Twenty Five Pairs

Twenty-Five Pairs by T.S. Severe

Chapter Seventeen Merritt Island, Florida 2025 - 2026

"This is it, huh." Josh frowned. "Our last night."

"No." I shook my head and we were sitting on the beach, on the sand feeling the warm Gulf wind on our faces. "I'll be back."

"I saw a guy on the television a couple months ago." Josh cleared his throat. "Trying to explain how it's gonna work."

"What? The spaceship, you mean?" I leaned into him, letting him hold me as the sun settled into the water. We'd driven all the way across Florida, just so we could watch the sun go down one more time. So the day would be a few seconds longer.

"Yeah." He chuckled. "I didn't understand none of it, except you're gonna be gone for five years, maybe more."

"It's only going to be a few months for me." I said. "It's relativity. Time goes slower the faster you go."

"Yeah, that's what the fella said." Josh nodded. "You're gonna be twenty-eight still and I'll be old."

"Twenty-nine by then." I smiled. "And you won't be old."

"I'll be forty anyway." Josh said. "Back in Harden, when I saw you that first time? I wanted to be eighteen forever."

"You look the same to me." I said, turning my face up. "I swear, Josh. I'm going to love you forever."

"When you get back." He told me. "I'm not gonna let you go anymore. You know that, right?"

"Yeah." I said, pulling his hand to my face and kissing it. "I don't want you to let me go. I'm going to work at home, like we talked about."

"Like your mom did." Josh nodded.

"And we're going to have a baby, Josh." I laughed lightly. "I already started working on it. Our baby."

"What?" He smiled. "How?"

"You let me worry about the how." I sighed happily. "You just think about what you want. Boy or girl, brown hair, blonde..."

"Blue eyes?"

"Or brown." I nodded. "All we need is a surrogate mother to carry it, but it won't have any part that isn't me and you. I promise you that."

"You need an egg though..."

"Just the shell." I giggled. "I can put whatever I want inside it."

"Hmmm..."

"What?" I smiled at him. "What's wrong?"

"I kinda like surprises." He laughed softly.

"I can do that too." I sighed. "Just watch me."

"I love you, Jen."

"I love you too." I said. "And when I get back..."

"Yes?"

"Doctor Jennifer Sinclair." I grinned. "Don't forget, I want a proper church wedding like I promised March."

"I'm not gonna forget that." Josh sighed and then he was kissing me.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"What's this?" I looked at the small package and Rio shrugged. We were just a week into quarantine.

"I don't know." She said and Rio was in isolation too. "It came by courier this morning."

I'd told the girl I didn't really need her, but Rio wanted to stay close and I didn't mind the company. She was sharing my apartments in the crew's quarters and that had been good for some juicy gossip, but only a little. Most of the scientists had kept their assistants, but only because we did have a lot to do before leaving and we weren't used to any of it, really. Like who would be?

"Huh." It didn't have a name on it except mine and I opened the brown paper carefully, but it had already been screened by security anyway.

"A book?" Rio smiled.

"The Wonders of the Invisible World." I blinked at it. "An original edition."

"What's that?" Rio looked over my shoulder.

"Where'd you go to school?" I laughed. "It's written by Reverend Cotton Mather, about the work of devils and witchcraft in Salem."

"Reverend Cotton Mather, huh?" Rio shook her head. "Never heard of him."

"There's a note." Just inside the front cover was a letter and I opened it.

The book was from Mr. Fox's lawyers, part of his estate it seemed, and the old man had left it to me in his will, on condition that I take it into space with me. They'd held it until I was in quarantine. That made me smile. I was already in trouble for bringing my teddy bear and Ron's snow globe, but I guess a book wouldn't hurt, and I liked to argue with the NASA geeks anyway. A scientific study of witchcraft by an early proponent of smallpox vaccination, that was fitting, and like everything else about Mr. Fox, it only left me with more questions than answers.

"And before I forget..." Rio was handing me the latest issue of Time magazine.

"Huh?" I laughed as she handed me a pen, looking at my face on the cover and feeling vaguely embarrassed.

"To Rio, with fond wishes...Or something." The girl actually blushed.

"For Rio, My Best Friend and Guardian Angel, with All of My Love. Jennifer Pinchbeck..." I said as I wrote. "How's that?"

"It's great." Rio beamed. "Thanks."

"Where are you going after this?" I asked her, looking very carefully through my book, which was over three hundred years old and in frightfully wonderful condition.

"Um...Paris." Rio smiled. "And then...I don't know. I have some offers. Some public relations stuff out in California maybe."

"Well, if you need a reference..." I grinned.

"And if you need a personal assistant when you get back, find me. Okay? Seriously." Rio said. "It's going to be a circus. Interviews, speeches, they'll name schools after you..."

"Hmmm..." I thought about that, and then I thought about Josh and me and who we'd trust to carry our baby, and then I thought about...

"What?" Rio smiled nervously under my clear blue gaze.

"I'll give you a job, right after you see Paris." I nodded. "Have you ever been to Utah?"

"Utah?" Rio gave me a little smile. "No...Why?"

"How'd you like to baby sit my fiancé until I get back?" I asked her. "I need someone I can trust to keep him out of trouble."

"Uh..." Rio blinked at me. "We had sex."

"I know. We had a lot of sex, all three of us. I was there, remember?" I laughed at her. "So I won't mind if you have more sex."

"Oh." Rio blinked at me, her skin like a dusky rose as she thought about the many times Josh and I had invited her into our bed over the last few weeks.

"It's up to you, but if you want...Get Josh on the phone, I'll talk to him right now." I said. "I can pay you. Um, how much do you make, anyway?"

"You're setting us up, aren't you?" Rio sucked her top lip.

"What?" I rolled my eyes. "I just..."

"In case you don't come back." She said softly.

"I'll be back." I said, but I should have guessed she'd see through me.

Rio had been my shadow for a year, privy to all my secrets, and I knew she'd been working for Mr. Fox. Rio had been his little bird, but no more. We were free of him, the both of us now.

"Right." She nodded and we just looked at each other for a minute.

"We both love you, Jen." Rio swallowed hard. "I'll...Yeah, I'll get Josh on the phone for you."

"Good." I agreed and I was happy.

I knew she liked Josh a lot, and he liked Rio. They'd gotten along wonderfully together and I loved the both of them. It was perfect and even if the worst things happened; if I came back to find them married with kids, or if I didn't come back at all, I'd at least know they were happy. That was more important to me than anything. And they'd wait, the both of them, that was the best part. People like Josh and Rio, you could trust them with more than just your life. You could trust them with your heart.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"Hey, busy?" Major Fuller tapped the table I was sitting at, downstairs in one of the empty conference rooms.

"Hi, Allen." I smiled and stretched a little. "Just writing some, uh..." I looked at a paper in front of me, "...Third graders. They sent me a good luck card."

"Yeah, I spent a couple hours last night answering mail." Allen grinned. "Some kids in Des Moines named a piglet after me."

"Heh. So, what's up?" I asked, leaning back in my chair.

"I, uh, I heard something this morning, um...Something concerning you." Allen said and he looked a little nervous, which wasn't like the good Major at all.

"And?" I tilted my head.

"The stuff for your lab, some bio stuff..." He frowned and finally sat down. "...Look, I'll just say it. I heard you were bringing some diseases, or viruses or something."

"Who'd you hear that from?" I asked him softly.

"I just...Heard it, okay?"

"Yeah, we are." I nodded. "Nobody needs to know about it."

"You're the doctor, right? Okay, so you know what you're doing, but we have to know." Allen was looking into my eyes. "Me and the other drivers, it's our mission too. We have a right to know."

"Did you bring it up with the Flight Director?" I asked, knowing he hadn't.

"Flight?" Allen shook his head. "This is us, Jen. We're the crew, okay? He's not going up."

"We're carrying some samples, yeah." I nodded. "I'm going to be doing some tests, that's all."

"There's no test you can do on Challenger, that they can't do on ISS." Allen said and we both knew he was right. "You want to tell me the real reason?"

"No." I said. "I don't."

"What?" He smiled and blinked at me, not expecting that answer.

"I can't." I sighed. "Okay? Once we finish our survey of Pelham, before we enter hyperspace for the trip home, all the samples will be destroyed. I promise you that much."

"I don't understand." He narrowed his eyes. "You're bringing biological samples twenty-three light years away...To destroy them?"

"You could say that." I cleared my throat.

"Oh." Allen sat back nodding his head slowly, trying to reason it out and he'd get there.

"Just forget about it, okay?" I told him. "Once we're out of here and on our way, I'll be able to brief everyone."

"Nielson's in on this?" Allen asked and I nodded.

"He's aware of it."

"Okay." The Major smacked his lips and shrugged, but he wasn't happy. "It's your lab, Jen."

"Yeah, it's my lab." I agreed.

Major Fuller stood up and left without another word and I watched him, frowning to myself. Someone had let it slip and that was bad news, maybe. Most people, the general public, would believe we were carrying innocuous biological material for testing. NASA had been doing it for years, the Russians too, and it wasn't very far-fetched. Some people would know better though, like Allen and the rest of the crew, and they did have a right to know some of it. But not until we were on our way. This was too soon.

"Did Major Fuller talk to you yet?" I asked Nielson, bringing him to my apartment. Rio knew the look on my face and left to give us some privacy. I wasn't going to enjoy this very much.

"Allen?" The surgeon shook his head. "Not today, why?"

"He will." I gestured to a chair. "I need to brief you on something."

"Oh, this sounds good." Arthur sighed.

"We're bringing several hot samples of viral material." I said. "It's in containment right now, in the lab. It's what I've been working on and before we launch it'll be loaded onto Icarus."

"What material exactly." Nielson stared at me.

"Right now it's just some A-Strain Influenza and smallpox." I said. "We're going to modify those, uh...significantly, to better suit our purposes."

"What purposes?" He swallowed hard and I shrugged. "Why?"

"We're going to an alien planet and we have two nine millimeter pistols and a flare gun." I said. "What if they're not friendly?"

"Jennifer..." He smiled. "You can't be serious."

"It wasn't up to me." I said. "But I am serious. In the event that we contact an alien species, an intelligent species, which may pose significant threat to Earth..."

"You're going to attack them with the deadliest organisms we have?" Nielson stood up quickly. "That's insane!"

"It's all we have." I shrugged. "Before releasing the virus, we'll have to make every attempt to get DNA from the...Aliens. Some genetic material to assess vulnerability. I'll be able to do some additional, but limited modification to the virus, if we need to."

"We're not going halfway across the damn galaxy to declare war on another planet." Nielson walked around my living room. "You don't even know if it would work. They aren't going to be human, whatever we find."

"No, but they will be carbon based organisms. They will share certain similarities and so they may be susceptible." I said. "And, Arthur, the reality is that there won't be anyone there. You know it and I know it. We'll find some bacteria probably, that's all."

"This is the craziest goddamn thing I ever heard of." Nielson shook his head. "Why didn't you say no? You're supposed to be the xenobiologist. Are you going to kill your first discovery?"

"I'm not going to kill anything." I blinked at him. "Whoever got this job had to accept all of it. This part as well. We don't have any big nuclear bombs. No death rays. The most efficient weapon we have at our disposal is a virus."

"Okay, so say we run into a planet full of Nazi's..." Nielson licked his lips. "...Who decides if we're going to use this virus? You?"

"I brief the command crew twenty-four hours before we come out of hyperspace." I said. "It's a military decision. I don't want it."

"Oh, and so you're not going to be responsible? Just following orders?" Nielson sighed. "You're the expert, Doctor. You'll be making the decision and you know it."

"I'll brief everyone and we'll put it to a vote then." I said. "I didn't ask for this, okay?"

"This is just great." Nielson sat down again. "Whose brilliant idea was this?"

"I don't know." I shrugged. "Probably...It doesn't matter, we don't have a choice. It's Executive Order 26-0116 and the President signed it."

"Too much fucking Hollywood." The man looked at me. "You know what, Jen? I don't care if they're Nazi's. I'm not going to unleash Ebola on a defenseless planet."

"I understand." I licked my lips. "But it doesn't change the fact that we have no idea what we'll find."

"What's the delivery system?" Nielson asked and I didn't say anything for a moment and he jerked upright suddenly. "You can't be serious..."

"We're the primary delivery system, failing any other feasible method." I said. "I...I'll deliver it, if it comes to that. I've already decided."

We were quiet and this wasn't what we wanted. No sane person would.

"There's not going to be anyone there." Nielson finally said and it was a prayer, but in all likelihood an accurate one.

"I know." I agreed. "The chances of finding an intelligent species are one in a billion, Arthur. This is just insurance and as soon as we determine we don't need it, we'll destroy the virus. Okay?"

"Together."

"Yeah." I nodded. "We're not bringing it back with us. It's one of a kind, it exists no place except here, and we're taking it away. Feel good about that. I know do."

"Feel good?" Nielson took a deep breath. "Christ."

"I didn't want this." I told him. "I argued against it, believe me. What I've done...What I might have to do...It's unbearable."

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"So, what am I looking at here?" Nielson asked and we'd just started.

I wanted to spend as much of the remaining 75 days as possible in the lab, and in fact I needed to. I had to duplicate my work from over five years previously, largely from memory, and combine smallpox and influenza, the two greatest killers the world had ever known, into a single living, breathing monster.

If there's such a thing as sin, this was it.

The lab was clean, the samples we were looking at were safely contained, and a thin slice was under one of the powerful electron microscopes. We wore scrubs and masks, but there was no need for full suits, thank God. It made this part of the work a lot easier and we were doing most of it on computers anyway, as I reconstructed the data I'd destroyed.

"We're going to work with the influenza cytoplasm first, so we're looking at the euchromatin and what we want is to unravel it and find the nucleosome."

"Uhhh..." Nielson was trying to keep up, but it had been awhile since his probably one and only class on cellular histology.

"At this point, we're looking for an octomer of proteins, histones, okay? We're going to modify those first and there's four types..."

"So we're going to do what? Gene splicing here?" Nielson asked.

"That's a crude phrase." I chuckled. "No, we'll leave that to the amateurs, Arthur. This is about ten years in the future..."

"I don't understand." He smiled with genuine curiosity.

"Nobody does." I sighed. "Nobody but me...And I never kiss and tell."

"But, if what you're saying is..."

"Excuse, me, uh, Doctor Pinchbeck?" Rio's voice came over the intercom and we looked up to see her on the other side of the window.

There was an intercom at the lab station we were sitting at and I flipped the switch.

"Yeah, Rio. What's up?" I asked.

"I have a telegram for you." She said, holding up a piece of yellowish paper and I narrowed my eyes at it. "I think you might want to come out and look at it."

"What's it say?" I asked.

"It's...Personal." She actually giggled and I looked at Arthur and he shrugged.

"Plug your ears, Arthur." I smiled at the older man. "Go ahead and read it to me, we're kind of in the middle of something here."

"Uh...Okay." Rio cleared her throat. "From the Swedish Academy of Sciences to Jennifer Heerlen Pinchbeck, MD, PHD. Doctor Pinchbeck it is with great pleasure we announce your selection as co-recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine for your work on immunology, specifically your significant discoveries and subsequent application of asynthistic immunological memory in cell mediated immune response systems..."

"Huh." I blinked at Rio. "That was four years ago."

"Ummm...This award is presented as well to Juergen Kessler, MD, PHD, for his application of your research in clonal expansion and immunological tolerance in the treatment of such diseases as Multiple Sclerosis and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis..."

"Jen..." Nielson was smiling at me.

"There's more, let's see..." Rio was grinning. "...You are cordially invited to come to Stockholm Sweden where your prize be awarded by his majesty, the king of Sweden, on the evening of 10 December 2025. Uh...RSVP...Of course."

"Thanks Rio." I was shaking all over. "I think...I'll...I'm gonna go sit down for awhile."

"Better frame that telegram." Arthur smiled.

"What do you want to tell them?" Rio asked me.

"Tell them, um, I'd love to come but...Uh..." I narrowed my eyes. "...I'm a little busy."

"I think you're supposed to give a lecture, Jen." Arthur chuckled and then he was hugging me and I laughed.

"I gotta call Kessler!" I rolled my eyes. "God! I gotta call Josh!"

"You need a press release." Rio said, mostly to herself I think, and she lived for this stuff. "An acceptance speech too, even if you can't go to Sweden. Maybe we can videolink you. Shoot, there's going to be some requests for interviews...This is hitting the press tomorrow? They're giving you a day to get your life together, nice of them. I need to call some people, Jen..."

"Just do what you gotta do, Rio." I laughed.

"A Nobel laureate," Arthur hugged me again. "Jesus, you scare me, Jen."

"Me too." I swallowed hard. "Let's get this put away, and...Yeah."

I wasn't gonna stop smiling for a week.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"...Icarus will liftoff at 0622 on January 28, 2026 and you'll dock with the International Space Station approximately forty minutes later...

"I never liked that name." Brittany frowned at me.

"Why?" I whispered back, not wanting to interrupt the NASA drone's briefing.

"Guy had his wings melted off." She made a face. "Who'd name a spaceship after him?"

"Good point." I nodded.

"...You'll spend seventy two hours aboard ISS before transfer to the Challenger and then forty eight hours of system checks before beginning the transit to Point X-Ray for FTL launch..."

"And they named our ship after a disaster?" Brittany sighed and I thought she was getting nervous.

We all were. It was Saturday, January second, and we were just a little over three weeks away. We'd spent Christmas and New Years Eve closeted away with those few dozens of people actually allowed to come into contact with us. At least we' been able to get drunk and now the day after New Years, some of us were still paying for it. No more alcohol though, it was off limits, along with just about anything else that sounded like fun. I couldn't even get real bacon on my cheeseburger anymore.

"...upon arrival at Point X-Ray, the FTL Drive Units will be brought online and staged." The geek smiled at us. "After that..."

"Lights out." Major Allen chuckled.

That had become the popular phrase, since most of the theoretical guys thought it would be pretty dark in hyper-space, which wasn't anything but a popular science fiction term. It was really just another dimension and I was good with physics, but not that good, and I'd given up trying to understand it. Folding space, compressing time, moving without moving or some such...All I knew was that it was going to take us about thirty days to get were we were going, ten days there, and thirty days back. While in transit, time would be passing much faster here on Earth though, and again, nobody could say for sure how fast.

I didn't like that answer very much.

"...You'll engage the FTL Drive for transit to the Pelham System, a G Class star twenty three light years away..."

They'd picked that one because it was close, it was very much like our sun in age and composition, and it had at least three planets. Two gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn, and one that was potentially Earth-like, although it was only detectable by the wobble in the orbits of the other planets. The mass was right, the distance from the star was good, and a lot of people were excited about it, including me.

Still, life or no, the whole purpose of this, as much as anything, was just to do it. Like the first explorers sailing out of sight of land. We weren't really supposed to find anything, but it sure would be nice if we did. Maybe, I reminded myself, and that made me frown.

"...You'll emerge from hyperspace via point Yankee, transit to Earth orbit and transfer back to ISS for seventy two hours observation. You'll then return to Earth via Icarus, which will remain prepped and on station for the duration of the mission."

That was good news, and necessary, since nobody could really predict when we'd be back for certain and leaving eight heroes stranded on a space station for three months while they prepared a shuttle to get us wasn't anyone's idea of good public relations. So they'd decided to leave the Icarus up there, prep it in space and let the ISS crew turn it on every now and then to make sure it was ready to take us home.

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"I wrote a letter." I said. "For Josh. When you see him..."

"I'll give it to him." Rio agreed and it was warm and dark like the womb in our bed.

"I need, uh..." I narrowed my eyes, trying to think.

"You need to relax." Rio sighed and she pressed her body against mine, her small hand sliding up my tummy, finding my breasts and she stroked me there, playing her fingers across my hard nipples.

"I'm scared." I laughed lightly. "God, what am I doing?"

"Something I could never do." She sighed, kissing my shoulder. "You're my hero, Jen. All of you...It's amazing."

"Hero." I smiled at that and turned onto my left side to face her. "The dark is nice."

"Yeah." She agreed.

"There's nothing but what we can feel." I closed my eyes. "Nothing else, but this."

"What's wrong, Jen?" She asked softly, her breath humid on my lips, and I felt Rio lifting her left leg, making herself vulnerable to me once more.

"I made something." I said. "I promised myself I'd never do it again, but I did it. I have become Death. The destroyer of worlds."

"You're not." Rio kissed me and her hand found my cock, not hard, not yet, but soon.

"He didn't give me any choice." I whispered. "He used me, just for this."

"Who?" Rio asked, stroking my penis slowly, pressing her long hot nipples against mine.

"Mr. Fox." I breathed. "This mission was planned fifteen years ago, did you know that?"

"Yeah, that's what they say." I could feel her nodding close to me.

"That's when the first draft of the mission requirements was written." I said. "Who they'd need, what skills..."

"Jen..." Rio massaged my cock and it was semi-hard as she rubbed the tip across her moist sex.

"I was thirteen and living in Harden." I smiled. "I was the new girl."

"Don't think about those things." Rio pressed her face into my hair, whispering in my ear. "I love you."

"And then they had this idea and my life changed." I felt my eyes getting wet because the truth was clear.

"Josh loves you." Rio breathed. "I love you."

"Everything I've done since then has been planned." I swallowed hard. "Everything that happened...He did it to bring me here."

"I have to tell you something." Rio kissed me again and she was pushing me onto my back slowly, straddling me now.

"He killed my parents." I told her. "I can't prove it, but...I've been continuing my mom's research. Her project, it isn't over."

"I haven't been using birth control." Rio pressed my cockhead to her sex, holding herself up and guiding me inside her.

"He never lied." I laughed softly, blinking at the dull shadowy form of Rio as she lowered herself with a low moan. "And everything he told me was a lie..."

"Mmmm...Jenny..." Rio's body was hot inside, feverish and wet, clasping my hardness like a tender fist to draw me deep inside her.

"...How did he do that?" I wondered as Rio leaned forward, pressing herself against me and kissing my eyes closed.

"I'm pregnant." Rio pushed down with her hips, holding me inside her as she moved, rocking against me slowly. "With our child."

I had my arms around her, holding her tight against me as I lifted, feeling my cock buried firmly in her small body. I had to push my thoughts away and I was finally decided. It was clear to me what I had to do and I wasn't afraid of it. I'd known all along, just like he had.

"I know."

"You do?" She asked, touching my face with her lips, rubbing her nose against mine. "How?"

"Josh told me, two days ago." I smiled, feeling relived actually, for the first time in a long time. "He can't keep a secret."

"It was his idea, well..." Rio shrugged in my grasp. "...Ours."

"In case I don't come back, I know."

"Are you mad?"

"No." I kissed her softly. "We do what we have to."

"He's afraid to live without you." Rio lifted herself slightly and then pushed back down, finding a gentle rhythm and I moved with her.

"I know." I sighed. "I'm happy for you. Both of you."

=-=-=-=-=-={25}=-=-=-=-=-=

"Got your bear strapped down, Doctor Pinchbeck?" Allen teased me over the radio.

"Got your ass strapped down, Major Fuller?" I giggled.

"Okay, Icarus, this is Capcom, let's keep it professional." The Capsule Commander, a former astronaut chuckled. "You're making history, remember?"

"Capcom, Icarus...Roger, understand making history, over." Colonel Welsh replied, sounding humorless but after being around the woman for more than a year, I knew she was having fun too.

"Icarus stand by, T-minus fourteen minutes..."

"We have to sit here for fourteen more minutes?" Joan Ethan, our linguist and anthropologist sighed. "Now I know what relativity is."

"No foolin." David Rogers, the chemist, geologist and cartographer all in one nodded sympathetically. "Time is definitely dilated now."

We all agreed with that, us five scientists sitting in the passenger seats. At least the command crew had something to do, a lot to do, but for us it was just a long wait for a hard kick in the ass. It didn't help we were dressed out in full space suits either, complete with helmets locked down and all that. Forty years exactly after the Challenger disaster, it was now standard operating procedure. The space shuttles, although newer and bigger and better than ever, were still built by the lowest bidding contractors. That was a sobering thought and I pushed it away.

"Shoot." Arthur said and of course we all turned our heads, as much as we could anyway.

"What's wrong?" Brittany Chin, our resident computer expert, asked before any of the rest of us could.

"I think I left my coffee maker on." Nielson chuckled.

"Ohhh good one, Doc." Rogers laughed.

"It's always something with you, huh?" I smiled and leaned back waiting and trying not to think of all the things I should have done before this moment.

End of Part 17

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