Embarkment 2577 Read online

  Smiling a little and stealing kisses, he murmured, “I hoped you’d say that… In the morning… I should be going back…”

  His hands didn’t seem to share the sentiment; they held on to me. Had I finally managed to corrupt his sense of duty? Maybe my decision to get dressed had been a bit hasty…

  *****

  “Shuttle Alpha One, you’re clear for takeoff.”

  The little ship moved forward, hovering just inches above the floor, and left through a force field almost impossible to see. We were in space, and Adam steered right into the darkness. I gazed back through the window, keeping the Bell in sight for as long as I could. She was big, beautiful, and lit up.

  “We’re clear. See you in a few weeks.”

  “Affirmative. Good luck, Alpha One.”

  I barely listened to the greetings. Living inside the large ship was easy; I usually pretended we were in a big and exotic building somewhere. This little space boat seemed small and vulnerable, and I struggled with vertigo. Outside was too dark and too close, and there was too much of it.

  Adam’s hands danced over the consoles as he plotted a few corrections to the course. “That’s that.”

  “So… How long will this take?”

  He gave a slight shrug. “Depends on how fast we go.”

  No shit, Sherlock. “Well, how long do you plan for it to take?”

  “It’s not that far. Twelve days at max speed, so probably a little longer.”

  That was a long time to be by yourself in the darkness. If I hadn’t come along, would someone else had gone, or would he have been all alone? Say two weeks, twenty-four hours in a day and sixty minutes in an hour… My mind folded on the math. I couldn’t figure out how many minutes that would have been to fill. “Do people go space crazy?”

  “Most bring something to do.”

  Good point.

  “Wouldn’t this be a good time to start your book?”

  “What book?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. I might not be a mathematical genius, but at least I was amusing…

  “The one you promised Joshen Martinez to write.”

  Oh yeah, I forgot all about that. “I don’t know how to start. No one reads anymore anyway.”

  Bad excuse. They’d probably encode it complete with computer narration and colourful holograms. Adam smirked. “Start with anything. Describe a grocery store, or your car. What did it look like? How did it make you feel?”

  He kept his hypnotic eyes fixed on mine. I was as caught in his field of gravity as the moon to the Earth, or the planets around the sun. I’d set out on this journey with the wrong attitude. It wasn’t two weeks alone in the dark; it was two weeks alone without interfering ensigns or work shifts. “I think I’ll enjoy this trip.”

  It took well over two weeks for us to reach the planet. This was my first landing, and I almost panicked when we entered the atmosphere. The air around us was on fire, and flames licked the windshield. I waited until there was a pause in radio communications. “Is this normal?”

  Adam didn’t take his eyes off the controls, but nodded. “Yes. When we travel through space it’s basically a vacuum, and going through it takes no effort. Now we have air in front of us, and it compresses. The space shuttles of your time were insulated or had heat shields that burned off. We have the energy shield.”

  “Okay.” I tried to appear as calm as he was, but I still clutched the armrests so hard my knuckles turned white. The sight through the windows was spectacular, and terrifying.

  “Don’t worry. I’m the best pilot in the fleet.”

  He wasn’t bragging; it was a statement of a fact, and I believed him.

  Further down, he slowed and flew the shuttle like a plane. “I just remembered; I don’t really like flying.”

  Adam laughed, “And I’m not much of a flight attendant. No peanuts, no drinks… Sorry.”

  He pulled up a map. “We’re almost there. This little dot is us, these are towns, and we’re going to that brown square. Look out and enjoy the scenery.”

  “But… the sky is pink.”

  “They have a lot of dust high up in the atmosphere.”

  To me, the answer didn’t explain anything, but I still nodded. “I see.”

  “Different gasses and different particles scatter different wavelengths of light.”

  “You’re so smart, you should have married a science nut and not me.”

  “No.”

  I wanted to slap my forehead. How could I forget about his mother, the great and crazy scientist who built him to replace her husband? “I’m sorry.”

  He glanced over and flashed a smile. “It’s okay.”

  Adam put the shuttle down, and we stood side by side inside the door. I wanted to tuck my hand into his, but this wasn’t the time.

  “Are you ready?”

  I nodded, and he reached out for the door control. Fresh, flowery air flowed in. All the time in dry and sterile starship atmosphere had made me forget how wonderful air could be.

  At first, I only saw bright sunlight, and I shaded my eyes with a hand, but remembered to smile. There were probably people watching, even if I couldn’t see them. I should set a good example and look happy.

  Adam walked forward, and I followed. Outside was bright, sandy, and very alien. I had no idea where it might be, but my feet were planted on an alien world. “I’m on another planet.”

  I thought I whispered so quietly no one else would hear, but Adam murmured, “You certainly are.”

  The shuttle stood on a platform, and a group of people approached us. Their leader was a tall woman with stunning auburn hair, so beautiful I had trouble keeping my eyes away, in spite of all the marvels of the world around us.

  She flashed a bright smile. “Welcome. I’m Mika”

  There was a lot of smiling and handshaking. People on the Bell were used to Adam, as was I, and I didn’t anticipate how fascinated everyone would be with him. He smiled slightly and dodged all questions.

  *****

  I imagined us picking up some form of device and being on our way, but reality wasn’t quite as easy. There were endless tests to be done. Adam picked our shuttle apart to run assessments on its artificial gravity, and we spent the rest of the time in a dark little room filled with computers, keyboards with mysterious symbols, and monitors showing endless amounts of gibberish. Boring…

  The chair was too hard and made my back ache. I didn’t want to explore on my own; I had seen enough science fiction and horror movies to know something always happened to the person wandering off.

  “So… This is really useful, right?”

  Adam paused the stream of data. “Yes. From what I can tell, their invention works. It will be valuable. We can test it when they replace the Bell’s Tokamak, but we’ll need to make a full scale experiment too.”

  “Like, with a real, big black hole?”

  He flashed a smile. “They’re all real, but yes, with a big one.”

  Why would anyone in their right mind go anywhere near a black hole?

  The door swung open and Mika came in. She wore a huge smile and clapped her hands together. “I hear there has been progress. This is truly delightful.”

  “Yes. All my readings look really good.”

  “We should celebrate. Tonight I’m taking you to a bar to show you our traditional drink. It is most spectacular.”

  Show us a drink? Maybe it was a lingual problem.

  Adam and Mika chatted on, and I zoned them out. What might Anya be doing right now? Did they miss us?

  Chapter Nine

  “You have no idea how lucky you are. You can wear that uniform everywhere.” I hadn’t brought a lot of clothes. The idea of official dinners and gatherings never crossed my mind when we left the Bell. To make things even better, I let most of my stuff sit on the shuttle instead of bringing it to the hotel room Adam and I shared in the little town. Now, I had nothing, and no time to do anything about it.

  He smirked. �
��If you want one, you can always enlist for service. I doubt you’d enjoy it, but the possibility is there.”

  Good point. I’d hate it. “I just want to make a good impression…”

  “Don’t worry about it. You look fine.” His eyes twinkled. “Some things never change. No matter the year, beautiful women will always worry.”

  I didn’t feel beautiful when we left the room, but as we walked down the street arm in arm, he made me think I was.

  “Are you sure this is the place?”

  It was an oddly shaped dilapidated metal shack. Adam widened his eyes and brushed a finger over the rough surface. “This is fascinating.”

  Sure. If you like deteriorating steel, or whatever it was.

  “It’s amazing. This must be a part of one of the first settler ships. Can you believe they travelled all the way out here in this?”

  “Umm… No.” I had a very rudimentary idea of where we were. It was far from Earth, anyway. “You look like you want to make love to it.”

  He laughed and wrapped an arm around my waist. “Don’t be jealous of the poor old spaceship, sweetheart.”

  The inside wasn’t too bad. Thick oriental rugs hung from the walls, and the old ship décor mixed surprisingly well with colourful lamps and thick, bright silk. “Okay, I yield. I like it.”

  Mika waved from the bar. “I have taken the liberty of ordering for you. We will have Rajahstani Thali.”

  The what and the what? Oh well, I would know soon enough.

  I took a seat and leaned my elbows on the counter, until I realized it was an old navigational console. “Wow.”

  Mika trailed her finger tips over an ancient dial. “My ancestors came here on this ship four hundred years ago. I’m glad we’ve found a use for it.”

  If I hadn’t died, if things had gone according to plan, Adam would have stayed on old Earth with me. I would have grown old and died, but there was no telling how old he could become. Would he have travelled out to a colony on a ship like this? Helped establish settlements? Maybe he would eventually have met up with the Bell again, filled with almost six hundred years of new experiences while they thought he’d been gone for a couple of days…

  I reached out to touch his arm, and he glanced over with a little smile. “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m just glad to be here.”

  The food was amazing; a number of spicy small dishes, rice, vegetables, and bread. Adam usually left all the eating to me, but on this planet he had sampled everything, to be polite. I was happy for him. Food was an important part of my life, and at least he got the experience of trying something new.

  Mika asked, “Do you like it?”

  “I love it. I wish I could save this moment and return to it later.”

  “I suppose you’re wondering what I wanted to show you.”

  Not really. I had forgotten all about it. “Sure.”

  She waved to the bartender. He brought over a tray with three crystal glasses filled with a bright blue liquid. When he put the glasses down, he tapped the edge of each one, and the centre of the liquid glowed. Small flashes of energy made the drinks twinkle. “Oh wow. I could never have imagined a thing like this.”

  “It is a very special experience. All that energy sparkles in your mouth.”

  “I bet.” I had no wish of containing a miniature thunderstorm in my mouth. A heroin addict would probably claim the first hit was a special experience too. That didn’t mean people in general should try it.

  Adam teased, “You have to taste it. It would be rude to deny our host the pleasure of sharing her culture.”

  “If you want it so much, you drink it.”

  Mika laughed and Adam rolled his eyes, clearly trying to show how silly I was. He grabbed his glass, downed it, and blinked a couple of times. I could have sworn I saw a flash of light in his eyes. “That was unexpected.”

  “What?”

  He took my glass too. “What a peculiar burst of energy.”

  Mika lifted an eyebrow. “Want another one?”

  Adam looked at the glass with a frown. “Sure.”

  Enough of sparkly drinks. Fireworks belonged in the sky. “Is there a ladies’ room?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll take you.”

  By the time we returned, I knew all about Mika’s failed marriage and her sorrow of not having a child. She knew everything about me, at least from the day Adam crashed on my world.

  The table was empty and a young woman picking the last plates up nodded towards the bar. “I think your friend has had one too many. I’m just saying.”

  “What?”

  “People really shouldn’t drink if they can’t hold their liquor.”

  I was about to say ‘what’ again, repeating myself like a parrot with a one word vocabulary. Mika pulled on my arm, and I finally saw my tall husband leaning over the bar. I couldn’t hear them, but Adam held the bartender’s arm, and the man shook his head.

  “Lover dearest, what are you doing?”

  Adam turned his head, and his eyes flashed with that eerie light. This time, I was sure I didn’t imagine it. “Hello beautiful!”

  Mika whispered, “Did you see that?”

  I nodded and took a few steps closer. Adam grinned. “I missed you.”

  He tried to emphasize the word ‘you’ by poking me with a finger, but miscalculated and almost fell off the stool.

  “I guess you did.”

  Once he regained his balance, he stared at his hand and flexed the fingers. “This isn’t working right.” He shrugged and gestured to the bartender. “I need another… another…”

  This time, the bartender kept his distance. “No man, you’re not getting any more.”

  It would have been funny if I hadn’t been so scared. Something was very wrong with him and we were weeks away from home. Without him to fly the shuttle, we were stuck on the planet.

  Even if we could get back to the Bell, what were the odds of someone there knowing enough cybernetics to fix him? Would he be like this for the rest of his life? I loved him, but I didn’t think I’d be able to take a life time of it.

  “Is he drunk?”

  “No.” I supposed the man he was modelled after was quite a drinker; Adam’s mother had made sure nothing like that could affect him.

  I closed my eyes for a second, wishing we were home. It didn’t work. “Adam, are you alright?”

  He didn’t answer. From the looks of it, he didn’t even hear me. Mika squeezed my shoulder, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea this would happen.”

  “What’s in that stuff anyway?”

  She shrugged, and the bartender babbled a list of ingredients that meant nothing to me. My husband seemed encouraged by my sudden interest in science. He provided an incomprehensible chemical description that wouldn’t have been understandable to normal people on the best of days.

  Leaning forward, I looked into his eyes. They still twinkled with small bursts of light. Maybe his circuits, or whatever he had in his head, were overloading.

  Mika said, “Maybe it will wear off when the energy fades.”

  “I hope so.”

  I fought down an urge to shake him. “Adam, it’s time to go back to the hotel.”

  He arranged his face into a smile with some difficulty. “Do you wish to engache in seucksal ackivilies?”

  “Sure. Whatever makes you get up and come with me.”

  Mika giggled.

  “It’s not funny. Well, maybe a little funny…”

  Adam slid off the tall stool, on to his feet with an arm around my shoulders, veered to the side, and fell over. I wasn’t strong enough to hold him.

  I planted my feet firmly on the floor and pulled on one arm. Nothing. He just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. I might have to leave him there. Unbearable…

  Mika helped pull on the other arm, but he still didn’t move. The bartender had to help us lift him up and support him out to Mika’s waiting car.

  “I’m so sorry. This won’t happen again.”<
br />
  The man grumbled, “Damn right it won’t, because you’re not coming back here.”

  Ouch.

  Adam looked at his fingers with childlike awe. As soon as the bartender went back inside and he could reach me, he grabbed my hand and stared at it. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t look up; he kept his eyes fixed on my fingers. “Yours look like the rainbow too.”

  That couldn’t be good. My hand looked exactly as it always had. No rainbows there. Was the icy feeling in my chest a heart attack, or just grief?

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, I’m a happy little rainbow, but you have to let go of me so I can get in the car.”

  “No. I don’t want to.”

  “The car is taking us back to the hotel. You have to let go of me, so I can get in. Otherwise I’ll have to run beside it all the way. I might not be able to keep up. You don’t want that, do you?”

  He loosened his grip, and I climbed up in the front next to Mika. I wanted to cry.

  “We don’t know much about androids, but we have brilliant mathematicians. Do you want me to try to find some help? Or call for your ship?”

  “Not yet. Maybe I can make him run some self-tests, or power down for a bit. If he doesn’t snap out of it, I’d be eternally grateful for help.”

  In the back seat, Adam started to sing. I mumbled, “Alex, the next time someone asks if you want to try something, you say yes. You never, ever tell him to do it.”

  When Mika pulled up outside the hotel, Adam smiled from ear to ear, scrutinizing the buttons on his shirt. He pulled one off and bit it. “No… Honey, no, we don’t eat buttons.”

  Great. My husband acted like a three year old. If his databases were corrupted we’d really have a problem.

  “Do you have a… uh, backup or something of him?”

  Good question. “Of course not. He’s a person, not a robot pet.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  Mika and I sounded about equally convinced. The Indian food formed a heavy lump in my throat, and I swallowed hard.

  She squeezed my shoulder. “He’s heavy. I’ll go see if the concierge can help us get him up to the room.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I leaned into the car, trying to get Adam’s attention. “Hi honey. Do you remember me?”