Following Your Footsteps
The Eridanus Library and Language and Linguistics Lab were housed on the deck above the VIP/diplomatic quarters, so it was a short jog back and forth between levels, although Joanni often followed long convoluted routes to arrive there—in the spirit of carrying out doctor’s orders. She became good friends with Ruthie McKaye and her staff, including the Assistant Librarian, a young man called Matt Thornby. The bank of cubicles in the back of the library became her second home. Her mornings were spent there, reading and researching, broken up with coffee breaks full of gossip with the staff, the camaraderie adjourned and then reconvened at lunch in the canteen before everyone went their separate ways for the afternoon.
Joanni was dumping her trash and putting her tray on the rack next to the food bay after one such lunch, leaving her colleagues to finish their gabfest at their table, when she saw Captain Chipman appear in the canteen door frame. Although they used the canteen regularly, officers often ate in one of the dining rooms or at their post, so it was a little unexpected to see him there. The captain motioned her into the corridor.
“You’ve had your lunch; you’re free now?” he asked her.
“Yes. What can I do for you, Captain.”
“Come to my quarters, I want to discuss something with you.”
Joanni wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. She remembered his seeming irritation with her unauthorized meandering through the ship’s corridors. “Have I done something wrong?”
Chipman leaned down, putting his mouth closer to her ear. “No, I wanted to tell you I have a copy of the Command report on Commander Nelson and your father.”
Joanni stared at him. “How?”
“Just suffice it to say that I have.”
She stared at him a little longer. “May I see it?”
“That’s why I got it.”
Joanni could not stand still upon receipt of this news. She waved both hands in front of her face in an uncharacteristic girlish manner, and when that was not enough, bounced lightly on the tips of her toes. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it! See, everyone’s right, you are the best captain.”
“Just one thing—this has to be strictly between you and me.”
“Of course.”
They walked in silence down the corridor toward the lift. By the time they reached the captain’s quarters, the elation that had so quickly engulfed Joanni had escaped her just as swiftly. She had for so long been encased in her anger and frustration about her father, had loved him in the sorrowful atmosphere of his unexplained absence, that the shattering of this self-constructed fortress unnerved her, exposed her to the unknown. Foregoing the formalities, Chipman pulled up a chair next to his in front of his data pad on his desk. Joanni stayed put, leaning back against the door, hesitant, her hands behind her back. “Well, of course, now I don’t want to see it,” she said, almost in a whisper. “I’m afraid to know. Was he a spy . . . or worse? Is that why they wouldn’t release it?” She looked at her captain. “Have you read it? Is it horrible, something I don’t want to know?”
“No, no,” he said softly. “Nothing like that.”
“Why did you do this?” she asked again.
“I thought you had a right to know. Sit down and take a look, then close the book on it. It will be deleted in a few hours.”
Joanni sat down next to Chipman; they both looked at the screen of his data pad. After several keystrokes, he spoke into his watch, bringing up DESM File #187945ANNDR, and turned to her. “Explorers explore the unknown; not everything can be known, but you can know a little more.” Then he swiveled on his chair away from her and spoke again into his watch. The document opened on the screen in front of them. Again, he used his voice control to scroll through several introductory pages, then stopped at a page with a photo of eight or so people grouped around a picnic table.
“Oh, I have this photo,” Joanni said. “It’s the Regenerative Fuel Group; see, there’s my father. I just don’t have any of the citation,” she said, pointing at the caption below the photograph. “I know this guy. And him.” The captain, after looking at her and receiving a nod, went on to the next page which contained two photos: the top one, Commander Wilfred Nelson; the bottom, Maurice Neiswender.
“Oh! Oh! I’ve never seen this before; it’s my father,” she exclaimed. She became visibly upset. “I’ve never seen this photo before.” She ran her fingertips lightly down the screen, over his face. “He looks so young.”
She turned toward Chipman. Their faces were very close, and he could see the tears starting in her eyes, her emotion; he realized how pretty she was up close, how fetching. “Ready to read the findings?” She nodded and he spoke again into his watch to turn the page. He sat watching her as she read through it—by the time she took, evidently several times. He could see that she was shaken and an urge to protect her surged through him. He began questioning his judgment in showing it to her. Perhaps knowing is not better.
Joanni finally sat back and said, “A defective fuel clamp, a mechanical breakdown. He would be here today if not for that.”
“They were experimenting with small craft warp speed, next to impossible. It might be connected to that or not, I’m not certain.” Joanni said nothing. “I’m sorry,” Chipman continued, “they were trying to stretch the boundaries of our knowledge, experiment with SCWSs, which we still don’t have a handle on. But perhaps I shouldn’t have shown you this; perhaps you didn’t want to know.”
“No, no, it’s better to know, to close the book on it, as you said.” She was silent for a spell.
“Will you tell your mother? You can’t tell her how you know.”
“I’ll post to my sister; she’ll know better what to do.” She was silent again, then turned to Chipman. “I’m proud of him. He was an explorer—like you.”
“Like you. You’re following in his footsteps. Going where he wanted to.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re an explorer, Miss Neiswender.”
“Joanni, please.”
“You are an explorer, Joanni.” Her name sounded soft and rich as he spoke it. “You’re going to Oreana. Welcome to the club.”
The power of this revelation manifested itself in Joanni’s expression; relief flushed across her face, as if she had been holding her breath and was now allowed to let go. Relief that someone understood her and she was not just silly, as she sometimes believed. That her ties to her father had not exploded in time and space, but remained tightly linked through their desires and aspirations. Her respect for Captain Chipman for bringing her to these realizations grew even larger, even deeper, as she began to understand that this captain would take care of her as he took care of all his crew, that he would take up her cause, at some risk; that he would take action when necessary. The captain sensed her thoughts, and, from the expression on her face, understood the gift he had just given her.
“I don’t know exactly what I wanted to find out, but thank you so much for doing this for me, for my family,” she said to him. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am, how much I respect the way you take care of your crew . . . your focus on your mission, your ship.”
For the second time since Joanni boarded the Eridanus bound for Oreana, Captain Chipman felt he was falling in love with her, but this time with a deeper attraction to her nature rather than to her charm. He had wanted to take her in his arms while they were sitting there side by side, to reassure her, but restrained himself so as not to take advantage of her current vulnerability. Instead he had spoken unguardedly from his heart.
“You’re not going to get in trouble for this are you, Captain?”
“Call me Tom. Not unless you broadcast it.”
She thought about this. “Are you on duty now?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call you Tom when you’re off duty, captain when you’re on. I think that would be most proper.” He smiled at this, at his most charming. She became nervous at the growing closeness and stood up to leave. “Again, I can’t thank you enough.” Chipman stood up as she turned to go. Unsure of how to take her leave—a salute would be wrong and shaking his hand would seem too formal—she gave a ridiculous half-wave while making a half-curtsey before walking out the door, leaving the captain in a stew of thoughts and emotions.
Image: Explorers of fantastic distances. Source: Detail from Planetary System chart in Levi Walter Yaggy’s Geographical Maps and Charts, 1887. In The Public Domain Review. Edited by J. Weigley.