Conflict Resolution

I push Alicia hard, deep into the liquid, gripping her shoulders when she squirms. Silver balls of air bubble from her nose and her lips move as if she’s trying to speak, to cry, to plead. Finally, she sags into the viscous liquid. Her eyes stay open, staring at the ceiling of Cargo Hold One, strands of hair floating toward me like imploring fingers. One last glimpse as I close the lid. Her lips have become calm, accepting.

I swipe at my tears.

I’ve made the world a better place.

ONE HOUR AGO

“Sis, are you sure? It’s chilly in here.” Alicia peeks through the doorway.

I ignore her and heave my kit bag onto the makeshift bunk. Stacks of shipping crates loom above my personal stuff. Not very cozy but lugging everything to Cargo Hold One is worth it. First, it passes the time for twenty minutes, always a plus during this interminable journey. More importantly, staying in this creaking, cold ass-end of our courier ship means I won’t have to listen to Alicia’s quiet breathing all night long in the crew cabin.

She keeps trying, of course. “Move your stuff back? We can sleep different shifts, eat at different times. I’m so sorry you’re hurting.”

“I’m not hurting,” I say. “I’m annoyed, and depressed. And I want to be by myself.”

She slides the door shut after her and I’m finally awesomely, wonderfully, alone. I give my cryopod an affectionate pat. That has taken a big chunk of the twenty minutes, moving the fluid canister, the tubes and cables and portable controls. But its presence is comforting.

Darkness roils in my thoughts. I need distance from Alicia. After we finish this courier run, I’ll book the cryopod on an interstellar longhauler, climb inside, and travel so many lightyears away, Alicia will be a distant memory. No one to measure up to; no one to see me fail. And fail. And fail.

It will be like I never had a sister.

TEN MINUTES AGO

“You don’t have to lick your finger like that.” I need to eat sometime, and the infernal yam stew is even worse cold. So I stride into the galley, successfully ignoring Alicia until she sticks strawberry goo in her mouth for the one thousand three hundred and twenty-third day in a row.

It’s bad enough we’re stuck delivering overpriced equipment to some stupid colonists, but most of our situation is my fault.

First, I’d badly negotiated our courier fee after skipping over the fine print. It will leave us more in debt than we already are.

Then, I’d been reading our latest disastrous loan statement while I placed our order to the port food supplier, getting angrier and angrier. Just as my verbal transmission about the two foods I hate most—“NO yams or strawberries!”—went through, I smashed my fist down on the panel, muffling the first word.

Alicia wouldn’t have lost her temper like that, and she would’ve confirmed the order instead of impatiently signing off like I had.

Alicia never complains about either of those things. Why can’t she bitch like a normal person?

I shovel in stew, wishing my mind could be as blank as the bulkhead I’m staring at.

Alicia gets up. “I like strawberries.” She rubs my shoulder as she passes by the tiny galley table. “And I like being here with you.”

The thing is, Alicia really means it. No nasty thoughts in her head, no mean bones in her body. A truly nice person. It’s so unfair. The only thing I’ve ever been better at than Alicia is doing math in my head—something computers can do faster anyway. She carefully compliments me on it all the time.

She makes me crazy.

I slam my stew container into the galley bin and open my mouth to express an emotion I’ll be ashamed of later and that’s when the stream of meteors hits.

First, a deafening bang.

A high-pitched hiss.

A two-centimeter opening in the hull above the bin.

We catch each other’s eyes.

Big gulps of air, and we dive for our p-suits.

Alicia, first to the rack, shakes her head and points. A dozen holes pierce each suit. Below, a thumb-sized hole in Alicia’s cryopod, fluid already oozing out.

Alarms sound as automatic SOS signals transmit to nearby ships. Help will come, in hours or days.

We have only minutes of air.

We run into the corridor and Alicia hits the door seal which closes with a satisfying thrum. Useless. The meteor shower has hit the corridor too, its raw gray metal now pockmarked with blackness.

On to Cargo Hold One. There, my pink washcloth is already being sucked toward the biggest hole.

I hear–no–feel Alicia collapse behind me. Chest burning, I drag her toward my cryopod, dizziness blackening my view.

I catch her eyes and hold up two fingers. Both of us can cram ourselves into the single-person pod, and sleep until help comes. She reluctantly nods: less chance of survival with two. I glare at her. It should be feasible in these conditions.

But then, oh goddess, then…I can’t help myself. I do the math.

X days into our cargo run, Y lightyears to the nearest standard shipping route, Z amount of life-sustaining gel.

Easy math.

I do it again.

And again.

One, I mouth at her. Only one of us can make it.

She points weakly at me.

That gentle look in her eyes, even here, even now.

I will never be like Alicia.

I forgive her then, during that fraction of a second. For the person she is, the person I long to be, the dab of strawberry in the corner of her mouth. I see her goodness, and the world, and my place in it.

In that moment, I find peace.

That’s when I grab her shoulders.

* * *

Ⓒ Holly Schofield

Originally published in Nature:Futures, October 2022. Reprinted here by permission of the author.