Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [31]
A moment later, a voice came over the com system, though it didn’t belong to Mayweather. “Corporal Chang here, Sub-Commander. Mayweather is not here in our quarters right now. I’m not quite certain where he is.”
T’Pol raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, Corporal.” She toggled the comm off and turned to Crewman Baird at the communications console. “Crewman Baird, please locate Ensign Mayweather.”
Baird’s fingers tapped at his console, and he concentrated for a moment. “Ensign Mayweather is in Commander Tucker’s berth, sir.”
Curious, T’Pol thought. She adjusted the com controls again. “Sub-Commander T’Pol to Ensign Mayweather.”
This time, after a few moments, she heard Travis’s familiar voice, though he sounded tired. “Mayweather here.”
“Ensign, please report to the command center.”
“I’ll be right there, Sub-Commander.”
Curiosity flitted briefly through T’Pol’s head yet again. Why was Ensign Mayweather sleeping in Trip’s quarters?
“Charles Anthony Tucker, you march back in here!”
Trip cursed under his breath. He had almost made it out of the house without getting caught.
“What, Mom?”
Elaine Tucker stepped out from the kitchen area, her hands planted firmly on her hips. “Don’t you ‘What, Mom?’ me. You know you’re supposed to be taking care of your sister today. I have to take your father in for physical therapy.”
“But Lizzie’s old enough to keep herself entertained.”
His mother looked exasperated. “She’s eight. Honestly, Charles.” She paused, glaring at him, her expression turning dark. “Sometimes I think you don’t really care about her, or about anybody in our family. Sometimes I think you don’t want any of us around.”
Trip was stunned. “What?”
“Don’t act so innocent,” his mother said, waggling her index finger at him. “I know you’d rather go to the movies without her. But not today. I’m having a hard enough time without having to hear her wail like a banshee just because you abandoned her.”
“I didn’t abandon her, Mom. I just wanted to go to the theater alone,” Trip said. His little sister came around the corner, looking forlorn, her brown eyes large and pleading.
His mother walked past him, talking as she went. “Just deal with your responsibilities, Charles. How do you expect to make it through engineering school or astronaut training if you can’t even handle your baby sister?”
Trip looked back at Elizabeth, to tell her to get ready, but she was gone, as was the back half of the house. In its place was a huge, smoking chasm. He could smell the air now, choking him, full of char and sulfur and ozone. Coughing, he called out. “Lizzie?”
“I’m right here,” she said, from behind him. “What’s wrong?”
He turned to look, and saw that they were both already standing in line at the old revival movie house. Elizabeth was in her favorite red jacket, the one decorated with lion cubs, and her long hair was braided on either side of her face.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, not knowing how they’d gotten there, or even what film they were about to see. “I just lost sight of you for a moment.”
“Well, I’m right behind you, dummy,” she said, speaking in a singsong cadence. Suddenly, they were sitting side by side inside the theater, Lizzie’s gangly body almost lost in the plush, retro upholstery. “It’s not like when I grow up and you go off into space and leave me to be exterminated by those aliens.”
He turned in his seat and faced her as the lights went down and the movie started. “Lizzie, what made you say that?”
An angry man sitting in the row in front of them leaned over the back of his seat, putting a finger to his lips. “Shhhhhhhhh! Some of us are trying to watch the movie.”
“Sorry,” Trip said, hunkering down in embarrassment as the movie progressed. It was an action film of comparatively recent vintage, made during the brief 2-D revival of the 2120s.
“I don’t like this movie,” Elizabeth whispered some time later, speaking around mouthfuls from the bucket of popcorn she kept braced between her bony knees. “There are too many people getting hurt. It scares