“Recorders off please,” the voice said.
The hot white lights dimmed and I saw insolent eyes, a dark mop of hair, and eventually a thick-jawed face.
The man said, “What about the imagcam, you didn’t mention it?”
“No,” I said. “I never found the imagcam. The recordings are lost.”
“So, why are you here then, Dr. Steelbridge?”
“Why?” I scratched my jaw and maintained the fight against their drugs. “I’m not quite sure. I could ask you why have you brought me here. What would you say if I did?”
“You were brought here for an evaluation and not by us. Yet I think the evaluation is complete, you are free to leave any time you wish.”
“Free to leave?” I asked.
“Yes, free. Go any time you wish. Good-bye.”
I got out of my chair; my legs seemed suddenly weak.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“You said I could leave, I’m going home.”
“No, I said you were free to leave. Sit, please. I have one final question for you. Your memories of the event were quite complete, quite complete. Yet it seems you overlooked a few details. The story is too complete I am afraid, too complete.”
“Which part do you want me to retract? I’ll retract it.”
“Do you recall the day EOS-7 Security brought you to us? Will you tell me about it?”
I offered a toothless grin, blood trickling down my cheek dropped into a pool forming on the tabletop. “Certainly…”
* * *
“Twenty-two minutes to shuttle departure,” called out a mechanical-sounding feminine voice. I glanced at my wristwatch, headed for the pre-departure lounge.
A handful of eyes followed me in through the access way. I shrank into a corner and hurriedly gulped down the drink I had pre-ordered on the shuttle ride from Earth. Naturally, I tuned in to the conversation of the couple beside me.
“Oh, it was awful, dreadful, didn’t you hear? He was to have been hired on at the end of the week—” The woman was sobbing and there were tears in her eyes. “—There was to be no more living off the doll, no more part-time for me, no more double overtime for him…”
“There, there, Margaret, things will work out right, they always do.”
What a horrible thing to say, things don’t always work out right.
“He can’t go back to Galactic, not now. Five lectures and that was to be it, the contract would have been irrevocable… Ten years on Moon Colony would’ve been grand.”
The woman’s companion cooed. “Would’ve been grand indeed.”
That’s life, a roll of the dice. I listened, not so intently now. And the mechanical, feminine voice counted down the time.
Before I knew it, I was settling into one of those comfortable yet not-so-comfortable shuttle chairs — the ones with hardly any armrest space. Vying for my space was already a given. I plopped both arms down firmly before the fellow next to me could settle in.
Strapped in, I waited. I gleaned a pillow from a shuttle stewardess passing by. The hum of the overdrive engines during preflight checks caught my ear. I had never really thought about it before — sixty thousand miles-per-hour, wow!
A disturbance cross-cabin caught my attention. A pencil-necked gentleman had spilled the contents of his vacuum case. Books and papers were everywhere. And there was Margaret — poor faithful Margaret — at the man’s side. She was scooping papers from the floor and putting them back into the vacuum case. The man just stood there, his face buried in his hands.
I did my part, picking up the scattered papers near my seat. Margaret sobbed through several heartfelt thanks. The man never looked over to me, not even once and I must’ve put four or five stacks of assorted papers and books back into that vacuum bag.
Afterward, Margaret took the man’s hand and led him away. It was a sad sight. I heard her female companion’s voice cooing to her a moment later, “There, there Margaret, don’t cry.”
I grabbed a blanket from a passing stewardess, closed my eyes even though I’d never been able to sleep on the E-M shuttle.
Three hours fifty-nine minutes later, the shuttle was approaching Earth Orbit Station-7 for docking. The familiar mechanical service voice called out, “E. O. S. Seven. Docking procedures underway.”
My seat rocked as retros kicked in. Four and a half minutes later, I was eagerly stepping from my seat. Had to beat the crowd, only six minutes till the next shuttle to the surface. If I missed it, it would mean a fifteen-minute wait I couldn’t afford — fifteen minutes subtracted from the two hours I had scheduled for sleep. I had a full day after those two hours sleep — another twenty-four-hour day and red beepers only nurtured so long.
Midstride I noticed it. It looked innocent enough, a single piece of paper strewn next to my chair. Several others beside it were partially obscured by the chair. I picked up the papers, but I didn’t look at them as I had first thought to. They had to belong to Margaret’s man.
I folded them in half, stuffed them into my pocket. I turned back to grab my briefcase, and by that time, the insidious crowd had already formed in front of me. There was no way I’d make the first shuttle now. I’d have to wait the fifteen minutes.
* * *
The hot white light was turned off again. The mop of dark hair slowly fell before my eyes.
The voice said, “How long have you been here?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” The man sighed. “Two years.”
I agreed. “Yes, two years.”
“Two years, are you sure?”
I shrugged.
“See, you’re not sure anymore, are you? Take me back to EOS-7. Tell me about the imagcam.”
The hot white light returned.