop it out of the air with your mouth! Yummy!”
“Would you stop eating and start grabbing those dumplings! If we don’t hurry—”
Director Holden stared at the screen in stunned silence.
The wide-angle lens of the camera showed the entire capsule in unforgiving clarity. Dumplings and droplets of vinegar soy sauce and the durian swam around, like a slow-motion computer model of Brownian motion, sometimes colliding and fusing, only to separate again.
In the middle of it all were the two girls, shock on their faces, arms flailing.
“I’m uncomfortably put in mind of the Apollo 1 tragedy,” the NASA director said to Nasuda. “So tell me. What else do your ‘astronauts’ do?”
[ACT 2]
TWO HOURS LATER, the orbiter entered its final orbit.
“Solomon, this is Rambutan. We’re preparing for reentry.”
“Roger that, orbiter. You finish collecting the loose objects?”
Yukari detected the faintest hint of sarcasm in Kinoshita’s cool voice.
“All, er, objects have been collected…and all indicators are green. We’re ready to come home.”
“Roger that. Over and out.”
“All right.” Yukari glanced over at her copilot. “Let’s nail this splashdown and win back some of the reputation we’ve just squandered. All’s well that ends well, right?” She grinned. “Woo-hoo! Seychelles coral reefs, here I come!”
Yukari opened her landing checklist. “So, what’s first? Helium pressure?”
“Hoi, HePRS, open!”
“Nitrogen supply?”
“N2SPLY, on!”
“Attitude adjustment…RCS-MAN.” Yukari set the controls to manual and began adjusting their attitude by hand. Once you got used to it, it was a lot faster than entering numbers with the sequencer. Control panels throughout the capsule began to chirp and blink as the orbiter rotated until its stern was facing forward.
“Hoi, we’re in position.”
“All right. Solomon, this is Rambutan. Standing by for reentry burn.”
“Rambutan, you’re cleared for reentry burn.”
“Starting reentry burn sequence.”
Yukari flipped up the sequencer start switch cover and placed her finger on the button.
Beep beep beep beep.
“Hoi? We’re getting an error from the fish tank.”
“Great, what now?” Yukari swore under her breath and undid her harness. Her body floated up into the cabin and she twisted until she was facing the control panel behind her seat. “Okay…so what’s wrong?”
“Rambutan, this is Solomon. You have an error in your testing equipment?”
“Hoi, we do. Yukari’s checking it out.”
“We’re putting a hold on reentry until it’s fixed. Bringing those goldfish back alive is a success condition for your mission.”
“We know, we know,” Yukari snapped. “We’re getting error code...115.”
“Error code 115, roger. They’ll look into it at Sagamihara. If we can get that fixed within twenty minutes, you can come home as planned. Otherwise we’re going to our second splashdown target.”
“No way! That’s in the South China Sea! There’s, like, pirates there!”
“If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to make those repairs in time. But don’t rush it.”
“Roger.”
A communication came in from the Space Science Laboratory in Sagamihara almost immediately.
“Rambutan, this is Space Lab. According to our telemeter the error code is 315. Confirm.”
“Rambutan to Space Lab, the panel’s showing error code one-one-five, not three-one-five.”
“Roger that. None of the device monitors are showing problems. Can you send us a video feed of the fish?”
“Our video channel’s closed already. Should we assume this error’s a glitch, then?”
“Hold on, we’re still looking into it. We’ll be with you shortly.”
“Roger.”
Yukari returned to her seat and awaited instructions. “Nine minutes…I was really looking forward to doing some skin diving.”
“Space Lab to Rambutan. We have an IFM request for you. You’re going to have to do some maintenance. First we need a visual check of the goldfish.”
“Roger.”
Yukari frowned and once again left her chair. “Sorry, Matsuri, we gotta hug again.”
“Hoi.”
She was submitting a design change request as soon as they got back. It was ridiculous to have to get out of her seat every time she wanted to do anything with the testing equipment.
Yukari slid over Matsuri, pushed down her seatback, and peered into the fish container. The goldfish were swimming erratically in every direction, which wasn’t unusual, except that their mouths were opening and closing a little too fast.
“Space Lab, this is Rambutan. The goldfish are all alive, but they seem to be opening and closing their mouths more quickly than usual.”
“How fast, exactly? Like, open...open...open?”
“No, more like open, open, open.”
“Can you check the reading on the diffused oxygen monitor? Go to MON, press the up arrow twice, code 107.”
“Roger that. MON, up arrow twice...”
“Yukari, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Behind her, Matsuri shrugged. “I dunno. It sounded like a compression pump starting up.”
“Could you be quiet a sec? I forgot the code!”
“Oops, sorry.”
“Space Lab, could you give me that code again?”
“That’s 107.”
“Right, 107. The monitor’s reading 0218.”
“Yukari, the sequencer’s started up.”
“Huh?”
“Rambutan, the DO levels are too low. I want you to check the QD on the fish container.”
“Roger that, Space Lab. What did you say, Matsuri?”
“I said the sequencer’s going! It’s going to start a burn soon!”
“But we didn’t start the sequencer!”
“Then someone else did. Look at the SEQ display scroll by.”
“No way!” Yukari’s face went pale. It occurred to her that she had left the switch cover open. Had she accidentally bumped it when she was maneuvering around the cabin?
“Well we have to stop it right away!”
The shock of the burn came just as Matsuri was reaching for the instrument panel.
“Yipes!”
The experimentation panel hit Yukari’s face at 0.1 G.
“Ow ow ow ow! Matsuri, cut off the OMS, now!”
“Your butt’s in the way!”
Yukari grunted and twisted. “It’s not that big. How about now?”
“Just a little farther.”
“Will you stop that thing already!”
“There, got it!”
The sound of the compressor faded.
“Rambutan, this is Space Lab. Our telemetry’s stopped. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, uh, well, I just ran into the panel. Maybe I accidentally turned the switch off with my nose—”
“Rambutan, this is Solomon. Our monitors are showing a brief OMS burn. What’s going on up there?”
“Well, the sequencer just started up and—”
“Yukari,” Matsuri whispered, “we’re losing altitude.”
“Could you read off the switch positions on panel one—”
“Wait. You stopped the burn manually—”
“This is Space Lab again. Once we have a signal can you resume your check of the QD—”
“That partial burn is problematic. Better prep for a crash landing—”
“Yukari! We’re losing altitude fast!”
“Will you all just shut up for one second!” Yukari wailed. “I told them it was too much to do experiments and pilot this thing at the same time!”
Yukari had a laundry list of things she wanted to check with base, but their altitude had already fallen below 130 kilometers and the capsule was beginning to bump atmosphere. When the vivid orange plasma of reentry covered the windows, their radio would cease to function.
Yukari pushed all thoughts of the goldfish from her head and strapped herself in. Their angle of reentry was good. They’d make it into the atmosphere at least. But where would they land? Last estimates had put them somewhere between Northeast China, the Sea of Japan, the Japanese islands, and the North Pacific...
“Hope we don’t land in North Korea,” Yukari muttered, gritting her teeth against the rising gravity.
They were past 4 G now. It was becoming difficult to speak.
Six G. Yukari’s body weighed six times more than it did at sea level, six times more than her bones and muscles were used to. The capsule vibrated like a saltshaker in the hands of an impatient child.
Yukari wondered for what seemed like the one-hundredth time why it always shook so much. She felt her body sinking into the seat until she felt like a human pancake, and she knew that the worst was yet to come.
[ACT 3]
ON A CONSOLE at the Ministry of Transportation Aircraft Traffic Control Center in Tokorozawa, a red light flashed.
“Chief! I got something here!”
The air controller in charge of Japan’s central and northwest region stood up from his chair. “ID unknown...maybe a bad transmitter? It’s going over the sea near Noto Penninsula at...Mach 11!”
The chief leaned over to look at the oval radar screen. A point of light was crossing it, headed straight for the Tokyo region at an incredible speed.
“No vessel name or identifying number? What’s its altitude? Any secondary surveillance radar reading?”
“I’m not getting any response from the air-traffic control transponder. Nothing on audio, either. Think it’s an American test flight? Didn’t they have something called the Aurora—”
“What would a test flight be doing in our airspace? The SFD moving on this? Any word from Komatsu?”
“Haven’t been able to get through to them.”
“That better not be a North Korean missile.”
“At that velocity we’ll find out pretty damn soon if it is.”
“The unidentified craft is over here now—in the West Kanto sector,” the controller sitting at the station next to them called out. “It’s heading for Tokyo, correct that, for Atsugi.”
“Keep trying to contact Komatsu. Send all local flights for Narita and Haneda to Nagoya and Sendai. International flights can go to Osaka.”
“Aircraft of unidentified nationality, this is Tokyo Control. Respond. Aircraft of unidentified nationality, respond immediately.”
“The Komatsu airbase just scrambled its F-15s,” the central Japan controller announced.
“Good luck catching that thing. Its speed is off the charts.”
“Actually, it’s decelerating. It’s at Mach 3.2 now.”
“Already? What is that thing?”
Just then, an unfamiliar voice came in on an emergency frequency.
“Uh...Mayday, Mayday. This is the spaceship Rambutan. Can anyone read me?”
“Spaceship?”
“Think it’s some kind of prank?”
“Wait, what if it’s those high school girls—”
“That’s it. Answer them!”
“Rambutan, this is Tokyo Control. Give us your current altitude, rate of descent, and target destination.”
“Our current altitude’s 18.4 kilometers and we’re coming down at about...two hundred twenty meters per second.”
“Whaa—?” The flight controller gaped. “Eighteen point four kilometers, that’s about...sixty thousand feet, okay. And the velocity’s in meters per second, so, uh...”
Sweat beading on his forehead, the flight controller mashed the buttons on his calculator. Not only were the units totally different than the ones he was used to working with, but the numbers were higher by such a degree of magnitude his years of experience weren’t doing him a bit of good. “Er, Rambutan, what’s your splashdown target?”
“Our target was off the eastern coast of Africa, but we got the timing a bit wrong.”
“Okay...so you missed Africa, and that’s why you’re here in Japan?” The controller shook his head. “Where are you headed right now?”
“I’d tell you if I knew. We’re kind of in freefall here.”
“Freefall? Wait, so—what?” Tossing his headset to the desktop, the controller began furiously scratching his head. “Chief! What the heck am I supposed to do with a spaceship?”
“Give me that.” The chief grabbed the microphone. “Rambutan, you’ll be in Atsugi Base airspace momentarily. I can’t guarantee you won’t be knocked out of the sky by a land-to-air missile.”
“But Solomon should have contacted all the major airports and military bases!”
“We didn’t hear anything.”
“What about the other airports?”
“No idea. We are looking into it now.”
“That won’t be quick enough. Could you contact the U.S. military and the Japan Self-Defense Force for us?”
“Will do.” The chief turned to the flight controller for central and northern Japan. “Get word to the U.S. military and the SDF right now. I don’t care how you do it. Call every number you got.”
“Right away.”
“I’m not sure the Americans are going to like this much,” one of the other controllers said.
“I’m sure they’re already tracking her. And if they thought she was a missile, they’d have contacted us by now—or shot them down.”
“Rambutan to Tokyo Control, we are at nine kilometers. We just deployed our main parachute. Our position is a little to the west of Tokyo, I think. Our GPS map isn’t very detailed.”
The flight control chief glanced at his radar screen. They had slowed to eight knots per hour.
“Rambutan, you’re right over the city of Ayase, in Kanagawa Prefecture. I understand you can’t control your descent?”
“Affirmative. We’re dropping at about ten meters a second now. Hope we find some water to splashdown in.”
“I’m not sure you will. You might even hit Yokohama. Want us to send out a rescue crew?”
“Yokohama...”
The voice over the speaker stopped abruptly. There was a brief moment of silence before Yukari spoke. “Yes, please. In Japan, I’m guessing that would be the police’s jurisdiction?”
“I’m not sure we even have protocol for dealing with spacecraft, but I’ll let the Kanagawa police know you’re coming.”
“Thank you.”
“Good luck, Rambutan. Tokyo Control out.”
Matsuri’s eyes were glued to the periscope. The periscope tube ran through the middle of their instrument panel, down into the floor and through the hull, where it opened into a fish-eye lens.
“Whoa! Look at all the houses! I’ve never seen so many!”
“What about water? Can you see the ocean?”
“No. Oh, there it is. Pretty far off, though. Wow! What’s that big tower?”
“Landmark Tower, by Yokohama harbor, probably.”
“Aren’t you from Yokohama, Yukari?”
“Actually, yeah.”
Of all the places they could have crash-landed in the entire world, why Yokohama?
She hadn’t even set foot on Japanese soil in ten months—and now she was about to leave a shallow crater in it.
“Will you stop gawking out the window and help me prep for splashdown?”
“Hoi! Where are we?”
“I need to switch power from the fuel cells to the shielded batteries and purge O2 and H2.”
“Got it.”
“Voltage normal. Okay, next cut off life support and get some ventilation going.”
The air circulator for their life support system stopped and the smells of the greater Tokyo-Yokohama industrial area poured in through the vents.
Matsuri crinkled her nose. “Smells like the fuel factory on base.”
“Smells like home.”
They were only three hundred meters up now. Thirty seconds to the ground. Yukari took a look through the periscope.
No way are we making it to the ocean.
“Tokyo Control, this is Rambutan. We’re below one thousand feet. Looks like we’ll be crash-landing in the city.”
“Roger that, Rambutan. We’re tracking you on the high-res radar at Haneda. The police have a chopper en route. I think we’ve got you covered.”
“Thanks for the help.”
They’d be hitting the ground at ten meters per second—an impact they’d trained for. The problem was, what if they didn’t hit open ground? There could be anything down there. High-voltage electrical lines, factories with hazardous materials, an expressway...
Yukari wrested her gaze from the outside and read the altitude gauge.
Two hundred meters.
“Is it just me, or have we been here before?” Yukari muttered.
“Hoi?”
One hundred meters.
“I mean, one time out of two, we’re facing imminent death.”
Fifty meters.
“No problem, Yukari, we’ll be fine!”
Thirty meters.
“Today’s a good day to die,” Matsuri added.
“That’s not what I’d call fine, Matsuri!”
The two girls braced for impact.
Zakooooosh.
There was a brief jolt as they hit the surface of something, sank a short distance, and came to rest. A water landing, amazingly enough. The only window on the orbiter was in the overhead hatch. Yukari looked through it and saw only sky.
She took a deep breath. “We made it?”
“We sure did!”
“Looks like we hit water.”
“Looks like.”
“Well, follow procedure. Inflate floats and release the dye marker.”
The dye—an oily mixture that would float on the surface of the ocean—began spraying from the cone of the orbiter. A VHF/HF antenna extended at the same time as a buzzer began to sound in the cabin.
“System alert! Where is it?”
Yukari frantically scanned the instrumentation panel. There was a short in their preliminary power source. They were taking on water.
“Uh-oh, looks like we’ve sprung a leak!”
“Hoi? What do we do about that?”
Yukari looked down. Water was already beginning to puddle around her feet. “Nothing to do but evacuate. Get your survival kit on and let’s deploy that life raft! Quickly!”
“Hoi hoi!”
The girls slid out of their harnesses, opened the lockers at their feet, pulled out survival kits, and slung them around their waists. Matsuri twisted around in her seat and pulled out the life raft from its storage compartment.
Yukari’s hand went to a panel on the wall. She opened it, revealing a single, large red button. She put her finger on it. “Get ready, I’m blowing the hatch!”
A dry report, like a pistol shot, went off over their heads, and the hatch flew upwards, away from the orbiter.
The two girls crawled out onto the hull and removed their helmets. A strong, mid-spring sun shone down on them. There was a light breeze.
“Where are we...?”
The capsule’s dye marker had stained the water around it a fluorescent green, but the water only extended a few meters before it ended in a straight line of brick-colored tiles. Above the tiles stood a single sign that read: THE DRAGONFLIES THANK YOU FOR KEEPING OUR POND CLEAN! Beyond that were carefully cropped patches of lawn and neatly laid brick walkways. There was a greenhouse, a flower stand, and an aging nature observation post—the kind they put in school gardens for the science class to test water samples and the like.
Beyond that, she saw a concrete building, three stories high. Another building next to it was connected to the first by a covered walkway. Yukari turned around and saw more buildings on the other side. They were in a central courtyard surrounded by identical concrete buildings.
“I think we’re okay, Yukari. Look at all those people!”
Yukari scanned the buildings. Faces filled every window. They were all wearing the same clothes. They were all girls.
“I know where we are,” Yukari said. “I know where we are!”
“Hoi? Where’s that?”
“Nellis!”
“Who?”
“We’re at Nellis Girls Academy! We landed on my school!”
[ACT 4]
IT WAS RIGHT in the middle of second period classes at Nellis Academy when it happened. There was the sound of an explosion from the central courtyard, and rolls of red-and-white fabric came billowing past the windows. The girls ran to the windows to see something like a giant bottle of brandy floating in the pond, steam rising from its surface.
Moments later, a section of that surface popped open, and two figures wearing full-face helmets emerged.
One of them removed her helmet. When her long black hair spilled out, someone shouted, “Yukari! It’s Yukari!”
Immediately there was another explosion—this time of voices—as the students cheered, drowning out the protests of their teachers. Students began boiling out of the classrooms into the hallways and streaming out into the courtyard around the pond. Over a thousand eyes were fixed on Yukari and Matsuri.
“Yukari, Yukari, it’s me!”
“Matsuri!”
“Can I have your autograph?”
“Yukari, remember me? It’s me, Eiko!”
“All students return to your classrooms immediately!”
“Yukari! Can I shake your hand?”
“Cool suits!”
“Miss Morita, remove your spaceship at once!”
“Quiet, Teach! This is a historical event!”
“Hey! She looked at me!”
“All students return to your classrooms immediately!”
“We’ve been rooting for you this whole time, Yukari!”
“Matsuri! Look over here! Let me take your picture!”
“Say something!”
“Somebody tell that principal to shut up!”
“Too bad you didn’t hit him with your spaceship!”
“This is your principal speaking! All students return to your classrooms immediately! Anyone not back in their classroom will receive detention!”
No one left the courtyard.
Yukari stood frozen, her face stretched in an awkward grin.
“Hoi? They all look like you, Yukari,” Matsuri whispered.
Yukari scanned the crowd of faces, all with hair cut to the same length, all wearing the same uniform. “I was right there in that crowd not too long ago.”
Nellis Academy was famously strict, but when the floodgates opened, they opened for good. The courtyard was mass chaos. It was a mutiny, and Yukari had caused it. One of the teachers stepped forward and caught her eye.
Yukari remembered her. Sachiko Yamashina, the Dragon Lady. She taught classics.
“What is the meaning of this, Miss Morita? Class is in session!”
Wow, nothing fazes this woman. Can’t she see that something’s wrong—
“Ack!” Yukari bit her tongue. She’d forgotten about the goldfish. The power in the orbiter was off, which meant the goldfish didn’t have long to live.
“Everyone, I need your help!” Yukari shouted, ignoring her teacher for the moment. The crowd fell silent. “Some goldfish we were using in an experiment are about to die. Anyone know anything about fish?”
“Goldfish?” The girls looked at one another.
Someone in the crowd said, “What about Akane? She’d know what to do!”
“Akane Miura? In 2-A?”
“Yeah, the one with the perfect grades.”
“I’ll go get her!”
Akane Miura… The name rang a bell. Yukari vaguely remembered her being at the top of the list when they posted test results from the first semester. A few moments later, part of the crowd began to whirl with excitement and a short, slender girl emerged, several hands pushing her forward.
Her hair was cut short, with fine bangs hanging down over her forehead. She wasn’t wearing glasses. Less the typical bookworm type and more the aspiring author type, thought Yukari. The crowd pushed Akane right up to the edge of the pond. Despite the startled look on her face, her keen eyes shone as she took in the situation. Eventually, they rested on Yukari, standing on top of the orbiter.
“What’s this about goldfish?” she asked in a soft voice.
Yukari held up the fish tank. “They’re in here.”
Akane leaned forward to get a better look.
Yukari hopped into the pond, and a ripple of excitement ran through the students. Waist deep in water, she waded up to the bank and crawled up onto land, handing the tank to Akane. “We were in orbit when their alarm went off.”
The fish were dimly visible through the thick glass. Akane’s face went pale.
“Oh no, we have to aerate their water right away! Let’s bring them to the biology classroom. Come on!”
Akane led Yukari through the crowd, which quickly parted to let them through. Looking back toward the pond as she ran, Yukari shouted, “Stay there, Matsuri! Don’t let anyone touch the orbiter!”
“Okay!”
“Everyone back to your rooms, NOW!”
The biology classroom was quiet. No classes were held there in the morning. Akane ran into the adjoining lab. Pulling an empty aquarium tank off the shelf, she filled it with water and added a packet of powder.
“You can just put them in here.”
“Okay,” Yukari said, then stopped. “Wait. The experiment requirements stipulated that we can’t change the water.”
“Oh.” Akane frowned. “This connector thing here is what you use to cycle the water in their tank, right?”
“That’s right. That’s where the trouble happened. I think the QD might be jammed.”
“The QD?”
“The quick disconnect. It’s so you can pull off the tube without spilling any water.”
Akane examined the port. “Well, can I put some air in, at least?”
“That should be all right.”
“Then I think we might be able to save them.”
“Really?”
Akane pulled a toolbox and some equipment in a cardboard box off another shelf. “Since the QD isn’t working, I’m just going to take off the cover here and extract the water with this water pump. Then I can use this chamber to aerate the water and cycle it back in. We’ll have to put a filter in between the two, though. How does that sound?”
“I’m not sure I follow, but it sounds great. Let’s give it a try!”
“Will do.”
Akane moved quickly. First she cut a length of silicon tubing, connecting one half to a small device and sticking the other inside the fish tank. Then she attached a bottle of oxygen to a regulator. Where the seals didn’t quite fit, she used tape to close up the gaps. She flipped the switch on the bottle, and the water began to circulate.
“Hey, you did it!”
“We’re not out of the woods yet.” Akane took a small sample of water out of the fish tank with a pipette and dripped it onto a strip of test paper.
“I thought so. The ammonia concentration’s way too high.”
“Okay…so what do we do?”
“We could use other chemicals to neutralize it, but maybe that would violate your conditions?”
“Hmm, I wonder.”
“Actually,” Akane said, “now that I think about it, your testing equipment back on the ship must’ve used a similar method to extract the ammonia. Otherwise you’d have trouble keeping them alive.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do it.”
“Right.”
Akane quickly calculated the volume of water from the tank size, measured out an appropriate amount of neutralizing agent, and added it to the water.
“Oh, one other thing,” she said. “We have to keep their water the right temperature. You know what the temperature was on your ship?”
“Erm…” Yukari scratched her head.
“I’m pretty sure this variety prefers 23°C, but if they were trying to breed them, they might’ve made it warmer.”
“I don’t think there was any breeding going on. Yeah, 23°C sounds about right.”
“Good.” Akane briefly stopped the pump and inserted a small heater and thermostat inside the chamber. “It will take a little time to warm up, but thankfully it’s pretty close to the right temperature this time of year already.”
“So that’s it?”
“I think so.”
“Whew!” Yukari gave a long sigh of relief. The goldfish had visibly improved. She looked up and smiled. “Sorry, I’m Yukari Morita. Thank you.”
“Oh, uh, I’m Akane Miura.”
Yukari offered to shake hands and Akane blushed.
“I remember your name,” Yukari said. “You got top grades first semester, right?”
“And you were in Class B first year, right?”
“I’m surprised you remember me.”
“You were really good in track, even though you’re small like me. And then you, uh—”
“Dropped out because I got a job.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to say—”
Just then, the door to the lab opened and a teacher appeared. “Yukari Morita! Just who is responsible for that rocket ship out there?”
“It’s not a rocket ship, actually. It’s an orbiter. And I’m the captain.”
“Then come to the principal’s office right this minute, ‘Captain’!”
“Okay…” Yukari said, dazed. She turned back to Akane. “Watch the goldfish for me?”
“No problem,” Akane said, a look of concern on her face as she watched the other girl leave.
[ACT 5]
THICK CARPETING COVERED the floor of the principal’s office. Rows of golden figurines and plaques—trophies from various sporting events—lined the walls. Some calligraphy in a frame read NEVER GIVE UP. A large, heavy double-winged desk made out of some dark mahogany-like wood dominated the middle of the room.
“Um, you wanted to see me?” Yukari announced herself as she stepped gingerly into the room, her muddy space suit boots leaving tracks behind her.
Across the desk from her sat a man in silver-rimmed glasses, sparse hair combed in neat lines across the dome of his head. Blue veins were clearly visible across his brow, and the tension in his face sent ripples through the air. He spoke.
“Come to pay a visit to your old school?”
“Well, er, actually—”
“Oh, we have some miscreants at our school who think they can drive up in their sports cars or motorbikes, but this is the first time we’ve had someone in a spaceship!”
“Um, I’d sure hope—”
“And in that attire! Miss Morita, have you no shame?”
Yukari sighed. It wasn’t like she was wearing a skintight space suit on purpose.
“You think you’re above the rules, is that it? Or is this just another part of your vendetta against me?”
“Excuse me? Vendetta? Sir, I—”
“Yes, I was the one who expelled you. But I only did what any educator in my position would have done! This school strictly forbids our students from holding part-time jobs, and you did so, and quite publicly, I might add. How was I to set an example for the other students if I didn’t punish you? That’s how I explained my position to the regional school board—a position they approved, I’ll have you know.”
It was true, to a point. When she had first joined the Solomon Space Association program, they’d taken her on as a part-time employee. She had gone through the proper channels and applied for a semester off with the intention of returning in the third quarter—except that her unexpected expulsion hit before the paperwork was approved.
Now, if she had been expelled because she wasn’t taking her classes seriously, she could understand that. But to be expelled for working a part-time job just because it was against the rules? That really ticked her off.
“Did you call me in here to make excuses?”
“What excuses?” the principal snorted. “Clearly I was right about your intentions today.”
“I’m not here on some vendetta. Our landing in the school pond was a complete coincidence.”
“You expect me to believe that out of all the places on Earth where you could have landed, your coming down on school property—your very own school’s property—was a coincidence? Ridiculous!”
“I was as surprised as you are, sir, but the fact is that you just can’t set an orbiter capsule down wherever you want to. Especially not when there are complications.”
“Doesn’t the space shuttle over in America land on its own runway every time? That’s pretty pinpoint.”
“That’s because the space shuttle has flight controls. On our ship, once you open the parachute, you’re at the mercy of the wind currents—”
“Nice try, but you won’t pull the wool over this educator’s eyes!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.” Yukari stamped her foot. “And what’s the big idea expelling me just because I broke one little rule!”
“Rules are rules, Miss Morita. And it is of the utmost importance to us that all of our girls learn the rules by which they must lead their lives before we send them out into society—”
“But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to come back!” There was an edge to Yukari’s voice. “I was going to come back here after my first flight. I was going to ace my classes, pass my tests, get into a topflight university, and land a glamorous job at some company somewhere. I was going to have a normal life!” She was practically raging now.
A look of fear flashed across the principal’s face. “Oh, you’re on a vendetta, all right. You resent me.”
“Of course I resent you! You’re ruining my life on a—on a technicality!”
The principal waggled his finger at her. “I know what you’re up to, Morita. You’re going to use this newfound fame of yours to turn the media against me, aren’t you. You’re trying to get me fired from my job!”
Yukari blinked. “Huh? Of course I’m not.”
“But you could if you tried. That’s why you landed here, isn’t it? This is a thinly veiled threat. You were trying to teach me a lesson.”
Yukari rolled her eyes. “The only lesson I want you to learn here is that you Can’t. Control. Where. An Orbiter. Splashes. Down!”
Yukari was in mid-rant when she heard a tremendous roar, the kind of sound you can feel in the pit of your stomach. The windows rattled and the room shook. She looked out to see an SDF navy helicopter hovering right outside the window.
“What, now the navy’s here? What’s all that racket?”
The helicopter was a Sikorsky MH-53E, the largest helicopter operating in Japanese airspace, with three 4400 hp gas turbine engines and a main rotor twenty-four meters in diameter. The local police, coast guard, and fire department wouldn’t have a chopper that size. They must have called into the base for it when they heard what was coming down.
The windows of the building across the courtyard filled with faces.
Behind her, the principal was screeching. “You called the SDF in, didn’t you? Is there no end to your ambition, child?”
“I had nothing to do with it, really.”
“Well you better get them out of here before the media descend upon us. I won’t have you disrupting my classes any more than you already have!”
“Will you just shut up and let me deal with this?” Yukari pulled the transceiver from its pouch at her waist and thumbed the talk button. “This is the SSA spaceship Rambutan, hailing the navy helicopter currently over Nellis Academy. Come in, please.”
“Rambutan, this is Big Bird with the SDF navy minesweeping division. We’re here at the request of the Solomon Space Association, over.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Not a problem. We’d like to get the retrieval started. Should we lower our men?”
“That’s all right, we can handle it. I need you to take my copilot up in your sling now and myself after I get the orbiter hooked up.”
“Roger that.”
“It’ll take me about ten minutes to get everything ready. Can you hold position for that long?”
“We’ll manage.”
“Where are you taking us, incidentally?”
“Our orders are to take you to the Space Lab in Sagamihara.”
It looked like they’d be reporting in to the experiment lead sooner than she thought. “Roger that.”
Yukari dashed out of the room, leaving the principal to work on his embolism alone.
Back in the biology lab, Akane had her face pressed to the fish container. She was tapping on the glass with one finger.
When she saw Yukari come in, the other girl smiled. “Your goldfish are doing great—”
“Akane! Thanks for rigging that up, but now we have to get it to the space laboratory by helicopter. Think you can modify it to run on battery power?”
“Uh, I don’t see why not…”
“Right now?”
“O-okay!”
Akane searched the shelves, pulling out some dry cell batteries and a battery case, which she used to switch her contraption over to DC power.
“What should I put it in? A cardboard box, maybe?”
“Anything—whatever works.”
Akane carefully placed the fish tank and assorted apparatuses inside a large cardboard box she found on another of the shelves, fixing everything in place with several strips of packaging tape. “I think that should do it.”
“Er…really?” Yukari took a dubious look inside the box.
“I hope so,” Akane replied, though she didn’t sound very sure of herself.
A troubling thought occurred to Yukari. What happens if it breaks midflight? Would I be able to fix it myself?
The flight would be short enough, but any little mishap and the whole experiment could be a wash. She looked up at the other girl. “Think you could come with me?”
“What?” Akane’s eyes went wide.
“I want you to ride in the helicopter and help me take care of the goldfish. Just in case.”
“Well, I—”
“Pretty please?”
“I mean, I do want the goldfish to be safe, but—” Akane lowered her eyes. “I have classes…”
“Oh, who gives a crap about this crappy school and its crappy classes!” Yukari barked, surprised at her own anger.
Wow, I really am a delinquent.
She softened her voice. “Well, look, I’m sure classes are very important, but you don’t understand. These goldfish—the scientist working on these spent fifteen years getting ready for this one single experiment.”
“What? Fifteen whole years?”
“Yeah. Space experiments are usually so short you wouldn’t think it, but apparently, the getting-ready part takes forever. That’s why I really need to see this through, and we’re so close. It’d blow hard if something happened now after all those poor fish have been through.”
“No kidding…”
Akane gripped her fists so tightly, her knuckles turned white. A moment passed, then her face shot up. “I’ll go!”
“That’s the spirit!”
A gale force wind blew through the courtyard of the school. Matsuri was busily bundling up the parachute and shutting it inside the orbiter’s nose. Yukari stood at the edge of the pond, looking up at the helicopter and barking into her transceiver.
“We’ll be picking up one extra person. Take up the girl behind me first. She’s a civvy, so be gentle.”
“Roger that. Lowering the harness now.”
The helicopter descended until it was hovering just above the school buildings. A sliding door opened and something like a thick belt began to play out from one side. The helicopter pitched slightly forward to get one end of the belt into the pond in order to disperse any static electricity. Sand whipped up from the ground, stinging Yukari’s cheek.
She grabbed hold of the harness with one hand and beckoned Akane over. The girl stepped up beside her, cardboard box under one arm and her other hand holding down her skirt.
Yukari passed the harness beneath Akane’s armpits and attached the v-ring to the hook at the base. Then she took the cardboard box out from beneath the other girl’s arm and gave it to her to hold with both hands.
“All you have to do is hang there. The people on the helicopter will do the rest. Got it?”
Akane nodded, a nervous look on her face.
Yukari gave the pilot a thumbs-up and Akane began to rise until she was close enough to the helicopter for one of the soldiers to grab her arm and pull her inside. Next, they plucked Matsuri off the top of the hatch. Meanwhile, Yukari waded through the tiny whitecaps rippling across the pond to scramble up one side of the orbiter.
“Okay,” Yukari said through her transceiver, “next up is the orbiter. It’s taken on some water, so it should be a good four to five tons!”
“No problem. Lowering the freight hook.”
“I’m ready for you.”
A large hook used for carrying minesweeping equipment extended from directly beneath the main rotor.
“Just one meter more, that’s it. Come forward, keep it slow.”
The helicopter pilot made some minute adjustments, expertly compensating for the inertia of the hook. Yukari braced herself against the wind and shouted into her transceiver.
“Steady, steady, steady—all right.”
Grabbing the heavy hook with both hands, she passed the hook through the carabiner on the parachute harness.
“She’s all hooked up. My turn!”
Yukari jumped back into the pond and grabbed the harness that came swinging down. She pulled it around behind her back, attached the hook, and gave the thumbs-up. Matsuri and Akane were already buckled into seats along one wall when Yukari arrived. Akane sat rigid, cradling the cardboard box in her arms like a child holds a stuffed animal.
“You okay, Akane? We’re safe now.”
“Y-yeah.”
The pilot turned and shouted back to Yukari. “Okay to take her up?”
“Go for it! The water will spill out, so take it slow.”
“Roger.”
The pilot’s bronzed left hand tensed and the whine of the turbine engine grew noticeably louder.
Yukari peeked out from the helicopter to take a look at the scene below. The seven blades of the main rotor had created a dust storm in the courtyard the likes of which Yukari had never seen. It looked like the gardening club’s greenhouse had collapsed. Every tulip in the planters lay flat, and one or two of the older planters had completely disintegrated. Oops.
The cable connecting them to the orbiter went taut and the orbiter began to move, sloshing water from inside.
“Your craft’s at a bit of an angle,” the soldier manning the winch shouted. “That okay?”
“No problem. That’s how it’s supposed to lift!”
The soldier shouted something into an intercom, giving directions to the pilot.
The helicopter slowly began to rise.
The wind from the rotor blades turned the water spilling from the orbiter into a fine white mist spraying every which way across the courtyard. Every window in the school buildings and even the rooftops were filled with students waving and cheering.
Yukari waved back.
Goodbye, Nellis Academy. She didn’t imagine she would ever be coming back there.
One of the soldiers closed the sliding door. At last, it was quiet enough inside the helicopter to talk normally. Once they leveled out, Yukari went up to the cockpit and greeted the pilot. “That went really well. I’m Yukari Morita, captain of the orbiter you’re carrying.”
“Commander Kimura with the Fifteenth Minesweeper Company,” the middle-aged pilot announced brightly, turning his tanned face to look back at his passenger. “I have to admit I was surprised. I’ve seen your ship on television a number of times, but I never expected it to come down here.”
“We were just as surprised as you. I didn’t expect the SDF to come pick us up, either.”
“The Coast Guard sent us. They’ve never retrieved an orbiter, and they wanted to make sure they had enough horsepower to do the job—speaking of which, Petty Officer Kuwabara!”
“Sir!” One of the soldiers answered from the back.
“Get up here and take a picture of us!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Here, I’ll turn around and look back so he can get both our faces.”
“Huh?”
Petty Officer Kuwabara motioned to the other two girls. “Why don’t you get in too?”
“Hoi! I love pictures! Let’s go, Akane!”
“What? Me?”
“Yeah. Don’t you want to remember the moment?”
Grinning like a madwoman, Matsuri undid Akane’s harness. Akane gently set down her cardboard box and came up to the front.
“Commander, I’d like to get in the shot as well, if I could,” another of the soldiers called out. “Me too!” said another.
“Maybe I could get one with just Yukari first—”
“I want one with Matsuri!”
“I’ll take one with the girl in the Nellis uniform.”
They took pictures in various combinations as the helicopter swiftly made its way toward Sagamihara airspace. They were almost at their destination when the helicopter from the Kanagawa Police Department caught up to them.
“Someone told the Space Lab we were coming, right?” Yukari asked.
“Affirmative,” the pilot told her.
Yukari peered out the front window. “That straight line right there is the Yokohama Train Line, which means…is that it?”
“That’s the place.”
Several perfectly square buildings formed a small compound below. There was a green in the very middle and a thin rocket on a display stage off to one side.
The helicopter hovered over the green until someone from the lab came running out to direct them. Slowly, the copter began to descend, the orbiter drawing closer to its own shadow cast on the grass until the two met. The orbiter toppled on its side and the helicopter gently set down a short distance away. The sliding door flew open, and the crew jumped out to secure the landing zone.
“Time to go.” Yukari motioned to Akane.
Shrinking away from the idling rotor above her head, Akane left the chopper, led by the two astronauts. One of the helicopter crew was busily unhooking the orbiter.
A man in his mid-fifties wearing a suit and necktie came running from the main building.
It’s Miyamoto, thought Yukari. Professor Miyamoto was head researcher in charge of the goldfish experiment—or more accurately, the vestibular adaptation experiment. She remembered him from his visits a month before to the Solomon base for a practice run. He had been running around then too. He was a likable man, with short legs, a chubby belly, and bushy eyebrows.
Miyamoto wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and greeted them. “Hello there! Welcome, welcome! I’d arrgh—” The professor’s voice was lost in the sound of the helicopter taking off.
Yukari turned and saluted the crew. In a matter of moments, the helicopter receded into the distance and relative silence returned to the complex. Yukari turned back around to face the professor.
“Well, we’re back. We landed in Yokohama, of all places.”
“So I heard, so I heard. I certainly wasn’t expecting you to get here so soon, that’s for certain. Well, how are they? Still living?”
“They’re right here.”
Yukari pointed at the cardboard box in Akane’s hands.
Akane offered up her box, and Professor Miyamoto thrust his face inside. He was a bit nearsighted.
“Hey! They are still alive! Doing quite well, as a matter of fact! All right!” His head popped back out. “Well, this is really something! Thank you! Thank you so much!” One by one, he grabbed each of their hands in turn and gave them a vigorous shake. Yukari half expected him to shed a joyful tear or two. She smiled.
“Akane threw that transport container together all by herself!”
“You don’t say? Very nice, very, very nice!” Hefting the box in his left arm, Miyamoto gripped Akane’s hand and pumped it vigorously.
“Sorry—I know it doesn’t look like much.”
“Not at all, not at all. Now, quickly, to the lab!” The professor scurried off, muttering happily to himself as he left.
Akane shook her head, watching him leave.
“He seems happy,” Yukari said. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was going to start skipping any moment now.”
“No kidding,” Akane said, allowing herself a little chuckle.
Far ahead of them already, the professor turned and shouted, “What are you waiting for? Come on, come on. You have to tell me about everything!”
[ACT 6]
EVERY SCREEN IN the control room was off. The only thing moving was the countdown clock in one corner. T PLUS 1 DAY 2 HR 17 MIN 5 SEC. At the rearmost terminal in the central row, chief controller Kazuya Kinoshita was on the phone.
“I see… So the goldfish were okay? …Right. Good job. …No, OECF Operations should take care of that. What about today? Sure, just keep it under control. Right. Take it easy.”
Quietly, he set down the receiver and raised his voice. “Everyone, listen up. Our astronauts are at the Space Lab. This wraps up control operations for this mission. It may not have been pretty, but we did it. Good job, everyone.”
There was no clapping. Everyone seated at the terminals stood up as one, stretched, and began collecting their papers.
Kinoshita jotted something down in his logbook and went into the guest room to report to Nasuda. “The orbiter and its crew have arrived at the Space Lab. The craft took a little damage, but the goldfish are fine. Our astronauts are giving their report to Professor Miyamoto now. The girls plan on staying at Yukari’s house tonight.”
“I see. Well then, the mission was a success.”
“A partial success, maybe.”
“Success is success. All’s well that ends well, right?”
Nasuda turned to Director Holden and spoke in English. “As you can see, our mission was a complete success. We accomplished a second test flight with a multiple-seat orbiter, broadcast video of a spacewalk, and completed our vestibular adaptation experiment using goldfish.”
“A complete success?” The director raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall a malfunction in your test equipment, aberrant departure from orbit, lost position, and emergency splashdown. These matters don’t concern you at all?”
“I admit there were some events that we failed to predict,” Nasuda said, “yet our crew and test subjects have returned unharmed. Their actions in orbit and our response on the ground kept it together.”
“To me it seems like there was a fair bit of luck involved,” the director said with a shake of his head. “Thank you for inviting me here. It was certainly a fascinating experience, I’ll give you that. The SSA’s work is worthy of attention. After all, this is the third manned space program after the U.S. and Russia, and you’ve shown impressive results while managing to maintain a far-smaller-scale operation.”
“That we have.” Nasuda was practically beaming.
“But let me be frank. I’m afraid that, all things considered, it would be premature for your program to participate in the construction of an international space station.”
“But, Director—”
Holden raised a hand, cutting off Nasuda mid-objection. “Don’t get me wrong. We’re not trying to hold you back or make you toe the line. Our shuttle fleet is overworked. We need all the help we can get. And we know you are the only ones with the skintight space suit technology and hybrid engines.” Holden stood. “But your results are still weak. I look forward to more progress from you in the future.”
[ACT 7]
MIYAMOTO’S LABORATORY ROOM was utter chaos.
Desks, computers, bookshelves, and storage racks were packed along the walls, surrounding a single workstation desk the size of an automobile in the very center of the room. Other than the narrow corridor on all sides of the workstation, every flat surface in the room was covered with piles of stuff.
Professor Miyamoto cleared a space on top of the desk and set down the cardboard box. Mumbling to himself, he removed the fish container. A similar device was already sitting on top of the workstation with all of its wiring and tubing exposed—a prototype, Yukari assumed.
“It does look like the QD is plugged with…poop? Yes, that’s poop all right.”
He took off the lid and began to clean the area around the QD with a paintbrush and a syringe. When he had finished, he placed the container in the prototype device and flicked on the switch. The water began to circulate.
“There, that should do it. Too bad you can’t do that up in space.”
“You’d get water all over the place.”
“No doubt. Sorry it had to break down right before reentry.”
“Actually, it was more like during our reentry. It was a little hard to do the experiment and pilot at the same time,” Yukari said.
“If the orbiter was a little larger, that might be possible.”
“I hear they’re working on an orbiter that seats three,” Matsuri said.
“You don’t say?” The professor pulled up some chairs to his own desk and sat the girls down. He was examining the cardboard box they had brought.
“You did a fine job with this. Something of a genius at makeshift repairs, are you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Akane stammered, blushing.
“It took us fifteen years to get this device to its current level,” the professor said. “No one had ever built an aquarium for space before. I went around asking everyone for help. That oxygen regulator came from an artificial lung the medical department was working on.”
Akane nodded, eyes wide.
“The filter was a tough nut to crack too. We had to consider all the possibilities, like what would happen if they laid eggs on top of it, and what kind of material to use, and whether or not to use zeolite to get rid of the ammonia. We tested everything.
“But if someone told me to repair this thing on the spot, I’m not sure what I would have done. You have some experience with animals in a laboratory setting?”
“I’m in charge of the aquarium and the terrarium in our biology class. Though I don’t really do much—just take care of them and make observations.”
“That’s plenty! I’m sure you come away with quite a lot from that.”
“I do,” Akane said, visibly pleased. “Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“What exactly were you testing with these goldfish?”
“Whether or not vestibular adaptability can be learned,” the professor said, his voice rising. He was clearly happy she had asked. “We wanted to see how quickly goldfish that had already been in space would relearn on their second flight. If there was an observable learning effect, then we might be able to find out exactly where the goldfish are keeping that information—that was our goal.”
“Fascinating!”
“Vestibular functions are thought to be related to space sickness. And space sickness gets in the way of spaceflight, as you know.”
“Sure. It’s like seasickness that lasts for the first few days of a flight, right?” Akane asked.
“That’s correct. Of course, there are a lot of other challenges out there waiting for an astronaut. Things like calcium deficiencies due to radiation and the redistribution of body fluids. But humanity must move into space sooner or later. You agree?”
“Of course.”
“We’re constantly fighting about this religion or that ideology or some territory or another down here. Well, my thinking is: why not just move away from all that? If the earth gets too cramped, we can settle space. It starts with the station. Next the moon. Then Mars. Some scientists have even proposed moving to comets. Imagine that, comets! That’s why we have to overcome all of the hurdles between us and these, er, ‘lofty’ goals. This experiment is one small part of that, a fragment of the answer, if you will. You agree?”
“Of course!”
“If one experiment fails, we can’t move on to the next. That’s why I needed you to bring those goldfish back alive. Here I thought all was lost, but then you came to the rescue.” Miyamoto beamed and clapped Akane on the shoulder. “It’s that kind of quick thinking that makes you an astronaut, I guess! Splendid, splendid!”
Akane blinked. “Er, actually, sir, I’m not—”
“She’s a civilian,” Yukari cut in. “She just happened to be there at the school where we landed.”
“What? Is that so? Why, I was sure the SSA had sent you!”
“No, actually. See, we landed at Nellis Academy—”
Yukari went on to tell the entire story of their emergency splashdown and subsequent efforts to keep the goldfish alive. Miyamoto listened attentively, scratching his head throughout.
“I see, I see! Well, I suppose I can be forgiven the misunderstanding. After all, she’s the right age, and the girl does have considerable talent.”
Apparently, he hadn’t noticed that Akane was wearing her school uniform.
The professor chuckled. “I swear, I can’t look at a short schoolgirl these days without wondering if she’s an astronaut.”
“A short schoolgirl…” Yukari glanced over at Akane. The girl was roughly the same height as she was, maybe even a little slighter in build. Perfect height, perfect weight. She wished someone like Akane had been there when everything started going haywire. Someone to watch the experiments while she and Matsuri focused on piloting. That would have made everything so much easier. Matsuri was clearly giving Akane the once-over as well.
Well, it can’t hurt to ask.
“Say, Akane. Want a job?”
“What kind of job?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Like, maybe being an astronaut for the SSA?”
Akane burst out laughing. “You’re pulling my leg!”
“Nope. No leg-pulling.”
“Hoi! What a great idea.” Matsuri joined in. “Boy, with Akane on the team, we’d be golden!”
“We haven’t made any public announcements, but truth be told, we really need someone. This could be your big chance, Akane. Really.”
“But, but I couldn’t be an astronaut. Don’t you have to be in great physical condition?”
“A little training would take care of that, no problem.”
“But…”
“Boy, if it was me, I’d be there in a heartbeat,” Miyamoto said. “Surely you must have your share of applicants? You’re quite popular these days.”
“Actually, we do,” Yukari said. While it was true that they had made no public announcement, every month, one or two hopefuls made their way to the Solomon Space Center—on a tiny island at the edge of civilization, a place devoid of any entertainment or anything to do at all if one wasn’t in the SSA already. Most people who wanted to be the next Yukari or Matsuri despaired the moment they set foot in the place.
There were a few whose passion to go into space overcame any such concerns, but every one of them had been physically unsuited for the job. Even though they never put it into words, the SSA wasn’t in the position to even consider anyone who wasn’t under 155 centimeters tall and weighed less than thirty-eight kilograms. Also, though it wasn’t an absolute requirement, they really preferred a girl. The lack of a toilet onboard the orbiter would make things complicated were males integrated into the crew.
Which was why the best people gave up on the SSA and instead went for the Space Development Agency back in Japan. A successful career there could get you on the space shuttle and even get you a chance for a stay on the ISS.
There were other reasons holding some applicants back. Even though the space shuttle wasn’t really all that safe, and the SSA wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed, people thought twice about actually stepping into Yukari’s shoes when it came down to it. Not even the lure of overnight fame was sufficient temptation.
“I should think all you’d need is your health. I mean, if the shoe fits wear it, right? And I think you’d fit just right, Akane.”
Akane frowned, unconvinced.
Miyamoto stared at her. “You seem more the research type than a member of a flight crew. You like biology?”
“Yes,” she replied. Then, more enthusiastically, “Ever since I was in elementary school!” Now Akane began to talk faster than Yukari had ever heard her talk. “We had to observe morning glories for a summer project in third grade, and I got to wondering why it was that some of them had vines that twisted to the right and others had vines twisting to the left. I couldn’t figure it out just by looking at the ones we had on our patio, so I ended up examining every morning glory on my block, then I went to the next block and the next until I had examined one hundred plants in all. When I averaged them out, right-twisting vines came out to fifty-three percent.”
Miyamoto laughed out loud. “So no statistically significant difference, then.”
“Well, I didn’t know about statistical analysis back then, so my conclusion was that right-twisting morning glories were more common. My teacher was really impressed, and I guess I let it go to my head. Oh, that’s right, I even did a sort of fake space experiment when I was in junior high.”
“You don’t say?”
“I couldn’t pull off a zero-gravity experiment, but I could make a high-G experiment right here on Earth. I modified an old record player into a centrifuge. Then I put a tulip bulb in some dirt at the edge and spun it around at 2 G to see what would happen.”
“Very interesting!” Miyamoto exclaimed. “They’ve raised chickens using that same method in America, and the Germans similarly observed jellyfish in space, you know. It must’ve taken quite some time for you to get any results.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I put the centrifuge out on the patio and let it spin all night and day. My mom wanted me to stop—she was afraid the record player was going to burst into flames or something—so I promised her I would keep my eye on it, and I ended up sitting there for three whole days. In the end, on the eighth day, the record player broke, so I never did get any results. But my science teacher was still impressed and told me that if I really wanted to become a scientist when I grew up, I would also need to study math and English and take tests so I could get into good schools. I think that’s around when I started to really like studying.”
“You mean you can grow into liking studying?” Yukari asked. “I always thought it was something you were born either liking or hating.”
“No, I really think you can learn to like it. It’s like getting this new tool to think with, and the more you study, the more you understand—like how you can use a single guideline to solve geometry problems, or how great it feels to figure out a proof, or the fun in using simple English vocabulary to say complicated things, or the fun in reading the newspaper after you learn about something in social studies, and because every class has tests, you get immediate results—it’s so satisfying! And then —” Akane shook her head. “What am I saying? I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes.” She blushed and covered her face with her hands.
“Not at all, not at all.” Miyamoto smiled. “It was a fascinating story. Why, it’s people like you that give me hope for the future of the sciences in this country. Have you already picked a university?”
“I want to go to Tokyo University and study molecular biology under Professor Niuchi.”
“Ah yes, Dr. Niuchi. That’s a good school. And molecular biology is fascinating.”
Akane’s face shone. “I mean, I know life is sacred, but you can’t just call it sacred and leave it at that. You have to get to the bottom of things to really understand them, and I figured that molecular biology would be the place to start.”
“Quite right. I began with physics myself, but your approach is sound.”
“You really think so?”
“So this is what it’s like to be a star student,” Yukari said with disbelief. “You know exactly what you’re going to do after you graduate already?”
“Well, I’m already a junior!”
“Oh yeah, right…” Yukari scratched her head. Yukari had never made it to her junior year. Still, she wondered if she would have been quite so certain about her own future as Akane seemed to be.
“Still,” Yukari said, trying to steer the conversation back, “they have adult tests you can take for credits, and you can always study. You don’t have to be in school to do that. It wasn’t me who first said this, but if you really want to study something, space is the place.”
“Yes,” Akane said, a faraway look in her eyes, “I suppose you’re right.”
There’s that look, thought Yukari—the look someone got when they first pictured themselves actually being in space. Yukari had seen it a number of times since starting her current job. She had already been on four orbital flights. She was used to zero gravity, the stress of takeoff and reentry, and dealing with the media. But the one thing she was sure she would never grow tired of was the view from space.
It was impossible to put into words or images. They always asked her about it in interviews, and all she could say was her set response: if you really want to know, you have to come see for yourself.
How would she answer Akane if she asked? She didn’t want to give her usual cookie-cutter response, and yet…
“I guess it’s the kind of thing that you can’t know without going to see for yourself,” Akane said suddenly.
Yukari gaped, her eyes going to the other girl’s face. Akane’s eyes were clear as water, staring straight at her.
That was a funny coincidence.
“You want to come with me?” Yukari found herself saying.
Akane said nothing for a moment. Then her eyes drifted downward. “No. No, I think I’m more the study-at-my-desk type.”
“Oh…” Yukari gave a little sigh. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you or anything.”
“No, not at all.”
When she thought about it, it had been a crazy thing to ask. Hey, you, want to become an astronaut? Still, Akane looked a little sad now that Yukari had effectively rescinded the offer.
“Hey,” Yukari said, “if you change your mind, give me a call, will you? You can just phone the Solomon Islands and ask the operator to connect you to the SSA.”
“Okay.”
“Right, time for the debriefing. Tell me everything that happened after liftoff,” Miyamoto said.
“Right.” Yukari shook her head. “Well—”
Immediately following a spaceflight, astronauts were subjected to a slew of questions. The goal was to get all the details of everything that had happened while their memories were still fresh, so that what they learned could benefit future missions. This was called debriefing.
Yukari glanced at her notes. “So around 0130, they started looping a lot and rolling.”
“They were swimming all over the place,” Matsuri added.
“Yeah, it was almost hard to watch them. They looked really tired.”
The professor found the time stamp on the telemetry graph. “It looks like they were panicking because of a drop in the concentration of diffused oxygen. The goldfish were too active. Did you notice anything different inside the aquarium?”
“I saw one or two scales sparkling at the bottom,” Matsuri said.
“Those were scales?” Yukari asked. “You have better eyes for the natural world than I do, Matsuri.”
“Um…” Akane said. “I should probably get going.”
Yukari had completely forgotten. “Oops! That’s right. We kind of took her out of school in the middle of classes.”
“Oh, is that so? Sorry to keep you so long,” the professor said.
“No, it’s been great, really. I’d love to be able to stay longer if I could—but if I leave now I might make it in time for afternoon classes.”
“Well, you’re welcome back anytime. I’ve got plenty of things I’d love to show you here.”
“Thank you so much!”
The professor smiled and handed her his card. “I’ll call a taxi for you. Don’t worry, it’s on us.” He picked up the phone.
“No, I can walk.”
“It’s farther away than you think. Don’t worry, we owe you at least this much.”
While they were standing at the front gate waiting for the taxi to arrive, Yukari spoke with Akane. “Sorry about all this. I know Nellis is really hard on people skipping class.”
“I think they’ll understand,” the other girl replied. “After all, it was for a good cause.”
“Well, I hope so.”
“And I had a really great time.”
“Just think, if you were an astronaut, every day would be like this.”
Akane chuckled nervously. Yukari joined her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be pushy.”
“No, I really appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me.”
The taxi arrived.
Yukari, Matsuri, and Miyamoto stood at the curb and waved goodbye.
[ACT 8]
IT WAS ALREADY evening when debriefing was over. After a simple press conference, the two astronauts left the Space Lab by taxi.
“Hey, are you those two astronauts? Yukari and Matsuri, was it?” the driver asked.
They both nodded.
“Neat! Those your space suits? Do you always wear those?”
“No. Today is kind of…special.” Yukari explained what had happened. The driver’s face in the rearview mirror looked surprised.
“Well, it must be tough flying around up there so fast!”
“Yeah, and it’s too cramped to bring a change of clothes. That’s where we’re going now—to get new things to wear.”
“Downtown, right?”
“Yeah. If you could head into the shopping district from one of the side streets. We kind of stick out in these.”
“No problem. Leave it to me.”
“Oh, I should ask, can we use American Express for this?”
“No problem.”
The survival kit they were supplied with held a roll of U.S. ten-dollar bills and an American Express card. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough in emergencies. This, Yukari had already decided, was an emergency—and buying civilian clothes in the department store counted as survival in the broadest sense of the word.
The taxi was entering the streets of downtown Yokohama. Matsuri was glued to the window, staring at the unfamiliar sights outside.
“What a busy place!”
Matsuri was practically leaning out of the car as they waited for a light to change. Yukari dragged her back inside.
“C’mon, we stand out bad enough as it is.”
“But they love us!”
Matsuri waved her hands vigorously at people on the street. A group of high school students stopped, their mouths hanging open.
“Will you knock that off?”
They were in the shopping district now.
“How’s this?” the driver asked.
“One more block. There. Right behind that building.”
They got out of the taxi, crossed over one wide street, and went straight into a boutique on the other side of the intersection. Yukari had been going there since she was in junior high. She used to stop by on her way to school.
“Hiya!”
“Hello…hey! Yukari! Long time no see! How are you?” The owner, a tall man with a touch of hair on his chin, came out. He checked the girls out from head to toe.
“I like the threads! Takes a little bit of courage to wear those in broad daylight, but I approve!”
“Well, I don’t,” Yukari said. “We basically came here straight from the Space Lab up in Sagamihara. You think you can find something for us to wear?”
“Can I ever! What are you in the mood for?”
“I was thinking maybe a simple dress with something on top—or is that not cool these days?”
“Honey, it’s all in the coordination. Just you watch and see.”
“Great, well, whatever works.”
“Leave it to me! What about shoes? I think I might have some sandals in here somewhere.”
“Great, thanks!”
The owner flitted about picking out items until Yukari was holding a miniskirt dress and a short-sleeved cardigan. For her feet, she had platinum white sandals.
“And your name is Matsuri, right? What sort of look are we aiming for here?”
“Hoi! I want something like that!” Matsuri said, pointing at the mannequin in the shop window.
“Showing a bit of skin in the middle, then? Perfect! That will look great on you.”
While he was gathering Matsuri’s outfit, Yukari went into the dressing room to change.
First, she had to take off the adapter ring around her neck. Between the adapter ring and her neck was a thin rubber membrane, which served to keep the air in her helmet separate from the air inside her suit. A special adhesive was used between the membrane and the skin of her neck, which made taking it off a little like peeling back a Band-Aid—painful.
The space suit was one solid piece, and in order to remove it, she had to undo the airtight fasteners from her throat all the way down to her crotch. She peeled the suit off her arms and legs like a rubber glove, leaving the outfit inside out.
The suit was made out of a miracle fabric that was airtight, pressurized, and insulated, yet it also wicked away sweat, allowing the skin to maintain its own temperature.
In a sense, the skintight space suits were like a second skin, specially adapted for space. There was no room underneath them even for underwear. The owner of the shop was right. It did take a bit of courage to wear the suits outdoors.
Yukari finished changing and left the dressing room.
The owner took a look at the space suit hanging from her arm limply like a deflated doll. “Say, you don’t think you could sell me one of those? I’d love to put it up in my shop window.”
“Well, they’re seventeen million yen a pop.”
“Yikes! For real?”
“These are actual flight models, yep. Apparently, even that is pretty cheap as far as space suits go. But I’m afraid I can’t sell it anyway—the design is top-secret. We’re discouraged from even taking them off when we’re not on base.”
“I see, I see,” the owner said, clearly giving up. “Well, do you think I could at least advertise that you came here? It’s not every shop in Yokohama that gets visits from astronauts. I could put up a picture of you two.”
“Sure, no problem,” Yukari said, smiling. “I could even sign the picture for you if you like.”
“Ooh, that’d be great! Thanks!”
A few moments later, Matsuri came out of the other dressing room. “Hoi! What do you think?”
Matsuri was wearing a bikini top with a sleeveless shirt over it and skimpy bikini bottoms under a pair of hip huggers.
“It’s practically a swimsuit—though you look completely natural in that, I’ll admit.”
“A perfect fit, if you ask me,” the owner beamed. “Now for the final touch.” He picked out a pair of sunglasses and propped them up on Matsuri’s head. “There! Splendid! Quick, let’s take a photo!”
The owner brought out a camera, had the two girls stand in one corner of the shop, and started clicking away.
They paid with the emergency credit card, and shoving their space suits in the bottom of a shopping bag, emerged onto the busy streets.
“Hey!”
“Hoi?”
Yukari was staring at a sign for a beauty parlor across the street. Her head started itching. “Let’s go in there.”
“A beauty salon? What do they do there?”
“We can get our hair washed and even put on a little makeup.”
“Sounds like fun!”
The two dashed into the store.
“Can I get a wash and a cut, just even the sides up. Oh, and a little foundation.”
“Absolutely,” the beautician crisply replied.
Now that’s service, Yukari thought. There was a big difference between a beauty salon in the middle of Yokohama and the dingy shack that passed for a salon back on Maltide.
“What’s that?” Matsuri asked, looking around the shop while a hairdresser tried desperately to keep her bangs straight.
“Oh, that’s nail art,” her hairdresser told her. “You stick those on your nails. The simpler ones are stickers. For something fancier we have imitation jewels.”
“Ooh! Neat!”
Matsuri’s tribe had a tradition of painting themselves for festivals with body paint made of rendered pig fat mixed with natural pigmentation, like the local red soil. Apparently, nail art scratched Matsuri’s cultural itch in a very direct way.
“Makita, could you do her nails?” the stylist asked one of the girls standing off to the side. The store nail specialist walked over and showed Matsuri a catalog. She chose a crimson manicure with topaz rhinestones.
“You do it too, Yukari. It’s so pretty!”
Yukari frowned. She didn’t want to go overboard. “Maybe just a manicure.” Then she added, “But since we’re wearing sandals, we should do our toes too, don’t you think?”
When they were done being fussed over from head to toe—literally—Yukari felt like a new woman. They hit the street and took in the downtown air, a potent mélange of Italian food, perfume, and exhaust.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
“Time to go shopping!”
For their first stop, Yukari went into a CD store. “Let’s see, I wonder if ZIMA has a new song…hey! They’ve got a whole a new album out! Score! And didn’t Satsuki say she liked Hiroshi Itsuki? Might make a good present for her—you want something, Matsuri?”
“Sure. Anything fun?”
“Hmm. I’m guessing you’d like samba…over on that rack there.”
“Wow. There’s so many different kinds.” Matsuri grabbed two fistfuls of samba CDs, five in each hand.
Next was the bookstore. Yukari picked out five books from the world affairs section and a current slang and jargon dictionary—the kind that came with a CD-ROM.
“Maybe I should read Takashi Tachibana’s book about space. He’ll probably be dropping by for an interview one of these days. Oh, right, manga! Hey! Volume 7 of Aoi and Ryoichi is out! Gotta get that one—”
She glanced over at Matsuri to see her picking out some magazines from a large rack.
“World Fishing? You going fishing, Matsuri?”
“No, I like this fish!” she replied, pointing at the king salmon on the cover. “Very handsome.”
“Um, okay,” Yukari said. When it came to Matsuri, there was such a thing as too much information. She’d only wear herself out trying to follow her half sister’s thought processes.
For an early dinner, they went into an Italian restaurant. Yukari wolfed down a crispy pizza with a paper-thin crust and topped it off with a piece of tiramisu. It seemed like forever since she’d eaten proper food in a restaurant.
Matsuri had ordered a plate of spaghetti, drowned it in a sea of mayonnaise, ketchup, and tabasco sauce, then proceeded to cram it into her mouth. On the side she had a glass of tomato juice into which she had also poured tabasco sauce. When it came to food, Matsuri’s taste was simple: red is good.
When she was full, Yukari said, “Well now. Seeing as it’s seven o’clock, I think we should call an official end to our survival operations for the day.”
“You know,” Matsuri said between mouthfuls, “I could get used to this kind of survival.”
“You said it!”
Piling their shopping bags and space suits into a taxi, they set off toward the quiet residential district of Nogeyama. It had been ten months since Yukari had seen her home. It looked exactly the same. The front yard was simple, just a close-cropped lawn without a garden. The house itself was a three-story affair her mother had built with her own savings from her work as an architectural designer.
Her mother was the only resident now, but no lights were on. The front door was locked, and no one answered when Yukari pressed the doorbell intercom button.
“Maybe she’s on a business trip?”
There was a keypad by the door. Yukari entered her security number and the door opened. By her mother’s request, all the lighting and climate control in the house was connected to a single button in the vestibule. When Yukari pressed it, the house lit up and the air conditioning came on.
Pulling a bottle of ginger ale out of the refrigerator, Yukari threw herself down onto the sofa in the living room. “It’s true what they say,” she said, “there’s no place like home.”
She turned on the television. It was the news. They were showing an aerial shot of a very familiar-looking scene.
“…It was just time for second period classes to begin at Nellis Academy when a spacecraft suddenly landed in the school’s garden pond, causing quite a disturbance. Strangely enough, the school is none other than Yukari Morita’s alma mater…”
“Hey! We’re on!” Yukari shouted.
The news switched to the principal, standing with the school courtyard behind him. “Yes, well, uh, I was happy to let bygones be bygones and focus our efforts on making sure everyone was okay—”
“What a doofus. He’s sweating bullets.”
The reporter was asking him about Akane now.
“Yes, well, we’re still looking into reports that a student at our school assisted the astronauts, so I, er, have no comment about that at this time.”
Yukari lifted an eyebrow. “What? He should be crowing about it to the world! A lot of taxpayer money went into that experiment she saved.”
“Hoi… He’s using a lot of complicated words,” Matsuri said.
“I don’t think he has any idea what he’s saying, Matsuri.”
“Er, concerning the disfiguring of our garden, we are going to be processing a damage report and cost analysis and will be bringing that to the Solomon Space Association in hopes that proper restitution will be made—”
Yukari shook her head. “Can you believe this guy? I mean, I feel bad for the gardening club, but boy, if we had hit anywhere else…”
“True, true.”
“Those Taliho curses get more frightening all the time.”
Yukari wasn’t the only one who had started to lend more credence to the influence that the spirits of the Taliho tribe—the people living closest to the SSA base—had on their rockets and orbiters.
Yukari’s missions had been plagued with difficulties. She wasn’t the kind to believe in bad luck, but surely the number of sheer coincidences they’d had to face was reaching a probability of zero. They might be operating at the very cutting edge of science, but with all of the things going on, Yukari couldn’t help but feel like their space program had less to do with science and more to do with the supernatural.
“I thought they made cursing our program illegal anyway. Are those villagers still doing their ceremonies?” Yukari asked.
“You’re wrong,” Matsuri said, shaking her head. “This wasn’t a Taliho curse, Yukari. This was your curse.”
“Huh?”
“You cursed that school of yours—maybe not out loud, but somewhere, deep inside your heart. You resented how they treated you. Your negative feelings summoned an evil spirit.”
Yukari guffawed. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, Matsuri, but I’m not the curse-throwing type.”
Matsuri looked over at her and calmly asked, “You know someone else who would want to curse that school?”
[ACT 9]
AKANE FOUND HERSELF being called into the principal’s office. In all honesty, she hadn’t seen it coming. She knew that technically, she had been truant. But she firmly believed that it had been for a good cause. She wouldn’t have even been surprised if they had given her some kind of award.
But here she was enduring this, this inquisition.
“So,” the school counselor said for the tenth time, “Yukari Morita coerced you into getting onto that helicopter. Isn’t that right?”
“No, it isn’t,” Akane said once again. “She asked me if I would join them, and I went of my own free will.”
How many times did they have to go through this? What do these people want to know?
“You sure you weren’t coerced?”
“All Miss Morita said was that the experiment was really important. And when I met the researcher conducting the experiment, he confirmed that. They were investigating vestibular functions in goldfish as a way of determining optimal environments for people in space—”
“We’re not concerned with any of that. So basically, you were threatened with the failure of this very important experiment and found yourself unable to refuse. Right?”
Not concerned? What?!
Akane grew increasingly sure that something wasn’t right here.
“They were so grateful to me for saving those goldfish,” Akane said, desperation creeping into her voice. “Why aren’t you?”