Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 15:04:30 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- Part 1 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) OK, to start of with a disclaimer... Disclaimer: Seaquest and its characters are copyrighted and allcopyrights and trademarks are acknowledged. This is fanfic only, blah blah blah blah ( and a few rhubarbs )... ( 'scuse me for borrowing this sheffield, but I'm hopeless as you well know ) What should i say next? Oh, right... this is a set of short stories about characters I don't usually focus that much attention on and each part is self contained as a story. The basic idea is a short passage about a feeling, emotion, situation... from the POV a certain character. I guess it's really more like a sort of character study-story than a story story... if you know what i mean... OK I'm sending something out because I've been promising temd3 but it's not ready- I'm really sorry but I've got major exams... so I'm sending this instead. sorry for any typos, grammar errors or speeling - I'm dyslexic. Anyway, I alays appreciate, love and keep comments and I don't care if it's a one liner to say if you like it or not... so long as I get some feed back... how fast ( I will send it whatever ) i send out the rest depends on what feed back i get... no flames please and I don't mean to upset anyone by anything I say... I refuse to cap my i's today... hope you enjoy and are all having a nice day/ evening/ morning.... Alexi For Jill, Dee amd Michelle, with love. copyright E.Casale 1997, 1998 More Distant Than Any Star " One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego: the self is more distant than any star." ( G.H. Chesterton, Orthodoxy ) Part 1- O'Neil Why had he come back here after all this time? The empty room echoed dully around him, from far off footsteps ringing on the cold stone floor. He looked up at the painting on the wall. He had been staring at it for an hour, and before that, the Christopher Columbus one on the other wall, behind him. The work moved him, as it always did, and he enjoyed the silent peacefulness that surrounded him. He could understand it fully. It was almost like another person being able to grasp his emotions, drawing them finely, with exquisite detail. The fear and foreboding stepped off the canvas, crossing the room to hang about him heavily. The clocks melted down the tree and across the geometric design of the foreground: another man's terrified horror at the first atom bomb and the damage it could do. He spent his life on a boat loaded with just such weapons. He had been there when they had been fired. He thought back to Freedom point and the pictures he had seen in his mind's eye, thinking about the nuclear winter that would have followed the blast as they, and the casing for the radioactive waste, exploded into just so many detached pieces: atoms, simple parts, like those cuboids stretching out from the front of the painting. Behind the horror, the starkness and disunity of modern science and thought, lay the ocean and the cliff, bathed in the warm sunlight of evening; the sun was setting on the ages of emotion and memory and expanding into the world of logic and the future, moving on, step by methodical step into an unknown age. The sea became a sheet, tied to a wasted and dying tree. The reflections in the water, suspended over a gap of nothing but yellow light. It was all being pushed back, tidied away, trivialised. The strange colours on the foreground clocks, symbolising the strangeness and danger of the new eara and of the knowledge human kind now had, but did not understand. Time would pass and this would become the past as well, pushing back the sea and the shore into the further distance, being forgotten, and the foreground would be replaced by simpler shapes, more neatly aligned and it would all be broken down into one fact after another. That seemed to be what his life was: one fact after another, always learning, always searching and never finding anything with any meaning. And the picture was desolate, not even one solitary figure disturbing the background, like his life. He was surrounded by people and yet he was completely alone. He almost wished, briefly that Loni were with him again, as he sat here thinking back. It wasn't because he wanted HER there, just another living, breathing person. He envied her happiness, her ability to find company. But, had she been there, it would have all been a lie. He would still have been just as alone. Because she didn't understand. She had sat staring blankly at the picture, no emotion reading on her face, feeling nothing of the stirrings of fear and anger and loneliness that it raised in him. He was alone because no one understood him. No one understood him, because no one really knew him. No one knew him, so the person they liked wasn't what he really was, not the person who looked out from the thin rimmed glasses, staring out with astonishment at the world. His action, his words even, weren't him- they didn't mirror his thoughts, the feelings running through him. They all saw a quiet, considerate, intellectual person, rather lonely, but not very so. But he was quiet. Inside his emotions boiled and flowed as fast and hot as any of theirs and more. Why did no one know him? No one knew him because he chose that. He chose it because he was afraid: to be disliked or not liked much for what he presented was one thing. To be hated for what was inside was another and something he couldn't cope with. The dark, violent, passionate emotions frightened him. His thoughts and feelings frightened him. If even he was frightened and ashamed, how could anyone else stand him? They would hate him, laugh, be shocked and sickened by what they saw. But it was lonely; a person inside never talking, only listening through a non existent shell's ears and, with the loneliness, it was cold and grey, not dark, but oppressive, the leaden colour of a heavy dawn, lying painfully on his mind. Inside there was a frightened person who just wanted comfort, company, warmth and peace. There never seemed to be peace. Always there was the fear that the infinite supply of terrible, furious rage would boil over, bloodthirsty, craving revenge for all the hurt and pain that lay just below the surface. Underneath the calm exterior it was sad. There wasn't a right word for it. The closest he could come was devastation. A nuclear bomb had exploded and he was the only survivor, trapped, wandering the streets of his mind, alone. The streets were dusty, the sky dark: the buildings shattered and empty, broken glass littering the ground, tearing at his feet, the open eyes staring hollowly through him, unseeing. Everywhere was grey, destroyed, abandoned, but there were not even any bodies. They were all gone, all life, not even one plant, reaching through the pavement with eternal hope. The streets wound round and round and there was no way out: he was trapped alone, in the desolate landscape, while an illusion walked around and used the name of the real person. No one understood because no one knew, therefore no one loved and it was quiet, still, cold and quite empty, the emotions finding no outlet for the love he was longing to give. It rounded back on him snarling like a caged beast, furious at its imprisonment within his fear and the shrouded world where he dwelled. The town was silent and the dust rose up in clouds, meeting and pulling away again. There was no word for loneliness like this: sadness, dark, grief... devastation. copyright E.Casale 1997, 1998 Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 15:05:32 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- Part 2 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk (Unverified) To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) copyright E.Casale 1997, 1998 Part 2: Piccolo As Tony left Loni's quarters, he was still running, practically, after blurting out all that nonsense. He had picked her because she was the first person he had told about Jim. He was horrified to find himself wondering if he was more upset about how Jim's life related to his, than about his friend's death. This was the first place that he had felt really secure, learnt something and been valued. Losing Wendy and Miguel had been hard enough. It just seemed to keep happening. He opened the door to his quarters and paced about. He missed him, but more than his pain over what was his sense of betrayal. How could Brody not have told them that he had a son? What did that say about their friends? What did that say about the value of these relationships? He needed this, needed these people, more than he had ever needed anything before. He liked who he was turning out to be. He had pulled his life back together and he was going to make something of himself. They all had confidence in him for that. But if they didn't know him, how did they know he could make good? He had been afraid to talk to his parents. They might be dead and certainly his whole family would have moved on. He didn't want to see how they had changed: how much he had missed. He would rather just stay away and remember it how it was, rather than start up a new relationship, almost as a stranger. It was too hard. He could not cope with how he would feel. All prison had done was reassure him of his own inability to be anything worth while. He had felt trapped, desperately lonely and afraid most of the time. Luckily he had a hard exterior and knew how to look confident, so people didn't pick on him. He put forward and arrogant self confident front and was safe behind it, doing stupid things to prove that he should be there, in prison, that the world was only being fair to him by caging him. It was a self fulfilling prophesy and, as the time went by, he had fallen further and further in his own esteem. He had pushed people away when he arrived, trying to be difficult and rude, but it hadn't worked, because they had bothered to look for something in him, had seen something there and encouraged him to show it. Slowly he had found his exterior confidence fading slightly to be replaced by truer inner one. There was something there to be proud of, and that was him. These people had given him that: being here had. He might not have been promoted, but they had all believed in him. He would next time. By now he knew life wasn't fair, it wasn't about what you deserved, just what you got. He sighed. That attitude was from his parents, defeatists, fighting and breaking up. Sure they loved him and each other, in their own way, but somehow they had managed not to encourage him to do anything. Well, his father was hardly a role model. Tony had simply done what he saw before him, Nick's example, and done it pretty well. Getting into the UEO was his first attempt at escape from that circle: the children following the parents, on and on. He had tried but the effort to get there had sapped all his strength. The officer had deserved it, more than deserved it. For months he'd been there, telling him how his family and he were filth trash, not worthy to be there, no matter how hard he tried or how well he did in the training. The officer pulled him down at every step, but he hadn't given in. He'd finished the training only to find they were assigned to the same place. One day they were on shore leave and he met a girl. She came to the boat to see him off. The officer tried to have her arrested as a prostitute and that was it. In prison he didn't care about trying to do better. He worked on staying alive and in front of the tough criminals and the gang groups within the system. He tried to ignore his loss of freedom, the indignity of it, the shame and endless abuse showered on him, telling him he was worthless. When he had heard of a chance to get out, he hadn't even read what it was about. He just rushed forward and signed is name. Sometimes the gills bothered him, but they had got him here and it was worth it. Simply getting out of that hell hole had been worth it. He sighed tiredly, sitting down at the table. He had no idea how he was possibly going to find the strength to try again for the exam, especially now, but maybe that was the answer: think about the faith his friend had had in him and do it for that. But he didn't know what he had done wrong. He had tried his hardest. He had tired his best before and failed though, that was the point. You relished the win when you have fought for it because you deserve it and know that you did. He had learnt a lot and Hudson had shown him the it wasn't a waste by his field commission. He would expect him to try again and he would. But though he knew it would be long and hard work, it would be easier this time. Loni would help him again, and maybe Hudson could give him some pointers. Maybe he just needed to think about it a bit more, internalise it. He thought about how he had taken the ideas for ' Red Badge of Courage', chosen the ones he believed in and wrote them in his mind, in his own words, making them his thoughts and principles. Maybe if he could see the other things like that, with the fierce glow of understanding and the deeper comprehension of interpretation, he would be able to write or speak about it with the same belief. Wasn't that what Loni had said? He lay back on his bunk, staring at the bottom of the top one and started thinking. Slowly a smile formed on his lips and he got up and went to the table, scribbling notes quickly. He closed the book pleased and then thought how he had got here. Jim. How much did they really know about each other? One thing to Loni didn't tell her who he was, it gave her one more fact: a memory. It was all the facts, the memories and interactions that made up the person, as well as the secret inner self. He knew there could be a war at any time. He knew he could be killed on any mission, but he was most afraid of dying in the same way. How could anyone miss him when they had never really known who he really was? He reached across the table and took out a new note book. He'd been meaning to use it to start his work for the next attempt at the exam, instead he wrote an instruction on the first page. After that he wrote slowly, often pausing for a long time. It would take him weeks, months to do it, maybe he would never finish, as the information grew and grew with time, but he was trying. He was going to leave something behind to tell them about him, if they didn't know already. He wasn't going to leave it until too late, he was going to start now. He didn't care what order he wrote things in, whether they were facts, thoughts, beliefs, memories... He wrote until his hand cramped up and then he closed the book, putting it at the bottom of the pile. He would do more tomorrow. As a sudden after thought, he pulled a piece of paper towards him and started writing again. He would try for him and he would try for Jim. For the next few hours he wrote everything he could think of that they had seen, talked about, laughed about, everywhere they had been together. He could work on the books side by side. Nothing would be left to regret because he had realised and he was going to change it, to use it. Something good was going to come of this. Tony stared at the wall for a while, smiling. There was only one reason why he was able to write this at all, because now he thought he was something worth writing about, had something to say. The truth about himself, all of it, the most valuable gift to any other person. copyright E.Casale 1997, 1998 Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 12:26:56 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- Part 3 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Copyright E.Casale, 1997 Part three: Brody He stared at the tiny disc in his hand. It had simply come in a plain envelope. It could be from anyone he knew in the city. He didn't recognise the writing. He sighed, unnerved by the lack of any note and slowly inserted it and turned the player on. He thought he was dreaming when he saw who the message was from, gasping, his heart beating fast. He reached over with shaking hands and paused it. The tiny figure looked out at him, beautiful as ever, maybe even more so. It was recent and he could see how she had changed with the years. For moment he felt almost compelled to reach out a hand to her image, to feel her soft golden hair between his fingers. But she wasn't really there. He sat back, staring into space. She had been different. She was the one woman he had managed to keep up a relationship with for a long time. They had had a stupid fight about a dinner he had missed, of all things, and he had gone off. Then Hyperion. He didn't know if they would have got back together if that hadn't happened. He had certainly thought of her all the time he was away from her, aching for her, but trying to deny it. Jim Brody wasn't reliant on anyone. He didn't need anyone anymore. People disappeared, like his mother had, into a freezer. He had been spoilt as hell after that, but it hadn't been what he wanted. He pushed and pushed, desperate to feel boundaries holding him, needing the security of limits, but they just gave and gave, stepping back and retreating, giving into this every wish. He had been furious with them, his grandparents. Then one day when, after a fight with another boy at school, the teacher had pulled him aside and talked sternly to him. No one had done that for years. She said he was arrogant, selfish... a whole list of unpleasant, but accurate, things. He didn't know how to cope with that anymore. He didn't have the experience. He also didn't know how to change and why he was that way. No one had told him that he was anything but perfect, so he had no way to know how to behave differently or better. At first, it was simply a numbing shock and then he ignored it, the instant praise buoying up his confidence. Later on, when he was older, he had felt it again, with girls, women, friends. And, like before, he hadn't known what to do. Every criticism seemed to come out of the blue like an earth shattering event, wearing away at him inside, while the surface stayed glossy and confident. Soon he didn't know what to trust and all the build up of praise and commendation seemed to fall apart. It was all lies; he couldn't trust it anymore and because his confidence had been based on other people's, there had been nothing left. He'd joined up soon after that, trying to escape, not wanting to have to make choices in the void that was left behind inside him. It gave him security and rhythm. People told him how to be good and he did it. He did it well. He liked the praise, felt that it was earned, but he still had no sense of himself as apart from himself as a soldier. That was who and what he was, all of it and therefore he was not afraid to go to any extreme for it. The risk was worth the results, which soon started coming in successful missions, commendations, awards and his rise up the ranks. He'd found a place where he could be and then he started trying to work out where to go from there. Seeing his mother again had be a catharsis, relieving his emotions, somehow letting him work through all his feelings of betrayal and loneliness. She was there, even if she wasn't aware and she loved him, as perfect, imperfect, but dear. She was a safe haven in what was left of his life. He'd always seemed confident to women, successful, good looking, charming, but really he was deeply insecure under this cover, half acting so that they _should_ slap his face. It was the woman who didn't, but didn't give in either, that intrigued him. If they didn't slap him they weren't worth it, if they did, he had already alienated them. She was different. She had stared through him as he charmed her, giving her his traditional lines and then looked at him inquisitively and asked why he was acting so unlike himself. He had stared at her for a minute and then, in the wake of the shock, answered her with the most complete honestly, with which he had ever talked about himself, apart from to his mother. She had understood. They had walked in the night, talking, and then they had parted. That was all, and for once he felt a thousand times more fulfilled than he ever had when he'd gone home with someone. This felt like a success, those times had felt insubstantial. They met again, talking, walking, stopping for drink and dinner, eating ice-cream, as they walked along the pier, and he talked about himself. Eventually they had walked to the end of the pier and stood, looking out across the sea and up at the stars, and then she had turned to him, as he turned to her and they had kissed. After that he stayed with her for the rest of his leave, and the next one. That was when they broke up. In between they talked everyday, unbeknownst to anyone on board. Jim Brody head over heels. He would have been a laughing stock, but he waited eagerly, everyday, until it was time to talk to her, longing to hear her voice, see her. He stared at the silent hologram, letting his hand fall over the side of the chair, hanging down, as he rubbed the other hand back and forth across a cushion. He reached out to turn in back on and then sat back again. He had thought she would understand. He had only been late, he didn't get why she was so upset. Sure, he hadn't been very pleasant, but he'd been afraid. She'd always seen through that, when he'd done that before, he didn't expect her to miss the real reasons that time, but she did and he couldn't explain them to her. He had shouted, insulted her and then left as she asked him to, but all the time he was really asking her to see that it was the opposite of what he wanted, acting worse and worse, so that, in the end, it must become obvious to her. It hadn't. He had walked around alone that night, eventually falling asleep on the steps down to a small jetty, leaning back against the wall, walking up stiff with cold and coated in salty dew, crusting onto his clothes. No one noticed a change in him. No one noticed when he stopped opening up, as he had started to after meeting her. No one seemed to care. There was no reason to fight the urge to stay hidden, to stay safe, curled around his fragile vulnerable centre, exposing only a sharp and dangerous surface to any passer by or challenger. No one got in and no one seemed to care about that. His work was everything after Hyperion. He had lost the chance of getting her back. His anger and frustration at losing all that manifested itself in furious competition, particularly against Fredricks, who proof of all the changes and an intruder in his world. It was all her fault. She had made him think she would understand. He stared at the image and then sighed. God how he hated and loved her; how short a step it was in between the two! He looked at the image, blurring through a few unshed tears, which soon cleared as he blinked. Jim Brody didn't need anyone; he would not repeat the same mistake. Jim Brody knew who the enemy was and how cunning it could be, how it would trick him into exposure and then pounce to tear at his soul. He reached out a hand and turned the image off, taking out the disc. He held the fragile thing between his hand, testing it to see how hard it would be to break it, but suddenly it slipped out of his fingers and fell onto the floor. As he stooped to pick it up, he knew he couldn't destroy it or throw it away. He would never watch it, but would keep it as a reminder: a talisman of his honour and his independence. He dropped it into a crowded draw, pushing it under a pile of clothes and left the room to play poker. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 02:12:09 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- Part 4 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Hi guys and guyesses...OK, I'm back- sorry for the delay about this part and also... I think my server did delete some messages so if I don't reply to a comment on my story or a personal message please resend it. Thank you for the help and patience. Alexi Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 4: Crocker As he walked down the road with his bag, he wasn't sure where he was going. He had signed and sent the divorce papers; he had a job lined up, he had time. He had no one there for him. He had been gone too long and she hadn't been able to wait. She had forgotten, not about him, but about what they had had together. For him it had been enough to remember, secure in that. She needed daily proof. He had gone back to be with and serve with one of his oldest and dearest friends. Now he realised that that was when she had decided to leave him. If he had stayed, they would probably have worked things out. At that point she had decided to go ahead with her life without him. He had wondered if she had had other relationships while he was away. He'd been worried and jealous, but not overly so. He'd always been so sure she loved him and would be there, faithful, loyal, waiting for him, when he came home. He opened the door and looked around the strange house. She had moved in with the new man she had met and in the settlement he got the house. It wasn't home anymore and he knew he would sell it. With only one person what use was it? With all the memories, he couldn't bear to be there. She had taken some of the furniture, but left his favourite pieces. He sat down in his chair, leaning back and smelling the house. It smelt of her still, but stale and empty. It smelled of loneliness and disappointment. He had no idea what happened from here. He had loved working in the navy, but now that was over. He was too old for it anyway. But somehow he couldn't face the dreary job lined up for him, if it was to come home to an empty place, no noises, no lights already on, no one coming to greet him, as he came in. He was angry at Bridger, and at her, for making him choose, without even realising it. He didn't know if he would have done differently had he understood what he was doing, but at least he would have had a clear choice. Crocker was used to orders, but he wasn't used to people, especially his wife, simply deciding something so monumental to his life, and leaving him no room to argue. She had gone and shouting wouldn't get her back. Nothing would. He sighed loudly, looking up at the ceiling and putting his cap down on the coffee table beside him, rubbing his hand over his balding head. What was the point of all the work with no one to share the rewards with? But then the work had always been reward enough for him. He had never really thought about how she must feel; well, he had, but not carefully. He had never asked her, only as a one line response question, when walking out the door, afraid that, if he made room for a long answer, he wouldn't hear what he wanted. He had never realised how completely dependant on her, or at least the idea and security of her, he was. He had based all his hopes and plans on someone he hadn't even consulted, someone he hardly even knew anymore. How could two people drift so far part? Maybe she had been right. They got on better apart, making up fantasies and dreams about their perfect partner, having nothing there to disprove except a promise to cement these hopeless whimsies. A golden wedding band, like a smaller version of a slaves chains, dreaming of freedom in a home that was no more, conquered by a different race, obliterated. The years stretched out ahead. He hated the silence of the house, listening to it: the creaking of the windows, the noises of the appliances. His own breathing seemed like a thunderclap. The light fell in through the lace curtains, across the windows, onto the faded, comfortable carpet. He looked around a stranger's house. He didn't belong here anymore. He didn't belong anywhere. He didn't even belong in his own life. He didn't know what else there was apart from endless boredom. He sighed again, watching the sunbeams and the dust spiralling in the little slant of light from the window, falling in a sharp line across the floor, cutting into the heart of the room. A small section lighted up, shining and ethereal. That was who his wife had been. That impossible, untouchable centre of light, something he was always going towards, so he never thought about how he was in the darkness all the while, reaching for the light and not seeing what was around him. Nothing. He was alone. No family, no wife, no children and his friends were working or retired with families. There didn't seem any point. Sure he could do the job, but it would be dull, each day the same, grey, nothing, meaningless in all that mattered. And each day the house would seem quieter and emptier until it smothered him in memories and broken dreams, disillusionment and self deception: the dust that had lined the table in her absence. It was very still. There was no movement. There was no life. That was the worst part of it. Everything faded and dead, no voices, no warmth from another person, no one else near him at all. And no one was coming, Everyone was all ready home: him. He had never been truly alone, never had to think about it. First he'd had his huge family, then training camp and then various boats, people living on top of each other in stifling proximity. Maybe he had been alone all the while, but he was alone in a crowd and that was better, far better. A crowd breathed with life and though you were excluded, you could see the life and hope around you, as you struggled to break through the silent barrier into the reality of colours where these people laughed and talked and loved. For the first time he thought about it through her eyes, amazed at what he saw and then he was no longer angry with her, or Bridger. It had been his choice. If he had thought, rather than denied the problem, which he had realised, he knew now, things might have been different. He had chosen this. He had placed himself, here, in this empty shell of old but unfamiliar scenes and objects. It was rather like staring at a glass case in a museum. A object caught your eye reminding you vaguely of something unplaceable and that was all. It wasn't real. It was someone else's life, someone else's joy. He stirred, shifting slightly. He had chosen this, possibly because he had been too stubborn, but also because he had been afraid. He would not give one inch of what he wanted to her, afraid that if he did, he would give it all. He had fooled himself and done it well. He had been wrong. This wasn't what he wanted. But maybe it was. Maybe they had only been able to love in separation and the idea of facing their dream and watch it fall apart day by day, not by one sharp blow, was too much to bear. Maybe they had both made this choice, though only half consciously. If he didn't want to be alone, he needed to find something real or the house would be just as empty, filled only with what was internal, nothing contributed, except a face, from anyone else. He stood up slowly and picked up his hat, putting it back on again and then he locked the door, strolling down the street, thinking. He needed to pick a new home and try the new job. He had to make new friends here and he had to find what he wanted. But before all that he needed to know what it was. He had a start though. He knew he needed something, someone, to fill the loneliness and emptiness in his house. That was the only way he'd ever get to go home. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 23:11:50 +0100 (MET) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by alpham.uni-mb.si From: Silvia Casale Subject: [seaQuest-ff] More Distant Than Any Star- Part 1 X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: seaquest-ff@stgenesis.org Reply-to: seaquest-ff@stgenesis.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Delivered-to: mailing list seaQuest-ff@stgenesis.org Mailing-List: contact seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org; run by ezmlm OK, to start of with a disclaimer... Disclaimer: Seaquest and its characters are copyrighted and allcopyrights and trademarks are acknowledged. This is fanfic only, blah blah blah blah ( and a few rhubarbs )... ( 'scuse me for borrowing this sheffield, but I'm hopeless as you well know ) What should i say next? Oh, right... this is a set of short stories about characters I don't usually focus that much attention on and each part is self contained as a story. The basic idea is a short passage about a feeling, emotion, situation... from the POV a certain character. I guess it's really more like a sort of character study-story than a story story... if you know what i mean... OK I'm sending something out because I've been promising temd3 but it's not ready- I'm really sorry but I've got major exams... so I'm sending this instead. sorry for any typos, grammar errors or speeling - I'm dyslexic. Anyway, I alays appreciate, love and keep comments and I don't care if it's a one liner to say if you like it or not... so long as I get some feed back... how fast ( I will send it whatever ) i send out the rest depends on what feed back i get... no flames please and I don't mean to upset anyone by anything I say... I refuse to cap my i's today... hope you enjoy and are all having a nice day/ evening/ morning.... Alexi For Jill, Dee amd Michelle, with love. copyright E.Casale 1997, 1998 More Distant Than Any Star " One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego: the self is more distant than any star." ( G.H. Chesterton, Orthodoxy ) Part 1- O'Neil Why had he come back here after all this time? The empty room echoed dully around him, from far off footsteps ringing on the cold stone floor. He looked up at the painting on the wall. He had been staring at it for an hour, and before that, the Christopher Columbus one on the other wall, behind him. The work moved him, as it always did, and he enjoyed the silent peacefulness that surrounded him. He could understand it fully. It was almost like another person being able to grasp his emotions, drawing them finely, with exquisite detail. The fear and foreboding stepped off the canvas, crossing the room to hang about him heavily. The clocks melted down the tree and across the geometric design of the foreground: another man's terrified horror at the first atom bomb and the damage it could do. He spent his life on a boat loaded with just such weapons. He had been there when they had been fired. He thought back to Freedom point and the pictures he had seen in his mind's eye, thinking about the nuclear winter that would have followed the blast as they, and the casing for the radioactive waste, exploded into just so many detached pieces: atoms, simple parts, like those cuboids stretching out from the front of the painting. Behind the horror, the starkness and disunity of modern science and thought, lay the ocean and the cliff, bathed in the warm sunlight of evening; the sun was setting on the ages of emotion and memory and expanding into the world of logic and the future, moving on, step by methodical step into an unknown age. The sea became a sheet, tied to a wasted and dying tree. The reflections in the water, suspended over a gap of nothing but yellow light. It was all being pushed back, tidied away, trivialised. The strange colours on the foreground clocks, symbolising the strangeness and danger of the new eara and of the knowledge human kind now had, but did not understand. Time would pass and this would become the past as well, pushing back the sea and the shore into the further distance, being forgotten, and the foreground would be replaced by simpler shapes, more neatly aligned and it would all be broken down into one fact after another. That seemed to be what his life was: one fact after another, always learning, always searching and never finding anything with any meaning. And the picture was desolate, not even one solitary figure disturbing the background, like his life. He was surrounded by people and yet he was completely alone. He almost wished, briefly that Loni were with him again, as he sat here thinking back. It wasn't because he wanted HER there, just another living, breathing person. He envied her happiness, her ability to find company. But, had she been there, it would have all been a lie. He would still have been just as alone. Because she didn't understand. She had sat staring blankly at the picture, no emotion reading on her face, feeling nothing of the stirrings of fear and anger and loneliness that it raised in him. He was alone because no one understood him. No one understood him, because no one really knew him. No one knew him, so the person they liked wasn't what he really was, not the person who looked out from the thin rimmed glasses, staring out with astonishment at the world. His action, his words even, weren't him- they didn't mirror his thoughts, the feelings running through him. They all saw a quiet, considerate, intellectual person, rather lonely, but not very so. But he was quiet. Inside his emotions boiled and flowed as fast and hot as any of theirs and more. Why did no one know him? No one knew him because he chose that. He chose it because he was afraid: to be disliked or not liked much for what he presented was one thing. To be hated for what was inside was another and something he couldn't cope with. The dark, violent, passionate emotions frightened him. His thoughts and feelings frightened him. If even he was frightened and ashamed, how could anyone else stand him? They would hate him, laugh, be shocked and sickened by what they saw. But it was lonely; a person inside never talking, only listening through a non existent shell's ears and, with the loneliness, it was cold and grey, not dark, but oppressive, the leaden colour of a heavy dawn, lying painfully on his mind. Inside there was a frightened person who just wanted comfort, company, warmth and peace. There never seemed to be peace. Always there was the fear that the infinite supply of terrible, furious rage would boil over, bloodthirsty, craving revenge for all the hurt and pain that lay just below the surface. Underneath the calm exterior it was sad. There wasn't a right word for it. The closest he could come was devastation. A nuclear bomb had exploded and he was the only survivor, trapped, wandering the streets of his mind, alone. The streets were dusty, the sky dark: the buildings shattered and empty, broken glass littering the ground, tearing at his feet, the open eyes staring hollowly through him, unseeing. Everywhere was grey, destroyed, abandoned, but there were not even any bodies. They were all gone, all life, not even one plant, reaching through the pavement with eternal hope. The streets wound round and round and there was no way out: he was trapped alone, in the desolate landscape, while an illusion walked around and used the name of the real person. No one understood because no one knew, therefore no one loved and it was quiet, still, cold and quite empty, the emotions finding no outlet for the love he was longing to give. It rounded back on him snarling like a caged beast, furious at its imprisonment within his fear and the shrouded world where he dwelled. The town was silent and the dust rose up in clouds, meeting and pulling away again. There was no word for loneliness like this: sadness, dark, grief... devastation. copyright E.Casale 1997, 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-unsubscribe@stgenesis.org For additional commands, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 20:46:39 +0100 (MET) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by alpham.uni-mb.si From: Silvia Casale Subject: [seaQuest-ff] More Distant Than Any Star- Part 5 X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: seaquest-ff@stgenesis.org Reply-to: seaquest-ff@thelists.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Delivered-to: mailing list seaQuest-ff@stgenesis.org Mailing-List: contact seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org; run by ezmlm Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 5: Kimura In the darkness, she stared away into a different night. The people, crowded into the room were cheering, uniforms all around, tall strangers. Up on the platform her parents were tied, awaiting execution. She didn't understand what it all meant, but she could smell the fear in the air, feeling it crawling over her arms. A senior official stepped forward and spoke, but she didn't hear, focused on the words her mother was trying to relay to her. " Don't become part of it. Leave when you can, do what you have to but get away. I love you. We love you." She didn't understand, staring with tears starting to her eyes, but not able to fall as the screaming started, their faces twisting, inhuman and then it was over. But she had seen the defeat: they had given up, they had been beaten. That was when she swore she would never be. She would stay and fight for them, which she did and well. She would become a pilot, she would be the best. She did all that, driven by the faces in her memories, building all on her hatred of the people she was pretending to serve. She stood blankly, taking their orders, quiet, polite, deferential and all the time she planned how she would get out and what she would do to them when she did. As she rose up the ranks, she realised that the one would accomplish the other. Her mouth curved in an unpleasant smile. They were stupid, they were so stupid and so vile. How could they think she would really serve them, so faithfully, after watching them kill her parents, destroying everything that was warm, loving, happy in her life? Since then she hadn't loved or been loved. Love wasn't a Chaodi principle. They didn't understand it, just as they didn't understand how she was never really obedient to them. Fools! Hatred, growing bitterness, hardness to execute her plans and stay there, bowing and scraping to the murderers. She had learnt how to be cold; she knew all about deceit, those iron corridors, too brightly lit rooms, no plants, nothing alive, everyone in uniform following predetermined orders and duties, had been the perfect learning environment and she had survived and beaten them. She had done all she had promised. She had kept her word and proved her honour to it. But now she was puzzled by where she was, by the life and emotion on all the faces around her. She longed to be part of it, but knew that they hated her. She knew logic and when not to fight. This was not the time. This was the time to defend. But she felt strange, as she lay on the comfortable bed, free. All her life, since the morning of the executions, she had been building to this, working every waking moment to this, living a lie to get here. Now she had arrived and there was nothing to mark it and no where to go. The pinnacle of her mountain range had been escape. What else was there to do or hope for now? What was she fighting for, working for, living for? What did she have to hide her fear under, push her forward, give her all the strength she needed? The anger, the rage was empty now, but still there. She hadn't changed that; she hadn't escaped it. But now it was different. She could no longer focus on her rage, but only on the sorrow left, when she had nowhere to go with it, finally. Nothing made sense. All her rules, principles, disciplines, plans, had been about getting away. Now there was only the aching void that the fury had left in her and the sadness, the loneliness and the first real feelings of grief, as opposed to anger and revenge. It was only now that she cried for them, silent tears, slowly rolling down her cheeks to be replaced by fresh ones. She didn't wipe them away or sob, just lay there. She didn't know what to do with it but endure. Survive. She had survived; she hadn't lived. Living included emotions, feelings. She had acted like a computer, following the logic to her destination, nothing more. Everything she had earned, she had left behind. She was free, but what did that mean? And she wasn't free from the memories, the echoing corridors, the logic: the hideous, unstoppable, all covering logic, rules, orders and the pain. Putting her hands together she could feel the scars, feel again the wild fear. She had believed she would die, but she didn't care. If she did, it didn't matter because it was necessary to her end to pass through this gate. But she had fought all the way and she had survived. The hospital after was so quiet, so cold, so sterile. She lay, still in agony despite the painkillers. But as she had stared ahead, waiting, enduring, she had thought only of the depth and heat of her rage. The energy generated by it warmed her, gave her strength, blotted out the pain. It had been a friend and companion, or maybe just a devil sitting on her shoulder, pushing her onwards. It didn't matter, she survived and she was one of their most honoured. She wasn't going to be sorry for tricking Tim, for her deceit. It had been necessary. Had he been in her situation and survived, which she didn't think he would have, he would have done the same thing. What she did took strength greater than he could ever know, real determination, real dedication to one thing. He could never understand what the world where she had lived was like. He was so lucky, so fortunate. Everyone deserved to feel that type of pain if she did, to at least understand, and he hadn't felt it yet, not even a tiny percentage. She wasn't going to feel guilty. She had accomplished her goal. She was triumphant. She had been brave and accepting of her death even, to do it, but she had never really been afraid. If it was to reach her end, then death, if necessary, was something she was perfectly willing to accept. All for her goal. All to reach the end of the journey. The end, the promised land, wasn't what she had thought though. Then she realised that she had never really thought about it, only the winning, not what she would win. Honour, truth to her word, that was all she had wanted, but it wasn't what she got. She had survived and that meant continuing, but without a direction or a destination or anything she really wanted or felt about; she was lost. The pattern, that the hatred had provided her with, was gone. She was in a strange place among strangers, whose customs and principles she didn't know or even understand. But she would survive, she always did. But what would she survive for? Getting up and following orders without a purpose had no meaning; it made no sense and sense was all she had to understand the world, to keep her going, to survive with. These people didn't use that the same way. They always included emotions. That was almost as much a 'foreign country' as the UEO nations were. The language was different, even. She could speak the words but she couldn't feel what they meant. These people had no set goal, only a list and at the top was love. What was that? What did it mean or achieve? Why was it so desirable? It wasn't prestigious, honoured, raising of position or power. It didn't buy anything or make others give you more, like larger quarters with a promotion. Iy didn't have an end, it was for just being and so it made no sense. Half of the time, more than half even, you didn't even win or get it right or whatever it is you aimed to do. A large part of the time people spent longing for it, being miserable in it. Why? What was so valuable about it? Then she thought back. All her life she had been striving to this point, and why? For revenge, for anger, for something to fill her life and give it direction. But what had given it direction before? Her parents, their love, their warmth, the way she could delight in that and didn't need anything else in the way of possessions or achievements. She had deceived and let herself act for the Chaodi all those years to meet her mother's words, to prove them true, to give her death a point. She would help destroy the Chaodi for them. But the rage and the emptiness now, they were just things to fill a gap from what they had taken, had stolen, that she had spent her life making them pay for. She couldn't get it back, but she could take from them in turn. They had taken all the happiness in her life, all the emotions. Her only source of love. No rage could be so powerful except as this. No journey could be fought with such strength and no revenge could be so empty. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-unsubscribe@stgenesis.org For additional commands, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:29:44 +0100 (MET) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by alpham.uni-mb.si From: Silvia Casale Subject: [seaQuest-ff] More Distant Than Any Star- Part 6 X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: seaquest-ff@stgenesis.org Reply-to: seaquest-ff@thelists.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Delivered-to: mailing list seaQuest-ff@stgenesis.org Mailing-List: contact seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org; run by ezmlm A while ago I asked who people wanted a story about so this part is to those who wanted a Miguel story... hope this is OK.... Alexi Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 6: Miguel Ortiz He sat in his quarters, staring at an old photo of his family. He looked up, shaking his head slightly. Here he was, a million miles away from all that in more than just distance. He thought back to his childhood in the favella, like the one they had just visited to bring their team back. It had also brought back so many memories, old, half forgotten memories. He remembered the missionaries coming around, offering help, sometimes food, learning to read with them. The school that the government had been forced to set up was so over crowded and so many of the children were hardly there, helping their parents working, gathering food or water, that lessons never got anywhere, as they always had to start from the beginning each day. But he went. His parents knew that that was the way he would get out of there and he went everyday, but he could learn nothing. He knew the lesson, everything they had taught, but it was always the same- starting the basics of the alphabet. After two weeks he had given up. There was nothing new to absorb. He had left, wandering out unseen at the back, looking down at the ground, disappointed, not watching where he was going. He had nearly walked into one of the missionaries. She had stopped looking down at him and asked why he was leaving and why he was so sad. He had sniffed and then explained. He didn't know why he had told her, it was just that he was starting to see, for the first time, how hopeless it all was. He was never going to get out of there. He would never escape the dirt streets, the brown water, the stagnating rubbish in the gutters, the houses falling in in places, the iron and wood and mud all mismatched to build a rough shelter, the sun beating down, raising the dust from the dry ground while a mile away was the city centre, skyscrapers rising bright, clean and ethereal into the blue, hopeful sky. She had looked at him, as he had stared wide eyed at her, and then taken his hand and led him into the chapel. He had been slightly over awed by the silence and the atmosphere, quickly making the sign of the cross, as he had been taught. She had told him to sit on a pew at the front and had then gone to the alter, the candle sticks gleaming in the candle light from all around. At the back, a women, shrouded in shawls, was praying. Ahead there were the candlesticks, a plain crucifix and the rest of the room was empty, undecorated, but it was peaceful and somehow he felt he had entered a different world. The woman had come back to him, opening a book and then she sat, resting it between their knees and she started to teach him. He went there, to the chapel, everyday after that and for several hours she would teach him. She said that no one had ever wanted to learn like he did and she felt a call to single him out. He didn't understand or care, he was learning and it was opening a future. Four years later she had turned to him, laughing while they were reading ' A Midsummer's Night Dream', and told him that the next day she was taking him to see the city. He had only been in the poor parts, but the next day she met him at the chapel and they walked the several miles through the winding streets to the centre. He had stared about in awe at the fountains, the bright plants. They had sat and she had brought him a canned drink, sitting on the stone side of the fountain, looking around at the government buildings. One in particular had caught his eye, the plaque outside catching the light. He pointed and asked her what it meant. She explained about the trident, the globe and what it was supposed to symbolise and then she explained the letters. He had stared at it, wide eyed and asked her for more information. They talked about it for a very long time before she took him to the museum and then they started the long walk home. That night, trying to sleep on the hard floor, he had lain awake thinking about all that she had said. It was more fantastic than anything he had ever heard of or believed and, every night after, he dreamed of the building and going there, having that in his future. He would ask her for more information and on his fourteenth birthday she brought him a book on it, smiling as she saw his face light up and then he have her a quick hug, starting to leaf through it. He smiled, thinking about the calm, ageless face, the gentle voice, the time and love she had given him and, more importantly, the gift of confidence and hope. For the next three years he had thought about it constantly. On his seventeenth birthday he had gone to her and told her the dream he had developed. She had smiled slightly, not surprised, and said she would get him there, teach him what he would need to know to go there, to learn the rest. That year they worked harder than they had ever done before; he worked late into the night, trying to catch the last rays of sun, as they had no electricity and couldn't afford the light. In the day he studied with her and helped his parents, working on the land, going to fetch water, begging on the streets or trying to get odd jobs when they were desperate and all the time his thoughts were a million miles away in a different world. The second time he had gone to the city was a few months before his eighteenth birthday. She accompanied him to the building and then gave him a gentle kiss of the cheek, pushing him up the steps and smiling with glowing confidence in him. He had turned, swallowing and made his way up into the building, as he had dreamed, and reported to the desk, handing the officer there the papers. The man had looked at them and then at his shabby appearance with a slight, mocking smile on his face. He had steeled his nerve and looked him straight back in the face. There was nothing for him to be ashamed of. He sat down on a bench, looking around at the smart boys, clean in new clothes, waiting to take the exam, all confident, chatting. Some glanced at him and laughed to their friends but he ignored them, concentrating on the dream, always the same. Someone had finally come down the echoing corridor and led them into a room, pointing a desk out to him. He sat, looking up at the high ceiling and then listening to the instructions, taking the pencil, set out in front of him, as ordered, a quiver of fear running through him, and he wrote his name proudly at the top and opened the paper, breathing out his fear and concentrating on the chapel and how he felt there. He looked at the first question and found he knew the answer, and to the next and the one after. He started to smile slightly, panicking when he found one difficult, but when he came back to it he managed a decent answer and finally he finished. He still had half an hour. He went back, checking the answers, his writing and spelling, but it was fine. He sat back and stared up at the ceiling, watching the sunlight play around the supports and sighed out. He had not noticed the journey back, walking beside her silently. On his eighteenth birthday, as if an omen, he had gone to the chapel to find her there crying. He had sat down beside her, laying a hand on her arm and she had looked at him and smiled, passing him a letter. He stared at it. He was going. He couldn't believe it. He turned to her and asked why she was crying. She said because she had finally made a difference and he was leaving, but it was wonderful. It was a sign from God. Two weeks later he had stood, hugging his family tightly, tears running down all their faces, but they were all proud of him, sad to loose him, as they needed his help, but happy for him, for his escape. He had succeeded and made them proud. He turned and went to the sister, clasping her hands with gratitude he couldn't voice and then he had walked away, down the dust street, away from all of it. The comfort of the academy had astonished him and he had found the other people strange, privileged, not noticing the wonderful cleanliness, comfort and beauty around them, but he had tried harder than all of them, with a much greater drive behind him and had excelled. Two months later, his brother was killed in a street fight. A month after that his mother died of an unknown disease, while the doctors elsewhere dealing with other sufferers of the outbreak. He had bent his head, prayed and continued working. He would make it for all of them and he had. Here he was, on the UEO flagship. He had made it and they would be proud of him. He had got away from all of it and escaped. The cycle was broken. He thought of them often, buying a small flat for his sisters and father with his first year's salary. Sometimes he was afraid that he was getting complacent about all he had here, afraid that he would forget, but he didn't. He was fighting and working for something that would change all that, provide people with what they needed, protect them. He would fulfil all potential anyone could have had and no one, but the sister, had ever imaged he could possess. Sometimes he still prayed, but he had never been very religious. He had seen it as her goodness, her gift, rather than God's, though that was what she believed had brought her there. He thought about her often, almost like a guardian angel, a symbol, though he never saw her after the day he had left for the UEO academy, moving off into a new life, a new world. He had not known any of the places, never having been past the city and rarely into it. He had known no one, but, rather than being afraid, he had looked forward. He might be scared but this was his dream and it was real and he had made it real. He had worked and struggled for it and he deserved it and he would appreciate it. The others didn't understand that. They had been shocked at the favella, forgetting it as soon as they could, but he didn't. He never had. He shouldn't. That was what he was here to change, to show that its dirty streets, its poverty were no part of him and that he was still pure and good. It had not tainted him, they did not taint anyone, only the conceptions of them and the people who lived there. But that was private. It was his drive and his secret and he hoarded it to himself in a place where he kept her face, a third parent, but more. It was the foundation of everything he believed in and he would never forget the dirt streets that it had soared up from, towering above all that, reaching for the skies and succeeding. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-unsubscribe@stgenesis.org For additional commands, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 00:19:19 +0100 (MET) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by alpham.uni-mb.si From: Silvia Casale Subject: [seaQuest-ff] More Distant Than Any Star- part 7 X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: seaquest-ff@stgenesis.org Reply-to: seaquest-ff@thelists.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Delivered-to: mailing list seaQuest-ff@stgenesis.org Mailing-List: contact seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org; run by ezmlm OK, first of all, please read this note. This might also be a PG but is not at all descriptive... I don't know. This story is meant as a harmless piece of fun. I don't not mean to insult anyone or anyone's views or preferences for SQ characters, or be offensive. This is purely a piece of very silly fiction. If you like Loni you might not like this story. But please remember it's just meant to be fun and not meant to express any definate views or 'morals' or statements... It's very different form the other parts of this series of little stories but I don't mean that difference to be insulting. This piece was just a way for me to have a little fun and be silly... it is not intended to be taken seriously. I have shown this to other people to try and make sure that it will not mistakenly be taken as offernsive. I hope that you like it however as what it is... and no flames please. Unlike the other pieces I wanted something very lighthearted and silly and so it doesn't truly fit in the series of stories except for a relief for me from putting myself into the characters' emotional situations and generally being fairly miserable about it. Alexi Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 7: Loni Loni sat pouting at the papers spread over her bed, ticking occasionally with a red marker, making notes by other names and finally adding up all the information, frowning. She was behind schedule; she should be much further along by now. Between two moths, before hyperion, when she started her 'project', and two months after, she had only managed to sleep with just over a quarter of the crew. She shook her head; she had been hoping to be at least a third of the way through them. The ones she was leaving until last would be difficult. She pondered, sitting cross-legged, whether Hudson counted as a crew member or whether Captains were exempt; after all, she had Ford around her little finger, and Brody, though neither knew about the other's 'interests'. Tony she was saving for a day when she was frustrated; he would be no problem. Tim: now that was a problem. It disrupted her list not to have put a cross by his name, but she told herself that she didn't want to be bothered with him after their 'date'. He didn't deserve that honour. Lucas... that was difficult because he regarded her and Ford as an item, which was what Ford thought, and therefore wouldn't, even if he wanted to. It was such a pity about the cave, that would have been the perfect opportunity. Well, that was the senior bridge staff. The people down in engineering hadn't been hard to deal with. They were the first names crossed off, while she was still deciding whether to undertake this impressive endeavour. In the academy she had only slept with thirty seven out of forty guys, which she was deeply disappointed about, but she had gone through them pretty quickly, and several instructors, hence the wonderful recommendations. She smiled, remembering another name, and ticking it off with enthusiasm. So that left another ninety. She sighed, it wasn't impossible at all, but really it was too much of a bother. But think about what a wonderful achievement it will be! She smiled, unzipping her uniform jacket, and adjusting her bra to show-off the maximum amount of cleavage without there being any reason for complaint and opened the door. She was strolling past the gym, trying to decide where she would find her the next person to be ticked off, and then stopped in the doorway. One guy, exercising alone. She thought she knew him from... what did it matter? She pasted on a bright smile and went in, starting work at the machine next to him, smiling at him. When she got up, she stretched stiffly, looking around. " I'm really sorry but I think I strained something. Do you think you could..." The man crossed with alacrity to her and started rubbing her shoulders. " Yes, right there," she whispered, and then turned. " You really do have wonderful hands." The man beamed at her with wide eyes, smiling slightly and licking his lips. " You think you could do that some more?" She sighed with pleasure and then turned to him again. " You really have a talent there." He sat staring as she got up, stopping and smiling in the doorway. " You must have taken a course. I bet you know all about massage. God, I'd give anything for a real massage right now... but I suppose you're busy..." " Actually, I'm not back on duty for an hour." Plenty of time. She smiled. One down eighty nine to go and then they headed back to her quarters. After she had despatched him, she lay on her stomach and went back to the list, pondering on a plan of action. Should she try alphabetically? pot luck? Really it was very complicated with so many people and such a short time. She'd promised to have completed her mission in a year. That gave her... eight months. Plenty of time. She found she was quiet tired from all the thinking about how she could accomplish her task and set off to the mess for a coffee. And stopped in the doorway. One lone man was sitting in a corner, bent over his cup mournfully. A smile flickered across her face before she fetched herself a coffee and walked up to him. He didn't look up at her as she paused, opposite him, across the table. " Mind if I sit down?" He jerked his head up, astonished to see who it was. " Um... er... well... um... that is... sure." She'd met ( and of course slept with ) less eloquent types. She gave him a warm smile ( a bit like caramel at 200 degrees C ). He dropped his gaze back down to his cup. " Are you all right?" He looked at her, surprised, and then tired. " Yes, Sir... Ma'am... I mean... Lieutenant..." " Loni." He blinked at that and then tried it out. " Loni." She nodded eagerly. He sighed. He was tired and overworked and he needed sympathy- and not the type his wife had just given him over the vidlink. He looked up at her. " It's nothing, really..." " Can I judge that for myself?" she asked persuasively. He sighed. " It's just... like... I had this really long day with all the changes for the work over we were doing and... I called my wife..." He paused, wincing thinking of her tone. " I just wanted a little bit of company and support... some warmth... She might leave me." He didn't add that he hoped she would. Loni looked at him with sad eyes and put a gentle hand on his arm. An hour later and a little more conversing and her version of 'comforting' later. The man left glowing, and slightly red-faced, while Loni ticked another name off her list. She'd done well. Two in one day. Maybe she would get there after all. She went to sleep with that delightful thought. She was woken by a knock at her door at... F***! It was 00:01. She strolled over. " Loni!" someone hissed outside and then opened the door. She didn't respond as the someone came across and knelt beside her, on the bed, slipping a hand under the covers to shake her awake. " I've been standing out there for twenty minutes, just waiting. It's 00:01... Happy Valentines day!" Loni didn't reply but pushed the pillow over her head. " I thought we could... before our next shift... I mean..." Slowly she recognised Ford's adoring tones and almost groaned, but she was more practised than that. " I need to sleep, Jonathan... but maybe, just for a little while." She got rid of him before 01:00 and went back to sleep. When she next woke up, it was to her alarm. She sat up blearily, as someone slipped into the room. Oh shit! It was the man from last night, grinning sheepishly and very shyly, as he came across to her. He held out a box to her. Inside was a small, fresh water pearl bracelet. She smiled and stood to kiss him, until he had to stagger out in search of an oxygen tank. She smiled as she dressed... and there was another knock at the door. It was the one from... who knows when? and really she didn't care. He whipped red roses out from behind his back... then he too received the new style of asphyxiation treatment. After she got rid of him, she made it to the door before Brody turned up.... Five breathless minutes later, she was heading to the bridge, already late when someone pulled her into a room and shut the door... It was someone new, proclaiming their adoration... She had ten minutes before she would be desperately late and she did have to try and get through one new name a day... As she emerged, two men were fighting by her door, which she hadn't managed to get far from. She remembered one- he'd been earlier that week, but the other, she was lost about... no, wait, a faint memory glimmered at the back of her mind. She sighed and started walking away, when they saw her and ran up to her, thrusting cards in her face and various token of affection ( aka lust ), glaring at each other. That was when a further two turned up at her door, and then a further three. That was when the riot started and then grew. Loni looked back mournfully at Hudson, who was standing, glaring angrily at her and ordering the female guards ( he'd been very careful about that ) to remove her from his ship and the vicinity. She tried smiling at the guards. It didn't work. " Captain..." One very, very black eye, which he'd received trying to break up the fight, which had grown to fill most of B deck, regarded her murderously and she almost fled into the launch. As it pulled away, she was almost in tears. There were still 87 heterosexual crew members on the boat whom she hadn't slept with. She knew she would always have nightmares about that. That was, when she managed to sleep in between getting through all the names at her next place of employment. Copyright E.Casale, 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-unsubscribe@stgenesis.org For additional commands, e-mail: seaQuest-ff-help@stgenesis.org Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:45:09 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- Part 5 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Hi everyone! wish me happy birthday!!!! ( if you feel like it ) Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 5: Kimura In the darkness, she stared away into a different night. The people, crowded into the room were cheering, uniforms all around, tall strangers. Up on the platform her parents were tied, awaiting execution. She didn't understand what it all meant, but she could smell the fear in the air, feeling it crawling over her arms. A senior official stepped forward and spoke, but she didn't hear, focused on the words her mother was trying to relay to her. " Don't become part of it. Leave when you can, do what you have to but get away. I love you. We love you." She didn't understand, staring with tears starting to her eyes, but not able to fall as the screaming started, their faces twisting, inhuman and then it was over. But she had seen the defeat: they had given up, they had been beaten. That was when she swore she would never be. She would stay and fight for them, which she did and well. She would become a pilot, she would be the best. She did all that, driven by the faces in her memories, building all on her hatred of the people she was pretending to serve. She stood blankly, taking their orders, quiet, polite, deferential and all the time she planned how she would get out and what she would do to them when she did. As she rose up the ranks, she realised that the one would accomplish the other. Her mouth curved in an unpleasant smile. They were stupid, they were so stupid and so vile. How could they think she would really serve them, so faithfully, after watching them kill her parents, destroying everything that was warm, loving, happy in her life? Since then she hadn't loved or been loved. Love wasn't a Chaodi principle. They didn't understand it, just as they didn't understand how she was never really obedient to them. Fools! Hatred, growing bitterness, hardness to execute her plans and stay there, bowing and scraping to the murderers. She had learnt how to be cold; she knew all about deceit, those iron corridors, too brightly lit rooms, no plants, nothing alive, everyone in uniform following predetermined orders and duties, had been the perfect learning environment and she had survived and beaten them. She had done all she had promised. She had kept her word and proved her honour to it. But now she was puzzled by where she was, by the life and emotion on all the faces around her. She longed to be part of it, but knew that they hated her. She knew logic and when not to fight. This was not the time. This was the time to defend. But she felt strange, as she lay on the comfortable bed, free. All her life, since the morning of the executions, she had been building to this, working every waking moment to this, living a lie to get here. Now she had arrived and there was nothing to mark it and no where to go. The pinnacle of her mountain range had been escape. What else was there to do or hope for now? What was she fighting for, working for, living for? What did she have to hide her fear under, push her forward, give her all the strength she needed? The anger, the rage was empty now, but still there. She hadn't changed that; she hadn't escaped it. But now it was different. She could no longer focus on her rage, but only on the sorrow left, when she had nowhere to go with it, finally. Nothing made sense. All her rules, principles, disciplines, plans, had been about getting away. Now there was only the aching void that the fury had left in her and the sadness, the loneliness and the first real feelings of grief, as opposed to anger and revenge. It was only now that she cried for them, silent tears, slowly rolling down her cheeks to be replaced by fresh ones. She didn't wipe them away or sob, just lay there. She didn't know what to do with it but endure. Survive. She had survived; she hadn't lived. Living included emotions, feelings. She had acted like a computer, following the logic to her destination, nothing more. Everything she had earned, she had left behind. She was free, but what did that mean? And she wasn't free from the memories, the echoing corridors, the logic: the hideous, unstoppable, all covering logic, rules, orders and the pain. Putting her hands together she could feel the scars, feel again the wild fear. She had believed she would die, but she didn't care. If she did, it didn't matter because it was necessary to her end to pass through this gate. But she had fought all the way and she had survived. The hospital after was so quiet, so cold, so sterile. She lay, still in agony despite the painkillers. But as she had stared ahead, waiting, enduring, she had thought only of the depth and heat of her rage. The energy generated by it warmed her, gave her strength, blotted out the pain. It had been a friend and companion, or maybe just a devil sitting on her shoulder, pushing her onwards. It didn't matter, she survived and she was one of their most honoured. She wasn't going to be sorry for tricking Tim, for her deceit. It had been necessary. Had he been in her situation and survived, which she didn't think he would have, he would have done the same thing. What she did took strength greater than he could ever know, real determination, real dedication to one thing. He could never understand what the world where she had lived was like. He was so lucky, so fortunate. Everyone deserved to feel that type of pain if she did, to at least understand, and he hadn't felt it yet, not even a tiny percentage. She wasn't going to feel guilty. She had accomplished her goal. She was triumphant. She had been brave and accepting of her death even, to do it, but she had never really been afraid. If it was to reach her end, then death, if necessary, was something she was perfectly willing to accept. All for her goal. All to reach the end of the journey. The end, the promised land, wasn't what she had thought though. Then she realised that she had never really thought about it, only the winning, not what she would win. Honour, truth to her word, that was all she had wanted, but it wasn't what she got. She had survived and that meant continuing, but without a direction or a destination or anything she really wanted or felt about; she was lost. The pattern, that the hatred had provided her with, was gone. She was in a strange place among strangers, whose customs and principles she didn't know or even understand. But she would survive, she always did. But what would she survive for? Getting up and following orders without a purpose had no meaning; it made no sense and sense was all she had to understand the world, to keep her going, to survive with. These people didn't use that the same way. They always included emotions. That was almost as much a 'foreign country' as the UEO nations were. The language was different, even. She could speak the words but she couldn't feel what they meant. These people had no set goal, only a list and at the top was love. What was that? What did it mean or achieve? Why was it so desirable? It wasn't prestigious, honoured, raising of position or power. It didn't buy anything or make others give you more, like larger quarters with a promotion. Iy didn't have an end, it was for just being and so it made no sense. Half of the time, more than half even, you didn't even win or get it right or whatever it is you aimed to do. A large part of the time people spent longing for it, being miserable in it. Why? What was so valuable about it? Then she thought back. All her life she had been striving to this point, and why? For revenge, for anger, for something to fill her life and give it direction. But what had given it direction before? Her parents, their love, their warmth, the way she could delight in that and didn't need anything else in the way of possessions or achievements. She had deceived and let herself act for the Chaodi all those years to meet her mother's words, to prove them true, to give her death a point. She would help destroy the Chaodi for them. But the rage and the emptiness now, they were just things to fill a gap from what they had taken, had stolen, that she had spent her life making them pay for. She couldn't get it back, but she could take from them in turn. They had taken all the happiness in her life, all the emotions. Her only source of love. No rage could be so powerful except as this. No journey could be fought with such strength and no revenge could be so empty. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 15:25:53 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- Part 6 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) A while ago I asked who people wanted a story about so this part is to those who wanted a Miguel story... hope this is OK.... Alexi Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 6: Miguel Ortiz He sat in his quarters, staring at an old photo of his family. He looked up, shaking his head slightly. Here he was, a million miles away from all that in more than just distance. He thought back to his childhood in the favella, like the one they had just visited to bring their team back. It had also brought back so many memories, old, half forgotten memories. He remembered the missionaries coming around, offering help, sometimes food, learning to read with them. The school that the government had been forced to set up was so over crowded and so many of the children were hardly there, helping their parents working, gathering food or water, that lessons never got anywhere, as they always had to start from the beginning each day. But he went. His parents knew that that was the way he would get out of there and he went everyday, but he could learn nothing. He knew the lesson, everything they had taught, but it was always the same- starting the basics of the alphabet. After two weeks he had given up. There was nothing new to absorb. He had left, wandering out unseen at the back, looking down at the ground, disappointed, not watching where he was going. He had nearly walked into one of the missionaries. She had stopped looking down at him and asked why he was leaving and why he was so sad. He had sniffed and then explained. He didn't know why he had told her, it was just that he was starting to see, for the first time, how hopeless it all was. He was never going to get out of there. He would never escape the dirt streets, the brown water, the stagnating rubbish in the gutters, the houses falling in in places, the iron and wood and mud all mismatched to build a rough shelter, the sun beating down, raising the dust from the dry ground while a mile away was the city centre, skyscrapers rising bright, clean and ethereal into the blue, hopeful sky. She had looked at him, as he had stared wide eyed at her, and then taken his hand and led him into the chapel. He had been slightly over awed by the silence and the atmosphere, quickly making the sign of the cross, as he had been taught. She had told him to sit on a pew at the front and had then gone to the alter, the candle sticks gleaming in the candle light from all around. At the back, a women, shrouded in shawls, was praying. Ahead there were the candlesticks, a plain crucifix and the rest of the room was empty, undecorated, but it was peaceful and somehow he felt he had entered a different world. The woman had come back to him, opening a book and then she sat, resting it between their knees and she started to teach him. He went there, to the chapel, everyday after that and for several hours she would teach him. She said that no one had ever wanted to learn like he did and she felt a call to single him out. He didn't understand or care, he was learning and it was opening a future. Four years later she had turned to him, laughing while they were reading ' A Midsummer's Night Dream', and told him that the next day she was taking him to see the city. He had only been in the poor parts, but the next day she met him at the chapel and they walked the several miles through the winding streets to the centre. He had stared about in awe at the fountains, the bright plants. They had sat and she had brought him a canned drink, sitting on the stone side of the fountain, looking around at the government buildings. One in particular had caught his eye, the plaque outside catching the light. He pointed and asked her what it meant. She explained about the trident, the globe and what it was supposed to symbolise and then she explained the letters. He had stared at it, wide eyed and asked her for more information. They talked about it for a very long time before she took him to the museum and then they started the long walk home. That night, trying to sleep on the hard floor, he had lain awake thinking about all that she had said. It was more fantastic than anything he had ever heard of or believed and, every night after, he dreamed of the building and going there, having that in his future. He would ask her for more information and on his fourteenth birthday she brought him a book on it, smiling as she saw his face light up and then he have her a quick hug, starting to leaf through it. He smiled, thinking about the calm, ageless face, the gentle voice, the time and love she had given him and, more importantly, the gift of confidence and hope. For the next three years he had thought about it constantly. On his seventeenth birthday he had gone to her and told her the dream he had developed. She had smiled slightly, not surprised, and said she would get him there, teach him what he would need to know to go there, to learn the rest. That year they worked harder than they had ever done before; he worked late into the night, trying to catch the last rays of sun, as they had no electricity and couldn't afford the light. In the day he studied with her and helped his parents, working on the land, going to fetch water, begging on the streets or trying to get odd jobs when they were desperate and all the time his thoughts were a million miles away in a different world. The second time he had gone to the city was a few months before his eighteenth birthday. She accompanied him to the building and then gave him a gentle kiss of the cheek, pushing him up the steps and smiling with glowing confidence in him. He had turned, swallowing and made his way up into the building, as he had dreamed, and reported to the desk, handing the officer there the papers. The man had looked at them and then at his shabby appearance with a slight, mocking smile on his face. He had steeled his nerve and looked him straight back in the face. There was nothing for him to be ashamed of. He sat down on a bench, looking around at the smart boys, clean in new clothes, waiting to take the exam, all confident, chatting. Some glanced at him and laughed to their friends but he ignored them, concentrating on the dream, always the same. Someone had finally come down the echoing corridor and led them into a room, pointing a desk out to him. He sat, looking up at the high ceiling and then listening to the instructions, taking the pencil, set out in front of him, as ordered, a quiver of fear running through him, and he wrote his name proudly at the top and opened the paper, breathing out his fear and concentrating on the chapel and how he felt there. He looked at the first question and found he knew the answer, and to the next and the one after. He started to smile slightly, panicking when he found one difficult, but when he came back to it he managed a decent answer and finally he finished. He still had half an hour. He went back, checking the answers, his writing and spelling, but it was fine. He sat back and stared up at the ceiling, watching the sunlight play around the supports and sighed out. He had not noticed the journey back, walking beside her silently. On his eighteenth birthday, as if an omen, he had gone to the chapel to find her there crying. He had sat down beside her, laying a hand on her arm and she had looked at him and smiled, passing him a letter. He stared at it. He was going. He couldn't believe it. He turned to her and asked why she was crying. She said because she had finally made a difference and he was leaving, but it was wonderful. It was a sign from God. Two weeks later he had stood, hugging his family tightly, tears running down all their faces, but they were all proud of him, sad to loose him, as they needed his help, but happy for him, for his escape. He had succeeded and made them proud. He turned and went to the sister, clasping her hands with gratitude he couldn't voice and then he had walked away, down the dust street, away from all of it. The comfort of the academy had astonished him and he had found the other people strange, privileged, not noticing the wonderful cleanliness, comfort and beauty around them, but he had tried harder than all of them, with a much greater drive behind him and had excelled. Two months later, his brother was killed in a street fight. A month after that his mother died of an unknown disease, while the doctors elsewhere dealing with other sufferers of the outbreak. He had bent his head, prayed and continued working. He would make it for all of them and he had. Here he was, on the UEO flagship. He had made it and they would be proud of him. He had got away from all of it and escaped. The cycle was broken. He thought of them often, buying a small flat for his sisters and father with his first year's salary. Sometimes he was afraid that he was getting complacent about all he had here, afraid that he would forget, but he didn't. He was fighting and working for something that would change all that, provide people with what they needed, protect them. He would fulfil all potential anyone could have had and no one, but the sister, had ever imaged he could possess. Sometimes he still prayed, but he had never been very religious. He had seen it as her goodness, her gift, rather than God's, though that was what she believed had brought her there. He thought about her often, almost like a guardian angel, a symbol, though he never saw her after the day he had left for the UEO academy, moving off into a new life, a new world. He had not known any of the places, never having been past the city and rarely into it. He had known no one, but, rather than being afraid, he had looked forward. He might be scared but this was his dream and it was real and he had made it real. He had worked and struggled for it and he deserved it and he would appreciate it. The others didn't understand that. They had been shocked at the favella, forgetting it as soon as they could, but he didn't. He never had. He shouldn't. That was what he was here to change, to show that its dirty streets, its poverty were no part of him and that he was still pure and good. It had not tainted him, they did not taint anyone, only the conceptions of them and the people who lived there. But that was private. It was his drive and his secret and he hoarded it to himself in a place where he kept her face, a third parent, but more. It was the foundation of everything he believed in and he would never forget the dirt streets that it had soared up from, towering above all that, reaching for the skies and succeeding. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:02:24 -0600 (CST) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star- part 7 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) OK, first of all, please read this note. This might also be a PG but is not at all descriptive... I don't know. This story is meant as a harmless piece of fun. I don't not mean to insult anyone or anyone's views or preferences for SQ characters, or be offensive. This is purely a piece of very silly fiction. If you like Loni you might not like this story. But please remember it's just meant to be fun and not meant to express any definate views or 'morals' or statements... It's very different form the other parts of this series of little stories but I don't mean that difference to be insulting. This piece was just a way for me to have a little fun and be silly... it is not intended to be taken seriously. I have shown this to other people to try and make sure that it will not mistakenly be taken as offernsive. I hope that you like it however as what it is... and no flames please. Unlike the other pieces I wanted something very lighthearted and silly and so it doesn't truly fit in the series of stories except for a relief for me from putting myself into the characters' emotional situations and generally being fairly miserable about it. Alexi Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 7: Loni Loni sat pouting at the papers spread over her bed, ticking occasionally with a red marker, making notes by other names and finally adding up all the information, frowning. She was behind schedule; she should be much further along by now. Between two moths, before hyperion, when she started her 'project', and two months after, she had only managed to sleep with just over a quarter of the crew. She shook her head; she had been hoping to be at least a third of the way through them. The ones she was leaving until last would be difficult. She pondered, sitting cross-legged, whether Hudson counted as a crew member or whether Captains were exempt; after all, she had Ford around her little finger, and Brody, though neither knew about the other's 'interests'. Tony she was saving for a day when she was frustrated; he would be no problem. Tim: now that was a problem. It disrupted her list not to have put a cross by his name, but she told herself that she didn't want to be bothered with him after their 'date'. He didn't deserve that honour. Lucas... that was difficult because he regarded her and Ford as an item, which was what Ford thought, and therefore wouldn't, even if he wanted to. It was such a pity about the cave, that would have been the perfect opportunity. Well, that was the senior bridge staff. The people down in engineering hadn't been hard to deal with. They were the first names crossed off, while she was still deciding whether to undertake this impressive endeavour. In the academy she had only slept with thirty seven out of forty guys, which she was deeply disappointed about, but she had gone through them pretty quickly, and several instructors, hence the wonderful recommendations. She smiled remembering another name and ticking it off with enthusiasm. So that left another ninety. She sighed, it wasn't impossible at all, but really it was too much of a bother. But think about what a wonderful achievement it will be! She smiled, unzipping her uniform jacket, and adjusting her bra to show-off the maximum amount of cleavage without there being any reason for complaint and opened the door. She was strolling past the gym, trying to decide where she would find her the next person to be ticked off, and then stopped in the doorway. One guy, exercising alone. She thought she knew him from... what did it matter? She pasted on a bright smile and went in, starting work at the machine next to him, smiling at him. When she got up, she stretched stiffly, looking around. " I'm really sorry but I think I strained something. Do you think you could..." The man crossed with alacrity to her and started rubbing her shoulders. " Yes, right there," she whispered, and then turned. " You really do have wonderful hands." The man beamed at her with wide eyes, smiling slightly and licking his lips. " You think you could do that some more?" She sighed with pleasure and then turned to him again. " You really have a talent there." He sat staring as she got up, stopping and smiling in the doorway. " You must have taken a course. I bet you know all about massage. God, I'd give anything for a real massage right now... but I suppose you're busy..." " Actually, I'm not back on duty for an hour." Plenty of time. She smiled. One down eighty nine to go and then they headed back to her quarters. After she had despatched him, she lay on her stomach and went back to the list, pondering on a plan of action. Should she try alphabetically? pot luck? Really it was very complicated with so many people and such a short time. She'd promised to have completed her mission in a year. That gave her... eight months. Plenty of time. She found she was quiet tired from all the thinking about how she could accomplish her task and set off to the mess for a coffee. And stopped in the doorway. One lone man was sitting in a corner, bent over his cup mournfully. A smile flickered across her face before she fetched herself a coffee and walked up to him. He didn't look up at her as she paused, opposite him, across the table. " Mind if I sit down?" He jerked his head up, astonished to see who it was. " Um... er... well... um... that is... sure." She'd met ( and of course slept with ) less eloquent types. She gave him a warm smile ( a bit like caramel at 200 degrees C ). He dropped his gaze back down to his cup. " Are you all right?" He looked at her, surprised, and then tired. " Yes, Sir... Ma'am... I mean... Lieutenant..." " Loni." He blinked at that and then tried it out. " Loni." She nodded eagerly. He sighed. He was tired and overworked and he needed sympathy- and not the type his wife had just given him over the vidlink. He looked up at her. " It's nothing, really..." " Can I judge that for myself?" she asked persuasively. He sighed. " It's just... like... I had this really long day with all the changes for the work over we were doing and... I called my wife..." He paused, wincing thinking of her tone. " I just wanted a little bit of company and support... some warmth... She might leave me." He didn't add that he hoped she would. Loni looked at him with sad eyes and put a gentle hand on his arm. An hour later and a little more conversing and her version of 'comforting' later. The man left glowing, and slightly red-faced, while Loni ticked another name off her list. She'd done well. Two in one day. Maybe she would get there after all. She went to sleep with that delightful thought. She was woken by a knock at her door at... F***! It was 00:01. She strolled over. " Loni!" someone hissed outside and then opened the door. She didn't respond as the someone came across and knelt beside her, on the bed, slipping a hand under the covers to shake her awake. " I've been standing out there for twenty minutes, just waiting. It's 00:01... Happy Valentines day!" Loni didn't reply but pushed the pillow over her head. " I thought we could... before our next shift... I mean..." Slowly she recognised Ford's adoring tones and almost groaned, but she was more practised than that. " I need to sleep, Jonathan... but maybe, just for a little while." She got rid of him before 01:00 and went back to sleep. When she next woke up, it was to her alarm. She sat up blearily, as someone slipped into the room. Oh shit! It was the man from last night, grinning sheepishly and very shyly, as he came across to her. He held out a box to her. Inside was a small, fresh water pearl bracelet. She smiled and stood to kiss him, until he had to stagger out in search of an oxygen tank. She smiled as she dressed... and there was another knock at the door. It was the one from... who knows when? and really she didn't care. He whipped red roses out from behind his back... then he too received the new style of asphyxiation treatment. After she got rid of him, she made it to the door before Brody turned up.... Five breathless minutes later, she was heading to the bridge, already late when someone pulled her into a room and shut the door... It was someone new, proclaiming their adoration... She had ten minutes before she would be desperately late and she did have to try and get through one new name a day... As she emerged, two men were fighting by her door, which she hadn't managed to get far from. She remembered one- he'd been earlier that week, but the other, she was lost about... no, wait, a faint memory glimmered at the back of her mind. She sighed and started walking away, when they saw her and ran up to her, thrusting cards in her face and various token of affection ( aka lust ), glaring at each other. That was when a further two turned up at her door, and then a further three. That was when the riot started and then grew. Loni looked back mournfully at Hudson, who was standing, glaring angrily at her and ordering the female guards ( he'd been very careful about that ) to remove her from his ship and the vicinity. She tried smiling at the guards. It didn't work. " Captain..." One very, very black eye, which he'd received trying to break up the fight, which had grown to fill most of B deck, regarded her murderously and she almost fled into the launch. As it pulled away, she was almost in tears. There were still 87 heterosexual crew members on the boat whom she hadn't slept with. She knew she would always have nightmares about that. That was, when she managed to sleep in between getting through all the names at her next place of employment. Copyright E.Casale, 1997 Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 11:46:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Silvia Casale Subject: More Distant Than Any Star: Part 8 Sender: owner-tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Sender: silvia.casale@pop-3.ukonline.co.uk To: tales Reply-to: tales@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16) Sorry guys- this part was stuck in the middle of another story! I've yanked it out now and I thought I'd better send it along before I started House of Windows... This was done in a bit of a rush, so sorry and, no, as far as I know I don't have any other parts lurking around in unedited writing, waiting to ambush me. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998 Part 10: Katherine Hitchcock Katie stared at the photograph in her hands and sighed. What _did_ she think about Ben now? What did she feel about him? She wasn't blind to the fact that bringing the photos of their marriage to seaQuest told her that there was a lot as yet unresolved. And knowing Ben it would probably stay that way. But what did she want? Did she really want to talk? For once she wanted that as little as Ben did. And why? Because she was confused... and frightened, unsure and she didn't like any of those feelings: she didn't know what to do about them, or how her failed... and now, how having her ex-husband on the same boat, made her feel. It was something that couldn't be left unresolved for long, but, most surprisingly to both her self assessment and confidence, she knew that she wasn't ready to resolve the situation with Ben. Was that because she didn't want to? Because it was too painful to bring it up again, or because she didn't really know what she wanted, yet. She wanted to get up and go down to the gym, but the photo refused to be placed face-down on her desk. Typical of Ben. Typical of her problems with Ben. She tossed her back angrily and glared at the photo as if it might hold the answers and under duress decide to reveal them to her, or like oracular inspiration suddenly explain what she couldn't yet see and understand. Nothing was ever that simple though, Katie knew perfectly well, and she was also very used to just plunging on and doing stuff, no mater how hard, as if leaving anything undone would slowly make the rest of her universe unravel. She knew, though didn't like to admit that her self esteem was ;largely based on her acting, never procrastinating for emotional quibbles. It was hard enough being a woman in the military without it being complicated by ex-husbands. Part of the problem was that, unless she showed she could act every bit like a man, she knew she couldn't get ahead. And to change the system, you had to get into it and up high, first. She hated this but it was a fact. You weren't allowed to act in a feminine way because to men, who were in power, that meant weakness, rather than just a different way of doing things. So much for change and advancement. The trouble was that the men didn't regard her as one of them, and they didn't look on her as fully feminine because she wanted a career, not just to get married and have kids. She did want that, but not until later in her life. There was time for that and she hadn't done what she wanted to do first and she didn't intend to have any regrets about that. Katherine Hitchcock was going somewhere and would make a difference, would set a precedent. Partly it was to change the prejudiced world she was sin, partly it was her own drive, ambition and desire. This is what she wanted and she had the strength and the ability to get it. If she tried, and she would. This was a fantastic chance, being on the seaQuest. It would make her whole future, she knew. She didn't really want to be on a fighting boat, but after this she could chose that for herself. And it was wonderful, the people, the things they did and saw and explored together. She found she was enjoying the science side more than she'd imagined and that the people took away some of the military and male uptightness, relaxing the atmosphere of the boat. It was more friendly than just a crew and there wasn't much fighting. That was what she was glad about. This boat shouldn't be used for that except when they had no other choice and she was making a difference. She was fulfilling herself and her potential. Her parents would be proud of her, if they could see her now. She had done well, as everyone had always thought she would. Partly she felt she had to, because of their expectations, but largely because of her own, though she couldn't separate what was really her and what she had taken to heart from them. It was also a good place for her to be right now, to adjust her life. She needed to decide what she really wanted now. She had realised the marriage was a mistake, not because she didn't love Krieg, but because they were incompatible and he couldn't give her what she needed. It was too unequal to work. She didn't want to spend her life looking after him; she wanted to share that type of responsibility. Besides, Krieg had to grow up a bit by himself. She needed something different, but she wasn't sure what it was. She also needed to find herself. She'd been so afraid of turning into a cold military carbon-copy soldier; that had been a major factor in marrying Ben. She needed someone to make her have fun, get her into trouble, she had thought. But really she needed to learn to relax by herself and that it was fine not to want to be immature, that there were other ways of having fun and that you didn't have to be like Ben Krieg, not to be boring. She wasn't boring, as she was starting to find out, rather liking what she was seeing. Really, it had done her good. When she came out of this she would have a much clearer view of herself, life and confidence in what she wanted. She had liked his trouble making in a sort of little girl, romantic adventure type way, but it wasn't enough to base a marriage on. Not for her. She needed someone who would be an equal partner, who had some similar beliefs and who was interested in talking and learning about things, like her. She needed someone who was less protective and more sure of her abilities. Krieg had always loved her, but not always as a professional, responsible person, which was ironic, considering how much of the things in their marriage she actually had organised and taken responsibility for. He just liked to think of her as someone he could protect to show his love. And the jokes had gone to far. It had been too hard to get under the surface of that to what he was really feeling. She didn't like to cover things in triviality. She wanted to talk freely, openly in her private life at least. Sometimes she was so unsure of herself, thinking she was this boring person who didn't know how to have fun, that she needed someone like Ben. But the rest of her knew that she just needed to find someone who could enjoy mutual intelligence, talking about art or new theories, designing things with her, talking about their works, about what they felt, not just laugh about it. She wanted someone who really understood her, not an image of her, which she was afraid was how Krieg sometimes saw her. She wanted someone who was open with her so she could open herself and her secrets to him. Krieg had been too guarded about that and too afraid. That had been one of the main problems and she had finally given up on him changing that. Katie sighed heavily, resting her head on her hand. She might have realised that she wouldn't change him, might know full well that it was no use trying and had stopped doing so, but it didn't stop her wanting to go back and try again, and she knew she'd probably always feel like that. Copyright E.Casale, 1997, 1998