by Joe Vasicek
“No, no, no,” he said, blushing. “It wasn’t like that.”
“No?”
“No,” he insisted. “She initiated everything—I was the one who kept saying no. But eventually, well, I changed my mind and decided to commit.”
“I see,” said Mariya. She smiled and put her hand on his arm. “You’re a good man—she’s very lucky to have you.”
At that moment, a nurse stepped out from the hallway behind the secretary’s desk. “Jeremiah Edeni?”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah, rising almost instantly to his feet.
“Come with me.”
He followed the nurse to a sparsely decorated examining room at the far end, Mariya tagging close behind. A row of cabinets lined one of the white walls, with a dormant computer terminal in the corner and a number of spindly robotic arms retracted partway into the ceiling. Noemi sat on the table in the center, wearing a patient’s gown that seemed at least two sizes too large. Her eyes lit up the moment he stepped through.
“Thank you, Nancy,” said the doctor, a thin man with dark olive skin and black hair wearing an immaculately clean hospital uniform. He turned to Jeremiah. “Are you the husband?”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah. “What’s wrong?”
The doctor chuckled and extended his hand. “The name’s Armin. You’re a very lucky man.” He turned to Mariya. “I take it you’re family?”
“Not exactly,” said Jeremiah. “She’s—”
“—part of the extended family,” said Mariya, thinking faster than him on her feet. “They’re staying with us while they’re here at the station.”
“Ah.” The doctor nodded and turned back to Jeremiah. “There’s no need to worry, sir. Your wife is perfectly healthy.”
“She is?”
“Absolutely. The nausea was a perfectly natural symptom of morning sickness. She’s about ten weeks pregnant and progressing quite well.”
The news hit Jeremiah like a meteor. “P-pregnant?”
Before the doctor could answer, Mariya let out a high-pitched squeal and threw her arms around Noemi. Within seconds, the girls were chattering wildly, oblivious to everything else around them.
“If you need a physician,” the doctor continued, “my secretary can help you schedule follow-up visits for the duration of the pregnancy. Our clinic specializes in treating uninsured non-station personnel, so our rates are quite affordable.”
“Y-yes,” said Jeremiah, still dazed. So much for leaving.
Doctor Armin glanced at the girls, then turned back to him and smiled. “I’ll give you some time alone. Congratulations to the both of you.”
It was all Jeremiah could do to nod and shake his hand.
Chapter 8
The family room of the small below-decks apartment was packed from wall to wall with Mariya’s relatives, all chattering and doting over Noemi. The air smelled heavily of incense and stale body odor, while the fold-out tables on the side were filled with dumplings, yogurt balls, and other strange and foreign delicacies. Jeremiah stood in the doorway, greeting people as they came in. Mariya had told him that it was customary for the husband to do so at these events.
“How does it feel?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear as she squeezed her way to him through the guests. Somewhere in the overcrowded room, a baby wailed.
“A bit overwhelming,” he answered. Only three days had passed since the visit to the clinic, and he still felt dazed.
“Don’t worry about anything,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll take good care of you both.”
You don’t understand, Jeremiah wanted to tell her. I can’t afford to stay. He’d already spent most of his profits on the Ariadne’s upgrades, and all those electronics he’d purchased weren’t making him anything while they sat in his cargo hold.
“What am I supposed to do for the next nine months?” he blurted. “I spent almost everything I had on refitting my ship.”
“If worst comes to worst, can’t you make a quick trade run to one of the nearby systems?”
“Not with the political situation the way it is. What if the Imperials shut me out? They’ve already got a full battle fleet in this system. What if something terrible happens while I’m gone?”
Mariya thought about it for a second and shrugged. “My father can probably help you to find a job. He has a good position in the dockyards—he’ll find you work for sure.”
“I hope so.”
“Cheer up,” she said, punching him in the arm. “We have a saying: a strong family shines brighter than all the stars. This is such a wonderful time for both of you—and I know things will only get better once the baby arrives.”
“Perhaps,” said Jeremiah. He had to admit that the thought of becoming a father made everything seem a little more vibrant. It also filled him with terror, but that was probably normal.
As he glanced over the room, Noemi’s eyes met his own. She smiled, and for the first time since leaving her home, she looked happy and fulfilled—completely at home, in a way that she never had been on the Ariadne.
“Why so gloomy?” Mariya asked. “Honestly, from the look on your face, you’d think that this was a funeral and not a housewarming party.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jeremiah softly, forcing a smile. “I suppose I shouldn’t let my worries get in the way of things.”
“Of course not. You’re as good as family now—so live a little!”
With that, she grinned and slipped back into the crowd, making her way back to Noemi. Someone in the corner had pulled out a strange musical instrument made up of several pipes jutting out of a green cloth bag, and the shrill noise of the music pierced even the cacophony of foreign voices.
Family, perhaps, Jeremiah thought to himself, but these are Noemi’s people, not mine.
* * * * *
“Jeremiah of Edenia,” said the dockyard foreman, a tall, heavyset man with dark hair and a black goatee. “Says here you’re a former starfarer—is that right?”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah, shifting on the hard metal folding chair. Papers and datachips covered the foreman’s desk, while the rumbling of heavy equipment sounded through the office’s thin walls.
“Jake here tells me you’re looking for work. What is it that brings you here to Alpha Oriana?”
“My wife, sir,” said Jeremiah. It sounded weird when he put it that way, but he supposed it was the truth.
The foreman nodded. “I see. And what sort of expertise do you bring with you?”
“I’ve run all the major trade routes between Oriana and the New Pleiades, as well as a handful of the ones running out toward Tajjur and the Good Hope Nebula. I’m also familiar with a wide variety of ship designs, and know how to unload them.”
“The outworlders pull starfarers to do stationers’ work?”
“From time to time,” said Jeremiah. “At the smaller outposts, everyone comes out to help.”
“Interesting,” said the foreman. He eyed the tablet with Jeremiah’s application. “Well, we’re short of men right now, and you seem to have what it takes. I’d love to put you on my crew.”
Jeremiah smiled and extended his hand. “Thank you, sir. I look forward to—”
“Hold on, there’s one more thing. You only just got here, so you probably don’t know about this yet, but the new colonial authority is making everyone sign up for a system-wide ID registry. If you don’t have your immigration documents in order, it’s technically illegal for you to work.”
Jeremiah frowned. “Documents?”
“Sure—residency, green card. I don’t suppose you have official citizenship in any of the Outworld systems, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I’m just a star wanderer.”
The foreman sighed. “That’s what I thought. In that case, I can’t hire you.”
A cold chill shot down Jeremiah’s back. “You can’t?”
“I’m afraid not. The Imperials aren’t handing out any new work permits for undocumented workers—so
mething about population controls, or so I hear. It’s hard to know what to believe these days. Either way, there’s nothing I can do until you can get your immigration status squared away first.”
“How do I do that?”
“Well, full-fledged citizenship is probably beyond your reach, though you can certainly start working towards it. For a green card, you’ll need proof that you’ve lived on the station for at least six months.”
Jeremiah’s stomach sank. “But I only just got here. My wife is pregnant—I need the money now!”
“I don’t write the rules, son, I only live by them, same as everyone else. I’m sorry.”
Jeremiah leaned forward and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. With Noemi’s health care costs, his funds wouldn’t last much longer than a week or two—he didn’t even have enough for next month’s rent. He could sell back the goods in his cargo hold, but then he’d have nothing to trade once they left this system.
“Why are they doing this?” he asked.
The foreman shrugged. “Rumor has it that the colonial authority wants to align Alpha Oriana with the Coreward Stars. If you ask me, it’s the first part of a wider plan to colonize this region of space.”
Jeremiah thought about it for a moment. If true, that explained why the Imperials had brought a full battle fleet out this far from Gaia Nova. But with Noemi’s pregnancy, he didn’t want to leave unless he knew they could find a Deltan community as supportive as this one, with a doctor who could speak her language. They’d been extremely fortunate to find Mariya and her family—if they left it all now for the Outworlds, he didn’t know if they’d be so lucky again.
“So what am I supposed to do?” he wondered aloud, more to himself than to anyone else.
“Look,” said the foreman, “if you just need something to pay the bills, you can always find a job in waste treatment. I know a couple of guys who can get you paid under the table—the station authorities don’t watch them too closely because they’re so desperate just to find anyone.”
Jeremiah’s heart leaped in his chest. “Really?”
“Sure. Of course, if you asked for my advice, I’d tell you to take your ship and go back to the Outworlds.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say, it isn’t pretty. Long hours, low pay, downright shitty work—it’s enough to suck the life right out of a man.”
He took a deep breath. “I’ve made long solo voyages across the deep. I can handle it.”
“You say that now,” said the foreman, shaking his head. He rose to his feet and keyed a message into the datapad on his desk. “Well, a job’s a job. I’ll get you in touch with the right people.”
“That would be great. Thank you.”
As Jeremiah followed the man out of his office, though, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were falling deeper and deeper into a gravity well, without the fuel to climb back out.
* * * * *
When Jeremiah returned to the apartment after his first week of work, his body ached and his clothes reeked of human waste. The stench was so bad that the Deltan incense smelled like sweet perfume. He stepped wearily through the door, his back hunched and his arms dangling limp by his side.
Noemi and Mariya sat in the family room, chatting with each other the way they always did. Noemi’s eyes lit up the moment he came in, and she rose up to greet him.
“Wait,” he said, holding up his hand. She stopped for a moment, puzzled, and then made a face as the stench hit her.
“Back from work?” asked Mariya, walking over. She made the same face and hastily plugged her nose.
“Yeah,” he said, shuffling toward the bathroom.
Noemi made a comment to Mariya, and the two of them giggled. Jeremiah was too exhausted to ask what she’d said; he entered the tiny bathroom and shed his filthy clothes before stepping into the shower unit.
After a long, tiring day at work, the shower felt like a life-giving balm. His knotted muscles unwound under the steaming hot water, and the stress of the last few days fell away like the layers of sweat and grime that covered his body. He scrubbed down his skin until it was practically red, then rubbed the soothing bath oils over himself until he felt like a new man. As the hot air blasted down on him during the drying cycle, he closed his eyes and imagined he was in a warm greenhouse glade, savoring the sweet renewal.
When he stepped back out, he found the girls waiting for him in the foyer. “We’re going for a walk,” said Mariya. “Care to join us?”
Jeremiah glanced at Noemi, who smiled as if to say come with us!
“Sure.”
She slipped her hand into his as they followed Mariya down the winding corridor to the nearest station elevator. The lights above the door flickered and several floor tiles were missing, but like everything else in the poor immigrant neighborhood, the space was meticulously clean.
“I know of a garden on the first level,” said Mariya as she palmed the access pad for the elevator. “The gravity is a little stronger there, so we probably shouldn’t come after the baby gets too big, but for now it should be fine.”
The elevator bounced a little as it descended. When the doors opened, the three of them stepped out to a wide vaulted room, dimly lit with vines and flowering shrubs hanging from the ceiling. The trickle of running water masked the low hum of the ventilation system, ever-present in a station as large as this, while in little alcoves along the wall, miniature trees descended in cascading tiers.
But the most striking feature of the place was the large glass window running along the floor. Milky starlight shone up through the leaves, dancing across the ceiling as the starfield spun slowly by. Noemi stepped out over the looming crescent of Madrigalna and stared down as it passed beneath them. She glanced up at him and smiled, and he felt for a moment as if he’d wandered into a dream.
“These gardens are kept mostly by us immigrants,” said Mariya. “It’s something to keep the older ones busy.”
“They’ve done an amazing job,” said Jeremiah. Noemi squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, admiring the flowers and the stars. Mariya wandered off to leave them alone with each other for a while. The sun came briefly into view, casting everything in dark golden hues through the self-tinting glass.
“Beautiful,” Jeremiah whispered, to no one in particular. “Reminds me of the Edenian gardens.”
Noemi coughed as if to clear her throat, making him glance over at her. Not for the first time, she seemed as if she had something she wanted to say.
She called to Mariya, who came over and spoke with her for a few moments. Jeremiah looked from one girl to the other, waiting for the translation.
“She wants to know whether you have a name picked out for the baby.”
“A name?” said Jeremiah. “No, I haven’t even thought about it yet.”
Noemi spoke again. Mariya nodded and turned back to him to translate.
“Among us Deltans, it’s traditional to name the first child after the grandparents. If it’s a daughter, then we name her after her mother’s mother; if it’s a son, then we name him after his father’s father.” Noemi spoke again, and Mariya nodded. “She wants to know what your father’s name was.”
“Fa-ther,” Noemi repeated.
“My father?” said Jeremiah. “His name was Isaiah.”
“Isha’rah,” said Noemi, sounding out each syllable. She nodded and smiled, then spoke to Mariya.
“She says it’s a good name.”
“What was her mother’s name?” Jeremiah asked.
A questioning look came across Noemi’s face. Mariya explained it to her.
“Rahel.”
“Rahel,” he said. “It’s good.”
“Good?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “Good.”
Noemi smiled again, but this time her expression was tinged with sadness. He remembered wiping the tears from her eyes as she sat beneath the dream monitor, a
nd a similar longing welled up inside of him.
“Do you miss her?” he asked.
Noemi spoke quickly, and Mariya waited for several moments before trying to explain.
“She says yes, sometimes she does, but it isn’t your fault. She’s only sad because she knows that they’re probably all dead right now.”
“I know,” said Jeremiah. “I’m sorry.”
“Before you came, she expected that she would die with them, too, because she was too old for anyone to want to marry her.”
“Wait—too old? How old is she?”
The girls conferred with each other for a moment. Mariya nodded and turned back to him.
“Nineteen years by old Earth standard.”
“Nineteen? Only nineteen? How is that too old?”
Mariya covered her mouth to keep from laughing. “Among us, it’s considered old. I’m sixteen, but I’m already betrothed to my cousin, and he’s only waiting because we’re too poor to afford our own apartment.”
“But who in their right mind would turn her down just because she’s nineteen?”
Noemi blushed as Mariya translated for her. They conferred together for some time.
“To be honest,” said Mariya, “she’s not very pretty—not by our standards, at least. Most men at Megiddo Station prefer a girl who’s … a little more filled out, if you know what I mean.”
Jeremiah looked Noemi up and down. She certainly wasn’t as curvy as some women, but he’d never really given it much thought. Things like that didn’t matter while they were alone together—all that mattered was that she was his girl.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I think you’re beautiful.”
Noemi smiled as Mariya translated for her, but still seemed a bit distant.
For the next little while, they walked in silence through the starlit garden. The air was sweet and refreshing, and the view beneath their feet was absolutely breathtaking. Mariya walked silently behind them, waiting until she could be of service. It wasn’t long before Noemi motioned to her.
