25 Salas 1117: Jumpspace
Today was maddeningly quiet too. I finally went upstairs to see if anyone was around besides Dr. Korvusar and found Shelly doing her live-net performance in front of the aft viewscreen.
“…so a world where the sky could literally fall on you at any moment!” she was saying. “Back home, there is always the chance that a Floater could spring a leak, or our life support systems could fail, but we had people who were ready to handle such emergencies. On Girar, there is no one to stop the rock falling towards you. All you can do is run for the shelter and hope you get there in time. And hope that it isn’t big enough to destroy you anyway.”
She noticed me by the ladder and glanced back towards her cambot. “We’ll be there in four days, and then you will see it for yourself. Until then? Keep listening to the sky!”
She gave an exaggerated wave and smile, then signaled for the cambot to shut itself off. She walked over to me.
“Sorry, just catching up on my vids.”
“No need to apologize; it isn’t like there is anyone to take care of.” On the forward end of the lounge, Dr. Korvusar raised a half-full glass without looking up from her comp.
“So… did you need anything, Captain?” Shelly asked.
“No, not really. Just going a bit Jump-crazy downstairs.” I paused. “Maybe I was a bit too quick to dump our passengers.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, we’ve always had them. I never realized how… dull Jump was without them.”
“Hey, I’m happy to have a week off! But…” She trailed off and looked away. “It’s quiet up here.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
“We’ve only got four cabins downstairs. That’s you and Saahna, Do ‘rex, Jami, and Varan. You two are together, Do ‘rex has his own cabin, Jami snores. Loudly. And Varan…?” She shook her head. “Gods, what was I thinking.”
I waited to see if she said anything more. When she didn’t, I spoke. “Look, we can get by with only five passenger cabins; you can stay up here. But… I’d prefer it if you switched back to a single Medium instead of what you have now.”
She kept looking away and hesitated for a long moment. “Yeah, OK,” she said finally. “That will work.”
“Work?”
“I really don’t want to go back downstairs!”
It was my turn to hesitate before speaking. “Look, I get that you’ve got a problem with Varan. And Jami, apparently. But accommodations up here are better than what we have downstairs, even in a Medium stateroom. And the others won’t be particularly happy that you’re getting a benefit that I’m about to cut them off from. I’ve got to think about the ship; about all of us. That’s… how I have to do this.”
She continued looking away. “I knew it was a bad idea. I told you about me. About how I’m… not interested, really. It’s just not that important to me. But… a few nights ago on Tlianke? I just felt so… left out. So… alone. Varan asked me to come back to his room with him and… I did.”
She turned back to me, moisture in her eyes. “It was over not too long later. I was glad just to have had one evening where I thought someone wanted me around, but Varan was… insistent. I couldn’t tell him that I was done. Not again. And he kept on at me all night. I… really don’t want to be with him again. Not now, anyway. But every time he sees me he’s trying to get with me again. It was a one-time thing! I… don’t want anything beyond that!”
I winced internally; I understood where she was coming from.
“I’ll… talk to Varan. We’ve been Travelling together for a while; I think I know him well enough that he will listen to me. You can stay up here for a while, but…” I shrugged helplessly. “… it’s going to cause a problem at some point.”
“I… get that.” She turned away. “Gods, I was so stupid!”
“Join the club. And… Welcome to being a Traveller. If you’ve gone a dozen parsecs without doing something you regret you aren’t really Travelling.”
I had meant it as a joke, but it seemed to upset her further. “I’m not sure I can do this!”
“Yes, you can!” I said. Without thinking, I stepped forward and took her hands.
“Being a Traveller is different. You have to be able to shift your worldview all the time, while still being true to yourself. I’ve known you long enough to know that you have what it takes, which a lot of sophonts don’t. You can do this!”
She smiled slightly.
“You’re jealous that I slept with Varan and not you.”
“OK… yeah, that’s part of it. But… I really do care about you.”
“And Varan. And Jami. And Do ‘rex and Saahna. You care about all of us, don’t you?”
I let go of her hands. “Hey, you’re my crew. Of course, I care about all of you!”
“And that’s why you’re a good Captain!” She stepped forward and gave me a surprisingly sincere hug. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For listening to me? For being you? For… helping a grounder who wants to be a Traveller?” She sighed and looked away. “Thanks.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “You’re… welcome?”
“I’ll be OK. Thank you, Derek.”
—-
I went back downstairs to find most of the crew in the lounge. Jami and Saahna were playing a card game, and Varan was at the dispenser. I walked up behind him.
“Grab me one too.”
He nodded. “Sure.” He punched a beer in, accepted it, and handed it to me. “Something?”
“Yeah, can we talk for a sec?” I tilted my head towards the cargo bay iris.
He sighed, his expression changing. “Someone complaining?”
“No, they aren’t. There is a difference. So… talk?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Always.”
He hesitated, regarding me for a long moment before nodding. “OK, yeah. Let’s talk.” He headed towards the iris. I glanced over towards the others to see that they were being careful to not look in our direction. I guess I was out of the loop again.
We entered the cargo bay and the iris shut behind us. Varan immediately turned back in frustration. “What?”
“Look, I’m not here to judge anyone. That’s the last place I want to be. So… yeah, this involves Shelly. What is your side of things?”
“You’re jealous.”
“No. Well, maybe a little, but no. Shelly is part of my crew, and so I want to take care of her. Like I want to take care of all of you. I need all of you on my side!”
He didn’t react to that, so I continued.
“Look, if that is what you’re worried about, then I’ll happily tell you that Shelly is third on my list, at best. So I’m not competing with you, no matter what you may think. And not just because Saahna would kill me if I even tried. So… let’s talk.”
He sighed and looked away. “Yeah, I knew it was stupid at the time.”
“Been there, done that, got the vacc suit.”
“Yeah, I guess.” There was a long pause. He kept looking away. “I was foolish with Carma.”
“Just once?” I laughed. “Hey, you’re well ahead of me in that case.”
“No! Yes! That… wasn’t what I was saying…” He sighed and turned back.
“Look… yeah we had a night together, OK? Well, once. I needed someone, and she needed someone. Fine. We both took advantage of each other. Fine. But it won’t affect anything going forward.”
“She… doesn’t seem to think you feel that way.”
“Look, I…” He stopped and thought for a moment. “What… did you think of Carma?”
“I’m not totally sure; I never really talked to her that much. She… didn’t seem to be particularly fond of me.”
“Yeah, that was… probably me. I met her when we were knee-deep in the biowaste from the whole situation with Minister Trakon and that mess on Kupakii. She showed up and wanted to meet a ‘Traveller’ and… what could I say?” He sighed. “I guess being a Traveller herself wasn’t one of her goals.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve… met a few of those.”
“Yeah. So, once I realized she wasn’t, I… took way too long to tell her that wouldn’t be a thing. She got mad, and I hung on a bit further. Then… I sent her away. And, the next night… Shelly was there.”
I winced and shook my head. “You know better than that.”
“It was just… I had just had one thing collapse and.. she was there.”
“I… guess I haven’t spent enough time making sure she felt like she was one of us.” I shook my head. “This being captain stuff is harder than I thought.”
“Yeah, that’s a hard role to fill.”
“As I’m discovering.” I paused. “Look, maybe the two of you had a nice night together, but she seems to want that to be just that one night. And… She’s afraid that you want more than she does.”
He looked away again. “Yeah. I… kinda figured out that I was pushing things a bit too late. I guess she doesn’t want to talk to me but… let her know that, I’ve got it.”
“Why don’t you tell her?”
“Will she listen to me?”
“She needs to hear it from you. If I bring it up, she’ll just think it’s me trying to maintain peace on-board. But if you tell her directly…”
He sighed. “Yeah, got it…” He trailed off. “Will she listen to me?”
“Yes.” I was sure of that.
“OK.” He sighed again. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Good.”
He nodded. “So… we’re good now?”
I raised my hands. “We’ve always been good. Right now I’m worried about you and Shelly.”
He smiled tightly at that. “Yes. I… think we are, or will be, good…”
“Then that’s all I’m concerned about.”
“Good.” He sighed. “How do you and Saahna do it?”
“Do what.”
“Work together? With all your… ups and downs?”
“Well… yeah, this last round was a bit bad. Being captain made it a bit more difficult, I think. For all of you, actually. As I said, I think we’re past that now.”
He was shaking his head. “I should have learned from Carma. Being together all the time causes… problems. But…” He raised his hands in confusion. “How do you two do it? Be as on-and-off as you are and still keep working together?”
“Because, no matter where we are in the ‘on-and-off’ scale… we both know we can depend on each other. That’s all it takes.”
“Must be nice.”
I smiled. “Yeah… it is. So… let’s get out of the cargo bay.”
“Sounds good.”