Vignettes
The Answer
“Pilot, stay here. We’ll be back in a few hours at most,” Jonathan said.
“No, wait,” Pilot said, “You need me to fly the Jump Ship, and I—”
Jonathan held up his hand.
“I know: orders.” She sighed.
“You’re doing an important thing. Don’t think I’m leaving you because we don’t need you out there. We do. But I need you here more than anything right now. Okay, Jennifer?”
Her inhalation came sharply: He’d said her name. Not Pilot. Not Corporal. Jennifer. She nodded.
“Okay. Mentor’ll help you if you need anything, but keep radio silence unless it’s a dire emergency.” He turned to leave.
A shadow crossed her face. She looked about: The phoenix symbols. Mentor’s imaging chamber. A foreboding against staying alone. “But—”
Jonathan turned back.
She shook her head. “Good luck.”
He smirked and disappeared from the control center.
Jennifer’s eyes closed. Danger. Not now . . . not yet. But soon. They opened again and turned to the imaging chamber at the heart of the control room. “Well, Mentor, I guess it’s just you and me.”
A white gas rose in the chamber, and Mentor’s image appeared: the likeness of Jonathan’s father. “Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “No, not right now. Other than convince Jon that I’d be more help out there than in here.” She sat in a chair beside a control panel and spun it around.
“Unfortunately, I’m unable to override his orders.”
She snorted.
“Would you like to continue where we left off? I have prepared the answer to your question.”
Her eyes shifted to Mentor. “What question?” But she blushed.
“You requested that I explain to you the concept of—”
“I know I did!” But she slouched when her harshness caught up with her. “Sorry. I guess…I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want you to explain it to me.”
Mentor’s image shimmered. “I understand. I will erase the data I collected to free up room in the memory buffer.”
“No, wait!”
Mentor remained motionless.
“No.” She sat up straight. “Okay, tell me.” She looked around, as though someone was peeking in from behind a console or through a doorway.
“I recognize that these topics are difficult for humans, especially young ones. The emotional baggage can be taxing.”
“You don’t say,” she mumbled.
“Please repeat your last request?”
“Nothing. Go ahead with it.”
“Because you grew up in the Dread Youth, I determined you do not need to be refreshed with the mechanics, which they explain in detail as a mere pragmatic action.”
Jennifer shielded her face with her hand.
“But the term is generally misused when merely referring to the physical act of procreation. Human beings recognize that to be lovers is to be something more. The surface meaning involves a sense of euphoria and even blindness that a man and woman share in relation to one another. But the lasting part of this relationship is not built on the initial emotion.”
She peeked from under her hand. Mentor’s expression was its usual: sober, even somber, its eyes fixed on some distant point.
“Lovers are not merely physical bodies, or even intoxicated physical bodies. As organic human souls, they were not designed to intertwine neatly like the gears of a machine. Gears are precise, exact, perfectly fit for a single task, monotonous, interchangeable. Lovers are more like trees: They grow beside each other and intertwine, their trunks and branches winding about each other in chaotic and nonuniform ways. In some places they grow together and strengthen one another; in others, they struggle against one another for the same light.
“The seeming confusion, the disorderly and even painful ways they entangle, are what defines them: it makes them inseparable, at least without severe trauma to both. And the growth is as slow and silent as a tree’s growth. It is day after day unnoticeable, year after year almost unseen, but after decades undeniable in its might. And if it is rotten at its heart, the winds of the world will break it. If it is solid through and through, storms may make it sway and even lose limbs, but it will remain upright and strong. It is a dance of joy and pain, of two imperfect beings in an attempt to discover each other and accept what they find for their mutual good.
“But this closeness is its own danger: it involves revelation and dependence to such an extent that the wound one lover could receive from the other would be so deep as to almost be deadly. But the risk is inherent to the potential reward: to be seen and accepted fully, however imperfectly.”
Jennifer’s hand had fallen to her lap. Her eyes were downcast.
“Shall I continue?”
She looked up. “It sounds so difficult.”
“It is indeed. Lovers must deal with incompatibilities, conflicts, and differing desires while remaining committed not just for the sake of a name or a promise or an ephemeral feeling, but for the sake of each other. But love in this sense, and perhaps in every sense, is the ability and willingness to do good to another when that good conflicts with what you want for yourself. Between lovers, that commitment extends to every imaginable situation and every imaginable act between a man and a woman.”
“What if . . . what if only one of the two people feel this way?”
“Unrequited love, in the sense we are discussing, is an extremely difficult situation for both, especially if they are friends or comrades. The pain of being denied the same feeling in return is only rivaled by the pain of the one who cannot share it. Do you have a particular situation in mind?”
She shook her head almost convulsively. “I wonder if he feels the same,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Mentor said, “I did not hear what you said. Please repeat it?”
“Nothing.” Jennifer rubbed her forehead. Then she looked at Mentor. “Does Jon feel the same about me?”
As if somehow through a combination of arcane algorithms and crossed wires emotion had crept into Mentor’s programming, the image bore a haunted look. Mentor paused, his gaze in Jennifer’s direction, but his eyes distant and unfocused. “The only way to know is to talk with him about it. Such conversations can be extremely difficult, because they involve exposure and vulnerability, and the wounds inflicted—even unintentionally—can fester into bitterness and resentment. For some, the potential reward is worth the risk. For others, the danger to friendship is too great. Only you can know what is right in your situation.”
“I suppose sometime I could just tell him we need to have a little talk,” Jennifer said. “But he’s also my commanding officer. I don’t know. Maybe I should forget about it.” Her gaze rose to Mentor.
The image remained motionless; Mentor said nothing.
“I know, only I can decide. Well, maybe soon. Then again, maybe not.”
Something inside her shouted Now! Don’t wait, Now! Then, the sense of imminent danger returned, almost a panic that made all the more urgent the voice that had just shouted at her.
“Pilot,” a voice sounded.
She swiveled and stood up smartly. It was Jonathan.
“Had to abort. Looks like more bad intel,” he said as he strode toward her. “Not sure what Dread is up to, but it’s starting to worry me. Hey, you all right?”
Jennifer nodded and smiled. Her mouth opened and closed; her tongue was unable to form words.
“When you’re done with Mentor, go check out the Jump Ship. I think one of the thrusters is a little wonky. May need some early maintenance. You’ll know better than I will, though.”
“I’m done here!” Her voice was a little too quick and too certain for her own liking. “Um, I mean I’ll take a look right now.”
“Good.” He turned away from her. “Hawk, I need you to go over some data with me.”
Jennifer’s shoulders fell, and she took a step toward him. But he was now engrossed in conversation with Matthew “Hawk” Masterson. Foolish, she thought. She straightened and turned to head toward the hangar. Her first step was torture; the remainder became easier. Not worth the risk. Her strides had become steady and even. Yet she still paused once to glance back. Is it?