What Dreams May Come

Chapter 4: scotch for later

Levi was better about keeping up than I had feared and we made it to the desk before his legs swayed and he had to grip the counter to stay upright.

"You know, for sleeping for a hundred and eighteen years, I don't feel very rested," he admitted. "I don't know how much help I'll be moving, Dylan."

"Dylan! What can I do for you?"

Gliére always seemed so busy, but I never knew what he did here. Files and data seemed boring, though what little I did know of Levi, he might truly enjoy it.

"This is Corlevi Hark," I said. "Just woke up in cryo; we're looking for his personal effects?"

Gliére typed quickly into his holo-rib and nodded. "Just a moment, I'll fetch the box. Anything else?"

"The new codes to Vikram's old berth," I answered.

"Ah, that's where we're putting you. Do you have your holo-rib? I'll send you the code."

I nodded, and a moment later, received a message from him with the codes.

"Sunshine. Just give me a moment. And you, Corlevi, take a seat over there. You look dead on your feet. What has Dylan been doing to you?"

The man chuckled as he walked away and the familiar blush crept up into my cheeks. Levi let out a whistle and then hobbled to the aforementioned chairs. There was a small table in front of us; I guess if we wanted to go through his effects now, we had a place to do it. I wasn't sure where our berth was from here, and didn't relish having to lug everything around with us.

"Is it normal to have slept together already?" Levi asked. "Everyone seems to think we have; I'm not sure when we would have had time."

"There's a lot of sleeping around," I said. "We all have subdermal birth control."

"Oh?" Levi raised an eyebrow.

I was envious of the motion and took a moment to realize what he was implying.

"First off, non," I told him. "I have slim to none pickings. Lully is about as moonshy as you can get, and Marcus is taken. There are a couple other guys, of course, but no...nothing has happened."

Levi's mouth twisted into a crooked smile. "Dylan, were you saving yourself for me?"

I opened my mouth to snap at him, but Gliére called for some help and I turned toward the counter to see a box much larger than I was expecting.

"Corlevi Hark has the largest box back there," Gliére told me. "And four hundred credits is nothing to sneer at."

I couldn't help the gasp that escaped from me at the mention of four hundred credits. We could have the nicest berth in the whole base with that much! I eyed Levi suspiciously, how did he have so much influence?

"Why?" I asked Gliére.

"He's the first captain's only son," he shrugged. "Whole generations of people weren't born because he was asleep. Anyway, help with this chest."

He slipped around the counter and we dragged it to the table. Levi looked as surprised as we did and had to stand up to see inside. Gliére idled by, probably curious as well. Levi opened the lid, a wide grin forming on his face. Inside were small flat boxes, which Levi touched but didn't open. There were some video discs, a jacket and a sundry of things I didn't recognize.

"Oh my god," Levi chortled. "Dylan, look!"

He reverently pulled out a bottle made out of some sort of shiny clear material holding a tan liquid.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's scotch," he replied. "From my father's stash. I must have been a better frozen son than I thought. Either that or it's an apology for calling me Thomas for a century."

"Scotch?" I repeated.

"It's alcohol," he said. "Bottled on Earth and stored for such a time as this. If he saved some glasses, we can crack it open tonight."

"That was bottled on Earth?" I questioned, horrified. "That's not safe to drink."

"And you can only have water for a week, young man," Gliére said sternly. "Don't even think about drinking anything else; you'll be sick for far, far longer."

Levi sighed mournfully, setting the bottle back in the box. He removed the jacket, pulling it on over the clothes my madre had made.

"What do we do with this?" he asked. "Dylan can't carry it by herself and I'm in no shape to help."

"I'll get the boys to take it to your berth," Gliére replied. "You're headed to the printers, I presume?"

"We are," I agreed. "Merci, Gliére!"

I grabbed Levi's arm, knowing that we could be there all day as he went through the box of his past. We weren't far from the printers; and now I didn't have to worry about printing furniture on my meager budget. We'd have to save most of it, I thought. There was no way that Levi would be physically up to work for a while, and even if he was, I hadn't heard of any skills or training that he had that could be useful.

"I give up; what is so important about the printers?" Levi asked finally. "What could we have printed that will take all day?"

"Dishes?" I offered. "Towels, chairs: things we need."

"Oh," he nodded. "We're 3-D printing. Not paper printing. That makes sense."

"What could we possibly print on paper?" I scoffed.

"Words?" he offered. "That's what was in those books my father saved for me. They didn't have tablets or...holo-ribs; people on Earth had books."

"You'll have to show me," I said doubtfully. "Come on."

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A shorter chapter. Curious about the planet? Here's a NASA article about the Kepler-186f

https://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/kepler-186f-the-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone