Backflow Boxed Set

by F P Adriani

  The drawer slid forward even more now, and something from inside fell down into and then quickly out of the shaft of my flashlight. In that brief instant, I noticed a flash of red….

  “Hang on, Chen—let’s set this down. Something fell out.”

  We dropped the table, and I groped around on the floor with one hand while I directed my beam of light with the other. The light hit something even brighter than the light: a small, oval, reddish stone. I picked it up, then unclipped my flashlight and put it on the panel-table, angling the light so the stone and my hands would be in the beam.

  My eyes locked onto the glowing stone. It felt so cool and light in my hand, but it glowed in mostly bright-red, fire-like streaks, with dots of white and fluorescent yellow floating inside the liquid-like fire at the stone’s center.

  The effect seemed to be a type of luminescence—a product of physics, chemistry or possibly even biology. A bioluminescence seemed too far-out an explanation. But there could have been some chemical reactions going on inside the stone that had excited the electrons there and ultimately led to the emission of photons.

  “Chen, turn off your beam,” I said, as I turned off my own beam. “I want to see what happens to the stone in the dark.”

  What happened was: the same thing. The stone kept glowing and seemingly did not fade at all; a fluorescence induced by light probably wasn’t going on. The stone could have been irradiated years ago, and now heat from the environment was causing a luminescence. But, the light coming off the stone seemed too powerful for that, and the environment around the stone seemed too cold.

  I also didn’t see how phosphorescing could be happening, especially to this degree: again, the stone had been sealed in a dark cold container for years, and the lighting in the room was low now, my flashlight not that powerful; other than that and the heat from my hand, I hadn’t directly subjected the stone to any radiation. The stone could have been undergoing radioactive decay but hopefully wasn’t, considering I was holding it.

  But, again, if the stone wasn’t naturally decaying, how had it gotten excited while lying in the cold dark for so long? What would have been powering any chemistry inside it during that same time period?

  The stone had just fallen onto the floor, and I knew that fractures and other mechanical changes could produce luminescence in some materials. However, an effect like that probably wouldn’t have lasted this long; the stone seemed to be maintaining the same intensity of glow, as if it held a mini-volcano inside. I’d never seen a more beautiful stone….

  I said some of my thoughts on this to Chen, and he replied, “Strange that it was inside the table. Why would someone lock up something so beautiful?”

  I shrugged, my fingers closing around the stone. “I have no idea—BUT, finders keepers,” I said, before slipping the small stone inside one of the pockets on my belt.

  *

  A few hours later, my crew and I were finally approaching our next destination: Cardoon Station Twelve.

  There were a bunch of Cardoon stations positioned around the galaxy; this Cardoon was one of the biggest. It was also quite a happening place, which would really be a perfect place—for Chen and May to get married.

  On my bridge now, Chen and Gary were at their usual work areas, and I was sitting in my captain’s chair, giving and getting info from Cardoon Twelve’s Space Entry people, and looking up at the bridge’s front viewscreen. The Demeter was approaching the bright-red Cardoon Twelve almost head-on toward the round, shiny black hub at the station’s very top, which was the station’s main Space Entry hub.

  Cardoon stations were built with extremely long main axes and curved docking “leaves” that radiated out perpendicularly to the main axes. Farther down along Cardoon Twelve now, the top of one of the red leaves slowly opened.

  A moment later on the silver electronic panel in front of me, I received more landing data from Space Entry; I told Chen and also Karen in engineering to cut all thrusting and set the ship to a minimum coasting state: minimal forces would be generated so nothing coming from the Demeter would interfere with Space Entry’s protocol for landing in a leaf; Cardoons were highly populated stations and had a lot of rules about what you could and couldn’t do while landing.

  My upper lip was sweating now, and I could see Gary’s hands were lightly shaking as he worked one of his science panels.

  “Everybody loves visiting Cardoons, but no one loves landing on them,” I said, turning toward Gary even more. I heard Chen laugh, but Gary only sighed and rolled his brown eyes.

  “It’s easy for you,” he said to Chen. “Your job’s done now, you lucky bastard.”

  Chen was still laughing.

  I jerked my left hand his way, but my eyes had remained on Gary. “Chen’s feeling high on his impending marriage.”

  “Not that high,” Chen said fast. “It’s only a few hours away, and, frankly, I’m more nervous about that than this!”

  I looked at him now, laughing myself. “You’re absolutely right: marriage is scarier than landing on a Cardoon.” I pushed the intercom button on the black panel beside me, hooking up with engineering. “Gary, Karen, do well here. If I get fined, I’m taking it out of your salaries.”

  “Will do, Boss,” said Karen, but there was a clear shake to her voice. When Gary had taken Babs’ science place on my bridge, Karen had been moved up to the second engineering position because Steve had been moved up to the first. But Steve had just gone on his downtime, so, right now, everything in engineering was down to Karen. This was actually her first landing on a space station, and it had to go and be on a Cardoon….

  “Karen,” I said fast now, “I was only kidding.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound any less nervous.

  “Is everyone afraid of me on here?” I asked no one in particular. And no one in particular responded.

  Space Entry suddenly signaled me, and a clipped voice from there said over the communications-line: “Looking good, Demeter, except you need to make a 0.01-starboard adjustment toward our south pole or else you might torque north when the tractor beam attaches.”

  “You heard Space Entry,” I said to both Karen and Gary. And then a moment later on the viewscreen and on my silver panel, a pale-blue, shimmery beam emerged from the opening in the red Cardoon leaf.

  The blue beam slowly traveled through the black of space and approached the Demeter’s nose. The beam was a magnetic-powder beam, which was one of the safest tractor beams; it was made up of billions of extremely sensitive tiny magnets that would constantly shift the Demeter’s “poles” when necessary, to carefully attract it toward and then slowly move it into the station.

  “The beam’s locked,” Gary finally said.

  I nodded, my eyes still on the shimmering beam on the viewscreen and on the way it seemed to effortlessly make us close the gap with the station’s curved leaf-extension.

  I looked at Chen as he, in coordination with Karen and Gary, made a few final adjustments—and then the view on the viewscreen brightened as the Demeter gently slid into the leaf’s internal hangar.

  The streamlined space inside was vast and mostly silver and white. I felt the Demeter settle down as the pull of the beam diminished. The ship rolled forward slightly on its landing gear inside the hangar’s wide tracks; then Karen increased the braking, and the ship came to a full stop, the hangar’s massive locks finally snapping over the landing gear.

  Letting out a relieved breath now, I unstrapped from my chair and said “Phew!” as I stood up and turned to both Gary and Chen. “So, what do you say—let’s not do that again for the rest of this year?”

  “That’s up to you, Captain,” Chen said.

  And I nodded and smiled at him, then left the bridge.

  *

  Not long after, I was walking out of my ship and then out of the Cardoon hangar; I had some paperwork to do in the Space Entry office down the long hall outside the hangar area.

  As I would often d
o on a job, I had intentionally arrived at Station Twelve early. The cargo I had to pick up wouldn’t be available till tomorrow, so my crew and I would now have a night of time to kill—having fun, I hoped.

  When I was finished with the Space Entry office, I walked farther down the hall to where there was a big electronic wall-poster with a list of businesses in the station. I hadn’t been to this particular Cardoon in a number of years, and things-businesses could change rapidly, even in space.

  Space stations typically contained lots of people from lots of places with various dispositions and pasts, including bad dispositions and pasts. On the poster, there was a listing for a restaurant/bar on the level below the hangar where the Demeter was parked; the restaurant was part of a chain so probably wasn’t too seedy.

  I tapped a forefinger on the listing as if it were a target; then I walked back toward the hangar where my ship waited.

  *

  In my cabin later, I was brushing my long hair as I picked out a change of clothes; I had just contacted Chen, and he told me that he and May had registered their intent to get married in an hour, in the station’s Public Status Office.

  There were over sixty people on my ship right now, and more than thirty of us would be going to the wedding and then the restaurant I’d chosen.

  I removed a dressy brown blouse and black slacks from my closet, and once I was inside that outfit, I put on my red captain’s belt and slipped my ICFC card inside one of the belt’s pockets. Tonight’s festivities would be my treat.

  *

  I was finally sitting beside Gary and watching May and Chen as they stood on a silver podium and said their marriage vows to each other. There were greenhouse-grown white flowers on the yellow table behind them, and Chen and May were in colorful, almost-matching clothes: they both had on red, long-sleeved tops; beneath that, May was wearing flowing gray pants and Chen was wearing straight-legged black ones. They were almost the same height, and seeing them together like this, in profile with such happy smiles on their faces—it made me realize how well-suited they were to each other….

  I felt a whisper of a touch on my left hand, and when I turned my head to the left, Gary smiled at me and took my hand in his.

  He didn’t speak and neither did I. But I could feel something pass through his warm brown eyes into my eyes, and I wondered if, at that moment, we might have had a little bit of the May-and-Chen about our appearance.

  *

  After the ceremony, there were lots of congratulatory sentiments and hugs from my crew—and from me, too. Chen and May smiled at all of this through red faces, but I noticed that their eyes kept going back to each other.

  I felt a little laugh bubbling inside me: the newlyweds probably wanted room-time back on the Demeter, or maybe even somewhere on the station—shit, I should have thought of that sooner and looked that up on the hall poster.

  “Hey,” I said fast now, to Chen and May, “I planned on treating everyone at the Neptune Grill, but how about a night for the two of you in the hotel here? Would you like that? It would be my treat. The rest of us can party without you, if you two want to go get a room….”

  Chen’s face got even redder, probably at my inference. “No! We want to party too. The hotel room would also be fantastic—for later.”

  “But you’re too good to us,” May said, her golden-brown face smiling as she grabbed my left hand and squeezed it a bit. “We can’t accept your paying….”

  “Yes you can! It’s my gift to you. And I’m actually really flush right now, given that last enormous delivery to Armine. I urge you to take advantage of my flushed state.” I laughed a little, though what I’d said was the truth: at Sereska, I’d luckily landed that new fantastic Armine job, which had paid much more than enough for me to make up for the money I’d recently lost on Genteran.

  That new Armine job had also led to a new future relationship between me and the planet; the Armine government had rigid schedules for deliveries at specific times every year, and I’d signed a contract to meet their needs.

  I loved making deals that would guarantee me income in the future, because a life in space normally meant no guarantees, period.

  *

  The whole galaxy must have decided to eat at the Neptune Grill on the night of the wedding: the floor, the tables, the bar—everywhere was packed with people. I hadn’t been in such a crowded public place for recreational reasons in years.

  Among all of the noise and activity from strangers in the big room, my crew and I filled several long tables, where we laughed and ate and drank: even more of my crew wound up coming to the restaurant than I’d thought would come….

  I finally noticed that our pitchers of fruit whiskey on the Grill tables were almost empty—not that I needed to drink anymore. I’d had over two glasses of the whiskey, and now if I lowered my head even slightly, it would begin swimming. But, I was pretty sure some of my crew wanted more alcohol and could handle more of it than I could. Even if they couldn’t handle it or even if I wound up spending too much money, I suddenly didn’t give a shit—this was a celebration!

  I grabbed one of the empty pitchers and stood, saying that I’d be back with even more booze, but my words came out quite slurred. I heard a few bursts of laughter from my table.

  Then May and Chen got up from it, and May said, “Lydia, I think we’re gonna take off for the hotel now, if that’s all right.”

  “Of curse it is,” I said incorrectly, giving May a big, uncharacteristic-from-me wink.

  More laughs around me, including from May—and Gary, who stood up now but was lightly shaking his head.

  “I’ll be back right before the cargo pick-up tomorrow,” May said. “But let me know if you need me earlier than that.”

  I laid a hand on her back over the soft red fabric of her top, finally giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I will. Jus’ you make sure you have a good time tonight—on me. I wanna hear all about it tomorrow.”

  The laughs this time were even louder.

  *

  A moment later, I was walking toward the bar at the back of the dining area. The bar spanned the width of the room and it was crowded with bodies, but I managed to squeeze myself in between a few of them.

  Gary came up behind me; then the person to the right of me left her barstool, and Gary gestured for me to take the empty seat. When I did, he slowly shook his head at me, a small smile curling his lips.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “I haven’t seen you this drunk in years,” he said.

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “Come on, Lydia.” He was laughing under his breath now. I couldn’t really hear it over the noise in the room, but I could see his mouth and throat moving. My eyes lingered on the smooth, muscular curves of his neck; then my eyes rose up to his hard jawline and his thick brown mustache, which curved in a sexy line around his wide mouth. Mmmm. Later….

  Gary’s big hand was suddenly waving in front of my face. “Lydia, are you there?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m here,” I said, though I didn’t feel too confident there, and I realized then that, yeah, I was a bit drunk. I took some deep breaths and tried to get a better bearing on my surroundings.

  The room’s lighting was subdued, and there didn’t seem to be enough employees around to handle the crowd, including that there weren’t enough bartenders. I waved a quick hand several times and finally managed to catch the eye of the older bartender with the long dark hair and sweaty face—I couldn’t blame him for being so sweaty when the room was so full. I felt so damn flushed myself….

  “What can I get for you?” the bartender asked me fast as he moved my way.

  I lifted the empty glass pitcher toward him. “Five more of these—fruit whiskey, please, jus’ lighter on the whiskey part this time.”

  “Sure. That’ll be a hundred ICFC dollars.”

  Automatically I reached down for my red belt and opened a pocket, looking up at the bartender first, then at Gary’s still-smiling face. I s
uddenly found myself unable to pull away from his brown eyes, because of the promise I seemed to be seeing in them; that his warm hand now reached over and pressed against my lower back did not help the situation.

  Finally yanking my eyes from his, I grabbed my card from my belt and laid it on top of the bar. But when I turned my head back toward the bartender, I noticed his widening dark eyes. What had I done….

  My eyes shot down to where he was staring—to where that weird stone was now lying on top of my ICFC card.

  When I’d paid the server for the drinks and food at the table earlier, my belt must have been turned to the wrong spot on my middle. I’d put my ICFC card back into the wrong pocket then, and, somehow, the stone got stuck to the card—or, moments ago, I was too drunk to realize that I’d grabbed both items….

  “Where’d you get that?” the bartender asked me fast now, his eyes whipping up to mine.

  “Wh—what?” I said as my eyes dropped to the stone again. “It’s just something pretty I found.”

  “Just something pretty…” he mumbled.

  “What’s the problem?” came Gary’s voice, Gary’s slightly hard voice, which he’d directed at the bartender.

  “Well,” the bartender said in a lower voice as he leaned closer over the bar, “that looks like a firestone.”

  I frowned at him. “A what?”

  “A firestone. I’ve only seen pictures of them. They’re rare. Only a few have been found. They seem to be connected to the planet Rintu.”

  I shrugged. “Never heard of it. But how do you know about all this shit?”

  He frowned now, at me. “I didn’t always own this place. For years I was with the Galactic Exploration Service. I retired early and bought out the Grill from someone else. I got tired of being on the go all the time.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, more in polite sympathy than as a fact of my feelings. I couldn’t imagine wanting to “sit” in one place for years on end. I’d always had trouble with remaining stationary, even as a small child….