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Oasis

Only four of us made it to the escape pod before the ship was lost in a silent, expanding ring of plasma and debris. As the pod thrusters engaged, sprinting us away from the blast front, I turned from the porthole and looked at my fellow survivors. That's what we were now. Not a crew. Merely survivors.

The panic didn't hit me until I realized that, as a fourth-class engineer, I was the most senior spacer on the pod. I was in charge. I was in charge of an assistant botanist, a cook, and a civilian girl, maybe twelve years old. Some crewman's daughter. The daughter of somebody dead.

"Stop looking at me," was my first order.

I knew we were going to survive. The florengines would keep us in oxygen, and the particle sniffers would steer us close enough to stars to recharge our batteries. The waste recyclers meant we'd have a constant supply of food and water, and there was even an exercise unit that folded down from the ceiling to keep our muscles spry and healthy. I might have mentioned some of this to the other three, but I thought it would be cruel. We would never be picked up. We would never be rescued. We were going to die on this pod, many, many years from now.

"If it gets too bad we can always open the airlock," the botanist said.
A reprimand almost came to my lips.

Instead, I nodded. "Good point."

The second day out, I got around to ordering an inventory, even though I knew very well what escape pods were supplied with: medical kit, fundamental maintenance tools, and orgasm stimulators, which, though kind of depressing, really made a lot of sense once you stopped to think about it.

I moved on to demand everybody empty their pockets. The botanist had a pack of gum. The cook had a lucky coin. The girl had a paperback book. I had pocket lint.

I looked at the botanist accusingly. "No marijuana? Don't you even think of holding back, mister."

But, no, just the gum.

I started off every morning and ended every evening by staring at the airlock. Opening it required a four-step process that, in total, would take fifteen seconds.

On our 60th day, I rationed out the gum, and the botanist and I entertained ourselves by chewing and blowing bubbles. The girl and the cook declined to participate, but I let their insubordination and lack of crew spirit slide. I was determined to be a kind tyrant. Instead, they read the girl's paperback. They took turns. She read a page, he read a page, like that.

You turn a lever that pops open the cover of the control pad. There's a big red button labeled OPEN AIRLOCK. You jab it. Then you jab the CONFIRM button. Then you push the handle thing, and it's all over.
On the 107th day, I got up to do it.

I didn't ask the others if they wanted me to. I was fourth-class engineer. I was in charge. And I was so, so bored.

I turned the lever. The red button was a big fat one, impossible to miss.
The cook and the girl didn't notice what I was doing. They were still into the book.

The botanist looked up. "Hey, it's about time," he said.

The girl's voice came from the front of the pod. "The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards."

I hit the OPEN AIRLOCK button. The CONFIRM button lit up. I stared at it. I'm not sure how long. For a while.

"Ged stayed in the Great House, working with the Masters at all the skills practiced by sorcerers, those who work magic but carry no staff." The cook had taken over the reading. "Windbringing, weatherworking, finding and binding."

I punched CONFIRM. Wrapped my fingers around the handle thing. I closed my eyes.

The girl again: "They tied up the boat Lookfar that had borne them to the coasts of death's kingdom and back, and went up through the narrow streets to the wizard's house."

I closed the control panel.

"You suck," said the botanist.

"No, I don't," I said back. "At least not today."

I laced my fingers behind my head and lay on the deck before the airlock, waiting for the cook to start the book again.

[Hear the podcast of this story on Escape Pod.]