Occasions of Significance and Humble Beginnings
The future is predetermined. All futures are predetermined. Do we merely choose a predestined path? Or make our own path towards a unchangeable goal? If given a glimpse of a possible future, does that future then become true? Is the desire so set that what is desired is but the only true 'choice'? Is the lack of any true choice desirable?
The past can be as confused as the future. What is known, and generally accepted, as history is rarely truth. Half-truths, full-lies, polished, smoothed, and perfected memories of the way it was, of the way it should have been, could have been, wished it was, never was. It is human nature to touch up the past, to glorify one's self, family, nation; to detract one's enemies; and to altogether see things in the most pleasing light of one's beliefs, fears, and notions of right.
And though the miasmas of Past and Future may seem quite unfathomable, and perhaps a bit insane, they are as nothing compared to the ataxia of their meeting. The wild conflagration through which the Future is devoured by the Past to join and become one -that, which we in our innocence call the Present. Now...
Slowing the great mass of a ship the size of the Aesir would take much longer than the acceleration and actual travel time combined. The Arbies would run for less than one E.S. week before the month long deceleration process would begin, with the Aesir still less than half-way to its destination. The task of correctly computing the amount of Arbie run-time to the amount of decerleration time, to equal the distance that needed to be crossed belonged to a NavOp Computer roughly the size and shape of a book of matches. Without a device such as the NavOp, it would be impossible for a ship the size of the Aesir to travel any consequential distance.
There are other means of travelling great distances, all unfeasable. Phasing and Gate-Travel being the most popular. Phasing would not be possible because of the sheer unreliability of that method. Gate-Travel because of the expense and its own popularity -waiting for clearance would be nearly as time-consuming as using the Arbies.
And so the Aesir accelerated. Sailing through what was once only a black velvet curtain stuck through with pinpricks that which we, in out singular logic, have dubbed simply space.
Space wasn't the last thing on Jude's mind but it was far from his thoughts at that moment. There was a time when he craved space, like a dying man might crave forgiveness, but that seemed very long ago. The romance and glory of space had fled like so many dreams before. Now, for him, there was only reality. No wander-lust. No explorations of the imagination. No time for naive flights of fancy. Jude had lost something on his passage to adulthood. The sad part was, he realized this himself. The worst possible hell for a dreamer is to awaken. Awaken and have the vaguest impressions of his dreams.
'No time for self-pity,' Jude thought as he blinked away his morose reflections, 'been doing that too much lately. It's not my style, gotta snap out of it.'
'Time to deal with the problem at hand,' he smiled wryly at his own sad pun, and began attempting something vaguely impossible for one in his position. He commenced his endeavor to reattach his arm.
After several minutes and a few near-successful attempts, he was almost ready to give in. He could easily go back to his old arm. It would be a simple task to reconnect it to his shoulder. They fit perfectly together. They were made for each other, but......... . But he had spent so much time on his new arm. Created it himself, based off a primative design. Modified to his own specifications. Exactly everthing he wanted in an arm. He knew every millimeter of metal, every wisp of wire, every single screw. And there was the titanium blade, of course.
'Just try finding an off-the-rack arm with a ten inch dual-retractable titanium blade,' he'd thought as he had drawn up the original specs, 'not to meantion the other surprises I have planned.'
Truth be told, you could have any manner of custom body part if you had the money. And Jude didn't. It would have been almost impossible to find a skilled craftsman anyway. No one wore custom prosthetics anymore. Not when you could have a new arm grown for you. Not when you had money.
Jude had spent close to two months in his lab aboard the Aesir completely immersing himself in the creation of his new tactical prosthetic. He hadn't left the lab in three weeks. Not for any reason. Once finished he had entertained the thought that he might actually have willingly given up his birth-arm for such an appendage as this. The thought was instantly regretted as he once again slipped into the sullen state that had plagued him for the past year. The lifeless extension might prove to give a certain tactical advantage, but would the sacrifice of a true feeling, for a deadened electric tingle, be worth such an advantage?
"No," Jude said aloud. He was in the mist of avowing to himself that one day, one day, he would have the means to receive one last arm. One made of flesh and bone, not unfeeling metal. That is when he realized someone was speaking to him.
"...called?" said a familiar voice. Ama.
"Er, sorry Ama, I didn't mean to bother you. It's just I need a bit of help down here..." he replied towards the ceiling.
"Hey hey, bother? I'm just glad to hear you're still with us; you've been in the lab, what? six weeks?" Ama asked.
"Er, well..."
Jude could almost swear she smiled through the ship's communication channel, "Don't worry about it. What kind of help? Technical?"
Jude's shrug with two shoulders and only one arm went unnoticed on the audio only conversation. "Not really," he replied, " I just need a, er, hand.....for a few minutes."
"Is that all? Alright. And maybe you could attend dinner tonight to explain what you've been up to?" It was as close to an order as she would give him. How could he say no?
"For you, Ama, I'd attend hell tonight," he replied in his best mock-solemn voice. He was feeling his earlier sulk melt away. Ama could have that affect on him. They had been together since childhood, and generally treated each other as brother and sister.
"Great. See you in two hours in the Dining Hall. I have to get ready, we'll talk then."
Jude started to ask whether or not she was coming by to help him, then realized the com was closed. Instead he decided to make a few more attempts by himself. Ama wasn't the type to forget. She would be by soon and he thought it might be more impressive to surprise her with his newly completed arm already attached.
Ten minutes later he gave up. It just wasn't possible to hold the arm in the right position and make the necessary connections. Alone, he could only hold the arm in position. Jude heard the door directly behind him slide quietly open with the faintest hiss.
Concentrating intently on one of his shoulder connections, he spoke to Ama, "There you are. Well, this is what I've been working on." He tilted his forehead a bit to indicate the arm held as close to the proper position as he was able. "I just need you to hold it for a moment while I connect. You should still have plenty of time to get ready for dinner."
"Thank you," it was not Ama who replied, "but I do not require any time to ready myself for dinner. I have but the one robe and my appetite seems to have been heightened by travel."
Jude rounded slowly. The voice was not familiar, and he knew every member of the crew. The woman he saw standing in the open doorway was not the surprise it should have been. Though Jude had never seen her before, it seemed he had her image in mind. As if the manner in which she spoke, the sound of her voice, her tone, the slight stiffness of her speech, everything, fit so perfectly with the woman as a whole, that it instantly conveyed who she was; her identity formed in an audio vision. Her hair was a lighter shade of blonde than he'd pictured. Her blue eyes held less of the humble quality represented in her voice. Lips a bit too pale, turned up into a shy smile. Her one robe, silvery-white, hid more of her figure than Jude thought was really necessary.
Jude realized he had stared at her too long without speaking when she glanced away a bit nervously.
"Sorry, I'm being rude," he said. "I thought Ama was coming. I was a bit taken aback."
She smiled again, more confidently this time, "The Captain was seeing to the banquet. She asked that I might assist you. If you require someone of a technical nature, I would be most pleased to locate them for you?" She seemed earnest in her desire to help.
"That won't be necessary. I really just need someone to hold my arm, but I wouldn't want to bother a guest..."
"Oh it is no bother," so saying she stepped over to him and took his arm.
The metal appendage seemed offensive in her hands. For some reason Jude couldn't explain, the task seemed to be beneath her. Even though nothing about her said that she was averse to it, he still got that impression.
"Well, alright then. just hold it like so..." Jude showed her the correct position to hold, and it was only the matter of a few moments before the arm was supported by his modified shoulder. Once the final connection had been made there was only the affair of seating the joint to be taken care of.
"Now," said Jude, "if you could put your left hand on my shoulder, and your right on the upper part of the arm and push, I'll rotate the shoulder and we'll be done."
It was when her hands moved to change position, that Jude noticed the single eye staring at him from each palm.
As Jude rode the lift that would bring him to the level of the Dining Hall, he began to wonder about the Aesir's guests. There had been only the ship's small crew present when they had left the Zephyr, a vast colonized asteroid, some months before. Apparently they had stopped some time after Jude had gone into the lab. And Jude, having already been ensnared in the plans for his new arm, had not bothered to ask where they were going. He really must begin paying attention to things like that, he decided.
Another thought that entered his mind on the way to the Dining Hall had to do with the number of their guests. The crew, due to their small number, perferred to use the Crew's Mess which was less than one-fourth the size of the Dining Hall. Even when others had been aboard the Aesir the Crew's Mess had been utilized. Which led Jude to believe in two possibilities; either there was an unusually large number of people on the ship, or Ama was trying to impress someone.
'Or could it be both?' Jude wondered.
The lift doors slid open and Jude exited into the hallway leading to the Dining Hall. Jude walked with a casual grace down the long metal corridor and continued to wonder about the guests. It was possible that the Aesir was now orbiting one planet or another, but Jude doubted that. Now that he was not engrossed in his work he could sense the vibrations of the ships main engines, which meant they were accelerating. Obviously, they were now escorting passagers to some unknown destination. Odd, to him at least, passengers with eyes on their hands.
Of course, Jude could have done some research into the ships logs and discovered who, how many, where they were going, where they came from, and why -or at least the reason they had claimed. And it was entirely likely that Ama had placed additional information into the database. It was very possible that Jude could go to dinner knowing everything about the unusual passengers. Instead he had opted for a nice long shower.
And so it was, freshly shaven and showered and dressed smartly for company, that Jude entered the Dining Hall.
Dinner had been quite unexpected. It had been more banquet than simple dinner. Jude had entered the Dining Hall expecting some number of passengers, perhaps even the crew of the Aesir bedecked as you would expect to see the crew of a large luxury ship. He had not counted on the sheer number of passengers, though. There were perhaps fifty aboard now; more, Jude thought, than the original number they had killed to attain the Aesir.
Jude was something of a spectacle among them. The entire crew, small as it was, was apparently known to each passenger. Jude being an exception. And some air of mystery had grown out of his absence.
Jude learned that there were three distinct groups among their guests. Each had come aboard from Raijin, and though the planet was only two days behind, two of the parties had been onboard for a full week -shortly after they had entered Raijin orbit. Furthermore, there had been two previous banquets. It seemed that Ama held a banquet for each set of passengers. Perhaps she intended to seriously pursue a career in conveyance.
The first battery of passengers Jude was introduced to as he stood uncomfortably beside Ama was a team of 'explorers'. Jude was less interested in their story of rendezvous with the rest of their number on Czarina than he was in Ama's formal attire. She had acquired an old Fleet Officer's uniform and made some aesthetic adjustments. She was even wearing several ribbons and rank. It was a bit unnerving that she would display herself as such, more so because she had earned them. Her light brown her was pinned up, which Jude always thought made her face seem too thin. She noticed him taking in her appearance and winked with one crystal blue eye -the green one was surveying the next group to approach.
Jude found he liked the Westlakes much more than he had the 'explorers'. The Westlakes were a small extended family aiming for a new life on Graduess. There was Brin and his wife Sheery, Brin's Brother Timm and his wife Lind, and between them nearly a dozen children of varying ages. And, much to Jude's amusement, there was also Grandpa Westlake, who was sharp and spry despite his age, and didn't trust his sons to start a new life on Graduess without his guidance. Each was polite and very grateful to Ama, who had agreed to see them to Graduess for a discounted fare.
One of the smaller childern, perhaps no more than ten, was the first to take obvious notice of Jude's new arm.
"Whoa, mister," he said with the tactfulness of all children, "what's wrong with your hand?"
The child's parents, who incidentally were Timm and Lind, were suitably horrified. There was no way in which you could not notice the silver-hued hand jutting from Jude's right sleeve. In fact, Jude had, left-handedly, shaken hands with each of the adult Westlakes. But the adults were all horrified that it would be so blatantly pointed out by the child.
As the child's mother muttered rebukes to the child, his father attempted to apologize. Jude waved this off and motioned the child closer. He was not offended in the least. Even Ama had made no comments though his arm was clearly different from his old one.
"It's alright," he said to the still nervous Westlakes, "Would you like to see it?" he addressed the child.
The boy nodded, he was curious and had never seen a metal arm on a man before. Jude slipped his jacket off and rolled his sleeve up to his shoulder. The boy's eyes widened as the arm was uncovered. The metal hand attached to metal wrist, continued clear up to the shoulder and under Jude's shirt. Gleaming silver-hued metal, only slightly larger than its opposed companion, gave the appearance of a normal arm incased in armor. The boy reached out and traced his hand down the warm metal. An electric tingle in the nerve endings of his shoulder told Jude that he 'felt' the touch.
The boy approved, "Wow, are you a robot?" Jude assured him that he was not. "Do you have any other metal parts?" Not counting his old arm, no. "Can I have a metal arm?" This last was addressed to Lind Westlake. Not wanting to say anything that would offend her hosts she merely told the child to wait until he was older.
"Wow, you guys are great. Do any of the rest of the crew have metal parts?" The boy was still fascinated by the thought of having a metal arm as Jude pulled his jacket back on.
"Well," Ama smiled, "I have a fake eye." and she bent down to the child's level. "Want to guess which one?"
The boy thought long and hard, "The green one?" he said.
Ama smiled again, even wider this time, "That's right! How'd you know?"
"Well..," the boy said shyly, "the blue one's real pretty. I don't think they could've made one that pretty..." he trailed off.
Ama nearly blushed as she straightened. "Watch that boy," she said, "he's going to have the ladies flocking to him in a few years."
Timm chuckled proudly as he led his son away following the rest of his family.
The last group to present themselves to Jude were the most intriguing by far. They were comprised of eight Taronu and one very aged gentleman. Jude noted the young woman he had met earlier among their number. Each of the Taronii wore a similar robe made of the same material. Also, Jude noted, each woman wore a matching pair of gloves. Perhaps it was not polite to show your hand-eyes in public? Though each woman's robe held the same silvery sheen, there were different hues present. Apparently they were allowed some bit of individuality. The Taronii described themselves, as far as Jude could understand it, as a vague religious cult. Jude was not particularly interested in their half connoted talk of destiny. What he did gleen from them was that they would also disembark at Graduess.
Two things did interest him about the zealots as they took their places among the dinner table. The one he had previously met kept looking at him akwardly when she thought his attention was somewhere else. And the other had to do with the old man. Something about him was familiar. On the latter Jude had a fairly good guess lined up to resolve. As for the former it probably had something to do with the way she had left the lab. Running out abruptly, with tears streaming down her face; it was a good indicator.
If only Jude knew what it meant.
After the banquet most of the passengers retired to their quarters. The passengers, Jude had discovered, were lodged in better billets than he himself. Of course, he had chosen his own rooms for their proximity to his lab. Even with so many on board Ama had seen to it that every guest had rich accommodations. The Aesir afterall had been designed to carry several thousand.
Each passenger was now lodged in an unused officer's quarters, with the exception of Grandpa Westlake. The elder Westlake had instead chosen to bed down in the common room between the twin suites his family occupied, claiming the large comfortable couches therein were grander than anything he'd had previously.
The small remaining number of guests, not ready for sleep, adjourned to the Vista Library for companionship and conversation. The Vista, as it was referred to by the crew, was a moderate-sized domed room whose sides sloped gently to meet the floor. The gentleness of slope coupled with the comfortable accouterments gave the room a cozy, intimate feel.
Ama served refreshments to the few who had accompanied Jude and herself to the Vista. The small group was comprised of Grandpa and Brin Westlake, three of the Taronii, and the older gentleman travelling with the Taronii -who, Jude realized, was their chaperone. The rest of the crew had returned to their normal routine. Which meant Tokk was now in the Aesir's Command Center monitoring their progress, while Sharpe would now be resting and awaiting his shift to come. Vincent, who was responsible for the feast that night, would be obsessively tidying his kitchens for another few hours.
Jude politely accepted coffee from Ama, though he had not requested it, and took a sip -not enough sugar. Before he had even begun to move she was chiding him.
"I told you you're cutting back." That was the end of his unseen bid for more. Ama thought he used too much sugar, and so he did. Next she would be on his smoking. It was Jude's opinion that a person be allow some vices, but Ama was only trying to look out for him, and so he ceded this battle to her.
Jude sat in his preferred chair and Grandpa Westlake sat in another close by. Two of the Taronii occupied a couch across from them, a third took the adjacent chair while their chaperone chose a chair halfway between them and Jude. Ama and Brin were attempting to locate the rum for Grandpa Westlake.
Jude held the odd suspicion that the Taronu chaperone was weighing and measuring him with his eyes. Jude was on the brink of speaking just as the elder Westlake interrupted him.
"Odd tilt to these chairs..." and left it open for explanation or speculation, whichever should arise.
Jude forgot the chaperone for the moment, "Yes. You noticed how this room is a large dome?" He had. "This room has two purposes: firstly, it's a learning or training center. The dome is actually a large screen. You can show any manner of instructional vids, training, navigational information, pretty much anything the ship can process visually."
"Interesting," murmured a Taronu with red hair.
"And the second?" prodded Brin.
Jude held up a hand, claiming a moment, and spoke to the dome, "Tokk....velocity check."
Tokk's voice filtered through hidden speakers, sounding close. Jude was disappointed with the answer. He sighed and turned to face his guests.
"Well, I was going to demonstrate why it's called the Vista, but we're already too close to maximum velocity." Jude directed everyone's gaze back to the dome. "You see the other use of the dome is recreational. When activated, you can see outside the ship -it's as if there wasn't twenty feet of hull above us." Jude almost sounded wistful.
Ama, who had returned with rum from her personal stock, spiked Grandpa Westlake's coffee and passed it to the grateful man.
"When we first acquired the ship Jude was intent on taking this as his personal living quarters, he knew what it was as soon as he saw it." she said.
Jude shrugged, he still spent a great deal of time here. A gray-haired Taronu asked him to explain why their velocity would prevent them from using the Vista.
"It's a security measure," he explained, " to protect us from the Arbies. In just under three days our velocity will be at it's maximum and the Arbies will take over. Viewing actual space while under the power of the Arbies can be disorienting at best, merely nauseating if you're lucky, or lead to madness if you're not."
Jude was then compelled to explain what travelling under the Arbies power would entail, as none of their present guests had transversed any great distance without the aid of a Gate. And so he went on to explain that Gate-Travel, Arbies travel, and Phasing were merely three aspects of the same method. Each a relative 'bending' or manipulation of Space-Time. The difference between the three amounted to the method used to achieve this manipulation.
"With Gate-Travel," he explained, "the localized Space-Time is bent, and then held in place by the Gate itself. You can think of a Gate as the entrance to a tunnel. The 'tunnel' is completed by a twin Gate at its end. When travelling this tunnel your relative speed to anything outside the tunnel is greatly increased, though only comparatively. If we had used a Gate we could have travelled at half our current velocity and still reached Graduess in only two weeks. But the Gates are increasingly expensive. And only a limited number of ships may be in the 'tunnel' at any given time, which leads to a lengthy waiting period. So it would probably be several weeks, to a month or more, before we could actually enter the Gate."
Jude saw that his audience was still interested. Even Ama, who must know all this, was paying rapt attention. So he continued, "Now the Arbitrary Drive Generators -or Arbies, as we call them- work along the same lines as the Gates. The difference being that instead of using a stable, permanently affixed Gate, the Aesir will become the Gate. Instead of travelling down a 'tunnel' to our destination, we will be travelling more in a sphere. We'll be opening our tunnel as we go and it will collapse behind us as we move forward." Jude paused to let them grasp this concept before moving on, "It will take longer to travel to Graduess this way, than it would if we had been able to enter the Gate immediately after leaving Raijin. The reason for this is that various inconsistancies in Space-Time will have to be avoided. Gravity warps our little sphere, and can still affect our ship. If we were to pass too close to a large gravity-well we could be pulled in a completely different direction. It's possible that we could end up farther away from Graduess than we were at Raijin. The tunnels created by the Gates are specifically routed to prevent the occurance of this, but when you create your own tunnel, by use of the Arbies, you have to be very clear about your route and leave it to the NavOp to navigate."
Jude went to refill his coffee, sneaking in several more spoonfuls of sugar than Ama thought necessary.
Grandpa Westlake, who had informed everyone to call him Rik, joined him at the dispenser to top off his rum with a bit more coffee. "You seem to know a lot about all this," he said to Jude. "Are you the Aesir's resident scientist or technician, whatever you call them?"
Rik seemed genuinely curious so Jude didn't see any reason to be evasive. "Well I am compelled to help out in the tech department from time to time. Tokk is the closest we have to a real technician aboard, but I've always been interested in that line of work so I help him out."
Rik nodded but pursued his line of thought, "So. Exactly what is your official job?"
Jude chuckled, "Well I wouldn't say anyone here, with the exception of our Captain there," he nodded to Ama, "has an 'official' job. Tokk knows the most about technical details, so he's our default technician. Sharpe is something of a wiz with mechanics and he fills that role. Vincent is a certified chef and an obsessively tidy person -he's either cooking or cleaning, or most rarely, sleeping." Jude took another sip of his coffee as he walked back to his chair.
"And you?" The old man was insistent, Jude gave him that.
"I guess I'd best be considered security," Jude admitted.
With that statement the old Taronu Chaperone nodded, as if receiving confirmation of something he had already suspected.
Jude was once again ready to pursue his earlier, unasked question when the younger Westlake, Brin, interrupted this time.
"You never explained Phasing." He looked around at the others, verifying that others were also interested, before continuing, "You said that Gate-Travel, Arbies travel, and Phasing were all different methods of the same travel. What is Phasing, exactly? And how is it related? I've heard about it, of course, but...."
Jude sighed, the chaperone would have to wait yet again. Of coure, Jude couldn't deny his own interest in the subject -nor his ability to ramble on about it for indefinite amounts of time.
"Well the first thing you have to understand about Phasing is that it's extremely unreliable. Gate-Travel can be thought of as firing a bullet straight at a traget. Arbies travel is much the same, only it's more like carrying the bullet to the target -if you were moving as fast as the fired bullet, but you had to stop occasionally, look around, consult your map, and then proceed to the target. Phasing, using this analogy, is like extracting the bullet from mid-air, the exact moment it is fired, and inserting it into the target -the bullet having travelled the distance only relative to the fact that it was in one place and is now in another."
"I don't follow..." said Rik. "What do you mean it doesn't travel the distance? It's in one place and then it's in another -isn't that travelling?"
"Only by our perspective," Jude explained, "More aptly, it's crossed a distance without having had to go through all the business of actually travelling it. You see, when we use the Gates or the Arbies we 'bend' Space-Time, but when you Phase, you attempt to 'fold' Space-Time." Jude noticed an old navigation map laying on an end table. "Perfect," he said picking it up. "Alright, this is a navigation map. I couldn't have thought of a better visual example myself," Taking opposite ends of the map, he bent it forming an inverted 'U', "Imagine this star chart is actually the whole of Space-Time. The Gates form a tunnel through, from this point," he indicated the left outward side of the map, "to this point," indicating the spot directly opposite on the right side. "If we travelled in normal space the map would be flat, and we would have to cover a greater distance. Since it is bent, we can cover more of the distance in a lot less time. Using the Arbies, we travel in the same manner, but since the path is not permanent we have to adjust our course around any potential hazards.
"Now Phasing attempts to do this," and Jude folded the map in half, both of the inner surfaces touching. "causing two portions of Space-Time that are seperated by vast distances to 'touch'. You travel from this outer portion directly to this outer portion -with no actual distance travelled."
"Hmm, I think I understand now how that is different from merely bending Space, but why is it unreliable?" asked the red-haired Taronu.
"Well, so far, the technology to fold Space-Time accurately doesn't exist. This method works fine over short distances, but the more distance you try to cover, the less likely you are to end up exactly where you want to go. There are also power concerns. It takes quite a bit of energy to even 'bend' Space-Time for a short distance -and 'folding' it for any noticable length requires more energy than is really safe or feasible."
Rik finished the last of his rum coffee and yawned. "Well," he said, "It's been informative, Professor, but we've got an early start, what with all those kids."
Jude winced at being called 'Professor' and said, "Sorry, about that. I tend to get carried away sometimes..."
Rik waved the apology away. "Like I said, it was real informative. I can't say I'd be able to repeat a word of it, or explain it to anyone else, but I know a lot more about this stuff now than I ever thought I would."
Rik got up to leave with Brin following suit, saying: "Maybe we could work out a deal about that? We're going to be on this ship for another couple of months. Maybe we could bring the kids here, and you could tutor them? I'm sure they'd learn a lot. Hell, I actually learned something! You could be the ship's official tutor."
Jude thought about it some before he laughed, "Would you really want to put the poor kids through that?"
"No time like the present to start learning things you can't understand," chuckled Rik.
"I'll think about it," Jude promised as they were leaving the Vista.
Jude filled his coffee up and returned to his seat, thinking the Taronii would soon be following the Westlakes out.
Ama took the chair Rik had so recently left. "I think you even taught me a thing or two. Good job Professor," she said.
Jude didn't like the way she emphasized 'Professor', and knew where it might be leading. He decided to nip this in the bud before it had a chance to grow, "Alright Ama, drop it," he said, "It was a joke. Just a joke. No need to get vengeful -besides, that was a long time ago..."
"'A long time ago,' indeed! It was only two years ago. But don't worry, Prof, I wouldn't become vengeful." she smiled, "Not me, not ol' Ygg." And with that, he knew the bud had not been nipped.
Really, Jude thought, one playful comment had become a never-ending source of amusement for her. Even the ship, Aesir, had fallen victim to the much-bandied remark.
"Besides, it's about time you had a nickname," Ama murmured.
Jude was going to attempt once more to prevent the 'Professor' sobriquet from taking hold when he noticed that the Taronii were still present along with their chaperone.
The gray-haired Taronu stood as she spoke, "Apologies for interrupting, but it is quite late, and we have some business to take care of before we retire for the evening."
"Should I leave?" Jude asked, though he knew it involved him.
"This has to do with you, Jude, and Heron here," and she indicated the small blonde woman Jude had met previously. Throughout their time in the Vista, Jude had noticed her discomfort. She had continued to cast those odd glances at him during his lecture, but Jude had begun to ignore them. Now she was looking more like someone assigned to an unpleasant task.
"I see," Jude said. "Alright if Ama stays, or is this a private party?" he addressed the gray-haired woman, but his gaze wandered to the chaperone.
"If you do not mind her presence, then she may attend."
Jude shrugged, "I don't mind," he looked at Ama, "as long as she gets me another cup of coffee."
Ama sighed and took Jude's cup, mumbling something about her ship.
"Oh," he added as she filled the cup, "and she has to drop this whole 'Professor' thing."
Ama smiled, "This better be worth it," she said as she returned to her chair, minus Jude's coffee. Jude now saw that she had filled it full of steaming hot coffee, but had placed it on the bar next to the dispenser instead of bringing it back to him. Another point for Ama.
"May we begin?" Gray Hair asked. Seeing no objections she motioned to Heron who stood.
Her eyes were downcast, she swallowed a few times, and then began, "T-This has to do with the way I left you, Judicious...."
And so ends Chapter One, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
More to come as it is written. So if you are even halfway interested
in what's going to happen, be sure to tune in to Chapter Two,
Coming Soon!
