by F P Adriani
“I know. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be happy to see you.”
I rolled my eyes, and I hoped he could see the fury in them. “Give me a break, or else I might just break your jaw.”
He laughed now, hard; in fact, he seemed to be having trouble stopping laughing, which now seemed totally inappropriate in the extreme.
I groaned. “I’ve wasted my goddamn time with all this. How can you help me now when you’ve clearly lost your mind?”
When he spoke this time, his laughing died down, though not completely…. “I want to help you. I really do.”
I sort of believed him now. So I said, “Well, here’s the thing. I’ve got info I need you to check out. You got a pen and paper?”
He nodded and his white fabric-covered shoulder moved; apparently, somewhere below the view-screen, his arm was poised to write.
I told him exactly what the three letters said; I also gave him the name and address of Jericho Hydro.
His hand still seemed to be moving below the screen’s silver frame, but I asked him, “Does anything there ring a bell?”
“I’m not sure….” His voice faded away, and he stared toward the top of the screen, or, more probably, toward the top of the room there.
I waited for him to say something, but, courtesy of my impatience and my pounding-too-hard heart, I had to prompt him. “Well?”
His eyes dropped way down now. “That dish-and-spoon sentence—that sounds familiar somehow….” Shaking his head fast, he sighed. “Well, I don’t know. Let me see what I can come up with.”
“The Jericho seems like it’s important too—you know anything there? It’s a gas mining and refining company here.”
“Off the top of my head, I’m not making any connection. I’ll get back to you tomorrow afternoon—”
“No—I’m flying out tomorrow afternoon, about ten after two Diamond time. I get into New York Port early-morning on the eleventh there.”
“Good. But I’ll contact you with whatever I have before then. Tomorrow. On your flight.”
“I can’t wait,” I said in a sarcastic voice.
*
As I had planned, the next day Roberto took me and Tan to the ship-port, and then we said our goodbyes—only I found it a little difficult because Roberto’s face drooped in an I’m-really-bummed way.
I patted him on his big-and-warm bare forearm, and then he said, “I just wish I was coming with you.”
“I appreciate your worry, but I need you here the most. Don’t forget how I told you to open the Sapphire mailbox—or about securing MSA.”
His mouth a lopsided curve, he nodded at me. “I got Paulie setting up something for outside the house—a field of motion detectors in a series or something.”
“Great,” I said, because it was great.
…What wasn’t great: when Tan and I finally got on the ship and it lifted off Diamond. Because I’d made the reservation so last-minute, I couldn’t get us the best space passage.
The ship’s lift-off vibrations were just too damn strong, at least stronger than I remembered from other flights. And though I was strapped in beside Tan in our room’s strap wall, my body still felt like a rag doll being jerked around by overwhelming gravitational and anti-gravitational forces….
“This stinks,” I said to Tan, who miraculously was dealing with the lift off a lot better than I thought he would be—and a lot better than I was dealing with it.
“Hey,” he said, and he was actually READING while the physical Universe was brutally vibrating us. “This says we’ll be passing where a kaleidoscope comet’s visible!”
“Yeah, I can’t wait,” I mumbled around the churning wave of nausea my stomach had evolved into.
“But I’ve always wanted to see one.”
“I’m happy for you, Tan. I just wish my stomach felt happy right now.”
“Poor baby,” said Tan, his eyes still on the passenger brochure in his hand.
*
The ride finally quieted down and my stomach did along with it—not entirely, but enough that I could move around our cabin and unpack our stuff.
The mostly red living-room/bedroom area was small but not uncomfortable. There was a double bed at the center, banked by a long, gold-metallic dresser. Around a ceiling-to-floor mirrored corner sat a well-equipped bathroom decorated with gold fixtures. At first glance, the cabin looked quite elegant; at second glance, the gold finish was peeling off everything.
I sighed. “I think this ship is old,” I said, as I sat down onto the edge of the bed, pulling my special case beside me.
Tan was sliding one of his arms into the electric-blue shirt I’d watched him pack on Diamond. “As long as it gets us there in one piece and we don’t wind up as space debris…what are you doing?”
I had opened my case to check something. I’d had no time to complete rigging up what I would need on Earth. I’d have time now, so I intended to use it.
“I’ve got to finish making something,” I said to Tan.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you some other time.”
“Secrets secrets secrets. You’re always full of secrets, my ever-mysterious girlfriend.”
I was smiling as I fiddled with the inside of my case, using the raised cover to shield the contents from Tan. “Well, at least our relationship will never be lacking in mystery.”
“You couldn’t be more right,” he said, pointing at me.
*
Fortunately, the ship turned out to be bigger than average for commercial interlayer ships, and the common areas were spacious enough that I was able to talk myself into believing I wasn’t inside a metal can inside a no-air-out-there space, which delusion helped allay my claustrophobic tendencies, if not my churning stomach.
The ship’s size also meant there were quite a few distracting things to do on it; there was a game room and a well-stocked library with all kinds of books and videos, and supposedly, there would be entertainment some nights.
Unfortunately, for the rest of that first afternoon, I couldn’t manage more than a long old movie in the video section of the library, while I sat cushioned inside a deep, rubbery armchair. Damn, did I feel exhausted….
I startled awake from my slumber and saw some woman’s smiling face peering down at me. “Oh excuse me,” she said, “are you from Earth? I’m wondering what the best flight from New York Port—”
I stood up abruptly and cut her off with a just-as-abrupt voice: “I’m not from Earth. You should ask one of the porters.” I walked away from her.
There had been nothing wrong with her, nothing suspicious, but I really couldn’t take a chance on talking with strangers. I wasn’t exactly very secure on this flight.
My cabin had the usual, modest spaceship security system, and there was even a decent safe inside for stowing my case. But outside that room I couldn’t very well walk around with a gun all the time…all right. I did walk around with a gun all the time; I kept the smallest gun I owned holster-strapped under my loose apple-red jacket, which jacket I intended to keep wearing, along with my gun. I’d have to get the jacket laundered on here when I would be sweating in it for days, like I was sweating now….
It was just some thin gray-haired woman; most likely she was harmless. But I didn’t like that she might have been hovering over me for even an instant while I’d slept. Sometimes people were so damn forward.
I reached the other end of the library, where I’d left Tan earlier. I found him doing the same thing I had been doing: sleeping, except he had been sitting at a big table, his head hanging forward toward the book sprawled out in front of him.
I walked beside him and lowered my head, my mouth reaching his ear from behind. “Hey, sleepyhead—dinner’s gonna be on in half-an-hour.”
He jerked awake, but I quickly kissed his ear and blew into it a little under cover of my hair because two people were sitting across from him: a man and a little boy.
I smiled at them now, and they quickly wen
t back to their digital coloring in a digital coloring-book.
*
The ship’s dining room was white and silver, and big and busy. It was also partly an exterior room, containing digital viewer walls full of space images. Some of the images were real-time via telescopic lenses; other images were replayed recordings. The kaleidoscope-comet images later on would be both real-time and replayed so people could get a full viewing of the many colors of the comet’s tails as it passed nearer to The Diamond Layer’s largest sun, Strobe….
Tan was reading that info to me from the about-the-comet brochure that had come with our table.
I told him I’d already heard some of the info. “I knew a comet-tracker once. There are actually people who travel around following comets and other space objects. That’s all they do, even through space flumes.”
“That’s so damn dangerous.”
“Some people love being around danger.”
Tan’s ironic brown eyes looked at me. Then they slid back down to his brochure.
Now my eyes wandered around the dining room. The lighting was quite bright, so I had a pretty good view of the whole area and all the people in it. At a buffet table near the kitchen’s big wall cut-out, I spotted that woman from the library.
Her face was in profile to me as she loaded food onto a plate. Her tall, slim self eventually turned and walked even farther away from where I was seated.
Now I said to Tan, “I fell asleep in the library before, and that woman scared the crap out of me. She was hovering over me when I woke up.”
Tan’s head shot around. “Who—what woman?”
“The one in the green dress—tall, gray hair?”
His eyes in her direction now, he laughed. “She scared you? She looks like she’d fall over if I blew on her!”
I bristled a little; then I realized he was right. “Well, you just never know who anyone is.”
“Pia, if you’re that worried that you’re afraid of a fragile-looking old woman, it’s hopeless.”
“Thanks for calling me hopeless,” I snapped. “She doesn’t look that old to me—maybe her mid-sixties. She’s just really thin—sometimes that makes older people look even older.”
“Whatever. She just doesn’t look threatening is my point.”
I sighed. “I kind of was rude to her. I mean, people shouldn’t say anything to you as soon as you wake up.”
“That’s definitely true for you.”
“I never said I was a morning person,” I replied, frowning now. Then I sighed. “When the server comes back, order whatever you’re getting for me too, except no extra spices—”
“Why don’t you order for yourself?”
I stood up, pointing in the woman’s direction. “I’m going to apologize to her.”
I walked away, and when I reached the table she was sitting at now, her head spun around to me—and her taut face seemed shocked that I was standing there, like a role-reversal of our first meeting.
She was seated alone and had been on the verge of sticking a forkful of salad into her mouth. But she smiled up at me now as I told her I was sorry that I’d sounded rude earlier. “Sometimes I’m not good about waking up.”
She dropped her fork onto her plate and pressed her hand to her green-covered chest. And then she talked—she kind of couldn’t stop talking, as if she didn’t often get the opportunity to talk. “Oh it was me—my fault. I startled you! I didn’t arrange the last part of my trip well enough. I’m visiting a friend on Earth. I haven’t seen her in so many years! Since before my husband died five years ago…. But I turned and saw you, and you just looked so approachable in your chair! Diamond people can be so grumpy….” Now her palm flew from her chest to near her mouth. “How rude of me! I’m sorry if you’re from Diamond….”
I laughed. “I am—I’m a Sander. But I take it you’re not?”
“I’ve been living there about twenty years….”
“Well, you’re right about the Sander grumpiness, actually. And it takes guts to say that out loud.”
Her pale face flushed a bit. “I’m a librarian at a children’s library—the big one in Norfolk Blue? Because I work around kids all the time, I sometimes forget how to talk to other adults. Kids are so frank.”
“That’s the best thing about them,” I said on a smile. I felt like an ass, though: I believed her about the librarian-thing, and that meant I had suspected a librarian of nefarious doings. How pathetically paranoid. And because I just wasn’t getting any bad vibes from her now, I wondered if I’d been having a bad dream right before I’d woken in the library and that had affected my response then.
I said to her now, “Are you going to stay and watch the kaleidoscope-comet show later? You’re welcome to join us at our table then. My boyfriend Tan is so excited, he made us get here early and pick the table closest to the view-screens.” I glanced over at him, saw the server standing near him as she apparently explained something on the menu. I turned back to the woman. “Actually, why don’t you come join us now?”
Her flush deepened and her hand was on her chest again. “Oh that’s so nice. But I think I’ll leave you to your dinner. I will join you for the comet show. I wasn’t going to stay, but it’s different if you watch it with someone else, you know?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
*
Back at the other table a little later, Tan said to me, “She’s just some lonely widow, and you thought—” he shook his head fast “—I don’t know what you thought.”
“I know, I know. No need to rub it in.” You still never knew though: using the ship’s computer to search for the Norfolk library crossed my mind…but I really did believe her. For once I would just leave something at that.
The food soon came but I wound up mostly picking at it: I was still feeling queasy—and headachy too now, probably courtesy of all the stress lately. I simply had no energy left to spend on making myself feel less sick, and sometimes how sick you felt was because of how sick you let yourself feel.
That I was really worried about traveling the space flumes wasn’t helping my appetite either.
Every time the ship used its thrusters, it felt as if they were being used on my head, as if the ship were fucking-thrusting at me there. And the forces in the flumes would be even stronger. Luckily, we wouldn’t hit the first flume till the next night, when I planned on being asleep—hopefully, knocked-out asleep….
“You’re not eating,” Tan suddenly said as he continued eating.
In reply, I just frowned and put down my fork.
“Stomach?”
“Yeah. And a few of my other organs, like my BRAIN. I think I’m gonna get some pills from the ship’s doctor later. Not too late though. James is supposed to contact me, and I could use some medical support beforehand….” My voice trailed off into a sigh.
“I don’t know why the fuck you have to talk to him on the flight.”
I avoided his statement. “You’ll finally get to meet him.”
“I can’t wait,” Tan growled.
Tan had been trained by the UPG on Diamond, but not by James and not in any kind of intensive way. Just for the one type of job: watching any political developments in the Diamond mines and then reporting back on that and similar issues. Some days I envied him and wished that was all I’d ever done in my past….
He put down his fork for the last time as he sat back against the silver-cushioned chair. “Don’t look now: the big bad wolf-woman is headed our way.”
My eyes snapped to where he stared: the woman-in-green was walking toward us. She waved at me a little, so I waved back.
“I forgot to ask your name,” I said when she finally stood beside my table.
“Oh—Eleanor! Eleanor Simmons.”
“I’m Pia and this is Tan.”
Tan raised his hand toward her, and she took it, shook it, and said, “Nice to meet you,” that flush of hers touching her face again.
“Sit down,” I told her as I pulled out
the chair beside me.
But she didn’t take it. “A waiter just came by my table and said the comet show’s starting in ten minutes! …But I must use a bathroom before then.”
“I know what you mean. I’ll join you,” I said, standing up.
“Don’t be long!” Tan said to our backs.
And we weren’t long in the bathroom down the hall because I kind of rushed; I didn’t think Tan would forgive me if I missed even a minute of watching the show with him.
As Eleanor and I were walking out of the bathroom, she said, “You and Tan look like you’re having a nice time. Are you on a vacation?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“What line of business are you in, if you don’t mind my asking….”
“I don’t mind,” I said, when I actually did mind, but she didn’t need to know that. She seemed like a soft personality, prone to worrying. She reminded me of Tan’s mom.
I said now, “I have my own business. I mostly work in security.”
“Oh—that sounds interesting…your Tan looks like he’s ready to jump out of his seat!” We’d entered the dining room, and as we walked toward the table, I saw what she meant: a few of the viewer panels had been turned on, and Tan’s head was whipping from one wide panel image to the next, and then back again. I’d never seen him like this. If I had known he’d get so excited during a trip to a far-away planet, I would have suggested a REAL vacation sooner….
My eyes fell on one view-screen and the very-fast-moving recordings and stills of the kaleidoscope comet in various stages of appearance over the past few months. It was considered a strange comet because typically about five tails traveled along with it. But they were fuzzy, looked like they were sizzling with some type of interference—or maybe an iridescence that blanketed not only the tails but the head too.
The kaleidoscope comets usually emerged singly on a path from a Diamond Layer space flume; humans had so far never entered the part of space where the comets seemingly came from because the flume that flowed into it was too dangerous to navigate. Probes had been launched into there, but the probes either never sent back messages, never returned, or had returned too damaged for people to get any recorded information….
