by J. Naomi Ay
“It is the last of the summer,” he commented, trying to draw my attention back to him. “We are fortunate in this lovely night. I fear that soon the rains shall begin.”
“Indeed,” I muttered and though I tried not to look his way, I found myself studying him with the corner of an eye.
From where I sat, I could not discern the color of those eyes, or his curly hair, nor could I tell whether he was old or young, or if I knew his face.
“Did you know this fountain was originally commissioned by the Great Emperor for his beloved wife? This place was the very center of the courtyard of their once magnificent Imperial Palace.”
I didn’t know this and neither did I respond, which he took as a reason to continue his explanation.
“The roses that surround us were once a great garden, another testament to her. He was quite the romantic, the Great Emperor was, or at least, that is what we have been taught to believe.”
“They had a great love,” I said, rewarding him with these few chosen words.
“Indeed. Everyone should be so fortunate in this life.”
I nodded, or maybe, I merely sat in silence, for there were no words which I could think to say. I had not been so fortunate and truly doubted that I ever would be. In fact, I doubted anyone was, or that the Emperor and Empress, nearly two centuries ago, were quite as magnificent or admirable as history had described.
“When I was a child,” my companion continued, leaning back on the bench once again. “This fountain was always silent. The Empress Sara thought it wasteful to turn it on. A pity it was, for you can see how truly charming it is. For the cost of a few coins, I believe this beauty is well worth the price.”
Now, the gentleman pulled himself to his feet in a manner of one who has toiled long and hard that day. Then, he dipped his head slightly in a bow, the sort a gentleman made to a lady of this court.
“Perhaps, we shall meet again. Tell me your name, young beautiful maid?”
“Ailana,” I replied. “May I know yours, good sir?”
“Ailana.” He dipped his head again. “It is a Karupta name, although your looks do not suggest it.”
“I am of the motherland, although I have been raised in Farku, in the Duchy of Korelesk on the continent’s western border.”
“Ailana of Farku then,” he replied, a tiny smile drawing upon his lips. “I shall enjoy seeing your beautiful smile in the daylight. I will look for you when the sun is out.” Turning his back to me, the gentleman strode away.
“Your name, sir?” I reminded him. “It is only fair that I know with whom I speak.”
“Of course,” he called over his shoulder, telling me nothing more.
Chapter 10
Lance
Right after my disastrous attempt at romancing Nurse Moosy, I briefly, very briefly, fell for a spacewoman named Jill. She was an officer, a young lieutenant and although we had nothing in common other than our human genetics, somehow we ended up in bed.
It could have been that I was vulnerable and on the rebound after my failed Andorian love, or maybe, she pulled rank on me, ordering me into her bed. Alternatively, and most likely, I was drunk when we met in a bar. We were just two lonely galactic sailors looking for a night of companionship and love.
Actually, Jill and I spent more than a single night in a hotel room, but in hindsight, I couldn’t recall exactly how many. We crossed paths several times at spacebases throughout the fourth sector and each time we met, we immediately went to bed.
Eventually, Jill transferred to the Columbia, which was stationed in the twelfth sector, thirty light years away. Our trysts ended then, and frankly, I forgot about her altogether, until out of nowhere she suddenly reappeared.
It was nine years later when we bumped into each other in the Officer's Club on Spacebase 37-D. During the intervening time, Wen, Noodnick, and I had all graduated from Officer Candidate School and were now commissioned and serving on the S/S Discovery.
Wen was a lieutenant, managing the storerooms on deck five, while Noodnick was still an ensign in engineering. As for me, somehow my previous affinity for laziness and slovenliness had been replaced with an aptitude to command. I had advanced to Lieutenant Commander and was serving on the bridge. Go figure.
At any rate, one afternoon while the ship was loading up stock, Noodnick and I had a few hours leave to waste in the spacebase bar, while Wen was occupied in his stores. Noodnick and I, although we had been friends for a number of years, had little to discuss, especially since he didn't speak. Still, his companionship was comfortable. Sitting with Noodnick was better than sitting alone. At least this is what I told myself whenever I tried, but failed to pick up a girl.
“Did I ever tell you why I joined SpaceForce?” I was saying, rolling my cold brewskie between my fingers, leaning my elbows on the bar and staring forlornly in the mirror.
I liked to drink my beers from the bottle since that bar on Spacebase 25-C where the barkeep was a wolf-man from the planet Canina IV. The guy was nice enough, and although he claimed it was efficient and ultra-hygienic, I just couldn't wrap my head around drinking from a glass cleaned by his long tongue.
Noodnick didn't respond. Frankly, if he had responded, I probably would have fallen off my stool. At any rate, I continued with my story assuming he was listening.
“I inherited this coin from my dad. It was an old Imperial dollar, and for a while there, it was the only thing of value that I owned. I wanted to cash it in, use whatever it was worth to pay my bills. I ended up keeping it, holding on to it for old time's sake. I don't know if it's worth anything or not. What do you think, Nood? Do you know anything about those kind of things?”
Noodnick sipped his drink. He drank beer through a straw, which for some odd reason, the chicks seemed to find very attractive. I supposed, Noodnick wasn't a bad looking guy, despite his lack of conversation, but why the girls swarmed around him, I never understood. They’d grab the empty stools by his side, talk endlessly as if he was listening, rub his arm and proposition him, while completely ignoring me. He must have been emitting pheromones or doing something I couldn't see. Whatever it was, the dude was one lucky bastard, while I was a loser no matter how hard I tried.
“I was hoping in our travels, we might be going by the old Empire, and then I could ask someone about it, but after more than a decade in space, I’ve never been called into that sector.”
Of course, Noodnick didn't respond to this either, or to the woman who was insisting she would buy him another drink. I wondered if I just shut up, kept my mouth completely closed, never saying a word, would I get as lucky as this schmuck?
Probably not, I decided, glancing in the bar's mirror, spying Wen as he wandered in through the door.
“Oh hey, Lancelot!” Wen called, waving wildly as if I hadn't seen him two hours ago.
I removed my cap from the neighboring stool, but before Wen could get halfway across the room, another person plopped herself down by my side.
“Jill!” I gasped, recognizing her instantly.
Actually, that was a lie. I only recognized her by the name tag snapped to her chest. She wore captain's bars and a patch from the S/S Asteroid, which was about the stupidest name assigned to any ship.
At any rate, I made room for her and expressed my pleasure at this odd coincidence. Actually, that was a lie too, as I wasn't at all that happy to see her again. In fact, if it weren't for Wen taking Noodnick's newly vacated seat and refreshing my brew, I would have gotten up and left in a hurry.
“Lt. Commander,” Jill said coldly, which had nothing to do with the icy shot of vodka in her hand.
Regarding me in the mirror with narrow, judgmental eyes, I saw a trace of disgust flit across her face. I might have been looking at her in the same way. With added lines to her face and gray scattered throughout her hair, I was thinking she hadn’t aged all that well either. With the two of us scowling at our reflections, it was a fair bet that we weren’t going to end up in bed this time.
>
“What a coincidence,” I exclaimed, raising my new bottle in a mock toast.
“Not at all,” Jill replied, knocking back her shot. “Come with me.”
“Yes, Ma'am!” Maybe, I was wrong? Come to think of it, Jill didn’t look half bad. In a hurry, I gulped my beer, figuring with the lights off, we could pretend the intervening years had never happened. I followed her out of the bar, winking at Wen, who watched us with surprise. I waved to Noodnick who was now closeted in a booth with three young women. Noodnick didn't say anything, of course, and I may have been wrong, but I think I saw him give me a thumbs up. “So, where to, Captain?” I asked, sauntering a little.
“Shut up,” she growled and led me down the mall to a pizza parlor called, Chunk o' Cheese.
Once, on another spacebase, the guys and I had gone in there to look for girls. Wen had read an article that said family restaurants were a good pickup place. It might have been, but we didn't stay long enough to find out. Frankly, the place looked toxic. We couldn't hear ourselves talk, let alone think. The pizza tasted like someone had baked it in grease scraped off the floor and every few minutes, some animatronic animals started singing and dancing in the middle of the room.
“Uh, Jill,” I called, over the ruckus. “If you want pizza, there's a better place two decks down.”
“Shut up!” she snapped again, which I clearly heard despite the dancing drumbeat of a pair of animatronic mice.
Jill hurried to the furthest corner of the room, to a small booth. There sat a young girl, smiling at the dancing idiots, and nibbling on a pizza.
“Hi,” the girl called to me, turning the most amazing pair of emerald green eyes upon my face. “Are you my dad?”
“Uh…no. Not me.”
“Oh.” She frowned, “That’s too bad. I like you. You seem nice.”
Gazing down at the sea of bright red hair spilling across her shoulders in wild curls, I decided I liked her, too, surprising myself with this thought. Never before had I cared for any kid. In my mind, children were a necessary nuisance ranking slightly below Wen and Noodnick, and significantly below dogs when it came to my choice of companion. Furthermore, there was no way I could be her dad. Nobody that beautiful could ever be related to me.
Glancing back at Jill, who was looking at her cell, I concluded that nobody that beautiful could be related to her either.
“I've got to go,” Jill mumbled, pecking the kid on the top of her curly head. Then, she glared at me. “Good luck, Lance.” She snickered, and rushed away before I could protest.
So, there I was, alone with the little chick and her 15” pie.
“She'll be right back in a minute, I'm sure.” I nodded and forced a smile, while glancing at the uneaten pepperoni and cheese. Was I hungry enough to risk my good health? Already there was a thick pool of grease forming on top.
The girl blinked her emerald eyes and nodded as if she knew. Setting her pizza back on her plate, she turned her attention to the hideous fake mice.
“There you are!” Wen cried, at exactly the same moment the mice finished their song. “I thought I saw you go in here. You hate this place, right, Lance? Remember that time we found a rat tail in the supreme combo on Spacebase 25-C?”
“Wen.”
“Three years ago, I think. It was right after that cruise through the thirty-seventh sector.”
“No! I'm saying your name, not asking you when it was. I remember when it was even though I've tried to block it out.”
“Why?”
“Wen!”
“What?”
The child started to laugh. Her freckled cheeks turned a rosy, pink hue as the music bubbled from her throat.
“You guys are funny!” she cried, clapping her hands with delight. “I like you both. Are you sure you’re not my dad?”
“No,” I snapped.
“Are you going to finish this?” Wen asked, sitting down in the booth and gladly helping himself to a slice.
Then, the music and dancing started again, this time with chickens who were even uglier than the mice. Wen smiled broadly, clapping his hands in rhythm with the girl. I, on the other hand, was starting to get a headache, a bad one, which would require at least two migraine pills, or a significant amount of alcohol.
I collapsed in the seat across from Wen and Little Red, wondering how much longer until Jill returned. Furtively, I glanced at my watch every few seconds.
“This is great!” Wen proclaimed.
Little Red giggled. At least she was having fun.
“Yep,” I replied.
Jill didn't return. An hour later, the pizza gone, Little Red leaning sleepily against Wen's shoulder, I glanced across the restaurant, catching a glimpse of a starship outside. The Asteroid was written across her side.
“What the fuck?” I shouted to the consternation of the parents at the neighboring table. Bolting from the booth and racing to the window, I watched the Asteroid drift away from my view. “Wen, does that say Asteroid?”
“Sure does,” Wen exclaimed.
“Goodbye, Mommy,” the girl called, waving her hand.
“She left you here?” I gasped.
The child shrugged and blinked her eyes, great limpid pools as green as the oceans on Talas III. Like the oceans, they were wet, filling with tears, threatening to dribble down her cheeks.
“I'll call my commanding officer and get the ship to come back. Don't worry, kid, we'll make your mommy come get you.”
“She won't. She told me goodbye.” The girl sniffed and reached up with her thin arms. “Pick me up, Daddy. I’m tired and I want to go home.”
“Wen?” I called.
“Now.” Little Red yawned. “Please Daddy. Let’s go to your ship.”
“No, I mean, Wen!” I shouted at my friend, who had gone back to watch the animatronics do their thing. I wasn't sure what type of animal was dancing now, other than they appeared insanely weird. They each had three heads, seven legs, two tails and reproductive organs. Frankly, they shouldn't have been dancing with children present to watch their anatomically correct organs swing. Instinctively, I put my hand over Little Red’s eyes. “Wen! Get over here!”
“What?” Reluctantly, he turned back to me, a crazy smile on his lips and a deep purple blush creeping up his cheeks.
“This kid---uh---” I realized I didn't even know her name.
“Sandy,” she murmured, her arms still outstretched. “Pick me up. I’m tired.”
“Come on, Wen,” I announced, reaching for the kid and hefting her across my shoulder, where she promptly wrapped her arms around my neck and laid down her head. Striding past the animatronics, I headed out into the busy mall. “Jill abandoned Sandy. What kind of a mother does that? We've got to take her to the base's police station. I'm sure they've got some kind of social services there.”
“That's terrible,” Wen agreed, his eyes still glancing back at the dancing naked things.
“What a b-i-t-c-h,” I continued, spelling for Sandy's benefit. “I mean, what sort of cruel parent would do that to this beautiful child?”
“But, I wasn't abandoned,” Sandy murmured sleepily. “Mommy said it was time for my daddy to take care of me.” Then, she shoved her nose into my neck and started to snore.
“We'll have to find him,” I declared, although I kept my voice at a whisper. Poor baby needed her rest instead of traipsing around this spacebase looking for some dude.
“Uh---Lancelot,” Wen started to say, stopping in the middle of the shopping hordes, nearly becoming trampled by a family of Cascadians, each nine-foot tall.
“What?”
He waggled his finger back and forth, his mouth once again smiling in a goofy way. I turned to see what he was waving at, expecting the anatomically correct animatronics to have followed us into the mall.
“What? What are you pointing at?”
“You, Lance. You're her father.”
“No way!” I shouted, nearly dropping the kid on the concrete floor.
After that, I picked up my pace, running to the spacebase's administrative offices. I figured they could direct me to the police or whoever would care.
Naturally, it was after hours and the offices were closed, except for emergencies, in which case I had to pick up the red phone and dial zero.
“Lance?” Wen asked, just as I was reaching for that phone. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling the authorities.”
Naturally, the phone was dead. No dial tone. No numbers to push. No operator to ask me what in the hell I wanted.
“Fuck,” I exhaled, leaning against the wall and shifting the sleeping child to my other shoulder, as the one she was drooling on had started to ache.
“She's very pretty. She looks just like you, except for---well---she's a girl and she has red hair and green eyes and looks completely different. I mean---”
“Shut up, Wen,” I sighed. “We'll take her back to the ship and let SpaceForce Command figure this out.”
I had thought that Command would compel Jill to take Sandy back. Abandoning her child was an action unbecoming of an officer. Of course, the same could be said for me, because sure enough, DNA tests proved that Sandy was mine. So, there I was, a brand new father to an eight year old girl.
I was given a new cabin with a tiny closet of a bedroom for my daughter and she was enrolled in the ship's school and daycare programs. At night, we would eat together with Wen and Noodnick in the family dining center, along with all of the other crew who had kids aboard.
It was a little difficult at first getting used to this little person in my life. Sandy loved to watch the vid and monopolized it whenever she was in our cabin. She also liked to lock herself in the bathroom and lay in a bubble-filled tub for hours on end, leaving me to run down three decks to use Wen’s toilet whenever I had to go.