Europa

by Robert Mills

  When she opened the door of the apartment to let me in I was shocked by her appearance. She looked pale and had clearly lost some weight. I was ushered into the sitting room and invited to sit down. There was an open wine bottle and half-empty glass on the coffee table.

  “I was having a drink, would you like a one?” she said. I nodded and, having filled my glass, she topped up her own with a generous measure. “I’ll come straight to the point,” she said, fixing me with her large grey eyes, “I want to ask you to help me again. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for what you did before but it didn’t work out as planned. The thing is, you’ve proved that you can give me what I want, so I’m asking you to try again.”

  I took a large gulp from my drink. “Have you talked to Marvin about this?”

  She sighed. “I’ve tried, but it’s hopeless,” she said. “He’s given up the whole idea. It’s very unfair of him; he doesn’t seem to understand how I feel. I can’t give up; I have to try again. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t.”

  “Suppose I say ‘no’ this time?”

  “In that case, I’d have to find someone else,” she said in a rather off-hand manner.

  “Liv, you can’t sleep with just anyone in order to have a baby,” I said sharply. “It’s insane.”

  “It’s not insane to me,” she snapped. “You don’t understand how I feel. I’ll never be complete until I have a child of my own.”

  “Why don’t you reconsider and try adoption? Marvin would agree to that without a moment’s hesitation.”

  “It’s just not the same,” she said, brushing away a tear. “I want to bear to a child. I want to feel life growing inside me. I don’t want some secondhand infant; it wouldn’t be the same. I’ve proved I can do it with you.”

  “Of course you can, there’s nothing wrong with you,” I blurted out, immediately wishing I’d thought for a moment before speaking. If there was nothing ‘wrong’ with Liv, it was clear that their situation was Marvin’s fault, which was true but best not reiterated in these circumstances. I tried to regain control. “The thing is, Liv, you’re asking me to deceive Marvin,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m capable of doing that. He and I have a very special relationship. I’m closer to him than any living person, Meena included.”

  “He won’t know,” she said earnestly. “I’ll make love to him as frequently as I can and he’ll think it’s his. The doctor said it happens sometimes, even for men with a sperm count like Marvin’s.”

  I was in a difficult position. If I agreed I was betraying my cousin, but if I refused I was convinced that Liv really would find someone else to take my place and I was quite sure that Marvin wouldn’t want that. In the back of my mind was the memory of how much I’d enjoyed making love to Liv and how much I wanted to do it again. Once again I set aside my concerns and agreed to her request.

  “Shall we do it now?” she asked in a business-like manner.

  “I can’t,” I said. “Meena’s expecting me home and I’m already later than usual. I could slip out of the office for an hour or two tomorrow afternoon. Would that be OK?” Liv readily agreed to this proposal and I headed for home.

  When I arrived Meena met me in the hall and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “You’ve been drinking,” she exclaimed. “It’s not like you to go for a drink after work when Marvin’s away.”

  I had to think quickly. “One of the girls in the office was leaving,” I said. “They asked me to join them for a drink.”

  “Which one? I hope it’s not Layla, she’s the only one in your office I can have a decent conversation with.”

  “No, it’s a temp we took on to help catch up with the accounts. She’s American. You haven’t met her.”

  The following afternoon I made an excuse and left the office at about three o’clock. I’d told Meena that I’d be late home as I wanted to be able to go back to work later in the afternoon so that I didn’t fall behind. I was determined that nothing would arouse Marvin’s suspicions on his return.

  Liv was wearing a sleeveless dress. Her legs were bare and she wore no shoes. On this occasion she led me straight upstairs, this time to the spare bedroom. The windows were in opaque mode and the quilt turned back. The dress was soon discarded and we adjourned to the waiting bed. As before, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of her passion and, on this occasion, the exquisite pleasure she seemed to experience at the moment of climax.

  Afterwards I lay beside her gazing up at the ceiling in a state of bliss. Liv had pushed a pillow under her buttocks, tilting her pelvis so as to “give it a better chance to work”, as she put it. I wanted to hold her in my arms but she wouldn’t let me. I checked the time; I knew I really should be getting back to the office, but something made me linger. A thought occurred to me: “Should we do it again to try and make sure you get pregnant?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure it works like that,” she said. “We only did it once when I conceived before.”

  Well, I thought, it was worth a try. At last I reluctantly hauled myself out of bed, showered and dressed.

  Marvin returned from his trip in a buoyant mood. He’d signed contracts with two new customers while he was away and he asked me to go through our work schedules to see how we could accommodate them.

  I was in a state of anxiety, waiting to find out if Liv had become pregnant. Two weeks later Marvin came into the office looking depressed. I asked if anything was wrong and he sighed and led me into his office.

  “It’s Liv,” he said. “She was a few days late with her period and she’d become convinced she was pregnant. I told her she couldn’t be, but she was very upset when her period started this morning. I wish there was something I could do to help, I feel so useless. After the miscarriage she wouldn’t let me touch her for quite a while, but since I got back from my trip she’s been her usual affectionate self. I hope this won’t put her off again. I do find women hard to understand.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I wondered what Liv would do next, but I was not to find out immediately, because news arrived that my mother had died. I wasn’t able to attend the funeral in person, but Meena and I did take part via a holographic link to Earth. I decided that I should visit my father and give him some support during what I imagined would be a difficult period for him. Meena offered to accompany me but I said she should stay behind to look after the children. I thought she looked relieved when I said this.

  The journey time to Earth was much the same as it had been when we went out to Europa but this time I didn’t stop off at Mars. I found it more difficult to occupy my time than I had done then, as I didn’t have Marvin and Liv for company. During the voyage I and the other passengers were subjected to gradual increases in the artificial gravity on the ship to prepare us for our arrival on Earth. The journey time wasn’t long enough to complete this process effectively but I imagine that it did help. It was thirteen years since I’d left Earth and I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with the higher gravity there. My bone density had dropped and I had completely adjusted to microgravity living. In the event, although I found the Earth’s gravity oppressive, I coped better than I’d expected.

  I found myself thinking about Liv a lot, though I tried to banish her from my mind. I was conscious that I missed her more than Meena and I knew that this was not as it should be.

  I found the situation at home much changed. My parents’ house had been divided into flats and my father was occupying one on the ground floor. I wondered why he and my mother hadn’t moved somewhere else; it must have been hard living there with constant reminders of how their home had been in its heyday.

  My father had aged considerably and was in a gloomy frame of mind. “You shouldn’t have gone to live so far away,” he said. “Your mother wanted to see you before she died.”

  “I’ve spoken to her regularly while I’ve been on Europa,” I said defensively. “I’d have co
me sooner if I’d known she was ill.”

  “It was all so sudden; she seemed perfectly well to me until it happened. You could have come home for a visit before, but you never even suggested it.”

  “I know I should have come,” I said, “but it’s not so easy when you live 900 million kilometres away.”

  “I know it’s expensive and time consuming,” he said, “but you seem to be doing well out there by all accounts.”

  “We are doing well; the company is profitable and we’re continuing to expand. We’re very busy and it isn’t easy to get away.”

  “We haven’t seen Richmond since he was a baby and we’ve never seen little Charlet in the flesh.”

  “You’ve seen the kids often enough via the interplanetary comms link. Charlet couldn’t cope with the gravity here; she’s a real Europan.”

  “I know, but it’s not the same,” he said. “At least I get to see Tom’s Davos regularly.”

  “I’d like to see them while I’m here.”

  “Tom and the family are coming over tomorrow.”

  I spent a pleasant day with Tom and his family and Dad’s mood seemed to improve a little. Tom had married after I left for Europa, so it was the first time I’d met his wife, Jorinda, and Davos, their son, in the flesh. Tom was clearly prospering and was interested to hear about life on Europa.

  “I did think about joining you out there at one stage,” he said, while we were on our own for a while. “The firm went through a difficult period and it looked as if we might have to downsize. As the junior partner, I’d have been first to go if it had come to that. Anyway in due course things picked up. Fortunately there’s always work for lawyers.”

  “I’m sure you’d do very well if you did decide to move to one of the colonies but they are an awfully long way away,” I said. “I’d have stayed on Earth if there had been opportunities for me here.”

  He nodded. “You have to go where your work is,” he said. “Mind you, living on Earth isn’t what it was. There are too many people trying to make use of too few facilities. Travel is a nightmare. There’s an almost complete ban on personal transportation. You have to be a senior government official to have your own car and in any case there are very few roads left.

  “Then there’s the underclass; there isn’t any work for the unskilled now so they have to be supported by the state. They have time on their hands and nothing to do so not surprisingly they breed like rabbits. The human rights lawyers are swamped with cases involving breaches of fertility law. Mind you, my firm doesn’t do that kind of work, it doesn’t pay well enough. On the other hand, we’re dealing with an increasing number of criminal damage cases. Frankly, Symon, I’m not sure you’d like it here now.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, “still it’s nice to breathe real air and walk about in the open without a space suit. Mind you, one thing I don’t miss is the weather on Earth; the temperature on Europa is constant and it never rains or snows.”

  “That sounds good to me,” he said. “By the way, have you heard about the new Channel Bridge Project?”

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  “The old one between Dover and Calais is still there, of course, but now they’re building one between Weymouth and Cherbourg.”

  “How far is that?”

  “It’s about fifty miles. The thing is it’s not just a bridge; there will be high-rise buildings all along its length, so it’s really a city in the sea. The trans-channel transit tubes will be situated in the middle at the lowest level and when it’s finished there will also be a network of local tubes at a higher level so that people can get around the new city. The lowest apartments on the seaward side will have balconies that can be completely enclosed during stormy weather. It’s not the only project of its kind; bridges like it are being built across relatively narrow stretches of sea all over the world and there are more being planned for the English Channel. On top of that, there are islands being built in the oceans. They’re mounted on piles driven into the seabed that are long enough to raise the platforms above the level of the highest waves. There’s a limit to how tall the buildings can be, but some of the islands are several miles across so they can accommodate a lot of people. They have hydroponic farms and food production plants so that they’re more or less self-sufficient. What I don’t understand is why someone didn’t think of all this before.”

  “I suppose the technology to do it wasn’t available until now.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “At any rate, these new cities are providing so much new accommodation that the Saturn project has been put on hold for the time being.”

  “I thought they’d already started building on Titan.”

  “There’s a research station there and a small mining operation but they’ve stopped all work on the colony. It will definitely be needed at some point in the future, but the simple fact is that most people prefer to live on Earth.”

  “A lot of it is fear of the unknown,” I said. “I didn’t like the idea of going to Europa but now it’s hard to imagine living somewhere else.”

  “Does that mean you’re not considering coming back at some stage?”

  “I’m not; as I pointed out to Dad, Charlet was born on Europa so I don’t think she’d be able to live on Earth and I wouldn’t want to be so far from the kids that I couldn’t visit them regularly.”

  “That’s understandable,” he said. He shrugged. “I suppose we have to accept that we won’t be seeing much of each other in the future.”

  We shook hands and parted on good terms when it was time for him to go. Despite what Tom had said, I couldn’t help wondering if, had we stayed on Earth and weathered the short-term fluctuations in the economy, Marvin and I could have built a successful business there. Our lives would have been very different if we had, but Liv would still have been unable to have a baby, so in many ways things would have been much the same.

  In all I spent two weeks on Earth, trying to ensure that my father had everything he needed and that he would be alright on his own. I kept in regular touch with Meena and Marvin via the comms link, but there was no news of Liv. Eventually I said goodbye and headed for the spaceport. My father grumbled about my going, but in the end he wished me well.

  I returned home to a warm welcome and soon settled back into my normal routine. All was going smoothly and Liv made no mention of our arrangement, so I thought that I had put the whole business behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marvin was in the habit of having a party for the staff in his apartment once a year. He took the view that it was good for company morale. That year all but one of the office staff attended, as well as a number of our technicians. Meena and I went along as usual, the children having been dropped off at a friend’s apartment on the way. As was his wont, Marvin took on the role of serving the food, dressed in a novelty apron and a chef’s hat. I was placed in charge of the drinks, which meant that I had to go back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. When I went in search of another bottle of chilled white wine Liv followed me into the kitchen and closed the door behind us.

  “I need you again,” she said in a whisper. “I was late, but then my period came. It might have been an early miscarriage, did Marvin tell you?”

  “Yes, but Liv, he’s here now,” I said. “It’s just too risky.”

  “I agree we shouldn’t meet at the apartment again. You must find somewhere else, a hotel or something.”

  I looked at her in her party dress, her long hair cascading over her shoulders and I knew that I was powerless to resist. “OK, I’ll see what I can do,” I said reluctantly.

  On the way back to our apartment Meena seemed unusually quiet. After a while she spoke: “I was talking to Layla. She says you’ve never had a temp in the office or any other member of staff who’s American. Why did you lie to me, Symon?”

 
My blood froze. I’ve never been a good liar and this one had been concocted on the spur of the moment. I searched wildly for a credible answer. The truth, or at least a version of it, seemed the best way out.

  “Actually I went to see Liv,” I said. “I wanted some advice about your birthday present and I didn’t want you to know. She offered me a drink while I was there.” Meena didn’t look entirely convinced, but she let the matter drop. As soon as I was alone I called Liv on my wrist tablet and asked her to back up my story when Meena questioned her, as she inevitably would.

  The following Monday evening when I came home from work, Meena was clearly in a better frame of mind. “I spoke to Liv today and she confirmed that you went to see her,” she said.

  “Naturally,” I said indignantly.

  She came over and put her arms round me. “I’m sorry I doubted you, darling,” she said, kissing me lightly on the cheek. “You must admit it seemed rather suspicious.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, trying to sound wounded.

  I found a hotel, not too far from the office, where rooms could be hired by the hour and few questions were asked. We arranged to meet in the lunch hour, as this was the time when my being out of the office would arouse least suspicion. Marvin normally ate at his desk, while I quite often went out for lunch, usually to a small Italian-style café close by.

  Liv arrived promptly and we climbed into bed with hardly a word. Afterwards she said, “I’ve been thinking. It would be much better if we had sex several times during the period when I’m likely to be ovulating. Could you get away again on Friday?”

  Over the next four months we met repeatedly around the time of the month during which she believed she was fertile. With each meeting I was falling more deeply in love with Liv, but she remained detached and business-like throughout. I wanted to tell her how I felt about her, but something stopped me from doing so. Perhaps it was because I was feeling increasingly guilty. I knew that if we were found out both Marvin and Meena would be hurt, which must mean that what we were doing was wrong, but I couldn’t face the thought of not being alone with Liv and feeling her skin against mine. Perhaps, on the other hand, the truth was that I was afraid that my declaration of love would be met with derision. Later events suggest that this would have probably been the case.