Chapter 15. Existential

When the Proxima B arrived at the L2 Lagrange location a million miles from Earth, Charles sat down next to Alice, who was occupying the pilot's chair and was busy guiding the ship into a safe Location.

"Looks like you found a home for us," he told her.

"Ah, you can take the pilot's seat," she said after turning to stare at him. "You're the pilot."

He smiled. "I think you're doing a pretty good job of piloting."

"Thanks," she replied while studying the screen to make sure she wasn't heading into a collision.

A few minutes of silence ensued while she brought the ship into a proper orientation to orbit the Earth and Sun in the dead zone of the L2 location. Then she turned to him. "That should do it." She turned back to the main screen for a few minutes before she said something else. "I would like to go over some rules that I believe that you and your buddies should obey."

He swallowed hard before he replied. "What do you have in mind."

"I believe that we've come up with a possible way to make this big slug travel faster than light, but before I discuss it with you, I would like you men to follow some practices."

He tilted his head and gave her a solicitous expression. "What did you have in mind?"

"We gals want you men to obey us, and we want you to accept it without any complaints."

"Why is that so important to you? We're not a threat to any of you."

"It would allow us to be satisfied that you won't discipline us. We need to be happy and have fun, and you men are the perfect receptacles for us to vent our frustrations."

"That sounds rather juvenile," he retorted.

"It's either that or we lock you up in the holding cells."

Charles didn't reply right away. He waited until his emotions subsided, and he was under control before he replied. "That would be an act of cruelty. I'm surprised that you would do such an inappropriate act, especially since we treat you women with the highest respect and kindness, and keep in mind that I risked my life to save some of you."

She swallowed hard and sighed. "You're right, but I had to see how you would react. Please accept my apology."

He stood up. "I think I need to go and think about this, and you should too."

She watched him leave the command deck before turning and sobbing. Her stupidity lost his respect, and she wasn't sure how she could get it back.

Hilary came into the command deck and plopped down next to her noting that her eyes showed signs of crying. "How did he take it?"

"He was royally pissed. I'm going to have to use a more subtle approach."

"You need to confront him when he's compromised," Hilary suggested.

Alice gave her a weak smile. "Yeah, but I don't think it's a good idea to prank him."

Hilary smiled at her. She realized that they were treading on dangerous ground.

The next day, Alice showed up at Charles' quarters while he was taking a shower, the perfect time to confront him. She waited until he came out of the air drier before she approached him.

"I'm sorry about coming here at an inappropriate time."

"That's okay," her replied, taking no effort to protect his modesty. "You've already seen plenty of me in the raw."

"I wanted to tell you about some of our latest findings."

He offered her a subtle smile. "I'm all ears."

She stared at him with a confused expression for a moment before continuing, "Good. Well, we've confirmed that the universe is not expanding. We don't know if it had something to do with the neutrino blast, but I would bet money that it did."

"That's interesting, especially if you've found a way to travel faster than the speed of light."

"Yeah, but that will require a total engine system renovation."

He smiled. "That sounds like a job for us engineers."

She smiled briefly before she waved her hand at him. "I want to show you my latest calculations concerning breaking light speed."

She turned and walked out to his living area. He followed her and stood near a large screen that descended from the ceiling. She stood next to it and pointed at a screen full of very complicated math.

"This shows that a tachyon has space-like four-momentum, which means that it cannot slow down below light speed. Their energy decreases the faster they travel." She turned to him with a satisfying grin. "And guess what?"

He stared at her pretty face, his eyes searching for a clue to what she was about to reveal. "What?"

"There are flavors of neutrinos that have tachyon characteristics. They supposedly are getting help from wobbly muons that represent a fifth force of nature. They're like fat electrons."

He stood looking at her very complex math while holding his jaw like he was trying to figure out his income tax. "Interesting. So, you've found a way to create those kinds of neutrinos."

"Yes!" she replied, her face beaming with excitement.

"I like it!" he told her with an appropriate grin.

"The math isn't quite right, but I'll get it there eventually."

"You are without doubt a very brilliant physicist."

She turned to look at him before she held his face in her hands and mashed her lips into his. "I love you," she told him when she disconnected her lips from his.

That compelled Charles to do something that he swore he would never do. "I love you." He said in a low voice.

Her eyes grew large with excitement before she locked her lips to his for a much longer and more physical kiss. Then she broke loose and smiled. "Thank you," she said in a sultry voice.

Charles backed away and offered her a subtle smile. "Thank you."

Her eyes scanned his body as if she were evaluating his physical condition before she backed away. "I'll go work on this tachyon neutrino concept. If you need me . . . I'll be here."

He watched her turn and saunter out of his quarters. He realized that he had just opened a can of worms, and it would be virtually impossible to get his inappropriate words back into the can.

Later in the day, he met with the other men down in the engineering deck.

"How'd it go with Alice?" Carl asked him when he took a seat near his.

"I went too far and told her that I love her," he replied. "She seemed very happy about it, although, I'm not sure if she thought I was serious."

"Well, at least we're not in jeopardy right now."

Charles sighed. "Hopefully."

Dave and Robert approached and took seats at the engineering station.

"How's the female project coming?" Dave asked.

Carl pointed at Charles. "He told Alice that he loved her."

"How'd she take it?' Robert asked, his lips twisted with a teasing grin.

"She's happy as a lark," Charles replied. "But you never know when it comes to women."

"Roger that!" Robert replied. "Especially when they're acting like teenagers."

"Trust me when I tell you that these women are geniuses. I don't know how that's possible, but there's no doubt in my mind that they are orders of more intelligent than any of the great scientists like Einstein."

"If that were the case," Robert said. "Why would Space Command risk their lives on dangerous space missions?"

"Space Command was run by bureaucratic idiots," Dave retorted. "They didn't care about science."

"Yeah, but he said he was in love with her," Carl said with a smirk.

"Maybe that'll get them off our cases," Dave said.

They ceremonially blew out teasing sighs of relief.

"You have to wonder how these immature females are geniuses," Dave said. "That seems incongruent."

"Yeah, but many of history's greatest geniuses were socially awkward. Einstein had trouble with women. I think social acumen is probably one thing that geniuses are not good at. Our women are just immature."

"That's for sure," Robert said.

"Not to change the subject," Carl said. "But I was rummaging in the replacement parts lockers, and I found some strange looking devices that don't seem to be part of the parts log."

Charles squinted at him. "What sort of devices?"

"They look like something that would be an addon to the main engines, but I'm not sure what they would do."

Charles got up. "Let's go check them out."

They went to the replacement parts locker where Carl opened one of the storage units and gestured to the parts, which were cylindrical with strange looking tubular devices arranged around the outside of them.

"Hmm," Charles reacted. "These don't appear to be any replacement part that I'm familiar with." He turned to Carl. "I wonder if they're listed in the inventory log."

"Let's check it out," Carl said before he sat down at a computer station and brought up the inventory list. After some time, he came to a listing of six Tachyon Projectors.

The sight of that name made Charles rub his jaw. "If this is what I think it is, there's something going on here that no one knew about, and it involves the women."

The other man looked at him with concerned expressions on their youthful faces.

"I think I'll have to find out what they know about this." He turned and left the engineering deck.

"I hope our leader isn't losing his nerve," Carl said.

"He'll work it out," Dave said.

The other men hoped he was right.

Later that day, Charles paid a visit to Alice. Her door swished open the instant he approached it, a sign that the command system did away with privacy formats.

Alice was seated on a couch with Vicky and were busy examining an object that Charles was unfamiliar with.

They looked up at him with smiles etched into their faces.

"I'm sorry if I am intruding on your privacy, "He said, "But, we found some interesting things down in the engineering deck."

Alice waved a dismissive hand at him. "I'm the one who intrudes on your privacy by coming to your quarters at an improper time."

"I'm not offended," he replied. "I have nothing to hide."

His statement had a double meaning.

"I wanted to tell you that we found tachyon units that could be fitted to the main engines,"

Alice blinked several times before responding to his wild statement. "I don't understand. If they knew about the tachyon idea, why didn't they use it to get us to Proxima B a lot faster?"

"That's a good question," he said. "It almost suggests that they were aware of the possibility that we would be in this situation and that you women geniuses would figure out how to utilize them."

"We're not geniuses!" Alice blurted. "We're just crazy bitches who were added to the crew to provide you men with sexual pleasures."

Charles struggled to not show emotion, but it didn't work. His facial expression went from disgust to dismay before he replied. "We men had nothing to do with how Space Command, infected with a bad moral compass, decided to mismanage the arrangement of the crew for our fateful journey into a cosmic disaster. They didn't inform us about their nefarious plan. And there certainly wasn't mention of any sexual pleasures."

"You're male," Alice retorted. "You always seek sexual pleasure."

Charles sighed. "Yeah, but we realize that it's not the only thing we want, especially in this rather complicated situation."

The two women stared at him with angry expressions before their anger subsided into a more relaxed demeanor, a signal that they didn't want to argue the point.

Alice held up a black metal rod with what looked like a glass ball on one end of it. The ball was emitting a blue light. "We found this in a locker on the command deck. "It appears to be sensitive to neutrinos. It might be a device to measure them,"

"Were you able to find any information about it in the tech manuals?"

"No, but there might be manuals we haven't found as yet."

Charles held a hand to his jaw as if trying to come up with a reasonable response. "We'll see if we can find something in the engineering deck."

Alice stood up and walked to him. She stared at him for a moment before moving close and hugging him as a prelude to a long kiss. When she backed away, she playfully slapped his butt. "I'm happy that you came to my quarters. You're welcome any time," she said with a solicitous grin.

Charles smiled. "Thank you."

She smiled as she watched him turn and walk out of her quarters, after which she turned to Vicky. "Well, that's a definite sign that he's willing to do my bidding."

"I'm surprised that he's so accommodating," Vicky said. "Men are like naughty children. They need to be disciplined."

Alice giggled. "Yes, you're right."

Vicky laughed.