Fantasy Making of a Starship Captain

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[Note: This Science Fiction story is an intense character study with occasional sex scenes.]

The High School Years​

Things changed.

For one thing, Mike became Michael.

Michael entered Malik Shabazz High School at the tender age of 15. Actually, the school used to be called Abraham Lincoln High School, but the local PTA objected to the name because President Lincoln didn't subscribe to man-made temperature change and he only believed in two genders. So the school was renamed after someone named Malik Shabazz (maybe he was one of the earlier presidents? Michael didn't know). The statue of Lincoln in the front of the building was covered in a tarp, as the school's vegetarian bake sales hadn't yet generated enough money to fund a replacement.

Mister Peepers was gone. One day, Michael got up and discovered his pet robot dog had disappeared. He looked everywhere for him, but couldn't find him. Darden was his natural suspect. It was only years later that he learned that it was his father's work, his father who thought it was time for him to grow up and shed his fantasies. If he could have thrown Mike's dream of joining the Survey Service into the trash atomizer, he would have done that too.

Classes started to get harder. Michael had focused and become a good if not great student in grade school. But now he was taking tougher subjects like Spatial Geometry and Solar Chemistry which taxed him.

And then there were girls.

Michael suddenly developed the urge to stick his organ of urination inside of women. In school they had warned him it would happen, and even told him how to do it, with smiling professional Comforters providing live demonstrations to the students which made them oooh and aaah, in case they couldn't figure it out on their own. Michael learned there were a wide variety of holes he could use for that purpose, both on the human body and in many objects and domesticated livestock. He also learned that it was perfectly natural to want to put himself inside women, or men, or anyone from any of the ninety four other genders. But Michael was only interested in putting himself inside women. But he didn't want to urinate in them, at least, not with the usual bodily fluids. No, he felt the increasingly imperative urge to give them something special, something surprisingly different.

Michael, however, was still something of an outcast. Additionally he felt tainted, scarred by his experience with Sister Audra. He felt rather defensive about it, and was afraid to approach girls because of it.

He still wanted to join the Survey Service, however. That desire was creating more and more friction between him and his father. Edwin wanted him to go to college and become an economist for the World Government, to follow in his footsteps. Michael wanted to go to the Academy. He couldn't do both.

His father warned him that while he would subsidize a college education, he wouldn't pay a penny towards the Survey Service Academy. "Just try and think, son," said Edwin. "Ninety percent of applicants never get in. Ninety percent! And of those who get in, seventy percent flunk out! You'd almost have a better chance being an actor than a Survey Service officer."

"I'm going to make it," said Michael stubbornly.

"How?" his father asked.

"I'll get a job," said Michael. His friend Bob Petrovic also still wanted to join the Survey Service, and he was getting a part time job too. The only other person Michael knew who wanted to join the Survey Service was Allyson Harshbarger.

Allyson Harshbarger would never need a part time job to join the Survey Service. Her family was very wealthy. Her father had invented the Virtue algorithm which was used by the World Government. He had sold the patent to it at quite a price. Allyson lived in the fancy section of Cambridge, up in the hills.

Allyson liked to talk about how she came from a long line of Survey Service officers. "My mother, Regina Harshbarger, was the commander in charge of the supply base on Relis III. My Grandmother, Alberta Harshbarger, was a captain of a deep space cruiser who discovered 17 planets. For Harshbarger women, joining the Service is practically a family tradition."

"And what do Harshbarger men do?" Bob Petrovic asked.

Allyson gave him a dirty look, before turning her attention back to Michael.

"Hi, who are you?" Taylor's Ambition asked.

"I'm Allyson's Ambition," said Allyson's Ambition.

Oh. Different peoples' ambitions could communicate with each other, sometimes, if they were all on the same motivational plane.

"Nice to meet you, I guess," said Ambition.

"I'm hoping we can be friends," said Allyson's Ambition.

"I'd like nothing better," said Ambition cautiously.

"Can you tell me, is Michael really set on joining the Survey Service? Isn't there anything else he'd rather do?"

"Oh, he wants to join the Survey Service all right. There's no doubt about that," said Ambition.

Allyson's Ambition frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"Then I'm afraid we're at cross purposes," said Allyson's Ambition.

"We are?"

"Yep," said Allyson's Ambition. "It's rare enough for someone to be admitted to the Academy. For two people from the same high school to be admitted, well, it's practically unheard of."

"So you would like Michael to drop out."

"It's not like he'll be any real competition," said Allyson's Ambition. "I hear he's a loner, a dreamer, and kind of... strange. He doesn't even stand up straight or look people in the eye."

"Then you shouldn't be worried about him being a serious competitor."

"I'm not. I just don't want him getting hurt," said Allyson's Ambition.

"Your concern is noted," said Taylor's Ambition dryly.

"It's so nice to meet you," said Allyson. "I'm sure we'll be good friends." She extended her hand.

Michael took it, and a thrill went through his body. He was actually touching a girl! He was happy; he had just started high school, and had made his first friend already!

But Michael didn't have better luck with other girls. He tried to talk to Melissa Saks at the bus stop; she gave him monosyllabic answers and looked away the entire time. He tried to talk to Susan Bloomingdale, who was in his very social studies class, and in mid conversation she turned away and started talking to someone else. And he tried talking to Michelle Kohls at lunchtime; she simply walked away while he was talking in mid sentence.

There was one girl who tried to be friendly with him. Her name was Shanice Robinson. At first he thought she was white, until other people told him that she was black. Shanice was a very, very light skinned black girl in his class. She had a slender nose, and long, straight dark hair, styled like a white girl. The only indication of her blackness was a slight tinting of her skin and her lush thick lips.

"Hi there, I'm Shanice," she said, as they waited in line for lunch.

"I'm..." Michael was suddenly tongue-tied. She was so startlingly beautiful.

"You are....?"

"Ah... hungry," said Michael.

Shanice broke out in a laugh. So did Michael.

"Michael. My name is... Michael."

"Are you sure?" Shanice asked.

Is she flirting with me?

Michael turned red. "I, I think so."

"Better make sure before they take attendance tomorrow," she said, winking at him.

Spatial Geometry. Particle Physics. Solar Chemistry. Basic Electronics. Michael didn't have to take any of these courses. He could have substituted popular geometry for spatial geometry, social physics for particle physics, dessert chemistry for solar chemistry, and basic income redistribution for basic electronics, which were the courses that most college bound students were taking.

But Michael wanted to take a different path. These were the courses he needed to take if he had any hope of trying to get admitted to the Survey Service Academy in Pensacola. Once again, he found he had trouble focusing on his work. The subjects were intensely difficult. More than once he found himself daydreaming as he lay staring at his Pad, which was turned to a random page of his Solar Chemistry reader.

"How's it going, Captain?" Darden asked mockingly one day, as Michael tried to puzzle over nuclear elements he had never even heard of.

"I'm working," said Michael tensely, reading from his Pad.

"I'm glad you've joined me in High School," said Darden, admiring himself in the mirror. "You're the talk of the school."

"I am?"

"Yes," said Darden. "The brave Survey Service cadet who is going to get into the Academy and make Shabazz High School proud. Only... you have to take such difficult courses, don't you? While I'm taking classes like Relativistic Morals, and Income Redistribution, and Valuing Gender Differences, you're bogged down in advanced physics and chemistry. How's that working out for you, Lifeboat?"

"I'm working through it," said Michael stubbornly.

"That's good, really good," said Darden. "Because if you can't do well in these subjects, you'll never be able to get into the Academy. And if you change your mind at the last minute and decide to go to college, you'll find that colleges look very critically at people who take odd courses like math and physics." He grinned as he turned and left.

"Maybe we should reconsider," said Cautious. "These subjects are really difficult!"

"No. I want to join the Survey Service," said Love the Survey Service.

"But if we don't make it, and we don't switch courses in time, we'll be stuck. We won't have the Academy or a college to go to!" said Cautious.

"We'll figure out a way, we'll make it work," said Love the Survey Service.

Michael's friend Bob Petrovic was acting strangely.

He used to walk home with Michael every day. Now he stayed on after school. He wouldn't tell Michael why. And now he was acting odd. Distant.

Michael resolved to find out why. One day after school he followed Bob home. Except Bob didn't go home. He went into an ally just two blocks from the school.

After waiting a few minutes, and seeing he didn't come out, Michael cautiously followed him in.

Bob was there, sitting on ground, with two other boys, a big smile on his face.

"Bob?" said Michael uncertainly.

"Mikey," said Bob, with a big smile on his face. "How are ya?"

"Bob? What's going on here?"

"Nothing," said Bob, still smiling. "Me and Leopold and Brant here are all just feeling good."

"Feeling good?"

"Yes, Mike," said Bob. "It feels so good, being white... being male... being heterosexual.... Ah.... Ah.... Ah....."

Mike figured it out immediately. "You've high on Virtue!"

Virtue was a banned narcotic. It was a drug which heightened one's sense of self identity. It was especially popular with white males. In school, in the media, and society at large, white people were constantly bombarded with messages that they were racists, while other races and ethnic groups were routinely celebrated. Meanwhile men were constantly told that they oppressed women, and that all of them were guilty of "unconscious Ra*e" and "undressing women with their eyes". Heterosexuals were criticized heavily for being wedded to an "archaic bedroom lifestyle", while the 38 other kinds of sexual orientations were heavily celebrated.

That was bound to have an effect on white, male heterosexuals, and left many of them feeling quite depressed, wishing they too could be of another race or gender or sexual orientation. But rather than make the switch, many found it easier to take Virtue. Once they took Virtue, they suddenly discovered that it was noble to be white; wonderful to be male, and absolutely glorious to enjoy making love to women.

"Bob, you have to stop it," said Mike.

"Why would I want to stop it?" Bob grinned. "It feels so good to be white! It feels so good to be a man! Doesn't it, my white, male, heterosexual friends?"

Leopold snickered. Brant was staring out into space.

"This is none of our business," said Be Cautious.

"Robert is our friend," said Loyalty to Bob.

"And he wants to join the Survey Service. How can we let down a fellow member of the Service?" Love the Survey Service demanded.

"But if you follow him to his drug dealer, you could get hurt, or worse," said Be Cautious.

"If I don't do something, Bob could get sick. What happens if he overdoses on Virtue?" said Loyalty to Bob. "I've read about Virtue overdoses. They can cause terrible brain damage. After that, people are never the same again. All they can think or talk about is race, gender, and sexual orientation. I wouldn't want that to happen to Bob."

"But you're taking a big personal risk to try and help him," said Be Cautious.

"We're the Survey Service," said Love the Survey Service. "We don't leave anyone behind."

It actually wasn't that difficult or dangerous. Michael spied on Bob, and quickly discovered a routine, where he would meet someone in the ally two or three times a week before school started. The dealer looked like a scruffy looking white woman in her 30's with a pink beret, and tattoos on her arms and face.

Michael went to the police. He told them everything: what Bob was doing, where he got the drugs from and when, and what the dealer looked like. When he was done, breathless, the Police Officer, Sergeant Garamendi, thanked him and told him he would look into it.

A day passed. Then two, then three. Bob still showed up at school high on Virtue. "Look at me, I'm white, I'm white, I'm a person of color too!" he would babble, sounding like a fool.

Nothing was done. Michael didn't understand why the police didn't investigate. He decided he would have to provide the police with even more information. He would not only investigate the dealer, but find out who her supplier was. Then the police would have to act.

And so one day Michael was waiting as the dealer finished her transaction with Robert in the alley and went her own way. Michael followed her for two blocks until she paused at a streetcorner. Michael paused and then caught up to her.

"Are you following me, kid?" she said fiercely.

"No!" said Michael. "I mean, yes."

"What do you want?"

"I, uh, need something. A racial pick me up," said Michael instinctively.

The woman looked at him appraisingly. "You?"

"Yeah," said Michael. "I'm white, I'm male, you know, and the system really pushes me down. Do you think you could spare me something....?"

The woman sold him three capsules of Virtue. Michael paid her.

Thus started a routine where twice a week, Michael would buy Virtue pills from Pris, if that was really her name. They met at that same corner, twice a week before school started. Michael looked at the pills. They were blue. For a moment, he considered trying one. Then he realized that was a terrible idea. Survey Service officers didn't take narcotics; one of the Survey Service's prime missions was interdicting narcotics. So he flushed them into the toilet atomizer.

One day he told Pris that he wanted to buy more pills. A lot of them. A hundred or more.

"What are you going to do with a hundred pills?" Pris asked.

"I have friends, at the church I attend. I know people who want them," said Michael. "If I could only meet your supplier, we could make a deal."

Pris's eyebrows shot up. "You want to meet my supplier?" she asked.

"Yes," said Taylor.

Pris considered for a moment, then nodded. "Meet me in the alley at four. I'll introduce you to my supplier."

"Don't do it," said Be Cautious. "It could be dangerous!"

"But I'm going to meet her supplier," said Love the Survey Service. "Once I find out who her supplier is, then I can go to the police!"

"Don't!" Be Cautious cried. "Ambition, you tell him."

"I agree with Be Cautious," said Ambition. "You want to join the Survey Service, but you're not in it yet. You don't have a compression pistol or any people to watch your back. You're just a kid in school. Don't do this."

"We have to do this," said Love the Survey Service. "We have to save Bob."

Pris was waiting, apparently alone, in the alley at four o'clock. That made Michael wary. Wasn't her supplier supposed to be here as well? Maybe the supplier hadn't arrived yet.

He walked into the alley, and greeted Pris. "So, where's your supplier?"

"Right here," said Pris. She suddenly whipped out a knife, and held it to his throat.

"What are you doing?" Michael asked.

"Who do you work for?" Pris asked.

"What?"

"Who do you work for? Police, Narcos, a rival dealer? Who? Tell me!" She pressed the blade tighter against his neck.

"All right, all right, it's the police!" Michael said. "But I haven't told them anything!"

"And you're not going to," said Pris, tightening her grip on the blade.

Suddenly, Michael realized what a bad idea this was. He was no Survey Service officer. He was just a kid. This had been a terrible, terrible mistake. As the blade tightened around his throat, he only wished he had a chance to learn from his mistake....

"Hold it!" said a new voice. Suddenly, four police officers rushed out of doorways in the alley. They had compression pistols aimed squarely at Pris. "Drop the knife!"

Pris's knife dropped with a clatter on the street. She was quickly taken into custody.

Sergeant Garamendi went up to Michael, who was trembling. "What did you think you were doing?"

"I... I was getting more evidence for you. I thought you weren't taking it seriously."

"We've been following her for days, to find out who her contacts were. I told you we would look into it."

"I had to follow through," said Michael. "I had to help my friend."

"I cannot believe this," said Sara. "Michael, you could have been killed."

"But I wasn't."

"But you could have," said Sara. "Aren't you taking this Survey Service thing a little too far?"

"Mom, this is exactly what the Survey Service does," said Michael.

"But you're not in the Survey Service," said Edwin. "And hopefully, you never will be."

"I don't want to hear that!" said Michael. He ran upstairs to his room.

A few moments later there was a tap at his door.

"Go away!" said Michael.

The door opened. It was Darden. "I heard about your big, bold encounter with the drug dealer, Captain."

Michael looked away.

"What you did was very foolish, Lifeboat," said Darden.

"I don't want to hear it."

"Foolish... but also, very brave."

Michael looked at Darden. Did he hear what he thought he just heard?

"Try not to do anything brave again for a while. At least, not until you get into the Survey Service for real, little brother," he said, as he turned and left.

Little brother.

By the sophomore year of high school, boys and girls were starting to date each other. Michael was having no luck with women, even as his urges to fill them with a new kind of bodily fluid he had only recently became acquainted with only increased. Michael found an unlikely mentor in a junior named Elias Marconi, who never seemed to have trouble finding a girl to date.

"The secret," said Marconi, with his arm around Darelli Wainscott, "is to flatter women. Tell them they are beautiful."

"Tell them they are beautiful?" said Michael.

"Sure! Their lips, their eyes, their nose. And then be direct. Tell them you want to kiss them."

"That works?" Michael asked.

"Well, a certain percentage of the time," said Marconi, as he squeezed a giggling Darelli. "The key to success is volume. You have to ask a lot of girls, a lot of them. Maybe you have to ask a hundred to get one to say yes."

"Hey!" said Darelli. "Did you ask a hundred before you asked me?"

"No," said Marconi, looking into her eyes. "You were always number one. I'm just trying to help Mikey here."

"Awwwww."

Michael tried to process this. "A hundred. I don't know if I could do that with a hundred women."

"Well, maybe you'll only need to try twenty or thirty times."

Darelli laughed.

"Good luck, man."

"You are beautiful," said Michael.

He was at a party at Nicholas Cheery's house, talking to Abby Jones, an attractive blonde sophomore. She blinked but said nothing.

"You are beautiful," Michael repeated. Maybe he wasn't saying it right.

He had already said the same to eight other girls at the party, who were now staring at him as he worked on girl number nine, who right now was Abby. Abby was no doubt aware of all the eyes on her, and perhaps she had even heard Michael say the same exact lines to several other women.

"You are beautiful," Michael said a third time.

"Thanks," said Abby, shifting uncomfortably.

"Your eyes. Your nose. Your lips," said Michael.

"Yes? What about them?" said Abby, looking out into the crowd.

"They are all beautiful."

"Thanks," said Abby again, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Would you like to-"

"Maybe later," said Abby. She walked away even while Michael was still talking.

Michael watched her walk over to her friends. He saw her, and them, staring at him. He turned away to the snack table.

"What are you doing?" a new voice asked.

Michael turned to see Shanice Robinson.

He shuddered. When Shanice had entered high school, she had been pretty; but now a year later, when she was a sophomore, she was gorgeous. She had started developing early and now had large, bulbous, African-American breasts. The light skinned beauty stared at him with appraising eyes.

"What are you doing, Michael?" she asked again.

"I... I....."

"I've heard the things you've been saying," said Shanice. "Who told you to say these things?"

Michael looked down. "Elias Marconi."

Shanice reached out and touched his hand. "Michael, you can't pick up a girl with lines like that."

"No?" said Michael.

"You need to just be yourself," said Shanice, touching his hand.

"I... uh...." Michael suddenly lost the ability to speak. He felt a surge of electricity traveling up his hand. He saw Shanice looking at him with gentle dark eyes. He felt like she was forbidden chocolate. He wanted to melt.

Shanice smiled at him. She was so beautiful!

"I have to go!" Michael blurted, pulling his hand away.

Bob Petrovic suddenly disappeared from Spatial Geometry, Solar Chemistry, and all of Michael's other classes. He wondered if Bob had gone back on the Virtue again. After Bob's Virtue dealer had been busted, Bob was sent to a rehab facility where he was taught that it was natural to feel guilty being white and male and there was no need to turn to narcotics, all he needed to do was to support racial, social, class, and environmental justice causes to assuage his guilt. Bob came back to school somewhat normalized two weeks later and even thanked Michael for what he did. And for a while all was fine until Bob disappeared again.

But Bob hadn't gone back onto Virtue. He had switched his entire curriculum, swapping out his hard science and math courses for courses on race studies and income redistribution and virtue.

"Why, Bob?" Michael asked him one day, as he cornered him by his locker. "You'll never be able to get into the Survey Service with a course load like that."

Bob slammed his locker closed. "I'm not going into the Survey Service, Michael." He saw the shocked expression on Michael's face. "It's just too tough. Too difficult. I spent hours every night struggling with Solar Chemistry, while my other friends breeze through their gender guilt assignments and have time to play. It's too much; it's just too much to ask for."

Michael's jaw dropped. He never thought Bob would give up. He thought both of them would be going to the Survey Service Academy together. If Bob gave up, should he?

"My Dad is offering to pay my way through college, Mike," said Bob. "It's just so much easier this way."

"He's right. It is easier," said Take It Easy. "Our dad would do it too. We should do the same thing."

"No! I want to join the Survey Service!" said Love the Survey Service.

"Let's face it, we don't have what it takes. We're struggling in school. Do you really think we're ever going to get an A in Solar Chemistry? Because that's what it's going to take to get us into the Academy," said Take It Easy.

"We can do it," said Ambition. "We can do it, if we put our mind to it."

"If we put our mind to it? What have we been doing for the past year and a half?"

"Don't listen to him," said Ambition. "We can do it."

"I agree," said Love the Survey Service.

Michael decided he had hit the jackpot with Hannah Grossberg.

He was at another house party, this one at the home of Jay Rankowitz, a fellow sophomore. Michael looked around at the girls, and decided that Hannah Grossberg was the perfect match for him.

Not perfect because of her personality, but her looks. Hannah Grossberg was not pretty--far from it! She was skinny, very skinny, and she had a big nose. The more Mike thought of it, the more he realized that Hannah Grossberg looked like a skinny bird, like a flamingo, the kind that stood on one leg and had an enormous beak. Mike had gravitated towards her, thinking the less pretty girls might tolerate him better. And he was right. He went up to her, and said hello, and she started talking to him! In fact, she was talking nonstop! Success!

Right now Hannah was talking about a pair of shoes she bought at the Mall. Before that she talked about what she had for dinner. One topic seemed to flow into another, and her monologue had no start, middle or end. It just flowed.

"And my Mom said these shoes were the pits but frankly I've never seen anything better-"

Michael felt eyes on him. He looked in the crowd and saw Shanice, talking to Guy Ventrili. But even as she talked to Guy, she was looking at him! And she was smiling.

Michael shuddered. He did that every time Shanice looked at him. She was so pretty! But he knew he could never have her. He was tainted. What Sister Audra did to him, it scarred him, it changed him, it made him unworthy. He remembered how Doctor Schmaltz had warned him that he would always have trouble attracting girls, that they would sense that he was damaged in some way.

Shanice might be interested in him now, but once she got to know him, once she sensed how Sister Audra has abused him, she would be repelled. Michael didn't want that to happen. It would be too emotionally painful for him.

So he looked away, back at Hannah Grossberg. She was still talking about shoes. The same pair?

"And they look good in street walking, but also at home and in the back yard, with just about every kind of sock there is-"

Melody Darnell sidled up to Shanice. "He's cute, isn't he?"

"Who?" said Shanice.

"Who? Who?" said Melody, hooting like an owl. "Michael Taylor. Everyone knows you want him."

Shanice flushed. "I do not want him."

"It's all right dear. Everyone thinks he's cute."

"They do?" said Shanice.

"Well, in a certain light he is, if you like the quiet, bird with a broken wing look," said Melody. "But he's also weird. In the extreme. A girl can't do much with weird, you know? You're better off without him, I say."

"So are you and Hannah an item now?" Darden asked.

It was the day after the party. Michael's jaw dropped open. "How do you know-"

"About you and her? Word travels fast at Malik Shabazz High," said Darden. "So, have you gotten to first starbase?"

Michael didn't answer.

"Second starbase?" Darden looked at him. "Third starbase? Mikey, did you go supernova with her?"

"Not exactly," said Mike.

"Well, what did you do with her?"

"Nothing," said Mike miserably.

"Nothing?"

"She talked my ear off at the party, that's all," said Mike. "When she was done talking about her clothes and her shoes and her favorite boy bands, she simply moved on. I never got the chance to say a word."

Darden laughed. "The great Survey Service Captain strikes out again!"

Mike turned away.

"Don't feel bad, Captain. I'm sure you'll find someone who will appreciate your... special qualities," said Darden, smirking.

"It's time we talked."

Michael always got a sinking feeling when his father said that. Right now he and his parents were seated around the kitchen table. Val was napping, and Darden was somewhere else.

"Your father and I are concerned for your future," said Sara. "You're halfway through your sophomore year, and your grades aren't very good."

"Certainly not good enough for the Survey Service," said his Father.

"I'll do better," said Michael.

"When?" said his Father. "Michael, this could be your last chance. Switch to an easier curriculum. Go to college. I'll even pay for it. All of it."

This should have come as no great surprise to Michael. His father had been hinting at that for some time. But it still came as a shock to him to hear him actually make the offer.

"Son, listen to me," said Edwin. "Most people who apply to the Academy don't get admitted. And of those who do, seventy percent drop out! You'll never make it!"

"Allyson Harshbarger is going for it," said Michael.

"Yes, well, Allyson has certain advantages that you don't," said Edwin. "She's much more likely to get in than you are. And if she gets in, that makes it even less likely that you will. It's very rare for the Survey Service to choose two applicants from the same high school in the same year."

Michael didn't know how to reply to that.

"What is your plan B, Michael?" his mother asked. "What happens if you don't get in?"

"I... I...." Michael had been giving that some thought. "I guess I'll join the Survey Service anyway, as an enlisted man."

"As an enlisted man?" said his father, making a face. "Do you know what that means, Michael?" He didn't wait for a reply. "That's not a career, Mike. That's a job. You won't have any upwards potential. You won't have nearly the impressive resume when you eventually return to the job force on Earth. And you'll be bored, Michael. They'll have you doing the lowest of the lowest work. You'll be a cook on one of their garbage ships, or even worse!"

"I don't care. I want to go to space."

"We were in space once, Michael, remember? And we haven't been back to space since. There's a reason for that," said Edwin, "Space is dangerous. People die in space. We didn't want to scare you when you were a child, but you're a grownup now and deserve to know the truth. We almost died out there. All of us."

"I know that," said Michael. "But the Survey Service saved us."

"Yes. Barely. At the last minute. You can't always count on that," said Edwin. "And what was the cost? Do you remember that nice man, Captain Renton?"

Michael nodded. He knew what was coming.

"He went blind, Michael. He went outside the ship to set up tow lines, and the EM radiation blinded him, for life. Is that a price you're willing to pay to be a member of the Survey Service?"

Michael had no answer for that.​