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| Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3 |
For her first year as Captain, Tinaya lived with a lot of anxiety. It was
eating her up from the inside. She was keeping so many secrets, and she just
wanted to forget everything. She used to be grateful that at least she
wasn’t dealing with a bunch of other tangible problems. Omega and the
Verdemusians were protecting them from the war, leaving the Extremus free to
continue on its journey. The crew and passengers were getting along, and
there weren’t any major crises to solve. Her therapist would say that if she
were working through those kinds of captainly issues, she probably wouldn’t
have much space in her brain for anxiety, and that might be true. Whatever
the case, all of that disappeared the day that her husband, Arqut did.
Tinaya didn’t see it herself, but one person happened to be in the corridor
with him at the time. He didn’t just blink away, which is the most common
form of temporal or spatial travel. No, if he had done that, then the
witness probably would have just assumed that he had gone away on purpose.
The way the passerby described it, Arqut was looking rather sweaty. Then he
started spinning around like there was a bug on his back, and he was trying
to get ahead of it. The witness apparently tried to reach out to help, but
missed his opportunity when the spinning seemed to start to happen on its
own. He vanished in a haze of dark particles, which gradually faded within
seconds. Current temporal engineer Sabine Lebeau had never heard of anything
like that before, and it wasn’t in any database that she could find. The
uncertainty scared Tinaya more than anything. This was no accident. Someone
wanted Arqut, and for the last three months, had yet to return him to her.
Unfortunately, her means of investigating were severely limited.
Most people on the ship could not know that he was missing. He disappeared
once before, but that was in pursuit of getting Tinaya back. If she admitted
that this time was not a planned departure, it would raise too many
questions. Only a few people were allowed to know what was going on, and
were sworn to secrecy. The witness agreed to his silence in exchange for a
minimum on his contribution score. Basically, no matter what he did now, his
score would never go below a certain threshold. It was a small price to pay,
as long as he didn’t try to use this advantage to become a serial killer, or
something. But even if he did, no deal with the captain would protect him
from retribution. After that matter was settled, she started to work through
the investigation, mostly on her own, though she couldn’t let it interfere
with her regular duties either. That would raise questions too. But she
wasn’t completely hopeless. She couldn’t make a big fuss about it publicly,
or risk other truths coming to light, but there were still ways to conduct
this investigation both vigorously and quietly at the same time. She made a
list of suspects, and started running down every lead. She started by
accusing the Bridgers of having something to do with it, but they denied it,
and even let her return to the Bridger section to see for herself. He wasn’t
there, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up in the future, or hell, the
past.
Today is not a good day, though. All of her leads have dried up. She has no
one left to talk to, no test left to try. He could be lost forever. It’s
worse than it was when she was the one trapped on the outpost planet. She
knew where she was, and she knew where Arqut was. The uncertainty; what
could she do to remedy that? She’s supposed to be discussing her problems
with her therapist at the moment, but instead, she’s retching into the
toilet in her stateroom.
“How are you doing, Tinaya?” Most people would not be able to just
start talking to her like that without waiting for Tinaya to answer first,
but some people have special communications privileges, such as medical
staff.
Tinaya spits into the bowl. “I’m fine.”
“Come back, I need to talk,” Dr. Lebeau requests. That’s right,
another Lebeau. Tinaya would normally use the Executive Psychologist for her
personal needs, but Sabine introduced her to her sister in order to enact a
sort of loophole. While any therapist would respect patient confidentiality,
the EP is obligated to report meeting times to the ship’s council, so they
can make sure their captain isn’t isn’t showing signs of not being able to
handle this job. A private therapist, on the other hand, is under no such
obligation. Tinaya can talk to her all she wants, and do so at their joint
convenience. Plus, Virve Lebeau already knows many secrets that not even the
EP does.
“I’m a little busy.” She spits again.
“I can tell. I can help.”
“Fine, one second.” Tinaya flushes the toilet, and washes her face. Then she
teleports back to Dr. Lebeau’s office. “What is it?”
Dr. Lebeau is holding her watch between her thumb and index finger.
“It’s your watch. Okay, are you scolding me for wasting your time? I’m
sorry, next time I’ll use your bathroom, and talk to you about my
feelings in between forcing last night’s dinner out of my stomach.”
“No, it’s not about that, Captain.” Dr. Lebeau walks forward, and drapes the
watch over her opposite backhand, as if presenting it as a prize for a
gameshow. “See these little dots under here?”
Tinaya is confused. “Uh, yeah, those are for blood tests. They spring
microneedles to take samples on the fly. Why are you asking me about them?”
“These are necessary when the user doesn’t have any sort of medical implant
that could test twenty-four-seven,” Dr. Lebeau goes on. “Obviously, though,
you can’t program the watch to poke you whenever it wants. You have to tell
it to do it. You have to decide when you’re ready for an update.”
“Are you saying that I have a virus, and I should test myself for it?” She’s
still so confused. “Okay, I’ll find out. I think it’s just acid reflux,
though. Stress-induced, I’m sure; we can talk about that, if you want.”
“Not a virus. I think you’re pregnant.”
Tinaya chuckles. Then she does it again, but louder. She manages to stop at
that, though. “What? I can’t be pregnant, I’m in my sixties!”
“Did you ever go through menopause?” Dr. Lebeau questions.
“I think so.” This isn’t a dumb answer. Thanks to advances in medical
science over the centuries, menopause still happens for those who were ever
biologically capable of birthing young, but it’s far less pronounced than it
was for ancient humans. The same is true for pregnancy and the menstrual
cycle as a whole. These conditions are not nearly as uncomfortable as they
were back in the day. It’s not that uncommon for people who lived
particularly physically rough lives to not even notice that menopause has
come and gone for them. If they’ve ever been on advanced chemical or
implantable birth control too, it’s really easy to lose track of the cycle
due to persistent interference in the body’s natural scheduling.
Dr. Lebeau raises her eyebrows, and looks down at Tinaya’s own watch.
“Y...you want me to test right now? Fine.” She swipes the screen to the
appropriate menu, and releases the microneedles. Once it’s done, she
self-assuredly bobbles her head a little bit while they wait for the
results. After the beep, she takes one look at it, and shows it to the
doctor. “See? Look. Pregnant. Pregnant? Fuck.”
“Congratulations,” Dr. Lebeau says to her, rather unconvincingly, one might
add.
“I can’t be pregnant.”
“You can. You receive some of the best medical care in the galaxy. Many
don’t experience the change until their seventies. You don’t read
that in the reports.”
“Virve, I can’t be pregnant. The Captain. Can’t. Be pregnant!”
“There’s no law that says a sitting captain can’t be pregnant. It’s just
never happened before,” Dr. Lebeau reminds her.
“For good reason. It splits attention. I must be fully committed to the
operations of this vessel, and the safety of its crew and passengers. That
is literally my only job.”
“If that’s how you feel about it—”
“I can’t have an abortion either. It’s not illegal, of course, but
it’s...unbecoming.”
“Sounds like you’re in a tough spot. I can help you through it, but you have
to be willing to explore all options. And you have to be patient, with me,
and yourself.”
“Those are my only two options. I mean, what the hell else am I gonna do?”
She starts to pace the room. “And yeah, I know, I could put it up for
adoption, but that would be scandalous too. That kid will grow up knowing
that its mother was just too busy for it, not that she was genuinely
incapable of caring for a child. Adoption doesn’t hardly ever happen here,
because nobody dies before they’re old! And they don’t have kids after they
become old, because that’s nuts! I mean, if Arqut were here, maybe we
could make it work together. He could take care of the baby, and even when
I’m there, I would be able to teleport at a moment’s notice when duty calls,
and I could always argue that that’s an option when anyone tries to
criticize me for going through with the pregnancy. But is that enough
anyway? Because it’s not just about the perception that my priorities
are split. It’s about them actually being split. How can I look out for
everyone on the ship, when there are only two people I truly care about?
Then again, I am the only Captain who has ever been married at all, so
that’s always been a lingering criticism, even though I’ve never heard
anyone say that to me, I’m sure that plenty of people feel that way. And now
he’s missing, and I can’t even tell anyone about it. I have to claim that
he’s on a new mission. But then once people find out that I’m captaining for
two, they’re gonna wonder why the father of my child hasn’t come back for
his family. Then some are gonna realize the possibility that he’s not the
father at all, and there will be a cheating scandal that isn’t even true,
but do you think people even care about the truth anymore? That’s all we’ve
been talking about; perception, and there’s nothing I can do about that. And
either way, this whole thing is gonna get people wondering where Arqut has
been this whole time, and they’ll start asking questions, and they’ll all
find out that he’s missing, and that we’re been course correcting for
decades, and that Verdemus wasn’t destroyed, and why aren’t you trying to
call me down!”
“I think you need this outburst,” Dr. Lebeau explains. “It sounds
cathartic.”
“Well...” She starts, prepared to argue. “I think you’re right, I appreciate
it.”
“Captain?” Tinaya’s First Lieutenant asks through her watch.
“What is it, Faiyaz?”
“It’s Arqut. He’s back.”
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