Tekla had been sent up here to die, and she probably knew it.
At the end of each shift when she squirted through the flange to float free in the milky plastic bubble of the Luk, she would peel off the fluid cooling garment that she wore against her skin all day long. This was made of stretchy blue mesh with plastic tubing stitched between its layers. It had no effect until it was plugged into a pump that circulated cool water through the tubes. Tekla must have hated it after sixteen hours, and so it came off first. Then, peeling her underwear down to her knees, she would deflate and remove the foley catheter that had been draining her bladder while she’d been at work. She would wipe herself down with premoistened towelettes that had been provided in her “mail,” and stuff those into a refuse bag. It appeared that she had shaved her head, or simply given herself a buzz cut, prior to leaving Earth, so she didn’t have to mess with hair. Only then would Tekla open up her packet of emergency rations and begin to eat. This often led to defecation, which she had to handle in the crudest way possible, with a plastic bag and another series of premoistened towelettes. All of it went into her refuse bag, which she deposited in her Vestibyul for collection during her next shift. Then Tekla would turn off the white LED strip that provided the Luk’s only illumination, and sometimes spend a little while gazing at the screen of a tablet computer before sliding a blindfold over her eyes and falling asleep.
Izzy circled the Earth every ninety-two minutes, passing through a complete day/night cycle each time, and so half the time that Tekla was asleep Dinah could look right out her window and see her suspended there, all but naked, floating in the Luk like a fetus in its bubble of amniotic fluid.
Dinah watched Tekla go through this routine for about a week, and found it all inordinately distracting. She brought Ivy, and later Rhys, into the chop shop to behold the sleeping Tekla through the window. They talked of Tekla and emailed each other pictures of Tekla that they had dug up on the Internet.
“That could be you or me, honey,” Dinah said to Ivy.
“It is us,” Ivy said, “it’s just a matter of degree.”
“Do you think we’re going to end up like that?”
Ivy thought about it, shook her head. “Look, the way she’s living isn’t sustainable.”
“You think it’s a suicide mission?”
“I think it’s a gulag,” Ivy said, “a little gulag right outside your window.”
“You think she’s in some kind of trouble?”
“I think we’re all in some kind of trouble,” Ivy reminded her.
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“She’s lucky, remember?” Meaning that Tekla had at least found a way off the planet.
“She doesn’t look lucky,” Dinah said. “I’ve never seen anyone so isolated. Does she talk to someone on that tablet? Or is she just surfing?”
“I can ask Spencer, if you want,” Ivy said. “I’m sure he’s logging all the packets.”
Dinah knew that Ivy was only kidding, but she answered, “Nah. She deserves that much privacy at least.”
Rhys’s reaction was to become aroused. He was reasonably discreet about it. But the elapsed time between his seeing Tekla and having sex with Dinah was, generously estimating, perhaps half an hour. Not that Rhys really needed a lot of help to start his motor. And not that Dinah did either. She had always known they were going to do it.
She had known this based on the way he smelled, at least when he was not in the middle of being sick. In other times and places, the way he smelled would not have been enough. They’d have dated first, or something. There’d have been complications having to do with existing relationships, incompatible lifestyles, fraternization policies. But here it was just automatic. And it was tremendous.
Based on what she was hearing from Internet buzz from the ground, it was also pretty universal. The human race might be about to disappear, but not before putting on a two-year frenzy of recreational sex.