Heinlein's Finches

by Robin Banks

  “Pigs secured, captain!” I mock salute.

  “Splendid! I’d like to take a look at them, at some point, if you don’t mind. How are you managing to keep them quiet?”

  “Sedation. They were making a racket like you couldn’t believe.”

  “Oh, I could. My folks are farmers.”

  Gwen pipes up. “Oh, that sounds cool. Where about?”

  “Pollux. You’ve probably not heard of it.”

  Gwen face darkens momentarily. “Oh. Anyway. How long before we set off?”

  “We just have to wait for the official cargo. Shouldn’t be long. I’ll go talk to the guys at the loading bay. Don’t touch any buttons!”

  She throws Aiden a smile, and walks off. Aiden rotates on the spot to watch her leave.

  Gwen and I look at each other and collapse in a fit of giggles, and even that doesn’t snap him out of it.

  “Dude. Aiden! Wake up!”

  “Eh. What?” He’s looking at us so blankly that we start giggling again. “What?”

  “Oh, pet. Your face. I take it you like the good captain?”

  “I… Maybe.” He frowns. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, it could. I mean, we’ve got a long trip ahead of us. You could, you know, get to know her better.”

  “What would be the point?”

  “Well, short or long-term? Long term may be tricky, under the circumstances, but short-term, you know…”

  Aiden shakes his head. “No. Get this trip over. Focus on that. I want to go home, too.”

  Gwen and I look at each other, but neither of us says anything. Aiden’s a grown up. He can make his own calls.

  We take a quick look around the ship. I’ve never flown on a ship this small, so I don’t know the layout. Turns out that it’d be damn difficult to get lost here. The living quarters are minimal – a tiny bunk room, a stand-up kitchen area, and the most basic waste disposal facilities imaginable. I have the feeling that whoever designed this tub would have happily settled for a hole in the hull in lieu of a can if that didn’t present practical issues. The bulk of the ship is apparently taken up by the cargo hold, which is locked up.

  Gwen pulls a face at the lock. “Bio scans. Unsporting. We’ll have to make sure Sasha records our settings.”

  I’ve just thought of something. “Can you do retinal scans with your lenses in?”

  Aiden shakes his head. “Nope. Not reliably. You’ll have to do the honors. Just don’t go dying on us. Ok?”

  “Reassuring to know you care.”

  “Don’t want your eyeballs in my pocket, is all.”

  “Don’t be gross!”

  “Stop picking on her, you big bully,” Gwen giggles.

  When the captain comes back, we’re relatively settled and reasonably relaxed.

  “You guys look all squared up. Loading’s nearly done. Anything you need to know?”

  Gwen smiles at her. “Nope, we’re ok. We had a good look around. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Heh. I’d rather have you know where the head is if you need it in a hurry. And anyway I understand Matilda is going to be yours at the end of this. I shall miss her.” She pats the hull. “She’s a good old girl.”

  “Matilda?”

  “Well, she’s got her proper name and ID code like they all do, ‘Jewel of the Fleet’ or some suchlike rot. But she flies like a Matilda to me.”

  Gwen giggles. “I’m not entirely sure how to interpret that. But then, I know nothing about ships.”

  “Who’s your pilot?”

  “Me. For this trip. Got a better one at home. But I can manage.” I’m impressed Aiden’s finally managed to speak, though his voice sounds rather shakier than normal. “Anything I need to know, please tell me. Haven’t flow in a while.” Gwen beams at him encouragingly, but he shoots her a withering look.

  “Yeah, sure. You can take her for a spell, if you want. She’s pretty straightforward, though a bit clunky. It’s her age, you know.”

  “Clunky?”

  “Well… She could have done with a few spares, really. And a bit of TLC. I’ve been at them for ages about it, but you know, I’m only the contract pilot. I don’t really get a say. But she’s serviceable. No problems I know of, or I wouldn’t be here. I don’t need to work that bad. But she could do with some attention.”

  Aiden frowns. “Can take a look once we’re up.”

  “I don’t have the diagnostics.”

  He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. If there’s a problem, I’ll hear it. If we have parts, I’ll fix it.”

  Sasha looks at Gwen questioningly. “He’s right. He can. He’s kind of a mechanical genius. That’s why we keep him around.”

  “I’m sure there are many other reasons.”

  …and Aiden actually blushes, before closing back in on himself. I didn’t think he had that function.

  This is going to be a weird trip.

  I’d forgotten how much I enjoy flying. Once I make peace with my total loss of control over the entire experience, and with being a few centimeters away from sudden, inevitable death by spacing, I absolutely love it. I love the feeling of being shot into the stars, the way the sky changes color, the gravitational squeeze followed by the release. I love being at low g, too. This ship is way too small and too old and too crappy for anything like a sensible g-force. It may not be good for our health, but it’s great fun. I always have the feeling that I’m slightly bigger than I ought to be, and low g makes me feel a lot more comfortable in my own body. Everything is that much easier, and I don’t get the discombobulation that seems to affect so many people. I keep trying to find excuses to move about, which in these close quarters is driving everyone else to despair.

  “Loveling, I love you dearly, but if you don’t stop flouncing I’m going to ask the Captain to stick you in the hold. We have at least six hours of this. I won’t stand it for another six minutes.”

  “But this is so wonderful! Don’t you like it?”

  “No. My stomach is really not appreciating this, frankly. Watching you bounce around isn’t helping any.”

  Sasha turns to look at her. “Are you ok? Should you be flying? I can’t make this any smoother.”

  Gwen looks momentarily confused, then her face freezes in shock. “Oh. No. No, I’m fine. Just a bit of space sickness, is all.”

  I walk over to sit next to her. “Sorry. Anything I can do?”

  She pets my leg reassuringly. “Just stop the ballet, if you can bear it. I’m going to lie down for a nap soon, and then you can bounce around to your heart’s content. Or until Sasha yells at you. Ok?”

  “Sure.” I sigh. “You don’t get it, though. You’re so tiny and perfect and coordinated, and you weigh hardly anything. This feels so easy for me. I wonder if that’s how Asher feels all the time, skinny bastard that he is.”

  Sasha wheels around to stare at me. “Asher? Not Asher McGee?”

  Me and my big mouth.

  I look at her inanely until she looks away. “Sorry. Not by business.”

  When Gwen speaks up, it surprises me. I thought after my faux pas she’d try to let the topic drop. “Do you know Asher McGee?”

  “Me? No. Not personally. Know of him of course. Everyone on Pollux does. Not a common name, Asher, is all. Well, didn’t used to be.”

  “I’m sorry, I lost you.”

  “Half the baby boys on Pollux have been named Asher the last few years. It’s kind of a pain, really, though understandable. But it’s not an easy name to get a nickname out of, and it’s not as if we can start numbering kids.”

  I look at Gwen and she’s plainly as puzzled as I am. Aiden gets up. “Going to have a listen in the engine room. Shan’t touch anything without asking. That ok?”

  Sasha smiles. “Yes, sure. I’ll come with you. Not much I can do here for a while.”

  Once they’ve cleared out, I turn to Gwen. “Do you have any idea what she’s on about?”

  “Yes and no. Mostly no. Pollux is where Asher crashed. I can�
��t make any sense of anything else, though.”

  Aiden strides in to rummage in a hatch. “We’re going in. May be some time. Don’t worry unless the engine cuts out. Then you should worry a lot. What?” He’s looking at our blank faces.

  “Do you have any idea how she knows about Asher?” asks Gwen.

  “Yes. Well, some. You don’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ever looked at Asher’s crash records?”

  “No. He can’t remember it. Won’t talk about it. It didn’t seem ok to go behind his back, somehow.”

  “I did. Crash doesn’t make any sense. Crash is not the right word, anyway. He landed the ship. Should have ejected. Didn’t. Shouldn’t have gone down, really. That’s another story.”

  “He what?”

  “Should have ejected. Ship was hit. Was going down. He stayed on. Don’t know how he made it.”

  “But why?”

  The Captain’s voice reaches us from the corridor. “To save our bubble. One of our main bubbles, packed with civilians. That’s how we tell the story, anyway. He could have ejected and saved himself, but he stayed with his ship to land it in a safe place. Bloody tricky landing it was, too. I couldn’t have managed it. But he did. To save us, even though we were the enemy. That’s what we believe, anyway. We never had the chance to ask him. But it’s a good story, and nothing else much would make sense. Unless he had a death wish.”

  We just stare at her. When Gwen eventually speaks up, her voice wavers “That’s… That’s quite some guy.”

  “Yes. He is. I’d like the chance to tell him myself, one day. But I can’t, obviously, what with me not knowing anyone who knows him.” She nods and walks off.

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “That’s nothing.” Aiden sounds furious. “I studied that crash. A lot. Because it made no sense. The way his ship went down. He wasn’t hit by enemy fire. No way.”

  “Friendly fire?”

  “Not possible. There are systems to stop that.”

  “Maybe the system failed?”

  “Maybe they didn’t. Crashing ships into a bubble is not illegal. Shooting a bubble up, that is. Three main bubbles on Pollux in ‘68. Three ships from Asher’s squadron came down. Two crashed, badly. Asher’s didn’t. Think about it.”

  “I don’t think I want to.” Gwen sounds close to tears.

  “I can make it worse. It’s all there in the records. I could work it out. So could anyone else. Crash studies are not hard. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you. I meant the Patrol. The Fed. Somebody. Nobody flagged the inconsistencies. Somebody should have seen it and said something. They didn’t. Sorry!”

  Gwen is weeping in her chair. I scoop her up and put her on my lap. She wraps her arms around my neck as if her life depended on it and cries quietly into my chest.

  “Have you told him?” I ask Aiden over her head.

  “No. Would you?” He snaps. “Sorry. I didn’t think I had the right. I don’t know what knowing this would do to him.”

  Gwen turns around, eyes huge with horror. “But you’re sure of this?”

  “Not sure enough. I don’t know.”

  “He has a right to know. He nearly gave his life for the Patrol.”

  “Maybe he has a right not to know that he nearly gave his life for that. I don’t know. Shouldn’t have said anything. Worst timing. Sorry. I got angry.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Too long.” He rubs his face, leaving it streaked in grease. “Didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing. I’m sorry.” He looks anguished.

  Gwen wipes her eyes. “No. It wasn’t the time. I don’t think so, anyway. Let’s go home, then we can fix this. Then we can fix everything else, too. Let’s just get the fuck home.”

  I brush the hair off her face and kiss her cheek. “Love you.”

  “Love you too. Oh, I feel awful. I’m going to have to lie down for a bit.”

  “Want me to come with?”

  “The bunks are way too small and I feel too… But thank you.” She waddles off into the bunk room.

  Aiden is still standing in the doorway. “I feel like an asshole.”

  “Why?”

  “For not saying anything sooner. For saying it now.”

  “You can’t have it both ways, chuck. You gotta pick what you want to flagellate yourself for.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.”

  “No. If I was, I’d tell you to give yourself some credit for looking into something we all chose to ignore, or just didn’t think about, and then carrying the burden of what you discovered as long as you did. I’d tell you to cut yourself some slack and stop holding yourself to some inhuman standard. And to chill the fuck out.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Not half as harsh as you are to yourself.”

  He shrugs. “True.”

  “I don’t know what the right thing to do is here. I don’t know if there is a right thing. Doing nothing may be the right thing.”

  “Engines are easier.”

  “They are. But you can’t go to sleep cuddling an engine.”

  “Can too.”

  “I give up.”

  “Gonna go now. Gonna do what I’m good at.”

  “Aiden. You are a good person. And a good friend.” And I'm tired and overwrought and mightily fed up of seeing good people get hurt or hurt themselves, so I break my own rules, again, and show him what I think of him. It’s not quite as I did with Asher – we’re not as close so both my feelings and our connection lack that intensity – but it’s similar. He stands there for a few seconds, mouth open and eyes unseeing, then his eyes focus again.

  “Well, shit.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry!”

  “I’m not. That was awesome. Was it true?”

  “What? Yes. I can’t lie with that! Well, maybe I could, but I haven’t tried. I wouldn’t!”

  “Huh.” He smiles. “You’re a good person. Good friend, I mean. Thank you.” He walks over to me and looks flummoxed for a bit, then puts an arm around me and pats my back, before quickly retracting.

  “Did you like that?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Then why’d you do it?”

  “That’s what people do.”

  “Aiden, you are people.”

  “If you say so.” He smirks. “Ok. Going to fondle an engine now. You’re in charge.”

  “But I don’t know what to do!”

  “Then do nothing. See how you like that.” He winks and walks off.

  I’m left alone in the – what do you call this part of the ship? The cockpit? I sit in the pilot’s seat, not because I have any delusions as to my ability to operate the ship, but because it has the best view. There’s a whole lot of nothing up here. I can stretch out my senses and my psi-bility and still come out nearly blank. I can hear the humming of the ship, feel its faint vibrations, and sense Gwen, Aiden and Sasha. Beyond that, there’s nothing. Even with all the thoughts and concerns that are racing through my head, it’s immensely peaceful. Maybe I could get used to this. Maybe I’ll have to, whether I want to or not. I can think of worse things, at the moment.

  After a short while, Gwen emerges from the bunk room to rush to the head. When she comes out, she looks awful.

  “I didn’t know you got space sickness, love. Come here.” I nestle her in my lap, in front of the huge sky.

  “I don’t, normally. I’m just a bit run down.”

  “You need a break.”

  “Will get one soon. As soon as this is over.”

  “When we get home, I’m going to put you into bed and not let you come out for a week.”

  “It’ll get real messy real fast.”

  “Ok, so I’ll let you come out to go to the can, but that’s it.”

  “What about food?”

  “Served in bed.”

  “Get crumbs everywhere.”

  “Feed you soup. You need a rest.”

  “That I do.”

  Sasha walks
in, wiping grease and dust off her hands. “That’s quite some tech you’ve got there.”

  Gwen smiles weakly at her. “Yeah. He’s an alright guy all round.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Friend of all of us. Long-standing colleague of my husband, too. They plan to get into business together now.” Sasha looks at us, obviously confused. “Oh. We’re a triad. Sorry. Husband’s the pilot. We’re mostly decorative at present. Aiden’s the tech.”

  Sasha looks embarrassed, and for a moment I think she might disapprove of our arrangement. I’m glad to find out I’m wrong. “Oh. Sorry! I didn’t realize. So.” She collects herself. “So Matilda is going to be a bit of a squeeze, with two families on board.”

  “Just the four of us. We’ll have to set up a bachelor pad for our Aiden. Not that he needs much room. He’s not the partying kind.”

  “He does seem rather dedicated to his work.”

  “He’s dedicated to anything he does. Never does anything by halves, though it may take a bit of encouragement to get him going. He’s not one to put himself forward, even when he really wants something.”

  “Oh. Good to know.” And she walks off again.

  I rest my chin over Gwen’s head. “Did you two just have an entire conversation in code?”

  “Maybe. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  “No bed or soup for you, then. Meanie.”

  “Pfft. The good Captain merely wanted to know whether our Aiden is single. I suggested that he is, as well as being extremely eligible and interested in her, but may need a bit of a push. Oh, and that he’s only really interested in long-term arrangements.”

  “And you couldn’t use normal language to say that?”

  “No way. That’d be gauche.”

  “You do realize that Aiden’s had no interest in any kind of relationship at all since ever?”

  “Not true. He’s supremely invested in his friendships, you know that. And you’ve seen him around his family. Those are relationships too. And I know he likes girls. He likes some girls a lot. He’s just never done anything about it. The more interested he is, the less he does about it. I think he’s never had the opportunity or the courage to put the two together, close relationships and girls. He’s not the dating kind, love. He’s the marrying kind. Problem is that it’s hard to become the latter without being the former first.”