A Message From the Oreanians
His love for his ship notwithstanding, Chipman couldn’t get the events of the other night completely out of his mind. Though he had made a joke about it on the way out of her quarters, he was angry. While they were quarreling before she kicked him out, Joanni had said, “Those neural pathways are broken down, there’s weeds poking through the macadam. How would you even know how to function?” He had said, “You're wrong. I know how to do what I want to do when I want to do it.”
The background music stopped and an announcement rang through the hall asking everyone to be seated. Joanni was placed at the head table, to the right of the president of ISEA, Salek Dusqk, from the planet Sentivar IV. On her other side was First Deputy Ambassador Lee. Captain Chipman was seated on the other side, one person removed from Dusqk; chief scientist for the mission, Es Molo, was on his right and Gillis on his left.
President Dusqk rose to welcome all present to the official start of Operation Tarrash. First to speak: Captain Thomas Chipman, commander of the great galaxyship, the ISS Eridanus. Chipman was a relaxed speaker, comfortably outlining to those assembled the route his ship would take to carry these diplomats, scientists, officials, and Ms. Neiswender to Oreana. Ambassador Gillis was next, introducing his first and second deputies, who stood and bowed in turn. He was not as polished a speaker as one would imagine a diplomat should be, but nevertheless impressed his audience with his conviction of the need for and importance of a mutual cooperation treaty between ISEA’s planetary governments and the governing body of Oreana.
The president then introduced the individual who was the reason—in reality, if not so stated—they were all there: Joanni Neiswender, daughter of the late Maurice Neiswender, research engineer aboard the ISS Hyperion for the Seridan Operation. His sacrifice in service to ISEA was noted, but not the accident that killed him or its cause. Duskq extolled the quest for knowledge evident in both father and daughter: the father with the unknowns of space; the daughter with the music of her clesig.
Next on the agenda was what everyone was waiting for: the reading of the computer translation of the message sent by the Oreanians. The lights in the hall dimmed slightly as Dusqk motioned for it to be played.
Greetings to our valiant messenger and member planets of the organization known as ISEA. We wish you well and safe journey on your road to returning our eighth jewel of the Eight of the Origins to its home. We await the presence of the prophesied, the celestial one being tasked with its returning. A scholar of Oreana and courageous emissary. We will be together and peaceful.
There was no mention made of the proposed treaty. The message ended with a request for additional recordings of Joanni performing with their clesig. ISEA had sent them several scientific and cultural messages, but the Oreanians weren’t terribly interested in these offerings. Joanni’s after dinner performance, therefore, would be recorded, then transmitted out into far space to them. As everyone stood with raised glasses to toast the success of the mission, many wondered to themselves about this planet’s obsession with this harp player; most had previously viewed her as a gimmick, just the inconvenient girl they had to bring along to grease the wheels.
Later, after dinner, as the captain watched Joanni perform on her clesig, she appeared to him to have entered another world, a place where he could not or would not enter; one in which he was not needed. Was he seeing something that wasn’t there? A light seemed to have been lit inside her tonight, in fact, it was lit whenever she connected with the Oreanians. The thought struck him that she might wish to remain on Oreana after the mission was completed. Did he have the right to take all this away from her? The answer could haunt him for years to come. Which way did he want it to haunt him, though? Which way was more bearable?
Joanni’s junior diplomat escort had already secured an after-dinner dance earlier in the evening. He was a go-getter and would likely go far. Chipman had overheard his request and was irritated by his initiative. However, Mr. Early Bird had to wait his turn. Following protocol, Joanni danced first with President Dusqk, and then awkwardly with Gillis, and then even more awkwardly with Second Deputy Palladin. Joanni tried to make small talk with Palladin, but no words came into her head. Chipman did not dance, which was noticed by many and remarked on by Mrs. Gillis. “Doesn’t the captain dance? Odd.”
He had excused himself and was standing outside on the patio in the shadows. At that moment he had an ancestral desire to light up a cigarette. Eventually, many of the attendees strolled outside to escape the hot air inside. Chipman heard her voice—he could not escape. She was kneeling down on the other side of the courtyard talking to two small girls who stood stock still enthralled by her. To his mind, she retained the otherworldly spirituality she had wrapped around herself earlier this evening when performing, and he felt she had experienced a metamorphosis tonight that took her away from him; whether she could return to him or not, he didn’t know.
Straightening back up, Joanni saw Chipman standing by himself by the bushes beyond the light shining out from the inside hall. She made her excuses to the girls’ parents and walked over to him. Her dress, as usual, was tight around her waist, and, as always when she played her clesig, her arms were bare. He tried being aloof, but felt the warmth of his feelings for her spreading through him. He was too indulgent. “Big night for you. How’s being in the spotlight for a change?” he asked her.
“It’s all right for one night, but I’m not that comfortable with it. I feel it curtails my freedom of movement.” In reply to his questioning look, she explained, “When you’re a nobody, you’re free just to go here and there,” she made a wavy hand gesture, “with nobody questioning you. No responsibilities.” Then more pointedly, “No weight of five hundred plus lives on your shoulders.” She paused, then looked directly at him. “I hope you understand how much I admire the way you carry that burden.” The captain gave her a look for which many a woman would have sacrificed a lot. “This is an exciting but dangerous mission,” she continued. “I feel safe with you as my captain.”
Her confidence in his abilities broke down his remaining defenses. “You know I’m here for anything you want. I’ll do anything . . . anything you need.”
Protocol Officer Matheson stuck his head out the door of the building and motioned to her. “You’re needed inside,” he called to her.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she called back.
She turned back to Tom. “What do you want?” she asked him. She was deeply affected by his confession; she understood the true value of it.
“Come back out and dance with me.”
“I will.”
“Is that a promise?”
“It is.” She bowed her head and smiled to herself. Chipman put a finger under her chin and raised her gaze to him.
“What?”
“You’re finally going to allow yourself . . . possible room for growth; let yourself not be lonely.”
“They’re waiting for you,” he said.
Later that evening she did return to him and they danced in the deep shadows at the side of the starbase structure in that happy ephemeral state of first surrender. He told her that when he first saw her step off the transporter, the thought sprung into his mind that, if he were a caveman, he would take this woman and she would cook and bear his children and he would protect her. “But I shook it off,” he said, and they both laughed. She told him that her thought when she first saw him was that standing there in front of her was her man, and he would be so for evermore, even if she never saw him again, even if a million years would pass and all the tides of time. The gala guests walking to and fro who cared to look upon these two lovers holding each other in the semi-darkness might have been reminded with a bittersweet feeling that they, too, had once been in a similar state of happiness until they were pulled apart by a world of harsh forces.
The Eridanus’ captain and ISEA’s star emissary were noticed as well by Dr. Pissario and Brennan as the two women walked out onto the patio, the light shimmering over their silvery gowns with each step they took. They both looked in the lovers’ direction, at Tom and Joanni dancing in their private world, then back at each other.
“How do you think M&M are enjoying the evening?” Brennan asked Dr. Pissario.
“Fine dining on liver and crow, I imagine,” the doctor replied.
Brennan smiled at that answer as she raised her martini glass to her lips.
Joanni threw back her head as she swayed in unison with her captain, secure in her partner’s support. He swung her from side to side, abandoning all inhibition, then pulled her back close to him so that their foreheads pressed together. He let Joanni have the last word before they headed off for the stars, “We’ll be happy and unhappy, but nobody will be happier than us when we’re happy.”
Image: Cavemen, crows, and all the tides of time. Source: “Egret in Snow,” Ohara Koson, 1925–1936. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.