Mara
22 Sep 2016Mara Korine
After a night and a morning, Mara did not want to spend the rest of her stay cohabitating. My policy covers a far more comfortable and private room than this, and I don't want to catch something being so near these people from goodness knows where. We don't pay for rooms like this one. When the nurse came to check in on her, she arranged a transfer and ordered a new comm to be delivered to the new room from the shop nearest the hospital. "You're nice company but I'd rather alone. No offence of course.""None taken. I'd get a private room if I could afford it too. Must be nice huh?" If Jim were disappointed he remained polite.
"It beats catching diseases from the throngs of sicknesses you find in the public rooms if that's what you mean."
"No, I didn't," He paused, furrowed his brow and continued, "but I can see where you are coming from. I guess I'm so used to the throngs of sickness that I've built up a thick skin."
"Well, I didn't mean you. But there's a man coughing up an organ in the hallway just outside the door, and it's pure chance that I was put in a room with you and not him. How long have you got until you get discharged anyway? I might have overheard the nurse say you were almost done here."
"Tonight, if my blood pressure stays good. Not longer than a couple of days if it goes back up."
"See? I have to save myself before I get trapped next to the man out in the hall."
Jim cracked a smile. "Hope you don't always need saving. Good luck yeah? I think I'm going to watch a few vids and get some sleep."
"Good luck to you too."
The room was available within the hour and after transferring to her new room, Mara at once contacted her friends. She didn't want them to think they weren't important enough to hear about the accident first hand and then went through her personal items again now that no one was around to watch her. She looked over the stuffed bear with a missing ear. She read again the faded tag that declared the name of the bear, or perhaps the owner, to be Thelonius Brown. The owner wrote in a thick messy hand. He was heavier than most stuffed bears and had bracing that allowed him to be set up in poses. She placed him on the table beside her bed and posed his arms upwards in a v-shaped expression that she thought of as victorious. She cleared all her unread messages and missed calls, then spent the remainder of the afternoon soliciting with no success various grants and loans. Publish or Perish, that's what they say. I've got to get back out there. And should I even continue with this project, just to disprove a silly theory proposed in protest of common sense? She hadn't made much headway out in Tosia, and so far her data had been inconclusive. Of course, it needed further analysis and she hadn't taken enough samples to be sure of anything. It frustrated her how difficult it is to show exactly where Cebaya's Tear falls apart.
Everyone in the scientific community knew of Cebaya's Tear. A thirty-year-old supposition that if both theories used to engineer the frame-shift drive were true, and you followed the math of them both to the letter, it would create a power curve that created both a gravitational bubble and a well, each with infinite density in the same spot. A white hole, and a black hole tearing spacetime apart. It was not meant to be taken seriously. If it were true, then it would be possible to fling ships across intergalactic distances and to generate unlimited amounts of power. That, of course, is impossible. Everyone ignored this because the frame-shift drive works. Practical function beats theoretical troubles.
To this day no one has been able to disprove Cebaya's Tear. I know I can do it. There's just too much interference anywhere but the outer rim to measure these tiny fluctuations. And nobodies tried depolarising a gravimetric interferometer and aligning it with the galactic trajectory. I should be able to measure energy a thousand times weaker with excellent precision. I've got to get my data back! Maybe there's something in there I can use to tempt a grant.
The black box would have all the ship's logs and a selection of system and personal data. When she connected it to her comm she found only a third of her data in the backup. Her personal logs were all there, including one she didn't remember writing. That didn't surprise her, she had been finishing off a few bottles of wine around that time. I don't remember writing one pretending to be the stuffed bear, though. I must have been potted. She'd been hung over when she crashed. A situation that she was not going to repeat.
She was going over some of the surviving data, cleaning it up and making it sound good to pitch to anyone who might fund her work when a call came through. It was her mother. I should talk to her. Either I do it now, or hear about it forever.
"Hi, Mum."
"Mara, we've all been worried sick. Why didn't you call us right away?"
"I've been too busy, and until now I didn't have a comm. It was lost in the accident." That at least was true. "I'm alright, though. Recovering and should be back on my feet in a week or two. Do you know why my ship's insurance might have been declined? It had all been arranged before I left."
"Declined? No Mara, I don't know why. Are you sure you filled out all of the forms correctly? The universities paperwork is notoriously convoluted."
"Yes, I went over it a few times and had Sam look it over as well."
"Sam's a sweet girl, and clever. I wonder what fell through? I'll ask professor," Began Mara's mother.
"No Mum, please don't do that. It's bad enough trying to be taken seriously on my own as it is. I'll figure it out."
"Well, I'm sorry I'm such a burden to you. I do run the Anthropological Department. I have some pull you know."
"Yes Mum, I know. Is being so highly dramatic an innate skill, or is it one you've worked on? Don't answer that, we both know you've honed it carefully . Do we have to argue with every conversation? How is dad doing?"
Her mother didn't answer to the insult but continued the conversation. "He will be glad to hear you're alright. He's away right now. There's apparently a new settlement going up in northern regions of a planet called Fehu. He may buy in. If you can't get a ship what are you planning to do?"
"I've got a little money. Don't worry I won't ask for any. If I can't get a ship that will work for me here on the station I may hire someone to take me back out. One advantage to ending up this far away from home is that every pilot here has experience with long distance flying. How is Jill doing?"
"She'll never forgive you for missing her wedding. It was a gorgeous. She and Ben should be back from the honeymoon next week. You'd better make amends."
"I will. She knows I had to leave right away or pass up the funding. I will make it up to her."
"Are you sure you don't want me to make some calls for you?" Her mother actually sounded concerned this time.
"No, I'll be alright. Hey, I've got a call coming in from the Petersen Foundation. I should really take it."
"That's fine honey, I love you."
"Love you Mum!" Mara hung up and switched the incoming call hoping for the first bit of good news since she woke up.
"Mara? This is Frank Chen with the Petersen Foundation. I've got some news about the grant. You qualify, but your name shows up on the blacklist. What's happened?"
"I, I don't know. I had an accident but only my ship was involved. I have no idea why I might be blacklisted. Am I really?"
"Yes, there's nothing I can do from here. Your risk assessment comes out as extreme. I hope you aren't injured. As soon as you clear up the misunderstanding call me. I'll run you through the assessment again."
"Thanks, I'm just really confused right now. Why would I be blacklisted?"
"Like I said, I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding that you can clear up."
After the pleasantries and goodbyes were made, Mara took a deep breath and decided to try to shuffle across the room. Her right leg was entirely numb with pins and needles and refused to move when she intended. Her left sent a sharp pain from her ankle to her lower back. She felt bruised all over. Using the wheeled table as a walker she managed to hobble over to the window that overlooked a promenade brightly lit and decorated with green shrubbery and colourful flowers. An elderly couple, a man gripping an IV drip bag on a stand, and a woman wearing a vibrant red sun hat were resting on a bench together making conversation. Beyond the hospital grounds, there were various buildings and landing pads meant to receive craft entering the station. The ground curved upwards and around to become the ceiling several hundred meters away. A light rail car zipped past on its long circular track around the circumference. It was the opposite of a horizon. Places like this made Mara feel secure. She smiled and contented herself to watch the station go about its business until her legs wouldn't hold her any longer and she returned to her bed to sleep. She didn't wake until the next morning.