“YOU KNOW WHAT we really need here? A disco.”
It was lunch break. Yukari and Matsuri were sitting in the shade of a palm tree along the beach, sipping coconut milk.
“Hoi? What’s a disco?”
“It’s a place for young people to get together and dance and drink and stuff like that.”
“Sounds like a sing-sing.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s where everyone sings and dances, and men choose good women. The women decorate themselves and shake their hips and busts to attract the men. Oh, it’s lots of fun.”
“Erm…I guess that sounds similar,” Yukari agreed, a vivid image rising in her mind of tribal people in a circle, beating on drums. “My point is, if we’re going to try to get another high school girl out on this island, we need a disco, at least. You saw what it was like in Yokohama, right? There are boutiques and accessory shops and fast food and all kinds of stuff like that. Here, there’s, well, this!”
Yukari gestured across the scene in front of them.
Palm trees. White sand. Coral reefs. The South Pacific.
“Sure, it’s beautiful when you first get here, but the ‘ooh’ factor only lasts a couple days. No one is going to stay here long if there isn’t a real potential for sustained fun, you know what I mean?”
“But you’re here, Yukari.”
“I don’t have anyplace to go home to.”
“Hoi?”
“I got kicked out of school, remember?”
“Oh.” Matsuri made a sort of confused half smile. She reached down and pulled something resembling a rockfish, baked whole, from beside their little campfire. “Perfectly done!” she declared.
“Yeah.”
Matsuri took a bite of the fish and passed it to Yukari.
It didn’t taste bad once you got used to it, but boy did she miss the pizza back in Yokohama. Yukari checked the Omega Speedmaster on her left wrist. Lunch break would be over soon. “Guess we should be heading back.”
Yukari slipped a light jacket on over her swimsuit and pressed the button on her transceiver. “Hi there, security? Pick up, please.”
“Roger. We’re on our way.”
A short while later, a Humvee appeared down the beach. Using base security as a taxi service was one of the perks of being an astronaut.
With the entire future of the SSA resting on their shoulders, Yukari and Matsuri could get away with quite a bit. As long as they had a reasonable excuse, they could take chopper rides to the Chinatown on the other side of the island and use the private Gulfstream jet to go shopping in Australia. If they tried to pull a stunt like that as public officials in Japan, there would have been a firestorm of criticism, but here where the media rarely trod, there was no one to watch them.
The people on base called it “Solomon sickness”: a feeling that grew with time spent on the islands that it was okay to do whatever you liked as long as you could get away with it. It was a pretty pleasant condition, as sicknesses went.
The Humvee drove past the launch platform and onto the two-kilometer-long road that went straight from the launching pad to the vehicle assembly building.
The white, crushed-coral pavement shimmered in the heat. Palm trees stood to either side of the road, like some ritzy boulevard in an exotic city—but here there was no one else but them.
The CB radio on the dashboard squawked.
“Car 5, Car 5, what’s your current position?”
“Just passed the VAB, over.”
“Mind stopping by the front gate? We’ve got a visitor there who won’t budge.”
“Roger that.”
The driver returned his radio mic back to the dashboard and said to Yukari, “Sounds like we’re going to take a little detour if that’s all right.”
“Sure. What’s this ‘visitor who won’t budge’ all about?”
“Probably a local taro-root salesman. They’re pretty persistent.”
“You think?”
Up ahead, a red-and-white striped crossing bar came into view. Off to the right of the road stood a small guard post and a stand of the broad-leaved tropical trees that grew all over the island.
Yukari spotted two people in the shade of the trees.
One, standing, was clearly a security guard, and the other—probably the visitor—was sitting on the ground. She wore a skirt, and her head hung slumped down between pale white shoulders. A wide-brimmed hat covered her face from view.
The Humvee stopped and the guard walked over to them. “It’s a girl. Just arrived here by taxi. Seems like she got a little carsick—that is, the driver tells me that by the time she arrived at the port in Sanchago, she was already half-dead with motion sickness. I doubt the ride here made it any better.”
When civilians visited the island, they had to take a rusty old ferry that left once every three days from Guadalcanal. Once they arrived, they had to take the sole taxi on the island over the mountains along twenty kilometers of dirt road. Anyone who wasn’t riding in a Humvee or other vehicle made for off-roading was in for a nightmarish trip in the “taxi,” which in this case was a makeshift collection of scrapped Datsun parts that might as well have had a bumper sticker reading AUTOMOBILE INSPECTION? WHAT’S THAT?
The security guard jumped out of the Humvee and knelt in front of the girl. Her hat shifted and she looked up, revealing her face.
Yukari practically leapt out of the car. “Akane! What in the name—”
Akane Miura’s eyes swam up to Yukari. “Well,” she croaked, “I’m here.”
“I can see you’re here! But why?”
“I thought…I thought I might become an astronaut.”
“For real? But what about school?”
“I dropped out. There’s no going back,” she said, her head slumping forward again.
✦ ✦ ✦
AFRAID THAT ASAHIKAWA would start endurance tests on the girl if they took her to the infirmary, Yukari decided instead to take Akane to her own room in the dormitory. Once Akane had lain down on the bed and drunk some water, the color returned to her cheeks and she seemed to recover a bit.
“You still alive?” Yukari asked.
“Mostly.” Akane slowly sat up.
Yukari and Matsuri brought chairs up to the bedside and joined her. Yukari offered her some coconut milk with tapioca, but Akane didn’t seem interested.
Her stomach’s still turning somersaults.
“I have to admit, this is a complete surprise.”
“I’m sorry. I thought that if I called, you might tell me not to come.”
“No need to apologize. I’m really happy you’re here.”
“Really?” Akane said.
“Really. You’re the first person I actually invited, you know.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a relief.” A smile like a spring sunbeam spread across Akane’s face.
“You really dropped out of school?”
“Yeah.”
Akane began to relate the tale of how the principal and the guidance counselor had chewed her out. At first, Yukari had just sighed inwardly, but as Akane went on, she felt her anger growing.
“They just kept repeating that it’s against the rules to leave school while class is in session. I couldn’t believe they didn’t seem to care at all about the goldfish.”
“Man, what’s with that guy? He’s always like that!”
“Here I was saving the goldfish and making a contribution to science, and they treated me like I was some kind of delinquent.” Akane was getting angry too. “Teachers shouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, he should be the one getting kicked out!”
“So I let him have it.”
“All right! You go girl!”
“I told him I would leave school for a while to see what I might be able to learn in the outside world.”
The wind dropped out of Yukari’s sails.
“I’ve never lost my temper before then,” Akane said, still excited. “I think I even surprised myself.”
That was an awfully rational thing for someone losing their temper to say, Yukari thought, but what she said was, “Didn’t your parents object?”
“Oh, they were totally against it.” Akane stuck out her tongue. (Yukari: Ha! Cute!) “So I went on a hunger strike for three days in my room, and finally my father said he would ‘give me a year to figure things out.’ They agreed to just pretend I’d gotten sick or something.”
“Whatever works.”
“Well, I’m not sure what’s going to happen a year from now. I’m not sure what I’ll learn, either.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you can get an extension,” Matsuri said, joining the conversation. “Yukari was only going to be here for half a year at first, you know.”
“Hey!” Yukari frowned.
“Of course,” Akane said, “I don’t know if they’ll hire me yet or not.”
“Both of us will vouch for you!” Yukari said, grinning. “They’ll take you for sure.”
“I’m not very tough…”
“Leave that to us!” Yukari grabbed Akane by the hands. “We’re not going to let you fail, got it? I’m taking you to space, promise!”
“Yukari…” Tears shone in Akane’s eyes. “Thank you.”
“You can thank me after liftoff.”
Akane nodded. “So, this seems kind of funny to ask now, but how do I apply to become an astronaut?”
“There’s no real set procedure. I guess talking to the director would be the quickest route. Can you walk?”
“I think so…” Akane stood, a little shaky, and stepped away from the bed.
Yukari picked up an intercom and punched in the number for the director’s office. “It’s Yukari. We have an applicant here. Right…the genius girl who saved the goldfish. Okay.” She set down the receiver. “They’ll see you at once.”
Akane nodded and gulped.