A Spaceman

Chapter 29--A really sick person

"Okay, let's assume you're her, and I'm me---and you think you love me---"

"I'm her though—"

"Yes, you're her so if I say you I mean her."

"Because her is me?"

"No, her is her you're being her."

"So I'm her and you're you."

"Yes, that's what I said."

"No, you said, you're her and I'm me."

"That's because I am----never mind I'm giving up on communication," I say, grinding my hands into my forehead.

"I did that last week, didn't speak for seventy two hours because I was tired of people talking to me," Kip says, putting a crisp in his mouth. He's on the same rotation of planetside and space duties as Tom and I and some of the others so we're usually at the same bases.

"What happened?" I ask even though I don't want to know.

"Nothing, nobody noticed," he says, putting a crisp in my mouth because I'm not eating and he knows I don't eat, "I take it things aren't going well in your love life?"

"What love life? Maybe Thorn is right---I despise that sentence so much," I sigh, "I should give up."

"Nah, you've loved her forever mate, she'll come back to you eventually," he says.

"You see that's what I think," I say, flipping myself upright; I was hanging upside down. "Our stars have to be aligned, otherwise we'd have never met---never anything. she's meant to be mine."

"Or you're a creepy bastard who will stalk her your whole life, who's to say?" he says, shrugging. I cuff the back of his head.

"There has to be something---hello Tess," I say, tapping my earpiece to answer.

"Hi, have you thought of anything?" she asks, hopefully.

"Yeah, false parents," I say, "That reminds me, Kip, I need to ask you a favor."

"Whatever it is the answer is no----especially if it had to do with that last sentence," Kip says.

"No," Tess says, immediately.

"Why not?" I ask, annoyed she so quickly nixed my rather inspired plan.

"I thought of and discarded that plan a long time ago," she says, "He won't believe it unless it comes directly through the project 10 network; mostly because he knows I would try to pull something like this."

"Such cynicism, all right, well, if falsehood will not do I'll try for the real thing," I say, "There's someone I know who can find more up to date information in the network much easier than I can because he actually has access, but if these people don't want to meet him they don't want to not much we can do."

"Okay, thanks anyway, and let me know what your friend finds out," she says.

"Will do, have a good next class, love you," I say.

"Love you too, dad," she says, hanging up.

"I didn't know we were allowed planetside calls," Kip says.

"Yes, right up there with nap and snack breaks," I say, taking some of his crisps and spinning upside down again. I tap the familiar code into my wrist pad.

"Hello, Logan, I need you to do something for me," I say.

"Titus, I've been a civilian for six years you need to stop calling me up saying 'I need you to do something' you weren't even supposed to do it when we were enlisted---"