We’re staying in quarters now that are similar to the ones on station. We each have a sleeping alcove with a sort of sliding door and some tiny shelves. (In case of emergency, they also have life support, so it’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic.) There’s a table in the center, four chairs, a couple more shelves, and a tiny bathroom.

Claire takes long showers, but we’re managing to share space fairly well so far. They say it gets tougher later in the year, but we’ll see about that.

I understand that there was a fight, actually, when we got up here. There’s been no news on the border standoff (at least none for us, and I don’t think they’re likely to filter our news), but I guess no news was enough to spark a disagreement and get four people sent home. I dunno about you, but I learned a while back that people are not their governments. I guess not everyone picked up on that.

A side effect of yesterday’s narcolepsy was that I had trouble sleeping last night; kept waking up every hour. I heard that somebody in another group had a bad reaction to the nanite shift and got sent home. But even my insomnia was not a picnic.

Of course, they took us back to low orbit today. We were running more group trials. My group was doing ‘dry’ runs of the first few stages of the enviro process. Here’s how it works: They take asteroids and grind them up. We liberate hydrogen and O2 from it, then burn it to make water. We first use bacteria to start breaking down the rest of the material, then introduce a series of algae species that convert it further. We have to churn it up and maintain the balance, but at the end of it we get a combination of soil and nutrient-rich water to use for the hydroponics and the soil plants (‘dirtoponics’).

Everyone was worn out, from the nanites and from the week. At first I thought it was stupid to throw us into it like that, but that’s how it’ll be – we will be tired, and we’ll still have to perform.

We got back and they told us to do whatever we’d like with our roomies, so that we’d all get along better. We all decided to go to sleep.

I signed up for it. But it’s scary.

I bring this up because our nanites are beginning to influence our sleep cycles. We sleep a bit less topside, but sleep deeper. They’ve been testing the controls today, and so we’ve all been narcoleptic.

It’s weird to give an employer that kind of control. At least, it is for me. Yadira’s grandparents on one side and parent on the other were immigrants, so she expects employers to be more like that. She doesn’t like it either, though.

Claire tells me that the EU used to have laws against employers doing that sort of thing, but that several of the consortium’s member companies got them scrapped. Doesn’t surprise me.

Raghu didn’t want to talk about it. I think he doesn’t want to speak ill of his employer. I dunno. I guess I expect them to ignore me as long as I do my job and don’t spill corporate secrets. Life and work are separate, and I expect my employer to agree.

If all goes according to plan, though, we should have soil in four weeks, starting with nothing but asteroid slurry. It’s pretty cool, that life is that good at expanding, even if it is life that we tweaked a bit.

We also got to do some work in low orbit, which is fun. I worked with the enviro team a bit and my roomies a bit, doing some drills and zero-g construction tasks.

Yadira got a bit queasy. Luckily for her, the comm jobs can be done from the spun (that means artificial gravity, folks) sections of the statioon, so she should be fine most of the time.

I must point out that, despite Yadira’s queasiness, she did manage to run me into an I-beam that we were using in a construction exercise. Well played, Yadira. Well played.

I didn’t hear about the situation in Asia until after psych. They put us in a sealed series of rooms with limited oxygen and we had to figure out a way out of each of them in turn. We also had a few cylinders of oxygen, and a promise that they’d pull us out if our air got too low.

That’s how a lot of our training is. The consortium doesn’t threaten to kill us, it just gives death a seat next to us and makes sure we introduce ourselves.

Then at lunch we found out about China’s latest round of bullshit. Raghu doesn’t live near the border, but every country in the area is nervous about it. We all know that they’re only sometimes bluffing. India might have more people and more friends, but China’s not afraid of starting shit.

Of course, the consortium operates on both sides, so it’s not going to say anything. Hell, there are a bunch of people from China training here. As far as the consortium’s concerned it’s business as usual.

I can’t tell if we’re stupid for picking these fights, or if the consortium is stupid for pretending it’s all fine. Maybe both.

For bio they hit us with various chemicals and moderate radiation and tested how our nanites handled it. Given what had happened earlier in the day, it seemed appropriate.

We did it as a team, though, which was cool. Knowing someone’s secrets doesn’t get you that much closer to them, but helping them traverse a window on the fourteenth floor sure does.

We also had a bit of training today. That’s by profession, not group, so I was with the rest of the enviro folks.

We’ll be living off of the other stations for twelve weeks. After that we’re meant to be self-sufficient. It’ll be a challenge – the other stations have all taken fourteen weeks or more – but we’ve got better tech and lots of resources. Our head of enviro, Sigmar Ernst, is a bit of a hardass but he knows his stuff, and he’s gonna be up there working as hard as us.

For psych today they blindfolded each of us in turn and had another from our group guide us out of a maze that kept changing. Raghuraman and Yadira were good, and Claire and I did our best to keep up. I accidentally ran Yadira into a wall at one point, and she’s been giving me grief about it all day.

I’m sure she’ll get the chance to run me into something tomorrow.

Turns out that the first part of the bio regimen is the easy part. Today we had a shitton of cardio, some of it on low oxygen. By lunchtime I was ready to call it for the day.

Then there was psych. Today I was answering a bunch of invasive questions about everything. My friends, my relationships, my thought processes, my sexuality, and a whole bunch of other things that you’d probably rather not know. They had us answer them in front of the group we’ll be living with, too. Hell of an icebreaker. But, again, there’s not much space up there (at least for us..there’s rather a lot of it in general). We’ll be living in very tight quarters, so they give us a crash course in bonding. And they learn exactly how we’ll go crazy, should we decide to do so.

My roommates topside, assuming we all stick around, will be:

-Raghuraman Ansari, a flight traffic controller from Bangalore,

-Claire Shaughnessy, a refinery tech from Ireland, and

-Yadira Arambula, from down south, who works on communications.

I know a lot of intimate details about them, but I don’t entirely know them yet. But they seem like good people.

They’ve got another teambuilding activity this evening, so I’m out. More later.

I’ve had thousands (okay, three or four) people ask me what Consortium training is like.

“You’re getting ready to go to space! That must be so exciting.”

Well, sometimes yes, and sometimes oh god the boredom.

So I figure I’ll liveblog the whole thing. I’m a bit late, I guess, cause this is day two of the big formal training. But I’ll fill you in.

Day one had a few parts. Dalla Wilson, who’s the head of the near-earth project (and thus employed by twenty companies…bet that’s fun) gave a speech. I’m sure you’ll see it before long. Lots about being pioneers, the century since Yuri Gagarin, the prosperity of humanity, bla.

I suppose it’s true. Fuck, if you know me you know I love space and I’ve always wanted to go. But the two and a half mil a year they’re offering makes you wonder: Who’s in it for love, and who for money? And isn’t it a bit of both for all of us?

So after that was the first part of the biological regimen, or just bio. It was mostly a bunch of scans and nano injections. Our nanites are gonna be running a different spec, since there’s a lot of radiation and some odd chemicals up there.

Then I had my first round of psych prep (not counting our earlier psych evals). There are a bunch of segments that we have to do, and we do them in random order, so we have no idea what’s coming.

Mine, I shit you not, was getting in the training tank in full fake space suit, blacking out my face mask, and waiting an indefinite amount of time until they pulled me out. All without flipping my shit.

I was there for eight hours. That’s the glamor of space.

I get why they do it, though. A year ago in L5 they had a worker snap her tether and it took five hours for them to reach her. She’d freaked, and they had to drag her into the rescue ship kicking and screaming and send her home.

At this point, I can safely say that that won’t be me. They’ll drag me aboard and I’ll be like, “Thank god. I was bored out of my mind.”

Well, I’m off to breakfast. More later.

Tara: Are you a god?

Loki: Yes.

Tara: And you’re not just saying that?

Loki: I am Loki the trickster, the father of lies, and so on.

Tara: (Takes a drink) Great. So you can tell me why you’re all so damn self-righteous. And no lies.

Loki: People keep telling us we’re awesome. It goes to our heads.

Tara: Well, someone should tell you you’re shits every once in a while.

Loki: That’s why I’m here.

Tara: Really? (Loki smiles) Funny.

Loki: Nah, I’m here for the mead.

Tara: Why don’t you just snap your fingers and turn water into mead?

Loki: Doesn’t taste as good. (pause) Does that mean you’ve been hanging around with Jesus?

Tara: I don’t want to talk about Jesus.

Loki: Alright. (pause)

Tara: And you know, I really don’t think I’m asking for too much.

Loki: What are you asking for?

Tara: Just an honest relationship with a god.

Loki: Well it’s not impossible.

Tara: Has been so far.

Loki: Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place. I was with a giantess for a while and it didn’t work out. I mean I liked her, but she’d been raised to believe that gods were lesser beings. Some gods think the same about mortals.

Tara: Not all of them.

Loki: I know. I’m just saying.

Tara: Plus that’s why I quit dating mortals. I figured that if all guys were gonna act superior, I might as well date the ones who actually were.

Loki: But even actual superiority has its downsides. I’m superior, so I know.

Tara: Right.

Loki: Well who have you dated? It might be someone I know.

Tara: I doubt it.

Loki: Try me.

Tara: Well my mom is Greek.

Loki: Aw fuck.

Tara: Yeah. So she had to hook me up with every god she knew. Did you know that Zeus is still married?

Loki: No.

Tara: Neither did I, until the second date. At least he acted like an adult.

Loki: Yeah, ’cause turning into animals is real mature.

Tara: Well compared to Ares it is.

Loki: Ah.

Tara: Mom was all like, “They’re part of your heritage.”

Loki: Sometimes crazy is part of your heritage.

Tara: Yeah.

Loki: Like, I know a god from Nazareth-

Tara: I said I don’t want to talk about Jesus.

Loki: Sorry. (pause)

Tara: You’re right, though. Crazy is part of my heritage. That’s why my dad left.

Loki: ‘Cause he was crazy?

Tara: I was gonna say ’cause my mom was crazy. But thanks.

Loki: No problem. No, I know where you’re coming from. My dad poked his eye out in exchange for wisdom.

Tara: That’s fucked up.

Loki: Yeah. And he says that we’re gonna fight in a big battle at the end of the world. He even knows what order he wants us to die in.

Tara: Wow.

Loki: Yeah.

Tara: Are you gonna do it?

Loki: I dunno.

Tara: Well you’ve probably got millions of years to think about it.

Loki: Well. I don’t have to decide right now, at least.

Tara: That’s rough. But you know, I think that’s part of the problem, that you’re all gonna be there for the final battle or the end of the world or whatever. And we’re supposed to live our little lives and die before the game’s over and be okay with it.

Loki: It means you have freedom, though. You get to choose your little life. Our big lives are preordained.

Tara: No they’re not.

Loki: Everyone expects things of us.

Tara: That’s not fate.

Loki: It’s usually close enough. (pause)

Tara: So are you hanging out here just to mope about the end of the world?

Loki: I told you, I’m here for the mead.

Tara: I don’t believe you.

Loki: Well have you tried their mead?

Tara: It’s good, but it’s not that good. Besides, you just said that Odin was your dad, and he’s totally not.

Loki: Oh fuck you.

Tara: He’s not.

Loki: Who are you, my mother? How would you know?

Tara: I know a thing or two about gods.

Loki: Right, cause you banged the whole Greek pantheon.

Tara: Okay, first off, are you the god of lies or the god of being a dick?

Loki: Yes.

Tara: Second, I dated two Greek gods.

Loki: And one goddess, am I right?

Tara: That was an experiment.

Loki: Not for Artemis it wasn’t.

Tara: Third, you’re not Odin’s son, no matter how much you bitch about it.

Loki: Technically that’s true. For a thousand years we were the same god. The leader of the gods, wise and tricksy, the whole bit. Then some fuckwits in Scandinavia decided that their leader should have a stick up his ass and their trickster should get shat on by a big snake. That’s why I bitch about it.

Tara: ‘Cause you wanted to have the stick up your ass?

Loki: No. Thanks.

Tara: No problem.

Loki: But really, I’d prefer not to have the stick or the snake.

Tara: Don’t blame you.

Loki: But at least I can misbehave. I’m better off than Jesus. (pause) Billion people who all believe he has to be perfect. You know how hard that’s gotta be.

Tara: I can guess. But he couldn’t tell me, because that’d be imperfect.

Loki: Yeah. At least I can bitch about it when my dad-self tries to kill me.

Tara: I just – I want to help him. He’s got all this stuff he says he has to do, has to be perfect and forgive everyone, and then his people go around wearing little pictures of his dead body or blaming him for the stupid shit that they do. And he never gets anything for himself.

Loki: You can’t force him to get anything for himself, though. He has to want to change.

Tara: How can he not?

Loki: Maybe that’s what he wants to be.

Tara: But it’s not fair. Shouldn’t he get saved sometimes too?

Loki: If he wants. But he doesn’t. You can’t save everyone. Sometimes you have to just save yourself.

Tara: That’s hard.

Loki: Tell me about it. (pause)

Tara: Is there a chance for me?

Loki: Things will work out for you. I can tell.

Tara: Really? (Loki smiles) Funny.

Loki: You’ve got a shot. It’s more than I can say for most people.

Tara: Good to know. (pause) What about you?

Loki: What about me?

Tara: Is there a chance for you?

Loki: I don’t think so. You’re mortal, so you can do whatever, but I’ve got thousands of years of fate pushing me forward. There’s no way around that.

Tara: Liar.

Loki: Seriously.

Tara: No. You’re a trickster. And if you were Odin once, you’re as clever as he is. I think you’ve got something up your sleeve.

Loki: Ragnarok has been preordained since time immemorial. It’s unavoidable.

Tara: Really? (Loki smiles) That’s what I thought.

Loki: Just between us.

Tara: Of course. Thanks for the mead.

Loki: No problem. Thanks for letting me tell the truth for once.

Tara: No problem.

The trip passes. In London you are ushered into Princess Elizabeth’s presence. You kneel and hand Excalibur to her. “Your father and brother are dead,” you say. “I’m sorry.”

One of her advisers begins to speak and she interrupts. “Tell me how it happened.”

You tell her everything. She listens to the story, then asks, “Why didn’t you save my brother?”

“I watched him hit Cuitlahuac in the chest with his hammer,” you say. “I’ve had enough of killing.”

The adviser looks affronted, but the Princess nods. “You are released from your service to the crown.”

You nod. “Thank you.”

You walk through the city to the docks and walk into Anna’s family’s tavern. She sees you and drops a tray of beer mugs to run to you and fall into your arms. You smile through your tears. You’re home.