“I…” Keith didn’t know what to say. It had never occurred to him that his friend would be worried about things like that. He had always hoped he would one day get to be a parent—not just an anonymous donor, but actually around for his children, like his mother was for him. But he knew it was a choice at best, the luck of the draw at worst. For him, it was optional. He’d never even thought about what it would be like for a woman, what it would be like for her.
“You know I’m not like everyone else,” Steve said. “I’ve never been like any of the other girls and I’m not a boy, so where do I fit in? I don’t and that’s fine but it’s not easy and…” She paused to take a breath and Keith leaned over and put his arm around her shoulder. He figured she’d probably shrug it off but was surprised when she leaned into his embrace.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice muffled into his shirt. “Sorry I’m breaking down on you, here.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I had no idea you felt so… complicated. You’ve always just been, well, you.”
She laughed then and looked up at him. “Yeah,” she said. “I think it’s just everything all at once, you know. All the pressure to go to the Academy is what did it in the end. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life fighting what everyone expects of me, only to end up with just another set of expectations. ‘Stephanie isn’t like the other girls, but it’s okay because she’s a natural with numbers.’ Well, I don’t love numbers.”
“So, what do you love?” Keith asked.
“I want to write music,” she said, pulling away from him but leaving her hand in his. “I want to make beautiful noise that makes people remember there’s more to the universe than this tin can.”
“Well,” Keith said, “go do it, then. I’m the one who needs the system to make it through. You’re smart enough to do whatever you want.”
Steve looked at him. “You really think that, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Keith said. “Maybe it doesn’t feel like it to you, but you’ve been going your own way all along. No reason to stop now.”
“Oh, sure,” Steve said, “like I’ll just give up my assigned place at the Academy, run off and live in the trees, writing symphonies in the dirt. No one will let me do that.”
“There must be a way,” Keith said. “Isn’t there a music school or something?”
Steve smiled but it was without any warmth. “Yeah, but it’s just a half-time course on the comms. Almost everyone there is post-natal, let alone careered. I looked into it—I even got an acceptance, but I’ll need a job. And who’s going to hire me in a trade right out of school, when it’s public knowledge that I got into the Academy?”
“Don’t look at me,” Keith said. “You’re the brain.” She punched him on the shoulder then leaned her back into the bruise.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she said. “I kind of wish I really could just live here.”
“You could probably get away with it for a couple of days.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said and sighed. “So, are you going to the party or what?”
“You really did want to ask that after all?”
“Sure,” she said. “I mean, I kind of want to go, but I’m not going if you’re not going.”
“Of course I’ll go,” Keith said, an idea forming in his mind.
Someone had gotten a hold of the most recent songs from the Yellow Sector band A Heart, Agape and was blasting them through a group of inflatable speakers. The cacophonous sound was almost painful, but Keith knew it was what was popular. “That stuff is dreadful,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s atonal,” Steve said, “but there’s pretty complex harmonics under it all, if you can ignore the top notes.” He looked at Steve out of the corner of his eye and grinned. She was dressed in some kind of bizarre combination of mechanics coveralls with a mesh top underneath. Keith could see that instead of a bra or undershirt she’d wrapped a band around her chest, which explained the body change he’d noticed in her. The whole outfit looked surprisingly okay, he thought.
It seemed like the entire class was there. The end of school party was something of a legend. No one was supposed to talk about what happened, but the rumours were seemingly endless. It was an open secret that many partnerships got their start at the big party, and that a few budding ones ended in flames. No matter what kind of student a kid had been, the party was a symbolic end to one part of life and a beginning to another.
“It’s our last chance at fun,” Steve said as they walked over to the table laid out with snacks and drinks. She picked up a tiny slice of flatbread with a smear of green on it and popped it into her mouth. “That’s why they don’t shut this down. They know that if we have one day to get it all out of our systems, it’ll be a lot easier to just accept our fate and go on to be productive members of society.”
Keith knew Steve was being overly dramatic, but he also knew she was more right than wrong. She didn’t seem bitter about it, though, and that surprised him.
“You’re a lot more sanguine about the whole event now than you were a few days ago,” he said. Steve just shrugged.
“There are problems you can do something about and problems you can’t. The first step to a solution is to determine which is which.”
Keith nodded and grabbed two glasses of a suspicious-looking pink liquid. “Come on,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of a set of climbing apparatus made of rope. “Let’s go hang out over there. I’ve got a plan.”
They wove their way through groups of adolescents, most of whom were from other areas of the ship. On the way, they recognized a knot of their classmates, who uncharacteristically waved them over.
“Hey, Keith, Stephanie, great party, isn’t it?” Keith recognized the gregarious voice of Melinda Watt. He was certain she had never spoken two words to him previously.
“Sure,” Steve said, “stellar. You must be excited to be moving on from school.”
“I know,” Melinda said, “I can’t wait to be on my own. Training, a position, then finally quarters of my own.” She looked between Keith and Steve. “You two are so lucky, going to the Academy. You’ll get away from home that much sooner, am I right?”
“I guess,” Steve said taking a sip of her drink and grimacing. Melinda elbowed her in the ribs and Steve sputtered.
“Are they going to let you two room together?” she said, and it sounded like she was trying for a whisper.
“I dunno,” Keith said, looking at Melinda strangely. “Why would they?”
“Come on,” Melinda said. “Everyone knows about you two. Lots of people partner right out of school, why shouldn’t they let you share quarters?”
Steve sighed. “We’re not…” she began but Keith interrupted her.
“We’ll ask,” he said, shooting Steve a ‘shut-up-I’ll-explain-later’ glare. “Anyway, good to see you Melinda.” He grabbed Steve’s non-drink arm and dragged her away before she could say anything else.
“What the stars was that?” she said once they’d gotten out of earshot.
“Just laying the foundation,” Keith said. “Come on, let’s climb up where people won’t overhear.”
“You want to what?” Steve said, the look in her eyes scaring Keith a little. He’d known that he was taking a big chance suggesting this, but it also seemed like the best possible plan. For both of them.
“Think about it,” he said. “You’d have a place to live, you’d get leave from school and then you could do the music course. I know they wouldn’t make you go back to the Academy after—it’s part of the whole Next Generation First program. As soon as a doctor confirms it, you’d be set.”
“I cannot believe you are seriously suggesting this,” Steve said. “You know how I feel about… this whole thing.”
“Yeah,” Keith said and looked out over the grounds below. There were at least a thousand bodies down there, all of them propelled by their hopes and fantasies and fears about their futures. He knew that a good fraction of them
probably felt like Steve—trapped by circumstance, duty and legislation. He also knew that he was lucky—what he wanted from life was acceptable, normal, easy.
“Besides,” he said turning back to look at her. “You’re going to have to do it eventually. Unless you, you know…” he gestured at her body and raised an eyebrow.
She looked at him, her eyes wide. He wondered if he had really done it this time, really gone so far that she wouldn’t be able to still be his friend after this. He realized he was holding his breath.
“You really think it would work?” she asked, her voice so quiet he wouldn’t have heard her if she hadn’t been the focus of all of his attentions.
“Yes,” he said, “I really do. But we’d have to start making it look real.” He dropped his eyes. “I thought it would be harder to convince people that we were, you know…” He blushed. “But I guess not.” He glanced over to Steve and saw a smile start to peek out across her face.
“You seriously didn’t know that everyone thinks you’re my boyfriend?” she said, laughing aloud now. “God, you’re an idiot sometimes.”
“But this time?”
She pursed her lips in thought then shook her head once. “No. This time you’re not an idiot.”
“I’ve found us a doctor who has agreed to do the procedure without asking too many questions,” Keith said as he ladled out bowls of thick stew.
“Good work,” Steve said, her tablet covered in equations and diagrams. “And I’ve finished your quantum fluctuations assignment, but this is the last time. I’m telling you, I don’t want to be an engineer, and I especially don’t want to be an engineer whose work all gets credited to you.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Keith said, sitting at the table in their quarters. He looked across at Steve and was amazed at how easy the transition to partners had gone. “But if you went to the clinics alone they’d just hook you up with a donor. It has to be me, you know that.”
“I know,” Steve said, her voice softening. “I was just being an ass.” She grinned and Keith was reminded of how she’d looked before they were even in school, playing some game she’d devised. “Speaking of which, you’re only going to be in the 60th percentile on that assignment.”
“What?”
Steve shrugged. “You need some motivation to keep studying, or you’ll never learn this stuff.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you,” he said and they both laughed. “But seriously, they can do it in the clinic. I go in first and…” He blushed—that hadn’t changed even though they’d been living together for over a year. “Then you need to go within a couple of days.” He looked at Steve who had stopped eating.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said, “but I never will be. Now is as good a time as any for that part of it, and if I want to move on from the Academy, the sooner the better. But, Keith,” she leaned across the table and took his hand. It wasn’t something that happened often, so he knew it was important. “Are you ready?”
He took a breath. “Yes,” he said. “I think so.”
“Okay then,” Steve squeezed his hand briefly, then let go and went back to her meal. “Make the appointments.”
He was tiny and healthy and they called him Ryan. Keith was surprised how much the child amused Steve, but she was right about her maternal instincts. Left to her, Ryan would be ignored when he stopped being entertaining. But Keith couldn’t have been happier than when he was with the baby.
As soon as it was confirmed that she was pregnant, Steve dropped out of the Academy. She started the music classes and spent much of her day with her tablet. She’d even managed to get a hold of a keyboard attachment for next to nothing and Keith finally got to hear what she heard in her mind. It was wonderful.
Everyone they knew said that pregnancy changed her—she blossomed, they said. Only Keith knew better.
He took a term’s parental leave from the Academy when Ryan was born, then returned to school part-time. It was still a struggle, but Steve being happy made everything in their small quarters better. And while she may not have wanted to work as an engineer, she was always willing to help Keith. Their days were spent with her writing music, Keith taking care of Ryan and Steve quizzing him on his classes.
The years passed, Keith graduated and went to work for the hydroponics lab. They moved halfway round the ship—a grand adventure for Ryan, larger quarters and closer proximity to the cultural centres. Keith thought they were happy.
He had dropped Ryan off at the school and walked back to their quarters, his mind on the redesign for the fruit greenhouse. He made a notation on his tablet as he approached the door to his quarters when an unfamiliar sound brought him out of his thoughts. It sounded like a sob, but not the quick-to-start, quick-to-end cry of a child. This had the feel of something that was escaping unbidden by its vessel, as if it were a lifeform of its own and was finally being released from an unwanted captivity. He wondered idly where it was coming from then realized almost simultaneously that it emanated from his own quarters. Strangely, he initially wondered who could possibly be in there. Only later did he realize that in all the years of their friendship, this was the first time he had heard Steve cry.
He found her in bed, under the covers even though it was well into the day. Her weeping had drowned out the sounds of his arrival and he knew she didn’t realize that he was there. He knew, also, that she would be mortified if she knew that he had witnessed this.
He padded softly out of the room, grabbed the notes he’d forgotten—the reason he had returned to their quarters unexpectedly— and slipped back into the corridor. Once he’d escaped, the full force of Steve’s evident despair hit him. It was as if all his breath were violently sucked from his body and he felt tears of his own prick his eyes. He slid down the wall next to the door and tried to understand what could possibly make her so unhappy.
After, Keith paid close attention to Steve every day, but he could never catch her doing or saying anything which would give him an opportunity to broach the subject of her happiness. He began to wonder if he’d imagined it, but knew that it was not a scene he could ever had created. His image of Steve just didn’t include anything like this.
Ryan was in his room, as usual, when Steve came home from a rehearsal. The Starboard Symphony was performing one of her sonatas in their upcoming recital and Steve had been actively involved in the production. It was to be the most prestigious showcase of her work so far and Keith was excited for her. She, however, seemed to be more stressed than proud.
She dropped her tablet on the table and sank into a chair. “Tough rehearsal?” Keith asked.
Steve rubbed her eyes. “Not really,” she answered. “It’s all just… a lot of work.”
“It’s what you’ve always wanted, though,” Keith said. “Since when are you afraid of work?”
“I’m not,” she said, looking up at him, then looking away quickly.
Keith looked over toward Ryan’s room and saw that the boy was deeply immersed in whatever he was doing. Ryan had inherited Keith’s seriousness and Steve’s quickness to learn, so he was a favourite among his teachers. He happily spent hours in his room with his tablet—reading, playing complex games, sketching. Keith sometimes wished that his child wanted his attention a little more, but he knew that he was lucky. He knew he was, in fact, the luckiest person he knew. He took a breath.
“So then, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice soft but serious. He sat down next to Steve. “Talk to me.”
“I…” she said, then looked away again. “I feel awful, Keith. But it’s too late, I don’t know how to fix it. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” he asked and she turned to look at him. He swore he could see tears in her eyes, but her voice never wavered.
“For ruining your life. For wrecking your chance for happiness, for… a normal life. A normal…” She looked around their quarters. “A normal family.”
Keith was stunned. He didn’t say anything for several seconds.
“Has something happened?” he asked carefully. “Is there someone else?” He tried to keep his voice level.
“Me?” Steve asked, a look of surprise on her face. “No, of course not. You know I’m not… interested in… that.”
“Okay,” Keith said, “so what’s the problem, then? Have I done something wrong?”
“No,” she said and her voice had a plaintive quality that Keith found disturbing. “In all the universe, no. I’m happy—perfectly happy. I have the perfect life—work I love, hanging out with my best friend all the time, who takes care of everything. But that’s exactly the problem.” She looked at Keith and appeared to be making a decision. “You have always done everything for me. You let me live with you, pretended to be my partner, let me use you to get pregnant, then did so much more than your share for Ryan. I’ve used you, Keith, and it’s totally unfair. You should be able to find a partner who will, you know, do those things that partners do. You deserve someone better than me, Keith. But with Ryan…” Her eyes drifted over to the boy’s room and Keith heard something in her throat catch. “Now it’s too late. At least for a few years. I’m so sorry, Keith. I was selfish and I let you give up so much for me and now I can’t fix it.”
She looked down at her lap and Keith was afraid that she would start crying in earnest now. But he was so angry that he couldn’t be bothered to care about that.
“I can’t believe you actually think that,” he said, his voice trembling. He could feel the beat of his heart throughout his body, making him quiver. “You’re my best friend, I love you, and I would do a lot for you,” he said holding her gaze, “but if you think this is just for you… You really haven’t been paying attention to me, have you?”
The Voyage of the White Cloud Page 14