Daily Short Fiction 1. Romance in the Coldness of Space

1. On the USS Sponsored Star

Josie scanned her 156th box. Beep. When she set it down, it didn't fall - they'd launched and were now in microgravity. At least, they would be, until the artificial gravity of the ship kicked in. Josie didn't understand how the ship worked in detail, but it needed a boost from being close to the sun, and it would take around two and a half hours to get there. She would have to get used to weightlessness and be weightless for that long. Actually, Josie found herself growing accustomed to it quickly. At least, the physical sensations were more pleasant than nauseating as she had feared. But what was hard was re-orienting herself in space, without a clear sense of weight, of up or down. She'd watched and practiced simulations of orienting oneself and moving in microgravity, but this was her first experience of it.

Dr. Koerra came into her room, a green blur whizzing past her. Then he clamped his claws into the edge of the steel desk attached to her hammock, which now floated nearly vertically, and stopped. He was a lizard-like alien man with dark green, scaly skin, a crest, a long tail, and silvery claws. But besides being an alien, his attire was mundane as Josie had ever laid eyes on - a beige turtleneck and black slacks, white socks, brown loafers. He looked like he belonged in a different time period, or existed outside of time. He wore a stethoscope and carried a clipboard. He had a nametag, but she knew it was him. He'd already done her physical exam and vaccinations before getting on board the Sponsored Star.

"Watch it, lizard-man!" Josie was annoyed that, in bounding into her room, the doctor had almost bounced into her. But he hadn't - in fact his motion had been precise. She watched him gather up his tablet and its stylus. He pushed a few buttons. He ignored her snarling face and said nothing, entering her data calmly.

"You are inexperienced with space travel?" He said. He didn't sound interested. Probably just trying to make conversation, to fill the silence, Josie thought. But Josie was a little mad at his tone, implying that it was obvious that it was her first time in space.

"No, I'm just -" After a bit of embarrassing failed maneuvers, Josie winced and quietly admitted, "Yes."

He laughed. She didn't know his species could laugh. It sounded eerie to her, a combination of unearthly noises with hissing thrown in for good measure. It gave her chills. It also made her angry that he was laughing at her. But then, she had to admit to herself it was kind of funny.

"Was it that obvious I've never been to space before?" She giggled.

"Well all the experienced Brand Ambassadors aboard this ship already took these..." he shook a bottle of pills that were half blue and half orange.

"What are those?"

"Didn't you learn in training?"

"Yeah, but my head's a bit foggy from going to space for the first time and also my job was to scan the food cargo - I just got done scanning and entering data on 156 boxes!"

She growled at him as he popped one of the pills into her mouth.

"You're agitated right now. It's called a "0-g freakout" by the kids these days. Or so I'm told. I haven't been a kid myself in a while, as you can see."

Actually, Josie couldn't. He looked active, and his scales had only started to go grey in small patches here and there. He looked fine for an older man, she had to admit.

"What are you doing popping pills in me without-" then it kicked in. Nirvana. Absolute bliss. The pill dissolved in Josie's cheek, and so did her mind for a few good seconds.

"Ohh.." Was all she could manage to say, as the bliss overcame her entire being.

But in a bit, while swimming on a pink cloud of cosmic fairy dust or whatever, she still remembered to be pissed at Dr. Koerra.

"Hey, why you give me drugs without my consent? What kind of doc are you?"

She noticed beneath his dark glasses he had beautiful amber eyes, like a cat's. Looking into them was a stunning view. That made it hard to stay mad at him - damn him!

He sighed and flicked his black forked tongue a few times. "You consented when you signed on as an employee of SponsorCorp, remember?"

"Oh. That. Yeah."

Suddenly Josie's fire had been rained on, and Dr. Koerra wasn't sure why. He was worried he'd said something insensitive. He had experience working with humans from the planet Earth, but speaking their language, figuratively and literally, didn't always come naturally to him. Emotionally, humans were more sensitive than people from his planet. Humans needed each other more than his species, which favored individualism and independence, but was less social, less cooperative, than humans. And so it was easy for him to sometimes offend humans or hurt their feelings; their feelings seemed to be sensitively tuned to the feelings of those in one's immediate social circle, in a way his were not.

"What's the matter?" He asked, after a considerably awkward silence.

"Oh, I just... You know. I didn't really consent to that, is how I feel, you know? Did I consent to be born into poverty? To need SponsorCorp's employment so that my digits won't be eaten one by one by the loan sharks of Sharkopolis 4?" Josie got quiet, then began to cry.

Tears and snot spewed everywhere, in all directions because it was micro-gravity, which grossed out Dr. Koerra, but he didn't say anything. He'd learned this was what humans called "tact" and was when you didn't say out loud negative things that were obvious, to spare a person's feelings. Humans had strange customs born from their emotional co-dependence, it seemed to him.

"Am I supposed to say 'there, there'? Does that mean anything?" Dr. Koerra winced from the psychological agony of not knowing if he was helping Josie or not.

He wanted to help her. Not just that she was she a colleague on the same ship as him, whom he wanted to impress or work smoothly with. Josie was more than that. He had a crush on her was what it was, but he'd never had one before, on anyone, and didn't know that's what it was. He just knew when he looked at her, he thought of her as a beautiful, radiant, warm thing he wanted to be near and keep happy. Like how lizards are drawn to the warmth of the sunlit side of rocks in the desert. And when he wasn't near her, similarly, it was like being a lizard in a cold den away from the sun underground. Tolerable, for a time, but not really 'living'. He preferred the sun, anyway. As he had aged on and on, as life progressed, he had been living without any sunlight for a long time. Longer each year.