The legend of Danny Engall, part 1

Terry always waits until the last second to put the thrusters on and it drives me nuts. I understand why he does it, because a lot of people do it, but I feel invisible in the cockpit here with him and I might as well be just another chunk of rock like we've got strapped to the back.

He's trying to find that sweet spot, the place somewhere between the dock and the station where our inertia runs out just enough to make it just barely energy-efficient to start using the thrusters. He can feel it. Heck, I can feel it, I've been doing this long enough. Where we slow down just enough. Then he eases the throttle forward light as a breath and the hopper picks up speed without any jerks. Very smooth. He's been doing this for ten years.

Terry is a very, very good pilot. There are a lot of very good pilots here. I'm a good pilot myself, but I'm never going to have that genius feel for the controls like they do. This place attracts people who like to be very, very good at things. Because there's a lot that can go wrong up here, and sometimes if you give yourself a millimeter too much on either side you're toast. Situations like that don't happen all the time, but they happen enough that mining has once again become the system's Most Dangerous Job.

Terry Spratt doesn't look at all like the kind of person you'd expect to be a hot-shot pilot. He's short and thick-lipped and curly-haired and has a boy's high voice, and cares more about getting home and watching the World Series of Poker than about bragging how that last run went. He doesn't look like a hero and he doesn't look like the kind of guy I'd have expected to change my life.

I came up here five years ago because I didn't know what the hell to do with my life. I had been working as a handler for a huge border collie breeding and showing operation, I lived and slept and practically breathed dogs, and then Mojo--the guy who started it all, the champion, the number one sire, and probably my best friend--died, and the owners expected me to carry on with the new generations and I just couldn't. It was the oddest thing but as I tried working with the pups and tried working by myself as a groomer for a few months, I came to this realization that I wasn't sure if liked dogs at all. I just liked Mojo. I had since I first met him at my cousin's wedding. He was why I ended up working with the McHones for fifteen years. And I had no clue where to go from there. All I knew was dog handling.

So I came up here. I signed up as a miner and got my suit and my tools and got to work on the asteroid and I hated it more than I could ever have thought it was possible to hate anything. I remember hearing the alarm in the morning and waking up in my dark bunk and wanting more than anything else in the world to pull the covers over my head and lie there while my roommates shook me and shouted at me and eventually gave up and went off to breakfast... the only reason I didn't was that I knew I'd signed a contract and I knew if the company had to pay to ship me back home I wouldn't dig myself out of that hole for years. And I went through that for literally the first year and a half here. Almost every morning. I would finally get up and jam my legs into the legs of the suit and tie the arms around my waist and get to the mess room just as they were putting breakfast away, and have some cold cereal and just make it onto the hopper I was sharing with two kids from Canada who were happy as hell to be here.

Through the entire day I'd have a running commentary in my head on the outrage and stupidity of everything I saw and did. "God, Caleb is an asshole. Is that the fifth time he's walked off without anchoring the hopper? If I fucking get killed because of him... Christ, do you think they could afford to spend more than five dollars on the joints on these suits? I can't even touch my toes, let alone pick up anything I drop. What the hell is Jason doing? Why is he using the #5 drill? If he breaks that thing and we have to go back..." all day long. It's funny but some days I think about half of it was about dying.

I was scared of dying, all the time. I would say there's death all around you up here, and there is, if you think of it that way... the vacuum and all... but somebody really only dies every few months, and with thousands of miners crawling over these rocks that's a pretty good rate of survival, all things considered. But I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and I was convinced it would be me next. Because of something Caleb or Jason did, or just some random asteroid collision, or a tear in my suit. I couldn't keep my mind off it. And I was angry and scared all the time.

That didn't really start to change until the day Caleb crashed the hopper into the side of GR8290 or something and broke his leg, and we had Terry flying us for a few days until some other guy took over. I was really out of it that first day Terry was with us. I remember being really mechanical, sealing my suit up and getting in the hopper and sitting there across from Terry not caring who he was, and looking out at the stars like all the sky was just black paper with holes poled in it. Nothing felt real. My system was fried with adrenaline by then, cortisol, just so exhausted all the time that I was only half there. I felt like a robot. I was totally resigned to the fact that I couldn't get out of the job and I was just going to keep going like this for another three and a half years until my contract was up. I remember talking with Terry and Jason as if I were there. But there was a buzzing in my ears and nothing was real.

I climbed out of the hopper door and felt my boots stick to the rock, and I shouldered one of the drills and went right off to a "corner" of the rock where I knew there was some platinum. And I worked at it all day, thinking about how I was going to be in the next crash, and that'd be it. And about how to worm out of that fate. I wanted really badly to transfer to another team but I knew I was at the bottom of the totem pole and anyway, what if I got stuck with someone worse? Some of these young kids were really crazy. I could deliberately injure myself and end up back in hospital with Caleb, but that'd only last for a little while. I ground miserably at the rock holding the platinum in place. It was very long and very quiet and eventually we got back in the hopper and went home and I stayed in my bunk the rest of the night.

It wasn't until the next day that I really talked to Terry. We landed on another asteroid and again I got out and went over to where I knew there was some platinum, and he came over and looked at what I was doing.

"How long you been up here?" he said.

I was irritated. "A year and a half," I said.

He nodded in his helmet, toeing the dust that was kicking up into nowhere. "And they still got you stuck with that kid?"

I wanted him to stand a little further off so he didn't endanger me, didn't get in the way of what I was doing. It's hard for me to split my attention. I didn't know what to say to him. "Well, yeah."

He watched me drill for another minute without saying anything, which really irritated me. I noticed his squinty eyes then and his slow-looking lips. "We had a guy up here a year ago... maybe before you came... named Danny Engall. He's with Dynacorps now. He had the same kind of feel for ore that you do."

I didn't know Terry from Adam then, and I'd certainly never heard of Danny Engall. "I don't think I have any kind of a feel for ore," I said, leaning hard into the drill.

I could tell when Terry shrugged in his suit. "I could believe that you think you don't. If you've only been here a year and a half and haven't worked with anyone other than Boy Wonder over there. But I've been up here almost a decade and believe me, you do."

So what was I supposed to say to that? "What good is that going to do me?"

Terry chuckled.

He eventually wandered back to the hopper and spent the rest of the day catching transmissions and playing with the settings. I thought he was being a lazy bum and maybe he was, but I didn't know then how much of a right to that he'd earned. We talked a little bit the next day too, about my supposed feel for ore, where it was and how to get at it, and then I didn't see him. Some guy with red hair and freckles took over as pilot until Caleb got back and I don't even remember his name.

But it was only a couple weeks more of dead misery until I got transferred to Terry's hopper, and then I was too busy to think about dying for a long time.

I know what you want, part 3

In the morning I get ready for our excursion into the jungle. My pad is pretty small, but it's all I need. I'm looking in the mirror now. I still look so young... no wrinkles to speak of... no grey hairs. But sometimes I feel like I've been here forever. I haven't always been a tour guide, but it was my first job, and I've been doing it on and off ever since. Sometimes I think about quitting it and going somewhere else, getting a job working with animals or something. But heck, people are animals.

I can't just wear shorts to go into the jungle. No... actually... I could just wear shorts to go into the jungle. I've done it before. But the mosquitos, man. I pick out a terrible Hawaiian shirt and grab my boots from the bottom of the closet. They're still dirty from the last time I went. I always forget to clean them.

This shirt is really something. It's got pictures of women surfing in grass skirts on it. It's usually good for a laugh. And I want him to laugh. I don't think I'm all that good at making people laugh, but it's so great if you can get them to.

It's really early still, like six o'clock. It used to be really easy for me to get up after a night of partying. Then as I got a little older it started to get really hard. And then as I kept doing it some kind of hangover expertise replaced the original energy and it got easy again. I know I'm going to be tired. It just doesn't bother me anymore.

I get on the bike and zip down the streets to his hotel. I do like it when it's this quiet. The air is very foggy, the birds are chirping, and it's neither too hot or too cold. He's outside the hotel already, all dressed... still in black... no guitar. He has his hands in his pockets. He climbs on the back of the bike without saying anything. We've already discussed the outing.

My surfing friends get to see me being a tour guide when I take clients to the beach, but I'm being a surfer there... once, Kit was with me when I picked up a client at the docks. The French teacher. Afterward he actually sounded angry with me. "You act that way with every dude, man?" he asked. I think he was upset I was so solicitous. Or maybe just so different from how I am when I'm surfing, using. He doesn't see the solicitation as using too, like I do.

Or maybe he was just alarmed at the physical contact. We're physical, we hug each other, but we don't, for instance, touch each other on the arm when we talk. Not like you'd want to do to put a potential client off his or her guard.

So I'm glad it's just me and Rafe, motoring through the fog, down to where the road turns to dirt, then up over the hills and into the scrubby land before the jungle. The sun is starting to show through the fog, but it hasn't got much definition yet. The jungle starts pretty abruptly in front of us: where I hide the bike in the bushes, it's not a forest at all, and then it is, a few feet on. I walk in first and it's dark.

"Ooh," says Rafe.

I am totally at home. "When you planned your vacation, did you think you'd be doing this?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says.

Well damn. "Did you think you'd be doing this?" I bolt from him then, down the path at a run, and of course he follows. It's just a few more seconds to the river, and the pool that's deep enough to belly-flop into, which I do. And damn if he isn't just standing there on the bank when I come up, looking at me. In his clean black clothes. So I just kneel there on the bottom of the pool. I have to get him vulnerable. I've got a monster craving for some genuine soul and while the shock of the water was a pretty good thrill, it's nothing compared to seeing another human being let down their guard for just a few seconds.

Rafe is looking at me.

I laugh out loud at my own floundering. Come on, Nate, I tell myself. You're a pro. Just watch him. He'll reveal something. They always do.

He takes his eyes off me to look at the plants we've stumbled into. Their leaves are huge, I could wear them, just one would cover my chest and crotch besides. There are orchids on the trees. There are ferns up to my elbow. It's like being in a coloring book about dinosaurs, except without the dinosaurs.

And he's just looking at it all... I want him to be here, be with me, connect... God knows I need it. Don't I need it? I can't go into space, I can't take those little metal tubes, and I'm stuck here. Doesn't that deserve some compensation? This is all there is for me. The least they can do is visit and make some kind of effort to bring me something when they visit... I want a little high, a little contact, a little soul... I want to put my arms around him... I can barely stand to admit it. I don't care what it means, and I'd never do it, after all... my job is to give the tourists what they want, not send them screaming back to the ship.

Rafe is just lost looking around. He's captivated by the silly plants. "Hey," I say. "What's the matter, never done a belly flop into a leech-infested river with a raving lunatic before?"

He turns to me and smiles.

"Uh," he says. "I'm not really sure how to do a belly flop."

This makes me laugh. "Neither am I," I say. I watch his face for a sign. He does want something. I just don't know what yet. It's hard to tell sometimes... people... it could be anything. You never know. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of desire and find out what they really want is to find a restroom.

A fish darts by me in the pool. I am so wet.

I am even wetter when he jumps in suddenly, in a terrible, skilless flop that almost dashes his brains out on a rock. But I can't stop laughing. I like being surprised. After almost a hundred years, you get to appreciate being surprised.

I'm curious now and I remember I can just ask him. I don't need to tease things out of people all the time... "How old are you?" I ask.

"Twenty-two," he says.

"No, how old in real years?"

"Twenty-two," he says.

Christ in a caboose. I am a dirty old man.

It's getting lighter, light enough that the reflections off the water are playing on the undersides of the leaves all around us. The water's just this side of cool and my boots are trying to float up to the surface in front of me. Well. I am so grateful. That he is here. That he is new. New to me and new to the universe. And here in a blue pool with me in the middle of the jungle, sharing his company with me, this alive bright spot on my consciousness, a real person, fresh and new and achingly young and sweet. That is the old man part. These are old man feelings. To feel grateful just to have a pretty young thing beside me, sinking down so that only his hazel eyes are above the water.

And the dirty part... well. I'm young too. And not so bad looking, after all, and not what they call swishy, but I still love the way his innocence pokes out everywhere, in the way he hesitates before trying to swim a few feet, the way he knows I'm interested in him but has no idea how. Because I want him... his everything... I want to feel it with more than my eyes and ears. I want to grab him right now and tickle him, or tear his shirt off and run a finger down to his navel, just to feel. I want my arms around him, I want to hear his voice... I want to slip my fingers in his dark hair and pull him close to me. And let him feel my breath on his cheek. And just taste the tip of his ear.

And see what he does.

And for a moment, thinking these things, I think I've already done them. But no, he's on the other side of the pool, singing to himself. The songwriter. Before him there was the botanist, the mechanic, the retired naval captain, the cook, the pothead, the French teacher, the twin sisters, the counselor... eighty years is a long time to be stuck on one planet. Most of it in San Francisco. The weather doesn't change, anymore. The land doesn't change. The only thing that changes is the people. I just wish he would stay for a while. I don't want to possess him. I'd just like someone to stay for a while.

"Do you make all the tourists jump in a river?" he asks.

"Yes," I say. "It makes the money fall out of their pockets."

"I didn't pay you for today!" he says, sitting upright in consternation.

"You can pay me after," I say, and "I'll make sure you catch your flight. I just wanted to loosen you up a bit. Spacefolk are so serious, you know."

"I know," he says. "I wish I could be more like you."

"No you don't," I blurt out, before realizing that I should have said something else. "I mean... what I mean is that I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

I don't know how the hell to phrase this. "I'm just a junkie, you know. I'm just a user. Practically everything I do is just manipulation to try to get a high." He is looking at me totally blank and I'm getting hot with frustration. "All right, it's impossible to explain. Just take my word for it, everything I do is just to get something I want."

He's silent for a moment. "What do you want?" he says with confusion.

"What do I want??" it explodes out of my lips before I have time to flip the emergency self-control switch. "I want somebody to stay more than a goddamn week! I want somebody who lets me get to know them. I mean really know them. I want somebody who actually cares who I am, who Nate is, besides the best tour guide in San Francisco, besides a doped-up surfer, I want somebody to at least just be a little bit curious for once and be more interested in me than in the orchids and to stay for more than a few days, and to just be here."

And he has the strangest expression on his face. He's staring at me with this intense fascination like the answer to the secret of life is written on my face, and I am feeling really exposed all of a sudden. I really want to get out of here.

"Okay," he says quietly, still staring at me. And I have no idea what he means.

I am rolling onto my stomach and paddling around the pool like a dog, just bobbing at the surface, so light. This pool is really not very deep but it is exceedingly charming. I feel fond even of the slime on some of the rocks. I don't know what I'm doing. Just splashing around. This is all very silly. I am thinking that I hope he likes me. I am thinking about what I might like to do tomorrow, and the rest of my life.