The Abandoning:
A young woman stepped out of the skycab. Her high boots clattered on the cracked concrete. The prettiness of the red silk scarf around her neck set her apart from the urban decay. The smell of garbage hung heavy in the gritty air. A shudder of distaste crossed a face almost beautiful in its pale symmetry and endowed with that look of helpless appeal that men find so hard to resist.
Holding the little bundle tight against her lissome body, she headed towards the nondescript building on the opposite side. Her map augment showed no information. If it wasn’t for the street number displayed in severe black numerals above the entrance, she would never have known it was the place she had been told about. The anonymity was good, she supposed.
It was cramped in the waiting room. The other mothers were vacant and silent. Trish sat down with the baby, her legs propped primly in front of her. She had never felt so mortified in all her twenty years.
She had seen all the vidcoms. She knew the State had the sole responsibility of promulgating the human species. The Demographics Department used careful planning and the latest in vitro techniques, just as Huxley had foretold more than a century ago.
She knew that in the middle of the 21st century, the very idea of a woman having a baby was considered unhygienic and repugnant.
She knew. She hadn’t meant to. Somehow the boundary between simsex and actual bodily sex had been crossed. Somehow she had conceived a baby.
After more than two hours of waiting and a brief flurry of formalities, she was permitted to relinquish her infant. Trish turned away from the sobbing baby girl with its tragic face and wet cheeks and hurried out of the horrid airless building.
The skycab picked her up and zoomed into the air. A great weight lifted off her mind. She was now free of her dreadful mistake. She would find another man – a good man this time – and get on with her life.
Five years later:
“Oh Darling, why does it have to be you?” wailed Trish, holding Benjamin tight, her body wracked with sobs.
“I know, it doesn’t seem fair does it, sweetie,” replied Benjamin, his eyes tender.
“Too right,” she said bitterly as her hands ran through his crinkly blonde hair, “taking you away when we’re only twenty five and about to start the best years of our lives.”
Wisps of cold condensate flowed down the massive flanks of the interstellar rocket, gleaming orange in the early morning light.
“Well, that’s the way the space draft works,” chipped in Ron, a fellow draftee. “It’s either off to the stars or off to the hard labour camp for us. And I – for one – prefer going into space, not to mention getting paid the two billion dollars bounty on our return.”
The loading supervisor coughed meaningfully. The other interstellar draftees were already seated in the waiting transports.
“I have to go sweetheart,” Benjamin said, gently disentangling his lanky frame from her embrace.
“Write often!” cried out Trish desperately as the doors hissed closed behind them.
Aboard the Spaceship, ten (Earth) years later:
“The captain says we’re two thirds of the way there,” Ron said cheerfully, brushing his sandy hair out of his eyes.
Benjamin reluctantly tore himself away from Trish’s latest letter. He looked up from his instant communicator. “Two thirds the way to planet Kepler 220A huh? So let me think,” he trailed off, calculating to himself. “That means our total trip time will be around ten space years, right?”
“Yep, that’s right,” agreed Ron. “The navigator calculates an average trip speed of 95% of the speed of light, allowing for the acceleration/deceleration times,” he said.
“That means a time dilation factor of three,” said Benjamin thoughtfully. “So, while we’ll be ten years older when we return, Trish will be thirty years older, so she will be…”
“Fifty five,” concluded Ron triumphantly.
“Oh god,” said Benjamin morosely. “I wonder if she knows.”
Back on Earth:
“The press release was a mistake,” admitted the Head of Public Relations.
“It most certainly was,” came the Minister’s curt reply. “That woman has been calling my office non-stop, now that she has found out she will be a lot older than her spaceboy when he returns, thanks to special relativity.”
“She does have a point, though, Minister,” said the Space Agency Chief deferentially. “It does seem somewhat unfair, given that they were the same age when he left.”
“Balls,” exclaimed the Minister. “The average lifespan of people is a hundred and fifty nowadays – and it’s getting longer and longer – she’ll barely notice the age gap after a few decades.”
“She’ll sue us you know,” replied the Space Agency Chief. “We’re in enough trouble already with all the funding cuts. The last thing we need right now is an expensive legal battle and all the bad publicity that will go along with it.”
“She’s a pretty young thing too,” mused the Head of Public Relations. “The press is bound to take her side.”
“Well, you’re the experts,” growled the Minister. “What can be done?”
“There is one thing we could do,” replied the Space Agency Chief thoughtfully. “We could offer her a pod in our brand new cryogenic facility. That way they’ll both be thirty five when he gets back.”
“Brilliant,” said the Minister, smashing his fist down on the table. “But how much would it cost us to keep her in cryogenic storage for that time?”
“Oh, not too much,” replied the Space Agency Chief. “The power bill will be the main cost, plus regular maintenance of course. Whichever way you look at it, it will be a whole lot cheaper than hiring a legal team and taking her on in court.”
“Cryogenic storage, very good – that’s bound to keep her quiet for a while,” said the Minister, chuckling in evident satisfaction.
Cryogenic Check-in:
“You need to sign here and here, both as the witness and as a beneficiary,” said the facility supervisor, pointing.
The fifteen-year-old girl with the penetrating pale blue eyes signed her name in both places. She was a strange one, thought the cryogenic supervisor. Apart from the colour of her eyes, you could hardly her apart from her mother. Yet there was something different about this Lavinia, something smouldering deep inside the girl.
“Thank the stars they located you, Lavinia,” exclaimed Trish in relief once the signing ceremony was complete. “I was at my wits end when they told me they had found you in my central records. They said that if any outlaw relatives exist, then they have to sign as witnesses. The technology is all new, you see, and they need to be really cautious.”
Her daughter, looking up at the row of shiny storage pods, didn’t seem to have anything to say in reply.
Trish suddenly remembered something important. She unplugged the instant communicator from her neck. “I’ve pre-programmed it with heaps of messages,” she said proudly.
Her daughter turned an unwavering gaze back towards her.
“It’s programmed to send a message every week while I’m in the storage pod. The bot is clever enough to intersperse responses to suit whatever Benjamin writes,” Trish said. “All you need do, is to plug this into the docking station in my apartment and just leave it there. He’ll never know the difference.”
What a nice surprise when Benjamin returns, Trish thought to herself. Instead of a fifty-five-year-old woman waiting for a thirty-five-year-old man, she would be newly checked out of cryogenic storage and just as youthful as him.
Space Letters:
My Darling Trish,
We’re on our way back at last! I can scarcely believe it. We have a cargo hold brimming with all kinds of weird organisms. They look nothing like what you’ve ever seen before, I can tell you. We’re returning on an interstellar version of Darwin’s Beagle expedition!
Anyhow, thank you for your last letter. I must admit I was a bit worried about you during the previous few letters; you seemed flat and distant somehow. But now you’ve obviously gotten your mojo back – and more!
My Dearest Benjamin,
You’re right, I was feeling a bit flat for a while. A bit like a bot really! But not anymore. Now I’ve certainly gotten my mojo back! You won’t believe how strong my love has grown for you, you really wouldn’t.
Lavinia paused while she thought what to say next. Her mother’s communicator sat snugly around her neck as though it had always belonged there. Impersonating her mother was turning out to be easier than she had anticipated.
Return to Earth:
Benjamin and Ron strode eagerly out of the Quarantine and Acclimatisation Building.
“Boy, doesn’t that sun feel good!” exclaimed Ron.
“It sure does, but how things have changed,” marvelled Benjamin, looking around him at the buildings suspended from endless sky elevators thrusting up above the clouds.
“Well, while we’re only ten years older, we’ve been away thirty earth years, so I guess a lot can happen in that time,” said Ron.
“I’m glad Trish is picking me up,” said Benjamin. “She told me she’s living in low earth orbit somewhere and I wouldn’t have a clue how to get there.”
“Well, so long,” said Ron. “I’ll see you at next month’s readjustment session. Meantime I’m going to buy myself a cloud-top penthouse, complete with pool and anti-gravity gyrator, and fill it with scores of voluptuous vixies. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do – and this bounty chip is burning a massive hole in my pocket!”
He hopped into the nearest spacecab, a little relieved that he would not be witnessing what he was sure would be an awkward reunion between his friend and the now much older Trish.
Left alone, Benjamin’s heart sank a little. Although he kept telling himself that he would still love Trish, no matter what thirty years had done to her, deep down he wasn’t even sure he would recognise her.
He stood stunned as a ravishing woman stepped from a nearby spacecab. She looked even more beautiful than the Trish he remembered and just as young.
“Hi Benjamin,” she said shyly, her voice husky and deep. He came out of his stupor as though from a dream. “Trish, my Darling,” he choked. He hugged her slow and tight. Then he swept her off her feet in a wild passionate embrace. Tears ran down his cheeks.
A few hours later, the imposter rose from the bed. She checked her eyes in the bathroom mirror. They had done a fine job matching the colour of her mother’s frozen stare.
Returning to the bedroom and seeing Benjamin’s space bounty chip lying on the bedside table, Lavinia smiled. She slid back into bed alongside the sleeping man.
Karma:
“We can’t track down the daughter,” said the young technician. “The Records Unit has been searching for two months and they can’t find Lavinia anywhere.”
Gazing fixedly out into space, the grey-bearded supervisor did not react at first. According to the old law, they could only perform a cryogenic pod checkout if the original signatory was present.
He sighed. “OK, switch her over,” he muttered, almost inaudibly.
Glad to see his ageing supervisor stir at last, the young technician flicked Trish’s control switch to Permanent.
The pretty red scarf had slipped slightly during the two decades of storage to reveal a smooth white neck. The look of helpless appeal in her face caused a brief spasm of pity to cross the technician’s heart.