Amygdala Page 4

  Yes.

  Gypsy glanced at her clock; it read 19:28:14, less than two minutes before her guest was scheduled to appear. If she took the 19 as 7pm, then hours, minutes and seconds were all multiples of seven, surely a good omen.

  “Now, don’t start playing the numbers game,” she chided herself, “you know it’s just silly superstition.”

  But her mind was already running along its familiar track.

  Seven … lucky seven … “lesbian” has seven letters, so does “sapphic” … if I married Annie I’d be Gypsy Grace, and G is the seventh letter of the alphabet … her first name and surname have a combined fourteen letters, the same as mine, meaning an average of seven letters per word … her name doesn’t have a single f or m, which are the unluckiest letters of the alphabet … perfect, perfect …

  Although …

  She frowned. It had suddenly struck her that, when writing Annie’s name, one might apply one’s pen to the paper six times, once for each of the five letters, but then a sixth time for the dot on the i. Six was an unlucky number – downright evil, in fact.

  There was a solution: she could refer to Annie by her full name, Annabelle. It was a nuisance, but she couldn’t risk Annie’s safety – risk Annabelle’s safety – by associating her with the number six. There were probably no such things as unlucky numbers, but she couldn’t take that chance.

  A knock on the door. Gypsy hurriedly checked that she was presentable before responding.

  “Come in!”

  Her heart leapt a little when the door opened and the object of her desire entered the room. So silly for a 33-year-old (or 12,152-day-old, more properly) to feel like a lovestruck adolescent. But then, most adolescents were far more experienced than she was when it came to these interpersonal interactions.

  With difficulty, she forced herself to make a brief eye contact. She’d failed to do that last time, but today she caught a glimpse of lovely emerald irises before her courage failed and her gaze dropped to her feet.

  “Hi there, Annabelle. Thanks for coming.”

  “Whoa there. Call me Annie. I’m Annabelle for job applications and best-selling novels, nothing else.”

  “Erm…”

  Was it alright to call her Annie, given that she had specifically asked to be called that? Gypsy wasn’t sure, but she supposed so. At least, if something bad happened, she was partially absolved of blame, as she was honouring her friend’s wishes.

  Plus, the whole thing’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as unlucky numbers. Snap out of it and start enjoying yourself.

  “You’re kinda zoning out on me, pal. You okay?”

  Gypsy realised that she’d been staring into space for several seconds. “Yes! I was, erm … thanks for coming.”

  “Hey, any time. And you’re violet today, I see. That mean you’re feeling all bright and lively?”

  The mathematician looked down at her outfit, which was, indeed, entirely violet. She’d told Annie before about how her choice of colours reflected her mood upon waking. Or, more accurately, reflected her gut instinct about what the day ahead held.

  “No. Violet for me is the colour of vulnerability. Of weakness, I suppose.”

  “For real?” asked Annie, strolling idly around the little room – less than a quarter the size of regular crew quarters. “Why’s that?”

  Gypsy was momentarily at a loss. At length she replied, “Well, it’s close to my skin colour, so there’s an idea of exposure, having no defences…”

  Kind of like how I feel when I’m around you.

  “I like the bear. Does he have a name?” Annie indicated a large teddy bear in Gypsy’s bed. The duvet was tucked carefully just below his bow tie, his head resting lightly on the pillow for maximum comfort.

  “Bobby.” Gypsy frowned. She’d told Annie that a couple of weeks ago. Did the technician find her boring? Was she not paying attention? “I’ve had him since I was four.”

  “Cool. I brought some of my old stuff along. Memories of home.”

  “Ah.” That was good; they had something in common. But now, how to move the conversation forward? Gypsy was so absorbed in racking her brains for something to say that she lost track of her visitor’s movements. It was only when Annie was stepping up to her writing desk that she remembered the love poem lying there.

  Heart lurching, she crossed the distance between them in double quick time, grabbing the page which bore the incriminating words and stuffing it into a pocket in her dress.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Just, ah … something I’m working on.”

  “A math problem?”

  “Maths,” corrected Gypsy automatically. “Yes, that’s it.”

  How could I have been so foolish? What was I thinking? Letting her read it would have been my worst humiliation yet …!

  She could picture it now, a frown overtaking the technician’s narrow features as she read, her gaze slowly rising from the page, coming to rest on Gypsy with a mixture of pity and contempt. Then there’d be an awkward exchange, Annie going through the necessary spiel about how they could still be friends. But she’d never come to visit again.

  Or would she have been angry? Would she have torn up the page? Would she have stormed off, shown the poem to the crew? Would they all have laughed at her? She could never have shown her face outside this room again. How close a call had it been? If Annie had just read the first stanza, would she have guessed the meaning? What if she actually had glimpsed it, and was keeping her reaction to herself? What if the page fell out of Gypsy’s pocket now? Annie might pick it up and read it. What if …?

  So many possible scenarios, and she knew she couldn’t rest until she’d played them all out in her mind, exploring and digesting them. But she was aware of the other woman looking at her – probably wondering whether Gypsy was “zoning out” again.

  “Can we play some chess?” she asked. That would buy her the time to clear her mind a bit.

  “Sure. I’ll try not to give you too bad an ass-whooping…”

  The board was already set up on a corner of the desk. There was no doubt as to the outcome, of course. Gypsy played more or less on automatic pilot, passing up on aggressive moves to spin the games out. She began to play out the various disastrous scenarios that had forced themselves into her mind, thinking of how she might have acted in each case, and considering the possible consequences for the rest of her life, in both the best and worst conceivable cases.

  It was hard work. Each time she closed down one scenario, her fertile imagination would create another branch for her to worry about. Each time she thought about the poem in her pocket, another wave of anxiety would hit her. She kept a hand clamped over the page, to ensure it couldn’t slip out, but that only seemed to make her feel worse.

  They were well into their third and final game before Gypsy could shake off her fears enough to begin properly enjoying Annie’s company. She’d steal glances up at the redhead’s face, admiring her concentration, the furrow of her brow as she focused on the game. Sometimes her gaze would linger on a cluster of freckles, or a stray lock of fiery hair. Once it rested for a second on the twin swells of Annie’s bosom.

  “Don’t do that,” Gypsy whispered reproachfully to herself.

  Annie overheard. “Don’t do what?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Sorry, nothing. I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to … erm…” But she could hardly say that she was talking to herself; she’d look mad. “I was talking to … someone…” she finished weakly.

  The other woman’s expression was unreadable.

  Gypsy finished off the game in short order, with the inevitable checkmate – she would never patronise one of her crewmates by letting them win – and Annie excused herself, noting that she wanted to relax a bit before her next shift. They walked to the door, Gypsy still holding a hand awkwardly over her pocket.

  “You’ve been an awesome hostess like always, Gypsy Moth.” Annie smiled brilliantly. “I’ll s
chedule another visit in a few days. If you want me to, that is…?”

  “Oh yes, please, certainly.”

  “See ya then, then.” She turned to go.

  “Wait!” The word emerged, unplanned, from the tangle of Gypsy’s brain. “I … I just want to say…”

  … that every moment I spend in your presence is an honour I don’t deserve …

  … that I want to rearrange the stars so that they spell out your name in letters a million parsecs high …

  … that you’re the most gloriously vital and vivid person I’ve ever met …

  “... thanks for coming.”

  “Hey, any time.” With a swish of denim, Annie left.

  Gypsy seated herself as she waited for her mind to settle into some sort of order. Such a shame, that Annie’s radiance must always reach her as a diffused glow, attenuated by its passage through the twin shrouds of OCD and acute shyness that hung heavy about Gypsy’s mind.

  Even now, she could feel the compulsions tug at her. There were scenarios relating to the poem in her pocket to be played through … and replayed, over and over, until stopping felt right.

  She drew out the poem and reread it, the quiet voice of common sense in her brain futilely pointing out that, to the casual observer, it would look like nothing more than a whimsical piece of fantasy about anthropomorphised flames and shadows.

  Her plan had been to tear it to pieces once she was alone, but she now found that she couldn’t. The reason, Gypsy thought, was much the same as the one that drove her to keep the teddy bear of her childhood for three decades, tucking him in every morning, lying beside him every night – to her, they were both alive, existing as embodiments of things precious to her. The bear was her childhood, the poem was her love, and she could not bring herself to harm either one of them.

  Gypsy folded up the page with a sigh and hid it at the bottom of a pile of papers. Her OCD continued to nag at her. At such times, she was apt to become sensitive and irritable; the background thrumming of the ship, which she barely noticed most of the time, seemed suddenly obtrusive. It was loudest near to the wall that held her computer screen, as the ship’s Hub lay beyond that surface. She rose and moved to the other side of the room, frowning and rubbing at her temples. Noticing her noise-cancelling headphones on the floor, she sat and slipped them on. Gypsy usually wore them when she was talking to anyone other than her mother, but she’d wanted to hear Annie’s bright tones, unfiltered.

  The headphones shut out most of the external noise but could do nothing to prevent the cacophony within. Unwelcome thoughts continued to materialise; her brain felt heavy and woolly.

  Time for bed. Time for sleep, my fleeting refuge …

  In short order, after wishing her mother a good night, Gypsy was sitting beside Bobby, dressed in her nightgown and ready for her nocturnal routine. She placed her quantum goggles over her eyes and activated them.

  At once, her eyes and mind were filled with shifting, swirling colours – ephemeral particles, the mastery of which made the Bona Dea’s leaps through space possible. As she played with the controls of the goggles, limiting the display to certain types of particle, or to those a certain distance away from her, Gypsy’s troubles withdrew, for the moment, into the darkest recesses of her mind.

  Every part of her brain, she thought, was touched by the display. Consciously, she could gain an impression of how the ‘weather’ was looking for the ship’s KSD jumps, especially when she focused on the četri and septiņi particles, but she was certain that her subconscious was taking in information as well.

  Soon, drowsiness overtook her, and she discarded the goggles. Her worries and obsessions would return tomorrow morning, but for now she slept in peace.

  * * *

  Miriam Hunter’s slumber was rather less satisfying. She was troubled by dreams about her daughter, vague and disjointed, with Amelia appearing sometimes as an innocent child, sometimes an angry teenager, sometimes a distant adult. She was relieved when her alarm clock woke her.

  In short order, she was striding out into the Hub, ready to oversee the third KSD leap of their voyage home. This jump would subtract a little under a thousand light years from the distance between them and Earth – barely two percent of the gulf, but she felt a tiny burden lift from her shoulders with every chunk they knocked off.

  Hunter had been present in the Hub for each of the previous seventy-two leaps the Bona Dea had undertaken, from her first tests of spaceworthiness onwards, and wasn’t planning to lose that one hundred percent record any time soon. Pride, perhaps, to treat her own presence as a necessity, but she saw no reason not to permit herself this harmless indulgence.

  She greeted Shamecca Jackson, noting with sadness that the second officer still wasn’t quite looking her old self. The concussion she had suffered in combat on Mahi Mata – she wore a medical band about her temples to aid in her recovery – and the emotional blow of losing a close friend in the same battle had combined to rob her of some of her vitality. While Hunter had no doubt that she would still perform her duties reliably, there was a spark missing from her dark eyes. The captain feared that it may not come back until they saw the Earth again.

  The two of them went through the familiar routine: Gypsy’s navigational plan was processed; the readiness of the KSD was confirmed by Annie, now on duty in engineering; final checks were conducted on power consumption and hull integrity. At Hunter’s signal, Jackson informed the crew that a leap was imminent, screens slid over every window and the KSD was activated.

  For the seventy-third time, the Bona Dea was flung through space.

  A brief check confirmed that they had arrived acceptably near to their target point, a nondescript area roughly equidistant from four stars and light years away from any of them. There were no blaring alarms warning that the ship was about to split in two. Jackson raised the screens, confirming that they were back in normal space.

  Gazing up with little interest at the overhead window and the star-speckled vista beyond, Hunter used her wristband to reopen a channel to engineering.

  “Kohler-Schmid jump successful. Grace, can you confirm that the drive’s condition is still in the green?”

  The instant affirmative that she had expected did not materialise. Instead, she heard nothing but background noise. It only took a few seconds of silence to put her on high alert.

  “Annie! Is everything alright?”

  More silence. Hunter was on the move and halfway to the exit before she got her answer. The tone of Annie’s voice chilled the captain as much as the words she spoke. In all the years that Hunter had known the technician, she had never heard her sound despairing or defeated.

  Until now.

  “No, Captain. It’s not alright at all…”

  IV

  … Our hopes of returning home may have vanished, and not with a bang, but with a whimper.

  I don’t understand the science of the KSD at all, my recent technical training having focused upon less esoteric areas, but as I understand it, the workload is shared between five domes. Any single dome can, in theory, execute a jump by itself, but is liable to be overburdened pretty quickly, hence multiple domes are used as a fail-safe measure.

  Equalising equipment within the central dome ensures that the load is split more or less equally. It failed, doubtless due to damage picked up back on Mahi Mata. The northern dome – this is the name given to the one nearest the nose of the ship – received the lion’s share of the work on this occasion, resulting in an overload. From what I gather, there was no spectacular explosion, hardly any sound at all, in fact. The surface of the dome simply turned jet black.

  Vital parts are damaged or fused; we don’t have the gear necessary to replace them, nor is outer space the right place to do so. We also cannot fix the damage to the equalising equipment. Annabelle Grace, who is our resident expert on the KSD, has some ideas for ways to jerry-rig a backup system to assist with equalising, but it will be imperfect at best. The four remaining
domes will inevitably fail, one by one. Then the Bona Dea shall leap no more.

  The question is, can we still get another forty plus uses out of the KSD before this happens?

  I’ve been studying the body language of the technicians as they’ve worked on the problem. The answer, I’m afraid, is “no” …

  – Daniella Winters, Journal Entry #469

  “I think we can coax about another twenty jumps out of her,” said Annie. “That’s a very loose estimate, though. There’s a bucketload of variables that’re downright impossible to calculate with any sort of confidence. We can be pretty sure of getting another fifteen; we might be able to push it to twenty-five, but don’t count on that. I’ll do my best to boost that number up some.”

  There were fifteen of them crowded into the meeting room, though there was only enough seating space for eight around the circular wooden table; the others lined the walls, listening intently.

  The only missing crew members were Jackson, still manning the Hub, Ekaterina Antakova, keeping an eye on matters in engineering, and Gypsy, who had elected to remain in her quarters. All three of them were patched into the conversation via their wristbands, as was Chamonix, in her low-gravity dwelling place.

  Hunter tried her best to project a calm she did not entirely feel.

  “Thank you, Annie. According to our schedule, we’re still forty-four jumps from home. I spoke with Gypsy earlier, and she believes it may be possible to reduce that number by two or three if we wait for the best conditions, plus we can knock a couple more off if we head for the nearest terraforming colony – I believe that’s the Clarke Project – so we might be able to get it down to thirty-nine. I take it you wouldn’t be optimistic about managing that many leaps?”

  Annie exchanged glances with Lorna Costa, head technician since they lost Flora, before replying. “Sorry, but no. Gotta be frank: I wouldn’t give us a chance in a million.”