Second Chance

by K. A. Kenny

“Planets on high... stars on their courses. Sing to the heavens... reach to the sky.” Kip sang mostly out of boredom. He hadn’t liked the song until the judge commuted his sentence. Five years collecting trash in space was better than twenty-five in Leavenworth. He rocked as he sang, and singing loud made him feel less alone, or at least better. It got lonely twenty-three thousand miles above Earth: one man on a one-man space station.

“And when I die, I know where you’ll take me. Back to the heavens, reach to the sky.” Kip scratched his stubble chin and scanned the wraparound star display. A sliver moon glowed in one corner like a painted toenail clipping. He called up vector lines for nearby objects. Nothing.

“To the heaven’s best place in the sky,” Kip sang then shouted. “Well, the best place in the sky sure as hell that ain’t this place.” He shook his head. Lesson learned. That’s what he told the warden. If he ever got a second chance, he’d do different, wouldn’t make the same mistake.

Technically, Kip was an astronaut. He often wondered what that might be worth once his sentence was served. Technical smart was never his problem. But real astronauts didn’t get stuck with these jobs. “Space junkie” they called him. Not much better than collecting bottles, cans, and dirty diapers tossed out along route 41 north of Chicago; that had been his juvie sentence when he was fifteen. Maybe he’d get something better when he got out. “Four more years,” he shouted again then stuck his tongue out wide-eyed.

All the “suits” talked about during Kip’s sentencing was rehab and skills training. No mention of the money they made for sending convicts to work in space. Hell, he was cheaper than one of their precious little thinking machines.

Even if his spaceship was a glorified trash compactor, it was a big responsibility. And there could be money in it; he got twelve percent of the salvage profit for everything he hauled in. His overseer told him that snagging a dead satellite would net him a cool bonus. So far, all he’d collected was busted parts and pieces: lost service panels, broken nozzles, a crescent wrench, machine screws, paint chips, a silicon sheet off a solar panel, which was this year’s big find.

Kip rechecked the monitors. Nano-fiber nets bellied out like sails on a square-rigged ship. The grappling talon was tucked in its pod.

“Oh, Commander,” sang the saccharine-sweet auto-service, “one of your favorite fans wants to speak with you.”

Ugh. Probably Jolene. He knew she’d call. He swore he’d never talk to the bitch again, but no one other than his overseer ever called, and the chirpy auto-service was wearing on him.

“Hey there, baby,” Kip said when Jolene’s face popped up: blue eye shadow over squinty eyes; overpainted ruby lips; chipped, tobacco-stained teeth. The crop of new lines told him she’d been jacking drugs again.

“Hello yourself, Kipper.” She smiled mischief. Kip knew what was coming. “How’d you like the sweet goodies I sent up in your last supply run?”

“Wasn’t sure how sweet they was. Those your squeals on the Eroti-pops?”

“Every lick’s a reminder of what you’re missing back home, sugar.”

“So, who’d you fuck to get the recordings?”

“Oh, sugar, I forget. Once you cleared out, they was linin’ up.” She flipped her hand and laughed. “Nah, jus’ kidding, nobody special. Dickey Ray come by last week and brung my stuff. Then he stuck round for his usual.”

Kip slow-tapped a knuckle on the console but kept a smile pulled tight across his teeth. It was Dickey Ray got him in here in the first place; him sniffing round, gettin’ into Jolene’s panties an’ all.

Most knew to keep away from Kip and what was his. But old Dickey Ray, he had to get him a slice. Kip remembered the morning he got off work early. Dickey Ray’s van was parked out front. Kip sneaked in quiet-like. Jolene was in the back, groaning and moaning to the squeaky cadence of the bedsprings. Kip had grabbed the ball bat from the closet corner.

On the station monitor, Jolene pooched her lips like she was blowing a trumpet. “Oooo, baby. What’d you expect I’d be crossing my legs from missing you? I got my needs, and Dickey Ray got his. Plus, he giving me discounts on my stuff. You know, sugar, he hurt bad from that beating you give him. But his most important part works just—”

Kip punched disconnect. “No thanks for the Eroti-pops.” He rubbed the tattoo on his right arm: a red cobra sliding out to a fanged face on his hand. Jolene had said it looked like a sock puppet.

“Damn!!” Kip slapped the console. “How’d I ever let that nasty bitch get to me?” He shook his head like a shiver.

“Oh, Commander,” the auto-service crooned, “something in our net requires... Oh, now it’s gone. Sorry to disturb you.”

Kip double-checked the status window. A trawl net reported uneven stress, but the problem seemed to have self-corrected. He magnified the critical area.

Although the sensors showed no discrepancies, there was clearly a meter-wide hole in the net, clean and round as if cut by a laser. Why hadn’t it registered? When Kip slacked the tethers, the hole slid left in the net, and the previous holed area appeared unbroken.

If there was nothing in the net, it was a curious nothing. An alien spacecraft? More likely a military satellite invisible to his sensors. “Oh my God. What have I screwed up... or picked up what I shouldn’t? How much trouble am I in?

Desperate to find a stray satellite, he checked the logs for other orbits. Nothing. Maybe it was lost, and he’d get a bounty for finding it, whatever it was. He couldn’t let this slip away. The grapple talon would be clumsy, probably damage the thing, so Kip collapsed the trawl net, recalled it to the trash-sorting bay, and ran down to have a look.

What he saw threw him back against the hatchway. A field of stars glowed through a meter-wide hole in the pressure hull. That cain’t be right. Air pressure in the bay remains normal. He examined the “nothing” from all angles. Wherever he stood, the hole into space was directly behind it. Maybe it’s some sort of window? When he leaned in for a closer look, it took him.

Kip found himself floating in silent, black nothingness. His parts were in the right places, but he wasn’t breathing and couldn’t find his pulse. If there was air, it wasn’t moving and had no discernible temperature.

“Hey!” he shouted but heard no sound. An electro-static wave rolled over his body, causing all his hair to stand. A floor formed under his feet, and violet light appeared, expanding to the full visible spectrum.

“Human,” said a low monotone.

Kip wasn’t sure if it was a statement, or if he was being addressed. The voice came from a stilt-mounted bell jar. A second bell jar stilt-walked to join the first. “It is a human.”

“What is it doing on our watch?” asked the first.

“Must have stumbled across a bubble.” The headlight glow in the jar shifted to Kip. “Did you find a bubble?”

“A bubble?” Kip asked.

“An imperfection in the human universe, a bit of leftover space-time that never blended. You are from Earth, right?”

“Yes,” Kip said. “I guess your bubble got caught in my net.”

The two bell jars consulted for a moment then, in an eye-blink, transformed to tall humans.

“If you’re angels, I reckon I must be dead,” Kip whispered.

“We have been called angels.” The voice was warm and melodic. “But here, you are neither alive nor dead. The blending of time and space that allowed you and your universe to exist never happened here. What you see, our forms and yours, this floor, up and down, are temporary constructs to enable this conversation.”

As Kip struggled for words, an angel answered his unasked question. “Of course, you must return to time and space. Order must be restored.”

Relief swept over Kip. Then he realized his dream of big money had faded. “Can I keep that bubble? I got salvage rights.”

“The anomaly has been corrected. Restoring it would create another disturbance. Do not worry, human. We will restore you to when and where you were before this happened.”

Kip considered another angle. “I’m mighty put out by all this space-time bubble mess. It’s you two what done it, so I figure it’s you two gotta fix it.”

The angels looked confused. “What do you require to bring you peace?”

“Would it disturb the great cosmic order if I was to go back to some other time... say a couple of years earlier? I could use a second chance. There’s something I need to set right.”

“Free will is built into the human universe,” one angel said. “What you do might alter your future, but it will not disturb the greater order.” Kip smiled and indicated the exact place and time.

* * *

Dickey Ray’s service van was parked out front. As before, Kip slipped in quiet-like. The squeaky springs and Jolene’s moaning sounded funny this time. Kip remembered his words to the warden, if he got a second chance, he’d do different. He slid the ball bat from the closet, hefted it, and tapped his hand.

This time he’d put his back into it.