Irrational Fears and Fabulous Backstories
As decided upon the night before, Joanni and Lt. McKaye, Librarian and Head of Language and Linguistics, met for lunch in the Deck 5 Rec Room canteen. They sat at a small table for two discussing Joanni’s research and educational plans going forward. “You can set up a dedicated section in the library to work, use the language lab, and not be stuck in your quarters all day,” Lt. McKaye suggested. Joanni shuddered at the thought of being confined to her windowless quarters for the entire mission. The captain and Engineer Matulis came in midway through the women’s lunch and sat at a table nearby; Dr. Pissario joined the two men having coffee a few minutes later. Both parties took notice of each other’s presence with brief nods of the heads and slight smiles.
Lt. McKaye got up, took care of their two lunch trays, and then took her leave, returning to the ship’s library to relieve the ensign on duty. This left Joanni alone at her table, a little at a loss and slightly self-conscious. The most logical course of action was, of course, to leave, but she had nowhere to go. Instead, she rose from her seat without fully standing straight up and grabbed the deck of playing cards lying on the table in front of her, returning to her seat, then absentmindedly shuffling the cards. She put the deck down and then picked it up and shuffled again. Chipman made his excuses to Matulis and Pissario and came over to her.
“Everything going well? You’re doing all right?” he asked.
Joanni motioned him to sit down and join her. “Very well. Everyone’s friendly, and helpful . . .” She paused, thinking of the long road that brought her to this point.
“But . . .”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that I feel a little de trop, maybe? I don’t know; I’m not part of the crew, not part of the diplomatic corps. I don’t have any real job to do.”
”Not learn Oreanian? And you are part of the diplomatic side of the mission, no?”
”Ha, ask them.”
Chipman looked at her. He was beginning to understand there was an entire library of backstories with this woman, and he was a naturally curious man. “It took some courage to come on this mission.”
Joanni appreciated the warmth of his words. “I am curious to see where the clesig came from, to see this whole other alien world that no one knows anything about. What will it be like? Completely unknown.”
“Some things are known.”
“Well, some things. One positive thing: right from the start, I was reassured by the Eridanus’ reputation as one of the great galaxyships, and the reputation of its captain.” She added, “And, of course, its crew.”
Chipman didn’t know what to make of this. “And what reputation is that?”
“Of its captain? Oh, as one of the best captains in ISEA, a brilliant tactician, well respected by his crew. And, that’s true; I’ve only had to be on this ship one day to understand the respect your crew holds you in.” All this was said very casually on her part, as if it were a given.
Chipman was suspicious of this effusive praise. What was her game with this flattery? Though he wouldn’t necessarily refute what she had said (he had a healthy appreciation of his own abilities), he had heard this fawning many times before—from those currying favor, and most particularly from women seeking the status of having garnered a captain’s attention. The degree of sincerity in the praise he received ran the gamut from the mindlessly superficial to the utterly cynical. But this one seemed to expect him to take her remarks at face value and assume she was sincere.
“Well,” he said with a tinge of real modesty, “I think you might be confusing respect with chain of command.”
“No, I don’t mean administrative, organizational respect,” Joanni said. She might as well have said, by her tone, No, I’m not an idiot. “I mean the kind of respect that needs to be earned.”
The captain would have dearly liked her to elaborate on how she could discern this in a day, but felt it might appear narcissistic, so instead he took the deck of cards she had been fiddling with from her hands and asked, “Card shark?”
“Ha, ha. No. But I’m quite good at calliope,” she said without much modesty. “I would almost always win, beat everybody, when I was touring with Jackie, with Jack Sanour.”
Chipman took this as a challenge. “Care to play a few hands?” He started to shuffle the cards.
“Don’t you have to get back on duty on the bridge?”
“This won’t take long.”
The mental sparring between them as they began a round of calliope (a game that in strategy fell somewhere between war and poker) gave rise to a sexual energy, previously subliminal, that made a physical response to the repartee more and more tantalizing: she wanted to smack him at times; he wanted to kiss her and gauge her response. With Joanni, it was the combination of the captain’s physical strength and mental control contrasted with his expressiveness and humor that she found compelling, so much so that she could hardly pull her eyes away from him and concentrate on her cards. On Chipman’s part, he found Joanni’s eyes quite beautiful and she had a soft kindness to her, perhaps more so than other women, yet he was always aware of her sharp mind. He could see the wheels turning. This growing attraction snaked up through the air like smoke and caught the attention of Matulis and Pissario at the adjacent table.
“You know, your reputation precedes you in another way as well.” Joanni said. I was told other stuff about you. Warned, actually.”
“Other stuff such as?” the captain asked, dealing out the cards.
“Your history with women.” Chipman stopped dealing, and looked at her questioningly. What did she know? “I was told that many beautiful women have tried to capture your heart,” she continued, “but your heart belongs to your ship.” The captain remained silent. Joanni shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Isn’t that really the truth for all captains?” She raised her eyes from her cards to look around the room. “It’s a beautiful ship.”
“They want a captain of a galaxyship. I give them a captain.” He continued, “Your reputation precedes you too. I seem to recall Ambassador Gillis’ description of you was, to put it delicately, ‘a pain in the butt’.”
Joanni’s annoyance at this last remark caused her to straighten up her back and speak very formally. “I respectfully request that you withhold judgment until you’ve dealt with Gillis, sir, and then tell me who’s the pain in the butt.” She drew their attention back to playing cards. They threw down cards, picked up cards, studied their hands. Joanni held her hands up to her face so only her eyes were visible above her cards, the resulting effect similar to her wearing a veil.
“You have nice eyes, Ms. Neiswender, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I don’t mind you saying so, but stop trying to distract me.” They laid down and drew, arranging their cards in their hands.
“I don’t need to use distraction to win, Ms. Neiswender.”
Eventually, Joanni thought that she had got him; she thought she had won and was about to crow, but she was not as strategic as she liked to think, as her playing was turning haphazard under the captain’s gaze. They both laid down their cards. The captain had prevailed.
“Well played, Captain,” she grudgingly conceded. “I must admit, I don’t often lose.”
Chipman got up and placed his fingertips on the table, leaned toward her and said, quietly but quite confidently, “You might have flown in space before, Ms. Neiswender, but you’re on a galaxyship now.” He turned on his heel and left the room, uneasy at feeling a little too excited in his victory and at her shocked, wide-eyed expression at his jibe.
None of this was lost on Dr. Pissario. She came over to Joanni, after discreetly waiting a few moments for the young space traveler to regain her equilibrium. “Whenever you’re ready for that little talk.”
“Now’s as good a time as any.” And the two of them left.
“When did you first experience these bouts of claustrophobia?” They were now sitting in the doctor’s office in sickbay.
“I guess when I was in my late teens. I went through some desensitization/feedback stuff and I can manage it. I mean I’m not going to venture into a cave, but this is an enormous ship. I don’t want to take drugs. It never flares up anymore unless I’m under stress.”
“This mission will be stressful.”
“Yes, but good and bad stress. The Eridanus is big; everyone is accommodating. I just wish there were more windows. It’s ironic to feel boxed in while hurtling through the vast emptiness of space, I suppose. I just want to view the horizon. There are no horizons.”
Dr. Pissario had the feeling that Joanni was anxious to play down this affliction, that there was a backstory to it. “Did you volunteer to go on this mission, and ISEA overlooked your claustrophobia?”
“No, I was recruited.”
“Did they pressure you into accepting, knowing what they knew? Did they pressure you to agree to such a long mission to increase their chances of gaining the Oreanian’s cooperation?”
“That’s your reading of it, not mine.”
The doctor was fairly certain there had been pressure applied, but dropped it for now. She suggested breathing/relaxation techniques, and told Joanni to walk along the corridors when she felt cooped up, and to periodically put her hand on the wall and then take it off to feel grounded and in control. If her phobia became acute, she should come down to sickbay and they would give her something.
Joanni thanked her and tried once more to reassure. “I’m fine, Liz. I can manage it. I told you, it’s not a big deal. It just seems sometimes like a very long time not to see outside, or if you can see outside, to not know which way is up, which way is down. But everything is weighing costs and benefits, isn’t it, and the benefits in this case are mighty grand. Will I always be happy, happy, happy? No, but who is? We all yearn for something—it keeps us going. Some yearn for love, some fame or power. I yearn for the release I get from physical nature. Wet grass, high blue skies, evenings under the moonlight. When’s the last time your hands got sticky from the sap of a pine tree,” she asked, turning to face Dr. Pissario. “When’s the last time you got wet from the rain?”
Image: Claustrophobic and waiting for rain. Source: Detail from Harry Clarke’s illustration for Edgar Allan Poe's story “The Premature Burial" in Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 1919. Public Domain. Edited by J. Weigley.