Orbiters
Woman's Best Friend
…Be careful believing any giant industry. For instance, the publishing industry tells us to believe in The Dream. What’s The Dream? We can all be authors. Like NASA tells kids we can all be astronauts.
No, we can’t.
That’s the unpleasant part. The pleasant part? Foolish as they are, dreams are the raw material of all endeavor. Give up on The Dream, and you go from impossible odds, to no odds at all…
As junior-grade officers, Megan and Jennifer shared the same quarters. On their wall Jennifer hung pictures of the Moon, Saturn, and the Andromeda Galaxy. Malthusians are far too practical to be good decorators.
Megan Bremer added one photo. On her nightstand was her dog, Tark. With his tongue out, the black Lab appeared to be smiling. Can dogs smile? Megan knew Tark could.
The two women relaxed in their room after dinner. Jennifer sat before a mirror adjusting the collar on her sleek, silver uniform. She would be playing cards in the rec room that night. You never knew who you might run into. “I told the captain I was in the whist tournament.” Jennifer put a bobby pin in her hair. Then removed it. “Think he’ll take the hint, and show up?”
“Who knows?” said Megan. She lay on her bed staring at Tark. Reaching over, she adjusted the frame.
“You miss your dog, don’t you?”
Megan left a finger on the frame. “He’s my boyfriend.”
Tark lived on the Moon. He had also been kidnapped, a week after Megan. Then her parents and grandparents were kidnapped the following week. Then a week after that her brother Seth was kidnapped, then two aunts. The Malthusians couldn’t stand to see anyone unhappy. So they kidnapped them all.
The Bremer adults adjusted to their new lives. They found jobs similar to the ones they left behind, even enjoying hefty bonuses. Seth, fourteen years old and just a freshman, immediately won a spot on his high school’s varsity baseball team, something he could hardly have hoped for back home. With reduced gravity, the ball really flew off his bat. The coach never saw anything like it.
“What’s it like owning a dog?” asked Jennifer.
“It’s wonderful.”
“But they can’t talk, right?”
“Nope.”
“And they have to be fed?”
“Yes.”
“And walked?”
“Every day.”
“And petted, and brushed,” said Jennifer, who knew everything from past conversations. “And they have to have the door opened to do their business, and they have to be put to bed at night.” Jennifer had finished with her mirror. She pulled on sandals. “What’s the appeal, anyway?”
Her friend laughed. “They can’t talk and have to be walked and have to be taken care of. That’s the appeal.”
“But what do you get out of it?”
Megan had taken the picture from the stand. She showed it to Jennifer. “Attention, Affection. Unconditional love. Try getting that from a guy. Any guy.” She made no further comparisons with men aboard Spaceship One. She didn’t have to.