Event Horizon
Posted on June 27th, 2018 by Alexis Wright and Kathryn Harper

by Alexis Wright and Kathryn Harper

The white cat’s claws dug into the low carpet, repeatedly trying and failing to catch a holographic mouse. Giggles erupted from one end of the couch as Anna’s paws passed right through her quarry with each pounce and lunge. The mouse was controlled by a tiny emitter in the hands of the ship’s captain, who also happened to be the source of the giggles. After several minutes of play, Anna seemed to tire of her failures and wander away, prompting Kate to put down the emitter and turn her attentions to her fiancée at the other end of the couch, whose face was mostly obscured by a PADD.

Wearing a playful expression, she crawled down the couch and tugged at Lexy’s sleeve. “You know,” Kate began, biting her bottom lip, “the cat has paid me more attention than you have this evening.” She tapped on the top edge of the PADD that had so thoroughly transfixed Lexy. “What is that, anyway? Can I help you finish it up so we can do something more… fun?”

Normally, Lexy would not have required much more in the way of persuasion than the promise in Kate’s tone of voice, but the urgent nature of her work made her focus unshakeable. Her eyes were serious when they finally slid upward to meet Kate’s over the top of the PADD, brows raising as she inquired, “You really want to help? Well, I could actually use your opinion deciding between these.” She turned the PADD so that Kate could see the screen, which was displaying four location profiles. “Which one do you like best as a venue? We also need to book a holographer and a bunch of other stuff like that,” she explained, her voice carrying undertones of anxiety.

Having expected that the PADD would be full of science relating to the black hole they were studying, Kate found herself surprised and almost annoyed to see wedding details. To her, the event seemed so far away to bother with when they were surrounded by once-in-a-lifetime science. “That is what has been occupying you all evening?” she asked, trying to prevent the annoyance from seeping into her voice. “Our wedding is over half a year and almost half a galaxy away! Surely there are more interesting things to spend your time on? Like, I do not know, maybe a supermassive black hole?” Kate stopped herself before she could petulantly add, “Or me?” Instead, she pulled again at Lexy’s sleeve and whispered, “Come on, let me help you relax.”

Lexy blinked at her, dumbfounded, beginning her response more than once before finally committing to one that flatly ignored the subtext evident in Kate’s pout. “I…would dearly love to be spending time on that, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, but… Kate, do you even know what day it is? We’re getting married in two months. At this point, I’m not even certain that we’re going to make it back in time, much less with all of the arrangements in place!” She waved her arms and raised her voice as she spoke, obviously exasperated and narrowly missing Kate’s nose with the PADD. “Or… wait. Did you…?” She dropped her hands suddenly, slowly turning her head to pierce Kate with a wide-eyed, incredulous stare. “Don’t tell me you forgot about this when we did the whole time dilation thing!?”

Kate had, indeed, forgotten. Her mouth had already opened for a defensive reply before the realization that Lexy was right that their wedding date was suddenly four and a half months closer dawned on her, and it stayed that way for a long moment as the time caught up to her, punctuating itself by replacing her retort with a simple Risian expletive, “Zok.” The whole concept suddenly seemed more real, and her happy-go-lucky air evaporated as she plopped back down on the couch, unsure how to feel. “I did not think of it in all of the excitement lately,” Kate quietly confessed before turning to face her wife-to-be. “I am sorry, Lexy.”

In the seconds that followed, Kate watched as Lexy’s features rearranged themselves from incredulity to skepticism — eyes narrowed, lips bunched into a wry rosette and pulled to one side — as the latter came to terms with the reality of the situation. She gave Kate a long, hard look, then closed her eyes and covered her face with the palm of her free hand before the contrition in Kate’s expression could get the better of her. Drawing a deep breath, she held it for a few moments while internally wrestling with the tangle of stress, disappointment, and other emotions, only exhaling when reason began to prevail. “You’re the Captain,” she said stoically, “you have more important things to worry about. On a rational level, I understand that.” Her palm slid down her face and into her lap, and she allowed herself to look as tired as she felt. “I’m sad and I feel like I’m not important to you, but those feelings aren’t rational. I still have them, though. I know it’s stupid,” she added wearily, staring down at her lap, “and honestly doing science sounds like more fun to me anyway. Let’s… I’ll just take care of the wedding stuff. Or we can just forget it and simply do the paperwork.”

“It is not stupid, Lexy, and there is no way that we are forgetting it,” Kate began while trying to pull Lexy to her. “I am sorry that all of this does not seem as important to me as it should, and I am even more sorry to have made you feel unimportant.” She let out a long sigh, mentally berating herself in a few languages before continuing, “On Risa, at least among the traditional population, we do not place so much importance on the wedding itself, when there is one at all. Formal marriages are actually somewhat rare — and I am still slightly surprised to find myself involved in one — but I am not telling you this as an excuse, only as background. I absolutely owe this a higher level of care and thought than my cultural instinct initially provided, because we decided together that this was what we wanted. So, give me that PADD and let me help plan our wedding.”

Although she initially put up a token resistance, Lexy quickly sighed and allowed Kate to pull her closer, tentatively handing the PADD to her before snuggling into her shoulder. “I picked out a few potential locations for the ceremony and the party, but I wasn’t sure what you’d like best. I should have just asked you for help sooner… Despite our differences, you and I make a really good team when we actually work together.” She paused, then added, “Maybe because of our differences. I guess that’s why we’re doing this in the first place, right?” She chuckled lightly, a picture influenced by the fields she’d been studying during her on-duty hours forming in her head. “We’re like magnets, with the power to force each other away or form a powerful bond, depending on how the poles are aligned. It’s getting that last bit right that’s the hard part.”

With relief that her insensitivity had been put right without any great harm to their relationship, Kate took a moment to consider the comparison. “Stacked magnets are almost twice as strong together as they are apart… yes, we really do make a great team, Lexy. You are not the ship’s second officer because of your pretty face, you know.” Kate grinned, cuddling Lexy close with one arm while starting to gesture at various options on the PADD in her lap with the other. “Mmm, now, let me see, I like that spot, and that one too…”

Lexy turned her face up to impishly grin at Kate. “So, this means I’ll have more time for chance-of-a-lifetime science instead, right?” She was only partially kidding; now that she no longer bore the stress of sole responsibility for planning the wedding, her idle thoughts about fields and polarities were colliding with other idle thoughts and creating the sparks of unintentional ideas.

“Wellll,” Kate purred, “if that is really how you want to spend the rest of the evening, I suppose I could play with kitty some more…”

With that, the new questions about the magnetic properties of various things — the magnetar, Sagittarius A*, and the even mysterious sphere sitting in the cargo bay — that had slowly been coalescing in Lexy’s mind were temporarily banished in favor of more pressing matters.