'That's an underestimate. With a good crew who understand how to build and maintain an ecological community, the Artemis could hold a hundred thousand,' Catalina said.
'How'd you get a hold of one of those? You’ve been a captain, what, a couple months?'
Catalina rolled her eyes. 'It's been a year Roman. Not all of us have been honey-mooning. I was promoted after our stint on the RL Carson.’
'You certainly looked the part,' Roman said with his big wicked grin.
'It was my actions that got me promoted, you pig. Badge of Valor,' Catalina tapped one of the brightly colored carbon filament badges on her dark green Captain's uniform from the Institute for Organic Expansion. 'They found my actions above and beyond the call of duty. This planet you’ve been squatting on for the last year owes me its life. At least that's what it says in the record book.'
'Funny, I thought you weren't supposed to leave crew behind on Institute missions.'
Catalina glared at him. 'You could not be found. I marked you MP and we moved on. It seems you did too.'
Roman at least had the decency to look away. 'Sola, you know how I am. Not much focus or whatever right? But Betriz… Betriz is different. She has so much passion! I mean, you saw her back there, have you ever seen someone so filled with life?'
'She was trying to dump you.'
'Like you said, it's been a year. I think we're both trying to grow.'
'Roman, how the hell are you supposed to grow in this place?'
'I don't follow,' Roman looked absolutely confounded.
'You're an ecologist for the Charter's sake. Why are you stuck in this burbdome bringing in illegal flora and fauna?'
Roman scowled, 'This place needs some plants and bugs, to live without them is to trap the soul of man beneath one’s rug. You know that, Sola.'
Catalina managed to not shutter at the awful verse of poetry. He was still writing then. ‘Of course I know that. I know that you know that. What I don't know is why the hell you're still here.'
'For Betriz. We’re in love. I couldn't possibly leave her.'
'Roman… don't you remember Gertra, or Jenzy? You said the same thing about all of them.'
Roman shrugged. 'I know I did, it's just, I was part of a crew then, what choice did I have? It might not have lasted any ways, but Betriz… Betriz is something different. And we've been together so long. You of all people should know a year is a lot for me, I haven't been with anyone that long since…' Roman scratched his head and thought for a moment.
'...since me Roman. The relationship you were in before Betriz was with me. We were together 6 months.'
Roman smiled that big smile of his but his eyes filled with pain. 'And I didn't think that was going to last either… but Betriz… don't you see what we have together?’ he grinned wolfishly, ‘I mean, the sex alone is out of this world! Her frame and those breasts, can you believe she lifts me off the ground and shoves me into those things? It’s like I’m back in zero-G.'
Catalina took a deep breath. He wasn't acting how her heart wanted him to, but this was better if he was to join her crew. Roman was over her, just like he'd gotten over every other woman he'd come across. This could work. Catalina told herself she was happy that at least she wouldn’t have to be fighting off his advances anymore. 'Roman Luz Jupiter, I would like to formally extend an offer to serve aboard the Artemis as Chief Entomologist and Ensign of the Institute.'
'But… Betriz.'
'Here me out before you mention your well-endowed girlfriend. I wouldn't come to you if I wasn't desperate. We need you. We lost our last ecologist on an outer world to some sort of… I don't know, ground bug. Big damn things, and hungry.'
'Wait, you were on an outer world?'
'That's what I'm trying to tell you. The Institute wants to move forward with their Second Spring for the centennial. They want to get the outer worlds mapped and surveyed before the Corps get out there and build more of these damn things,' Catalina gestured vaguely to the gray walls around them. 'We need you Roman. We need someone of your… stamina. Someone who knows his bugs and isn't afraid to get physical. If those Corps ships had got to Epsilon-V before we had they never would have seen those monster bugs. Millions of lives could have been lost. Maybe the whole planet. We still don't even know what those creatures were. We need you- the Institute needs you and I need you on the Artemis to go with us back to Epsilon-V and figure out whatever the hell those things were that got Dr. Mercurian.'
'Dr. Patrick Mercurian?'
'The one and only. You'd be filling big shoes.'
Roman nodded, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. 'Big bugs you say? Larger than anything we've seen previously?'
'Makes a cockroach look like a house flea.'
'There were various species roaches on the Seedpods but regardless, that is rather interesting.'
Catalina gave him a moment to ponder before she brought out her tablet and queued up the video.
'And Roman, you were right about the fireflies, at least on Epsilon-V.'
She passed the tablet to him and played the vid. On it, a firefly as large as her thumb crawled up her p-suit sleeve and flashed a bright yellow before flying off to join a swarm of hundreds more. Roman's eyes went wide.
'There was nothing that large on any of the Seedpods.'
'There was nothing that large in the known universe until we found it on Epsilon-V. Something's happening out there Roman. All of the organisms that survived are evolving far more quickly than anyone expected. You know how on the inner worlds we find new, even novel species, but Epsilon-V was unlike anything any of us had ever seen. And that's just the first one. There's another 29 worlds that are expected to have life that are either scantly unexplored or completely virgin. There's a whole roc
'That we think we created. We certainly didn't make that firefly.'
'This is exactly the kind of thinking I need on my ship. So will you join us?'
Roman thought about it for a long while, his broad hands rubbing his stubbly jaw, his big smile hid behind a brooding visage. After a time he finally looked up. His eyes were heavy with emotion. 'You understand that my heart belongs to another. My time on Bulletar has left me evolved. I lust only for Betriz now. Whatever was between us is no more, nor will it ever come to be again. I am a specialist much like the moths of the ancient North American desert, I crave only one yucca. I don't mean to be forward, but I don't wish for you to harbor any feelings that simply cannot be returned. Much as the proboscis of said moth can never hope to sip sweet milkweed, I cannot hope to-'
'Yeah I get it.' Catalina said, holding up a hand to silence Roman. 'I'll be your commanding officer. It wouldn't do to fraternize with one of my ensigns.'
'It didn't stop you before,' Roman said and his devilish grin appeared then quickly vanished. 'Of course you have room for Betriz? She is quite a skilled violinist and can surely aide the long bouts of boredom spent in Bubbledrive.'
Catalina shook her head in disbelief. 'You really think that,' she began but then she caught herself. 'Let me check with Farah,' she said instead and punched a few codes into her tablet, and when the response came she looked up at Roman and nodded. 'Betriz is ready for your departure.'
'Well, to the stars said the firefly, and the stars beckoned back.'
‘Perfecto,' Catalina smiled.
Chapter 7
Somehow they made it back to the Artemis, though Catalina couldn’t say how exactly. She found burbdomes supremely disorienting. Too many ninety degree turns. In nature, no valley nor river was ever quite the same, but because the cities were painted only in shades of concrete, steel alloys and plazzglazz, each path seemed identical. Catalina was very thankful when she again spotted the landing vessel of the Artemis, the Arrow she had nicknamed it. Its silhouette was something she'd fallen in love with the moment she'd seen it. Once they were back in orbit, the Arrow would jut out from the large half circle that made up most of the Artemis and housed its biological library. Together they look
ed like an arrow notched into a bow. Fitting, for a ship named after the ancient Earth goddess of the hunt. Catalina found it as she had hoped. Roman's two bags, one of which she was sure was filled with vials of insects, were loaded on the deck, and Betriz was nowhere to be seen.
'Farah!' Roman called out and waived as Catalina led him up the cargo door that when open served as a ramp and into the Arrow.
'It's officer Relkor to you Ensign. Don't forget it,' Farah said but she was smiling.
Catalina, of course, knew why.
'I trust Ensign Jupiter's room is in order?'
'I'm sure our room will be fine Captain, but tell me, where is the living library you boasted of? I hardly think I can show Betriz ten thousands kinds of butterfly hiding in this.’
‘Of course not Jupiter, this is just the sleeping quarters and landing vessel. The bulk of the Artemis stays in orbit unless there’s reason to spend the fuel coming down to the surface. It takes time for our bacterial engines to refuel themselves. We normally can’t afford that kind of time. But we always bring a few specimens we think might be useful down to the surface, in hopes of saving ourselves a trip back up. Would you like to see what we have?’
Any doubts Captain Mondragon had harbored about Roman evaporated as she watched him walk through labeled crates of plazzglass. 'My goodness, you found brushfoots on Texas? Where?' he'd say then run off to another tank. 'Huh, blue crickets. From the sun you think? Ikamon, tell me, were the fish this shade too? Fascinating. Truly fascinating. I see you brought my firefly femmes down, interesting… considering they only eat other fireflies it’s more evidence in support of my theory.’
It appeared the bait had worked well, for Roman didn’t turn away from the transparent boxes of insects until the hull closed shut behind the crew with a very loud and very final clang.
Fin had stayed up above on the Artemis, and Catalina didn’t trust computer autopilots, so she was in the captain’s chair when Jupiter came to. She felt a pang of guilt for him, if only because Farah was the only other person in the room when he enquired about his darling Betriz. Catalina had hoped she could have been the one to tell him, but of course, Farah Relkor would not be denied that opportunity.
'She's back on the planet, you dung beetle. Though she told me to tell you something. What was it? Oh yeah, “Dear Roman, you stink, don't ever come back to Bulletar. PS: I hope your flower dies.” '
Roman was aghast. 'My dear Betriz? No. She has the proclivity of a damselfly when it comes to words. Surely, you cannot be serious.’
Catalina could hear Ikamon shrug from her cockpit. 'It is as she says except the flower part. She smashed that beneath her foot. Gomenasai.'
'I… this can't… a whole year… a year with her… I just can't…'
And with that, Roman Luz Jupiter, alleged womanizer, renowned entomologist, a man who by most accounts was burly, smelly, and loved getting dirty, began to cry.
Chapter 8
The flight out of the sun's gravity well was an agonizing few days. Catalina normally relished this time of her work. It was a time of closure and of new beginnings, when one mission was over and another was yet to come. It was time to learn about the specimens Ikamon and Farah invariably procured, a time of relaxation and refreshment. This time however, it was none of those things, for Roman Jupiter was miserable, and he wanted the solar system to know it.
They'd already had to lock the bridge and the comm stations, for when Roman's poems of forgiveness failed to elicit a response from Betriz, he threatened to broadcast a distress call if they would not turn back. Roman now spent his days pacing through the terrariums and aquariums, staring absently at the flora and fauna within while he mumbled about unrequited romance and star-crossed love.
The only thing worse than Roman's heartbreak was its effect on Farah.
'Do you not realize that not only have you been through all this before, but that you have done this to countless women on countless worlds?'
'If I had known they were to suffer as much as this I never would have left! I feel like the mayfly, devoid of mouth, with one purpose, to find a lover, and yet each day I draw inextricably farther from her and closer to starvation of the soul.'
'You've left women in this state before. You left the captain like this,' Farah said, her words like crystals of ice.
'Then show me mercy by returning me to Bulletar, where at least I can hope to leave the Captain without a reminder of such pain!'
'Your little hussy only exists because of the Captain. That whole planet was slated to be domed by the corps. Her work was the cornerstone of proving that the Institute's pledge of air, water, and sea or soil was upheld. It's being used as a model for all ecologists, which I had thought you were until we discovered you in a burbdome.'
'I am a broken man! A butterfly without a wing, ready to be returned to the food chain rather than left to turn to dust in the far reaches of the abyss.'
Catalina was impressed it never came to blows. Farah was a thin woman, but she certainly had a strength to her that could not be denied and that coupled with her rage would probably be enough to harm even Roman's burly physique.
Ikamon tried his hand at cheering up their returned entomologist but he too had no luck.
'There are many kinds of relationships in the sea you know. Some creatures, like whales, will mate for life. But others, like the noble squid, take many partners. I have always admired your squid-like abilities.'
'There are other creatures that once they breed leave their corpses for their young to consume. I had hoped the future children of Betriz and I would one day subsist off of my contributions to the universe, but I see that this crew, like hungry starfish, will slurp up what remains of my energies far before I can ever hope to return those shards of love from Betriz I had hidden away in the coral of my heart.'
This comment distracted Ikamon from his previous task of cheering up Roman and sent him rambling about the typical incompatibility of squids and coral reefs, one being exclusively shallow water structures and the other usually being deep dwelling denizens. Needless to say, Roman’s mood did not improve.
For three days they traveled farther and farther from Bulletar's sun, and for three days, Roman made their life a living a hell. On the fourth day, they jumped to Bubbledrive.
Many believed that Bubbledrive was proof of the power of faith, because its existence demonstrated that whatever people looked for, they'd find. The classical and then neo-classical laws of physics forbid anything traveling faster than the speed of light, and yet, somehow, human beings had found a way to reach a destination before a ray of light could. The trick, so said the physicists, was that the ships didn't actually move any faster than usual. Instead, as they cruised along as they always had, the Bubbledrive compressed space in front of them and extended space behind them, leaving the ship in a bubble of seemingly normal spacetime that while not traveling faster than the speed of light, nevertheless achieved faster than light results. The method had been used by the Institute to launch their Seedpods for the Great Bloom, as they sometimes tried to brand the Interstellar Spring, and was reliable enough to equip those 51 unmanned vessels with computer algorithms that seemed to have warped space without fail. Like so many miracles, with time it had become routine. Catalina hardly even noticed it except for the strange colors that appeared on the edges of the bubble in which the Artemis was traveling. Catalina had actually been born under Bubbledrive, while travelling between two planets. With Bubbledrive, a voyage that would have taken a beam of light 5 years now took people ten days, and half that time was spent getting far enough away from the sun to make sure the Bubbledrive wouldn't effect it. Some scientists were certain it wouldn't, others not so much, but everyone agreed that when compared to the thousands of years antiquated ships would have needed to cross the distances, a few days was a worthy sacrifice to prevent the possible implosion, explosion or distortion of one of the fifty one suns that would light the future of humanity.
Because it w
as still, somehow, technically impossible to transmit messages faster than light, all transmissions had to be downloaded to a ship's hard drive, then carried to a new sector where all the data could be dumped onto a planet's communications satellite, and then on to the next ship and so on, a veritable pony express though the depths of space. Because of this, transmissions between systems were next to non-existent. Corporations had developed Bubblephone stations on asteroids deep in space that could stretch a narrow path that a lazer of information could be sent across, but this method was both costly and inefficient, and therefore reserved for dire emergencies and the whims of the very rich.
It was with all this in mind that Captain Mondragon responded to Fin's call from the bridge.
'Captain, the Bubblephone is flashing.'
Thinking this odd, and a bit distressing, Captain Mondragon straightened her badges of honor, and went to the bridge.
'Bring it up Ensign.'
'Yessir,' Fin said.
Captain Mondragon stiffened as the view screen came to life, but quickly deflated when nothing but a simple line of text scrolled across the screen.
'Artemis. Redirect to Wholhom, await further orders there. Direct order. Abort mission to Epsilon-V. Repeat. Redirect to Wholhom.'
Thus ended the entire message.
For a moment, Catalina did nothing save read and reread the message three times. No, she hadn't misread it. She was supposed to disregard Epsilon-V, the home of those horrible creatures, and go to… Wholhom? She'd never even heard of Wholhom. Well that wasn't true, she had heard of it, every Captain worth their ship knew the name of every habitable planet, but Wholhom was a fledgling outer world, surveyed years ago. It had healthy populations of molluscs, grasses and even honeybees. It was a colonist's dream. Why the hell was the most advanced ship the Institute had created being sent to Wholhom instead of the place that had taken a near legendary member of its crew?
'Captain? Your orders?'
She hesitated not a moment. 'Disengage course, drop from Bubble, reconfigure course, and get us there. How long will that take?'
Fireflies and Cosmos: Interstellar Spring Book 1 Page 3
