Mati plopped down on the top step of the entryway, tears streaming down her face. A moment later, Rini appeared at her side and wrapped his arms around her.
At the engineering station, Boro sighed and shut down his engines. As soon as he rose from his chair, Sata stood near, eyes glistening, almost a pout on her face. They shared a tender embrace, then walked hand in hand to the large oval table in the passenger area.
Kibi, still in the command chair, kept her face hidden in her hands for another minute, then slowly collected herself and stood up, shoulders slumped, feet heavy as lead. Seeing that she was now alone on the bridge, she dragged herself up to the table.
Ilika silently set a plate of finger food and cartons of juice on the table, then calmly took a seat.
After a few more minutes of awkward silence, Mati and Rini joined the others at the table.
Kibi took a deep breath. “What’d we do wrong, Ilika?”
A half-smile crept onto the captain’s face. “How do you know you did anything wrong?”
Several of the crew members looked at each other.
“Because . . .” Boro began after swallowing the gotaka nuts he was chewing, “we crushed eight of the furry creatures we were supposed to rescue, scared the pee out of the rest, and managed to save exactly five, out of three
or four hundred! ”
“And those five were all males, so they’d go extinct in a few years!” Sata added, nearly gasping for breath.
As the pilot who had caused the death of several of the little creatures, Mati was about to open her mouth and express her frustration when she noticed the moisture in Ilika’s eyes. She swallowed her thought and took several slow breaths before she spoke. “You’ve had to do this kind of simulation before, haven’t you?”
Ilika nodded. “And even though we get better at it, it’s never easy.”
Rini squeezed Mati’s hand. “So . . . please tell us how we can do better.”
Kibi nodded. “Part of me wants to run to the nearest knowledge processor and ask to be a dishwasher or tree trimmer or something. But . . .” She paused and took another slow breath. “But, I know it’s just how I feel right now, and after you teach us some new things, we’ll be able to do it.”
“We’ve always wanted to rescue people and animals,” Mati said.
“Remember what we wanted to do back at Cattle Town?”
Ilika smiled at the memory of Buna asking to borrow his bracelet to put all the slave traders to sleep.
“We just never realized how complicated it could be,” Mati concluded.
“I think we started to see that a little bit after taking Timod Gor home,”
Boro suggested, “but we obviously need to learn more.”
Ilika let a few moments pass to see if anyone else wanted to speak. The silence lengthened, so he collected his thoughts. “The most important lesson you must learn is that there is NO perfect solution to any problem that involves a desperate situation, emotions running wild, and the free will of other creatures . . .”
“A sun exploding,” Sata began, “with eight minutes to rescue an entire sapient race, is about as desperate as it comes!”
Ilika
nodded.