Basketball Dream

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Milo was having the basketball dream. Gravity was back, making his body grounded and whole.

The opposing point guard brought the ball past the mid-court line into play. The inflated leather thumped against the pine floor to the squeaking of rubber shoes and swishing of nylon shorts. Bodies jostled and shifted as defensive zones flexed and reformed. Milo was focused. He tracked the point guard's every move, reading the lean of his body and the quick looks, not being fooled when he passed the ball away. Now empty-handed, the opposing player juked and cut inside. Stutter-step and dart. Look right and reach for the incoming ball. An easy score. Except Milo's hand reached the ball first, slapping it away.

Milo launched himself after it. The twirling basketball floated up into his hand. Recoil, redirection, and push. Spin away from a defender. Fast break. Run like hell. Sound of feet in pursuit. The rumble of a chant, Hey-oh Milo! Hey-oh Milo!

Milo felt tension and release in every stride. He planted for the final leap that would take him to the rim. Only instead of getting nearer, the rim receded from him, growing smaller with distance. The feeling of weightlessness could only mean one thing: he was falling!

Milo jerked up in bed. The grav-band over his chest caught him before he smacked his head on the low roof of the sleeping cubby. He clutched at his left leg but grasped only covers. He felt a slight tingle fading with the dream. After a few moments it was gone. Goodbye leg.

He checked the time on his phlex. 6:13. Shit. He didn't need to be up for another thirty minutes. Behind the time display floated a d-pic of his Kentucky Wildcats team with him sitting front and center. Over three years ago now. The team had gone on to win the division title that year without him.

It was no use trying to go back to sleep. He slapped the phlex onto his wrist, unhooked the grav-bands, and eased himself out of bed. He had to maneuver around Bobby who was levitating out of his cubby like a magician's trick, secured by a single strap around his waist. His bare forearm was skeletally thin with a knobby wrist and long, crabby fingers. It was a creepy sight to wake up to, but Milo was used to it by now. Bobby couldn't help the way he was. None of them could.

He left his prosthetic leg in its holder on the wall. What was the point? He pulled on his jumpsuit and floated out of the men's triad toward the lab. The corridor lights lit up as he went, giving the impression he was falling down a bottomless chute. The walls were drab and gray, the safety padding streaked and stained from countless hands. The ship felt deserted.

A light was on in the lab. Tayen, the ship engineer, was already inside, fussing over a shelf of transparent cubes. Inside them, copper-colored corkscrews and squiggles sprouted from an amber, Jello-like mold. Instrumental music was playing low. Something with lots of drums and brass. A Sousa march?

"Good morning, Legolas," Tayen said. When Milo didn't respond, she scrunched one eyebrow at him. "Leg-o-less, get it?"

Milo had been coaching her in the fine art of trash talk, but the jibe caught him off guard.

One side of Tayen's face blushed. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"It's okay, dollface," was the best comeback he could muster. "I woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"There's only one side."

"So that's why it keeps happening. Damn. I forgot my coffee too."

"I have a spare pouch. Hope you like hazelnut." She tossed it over. Her gaze remained fixed on him as he pulled off the heat strip and pressed it between his hands.

Here it comes, Milo thought.

"You going to say something to Bobby today?" she started in. "He keeps dumping his work on Jess. He's taking advantage of her."

"Yeah-yeah, I'll talk to him," Milo said. "Thanks for the coffee. I'm going to check on the auto-labs." He pushed off toward the octang, passing the crew garden with its rings of green plants. Small, red fruit stood out on some of them. According to the space psychologists, greenery was supposed to have a soothing effect on the psyche. He gave it a wide berth so as not to disturb its fragile foliage. He was in no mood to vac up loose plant bits.

The octang lived up to its name twice over. It was one of eight rooms, with four running along each side of the ship, each with eight, evenly spaced sides. This one was a storeroom for the lab, containing extra supplies and self-contained experiments, or auto-labs.

Milo didn't need to turn on the runner lights. The overhead pane was transparent, and the half-moon hovering at the far end, despite being smaller than when seen from Earth, was bright enough to smart the eyes. They weren't close enough yet to spot the moonbases: Shanghai II, Nirva, and their destination, New Camelot. Already four days out from Paranor Station, the ASF Moonlighter was taking the "slow road" to the moon, a looping spiral that would bring it into a gentle orbit within another three days. In space, time wasn't money, fuel was. Conserving it was paramount.

The walls of the octang were lined with inset boxes with touch-locks and LEDs that glowed blue, green, amber, and occasionally red. He pulled out a red slot and was hit with the powerful reek of funky socks. Recalling his chemistry lessons, he supposed it was some byproduct of anaerobic bacteria, but his ancient hindbrain didn't know the difference. The familiar smell transported him back to a college locker room. What an odd thing to feel nostalgic for! Yet so many good locker room memories: the wet towel fights and cutting up with his teammates; the wind up before a big game; the half-time breath-catchers and strategy jams; the togetherness in triumph and defeat; the sense of unity and purpose he never expected to find again.

His physical therapist said that it hit every amputee differently: that moment of realization that life would never be the same. For Milo, it was the day of the big game between his Kentucky Wildcats and their arch-rivals, the Louisville Cardinals. He was allowed to sit courtside with his crutches. As the team came out of the tunnel, they gave him high fives and fist-bumps. Hey-oh Milo!

It was hard watching his team out there on the court, seeing the passes that would have gone to him going to someone else. The new point guard was a sophomore that hadn't gotten much court time with Hey-Oh Milo on his way to making All-American. But the new kid was good—good enough to carry Kentucky to a narrow win. Milo had only been gone a few weeks, and they had already replaced him.

The worst moment came after the game when the team went off to the locker room and the stands emptied out. Would his teammates come looking for him later? What would they think when they saw him sitting all alone on the court like an elderly grandparent waiting to be escorted out? Would they feel sorry for him and feel obligated to invite him to their celebration plans? Snatching up his crutches, he left in a rush. He never went to another game.

Jake had made light of it. Today's your lucky day, he said when he told Milo he'd been accepted into Project Liftoff. Going to space usually costs an arm and a leg, but for you I'm only charging half price. He was right in a way. Losing his leg had been Milo's ticket to space. It had caused him to reset his ambitions and re-focus on his minerology degree, which he had only chosen because it had a reputation for being easy. Rocks for jocks. Who would have guessed minerology would become the next hot field? He should be grateful. He was never going to be the next LeBron James. No one from his college team played seriously anymore. Even Mike the Spike only spent half a season benching for the Wizards. But the brotherhood had outlived basketball. The social pages of his former teammates were filled with insider banter and d-pics of their outings together. Although Milo had reached heights none of them ever would, still, if he had it to do over, he would have ridden it out with his home team.

Milo turned his attention to the auto-lab. A tube of slimy, brown sludge that had once been live algae ran the length of the cuboid. He pulled from its slot, bracing it with both hands so it wouldn't fall. It's weightless, dummy, he reminded himself. The nutrient tube had burst, and it was beyond saving. He cleaned up the spillage, flipped the safety seal, and turned on the auxiliary purifiers. The smell was already fading.

Just then, Jess's inflectionless voice came across the ship-band. Was it 7:30 already? "Good morning, crewmates. Here is your daily space fact. On this day in 2041, the first art exhibition in space was held aboard Paranor Station featuring the work of German astronaut, Fritz Klieber. His immersive piece, the Womb of Eternity, is still considered the pinnacle of the scientific surrealism movement."

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