All of Her Fathers
The Ship was all that
Malene had ever known and she knew it very well. As an infant she learned its sounds, the
motor hums, droning fans, snaps and pings.
The constant low vibration of the main drive sounded to her as the blood
coursing through a mother's arteries sounds to the unborn.
In toddlerhood she
learned the spaces, the nooks and crannies.
She learned the places of safety and the places of danger and what to
never touch.
As a small child she
learned to read and to understand, to use the computer consoles, to tend the
plants and protein vats. She learned
where her fathers went when they left, and she learned where the new fathers
came from. The placard next to the door
said, "Cryonics Bay."
She went there now
because she missed her old fathers. If
she stood on her toes she could see their faces through the small window in
each plasteel and ceramic cylinder. She
had no memory of the first two fathers, but she'd asked and found out who they
were. Ensign Joshua Davis and Master
Sergeant Drew Matthews. She looked at
their stiff cold faces, one and then the other, and tried to imagine them warm
and moving and talking to her, holding her in their arms.
She remembered the next
two fathers. Sergeant Wayne Butter was
in the first row next to the door. He
was a stern and unhappy memory, angry words and yelling. But her other father from that time had been
funny and played games with her. Father
Wayne hadn't liked the games. So now
father Bernie was gone. She'd found his
cylinder, warm and empty. She passed a
sad hand over it and moved on.
Her next two fathers were
beside each other toward the back of the long room. Corporal Ted Butler and Lieutenant Frank
Mark. Father Ted taught her to read and
to write. Father Frank taught her to
fight, to kick and to punch. He taught
her about privacy and modesty and the need to be alone some times for some
things.
Two more warm empty
cylinders. Sergeant Mark Schneider was
up in the control room where she had just had a lesson about reading system
displays. Later he'd drill math and
astronomy. He was kind and liked to tell
stories. Sergeant Vlad Jones was waiting
for her at hydroponics to explain the cell structure of plants. She didn't think father Vlad liked her much,
but he was also teaching her more about fighting and she did her best for him.
Soon. Soon it would be time to get new
fathers. There were six more fathers
waiting. She went from one little window
to the next, staring at the gray, frozen faces.
Who would it be? Would they be
nice or stern? Would they know how to
help her through puberty, whatever that was?
She'd heard Vlad say to father Mark that he was glad to have missed that
part. She hadn't got up the nerve to ask
what it was.
Father Mark talked about
the cryogenic process and how each cylinder had to be matched with the
physiology of the person who would be in it or the person would die. For the first time she asked why she did not
have her own cylinder. Father Vlad
explained that this kind of ship, a military ship, didn't usually have any
children on board and that was why.
She'd been about to ask
him why she was on the ship, if military ships didn't carry children,
but his face was closed and cold and she knew not to ask any more.
"Malene, child,
there you are." Father Vlad's voice
broke through her reverie. "I
should have known where you'd be off to."
"Father," she
asked. "Who is going to be next?
And how soon?" He seemed in
a good mood and it made her bold.
"I have so many questions that I want to ask."
"And you can't ask
me?" he said.
"Well," she
hesitated. "You sometimes get mad
when I ask too many questions."
He began to frown at her
but instead he managed to smile.
"I... you are right. I'm
sorry. But please ask anyway. I'm beginning to realize that I'm going to
miss your growing up--frozen in here. So
I'll try, even though I'm not very good at it, Okay?"
"Well,
okay." She looked at him very
seriously. Her fathers had talked often
of where they were going; a green planet called Verdal with millions and
millions of people where there were unbelievable wonders around every
corner. "Where did we come from? Where did this ship start out?"
"It started out at
Verdal."
"Then, if children
aren't usually taken on military ships, why didn't you just leave me
there? Why did you take me along with
you?"
"We didn't take you
with us," Father Vlad said softly.
His eyes looked far away. "We found you. Come with me." He held out his hand and she took it. He looked grimmer and grimmer as they made
their way up to the control room until she was frightened and regretted asking
him, but too late now.
Father Mark smiled at
them when they came into the control room then looked at Father Vlad. "What is it? Did something happen?"
"Bring up the remote
visual displays Mark, let's have a look at the cargo frames."
Father Mark's head jerked
around and he stared at Father Vlad.
Malene stayed very still. Father
Vlad was gripping her hand too hard. She
bit her lip and tried to wiggle her fingers.
The visual display was as
tall as she was and twice as wide. It
stretched across the bulkhead above the chairs and consoles of the duty
stations. Father Mark entered the commands
and the display became a star field.
Malene picked out the brightest stars and named them to herself. Then the star field slid in a great
blur. The bright fire of the star drive pushing
their ship through space washed the stars away for a moment and then dimmed and
she could see the great bulk of the ship itself. Then the display slid again and she was
looking at the cargo frames of the ship, just like the schematic diagrams she
had memorized, except that something nestled between them. Another ship.
Father Vlad finally
dropped her hand and she walked over to the controls. Father Mark moved from the seat and she sank
into it. Her feet almost touched the
floor. Malene pushed the controls
without thinking. It was as natural to
her as walking and she flew the remote camera around the little ship examining
it from all angles. Finally she backed
away again until she could see the entire cargo frame surrounding it.
"This one isn't in
the data catalog." Her clear girl
voice spoke into the silence.
Father Mark shot a
questioning look toward Father Vlad.
"You are right," he said.
"We've never seen a ship like that before. We don't know which colony made it."
"You found me on
this ship?"
"Yes."
"Can I see
inside?"
"I'm sure that
Father Mark can set that up for you."
The two men looked at each other for a time in that way that meant they
didn't want to tell her something and then Father Mark nodded. Father Vlad smiled grimly. "And aren't
you supposed to be showing me what you know about the nutrient uptake of
Soybeans just now?"
Malene rose obediently
and with a single glance back followed Father Vlad out into the corridor. After that her lessons included learning as
much as she could of the new ship.
A short time later she
said good-bye to Fathers Vlad and Mark and watched alongside her new fathers,
Captain Chuck Castway and Lt. Otto Sams as the warmth bled from her old
father's faces and the Cryo-tube's windows acquired a hint of frost. She cried alone, later.
Father Chuck was the one
who ended up having to explain what puberty was and why, though it didn't
actually become an issue until her next set of fathers. Father Otto liked to set her puzzles to solve
and taught her to play chess. Without
knowing he taught her the trick Father Mark had used to limit her explorations
of the inside of the strange ship and she discovered the chamber where the
bodies lay frozen in neat rows. But the little ship had no Cryonics Bay. Those frozen people would never wake to take
their turn as fathers, and now that she understood reproduction, as
mothers. To ask which of the bodies were
her first parents would have given away her secret, so she didn't ask.
She visited those frozen
dead almost as often as she walked through the Cryogenics Bay to run a hand
lovingly over the frosty cylinders there.
Her next fathers were Sgt. Axel Trent and Pvt. Robert Strong. Father Robert liked to play games on the
large display. Sometimes they flew
fantastical ships and tried to blow each other up. Other times they explored enormous virtual worlds
filled with strange monsters. Sometimes
they appeared as costumed people who fought hand to hand. And sometimes Malene even won.
The one time she tried
talk about the changes in her body Father Axel became so embarrassed that she
determined to rely on Father Chuck's explanations and the files he'd marked for
her in the data catalog, and deal with it on her own.
Her next fathers were
Corporal Travis Brownsburrow and Major Albert Jorgenson. She freely explored the data catalog these
days and her fathers only occasionally checked to see that she was studying her
Calculus. She knew more than they did
about the hydroponics systems, though Father Travis led her through and made
her memorize every part of the ship's environmental recyclers. Major Albert was a difficult Father and she
mostly avoided him. Though she admitted
avoiding him might be partly due to her second secret.
She had found the visual
recordings of the day they had found her on the small ship. Major Albert had almost caught her looking at
them but she switched at random to another visual file that turned out to be a
movie of men and women naked together that made Major Albert very angry when he
saw it.
"We haven't allowed
you to watch most of the recordings in the library because we didn't want you
to be confused," he explained when he'd calmed down. "You don't have experience to know which
parts of them are real and what parts are made up."
But what she had
discovered was most certainly real.
Included in the visual record of that day was Major Jorgenson arguing
that they were not equipped to care for her. That whoever stayed awake to care
for her would lose irretrievable years of his life. He even suggested that it
might be best to let her die. And she would have hated him for that except that
some of those who had agreed with him in the recording had been the kindest of
fathers and had helped her the most. She
felt a profound sort of insight could be hers if she could find a way to
understand why that was so. She watched that part of the record again from time
to time.
Her favorite part of the
visual recordings, though, were those of a frightened Ensign Joshua Davis sent
to secure the passages of the ship. His
voice quavered as he reported each corridor secure, his helmet light shining a
beam through the darkness. When the beam
crossed one of the dead crew he would jump and the picture displayed on the
screen would jerk around. It made her
laugh. She counted his steps, that
portion of the record memorized, as he came into the cabin where he found
her.
A woman lay dead on the bed
and Malene gazed at her with warm affection.
This would be her first mother, who had prepared for her when she'd
known help was on the way but would arrive only when there was no air left to
breathe.
Ensign Davis' step woke
the baby within the bubble next to the dead woman on the bed. That's me, Malene thought. The crying was weak. The visual angle changed as Joshua crouched
down for a better look.
"I've found someone
alive." The frightened quaver was
gone. He sounded quite calm and rather
awed. "Do we have the atmosphere
check yet?"
A voice came back. "No pathogens, all clear there. Not enough oxygen but the pressure is
fine. What are you up to Davis?"
"Tell the Captain I
found a baby." There was a click
and a soft alarm began to beep as he broke the seal on his suit. A hand slid into the sleeve and glove that
were part of the bubble and touched the squalling infant. Ensign Davis' hand. He rummaged around in the blankets and came
up with a bottle and popped it into Malene's open mouth.
Later he would be the one
holding her as the other men argued about what they would do. He was the one who hotly declared that he'd
stay awake himself for the whole trip if none others cared to lose years.
When they reached Verdal
she would be the same age as Ensign Davis. She realized that Ensign Davis was
kind and would certainly be her friend but that he hadn't spent the last three
years falling in love with her as she had with him. And after a while she even accepted it.
She continued to visit
her fathers in their frozen sleep. She
gazed at their faces and touched the windows fondly, tall enough now to do so
without stretching. But when she was
done visiting her fathers, she also visited her friend.
