Homesick
Chapter Three - Eindhoven

Sally paced her quarters lengthwise, staring at the floor beneath her grip-soled slippers. Occasionally she glanced down at the window to watch the planet drift in and out of view. She mentally replayed her conversation with Ian and Vlad. When she remembered the way they looked at her, she had to choke back a laugh. A year ago such a meeting would have seemed like surrealistic fantasy. She was a doctor originally and always would be. But a year ago that was all she was. She tended patients, monitored exercise rituals, and filled in health certificates. Suicidal rescue missions were not generally part of her job description. Not that there weren’t risks in medicine, but they were different risks. It wasn’t until she first met Ian that she got a taste of real danger. By a bizarre accident and a foolish risk, they discovered the fold and became the first humans to cross it. Suddenly they were heroes and she was more than a doctor. There first adventure had taken them into unfamiliar territory with no margin for error, but she wasn’t afraid. Then she thrived on the challenge. But not now. Ian was right about their chances. Their luck was running dangerously thin and they were grossly unmatched.

Up until that meeting she’d had the luxury of being captain mostly in name only. Her appointment had more to do with celebrity value than experience. By everyone’s expectations of the mission, that shouldn’t have been a problem, but now things had changed. Now, instead of a crew of dedicated explorers, she needed an army. And she could only draft those around her.

But, as hard as it had been to get this far, Sally had one more recruit to call in. She stopped pacing, took on a resolute stance, and operated the control on her wrist. The features of her quarters distorted, moving and re-shaping as her VR implant overrode her senses. The dull curved walls straightened and morphed into the crisp white stucco so common in Europe. An onyx colored marble fireplace contrasted with the wall like the black and white of piano keys. Sunshine filtered through a stained glass window, projecting a green diamond pattern onto the floor below. Sally glanced at the walls for new paintings. Jackie was talented but she’d been distracted since the mission. She could hear water running in the kitchen and the telltale sound of the wall-mounted water heater. The Dutch heated water in the pipes and only as needed. It came on with a roar whenever the hot water tap was open. Oddly, this had become a welcome sound of home.

Sally slowly walked towards the archway leading to the kitchen. Jackie was washing dishes. She had on a pair of cutoff 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’d threatened to have her hair dyed green and had apparently done so. And, as Sally came along side of her, she could see she wore an emerald nose ring to match.

When she noticed Sally, she shrieked and almost launched herself into the wall, dropping the dish she was holding. It shattered, sending fragments in all directions. She stared at Sally wide-eyed.

“Forgive me, Jackie! I didn’t mean to startle you!”

Jackie was on her instantly, like a frightened child running to her mother. In that moment Sally realized her own tension and clutched Jackie hard. They held each other and cried until their eyes were red. When they both caught their breath Jackie’s eye makeup was all over her face, looking vaguely like Indian war paint.

“My God, Sal, where have you been?”

“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 asked, her 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.”

“What really happened?”

“I’m going to tell you, Jackie,” she said, clutching her shoulders. “I’m going to tell you because you deserve to know. But I don’t have much time. This is an unauthorized visit. I’m piggybacking on the emergency bands. We’ll know if it’s monitored because they’ll break our connection. 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 damn!”

Jackie stared as if hypnotized.

“Okay, this all started about a month ago. Before we got into orbit we took some long-range pictures of the planet. Do you remember that?”

She nodded. “You gave me some of those.”

“But not all of them. And you weren’t told the whole truth either. I was forbidden under penalty of prosecution to disclose certain pieces of information until they were ‘vetted’ by a truckload of committees. We were even forced to modify our data-link to Earth several times to make it more secure. Many of the images you saw were modified before they got to you. And the only reason you got them at all was because they saw in our correspondence that you were expecting them!”

“That explains why there was that one picture on all the news sites,” Jackie said. “It wasn’t even a very good one.”

Sally nodded. “That’s when the cover-up started. And the only reason I participated this long is because I know the impact of this news may take some time to digest.”

“What are they hiding?”

Sally took a deep breath. “First of all, there’s a satellite orbiting the planet. We saw it in the first long-range scan.”

“So, that was real?” Jackie asked. “They said that rumor was based on some kind of small asteroid or something . . .”

Sally shook her head. “No asteroid. This is artificial. You can imagine what that means.”

Jackie smiled broadly. “Life!”

Sally nodded.

“Well . . . isn’t that good?”

“Maybe, but not necessarily. In any case, it’s unexpected.”

“But, we’re not alone!” Jackie cheered. “Isn’t that what everyone wants to hear? Isn’t that why we’re in space?”

“Some might disagree with you, but looking for life and finding it are actually very different things. In any case, the UN PR team was afraid of how people might react so they held back the story. I knew they couldn’t stop it forever and I reported everything I saw to my superiors. Keeping my mouth shut isn’t dishonest as long as I don’t lie directly . . .”

Jackie smiled and wagged her finger. “Now, you know better than that.”

“But it got worse,” she whispered. “A lot worse!”

Jackie waited.

“There’s a civilization there, or at least there was, and we’re having a hard time learning anything useful about them.”

“Are they human?”

“Probably not.”

Jackie leaned back against the counter, shaking her head in wonder.

“Here’s the hard part.” Sally took another deep breath. “Last week we sent Anderson down in a shuttlepod. You know Anderson; we’ve had him over plenty of times. Scott.”

“The guy with the crew cut who plays cards real well?”

“Yes, Scott Anderson. Anyway, he got down to the planet, left the pod, took about ten paces, and we haven’t heard from him since.”

Jackie gasped. “Oh, my God! A week?”

“Yes, a week!” Sally exclaimed. “We’ve had no radio contact, we can’t see anything on the monitors, and we don’t even have his vitals anymore! He just disappeared like a phantom!”

Jackie took a step closer and took her hand, seeing the pain in her eyes.

“That’s the cover-up,” Sally said. “And this is where it goes too far! This isn’t public relations now, it’s just plain cruel. And we have to pretend nothing’s wrong! We’re supposedly buying time with the press, but we’re talking about families now! Lives!”

“But that’s crazy!”

“Crazy doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s disgusting! 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 guided her to a chair facing the marble kitchen table. Sally felt the breeze coming in from the open window, carrying with it the sound of busses rounding the rotary on the street below.

“Wait a minute!” Jackie said. “Didn’t I see Scott on the news stream last night?”

“Pre-recorded,” Sally mumbled, closing her eyes to appreciate the smell of the damp spring air that promised rain. “It was so stupid I couldn’t bear to watch it. They cut it from a monologue we did on the way out. They just put a fake background in to make it look like a VR interview on the stream.”

“That’s why you weren’t on the broadcast with him?”

She nodded. “They were afraid of what I might say.” Then she opened her eyes and balled her fists. “I sent him down there and I can’t even tell Carrie the truth! If he dies, it’ll be my fault.” Sally’s chin quivered almost imperceptibly.

“Didn’t he want to go?”

“That’s not the point. I sent him down alone and defenseless,” she scolded herself. “It was so damn stupid not to expect trouble! The area looked 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 now?” She blinked back tears.

Jackie took her hand in both of hers. “It wasn’t your fault, Sal, you know that.”

“But it was my responsibility! We weren’t sure about the weight ratio with the shuttlepods. The gravity’s higher than we thought. If we sent two people down we might have blown the margin. There was always the chance we wouldn’t have had enough lift to get them back. But, as it turns out, we were well within safe limits! I could have sent Vlad with him, or Ian . . .”

“And then you might have lost them, too, and we’d still be right here right now having this same conversation with more to regret. You made a decision. God knows you thought it out best you could.” She squeezed her hand. “If, as you thought, there’d been a problem with the fuel, what would have happened when they tried to return? If they . . . blew the margin?”

Sally thought for a moment. “Well, worst case, there wouldn’t have been enough thrust to carry them into orbit and the ship would either have crashed on its way up or burned in the atmosphere on its way back down. Or, best case, they’d have made orbit and not been able to dock with the ship.”

“Well, I for one, would feel better about losing someone to a danger I couldn’t have foreseen than a dare-devil chance,” Jackie said. “Those margins make sense to me.”

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 asked, her tone becoming serious.

Sally felt the world fold in around her and Jackie, as if they were suddenly encased in a soundproof bubble. She opened her mouth to speak, but then held back her words, trying to find more gentle ones. But there were none. Finally, the doctor in her took over and she said what she knew she had to.

“Jackie, I’m going down to look for Anderson. I’m going down with Ian.”

“No way you are!” Jackie shrieked. “What, are you nuts?”

“We don’t know if Anderson’s dead. 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!” Jackie rose and started to turn away, but Sally grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to face her.

“Jackie, I’m sorry but I have to do this! I don’t know what I’m facing down there, but in case I don’t make it back I needed to tell you. I owe you that!”

Jackie sat down again and put her hands on the tabletop. “Okay, Sal, let’s say you’re right and he’s alive. What if he’s been captured by somebody?”

“Then we negotiate his release.”

“With what? Do you expect to be able to pay a ransom? Will you say ‘pretty please?’ Anyone who’d capture him would capture you, too. Why would you expect them to be reasonable? Do you have any weapons? What if words won’t do?”

Sally operated the keypad on her wrist and part of the marble table morphed back into the desk in her own quarters. She pulled out a six inch white plastic appliance with a black handgrip.

“This might help.”

“Looks like a hair dryer.”

“It was a portable energizer used to jumpstart dead fuel cells. It’s superconductor bottle based.” She looked at it with respect. “Puts out 50 kilovolts easy. I modified it to work like 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 lives and then the electrodes reel back in.”

Jackie turned it over in her hands. “You made this?”

“Yeah. It’s the best I could come up with.”

“And how long does it take before you can shoot again?”

“Forty seconds, about.”

She looked to Sally with concern. “Then you’d 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 shuttlepod.”

“If you can get back!”

“I know it’s risky.”

“It’s madness!” she said in a final plea. “Sal, will you listen to yourself? You’re no soldier! You don’t even know karate and you’re planning to take on a whole planet full of monsters with nothing more than a battery! Come back, Sal. Just come back! Leave the fighting to real soldiers! They’ll send a military ship with people that have real guns!”

Sally shook her head. “That could take years, Jackie. Anderson may need us now.”

“Then tell them to get going right away!”

“Jackie, I know how the system works. I report that Anderson’s missing. I recommend they mount a rescue. They call us back and make promises. But, when we get back home, they tell us how expensive space travel is. Then 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 play it safe. Maybe they rescue him some day, maybe not. In the meantime, Carrie ends up a widow and her children are half orphans even if her husband’s still alive. She’ll be old and gray before he returns, if he ever returns! To the UN he’s one man, and probably a dead man at that. He’s a write-off!” She took on a pleading face. “Jackie, if we leave without him, he’ll never come home! How will I face Carrie then? It’s one thing to tell a woman her husband’s dead, but it’s another to say we don’t know and didn’t even try to find out!”

Jackie looked out the window. “You’ve made your mind up on this,” she said with her lips pressed tight against her teeth.

Sally nodded. “I’m afraid I have.”

“You’re leaving Vlad alone on the ship?”

“Yes.”

“But you said you don’t trust him.”

“He won’t leave us if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ll see to that.” She almost grinned.

Jackie worked hard not to let her tears flow. “You know I’ll be broken without you,” she said in an unsteady but resigned voice. “I’ll never paint again.”

“Don’t count me off that quickly,” Sally said, trying to sound confident. “I’m hard to kill.”

“I hope that’s good enough.” Jackie sighed deeply. “Because I’m not.”

Sally stood and took her shoulders. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

“Don’t give up your art, no matter what happens. You owe it to the world. It’s your reason!” She motioned to the easel just visible beyond the door in her studio. “I have to go down there because I may have a life to save. That’s my reason. If I die trying, at least that makes some sense.”

“I’ll try,” she said, her face cast in resignation. “That’s the best I can do.”

“And you’ll 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 that planet!”

Jackie almost laughed this time.

Sally looked at her watch. “I have to go back now. I’m surprised they haven’t cut us off yet.”

“I know. Sal?”

“What?”

“What do you think of my hair?”

She stepped back and looked at her from across the table. With the sun behind her, her hair glowed like an emerald, making a green halo over her face. The highlight enhanced the color of her eyes and the glowing facets of her nose ring. Sally smiled in admiration. “It’s you, dear. It’s you.”

Then, reluctantly, Sally broke the transmission. The sun faded along with the wind and traffic, and her lovely Jackie. The Netherlands was now untold light-years away and her quarters seemed uglier than ever. That is, 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. She captured it within twenty minutes, but never seemed to appreciate the beauty she had created. Jackie painted with the ease and confidence most people have in signing 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, 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 there. And she was there with Jackie. She washed her face before turning to face her work.

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