Chapter 17: A Child Shall Lead

Fumigation is complete. Once again, we all have plenty of space to wander around in. MOM is a big ship, even just the half we live in.

Watches have been set. Unfortunately, those off watch don’t want to go to cryo yet. Everybody is enamored of being underway on a Starship. Boredom hasn’t happened yet. Well, it’s happening with me, but I’m stuck waiting on my crew to settle down and accept sleep in cryo.

Rearranging watches wasn’t necessary. The four single mothers added to our crew ( with tykes not counted ) increased us to fifteen from eleven. Instead of five watch sections of two per watch, it’s now three per watch. Same five section rotation. With one slight difference. During the entire voyage, nobody will stand watch with the same PAIR of companions more than once.

Stranger than fiction. When something happens and you know it’s real, but you would never accept it as believable written in a story, is what I mean. Here is what actually happened.

Little Brenda is sitting with me on a sofa in the salon. To entertain her, I’m puppet playing with her stuffed bunny rabbit doll. It nods or shakes it’s head to questions I ask. It pretends to sniff things then sneeze in response. All is obviously managed by my hand, but Brenda prefers to ignore the obvious manipulation, entranced by the animated ‘live’ stuffed bunny.

Knee walking along the cushions, she moves close to me and hugs my neck. Affectionate sweet little girl, except she whispers in my ear. That is the cause for intimacy, whispered communication.

“Doesn’t matter?” I can’t understand Brenda’s sibilant whisper. She whispers again.

“Dark matter?” She grins and nods affirmative. She has my attention. Who has been talking about dark matter so she picked it up?

“Who told you about dark matter?” Brenda claims Flotsam did.

“When did she tell you?” Just now.

“Is Flotsam here with us?” Brenda points and insists Flotsam is nearby. I can’t see squat.

“Is Flotsam warning us about dark matter?” Yes.

“What does Flotsam want us to do? Turn.

“JoAnn, are you copying this? She is.

“Which way does Flotsam want us to turn?” Right towards the light.

“Order the pilots to turn right, apparently there is a light body we should steer towards.” JoAnn complys.

There’s no light emitting body near our right because it’s the direction of a massive black hole. Far distant and no threat to us, but it’s sucking in light, not emitting it. Except maybe it does for Flotsam in her out of body state.

“Steer on the black hole, JoAnna. Brenda? Ask Flotsam if we are going in the right direction?” Yes, now we are.

“Will we be safe now?” Yes

We won’t get where we want to go steering this direction but it’s a safe direction according to Brenda relaying Flotsams directions.

“When can we turn back to where we want to go?” Eight hours.

Foolish of me to let little four year old Brenda direct the ship?

Have you ever seen dark matter? Me neither. But if a dark hole looks like a bright object to Flotsam in her altered sate, maybe dark matter seems brightly lit to her, too. At any rate, I don’t want to collide with anything at this velocity. Somebody says turn to avoid a collision, it’s foolish to ignore them. Turn and figure it out later.

Brenda sleeps in my arms for eight hours. Only part of me asleep, is my arms. Their numb.

After eight hours, we turn left again, but Brenda directs us farther to the left than our course dictates. Nothing to see out there. The telescope when aimed dead ahead, picks up a faint star far away. Not as far away as our destination, but too far to see with naked eyes.

“Ask Flotsam why she wants us to go there?” Salt.

We don’t need salt, there’s tons on board. How does she know salt exists there anyway.

“We are going to get salt?” No. Salt needed there.

“Why is salt needed there?” Distress.

‘Flotsams hears a distress call?” Yes

“What kind of distress call?” Need salt. Dying.

This is crazy, but it’s not far off our planned course. We’ll investigate. First contact? If we can offer help, what better condition for a first contact can there be?