The Testimony of Those Lost in the Sky

Three

Einam Aisling lay on the stair-type thing that was his bunk.

His whole room was barely twelve square feet, plus bunks, and for a guy used to the wide open space of summery oceans that was not ok. It didn't exactly help things that his bunkmate was the guy, Monmerano Street or something American like that, who had thrown someone down the gangway to get inside.

Nobody else had wanted him, so naturally Einam had gotten the lot.

He wasn't the type of person who'd stand up too much for himself in that sort of argument. He wasn't the type of person who'd stand up for himself much normally either.

To trouble other people would be troubling for Einam.

He pushed a sleeve across the 12-inch window and stared out at the dark and star sprinkled sky. It had been difficult to see the sky in Highland, with all the light and air pollution, but now he saw it the sky was nothing to be impressed about. The ocean had been better. He'd even heard once that humans never grow tired of watching fire. Perhaps he should even go over to the captain's room to watch the flame- filled sky with the group that had huddled there. Surprisingly few of them were crying, those two elementary schoolers not among them. Their current commanding officer had broken into a package of cashews and was offering them with some orange Kool-Aid type drink as hors d'oeuvres. That was when Einam had had to leave.

As much as he distrusted Monteauk or whatever (Einam decided to just call him Mont from now on) he liked the lieutenant even less. They had all fought to get into the pod and had all indirectly hurt people to get to where they were. That lieutenant, though, was just grinning and hamming it up like a birthday party. You couldn't trust the guy's ideas about the asteroid either. All that work and danger for a single week? I mean, people were impatient but it wasn't like they would explode with too much spaceship exposure, right? Comparatively the danger when dealing with the asteroid was much higher.

And the lieutenant's very name was ridiculous! I'd heard of names like RJ and ET, but LT? Lieutenant LT? An obvious pseudonym. That-

"Well say something about it then, damnit?"

Montgomery Graff stood in the narrow doorway of the room, arms crossed. "They all don't trust me, but you haven't done anything in their eyes. That creep Morris has the mayor on his side, but some of them agreed with me and couldn't voice it because I'm not a credible source or something like that. Kill one guy in the flesh and everyone thinks you're a murderer."

Einam sat up faster than a child disentangles herself from a cookie jar when she hears the kitchen door open; thus smashing his head into the ceiling and collapsing back down again. Did he just say that whole rant out loud?

"And it's Montgomery, by the way," Graff continued, "At least I remembered my roommates weird name, Ashley."

Einam didn't even bother to correct him. People had made this kind of mistake so many times it wasn't even worth bothering over.

He continued his mental rant, hopefully mentally- now he was stuck with this psychopath for the next three weeks, who could not even pronounce the word Aisling and now was fully equipped with mutinous blackmail. Einam had heard that back when Laos was still a world power it forced space mutineers to walk off the ship with no suit. He wondered if Americans worked this way too. Maybe it was better this way, with one less week to deal with Montgomery who butchered his name into Ashley. It was close enough, though.

"Well?" Montgomery asked.

"What? I'm sorry for-"

"I know your name isn't Ashley. Jesus Christ, no wonder you go on supposedly silent tirades during your alone time! Have you been this much of a freakin doormat your whole life, Aiden Aisling?"