Noumenon

They played the same stuff over and over. Talked about the same stuff over and over. Normally he’d be all for it. Eventually someone would suggest something new, and they would carry it like a banner through the shuttle until the game or rhyme or nickname became stale.

But he could find no comfort in the ritual of tomfoolery today. Who was Tom and who did he think he was fooling, anyway?

It was a phrase Diego used. Apparently he’d taken part in plenty of it during his school days. But, maybe Diego didn’t remember being a kid right. After all, it’d been a really, really, really long time since he’d been to school.

School back on Earth. School on Iceland—which Diego insisted wasn’t really a land made of ice, but Jamal had his doubts.

Jamal blew on a small portion of the window. It didn’t fog up as nicely as the bathroom mirror, but it would do. He drew funny squiggles until a ball hit him in the side of the head.

“Hey, what the—” He picked up the projectile, which had bounced off the seat in front of him and rolled under his feet.

“That’s yours,” said Lewis, moving from three rows forward to join Jamal at the back of the shuttle.

“Sit down,” demanded the shuttle pilot. Thank I.C.C. the pilots rotated. Otherwise Jamal was sure this guy would eventually open the airlock and let the pressure differential suck them all into oblivion.

Lewis stuck his tongue out at the driver as he plopped down next to Jamal. “It’s yours. I got it back from Dr. Seal when he wasn’t looking.”

“Thanks, man.” Jamal propped the soccer ball up under his arm and returned to staring out the window. His fog-drawing had disappeared.

“Are you ready for the brat?”

Jamal shrugged and sighed, “No.”

“It wouldn’t be any better if it was a brother. When my parents brought Duke home I thought it’d be awesome. That we could play catch and pull pranks and stuff. He just gurgled all day and threw up on my favorite blanket. Babies suck.”

“But eventually she won’t be a baby. She’ll be a girl. And then what?”

The possibilities horrified him, vague as they were.

When he got home he was surprised to see his aðon and pabbi there by themselves. No baby. His hopes rose for a moment. Maybe they’d changed their minds. Maybe they weren’t going to get a baby after all.

His pabbi kicked that fantasy out from under him. “We thought you’d like to come,” he explained. “We rescheduled for tomorrow and excused you from class.”

“We didn’t want you to feel left out,” said his aðon from the bedroom. She was changing out of her work jumper.

He didn’t feel left out, but he wanted to be left out. If he never had to see his sister it would be too soon. They were making a big, fat, ugly mistake. Why’d they want to go and ruin their perfect family with a sister, huh? Weren’t the three of them enough?

He dropped his pack in the entryway and slumped over to the dining table. “Can I go visit Diego when he gets off work?” he asked after he sat down, picking at his fingers and swinging his feet.

“Sure,” said Pabbi. “As long as he says it’s okay. If he’s busy you come right home.”

Diego was Jamal’s afi’s—his granddad’s—best friend. Jamal would never say so out loud, but he liked Diego better than Afi. Afi only liked old people things, and more importantly, only things right in front of him. He had no imagination.

Diego, though … Diego knew how to dream while still awake.

Jamal impatiently watched the minutes tick away. Diego’s shift was over at 1600, and he should be back at his cabin no later than 1630. As soon as the last minute rolled over, Jamal was out the door and down the hall to the nearest lift.

He had to wait a whole ’nother five minutes before Diego got there. Jamal sat in front of the old man’s door, knees up to his chin, feet squirming in his shoes.

“Que pasa?” Diego squinted at Jamal when he got close. “Someone have a bad day?” He was dressed in the corn-yellow of most Morgan workers. Short and heavyset, but fresh-faced for someone in his sixties, his ruddy wrinkles made him look like he’d been basking in the sun all day, though he hadn’t been anywhere near the artificial Sol of Eden.

Jamal shrugged, suddenly aware that his complaint might come off as whiny. “How was your day?” he asked politely. Something about being around Diego always made him feel more polite.

“Fine. Figured how to make the soy processing more efficient. My original designed the system, you know. I just made it better.” Diego opened the door. “I was going to watch a movie this evening,” he said as the lights came on. “You might find it amusing. Coming in?”

Diego’s quarters didn’t have as many rooms as Jamal’s. He’d said it was because he didn’t need them. “Only one of me. Can’t take up a family cabin anymore. Wouldn’t be right.”

The place smelled like beans and cheese. Diego checked his slow-cooker (something only food workers typically had) in the kitchenette, then came back to the main sitting and sleeping area. “How’s the new baby? Problems already? If you liked it you wouldn’t be here.”

“No baby yet,” said Jamal, crossing his arms. “They’re gonna take me with them when they get her.”

“Ah. That’s nice.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh?”

Jamal shrugged. “Decided I don’t want a sib. ’Specially a sister.” Diego laughed lightly and Jamal took immediate offense. “You, too? You don’t get it. Why doesn’t anyone get it?”

“I’m not laughing at you, amigo. I’m enjoying the simplicity of your problem, not that it is a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve figured out how to live in space and investigate cosmic phenomena up close. But we still haven’t figured out how to make a new brother appreciate his sister. I had a sister, you know.”

“You did? But, you were born on Earth. Was it another clone?”

The old man shook his head and gestured for Jamal to have a seat. “Nope. My sister was born the old-fashioned way. She did not accompany me on the mission.”

“What’s ‘the old fashion way’?”

Diego’s face went blank for a moment, then he waved the question aside. “Never you mind. My point is, I felt the same as you, or at least similar, when I was told I’d be sharing my parents with a girl. Anita. Oh, I hated the idea. I considered running away and abandoning my duties if my mother went through with this whole giving birth thing.”

Jamal gasped. Abandoning your duty was about the lowest thing a convoy member could do. The thought of it made him sick inside. “You did?”

“Considered, I said, considered. I didn’t, of course. I stuck it out. The baby was born, came home, and then … guess what?”

Jamal pursed his lips. “What?”

“I was just as upset with the baby there as I was when she hadn’t been around. But I got over it, eventually. You’ll learn to like being a big brother. You’ll get excited when she learns to walk and talk. But you should never hold her gender against her.”