Dreams of the Stars
Chapter 9

Reichmann continued to look around warily on his way to the navigation room. Despite the cover story, he couldn’t help feeling that his subterfuge was embarrassingly transparent. A fine bunch of representatives of the human race they were—scientists, pilots, and engineers playing the ages-old game of conspiracy and war. On the other hand, perhaps they were a perfect cross-section of thousands of years of human debauchery. Thanks to time dilation, they were carrying those human imperfections straight to infinity itself. Was this the testament of intelligent life in the universe?

As he entered the navigation room, he started when he found Garr at his table. He covered his fright with a display of anger. “What do you think you are doing?! I have carefully calibrated the sextant!”

Garr smirked. “Haven’t touched a thing. Besides, what is there to see? I just wanted you to know that Samuels is in on the plot to overthrow Boddy.”

“I cannot believe that.”

“It’s true. Had a chat with Jameson at breakfast. It’s all well and good that both of us want to be the new commander. We’ll settle that once Boddy’s out of the way, but Samuels is backing him.”

Reichmann wondered if that was actually true, or if Samuels, like himself, was acting as a spy for Boddy.

Boddy, who seemed nowadays to command the ship from his quarters, like some paranoid king who hid in his chambers passing secret orders to servants.

“If that is so, why share it with me? I thought you did not trust me.” Oops...a mistake. Garr had never said such a thing. Now he may have planted the seeds of doubt in Garr’s mind.

“It’s just nice to know we’re all allies here,” Garr said. “This means Boddy has no support except for, of all people, Felter.”

“For now,” Reichmann said, still not sure he believed it. “If even Samuels has turned against him, how can we be sure that Felter has not also had an epiphany?”

“We can’t be sure. Felter might well be on our side. But since we’ve already approached him and been turned down flat, I for one don’t plan on wasting any time replaceing out.”

But I, on the other hand, might just be tempted to. “Well, if that is all you wanted, I have many things to do.”

“I’m sure.” Garr’s crooked smile told Reichmann that he knew better. But Garr left; apparently he attributed no sinister motivation to Reichmann’s transparent attempt to get rid of him.

Where was Felter now? Probably the control center—where Boddy should be. He picked up a printout of constellations—just for appearances’ sake—and headed down the hall to the control center. He passed no one on the way; still no sign that anyone was taking any particular care to keep an eye on him. When he arrived at the door to the control center, he saw no sign that anyone was on duty, but then he couldn’t see the whole room from the doorway. Peering around the temperature control console, he looked down the line of seats and consoles. He saw a figure leaning over the command desk, but from here he couldn’t tell if it was Felter. Well, he couldn’t continue to be afraid of everyone on the ship. Whoever it was, surely he couldn’t deny that Reichmann had business in the control center. He strolled toward the solitary figure, finally saw that it was Felter. “Hello, Mr. Felter,” he said conversationally.

“Hey,” Felter droned. “Whaaaat’s up?”

“I vas just working out the point at which we will lose sight of the last traces of the visible spectrum.”

“Tomorrow, right?” Felter said. “It’s all in the flight plan. Tomorrow around twelve-thirty ship time, we’ll be at ninety percent the velocity of light. At that point we’ll be as far outside the universe as though we had crossed the event horizon of a black hole.”

“Except that we can reverse the effects simply by decelerating,” Reichmann said, glad the subject of a scientific matter had come up. It was just what he needed to put him at ease.

“Unless the universe itself comes to an end during our journey,” Felter said. “A possibility I replace scientifically fascinating. Approaching the speed of light and entering a black hole may turn out to be virtually the same phenomenon. By the time you reach the speed of light, you’ve traveled such a distance that by objective time you’ve used up all the energy, matter, and speed in the universe. You’ve come to the end. Whether the universe suffers the Big Crunch or a slow cold death, you’re beyond the point of no return. It’s a titillating thought, isn’t it?”

“Really the whole point of the mission,” Reichmann said.

Felter nodded.

“So what do you think about the current situation? Would you say Boddy is handling it appropriately?”

Felter shrugged, made no response—which Reichmann found odd; Felter was never at a loss for words.

“I vas so disturbed by his plan to abort—I hope that is behind us.”

“It is. Tomorrow we’ll be beyond the point of return—actually, we already are, considering braking time and the time for the return journey.”

Reichmann was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of that. He chose not to let on. “Well, there are some members of the crew who are not so confident that we can rely on our commander to carry out our mission.”

“I’m very well aware of that.” There was no hostility in Felter’s voice, simply an acknowledgement of the fact. “I presume you’re aware that Jameson came to me with a petition signed by half the crew, asking me to take command. Well, I put that in its place real quick.”

“Then I can assume you do not think Boddy will—“

“Calm yourself down, Reichmann. We’re in this game to win. Boddy knows his duty.”

That was the first time Reichmann could ever recall hearing Felter compliment Boddy, even in so general a way. Not that he ever actively insulted the commander, but certainly his comments tended to point up his own expertise and diminish Boddy. “May I ask that you would do should the crew again attempt to remove Boddy from command?”

“They won’t. I made it quite clear that that’s not an option. Anyway, why do you ask?”

Reichmann shrugged. “Just conversation, I guess.” Not a very convincing explanation, but he was still cautious about revealing what he knew. Felter certainly seemed to be the loyal second-in-command, but that was so uncharacteristic that Reichmann strongly felt the need to tread lightly. “I wonder myself if they might make another attempt, and this time bypass you entirely.”

Felter laughed. “Wow, you really are wound tight, aren’t you! I’m not paranoid enough to think this whole crew is conspiring to mutiny. Look, they came to me with a petition, they quoted a regulation, they played it all by the book, and I turned them down. But if, for the sake of argument, they did try to pull something, well, I’d deal with it.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “So would Boddy.”

“I just replace it strange that you would have no temptation to assume command.”

“That’s not in the cards. The regulations are crystal clear.”

Recalling Garr’s comments on that very point, Reichmann said, “Some would argue that the regulations no longer mean anything. The human race is almost certainly extinct. Those rules no longer apply.”

“They apply here,” Felter said firmly. “Time dilation or no, we are a NASA spacecraft, and we carry NASA regulations with us.”

“Would you be saying that if Boddy had not honored the vote and had terminated the mission?”

“What’s the point of asking that? That didn’t happen. And it wouldn’t have happened. Why not ask what I would have done if Boddy had shown up with a little mustache and a swastika on his arm?”

“Sorry. Did not mean to press.”

As though nothing had happened at all, Felter said, “Aw, that’s all right.”

There was a moment of silence which Reichmann felt compelled to fill, though suddenly he was at a loss for words. Felter still leaned over the command desk, seemingly staring at nothing. Somehow Reichmann felt he would be intruding if he asked the pilot what he was doing.

Finally it was Felter who broke the silence. “You seem disturbed by what’s happened lately. Surely you’re aware that Jameson and Samuels have diagnosed the cause of what’s been happening to us as an increase in the kinetic energy of our thoughts and a destabilization of the temporal feedback loops of electromagnetic radiation.”

“Oh, yes, yes, and it is not that which disturbs me. It is the internal conflict. I am hoping it is at an end.”

“The internal conflict is a symptom. Drives that we ordinarily would keep in check are excited by their own kinetic energy. In a way, we’re sort of a ship of drunks.”

“I have felt drunk lately.” Just tell him, he told himself. Obviously he’s not in on the mutiny, so tell him about Garr and Jameson. “Drunkenness can bring out behavior that would be quite unacceptable.”

“True, true.” For the first time in the conversation, Felter looked right at him. “Frankly I’ve been doing my utmost to keep my behavior in check.”

“Really? In what way?”

Felter chuckled. “It’s difficult to talk about—but then, it’s becoming more and more difficult not to talk about. You see—this mission has been very difficult for me, because I’ve found myself separated from someone who meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, I see.” Reichmann had not expected that—one of the qualifications for selection for this mission had been lack of close relationships. Sending men with families on long missions across the Solar System was bad enough, but to send one on an eternal voyage to the end of time...that would be asking too much even of a volunteer; for such a volunteer could certainly not speak for those left behind. But that did not preclude meeting someone along the way, and romances sometimes blossomed quickly. “You could have removed yourself from the rotation.”

Felter shook his head. “No, I didn’t want to do that. This mission meant too much to me. But it was still painful.”

“Did she feel the same way about you?”

Felter smiled. “Not she. He.”

Oh. Reichmann tried not to show his surprise. In his long campaign to sell the idea of the Eldorado mission to Congress and the taxpayers, he had been forced to become something of a showman, or at least to hide shock or horror when someone said something unexpected. He employed those techniques now. Ethically speaking, he had no more of a problem with homosexuality than he did with the eating of oyster stew; he wouldn’t do it himself, but godspeed to those who liked it. But still, he was a bit shocked, especially considering the reason an all-male crew had been selected for this mission was precisely to avoid sexual situations.

“He was to be the commander of our mission,” Felter said, “and Boddy replaced him.”

“I see.” Owen James. “Are you sure you want to tell me this?”

“Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s like someone fed me a truth serum. It tore me apart when Owen was pulled from the mission—and Ed Boddy put in his place. Ed Boddy. My God.”

That would certainly explain the enmity between those two. “I must ask you, then—did James know?”

“Of course. It had been going on for months. When Owen was bumped, it tore him apart too. I had to tell him that I was still going. You can’t imagine.”

No, and I don’t particularly want to imagine.

“Maybe the Deke knew about us,” Felter went on inexorably, “and that’s why he pulled Owen.”

“That would certainly make sense.” If such a relationship had become known, obviously it would not be permitted to exist on the mission. Unfortunately, pulling James had poisoned the relationship between commander and pilot.

“So, as you might imagine, it’s been...lonely. And difficult. All these months—surrounded by young, healthy, athletic men.”

Reichmann began to inch his way toward the exit. On the one hand, he felt he should stay and allow Felter to spill his problems to someone he felt would understand, but the sad truth was that Reichmann didn’t understand, could never understand, and at the moment felt his skin crawling and wanted only to get away. “Well, rest assured, this conversation will stay between you and me. I will tell no one what you have said.”

Felter chuckled. “No, I imagine you wouldn’t know what to say.”

The tension was broken and Reichmann allowed himself to laugh. “True enough. Well, if you will excuse me, I would like to re-examine our timeline before we start experiencing the extreme effects of those temporal feedback loops.”

“You don’t have to go,” Felter said, reaching out.

Oh, my God, is he soliciting me? “Ehm...no, it is all right. I really do have many sings to do.” But as he turned to go, he found that Felter was in the entrance, blocking his way. He turned, saw the command desk was empty. Turning back to Felter, he said, “Please excuse me.”

“You remind me so much of Owen,” Felter said in a throaty voice.

Reichmann felt sick to his stomach, humiliated, and also rapidly becoming angry. “Please, Mr. Felter, I believe you are stepping out of bounds.”

“Did you know that all men are at least partially homosexual?” Felter was leaning toward him now, the stench of a recently eaten lunch on his breath, mixed with cologne and shaving cream.

“Well, not me. Please. I must go.”

“No, no, you don’t need to. Listen to that part of you, no matter how small it is. You’ll be surprised how easy and how pleasurable it is.”

If this went on much longer, Reichmann felt he would have to punch Felter, consequences be damned. He tried to squeeze past him, found himself in a painful headlock. “Actually, if you’re one hundred percent heterosexual, then statistically you’re actually abnormal. Every man, at some point in his life, has had a homosexual fantasy.”

Reichmann struggled, but found that Felter’s other arm had wedged his own arms behind his neck and he was paralyzed. “Then I must be statistically abnormal. Now, please, let me go or I will report you to Commander Boddy as having assaulted me.”

Abruptly, Felter let go. “Assaulted? What?”

“Excuse me.” Taking advantage of Felter’s apparently genuine surprise at the accusation, Reichmann squeezed by him and hurried down the hall, suddenly in desperate need of a shower. He did not look back, tried not to wonder whether Felter had returned to the command desk or was continuing longingly to watch him run down the hall. He felt very, very dirty, and though nothing had happened, deeply ashamed.

Is this how Nora felt? he wondered as he showered. It had been many years since he had thought of Nora, many years since all charges had been dropped, settled out of court, and the whole unpleasantness swept under the rug. How fortunate he had been that they had not resurfaced to haunt him when he had been campaigning to build the Eldorado. Back in the 1960s, the nation may have let Wernher von Braun’s war record be set aside, but allegations of rape would have been a whole different thing.

Bomb the shit out of Britain? No prob. We Americans like war. That was actually kinda cool. You get our astronauts to the Moon, it’s a clean slate, man, clean slate. But sexually take advantage of your wife? Thou shalt burn in hell!

After the divorce, he had never heard from Nora again. He had never been sure just how angry with him she was. The fact that she did not make any public accusations against him when he had become nationally famous told him that she had let the whole matter go, but now, now he wondered if she was simply too deeply ashamed even to think of it again, let alone speak of it.

Reichmann used considerably more than his daily allotment of recycled water. He assumed it would show up in the daily logs and he would have to account for it the next morning, but by then, very little would matter. By then the universe might rupture and dump them all in some graveyard of non-space. He had to feel clean. He had to wash away not just the physical residue, but the memory of Felter.

Nothing happened, he kept telling himself. So why feel so dirty, so ashamed?

It was the implication. It was the mere fact that it had happened. Oh, if only it had been a woman—to be sexually abused by a woman, that was something he could deal with. That was something he might well deserve. But then, on the other hand, that would be rather enjoyable, wouldn’t it? Provided she was attractive. So did it serve him right that he had been sexually assaulted by a man? God, he didn’t even like to think of it in those terms.

No, damn it, he didn’t deserve that. Nora had been his wife. Yes, he had been wrong to assault her, yes, horribly wrong, but it wasn’t the same thing. Yes, perhaps he deserved punishment for what he had done, yes, the universe may be mocking him, delivering the punishment he had long ago escaped, but why must it be this?

Alone in the shower in the privacy of his quarters, he sobbed. An intensity of emotion he had not felt since childhood welled up in him and he cried, aloud, tears running freely down his face and mixing with the clear, warm, cleansing water of the shower. If only there was a way to delete that from history, if only he could change things so that he had never raped Nora, so that Felter never pulled that melodramatic scene in the control center...if only he could use this relativistic phenomenon to do that—if only the human will had such control over spacetime... .

But didn’t it? Wasn’t that exactly what was happening to them? Was not reality decided by conscious observation? Did not his consciousness now have the power to shuffle reality around as he saw fit? Here, alone in his shower, alone, alone, alone, what observer was there to say that things had not happened however he decided? What was Felter’s observation next to his? Felter wasn’t here.

Neither of them would ever speak of what had happened, so who was to say that it had happened at all? He remembered it, but he also remembered his dreams, he also remembered what he read in books, what he saw in movies. Memories are memories, not reality.

Then he felt there was no need to get so all-fired upset about it. He smiled as he realized that this whole situation derived from the tension they had all brought upon themselves by not being psychologically capable of handling the universe they were confronting. He almost laughed at the thought. They had come out here in search of the ultimate destiny of the universe, and they were replaceing it. The result? Mutiny! Geez, why get worked up about that? Boddy was right; by the time Garr finished his clever little machine—if he ever finished it—it wouldn’t matter anymore. Tomorrow everything would change. The Eldorado would be beyond the universe itself.

The next time Reichmann saw Felter, the pilot was contrite, but utterly silent about the conversation in the control center. Felter was strolling down the hall, his stringy body flopping around with casual self-confidence, his blue eyes darting around yet turned inward, as though musing on some hidden thought. Reichmann had to walk past him in order to reach the navigation room, and there was no convenient alcove to dart into in order to avoid a confrontation. Nor was there a need. As Felter swept past, he simply sucked in his lips and smiled slightly, waved, and continued on. Reichmann did not return the wave or the smile, but nodded stiffly and continued on.

As he went about his work, he wondered if he was contributing to the general problem by avoiding Felter. In his own way, Felter had been attempting to reach out, to heal the wounds brought on by the interaction of the human mind with Einstein’s universe. And Reichmann had rebuffed him, was still rebuffing him. Surely he could accept an offer of friendship without agreeing to the homosexual aspects of it.

It occurred to him that it would actually be quite a good idea. If he could sit down with Felter, preferably with Boddy there to police things, perhaps they could all reach an understanding. If Boddy and Felter could become allies, they had a fighting chance of triumphing over the cosmos’s psychological assault on them.

In fact, it seemed such a good idea that he abandoned his spectroscope in mid scan and thumbed the intercom connection to Boddy’s cabin.

“Commander Boddy,” the soft voice answered.

“Commander Boddy, this is Reichmann—I was just wondering if you would be willing to entertain a sort of funny little idea I had.”

“What is it?” Boddy sounded none too receptive.

“Well, I thought you, me, and Felter could simply sit down in your cabin and have some snacks and drinks and just chat. Just a totally social little get-together, just to work out the tension. It might go a long way toward pulling us out of this funk we have all been in.”

“What, you mean, like, a dinner?”

“Well, perhaps...but no, I was thinking right now. We just come by your cabin or something, just spend the evening chatting about whatever—aircraft or spacecraft the two of you liked flying, sports, anything. Just to take the edge off. It’s just that there is so much tension and distrust, I think it would be a good idea to cultivate some camaraderie and good feeling.”

A long pause. Perhaps a sigh, though it was hard to tell over the intercom. “Well, I hate to say it, Reichmann, but that sounds like it might be a good idea. Okay. But I’d also like Samuels to be there. I always need a bit of a shield when Felter is around. I promise I won’t hide behind him unless Felter is really, truly belligerent.”

Reichmann almost pointed out that a good leader hardly needed a shield against his own second, but that would be counter to what he was trying to accomplish. So he simply said, “All right, whatever you want. You are the commander. I’ll see if Felter is amenable and hopefully we will be right by.”

Of course, now that he was committed, Reichmann really had no desire to speak to Felter again (a sentiment with which Boddy would no doubt have sympathized). But nothing could be done for it now. He glanced at his screen, with its minimized icon for spectroscopic results, and left in the direction he had seen Felter headed. He gathered that the pilot was in the galley having a late dinner. Not that Reichmann (or anyone else on board) had made an exhaustive study of his colleagues’ personal habits, but he thought he recalled noticing that Felter usually worked long hours in the control center, finished off with a light meal, then slept late in the morning.

Poking his head into the galley, Reichmann saw Felter munching on a sandwich, an e-book on the table. At least he’s not masturbating to male porn, he thought—then felt ashamed of himself for the stereotyping. No point in hiding—after all, this man was the pilot and the second-in-command; one way or another, he would eventually have to deal with him again. He collected himself, then marched into the galley.

Felter took no notice; he continued to frown over the e-book while chewing loudly on his sandwich. Reichmann pondered how to proceed; after all, it had been less than an hour since he had promised to report Felter for harassment. And on the other hand, he wasn’t sure whether Felter might harass him again. He cleared his throat. “Ahem—Mr. Felter?”

Felter jumped. “Oh, Reichmann.” He pressed the bookmark key on his e-book and set down his sandwich. “How’s it going?”

Reichmann shrugged.

“Look, Reichmann, I’m real sorry about before. I don’t know what got into me.”

Reichmann waved the apology aside—though he was relieved that Felter seemed genuinely mortified by his behavior. “Look, I came here to show you that there are no hard feelings. I thought it would be a good idea to throw aside all the hostility and distrust around here and to just be a crew again.”

“Oh, sure, sure.” Felter picked up his sandwich, took a substantial bite, then said, with his mouth full, “I non’t nink it’n a gnoon idea—“ he swallowed, “—for us to be on edge at a time like this. I mean, y’know, it stands to reason we’d be tense, what with, y’know, everything that’s been going on, but we’re astronauts, for God’s sake, we ought to be able to control ourselves better than that. When I flew Starchaser VII with Cody Freilen and Scott Cellini and those three Stationers, we suddenly lost all our electrical power while we were on the lunar farside, and this was before they set up any of the Farside bases or lunar comsats, so we were in communications blackout. I thought Cody was gonna freak, but I calmed him down, told him that if we freaked, we wouldn’t be able to solve the problem. That calmed him and we were able to run a manual diagnostic using our cranberries. I’d thought to load full electronics schematics before liftoff, just ’cause you never can tell, and we determined that a little micrometeoroid had scraped us and left enough corrosive dust to eat the main lead to the transformer. I had to do an E-V-A to put in a new lead from stores, but we got our power back.”

“That is good—“

“So you see, when the crew works together as a unit, you can get a lot more done than when you’re pulling little stunts like what Jameson tried to pull before. I mean, what a total ass-fuck thing to do that was.”

“Well, anyway—”

“But that’s over now. I think the situation has calmed down. I think maybe our brain energy output has perhaps reached equilibrium with the accelerational energy and anything extra might be going into the spacetime distortion and feeding the interstellar medium. So I think our problems are over. I put Jameson in his place and there should be no more trouble.”

Is he just making up science? Reichmann cleared his throat, was about to speak, but Felter was speaking again.

“I also think we’re dealing with both gravity waves and gravitational waves—those are not the same thing, you know. With the ship’s rotation and our movements within it, plus the various moving parts throughout the ship, we’ve got a continual redistribution of mass, and that’s what causes gravity waves—that’s a wave generated at the interface between two media.”

Reichmann rankled a bit, astonished that the pilot would lecture him on a subject which was his own specialty, but he decided simply to change the subject and invite Felter to the evening get-together with Boddy, but Felter was still talking.

“But a gravity wave might take on the characteristics of a gravitational wave at these high velocities. A gravitational wave is actually a wave that ripples through space away from a high-gravity body. Consider the ship’s high velocity coupled with its rotation, traveling through a spacetime distorted to such an extent to maintain the speed of light as a constant even though we’re nearly at the speed of light ourselves, we’re really folding space like nylon.”

“That is interesting,” Reichmann said, though to him it was as elementary as a star sighting would be to Felter. As Felter was taking a breath, Reichmann pounced on the chance to speak. “I was hoping you and I could join Commander Boddy in his cabin, just for a relaxing evening get-together, have some hors-d’oevres and drinks, just to shake off the tension and talk about things that are not job-related for a while.”

“Ummmmm—“ Felter frowned, fished a portable interlink from his pocket, and tapped at it. “Uuuh...Yeah. Yeah, I can swing that. Sure. What, uh, what time?”

“As soon as you are finished with your dinner? Commander Boddy is expecting us.”

Felter shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

“Good. I will head there now.” As he left Felter to his sandwich and his reading material, Reichmann felt a sudden compassion for Boddy. Trying to maintain a command image with this perplexing and infuriating man constantly trying to show him up had to be hell. He wondered if this was such a great idea after all.

Needless to say, Boddy was not as keen as Reichmann at the idea of spending the evening with Felter. He had hoped to spend a quiet evening reading in bed, then allow himself to drift peacefully to sleep, so that he would be relaxed and prepared for whatever tomorrow might bring. But now he foresaw himself spending the entire evening tense and on the defensive, constantly trying to keep Felter in line while maintaining his veneer of authority in front of Samuels and Reichmann. Oh, Samuels would understand any slips he might make, but he would have to be the spotless commander in front of Reichmann. Hardly the easy, social and fun evening Reichmann had in mind. In fact, he wondered if anyone would be capable of relaxing in Felter’s presence.

Yet Felter had always seemed to have an active social life; of course, that might simply be Felter boasting. It was so hard to tell sometimes, and Boddy had better things to do than analyze Felter’s character. Far better to avoid him when possible and exploit his better qualities when necessary. But perhaps Reichmann was right; perhaps a casual evening conversation, with some snacks and drinks, maybe even some quiet music, might just soften the tone of their relationship.

He keyed the intercom code for the science lab. There was no answer for several minutes, then Jameson answered.

“Jameson, it’s Commander Boddy,” he said, putting the emphasis on “Commander.” “Is Samuels there?”

“No, he left a while ago—Jesus, what time is it? No, I think he’s finished work for the day.”

“All right, thank you.” He never liked to disturb anyone once they had retired to their cabins. As commander, he had long ago decided to respect each individual crew member’s personal boundaries. Each member of the Eldorado crew was a professional, dedicated to the mission (otherwise they wouldn’t be here), so he didn’t ride herd on them. He had faith in them to pay as much mind to their duties as they felt they needed to, and to leave them alone when they had determined their tasks to be done. Samuels might be reading a book or running an immie or, who knows?, masturbating. But since this was social rather than professional, and since Samuels was his friend, and since he really really really didn’t want to deal with Felter without a friend in the room, he broke his self-imposed prohibition and rang Samuels’ cabin.

“Samuels,” the chirpy voice answered.

“Hi, Dennis, it’s Ed. Busy?”

“No, not particularly. Just going over some of the math that Jameson and I have been working on for hours.”

“Good—can it wait?”

“Sure, what can I do for you?”

Boddy cleared his throat. “Well, Reichmann came up with the idea of having a little social get-together with Felter. I’ll set out some crackers and pepperoni and some beers, put on some Radical Roger Rocker, pull out a deck of cards. I was hoping you could join us.”

“Wow. You and Felter discussing anything outside of duty?”

Boddy let that hang.

Samuels seemed to get the point. After an awkward pause, he said, “Sure, I’ll be right there.”

Boddy clicked the intercom off. Samuels knew right well enough that Boddy wanted him as a shield.

As he set out the snacks on his desk, he felt rather foolish. He understood Reichmann’s motivation, but the whole thing suddenly struck him as silly. They all worked on the same ship together, they would continue to do so whether they liked one another or not—and he doubted some forced and awkward sit-down around pepperoni and crackers would improve the situation between himself and Felter. Coupled with that, it was just silly. Worst of all, Felter would know that it was silly.

Got to shake off those thoughts, or he’ll see that I’m embarrassed and he’ll once again claim the upper hand. He had just set out four cans of beer when someone knocked at his door. Ordinarily he would just shout “Come in!”, but now, getting into the spirit of this strange social gathering, he opened the door personally. He had almost expected Reichmann to have put on a suit and tie, but he was still clad in his loose-fitting blue jumpsuit with the Eldorado logo on the breast. “Hey, Reichmann. Come on in, sit yourself down and relax.”

“Thank you.” Reichmann crossed to the desk nervously; Boddy sensed that he too had decided this whole idea was ridiculous.

“Help yourself, there’s plenty,” Boddy lied. Actually, he usually kept a small supply of snacks in his cabin in case he felt peckish late at night when he didn’t feel like running all the way to the galley, but he had hardly been prepared to share among four people. But no matter. If they ran out they ran out and Felter would be out of his hair that much sooner.

“I hope you don’t mind doing this,” Reichmann said, munching on a cracker. “But what with the mutiny and the dreams come to life and, well, to be blunt, everyone can see that you and Felter don’t get along.”

“I see.” Actually, he hadn’t realized that his friction with Felter was so obvious. He wasn’t even sure Felter saw it, at least not in the same way he did. He often had the impression that Felter simply liked to show off his knowledge and had no clue how he was coming across to other people. And Boddy spent all his time trying to act like a commander, letting down his guard only with Samuels, and so had hoped that Felter was unable to see his dislike—at least partially hoped. Bottom line, he tried to maintain a professional relationship with each member of the crew, including Felter. “Well, this was probably a good idea then,” he said.

Some more forced chitchat, restating the obvious, then inevitably drifting back to mission-related talk, before Felter arrived. “Hey!” he boomed as he strode through the open door. “What’s happening?” As though his arrival were the highlight of the evening and Reichmann and Boddy would be so glad to see him they’d nearly pass out.

“Thank you for coming,” Reichmann said.

Boddy hesitated, trying to decide what to say, a hesitation which bought Felter the time he needed to reply to Reichmann, “Hey, no prob! Wouldn’t mind a nice casual evening with my bros.” Thus stripping Boddy of all authority by acknowledging Reichmann (not himself) as the organizer of this little get-together. Again, he wasn’t sure if Felter meant to do that, or if it was his own damn fault for sitting silently rather than jumping in and acting the host.