Chapter 13: Interlude

I stood staring at the screen, waiting for my roommate to come in. With these tiny cubicles, which opened onto the hallway, I hated to get undressed for my shower before there was no chance of the door openening. I wondered how Aliyah was doing. And my new partner, ‘Carl’. What were they doing, for that matter. Carl was a soldier, they’d made that clear. Or, at least, a son of a soldier. I don’t know if we could be assigned before we were successful partners. What if I was incompetent.

I didn’t know whether to be glad or sad for our diversion. Our little courier ship had been very busy, passing back and forth between the various ships, ferrying down supplies and all. They kept promising me, and the others like me, that ‘soon’ we would go back to where we were supposed to be, and deliver the letters, supplies, and new partners and partnéres.

My roommate was a partnére as well, assigned to a pathfinder! I couldn’t imagine being assigned to a pathfinder, but I supposed their partnéres must die, too, occasionally. We had gotten assigned this room together but spent most of our time training or working. I had even gotten to help fly shuttle missions… not the dangerous ones near the coast, but some boring resupply missions in the mountains. Not that I had been bored, of course, even as co-pilot.

How was Aliyah doing with her partner? I pitied the poor boy, at least at first. Aliyah had never really wanted to partner, turning down boys right and left, or so it had seemed. She had never come out and said anthing, but we shared a room, back home, and I had learned to read her. The first time she had come home glowing but determined, and I had almost expected her to announce that she had partnered. But when day after day went by without it, well, I had understood. She had been proud to be asked, and even prouder to have turned him down.

She and I weren’t at all alike in that. I wouldn’t have turned any boy down, I don’t think, unless he was truly horrible. True, I had kept YYY a bit hanging, but he had never actually asked.

The door opened and I saw Guestina come in, hurrying. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, as the door opened and she turned around so I could change and shower. “My sim ran long.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” I said, stepping gratefully into the hot water. “I had a kind of boring day anyway, so I won’t be able to get to sleep for a while. What did you sim about today…?”