“I don’t think that learning that I’m dead is going to do her much good either,” I said. “I assume others have done this before?”
Devon nodded. “This isn’t easy on either you or her, but at least you have a chance to say goodbye, if that’s what you really want.”
“Why wouldn’t it be what I want? She’s the woman I love.”
From his large, thronelike chair in the middle of the massive space, Devon looked down at me with an expression I had seen many times before. He was worried.
“You’re not going to want to do this,” Devon said. “I think you should just let it go and we’ll beam into Area 51 and get you settled into your new life.”
“Why?”
“Just let her deal with her grief on her own, in her own way. It’s better that way. For both of you.”
I stood there, staring at my friend, thinking about what seeing me as a ghost would do to Tammie. Devon was right. It would scare her, and the news of my death was going to hurt her more than enough.
If I loved her, I didn’t need to hurt her any more.
But I did want to just see her one more time.
“I guess you’re right. Can the hologram he made so that she wouldn’t see me, or hear me? I’d still like to say goodbye in my own way.”
Now Devon looked really pained. “It can be, yes, but as your friend, I’m suggesting you not do that.”
“Why?”
Devon sighed. “Sometimes it’s better to just let memories alone, leave Tammie in your mind as you know her.”
“I’m still back in the Klondike, aren’t I? Having a horrid nightmare?”
“No,” Devon said. “You are very much alive, and we very much need your experienced help in our program. If the Klondike had come back on its own, we were going to try to recruit you into the program. We were lucky that circumstances at least saved you.”
“I don’t feel so lucky.”
“Let’s go to Area 51,” Devon said. “You have great memories of Tammie; just leave them that way and start the next part of your life.”
I laughed. “You know I’m not going to, unless you tell me what is so bad that I’m going to see when I visit her.”
Devon looked like the day he had swallowed his first oyster. I remembered laughing at him for an hour that night.
I wasn’t laughing now at all.
Devon sighed again, then said, “Maybe you should just go take a look. You won’t be seen or heard, and you won’t be able to touch anything. After that, we can talk more when we’re off this ship.”
It was as if the area around me on the ship suddenly changed into my home. Devon had put me in the living room, and everything was as tidy as Tammie always kept it. Outside the open window, the sun was just starting to paint the tops of the rock bluffs pink. We had a fantastically beautiful home. It was too bad I was going to miss retiring here.
I looked around. Actually, this wasn’t really my home. Granted, I had clothes here and all, but I had never really felt at home here. I had no sense of still being on the ship. This alien stuff was really amazing. Or my hallucination was very detailed and felt real.
“ Devon?”
“Right with you, buddy,” he said, his voice coming from my right and slightly above me. “Just let me know when you want to get out of there.”
“Only a moment.”
I headed for the bedroom where Tammie would be sleeping. I couldn’t really feel my feet touch the carpet, but the memory of walking without gravity boots made me think I was feeling it. Weird, really weird.
I tried to push open the half-closed door, but my hand went right through it, so I closed my eyes and just stepped forward and into the bedroom.
I was sure I was dead; now I was acting like a ghost. What more evidence did I need?
The pink morning light was gently filling the room through the closed blinds. Our big master bed filled the far wall under bookshelves loaded with Tammie’s favorite reading.
I moved about two steps toward the bed before I realized that Tammie wasn’t alone. A man, a young man, was curled up against her back, like he belonged there, like he had been there a very long time.
I had already been stunned over the last few hours with five of my shipmates dying, and then discovering that we really were friends with aliens and that I was going to live.
This sight just left me cold. I wanted to care, but for some reason, I just couldn’t.
I stared at my wife for a long minute, wondering why I didn’t care.
I should care. I should be angry.
But the image of my five friends’ deaths haunted me. Their deaths made me angry. Not this.
I couldn’t care because it really didn’t matter. My shipmates, my friends were dead. I was officially dead, but getting a second chance to move on to interesting challenges that I would love.
I couldn’t bring her anyway.
I stood and just stared at her. One thing was clear. She looked happy, contented in sleep.
I cared that she was happy. After being married to a man who had spent most of the last twenty years either in space or preparing for it, she deserved happiness in any way she could find it.
“How long have you known?” I asked my friend. I had a hunch that he was seeing what I was seeing with the fancy alien technology.
“A couple of years,” Devon said. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s not a surprise,” I said. “As much as I was gone, how can I blame her?”
I moved over beside her, ignoring the guy behind her, and stared at her beautiful hair spread out over the pillow, at her cheek, at her slightly open mouth. I had been lucky to have the time I had with her, and all the support she had given me. I would miss that.
I would miss her.
But I couldn’t be angry at her.
I bent over and brushed my lips against her cheek. I didn’t feel anything, but her eyes fluttered a little and she sighed and then went back to sleep.
“Be happy,” I said to my beautiful wife. “You deserve it.”
Then I turned away.
“Get me out of here.” I stepped toward the door. “I got some new ships to fly.”
A moment later I was back in space.
Back where I belonged.
THE STINK OF REALITY by Irene Radford
Dr. Wallace Beebee, PhD, associate professor of biophysics at Vasco da Gama U, swept the paraphernalia atop his wife Evelyn’s dresser into a shoebox. Deodorant, perfume, hairspray, cosmetics, anything with a fragrance. When the box was full he moved into the adjacent bathroom and collected shampoos, soaps, his own shaving cream and aftershave, the candle on the toilet tank. When a second box was full he slapped the lid on it, secured it with a rubber band, and took them both to the laundry room at the opposite end of their ranch-style rental home on the campus fringes.
“The Explorers of VDGU? A bunch of bullshit. Haven’t had an original idea in fifty years,” Wallace grumbled. He’d been on faculty three years, always being promised tenure the next semester, then the next, and the next, always denied because his ideas were just a little too revolutionary. Grants controlled by the university went to projects that kept corporate America happy and conservative, not to strange new inventions worthy of science fiction novels.
Every research grant Wallace applied for ended up in the hands of a more senior faculty member.
How could he and Evelyn ever hope to afford children living on the pittance the university paid untenured-and therefore disposable-professors?
Into another box, he loaded all of the cleaning supplies beneath the bathroom sink. “I’ll show them something that will keep corporate America happy!”
Max, the family corgi, followed his every step, sniffing each item with extreme interest. But then the dog lived through his nose.
That’s what had given Wallace the idea. The dog’s nose ruled his impulses. If it didn’t have a smell, the dog wasn’t interested.