Dispatches from the Galaxy

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Tima Chou, Sue’s second, had been all too happy to step in for as long as she was needed despite her own ongoing efforts to quiet the emergency. Unlike Sue, Tima’s short black hair was gleaming and perfectly styled against her head, her uniform clean and unwrinkled. Her second-in-command had shown up so fast Sue wondered if she’d been hovering, waiting for this chance to prove herself in a difficult situation.

Much like Sue had been decades ago when she’d first started getting these opportunities for herself.

Sue did her best to hide her watering eyes from Evans and Liam as they stepped into the bright transit corridors. The curving walls and ceilings were wide enough to let several people walk by in different directions, with the source of that light invisible to anyone who hadn’t engineered it.

Same with the source of fresh, almost sweet-smelling air, as if a cleansing rainstorm had recently passed through Bellagos unnoticed.

Right now the corridors were awash in the warm yellow of the Earth sun in the early morning hours, the cycle still matching the planet they were leaving farther behind with each passing second. People even picked up a healthy amount of Vitamin D from exposure, something Sue suspected she was lacking, as usual.

As Bellagos reached the halfway point on the decades-long journey from Earth to Junos 7, the light cycle would begin the shift to the longer, dimmer day on their new home.

Another lack made itself known in her stiff legs and back. She managed not to walk hunched over, forcing herself into a relatively normal healthy stride to keep up with Evans and Liam. Still, every step, even on the soft, resilient brown surface of the corridor, highlighted how much she’d been working over the past few days.

Well, Sue could be honest with herself even if she ignored both her human and electronic physical monitors’ scolding. She’d underworked her body as badly as she’d overworked her mind, fighting that damn corrupted update from Earth HQ with no end in sight.

She hoped her optimism in leaving wouldn’t turn out to be misplaced. The slowdown in systems tripping into Alert still held steady, so walking away for a bit shouldn’t be a problem. Sue fought to keep her mind off how many of Invalids would await her attention when they returned.

This little boy needed his father, who most certainly should not be in Invalid status.

And Sue desperately did not need a mystery disappearance onboard.

She kept half an ear on Evans talking to Liam, the tech’s slow, musical drawl only occasionally interrupted by the boy’s higher voice. She knew without asking that Evans was recording the conversation like Bellagos normally tracked all crew movements, and making mental notes to himself about who else they could assign to search for the missing Mr. McHugh.

A fragment of conversation drifted back to her, mainly because both Liam and then Evans glanced over their shoulders at her. “…short cut, but not right now.”

Evans grinned at Sue with a brief shake of his head. She snorted.

If anyone on her security crew could calm Liam down enough to get him to help the investigation, her bet was on Evans.

The thought of a shortcut was anything but calming. Bellagos was confusing enough to navigate through official pathways with lighting and signs.

As far as Sue was concerned, getting off the normal paths and into the sections rarely used for anything but maintenance was a fool’s game.

A handful of people joined them in the corridor, with only a few jogging in the center lane reserved for them. Not nearly the crowd that would surge out of the various pods at the end of the typical duty cycle for an evening stroll.

Even when given total flexibility in their waking, sleeping, and working hours, a remarkable number of humans went for the standard.

Liam’s voice, raised in childlike excitement, caught all of Sue’s attention.

“The forest pods are my favorite. They smell like everything, and the breeze is a lot stronger. My dad said…” He paused, taking a deep breath. “They say some places on Earth still have forests big enough you can walk across them for days.”

“I’ve seen it myself,” Evans said. “Back in the Georgia Zone where I was born. Used to be more city than forest, but they’ve fixed it all back up now that so many humans are moving off-planet. You could walk for days until you get clear to the ocean.”

“The ocean,” Liam whispered. “I just can’t imagine all that water.”

Sue nodded. “That’s where I was born. Not in the Georgia Zone, but farther north in the Commonwealth Zone. The water goes on forever it seems, so far you can’t see the end of it. Has waves in it, too.”

“Like the ones I make when I get to go to the swimming pool?”

“Sure, kind of like that,” Evans said, smiling at Sue. “But these move all by themselves without a person or a machine making them. Tides, they’re called. The Moon makes them when it goes around and around the Earth.”

Liam sighed. “I wish I could have seen the Moon. With my own eyes, on Earth, I mean. Video isn’t like the real thing.”

“No, it’s not.” Sue wondered, not for the first time, if it wouldn’t be better for these kids to be born once they reached Junos 7. Even if it did make crew numbers pretty much impossible to maintain. “But Junos 7 has three moons, and you’ll see those.”

The boy shrugged. Sue turned her head so he wouldn’t see her pursing her lips. Liam might see those moons as an old man. Neither she nor the much younger Evans would. McHugh wouldn’t have either.

No, McHugh wouldn’t.

Sue refused to let herself slip into past tense, even in her mind, and even when thinking of their eventual deaths in deep space. Not exactly the conversation to have with a scared little boy who simply wanted his father.

Thankfully Evans rescued her.

“Smell that, Liam? I think that’s the tropical pod, don’t you?”

Sue lifted her nose when the other two did, and the change itself made her feel better. More alert. Instead of clean but recycled air of the corridors on the huge ship, she smelled green and growing things. Sweet and spicy flowers, pungent soil and fertilizer.

The air felt different as they walked closer, too. Warmer, definitely more humid. Full of life in a way she knew she didn’t have the words for, but her nose and body recognized.

As they walked through the next curve, Liam’s face lit up in a huge grin.

There were surprisingly few signs in the corridors since everyone alive on most of the ship had seen or helped build and connect each new pod.

But the supply pods were different.

To the right, a bold, black-lettered sign in several primary languages and stylized pictograms declared they would find Tropics and Warm Exotics. To the left, Cold and Frozen Supplies. The two opposite pods might appear to be side by side, but past these few meters of corridor, the pods were separated by the void of deep space.

“Frozen chocolate?” Sue said. “That’s your dad’s favorite?”

Liam’s smile faded, but didn’t disappear. “Yeah, it’s what he always gets on his leisure day. He says we can’t keep it around all the time or he’ll eat too much of it.”

“I’m the same way with anything cherry flavored,” Evans said. “I think I’ll get some right now, though.”

They stepped inside the open portal door that was wide enough to let the three of them walk through together. No one waited inside the white-walled room except three bored attendants. The walls were livened up by larger-than-life display models of everything in stock, along with Earth photos of winter or the frozen Polar Zones. A row of boxy white chairs lined both walls, ready for the much busier strolling hour this evening.

Thank goodness this room was only a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of Bellagos instead of the painful cold of the storage areas.

A young woman with a bouncy brunette ponytail, wearing the pale blue uniform of this zone, brightened when she saw the three of them. Sue thought it was just typical sales behavior—no different here than back on Earth—until the woman focused on the boy.

“Hey there, Liam! Haven’t seen you in ages. Where’s your dad?”