"It's okay to still call me Lydia, Vesta. Now, get back to work."
"I am fully capable of addressing your needs while carrying out mission parameters."
"I know you are. As you were." She giggled at using military-speak on Vesta, then turned back to the larder. Which of the meals that remained did she dislike the least?
"Incoming comm, Lydia. It is Lieutenant Commander Watson."
Rick? And with a shiny new rank—the career move had been good for him.
Lydia grabbed a handhold and turned to look at the control panel—as if Vesta was physically located in that spot. "Open comm. Commander?"
"Nobody's listening, Lydia."
"Rick." She closed her eyes. "It's been..."
"A long, long time."
"I thought you'd left MC?"
"I know I said that, but..." He sighed, it was dramatic enough to carry all the way through deep space. "I—Leighton let me use the booth, our comm line—just like old times."
"I see."
"I couldn't keep being your POC, Lydia."
"Your career, you mean?" He'd told her all this. Why he was leaving Mission Control. Onward and upward and all that.
"No. I don't mean that." There was a long silence that she decided not to try to fill. Finally, he said, "You sound different."
"I'm a heck of a lot farther away. Guess it stands to reason I'd sound different."
"No, it's not that. You—you've changed. Leighton told me you had."
"He said something nice? Throw a bone to the doomed woman, I guess."
"That's not why he said it. He thinks highly of you." There was another long pause. "This isn't how I planned for this to g—" He started to cough, the sound ugly even over the comms. "I'm...sick."
She waited because she thought he needed her to do that.
"Actually, I'm not just sick. I'm dying."
She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"I need to tell you the truth. I left MC, but I was still in the building—I could have commed."
"What?"
"I didn't leave for my career's sake, Lydia. I left for my marriage's sake."
He was married? He'd never mentioned a wife.
"Marion...Marion knew that I wasn't there for her the way I used to be. That I was distracted. That I had...someone else."
"You mean...me? Your assignment? "
"You stopped being just an assignment. You need to know that I ... I love you."
She sat frozen in her chair. He loved her? He'd left her alone all this time—not one comm—because he loved her?
"Lyd, say something."
"What am I supposed to do with that?"
"I don't know. And it's self-indulgent of me to tell you. But I wanted you to know that if my marriage hadn't been on the line—my family at risk—I would never have stopped our comms. I'm not a half-in kind of guy. I couldn't talk to you and not be . . . engaged." There was a very long silence, broken only by occasional static on the comms. Then he said, his voice more forlorn than she expected, "Do—did you love me?"
She laughed: half in disbelief, half in bitterness.
"Lydia—"
How dare he say her name that way—his tone the one that had talked her off a hundred ledges. "You selfish son of a bitch. Self indulgent? This is cruel, Rick. Cruel."
"I'm sorry."
"That you did it? Or are you sorry that you're a sad, dying man who has nothing better to do than share unpleasant truths with a captive audience?" The silence was even longer and thick with ugly emotions she'd never dealt well with at the best of times. "I'm sorry you're sick. I'm sorry you're dying. But we're all dying, aren't we? Isn't that what you said to me once as your idea of a pep talk?"
"It was."
"I have things to do." She tried to not spit the words at him, to keep her tone level.
"Understood."
He didn't understand. But she wasn't going to help him.
"Vesta, end transmission."
The noise of the comm line was gone, only the normal sounds of the Vesta V around her.
"I overheard, Lydia."
She laughed, a little hysterically. "Of course you did."
"You . . . cared for him?"
"I liked him a lot."
She felt filled with nervous energy so she grabbed handholds and pulled herself around the capsule, going faster and faster until she heard Vesta ask so softly she could have ignored it, "Did you love him?"
She stopped her crazy capsule carousel. "No. He left me alone for nothing."
"Lydia?"
"Yes, Vesta." Lydia tried to concentrate on the vid Mei had sent, but she wasn't taking it in. She kept thinking about her friend's upcoming vacation from Mission Control and how she'd miss talking to her.
"You have not moved for over ten point six minutes. This is unusual."
"I was thinking."
Vesta clearly wasn't designed to be a shrink; she didn't take the obvious course and ask what Lydia was thinking about. "Oh. I will add that to your normal parameters."
"No."
"No?"
"No, you were right. It's unusual."
"Very well." Was there the smallest hint of satisfaction in the AI's voice?
"You monitor me, right?"
"It is part of my programming."
Lydia almost laughed: ask a machine a question, don't expect a warm and fuzzy answer. "Okay. So no other reason, then?"
"Your continued existence is . . . important to me."
"But why?" She sounded more needy than she meant to—did she really want Vesta to say she cared about her?
The ship was silent. So silent it got awkward. Finally, Lydia told her, "It's okay. I withdraw the question."
She looked at the medical supplies cabinet and thought of the needles inside, then she pushed off and bypassed the cabinet, heading for the galley one instead. She rifled through the bags. Surely they'd hidden some Scotch in here. She'd take gin or vodka or heck, even a beer.
Of course, she said that every time she looked and there was never any booze.
And there still wasn't. She settled for Beef Bourguignon over noodles. Or the deep space equivalent, anyway.
Lydia waited for her new POC to comm. She closed her eyes and counted imaginary hypodermic needles until the sound changed on the comm and she heard the perky voice of her new handler.
"Specialist Ramirez?"
"Nope. It's the other passenger on Vesta V."
Liu laughed. "You're funny. Lieutenant Watson didn't say you were funny."
She wasn't sure what to say, so she just waited.
"So, I've been looking over the list of what we're sending you in the way of entertainment. Are you...enjoying the stuff?"
"Truthfully? It's something to watch." Or listen to. Or read. Or play.
"You're getting the same thing all deployed personnel get. And you should be special."
"Special?"
"Yeah. What you're doing. It matters."
Lydia almost laughed. Sure, the mission mattered, but she didn't. "Do you even know why they picked me? I'm not military."
"I realize that. And no, I'm not privy to your file prior to the Vesta V's launch. You can tell me whatever I need to know, how's that?"
"Okay." Did she have to? Couldn't she let Mei go on believing she was special?
"Listen, Lydia, how about I bypass the standard selection on your vids and games? We'll figure out what you like, and I'll put the packages together myself from here on out." There was an undertone of merriment in Liu's voice that Lydia wasn't used to.
"Thanks, Lieutenant."
"Call me Mei." Her tone was so gentle it made Lydia feel safe—even in her tin can.