Read Online Alder's World Part One: Mass 17 by Joel Stottlemire - Free Book Online Page B

analysis
of every detail of the Duster ’ s design, she more than any of the other staff had been given
free rein to design her space. While all of the medical staff were
qualified to speak about psychological health with any of the
staff, Elana was expected to know, understand, and steer the mental
competency of hundreds of the most brilliant minds in the galaxy as
they faced years of unpredictable challenges. All of the science of
the last hundred years had not replaced the roll of intuition in
the job of psychologist. Elana ’ s job was to understand and shape how people felt about the
universe around them.
    She had chosen an open,
slightly shapeless space, a little more than three meters on a
side. She ’ d had it colored in
light blues mostly with some greens and reds. The shape was
controlled slightly with balls and tendrils of hand blown glass. It
would have been gaudy if not comfortably lit. The impression as she
and Com Tech Reilly sat facing each other was that they were in the
secluded corner of a larger space. Whether it was the window booth
of a cafe or an underwater grotto you could never be
sure.
    Over time, her urge had
been to darken the colors. She felt, as much as anyone the strain
of the ridiculously long flight.
She ’ d started telling Pilton
that they needed to turn around after year eight; only in private,
of course. She was tired. The crew was tired. The ship was aging.
Again and again he ’ d
asked. “ Will they still
follow me?” Every time
he ’ d listened earnestly to
her reply, assured her that he ’ d turn around before the morale situation got critical, and
gone right on pushing further and further out. “ Just think how elated
they ’ ll be when we turn
back.” He ’ d say to her. “ We can
relieve any pressure in a moment by announcing
we ’ re headed back.” And so they ’ d gone on and Elana had kept the colors at the same bright,
steady hue in her room.
    The silence between her
and Reilly was lengthening. Reilly was a very predictable woman who
made her bi-annual psych appointment with one of the other doctors
every six months and went back to her post in communications. There
had been a lot of extra visits to the psychologist, or the tanks
recently, but it didn ’ t seem
in profile for Reilly. Elana let the silence stretch. Reilly was
petite with black, straight cut hair that was slowing being
infiltrated by single bright white strands as the years
passed.
    “It ’ s funny you
know.” Reilly started at last. “ You
wouldn ’ t think that
you ’ d be thinking about the
past at a time like this. It feels strange; everyone talking about
what day we ’ re all going to
die like that ’ s the most
important thing but …” She
drifted off again, distracted. “ Did you know Carol and I were friends before the
ship?”
    “Yes. I remember.
University of Antarctica wasn ’ t it?” In
Elana ’ s line of work you
always said, “ I
remember ” and not, “ I looked at my notes before you
came in and saw that you and Carol Pakerson went to the same
school. ”
    “Yeah. Only snow skiing
left on Earth.” Reilly grinned
ruefully.
    “You were listening on the
radio when she died. ”
    Reilly
didn ’ t respond. She looked
away. “ Carol wanted to go to
deep space so bad. Telling her she was going to get eaten by space
bugs would not have slowed her down. Even as a freshman
she ’ d drag us all up to watch
the transit platform whizz over. It was in a transpolar orbit and
would fly over every ninety minutes. Sometimes, if they had a big
load coming up from Earth, they ’ d drop that thing down really low. You could see all the
spars and solar panels. The one around Earth is something like six
kilometers across. It looked like some
kind of ant whizzing by above the aurora. It was really something
to see. ”
    She paused again. There
were tears pushing at the corners of her eyes. “ Some nights it was just she and I.
I used to follow her everywhere. My mom had died just