by Joe Vasicek
“This is our medical bay,” he said, ushering them all inside. “It’s not exactly state of the art, but it’s stocked with just about everything you might need—and what we don’t have, we can fabricate or synthesize easily enough on our own.”
The bay was a lot smaller than a typical station-side clinic, but the facilities were clean and well-organized. An examining table lay folded up on the right, while rows of cabinets and compartments filled the wall on the far side. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely more than what they had on the Ariadne.
The doctor was a tall, thin man, with short black hair and an impeccably clean lab-coat. He stood from his computer terminal at the far end of the room as they entered.
“Good upshift, Captain,” he said. “How may I be of service?”
“Don’t mind me, doctor—I’m just showing our newest passengers around the ship.”
“Hi,” said Jeremiah, extending his hand. “My name is Jeremiah, and this is my wife, Noemi.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said the doctor, smiling graciously as they shook hands. “I’m Doctor Andreson, but you may call me Ian.”
“Thanks.” Noemi nodded in greeting as Mariya translated for her.
“My wife is pregnant,” Jeremiah explained. “She’s due just before we arrive at Zarmina. Can you take care of her?”
Doctor Andreson smiled. “Of course! This is a colony ship, after all. There are six nurses aboard the ship, and two of them are trained midwives. Between the seven of us, I’m sure we’ll be able to take care of her.”
“What if there are complications?”
“I assure you, Mr. Jeremiah, we are trained professionals who are thoroughly prepared for any contingency. I’ve delivered more than two hundred healthy babies on half a dozen worlds in the course of my career, many of them under much more trying circumstances than what we have here. Trust me—your wife is in good hands on this ship.”
“I have every confidence in Doctor Andreson,” said the captain, putting a hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder. “This is the second voyage he’s been with us, and I must say he’s one of the best I’ve seen.”
Jeremiah let out a long breath and nodded. He felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders, leaving him a little lightheaded.
“In any case, on to the rest of the ship!”
Noemi gave Jeremiah a reassuring smile as they stepped back into the corridor. For the first time in months, her quiet confidence now seemed justified.
“You’ll find engineering and recycling back near the reactors,” said the captain. “Those are the only crew posts south of this part of the ship. Everything else is passenger quarters—bunk rooms, dream center, wash and shower units, even an observation deck. But first, the rec hall.”
He led them into a small gymnasium where a group of young men were playing a game of rocketball. Judging from the way the players bounded off the walls for some truly stunning leaps, the artificial gravity was different here than the rest of the ship. The system sun shone dimly through one of the many windows on the ceiling, peppered like skylights to make the place feel more open than it really was.
“The younger kids like to use the hall for sports and games,” said Elijah. “They’ve even organized a tournament. But when they haven’t scheduled the place, we have plenty of other equipment you can use: treadmills, bikes, and weight machines. Everyone is required to spend thirty minutes per dayshift in some form of exercise. Those who skip get assigned to recycling.”
“Does it have to be strenuous?” asked Jeremiah. “I mean, what if Noemi’s pregnancy makes it difficult?”
The captain waved his hand as if to brush the question away. “If the doctor advises it, I’m sure we can make an exception in your case. I may run a tight ship, but I don’t expect you to act like robots.”
“Besides,” said Mariya, “walks during a pregnancy are healthy and good, and not a problem unless she’s bedridden by doctor’s orders.”
Right, thought Jeremiah, shrinking back a little. What do I know? Apparently, when it came to pregnancy, not that much. He looked sheepishly at Noemi, who shrugged.
“Next up, the dream center,” said the captain. He led them across the hall to a room almost as large as the gymnasium, except without the windows. Inside, ergonomic reclining chairs radiated outward from half a dozen cylindrical computer cores. All but a few of the chairs were filled, some with children who couldn’t be much older than ten. Wires hung like tinsel from the ceiling, while only the hum of the ventilation system broke the silence.
“This is where most of us come during our off time,” Captain Elijah explained. “We’re required to do at least three hours a day, but most of us do more than that. Helps keep us sane, you know.”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah. After spending almost a year flying solo across the lonely void between stars, he knew all too well.
Noemi began speaking quickly, and Mariya raised her hand to catch the captain’s attention. “She wants to know the model and specifications of the simulators.”
He frowned. “To be honest, I don’t exactly know. We installed most of them at the Tajjur system, but that was almost twenty standard years ago. If you’d like, I can get you in touch with the officer on duty.”
Noemi nodded as Mariya translated, then spoke again. “She wants to know what sort of neural augmentations the simulators support, and whether there’s enough free memory to support large-scale rewriting of the simulations.”
“The answer to the last one is no,” said the captain. “With over two hundred crew and passengers, we just don’t have enough capacity to justify that. However, our simulators support every major sub-neural OS, so if you have the drivers, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You need?” said Noemi. She opened her mouth to speak, then turned to Mariya to clarify.
“She wants to know if you need another programmer,” Mariya translated.
Jeremiah frowned, while Captain Elijah shrugged. “I don’t see why not. As long as the doctor clears it, I’m sure we can work something out.”
That means we’re going to have a lot less time together, Jeremiah thought. Not that that was a bad thing—there certainly wasn’t much for her to do on the Ariadne, so the change was probably for the best. Still, in this strange place crowded with people he didn’t know, he couldn’t help but worry that things would get lonely without her.
One of the nearby women sat up from her chair and yawned as she took off her dream monitor. It took a second for him to recognize her, but when Jakob walked over and helped her to her feet, he realized that she was Salome, Mariya’s mother.
Jakob greeted her in Deltan and helped her to her feet. She was a short, plump woman, with jet black hair and a large, round nose. Her face, which had probably once been pretty, was creased and worn from hard work. Still, her smile was not unpleasant.
“Hello,” she said, pronouncing the foreign word with some difficulty. Mariya gave her a warm hug, while Noemi, a little shy, waited for Jeremiah to greet her before doing the same. The four of them were soon chatting merrily in Deltan, kissing each other on the cheeks and putting their arms around each other.
“Some family, eh?” said Captain Elijah. “You know what those Deltans say—a strong family shines brighter than all the stars.”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah. “Though I guess after this voyage, we’ll all be family in one sense or another.”
Elijah laughed. “Quite right,” he said, slapping Jeremiah heartily on the back. “Where we’re going, it’s not just blood that makes a family.”
* * * * *
Jeremiah watched from the doorway of the bunk room as the three women chatted while making up the beds. The bureaucratic hassles with the Gamman customs office had kept him busy all day, and he felt more than ready for some rest. Fortunately, the two young couples that shared the room had just barely left for the downshift cycle. Sharing the bunks felt a little odd, but Noemi didn’t seem to have a problem with it. It would be bett
er for her here than on the Ariadne, and Jeremiah didn’t want to spend the nightshifts on his own ship alone.
“Here,” said Jakob from behind. “Do you need help carrying anything out from the Ariadne?”
“Not really,” said Jeremiah, turning around. “We’ve just got a few personal belongings. I can get it myself.”
Jakob laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Well, let me help you anyway. I insist.” He said something to the women in Deltan, and all three of them nodded in assent, especially Mariya.
Once in the hallway, Jeremiah turned to Jakob and gave him a puzzled look. The sound of the women quickly faded, while passengers and crew slipped past them.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We need to talk,” said Jakob, motioning for him to lead the way.
Jeremiah’s heart sank as they stepped through the hatchway toward the crew section and docking bays. His mind raced, trying to figure out what Jakob wanted to talk with him about. Had he acted inappropriately toward Mariya? Violated some Deltan norm that he didn’t yet know about? He mentally retraced his steps since arriving at the Hope of Oriana, but couldn’t think of anything that would warrant a private reprimand. Of course, that only made him worry all the more.
They walked in silence through the mess hall and control rooms, stopping at the airlock that led to the Ariadne. He punched the password code on the access panel and led the way through. Once inside, the door hissed shut behind them, cutting them off from the others.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked, stepping into the cabin of his starship. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” said Jakob. “Please, have a seat.”
It seemed a bit odd for a guest to offer up the seats like he owned the place. Jeremiah unfolded the chair on the far end of the cabin, while Jakob unfolded the other and sat down facing him.
“Nice place,” he said, taking some time to admire the ship. “A bit cozy, but not much more than the Hope of Oriana. I see you’ve dismantled whatever cot used to be here.”
“I took it out to make more room,” Jeremiah said quickly. “We sleep on a hammock now—it’s stowed in one of the upper compartments.”
Jakob nodded in admiration. “Clever. A very practical solution, given the limitations.”
What’s he trying to get at? Jeremiah wondered to himself.
“I try my best,” he said. “It’s hard sometimes, but Noemi and I understand each other well enough to get by.”
“That’s very good. You’re a good man.”
Jakob touched his fingertips together and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking Jeremiah in the eye.
Here it comes.
“You and I both know what it means to be starfarers,” he began. “We shouldn’t have much difficulty understanding each other. It takes a certain degree of toughness to live between the stars—a knowledge of one’s duty and a willingness to make sacrifices for the good of the whole.”
“I suppose so,” said Jeremiah, shifting uneasily. “Thankfully, things haven’t been too difficult.”
“On the contrary—you’ve had quite a few challenges and have risen to them admirably. Take Noemi, for example. A lesser man would have abandoned her, or sold her into slavery, or done any of a hundred other unspeakable things. There is no law in the Outworlds, after all: only the promises we make with each other.”
“Where are you going with this?” Jeremiah blurted. “I’m sorry, I—”
“No no, that’s quite all right,” said Jakob, patting him on the knee. “I can see you’re nervous, so I’ll get right to the point.”
He paused for a moment and glanced away, clearly finding it difficult to breach the subject.
“It’s about my daughter,” he said. “I love her very much, and I want only the best for her. More than anything else, she deserves a good man who knows how to appreciate her.”
Jeremiah frowned. “Appreciate her?”
“Yes. When we lived at Alpha Oriana with the rest of the family, she was engaged to a distant relative of her mother’s. Now that they’ve all gone Coreward, though, all that has changed. Here on the Hope of Oriana, her prospects don’t look good—and even if they did, I don’t know if I’d trust her with any of these young men anyway.”
“So wait,” said Jeremiah, waving his hand for a time out. “You want me to—what? Marry your daughter?”
Jakob smiled. “That is precisely what I want.”
“But I’m already married!”
“My friend,” he said, patting Jeremiah on the knee again, “I am sure you have heard how, in the old days when our forefathers left the Coreward Stars, it fell upon certain upstanding men to care for more than one woman. Are we not in the same position now? Pioneers, traveling to a virgin world on the edge of settled space?”
“How does Mariya feel about this?”
“Very well. She actually approached me first about it, before I could suggest it to her.”
She did?
Jeremiah swallowed as flashbacks of the fateful meeting with Noemi’s father raced across his mind. It was happening to him all over again—stumbling into a marriage without hardly knowing how it had happened. A wave of nausea rose up in his stomach, and he felt as if the walls were closing in on him. Just when everything seemed to be coming together, it all had to spin back out of his control.
“What if I say no?”
Jakob’s face darkened briefly, eclipsed by a look of desperation—or perhaps anger. He took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh.
“Would you really refuse her? Surely you understand how isolated we’ll be at Zarmina, once we settle there.”
That’s true, Jeremiah thought as he fidgeted nervously. Not only was that bad for Mariya, it was bad for him and Noemi. There weren’t any other Deltans on the colony expedition—if his refusal caused a rift between them and Mariya’s family, the resulting animosity could be poisonous.
“Besides,” Jakob continued, “why wouldn’t you want to marry my daughter? Your wife and she are practically best friends already, and she’d certainly be able to help with your language issues. It’s best for everyone, really.
“Noemi and I can speak with each other just fine,” Jeremiah said under his breath. It was a weak objection, one that he knew wasn’t true. From the face Jakob made as he raised his eyebrow, he clearly didn’t believe it either.
“Please try not to be selfish. It might seem like a difficult thing to you now, but I promise my daughter will be good to you both.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Jeremiah almost asked. Instead, he took a deep breath and said nothing. As much as he wanted to object, he didn’t want to turn the discussion into an argument. That wouldn’t help anyone.
Jakob grunted and rose to his feet. “I don’t expect you to give me your answer right now, of course. We’ve still got time—we’re not at Zarmina yet.”
“No, we’re not.”
“I do hope you’ll consider it seriously, though. If you do, I think you’ll see that the circumstances here aren’t so different from the ones that led you to your first wife.”
But I have feelings for Noemi that I don’t for Mariya, Jeremiah wanted to say. Though he had to admit, those feelings had only come with time. Perhaps—
No. Even thinking about it felt like a betrayal.
“Until you do get back to me,” Jakob asked, “what do you want me to tell Mariya?”
Jeremiah blinked and came back to the present. “Tell her?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her … tell her I—”
“Well?”
“Tell her that I’ll talk with her myself,” said Jeremiah. After I’ve had some time to figure out what to say.
Jakob smiled. “Very good. I’ll tell her to expect your answer soon.” He took Jeremiah’s hand and gave him a firm handshake, as if they’d just made a deal.
Wait! Jeremiah wanted to say. I didn’t say that I’d tell her yes. But even if he
gave voice to his concerns, he doubted that Jakob was going to take no for an answer.
Chapter 13
The walls and floors of B’tum station bent sharply upward, creating the illusion of a giant bowl. The smell of leather hung thick in the air, while traders on all sides haggled with customers and shouted out the merits of their wares. Space was at a premium, so every square meter was filled with booths and stalls, vendors hanging their goods from floor to ceiling even in the main thoroughfare.
Jeremiah drifted alone in the crowd, scoping out the market as he fingered the data chit from the sale of his Betan fish. Only a couple of days before the Hope of Oriana left for Zarmina—he had to choose his purchases wisely, since it would be a long while before they came to another thriving settlement like this. Most of the stalls were filled with produce: brightly colored fruit and vegetables from the terraformed surface, and large, bloody carcasses dangling from hooks in the ceiling. Others carried leather products, such as boots, belts, and other articles of clothing. Here and there, he caught sight of the larger booths that catered in bulk to starfarers and free traders, but for the first time since he’d left Edenia, they held little interest for him. He was on a colony expedition now, not a trade run—there was no need to maximize his profits or speculate on prices at other stars.
As he walked downspin along the unnaturally steep curvature of the station walkway, a familiar face flashed briefly into view amid the crowd. Cropped black hair, a small round nose, lips curled up at the edges—where did he know that face? He froze where he stood, nearly causing a collision behind him. A name was on the tip of his tongue—
“Amos!” he shouted.
Heads around him turned, but none of them was anyone he recognized. For a moment, he wondered if he’d made a fool of himself for nothing. But then, the familiar face came back into view, eyes lighting up almost immediately.
“Jeremiah! Is that really you?”
