New Pictures
It was still as cold as ever, but for a change the wind had died down this evening. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Julia and Alonzo slipped behind her tent instead of going straight in once they left the fire. From behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. The moons hadn't yet risen, and the tent blocked the camp light, so most of the stars in G889's night sky were visible.
Leaning back, she followed his gaze skyward, looking at the bright points of light, mentally drawing lines between them to create pictures. In terms of stellar distances, they weren't that far from Earth. But it was just enough that the stars were in slightly different places, and of course, there was one bright star that looked very different than it did from Earth.
Behind her, Alonzo sighed. "I guess we'll have to start drawing new pictures."
So he'd been thinking about the same things she had. "I imagine so."
"Let's give them better names this time."
She chuckled. "I'm sure that the people who named Earth's constellations thought the names were pretty good. They just got old."
He blew a wisp of her hair away from his face. "So let's pick names that won't be old a thousand years from now."
"Julia? Alonzo?" They stepped apart to see Uly standing on the side of the tent with them.
"What's the matter?" asked Julia.
"What are you looking at?" His voice only indicated curiosity.
"The stars," she answered, hoping it would satisfy him enough that he'd go away. It wasn't that she didn't want to see Uly, but sometimes privacy was nice.
"Oh." His eyes flicked up. "What do you see?"
She closed her eyes briefly to push the annoyance to the back of her mind. To her surprise, when she opened them she saw Alonzo crouched down next to Uly, pointing at the sky. "Thousands of years ago on Earth, people looked at the sky and drew pictures using the lines between them."
"You mean constellations," said Uly, "like Orion and the Big Bear. But none of them are right here."
"It's a new world," answered Alonzo. "We need new constellations."
Deciding that she might as well join them instead of dwelling on the lost privacy, Julia knelt down on Uly's other side. "We were just drawing some of them."
"That doesn't explain why the stars are all messed up."
"All messed up?" she asked.
"Yeah. Look at them. They're flickering. The stars didn't do that when I looked at them from the stations."
"It's the atmosphere," said Alonzo. "The stars aren't flickering; you're just seeing some reflections from the air moving around up higher."
"Is that why the colors aren't the same? The atmosphere?"
"That's right. It's something you have to adjust for when you're plotting a course from a planet. You have to remember that the stars are actually a little bit different than they look." He pointed again. "Do you see that one?"
"Which one?" asked Uly.
Alonzo gently guided Uly's head until it was pointed at that unique bright star. "That one."
"Yeah," he said slowly. "It's different. Which one is it?"
"It's the Earth's sun."
"Cool," he breathed. Then he looked at Alonzo, cocking his head to one side. "What's its name?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What's its name? We can't just call it 'the sun' anymore, can we?"
Alonzo started to explain the different names for different stars. Julia sat back on her heels, watching. She'd never seen this side of him before. Of course, she'd never asked him questions with the childlike wonder that Uly had, and of all the topics Alonzo might be patient about, this was probably the most likely. She found herself smiling.
The thought sprang unbidden to her mind. He could be a pretty good father.
She blinked, startled. Where had that come from, and why was she even thinking about it? Neither she nor Alonzo were likely to have children. People in their professions often didn't, and she'd never even imagined it.
Julia glanced at them again, wondering. She'd never imagined seeing the cocky pilot she'd met back at the stations patiently explaining stellar phenomena to a child, either. She'd assumed that he was simply tolerating Uly and True. He certainly gave that impression most of the time.
But things were different now, and over the winter she'd seen a quiet settling of his demeanor. Maybe, she thought, there are new pictures in other places besides the night sky.
