Travels and Travails, Pt 4

Ophelia had been given a terminal diagnosis after their fifth year anniversary. That's why Faust accepted Nabisco-Kirkland's bargain. In exchange for his theoretical FTL research (a personal project using his company's resources, of course) Nabisco-Kirkland would finance Ophelia's experimental cancer treatments out on Luna. They showed him projections; they all strongly suggested she'd survive--with the treatment.

There was nothing to it.

The freighter provided to Faust wasn't a fast ship; the cargo hold made up most of its impressive bulk. It looked like a recycler on its side. Despite its looks, it was pulled right off the line, recently tuned-up, and certified regular maintenance for the past fifteen hauls out to Mars from Terra. The interior color scheme--green and tan--reminded him of a particularly bad hangover from his freshman year at university.

For most people on Antioch, a freighter like that was a reminder of their next shift. There was no personal use for a freighter unless you were int he habit of hauling a ton of rocks through vacuum for fun. As a means of transport, it was like pushing a wheelbarrow.

For Faust, it was the only logical choice.

The freighter had been reinforced around an engine he'd designed, and Nabisco-Kirkland had manufactured in less than 48 hours. When he looked at the diagnostic readouts and bios settings, he could trace every operation, every redundancy and fail safe. Some parts of the fold capacitor were things he'd fiddled around with in his university parts lab.

And since Nabisco-Kirkland has leased out the engine to him at no cost with a Full Creative License Claus in the agreement, half a lifetime of red tape would be slashed away if he wanted to make some last minutes adjustments or scrap the entire thing and start from scratch. That idea made him chuckle villainously. No more burying his research in hidden drives. No pitching himself to distracted investors. Just the freighter, his engine, an EVA suit, and an exo-harness that used to belong to his father.

In the past, a scientist might have a basement 3-D printer or a garage with spiders and crates of engine parts and almost-there prototypes that would change the world if they could just figure out one last kink. Faust had a Nabisco-Kirkland Endeavor-Class freight hauler, and accepting it was the most deluded, self-centered, desperate, hopeful, mandatory thing he'd done since the day he'd asked Ophelia to marry him.

And yet, even as the table tennis of his mind fired hundreds of volleys across the table, each ball an idea or calculation or alteration, the part where he told his wife what he'd done sat there in the middle of the table like a freshly pinched turd. He was going to tell her. And when he finally dragged himself into her hospital room, the hesitation was only further justified.

"Lexi, you don't have to live up to your freaking name."

"You're going to recover," he said. "It's already been worked out. They'll be taking ownership of my engine, but I was able to work in a small royalty. We're both still going to have to work, but at least we'll have a nest egg."

Ophelia was sitting up in her hospital bed, rubbing the side of her face the way she did when she was thinking hard. The media screen was playing a gentle ambient music that was all pan flutes and cajones loud enough to cover the hiss of the air recyclers but not so much as to drown out conversation. In terms of spaces available on Antioch, Nabisco-Kirkland spared no expense.

"This is what I'm hearing, Alexander. I'm hearing you get to bargain away property rights and your own personal safety without consulting your wife -- and mother of your son -- first because you've decided it was for a noble reason. Is that what I heard from you just now?"

"No," he said, weakly. "I'm saying that I tried imagining a world without you, and I couldn't. I couldn't. I've spent my whole life thinking up ways to fold space onto itself so that we can travel faster than the speed of light. A company of very rich and very--yeah, sociopath--business people made my engine. An engine that, if it works, will give us the stars. I could imagine all of that, and then I made it happen. But a world without you?" He shook his head. "Does not not compute."

"Okay."

"I'm going to figure this out, Lia. I promise. Once you're back on your feet, maybe we can put our heads together and try to--"

"Okay."

He leaned back in the seat beside her bed. The pan flutes grew quiet.

"I'm sorry."

"I know, Lexi. And I forgive you," she said gently. "But I still get to be angry with you. And hurt, because forgot we play as a team. When Dr. Feng told me I was dying, I was scared out of my mind. There was no way I couldn't have been scared. But you know what made it suck less? You. Sitting right there next to me, pale as a ghost and yet still putting on a brave face. Like you're doing right now. I could have kept this from you. Hell, part of me still wants to. But when I decided to love you, that also meant trusting you. And when you do things like this, it makes me feel like I can't trust you. I don't want to feel that way. I want us to work together so then we can do risky and stupid and desperate things, together. I want to shoot for the stars, together. And you left me out."

She looked up at him and sighed. Her face was thinner than he remembered. The cancer had started withering her by the time Dr. Feng gave her the negative prognosis. When she smiled, he felt the fist around his heart unclench.

"I may...not have thought this through. It all made sense in the moment."

"No, you thought this through. You considered every angle and weighed the risks versus rewards while the corpo was still making his pitch to you because you're Alexander Faust. Which means you're the smartest, most methodical man who's only flaw is that he thinks, then acts, and then maybe considers his feelings only if there's time left before the next shiny things crosses his path." If there hadn't been warmth and laughter in her voice, Faust would have been eviscerated. Instead it sounded like love.

"Am I a robot?" he asked, smirking.

"You're a real boy, Alexander Faust. Now go fold space or whatever and get your ass back here so I can keep trashing you. Maybe that way you'll think of me before making deals with the devil."

"No promises."

She pinched him.

"Okay, okay. I promise."

*****

THE END