Miyamoto stared at her. “You seem more the research type than a member of a flight crew. You like biology?”
“Yes,” she replied. Then, more enthusiastically, “Ever since I was in elementary school!” Now Akane began to talk faster than Yukari had ever heard her talk. “We had to observe morning glories for a summer project in third grade, and I got to wondering why it was that some of them had vines that twisted to the right and others had vines twisting to the left. I couldn’t figure it out just by looking at the ones we had on our patio, so I ended up examining every morning glory on my block, then I went to the next block and the next until I had examined one hundred plants in all. When I averaged them out, right-twisting vines came out to fifty-three percent.”
Miyamoto laughed out loud. “So no statistically significant difference, then.”
“Well, I didn’t know about statistical analysis back then, so my conclusion was that right-twisting morning glories were more common. My teacher was really impressed, and I guess I let it go to my head. Oh, that’s right, I even did a sort of fake space experiment when I was in junior high.”
“You don’t say?”
“I couldn’t pull off a zero-gravity experiment, but I could make a high-G experiment right here on Earth. I modified an old record player into a centrifuge. Then I put a tulip bulb in some dirt at the edge and spun it around at 2 G to see what would happen.”
“Very interesting!” Miyamoto exclaimed. “They’ve raised chickens using that same method in America, and the Germans similarly observed jellyfish in space, you know. It must’ve taken quite some time for you to get any results.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I put the centrifuge out on the patio and let it spin all night and day. My mom wanted me to stop—she was afraid the record player was going to burst into flames or something—so I promised her I would keep my eye on it, and I ended up sitting there for three whole days. In the end, on the eighth day, the record player broke, so I never did get any results. But my science teacher was still impressed and told me that if I really wanted to become a scientist when I grew up, I would also need to study math and English and take tests so I could get into good schools. I think that’s around when I started to really like studying.”
“You mean you can grow into liking studying?” Yukari asked. “I always thought it was something you were born either liking or hating.”
“No, I really think you can learn to like it. It’s like getting this new tool to think with, and the more you study, the more you understand—like how you can use a single guideline to solve geometry problems, or how great it feels to figure out a proof, or the fun in using simple English vocabulary to say complicated things, or the fun in reading the newspaper after you learn about something in social studies, and because every class has tests, you get immediate results—it’s so satisfying! And then —” Akane shook her head. “What am I saying? I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes.” She blushed and covered her face with her hands.
“Not at all, not at all.” Miyamoto smiled. “It was a fascinating story. Why, it’s people like you that give me hope for the future of the sciences in this country. Have you already picked a university?”
“I want to go to Tokyo University and study molecular biology under Professor Niuchi.”
“Ah yes, Dr. Niuchi. That’s a good school. And molecular biology is fascinating.”
Akane’s face shone. “I mean, I know life is sacred, but you can’t just call it sacred and leave it at that. You have to get to the bottom of things to really understand them, and I figured that molecular biology would be the place to start.”
“Quite right. I began with physics myself, but your approach is sound.”
“You really think so?”
“So this is what it’s like to be a star student,” Yukari said with disbelief. “You know exactly what you’re going to do after you graduate already?”
“Well, I’m already a junior!”
“Oh yeah, right…” Yukari scratched her head. Yukari had never made it to her junior year. Still, she wondered if she would have been quite so certain about her own future as Akane seemed to be.
“Still,” Yukari said, trying to steer the conversation back, “they have adult tests you can take for credits, and you can always study. You don’t have to be in school to do that. It wasn’t me who first said this, but if you really want to study something, space is the place.”
“Yes,” Akane said, a faraway look in her eyes, “I suppose you’re right.”
There’s that look, thought Yukari—the look someone got when they first pictured themselves actually being in space. Yukari had seen it a number of times since starting her current job. She had already been on four orbital flights. She was used to zero gravity, the stress of takeoff and reentry, and dealing with the media. But the one thing she was sure she would never grow tired of was the view from space.
It was impossible to put into words or images. They always asked her about it in interviews, and all she could say was her set response: if you really want to know, you have to come see for yourself.
How would she answer Akane if she asked? She didn’t want to give her usual cookie-cutter response, and yet…
“I guess it’s the kind of thing that you can’t know without going to see for yourself,” Akane said suddenly.
Yukari gaped, her eyes going to the other girl’s face. Akane’s eyes were clear as water, staring straight at her.
That was a funny coincidence.
“You want to come with me?” Yukari found herself saying.
Akane said nothing for a moment. Then her eyes drifted downward. “No. No, I think I’m more the study-at-my-desk type.”
“Oh…” Yukari gave a little sigh. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you or anything.”
“No, not at all.”
When she thought about it, it had been a crazy thing to ask. Hey, you, want to become an astronaut? Still, Akane looked a little sad now that Yukari had effectively rescinded the offer.
“Hey,” Yukari said, “if you change your mind, give me a call, will you? You can just phone the Solomon Islands and ask the operator to connect you to the SSA.”
“Okay.”
“Right, time for the debriefing. Tell me everything that happened after liftoff,” Miyamoto said.
“Right.” Yukari shook her head. “Well—”
Immediately following a spaceflight, astronauts were subjected to a slew of questions. The goal was to get all the details of everything that had happened while their memories were still fresh, so that what they learned could benefit future missions. This was called debriefing.
Yukari glanced at her notes. “So around 0130, they started looping a lot and rolling.”
“They were swimming all over the place,” Matsuri added.
“Yeah, it was almost hard to watch them. They looked really tired.”
The professor found the time stamp on the telemetry graph. “It looks like they were panicking because of a drop in the concentration of diffused oxygen. The goldfish were too active. Did you notice anything different inside the aquarium?”
“I saw one or two scales sparkling at the bottom,” Matsuri said.
“Those were scales?” Yukari asked. “You have better eyes for the natural world than I do, Matsuri.”
“Um…” Akane said. “I should probably get going.”
Yukari had completely forgotten. “Oops! That’s right. We kind of took her out of school in the middle of classes.”
“Oh, is that so? Sorry to keep you so long,” the professor said.
“No, it’s been great, really. I’d love to be able to stay longer if I could—but if I leave now I might make it in time for afternoon classes.”
“Well, you’re welcome back anytime. I’ve got plenty of things I’d love to show you here.”
“Thank you so much!”
The professor smiled and handed her his card. “I’ll call a taxi for you. Don’t worry, it’s on us.” He picked up the phone.
“No, I can walk.”
“It’s farther away than you think. Don’t worry, we owe you at least this much.”
✦ ✦ ✦
While they were standing at the front gate waiting for the taxi to arrive, Yukari spoke with Akane. “Sorry about all this. I know Nellis is really hard on people skipping class.”
“I think they’ll understand,” the other girl replied. “After all, it was for a good cause.”
“Well, I hope so.”
“And I had a really great time.”
“Just think, if you were an astronaut, every day would be like this.”
Akane chuckled nervously. Yukari joined her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be pushy.”
“No, I really appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me.”
The taxi arrived.
Yukari, Matsuri, and Miyamoto stood at the curb and waved goodbye.