Chapter 18

MSS H. G. Wells, February 23, 2162
Earth/Sol Lagrange 3

“Hi Wally, are you being good for Grandma?” asked Alan Scarlett.

“Uh huh. Buddy likes Aunt Marcy.” The little boy on the screen was floating and pretending to swim. The image was streaky with lines and the color was washed out, the audio was scratchy and a little out of sync. It comes from dozens of satellite relays to hide the source, and being encoded and unencoded several times, so it can’t be overheard, but it was his family and Alan felt himself relax. Did Wally say Buddy? There are no dogs in space, everyone knows that. They must have called home.

“Are you helping with your little brother?”

“Uh huh. He didn’t like floating but now he likes it. He wiggles!” Little Wally was laughing at his brother Gerry, who was trying to swim while weightless. Gerry was wearing only a diaper, and he was wiggling weightless next to Wally.

“You did the same thing when you were little. Anna are these boys bothering you?”

“I’m bored,” said Alan’s daughter. Her namesake used to complain about being bored on long voyages, too.

“What do you say we build a house on Mars so we don’t have to fly back and forth anymore?”

“Can we have a swimming pool? With a lazy river?”

“You bet, biggest and best one on Mars.”

“Yeah!”

“Ok, you draw some pictures of what you want the pool to look like and when we meet up on Mars we’ll go over them OK? Let me talk to mommy.”

“Ok. Love you daddy!”

“Love you too.” Finally, Pandora came on the viewscreen. She looked worn out and under nourished. “Oh God dear, are you eating?” gasped Alan.

“I didn’t know if you were alive,” said Pandora, now so relieved she began crying. She reached out and touched the view screen and gasped. He looked so pale and drawn from worry.

“Eat, please. Get some sleep. Nothing is going to happen for weeks, then we’re going to need you,” said Alan. He already was planning to order her ship’s doctor to give her something to knock her out for a day or two.

“You want to move to Mars?” Pandora said.

“Fuck Earth. I’m tired of trying to keep them from blowing each other apart. I love you honey I miss you so much but I’m not going back to Luna, the whole place smells like a sulfur fart. We had it all...” He felt like everything was collapsing again. “We had our dreams and they took it all away. Everyone is using us. Ray, Francisco Hernán, Ferdinand LeBeau, even your dad.”

“Alan, we both need a rest. You’ve been studying and training, I’ve been racing across the solar system. We both need a rest.”

“Fuck em. Fuck em all.”

“I love you honey, get some rest,” said Pandora. She’s never heard Alan like this. Even when he was searching the Asteroid belt for a madman, he never lost hope. “Forty Four.”

“One twenty eight,” said Alan. “I love you.” And the screen went blank.

“Satisfied?” said a technician as he lifted the monitor from its stand in front of Alan.

“Just get me out of here, I don’t need your damn attitude too,” snarled Alan as he stood up. In his time aboard the MSS H. G. Wells he grew quite testy and he snapped at people that tried his spirit.

“That will do, Malcom,” said Dr. Oxnard, director of rocketry, and he tried to get the technician away from Alan before the Admiral beat the hell out of him. Alan has yet to hit anyone, but he might.

“Do you have any final questions, Admiral Scarlett?” asked the head administrator, Dr. Devens.