Seeing Red

"Heeeeehhhhhh! Heeeh! Com-pu-ter o-pen door!"

The voice recognition program spoke in a soft, female voice. "I'm sorry, but your command was not recognized. Please try again."

"Com-puter. Open the d-d-duhhh!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not recognize your voice imprint. Please try again."

"Com-huh-hhhhhh!!!" He banged his head on the console as fell to his hands and knees, which made for a double dizziness.

"Please make your selection, after you enter your clearance code. If you'd like to have more heat, press one. To open the entrance, press two. For food replication of nutritious food, press three. For replication of non-nutritious edibles, press four. For—"

The door opened. Kelly came in, holding her breath. She reached down, grabbed Thad and pulled him out the ship. As soon as she laid him on the ground, she gasped for air.

Thad sat up as soon as he recovered. "Kelly, check to see if there is a malfunction in the air replicators."

"The air replicators are fine. The problem's us."

"Us?"

"The microbes are addictive. That attack you had was your respiratory system going through withdrawal. We have to spend time weaning ourselves off the microbes if we wanted to fly off Rana. That could take months. Years."

Thad's eyes teared. A desperate grimace came to his face. "It's better to just–wait here. We can warn people not to land without suits on, I guess. Why didn't the scanners pick this up?"

"The air IS breathable. This is just–well, an unknown, that's all."

Thad stared at the ground. After a long, mournful silence, he finally looked up at Kelly. She sat down beside him and held his hand. He pulled her closer.

"Kelly?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry for being so difficult. I must have been a pain to live with. Can you forgive me?"

She leaned her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her as she nuzzled her head against his neck. "It's ok, Thad. It's ok."

The suns started to set. "Oh well," he said as he marveled at the small, yellow suns and the blue and violet twilight sky, "at least the suns are not red."

-End-