CHAPTER 11 “Complications”
Sunday 31 July 2811
The pod climbed up the narrow road with Captain Perry and me. She remained silent as the pod came to a stop at my new home. I opened the door and rather perfunctorily said, “Thank you for the ride, Captain.”
“Estrella, my apologies for not being conversational. You’ve given me something to think about and I’ve been wrapped up in it. Maybe Goots could establish a destructive network. I’m going to see where that idea leads me. In the meantime, have a nice afternoon and evening here at home. Give your mom my best. Oh, and it’s OK if you occasionally call me Celeste.”
“Thank you, Celeste. You have a good evening as well. And you can call me Esty.”
I trudged down the stone steps feeling emotionally spent. Mom was sitting on the couch with her e-pad.
“Look who’s back early,” she said as I put my bag on the rug against the couch and lay on my back with my knees up. I had done plenty enough sitting today, thank you.
“They rescheduled the remaining talks until later because …. Mom, have you heard that we, I mean I, received emails ….”
“The threats, you mean,” interrupted mom. “Someone from the Communications Department – I think she said her name was Helen – called to tell me that the base was increasing its security and that they had already sent me an email with more information about it. ¿Can you imagine? Someone was killed because some lunatic wanted to use his e-pad.”
“¿So, your email account is active now?”
Mom nodded. “Yes. That was another call from Communications. My address is flora dot ramirez at istri dot gov. They set yours up also. All you need to do is validate and log in with … just a second, dear. I wrote it down. Ah, your address is ‘e,’ ‘r,’ ‘r,’ dot trillium at istri dot gov.
Well that’s easy enough. It’s just my initials dot trillium at this domain. So at this point in time there are likely only six such addresses, and my daughter – too weird thinking that – will be the seventh.
I rolled over, pulled my e-pad from my bag, unfolded it, and sat cross-legged on the rug while I checked my email. Besides a couple from Communications, the twelve or so personal ones were listed. One from Doriz, two actually, one from Lester, one from Thabo Mphetsoe, one from … ‘calski’?
Ohh Myy Gawwd. I didn’t recognize the address, but it must be …. It was! Caleb Stokowski sent me an email! Crap, he’d found me. ¿How could he not, what with my picture on nearly every news site? And somehow his email was forwarded to me verified as personal. I bet Captain Celeste had something to do with that. How naive of me to think I could have a one-night-stand with a stranger without it catching up with me. Double crap.
My mind replayed being picked up off the dusty ground, mistaken for a ten-year-old; and the goose shit on the toddler’s face; and Caleb’s laughter, silliness, and wit; and our kisses; and the explosion; and first sex; and the sumptuous union of bare skin – damn it, I miss him!
Estrella,
As thoroughly as you insisted that we would not meet again because you were moving far away, i hoped that one day our paths would again cross and we would have another chance to try freezing our brains with ice cream.
OMG, when you said far away i was thinking maybe the Sahara or the Antarctic but out of the solar system??!!!! For such a lil’ thing, you sure pack BIG surprises.
The first thing i did at the petting zoo on Friday was give Castor a big head of cabbage all his own. If he hadn’t knocked you down, i would have slept alone that night instead of with the most famous and beautiful temptress in this neck of the woods state planet galaxy.
Saw the picture of you & the chopper. Will there be a video?
If they let you send emails between zero g workouts or whatever you’re doing, hit the reply button to keep this zoo flunky smiling.
Your one and only [hmmm, maybe not],
Caleb
Had my smile been any broader it would have collided at the back of my head.
Caleb,
What a surprise getting your email. Everything since arriving in Bulolombe seems a surprise.
I feel guilty using you as I did to place a checkmark next to one more item on my list of things that won’t be possible once I start THE TRIP. I rationalized the episode by telling myself that any red-blooded guy would be thankful having a girl show up and ask, “¿Your place for the night?” Actually, that’s probably true. Regardless, you were/are one wonderful person.
I miss you. Snuggling up against you as you slept is a deeply etched memory that will stay with me always. It would be special to receive emails from you forever, which as I understand will be possible as we recede. Forever, of course, meaning until I get recycled into nutrients for younger crewmembers or until your wife defenestrates you for corresponding with a former paramour.
Yours truly [so far],
Esty
I clicked the Send button, still smiling.
Monday 1 August 2811
I spent Monday morning working with Sherry Dumelang, a Communications staff employee, composing answers to questions and requests sent via email. ¿What do you tell someone who says they are fabulously rich, have fallen insanely in love with you, and offer their hand in marriage?
Sherry was wonderful. She had helped the other crewmembers with the same task. Often we just copied and pasted an answer that was already being used by another Trillium crewmember. A surprising number of emails had questions about learning to fly V-TOL aircraft. I encouraged those correspondents to finish regular school, take V-TOL ground school before flight school, and don’t try holding the ‘toy’ until they had lightly tapped it from all sides.
Lunchtime finally came. As I left Sherry’s office and headed for the cafeteria, I was surprised to see Hvezda approach me.
“Estrella, forgive me being rude and off-putting. I am ready now deal with ghosts of mine and lighten up.”
¿What did I say about continually being surprised since arriving? “¿Hvezda, would you and your ghosts like to join me for lunch?” I asked.
My request clearly affected her. Hvezda simultaneously smiled and nearly teared as she dipped her head self-consciously. Then she raised her chin and answered, “I love that. Come with me. We get sandwiches to go. I know nice place we can talk.”
I chose a PB&J sandwich, a banana, and a bottle of water. Hvesda got a bean sprout, avocado, and tomato sandwich, chips, and soda water. We passed between hangars and offices as we headed west through the base. Many more people were out and about than I had seen before, likely because it was lunch hour on a workday. Everyone who glanced our direction immediately called out or waved a greeting. We Trillium six were the base celebrities.
We followed along the southern edge of the landing strip for a while before ascending up a steep small hill overlooking a beach along the south perimeter of the island. Hvezda and I engaged in light conversation as we walked but I sensed that she continued to be uncomfortable with me. We came to a level area with a badly weathered picnic table, and carefully brushed off one of the benches with our hands. I still managed to get a splinter stuck in my skin. Thankfully, it came out easily without bleeding.
“So, tell me about your friendly ghosts,” I prompted.
Hvezda looked childishly self-conscious for her 40 plus years but finally began to speak. “I was at FSA base in Guyana before invitation to come here. Hard decision. I dream of becoming Trillium crew but have lover in Guyana. ISTRI knows about lover and agree with me my choice is hard choice. I’m here. And my lover … never answer my emails, not even my phone calls. That was three years ago. I did not stay sad long; I can handle disappointments.” She paused and looked me in the eyes and somehow that made me uncomfortable.
“Hvezda, I’m so sorry. Just last night I got an email from someone that I did not even know that I missed. But to leave your lover and have him not even answer your calls, that must hurt terribly.”
“Estrella, was not a him. She was a she, and you are perfect twin, only more small.”
Alright; I’m OK with that, I told myself. Some of my classmates had lesbian parents who were among the kindest, most talented, and loving people I’ve known. But this was different; this was me.
Hvezda continued, “So I see you. Feel confusion. Feel hurt from Tanaya not answering me. When I see you, I see Tanaya and I am sad. I am angry. I feel cheated. I do not want feel so bad. But this is not fair for you. Today when I got up from bed, I say, Hvezda, you go find Estrella; tell her everything.”
Her voice broke and she turned away as shiny globules built up in her eyes and escaped down her face. I moved over and gave her a hug. “You’ll be okay. You’ll do fine. You have a large community of friends who care for you here.”
We sat for a long time like that. I worried that she might misconstrue my hug for desire. “Hvezda, I can never be a substitute for Tanaya and I don’t want to be your lover; not in the sexual sense. But the six of us will live out our entire lives with each other. I hope we will each learn to love the others in the sense of having deep respect for each other and valuing one another’s friendship.” I continued to gently hold her. “Now that I think about it, since the possible individual relations increase as the sequence of Triangular Numbers, that makes for … ah … fifteen separate two-person relationships possible among the six of us. It’s not so simple as some people may think.”
Hvezda backed out of the hug with a wet smile. “You could do that as combination,” she said as she wiped her face with her hand. “Is six factorial divide by four factorial divide again by two factorial. Is also 15.”
“¿But what about groups of three or four or five, instead of just two?” I asked. “You’re right. Triangular Numbers don’t help there but combinations do. So let’s write this down.” I dug a pencil out of my bag and the handout Gregor Pfalz gave me yesterday for the briefing-which-never-ends. “So, for groups of two, there are 15 different combinations.” I scribbled “2 : 15” in the left margin. “So for groups of three, we have six factorial divided by three factorial divided again by three factorial.”
“Twenty!” Hvezda called out.
As I wrote “3 : 20” as I raced ahead to formulated the answer for combinations of four given six separate choices.
“Fifteen!” Hvezda shouted, beating me.
“Six!” I called for the last and simplest calculation to get combinations of five from the six of us.
“So, besides the one whole group, there can be … fifty-seven unique relationships in our tin can. Fifty-seven varieties,” I concluded.
Hvezda and I looked straight at each other and then burst into giggles.
“Estrella. Thank you. ¿But you know what? We need eat sandwiches before ants take and hide them.”
As we ate, we chatted comfortably and joked and looked out across Lake Victoria. Shadows from puffy clouds spotted the expanse of blue water that extended beyond the far horizon.
With a big impish smile, Hvezda offered, “I think Tanaya most angry that rest of life I live trapped in starship with five horny ladies.”
I laughed with her but privately I really did wonder how our libidos would, in fact, play out in the decades to come.
On the way back down the hill, I offered Hvezda my hand to navigate a particularly tricky section of the steep path and simply did not release her hand after that.
We walked back toward the Communications Department hand-in-hand as we told each other about silly videos that we had seen on the net. I told her about the one where a newscaster ran back from the camera because a snake crawled onto the table. Hvezda told me about the time a weather reporter was suddenly rushed by co-workers who pulled his pants down.
As we walked back past one of the hangars, a wolf-whistle echoed from its cavernous interior. That pissed me off. Nobody treated us in such a deprecating fashion earlier when we were just two familiar women walking by. But now, holding hands, the small-minded person in the hangar apparently saw us as possibly a lesbian couple and therefore less deserving of his respect.
The only response that came to mind was to show that we refused to be shamed by small minds. Hvezda followed my lead in swinging around to face the hangar and bowing as actors do at the end of a stage play. Three or four people back in the shadows applauded. We did not release each other’s hands until we were back at the entrance to the Communications Department.
“Hvezda, I’m so glad you invited me for lunch and shared your ‘ghost story’ with me. Thank you.”
“And I thank you, Estrella.” After a parting hug, I returned Hvezda’s cheerful good-bye wave and entered the building to draft more answers to the flood of emails.