Dr. Phil (Physics)'s Stories

Truce Talks

2007-04-23T18:42:02Z

Nina had not expected this answer. “You’re going out to a space colony—and you don’t plan on teaching spacer kids?”

“As far as I know,” I said, “the colonists bound for Eris V are farmers—algae farmers at that. I don’t think there’s too much overlap between your basic farmers and spacers.”

Not satisfied with that answer, Nina tried a different tack. “So what do you know about teaching kids on algae farms?”

“I know how to teach kids in remote areas. Used to have six hundred students across the Nebraska Desert.”

“And I,” Brenda chimed in, “used to work for orbital education feeds for Malaysia and central Africa.”

“So what do you know about teaching spacer kids?” I asked.

Nina blinked.

“Who teaches you?”

She shrugged. “I’ve got some programs and I do things.”

“Uh-huh. Why is it that I don’t think your father, the captain, let’s you run wild on his ship?”

Nina narrowed her eyes. “Who told you he’s my dad?”

“Why you did,” I said. “Just now.”

“Oh, you’re good,” she replied with a smirk.

The Uninvited Visitor

2007-04-22T05:34:22Z

“Hi,” I managed to say, “and you are…?”

The skinny waif had vaulted in the low freighter’s gravity to take a seat on the upper bunk. It was a neat trick and one I didn’t yet have the space legs to even dream of trying.

“Nina,” she said. “Captain says you’re teachers.”

“That’s right, Nina. How old are you? Ten?”

“Nine. But you probably didn’t account for the added growth in low grav.”

This kid was tough and smart. “No,” I admitted. “Probably not.”

“Thought so. You going to eat this?” She held out the dish.

“We’ll get to it,” Brenda said, finally composed after Nina’s interuption. “Right now we’re entertaining a guest.”

“Cute,” Nina said. “But Captain said you were on a honeymoon, so you’re not quite telling the truth.”

“And you, young lady,” I said, “have gotten yourself into a bad habit of jumping into things without an invitation.”

Nina shrugged. “I came by to figure out what you know about teaching spacer kids.”

“Nothing,” I said. “We have no intention of teaching spacer kids.”

Room Service

2007-04-19T18:55:10Z

“This is some honeymoon suite,” Brenda said, daring to take one full stride into our tiny compartment.

“Freighter passengers can’t be choosey,” I said, glad I hadn’t tried to carry her over the threshold. The contortions to get us both through the narrow hatch at once might’ve hurt. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s perfect,” she said. And it was. Even with half our floor space taken up by our roughly stacked luggage, we were grinning at each other like a couple of schoolkids out on a first date.

We hadn’t expected a honeymoon. Captain Pritcher had generously offered us the room, instead of putting us in hybernation with the other colonists to Eris V. And now we were here, with the hatch closed and nothing to do…

A loud metallic clank on our hatch interrupted the preliminaries. Composing myself, I answered the door. “Yes?” And looked down.

A skinny waif in an old spacer’s jumpsuit stood slouching against the frame, a covered dish in one hand and a wrench in the other.

“Captain says you eat in there.”

The Other Occupation

2007-03-30T19:47:04Z

The captain looked sternly at us. “What are you doing here?”

“Um,” I managed to say, “I don’t understand.”

“You’re heading to Eris V on my ship, you just got married after coming here on a blasted starliner and you two don’t have any real gear. I’ve half a mind to stop being nice and throw you out that airlock and save us both the trouble.”

“Ah,” Brenda spoke up. “It is you who don’t understand.”

I tried not to smile as Brenda stopped the captain in mid-rant.

“We’re teachers,” she went on. “Hired by the colony compact.”

“The colony’s too new and too scattered to really have any settlements. We’ll been working from the orbital platform for the first year,” I said.

“Then you’re not algae farmers?”

“No way,” I said.

The captain let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God. You cannot know how many idiots head for the stars unprepared.”

“I’m not sure I’d call us prepared,” I said. “But there are people who will take care of us.”

“Fair enough,” the captain said. “You two want a honeymoon?”

Overbooked

2007-03-28T19:31:56Z

We ended up standing in the middle of the freighter’s main loading bay for most of an hour. I wasn’t angry, I’m sure the captain was busy, but we didn’t quite know the reason for our wait.

“It’ll be all right,” Brenda said.

“Probably,” I replied. “But I’d feel a lot better if we weren’t standing next to those space doors. That’s hard vacuum on the other side and we don’t have any spacesuits.”

“You got on board,” Brenda pointed out. “And the ship was already in space.”

“Yes, but that’s different.”

“Not really,” she said. “There was always vacuum beyond the other space doors.”

I looked across the loading bay and felt foolish.

Eventually the captain came. “How long you two know each other?”

“Uh, nearly all our lives. Twenty years,” I said.

“And you just got married here?”

“We wanted to be married on the starliner,” Brenda said. “But they were overbooked. There was no time.”

“As soon as we boarded, they put us in stasis,” I said.

“Not drowned in blue goo?”

“No sir.”

The captain swore.

Wait Here

2007-03-28T19:15:12Z

“You Stuart?” the crewman asked as we set foot on the freighter.

“Yes,” I said. “Clark and Brenda.”

“Wait here,” he said.

My bride of two minutes gave my hand another squeeze. We’d already come so far, sixty light years from Earth and still another four hundred to go.

Another crewman came by, busy with something. “I’d step forward about two meters if I were you,” he warned. We did and the heavy space doors behind whined into motion, eventually sliding closed with a dull thud. A sigh escaped from the mechanism and several deep clunks shook at our feet.

“I guess we’re going,” I told Brenda.

The first crewman was back. He pointed at the small pile of our possessions someone had left piled on the deck. “These your things?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, this is all you have?”

“Yes,” I said, this time with a little less confidence.

The crewman shook his head in disgust.

“Wait here. Captain’s gonna love you two morons.”

Quiet Ceremony

2007-03-25T23:59:45Z

Brenda’s mom would’ve been disappointed. It was just me and Brenda, the old guy who served as a preacher or justice of the peace, we were never quite sure, and a handful of spacers on the dock as our witnesses.

“You guys said your ship is ‘bout to leave, so let’s get it over,” the old guy said. “Both of you agree to love, cherish, protect and look out for each other, so long as you both are living?”

“We do,” I said as Brenda said the simple word, “Yes.”

She squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.

“Gotta ring?”

“Yes,” I said, fumbling for the folded paper packet. “Two.”

“Show everyone the rings, accept them from each other as a token of your commitment. Then sign this screen.” He waited patiently with databoard and stylus while we slipped the rings on the other. Then we signed.

“Captain—this is a valid marriage and duly processed. Will you accept these two as married?”

The freighter captain lurking by the hatch nodded. “Launch in three minutes,” he said and left.

I just had time to kiss my bride.

Butterflies

2007-03-25T22:40:20Z

The butterflies didn’t return this year.

I’m sure they meant to, but I heard there was a freak spring ice storm in Mexico. The trees which normally get covered with billions of Monarchs were instead covered in billions of Monarchscicles.

Surely some survived. Surely some winter over elsewhere—but they aren’t the ones that know to come here.

It was a couple of months before I realized I hadn’t seen ANY butterflies. Then in August I chanced upon one of those odd fluttering trios of cabbage moths, but that was it. Nothing but a lot of flies.

No frogs to eat the flies.

I miss the butterflies.

The Hero Business

2007-03-13T18:02:28Z

They say heroes are born, not made. But “they” are wrong. As usual. All you have to do is game the system a little bit.

See, I didn’t join the Space Corps to serve the greater good or help mankind or any of that other crap. I joined up for the money. You win the Order of the Milky Way and you’re set up for life. 100,000 gold credits in your bank account every year, a glorious retirement and beautiful women hanging off your arm at all the great parties on Celestia.

If you’re a living Order of the Milky Way recipient. Damn thing doesn’t do me any good if I’m dead.

That’s why Cecil was supposed to be already on Asur-549, setting up the trap so I can be a hero and save my entire squad single-handed.

Yeah, being a hero takes real work.