Symbiosis Chapter 11

Rianya Jackson took Zalara to the gym where her daughter and the Armory officer’s daughter, Honey, came to meet up every morning ever since they’d left the Sol system. With a crew of only twenty nine people, everyone knew the two young girls. Zalara, with her father’s aquamarine eyes, was half a head shorter than Honey and two years younger. Honey resembled her own mother, a Dutch woman with flashing sapphire eyes and pale blonde hair. Two small fish in an enormous ocean, they bonded instantly and were almost inseparable, even at the end of each day.

Precocious and well disciplined, they spent much of their time in the gymnasium but were often found in the mess, crew quarters deck, or even on the elevator standing at the edge of the open door looking into the bridge, but not daring to step a foot upon it.

“When I got this posting,” Cat said to Rianya, “I wondered what I was going to do with Honey. I didn’t want to leave her with family for so long. But when the captain said I could bring her along, even insisted, I was so grateful.”

“I also am glad you came on board and brought her. I’m not sure what I would do with her all day as her only companion.”

“We both have other jobs to do,” Cat said. “But if we each put in one hour a day, they could have two hours of formal school. And maybe some of the other crew would be willing to teach them what they know, even if they give one hour a week, if we had four or five of them?”

“You’re so smart, Cat, that’s brilliant. Perhaps Ms. Henderson, Dr. Gregory, and Bailey, she could teach them to cook.”

“You would let Zalara in the kitchen?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t think it’s dangerous?” Rianya laughed under her smile and looked Cat in her eyes.

“Compared to what?”

“I see what you mean,” the armory officer said. “I see danger around every corner,” she explained. “I’ll ask the regular crew if you can ask the officers. I don’t think I’d be comfortable with asking the doctors.”

“Why didn’t we think of this sooner?” Rianya said. “If it keeps the girls off the bridge, Tom, uh, the captain will be willing to let everyone have an hour off every week!”

They both glanced at their daughters playing a virtual game of badminton using electronic rackets and a life sized monitor. They’d already played several rounds of golf and a couple dance programs since breakfast.

“Can I ask you a question about Zalara?” Rianya felt a hollow swell in her stomach all of a sudden.

“Sure.”

“Honey has had insulin resistance since she was a baby. She’s never been allowed to eat simple sugars and carbohydrates. Dr. Adams told me she is perfectly normal, that she could have saccharides and sugar, carbohydrates – everything she wasn’t allowed to have she can have.”

“Really? Since when?” Zoe twirled a handful of her blond hair.

“A week ago. I asked Honey why she had a muffin in her hand and she said that Zalara fixed it. She was upset that Honey couldn’t eat the same foods, I guess. You know, they were in the mess, and Zalara didn’t understand insulin resistance, of course.”

“What did you want to know?” Rianya asked. Here it comes: how did her disease go away all of a sudden?

“Honey said Zalara touched her, here,” Cat pointed to the left part of her abdomen. “Then told her it would be okay.”

“Did Honey eat something she wasn’t supposed to? I hope Zalara didn’t make her eat--”

“No, no, but what a crazy story. I told her put that muffin right back where she got it and at the baseline exam with Dr. Adams he said she wasn’t diabetic like her record indicated. So we got into a conversation. Did Zalara say anything to you about Honey eating breads or sugar?”

“It’s strange, I agree,” Rianya said. “Zalara never mentioned it to me, but I’ll certainly talk to her later and see what she has to say.”

“It’s just strange, Honey saying Zalara got rid of her disease.” Rianya maintained her composure, calmly smiling and lifting her shoulders slowly.

“Do you have the time to watch them now? I told Dr. Ferris I would help her put together some field equipment.”

“Of course, I’m the on call during the day and the entire armory on the night. Can you come back by  eleven hundred to take them?”

“I’ll see you then!”

Rianya detoured on her way to the laboratory up to the doyen’s office and signaled Tom on the bridge from there.

“Bridge,” he answered sounding puzzled.

“Captain, please come to the doyen’s office.” She didn’t want to sound like the captain’s wife but as one of the mission specialists that she had become. A moment later Tom came in with a smile on his face and shut the door.

“This is, unexpected,” he said.

“Zalara is at it again.” Rianya sank into a chair with a huff.

“What? How do you know; what happened?”

“Honey told her that she couldn’t eat any of the sweets in the mess hall. Your daughter put her hand on the girl’s, uh, what the word, whatever that thing is called, here, that takes sugar out of blood,” she said, poking Tom at the bottom of his left rib cage.

“Her what?”

“She healed her. I don’t know how or when but the security chief no longer has a daughter with insulin resistance thanks to Zalara.”

Tom sat in the chair behind the desk and covered his face with one hand. Rianya waited patiently, wondering what he might say.

“That’s not such a bad thing, is it? All we can do is remind her not to ‘empath’ people. Is that even a word?”

“I don’t know. But she can’t keep doing this. Someone is going to find out, and it will be the kidnapping thing all over again.”

“No, it won’t come to that. It’s just us here, the crew.”

“It was the crew of the Stephen Hawking--”

“It was one corrupt person on a ship not under my command. Not this crew.”

“I can’t trust her.”

“She only wants to help, Love, she’s not trying to hurt anyone. We’ve asked her to do it before so why would she think it’s wrong?”

“She’s not minding.” Tom looked up across the table at her suddenly.

“I should have Zoe issue you a uniform if you’re going to take charge like this.”

“I only here like Dr. Jane or Dr. Scott, not officer with shiny buttons like you.”

“You’ve become a significant member of this crew. Look at you, coming up here to the doyen’s office to give me a status report and tell me to get the problem solved.”

“I’m sorry, Tom, I--”

“Don’t be sorry! It makes me proud of you.” Tom walked around his desk, pulled her out of the chair and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her body against his with no room for a molecule between them. “We have an extraordinary child. She just needs to learn to get permission first. Don’t discourage her gift.”

“You are soft on this because she took that thing out of your head. I understand that, but--”

“You’re right; I owe her my life. And she’s my little girl, so let me spoil her let her cure people if she wants to. It’s not a terrible thing.”

Tom could be unpredictable, strong and soft at the same time. When she looked up at him those familiar but alien round black pupils, they meant security, safety, protection. She shifted her shoulders back to look at him but he didn’t loosen his grip.

Tom was 20 centimeters taller than she was; his precisely tailored uniform outlined his salient physique. Rianya found herself appreciative of what belonged to her alone. How did he always make her feel aroused, especially when he didn’t try?

“We could use the table,” she said with a deadpan expression but for one fine, slender eyebrow raised in jollity. Tom looked at her for a long moment before he turned away and snickered.

“You vixen,” he said. He kissed her quickly and let her go. “I have to get back to the bridge.”

“Your sorrow,” she told him with a smile and a shake of her shoulders. He clamped his hand over his mouth, hiding his smile, and slipped out the door to the bridge. She headed down to the laboratory.

“Rianya, hand me those agar plates,” Dr. Ferris said, indicating two stacks of flat round dishes with lids on them. Like enormous casino chips, they sat stacked and ready to be engaged in business. Rianya’s small hands, three fingers and a thumb, prevented her from grabbing both stacks at once, but she was fast moving them from the lab table to the supply chest. Her thick hair was braided, plaited behind her to keep it from getting in the way of her work. Wearing a classic white lab coat like the doctors wore, she felt quite like part of the biology team, responsible and trusted by Dr. Ferris and Dr. Adams.

“Are you looking forward to the moon mission next week?” Dr. Ferris asked.

“The going part or the being there part? I’m not much of an explorer. I don’t like the ride, and I’m not much for going from planet to planet, wearing the environment suits, adjusting to different gravity…”

“Anya, you don’t have to go on the mission if you’re uncomfortable.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Rianya said clearly, touching Dr. Ferris on the arm to make sure she understood. “I love new life forms and animals more than I not like the ride and the EV suit.”

“I think you’ll make an excellent microbiologist. You just have to master the medical language.” Dr. Ferris smiled. Rianya had gotten used to the lack of symmetry in the woman’s face although at first she had to go out of her way to ignore it. It was as if she’d been put together from two different parents. Her skull and body was human, indeed, she was a human, but she had one blue and one brown eye, and her hair was light, almost white on one side and dark, almost black on the other. The coloring in her skin was not uniform, dark brown but not black like Dr. Clarke, but also with large patches of pale pink around her shoulders and neck and the side of her face with the blue eye. Even her hands were odd that random fingers were brown or pink; the nails matched the color of the individual finger.

“Thank you, Dr. Jane. I will do my best for you.”

“Do it for you, not for me. I only wonder how many of your people have the capacity for advanced learning like you but simply no access. I’d say many of them, likely. The captain is okay with your joining the landing party, I take it?” She raised the black brow above the brown eye.

“Of course. He said since we’ll be orbiting he can play father for the day instead of captain.”

“I am a little isolated down here sometimes,” Dr. Ferris mentioned, leaning against a table top. “Who actually is second in command on the ship?”

“Dr. Gregory, and Mr. Lee, although I also believe Dr. Adams has a higher rank. I think it depends on who is where. Why do you ask?”

“If Captain Jackson isn’t on the bridge, who sits in the chair?”

“No one. No one else sits in the chair,” Rianya assured her. A robotic vacuum entering the lab interrupted their titters. The women stepped around it as it neared their feet.

“Not even you?” the woman said with mock incredulity.

“Especially not me!” Rianya reflected for a moment. “Maybe Zalara.”