Free Ion 417: Raiju by James Darcey

the tiny colored pieces for a while, before dumping them all back into the box. When he decided to wake up again I hoped that he knew how to play; In the meantime I returned to my stateroom to stare at the images I had mounted on the wall. They portrayed scenes that I longed to see in person. Freedom would give me that chance. It led me to wondering what Terra must look like.
    I slept nearly an hour longer than normal according to the ship's chrono. The first thing I did upon waking, was to start my daily routine. That thought got sidetracked when I noticed the water in the shower feeling very odd. Traxel was apparently still in his room, so I headed down to engineering to investigate the problem without asking for his aid. After all, I had played around with recycler controls before. Just how difficult would it be to fix the problem? I would just re-balance the chemical levels and I'd have my water again. Any chemistry student should have no problems with that.
    I spent quite a lot of time deciding which machines belonged to which system. Though I had messed around with the controls for a recycler before, I'd never even seen a drawing of one. Stellar drive and high drive were reasonably obvious, as was power generation. What I guessed to be life support seemed to be tied into just about everything. That left the recycling system to be this other machine.
    I grabbed the tool carrier from the repair locker and proceeded to pull off the panels. There wasn't much room for crawling into the access, but after I had wiggled a bit I found myself looking at sections that were labeled for thrust vectoring, and field density regulator. That didn't sound right. I reinstalled those panels and took a second evaluation of machines. If that was something for the engines, then that meant.... This panel had to be recycler.
    I pulled the panels off that machine and was rewarded with things labeled for flow direction and contaminate levels. This looked more like recycler systems. I wiggled myself inside and proceeded to test the operation of controls. I'd only been working for a few minutes when there was a shrill screech and Traxel was dragging me out of the hole by my foot.
    "I thought you had enough of trying to commit suicide for everyone onboard!"
    "What are you talking about? I'm trying to fix the water recycler. How is that committing suicide?"
    He pointed a shaking finger into the hole he had dragged me out of.
    "That!... That's the zeta field's interstage cooling system! If you shut that down then the z field overheats in a few minutes and collapses. We're in high drive, and that means when it folds in on itself it'll take us with it, folding everything into nothing!"
    He paused for a moment to calm a bit. His voice sounded a little steadier when he spoke again.
    "At least that's the theory since nobody has come back from something like that to say what really happens."
    He pointed to a machine two panels away.
    "That's the recycler, and it's working perfectly! See the indicators? All within specs."
    I tried explaining to him that the water felt wrong. Only the more I talked the crazier I thought I sounded. There was no way that I could convince him it was all messed up if even I thought I sounded like a fool. After the third try I think I sounded a little more sane with telling him the water was bland.
    "Water is hydrogen and oxygen, period! Sometimes the recycler is a bit off and lets a few parts per trillion through, but nothing you should feel or taste. The readings all say that it's working perfectly. Do you think that the mighty Teyrn Elon, Head of Flux Genetics special projects division, would settle for bad water?"
    I replaced the panels I'd removed and put the tool carrier back in the repair locker. He stood behind me to make sure I was done tinkering with vital machinery.
    "It's a good thing the ship alarmed to tell me about your tampering or we'd both be dead by now! On a starship for one day, and already you think you're an