II.

Part II of Backwash.

II.

 

            I remember the first time I met Garth. I was on my way, late, for a duty shift with J and as I was passing the docking port to the ship, the doors opened and a huge throng of people suddenly exited. I stumbled and then I felt someone grab my arms and straighten me. I turned around and found myself gazing into pale gray eyes. They unsettled me but I shook off this feeling. I thanked him.

            “Gratitude is irrelevant,” he had said, “I was merely performing an altruistic act, preventing disorder.”

            I didn’t know what to say so I just stared at his face. Unfazed by my unconventional behavior, he merely nodded and rejoined the crowd of people.

            I didn’t speak him much after that. I did learn he was new to the ship and that he’d be staying with us for an indefinite amount of time. He was assigned to work under the Planetary Thermodynamic Analysis department and he holed himself up in the lab for most of the day. Occasionally, I’d see him in the cafeteria or while I was walking in the long, endless rows of corridors and hallways of the ship. He always wore an expressionless face and walked quickly, briskly. Efficiently. Sometimes, he’d pass close to me and my hair would stand on end. Other times, he’d be on the other side of the hallway and I’d find myself unconsciously turning my head to get a better look at him. I loved his eyes. They were deep, sunken into his face. I liked that. It gave his face depth and for some reason, I equated depth with meaning in my mind. He was always polite during the few occasions I spoke to him but I sensed that his behavior was more to achieve his ends rather than keep others happy. Maybe the two things aren’t mutually exclusive, though. Maybe his goal was to keep others happy.

            Once, his department and mine joined forces. I was to work with him but he hardly took notice of me. I was another worker to him, another soul to interact with, another being with feelings he didn’t want to understand. I remember when I first touched him. I gave him a stack of papers and my fingers accidentally grazed his. I saw no difference in his face and I wouldn’t be surprised if my face mirrored his. I felt nothing, which was funny because I had often read that when you love someone, your skin tingles with electricity when you touch them. My mother told me that was what she felt when she touched my father. This was after the Switchover, of course. She told me that maybe I really didn’t love Garth.

            The first real conversation Garth and I had occurred at 0600 hours on the stargazing deck. It was the day after the two departments separated again and I knew I wouldn’t see Garth as much anymore. I couldn’t sleep that night. I was too jittery, too excited for no reason so I got up and decided to go to the place James first kissed me to ease my mind. I did that a lot. When I got there, I found Garth, dressed casually in his pajamas and staring out at the thousands of stars that swirled around us.

            “Oh” I cried and he turned around to look at me, “sorry, I didn’t think there would be anybody here.”

            “No matter,” he said, “you did not disturb me. But if my presence bothers you, please tell me. I will leave.”

            I nodded and sat down several seats from him. We had sat like that for a while, neither one of us speaking.

            “I must satisfy my curiosity,” he had said, “why are you here at this hour?”

            “I could ask you the same thing.”

            “Sleep did not come easily for me tonight.”

            “Nor for me. But I guess the logical thing to do would be to take some insomnia pills from the Doctor’s Open cabinet.”

            “Yes,” he agreed, “that would be logical. However, I believed my insomnia to be short-lived. Temporary. But since you arrived, I find myself more awake than ever.”

            “All the more reason to take those pills.”

            “You should take your own advice, then.”

            “I’ve never really liked medicine.”

            “Why not?”

            “It tastes bad, Garth.”

            “Taste is irrelevant. Medicine serves only a correctional purpose. It was not made to taste good.”

            “Is that why you won’t take the pills?”

            Garth had paused then for a split second before answering.

            “I must admit: stargazing is somewhat of a…pleasurable activity.”

            I didn’t know what to say after that so a short silence was born. Garth broke it again, though.

            “I never caught your name.”

            “Bethany. But call me B.”

            “Why ‘B’?”

            “It’s easier to say.”

            “I have noticed that you call nearly everyone by letters. Do you do it because it is easier?”

            “Yeah. Names are a mouthful. All those useless syllables. If all I wanted was to get someone’s attention, or refer to a specific person, letters are just as useful.”

            “What happens when two people have names that begin with the same letter?”

            “Then I call one person by either a whole name or a shortened version.”

            “Is there another you know with a name that begins with a ‘G’?”

            I had racked my brains then, for a while.

            “No.”

            “Then why do you call me ‘Garth’? I should be G, according to your naming system.”

            “I call you Garth?” I’d never noticed.

            “Yes.”

            “I dunno,” I said. “I guess I just like the sound of your name.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “Neither do I,” I sighed.

            Garth and I became friends after that. Well, he was certainly my friend. I can’t speak for him; did Garth have friends? I don’t know what the official definition of “friend” is—I never bothered to look. All I know is that he seemed to like being with me more than other individuals. Of course, I wasn’t the only one he was pleased to be around. Garth was polite, quiet and intelligent so a lot of people liked him. The Captain thought he was the perfect researcher: a cool head on his shoulders, vast knowledge in his brain, objectivity. He developed relations with nearly everyone on board quickly enough but sometimes, his lack of Emotion got him in trouble. J didn’t like him. She never did. She told me to be careful while I was around him after the first time I used the words Garth and ‘friend’ in the same sentence. She said there was something fishy about him, something not quite right and it put her off.

            “I was reprogramming the sensors with the latest bathymetric data,” she had told me, “and he walked into the lab and asked me for the diatomic isolator. I handed him the instrument and told him to treat it like he would treat his grandpa—it was very old. He just stared at me blankly, as if he didn’t understand the comparison. So I explained my comparison to him and he told me (or thought out loud; I can’t be sure if he was talking directly to me) that it would be more efficient to speak plainly, rather than using pointless comparisons and analogies. Who does that?”

            I told her that efficiency was very important to him and J told me that he would also do well to look up some manners, instead of going around giving the crew pointers in interpersonal relations that they didn’t ask for. I relayed this information back to Garth and he told me to tell J that he was sorry that he acted in such an uncouth manner. I did what he asked me to but that didn’t faze J. She always looked at him through her small, suspicious eyes whenever he was around, her fingers would clench and her lips pressed together in this sort of grim half-smile and when she’d see my face break out into a full smile, J would sign in defeat and turn away from Garth’s piercing eyes. Garth noticed this, of course, and asked me about J one day when we were alone in the geothermal lab. I told him the truth, expecting some sort of careless indifference. A simple shrug of his shoulders was all it took for me to know when a topic, a person or an object passed beyond his interest. What I received, instead, surprised me.

            “She doesn’t like me?” he repeated. The expression on his face hadn’t changed even when the tone of his voice did.

            “No.”

            “A shame.”

            “I thought you wouldn’t care.”

            “Care about what?”

            “Whether someone likes you or not.”

            “It makes sense to care about certain relationships. J and I share a professional relationship and she is my superior on this ship. Her opinion matters to me if I were ever to hope for advancement.”

            “So that’s your goal in life?”

            “What is?”

            “Advancement.”

            ‘Yes. Social, political or professional advancement of an individual leads to a better rate of survival. And survival is the point of life, is it not?”

            “Maybe.”

            “Tell me: what is your goal in life?”

            I had to think for a while but I finally answered. “I have no single goal in life.”

            “Then list several.”

            All I really wanted at that moment was a slice of raspberry crème cake. So I remained silent.

            “There’s nothing you want in life?” he pressed me. For some reason, James popped into my mind.

            “The man who was to be my partner died before it became official,” I said. I saw confusion pass over Garth’s face for a split second—I had surprised him—but it disappeared.

            “I’m sorry to hear that. It must be hard to have lost a mate.” He knew about my feelings. That was the thing about Garth. Even though he operated solely on an objective level, he did not expect those around him to behave the same way. How he tolerated my feelings, I never found out. But then again, I never tried.

            “Backwash,” I said.

            “What?”

            “Backwash,” I repeated, gesturing to the lab. “I’ll return—eventually.”

            I knew Garth normally didn’t like analogies. He didn’t ask much of Emotional people but one thing he preferred us to do was to speak plainly. Metaphors, allusions, vague historical or cultural references, metonymy: none of it appealed to Garth. It appealed to emotion, to the symbolic thought Emotion necessitated and that was something Garth neither had nor wanted. But that day in the geothermal lab, with the temperature a bit too warm with the steam some of the instruments were churning, with the sterile whiteness of the walls and counters, with the dull banging and clanking of metallic machinery in the background, Garth relented for once and accepted my words with no criticism. I didn’t realize it then but time eventually showed me that that action—tolerating my Emotions—was more than politeness and “good manners” on his part.

 

Reviews

[Paul B. Spence]

This chapter was much smoother than the first one. The dialogue flowed nicely and didn't seem forced at all.

The relationship with Garth is developing at a believable pace.

Bathymetric data? They are concerned with water depth?

My only real complaint would be that I'm still waiting for something to happen. There has been a lot of back story, but not a lot of what is happening 'now' in the story.

It is always difficult when telling a story in first person to find an equilibrium between telling what happened in a sequential order that shows time passing and simply telling the story.

It feels more like a contemporary literary piece than science fiction. Only the setting and the strange new culture suggests the story is science fiction. If literary if your thing, I'd suggest reading some Octavia Butler. Her science fiction is strongly literary, but very, very good. Try her book Xenogenesis.

[mirui]

"I like this chapter-good job."