Orb Read Free

exception, the one permanent attachment I previously alluded to. Her presence warrants an explanation.
    Flash back four months. I was standing in front of the Crew Selection Committee with an unusual petition: Allow Angie to become the expedition’s seventh. I had belatedly come to the realization that abandoning her on Earth was not an acceptable option. If need be, I would relinquish my seat on the
Desio
and a trained alternate would eagerly take my place.
    And so I emphasized my companion’s extraordinary attributes. There was no need for hyperbole. She was, after all, exceptionally bright, disciplined, well-trained, healthy and personable.
    Unfortunately, there were more practical concerns which made Angie’s inclusion a virtual impossibility. She represented excess mission weight. Oxygen and waste-processing requirements would have to be recalculated. There was the matter of her special dietary needs. And, as one committee member stated with a fair attempt at humor, “the ship already has, in Dr. Bertrand, a French crew member.”
    The committee was resolute, but for some reason agreed to defer their final decision. I remember one crewmate, Diana Gilmore, advising me not to give up hope.
    She was prescient. Two days later, the committee relented. How could they not? Angie is a damn cute pooch, miniature poodle by breed, seven kilograms, black coat, a medium shaggy kennel clip, bright, clear eyes, and a sweet disposition. The crew, almost without exception, was delighted, welcoming her with open arms. In no time at all she became our little mascot.
    If there was an onboard routine that Thompson enforced it was for the crew to convene the same exact time every morning. Considering herself an essential part of the crew, Angie rose, stretched, and leaped off my bed to follow me into the mission compartment. As she and I entered, Thompson greeted me with his usual friendly sarcasm.
    “That dog follows you pretty much everywhere.”
    “Can you blame her?”
    “Her ears are slightly asymmetrical; her tail was docked too long.”
    “Perhaps she wouldn’t win best in show.”
    “Coincidentally, Kyle, neither would you.”
    “You and she have something in common,” I said, “You both don’t shed.”
    I was trying to redirect the spotlight onto Thompson’s shiny shaved head. Like housepaint, the sheen could vary from matte to satin to gloss, depending on lighting and the closeness of shave. Today it was semigloss. Highlighting that feature had become my sworn duty, but it was by choice that Thompson kept his head shaved: He couldn’t be bothered having a head of hair. A smooth head was simpler. Washing, combing, vanity, all neatly dispensed with. After three months, though, I was running out of bald jokes. Thompson’s other features were relatively immune to criticism. As on most occasions, he got in the last word.
    “Sit! Stay!” he barked, commanding me to an empty chair. “We’re about to begin.”
    While I obeyed, Angie went sniffing about the floor searching for breakfast crumbs.
    Seated at the conference table, consuming what passed for breakfast, were Commander Bruce Thompson, Ph.D., Geology, Engineering; Kelly Takara, M.D.; Diana Gilmore, Ph.D., Marine Biology, M.S., Astrobiology; and Paul Bertrand, Ph.D., Climatology.
    The final member of the crew, Larry Melhaus, Ph.D., Physics, Mathematics, M.S., Chemistry, was, as usual, in his cabin, almost certainly in the throes of solving an advanced problem in mathematics or particle physics. A moment later he strode in, grabbed some coffee, and without uttering a word, sat at the far end of the long table.
    Thompson couldn’t let it pass. “Good of you to join us.”
    “Yes,” Melhaus said without a trace of sarcasm. During the last three months we had all learned he was several orders of magnitude more proficient at solving equations then he was at interrelating with people.
    “With your permission, Bruce, I’ll start,” said Paul.
    Thompson