Star
Blazers, Space Battleship Yamato,
and all related names and elements are copyright © 1998 by Voyager
Entertainment, Inc. and Leiji Matsumoto.
Star Blazers is a registered
trademark of Jupiter Films, Inc. All
Rights Reserved.
Nota
Bene: This work
of prose is inspired by the original North American Star Blazers series, and is also inspired by Uchu Senkan Yamato to a lesser degree. However, some events and character depictions
may deviate from the accepted standard.
This is a work of fan fiction by “Wicked Good Grrrl” (a.k.a. Andrea
“Ande”
BITTER
MEDICINE
Part
2 of: Star Blazers: Mission to Iscandar
By:
Andrea Lyon
While
the Biwa-ko limped home to Earth, the
sole survivor of the Plutonian Armada, those on the home front carried on as
normally as one could in a nuclear war zone.
To that end, Nurse Nova Blackwell sat in a green-and-white decorated
chain coffee shop and read the paper while she waited to meet someone.
Nova
had shoulder-length dark blonde hair that tended to reddishness, darkest-brown,
extravagantly lashed eyes, a small, pert nose and a petite figure both trim and
lush at the same time. Though she looked
European or American, her Japanese ancestry shone through. If she had not been half-reclined with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper spread over her
long, very nice legs, she might have been a Heian court lady indolently
enjoying the then-new Pillow Book.
Nova
turned a leaf of the paper and sipped at a double espresso as she waited. She was going to need all available courage
to face Dr. William Bravo, her would-be fiancé. Extra caffeine would help her cause…not that
she was any wee, shrinking mouse.
Just
then Will walked into the coffee shop.
He was lantern-jawed, tall, and his eyes were like pale blue-gray
lightning. His haircut looked like it
belonged on a high school boy, but otherwise he was very attractive.
She
remembered Easter just past, mere days after her eighteenth birthday…
Dr. William Bravo entered Our Lady of
Nova had a little crush on Dr.
William Bravo. Before she’d ever seen
him in the hospital cafeteria, she knew he was a leading oncologist, and the
go-to man for so-called “radioactive” cancers.
That he was twenty-eight and very handsome was a nice bonus.
She tried to look at him discreetly,
but the wide brim of her hat telegraphed her head’s every move. Her mother, Barbara Blackwell, noticed. “Would you like an introduction?” she
whispered.
“Maybe,” Nova demurred, blushing.
When ushers came to the pews to
direct the traffic of communicants to the altar, Mychal “Mike” Blackwell got
out first, Nova close behind, Momma following.
When Nova knelt at the altar rail, however, she was shocked to find Dr.
Bravo kneeling at her right, instead of Momma.
The whispering Nova thought she’d heard moments before had been a quick
negotiation, Momma coaxing Dr. Bravo to stand in line right behind Nova.
“Hi,” he said quietly. His eyes twinkled. Nova merely nodded at him and was relieved
when the priest came over with the Wafer.
Shouldn’t it be tacky to flirt during the Eucharist? she thought.
Then another thought struck
her. She was wearing a long, white, very
grown-up dress with illusion sleeves and lettuce edging curling prettily at her
wrists and bosom. The mad leghorn hat
she wore was bedecked with sprays of lace flowers, all white. She wore elegant white shoes, and even the
woolen paisley shawl she’d draped around herself was all woven in shades of
white. Nova had taken her mother’s suggestions
of what to wear—Momma had such good taste in clothes!—and had made herself the
very image of a teenaged bride. At
eighteen, she was old enough to marry.
This moment was eerily symmetrical
with how she’d dreamt of herself, in a splendid white gown, before the altar
with a man whom she loved enough to spend a lifetime.
She caught a whiff of whatever
product he used in his hair. Nova
stifled a sneeze without much success. “Gesundheit,”
Dr. Bravo replied and patted her hand.
When she took a sip of the Wine and
crossed herself, Nova sped with all grace back to the pew with her parents.
Afterwards at coffee hour, Momma
found out Dr. Bravo had no plans for the afternoon. “We’ve got a crown roast of lamb at home that
the three of us couldn’t finish in a week,” she announced. “You must come over. I won’t take no for an answer!”
Dr. Bravo gallantly proffered his
arm (which Momma immediately took) and said, “Well, labor and management should
always take the opportunity to get to know each other better. Yes!”
“What are they talking about, “labor
and management”?” Nova whispered at her father.
“He’s not labor and Momma isn’t exactly management, even if she is on
the Board of Governors at the hospital!”
“You’re right, kitten, but they have
some negotiation to do,” Poppa replied as he took his only child’s hand. He looked a little sad.
When he saw Nova, Will shut one eye and
aimed a finger “pistol” on her. He
grinned all the while as he did this.
Nova sighed and went back to her paper and coffee. She tossed back the last of it, and put her
cup down with a clink as Will walked up to her.
She remained seated. Undaunted,
he bent to kiss her. Nova turned her
head away so his lips met her cheek. He
made a little noise and wrung his mouth in a moue of disappointment, but didn’t
comment.
Nova
lifted her eyes from the paper. “Hello,
Will. How was the teleconference?”
“They’re
having some small measure of success with minor reproductive sarcomas in the
“Jargon,
jargon, jargon.”
“I
know. Wait for the write-ups in The Lancet and The
“Were you able to maintain contact with
the rest of the teleconferees?”
“We
started to brown-out a few minutes in and entirely lost Africa and part of
Nova
put up her hand in a ‘don’t speak the worst’ gesture. “If I’m ever allowed to attend one of these
conferences, I’ll be there. I’d love to
see what engineers have wrought so we can put bandwidth through bedrock.”
Will
smiled at her a trifle patronizingly.
“I’m getting a coffee. Did you
want more for yourself? My treat.”
“Just
a regular decaf drip, please,” Nova replied, and went back to her paper.
Yet
she looked up to watch Will from the back.
He’d pulled off his rounds coat, exposing his lean, muscular arms. His hands, as he opened his wallet and put
down several ‘Cash, moved with the economic, purposeful grace of a
surgeon. Too bad those baggy scrubs do nothing for his scrawny butt, she
thought. Ah, well. At least he stopped
wearing that sneeze-making hair goo.
Will placed the order with a barista
whose green, mermaid-logo’d apron accentuated his too-pink, UV-burned
face. Nova had seen a lot of that kind
of burn lately. Too many defective
sunlamps on the market.
Will
came back, a mug in each hand, and settled into the plush velvet club chair at
Nova’s side. His face fell. “I forgot you take sugar.”
“I’ll
live,” Nova replied. She took a first
sip, and then looked over the rim of her mug.
“Funny how that sounded.”
“Not
much humor in it.”
“Not
‘funny-ha-ha’. Just…ironic.”
“So,”
Will began, “any good news today?”
“Not
a single thing.”
“But
something has your interest.” He snapped
his fingers aggressively on the newspaper, and the crisp paper retorted.
“The
Earth Defense Forces just released reports on a massive space battle that took
place not too long ago.”
“The
results?”
Nova
sighed. “We got our hats handed back to
us, apparently.”
“Like
every other time we’ve tried to go up against these bastards,” Will
grouched. “Either we redouble our
efforts to make underground living viable or make a serious effort to send out
colony ships.”
“We’ve
tried that before. The Gamilons shot
those ships down for fun,” Nova reminded him.
“Listen to this. ‘Captain Abraham
Avatar, in command of the Biwa-ko,
was injured in the course of the battle and remains in that ship’s infirmary as
it returns to Earth. His condition has
been graded stable, though there has been no information on the nature or
extent of his injuries. Although he has
begun to file reports to his superiors, he has refused to speak to the civilian
press, in effect continuing the news blackout.’ That can’t be good!”
Will
snorted lightly. “That could mean
anything. So. Why did you call me here today?”
“Will…I
only agreed to date you, not to be engaged to you. I really feel I’m being pushed into marrying
you, and I’m not ready to even think about marriage yet.”
“Another excellent meal, Barbara,” Dr. Bravo
said, wiping his lips with a napkin.
“Thank you, Will,” Momma purred,
“but Nova did help.”
“I just put the salad together,”
Nova shrugged. She didn’t want to get
credited with too much. Dr. Bravo had
visited the Blackwell’s penthouse frequently in the months after Easter. Nova had come to expect these strangely awkward
dinners at least once a week. Momma
doted on him to the point of infatuation, and Poppa just asked polite questions
and looked amused. Nova ascertained her
role at these dinners was to be quiet, demure and cute. And she was.
“Our Nova’s quite the young woman,”
Poppa chimed in.
“She sure is,” Dr. Bravo enthused,
giving Nova a saucy wink. Nova felt like
sticking her tongue out and pulling down a lower eyelid at him. She liked him well enough, but why did he
have to embarrass her?
“Her friendship with me is very
important,” he said with a sudden gravity.
Poppa cleared his throat and sat up straighter. Dr. Bravo began to swirl wine around the bowl
of his long-stemmed glass, and gazed at the glass and wine as if they required
his full attention. “We Bravos are
usually in holy wedlock by the time we’re twenty-five. But the demands on my career…the demands the
war puts on my career…I just haven’t had time for much else.”
Momma reached over and clasped Dr.
Bravo’s free hand. “Thank you,” he said
quietly, and he tossed back the last of his wine with a huge flourish. Nova began to believe she was watching
something scripted.
Then Dr. Bravo turned directly to
Nova. “I care for you as I’ve never
cared for anyone else in my life. I just
hope you feel the same way, Nova-chan.”
Uh-oh,
Nova thought. “Please don’t put me on
the spot, Dr. Bravo!” she protested.
‘Will’. Please call me ‘Will’. With what I wish to propose….”
Momma’s eyes got very wide and she
grabbed hard at the edge of the dining-room table. Nova had the impression her mother had saved
herself from falling out of her chair.
“…Nova, you should start calling me
‘Will’. Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell, I would
like to court your daughter with the objective of seeing if we are compatible
enough to marry. Do I have your
permission, Mr. & Mrs. Blackwell?”
“Mrs. Blackwell says ‘yes’!” Momma
said in a rush, a wide smile on her face.
“Mr. Blackwell?”
Poppa’s face was smooth of any
visible emotion. “All right. But it seems to me that Miss Blackwell has
the final say.”
Nova managed to twist her mouth into
a grin. “Why not?” she replied.
“This calls for a toast!” Will said
as he grabbed the bottle of wine on the table and refilled everyone’s
glass. He raised his own. “Here’s to love, and to never having to say we’re
sorry!”
Momma looked as if she’d cry from
joy. Poppa looked resigned. Nova only pretended to take a sip of
wine. It was all going too fast. None of it was like her secret, cherished
fantasies of how her best and truest romance would proceed. That toast, she thought, where have I heard it before?
“May I be excused?” she asked.
“Nova!” Momma practically scolded.
Poppa came to Nova’s rescue. “Nova has cram school tomorrow, and she will
see you, Dr. Bravo, at the hospital.”
Nova shot Poppa a grateful look as
she bolted from the room. She got out
her laptop computer: a prototype with the latest EMP shielding
technologies. Nothing save the Gamilons
cracking Earth in half would keep Nova from checking that film reference site…!
There.
Just as I suspected, she
thought. Dr. William Bravo had cribbed a
line from a movie she hated more than any other in the universe: Love Story.
“`Love means never having to say
you’re sorry’,” she said in her snarkiest `neener-neener’ voice. “Gaaahhhh!
Vom-o-rama!”
“You’re not unhappy, are you? I know you’re worried about your ronin exams in February. I could help you with the biology and
chemistry portions….”
“I’m
already in one of the best cram schools in NeoSubTokyo!”
“Well,
then, that’s that! You’ll pass your
exams, get into
“Even
pre-med? I’m really good in chemistry
but I’m dreading organic….”
“So
you do what every smart pre-med does: audit the class until you feel ready to
take it, and then take it. I’ll tell you
with whom to take it, where to get tutoring if you need it, and I’ll help you
study.” He grinned. “It’ll be easier to help you study if we’re
engaged or married!”
Nova
giggled weakly. “I dunno. I don’t think anything’s easier when marriage
is involved.”
“Come
on. Let’s think about a late spring,
early summer wedding.”
“Why? The point is moot; there are no seasons any
more.”
“Blast! Then we’ll grab a justice-of-the-peace when
we’re ready and start in on making a batch of babies!”
Nova
didn’t press the point she wanted a nuptial
“You
haven’t complained. Until now.”
“Will,
I’ve complained. You just don’t hear me
when I do.”
The day after Will proposed courtship, Nova
went most of her hospital shift without seeing him. She was getting a cup of coffee in the break
room when someone came in without saying anything. She didn’t think much of it until a pair of
masculine arms encircled her. Nova let
out a short shriek of panic, then got a whiff of irritatingly sweet hair tonic.
“Is that how you behave when someone
gives you a hug?” Will kidded.
Nova sneezed in reply, and set her
cup on the counter with a bump.
“Bless you!” Will said.
Nova was still shaking from her fright. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Will! Where are your manners?” She tried to pry herself free.
“I said ‘Bless you’, Snookums. Mmm, you’re so yummy, I could just eat
you.” He mouthed the nape of her neck.
Ecch! Earn my trust first, baka! Nova thought. She
succeeded in pushing him away, and turned to face him while she braced herself
on the counter. “`Love means never
having to say you’re sorry’?”
Will blinked and shook his head.
“That corny toast you made last night!”
“Oh! That. I thought it was cute.”
“You cribbed it from the sappiest, most dunder-headed
movie in the history of film.”
“I honestly believed a girl your age would find it
romantic.”
“Don’t lump me in with other girls my age!”
Will looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “Nova, you were pleasant and tractable at
table for months. I proposed courtship
because you’re a neat kid and we’d make a nice couple. Today you go all harpy on me. Are you naturally a bitch or are you just
pre-menstrual?”
Nova’s jaw dropped.
“Oh, that was just wrong!”
“Look, calm down. I’m
kidding. You’re just fine the way you
are, even if you just graduated from high school.”
“Well, what’s a man like you trolling after a “nobody”
like me, anyway?”
“Only for what a handsome, successful and smart man
like me most wants, and what all eighteen-year-old girls are usually too eager
to give away.”
Nova fumed.
“It’s all about the cherry out of reach, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary, it’s very much within reach.”
Will leaned forward and kissed Nova full on the mouth
before she could get away. She was
astonished at the flare of pleasure that lit up her chest. She’d had a few boyfriends that might have been
better kissers, but Will was good, and she had been too lonely for too long. Fearing the kiss would go too far, she pulled
back her head with a jerk.
Will smiled at her in a way that didn’t look
nice. He began to saunter to the door of
the break room. “Hmm. You didn’t back off too quickly. Do you want I should lock this door some
day?”
He was leaving when Nova spoke in a confused
rush. “I want you should act like a
gentleman even when my parents aren’t around!
And stop wearing that hair product!
It makes me sneeze and it can’t be good for your patients!”
Later, to his credit, he did on both counts.
“Why didn’t
you say ‘no’ the night I proposed courtship?”
“And
humiliate you in front of my parents?”
“I’m not
that brittle.”
“Well, I’m
not that rude.” Nova raked her fingers
through her short blonde bangs. “Besides, I only agreed to date you. I didn’t think you’d confuse “courtship” with
“being engaged”.”
“What have
you got against being engaged?”
“Same thing
I have against being pushed into marriage: I need more time.”
“Even if
there may be no more time.”
“Exactly!”
Will blew
out his cheeks. “We could have a great
deal of happiness.”
“As all
relationships should!” Nova exclaimed reassuringly. “But we have to be prepared to care for a
sick or dying partner, too.”
Will’s eyes
narrowed to slits. “That’s dirty pool,”
he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I
told you and your parents in confidence.
I never thought you’d use it against me.”
“Will, I
wasn’t thinking of you, alone.”
Nova knocked on the break room door. It was locked, and her mind flashed briefly
to the crack Will had made about locking that very door. The unwanted image of Will fooling around
with one of the hospital staff swelled in her mind. She flushed it with a shake of her head and
knocked again, louder.
She heard someone cross the room, and when the door
opened a crack, Will was on the other side.
He stood blinking in the light from the corridor, for the break room was
in darkness. Nova was relieved to see he
was alone, probably taking a nap. Then
she saw his red-rimmed, glassy eyes.
“Will, are you…?”
He pulled her into the room as he shut the door behind
them both. He clutched her tightly and
sobbed. Sudden tenderness rose in her,
and she hugged him and rubbed his back.
“I just got some test results back,” he said at
last. “It’s bad.”
A cold mixture of fear and empathy clutched at
her. She sensed the word before Will
spoke it.
“Cancer!” he shuddered. “I’ve got early-onset prostate cancer! Me, of all people!” He laughed bitterly. “`Physician, heal thyself!’”
Nova walked Will to the wobbly break room couch. She sat, and Will lay down with his head in
her lap. She stroked his hair. He still had a goofy, too-young haircut, but
was no longer saturating his hair with gel anymore. “So ironic.
And so unfair,” she murmured.
“This will completely destroy my credibility.”
“No, it won’t.”
“I had a self-help-and-diet book deal!”
Nova barely suppressed a laugh. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“How can you say that?” he snapped. Nova tensed, frightened at his anger. Will sighed, relaxed, and put his hand over
his eyes in a gesture of extreme weariness.
“I’m sorry.” He paused. “You know that the treatments might
cause…fertility problems.” Will reached
up to stroke her cheek. “I wish I knew I
could still give you children.”
She felt ill, and took his hand from her cheek. “Will, it’s been your life’s work to help
people survive this. You’ve worked on
the pathogen theory and isolated two as probable cause. You’ve had half-a-dozen terminal patients
survive just because they were in your care.”
“I’m on the other side of the bedrail, now,” he
whinged.
Great
doctors make lousy patients, Nova
thought. I hope I don’t have to
stroke his ego too hard. “C’mon,” she coaxed aloud. “You know all there is to know about fighting
this. If there’s anyone who should
survive it, it’s you.”
A few minutes later, Will stopped crying and stood
up. He went to the sink and began
dashing cold water on his face.
Later, Will told Nova’s parents. Momma behaved predictably, going into hysterics. Will held her as she bawled. Poppa went so pale in an instant that Nova
shot out her hand to steady him. He
asked a few questions of Will’s diagnosis that on the surface didn’t seem like
much. Will answered every question
posed, then Poppa quietly left the room.
He snagged Nova with his eyes so briefly, that it was several minutes
before she recognized his implicit request: come to my office.
When Nova did, she found him ‘lexandrianing medical
information on the ‘Net. He surfed a few
more pages and was very careful and quiet when he spoke. “Pity I don’t have an MD along with my
JD. The information I want is either
buried in technical jargon or missing from the popular sites.” He turned to Nova. “Will talks as if he’s got what I was
screened for. But my doctor didn’t make
my prognosis seem as dire as Will’s.”
Some days later, Poppa’s words drove Nova to sneak a
look at Will’s medical records, and to compare some of the language of the
records with some journal articles that seemed relevant. The general conclusion she drew was that
Will’s illness was quite treatable and that it wouldn’t trouble him as much as
he implied.
Never trust
a man who cries, she thought.
But because she wasn’t sure (and she did feel guilty
for snooping), Nova never confronted Will.
“Just
imagine if we didn’t face cancer or rad sickness or any of the other problems
associated with surviving this siege,” Nova said. “We might…what?...be with each other for
fifty years or more. I’m only
eighteen. I’m not supposed to know
whether I’m genuinely in love or suffering teenaged hormones. Do you know you love me enough until death do
us part?”
Will’s mouth
fell open. “This isn’t some antiquated
Roman Catholic thing that nuns still teach in high school marriage prep
classes?”
“Nice save,
Will. Don’t answer the question on my
account.”
Then Will’s
face brightened with sudden inspiration.
“You haven’t found someone else, have you? Some pimply, adolescent boy, all hands, feet
and pecker?”
Nova blushed
and gasped at Will’s impudence. “Look at
you getting turned on by the idea!”
“Pot calling
the kettle black, I think. And now
you’re avoiding the question.”
“I don’t
think you’d grin like that if you believed there really was another man. And no, there isn’t!”
“Oh, but
imagine the possibilities of being with someone your age. I can,” Will said caressingly, leaning on his
forearm. His eyes went strangely
soft. “You could store up some wonderful
memories for when you came back to your real life. You’d be on the surface a proper upper-middle
class woman, a doctor, wife and mother.
And when things got a trifle dull in bed with your husband…as things
inevitably do…you could fantasize about rutting with your young lover, all
beautiful face and body. You’d never
have to endure his boorishness and stupidity, never knowing how old, fat, and
bald he’d grow…”
“That’s the
most ugly-minded thing I’ve ever heard you say!” Nova scolded. “I think I hate you!”
Will
practically cooed. “Oh, darling. You can’t be expected to know how to love. How could you know how to hate?”
“`I know
enough of hate’….”[1]
“The birds
and the bees, my girl. The birds and the
bees. No sensible person would fault you
for experimenting. I’m giving you
permission.”
“I don’t
need your permission for anything!”
“And you’re
waiting for what, now…?”
“What am I
waiting for?” Nova repeated, uncertain.
She flashed her dark eyes at him.
“I’m waiting for the world to change.
Soon.”
“But it’s a
naughty world that may not change.”
“So we’ll
just patch everybody up as best we can, and we’ll all live happily until we die
shitting and puking and feverish from radiation sickness!”
“Watch your
language!” Will scolded. When he saw
that Nova was genuinely upset, he took her hand. “If I didn’t believe we could survive this
war….”
“We. Cannot.
Survive. This. War.”
“We can and
we must! If you hadn’t cut yourself off
from your natural, girlish desires, you would know this! Marry me!”
Nova and
Will sat a long time in silence. Nova’s
mind was churning with what she wished to express—how best to say it?—and she
couldn’t bear to look Will in the eye.
Will kept holding her hand and thumb-stroking the back of it.
She took a
quick gulp of coffee. “Look, if you’re
going to push marriage on me when we’ve known each other less than a year, I
have to step away. You’re choking me.”
“Oh, that is
way too harsh.”
“I’m
starting to see girls my age who are being choked, literally and
figuratively. Quickie marriages and
partnerships. Some of them have terminal
cancer, some of them have been rendered sterile, and all of them want to grab
some joy. Then they run afoul of the
hard work of keeping a relationship alive.
Sometimes their partners turn openly cruel. Then they’ve lost whatever freedom and
happiness they could have had. You’ve
seen the women come in. Poor, neither
they nor their spouses able to pay their medical bills. Sometimes these women have been beaten!”
Will rolled
his eyes. “Are you still worried about
that trull and that no-speakee-Japanee domestic that rolled through here? I told you to get over them.”
Nova stormed into the break room. Will was lying on the couch, resting after a
cancer treatment and reading a medical journal.
“Ugh!” Nova shuddered. “Men just
stink!”
“Ah, ah.
Attitude.”
Nova shot an apologetic grin over her shoulder. Since his diagnosis, Will was nicer to her,
and strangely happier and better-behaved than ever. He’d taken her out for sushi and amused her
with dreadful jokes about it. (“I have a
hard time eating octopus. Sticks to the
roof of my mouth. But I’m a sucker for
it anyway.”) Nova believed he might be
The One after all. “Present company not
included. I’m just steamed that there
were two—two!—domestic abuse cases that came in today.”
“Really? Do
tell.”
“Will! I can’t
gossip about patients!”
“Spill. You’ll
feel better.”
“All I know is one is a teenaged first-time
mother—thank God she’s got her baby with her!—and a Filipina war refugee.”
“Pff. I wonder
how many `Cash they’re pulling in from Welfare?”
Some internal tocsin bell tolled in Nova’s soul. “What did you say?” she asked dryly.
“I said, `I wonder how many ‘Cash they’re pulling in
from Welfare’.”
“You’d better be really sure what you’re talking about,
Will.”
“Oh, Christ, Nova!
Don’t go all bleeding-heart liberal on me! You know as well as I do those refugees and
unwed teenaged mothers and a bunch of other thumb suckers are more than amply
compensated for the privilege of sitting on their honkers.”
“I don’t know, Will, especially in the case of those
Pacific Islander refugees. Beats sitting
above, eating radioactive rice and pork and worrying about dying before China
stopped arguing Japan was better able to take in massive amounts of refugees, and
vice versa.”
“Oh, boo-hoo. I
just lost everything in three planet-bomb induced tsunamis. Give me
money. I had a baby because I’m an
airhead who can’t figure out how to buy birth control or get an abortion or
keep my legs shut. Waah-ah.”
Nova paced at the edge of the room, keeping her
distance from Will. “You are really,
really disgusting sometimes.”
“Hey,” Will leveled a finger at her like a gun. “Your
mother and father took care of you. I
will take care of you, but I’ll also make you grow up a little. Do not cry over people who don’t give a damn
about you.”
“Don’t tell me to behave!”
“I can and I will.
Especially after we’re married.
Think I won’t? I’d take you over
my knee if I thought you needed it, little girl.”
“Oh my God, quelle irony!”
“Hey. Show a
little respect and obedience for your future husband, who will provide for you
in the manner you’re accustomed to, Princess Nova. And how dare you posit I’m a bigot, an achi-bunku?
I’ve got a Filipina who comes in twice a week to clean my apartment. Couldn’t live without her!”
Nova stood in the middle of the break room. She was so furious she was afraid she’d start
throwing things at Will. Coffee
mugs. A bottle of dish detergent. The smelly old dishwashing sponge no one ever
threw out. The floor lamp. The “kitchen” table and chairs, all at one
go. She knew it was better to leave in
silence, but she couldn’t resist throwing one more barb at Will. “And if we do become a wealthy infertile
couple, we’ll do a black market adoption from some unwed teenaged Mom?”
“Are you still here?!”
Will exploded. “You were supposed to be
in the medical/surgical division two minutes ago! Do not waste anyone’s time! Get moving!
Chop-chop!”
As Nova left, pulling the door behind her, Will added,
“Save the world on your own time.”
Nova leaned heavily against the door as it shut. She rolled her eyes heavenward. “I need my space,” she sighed.
Will
reconsidered his words. He reached to
stroke Nova’s cheek. “I’m sorry that my
words in the break room sounded harsh. But you hit some sore spots with me that
afternoon.”
Nova,
longing for any comfort, leaned into Will’s hand. “We all have sore spots.”
Will canted
his head to one side and gave Nova a half-smile. “See?
We’re going into this marriage with our eyes open.”
“Marriage is
not an inevitable consequence!” Nova snapped.
“It breaks my heart to see you try and try and try to convince me. But the harder you try, the more I feel like
running!”
“So you’re
not running yet? That’s good. It means I still have a chance.”
Nova shook
her head. “But marriage to you is not
what I want. It wouldn’t change the fact
that while you panic about your cancer—which is very curable, mind
you!—children as young as three are developing testicular and ovarian cancers. The cure and survival rates for that, at that
age, is zero. And marriage between us
wouldn’t change the fact that more people are getting skin lesions from
artificial sunlight than ever from natural sunlight, and no one’s asking
“why”. You and the dermatologists should
get together and weigh whether we’d all be better off with rickets or
melanomas.”
The man
behind the counter looked up at the words ‘artificial sunlight’. Will just looked very uncomfortable and
insulted for some reason.
“I’m leaving,”
Will said. “Don’t call me unless you can
behave and converse like a lady.” He got
up, grabbed his rounds coat and shoved his arms into the sleeves as he walked
away.
“Will?” Nova
called when he had his hand on the door pull.
He turned. “Good things are going
to come about, I’m sure, whether we’re married or not.”
Will snorted
derisively. “Wake up and smell the
coffee, Nova Blackwell. You’re a fool to
refuse an honest offer. But I love you,
I forgive you, and I’ll wait.”
The door to
the shop shut behind Will. Before he was
completely out of her field of vision, she saw he’d jammed his hands in his
pockets. Nova hugged her knees to her
chest and shuddered. She’d done it, but
for how long? She’d been lonely, and
Will had eased that loneliness, even a tiny bit. She might have gotten a superb letter of
recommendation from him for anything she wished. Will was good looking, had money and a good
career, a future, connections, a social status equal to her family’s if not
better. Could she really ask for
anything more? Could she come to love
him as spouses sometimes did, out of duty or habit?
In previous
situations, when she’d been macked-on hard by a boy, she always gave him the
benefit of a doubt (and a date). She
knew her boundaries, had a lot of fun, and was never without masculine
company. She rarely had to tell a boy
she “wasn’t interested”, and she was kind enough to never dismiss a boy
completely. If she wasn’t attracted to a
boy who was very attracted to her, she’d simply make herself unavailable to
him. I’ll just walk away from Will, Nova
thought. I just hope he won’t follow.
At last,
Nova walked up to the counter. The
UV-burned barista was studiously
wiping the granite veneer of the counter and keeping his head down.
“I’m sorry
if we talked about you as if you weren’t there,” Nova apologized.
The man
smiled painfully. He touched his throat
and said hoarsely, “Thyroid, too.”
Nova
scrawled a name and number on the back of a business card. “Please contact this department at the
“Thank you,
miss,” the man said, and Nova realized she was giving his hand an encouraging squeeze.
“Thanks for
letting us have our argument in peace,” Nova joked.
“You’re very
welcome.”
She stuck a
ten AsiaCash piece—over-tipping him—in the gratuity jar and walked out before
he could see her eyes fill up.
Nova
fingered away the dew in her eyes (threatening to spill) and looked up to the
“ceiling” of NeoSubTokyo. Jacob’s-ladder
shafts of light streamed through “bomb-proof” Techtite skylights, the only
opening to sunlight in the underground cities.
There never was enough sun.
Street lights were always on, except during blackout conditions. Nova figured from the angle of light it was
now twelve noon.
There was a
courtyard at the center of the twenty-two story hospital block with a lawn of
struggling grass and a mix of living and artificial trees. The underground cities were not hermetically
sealed, but were closed most of the time to radioactive fallout…and to
above-ground, oxygen-rich atmosphere.
The results were that, as huge as the underground cities were, they were
usually stuffy with carbon dioxide. In
response, people were encouraged to garden, as in many wars before, not only
for food but for oxygen as well. Yet the
results often weren’t very good, as plants pined for the sun, and died
quickly. Even now some municipal workers
were putting up a temporary artificial tree to take the place of a dead real
one.
I remember I have an allergy to some flowering tree, Nova
thought. But it’s been so long…I can’t remember which! The last time she’d had the “sneezonal
seizes” had been when she was seven or eight, just before the Gamilon siege had
forced everyone underground.
Fake cherry
trees gave a strange effect during cherry-blossom time. Nova could barely remember how a real cherry
tree shed its petals. She hadn’t been
old enough to understand how a real, molting cherry tree would remind one of
the evanescence of life, and the comforting thought of death being a part of
that cycle. Having lived now through ten
years of fake cherry trees, with blossoms that would never shed, she could
appreciate the bitter irony that the trees could outlast humankind.
She hoped
the fake trees would find sympathetic company with the cockroaches.
Nova held
herself together until she got back to Dr. Sado’s office. Then she put her head down on the desk set
aside for her and cried.
She’d put on
a brave front with Will. What if, as
Will seemed to indicate, there wasn’t time left for a girl to be picky? He was, superficially at least, a terrific
catch.
At that
exact moment, Captain Abraham Avatar, who’d suffered a broken collarbone,
cracked ribs and, at the last minute, a bad nosebleed, was being admitted for
tests at
Earth
Commander General Charles Singleton had slept very little since the Plutonian
Armada had been defeated. There was
intel’ on a possible enemy Pluto base…mounting a search & rescue for
survivors of the Armada…and delegating who would deliver condolence messages to
whom. He had volunteered himself to
deliver official word to Avatar on the loss of his son. Better than some baby-faced lieutenant--too
reminiscent of Abe Jr. and all those lost--to be the bearer of bad news. Singleton was one of Avatar’s few
friends. Singleton also had to suss out
whether Avatar could serve again, especially on a crucial mission like the one
being discussed. If not, could he coax
Abe Avatar to hang up his cover, go to the Old Spacer’s Home and leave command
of Earth’s most important mission to a younger, less experienced man?
Plus there
was that incident with the interstellar ship wrecking on Mars, and the message
it carried….
Apropos of
that, two cadets had just returned to Earth on the Biwa-ko. They carried to EDF
Decryption Services the message capsule they’d salvaged on Mars. One of them, Derek Wildstar, had been in a
rising stir of anger and fear about his brother. Alex Wildstar’s ship had not reconnoitered
with Biwa-ko, and Derek, his younger
brother, feared the worst. The second
cadet, Marco “Marc” Venture, was hard pressed to keep his friend calm.