CHAPTER 32

The most disturbing thing to Julia, about life on the Hermes, was the lack of windows. It only added to her sense of insecurity. It even made her claustrophobic and Julia could never remember being that before now! It was why there was some small bit of relief when she looked down. The first measure of relief was grounded in the fact that someone had actually listened to her and modified one of the cylindrical modules. It was the one that was, in essence, to be hers.

This was the hydroponics and flora module. Multiple levels of research would be going on here and Julia was running the show. For that matter she was the entire show. Sure, NASA was curious about how well they could grow crops in deep space. That was the hydroponics part of the lab where roots hung free and absorbed nutrients from the air. Sure, they wanted to know how terrestrial plants would grow on alien worlds. That took up over half the module where many seeds and sapplings were stored. NASA wanted to know all of that but not with enough gusto to hire Julia any help.

Of course being a one woman show had it’s advantages and this was the main reason for the second, and most important, relief that Julia had found here. Her suggestion had been so obvious to her yet she had been forced to fight to get her windows. How did they expect plants to grow without light? Even a third grader knew that! Sure they had all of the lamps and special bulbs that put out every kind of light that a plant needed but, that was nowhere near enough!

The only weird thing about her windows, and something Julia had never considered when she lobbied to have them installed, was that you had to walk on them. The Hydroponics module was not on a swing arm but it was in the aft section and did rotate slowly. There was nearly a third the gravity of Earth in here now that the ship had begun to spin. That meant walking on a transparent material that had nothing beneath it but a horrible death. Julia tried to put that out of her mind.

It was easier than she expected when she beheld the sight of a warm, gentle, and blue Earth beneath her. As the ship began to spin it looked as if the planet was rising and setting over and over again. It was captivating in a way that she had never imagined. The pull from it’s entrancing presence made Julia loose her breath every time it came into view. All the while, Julia could not help but stare and weep.

She did not wish to leave.

Her sadness only grew as the home world appeared to be getting smaller each time it would rise over the windows. When she first saw it the image consumed the entire window. It was shrinking very slowly and at first Julia thought it a trick of the eye. Then she took a very careful look and with each pass it really was getting smaller. She knew at the front of her mind that they were really leaving. Deep down she could not believe it though. Here was the proof and she had to watch it from the most dramatic of places possible.

“Julia,” came a calm and sympathetic voice from the portside hatch.

Quickly Julia pushed a tear out of her eye, sniffled, and pretended to be very busy. The ruse failed. Pete had already noticed something was wrong and he made no secret of it. As he tried to look her in the eye Julia just kept turning away. When his finger caught her chin it felt warm and gentle and Pete slowly turned her face to his. He was smiling and somehow that made Julia feel good while she was crying.

“Hey,” Pete said with warmth and comfort in his voice, “we’ll get you back in one piece.”

Julia bit her lip and quivered. She really had no wish to say but, something inside her pushed it out, “it’s not that Pete. I… I just wanted Joey to have something that was normal. I wanted my life to be normal! I had such a screwed up childhood. Oh hell, my entire life has been screwed up since day one. Just when I thought…”

Julia detected something in his eye. There was a gleam there that she had never seen before. She moved in closer, carefully, and saw even deeper into his eyes. “What?”

Pete leaned forward as his eyes closed. Julia had no idea why she did it. She closed her eyes and finished the distance between them. Their lips met as his arms slid around her. A part of Julia thought this should stop right now. Maybe that was the part that really wanted to jump ship and go home? The other part of her could not let go. He felt too good and right now she needed it more than anything.