Late

“That woman makes me so mad.”
“Unfortunately, you’re going to apologize to her tomorrow.”
“Why would I want to go and do that?”
“Because life around here will be unbearable if you don’t.”
“You know she won’t apologize back.”
“That’s what makes you the better person.”
Larissa crossed her arms over her chest and looked stubborn, but Ofelia knew she’d manage to grit something out tomorrow that would soothe the pride of Mrs. Edwards back down to a manageable level.
“Well,” Jack said standing. “I give up. I’m going to bed. It’s not like we won’t hear the engines or anything like that.”
“You know, ten minutes after we turn in, they’ll come blazing down from the sky,” Larissa said as she stood.
“Well, let’s at least hide the chocolate cake. That’ll at least teach them not to be late to the party.”
#
“Are you absolutely positively sure this is what you want?” Ofelia stared at the bubble gum pink and back up at the walls she was about to desecrate with it. “Because once it’s up, you won’t be able to change it on a whim, like on The Hope. You’re going to be living with it until you move out.”
“Yes, for the third time I’m sure,” Larissa called as she boldly streaked the paint across the wall. Ofelia shrugged, dipped her brush, and began painting. She was starting to get good at it. So far they’d painted the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen and Ofelia’s room a nice eggshell color. They left Kathryn’s room unpainted. Ofelia wanted to wait until her mother arrived so she could choose the color herself.
Unfortunately, her mother was late… six months late. The colony was practically completed, but the animal pens sat empty, the fields they’d plowed lay fallow, and the houses they’d built for the two hundred and twenty three on the other trip stayed vacant.
“This color makes my head hurt,” Ofelia said as she stared at the bright pink.
“That’s the point. That way, adults like you won’t want to come in my room.”
“But what happens when you become an adult.”
“By then, I seriously plan to have a place of my own… and then you can paint over it with your oh so pretty eggshell.”
Ofelia rolled her eyes, but continued to paint. After an hour, the room looked like the inside of a gumball.
“Perfect,” Larissa declared. “Now I could use some lunch, and some time away from the smell of fresh paint.”
They grabbed two sandwiches from the food processor, and sat outside on the porch to enjoy their meal. They’d only just taken the first bites of their sandwiches when Mrs. Edwards came hurrying in their direction.
“Man, that woman should have her own theme song. Doo doot, doo doot. Nyee, nyee, nyee,” Larissa made stabbing motions into her peanut butter and jelly. “Crud, I think she actually is coming this way.”
“Be nice.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Larissa mumbled. She stood with a huge fake grin on her face when Mrs. Edwards did indeed stop in front of their porch.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Edwards. Have you had a nice day so far? I’m off to finish painting. Ta.” Larissa turned and headed back into the house, leaving Mrs. Edwards with a puzzled expression. She was probably trying to figure out if Larissa had been inferring anything rude. Ever since Jack’s birthday celebration, the two had existed on a very fine line that threatened daily to break and spill out into open warfare. Mrs. Edwards shook her head, and then beamed something to Ofelia.
Out of curiosity, Ofelia took her PDA out of her pocket and looked at the screen. It looked like an artist’s rendition of a huge tombstone. By the look of the people in the drawing, staring reverently up at it, the monolith was about fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide.
“We originally thought brass, but then Jacob said we could use some of the native marble he found not to far from here. Maybe not marble through and through, just face it and fill the rest in with concrete.”
“What’s it for?” Ofelia asked.
“The memorial, of course. Jacob has even come up with a special font.”
“Who died? Nobody’s died.”
Mrs. Edwards gave Ofelia the look one might give an injured puppy dog.
“Now sweetheart,” she began.
“Don’t call me sweetheart,” Ofelia snapped. She erased the offending image from her screen and got to her feet. “Nobody’s dead, and we’re not making any memorials until someone dies, so you’d better tell Jacob that he can come up with some other art project.”
“If they were alive, don’t you think they would have been here by now? You’re lying to yourself if you think they’ll be arriving any day now. Martin and I think-”
“I don’t care what you and your husband think. I am not going to give them up for dead, and as long as I’m breathing, we’re not having any memorials. Period.”
Mrs. Edwards mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. Ofelia turned to leave her on the porch like that, but just as she got through the door, Mrs. Edwards got her breath back.
“Doctor Edwards said he wanted to see you on a completely different matter. He said it was urgent.” Ofelia closed the door without responding. Larissa was lying upside down on the coach. She clapped, laughed and then flipped over.
“You know, I thought of something the other day. We really pissed Tyler off.”
“Yes, but does that mean he’s the kind of man to abandon his duty and leave two hundred people stranded waiting for an asteroid to destroy their planet?”
“Exactly what I’m talking about… Tyler is obsessed with being the hero, but how much of a hero is he if he’s just doing his duty – what everyone expects him to do anyway? What would make him into a hero?”
Ofelia shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“He needs an audience. He needs someone who doesn’t know its his duty to rescue them. And where out here is he going to find that?”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“How heroic would he seem to say, the people aboard The Crosby, as he zooms to meet them halfway in their journey, cuts nearly ten years off their travel time, and arrives at Eden Twelve just in time to pick up the remaining crew before the asteroid hits?”
“It’s sounds a little half baked to me.”
“But he’d be the hero of the day. It’s one possible explanation of why they’re not back yet. In fact, that would put them back here in two more months.”
“That’s assuming he could find the Crosby flying out there in the universe.”
“That’s exactly what I thought until I remembered. I actually heard him ask Jack about where the Crosby would be, and Jack showed him how to pull up an estimated trajectory of a moving object.”
“That is a very possible explanation,” Ofelia offered, but she didn’t put much faith into it.
Larissa took another bite of her sandwich. “There’s always hope.”
#
Ofelia managed to put off her visit with Doc Martin for nearly an hour before she began to feel guilty. She pulled on a sweater, and walked the short distance to the infirmary. Doc Martin had Andy manning the reception room. Andy was The Hope’s best pediatrician and a father of three mischievous boys.
“Don’t you have patients to see or balls to throw?”
“We all take turns watching the front desk,” Andy said cheerfully. “Besides, it gives me an excuse to not go home and cut the grass.”
“Does Doc Martin ever take a turn?”
“Nope. He’s management. We’re lowly peons.” If Andy had been living anywhere else, he would have had his own practice by now. “You can go in. I think he was expecting you an hour ago. He’s in quite a funk. Jack just went in about ten minutes ago and he nearly bit his head off.”
Ofelia knocked and then pushed open the door to the examining room. Jack was sitting on a chrome table while Doc Martin bandaged his hand.
“What in the world did you do to your hand?”
“Just a little burn. Not much to worry about.” Ofelia peered over the doctor’s shoulder and gasped. Jack’s little burn was nearly a foot long running from his palm all the way up to the middle of his arm.
“I’ve already given him an injectol for the pain,” Doc Martin said as he wrapped the bandage around the wound. “I asked my wife to send you over here an hour ago.”
“I had some things to do. What exactly did you do, Jack?”
“Tried to reengineer one of the croppers while it was still on. Those things are hot, you know. Hot, hot, hot. Is it hot in here? Or is it just me?”
“It’s you,” Doc Martin said taping down the ends of the wrap. “I’ve discovered an alarming trend that could affect the positive outcome for this colony.”
“You make it sound dire,” Ofelia said, taking another good look at Jack. Besides his bandage and his glassy eyed smile, he seemed fine.
“Have you noticed,” Doc Martin began, pulling his PDA out of his pocket and beaming the information to Ofelia. Jack took his out as well. “Ooh, me too, me too.”
Doc shook his head, but Ofelia beamed Jack the information anyway. It was a line graph that flat lined right in the middle of the chart.
“So what does this represent?”
“The amount of pregnancies in the past six months.”
“Are you commenting about the population quota again? Just give it time, and the colony will increase. They were just guidelines, anyway.”
“That’s the point of the graph. If you take a look, you’ll notice that there are no new pregnancies since we landed on this planet. Not a single one.”
“Well, a lot of the women didn’t want to have children while we were settling down and doing so much construction work. It would be difficult to have a new baby and no home. I’m sure that now things are slowing into a routine, the women will go off their birth control and this will raise.”
“Yes, that’s another point that I thought of, but we ran out of birth control pills three months ago. They were considered supplementary medication, so I put the main supply on the second ship, which never arrived. I’ve been giving the women placebos instead.”
“You did what!?” Ofelia really hadn’t meant to scream, but her voice came out with such force that she even scared herself. Doc Martin flinched back. Jack simply laughed and fell over onto the metal exam table. Andy rushed in from the reception room, med scanner in hand.
“You don’t have to raise your voice.”
“You didn’t tell them you were giving them placebos?”
“No, if I was going to tell them we were out, I wouldn’t have needed to give them placebos.”
Outraged, Ofelia turned to Andy. “Did you and the other doctors know about this?”
“Know about what?”
“That Doc Martin here has been giving out fake birth control pills to everyone.”
By the way Andy’s face went white, it was obvious he didn’t know. “But I already told you Martin, that three boys are all we can handle right now. I don’t know what Elaine would do if she got pregnant again.”
“But no one has gotten pregnant!”
“No thanks to you, obviously,” Jack shouted happily from his sideways position. “Though I am still curious to know how you and the wifey had so many.
“This is an unconscionable break in your medical ethics,” Ofelia said.
“What are you so upset and worried about. This didn’t affect you. It’s not like you’re sexually active around here.”
Jack sat up, his eyes wide with excitement. “Oooh! Doc, I think you’ve just managed to seriously piss her off.” He started bouncing around on the table. “You gonna give him a black eye Oaf?”
“No. I’m going to fire him. Andy, congratulations. You just got a promotion.” Ofelia walked out the door before the urge to punch him became too strong. The doctor followed.
“You can’t fire me. You’re not in charge.”
“Oh yes I am. You can go home immediately and await my decision of what to do with you. If we had a jail, I’d probably throw you in it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ofelia. I am the Chief Medical Officer. I outrank everyone here, and you cannot fire me or punish me in any way.”
“I beg to disagree, doctor,” Jack said as he leaned against the wall behind him. “The charter says ‘Captain Clovelly has the absolute right to set, promote and demote her officers as she sees fit.’ I memorized the charter years ago.”
“Well, that was on the ship. We’re planet side now.”
“On the contrary, ‘The contract and captaincy of Kathryn Clovelly extends for a period of five years after landing. At that time an elected democratic government shall be put into place by the members of the colony.’”
“Fine. But she’s not Kathryn Clovelly… and therefore has no control.” Jack put his finger up in the air and recited.
“’Upon the incapacitation or resignation of Kathryn Clovelly, a replacement shall be determined by the majority vote of all Crosby shareholders of legal voting age.’ And since I’m the only Crosby left on this rock, guess who I choose to be captain?”
“What? That’s not possible.”
“Didn’t you ever read the charter, nimrod?”
“I… I…” Doc Martin had lost his bravado and was searching for a friendly face amongst the three in the room. After seeing only stolid anger, drugged and amused, and betrayal, he backed out without a word.
“Is that what the charter really says?” Andy asked.
“Darn tootin.’” Jack hiccupped.
“You never told me you were in charge,” Ofelia said.
“I’m not. You are… you always have been. But now… it’s official. Congratulations.” Jack hiccupped again, and Ofelia rushed to support him before he fell to the floor.
“Can I go to bed now?”