Midway: Chapter 30

  Johannes and Dhika were floating in the airlock to greet Tycho when it finally opened onto the shuttle.  He was clearly numb and in shock.

  “Tycho…” Johannes offered sympathetically, unsure of what to say or do, while Dhika just looked at him wide eyed and in danger of breaking down crying again herself.  They were both themselves distraught, but they also knew Tycho well enough to know how especially traumatic this would be for him.  Tycho and Anaru were good friends in their own way; to the best either of them knew Anaru was the best male friend Tycho had and Tycho had always been so reticent to accept even casual favors from others at the best of times.  Anaru’s self-sacrifice on his behalf was the ultimate favour and worse still, while it was a life debt Anaru happily paid to the ship and any member of the crew more generally, it was a personal debt which Tycho would now never be able to repay to his close friend.

  “No.”  Tycho said, without looking either of them in the eye.  He silently and deliberately worked his way past them, hand rail by hand rail, making his way down the corridor towards the fusion core, and disappearing up into a tube towards the habitat ring.

  “Do you think he’ll be alright?” Dhika asked Johannes.

  “Eventually… of course he will.  But I’m worried about him.  He’s so sensitive, more so than most, more so than even you probably realize....  This is going to haunt him a long time I’m afraid.”

  “Oh Johannes,” Dhika hugged her patriarch tightly.   “Anaru… What are we going to do?”   She looked down the corridor in the direction which Tycho had disappeared, and with great effort retained control of herself and kept from crying.

  “I know, Dhika… I know…”
 

  Three days later the funeral service was held in the arboretum, which had become the traditional resting place for all the departed crew members.  Headstones were scattered throughout the arboretum, usually at a favourite spot of the deceased, sometimes peacefully out of the way.  In ancient seafaring tradition, the dead were committed to the sea.  There they would be fed upon by the ocean life, and thus returned to the natural cycle of life.  

  In space though, and especially on a voyage such as this, absolutely nothing could be wasted.   Jettisoning a body into space like so much trash was not only undignified, but the morbid reality was that their bodies were material resources which the crew could not afford to simply throw away every time somebody died.  The New Horizon was an entirely closed system, and all the chemistry which went into a human body had to be recovered in some way.  It was thus considered most fitting to bury their dead in the arboretum, where their material was in a way returned to nature and absorbed by the forest, thus preserved within the mission.

  On this occasion however, there had been no body to bury.  People were trying to forget that the departed captain’s body was forever lost to them in space, and was now ‘out there’ somewhere, floating unceremoniously in the eternal void between star systems.  Despite the nature of his death, a memorial service was of course still convened, and to furnish the funeral plot were some prized possessions of Anaru’s which would be buried in his place.  Johannes gave a touching eulogy, and both Maharet and Tynes’ sister and elderly parents spoke as well.

  The ship was in deep mourning, and the entire mission felt suddenly rudderless.  Anaru had been far too young to have seriously groomed any successors; really he was only just coming into his own in the role.  There would eventually be campaigning and an election for a new captain, but in the meantime Johannes and Maharet had to work closely and lead through consensus between themselves.  

  Immediately after the funeral service, a decidedly unimpressed Dhika showed up out front of Tycho’s door.  She winked angrily as she rang the door chime with her Brainchip.  After a few moments without any response, she planted her fists on her hips and started tapping her foot impatiently.  She knew he was in there, and that he was just ignoring her, and she couldn’t stand to be so blatantly ignored, especially not now, not in this situation!  Today he didn’t have the right to be so selfish!

  She started banging on the door with her fist and yelling, “TYCHO!??  TYCHO!!!  OPEN UP!   WE NEED TO TALK!”  As she was yelling, someone came down the hall and she glared them down, defiantly daring them to attempt to intervene in some way or to even look directly at her.  The door opened and she stormed in, but there was no one to greet her in the living area.   She went into his room and found him in the dark facing his computer terminal, the room lit only by the soft glow of the screen.

  “Tycho, you missed the funeral!”

  “I am aware of that.”   He appeared to be working on an interferometric series like his work on Haven, but Dhika could tell that it was not the planet she had seen in Maharet’s mass distribution of his work.   It didn’t appear to be Earth either, and her diminishing anger was invaded by her curiosity.

  “What are you working on?” Dhika asked, still very angry.

  Tycho still refused to turn his head to visually acknowledge her, and he still kept his eyes on the screen.  “Tau Ceti 2.”

  “Tau Ceti… isn’t that the planet the Mormons were headed for?”

  “Yes.  They should be arriving there in the next couple years.”

  Dhika remembered why she was there.  “Tycho, who the fuck do you think you are!??  My whole life you’ve cut me down to size over my privilege, well now it’s your turn.  You’d never let me get away with this shit, just what makes your grief any worse than mine, hunh!?  You really think you’re the only person hurting on this ship?”  He ignored her.  He still hadn’t even looked at her to acknowledge her presence.  He was infuriating her.  

  “How dare you hide here when we all need each other at a time like this, when I need you at a time like this, dammit we need each other at a time like this Tycho!??  Do you really think you’re the only one who misses him?  You have no idea!!” She yelled, just determined to get some kind of reaction out of him at this point.  “He was my maaate Tycho!  We’ve been together for years!  So no!   You’re not the only one who misses him!  I had hoped that being the two people closest to him we could help each other through this, but apparently I was wrong!” she finally yelled in frustration.  

  She was so mad at him, and oh so hurt herself.  She had lashed out in anger and pain but she was immediately beginning to regret it.   She had never intended to reveal to Tycho her relationship with Anaru but now there it was.  It was out there.  She couldn’t take it back now…  She didn’t know how Tycho would react.

  But he didn’t seem to react at all.  She knew him well enough to know that there was indeed some reaction taking place, but she also knew him well enough to know that he would never betray that reaction to her at a time like this.  He didn’t respond at all.  When she mentioned her relationship with Anaru he froze for several moments, but then began working at his terminal again, but slowly at first.

  “I’m sorry Tycho.  I’m sorry for keeping it from you all these years.  I’m sorry for blurting it out now at a time like this.   I hadn’t planned to… but now it’s out there though.  We were close friends who were intimate, but I… I always felt and believed that you were the one I was much closer to… for whatever that’s worth.”

  Tycho said nothing.  Dhika left.

   

  After the door to Tycho’s suite closed behind her, she fell back against it and slumped down to the floor, putting her arms around her knees.  She was numb, and simply stared blankly at the door opposite Tycho’s.   That is how Johannes found her when he arrived a few minutes later.  He had also come after the memorial service to chew out Tycho for his absence, but was instantly far more concerned with Dhika at the sight of her.

  “Dhika.”  She looked up at him, then back down again.

  “I wouldn’t Johannes.   He’s… somewhere else.”  With great effort, Johannes instead sat down beside her and sighed heavily.

  “He always has been, I’m afraid.”

  “Yeah, well… now more than ever.  He’s not doing well in there… and I think I just made it worse.”

  “How so?

  Dhika let out a long sigh.  “Ask me tomorrow, or in a week… okay?  Or ask him, if you dare to go in there I’m sure it’ll come up…”

  Johannes put his hand on her knee.  “Alright you can tell me some other time.  Why don’t you go home and try to get some rest, I’ll try talking to him.”   Dhika turned and gave him a lingering hug.

  “I hope you have better luck than I did… let me know if you do.  You’re right though, I’m going to go to my suite and lie in bed, and… stare at the ceiling.”  At that she stood up, and then pulled Johannes to his feet.  She put her hand on his shoulder.  “Good luck,” she offered simply as she moved her hand to his cheek, and then walked off.

   

  “Tycho.”   Johannes stood behind him in the darkened room.

  “What do you want Johannes.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Alright… go to work.   Fix me.”

  “That’s… that’s not fair Tycho.”

  “No?  That’s your job isn’t it?  Fixing people?” Tycho rhetorically asked with a sneer.

  “Where is this coming from Tycho?”  Johannes came over and took a seat beside the desk, facing his son, who just shrugged and blinked.  “Look, I know that you’re devastated, but I also know that you’re not the only person who’s hurting today.  It would have meant a lot to the rest of the crew to see you there.  They understand of course, but…”

  “I don’t care,” Tycho stated matter of factly.

  “About what?”

  “About anything… I know why Mom killed herself now,” Tycho hauntingly declared.

  “What?” Johannes asked with increasing concern

  “There’s no point… to any of it.  This whole mission, our very lives are just one big cosmic joke.  And the joke’s on us… just victims of other people’s dreams and ambitions.  She knew it; she could see it… she was the only one who ever had the courage to finally say no.  No, I’m not going to just play along with this cruel joke, this sick twisted charade…”

  “Tycho…”   Johannes could sense his son’s anger welling up.  It was an anger he usually kept deeply buried.

  “Look, you being here is not helping me,” Tycho informed his father.  “Unless you have something else to say to me, please just go.  I want to be alone.”

  “You’ve been alone for the last three days Tycho, it’s not healthy…“  Johannes uttered in frustration as he stood up again and sighed.  “You’re going to have to come out sooner or later.  You’re going to have to face the world again.”

  “What world, are you talking about?” Tycho abruptly roared.  “This isn’t a world, Johannes!  It’s a tiny ship out in the void, in the middle of fucking nowhere!!  I grew up in this empty void, and I now fully appreciate that I will die in this empty fucking void, just like Anaru.”

  The silence hung heavy between them.

  “Please go…   I’ll emerge when I’m ready… to face the void again.”

  Johannes walked to the bedroom door, and then turned around to look at his son again with deep concern in his eyes.  “Be well Tycho, and remember.  You’re not alone.”  When he didn’t respond Johannes lowered his head and left, feeling greatly defeated.