Muster in the Belt

I'm traveling at a hundred thousand kilometres per hour and barely moving, a whole new definition for going nowhere fast. Time drags in the Belt – counting today, the hologram above my dash has run its loop for ten years, the embodiment of timelessness.

A decade ago I left the woman and five-­year-­old boy in the hologram and headed to the Belt to muster asteroids, round up the valuable ones and sell them to various processing plants at the stations. The plan was simple: Come out here for a few years and make my fortune, then head back and raise my kid, Harry.

The Belt has a way of crushing dreams. The muster is so long, the asteroids scattered so thinly across an area of space as wide as the orbit of the Earth, that dreams of riches enough to settle back in Sydney erode to dust that blows away on the solar wind.

Every now and then I'll rope in a good asteroid, or the wandering of my thoughts in the long lone times leads me to a new plan, and new dreams blossom. I nurture these dreams, as the best shield against despair and the best fuel for sanity.

The Belt crushes those dreams too.

There's another couple of weeks before my ship reaches the asteroid I've marked for my next pick-up. To muster asteroids you need a vast reservoir of patience, and if you don't have it you learn it, and if you don't learn it you go insane.

***

There's hope at the beginning of each muster, hope that you'll do a good run and make a lot of dough. You need that hope to get back in the saddle, otherwise it's only desperation that puts you there, and desperation won't sustain you for a full muster.

I start every muster with the hope it will be my last, but the Belt is fickle and the bills keep coming in. At the end of every muster I know there'll be another.

A boy needs his father, but he needs food in his belly and a roof over his head more.

I tamp down my excitement at the readings I get on the 'roid. It's a good sized M-type, the most valuable. I've already pulled in quite a few M-types this muster, and this one is particularly rich in the sort of metals that get the big bucks.

Adding this to what I've already roped this time 'round, it's enough to finally stop droving. It's enough to boost Harry to uni, and retire with Cath - if she'll still have me.

Despite my efforts, excitement blooms in my chest, and ignites the intense yearning for home I've learnt to keep buried deep beneath my awareness.

This is the dream.

But my Base Ship and the 'roid chain it's towing are at least five weeks away, and even if I cut the orbit it's half a year to Vesta to sell my haul, and then around another half year to get back to Earth, depending on where we are in our relative orbits.

I'm going to be awake for a long while yet.

***

I ease my haul into position at the end of the 'roid chain and start the linking process. In the far distance I can see the Base Ship, or at least the glint of its gargantuan solar sail.

It looks steady on my screen, even though my saddle is rotating around the centre of my ship almost 24 times every minute. A lot of processing power goes into manipulating the feeds from all the external cameras so it looks like I'm sitting steady. The spinning simulates gravity, and the superconducting magnets at the core of the ship generate the magnetic field that protects me from the radiation that floods space.

A message pings, relayed from the Base Ship, which is in communication with Vesta, itself in communication with Earth.

It's from Harry.

My fingers twitch, but I don't play it yet. It's a hologram, which are expensive to send, so it must be important, and I don't want to be distracted in the linking process. The last thing I need at the end of a muster is some stupid mistake to ruin everything.

The linking process is shown in real time as a hologram, and I gotta keep an eye on it to catch any subtle problems. Physics and programming have come a long way, but computers see things differently to humans - some problems the comp' sees, and some problems humans see.

And some problems neither of us see.

It looks good to me, and the comp agrees, and in two shakes of a lamb's tail the new 'roid takes its position as the foot of the chain.

I set my course to catch up to the Base Ship, settle back and hit play.

"Hi Dad. I hope it's going well out there on the Belt. Things are going all right here. I have some great news. I did so well in my school certificate I got advance placement."

I hit pause. His voice isn't broken any more, it's deep and confident. His words confuse me, because I thought he'd be doing the school certificate next year. The kid is smart, and his tutors have been teaching him things so complicated I don't even know what field they're in. Did I miss a message telling me he'd skipped a year?

I hit play.

"So I'll be doing the Accelerated HSC, which is only a year, and everything is paid for! Then the year after that I'll start uni, I'm thinking the Space Agency. That's better than a scholarship, they actually pay you.

And o' course I get to go to space, all the different training bases out there. I might even run into you!"

I hit pause during his gentle chuckle after this statement. The Space Agency is a pretty solid career path, for whatever career path you want to take. But it doesn't leave much time for family. I imagine running into him in a bar on Ceres or Vesta, him on a few days leave and me getting back from a muster, sharing a few pints as we catch up for the first time since I left for the Belt.

The thought makes me want to vacc myself.

I hit play.

"I think I'll major in maths and machine learning, 'cause I reckon with that I can go into any field. What do you think?

"So that's the big news. Our Aussie Rules team came fifth, which is a pretty average effort really, but we got silver in Ultimate Robot Fighting for the Pacific Region, so we're going to the Australasian Games. Let's see how well we do against the Vietnamese and the Koreans, eh? Mum's doing all right, she says hi, and she'll send you a private 'gram next week, which I don't want to know about. Oh, and Gazza fell off the roof and broke his arm. He was trying to catch a kookaburra, the dopey bastard. Anyway, let me know how it's going out there, and I'll talk to you later."

The message ends, the hologram frozen on its last frame, a grinning fifteen year old kid that looks so much like me twenty years ago. A kid who is so smart and so well-tutored that he'll start university only a year from now, the same year it would take me to reach Earth.

I despair, of course, and absolutely curse the fact that my little remaining rum is on the Base Ship.

It's a dark place to have a dark time; there's no-one around to talk about crushed dreams, not until Vesta. When the void inside is as profound as the void outside the AI-powered mental health programme that's on every ship doesn't cut it. Certainly not after ten years, after memorising all its responses.

What's even the point of going home if I've missed everything I worked for? I missed being a father. I can't imagine Cath still considers me her husband after all this time. If I'm going to be alone, I may as well be alone out here doing something useful.

I lose track of time wallowing in despair and rage and self-pity. Hours, maybe days, but at least not multiple weeks. I scramble out of it before I reach the Base Ship.

Space isn't dark, it's actually full of light - there's just nothing to see. If there's no light, it means you're in the shadow of something, and that means there is something to see, you're just looking at it from the wrong angle.

That corny metaphor has gotten me through a few dark times, and I cling to it now. I pull up the info on where Earth is, where Vesta is, how long it'll take me to finish the muster and get home.

I thought I had 12 months, but of course I have longer. He hasn't even started his final year yet, and then there's a gap between finishing that and heading off to the Space Agency.

Two months, I reckon. I can get back two months before he heads off on his own journey through the void. It's not long. After ten years it's almost nothing.

But it is something. It's not long enough to be a father, but it is something.

***

I can only film video in the saddle, so I wait until I get to the Base Ship where I can record a hologram. It gives me time to plan what to say, and compose myself so I don't break down.

First I record a hologram for Cath. Tell her when I'll get back, the new state of our finances, and suggest some of the ways we might spend time together. Ten years is a long time to be away from a marriage, too.

Then I compose myself, and record the message for my nearly-adult son.

"G'day Harry! That's amazing news, about the advance placement. You're even smarter than I thought! And the Space Agency, that is absolutely amazing. If you get in there, you can do anything. I couldn't be more proud.

Actually, I could. Cath told me it was you who found Gazza and put his arm in a sling, called the ambos for him. Then watered his veggies while he was in hospital. I am more proud of you.

You're a great kid, and you'll be a great man.

Are you still using that centipede idea for the robot? That one you showed me with all the legs, that could handle any terrain. Pretty nifty.

I've got good news too. I've had a huge muster. Massive. I'm coming back, I'll get home around November, I reckon, about the time you finish your HSC.

We'll celebrate! Go camping, fishing maybe, up at the Myall Lakes, or The Entrance. I hear that new reef there is getting impressive, it'd be good to SCUBA dive and see it.

I thought I'd have a few more years with you, but you're too impressive!

Seriously, I am proud of you, and what you've achieved. I can't wait to see you again. I love you, son, I love you so much."

I cut it off before I start crying or begging. I don't want him to see that. He's got his life to live, and he certainly doesn't owe me any time.

Slowly drifting through space at a hundred thousand kays an hour, I keep thinking that two months is almost nothing. Almost.

I remind myself that almost nothing is something. Two months is something.

I remind myself of that over and over, as I creep homeward.

***

"Hi honey, I'm over the moon to hear you're coming home. But this is just a quick message, just to let you know of a change in plans. Harry?"

"Hi Dad. I've just been thinking, and I think xenobiology is the best field to go into. That's what everyone is trying to work out now. But you need to understand terran biology before you start on space biology, so I'm going to do that first. Study here at the local uni. It'll mean staying at home for a few more years.

I hope you're not too disappointed about the Space Agency. Anyway, love you, see you soon!"

"Love ya, hon."