Tag: Cindy Margrave

Categories
Narrative

Beneath the Wall of Sleep

Although there was a fair-sized crowd in the library today, it was astonishingly quiet. The crowd was scattered among tables and carrels, studying singly or in twos and threes.

Brenda Redmond had come up here to pick up some material she needed for this afternoon’s class. But when she saw Kitty Margrave over at one of the study carrels, she recalled how Cindy had seemed rather upset this morning at the station.

Cindy had been trying to keep her professional face on, but she was still young enough that she didn’t have as much control as she thought she did. That little quaver in her voice, especially on the phone when she was sending callers to the appropriate office. The tendency to rush just a little whenever something difficult came up. It was only noticeable if you really were looking — but Brenda knew Cindy well enough to recognize the tells.

Except she was doing well enough that I didn’t want to raise the issue, because it would come across as criticism.

Which made Brenda wonder if she really ought to raise the question with Kitty, or if it would be better to leave well enough alone. In ordinary times, Brenda would’ve asked Betty Margrave, but the chief of Safety and Security was far too busy right now to be distracted by concerns about what might well be an ordinary personal upset.

And then Kitty looked up from her carrel. “Hi, Brenda. Have you heard anything new about what’s happening with Amy?”

“Actually I was wondering whether something was worrying your sister. Cindy seemed a little uneasy today at work.”

Kitty glanced around. “Well, it’s been a few days since we’ve gotten anything at all from her. Not even those weird, stilted messages that sound like someone’s dictated the words she’s to say.”

“That is worrying.” Brenda considered what their next step should be. She still hadn’t heard anything back about Robbie’s situation either, and she wasn’t sure which one was touchier.

In some ways, not knowing anything can let me hope that she’s found some kind of modus vivendi with her parents’ prejudices. Those weird stilted messages make me think of the elective I did a while ago on the Great Terror, and how they’d sometimes make prisoners write several postcards to their families, all about how they’re doing well in the labor camps, to hide the fact that they were actually about to be executed.

“Do you think we ought to ask Eli if he can find out whether Amy’s OK? I mean, he’s family–“

“But he’d have to have formal authorization to be able to break into secure systems, which means we’d have to go through IT, and possibly have to go all the way up to Captain Waite. I’m not sure he’d want to authorize it. Every time one of our people goes poking around government databases dirtside, it raises the risk that the Administration will take action.”

Categories
Narrative

Before the Storm

Cindy Margrave had been just as glad to get assigned to the six-station weight machine for today’s exercise session. Having to count her reps gave her something to occupy her mind, unlike time on an exercise bicycle or one of the other machines.

Still, it was only a temporary respite from everything that was on her mind. She’d overheard altogether too much worrisome stuff while she was doing her shift as receptionist to Shepardsport Pirate Radio this morning. Autumn Belfontaine had been in and out of the newsroom, talking to her news staff, or talking on the phone to people who knew where. She’d even called Lou Corlin out of the DJ booth to help her with something in Japanese, although Cindy didn’t know whether it was from Edo settlement or from the Home Islands.

Some of the stuff Autumn was talking about had sounded pretty technical. Cindy knew a lot of astronomers and space weather watchers were getting concerned about the Sun’s magnetic field, but her own knowledge of astronomy stopped at the basic course she’d taken from Dr. Paulding last year.

However, she did know one thing — the vibe was just like back in Houston when there was a busy hurricane season. The sense that the current hurricane in the Gulf wasn’t likely to be the only thing they had to worry about, and everybody had better be prepared for the possibility of lengthy disruptions of basic services.

Which is probably why Aunt Betty’s been so scarce of late.

Categories
Narrative

Battening the Hatches

Spruance Del Curtin was winding up the day’s work for Dr. Doorne. Now that he knew what the data represented, and why certain types of data tended to move in tandem, what he was seeing was very worrisome.

If this goes on, what will even be left? Already some countries were no longer reporting data, and were having to be dropped from the analysis. Most of them were small countries in Africa, but there were some in South America and in Asia.

Others were hanging on in spite of taking a beating. The US was a big country, with lots of depth of field to absorb blows, but Japan and even Israel remained functional, albeit struggling under the weight of enormous losses.

Sprue recalled his conversation with Cindy Margrave — when had that been? — about Colonel Hearne’s discussion in class about trust, and about how levels of trust were so critical in determining how well a society would function, particularly when under strain. Of course the colonel was recalling the Energy Wars — although he was already a veteran astronaut by that time, he knew more than a few people who’d served in the Middle East during that time — but current events were certainly playing out that argument in real time.

Just as he was doing the final checks on the data, Dr. Doorne walked in. “Statistics class is canceled for today. I just got word that Engineering and IT are beginning a special effort to increase the hardening on our electronics in the upper levels against a worst-case solar storm.”

Not surprising when one considered she held an advanced degree in electrical engineering as well as astronomy — one of the big reasons she was up here, rather than down on Earth. “Do you really think we’ll have a storm bad enough to do that kind of damage?”

“It’s hard to say. However, we are clearly moving into a historic solar minimum, and there is strong evidence both from history and from studies of other G-class stars of similar age in the galactic neighborhood that the incidence of these sorts of events actually increase during these periods. There’s a lot of speculation about stellar dynamo magnetodynamics, but to put it in layman’s terms, we think that sunspots actually serve to relieve the strain, rather like small earthquakes on a fault line.”

Sprue recalled some things that Juss Forsythe and Spencer Dawes had said about studying in California. “And if there aren’t any for a long time, when the fault does move, it’s a big one.”

“Exactly. Although we have a much better grasp of the mechanics involved in earthquakes, for the simple reason that seismologists have a lot of faults to study, and we astronomers have only one Sun. Until recently, we simply didn’t have the technology to study other stars at the level of detail we needed to even make educated guesses at how their internal dynamics compared to that of our own.”

It sounded very much like she was about to launch into a story of the state of astronomy when she was working on her PhD. Sprue didn’t need to be told to know the technology she was talking about would be the radio and optical telescopes right here on Farside.

Not to mention that he couldn’t linger here. “Um, Doc, I’ve only got an hour to get down to the dining commons and grab lunch, and then get to the station and start my air shift.”

“Right, of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He could hear the unspoken assuming we don’t have further schedule changes as the situation develops. And given that his work with Engineering was now having him liaison with IT, there was a good probability he’d be roped into this task too.

Categories
Narrative

Under a Shadow

Although Lou Corlin understood why Brenda Redmond had insisted on being the only one to take her friend’s situation to Medlab, he really wished she’d let him join her. It wasn’t like he was a little kid who needed to be protected from potential fallout. He was a legal adult, and he was accustomed to shouldering adult responsibilities.

Still, once Brenda had made that decision, he pretty much had to respect it. She hadn’t completely shut him out of the loop — she’d let him know that higher-ups on Medstaff were looking at the situation, which indicated that she hadn’t gotten into immediate trouble. But she’d made it clear to him that she wanted him to stay out of it from here on out, if only to protect him from any possible fallout.

So here he was at the station offices, having finished his air shift, listening to the Timeline Brothers cracking jokes and generally cutting up. The Alternative Lunch was both alternative music and alternate history, and today’s book was about a world in which space exploration stopped after the early lunar landings instead of consolidating those gains for a push to Mars. Needless to say, the Timeline Brothers pretty clearly considered the whole idea ridiculous. Why would either the US or the old USSR put all that much money and effort into building a space infrastructure to go to the Moon, and then abandon it all?

Except he recalled something Cather Hargreaves had said when talking about their ur-brother’s narrow escape and its historical significance, which only made sense if one presupposed that such a world did indeed exist. Lou knew that Cather and his family listened to Shepardsport Pirate Radio pretty often, even if it wasn’t exactly a station in good odor with command over at Grissom City. What would Cather think to hear those remarks?

As Lou came out to the front office, he noticed Cindy Margrave gathering up her belongings. She was usually out by the time he’d finished the handoff and logged his final set of songs, but today she must’ve had to deal with something at the last minute and was running late.

“How are things going?”

“As well as they can, given the situation.” Cindy was trying to sound positive, probably from the habits of working here, even if she was now off duty.

“Want to walk to the dining commons together and talk?”

Cindy hesitated, then agreed that, given they both worked here, it would probably pass muster as professional rather than personal.

After a little shop talk, Lou finally broached the subject more directly. “How’s things going with Amy?”

Cindy glanced away, a momentary visual flinch. “We’re in contact, but they still won’t let her have her phone back. Everything’s coming through someone at that makeshift orphanage of theirs, like they don’t trust her to communicate directly.”

“And they’re probably acting like you should be grateful they allow her to communicate at all with someone who’s under a Writ of Expulsion.” Lou might not work in the newsroom, but he was all too aware of the political situation.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Cindy was definitely shedding her professional receptionist persona and letting her teenage self back out. “I don’t think the people running that place appreciate the idea that one of their charges has connections. They don’t dare completely cut her off from the outside universe, but they sure want to make sure only things that make them look good get out.”

“Color me shocked.” Although Lou wasn’t usually much for sarcasm, right now it seemed appropriate.

Then he switched back to a more serious tone. “So how are her folks doing?”

“Not well. Apparently her dad didn’t make it, and even if her mom pulls through, she’s going to need a lot of regeneration. And that’s assuming she can even get it, and they don’t just go here’s your wheelchair, here’s your prosthetics.”

“Which means that in either case, she’s not going to be in any shape to take custody of her children for a long time, and with things in such complete chaos, there’s no way to get in contact with extended family unless they’re right there in Houston.”

“Which they aren’t, as I understand. She’s got grandparents somewhere in Kansas or Nebraska, but that’s assuming they haven’t succumbed to that virus. Even if travel weren’t pretty much shut down right now, there’s no way they’d be sending children off to stay with elderly and vulnerable family members. So it looks like she’s going to be stuck indefinitely, with the staff being as crazy controlling as Brenda’s afraid her friend’s parents are.”

“Not a good situation. But at least it sounds like she’s alive and healthy, and this thing isn’t sweeping through that place like a prairie fire through dry grass.”

Cindy admitted that it did appear that way, as long as the staff wasn’t fabricating responses in an effort to conceal a far worse situation. In any case, they were approaching the entrance to the dining commons. It was probably best for them to enter separately, since they’d probably sit with their own friends and family.

Categories
Narrative

The Ill Wind

As Lou Corlin arrived at the station offices, he considered that he might have spend more time than he should’ve on the traffic analysis Steffi Roderick had given him. Sure, it was a really thorny problem, but he also knew he had responsibilities the next day, including his air shift and his training.

But the whole time he was looking over that data, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was overlooking something important. That maybe everyone was overlooking something important, because they were so certain they knew what kind of problem they were looking at.

Which is what happened when we were locked out of the Internet. The symptoms resembled prior DDOS attacks so much that nobody in IT paused to wonder why it was intermittent, or why the usual remedies didn’t work. And then Sprue asked a couple of awkward questions, Steffi insisted they needed answers, and suddenly a whole bunch of weirdness had reasons.

And speaking of Spruance Del Curtin, he was here early today, and talking with Cindy. Not that scheming sort of talk that suggested he was trying to gain points, or wheedle something out of her without looking like he was obviously trying to gain a favor. No, he seemed to be actually discussing something with her.

Lou recalled hearing that Colonel Hearne had abandoned the syllabus last night in Constitution class and got into a whole lot of heavy stuff about how societies work. Of course the standard syllabus was intended for a typical public school classroom, so it probably wouldn’t be that hard for a class up here to catch back up to where they were supposed to be in plenty of time to take the test.

Much as he’d like to hear more about just exactly what Colonel Hearne had said, Lou could tell now was not the time to butt in on Cindy and Sprue’s discussion. Not to mention that he needed to get ready to do his air shift.

That was when Autumn Belfontaine poked her head out of the newsroom. “Lou, can I talk with you for a moment?”

“Sure.” Lou joined her in the newsroom, wondering what could be going on.

“I’d like for you to verify my understanding of some news releases in Japanese.”

As Lou skimmed over them, an icy knot of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. “It looks like they’re pretty much shutting down the Earthside part of their space program. Reading between the lines, it looks like they’re focusing on protecting their installations here on the Moon and on Mars from contagion.”

“Which strongly suggests those Indian astronauts did spread the diablovirus to the Sakura, but its medstaff detected it in time, so they didn’t spread it to Luna Station or anyone on the ground.”

“But they’re never going to come out and actually say that, because that would mean losing face.” Lou paused. “Or perhaps putting their Indian partners in a face-threatening situation.”

The fall of China’s “flying junkyard” and the destruction of Phoenix was before Lou’s time, but he’d studied it in enough classes to have a pretty strong awareness of the role played by fear of losing face in the decision chains of the Chinese Communist Party in those last fateful days and weeks. Spaceflight was no longer such a touchy national prestige thing for Japan, but the issues were still there.

And there was also the implication for the American and Russian space programs. Lou had already heard there were problems with infections at several of NASA’s space centers causing staffing shortages, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Imperial space program was getting hit by the problems too.

And all it would take is one careless person somewhere in the process of clearing people for spaceflight to get it up here too. We’ve been lucky so far, but how much longer will our luck hold?

Categories
Narrative

Waiting Is the Hardest Part

The next morning Cindy Margrave was still thinking about all the things that Colonel Hearne had talked about. The difference between high-trust and low-trust societies, and how that affected everything from how governments actually functioned to the availability of basic public utilities. Internal and external locus of control and how it determined how individuals and societies responded to stressors. How the lengthening of supply lines affected the interpretation of the Commerce Clause over the two and a quarter centuries since the ratification of the Constitution.

She’d intended to review her notes after she got back to the apartment, but Kitty was so visibly upset that she needed some comforting. Yes, Aunt Betty had said she’d try to find out what was happening with Amy’s family, but with no guarantees of how much information would be forthcoming or when, Kitty was struggling with a real fear that the promise might prove hollow.

It wouldn’t be so bad if certain people hadn’t used “later” as a way of saying “no” without actually saying it. Especially Mrs. Thomas in second grade, who’d say you’d be able to have something if you just waited patiently, but would always conveniently “forget” when you tried to actually get it.

Did the adults who pulled that stunt really think that children had such short memories that a promise made a month ago would’ve evaporated from their minds by the time it was to be fulfilled? At least none of the teachers up here ever tried to pull crap like that — but then, a lunar settlement pretty well proved everything Colonel Hearne was saying about high-trust societies. To survive, everyone had to trust that everyone else would do their jobs, and do them right.

Guys up here might play hard and pull outrageous pranks, hit on every pretty girl that caught their fancy, but nobody ever screwed over a buddy. Anyone who crossed the line was apt to get a dose of what Uncle Carl called “wall to wall counseling.”

Speaking of getting hit on, the Shep pack was hanging around the entrance of the dining commons this morning. With most of the senior Sheps either on missions or quarantined down at Flight Ops, there wasn’t much to put the brakes on their antics.

At least Cindy didn’t have to run that particular gauntlet, and not just because she was with Kitty, who was far too young for that. Although Uncle Carl was just their uncle because he married Aunt Betty, the fact that Cindy and Kitty lived in his household gave them the same lineage right as their cousins, which made them off-limits.

Cindy found an empty table and settled herself and Kitty in. Maybe they could get at least a little chance to talk.

And then up walked a familiar Shep. “Hi, Cindy. Do you mind if I join you?”

In another place and time, she probably would’ve said, as a matter of fact, I do mind. But Spruance Del Curtin was a colleague from the station, and snubbing him would not stand her in good stead with management. So she put the best face on the matter that she could. “Go ahead.”

At least he had the courtesy to make a little small talk before going into the real reason he wanted to sit at her table. “I hear Colonel Hearne went on a tear last night in Constitution class.”

Cindy had to restrain her urge to laugh. Tales had a tendency to grow in the telling, and it looked like this one was no exception, no matter how much senior staff reminded everyone of the dangers of spreading rumors.

“Actually he just went off the syllabus and talked about a lot of philosophical stuff about governance and society.” Cindy realized she had an opportunity here. If she could convince Sprue to help her study her rather disorganized notes, maybe she could make sense of everything the Hero of the Falcon had said.

Play on Sprue’s Shep ego, make it impossible for him to say no without sounding like he wasn’t up to the task. And she did have the advantage of knowing that nobody would give her the side-eye or act like there was something more going on than there was.

Categories
Narrative

A Matter of Trust

Cindy Margrave hadn’t wanted to leave her sister to go home alone, but for reasons known only to the Department of Training, she’d been stuck with Constitution class right after supper. And given that Constitution class was mandatory for getting one’s high school diploma, and it was invariably taught by one of the senior pilots, there could be no question of skipping it, or even being tardy.

Captain Waite taught it a lot of the time, but this term Colonel Hearne had drawn that teaching responsibility. However, just because he wasn’t family didn’t mean he wouldn’t notice her absence. He’d shown the class more than once that age had by no means dulled his perceptions — or his response times. Cindy still remembered the time he’d caught Eli Mallory playing a game in class by hiding his phone behind his laptop.

As the most senior pilot-astronaut in Shepardsport — he was already a veteran astronaut who’d commanded important missions when Reginald Waite was still at Annapolis — he possessed an unofficial authority in the pilot community such that no one would try to gainsay him. Even Captain Waite deferred to him.

The room was about half full by the time Cindy arrived. She took a seat and pulled out her laptop to review her notes from last session. Behind her, Eli was trying to hit on one of the other girls in the class. From the sound of it, he wasn’t getting much traction.

Colonel Hearne arrived exactly at the top of the hour, as precise as a DJ signing on and beginning an air shift. The moment he walked through the door, the buzz of conversation ceased and everyone turned their attention to him.

“Good evening, everyone. Tonight we’re going to do things a little differently. Up until now, we’ve been discussing the Constitution article by article, section by section. However, it’s come to my attention that we can end up losing sight of the whole amidst the minutia. Not seeing the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes.”

Cindy could feel the unease like a palpable thing around her. Why would he suddenly decide to depart from the normal course progression? Although Constitution class didn’t have a mandatory course structure like certain critical safety courses — she remembered when Uncle Carl had to re-up his oxygen delivery certification for EVA, and it had a syllabus that was mandated by the Federal government — the teacher still needed to cover the necessary material to ensure everyone could pass the test, and that was mandated, albeit by the state of Texas, since for legal purposes all off-Earth US facilities were treated as if they were a part of Johnson Space Center in Houston.

But there was no time to wonder, because Colonel Hearne was already cuing up a video on the big monitor at the front of the classroom. It looked like a lot of news footage — Cindy had already seen some of it just walking past the newsroom during her work shift this morning, especially the one of the people swarming a semi and literally tearing the trailer apart to get the pallets of food within, climbing over each other to grab a package of crackers. But there were also a lot of clips of people waiting calmly in lines that stretched as far as the eye could see, or helping one another rebuild a structure damaged in a storm. Most were non-descript enough settings that it was impossible to tell where or when they were happening in the absence of well-known landmarks, although she did see kanji and kata on some signs that placed one clip in Japan, and the Hangul on another sign placed that clip in Korea.

And then it was over, and Colonel Hearne was looking directly at them. “It’s said that people show their true faces when they’re under pressure. You’ve just seen how different cultures react to severe stress, what is often termed a breaking strain. Today we are going to talk about why this is, and how it relates to why the system of government set out in the US Constitution has worked so well for the American people, but does not necessarily transfer to other countries.”

“First, I want to introduce you to the concept of social trust.”

Where is he going with this one? Cindy was listening so closely that she no longer had any time to worry about her sister, or her sister’s friend down on Earth who hadn’t re-established connection after the Outage had been resolved.

Categories
Narrative

The Sound of Silence

When Cindy got to the dining commons for supper, she noticed Kitty sitting all by herself. Unusual, since her younger sister usually sat with her circle of friends unless it was Family Night.

Although Cindy had been planning on joining her regular study group and continuing their discussions from class, she decided she’d better make sure things were OK with her sister. She sat down beside Kitty. “How’s it going, kiddo?”

“Worried.” Kitty pushed her beets around with her fork as if trying to find the willpower to get the next bite down. “It’s been almost three days now since I’ve heard anything from Amy.”

“Which means you have no idea what her situation might be.” Cindy cast a look over at the tables where the married pilots and their families sat. “I think a lot of people are worried right now. We know that things are not good on Earth, and we have good reason to believe that the authorities are trying to cover up just how bad things are getting.”

She stopped, realizing she was about to repeat what she’d overheard Uncle Carl and Aunt Betty talking about last night. Not just that Flight Operations was considering quarantining pilots even if they hadn’t had any contact with the crew of Luna Station, but also some very disturbing messages both of them had received from people working at Johnson and some of the other NASA centers around the country.

Except she hadn’t been part of that conversation. She shouldn’t even have been listening in, and sharing that information with Kitty would only compound her lapse of civility.

If Kitty noticed the sudden pause, she made no remark on it. “I just wish I knew what were going on.”

“I do too. But with the problems IT’s been having with our Internet connection, we’re not getting much in the way of news from Earth.” Again Cindy had to pause and think about how much she should say. At the station she’d overheard a lot of stuff, and she had good reason to believe that a lot of it was not for public consumption. “I’ve heard a few people have been able to get e-mail messages through, but that’s mainly because of the way e-mail works.”

Even as Cindy was struggling to remember how Lou had explained the principles of e-mail server operation, a familiar voice asked, “May we join you.”

There stood Brenda Redmond, children in tow. Beyond her, Cindy could see that the other tables were rapidly filling up. With her husband stuck at Slayton Field, Brenda would be looking for familiar faces — and a table that still had three seats available.

“Oh, hi, Brenda.” Cindy hoped she wasn’t blushing too badly. “Sure, have a seat. We were just talking.”

“Thanks.” Brenda got her children seated first, then sat between them. “Have you heard anything more from Amy?”

Cindy and Kitty exchanged those awkward glances, trying to determine who should speak first. Brenda picked it up. “If you’d rather discuss it in private, drop by my apartment about 9PM tonight. I’ll have the kids put to bed, and we can talk about the situation in private.”

“Thanks.” Cindy gladly let Brenda move the conversation to more neutral topics: work, classes, settlement life in general.

Categories
Narrative

In the Information Void

There was one good thing of having a work shift right in the middle of a crisis — it kept you so busy you didn’t have time to brood. But now that Cindy had finished her shift as receptionist at Shepardsport Pirate Radio, she found she had altogether too much time to think about the current situation.

You now know just enough about it to worry you, but not nearly enough to help resolve it. On top of that, you don’t know what’s going on with Amy or her parents. The last thing you knew, her mom and dad were both being taken to the hospital, and both of them were in bad shape.

Even as Cindy reached for her phone, she checked herself. No, Kitty had her own responsibilities, and shouldn’t be interrupted. Right now there was nothing either of them could do about Amy’s situation, assuming they could even get through whatever was making communications with other lunar settlements difficult and communications with Earth well-nigh impossible.

As Cindy arrived at the Shepardsport dining commons, she scanned the area, but didn’t see Kitty. Nor did she see any of her cousins. Which meant she could either try to find someone to sit with, or take a seat at an empty table and have whoever chose to sit down with her.

Look on the bright side. At least you don’t have to deal with a dozen or more teenage Sheps all trying to hit on you, like the girls from other lineages have to.

As she was working her way through the maze of tables, someone called her name. She turned to see a blond-haired young man waving to her. “Over here. You can sit with me.”

“Thanks.” As she went to join him, she struggled to recognize him. Not Quinn Merton, although he was definitely an Armstrong.

He must’ve picked up on her struggle, because he introduced himself. “I’m Cory Jannifer. Justin Forsythe asked me to make sure you had someone to sit with at lunch.”

“Um, that’s nice of him.” Cindy winced at how clumsy those words sounded. She’d met Cory a couple of times — he’d been Spruance Del Curtin’s junior TA in a basic science class a couple of years ago, and had come to the station fairly regularly to drop things off. But it had been a while, and Cory was hitting that age when puberty really started transforming a person’s appearance.

“He is concerned about your situation.”

The sudden clench of the spinal muscles caught Cindy by surprise. There was no rational reason that she should be alarmed by what was obviously meant as a courtesy.

Yet there was the inescapable question: just how did he knew he should be concerned? She hadn’t said anything to him about Amy, and as far as she knew, neither had Kitty or Brenda.

She knew he’d spent some time out in California, at the retreat house of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. They were a parapsychological research community, which strongly suggested he possessed some level of telepathy.

There were rumors about experiments that had gone on during the Cold War, attempts to create clone-lines of powerful telepaths by splicing feline DNA into humans. They were common enough to have even become the basis of several manga series, although those were pretty clearly fantastic, with their cute telepathic catboys and catgirls getting into mischief as much feline as human.

Although Cindy wanted to ponder why the idea should bother her so intensely, Cory was already asking her how her classes were going. Nothing intrusive, just the usual making-conversation sort of thing, but she would be remiss if she didn’t respond.

And quite possibly he was supposed to engage her in conversation specifically to take her mind off Amy’s situation.

Categories
Narrative

An Alarming Silence

Cindy had been up later than she’d intended the previous night, and now she could tell she was paying for it. Twice already she’d fallen asleep sitting up while trying to eat breakfast. At least Uncle Carl was still off on a mission and Aunt Betty was spending more time at her office than anywhere else, so Cindy didn’t have to deal with their disapproving looks. On the other hand, her cousins were most definitely noticing.

But what was I supposed to do? Especially since it was pretty clear Amy needed to talk, and I didn’t want to just leave Kitty to deal with it by herself.

Which raised another troubling issue — as of yet, Kitty hadn’t been able to contact Amy. She’d promised to text as soon as she got up for school, but there hadn’t been so much as a ping.

You weren’t supposed to be using your phone in the dining commons, since this was supposed to be a place for in-person socializing. But Cindy knew her younger sister had her phone on her lap, positioned just right to be able to see it, and was surreptitiously sending texts every so often.

At least her mandatory exercise hour didn’t start for another half hour, so she could take her time eating. Cindy was already running late for her shift at the receptionist’s desk at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. At least Autumn Belfontaine had given her a pass to run late if she needed to.

On the other hand, there was always the risk the boss would come in and find her absent. Especially the big boss, since Shepardsport Pirate Radio was technically considered part of Engineering, and Ken Redmond was notoriously unsympathetic about personal problems.

Which meant she’d better get going. Cindy leaned over to her sister and whispered, “When I get to the station, I’ll use the desktop computer to try to run some network checks. When I find something out, I’ll text you.”

“Thanks.” Kitty’s voice sounded unsteady, for all she was trying hard to put a good face on things.

As Cindy headed for the door, she wondered if she should just call in to the station and tell Autumn that she was going to take the day off. But with nothing definite to go on, it seemed way too much like self-indulgence to take the day off.

Just past the door, she was aware of someone sidling up to her. Dang it, but the Sheps were supposed to treat her as family, not someone to hit on.

But when she turned to tell him off, her gaze met a round face utterly unlike the long face of a Shep. “Uh, hi, Spence.”

Spencer Dawes smiled, not the big grin of a Shep, just an upward quirk of the lips that actually was more warm and inviting. “It looked like you could use the company. What’s wrong?”

Cindy moistened her lips and considered how much she wanted to say, how much was Kitty’s story to tell. “My sister’s having some trouble contacting an old friend back on Earth.”

That got her a nod of sympathy. “I’m hearing they’re having some communication troubles. If you’d like, I could have Juss see if one of his brothers would be able to stay with your sister.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

Spence gave her another reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, it’s no problem. You’ve got lineage right to ask me for help. And I think you could use some company walking to work.”

Much as Cindy wanted to argue, she knew he was right. Spence was a clone of Edgar D. Mitchell, Alan Shepard’s Lunar Module Pilot, and therefore in the Shepard lineage. And right now, having to make small talk with someone would help take her mind off a situation she couldn’t do anything about.