Eradani thanked the driver and hopped off the bus, clutching the plastic bag tightly in her hand. She bounced happily up the road, smiling at the people trimming their hedges in the garden, saying ‘good morning’ to strange little old ladies and smiling seductively at two guys across the street that were eyeing her up. In her mind, she could hear ‘Wouldn’t it be nice’ by the Beach Boys.
Ah, today had been a good day. She’d got up before eleven o’clock, she’d been shopping in town and she’d managed to get a seat at Costa. What more was there to life? An old XR3i passed by with its rear bumper hanging off, the front side windows tinted blue, the rear side windows tinted red and booming bass music thumping out from twenty-seven separate speakers. Unusually, Eradani didn’t mind. She watched fascinated as it skipped a red light, narrowly missed her bus, careered through somebody’s front garden and sped off down the road leaving a furious homeowner screaming blue murder.
Humming a little tune to herself (nothing famous this time, just a random collection of notes she had just invented) she strolled up to the owner of the garden and watched him caressing what was left of a small rockery. She edged round him until he noticed her standing there.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked gently.
‘No I’m bloody not okay,’ shouted Dr. Richter. ‘Look at the state of my garden! If I get my hands on them I’ll... I’ll...’
‘Come on, let’s go inside and have a cup of tea,’ suggested Eradani.
‘I don’t want a cup of tea, I want my front garden back,’ snapped Richter.
Eradani slipped her arm round his shoulders and shepherded him into his house.
<=> <=> <=>
‘I mean, what is wrong with these people?’ moaned Dr. Richter as he sipped at his tea. ‘I just can’t understand the mentality of it all. They deliberately go round destroying people’s property, putting people’s lives in danger and generally ruining everything. If I had my way, I’d lock the whole bloody lot of them up.’
‘Which whole bloody lot?’ asked Eradani gently.
‘I don’t know... all of them. Lock ‘em all up, that’s what I say.’
‘Right, so your front garden gets a bit messed up and you want to send the entire population of the country to prison. Doesn’t that sound a bit extreme to you?’
Dr. Richter put his mug down on the table mat and rolled it to and fro between his hands while he calmed himself down. He took a couple of deep breaths and sighed. ‘Yes, you’re right, I suppose,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if the world has suddenly come to an end.’
‘That’s more like it,’ said Eradani as she got up from the small round kitchen table. ‘You got any biscuits?’
‘Yeah, second cupboard from the end. It’s just that it’s taken me over a year to get that garden right. It’s so demoralising.’
‘Hmm,’ said Eradani. ‘Ah, got them.’ She returned to the table with an unopened packet of bourbon creams. She ripped it open and started to eat. ‘Want one?’ she proffered. Dr. Richter waved his hands.
‘No thanks. I’m not in the mood.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Eradani, pleased that she’d got the entire pack to herself. ‘So, what have you done today?’
‘Oh, you know,’ said Dr. Richter, ‘the usual. I got up, had breakfast, spent the morning gardening, had lunch, got my garden smashed up. Pretty dull day really. You?’
‘I went shopping.’
‘In town?’
‘Yeah, I haven’t been for ages. I thought I’d better start spending some of that money Tompkins keeps throwing at us.’
‘I thought you were doing that pretty well anyway,’ observed Richter.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, you’ve already bought yourself two pinup supercars haven’t you? And how often do you drive them? You always either walk or catch the bus. If that’s not spending money needlessly, I don’t know what is.’
‘I find it easier not to drive. Don’t have to worry about parking then, do I?’
‘Cars are meant to be driven. Anyway, come on then, tell me what you splashed out on this morning.’
‘Hmm, hang on,’ said Eradani. She reached under the table and grabbed the plastic bag she’d been clutching for most of the afternoon. ‘I thought I’d get myself some clothes. Wasn’t after anything in particular. I walked round for ages and ages, I went to every shop I could think of, and then I came across these.’
‘That’s nice. You going to wear them to tonight’s meeting, are you?’
‘I could do, I suppose. Doesn’t really make a lot of difference if I do though.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because it’s underwear,’ said Eradani. Dr. Richter instantly took a sip of tea. ‘I haven’t really got any nice underwear, so I thought it was about time I got some.’
‘Oh, really,’ said Dr. Richter into his tea.
‘Yup. Look at this,’ she continued, pulling frilly bits of lace out of the bag. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s nice,’ said Richter, desperately concentrating on his tea as Eradani modelled her new possessions with her hands.
‘I thought so. Anyway, it’s cheered me up a bit. Sorry, you must think I’m mad. Underwear’s not really a topic of great interest to you I suppose, is it?’
‘Well...’
Eradani packed her shopping away and turned back to her biscuits. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about,’ she said suddenly.
‘Oh, what’s that?’ said Richter, pleased to be able to concentrate on something other than his tea.
‘It’s about the crew of the Garden Wall.’
‘Ah. Yes. You don’t like the Captain much, do you?’
‘No, not in the slightest. And I don’t like the way he won’t tell us what his first name is. Anyone who won’t reveal their first name is bound to be up to no good. But I didn’t mean the two crew that have already been hired anyway, I wanted to talk about the two that haven’t.’
‘I don’t see how you can talk about two people that you don’t know who they are yet.’
Eradani said nothing for a bit. She grabbed another bourbon and munched on it thoughtfully. ‘I was thinking... well, I thought that... you know the way Tompkins is dealing with the whole recruitment business?’
‘You mean by turning a blind eye and hoping it’ll all sort itself out?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. The thing is, on his own, he’s just not going to finish the job off properly. In my opinion anyway. He’s not, you know, out there, scouting the country, actively searching for would-be astronauts, is he? He’s sitting around in his grand old house waiting for somebody to turn up on his doorstep. Well it’s not going to happen.’ She stuffed another bourbon in her mouth while Dr. Richter gave his reply.
‘You never know,’ he said jokily. ‘Who’s to say his milkman wouldn’t make a great astronaut?’
‘It’s all very well you joking about it,’ said Eradani, suffering a bit from swallowing that last biscuit almost whole, ‘but this is a serious problem. I think we need to be proactive; help move things along a bit.’
‘How?’
‘By, I don’t know, maybe making some suggestions. Putting forward a few names. That’s what I think we should do.’
‘What?’ The physicist nearly spilled his tea. ‘Like who? I don’t even know anybody interested in space travel, other than you of course. And what if we go and suggest some completely inappropriate people and put the mission in jeopardy? No, I really think we’d best let Tompkins find his men. Let him make the mistakes and face the consequences.’
‘No,’ she said ponderously, ‘I still think we should do it.’
‘Eradani, I’m sure you have the best of intentions, but I just don’t see where you think we can suddenly conjure up two potential astronauts from.’
‘You’re not looking very hard, then, are you?’
‘Looking hard? Why would I be? I think I’m confused...’
‘Let me put it another way,’ said Eradani, grabbing what she had promised herself was going to be her very last bourbon. ‘Have you ever wanted to be an astronaut?’
‘Yes, of course I have. I’d love to go into space, to see the Earth from orbit, to do EVAs and feel the freedom; the release from the burden of gravity and ground. To float above the atmosphere, lost in my own thoughts, spinning through the cosmos like a manta ray gliding through the ocean. It was my greatest ambition when I was a child I suppose. I used to lie awake at night dreaming about it. Can still remember the thoughts and the dreams now. Very vivid. My second greatest ambition was to invent a machine that generated a never-ending supply of curly-wurlies, of course. I’d still quite like one of those actually, but I’d rather go into space.’
‘Well then?’ prompted Eradani.
‘Well what?’
‘Well why don’t we do it? Why don’t we ask Tompkins if we can go into space?’
Dr. Richter gawped at her for a second before saying, ‘Us? You mean, on the Garden Wall? Us?’
‘Why not? Who better than the people that designed it?’
‘Eradani, we didn’t design it.’
‘Yes, I know that, but does Tompkins? He acts as if we built the whole thing ourselves.’
Richter got up from his chair and poured himself another cup of tea. ‘It’s a big step,’ he said as he added the milk.
‘I know. But how exciting would it be?’
‘To be honest, I couldn’t say. It might be extremely dull. Six years there and back is a long time.’
‘There’re the stasis booths.’
‘True, but then we’d be asleep for six years. Not my idea of a good time. And all this is assuming it works.’ He returned to his seat with his freshly-made tea. He went to reach forward but hesitated. Strange - where had all the biscuits gone?
‘Well, I’m going to go for it. I haven’t got anything here worth staying for,’ said Eradani, painfully aware that Richter was staring at her one-woman demolition job of the bourbon cream population of his kitchen.
‘Yes you have,’ he said. ‘You’ve got your house, your cars, your vast amounts of money. What more is there?’
‘There’s lots more. I can’t really explain it. But my mind is made up. I’d forever regret it if I didn’t go.’
‘If you didn’t go? Hey, now hold on just a minute, you’re getting swept away into the crazy sea here. You’re speaking as if Tompkins has already offered you the job! Don’t you think that’s a bit presumptuous?’
‘I think he wants us to go.’
Dr. Richter’s brow furrowed slightly. ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.
‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? We were of no use to the project in the design stage. We’re just a couple of bodies for him to shoot into outer space. Don’t you think it makes sense?’
Dr. Richter put his tea down gently and looked at Eradani sternly. Then he sighed and relaxed backwards. ‘Oh, I guess it might do,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose it would explain the great lengths he’s gone to to try and keep us in the dark about the finer details of the project.’
‘Exactly. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure if we even have any choice in the matter. I think we’re going up whether we want to or not. And if that’s the case, we might as well accept it and make the best of it, mightn’t we?’
‘Well... I’m still not sure. There are too many ifs and buts. We’re making some pretty radical assumptions here.’
‘Sometimes you have to, though,’ said Eradani philosophically. ‘Don’t you?’