Midway: Chapter 13

  Fifteen years ago… 

   

  It was late at night.  Dhika and Tycho had snuck into one of the two shuttles which were nestled in between the ion engines.  The shuttles were usually kept docked behind the central engineering section which shielding the crafts from any stray oncoming interstellar debris.   They’d grabbed a snack from the dining hall earlier, but they were now floating in the microgravity, wrapped up in a blanket which was attached to one of the Velcro strips on the bulkhead of the shuttle.  By holding the blanket to their bodies, they kept themselves in place against the wall with it.  Against the opposite wall they had attached the large pad they’d brought with them, and they were watching some programs which had been received in the transmission from Earth a few weeks ago.  The interval between this transmission and the previous one had been almost twelve long years, and they were warned that the next one would not arrive for another fifteen years.  Any kind of productive two way conversation had long ago become a practical impossibility since a simple question and response was now officially a multi decadal affair.

  It had become tradition to continue the conversation with Earth by sending bundled data bursts back and forth between the ship and Earth.  People had originally had live conversations, but as they got further and further away from Earth, there was an increasing lag time.  The light could only move so quickly.  Using lasers made the transmission more reliable and allowed far greater bandwidth than radio, but there was still an absolute cosmic speed limit on light.  Eventually carrying out actual conversations became completely unworkable, and communication became more like a conversation by mail, where delivery time started out as minutes, but then became hours, then days, then months… and now years.

  At first there was a lot of back and forth between the ship and Earth, but over time people tended to line up their individual actions with the official transmissions.  Now most conversations were synced up, simplifying things into one great conversation, resulting in back and forth mass data bursts via the transmission of invisible laser light.  Along the central axis of the ship there was a powerful laser which the New Horizon used to transmit messages to its home system.   The interferometric telescope array was able to automatically swap its optical detectors between the highly sensitive ones used for astronomical observations, and ones specialized to receive laser communications.

  The official back and forth transmission, the one everyone else had over time piggy backed onto, consisted essentially, of absolutely everything being sent in both directions.  Earth sent the ship updates on all of their databases, from entertainment and educational media, to research journals, weather records, biography files, encyclopedia entries, news archives, and all of Earth’s consequential media and information which had been produced since their last transmission.  New Horizon’s crew sent back all of their logs and crew records, and all still to the same mission control on the Orbital One space station in orbit around Earth back home.  

  Some of the crew also sent personal messages and artistic submissions of one form or another.   Others kept detailed personal logs and sent them back to the planet; those who did became quiet the celebrities on Earth and in this last transmission they had even begun to receive some fan mail.  It was their last and only link between the ship’s crew and the ship’s homeworld, and the link grew longer and thinner every day.  Since they cleared the Oort cloud, it had become ever clearer just how tenuous that connection really was.  It was really just them, out here… in the middle of nowhere.

  Dhika and Tycho were watching a movie which had apparently won a bunch of awards, but the two fifteen year olds were so far not very impressed.  It was about the reconstruction and reconciliation process after the Nuclear Tragedy of 2042.  The opening credits were laid over file footage of the tragedy itself, from helicopter news cameras to scroll video, all showing either the meteor strike or a growing nuclear mushroom cloud off in the distance.  These amateur videos were interspersed with footage from high altitude drones and satellites showing the detonations in frighteningly crisp detail.   After this beginning though, it became a drama about people trying to pick up the pieces of their lives afterwards in the decimated region.  An interesting story, but hard for the two to identify with and get emotionally invested in.

  When the movie ended, Dhika winked the scroll’s screen off while the credits rolled.  She straightened her body out and let out a frustrated sigh.  She then turned to Tycho, put her hand on his cheek, and kissed him.  At first he gave in to her, and it was a moment that had an impact on Dhika for some reason.  She remembered that moment, and it stuck with her.  He let her kiss him, but just for a moment.  He then pushed her off, gently but firmly, and she threw her head back against the bulkhead of the shuttle in frustration.  She then ripped her blanket off the wall and gathered it up, then pushed herself off of the wall towards the airlock.

  “Dhika…” Tycho offered meekly.

  “What?” Dhika hissed.  “We spend so much time together, I… I know you like me… but nothing ever happens!  What’s wrong?   Is it me?  You hurt me Tycho.”

  Tycho approached her and held her face in his hands and looked in her eyes.  He then hugged her and put her head on his shoulder.   “It’s not you Dhika… if you don’t believe anything else, please believe that.”  They pulled away from each other after the hug.

  “Well then what is it?” Dhika asked, wiping a tear away.

  “I just don’t… feel that way, about anyone… ever.  The idea of… sex, with anyone, I just… I just don’t find it appealing at all Dhika, the opposite really.”

  “That’s hard to believe Tycho…” Dhika stated plainly.

  “It’s the truth…” Tycho offered listlessly, staring at the floor.

  Dhika caught herself on a railing, and turned around to stare at him.  This explanation would be consistent with his behaviour so far.   Something about the beginning of that kiss though…

  “Okay Tycho… okay,” Dhika uttered, shaking her head.  “I think it’s time we head home though.  Tycho nodded his agreement and together they made their way through the airlock.  They didn’t talk at all as they made their way to the habitat ring and walked down the central corridor, and when it was time to part ways towards their own family’s suites, they offered each other only a simple goodnight.

  After walking alone the rest of the way, Dhika came to her door and stopped in front of it, then turned and fell backwards against it.  She slowly bonked the back of her head against the door once… then twice, then a third time.  After a pause she winked a communication request to Anaru and pulled her small wrist scroll out of her pocket.  Before long Anaru’s face appeared on the scroll’s screen.

  “What’s up?” Anaru asked.

  “Nothing much…” Dhika said.  “You wanna watch a movie with me?” she asked.

   

  Dhika and Tycho would remain the closest of friends for the rest of their lives.  Their strengths played off each other and their mutual appreciation of frank and sometimes brutal honesty kept them each other’s closest confidants.  But there would forever be a clear ceiling on what their relationship could be, and over the years Dhika would become more and more accepting of Tycho as he was, and sometimes even grateful for it.  She would grow to suspect that if they had mated then, their relationship would have burned very brightly, but only briefly.   This way though, they could become, and remain, even closer than that.  They were lifelong friend and confidants, all things to each other except sexual.

  When Dhika went to Anaru’s that night she established the rules with him.  Anaru had been flirting with her of late, and he obviously had a singular interest in her since they had never had much in common, and never had much to do with each other socially.  Her terms were simple; she didn’t care what he did with whomever else, but he could have her, when she wanted him, if he could keep quiet about it.  She made it clear it would stop if anyone found out.  He simply nodded and immediately went after her with an appetite which had been building for some time.

  As years went by for Dhika and Anaru, they became close friends as well as physically close  However, they never came close to having the same kind of emotional connection which Dhika and Tycho enjoyed, they were close nonetheless.   Close enough to talk to each other if something was bothering them, and close enough to seek each other’s council on tough decisions.  As they matured and became adults with greater and greater responsibilities on the ship, their relationship continued to mature as they themselves did.

  This arrangement worked for all of them.  It was a tidy triangle and all three of them had what they wanted out of another of the three, and they were all spared the parts they didn’t want.  Tycho got the close emotional support that he wanted from Dhika without all the messy sexuality.  Dhika got the sexual relationship she missed with Tycho from Anaru, but without all of the messy romantic entanglements which would have complicated her friendship with Tycho.  Anaru got the regular sex with Dhika he was looking for, without the same messy romantic entanglements Dhika didn’t care for, while still having the freedom to pursue other women.  It was a very tidy triangle indeed, and for a time… things were good.