“There’s one more thing I have to do. You go along, Karine. I’ll be there in a moment.”
She waited until he had shut down the visuals from the disposal lock, then gave an approving, satisfied nod, turned, and left. He lingered until she was gone. Then he composed himself, knelt, and began to pray.
There in the middle of the high-tech bridge, surrounded by a rainbow of bright telltales and the occasional whispering readout, he closed his eyes and steepled his fingers. A casual onlooker would have said there was no one to notice the gesture.
Oram would have disagreed.
Daniels was drunk. She knew it, didn’t care, but did not revel in the condition. What she had hoped to obtain from the excess of alcoholic consumption wasn’t nirvana but anesthetization. Despite her strenuous efforts in that direction, she had not succeeded.
She was dazed but still capable of feeling.
Dammit, she thought through the liquor-induced fog. Why am I still conscious? Is there no justice in this universe?
The antique music player was currently emitting the dulcet vocalizations of Nat King Cole singing “Unforgettable.” A favorite tune of Jacob’s, and one they enjoyed listening to in quiet, intimate moments. It was quiet enough, she mused, but there could be no intimacy. You needed two to be intimate.
Two to tango, two to travel, two to… to…
Despite her wishes, her vision was clearing. She had removed his clothes from the closet, along with everything else that had been his and not theirs. Socks, a crude shell necklace she had made for him, shirts, pants, boots.
Knick-knacks, paddy-wacks, give a girl a break…
She’d had no problem laying claim to the remnants of the whiskey in the bottle Tennessee had provided. Momentarily fortified by the additional dose of liquid backbone, she commenced tying the assorted attire into neat bundles. It was only when she had finished dealing with the last of the clothes that she felt able to move on to the more personal items.
The aged still photographs shared space on the floor with more contemporaneous examples of the visual reproductive process. Having spread them out in a semicircle she knelt among them, studying the mosaic they formed of her previous life. Occasionally she would touch a hard copy or run a fingertip through a projection, sampling the images both by sight and through physical contact. She didn’t look at any of them more than once, drinking in each image for one last time before moving on to the next.
One especially favorite projector tab stared back at her. She considered avoiding it, but it just sat there, demanding activation. So she thumbed the unit and sat back to watch the resulting imagery it contained. Imagery she knew all too well.
Backed by the vast jagged sweep of the Grand Teton mountains that cut into the pure blue sky like one of his beloved antique wood saws, Jacob stood looking back at her. Smiling, always smiling.
“Hey, when are you getting here? I miss you!” Half-turning, he gestured at the rugged range looming behind him. “Look at those mountains. I know, I know, I said I wouldn’t climb without you, but—come on, look at that! I can feel the granite under my fingers from here. Get your ass up here or I can’t promise…”
Reaching out, she froze the image. Though the audio continued, her sobs drowned out the words. She knew them by heart anyway.
When she could not cry anymore, with her eyes aching and throbbing, she forced herself to pack everything away. Pictures, clothes, climbing gear, everything. It was all ready for storage, along with her dreams. All that was left was the small memory box she kept on the dresser. It held little things, silly things, fragments of a life already lived. Items that would be meaningless to anyone except her.
Opening the box, she tenderly fingered the contents one by one: a class ring, a strip of old-time solido photos of the two of them, a button she had salvaged from the ridiculous suit he had worn to a costume ball celebrating the fashions of the mid-twenty-first century, a couple of old metal nails he had lovingly salvaged from a collapsed miner’s shack in backcountry Wyoming.
Taking one of the nails, she found a piece of string—even string had a place on a starship, she reflected—and tied one end just under the head of the nail. He’d had his old shell necklace, now she had the nail. She put the makeshift piece of jewelry around her neck. The sliver of old iron was cold against her chest.
The fingers of one hand closed tightly around it as she shut her eyes.
V
Relativity notwithstanding, time seems to pass the same both outside and inside a starship. So it was on the Covenant, where work to repair the damage to the wafer-thin energy collectors proceeded with care and deliberation.
The bridge was alive with activity now, with a full complement of crew busy at their respective stations. Attentive though they were to the work at hand, Ricks, Upworth, Walter, and Faris were able to communicate without looking up from what they were doing.
Some of their energy and attention was devoted to monitoring activity outside the ship. Much of that was currently focused on Tennessee. Unlike with some of the other crew when they performed extra-vehicular activity, it wasn’t necessary to check his personal health monitors in order to assess his physical or mental condition. His frequent whistling was reassurance enough that he was feeling fine.
Oram entered the bridge just as Tennessee was out finishing repairs to one of the last damaged transmission arrays. As if on cue, lights, readouts, projections, and holos that had been operating on backup power suddenly brightened. Others that had been completely powered down sprang back to life. The relief among those present was visible on their faces and in their elated comments.
A grinning Upworth addressed the nearest comm. “Well done, Tee. We’re full live down here and on first check, everything appears to be back online.” She looked around the bridge. “I haven’t seen this much life up here since we left Sol, and you’re missing all of it. Come back in.”
“So noted,” Tennessee replied. “Don’t leave without me now.”
Seated at her station nearby, Faris didn’t hesitate as she glanced over at the younger woman. “Please, leave without him. He’s always in his own orbit anyway, so he should be just fine out here by himself.”
Upworth’s grin widened as she shook her head. “Can’t do that. Abandonment, even for patently justifiable purposes, is against regs. They’d dock my pay.”
“What d’you care?” Faris shot back. “You’ll never get back to Earth to collect it.”
“Goes to a favorite charity.” Upworth checked Tennessee’s progress, and was gratified to see that his suit’s functions were as healthy as those of its occupant. “All right then, maybe they’d dock my housing allowance for Origae-6. Besides, we need him on board. He helps alleviate our boredom.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” a smiling Faris argued.
They broke off the banter as Daniels entered, plainly a little the worse for wear. Breathing the optimized recycled atmosphere on a starship did nothing to alleviate the headache from a hangover.
Oram smiled a greeting, but his expression was tight. “Welcome back. Not feeling your best this morning?” He would have said more, but his wife’s words still echoed in his ears.
She barely glanced at him. It was evident from his attitude if not his tone that he knew about the funeral. And about the drinking.
Screw you… Captain, she thought. Her head throbbed too much for her to reach for wit, even if her sarcasm was internalized. Ignoring the surreptitious stares cast her way, she moved silently to her station.