Chewing Rocks by Alan Black Page A

she activated all three beacons. She sat down to wait.
     
    Chapter 11.0
    Sno woke slowly. She blinked a few times and checked the time on her helmet’s heads up display. Eleven hours of suit time. Sleeping should have slowed down her breathing; even so she was definitely pushing the edge of her air. She glanced hesitantly at the air gauge. It was not pegged to the bottom of the gauge, but it was definitely in the red danger zone.
    She still had about half a tank of water . She had been sedentary and had not needed near the water she might have needed had she been chewing rocks. She took a quick mouthful of water and swished it around before swallowing. Her teeth and tongue felt fuzzy; her whole mouth felt as if she had been sucking on old gym socks after a long run.
    She tongued the command to have the suit convert the last of her w ater to air. The suit would feed the oxygen into her air systems and bleed any unneeded hydrogen into the suit’s power fuel bin. She took a quick pee into the plumbing. Without needing commands, the suit would break down the urine into component parts, sending the oxygen into the air tanks. She watched the air gauge. It quivered and moved up, but it did not push above the red danger zone.
    Sno wanted to go back to sleep. She knew she had been having a pleasant dream; she just could not remember what it had been. She just knew her dreams had been more pleasant than lying awake on the ship’s hull with nothing to keep her company except an unnamed asteroid. But, there is only so much sleep a person can do. There also was not much to look at except her asteroid.
    Her rock hung above her blocking out most of surrounding space. She did not think about giving the rock a name. It was not that type of rock. Her plan had been to take the rock and break it into small pieces sending all of it, down to the very dust, into the power converter for transmission to the warehouse coffers. Her plan had been to make it completely disappear over the course of the next month to six weeks. It was more in need of a number than a name; a monetary number, given that it’s only value was what it would earn her bank account when stripped down.
    As a little girl Sno had known another little girl who lived down the street from her and her dad. The little girl had been given a cute little chick for some holiday her parents were celebrating. Earthers were always celebrating some holiday or another. The little neighbor girl had named the chick Abigail. Sno could remember the chick’s name, but the little girl’s name had long since left her memory.
    Six months old and Abigail was no longer a cute little yellow chick, but a full grown white rooster with a nasty disposition. One Sunday Sno and her father had gone to dinner at the little girl ’s house. They had eaten a most wonderful fried chicken dinner. When Sno had asked the little girl where Abigail was, the girl’s father had pointed at the empty platter where the fried chicken had been.
    The little girl had cried out in shock and run from the room vomiting. Sno had just nodded thoughtfully. Abigail had been a better meal than he had made a pet. Sno had never wanted to name asteroids.
    Sno knew more sleep would elude her. Time was short and she really did not want to go in her sleep anyway. What she wanted was to rub the sleep boogers out of the corners of her eyes. She wanted to brush her teeth. She wanted to blow her nose. Most of all she wanted to scratch the itch on her back side. None of which could anyone do in an EVA suit.
    “Oh fraking hell!” Sno said with a start as a suited figure appeared above her . The figure was standing at her head and leaning over. It had the affect of making the helmet seem to just appear in front of her visor without warning. The helmet was mirrored and she could not see a face.
    She said, “You scared the ever lovin’ wahoo out of me.” She rolled over and stood up to face the figure. Since most mining EVA suits were the same