CHAPTER EIGHT

THE BEST PART of the visit to the Coalition companies was taking suborbital planes from Yosemite back to the Pentagon. Suborbital planes launched into the Earth’s outer atmosphere, and they could cross the United States in twenty minutes instead of the hours an airplane would require. They were faster, even, than the Interstice with its vactube. They were also as close as anyone got to space travel nowadays, since flying in a suborbital meant experiencing microgravity and seeing the curvature of the Earth. The only people who got to fly in them were the ridiculously wealthy.

And Intrasolar trainees, apparently.

Tom didn’t care about almost anything else that had happened that day as he, Vik, Wyatt, and Yuri strapped into a suborbital manned by a couple military officers, along with two dozen other trainees.

“You will remain in your seats for the entire flight, from liftoff to landing. Am I understood?” the officer said sternly.

Vik’s face fell. “But we only get a few minutes of zero-g. We don’t get to float?”

The officer glared. “No.”

“What if this is the only time we’ll ever be in space—” Tom began.

“You will remain seated, trainee.”

Tom felt his heart sink. Stay seated? He saw his disappointment mirrored on Vik’s face. An idea crawled into his brain. He whispered, “Too bad about your weak stomach, eh, Doctor?”

A wicked gleam stole into Vik’s eyes. “Oh, yes. My stomach is very weak, indeed.”

THE SUBORBITAL PLANE launched straight up into the sky, pinning them all back against their seats. Tom turned his head toward the window, feeling like his brain was sloshing around in his skull, the landscape shrinking beneath them, whirling in his vision in a sluggish way as they jolted higher and higher, the blue of the sky draining to black.

And then, abruptly, they came to a halt, utter silence enveloping them as the engines cut off. Every molecule of his being seemed to be weightless, and Tom realized he truly was weightless. He opened his mouth and gasped in shock and amazement, feeling his stomach flipping fantastically. He caught Vik’s eye and grinned.

Vik moaned loudly. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Oh no, not here, buddy,” Tom urged him, just as loudly.

“I . . . I feel . . . I feel so . . .”

“Oh God, is there a bathroom on this thing?” Tom cried.

“Help me. Someone help me!” Vik pleaded.

“I’ll help you, buddy!” Tom pledged, ripping off his seat belt.

Tom bobbed up into the air, and the officer shouted, “Sit down!”

“But my friend is sick! So sick!” Tom proclaimed.

Vik began making a gagging noise. He was also tugging off his belt.

“He’ll puke,” Tom insisted, pulling Vik along with him. “He’ll vomit all over the place!”

Wyatt panicked. “No! It’ll float everywhere! Why doesn’t this suborbital have barf bags?”

The words rang up and down the aisle as trainees repeated it. “Barf bags, barf bags . . .” Tom could see frantic scrabbling of hands, as people searched for something to contain what Vik was about to do.

“We can’t get puke all over us,” Jennifer Nguyen pleaded. “It’ll get in my hair!”

“Fine,” the officer shouted. “Bathroom in the back. Go!”

Tom hauled Vik from his seat, and for a moment, they forgot to act as they bobbed up and impacted the ceiling. He and Vik exchanged a crazy grin, then Tom remembered to screw his face into a frightened look.

“Don’t spew on me, Vik.”

“Hurry, Tom. Hurry, or I’ll spew on everyone!”

The “ews” rippled down the aisle, and vanished from their ears only when Tom and Vik floated into the aft cabin and shut the door. They didn’t go into the small bathroom beyond, though. They floated there, their faces looking a bit strange without gravity to pull on their skin at all, their hair floating in all directions.

“Doctor,” Vik informed him, “we are in outer space.”

“We are in outer space.” They couldn’t stop laughing.

VIK MADE LOUD vomiting noises over the next minute, making them louder every time someone knocked on the door.

“Oh, oh, that’s hideous,” Tom shouted loudly, flipping around again and again. “In the toilet tube, buddy! Not on me!”

“I missed, Tom! I missed the toilet!” Vik shouted back from where he was bouncing from wall to wall. “Oh no, I forgot to close the bathroom door, too! It’s everywhere!”

“It’s hideous! It’s like someone gutted a pig in here!” Tom shouted.

“Human bumper cars,” Vik whispered.

Tom kicked against the wall as Vik pushed off, and they smashed against each other as hard as possible. They both rebounded and sailed violently in separate directions. Vik hit a wall first, which gave him a huge advantage to propel himself at Tom. Just as Tom reached his wall, Vik checked him, hard, hockey style. Then Vik reeled back, flipping over and over again, hands raised above his head in fists. “Gooooaaaall!”

But he wasn’t victorious for long. Tom shoved at the wall as hard as he could and zoomed straight at him. Vik saw him coming, but he was stuck flipping backward in lazy circles. He began waving his arms and legs frantically, like he could swim through the air, trying to change his course. It was no use. Tom slammed him in passing.

“Touchdowwwwwn!” Tom proclaimed.

Then there was a knock on the door. Tom and Vik remembered themselves, and Vik made loud puking sounds.

“Oh God, it’s everywhere!” Tom shouted. “All the puke is making me puke now!” Then he made a puking sound.

But then the door began to open anyway, and Tom and Vik realized their jig was up.

Luckily, it was Wyatt and Yuri. She was fake vomiting, too. “I knew it. I knew you guys were faking. What are you going to do when there isn’t puke everywhere?”

“Tubes of soup,” Vik answered. “I’ve flown in suborbitals with my folks, and they’ve always got some rations stored in the aft cabin. I’ll squeeze them out before we land. You were playing along, earlier, huh?” He sounded impressed.

“You think I don’t know you guys by now?” Wyatt said. She gave a satisfied nod. “The entire cabin hears the vomiting noises. I told everyone you drank the tap water at Epicenter.”

Vik was not pleased. “But I’m from India. I’d have to be an idiot to be Indian and drink tap water in Epicenter’s region of India. Everyone in my country knows better.”

She smiled. “That’s why I said I have food poisoning and made sure no one thought I drank tap water the way you did. I didn’t want people to think I’m stupid.”

“Evil Wench,” Vik breathed, impressed.

Wyatt made a loud vomiting noise.

“Aah, it is dreadful!” Yuri bellowed happily.

Vik launched himself over to Wyatt and tore her from Yuri’s arms.

“What are you doing?” Wyatt whispered fiercely, squirming in his grip.

“You smeared my reputation. Now we’re playing human keep away,” Vik declared, then hurled her toward Tom.

Fright blazed over Wyatt’s face, since she wasn’t used to free floating in the microgravity yet, and she began pinwheeling her arms urgently. Tom caught her, and the impact sent them spinning back toward the far wall.