The day my life changed

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I wish I had never learned the truth of it. It was one of the first axioms of my Manual: the airlock was not to open until we were on a planet surface. That was my job: to make sure the airlock remained closed. The Manual prescribed such times as the airlock may be cycled. They were called Testings. There was the monthly Airflow Testing, the annual Door Testing. There was even a centennial Full Cycle Testing, but I had never seen such a Test. The Maintainers said that we would have another of those in three years, so I had started to read up on that section of the Manual.

My shift began with the normal handoff from Drone 8GA-B “Hello, B. I’m here to take over the watch.”

“Alright, I’m off then. See ya, C!” The older lady who was the current 8GA-B chuckled to herself as she wandered off back towards the rest of the ship. I never asked her for her name, nor she for mine. Maybe someday one of us would be bored enough to do so, but until then it just didn’t seem important. Our designations were specific enough and this was a job. We didn’t share social circles. Plus, she was a little too fond of puns.

Giving a cursory glance to the board to see it was all green – like always - I settled in to indulge in my meditative hobbies.

This was my job. I was Drone 8GA-C. Of course, that wasn’t my name – that was Max - but to most people, my job was more important. It was my job to make sure that Eighth General Airlock remained closed and that any problems were reported to the Maintainers so that they could come and evaluate it for repairs. The Manual laid out the proper functions of my station: which lights were supposed to be which colors and which switches were NEVER to be flipped, except under the supervision of a Maintainer during a Testing. Technically, the wording of my Manual indicated it was supposed to be for a Drone Operator who had machines to do the work. But I had never seen any such machines, human Drones had replaced them. My grandfather said that his grandfather told him that it had had to be done in order to economize on resources. That had been when the classification of Drones had begun to be applied. It was a way for those who were not part of the Crew to continue to contribute and earn their place onboard the Universalia. Being a Drone was a fine job, enough to put away a few credits to help the family afford food and clothing repairs. There was a faulty lightbulb in our bunk, but lighting was difficult to repurpose, so replacements were expensive and had to earned through support of the ship. This was my life.

The calendars said that it was October 25 of year 497 of the Mission. But aside from counting the years, the various days and months seemed meaningless. Some of my friends called me lucky because my station allowed me to see outside the ship, but it was just black with some white dots. The Navigators told us that we were moving through space, but I couldn’t see it. It just looked the same every day out the viewport. It was a quiet duty, the Eighth General Airlock was by the Crew quarters, naturally along the outside of the hull, so there weren’t many people around.

The Crew were the leaders our community. They were the ones who actually ran the ship, who had something to do with their time and their lives. There were Maintainers, Systems, Medics, Navigators and Security. But I doubted I would ever see any of them except Maintainer Alan, the guy I reported any issues to.

Being an airlock drone wasn’t a particularly exciting job. I could understand how machines had once been tasked with doing it. But that was fine. I got the credits to help care for my family whether I was busy or not, and it beat being one of the Agricultural Drones that worked with the Systems Crew in the hydroponics gardens. They never got to sit down. Nobody minded if the drones at the Eighth General Airlock brought a stool while we watched the steady green glow of our board. It also gave me the time to indulge in my hobby: meditative story-telling. We had all been taught to read using various children’s books – it was necessary if we wanted to use any of the Manuals – but beyond that there was nothing for us to read. It was a waste of resources to maintain a library, so a Captain a hundred or more years back had ordered the old library sealed until we reached a planet. I had adapted by becoming good at telling stories to myself in my head. My group of friends all had our own stories and when we gathered, we would share how they had developed since the last time. It was a lot more fun than watching the same movies again and again or gossiping about other people, which was all my parents ever did.

Gazing but not really seeing the green glow, I settled in to think about the next chapter. The Saga of the Wind was the name of my story. It featured a mischievous cast of hooligans who figured out how to mess with the environmental controls to create gusts of wind in various places. Of course, in real life, Security would have been all over them and they’d probably have been Processed, but that was what stories were for. Their next target was going to be a hydroponics bay, where the wind …

My thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of a scuffle and shouting moving down the hall towards the Eighth General Airlock. After a moment, a tumble of limbs came around the corner. You could always tell who was Crew because they wore actual uniforms, with colors. Supposedly, my clothing used to be a uniform too, 497 years was a long time and recycled clothing eventually all just turned a combination of brown and gray, so that was what everybody who was not Crew wore. This tangle of limbs was made of three different colors. There was Maintainer yellow, Navigator blue and Security red. My blood ran a little cold at that. You never wanted Security Crew to notice you. Not that they ever really had to. They only got involved when something threatened the operation of the Crew. Very little the Passengers did ever rose to that level.

The Navigator was being dragged down the hallway by the Maintainer and the Security. Just as they’d rounded the corner, she’d managed to trip one of them and they’d all gone down in a huddle.

“Get off of me!” She shouted as she tried to climb back to her own feet. Security managed to hook one of her arms though and was holding her fast while he climbed to his own feet.

I didn’t recognize the Maintainer who simply rolled away from the tussle between the two and got to his feet. He glared back at the Navigator. “Stupid vacuumer, just hold still!”

She did not. She didn’t appear to be having much luck struggling with Security, but she still glared at the Maintainer. “Oh shove off, Kurt. You’re as reliable as a shaved screw! Why did-” She took an elbow to the side of her head and sagged a bit in Security’s arms, looking dazed. I just watched all of this, confused. I’d never even seen three members of Crew in the same room before, much less fighting.

Maintainer Kurt came over to me. “Drone,” he barked, “open the airlock.”

I straightened on my stool. “Maintainer, the airlock is not to open until we are on a planet.” The Manual was very clear. This must be some kind of inspection to make sure the Drones weren’t messing up. I wondered why it wasn’t Alan conducting the inspection.

My answer did not seem to please Maintainer Kurt. “I gave you an order, Drone! You aren’t Crew, you obey.”

“The airlock is not to open until we are on a planet. It says so in the Manual.”

“Shred the Manual!” I was shocked. The Manual was the Manual. You didn’t shred it.

The Security pulled the dazed Navigator forward. His voice was gravellier than Kurt’s. “Kurt, get the Drone to open the airlock. We need to get this process completed before word spreads.”

I think I might have missed a few words as my head suddenly felt like it was full of dust and my blood disappeared. Processed … that was what it was called when Security had to step in to do something to protect the Crew. The problem was Processed. I came to when a slap on my face toppled me off my stool. Maintainer Kurt stood over me, glaring down before he turned to my panel. “Dust-headed Drone, incapable, useless dead weight …” He trailed off and frowned. “Damn, this isn’t my station, I don’t have a clue how these controls work. We need an Engineer.”

Security frowned. “No, we can’t give her ideas any more exposure.”

This roused the woman. “Oh, sure, blood crusted cretin! Can’t let my ideas get out! Nobody could possibly know that the Instructions are wrong!”

Kurt rounded on her. “Stop saying that, vacuumer! There is nothing …”

“The Instructions are wrong! The Instructions are wrong! The Instructions are wrong! If you’d just let me speak to …”

This time it was Security who cut her off, and covered her mouth. “You will speak to nobody. The Instructions cannot be wrong.” He looked over at me. “Now, Drone. Open the airlock.”

I stood up, not entirely sure what was going on. But the Manual was clear. “The airlock is not to open until we are on a planet.”

Kurt slammed his hand into the wall with a shout of frustration. “You damn Drone! Just obey the damn order. Open this door. We need to cycle her out the airlock.”

Cycle – I recognized that word – “The airlock is not to be opened. But we can run a Cycle Test. The Manual has instructions for those.”

“Fine! Yes, that’s what we need. A Cycle test! Was that so hard, you fried circuit of a drone?! Read the room, not the shredded Manual.”

“Calm yourself, Kurt. It is a good thing that the Drones remember the Manual.” Security smiled at me, his face trying to convey warmth even as it registered the struggle of keeping the woman contained. “It is up to the Crew to find the right way of phrasing. Now, we just need to conduct a Cycle Test. Immediately.”

The Navigator managed to escape the grip on her head. “NO! Drone! Listen to me! There’s another planet, we could be there in only a few more years! They won’t-“ Her voice was cut off as Security’s hand made it’s appearance back over her mouth and he dragged her closer to the airlock’s inner door.

I didn’t understand what the Navigator was talking about. The Navigators – other Navigators - told us that the mission was expected to take 652 years. The Universalia was a colony ship, sent to bring humanity to another world. There had been no communications from Origin, the planet we had set out from. The Instructions didn’t specify a name for that planet, simply described it as the origin point, so everybody called it Origin and where we were going was just called Destination. Any further information was not part of the Instructions which most people could access. It was only Year 497, we were nowhere close to Destination.

Therefore, I ignored her and reached over to my console. There was a little cupboard by the side where the Manual was kept. It was fairly worn: there were several pages in the book which were torn, places where letters or diagrams had faded with use. That had not happened to the section with the Cycle Test instructions though, as they only happened once every hundred years.

“It’s lucky that the centennial Cycle Test is approaching. Otherwise, I might not have known about this process. But I have been reviewing it for the last week so that I could be prepared when the Test came up. Which I suppose this is, except it’s clearly not the regular Test, as that would just be with Maintainer Alan.” I rambled as I read through the first few steps. The Maintainer and Security Crew looked at me with impatience. But the Eighth General Airlock Manual specified that the work must be done patiently and slowly to ensure that there were no ‘catastrophic failures’ as it called them, although I was unclear on what that meant.

I needed to focus on this part, as it was still something I was learning. There first two steps were the same as the Door Testing. “Interior Door Seal,” I looked up at the board at the indicated spot – the light was green – “check. Exterior Door Seal – check.” The next part was different. I had to find the spot on the door for something called the Vent Seal. “Vent Seal … check.”

“Drone! The entire damn board is green! You’ve done a good job, now just open the airlock!”

I glanced over with irritation at Maintainer Kurt. “The airlock is not to open until we are on a planet. No Navigator has told me we’re on a planet. It doesn’t seem like you want her to say that.” I gestured with a hand at the restrained Navigator, whose eyes were very wide, staring at all of us. “The Manual is very clear that a Cycle Test needs to be done slowly. First, I check to make sure all the appropriate parts are ready. Then I prepare the emergency levers.” I did not know what the emergency levers did. They were two red bars that were normally under a plastic shield between my station and the door. But for a Cycle Test, they had to be uncovered and primed. I took the Manual with me to consult the diagram. First, the plastic shield was removed. My Manual did not have an explanation for what I was supposed to do with the plastic shield, but it wasn’t the full Instructions, just a basic user manual, so I figured they had judged that unimportant and set the shield on the ground. Then the lever had to be raised up until there was a slight resistance and then a thunk.

“Exterior Emergency Lever – check.” The thunk resounded deeply in the space around us, I couldn’t help but feel an ominous atmosphere settle over the area. Repeat. “Interior Emergency Lever – check.”

“No! They’re going to kill me!” A furious strength overcame the Navigator as she wrestled with Security. “We can get off this damn ship! Live on a plan-“ I didn’t see how Security had stopped her from talking this time, but it sounded painful. I was busy working my way through the Cycle Test.

“Equalizing airlock pressure – progressing.” There was a hissing sound that sounded like it was coming from the other side of the door. A new part of the board illuminated, I had to consult the Manual to tell me it was a progress bar on the pressurizing. It changed from yellow to green. “Check.”

“Opening Interior Door.” There was a whirring sound. “Check.” I moved to the next step. “Closing…”

“Wait!” This time it was Maintainer Kurt. I guess he was my supervisor, so I paused and looked up at him. “You can’t close the door yet, moron! She isn’t in there yet.”

I looked down at the Manual in confusion. It clearly stated that no persons were to enter the airlock during a Cycle Test. “But…” I started to voice my concern but was cut off by Maintainer Kurt.

“Oh for the love of the void! We’re sending this deviant out into space by the airlock! How dense can you be?!” Kurt gestured wildly and paced into the airlock. “How can we do that when she’s not in here yet?! Just wait and we’ll tell you when to close the slagged Interior Door!”

The next five seconds passed too quickly for me to be able to quickly process it. It seemed while I was blinking, that the whole world changed. First, there was a shout of alarm but it wasn’t the high pitch of a woman’s voice that shouted. Instead, it was Security who shouted. Then he went flying past me – only he was flying butt first with his feet in the air – to land on his back with a strangled cough. I was still staring at the space in shock when the door slammed shut in front of me. Still inside the ship were myself and the Navigator. In the airlock were Maintainer Kurt and Security.

I looked over in alarm at the emergency levers. Sure enough, the Interior Emergency Lever had been pulled down and the Navigator was even now reaching for the Exterior one.

“Wait!” I yelled. “If you pull that, it’ll open … the … Exterior … Door…” My voice trailed off as I realized that was exactly what she intended to do. Rudimentary as my education had been, I had still been taught that outside the ship was death.

Newly red light stained the area. Frantic pounding and unintelligible yelling started on the far side of the Interior Door as the Navigator looked me in the eyes. “It’s what they intended to do to me.”

I couldn’t watch her do it, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the two men inside the airlock. I heard the thunk of the emergency lever depress and watched as the Exterior Door shot open faster than it did during a Door Test. The two men in the room burst backwards and out into the void. Their mouths were open as if screaming and their bodies were writhing around as they faded into the distance and then disappeared as the ship moved forward. But what struck me most about those few seconds was that it was completely silent. That was how I really learned that in the vacuum of space, no one could hear you scream.