The Other Earth (9 page)

"I understand, I really do.
But, I am going to go." I said.

She pulled away and looked into my eyes, "I know" she said, her face already tear streaked.

"Look, let's go sit on the couch, there is something else I want to talk about" I said.

She nodded and followed me to the couch with her head down. After she had sat down on the couch, I sat next to her.

"What do you want to talk about" she asked.

"Well, it's about Vickie" I said.

She looked up at me quickly, "What about her?" she asked, her eyes wide and trained on my face.

"Do you love her?" I asked.

She nodded, "Yes, more than I have ever loved anyone" she said.

I smiled at her, "Good. I think you should ask her to move in" I said.

She opened her mouth as though to say something, then closed it back again, obviously confused as to what I had just said to her.

"Look. With this mission comes a few perks. They have promoted me to an executive position with a substantial pay raise. My new salary,
which is effective immediately is nearly three times as much as what I am making now." I said.

"Wow" she said.

I nodded, "Yes. Also, since we will be gone, we have been given a financial adviser that will oversee all of our bills and things while we are gone. I have already set in place the rent and all the bills for this apartment to be paid out of my salary. You will not have to pay for anything except for the food you buy. I really don't like the thought of you living here all by yourself, but I still want to be able to come back here when I get back. Vickie moving in with you seems like the best solution to me" I said.

Stacey let out a breath and sat back on the couch. "Wow, this is so much to take in. Okay, so I will not have to pay my half of the rent
anymore?" she asked.

I shook my head, "Nope, rent is going to be completely on me for the next two years" I said.

She looked up at me, "So, what happens if you don't come back?" she asked.

"I'm going to come back" I said sharply.

"Okay, I understand that you plan to come back, but what happens if something goes wrong and you don't?" she asked.

I sighed, "In the case of my death or if after three years we do not surface back to earth, they will basically pay out my new life insuranc
e policy out to my beneficiary the sum of the policy. The policy I chose will pay out three million dollars in the event of my death due to the mission" I said.

"Who is your beneficiary?" she asked.

I smiled, "You are. Three million dollars would be enough to set you up with a nice little place that you could pay cash for and not have to worry about paying rent anymore."

She nodded, "It wouldn't be as nice as you coming back though" she said.

"So, what do you say, are you going to ask Vickie to move in?" I asked.

She took a deep breath, "That's a big step, do you think I'm ready for it?" she asked.

I reached over and grabbed her hand, "I think you are, and if there was ever anyone I would say you were ready to settle down with, it's Vickie."

She nodded, "O
kay, I'll do it."

We stood back up to head back to the kitchen to finish dinner when she turned and looked at me, "So does this mean that I'll have extra money to buy some new shoes?" she said.

I laughed, "Yes, it does" I said pulling her into a big hug, happy that Stacey would never change.

Chapter Nine

I stuffed the last bag of food into the large closet and shut the door securely, latching the lock down to keep it into place.

"That's the last of the food" I said, looking behind me at Brandon, who was checking the gauges on the supply board to see if everything was full.

"Great. All that needs to be done now is filling the fuel and water reserves before takeoff" he said, looking
at the only two lights that were red.

"I'm glad our part is done at least, I have never lifted so many bags in my life" I said, stretching my arms out.

"Well, it's worth it, besides your arms have never looked better" he said, looking at me with a sideways glance.

I rolled my eyes and chose to ignore this particular comment, "So let's take one last look around. I haven't even seen the entire ship yet, mostly just the control area" I said.

"Yeah, that's a good idea, let's take a tour" he said, turning toward the long corridor that connected the control room to the rest of the ship.

"If you look over to your right, you will notice one of the many new features of the ship" he said in an annoying tour guide voice.

I laughed, "Okay, no need for that now."

He ble
w me a raspberry, "You are no fun, you know that?" he asked.

I followed him through the hallway until we came out into the private quarters, which was the only area I hadn't been to yet.

"So this is the area where we will basically be living for the next six months?" I asked.

He nodded and pointed to the two doors in front of us, "This first door is the bathroom. It has a toilet and a sink" he said, opening the door quickly to show a plain room with exactly what he had said would be in there.

"This next door is the shower" he said, opening the next door.

Inside was what looked like an entire room dedicated to a shower, but as she look, she noticed that there were actually two sets of shower heads and curtains that could be pulled around each one to separate
them.

"So how does this work exactly?" I asked, pointing to the showers.

"Which part? The part where they obviously want us to shower together?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"No
stupid, the actual taking a shower. Where does the water come from?" I asked.

"Well, we have two different water tanks. We have a water reserve that has fresh drinking water. We would use that for everyday stuff like drinking or cooking or whatnot. Then we
have a separate shower tank that basically pushes the water through a heating coil, through the shower head, back down the drain, through a machine that cleans it again, and then all over again." He said.

"So we basically just keep bathing in the same poo
l of water for six months right?" I asked.

He nodded, "Yes technically, but the machine cleans it, and it works pretty fast and the water pressure is surprisingly good considering."

He closed the door and I followed him down the hallway. The hallway opened up to a small living area that had a table and chairs, a sofa and a small kitchen. There were three doors next to each other on the other side of the room.

He pointed to the doors, "The two doors on each end are our bedrooms. They are pretty sparse, just
a small bed, night stand with a lamp, and a dresser for our clothes. The door in the middle is a small exercise room that has a couple of pieces of equipment to help keep us in shape, since we wouldn't get much exercise just walking through the ship."

I n
odded and sighed, "This is going to be a long six months" I said.

Brandon shrugged, "Nah, not will all the sex we will be having" he said.

I slapped him on the arm, "Yeah dream on buddy, I am a professional and plan to keep it that way" I said.

"We leave i
n two days Randi. This is crazy that the two weeks are almost gone" he said, ignoring my comment.

"Yeah I know. It seems like they just told me I was going yesterday, and now it's almost here" I said.

"How is Stacey taking it?" He asked. He had not spent much time over at my apartment since we had decided to go back to being only friends.

I shrugged, "Some days are better than others. Vickie already moved in, so that has helped to keep her mind off of things" I said.

"How is that going?" he asked as we turned to go back to the control room of the ship.

"It's going really great actually. Vickie is such a doll and you can tell she really loves Stacey. They have already decided that they are going to redecorate the apartment together so that it's something that
will feel like theirs, rather than just Stacey's apartment."

"How is that going to work? I mean it's still your apartment too, even though you will be gone for a little while" he asked.

"It doesn't bother me, if they want to make it feel more like their love nest I'm okay with that. They are under strict guidelines to leave my bedroom untouched though. I told them to treat it like they live in a one bedroom apartment and that my door is just a blank wall" I said.

He laughed, "I bet Stacey pouted on that on
e" he said.

I nodded, "Yes, she tried to talk me into letting her turn it into her shoe closet" I said.

He shook his head, "That does not surprise me" he said.

"So what about you, are you keeping your apartment for when you come back?" I asked.

He shook his head, "No, I am having someone come in and put all of my stuff into a storage locker at the SSE. There is nobody there to check on things, so it's easier for me to just find a new place once we get back" he said.

I nodded, "Yeah that makes sense" I said.

"So have you told your mom?" he asked.

I sighed, "Yes. I called and told her a couple of days after I found out" I said, running my hands through my short hair.

"I am almost afraid to ask how she took it" he said.

"Oh, you know my mom.
An actress down to the very fiber of her being. She was overly dramatic. She cried, she screamed, she begged me to stay, and then finally told me she was proud of me and would keep up with the mission on television."

Brandon laughed,
"I know your mom. She is going to somehow turn this into something about her. She will get a movie deal or something out of this." He said.

I nodded, "Yeah I know. My dad will probably turn up after I leave and try to milk it, pretending that he has always
been in my life and is a great dad or something" I said.

"I don't know. He seems pretty out of it these days" he said.

I sighed, "How did your parents take it?" I asked him.

"Oh, just like you would expect two
scientist to take it. They told me that they were not surprised and knew all along I would be chosen. They then took me out to dinner to pry all of the details out of me. It was horrible" he said.

I smiled, "Well at least they care and didn't just have a crying fit" I said.

He laughed, "Yes, I guess you are right about that" he said.

I looked over at him, unsure of what else to say to him to keep the conversation going. They had spent so little time alone together for the last two weeks, going out of their way to avoid talking. She realized that she a
ctually kind of missed him, she wasn't used to not going out and seeing him at the bar, or having him come over and watch old movies with her. She was just about to tell him that she missed her friend when his phone beeped.

"Oh it's time for our meeting wi
th Jessica. Let's go" he said, turning to leave the ship. She sighed in relief that she hadn't said something that would make things even more awkward.

***

I stood on the platform and looked down at the crowd of people beneath me, clapping and cheering. I
spotted a few friendly co-workers standing there, happy to watch us go. I also spotted Stacey and Vickie, holding hands while Stacey cried. I waved over to them, wishing I could go down and hug them one last time before we left.

I looked over at Brandon a
nd saw that he was looking in another direction and when I looked over I saw his parents standing there clapping. I waved at them and his mother blew me kisses, always one of my biggest fans. When I had told her my dream was to be a scientist when I grew up, she always pushed Brandon to be better friends with me, probably hoping my ambition would rub off on him.

"Okay, it's time. Let's go" Brandon said to me.

I nodded and followed him into the space ship, turning as the doors closed behind me, blocking my view of the crowd. I knew that they would be asked to go inside as it would be dangerous to stand that close to the ship as it took off.

I sighed and walked into the control room and sat in the chair next to Brandon. I placed all of my safety equipment on l
ike we had practiced so many times in the past two weeks. Once all of harnesses were in place I sat in my chair and waited for the control board to fire up.

"You okay?" Brandon asked.

I turned and looked at him, "Yes" I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked, look
ing at me closely.

I sighed, "Yes, I'm fine. I'm just a little sad, and a little scared. Nothing I wasn't expecting" I said.

He nodded, "I know, it was hard to say good-bye to everyone wasn't it?" he asked.

I nodded, determined not to cry, "Yes" I said qui
etly.

He looked at me for a few seconds longer and smiled. I looked back to the front as all of the lights on the control panel came on.

We both started to check all of the gauges to make sure everything was as it should be in silence.

"Okay guys, the ground is clear. We lift off in T minus sixty seconds. I need a verbal confirmation that all systems are a go" we heard the dispatcher through the intercom.

Brandon looked over at me and as I checked my last gauge I gave him the thumbs up sign, "All systems go. Ready for take-off" Brandon said into the intercom, pushing the button so that he could be heard.

We sat in our chair as the engines fired up loudly, too loudly to be able to hear each other, even though I wanted to hear that it would
be okay one last time.

I looked over at Brandon and he was already looking at me with a small smile. He reached out and grabbed my hand as we heard the countdown of the last ten seconds.

"Lift-off" we heard the dispatcher yell into the intercom.

I gripped
Brandon's hand as the entire space ship started to shake as it lifted off from the ground. I looked back down at Brandon's hand on top of mine and before the force of the speed of the space ship kept us from moving, he turned his hand so that our fingers intertwined together. My heart skipped a beat as I looked back up to the window in front of us and saw that we were already as high as the clouds and braced myself for the burst of speed that was coming to push us out of the atmosphere.

I felt the rush of
heat as we pushed through the little layer of the ozone we had left and instantly felt the weightlessness of space. My heart pounded as I realized that I had just left the planet. I had never even left the country before, and to suddenly be pushed through space was something to behold. I looked down onto the planet as it slowly became lower in the window. It looked as though I was watching it through a movie. The ocean looked so very blue from this high up, and the land looked like little puzzle pieces that were oddly put together. I let go of Brandon's hand and reached into the pocket of my seat and pulled out my camera, anxious to get a picture of what the earth looked like just outside of its gravity pull.

I took the picture and slowly put the camera back
into the pocket, careful to make sure that it was secure before letting go of it, not wanting it to float through the air.

"It's prettier than I thought it would be" Brandon said from next to me, looking out over North America.

I nodded, "I know. I feel like I'm watching a movie, or stuck in a dream or something."

"It does look like a movie."

The intercom made a static noise, the I heard the dispatcher's voice come over, sounding like they were right in the room, even though they were now so far away. "Great job team. You are scheduled to land on the moon in three days' time where you will check your supplies and status to guarantee that the ship with be able to get through the black hole. We will be back in touch when you are one hour from landing. You are free to turn on the gravity, good luck out there guys" he said before going silent.

Brandon reached up and flipped the switch for the gravity and I felt my body fall back down the inch into my chair. I looked over and saw that he was already starting to
take off all of his safety gear and followed suit. Once we had everything off, we stood up slowly and looked out of the window. The ship was starting to slowly turn itself and they watched as it slowly turned the front of the ship toward the moon. After a few minutes they could see the moon larger than it had ever been while on land, but still far enough away to look like the moon they were used to.