| |
––––––––
Karma Star System, Cresht Region, Tolo Arm
July 9th, 2037
“We’re about to drop out of hyperspace, Terry.”
He looked up from the orca calf. His mom was standing in the bay’s hatchway, leaning slightly to compensate for the ship’s strange angle. Terry nodded and pulled the bottle from the calf, who snorted water from his blowhole and tried to snatch it back.
“Wow, he’s really coming along, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “He’s nuts for this milk.”
“You putting the extra antibiotics in?”
“Yes,” he said. The previous morning, a blood test showed the calf had a slight infection. Apparently minor infections weren’t uncommon for newborns in captivity. It might even be normal in the wild. Nobody knew. So Dr. Jaehnig had prescribed an antibiotic. The calf hadn’t even noticed. “He doesn’t care; he’s just hungry. Hey, stop that.” The calf had nabbed the bottle again.
“Here,” his mom said and came over. With her help, he was able to get the bottle away from him. The calf gave Terry a playful shove with his big, wide nose. “Better get his breather on.”
“Are we going to have to stop spin?”
“No, Pegasus said we’ll continue spin. But Dr. Jaehnig’s worried about the orcas’ mental health, and the calf is an even bigger unknown.”
Terry nodded and took the rebreather from a strap inside the tank where he’d been storing it. The calf floated on his side and looked at Terry with one eye.
“Have you had it back on him at all—oh!” She stopped in surprise when the calf swam over and helped Terry put the rebreather on. “Wow.”
“Yeah, he’s super smart.” Terry made sure it was set properly, adjusting the strap slightly so the plastic dome was exactly over the calf’s blowhole. Then he climbed out of the tank and sealed the door, in case zero gravity returned. “He’s learning fast. Dr. Jaehnig was talking to me this morning and said you’d talked about the idea of performing implant surgery on him.”
“We did talk about it,” she agreed. “We want to wait until he’s a couple months old and his mom understands.”
“Have you figured out if she’ll be able to take over nursing?”
“Probably not,” she said. “We checked Moloko a few hours ago and verified she has almost no milk production.” She shrugged. “She never successfully nursed. We’ll have to see how it goes. You still okay to take care of his feedings for two years?”
“Whatever it takes,” Terry said. “I promised.” She smiled and pulled him into a hug. “You said we’re coming out of hyperspace?”
She checked her watch. “In a few minutes.”
“Will it suck as bad as going in?”
“No,” she said. “Just feels like you’re falling.”
“What if you’re in zero gravity?”
“Apparently it doesn’t make any difference.”
“Space is weird,” Terry said.
His mom laughed and nodded. “It sure is.”
“Prepare for hyperspace emergence,” was announced over the PA on Kavul Ato.
Despite her assurances, Terry hung onto the hug. His mom didn’t say anything; she just waited. Before long, he felt it, a strange falling sensation which made his stomach jump despite all the hours he’d recently logged in zero gravity. Just like entering hyperspace, it was gone in an instant.
“That’s it,” his mom said, and they both turned to see how the calf was doing. He looked at them curiously, seeming not to have noticed anything was different. “Welcome to Karma, little guy,” she said. “Hey, he needs a name.” She looked at Terry. “So, what is it?”
“I can name him?”
“Of course, you’re taking care of him.”
Terry looked at the calf, who was watching him. Probably still hungry, Terry thought. He took out his tablet computer and typed in some searches. The other orcas were all named using Hawaiian words. “How about Pōkole?”
“Hawaiian?” his mom asked. Terry nodded. “I don’t know what it means.”
“Short,” he said. “The calf was born early, so I thought it made sense.”
“I like it,” she said, and went over to the tank. “Welcome to Karma, Pōkole. How does it feel to be the first orca born off Earth?” Pōkole spurted water on the tank hatch.
“Maybe that means he’s happy?” Terry suggested.
“Probably just gas,” his mom said.
An hour after they’d arrived in Karma, Pegasus cast the three transports off and bid them farewell. Terry heard the conversation where his mother and her senior staff thanked Colonel Kosmalski for coming to their rescue.
“I am happy to have helped,” the colonel said in his thick Polish accent. “My wife Amelia has helped you many times, so how could I refuse when Pegasus was in Sol and you were in such dire need?”
“Did you hear what happened?” Doc asked Terry.
“No.”
“When the Earth Republic demanded Kosmalski turn around and bring us back or they’d send the military, the colonel dared them to try.”
“Holy cow,” Terry said.
“Yeah,” Doc said and chuckled. “These Horsemen are tough and independent. Nobody threatens them.”
“What about the three transports?” Terry asked. “They don’t belong to the institute, do they?”
“Oh, hell no. The institute couldn’t even afford Teddy Roosevelt, and I doubt even the United States could afford Kavul Tesh or Kavul Ato. They’re all leased for our use by the Winged Hussars. I think the captains all owed the Hussars a debt or a favor; I don’t know. An awful lot of that kind of thing goes on with mercs.”
“I always thought it was money.”
“Lots of money, too,” Doc said.
The orcas began to come out of their drug-induced slumber not too long after Pegasus cast them off. Pōkole’s tank was connected to the Shore Pod’s tank, and Terry watched as the adults began to come around.
“Back...” Kray said, the first to speak. “Back beyond.”
“Are you okay?” Terry’s mom asked.
“Back,” Kray repeated.
One after another, the others came around, with Moloko the last to begin speaking.
“Calf gone?”
“You had your calf just as you and the other orcas began to...” she struggled with a way to say it. “After you lost control.”
“Beyond take calf mine.”
“Your calf is still alive.”
“Alive? Where?”
She nodded to the researchers, who opened the little tunnel, and Pōkole swam in. The calf swam over to Moloko and instantly began to nuzzle her, and everyone in the hold breathed a huge sigh of relief. Mother and calf were reunited and acted as if nothing was unusual. Moloko spoke to the calf in non-words, deep subsonic noises the translators didn’t recognize.
“It’s like she’s singing to him,” Dr. Orsage said, taking notes as usual.
“Pōkole,” Terry said. “The calf is named Pōkole.”
“My calf Pōkole?” Moloko asked.
“Yes,” Terry said. “Is that okay?”
“Sound right,” the mother orca replied. “I no milk,” she said.
“How long beyond?” Ulybka, the other female, asked.
“Over five days,” Terry’s mom explained.
“How feed?” Moloko asked. Terry explained.
“Warden figure out,” she said.
“Warden everything figure,” Kray agreed.
“We couldn’t figure out what was happening to them,” Dr. Patel said. The other doctors nodded in agreement.
“Can I help feed Pōkole still?” Terry asked.
Moloko nudged Pōkole over next to the glass and hummed at him, then bumped the glass in front of Terry. The calf nodded vigorously in an unmistakable gesture. “Pōkole like Terry. I like Terry. This good.”
“Excellent,” Terry said.
“I’m very proud of you,” his mother said. He beamed up at her.
“What did it feel like?” Dr. Orsage asked the orcas. “Do you understand why you lost control?”
“Beyond,” Kray said. “Shool cry. Shool cry.”
“What do you think that means?” Terry’s mom wondered.
“I have no idea,” the psychologist said and made notes.
Later, the three transports docked together. Teddy Roosevelt was the only one of the three with multiple docking collars, so she served as the hub. It suited the marine biologists and staff just fine as it put them in the middle of all their charges. The conglomeration of ships was moored to the remains of an ancient mined-out asteroid named Karma Theta Two. The planet of Karma was thousands of kilometers away, a blue-green ball visible from Teddy’s observation dome.
With nothing more to do, Terry settled back into the cramped cabin he shared with his mother. Teddy was so filled with Humans, it smelled like sweat and pee to him. The captain said they were 20% over capacity, but said Human ships were made to take it. Terry wasn’t sure he agreed, by the smell at least. Someone knocked on the door not long after he’d gotten there.
“Anyone home?” Doc’s voice asked.
“Come on in, Doc,” Terry said. The door creaked from rust as it opened.
“Hey, kid, how’d the reunion go?”
“Great! Moloko took to her calf right away, and vice versa. Moloko even wants me to keep feeding Pōkole.”
“Is that the calf’s name?” Terry nodded. “Awesome. Your mom said Moloko didn’t have any milk.” Terry nodded. “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m proud of you for standing up and helping after how bad it was leaving Earth.”
“If I hadn’t, Pōkole would have died.”
“Exactly, but a little kid would have been too busy feeling sorry for himself. What you did was what a grownup needed to do, a man.”
Terry smiled so hard he felt tears making his vision blurry and wiped them away. “He was so tiny, I couldn’t let him just starve or get put to sleep.”
“Four hundred pounds is tiny?” Doc asked. Terry laughed; he had a point. “I wanted to stop by and say goodbye.”
“You’re going?” Terry asked in surprise.
“For a while. I’m going over to Karma Station to talk to some friends, maybe see what I can do to put some pressure on Earth to let us come home without being arrested.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
Doc shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “What I do know is that we can’t stay here forever. Colonel Kosmalski said we could use the transports as long as we needed, but he didn’t mean forever. So I’m going to go see what I can do. I made a few friends among the mercs.”
“It sounded like Colonel Kosmalski pissed off the government,” Terry said.
“Yeah,” Doc agreed. “He has that effect on people. You keep helping out as much as you can, okay? Your mom depends on you.”
“I’m still just a kid.”
“Not in my eyes,” Doc said, then gave him a quick hug.
“Hey, Doc?”
“Yeah?”
“How did you have the code to our apartment back at the institute?”
He gave Terry his appraising look. “You don’t miss much. Probably make a good SEAL. Your mom and I have been seeing each other for the last month or so, after her divorce to your dad was final.” He looked Terry in the eye. “We didn’t tell you because we were afraid you’d take it the wrong way.”
“I’ve known my mom and dad weren’t happy together for a while,” Terry told him. “Kids notice this stuff, even when we wish it wasn’t happening. Are you in love?”
“Huh,” Doc said with a grunt. “I don’t know if it’s that cut and dried. Let’s say, we really like each other.”
“Good,” Terry said. “I like you, too.”
Doc grinned. “Feeling’s mutual, kiddo.”
“You had a hand in getting Mom healed, didn’t you?”
“What makes you think that?” Doc asked, his eyes twinkling in the cabin’s low light.
“You sent a message to my dad saying you had friends who might be able to heal her. He refused, but she suddenly got better a couple weeks later. Was it those nanites I heard about?”
“Let’s just say she got better and leave it at that. I gotta run.”
“You mean fly,” Terry said with a grin. Doc laughed and was off.
Terry slid into his hammock, hooked the straps across his legs, and pulled out his tablet. The ship had a network, and it was now connected to the GalNet. He grinned when he saw it was an unrestricted node, unlike the one back at his school on Molokai. For a second, he wondered about ‘Adult Content,’ then remembered the Galactic Union didn’t care about such things. Besides, he didn’t think he’d be too interested in pictures of naked aliens.
His mother had mentioned when they got to Karma that Terry would be able to send emails home. They just had to be under a certain size, which was one gigabyte, if he remembered right. It was like the Union’s version of the postal service, only you never knew how long it would take to reach a destination.
Union free messages weren’t like radio transmissions; the messages were bundled together and sent to every ship leaving the star system that was going in the right direction. Since they were just one transition from Earth, the captain said it would get there pretty quickly.
The first message was to his father. Terry still felt conflicted about leaving him behind. Of course, everything his mom and Doc had said about him looked to be spot on, but that didn’t change the fact that he was his dad. Terry had done some pretty boneheaded things, too, and Dad had always forgiven him.
“Dear Dad,
I’m sorry I didn’t have the time to say I was leaving, or even say goodbye. We found out they were coming to arrest us. I know you must have done what you did for a good reason, only I wish you’d told me. I feel sad, like maybe you did it on purpose.”
He erased the last sentence.
“I wish you’d said something. Please write back, I want to know how you are.
Love, Terry.”
Next he wrote a quick note and group addressed it to his friends at the middle school. He was well, and nobody better be saying he’d been kidnapped by aliens. He smiled at his own wit. He said they were trying to figure out how to fix everything, and they’d left to protect the cetaceans.
The last one he wrote was the hardest; it was to Yui. He decided to record it on video, which meant it had to be short.
“Hi, Yui,” he said, and waved lamely at the tablet’s camera. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I’m sorry. The government was going to have us arrested and kill the cetaceans. So my mom got the Winged Hussars to take us off planet. If I’d known, I don’t know if I would have gone. You’re like my best friend in the whole world.” He shook his head. “In the whole galaxy now!
“The orcas got really sick in hyperspace. Moloko gave birth early, and I had to help save the baby. It’s a boy, and I named it Pōkole. I saved him, Yui! I watched all these videos and figured out how to get him to feed. Hyperspace didn’t bother him like it did the adults.
“Moloko and the others came out of it after we got here, and she likes the name, and I get to keep helping feed him because Moloko’s milk isn’t working anymore.” He glanced at the file size and saw it was already more than half filled.
“I only have a few seconds more video, so I’ll say bye. I miss you. Please send a message back? Bye.” He stopped recording. The computer said it was the correct size, and he used the ship’s GalNet node to properly address it to her. It felt strange addressing it to Tolo Arm, Cresht Region, Sol System, Earth, then her actual address. Before, he’d just used her email address. Then he hit send.
The free message system only let you send one message per day per star system. Sending bigger messages, or one guaranteed to reach its destination via the most direct route, cost 15 credits and up. He whistled. Fifteen credits translated to $450,000 dollars! He had about $150 on his Yack, so that was out of the question. He decided to send the group email the next day.
Terry stowed his tablet, reached back over his head, and shut off the little LED light, throwing the cabin into absolute darkness. He’d been surprised by just how dark it was in a ship with only a few windows. It wasn’t quiet, though. Teddy Roosevelt was always alive with sounds. Fans were running, the distant fusion powerplant was always humming away, and often times the banging of crewmen fixing things could be heard.
In some ways, it was reassuring. He wasn’t alone, despite being trillions of kilometers from home. Only, was the rickety Earth freighter now his home? He drifted off to sleep, hoping it wasn’t.
* * * * *
