One shift, I found myself in the aeroponics section along with Simon, the slight young man we had both noticed keeping himself apart from the rest in the mess hall the first time we had eaten aboard ship. I had noticed that he cast longing glances at both of us when we ate, but not in the same way as the others, and he had never tried to approach either of us as the others had. There had been no time for anything but the business of running the ship since we first broke orbit, but as we shuffled around each other, checking pumps and sprayers, pruning plants to ensure maximal growth patterns and yields, I noticed him glancing at me sideways when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Chapter 11

Sean

The Heyerdahl boosted out of Earth orbit 24 hours after we boarded, bound for the belt with a cargo of refinery components. Kennecot Geophysical was building a refinery to process the ores gleaned from asteroids for shipment to Earth and our shipment was required to keep the project on schedule. The manufacturer had delivered the components almost a month late and we had to boost hard to make it in time.

Even with compensation from the ship’s artificial gravity, we were experiencing 1.5 gravities onboard for the first pat of the journey outbound. I think Charlie was least affected by it as she had less mass to haul around compared to the rest of us. Poor Leif was worst hit. I can’t say how it felt for anyone else, but for me, it made every step just a little more effort and we all pretty much dragged ass the whole way.

Charlie and I did our best to get to know the crew, to do what we were supposed to do, be their lovers, confidants, all of that, but it was made almost impossible by the fact of ever present exhaustion. There really wasn’t time to do much more than our duties on shift and collapse into our bunks after, exhausted. That’s not to say that there wasn’t a bit of sexual relief going on, but it was so hard to do that and keep up with our duties as regular crewmembers that that end of things suffered. Most nights, Charlie and I simply snuggled into our bed and fell asleep, tired beyond belief. We both knew that the crew was doing the same, working themselves to exhaustion and sleeping until it was time for the next shift.

Captain Thorssen seemed to be almost invulnerable to the stress of the thing. He spent all sorts of hours on the bridge or prowling through the engineering spaces of the ship, looking over everyone’s shoulders and making them nervous. In our few spare moments alone, Charlie and I speculated about him, wondering just how long he could remain this way before he broke. The evidence of his pain hung about him like a shroud.

One shift, I found myself in the aeroponics section along with Simon, the slight young man we had both noticed keeping himself apart from the rest in the mess hall the first time we had eaten aboard ship. I had noticed that he cast longing glances at both of us when we ate, but not in the same way as the others, and he had never tried to approach either of us as the others had. There had been no time for anything but the business of running the ship since we first broke orbit, but as we shuffled around each other, checking pumps and sprayers, pruning plants to ensure maximal growth patterns and yields, I noticed him glancing at me sideways when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Suddenly, it came to me, the answer to his dilemma. I tried to keep from speaking, but this was too important. “Simon, you want to be like me, don’t you?”

He literally bolted from the aeroponics bay, running at full tilt down the passage leading to crew’s quarters. I knew his bunkmate was crashed out in his cabin at that moment, so I pursued. “Simon, come back here and talk to me! It’s ok, I won’t tell anybody!” I caught him and tried to grab his arm, tried to turn him around to talk to me, but he was so strong he simply whipped his arm out of my grasp and continued fleeing, straight into the immovable bulk of an enormous and clearly exhausted Leif.

He bounced, literally, landing with a muttered oath on his butt. I skidded to a halt just short of him and tried to grab hold. He shook my grip off and tried to proceed past a now awake and immobile giant. “Boy, it looks like the lady wants to talk with you, and I wouldn’t argue with her if I was you.” His deep rumbling voice seemed to just sort of reset everything. He turned back towards me and just gave a little shrug, effortlessly placing Simon’s hand in my own.

“Thanks Leif, now go to bed before you fall down. See you at breakfast, ok?” He replied with that amiable grin of his and ambled off in the direction of his cabin.

I had hold of Simon now, and I wasn’t going to let him go until I had an answer. He seemed to have given up in his desire to flee so it was with minimal effort that I dragged him back into the aeroponics bay. I made certain the hatches were secured before I turned to him finally, finding him seemingly engrossed in an examination of nutrient flow rates.

“Simon, I was right, wasn’t I?” He started, jolted from the reverie he had fallen into. “Simon, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” I moved over to his side. “I was once the same as you, you know.”

“That’s just not possible!” He was agitated again, fussing with the controls, making impossibly minute adjustments to flow rates on the sprayers. “Look at you, and look at me, nothing could ever make that kind of difference! I’m just a fucking freak!” I could see the beginnings of a thunderstorm of tears beginning to pour from the corners of his eyes. He seemed almost to shrink in on himself as the storm finally burst and he folded into a ball on the floor, weeping inconsolably.

I held him for a long time while he wept on me, rocking him back and forth in my arms, stroking his hair, trying to soothe him as the tears that he had held back for so long poured forth. I found myself crooning an old song to him, only half conscious of what I was saying through the veil of my own tears.

“Hush, little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's going to buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird don't sing,
Mama's going to buy you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's going to buy you a looking glass.
And if that looking glass gets broke,
Mama's going to buy you a billy goat.
And if that billy goat won't pull,
Mama's going to buy you a cart and bull.
And if that cart and bull turn over,
Mama's going to buy you a dog named Rover.
And if that dog named Rover won't bark,
Mama's going to buy you a horse and cart.
And if that horse and cart fall down,
You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town.”

I just held him and rocked him in my arms for a while until he had cried himself out. “Simon, listen to me. I spent 60 years in the same hell as you, and mama Yotori helped me sort it out. You can be who you want to be. No promises, but I can put in a recommendation for you.”

“There’s no way you were ever like me, no way you can ever understand.” He almost spat the words. “I’ve seen sex changes with surgery and hormones, there’s no way you were ever one of those. And you try to tell me you are 60 plus years old! You’re not a day over 25! No way in hell!”

“Simon, I’m 63 years old. I spent the first 60 years of my life as a male and never wanted to be anything other than a woman. I hated myself, damn near killed myself a few times. The only thing that saved me was love, and even that came with complications. You see, I was a boy, and I fell in love with an older man. No matter how much I loved him, he could not accept me as a female, and I gotta tell you, I didn’t look the part either. I gave up that part of myself for him for 43 years. It was hard for me, harder than you can imagine, but at least the man I loved acknowledged his love for me, even though he was sorta stuck in the mud.”

He seemed to relax a little, looking up at me with red eyes. “You really mean I could be like you, a real girl and everything?” There was a slowly dawning look of wonder on his face.

“There’s a chance, a pretty good chance.” I wiped the tears from his face. “You’d be a caregiver, just like me and Charlie. I can’t guarantee you’d be accepted, but recommendations from 2 caregivers and the fact that you already hold all of your spacer certs makes you pretty much an ideal candidate.”

He looked confused for a moment. “You said two recommendations? How?”

I sat him down facing me and took both my hands in mine. “Well, remember I told you I was in love with a man for 43 years?” He nodded. “Well, it’s not like he went anywhere, we’re still together. We share the same bed when one of us isn’t sharing somebody else’s.”

It took him a second to figure it out. “You mean Charlie was a guy too?”

“Yep, for almost 80 years, but he wasn’t like me and you, he never really wanted to be a woman. I will say she makes a pretty damn good one though, and she really seems to enjoy it.” I pulled him back to his feet. “Now come on, these plants won’t take care of themselves. We’ll talk more after this shift, ok?” He just nodded and we spent several more hours tending greenery in a companionable silence, broken by the occasional happy humming coming from him.

The Heyerdahl continued straining its way toward the belt, the crew working themselves to exhaustion, but one source of that tension the two women had felt that first day aboard had eased. Simon seemed to relax and interact more with his crewmates, even engaging in some light banter with the others where before he had been almost totally withdrawn. The other major source of tension was still stalking the ship like some kind of wraith. The captain was to be found at all hours, anywhere in the ship but his cabin and it was plainly making the crew uncomfortable.

Charlie and Sean debated what to do about it, not really coming to any sort of obvious conclusion. In the end, it was Charlie who took action, in the most direct possible way.

Captain Thorssen had just gotten off his duty shift on the bridge and was headed to his cabin for a quick shower before dinner. He stepped into his shower cubicle and was busily washing himself down when suddenly he felt hands other than his own lathering up his nether regions. This sensation was quickly followed by the unmistakable feeling of a very feminine and very petite body rubbing up against him. His eyes, closed against the soap, snapped open to behold Charlie holding him and rubbing her breasts up against his torso.

Gunnar found himself torn between a desire to eject this vision of blonde beauty from his shower and another, equally strong desire to embrace her and give in to what she so obviously wanted. The soap in his eyes made the decision for him as he leaned toward the shower head to rinse the stinging stuff out of his eyes and she took the opportunity to slide down him and engulf him in her mouth.

They missed dinner, and breakfast.