“Then can’t we do, like, them, us, then the planet?” Miz suggested.
Cal looked around at the others. “She’s lost me again.”
“Come out of warp on the other side of the blockade?” asked Loren. “Jump behind it?”
“Could we do that?” asked Cal, perking up.
Loren shook her head. “No.”
Cal tutted. “Oh. Way to get my hopes up, Miz.”
“I mean, theoretically, maybe,” Loren continued. “But there are too many variables.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for one thing, we don’t know how many ships there are, or how close they’ll be to the planet. To be safe, we’d have to stop right at the edge of the upper atmosphere.”
Cal nodded his approval. “OK, then let’s just do that.”
“Oh, sure. No problem. I’ll just do that,” said Loren.
“Great,” said Cal, clapping his hands on his thighs. “So, next thing on the agenda—”
“Wait, I wasn’t being serious,” said Loren. “I can’t just do that.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because it’d mean overriding the jump system and doing a manual emergency stop. Which is… Well, it’s…”
“Impossible?” asked Cal.
Loren tilted her head from side to side a couple of times quite begrudgingly. “I mean, maybe not impossible, but—”
“Great. Then I have complete faith in you,” Cal said. “Anyway, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
“Uh, we hit the atmosphere at warp speed then crash into the planet,” Loren said.
“And that’s bad?” Cal asked. “Kidding. I know that’s bad. God knows you’ve crashed us into enough planets that I know it’s less than ideal. But we’ve survived all those.”
“What do you mean all those?” asked Loren. “You make it sound like it happens all the time.”
“It happens a lot of the time,” Mech pointed out.
“Most of the time,” Miz said.
“Agreed,” added Cal, because he hadn’t said it in a while and he felt like trying it out again.
Loren tutted irritably. “OK, well we’ve never hit one at warp speed before.”
“Will that be worse than normal?” Cal asked.
“We’ll tear the planet in half and turn the ship to atoms,” Loren said. “So yeah, it’ll be worse.”
Miz scowled. “What’s the problem? It’s, like, totally obvious what we need to do,” she said.
The others turned to her, all ears.
“We stop after the ships, but before we smash into the planet,” Miz said. She threw her arms up in a shrug. “Isn’t that, like, just common sense?”
“She has a point,” Cal said, nodding sagely. “Can’t we just do that?”
“I swear, I have to think of everything,” Miz complained.
Loren gaped between them both, open-mouthed. She shot Mech a pleading look, but he just shrugged and sighed in response.
“Fine. Fine, I guess I’ll just do that, then,” said Loren. “I’ll override the jump coordinates and manually brake a ship traveling at several times the speed of light so it stops in a gap of fewer than fifty miles.”
“Great!” cheered Cal. “So, it’ll go bad guys, us, then the planet, right? Simple as that?”
“Yep. Simple as that,” Loren muttered. “Don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, Loren. That’s why we’re all here,” Cal said. “So we can brainstorm these things.”
He twisted from side to side in his chair as he went over the updated plan in his head.
“So, we stop, we high-tail it down to the planet before anyone spots us, we take the Symmorium Sentience and, I don’t know, plug it in somewhere, it comes back to life, there’s magic and wonder. Probably rainbows. Maybe one of those, like—” He sang a high note. “Like just, laaaah, with the Heavenly light shining down like in Hallmark movies. You know?”
“No,” said Mech.
“Laaaah!” sang Cal, holding his hands up to a Heavenly light that only he could see. Mech appeared to be none the wiser. “Doesn’t matter. It’ll be great. You’ll love it. So, we do that, then the Symmorium come back, we all talk about old times, Zertex and the EDI blow each other to pieces, and then we kick back and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.”
He thudded a fist on his armrest. “Boom. Nailed it. Lock it down, guys. We have ourselves a plan.”
Mech scowled. “What? How is that a plan?” he objected. “That ain’t a plan.”
Loren sighed. “Thank you. I did try to point that out.”
“What are you talking about? It’s a solid plan,” Cal insisted. “It has all the components any good plan needs. You know, in the sense that it has things happening.”
“I mean, yeah, in that sense, it’s a plan,” Mech agreed. “Except the things that happen in the best plans generally don’t just involve a lot of guesswork and wishful thinking.”
“Mech, ‘guesswork and wishful thinking,’ describes every plan ever made.”
“No. No, it don’t,” said Mech. “It only describes every plan that you ever made.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Cal, jumping up and ignoring his protests. “How long until we get there?”
Loren turned in her chair and checked the screen. “Couple of hours.”
“OK, good,” Cal said. “Miz, you want to go back and keep watch on Tyrra? We’ll have to take the Sentience with us when we land, so you might want to get her as comfortable as you can before that.”
He put his hands on his hips, sighed, then looked toward the door. “I guess I should go check on Splurt.”
“How’s he doing?” Loren asked.
“Honestly? Not great,” Cal said. “He’s pretty flat. Often in a literal sense.”
“You figured out what’s wrong with him yet?” Mech asked.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so,” said Cal. He smiled weakly. “Me.”
The others looked back at him, confused.
“It was something I said earlier that set me thinking about it,” Cal told them. “Me and Splurt, we’re linked. In some weird psychic… I don’t know. We’re connected.”
Mech figured it out first.
“He ain’t the one who’s depressed. You are.”
Cal forced a laugh. “Depressed? Me? Come on!” he said. “No, I’m not depressed. I’m just… I’m recalibrating. I’m processing all the stuff about Earth.” He hung his head. “About me. Him. The other one. I’m, you know, I’m dealing with it.”
He straightened, inhaled deeply through his nose, then smiled. “It’s not fair that it’s affecting Splurt. So, I’m dealing with it.”
The others looked doubtful.
“I am!” he protested. “It’s a lot to take in, but I’m working my way through it.”
He jabbed a thumb at the doorway as he backed toward it, keen to end this conversation as quickly as possible. “I’m going to check on the little guy. Shout at me when we’re getting close.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and hurried out into the corridor. A moment later, they all heard the kitchen door slide open and closed.
Loren lowered her eyes, exhaled quietly, then turned to face the screen. She was gazing unseeingly at the stars when Miz spoke.
“Are you just going to sit there?” she asked. “Or are you going to go talk to him?”
Loren turned in her chair. “Me?”
“Of course, you,” Miz scowled. “Who else would it be?”
“Well, I just thought…”
“It’s always been you, you know?” Miz told her. “I could smell it off him the first time he saw you.”
Loren turned all the way. “Smell what? What do you mean?”
Miz side-eyed Mech. “Seriously? She seriously doesn’t know?”
“Know what?” asked Loren.
“Don’t seem like it,” said Mech. He shrugged. “But I go out of
my way not to get involved.”
“What are you talking about?” Loren asked. “What could you smell?”
Miz tutted. “Ugh, you’re so lame. Doesn’t matter,” she said, standing up. “I gotta go take care of someone.” She met Loren’s eye, then nodded, just once. “And you do, too.”
Loren opened the door to find Cal trying to inflate a pancake-shaped Splurt with a drinking straw. Their eyes locked, and Cal froze like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut.
“Uh, knock-knock,” said Loren.
Cal withdrew the straw and set it on the table without comment.
“Hey, Loren. Didn’t see you there,” he said.
Loren sidled into the room, leaned awkwardly against the replicator, then straightened again when she realized how unnatural it must have looked.
“How are you doing?” she asked, once she’d adopted a more normal position.
“Great!” Cal said, grinning up at her. “We have a plan. We know what we’re doing. I’m doing just great.”
Down on the kitchen table, Splurt grew flatter and thinner, his eyes shrinking until they were the size of garden peas.
“Juuuuust great,” Cal concluded.
Loren folded her arms self-consciously. “You know you can talk to me, right?” she said. “I know we… I know I… I know that thing happened between us, and that it… Well, it probably shouldn’t have.”
She sighed, becoming exasperated with herself. “You can talk to me, OK? If you want to.”
“I want to,” said Cal.
Loren’s eyes widened a little. “Oh! OK.” She adopted an expression that suggested she was listening intently. “Well, I’m all ears. Go for it.”
“No, I mean I want to talk. I really do. It’s just… I’m not sure I can. Not yet.” He pointed to his head and twirled a finger. “It’s all still processing.”
“Maybe I can help you process,” Loren offered.
“You absolutely can,” Cal said. He smiled thinly. “Just, not right now. Right now, I have to work it out on my own.”
Loren’s expression was half-offended, half-relieved. She nodded in understanding. “Good. Well, you know where to find me,” she said.
She shifted her balance from foot to foot, then motioned toward the corridor. “Well, I guess I’ll be back on the bridge.”
“OK.”
“Shout if you need me.”
“OK.”
Cal sat slumped on the bench, watching her leave. Watching her go somewhere else. Somewhere that wasn’t here, now, with him.
She was almost through the door when he called to her.
“Hey, Loren?”
She stopped. Turned.
“Yeah?”
Cal’s eyes went to the replicator. “We never did get that dinner…”
Twenty-Four
Cal sat across from Loren, barely able to contain his excitement as he watched her chew thoughtfully.
“Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”
Loren pointed to her mouth to indicate she was still chewing, and said nothing.
Cal rocked on the bench, drummed his hands on the table, and tried very hard to wait patiently.
It didn’t last.
“Just give me a clue. Thumbs up or down?”
Loren gave this some consideration, then raised a thumb.
“Alright! I knew it,” Cal said, thrusting his arms in the air in triumph. “Philly cheesesteak. Never fails.”
Cheesesteak—essentially a hot dog bun with some meat in it, over which cheese was smeared in abundance—was one of just a select handful of food items Cal had programmed into the replicator.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like the idea of having a more varied menu to order from, it was just that the process of programming the replicator was so painfully unpleasant that he didn’t like subjecting himself to it very often. It involved several sharp things exploring his mouth, various implements being shoved up his nose, and something deeply troubling happening to his brain.
As a result, he settled for a limited range of favorites—cheesesteak, banoffee pie, spit nibbles, Twix chocolate bars, and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. Specifically, the limited-edition Pumpkin Spiced Frosted Flakes that were only generally available around Halloween.
He dimly recalled having endured the whole horrifying process at least eight times, but couldn’t for the life of him remember what else he’d ordered, and there was no way of retrieving the information from the machine without risking having his facial cavities violated.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” Cal gushed, when Loren swallowed the mushed up mouthful. “Isn’t that one of the greatest things you’ve ever tasted?”
“Fonk, no,” Loren laughed, wiping the corners of her mouth on the back of her hand.
“No? What do you mean no?” Cal gasped.
“I mean, it was OK. It was nice.”
“It was OK?!”
Cal reached across the table, scooped an arm around her plate, and pulled it back toward him. “You don’t deserve the rest of this,” he said. “I’m confiscating it.”
“Hey!” Loren protested, grabbing the little pot of Frosted Flakes that Cal had served up as a side. “These are good, though.”
“Correction,” said Cal. “They’re greeeeeeeeat!”
Loren had the good grace not to look perplexed by this, and just smiled as she picked up a few of the cereal pieces between finger and thumb and sprinkled them into her mouth.
“I take it that’s an Earth thing?” she asked.
Cal nodded. “It’s an Earth thing,” he confirmed. “At least, it was. For all I know, they’ve skinned the poor bamston and turned him into a rug.”
“Who?”
“Tony the Tiger,” said Cal. “Giant talking cartoon tiger. Well, pretty much a regular-sized tiger, I guess, only walking upright. Nice guy. Wears a neckerchief.” He waved a hand. “I doubt you’d know him.”
Loren agreed that, on balance, she probably wouldn’t.
“OK, best meal you’ve ever eaten,” she said. “Go.”
Cal, who had crammed the untouched end of Loren’s cheesesteak in his mouth, pointed down at the plate. “This, obviously,” he managed through a mouthful of doughy bread and precious, precious cheese-coated meat. “You?”
Loren settled in, leaning her arms on the table. “It was just after I left the Academy. They send us on these, like, basic training jaunts around different planets, so we can get a feel for them. There was one—can’t remember what it was called—where they would eat this, I don’t know how you’d describe it. Smoke.”
“Smoke?” mumbled Cal, dropping crumbs on the table.
“I know, it sounds weird,” Loren said. “But someone was selling it at a little food market. The smoke came in these little transparent bubbles. They were beautiful,” she continued, gazing wistfully ahead. “All these colors swirling inside, like little galaxies. Then you just put them in your mouth and bit down until they popped.”
Cal grimaced. “Jesus. That sounds horrible.”
“It wasn’t,” said Loren. “I mean, it was strange, but then the taste hit you, and you didn’t care.”
“What did it taste like?” Cal asked, or as close as he could get to forming the words with a mouthful of cheesesteak.
“I can’t describe it,” Loren said. “It wasn’t like anything else I’ve ever tasted. It was like tasting colors.” She shook her head. “No, music. Yeah. That was more like it. It was like tasting music.”
Cal swallowed. “And it was definitely food?”
“Yes.”
“Not drugs?”
“No!”
“What was this food market like?” he asked.
Loren thought back. “Small. Just, like, a couple of stands on a street corner.”
“Was it a couple of stands on a street corner, or was it one sketchy guy with a big coat?”
“A couple!” Loren said. “I think. I mean, I don’t remember it too clearly.”
/>
“Uh-huh,” said Cal, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “And the smoke things—would I be right in thinking the first one was free?”
Loren frowned. “He was giving out samples, yeah. So?”
“Samples. Right. And how many did you go back and buy after that?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” said Loren.
“Roughly.”
Loren puffed out her cheeks. “Just, like…”
Cal raised his eyebrows and watched the realization dawn.
“Six hundred.”
“Jesus! Six hundred?”
“Ish. Six-hundred-ish. And they weren’t big,” Loren quickly added. Her face took on a wistful, longing look. “And they were delicious.”
“And, as a bonus, they made space monkeys fly out of the ceiling and let you dance for thirty-six hours straight,” Cal said. He shook his head. “Six hundred. Wow. Teela Loren, you’re a junkie.”
“They weren’t drugs!” Loren insisted, slapping him on the arm. Rather than withdraw her hand, though, she kept it there, resting on his forearm just above the wrist. He was wearing a t-shirt—a Warhol-inspired print that showed the faces of the Golden Girls in a selection of colors—and the touch of her skin on his bare arm was electric.
Behind him, Splurt bloomed from a pancake into a pear-shape.
“Hey, there’s my little guy,” said Cal.
With a calculated casualness that was anything but, he rested a hand on top of Loren’s, not yet meeting her eyes. Their fingers interlocked lightly, tips brushing together, and Cal’s heart thumped like a drum against the inside of his chest.
When he finally looked up, Loren’s gaze was carefully averted so she looked as if she was closely scrutinizing the tabletop in front of her. A strand of her hair had come loose and was hanging down so it almost touched the table. Cal felt an overwhelming urge to fix it for her, but that would mean removing his hand from hers, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet.
“Loren,” he said.
Her head stayed down, but her eyes raised to meet his. “Yeah?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. Cal could feel her pulse through the back of her hand. It was racing almost as fast as his own.
Fonk it. He was going to say it. He was just going to say it. Get it over and done with. Let her know how he felt. Now or never.
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