The Passenger

Note:  This story can be read as a standalone story, but is a sequel to “Because I’m the Captain.”

 

I was finally sitting up in the bed in the sickbay I had spent the last five weeks in.  Obviously, that hadn’t been where I had planned to spend the last five weeks, but sometimes plans fall to shit.  

A rather young crewman, Susan, sat next to me, helping me with the saltines and ginger ale.  Well, not really helping much at this point, mostly just watching me to make sure eating and drinking carefully went well.  During the last five weeks pretty much all my hydration and calories had been via IV.

I had known I had a tendency towards motion sickness when I had agreed to travel to Trappist, but everyone said that it should only be an issue for brief moments when the ship was going through high gee maneuvers, but that I should be fine when the ship was just accelerating at a steady pace in a straight line, creating a fairly consistent artificial gravity.   As it turned out, in my case they were wrong.   

I’d been motion sick for the entire five weeks it took to get from Earth to Wolf-Cee.  Steady linear acceleration was really just relative to the jarring swings of maneuvers, not really an absolute thing, the ship had made almost constant tiny lurches followed by moments where I could feel the gravity let up briefly, and then a tiny lurch.  Everyone else seemed to not even really notice it till I pointed it out, then even though most of them admitted they could feel it if they stood very still and thought about it, it didn’t seem to actually bother them.

I could only sort of hear the nurse practitioner, Patterson, who was the ship’s medical officer, quietly consulting with a doctor, who had come aboard once we were fully docked.  They paused the consultation briefly when Captain Reyes arrived, then continued as Captain Reyes listened, occasionally nodding. 

Susan looked over at them briefly with curiosity, but didn’t seem to be able to follow the conversation any better than I could over the munching of saltines.  She turned back to me and smiled at how many saltines I had managed to keep down.   Susan had been playing nursemaid for me so Patterson could fulfill his other duties and take breaks to go eat or sleep.  It had been interesting getting to know the sweet crewman who was the only one everyone called by her first name.  

I’d asked about it one day as I lay in bed, my eyes closed, figuring the story might help distract me from the constant misery of the motion sickness.  She’d told me the story of being a travel companion, and how everyone had just gotten used to calling her Susan before she’d officially joined the crew, so it had just stuck.  She’d told me many stories during the hours she had just sat with me.  It had been interesting hearing about what it was like to grow up poor in a group home. I’d known much of it on an intellectual basis, having read news articles, but hearing it raw and unfiltered, without the distraction of statistics and political bias as a simple first hand narrative was different.

I’d told her a bit about myself, and why I was headed to Trappist, about being a literature professor, when the motion sickness wasn’t too bad.  How they are trying to get the university on Trappist prestigious enough that colonist families see it as a good alternative to shipping kids all the way back to Earth, since the journey to Trappist is much shorter for some of them.  About how one of the big differences between Earth and colonist universities, other than age, was that when the colonies were being settled survival, terraforming, mining and stuff like that had been such a high priority, they focused only on STEM fields, the humanities were completely neglected.  The president of the university on Trappist had decided growing a strong humanities curriculum was how to compete with Earth.

Since the motion sickness had been pretty constant though, Susan had had to do the bulk of the talking.  It had been fortunate that the girl had a knack for storytelling. 

The consultation between the nurse and doctor seemed to be over, since the captain was nodding and the doctor and Patterson were turning and began to walk towards me.

“So how are you feeling, Stephany?”  The doctor asked in that weirdly upbeat way doctors do, “Is the queasiness subsiding?”

“A bit better,”  I informed him in my slightly hoarse voice, since the last five weeks had left my throat raw.  “Not completely perfect though.  I think I can keep these saltines down, but I’m not feeling up for anything exciting.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said in a sympathetic tone.  “It could just be that your stomach was empty for so long and you are still a little dehydrated, or it could be because up here on the station we are still using artificial gravity, the centrifugal gravity is a little steadier and more back and forth than up and down like the linear acceleration pseudo gravity when the ship is travelling, but it’s not quite like gravity down on a planet.”

As the doctor was talking with me, Captain Reyes had pulled up a couple of chairs next to my bed, for herself and the doctor.  Patterson had gotten comfortable in his usual spot on his rolling stool.

“I’m glad to hear you are feeling better,” Reyes said in a simple serious tone,  “but we need to discuss the rest of this trip unless you would like to just stay here on Wolf-Cee.”

“Unfortunately as nice as this place sounds. I really do need to get to Trappist.”  I croaked.  “The university is paying my fare after all, and I was looking forward to being a professor there.”

“How do you feel about going into a sleeper pod?”  Reyes asked.

“Not great,” I said, feeling gloomy about the prospect, “but I don’t suppose it’s really a choice.  I’m sorry that I have not only been unable to get my own work shifts done, but I’ve also been taking up most of two crewmen’s time.  I’m sure it’s been a strain on the rest of the crew.   I’m just worried because I’m supposed to start teaching just a couple of days after we get to Trappist, and I have heard people sometimes take weeks to recover from suspended animation.  That’s why the university paid for a working passenger fare instead of just a sleeper fare.”

“Don’t worry about the work shifts, I understand it isn’t something you could control.  I’m not ordering you into a pod for failing to meet the passenger agreement.”  Reyes’ somewhat frustrated tone told me that even though she was not angry at me, it had indeed been a bit of a strain.  “We think the pod is a better option for you.”

Reyes paused and waved for the doctor to fill in the medical details.

“The suggestion to go the rest of the way in a pod didn’t come from Captain Reyes, it’s from me.  I think that between having to sedate you for all the high gee maneuvers, pumping you full of antiemetics constantly, and the way you are losing weight, you won’t be functional when you get to Trappist if we keep you out of suspended animation anyway.  There is risk with the pod, but it’s not that high, people choose to travel by pod just to save money after all.”  The doctor told me.  “The pod is technically a bit more drugs, but not that much, and you won’t be constantly miserable at least.  And you losing so much weight is rather concerning.  This is what I think is best for you.”

I sighed, I knew what he said was true, even though I wasn’t happy about the idea of going in a pod.  I knew people went into them because they were cheaper, though I wouldn’t have worded it as just to save money, it was more like because they couldn’t possibly afford a working passenger fare.  If my fare hadn’t been paid for by the university, I would have had to get a sleeper fare, simply because a working passenger fare was more than what I was able to sell my house for.  But since a working passenger fare had been paid, giving it up felt extra shitty.

“I was told that most people get used to the feeling of the artificial gravity and get over the motion sickness.”  I said, still a bit reluctant to just agree to going in a pod. “Won’t it subside eventually?  I mean this is just the first stop.”

“I have seen lots of passengers and new crew who are a little motion sick for a few days and then get used to it,” Patterson jumped in to explain.  “If you were going to adjust, you would have weeks ago.   If you decide to not go into a pod, you are almost certainly going to be motion sick for the entire next five months it takes us to get to Trappist.”

“I’d been looking forward to seeing half the settled galaxy,” I admitted, disappointed that it wasn’t going to happen.

“Sorry about that,” the doctor sympathised, “but it’s not like you really will be up for much sightseeing even if you don’t go into a pod. Like here, taking a shuttle down planet would be a bad idea.”

“I got sick just taking the elevator up from Earth.”  I told him, remembering the first part of my journey.

“Without shuttles all you can see are pretty standard stations.”  Reyes told me.

I nodded, which I immediately regretted as my head spun.  “I guess it’s for the best.”

“I’ll leave you to discuss getting prepared for a pod with Captain Reyes and Nurse Patterson.”  The doctor said and gave me a gentle pat on my shoulder.

I watched as Patterson and Reyes briefly walked the doctor to the sickbay door, thanking him for coming and saying goodbye.  At the door, the captain snagged a random crewman and ordered them to escort the doctor to the hatch back to the station.  Then they came back and reclaimed their seats.

“Ok, Stephany.  It takes about four hours to prepare you for your pod, and we generally like to have people sealed in their pods and stable for at least two hours before the ship departs.  So we need to start preparing you six or seven hours before departure.”  Patterson began.  “Which is in…”

“Eighteen hours,” Captain Reyes filled in.  “So you can take ten to twelve hours to see a little of Wolf-Cee, and get anything you need squared away.”

“The first step of preparation, we need to cut off your hair.” Patterson explained.  “Sorry about that, but it’s necessary.  Long hair interferes with cleaning and can get tangled around fingers cutting off circulation and stuff like that.”

“Cut off my hair!  How short?”  I asked as my hand raised up to the long hair that Susan had been caring for and kept pinned against my head in two tight braids, having a new regret about the need to go into a pod.  I’d kind of heard about having to get a haircut for suspended animation, but I had forgotten about it while talking to the doctor.  

I looked between Susan with her reasonably cute chocolate brown pixie cut, Captain Reyes with her austere salt and pepper crewcut, and Patterson with his tight black afro, and frowned.  The guy who had run the passenger orientation had said getting hair cut short would make travelling easier and more comfortable, I wondered if this was part of the reason.  I’d decided that I would put up with any discomfort caused by having to keep my waist length hair up at all times to keep the golden tresses I’d always had, it had never been cut above the bottom of my rib cage, except for some subtle layers I got.  Really the closest thing I’d done to changing it since I was a teen was that when age had begun to darken and dull it, I’d had it colored back to the same gold it had been in my youth.  The idea of looking in the mirror and not having my long hair felt like I would be looking at a stranger, a short haired stern looking stranger.

“I’m afraid it really has to be pretty much shaved.”  Patterson informed me apologetically.  

“You have to shave my head?”  I asked, as I struggled with the concept of being bald.

“It doesn’t have to be razor clean, but it can’t be more than stubble.”

I sat there, thinking I might just throw up the saltines I’d been so optimistic about keeping down when the conversation had started.  I felt a new kind of dizzy and light headed.

“If you are up to walking, it’s better if you can go to the station barbershop to get it done.”  Captain Reyes added.  “The ship’s recyclers and filters have a hard enough time with the normal amount of shed hair from the crew.   The recyclers and filters on the station are more powerful.”

I looked at her, a little in disbelief that she seemed more worried about the disposal of my hair than that I would be left bald.  I started imagining the giggling of students when I would show up to start teaching courses with a bald head.

“It will give you a chance to see a little bit of Wolf-Cee station.”  Reyes offered as a conciliation.

I sighed and nodded, immediately regretting the movement.  “I guess I’m up for a little walking.   I could use a little exercise.”

“I’ll send Susan with you,”  Captain Reyes said as she nodded towards the girl on the other side of me, then addressed her directly.  “Susan, after the barbershop, if you have time, take Stephany around to see some of the more interesting parts of the station.”

“Sure thing Cap’n”  Susan promised with a smile.

“Just skip the taco place,”  Reyes warned her.

“right,” Susan agreed, sounding just a little disappointed.

After that was settled, Patterson went on to explain more of the unpleasant sounding preparations.

 

———————————– Sightseeing —————————-

“Are you still feeling too sick to eat more than saltines?”  Susan asked as she looked a little forlornly at a bakery we were passing that the smell of something sweet wafted out of, turning my stomach.

“Yes,”  I told her stiffly, trying not to inhale too deeply, as I leaned against the arm she had offered me when she saw I was unsteady walking.

“Oh well.”  Susan continued along the corridor, matching my slow pace, then gestured to a side branch.  “The barbershop is this way.”

“I see,”  I commented unenthusiastically as the swirling red and white LEDs around the hatch came into view.

Inside there were a few people waiting for the group of four barbers who all had caped clients in their chairs.  There were enough people waiting, that the waiting bench was full, and some people were leaning against the wall.  When one of the crewmen from our ship, The Jasmine, spotted me, they got up and insisted I could have their seat, since they knew I wasn’t feeling well.

Most of the people waiting were obviously from ships, since they were wearing standard crew coveralls like Susan, though it seemed at least a few ships were docked, since they had various ship names on their sleeve patches, not just The Jasmine like was on Susan’s sleeve.   There was one woman waiting who I assumed wasn’t part of a crew, since she wasn’t wearing coveralls.  Looking at her with her shoulder length hair, I suddenly realized every crewman I had seen had short hair, shorter than most of the other random people I had spotted walking around the station, shorter than most of the barbers attending to them even.

“Is there a reason all the crewmen have such short hair?”  I asked Susan.

“Crewmen have to keep our hair at crew standard maximum length, fifteen centimeters and a centimeter above eyebrows, or shorter.”  She informed me casually.  “This is the place I got mine cut to meet crew standard on my first trip.”

“I thought you joined the crew on New Kentucky?”  I wrinkled my brow, trying to remember the details from stories Susan had told me.

“I did join the crew at Nu’tucky, but I’d already had my hair cut short by then.  Captain Reyes made crew standard mandatory for passengers that trip since the woman I was working for kept letting her hair down.”  She explained, then got a little excited.  “It was good that it happened here, they pay for Earth grown virgin hair here.  I got enough for my hair to buy these earrings and enjoy myself while here.”

Susan bent down, and held her earlobe out to show me the little gold earring with a modestly sized red stone.

“Very pretty,”  I told her.

“If your hair is virgin, no chemical treatments, they will pay you for it, since you’re from Earth. It’s not quite as long as mine was, so not as much as I got, but a fair amount.”  

“I get it colored.”  I told her, not bothering to add that I suspected what I paid for the service was probably more than she’d paid for the tiny earrings she seemed rather proud of.

“Oh well.”  Susan said.  “At least you won’t have to pay for your haircut.  Cap’n gave me a card from petty-cash to pay for it with, saying that making you pay would be adding insult to injury.”

“That was thoughtful of her.”  I noted as I looked over at the display that had prices listed.  

In the grand scheme of things, paying for the haircut wasn’t a big deal, I certainly could easily afford what was way lower than what these things cost on Earth, if I remembered the exchange rate correctly, but she was right that paying for it would be a little bit of a twist of the knife.  I sat there just wishing the haircut wasn’t necessary in the first place as I watched crewman after crewman getting their already short hair trimmed.  Then it was the woman who wasn’t wearing crew overalls’ turn, and she requested a simple two centimeter trim of her shoulder length hair, hinting at what was probably fashionable on this station.

“She’s a good captain,” Susan asserted, though I suspected the girl who seemed to be no older than most of the students I taught didn’t have that much experience with other captains to compare with.

“Indeed,” I agreed, even though I had even less experience with captains, I had enough experience with people.

“What do you want to see when we are done here?”  Susan asked me.  “Observation windows that overlook the planet?  Shopping?  Watching ships dock?”

“I think I probably just want to go back to the ship.”  I said gloomily.  “It’s going to be hard to enjoy myself while thinking everyone is staring at my bald head.”

“But this is probably going to be your only chance to see some of the settled galaxy.”  Susan reminded me.  “and people won’t stare that much.  Crewmen who are being frugal, sometimes pretty much get their heads shaved too, that way they can go longer between haircuts.   To keep this pixie in standard, I have to get a haircut every couple of stops.   I’m a little overdue now.”

“Well, if you want to get yours cut after mine, I don’t mind waiting and skipping the sightseeing.”

“But this is your only opportunity to go see things, Cap’n told me to show you around.  There must be something you want to see.”  Susan encouraged me.   “It would be silly to waste your limited time waiting for me to get a haircut, I can come back and get it done after you’re asleep.  Where do you want to go?”

“I really will just feel weird walking around bald.”  I told the enthusiastic girl.  “I don’t mind waiting for you if it makes your day easier.  You took such good care of me when I was sick.”

Right then, the crewman from a different ship who was sitting next to me, got up and went over to the barber who had called out “next.”  Susan took his seat, and looked at me with a certain sweet concerned sympathy as she bit her pink lip, with her very slightly crooked teeth.

“You know what,”  Susan offered,  “I’ll get my head shaved too.  Then you won’t feel so weird walking around.  Huh?”

“Oh Susan, that’s very sweet of you, but I would never ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask,” she pointed out, “I volunteered.  Besides, it’s not like I didn’t need a haircut, and you said you would wait.  This way, that will be quick.”

“Susan, you really don’t have to.”

“I know, but I just have a feeling that if I do, you will feel up to enjoying a little sightseeing.”

“NEXT” one of the barbers called out. 

I was slowly getting up, when Susan stood instead, announcing “I’ll go first.  You’ll see, it’s not so bad.”

I tried to think of what to say to stop Susan from giving up her cute pixie just to make me feel a little less self conscious, but she was already halfway to the available barber’s chair.  I sat there watching the pretty young woman as she sat in the barber chair and nervously bit her pink lip.

“What’s it going to be,” the barber casually asked Susan.

“Point five millimeter,” she said, “all over.”

“You going into a pod?”  The barber asked with curiosity as he fastened the fresh cape over Susan.

“Nah,” she explained.  “My passenger is, and I just wanted to show her it ain’t so bad.”

“Ah,”  the barber let out as he briefly looked over at me, then returned his attention back to the girl in his chair.  “That’s really nice of you.”

“I try,”  Susan said politely as she watched the barber lift and adjust the clippers intently.

“Is that Earth grown virgin?”  He asked her as he looked at me while walking around the barber chair.

“She dyes it.”

“Pity.”

The barber stood behind Susan and clicked on the clippers.  He used his comb to lift up the hair that rested on her forehead, and just brushed her eyebrows.   Susan scrunched her face into a slight cringe as the barber placed the humming clippers on her forehead.  As the barber pulled the clippers back over her head, she was obviously fighting to keep still with her half closed eyes looking at the mirror.  I watched Susan’s soft brown locks simply fall away to her shoulders as the path of nearly bare scalp grew.  

Though Susan had planned to convince me that having my head shaved wasn’t really a big deal, she was proving to be a poor actress as she cringed at watching her own short hair reduced to stubble.  As the barber pulled the clippers over the top of her head repeatedly, her discomfort was very obvious.   

“NEXT” a barber called out, and I told the next person waiting to go ahead of me.  I figured I would wait for the barber who was shaving Susan, since he already knew what was going on, and then Susan would be available to help me if I needed it.  

I watched Susan squirming slightly as her impulsive decision to get her head shaved too was being carried out.  I couldn’t blame her as the distaste and regret was plain on her face as she took in the reflection of herself halfway through the drastic haircut.  I suspected she would look better at the end, but with the dome of her head bare but for the fine stubble, and the sides still covered in hair a couple of centimeters long, she looked a bit like a parody of a balding man.

Fortunately the barber didn’t leave her with the ridiculous horseshoe of full brown hair for long, and began shaving it away too, carefully steering the buzzing clippers around her ears with the little earrings she had bought after she’d sold her long hair.

As the barber shaved the hair from Susan’s nape, she struggled to try to keep her eyes on the mirror as the barber pushed her head down so her chin was pushed to her collarbone.   

When the last of Susan’s cute pixie cut had fallen to the cape, the barber briefly went back over a couple of spots where the stubble was slightly darker.  Susan stared at her bald reflection with a touch of wide eyed shock as the barber briefly brushed hair clippings from her neck and shoulders, before returning the brush to the counter and coming back with smaller clippers that he carved a clean round neckline with.

The barber seemed mildly amused by Susan’s rather obviously faked smile as he showed her the clean neckline.  In reality, the girl didn’t look completely terrible without hair, mostly just because she was young and pretty.

“There, now that your passenger has seen that it ‘ain’t so bad’ it’s her turn,” the barber said as he put away the hand mirror and Susan climbed out of the barber chair.  Then when Susan looked like she planned to put a payment from her watch onto a card, the barber stopped her saying, “Yours is on the house, since you were just demonstrating.”

“Oh, thank you.”  Susan seemed to brighten up a bit at not having to pay for the impulsive shearing she obviously didn’t actually enjoy.  “I have a card from petty-cash to pay for my passenger.”

“I figured,”  the barber said as he turned the chair towards me after taking the card from Susan.

I took a deep breath, and began to get to my feet.  Halfway up, Susan was there helping me, and then escorted me to the patiently waiting barber.  She was gentle as ever as she made sure I didn’t miss as I lowered my shaky body into the comfortable chair.   I wasn’t sure how much of the shakiness was from the weakness caused by five weeks of sickness, and how much was from nervousness about knowing what would happen next.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think to take her hair down and brush it out first,” Susan apologized to the barber as she made sure I was comfortable.

“No worries,”  the barber told her, as he shook out a fresh cape for me.  Then he focused back on me.  “So you’re going into a pod?”

“It would seem that I get too motion sick to be a working passenger,” I explained.

“That happens sometimes,”  the barber told me sympathetically.  “I have to prepare passengers for pods for one reason or another every few months, usually just because they are leaving Wolf-Cee.  It’s going to be zero point five millimeters, ok?”

“It’s not like I have much choice,”  I reminded him, but figured getting my consent was mostly a matter of routine,  “so go ahead.”

I watched in the mirror as the barber began removing the bobby pins that held the two long braids tightly to my scalp.  Susan, who was watching, hopped up to take the bobby pins from the barber as the braids began to hang loose around me.  

Instead of bothering to undo the braids, the barber raised his scissors to halfway up the length of one of the braids.  Holding it outward, he simply began to cut.

Shhhhli-sshhhhli-ssssshhhhhlick.

The barber dropped the severed end of the golden braid to the floor, elastic and all.  The part of the braid left behind had come slightly undone in the process.  The barber ignored the semi undone half of a braid though, and lifted the still perfect one from the other side of my head.  He raised the scissors again, this time closer to three quarters of the way up, and began to saw through the bundle.

Sssshhhhhrriii-ssssssshli-ssssshhhhrick.

Again he simply dropped the braid.  Not pausing a beat, he raised his comb to the half braided hacked off hair left on my head.  He didn’t so much use the comb to detangle my hair as just to lift it out of the braids, then raised the sharp silver blades to it.

Shhhhlick, ssshhhlick, ssshhhhllick.

I watched as the golden locks that were still in the waves from being braided were cut off.  The carelessly chopped off hair fell softly to my shoulders.  Left behind was an uneven mess that stook out haphazardly.  Both me and the barber knew that it didn’t matter what the hair he left behind looked like though, since it would soon be shaved away anyway.

Shhhhlick, ssshhhlick, ssshhhhllick, sssnip.

The barber just continued, hacking off the hair that had been the shortest I’d ever had it from the moment he had dropped the ends of my braid to the floor.  The barber combed up the hair on the top of my head, and continued.

Sssshhhhnap, ssshhhnap, ssshhhhllick, sshhnip, shhhlick.

With terrifying speed, every hair on my head was reduced to no more than about ten centimeters, and I was buried under a fluffy carpet of my own beautiful tresses.  I swallowed down an urge to start crying.

The barber took just a moment to push the carpet of hair from my shoulders towards the floor, before leaving me to stare at my reflection while he went and swapped his scissors for clippers. 

The  barber returned to standing behind me.  He turned on the clippers that began to hum.   He combed back the short uneven tufts of hair from my forehead, opening up a spot for the clippers.  He placed the buzzing device against my skin, and began to pull them back into my hairline.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt

I watched the gold tufts slide off my head, leaving behind the dirty blonde stubble that was a bit less visible than Susan’s shadow of darker stubble.  The barber returned the clippers to my forehead, and began to shave another strip next to the first one.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt, buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzoot, buzzzzzzzzt

As the bald patch on the top of my head grew, I began to take on the look of a balding man, even more so than Susan had halfway through her haircut, since the dome of my head looked even balder and the horse shoe of tufts on the sides of my head stood out more than the neatly cut hair on the sides of her head had before the barber had shaved them.   

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt, buzzzt.

It was a strange sensation, when the barber placed the warm vibrating clippers against the more sensitive skin of my cheek, before shaving off the wispy sideburn in front of my ear.  As the barber shaved around my ear, he began to tilt my head slightly.

“Moving my head too quickly sets off the motion sickness,” I warned him.

“I’ll go a little extra slow then.”  He promised me.

I closed my eyes, and just tried to focus on the gentle vibration and spreading coolness to distract me from the slight slow change in angle as the barber slowly worked around the back of my head, taking away what little was left of my hair.  He did seem to be moving my head around more slowly than he had Susan’s head.

When the barber finished at my nape, I would have wanted to open my eyes and look in the mirror, but that meant extra movement, so instead I just kept my head bowed as I listened to him swap the large clippers he’d run over my whole head, for the smaller ones that I knew he would give me a crisp neckline with.  I heard the higher pitched humming little clipper approach my neck, and then felt the barber lightly press them against my nape, before stoking the fine blade down my neck.

“There you go,”  the barber announced as he turned off the little clippers.  “Not too bad, right?”

I slowly raised my head up, then opened my eyes.  I blinked a couple of times, as my reflection came into focus.  I stared at the almost unrecognizable person staring back at me.  My head looked small.  The angularness and sunken features the rapid weightloss had caused, stood out.  I looked a good ten years older than I had when I had left Earth just weeks earlier.

“I guess I can live with it,” I told the barber as he took the cape off me.

“I know it’s not the most fashionable style ever,” he admitted as he held the mirror up to show me the back, “but it will grow out fast.”

“So,”  Susan enthusiastically enquired as she came over to help me up to my feet,  “what do you want to see first?”

Though I was tempted to say the bed in sickbay, I did actually feel up to a little light walking as long as I had someone to lean against, and Susan had made quite a sacrifice so I could sightsee a little less self consciously.

“As much as seeing the planet or ships sounds interesting, I’m pretty sure it will trigger my motion sickness even more.  Let’s just go window shopping.”

“Ok, I know some places with local specialties.”

 

———————————– Sleep —————————————–

“Susan,” Patterson requested, “do me a favor and go back up to sickbay storage and grab me a couple of more bags of saline.”

“Ok,”  Susan agreed, as she let go of my hand, giving it a gentle pat, then assured me.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” I told her, silly as I felt about it, having the girl there literally holding my hand was making me feel better.

“Oh hey Cap’n.”  I heard Susan’s mildly muffled voice say in the corridor a moment before Captain Reyes came in.

“How’s it going?”  Reyes addressed Patterson, then looked down at me and added with surprise, “You’re still awake?!”

I felt a little extra embarrassed laying in the pod bald and naked with only a light sheet over me with the captain present.  I’d been a little uncomfortable being naked in front of Patterson and Susan, who’d been taking care of me for weeks.  I knew that once I was asleep, I wouldn’t even have the sheet, and the pods had a huge window, I had seen the other passengers’ pods before I had climbed into the pod I lay in, but somehow that didn’t bother me as much as being naked and awake.

“Yes,” I croaked softly.

“I’m taking it a little extra slow,” Patterson informed the captain. “I don’t want to push it since she’s weak and dehydrated.”

“I trust your judgement,” Reyes assured Patterson, “We depart in three and half hours, that enough time to get her out and stable?”

“It should be.”

“How’s that sound to you?”  Reyes asked me.

“Terrifying.” I admitted.

“Patterson has put hundreds of people in pods, don’t worry.”  Reyes assured me, then turned to Patterson, “Can you explain why Susan is bald?”

“That’s my fault, sorry.”  I explained.  “I told her I was self conscious about going sightseeing bald, and that I just wanted to go back to the ship, so she decided to get her head shaved so I would feel better about it.  I tried to stop her, but she was determined.”

“Did it work?”

“Mostly because I would have felt guilty not going sightseeing after she had done that.”

“I guess it was worth it then.”  Reyes smiled.

“You might not think so if Susan really regrets it tomorrow when she looks in the mirror in the morning.”

“She’ll be fine.” Reyes promised with a chuckle.  “She’ll have almost as much hair as I do by our next stop, and she’ll be back to her regular pixie length by Trappist.”

“Will I have pixie length hair by Trappist?”

“Sorry, hair grows much more slowly in the pod.”  Patterson told me.  “It’s only going to grow a patchy millimeter or two.”

“Oh well,”  I sighed, then changed subject.  “Talking about Trappist, is there any chance I could see Susan once I’m there and unpacked?”

“We’ll be there for fifty-seven hours, so maybe.”  Reyes speculated.  “It depends on what order pods get shipped down in, and stuff like that, plus not everyone wakes up at the same speed.”

“I know you can’t do anything about how long it takes me to wake up,”  I began my request, “but can you try to make sure I get down and started as quickly as possible?  And can you make sure Susan gets an opportunity to come down to the planet?  I have a couple of things I’d like to give Susan, that I can’t access till I get the luggage that went as cargo.  One’s not that important, just a pair of earrings, silver and turquoise. I think she’ll like them and it will give her variety, but the other is pretty important.  I have a tablet, I can afford to replace it, but it would take Susan ages to save up for one like it.   She’ll be able to write with it, she is such a great story teller.   Plus it’s got a decent amount of a liberal arts education in its memory, she says the courses that she’s been working through on the ship’s library are all STEM.”

“I’ll do what I can.”  Reyes promised.

“And if I just don’t wake up…”

“I’ll try to see that she gets them.”

“Thank you.”  I said.  “Don’t tell her in case I can’t be woken up in time.”

“Of course.”  Reyes said, “I wouldn’t have ruined your moment anyway.”

“You’re a good captain.”  I said, and realized my words were beginning to slur, and I was beginning to have trouble keeping my eyes open.

“Here’s the saline,”  I heard Susan coming back.  “Is she still awake?”

“Just barely,”  Patterson told her.

“I’ll leave you and Patterson to take care of our passenger,”  Reyes said as I heard her footsteps fade away.

“I’m back.” Susan told me, as I felt her warm hand take mine.

“Thank you,”  I tried to say, but suspected what came out was garbled sounds as I began to feel cold all over and my mind filled with cotton balls.

 

————————- No Time at All Later —————————

“Thank you,” I tried saying again since I could still feel Susan’s warm hand on my cold one.

“I think she’s coming to,”  I heard Susan call out.

“Ok.  You can let her have ice chips if she wants,”  I heard a completely unfamiliar strongly accented voice, that was definitely not Patterson, tell Susan, “but go slowly.”

“Do you want an ice chip?”

I carefully nodded, which to my delighted surprise didn’t send my head spinning from the motion sickness, as I slowly began to open my very crusty feeling dry eyes.  I felt the cold wetness against my lips, which I suddenly realized were as dry as my eyes, which I had just begun to crack enough to see a sliver of light through.  Susan must have noticed the state of my eyes, because I suddenly felt a warm damp cotton ball rubbing over my eyelids.

“The nurse said saline solution would help with the scratchiness.”

“Thank you,” I finally got out in a scratchy whisper, as I blinked and looked up at Susan.

Susan, whose brown hair had grown out into a slightly softer less shaped version of her pixie, smiled down at me, while holding a spoon full of ice chips.  I did my best to smile back as I moved slightly, relieved to discover someone had thought to put a light sheet over me, probably Susan.

“Captain Reyes sent me down planet to help you get settled in and stuff, since she knows you don’t have a lot of time to recover from the pod before you have to start working.”  Susan informed me.  “I have about thirty-eight hours till I have to catch a shuttle back up to the station so I can get back aboard on time.”

“Good,” I croaked and nodded my head, relieved to discover that even though I was a little stiff, the nodding finally didn’t set off a new wave of motion sickness, actually, I really didn’t feel motion sick at all for the first time since I’d taken the elevator off Earth.  “I have a few things in my luggage I wanted to share with you.”

 

 

 

Shout out to all those who asked what happened next with Susan and started the wheels in my head going till this popped up.  An extra shout out to F35h who helped me with this one in record time.