Carpathian Forty-Three

Carpathian Forty-Three - Part 11

Rhianu breathes softly. Sleep came an hour ago. The stress of the cancer, Fort, waking the cargo, it catches up. Voclain holds them, a familiar embrace they've fallen back into. Stress, it catches up with everyone, we reach for the familiar and comforting.

They float gently in the captain's sleeping bag, tethered to the wall. Both Spacers, sleeping on The Ring is uncomfortable. The captain's quarters are on The Hump, forward, towards the top of The Spine, and the command module. Rhianu's quarters are further down The Spine, drive-ward, near engineering. They preferred Voclain's quarters when they were together, so, here they are.

The ship is quiet, aside from the gentle whir of fans that move the atmosphere around, sucking in the air to scrub the carbon dioxide from it. There's none of the beeping or thrumming you'd expect from movies. Just a quiet whir of fans.

Stephen pokes at a computer pad in the Command Module. He's running through pre-braking checklists, lost in work. He refers to the pad, refers to the controls in the command module, ticks of box after box. Saturn is a yellow dot in the command module window, larger than other stars, but not prominent enough to reveal the planet's majestic rings. They're a bit less than thirty days from the braking burn, and a bit less than ninety from rendezvous with Titan, Saturn's petrochemical rich moon, their destination. The checklists Stephen works on aren't due for two more weeks.

Thak stabs at a pile of sticky red good in the galley, with a short blunt spork, titanium green. It clinks on the metal plate. The galley is on The Ring, the vast, spinning structure that encircles the Spine of Carpathian Forty-Three. The Ring provides a Martian-normal gravity to the occupants there, mostly the cargo of sleepers in suspended animation, though Thak and Ward have quarters here. The Galley is here despite the spacer's disdain for gravity. Cooking and eating are functions better accomplished with a bit of assistance from acceleration gravity.

"How many cycles did you serve with it?" Ward asks, surprising Thak as they work on the goo on their plate. Thak jumps, jostled from their thoughts.

"Cycles?" they ask. They were lost, spokring mouthfuls of read goo without thinking.

"Sorry. I thought maybe you'd want to talk," Ward says.

Thak's face flashes irritation at the Earther. None of the crew like Ward. Earth has been the center of the system for generations, taking resources, withholding resources, generally proving to be an oppressive colonial power that represses the rest of the system for its own benefit. Ward is a personification of that oppression. It's not fair to hold him accountable, but the crew does.

"What gave you that idea?" Thak asks, stabbing at their goo particularly hard.

They've never gotten along. The only person that seems to tolerate Ward is Stephen, but then Stephen is almost monastic in their demeanor.

"To be honest, it's part of my curriculum," Ward says, sitting across from Thak.

Ward is the medic, ne doctor. They're here to see to the sleepers, and occasionally the crew, when the need arises. They discovered Rhianu's cancer. None of them have forgiven Ward for that.

"Fort wasn't an 'it'," Thak says.

"Apologies."

Ward would say more, their face conveys as much, but they're treading lightly.

"Sometimes talking can help us process grief," Ward offers.

"So can Mariner Valley Cake," Thak says, stabbing at the goo, lifting a sporkful to their mouth. It's a kindness to think of the goo as cake, but there's no accounting for the Martian palate.

"I'm not familiar. Hardly seems like cake to me."

"You're unfamiliar with a lot," Thak says, shoving another sporkful into their mount.

"True enough," Ward says.

They sit in silence for a moment, another, an eternity. Thak picks and stabs at the goo, the cake, making a point to scrape the spork on the metal plate.

"Well," Ward gets up. "If you want to talk, you'll probably talk to Stephen, but I'm willing to listen if you'd want to talk to me."

"Right," Thak says. "Noted."

Ward leaves, bouncing a little too high in the Luna normal gravity. Thak watches them, their face registering their disdain, then dropping into a veil of sadness. Tears float slowly to the table, to the cake. The spork flies across the galley, impacting on the metal plate behind the sink on the far side, clinking down into the sink with a piercing sound that disturbs the silent ship.