Constellations (52 page)

“
My
indifference? The
problem,
Mrs. Davis,” said Gabby, her voice rising, “is that you took away his toy. That's
your
indifference. I made that mistake. I took his Captain Kirk toy away once, and he said not one word to me for a week. A
week,
Mrs. Davis. Do you think I want to go through
that
hell again?”

“Mrs. Howard…”

“No, you listen to me. His father bought him those toys, and while I don't pretend to understand the hold they have on Breandán, I know enough not to mess with it.” She paused, took a deep breath, and felt relieved that Mrs. Davis didn't quickly jump into the breach. “It's not healthy, but what can I do?”

For several moments neither spoke.
“I don't think you appreciate our problem.”

Gabby buried her face in her free hand and wanted to cry. “I
do
appreciate your problem, Mrs. Davis.” Her voice grew hoarse and ragged, almost a whisper. “No one would be happier than I to see him parted from those toys. You and your teachers take them away from him at your own peril.”

“What does he do with the toys at home?”

“There's a muddy hole in our backyard where he sits and plays with them for hours.” She stood and walked across the dining room to the bay window overlooking the backyard and Breandán's muddy hole. “And he'll sit there, from the time he gets home from school until the sun goes down, playing with his toys—his construction trucks, his other action figures. I can't talk to him, he doesn't pay attention. The toys, that hole, those are the
only
things that truly matter to him.”

“I see,”
said Mrs. Davis. She paused.
“You say his father bought him the toys.”

“Yes.”

“Don't you feel that this is something you and his father should address with Breandán?”

“I can't,” said Gabby, her eyes welling up with tears. “My husband Kevin died in Iraq.”

 

The curtains are pulled shut so no sunlight can intrude. A sterile gloominess pervades the room. What light there is comes from the fluorescent tubes overhead, a weak, dull light that only enhances the room's depressive air. Above, one tube lights momentarily, then flicks out from a short in its ballast, producing an unintentional strobe effect on the room's occupants. No one notices.

People talk. A coffin sits on a dais at the front of the room, flanked by flower bouquets at both head and foot. The coffin sits closed; this is no open casket viewing. Kevin Howard was an army pilot. He died in an Apache helicopter crash, his body horribly mangled and burned.

The mourners make polite conversation, share anecdotes about college pratfalls, weekend excursions, business contacts. Remember that time back in Florida? People still talk about that Little League record he set. Wasn't he a handsome child? Look at how sharp he was in his army uniform. Whatever happened to that old friend of his from college? No profundity in these conversations, they are the words one speaks when coming to grips with a senseless tragedy to comfort those left behind, important words but ultimately empty and hollow words all the same.

There Gabby Howard stands, her long red hair falling across her shoulders and halfway down her back, flowing freely for once instead of being pulled back into her usual ponytail. She wears a dark dress, blue not black, because she feels blue highlights her green eyes better, a long dress to obscure the sneakers she wears for comfort instead of dressier flats. She works the crowd, greeting those paying their respects to Kevin, in a kind of lazy orbit in the open area in front of the dais. Most visitors she knows, some she does not, but she makes conversation with anyone who wishes it. Her duty as the grieving widow, the concerned mother.

Her son, Kevin's son, Breandán. He stands mutely near the foot of the coffin, his blue sport coat one size too small, his clip-on tie slightly askew, his blond hair combed but still ruffled. Breandán seems not to notice that his clothes don't quite fit, that the pin of his tie irritates the base of his neck. Gabby had intended to hire a sitter, leave him at home, and only changed her mind on her mother's advice—“He won't understand, he may not remember years from now, but he deserves to be there. It's his father.” She looks at Breandán from time to time, standing so quiet, so stoic, and she knows in her heart that bringing him was the right decision after all. He exudes a calm she wishes she felt. She sees in his quiet stoicism the strength she wishes she possessed. She feels pride in her son as other mourners approach him and offer their condolences, pride that he accepts their wishes and seems untroubled.

Outside night has fallen. Inside the mourning crowd thins out as the viewing hours end. Gabby walks up to her son, pats his head, tussles his hair. She kneels down and hugs him, but Breandán does not return the hug. Instead, he stands passive and looks her in the eyes, but she knows not what she sees there. His hands are folded before him, gripping something tightly. She takes his hands in hers, looks at his clenched fists and the object they hold. She says nothing, peels back his fingers.

Dr. McCoy.

 

“You're late, Doctor,” said Kirk, a mischievous smile playing across his lips.

McCoy frowned slightly and took his seat at the conference room table. “Dr. M'Benga had some concerns about a tissue sample we took from Ambassador Gett'Ipher.”

“Anything I should be concerned with?” asked Kirk. Ambassador Gett'Ipher, a Tellarite diplomat aboard the
Enterprise
en route to an urgent diplomatic conference on Algol Prime, had taken gravely ill two days out of Starbase 31. Though Kirk could substitute for the ambassador if necessary, Gett'Ipher had been instrumental in bringing the two parties—the Gottar Hegemony and the Omjaut Republic—to the negotiating table. The ambassador's health was an ongoing concern for the
Enterprise
senior staff.

McCoy shook his head. “The broad-spectrum antibiotic regimen we've applied has brought his fever down, and we're seeing an increase in his white cell counts, but we're not out of the woods yet, and I've got M'Benga and Chapel monitoring the situation closely.”

Kirk leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Keep me posted.” He turned and gestured to Spock. “The floor is yours.”

Spock nodded. “Thank you, Captain.” He touched the control panel before him, and the lights in the conference room dimmed. On the room's viewscreen a single star appeared. “This is Alpha Persei, also known in ancient Earth astronomy as Algenib. A blue-white supergiant, spectral class F, approximately five thousand times more luminous than Earth's own sun.” The image on the viewscreen changed, the single star replaced by a chart showing the plotted orbits of its twelve planets. “The Algenib system was first charted by the Earth starship
Columbia,
NX-02, in 2159.” Again the viewscreen changed, this time showing a single planet, gray and rocky, its face scarred by ancient asteroid impacts. “This is Algenib II, as photographed by the
Columbia.
A lifeless planet, not unlike Mercury in Earth's solar system.” The image of Algenib II changed, replaced with a fuzzy image of a blue-white planet, obviously taken from long distance. “This is Algenib II as it appeared to the
Enterprise
's stellar cartography telescope, six hours ago.”

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” said Kirk. He turned to the officer seated to Spock's left, another man in sciences blue. “Mr. Pearson.”

Thorvald Pearson, the head of stellar cartography, nodded slightly. “The
Enterprise
is the first starship to pass within twenty light-years of Algenib in the past decade, and stellar cartography asked for a brief viewing window on Algenib and its system to compare our observational data to that collected by the
Columbia
a century ago. We expected to find twelve lifeless planets. We
didn't
expect to find a Class-M planet.”

“Could the
Columbia
simply have missed it?” asked Kirk.

Pearson shook his head. “Unlikely, Captain. First, the world we observed is precisely where Algenib II is supposed to be, according to orbital predictions based on the
Columbia
data. Second, Algenib is a young system—no more than a quarter billion years—too young for any of its planets to have oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres.” Pearson must have seen the confusion on McCoy's face, for he explained, “Earth itself has had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere for only the last half-billion years or so, and that came about when single-celled life began producing and releasing oxygen as a waste product. Before that, Earth's atmosphere was a muck of carbon dioxide and methane. Things happen faster in a supergiant system than they would in a system like Earth's, but not
that
much faster.”

“So you're suggesting, Mr. Pearson, that Algenib II's atmosphere isn't natural.”

“I'm not suggesting it, sir, I'm
saying
it—it can't be natural,” Pearson said. “Something else to consider is that the image you see comes from our telescope observations. The Class-M world there on the screen is the way it was twenty years ago, not the way it is today.”

McCoy frowned. “So what does the planet look like today?”

“Unknown,” Spock said simply.

“We have a mystery on our hands, gentlemen,” said Kirk, “and we'll need to take a look for ourselves.” He frowned. “The diplomatic conference is our priority, and though we can spare a brief detour into the Algenib system, we haven't the time now for a thorough survey. We can, however, send a landing party to the surface for an initial survey while the
Enterprise
continues on our mission to Algol Prime for the diplomatic conference, and then return to Algenib once we're sure Ambassador Gett'Ipher has the situation in hand. Opinion, Spock?”

“A logical strategy, Captain.”

Kirk pushed his chair back and stood. “Lieutenant Pearson, I'm placing you in charge of the planetary survey. You have six hours to pick your team. Any objections?”

Pearson seemed overjoyed at the opportunity. “None, Captain. I won't disappoint.”

Kirk smiled. “You won't.” He looked at the others. “Dismissed.”

 

“In other news today, President Bush rejected a call by Senate Democrats to dismiss Secretary of Defense Donald—”
Gabby clicked the television off and tossed the remote on the sofa.

“You could have left it on,” said Nicole.

Gabby frowned. “Old news—I've heard it already.” News depressed her, news about the ongoing Iraqi conflict even more so. Five months had passed since the President had declared that “combat operations in Iraq have ended,” yet a month later Kevin's helicopter was shot down over the desert. How could “combat operations” have ended if combat was ongoing? She tried not to dwell on the disconnect between the two.

“I'll fix dinner,” said Nicole abruptly as she stood.

Gabby blinked, her thinking labored, and she slowly turned her head to look at Nicole. “You don't have to do that.”

Nicole smiled and shrugged. “It's what sisters do.”

Gabby said nothing.

With a shake of her head Nicole gestured at the window overlooking the backyard. “What's Squirt doing?” “Squirt” was the nickname Nicole had used for her nephew since he was a week old.

Gabby looked out the window. Mid-October, and the leaves were already falling. The oaks, maybe twenty yards distant, were bare, and at the edge of the woods the yard was littered with walnuts. Breandán's hole lay halfway to the woods, created by rain runoff where the fill dirt from the home's construction created a sharp incline down to the natural ground. Today Breandán lay prone on his stomach by his hole, each hand holding some toy. From the distance Gabby couldn't tell which toys he had with him today, but certainly some were his construction trucks, others his
Star Trek
figures.

“He needs a jacket,” Gabby said.

Nicole came up beside her and looked out into the yard at Breandán. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and denim pants, but in the late evening the temperature on an October night was bound to drop severely. “Kids don't think they need them. Until they really do.”

Gabby turned and shot Nicole a glare.

Nicole shrugged. “Call it the wisdom of experience. Three kids'll do that to you.”

The two sisters watched Breandán play in the muddy hole, waving his arms back and forth as he moved his toys across the grass and into the runoff gully and back.

“Where are the kids?” asked Gabby.

“John wanted to take them to see his parents, which I was fine with since I wanted to come see you this weekend.”