—Gregory MacAllister, Baltimore Sun,
December 30, 2195
Chapter 25
FOR JAKE, THE good life had arrived. He loved spending time with Alicia, whether it was in the Ferrante Club in Roanoke, or wandering through the woods, or watching movies at his place. He went to the Hawks’ games, at home and on the road. She claimed she played better when he was in the stands. “You provide a little extra energy, Jake,” she’d told him one night after they’d won on her last-second jump shot. The reality was that no woman in his life had ever affected him the way she did.
Everything else was falling into place also. There was a Thursday poker game in town, which he attended except on those evenings when the Hawks were playing. Several of the local schools asked him to talk to their students about spaceflight. He put together a show that included a virtual trip to some of the local stars, and to Iapetus. He made a change in reality, though, by coordinating it so that Iapetus was no longer in tidal lock. That allowed the students to gather on a ridge and watch Saturn rise in the east, with those magnificent rings jutting vertically into the sky.
He became a volunteer at the local animal shelter (where, coincidentally, Alicia also served). He went for long, solitary walks, and felt the difference immediately in his muscles, which had absorbed too many years in low or zero gravity.
The food was considerably better than the fare to which he’d become accustomed. He never ate in the cabin, though, unless Alicia made the meal. He visited every restaurant within sixty-five kilometers. And for the first time since he was about twelve, he played occasional bingo, with Alicia, at one of the local churches.
He had blundered into a golden age. He’d always expected that, when he retired, he’d sleep late and spend most of his time just lying around. Maybe do some bowling. But Alicia wasn’t a bowler, and he just didn’t have time.
She took him to an indoor swimming pool in Roanoke. The woman looked glorious in the water, smooth and synchronized, moving swiftly, leaving Jake to manage as best he could. Jake could swim reasonably well, but he’d fallen out of practice. “I’m going to suggest to the people on the Wheel that they need one of these,” he said.
Both The Roanoke Times and The Christiansburg News interviewed him and did stories. He became a local celebrity.
* * *
NEVERTHELESS, HE’D BEEN there barely three weeks before a disquieting restlessness set in. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he missed the interstellars. Missed looking down on other worlds. Missed the admiration that the silver-and-blue uniform commanded from passengers and anyone else who happened to be in the neighborhood.
He missed the occasional voyage during which he started with no idea what waited at the other end. He missed the simple things, the exhilaration that came during the first minutes after launch, when the acceleration pressed him back into his seat. The shocked reactions of passengers who were, for the first time, looking out the portal at an alien moon or a star cluster or a passing asteroid.
And as the weeks went by, he became more aware of what had gone missing from his life. But there was something else: He had not been able to let go of Joshua Miller.
It was not that he was still overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. He’d been able to convince himself that he had probably not been aware of what Joshua had intended. But even if that were so, he knew that somehow, a set of scales were out of balance.
Whatever the exact nature of what he was experiencing, he was unable to keep it hidden from Alicia. She knew something was wrong. Life was not going off the track completely, but rather it was out of sync. “Are you okay?” she would ask occasionally, even when he was not conscious of contemplating whether he needed to feel the push of the star drive, or perhaps owed something to Joshua. “Is everything all right, Jake?”
It wasn’t.
But he assured her it was only her imagination. I’m fine.
When he was alone in the cabin, however, he felt the weight of solitude as he never had when he was riding the interstellars.
* * *
LIBRARY ENTRY
What we do is who we are.
—Marissa Earl, Narrow Roads, 2025
Chapter 26
PRISCILLA HAD NOT been able to get Monika Wolf out of her mind. On her way back to the Wheel, she decided to call her. Monika sounded pleased to hear her voice. “I’ve been wondering how my favorite pilot’s been doing,” she said. “Wish we were close enough to manage an occasional lunch.”
“Me, too,” said Priscilla, as they rose above some storm clouds. “Have you gotten a job yet?”
“Oh, yes. I’m with Baxter Intelligence. Not as interesting as what I used to do for Kosmik, but at least I’m not causing any harm anymore.”
“I quit them myself,” she said.
“Good for you. I wish we could get everybody to walk out.” It was strictly an audible conversation, but Priscilla sensed that she was smiling. “Political pressure is building. A lot of people are unhappy about what’s going on. I think eventually we’ll be able to shut them down.”
“I hope you’re right,” Priscilla said.
* * *
IN THE MORNING, she checked in with Frank Irasco. “I’m glad you’re back. I hope you enjoyed your vacation.”
“Very much,” she said.
“Good. We’re ready to put you to work. Can you come in today?”
Twenty minutes later, she took the elevator up to the third floor. He was standing in the passageway talking to a couple of staff people when the doors opened. He looked toward her, finished the conversation, and came over. “Welcome back, Priscilla. You ready to start?”
“Absolutely.”
“Excellent. Let’s go this way.” He showed her a small office just around the curve of the corridor. “It’s yours,” he said.
“It looks nice.”
“Your formal title will be support assistant. You’ll have a variety of responsibilities.” He invited her to sit down behind the desk. She did, and he leaned over and pressed the comm pad. “Janna,” he said, “would you bring us some coffee, please?” Then he settled into one of the two chairs. “Your most critical job is to be our backup pilot. Which means, if there’s an emergency, and there’s nobody available to send out, you’ll get the assignment. Are you okay with that?”
“I can live with it,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why backup? Why borrow somebody else’s pilot and ship if we’re having a problem?”
“Priscilla, I understand how you feel. But we have an established method for dealing with emergencies. The method is that we use whatever vehicle might be available. The deep-space corporations have an obligation to assist. And they do. When something happens, we want to get someone to the site as quickly as possible. Usually, that means somebody who’s already within a reasonable range. We could keep an emergency vehicle here at the Wheel, and years might go by before it would get used. So we can either use the corporate vehicles that are scattered around, or we can construct a fleet and spend a hell of a lot of money maintaining them in strategic locations.”
“Okay,” said Priscilla.
“Good. I’m glad we have that settled.”
“What will I be doing when I’m not functioning as a backup pilot?”
“You’ll be doing administrative work.”