Launch: Chapter 22

  “Kirsten?  I um… need a favour,” Markus stated after he found the woman in her spartanly furnished office.  He wondered if she preferred simple surroundings, or if she hadn’t gotten around to decorating yet.  He was hoping she could help him arrange transportation.  Apparently her stint in engineering was over for now; she was out of her coveralls and back into the dark blue pants and tan shirt she was wearing when he’d met her.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, hardly looking up at him from her work.  She obviously hadn’t noticed how shaky his voice was.

  “I need to get back to Earth for a couple days, and then back here before the launch.”  She paused for a moment before looking up at him.

  “Why?” she asked, eying him suspiciously.

  “Does it matter?” he asked after taking a deep breath.

  “Well if you’d like our help then… yeah, it really does.  It would take some doing at this point, you’re committed.  If you went back now there'd be too significant a risk of you not making it back in time.  That would create real problems for us; there’s a reason why we asked wildcards to report in a week ahead of the launch.  So yes, it matters.”  At that she went back to her work.

  ‘Damn,’ Markus thought, ‘checkmate.’  He was an exceedingly private person in general, and his problem felt like an especially personal one, at least to him.  In his experience knowledge was power, and the more someone knew about him, the more ammunition they would have to use against him if they came to have a need of it.  That's why he felt he had to choose very carefully who he placed such trust in in the first place.  It was also why Markus had so few friends himself, and even fewer people he was exceptionally close to like Hugh.

  He made a conscious decision to trust Kirsten.  He was going to need to make new friends on the ship eventually anyways; he was after all leaving all of his existing friends behind on Earth.  Since he'd met Kirsten he found himself wanting to know her better on any case, and he'd found in his life that offering someone his trust often led to them offering their friendship in return.  In any case he had little other choice at this point but to confide in her.

  “It’s my mother,” he said.  “She’s very sick… well really she’s dying, and soon.”   He paused a moment to let the gravity of the statement descend upon the room.  “There was an accident yesterday at a fusion research lab, and she apparently took sixty or seventy grays of full body exposure.  You work in engineering, so… I imagine you know what that means.  I owe it to her to see her one last time and to say goodbye in person before I leave.   We never said goodbye before I left… not really.  We didn’t think we had any need to since we’d still be in contact, but…”  At this point Markus was thoroughly emotional and tearing up.   He wasn’t going to allow himself the luxury of betraying his emotion any further, but it was meaningful for him to find that he could expose himself to her even this much.

  “Oh Markus…” she uttered, apparently now regretful of her earlier dismissiveness.  “Oh I’m so sorry.  How many… um, was anyone else hurt?”  Despite his state, Markus still had the wherewithal to appreciate her blunt curiosity, a kind of curiosity he’d always shared with Hugh but which had always been conspicuously absent in Amber.  He added it to the growing list of things he liked about her.

  “Thirty-two were in the section… the four that were in the core room itself are dead already.”  He paused, then considered: “that report was hours ago though, more are probably dead by now,” he realized with a raised eyebrow.

  “Right… again, I’m really sorry Markus, I’ll see what I can do right away.   We still have a lot of last minute cargo traffic between Earth and the ship, I should be able to work something out for you but you’ll have to give me just a bit of time with it, alright?” she gently pleaded.

  “Of course, I understand.  I’ll be grateful for whatever you can arrange for me.  After all, I know this isn’t exactly your job,” he offered

  “Actually it um… it kind of is. Don’t worry about it.”  There was a moment of silence between them.  “Do you… want to stay here and keep me company while I work at it?”  It was a kind offer, and clearly not the kind she was used to making, which made it that much more appreciated but he nevertheless declined.

  “No, no, I really do appreciate the offer though.  I think I’d rather be alone at this point… if you know what I mean.”  It was true.  In times of stress, awkward social interaction was especially taxing for him and each pleasantry he had to force sounded positively gruesome on his tongue, dripping as it did with inauthenticity.

  “I do.”  He sensed that she did in fact understand in her own way.   “I’ll contact you as soon as I come up with a travel plan for you, alright?”

  “Yes, thank you very much Kirsten.   I could probably figure it out for myself like my friend, but…”

  “Don’t worry about it… wait, what friend?”

  “Hugh Nye um, the friend I applied with.”

  “He’s on Orbital One?  Is he making his own arrangements to get down and back before the launch with you?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Well then I’ll make arrangements for the both of you, it won’t be much more difficult.  He’ll need to cover the costs, but it’ll cost less doing it together than separately and at least that way you two can travel together, and he can be sure to get back in time for the launch too… that is why he’s there right?”

  “Yes.  Thank you Kirsten.”

  “Unless… you wanted to be by yourself and you… wanted to travel alone?” she offered.

  Markus thought about it… he thought about it good and hard.  Then he shook his head decidedly, “no, no please make the double plans.  Thank you Kirsten.  I’ll let him know.”  Hugh was a very good friend, and he knew him well enough that if Markus really did want to be left alone, he would obligingly ignore him entirely.

  He turned to leave but she interrupted him.  “Wait!   I forgot to ask, um… where on Earth do you need to go again?”

  “Vancouver.”

  “Right, and um… I’m sorry to ask, but I think I have to, given the circumstances… you are sure you’re coming back right?  I mean… I should go ahead and book your orb-up as well, and I shouldn’t report to the other department heads that we may need another new head of genetics?”  She was clearly trying to convey that she’d be going a bit out on a limb to not report any of this up the chain.

  Markus moved to the door and paused as it opened for him.  His answer was not automatic for the first time and this both surprised and disturbed him.  “Yes,” he said reservedly and then perhaps to convince himself as much to inform her, he cleared his throat and defiantly stated again, “yes.  Yes I will be coming back.”