Backflow Boxed Set

by F P Adriani

  “This thing’s got the stench of a bad relationship that you know is terrible for you but you can’t stop craving anyway,” I said.

  I heard Gary’s loud laugh.

  *

  All things Demeter began going back to normal now. The ship was still hobbled because there was only the one functional exhaust nozzle at the rear, but my crew quickly went back to work on fixing that situation, while we remained “backwards” and as “motionless” as possible in space: occasionally we would use the zenite engine to push exhaust out the front, which would help push our back end toward our new destination in the layer we were now in, The Makron Layer. Flying this backwards way for an extended period of time always threw me off, but there was no choice now.

  Though the void issue had been solved, there was still the other issue: we were back in normal space now, which meant a possible threat from that damn Claudius and his damn warship.

  Luckily, my crew and I weren’t in The Makron Layer for long when the Space Force got back to us.

  I was sitting behind my desk in my office then, just taking some time to think about what to do next, when Pete intercommed me over my desktop communicator that the Space Force was on the communications-line. I used that same desk intercom to link up with them now.

  “Space Force to Demeter,” a brusque voice said over the line. “We received a distress call from you, but then we lost your location.”

  “This is Captain Zarro, and, uh, we did get lost. We also lost the pirates on our tail then, thankfully.”

  “We read your current location, Demeter. Do you require assistance?”

  “Actually, we’re okay now. We’re having a nozzle problem and we can’t easily fly through to The Alexi Layer, so we won’t risk it. But, we should reach Makron Station in about five hours. We can refuel there—we’re low on fuel….” I didn’t finish my sentence because that void was in the back of my mind, the power behind that space, how maybe it shouldn’t be used—or intimately known—by anybody. It was too late for that with respect to my crew, but, as far as everyone else—I could control that more.

  Or, maybe I was worrying for nothing: clearly, people had known of the firestones before I’d found mine. It was also possible someone had gotten as far with a stone as we on the Demeter had, but that other person had squelched the how of it, for the obvious reasons.

  At the same time, though others already knew of the stones, that didn’t mean I should broadcast any new information about them with a megaphone….

  “Captain Zarro,” the Space Force guy said now, “let us know straight away if the pirates show up again. Can you send us the data you have on their ship and your encounter?”

  “Sure—I’ll send it over. Give me fifteen minutes for my crew to collect it.” And for me to explain to my crew what NOT to reveal to the Space Force.

  *

  When I was finished with doing all of that, I sent a message to Keron-3, which actually wound up being one of the few good experiences to happen lately: Keron-3 responded that if my shipment to them was a few days late, that would be fine.

  The representative from Keron-3’s Space Entry told me: “It was more on your end than ours that you got it here when we scheduled it for.”

  “Oh—all right,” I said. “Very good then! But, I’m wondering if your grace period can be extended to at least a week? I’m hobbled right now and have to dock for refueling, then do a few other things. So is that new schedule acceptable to you?”

  It was indeed acceptable to them, and we ended our communication a moment later.

  I remained at my desk, thinking more on what I and my crew would do in future; I chewed on a hummus sandwich from the food-stash I kept in my office refrigerator. Thanks to all of the stressful shit that had happened, I was starving now—starving and tired….

  I yawned around my last bite of my sandwich, closing my eyes. When I opened them again, Gary was standing in the doorway to the hall. I waved for him to come in, feeling my heart jump in my chest at how pale and exhausted he looked.

  “You need sleep!” I said fast.

  “Don’t I know it…you wanna come with me?”

  “I sure do,” I said, standing up fast and wiping my hands on a cloth napkin.

  Then I walked around my desk, grabbed Gary by one hand, and pulled him into the hall.

  We moved along the bridge-deck like that, holding hands, and I didn’t care who saw us.

  I kept yawning as we walked; Gary’s face had a dark shadow over where he was normally cleanly shaved, and his mouth tiredly dangled open. Clearly, we’d both had enough today.

  When we finally walked into his cabin on the first quarters-deck, I intercommed Chen and told him that Gary would be off for four hours and I would be on again in three hours. “Only wake me if there’s an emergency—I mean another emergency,” I finished in a dry voice.

  *

  I didn’t sleep long enough, but, for those few hours I did sleep, I slept deeply, probably because of Gary’s warm presence beside me….

  I’d stripped down to my underwear and so had he, but when I woke up, I inadvertently woke him up, and it wasn’t long before something else had woken up, too.

  We didn’t have much time, but, fortunately, quickies didn’t take long. I grabbed his warm erection in my hand, and we were soon making a quickie happen, with me passionately bouncing on him as if I’d had ten hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours instead of barely five.

  I felt in pretty desperate need of something solid to hold onto now, something sure, something uncomplicated, and I saw now that Gary had always been all of that for me, whether as my friend, or my lead engineer, or my science right-hand, or my lover….

  Afterward, I used his shower, got dressed, kissed his smiling mouth goodbye, then went down to my bridge.

  “Where is everybody—Steve?” I asked Chen as I walked over to him.

  He was in his red chair and his head turned up toward me. “Steve said he’s done with the welding, but Nozzle 2 won’t be ready for use till after we hit Makron Station and get the nozzle inspected in their shop.”

  I nodded now, my mouth twisting, in resignation. “I figured that.”

  I walked over to the panel beside my chair and pushed the intercom for ship-wide announcements, but I deleted Gary’s room as an announcement destination right before I said: “We’re still proceeding to Makron Station, and I’ve made a decision: all temporary crew will have to disembark at the station. I’ll pay you the balance of what I agreed would be for your full contracts. And you need to respect certain things about the past few days, which I’ll explain shortly in the cargo bay. Finish what you’re doing and come straight to there. Thank you all for the excellent job you’ve done.”

  *

  “This isn’t fair, Captain, and I’m really disappointed,” said Brayburn, one of the Demeter’s temporary crewmembers.

  Brayburn had been working in both my dining room and my cargo bay. He was an older man with messy, graying dark hair and bloodshot eyes, and his mouth sagged at me now, in disappointment. “I really thought I’d be on here for four months while you’re in space. Some of us aren’t exactly hot property anymore; we can’t get work so easily. And…I like your style. This isn’t like the other ships I’ve worked on; you don’t work your temporary crew like they’re expendable.”

  I flushed at his compliment—and because I felt pretty bad now about practically throwing him and the dozen other people in front of me off the Demeter. But, everyone on the ship had been directly exposed to what the firestone did and where it led to. I had to try to minimize any further damage in future, and reducing some of the people on here during the near future’s events would probably minimize that damage.

  At the same time, while I had intended to swear the temporary crew to secrecy for once they left the ship, I wouldn’t be able to watch if they were really complying.

  I looked from one to the other of the eight men and five women in front of me, including that sl
ow wide guy from the cargo bay yesterday, who, though he was slow, did actually wind up being quite competent. And competence was one of the most important qualities for a person and a crew to possess in space: the margin of error in operation you’re allowed is typically really small, or else quick death could result.

  I continued looking at the wide guy and the others as I said, “I didn’t realize any of you liked it here so much. I’ll be honest: I’m stuck in a difficult position now; you know what we’ve seen. I think you can imagine what could happen with that in future. I’ve gotta do more with respect to this, and I don’t think I should bring you with me. There are risks too—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Captain, but don’t you think it’s up to us if we want to take risks?” one of the other cargo crew said—Nellie. I knew she had been a medic on a private cruise liner for years, and a medic was something I’d never really had on the Demeter. A few of my crew, like Sam and Matt—they knew first aid, so they would always help out if an emergency came up. And I got so much work so frequently that my crew and I were never that far from a civilization with doctors.

  But, I could still probably use Nellie on here. Considering the way her narrow flat cheeks had flattened even more during this meeting, maybe she had been hoping that I would realize her usefulness and then her temporary state would turn into a permanent one.

  “Look,” I said now, straightening up more, “how many of you want to stay here permanently? I’m getting the feeling that at least some of you do.”

  “Actually, Captain,” Brayburn said, “we’ve been discussing this, and I think we all agreed that we’d like to stay on here as long as we can. But I won’t speak for everyone. Any objections to staying? Speak up now.” He looked around at his comrades. Several shook their heads “no” in response, and none said they didn’t want to remain.

  My mouth twisted in a lopsided way, and I grunted a little, in surprise. “I honestly didn’t think you’d all want to remain. There are so many businesses doing what I do! And then the UPG and ICFC shippers—I’m shocked you’ve been thinking of staying here.”

  “It’s what Brayburn said,” Nellie replied. “You really care about your crew.”

  “Yeah,” a few of the others mumbled.

  Brayburn smiled at me a little, which made his face look younger. “It was clear the other night with the wedding party: you said we all could come, the whole crew, even us temporary folks. And you footed the whole bill. Some of us felt a little guilty about that. I feel a little bad now—pushing us onto you if you don’t want us….”

  It seemed there was a lot of feeling bad going around right now. Would offering all of the temporary crew a permanent position be the best solution? Keeping a twenty-five-percent larger crew long term would significantly lower my profit if I didn’t get a significant increase in the number of shipping jobs, or a significant increase in my usual rate for shipping. I also didn’t like feeling as if I had to keep this current crew of mine forevermore. What if some of them—some of us—wound up disliking each other at some point?

  I was feeling a bit trapped now—effectively blackmailed by recent events. This type of issue had never come up for me before.

  And I realized now that the past few days had really been life-changing in ways I wasn’t sure I wanted my life to change.

  *

  Ultimately, I saw that I didn’t have any choice: I had to keep all of the temporary crew on my ship, at least it seemed that way because I still didn’t know enough about the other issue…. It was so confusing and so frustrating, and I didn’t have the time to think on it anymore right now: we were finally approaching Makron Station.

  I was strapped into my captain’s chair as the Demeter neared the station’s docking area. I was also on the communications-line with the station’s Space Entry, asking them to give the Demeter one of the private internal hook-ups and to not show the ship’s name on the docking roster, which rosters space stations often listed on public-event terminals.

  “I had a problem with another ship,” I said to Makron’s Space Entry. “I can give you a Space Force reference number—you can confirm with them.”

  “It’s all right,” the woman from Space Entry said in a quick voice. “You’ve been here many times, Captain Zarro. You’ve never created any problems, and you’ve always paid all your fees; you have a good reputation and standing here.”

  I smiled a little. “Well, that’s certainly nice to know…. Can you send me which hangar now?”

  Chen took care of receiving the data for the private landing, and I sat back in my chair and sighed, slowly rubbing my fingers across my eyes and forehead, and feeling worried. Landing at Makron Station wasn’t as stressful as landing on a Cardoon, so I wasn’t worried about that: I was worried about days from now….

  Gary walked onto the bridge. He was in normal, not-pajamas clothes now—a pale shirt and dark slacks. “Where are we?” he asked as he walked fast toward his station. “I overslept.”

  I smiled at him. “You needed it…. Chen, how are you doing—and May?”

  “We’re all right. We’ve just been…” his dark eyes strayed my way “…well, we’re wondering where we’re going next. You haven’t said.”

  “I hadn’t totally decided on that till about half an hour ago.”

  Gary was flashing me curiosity-filled brown eyes. But then he pulled them away when he had to make an adjustment to the Demeter’s angle of entry toward the Makron hangars; they weren’t in separate compartments the way the hangars on a Cardoon were. Makron Station was big and block-shaped, and the hangars inside were common areas, where ships rolled into parking spots, almost like an airport inside a space station.

  However, there were some private, shielded parking spaces reserved for government ships, and if a space was open and no reservation had been made by a government, anyone could fill the spot. For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to be parked near other ships; I also didn’t intend to stay long at the station and draw attention to myself or for any of my crew to do the same. I had lucked out today in getting a private space, and I intended to keep my luck going.

  Using the intercom beside me, I contacted engineering. “When we’re stationary, I want the whole crew on onboard status, including your crew, Steve. The first thing is the inspection by the shop mechanics and making any further repairs on the nozzle, if necessary. The next thing is buying more food and Evan. And lastly is the cannons. Have a look there, just you alone, Steve; tell the Makron mechanics that the sensors there shorted out—just say whatever. Do as much as you can to check if the cannons would work without looking like you’re checking for that.”

  Both Gary’s and Chen’s wary eyes were on me now.

  *

  Thankfully, things went quite smoothly at the station: we got the necessary deliveries of food and fuel; my crew remained on the Demeter, and Steve did what he had to do. We wound up staying at Makron only an hour longer than I had planned, and mostly because this layer had been having problems hooking up with the ICFC today, so there was a delay in my payment reaching the station.

  Throughout all of that, I never left my ship. Evening finally came, including with respect to this station’s artificial rotation and this solar system’s sun, and I didn’t want to be walking the station’s halls, considering what happened the last time I’d walked a station’s halls….

  As soon as Steve felt confident in the nozzle repair and my money reached the station, we left it.

  Our flight across The Makron Layer went well; the nozzle was working fine again, and we eventually passed quite near one of this layer’s most beautiful sights: the remnants of a hot nebula—“hot” because the red and orange globules glowed like hot coals and were backlit with the bright white given off by clusters of numerous stars.

  Sitting in a brown booth in the Demeter’s dining room now, I watched the viewscreen on the opposite wall, which view was filled with an enlarged, real-time image of the hot nebula. The Demeter was curren
tly flying on a low setting because I’d told Gary to grab more careful pictures and video of the nebula than we had in the past. The nebula’s fire reminded me of something….

  I no longer wore it on my body. It was inside my room-safe again. At the thought of it in there now, at the thought of all that power, my face felt far too flushed. The stress of everything over the past few days probably wasn’t doing much for my blood pressure.

  My head turned to the other side of my booth table, where Geena had just sat down.

  Geena and her cousin, Bill, had been working for me on the Demeter for years, and, today, Geena’s curly golden hair looked even more golden than normal beneath the room’s yellow lighting. She smiled at me a little as she said, “You haven’t stayed in here eating for so long in—well, I don’t remember when the last time was.”

  “You never need me giving you more work,” I said as I lifted my blue fork from my half-empty plate. “And now you’re even busier because of the extra crew to feed.”

  Geena glanced over her shoulder at one of the brown booths farther down the room, where a few of the temporary crew were eating and talking. Nellie was there; she caught my eye and raised a glass toward me. I nodded at her and smiled a little.

  “Actually,” Geena said to me now, “Brayburn’s been very helpful around here. It’s a case of: Bill and I didn’t know we needed an assistant till we actually got one.”

  “So then it’s good that Brayburn’s staying on,” I said, but Geena must have heard something in my voice that I hadn’t realized was there.

  “You seem worried about them,” she said flatly, but in a very direct way that was very typical of her—and that I always really liked.

  I shook my head from side-to-side now, swallowing a mouthful of salad. “I wouldn’t have hired them if they didn’t have a good work history. They’ve all done well so far.”