“Adams?”
“Yes Roy?”
“Take us out of the station and Hyper Travel to Uranus. Put us into orbit and then position us inside the outer ring.”
“No problem Roy.”
The ship started to leave the bay. Within ten minutes we were inside the ring drifting with all the bits of ice. I stood up and turned towards Claire. She walked over to me and put her arms around my waist.
“Adams?”
“Yes Roy?”
“Open the outer hatch. When the link corridor has decompressed, close the hatch and recompress the corridor.”
“OK Roy. Hatch opening.”
We watch the view towards the back of the cockpit and saw the small pieces of John’s smashed computer ejected from the ship into the ice of the outer ring joining the millions of small ice particles on their endless orbit of the planet.
“Stardust we start, Stardust we end. But the memories we become live on with the ones you love and fade with the passage of time. Stardust we end.”
Claire held me tighter “That was a Maddison James poem. I studied some of his work as part of my English degree.”
“My mum read it out at my dad’s funeral. I didn’t really understand it at the time but I learnt it off by heart and I think I get it now. I think seeing John’s smashed computer has opened up all the old raw emotions of my father’s death.”
“I’m sorry Roy.”
“You don’t need to be sorry Claire. There is one thing that’s put all this in perspective.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”
“Oh,” she said with disappointment.
“Life’s too short not to take chances so here goes. I’ve fallen in love with you and I can’t stop thinking about you. I try to spend every minute of every day with you and I’m so lost without you. If you only want a friend then I can’t do that. It’s hurting me inside not being able to hold you and tell you I love you.”
“Oh Roy.” She put her hand round the back of my head and pulled me towards her and for the first time we kissed. A minute later she added “Why didn’t you tell me sooner instead of wasting all this time? I’ve been dying to hear you say something like that.”
“You’re a very beautiful woman and I’m a very ordinary man. I thought there wouldn’t be a hope in hell of your liking me and I feared rejection. At least if I was your friend I would get to spend time everyday with you, but I decided that wouldn’t be enough.”
“You’re such an idiot,” she giggled.
“I know,” and we kissed again.
“Please,” interrupted Adams, “get a room. I’m going to barf.”
Chapter 8 – Exploration Station
We arrived back at the station in time for us to have lunch at the Pilot’s Bar. Russell made a few sandwiches for us and we sat at one of the low tables.
“Do you know when you’re going to leave for Earth?”
“I thought I’d go this afternoon. I haven’t been back to Earth for about a year and I’ve been promising to visit my mum for ages but there always seems to be something that crops up that stops me from going.”
“I’m really going to miss you. It’s typical that we finally get together and you’ve got to leave.”
“Well that’s your fault.”
“How?”
“You should have said something earlier. Couldn’t you tell that I really liked you?”
“I was hoping that you did but I have a lack of experience with women.”
“Apart from Bridget the Midget.”
“Yes, apart from her and to be honest that wasn’t a long relationship. She was well over six feet tall and I’m only five foot ten so we looked like a comedy duo. She liked horses and playing the flute, I liked computers and lager. We lasted a total of three months.”
“What happened in the end?”
“I think we got bored of each other. The relationship slowly fizzled out until we didn’t bother getting in touch with each other. We never really finished the relationship by telling each other it was over, we eventually stopped communicating and went our separate ways.”
“So technically you’re still going out with her and two-timing me?”
“Oh God no, I hope you don’t think that. This happened about ten years ago.”
“I’m only joking don’t panic so much.”
“What about you? You must have had a string of men falling at your feet begging to go out with you?”
“It’s not quite like that Roy. I had a couple of boyfriends in school but after I left there never seemed to be time. Most of my time was spent trying to earn money doing crappy cleaning jobs and when I started my Open University degree the rest of my time was taken up with my course work. After being recruited by Simon I came to the station. The men here are really nice people to work with, but they didn’t appeal to me as they tend to be unbelievably geeky and not my type. Apart from Gary I’ve never mixed with the support staff or ground crews and I’m not Gary’s type. You are the first person that I found attractive because you’re not like the other pilots.”
“So you don’t think I’m a geek?”
“You are a geek but it’s very well hidden behind pizza, computer games and humour.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Yes Roy. I guess I’m trying to say I’m really going to miss you too because I’ve had the most wonderful few weeks of my life with you. When are you going to tell your mother you have a girlfriend?”
“Oh God, you do realise she will go on and on about getting married and having children.”
“She’s funny Roy. Well, she always makes me laugh when she phones. It still makes me chuckle when she was asking if Adams was my boyfriend.”
“Hey, don’t forget I’m still here,” said Adams, “I could get a girlfriend if I wanted one.”
I winked at Claire “I’ll hide the toaster when I get home as I hear she’s easily turned on and a bit of hot stuff.”
“Maybe you’d better hide the deep fat fryer as well,” said Claire.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you’d end up with silicon chips if they mated.”
“OK, OK” said Adams “This has got to stop, these are the worst jokes I’ve ever heard. If you two get any cheesier you’ll end up smelling like Roy’s socks. This is computer bullying and it’s not funny.”
“I’m sorry Adams. Where were we Claire? Oh yes. What time are you leaving today?”
Claire looked at her watch “It’s about quarter to one GMT so I think I’ll go about two o’clock.”
“I’ll come over to the shuttle bay to wave you off.”
“I’m going to take my ship because the shuttle won’t be back by then. Meet me at my ship at two o’clock in bay seventeen.”
“OK.”
We took our plates back to the bar for Russell and left holding hands. I walked Claire back to her apartment and gave her a kiss before she entered it. I didn’t want to stop her from getting ready to leave so I took a walk back to Gary’s Salon. Gary was sat drinking coffee and reading a magazine.
“Hi Gary.”
“Hi Roy, I heard about the business with John D’Eath. I couldn’t believe it. There are a lot of shocked people on the station.”
“I bet. I’ve never met anybody as devious as Doctor Death.”
“Do you want to meet tonight for a pizza at Sam’s Bar? I hear Claire is heading home.”
“Yes that would be great. What time.”
“Six o’clock and don’t be late.”
“OK. By the way I asked Claire out.”
“Oh my God, you finally grew a pair. It’s about bloody time. I’m not even going to ask you what she said because I know she’ll have said yes. Congratulations.”
“Thanks Gary.”
I stayed in Gary’s Salon and chatted about the events of the morning. Gary was shocked at how Doctor Death had tried to blame me for beating him up and smashing h
is computer. At quarter to two I left the salon and made my way over to bay seventeen in the hangars. When I arrived Claire was waiting by her ship.
“What are you going to do while I’m gone Roy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you visit your mum?”
“No I want to stay here on the station. At the moment I want to remain a pilot but maybe Simon’s right and maybe after a week I will change my mind.”
“Do you really think that?”
“No I don’t. I think I’ve got too much to lose if I gave it all up. I don’t think one mad man will make me want to leave and I certainly don’t want to leave while you’re still here.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I going to miss you too but it’s not that long really. When are you coming back?”
“Sunday.”
“Not including today that’s only six days, five if you discount Sunday.”
“That’s a great way of looking at it. I love you Roy.”
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I realise beauty is only skin deep but you also make me feel whole and I want to spend every minute with you. I love you very much too.”
We kissed for several minutes and then I gently pushed her back “Go before I hold you and make you stay.”
“OK. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Bye Claire,” added Adams and she turned to walk around to the other side of her ship to where the entrance was. I stayed to watch and wave her off. Although I was looking at a blank hull I knew she would be able to see me wave her off. As the ship rose and moved towards the plasma screen there was no engine sound or noise. It was the first time I’d seen a ship depart from the bay and the silence of the ship whilst it was moving was eerie. There was background noise of items being moved, ground crews talking and the odd electrical whine of a scooter but the ship was completely silent.
After it had gone through the plasma screen in the distance I headed back to my apartment and had a sleep as it had been a very long morning. At about half five Adams woke me up and reminded me I was meeting Gary at six. When I arrived at Sam’s Bar Gary had a pizza and coke ready for me.
“Thanks Gary.”
“No problem. So what are you going to do with your time off?”
“I don’t know. It’s funny that when I first arrived here the station seemed so massive but now I’ve been here a while it seems so small.”
“Well I guess the station is massive but we occupy a small section.”
“It wasn’t always like this,” said Adams.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“The UK sector is only about three kilometres wide and about two kilometres long. This ring of the station is actually about thirty kilometres in diameter and there are two rings intersecting each other. For the first twenty years of the station’s history there were sectors but they were not enclosed so you could walk all the way around and change rings where they intersect each other. It was about one hundred and thirty years ago that the sectors were created with closed boundaries to segregate national populations.
The segmentation does tie in loosely with human history. The issues started in the late Industrial revolution period. At this point transport was getting faster courtesy of the railroads. Printing was also becoming industrialised so ideas could move as fast as people if not quicker. Darwin was printing his works on evolution as was Karl Marx with Das Kapital. There was a whole whirlpool of socio-economic and scientific revolutions. America was starting to awaken and Russia was beginning the final decay of the Tsarist regimes. Power was starting to shift away from the old aristocracy and become more diversified in society with the industrial entrepreneurs leading the way.”
“World politics affected station politics and there was the possibility of clashes on the station. See, I do listen sometimes.”
“That’s correct,” continued Adams, “although there were never any incidents the Simons could tell tension was building hence the segregation.”
“Can I fly to another sector?” I asked.
“No. I cannot get permission from the station computers to let me do that with your ship. I could fly you to another sector and land there but we would all be in very serious trouble, serious enough to get you thrown off the station.”
“And the sectors are completely blocked off from each other?” Gary asked.
“Yes,” said Adams, “well almost completely blocked.”
“What do you mean?” said Gary. “Are they blocked off or not?”
“Yes they are,” repeated Adams, “except there is a way to get from one section to another.”
“This is like getting blood from a stone,” I grumbled, “come on Adams spill the beans.”
“OK. There is a point in each sector wall that leads to the next section. It is a seamless joint that can only be opened by a computer.”
“Like you,” Gary pointed out.
“Yes, like me.”
I could feel the excitement rising inside me “So if I was to ask you to open the section door to go through to the next sector would you do it Adams?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Why do humans climb mountains?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because they’re there.”
“That’s a stupid reason.”
“No it’s not. It’s part of what makes humans human. We are born explorers and we like to find out new things. It made us discover America, and build instruments to explore things as big as the universe or as small as the atom and then gave us the curiosity to look deeper to see what they are made of and if we could split them into ever smaller pieces.”
“If you ask me,” theorised Adams, “it’s a trait of being a descendent of primates. Leaving the tribe to discover new territory and being curious about your environment.”
“OK I’m a monkey boy and I’m proud of it,” I confessed, “so as it’s my natural instinct to explore new territories, so I demand that you let me through the doors or you’ll be refusing my monkey rights.”
“All right but if we’re caught I’m going to say you forced me and made me do it.”
“That’s a truly jobsworthy piece of buck-passing Adams.”
“I want to come,” stated Gary.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re going to explore the station and I want to come too. I’ve been here a long time and nobody has ever been out of the UK sector so I want to go as well. I want to be a fellow monkey explorer.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” I decided. “Let’s meet up tomorrow at ten o’clock outside your salon.”
“If Simon finds out he’ll shit a brick,” pointed out Adams.
“Adams!” I chided “Where did you hear language like that?”
“I’ve been learning it from you, remember?”
I stayed in the bar until about ten o’clock with Gary and Adams. We had a long chat about what we thought would be in the next sector and how far we think we could walk around the ship. When I got back to my apartment I played a couple of games with Adams. I had discovered a couple of his hiding places and managed to lose not quite so badly.
Chapter 9 – Tuesday
The next morning I met Gary outside his salon at ten o’clock. As I got nearer I could see he had a very small white rucksack attached to his back. It was a big contrast with the green of his jumpsuit so it really made it stand out.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“It’s my knapsack.”
“What’s in it?”
“Nothing I think it looks good as we’re going hiking.”
“You really are gay aren’t you Gary.”
“I don’t think having a knapsack makes me gay I think it looks cool. I’ve got another one in my shop if you want one.”
“I’m good thanks Gary. Adams? Where’s the exit door?”
“There are two Roy,” said Adams, “one beyond the o
bservation area. The second one is at the end of the corridor that runs between these facilities and the support staff apartments. Which one would you like to go to?”
“I know where the observation area is so let’s go to that door.”
We walked over the green and to the corner where the pilot’s facilities met the support staff apartments. We walked down the corridor and past the observation room until we came to a dead end.
“Are we here Adams?”
“Yes Roy.”
“OK. Open sesame!”
“What?”
“Open sesame!”
“What?”
“Open the god-damn door Adams!”
A section in the wall rose vertically leaving a doorway. As I peered through I could see that the walls on the other side were not clinical white, they were terracotta and the floor was a slate grey. We stepped through the opening and the door slid back down to close the gap. A waft of oriental spices enticed our noses.
“Do you smell that Gary?”
“Yes I do. There’s star anise, cloves and a few others I can’t name, but it’s gorgeous.”
“It’s food. When we get into the new sector we need to try and blend in with the local population so we don’t look out of place or like tourists, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“What happens if somebody talks to us? Can you speak any languages?”
“Don’t worry,” said Adams, “I can translate all Earth languages for you.”
We walked down the corridor and at the end turned to face a new sector. Gary and I were stuck to the spot with stunned silence. I thought we’d see an area similar to the UK sector but with people from another country. What I was actually looking at was totally different, awash with colour and with that mouth-watering background aroma, this was stunning.
In front of us was a massive square like the UK sector with some grass but in the centre of the square was a building that dominated the scene. The architecture with the red and gold colouring made me instantly think of China. It had several floors and each floor had a short tiled roof jutting out. The corners of the roof extended outwards and were turned up slightly. It was surrounded by what looked like a market with lots of different stalls. From where we were we could see a throng of people milling around the market. The women were wearing long colourful dresses whilst the men were wearing jackets and trousers. The men’s jackets were fastened with horizontal cord-loops similar in style to a duffle coat and they wore flat straw hats. The buildings around the edges of the square also had tiled roofs, turned up edges and red and gold colours. Some of the building had paper lanterns strung up like bunting and the scene looked more like a oriental village rather than a space station billions of miles from Earth.