I'm Looking Through You . . .

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Back to Part 2 of I'm Looking Through You . . .

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After going through the routines of a perfectly normal, boring morning, the crew was in the command post having a perfectly normal, boring training session. Or, at least, the training session appeared normal at first glance. But upon taking a closer look, it was obvious that something was wrong. Things just didn’t seem to be “clicking” the way they usually did. People were crabby, instructions needed to be repeated twice - sometimes even three times - before they were carried out . . . it was as though the crew was having a collective bad day.

Although there was certainly a different ‘feel’ in the room, the crew seemed to have taken an unspoken vow to refrain from mentioning the countless mistakes that were made. Finally, Goddard was called out of the room by Miss Davenport to come and deal with some vaguely defined crisis. As the door closed behind him, it seemed to act as some sign to Suzee that she had been given permission to speak.

“Look, you guys,” she said, glaring at the two gentlemen in question and sounding as short-tempered as most of the others felt. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting awfully tired of hearing you go over the same directions because someone tuned out - or garbled the instructions they were giving.” The last portion of her sentence was accompanied by an uncharacteristically sharp glance in Radu’s direction. “I mean, come on,” she continued. “We’re acting like amateurs today! Harlan, you didn’t even make the log entry yet!”

“I know that,” Harlan said, too quickly. “I was just - just - waiting. I’m doing it right now - see?” He picked up his CompuPad and was in the official ship’s log with a few clicks. “Ship’s log, day 367 of our journey, 1430 hours. Present heading is - ” Pausing, he turned to Radu. “What’s our present heading?”

“Uhh . . . ” The Andromedan stood with head bent, scanning the readings on his console. “Present heading is three-twenty-nine on y-axis.”

“Present heading is three-twenty - what?” An expression of mingled dismay and fear had appeared on Harlan’s face. “But - but that’s not anywhere near the course we had set last night . . . ” He looked accusingly at Radu. “Are you sure you aren’t flubbing up the coordinates again?”

“Of course I’m sure. The coordinates are . . . ” As Radu looked down at the navigation console to double-check the reading, the current heading seemed to suddenly be recognized by his Andromedan sense of direction. And as it was processed, he felt a chill ran down his spine. Harlan’s right, he realized. The course that was currently showing on the face of the console was almost 180 degrees from the way they should be heading. They were literally facing in the opposite direction from the Starcademy.

“Thelma?” Harlan said, trying to keep a note of panic out of his voice.

As usual, Thelma was peering over the young human’s shoulder almost before her name had passed through his lips. “Yes, Harlan?”

“What’s the deal with this course?”

Thelma’s eyes blinked rapidly as she received information from the Christa. “It has been changed,” she said finally.

“Yeah, I realize it’s been changed,” Harlan said, struggling to control himself. “But why was it changed? Why did the Christa suddenly decide to take off in the wrong direction?”

Thelma closed her eyes briefly and appeared to be processing more information. “The Christa did not change the course herself,” she said finally. “She was only obeying instructions she received from the central control console.”

“What?” Suzee’s voice had a note of alarm in it, and Harlan turned just in time to see her jump down from her station and hurry to join him at the central console. “Harlan, don’t tell me you screwed up again . . . ” she said, sounding exasperated.

“Hey, you can’t possibly blame me for this,” the human said quickly. “I was only obeying instructions.” He looked angrily at Radu.

Radu looked at his shoes.

Although things between him and his crewmates had improved tremendously since the trip had first started, Radu was all too aware of the shaky ground that he stood on - especially with Harlan. He had to admit to the facts. He couldn’t change his race. He couldn’t change the way things had been during the war. But his days as an outcast had taught him one thing - people were less likely to get angrier with you if you didn’t try to fight back.

He wasn’t exactly sure what brought his attention back to the events unfolding in the room before him. But when he looked at his friends again, he suddenly felt a rock drop into his stomach. The cause? The horribly distrustful look on Harlan’s face.

“Thelma?” the human said slowly. “What time was that course change put into effect?”

Once again, Thelma went into “information-retrieve” mode. Within seconds, she turned to Harlan again. “At approximately 0300 hours,” she said with a smile.

Harlan turned to Radu suspiciously. “I caught you wandering around down here last night. You admitted that you’d been in the command post . . . but when I asked you what you’d been doing, you said you didn’t know?” He looked at the Andromedan in a mix of anger and fear.

Suzee’s face wore the same expression; it was almost as though someone was going from person to person, painting their faces with similar feelings of distrust. “You were down here last night?” she asked in a slow, terrible tone of voice. “Doing what?”

Radu felt sick. This was like a bad dream. He hadn’t done anything . . . and yet, he couldn’t even seem to string the words together to tell the others what he had been doing in the command post the night before. “Uhh . . . I - I was - ”

From his vantage point - hovering lightly over the minds of the other crew members - the mysterious stranger had to restrain himself from breaking up into uncontrollable laughter. He’s playing right into my hands! he thought. Besides planting the initial suspicion in the mind of the human pilot, he had not been forced to interfere with him at all as of yet. And as for the Yensidian girl, she seemed to be forming suspicions entirely on her own . . . of course, the fact that he’d kept her up half the night with nightmares and horrifying visions could not have helped with her mood, he thought with a smile.

But as he considered the situation the way it stood at the moment, he realized that the truth could only be held in check so long by suspicions and the stammering tongue of a young outcast. I’d be best to nip that sentence he’s trying to string together before he’s able to actually get anywhere with it, he thought quickly. Within a few seconds, the few wisps of memory that served as the logical reason for the Andromedan’s mid-night visit to the command center had been plucked from his mind as neatly as one plucked the best feathers from a kaffit bird’s tail. And now for the more difficult problem . . . he said to himself. A concrete plan of action needed to be planted in the minds of the others - something that they would see as a selfish, fiendish plot to change the course of the ship. Abruptly, a brilliant idea occurred to him - and he knew just the one who would suggest it.

Bova suddenly broke into the conversation, looking as if he’d just solved the puzzle. “He had to have been the one to change the course,” he said flatly. “Everyone else was in bed - and think about it. What does he have waiting for him back home anyway?”

As the young Uranusian reminded the others, they could suddenly hear Radu’s voice loud and clear. He had told them once that back home, he was looked upon as a strange outsider, someone who didn’t really fit in anywhere. “I’m happier with you guys than I’ve ever been!” he’d said. “If I had my choice, I - I’d rather stay on the Christa forever than go back to the way things were at home.”

Rosie was still sitting at her station, and she watched with wide eyes as, one by one, the others’ expressions changed from fear to anger. Radu didn’t even try to defend himself . . . as a matter of fact, he seemed to just be sitting there, taking it. Rosie found herself hoping against hope that the commander would come back - he could give the others an order to leave Radu alone. But he didn’t come, and Rosie was forced to sit frozen at her station, peering through her fingers at the frightening scene unfolding before her. The three crewmates had formed a circle around Radu now, looking like a pack of wild dogs coming in for a kill. The tension in the room was extreme.

“You did it,” Harlan said suddenly, looking Radu square in the eye. “You know you did it. You changed the course because you were hoping it would never be discovered. You wanted us to spend the rest of our lives out here, away from our families, just so that you wouldn’t have to spend time alone.”

“I - I didn’t - ”

“You didn’t do it?” Suzee said in a voice of false belief. “Then why were you here last night?”

“I . . . uh . . . I . . . ” Radu’s terror suddenly increased as he realized that his alibi had vanished - it was as though he had been grasping at a dream that had faded away as the day went on. The portion of his brain that had held the memory of why he’d entered the command post that night was shrouded in a heavy mist - it was as though the thoughts he was looking for had never existed.

“You can’t even bring yourself to tell us,” Harlan said, sounding disgusted. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

“Yeah, admit it!”

“You know you did!”

As the volume of the accusations continued to rise, the young Andromedan stepped down from his post. He didn’t even try to hide the tears in his eyes as he made a blind rush out the command post door, leaving his tormentors behind.

Later that same afternoon, Radu sat alone in the lounge, trying to get his jumbled thoughts in order. What is going on around here? he wondered. It seemed as though the others hadn’t even tried to come up with another theory as to how the course had been changed. They just seemed to automatically assume that he had been the guilty party.

I didn’t do anything wrong! he said to himself, trying to think rationally. The task was a difficult one - it was hard to keep your thoughts straight when all the relationships that you had worked so long and hard at had suddenly tumbled down around you in the length of an afternoon.

Things had gotten worse as the day went on. Once he’d gotten control of himself after the disastrous command post incident, he had gone back down to the ComPost. But after Harlan had completely tuned out Radu’s instructions for about ten or fifteen minutes, Goddard had dismissed the team, utterly disgusted. His final words, spoken in a frighteningly calm tone, were “Mr. Band, you’re to stay here. I think that you and I need to have a little chat.”

Thinking that maybe he would have a better chance of getting through to Suzee and Bova if Harlan wasn’t around, Radu had tried to explain things to them. But they would walk away before he had a chance to say two words. Finally, in desperation, he’d come down to the lounge, deciding to try and sort out his problem within his own mind.

I know this looks bad, he thought. But if I’d done something as drastic as locking the ship on the wrong course, wouldn’t I remember doing it? That was the most terrible part of this whole catastrophe. Losing his crewmates’ trust was what had driven him to tears, a state that he very rarely reached. But what was even worse was the terrible gnawing feeling within his own mind - the feeling that came from the realization that he couldn’t remember why he’d been in the command post the night before.

He knew that he had been there, because he could remember meeting up with Harlan in the corridor on the way back. And he also knew that, at the time, he’d had a legitimate reason for going down to the command post in the first place. It was only when he’d been pressured to come up with a plausible excuse to explain his whereabouts that he’d realized something had gone wrong. Sometime between the confrontation he’d had with Harlan early that morning and the moment when the other crew members had been waiting for his alibi, the events of the previous night had somehow become a blur. It was as though his incentive had been part of a dream, an insignificant detail which had simply faded as the day went on. But - but I couldn’t just forget something like that! he told himself. I would have to remember doing something as terrible as changing the ship’s course. W-wouldn’t I?

Almost as though someone had been listening in on his speculations, a strange voice suddenly surfaced in his mind - not his own conflicting opinion, the one that had been eating away at him all afternoon, but an actual outside voice. Why would you choose to remember that? It said. You seem to have forgotten several other important events happening during the last few days. With that, Radu’s mind was suddenly filled with an eerie echo of his own voice - the promise that he’d made to Rosie a few days before. “I’ll - I’ll tell you what,” he was saying, trying to sound casual and failing entirely. “How about you and I spend our free time together tomorrow? We can do anything you want.” A smile was threatening to appear on the small Mercurian’s face, but she still didn’t look entirely convinced. “I mean it!” he’d said firmly. “After command post training tomorrow, your wish is my command.”

But did you keep your promise? the strange voice mocked. No. You didn’t.

“I - I forgot!” Radu said, beginning to panic. He’d become entangled in mind games before. They had been a favorite pastime of his roommate at Starcademy, who was under the impression that Andromedans’ intelligence was . . . below standard, to put it more politely than the young Saturnian had. But every time he’d played before, the one who was playing the game could always be screened out. Radu had never anticipated finding an alien voice coming from within his own head . . .

You forgot? the voice was saying now. If you can’t even remember a promise you made to your best friend, who’s to say what else might have slipped through the chinks in that mind of yours? Who’s to say you didn’t change the course?

And with that, the voice was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

It left him in a jumble of thoughts, not even sure that he could trust his own memory. I did forget about Rosie, didn’t I? he realized. But - but that was different! I mean, it wasn’t like I forgot about something important - it was just a game!

No, it was important, he corrected himself. He was determined not to get away with making excuses about this - even to himself. Maybe I didn’t think it was that big a deal, but it was important to her. The guilt that he felt now made him think that he almost deserved to be miserable. Because of his selfish attitude, Rosie had ended up miserable twice in as many days. If I could forget about her . . . could I really have changed the course and forgotten about it? No! No, I would never do something like that . . . would I?

“Radu?”

As the voice broke through his thoughts, the young Andromedan jumped up with a start and looked around nervously, trying to find a tangible, visible speaker. As he spotted Rosie standing in the lounge doorway, he let out a breath that he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.

“Are you okay?” she asked, sounding concerned. “I haven’t seen you all afternoon . . . is everything all right?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine. I just - just needed some time to think.”

“You know everything’s not fine,” Rosie said gently. “Now, come on. Talk to me.”

As though his friend’s kind words had loosened his tongue, Radu suddenly began to talk. “I don’t even know what’s going on,” he said. “I know that I didn’t change the course. But the others didn’t even bother to hear my side of the story.” Shaking his head, he paused for a moment to get his emotions back under control. “I mean, I don’t know what went wrong today! I thought I’d finally proven that Andromedans aren’t always up to something . . . that they shouldn’t assume I’m a bad guy just because our people haven’t always been on the best terms. But now - ” He sighed. “It seems like things just suddenly went back to the way they used to be . . . ”

The young Andromedan was still talking, but Rosie wasn’t listening anymore. The only thing she could hear was her own voice - making her wish, the night before. “I want things to be the way they used to be . . . ” As though someone had suddenly given her a good shake and cleared her mind of the fond memories that had filled it for the past few days, she abruptly found herself back in the Starcademy cafeteria. The images she was seeing had happened the same day as the scene that had clenched her decision to make the wish in the first place. As a matter of fact, the events unfolding before her eyes had occurred only a few moments before the other memory. But this time, the memories that had influenced her perception were no longer fogging it. This time, she saw things the way they’d really happened . . .

She had been sitting in the Starcademy cafeteria eating lunch with her roommate, Ariana. The room was filled with cadets on their midday break, chattering, laughing, and engaging in the good-natured teasing that inevitably occurs between friends. Suddenly, Rosie realized - in mid-sentence - that the room had fallen silent around her. She was the only one still speaking. Maybe Miss Davenport just walked in, she thought. Rosie was one of the few Starcademy students that didn’t abhor the assistant principal - most of the other cadets thought of her as far too prim for her own good, not to mention notoriously strict. If she had entered the room, that would certainly have nipped all conversation in the bud. But as the young Mercurian turned to face the doorway, she realized that she had been mistaken - well, partially mistaken.

The cause of the room’s sudden cessation of sound was standing uncertainly in the doorway - it was the Starcademy’s newest cadet, the one who had only started classes that morning. It was clear from his face that he wasn’t really sure which way to go, what to do, or even if he was in the right place. It must be awful to come in during the middle of a term, Rosie thought, looking at the new kid’s perplexed expression. The young Mercurian knew all too well how intimidating it was getting used to the fact that in Starcademy, it was common to go days without laying eyes on a member of your own race. Not many of her people had an interest in becoming STARDOGS. But this newcomer had it much worse than Rosie ever had. Not only was he the first of his race to attend Starcademy, but his race was the Andromedans. The ones who had fought fiercely against the parents of many Starcademy students in the Spung-Andromedan war. The ones who had ensured that many of those parents never made it home.

True, there was peace between the races now. As a matter of fact, that was - indirectly - why this strange new cadet had been sent to Starcademy in the first place. His acceptance into the school was supposed to commemorate ten years of peace between the governments. But even if the events surrounding the new cadet’s entry hadn’t been splashed all over the telebroadcasts for the last few days, the young Andromedan would have had to be blind and deaf not to know about the mixed feelings that had accompanied his arrival.

When the planetary heads had first made the announcement in a special telebroadcast, people had been threatening to pull their children from the Academy. Some students had quit of their own volition - and others had threatened to. But Rosie didn’t see what all the fuss was about - they had been at peace for years! In her opinion, the new kid should at least be given a chance.

He was still standing uncertainly in the doorway, looking out at a sea of strange faces. Rosie felt a wave of outrage wash over her as she realized that most of the expressions greeting him were menacing ones. What a welcome! she thought angrily. Her outrage increased as she realized that he had probably been subjected to similar “welcomes” all morning long.

Abruptly, Rosie realized that the young Andromedan had apparently decided not to hover in the doorway any longer. With the expression of a prisoner walking to the firing range, he stepped cautiously into the room and settled at the table nearest the door.

Rosie watched curiously to see what would happen next - but she felt anger beginning to boil within her as every single person who had previously been content eating at that particular table stood, picked up their meal, and moved to another place. One of the students, a human boy that was in a few of Rosie’s classes, was muttering under his breath as he walked off - and although Rosie couldn’t hear what he said, she could tell from the look on the new kid’s face that it most definitely was not flattering.

“That’s awful,” she muttered, ignoring the strange look she was receiving from across the table. The others couldn’t even bring themselves to sit at the same table as him! “Well,” she said suddenly, “if nobody else is decent enough to give him some company, well, then - then I’ll do it.” With that, she lifted her lunch tray and hurried over to where the young Andromedan was sitting . . .

As Rosie felt a horrible sinking feeling developing in her stomach, she realized that she’d neglected to consider one thing when she’d made the wish. I wanted him to be my best friend again, she thought. But the only time that he was really my best friend was when he didn’t have anyone else to be friends with. When he was an outcast.

As she mentally compared the other students’ actions to the way her fellow crew members had been acting earlier that afternoon, she realized that Radu was right. Things were quickly sliding back to the way they used to be. Radu was on the verge of becoming the outsider again, friendless and alone. I need to fix things before it’s too late! she realized. “Uh . . . I’ve gotta go,” she said quickly, halfway to the tubes even before she’d finished the sentence.

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