Among Stars

Small Talk

"Thanks, Lu," Mizuni said, as she was standing next to the elevator doors, still at the bridge. She had not dared to hope that she could do this, but now she understood how much this meant to her. "Really. I can't thank you enough," she added.

Perez, who was standing next to her, smiled. "I'm not one to decline thanks to where they are due, Valera, but I have to admit there was another reason," he said. Mizuni glanced at him and raised an eyebrow.

"What you just did there, I had no idea," he said and grinned. "Even if I had wanted to do that, I couldn't. I read the instructions you wrote, but I'm not a scientist, Valera," he added.

"Nor am I," he said, "the one who designed it and the only one who has any idea what those numbers should look like." He glanced behind him at the now perfectly running ship, looked at Mizuni, and grinned widely. "But now that she's running fine, get out of my bridge, kid," he said.

"Sí, Papá," Mizuni said and grinned widely at Perez. He laughed out loud, which caused people around the bridge to look over their shoulder and look at him with confused expressions on their faces. Mizuni curtsied slightly and stepped into the elevator. "See you later, Lu," she said, waved, and closed the doors.

The elevator stopped at the Habs level, and T'hea-ik floated into the elevator. His eyes opened fully and his lips turned into a wide smile. "Ah, Dr. Mizuni, just the person I was hoping to see!" he said enthusiastically.

Mizuni smiled at him and nodded. "Dr. T'hea-ik," she said. "You said something about the data...?, she inquired and tilted her head slightly to one side. T'hea-ik grabbed his data pad, prodded it a couple of times, and turned it towards Mizuni.

"Look. Here, the levels at Urdian-A are just as I said! Urdian Major, of course, reflects some of it back, but the results are still well withing initial tolerances," he said passionately. "I told you the cycle of Urdian-B would have no effect on the field."

Mizuni looked at the datapad and nodded. "Congratulations!" she said and smiled widely. "That makes our life much easier. I knew you could prove it!" she said. "What now? Do you think the Council will allow you to continue the research now that you have your proof?" she asked.

T'hea-ik tapped his chin with his finger while his other hand fiddled with the data pad. "Don't know, honestly," he said. "Like, I am not sure what to do with this information. It's not like this the greatest discovery in science since hypergates. All it does is prove that solar siblings don't have a noticeable effect on their sub-space fields. I can't see any practical solutions coming from this," he said and absent-mindedly nibbled at the end of his index finger.

"Like, unless you have to navigate between two siblings in a binary or a trinary system and you absolutely cannot go around them, there's no way this data is useful in itself," T'hea-ik said. He shrugged, tapped his data pad a couple of times, turned to Mizuni, and smiled. "Thankfully, it's not my responsibility to come up with the solutions. I'm just a scientist," he said and grinned.

"Too true though," Mizuni said and grinned, too. "We're just the scientists who come up with this stuff, it's the other people who will use that information that we found, built things on top of it, and then take all the credit for the whole thing," she said and smiled. "Well, if it makes you feel better, it helps my research, and I'm thankful for it."

"It does?" T'hea-ik said and raised his eyebrow.

"Yeah," Mizuni said and nodded. "My pet project is the theory of hypergate propagation, which you may already know about, although there have been a grand total of one person interested in that previously, and she was some weird elf from the academy," Mizuni said. "This ties in to that, and I think I can solve a mystery I had until now about it, and I'm very excited to get my hands on that data of yours and compare it with my calculations," she said and smiled at T'hea-ik.

"Well, that makes me feel better," T'hea-ik said and grinned, while running his fingers through his hair at the back of his head. "I'll send it to you," he said and tapped his data pad a few times. "There. Have fun with almost three years of almost-identical data streams," he said and laughed. "You already have the data from Alpha and Beta Airasi, right?" he asked.

Mizuni nodded. "Yeah. It will be super useful to compare that with Urdian, since that's a trinary," she said. T'hea-ik nodded. "If I can prove that the cycles themselves never vary and the only thing that affects the data is a reflection of solar siblings, that will be a huge step forward for my theory, since then I can almost ignore the effect of multi-star systems completely," Mizuni said and smiled.

The elevator stopped, and the two of them got out. The sign above the elevator said "Recreation and Public Areas." Walking inside, Mizuni and T'hea-ik did some small talk and then stopped at a crossroads.

"I'm going to have to go and eat something," Mizuni said. "I'm starving. The last time I ate was at the Launch Facility yesterday evening."

"You do that. I'm going to meet Ms. Poela and her team. They're the ones responsible for our living arrangements when we reach Sunstar, and I'd rather know beforehand if I have to live in a box, or do I get a room," he said and grinned.

Mizuni laughed with him and nodded. "You let me know, too. I'd rather not spend the next ten years in a tube made of emergency food containers with no pillow," she said and giggled. "See you later, Dr. T'hea-ik," she added.

"See ya later, Dr. Mizuni," T'hea-ik said and floated away. Mizuni turned to the other direction and sped up her walk after her stomach reminded her who's in charge.