Homesick

by Paul J. Joseph Chapter 3 Eindhoven Sally paced her quarters lengthwise, staring at the floor going by. Occasionally she glanced down at the window to watch the planet drifting in and out of view. She mentally replayed her conversation with Ian and Vlad. She remembered their faces with some concern. She was satisfied that they would do as she told them, but she had read their fear. Up until that moment she had had the luxury of being more of a supervisor and advisor than a captain. In the six months of their journey she rarely had to command them. They had their individual jobs and they knew their fields. What's more, since they left Earth, most of them had become little more than passengers on the ship, their primary duties waiting ahead. Oddly, only Scott Anderson and herself had really been heavily involved in the actual flying of the ship. Now she had to draft them into her own private army, which neither of them were necessarily qualified for, and both seemed reluctant to join. How far would they be willing to go? Would it be far enough? But as hard as this had been, Sally had one more recruit to call in, and this would be the most difficult of all. She stopped pacing, taking on a resolute stance, and watched patiently as the features of her quarters transformed into her lovely suite in Eindhoven. The dull curved walls straightened and morphed into the crisp white stucco so common in Europe. The onyx colored marble fireplace contrasted nicely with the wall like the black and white of keys on a piano. A ray of sunshine beamed in through the window, which was stained glass on top in a green diamond pattern, leaving a unique colored design on the tile floor. Sally glanced at the wall for new paintings. Jackie was so talented, but she'd been distracted since the mission. She could hear water running, and the tell tale sound of the wall mounted water heater kicking in. The Dutch were funny about wasting water. They didn't heat water in tanks, but only as they needed it. The thing worked like a tiny furnace. It came on with a roar whenever one turned on the hot water, and heated it while it was still in the pipe. It took some getting used to, but had gradually become a welcome sound of home. Sally slowly walked towards the archway which led to the kitchen. Jackie was washing dishes. She had on a pair of cut off jeans deliberately cut in such a way that one leg was grossly longer than the other. Her tie died T-shirt was knotted, exposing her torso. Some weeks ago she threatened to have her hair died green. She had apparently done so, and as Sally came along side of her, she could see that she had gotten an emerald nose ring to match. When she noticed Sally, she sprung back so fast she dropped the dish she was holding, causing it to shatter, sending fragments in all directions. She stared at Sally wide-eyed for a moment. "Forgive me, Jackie!" she cried, "I didn't mean to startle you!" Jackie was on her in a second like a frightened child running to her mother. In that moment Sally realized her own tension, and clutched Jackie like a lifeline. They kissed passionately and cried until their eyes were red. When they had both finally caught their breath, Jackie's elaborate eye make up was all over her face, looking like Indian war paint. "My God, Sal, where have you been?" she asked, still out of breath. "I've been in trouble, kiddo, and it’s not over." "They said something about a comet or something blocking the signal. But I checked the astronomical database and couldn't find it! I knew they were lying! And I knew if anything happened to you, they wouldn't tell me-" "They actually said a comet?" Sally’s face twisted in amazement. "Yes, can you believe that? What could a comet possibly do? And for two days?" "Sounds like the PR people were getting desperate." She managed a laugh. "What really happened?" "I'm going to tell you, Jackie," she said resolutely. "I'm going to tell you because you deserve to know. But I don't have much time. This is an unauthorized visit. We'll know if it’s monitored because they'll break our connection. I don't know what they could do to me, but I'm sure I could get in a lot of trouble over this, and if anyone else in my crew tried it I'd probably have them punished, but right now I don't give a fuck!" Jackie stared as if hypnotized. "You heard that there was a satellite orbiting the planet?" "Yes, but they said it was just a small moon or something." "Bull shit!" "Then that means..." "There is a civilization there, or there was," Sally said with a grave expression. "The Space Commission doesn't want that getting out yet, and I'd appreciate it if you would tell nobody." "Are they human?" "Probably not. And whatever they are, we don't think they're friendly." Jackie leaned back against the counter. "Last week we sent Anderson down in a shuttle pod. You know Anderson. We had him over plenty of times." "The guy with the crew cut who plays cards real well?" "Yes, Scott Anderson," she nodded. "Anyway, the man got down to the planet, left the pod, took fifty paces and we never heard from him since!" "Oh, my God! A week?" "Yes, a fucking week! We've got no radio contact, and we can't see anything on the pod’s imaging monitors! We don't even have his vitals anymore. He just disappeared like some damn phantom!" Jackie could clearly see the pain in Sally's face. "Can you believe I'm not even allowed to tell Carrie what happened? His wife, for God's sake! She's been trying to call me for days, but they won't let her through. I know Carrie! She's my friend! And I can't even tell her that her husband may be dead!" Jackie hugged her tightly and guided her to a chair facing the marble kitchen table. Sally could feel the breeze coming in from the open window, carrying the sound of the busses rounding the rotary on the street below. "I sent him down there," Sally said sadly. "She'll blame me." "Didn't he want to go?" "That's not the point. Perhaps I should have sent someone with him. It was so damn stupid not to expect trouble! But that area looked so empty. He was just supposed to do the standard tests, take some pictures and come back. It wasn't even supposed to be a one day thing. How am I going to face Carrie?" Sally blinked back tears, glad to be able to let some of her guard down. Jackie listened patiently. "It wasn't your fault, Sal, you know that," Jackie finally said. "But it was my responsibility," she insisted. "We weren't sure about the weight ratio with the shuttle pods. The gravity's higher than we thought. If we sent two people down and we were wrong, we might not have had enough lift to get them back!" she said in frustration. "But as it turns out we were well within safe limits anyway. So I could have sent Vlad with him, or Ian-" "And then you might have lost them too, and we'd still be here right now having this same conversation. But then you'd have more to regret. You made a decision. God knows you thought it out as best you could." She took her hand. "If, as you thought, there had been a problem with the fuel, what would have happened when they tried to return if you sent two?" "If they tried to return and couldn't, the ship would either crash or burn up in the atmosphere," she said, thoughtfully. "At best they could have made orbit and not been able to dock with the ship." "I for one would feel better about losing someone to a danger I couldn't have foreseen than a dare-devil chance." Sally sighed. "Thank you, Jackie. I just hope the board of inquiry feels that way, assuming I ever actually face them." "What do you mean by that?" Jackie's tone became more serious. Now was the hard part. Sally felt the world fold in around her and Jackie as if nothing else mattered. She opened her mouth to speak but felt herself hold back the words, as if trying to find a gentle way of putting it. But there was none. Finally, as she had always done with bad news, the doctor in her took over and she just said it. "Jackie, I'm going down to look for Anderson," she said firmly. "I'm going down with Ian." "Bull shit you're going down there!" she shrieked in disbelief. "What are you, nuts?" "We don't know that Anderson is dead," Sally explained calmly. "We have to find him." "The Hell! You haven't heard from him in a week! Where will you even look?" "We'll try to find his vitals. He may be out of range of the ship’s sensors." "NO!" She started to turn away, but Sally grabbed her shoulders and made her face her. "Jackie, I'm sorry but I have to do this! I don't know what I'm facing down there! Just in case I don't make it back I needed to tell you. I owe you that!" Jackie sat down and put her hands on the table top as if trying to bargain with her. "Okay, Sal, let's say your right and he is alive. What if he's been captured by somebody?" "Then we try to negotiate his release." "Anyone who would capture him would capture you too. Do you have any weapons? What if words won't do?" She operated a key pad on her wrist unit and a part of the marble table morphed back into the utilitarian desk in her own quarters. She pulled out a six inch white plastic appliance with a black hand grip. "This might help." "Looks like a hair drier." "It was a portable energizer used to jump start dead fuel cells. It's super conductor bottle based." She looked at it with respect. "Puts out 50 kilovolts easy. I modified it to work as a taser gun." "What's that?" "It fires two electrodes at someone. The electrodes are attached to wires leading to the capacitor. They get the shock of their life and then the electrodes reel back in." "You made this?" "Yeah. It’s the best I could come up with." "And how long does it take to shoot again?" "Forty seconds, about." "You better hope you don't have more than one person to deal with. How many times can you shoot it?" "Five, I think. But I could recharge it back in the shuttle pod." "If you could get back!" "I know it’s risky!" "It's madness!" she said in a final plea. "Sal, will you just listen to yourself? You're no soldier! You don't even know karate and you’re thinking of taking on a whole planet full of monsters with nothing more than a battery! Come back, Sal. Just come back. Leave the fighting to the real soldiers. They'll send a military ship with people that have real guns." She sighed and shook her head. "That could take years, Jackie. Anderson may need us now." "Then you tell them to get going right away!" "Jackie, I know how the system works, Goddamit! I come back and report that Anderson is missing. I recommend that they mount a rescue. They tell me how expensive space travel is. They promise to take the matter up at the highest level. But they also want to avoid an incident! They don't want to start a war over one man, so they'll play it safe. And then Carrie is a widow and her children are half orphans even if her husband is alive. You see, she'll be old and gray before he ever returns, if he ever returns. To the UN he's one man, and they know he may not even be alive." She took on a pleading face, as if desperate for Jackie to understand. "Jackie, if we leave without him he'll never come home. How will I face Carrie then? It’s one thing to say that her husband is dead. Its another to say that I don't even know, or that I didn’t even try to find out." Jackie looked out the window distantly. "You've made your mind up on this," she said with her lips pressed tight against her teeth. She nodded sadly. "I'm afraid I have." "You're leaving Vlad alone on the ship?" "Yes." "But you don't trust him." "He won't leave us if that's what you are thinking. I'll see to that." She almost grinned. Jackie worked hard not to let her tears flow. "You know I'll be lost without you," she said in an unsteady but resigned voice. "I'll never paint again." "Don't count me off that quickly," she said trying to sound confident. "I'm hard to kill." "I hope that's good enough," she sighed desperately, "because I'm not." Sally stood and took her shoulders. "Promise me something." "What?" "Don't give up your art, no mater what happens. You owe it to the world. It’s your reason for being born!" She motioned to the easel visible beyond the door to her studio. "I have to go down there because I may have a life to save. That is my reason for being born. If I die trying, then at least it makes some sense." "I'll try," she said, her face cast in resignation. "That’s the best I can do." "And you will be my reason to come back!" She gripped her hands. "I'll be back to see your next showing. I'll be back even if I have to electrocute every last creature on the planet." Jackie almost laughed this time. Sally looked at her watch. "I have to go back now." "I know. Sal?" "What?" "What do you think of my hair?" She stepped back and looked at her critically from across the small marble table. With the sun behind her, her hair glowed like an emerald, making a green halo over her face. The highlight seemed to bring out the lovely color of her eyes, which were more beautiful to her than the glowing facets of her nose ring. Sally smiled in admiration. "It’s you, dear. It's you." Then, reluctantly, Sally broke the transmission and the sun faded away along with the sound of the wind and the traffic, and her lovely Jackie. The Netherlands was now untold light-years away, and her quarters seemed more ugly than ever. Except for the painting that hung over her desk. It was a watercolor of Tower Bridge in London. Jackie painted it from a park along the Thames when they were visiting. She had captured it within twenty minutes, but never seemed to appreciate the beauty she had created. But that was her way. Jackie painted with the ease and confidence that most people sign their names. To her it was nothing more than a doodle, but to Sally it was magic. The coarse strokes, the simple brilliant colors, and the quick shading didn't bring out all the details of the landscape itself, but the essence was unmistakable. It wasn’t just a place anymore. It was a feeling. It was a time of year. It was alive. And whenever Sally looked at it she was back there. And she was there with Jackie. She washed her face before preparing to meet the others. Next: Chapter 4