Unfinished Business

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The first time I met Tilbey, he made my blood boil. He apologized profusely while he dragged me back into the ship—he’d been working on the forward airlock and apparently got his wires crossed—but I hardly heard him. The roar of air whistling away through the open doors drowned him out.

I was a last-minute hire on the Earth-Mars cargo transport Intrepid, replacing a crewmember who had quit just before launch. I had considered myself lucky to get the job, at least until now. Now, with my vision going swirly and my skin tight as a balloon, I considered myself as good as dead. But Tilbey proved to be as resourceful as he was clumsy; he dumped me in one of the control room’s two acceleration couches (banging my head painfully against the armrest, but hey, what’s a minor injury when you’re dying?), then he jumped back into the airlock, shorted out a couple of wires dangling from the mid-lock control panel where he’d been working, and the outer door slammed shut—catching Tilbey’s tether rope in the jamb and pinning him in place.

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