The mysterious Ms Strong
24 Aug 2020DrPillman
my trip had taken a little longer than expected, as I had to turn back , head to Ram Tah again, and re-acquire his orders due to some faulty registration issue, and then his requests turned out to require a serious amount of flying to satisfy...but I got what I was looking for when I signed up: peaceful hours in the cockpit without smoke, debris and tracerfire obscuring the view, and without a gazillion warning lights blinking and alarms beeping inside. Just the vast stillness and spectacular views of deep space.Day after day I would venture further and further, and I could feel the anxiety and doubts and sorrows run off like regolith from a minimum-friction landing gear with every light second I put between me and the Bubble.
I even, to my own surprise, re-discovered some academic instincts that I had thought long lost, and collected some interesting data that I might use to intrigue some xenobiologists into a cooperative, interdisciplinary research project at some point. It´s still a vague idea, so I won´t go into detail here and now. But I made a couple of observations that would justify a more systematic, detailed survey.
Nothing to already start a draft on, but definitely enough to put a sticky note on the cockpit panel to keep an eye out.
Let´s see.
Ram Tah, however, proved to be anything but stingy, he payed indeed very generously for the data collection, and with my pockets bursting with the compensation, I slipped home in silence, changed into the half-empty husk of my Krait Mk II, and managed to more or less completely rebuild her on the money and materials I had made. I didn´t even log in into my Pilot´s Federation account until I got back. They would have found a way to drag me off my personal business, I´m sure.
However, when I logged in again the night I came back with a shiny new, beefed-up Krait Mk II, believe it or not, Ms Florence Strong woke me up the next morning, 0900, standing on the doorsteps of my cubicle wearing a shiny new black flightsuit, a broad grin, a folder bursting with business proposals, a thermos of real bean coffee, and a bag of cinnamon rolls.
Needless to say, the tour plan she had prepared was pretty much flawless. I barely managed to mull around enough to justify chewing down another of these delicious cinnamon rolls. I have no idea where she gets them. Whenever it is her turn to do the pre-flight breakfast, she shows up with cinnamon rolls. Later, before we took off on a massively lucrative tour with the T-9, I was actually looking for a bakery outlet in the lower ward between my bunk and the flight deck, because I wanted to bring some along for the day. There was none. Even the automated station services panel failed me. Mysterious.
Ask her or collect more clues? I know, my cubicle isn´t fitted with an oven, so I very much doubt her contract-pilot slot provides an abundance of kitchen appliances. She sure is an asset.
No mention on her holiday, though. I had thought, maybe I could get to know her a little after her near-breakdown by proxy via her holiday anecdotes. No chance. She was all business, no-nonsense, like I know her.
She did seem more relaxed and confident then ever before, though. However she spent her time off, it did do her some good. The only thing I could glimpse that may be some indication, was a picture inside her folder cover when she opened it for the briefing this morning. It was what looked like a serene beach on a planet I had never seen before. No people, pale sand, purple boulders under a light-green sky. Rather tasteful. So neither monastery nor the self-destruct binge for mental refuelling, it appears. ;-)
It was a water-colour painting on fine, thick, cream-white paper. It was no print, all real. The original, and very well done. Very well. And it didn´t bear a signature, so she most likely hadn´t bought it. Whether she did it herself, or received it as a gift, and what the significance of it was that made her carry it with her at all times, I have not the slightest idea.