Chapter 16. Reconciliation.

During the next day's communal supper, Charles, who was seated at a small table with his male buddies, stood up and looked over the women seated together at two large tables.

They immediately centered their attention on him.

"We have decided that you are more intelligent than we are by several orders of magnitude," he said with an appropriately serious looking facial expression. "Therefore, we will concede to your authority from now on. It's obvious that we will never return to our former lives and that we are stuck with living on this vessel for the rest of our lives, which might be much longer than we think if the higher efficiency factor is as real as we believe it is. We hope that you will not use this unfortunate situation to make us suffer."

After he sat down, Alice stood up. She smiled briefly before giving her reply to his statement of surrender. "Thank you for placing your trust in us. We have no intentions of harming you. We are no better than you are when it comes to dealing with our dystopian situation. So, we will resort to having consensus meetings in which we will decide our fates together."

"We are in agreement on that," Charles replied. "But we will leave the final choice to you."

Alice nodded her approval.

Vicky stood up. "We women have elected Alice as our leader."

"Thank you," Alice told her before she turned to Charles. "Is that acceptable?"

"Yes," Charles replied.

Surprisingly, there was no further discussions concerning their status.

Alice came to Charles quarters just as he was getting out of the shower. She was able to get the timing down by viewing him on the surveillance system.

"I would like you to come with me to the holding cells," she said.

He presented a stoic demeanor. "Are you going to confine me?"

"No. I want to show them to you."

He paused for a few silent moments before nodding his willingness. He went with her to her quarters and across her living area to a door that led to a corridor with several holding cells.

He turned to her. "I didn't know that these were in the astrophysicist's quarters."

"I assume that she was in charge of discipline," Alice said.

The cells were compact with only a toilet and sink. The ceiling was a shower head. There was barely enough room to like down on a metallic floor.

Alice opened the door with only a small round opening that was fitted with a metal mesh. She pointed to the cell "Get in there."

He obeyed her and she closed the door. He realized that it was locked. He was able to see her face in the round opening.

"Are you confining me?" He asked with a pleading voice.

She smiled. "No, silly! I'm trying to show you what these cells are like."

"It's really cold in here," he said while wrapping his arms around his chest. "There's no place to lie down."

"Yes. It's more like a punishment than a confinement.

"Yes," he replied, his face twisted with concern. "I agree."

Her expression softened to a subtle smile. "I'm sorry, but I wanted you to experience it so that you understand why we women don't want to do this to you men."

"I believe you," he replied.

"We want you to obey us," she continued.

"I understand," he said, trying to maintain his composure.

"I think our new agreement is the best for all of us," she said with a hint of amusement. "Don't you agree?"

"Yes . . . I do."

She turned her head to the entrance before turning back to him. "I think someone just entered my quarters. Hang tight."

He watched her leave and close the cell corridor door, leaving him suffer in a freezing cold metal cage.

After an hour of suffering, he heard the door to the prison corridor open and her face appear at the round viewing hole.

"How are you doing in there?"

"I'm freezing my ass off here."

"Sorry about that," she said before she opened his cell door. "Vicky wanted me to go over some ideas for socializing."

He walked with her out to her living area where she pointed to a couch. "Relax. I'll have the robots serve lunch."

"I'm still cold from standing in that freezing cell," he said after sitting down on a couch.

"You'll be fine," she replied with a smirk.

He nodded. She sat down next to him. "I think we're ok with our relationship. Don't you agree?"

"Yes, but I'm not happy with the threat of putting us in those cells."

She stared at him with a stern look for a moment before replying. "I'm sorry about what I did. I didn't mean to anger you."

He stood up. "Maybe it's better that we stay away from each other for a while." He stood up and walked out of her quarters leaving her with eyes filled with tears.

Later, when the men gathered in Charles' quarters to relax before bedtime, the incident was revealed.

"Does that mean that they're going to confine us?" Carl asked.

"No," Charles said almost as a shout. "That's not going to happen. They know better than that."

"It sounds like war to me," Carl replied.

"Yes, but it's better to have an agreement in place," Charles replied. "I believe that they probably know that we won't let them do anything like that to us."

"If the original crew would have survived, we could have been incarcerated," Dave said.

"I never imagined that I could have been a slave to women," he retorted. "It's demeaning at best."

"Charles is right though," Dave said. "It's better to placate them, than to be arguing and fighting for eternity."

"We're not going to last that long," Carl said with a mocking grin.

Dave gave him a subtle teasing smile. "Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that. This is looking more like a heaven and hell situation."

"Wouldn't that be against causality?" Robert axed.

"I think the laws of physics are not the same in the situation we're in," Charles said. "We are stuck in a nexus of sorts in which we will never die . . . assuming we don't get destroyed by this ship exploding."

Carl rubbed his face. "If that's the case, we're in a dystopian horror scape in which women will amuse themselves by tormenting us."

"I don't think it's that bad. The best thing for us to do is humor them and go along with their socializing games," Robert said. "Maybe they'll eventually tire of their visions of power and leave us alone."

Charles sighed. "I believe that they are intelligent enough to realize that we are an integral part of this ship's crew and conclude that we are at the doorway to a possible way to explore the universe."

"So, you think we can go faster than light?" Carl asked.

"Yes, but it'll take all of us, male and female, to make it happen."

They were not as convinced as he was, but they realized that he was right about it taking both sexes to make it happen.

The first step occurred when Alice visited Charles at his quarters. He was sitting in an easy chair in his living area studying an engineering manual. He looked up at her and offered her a welcoming smile.

"I have something I think you should see," she said, her face set in a more serious expression.

She asked the all-listening computer system to display an equation. She turned to him with a sly grin. "As I understand it the main engines on this ship use powerful electrostatic ion drives that rely on accelerating hydrogen ions to achieve thrust."

"It's a bit more complicated than that, but yes."

She pointed at the screen, "This formula is for the total energy of a particle, with m being the rest mass, v is the particle's velocity, and c is the speed of light. If the particle's velocity is larger than light speed, the energy is imaginary because the square root is negative. For this to work the way we want, the rest mass must be imaginary. When an imaginary number is divided by another imaginary number it results in a real number. It turns out that this works if a tachyon's mass is real."

Charles stared at the equation for few minutes before he replied. "So, are you suggesting that we can take advantage of this if we can create neutrino tachyons?"

"Bingo!" she literally sang. "All we need to do is figure out how these devices we found do that."

"Too bad we didn't know this before we tried to return to Earth. Maybe we could have escaped the blackout." He sighed. "Oh well, we still have to figure out how to attach the tachyon tubes to the main engines."

"That's in the manual I found."

He looked at her with a surprised expression. "Really?"

"Yes. It turns out that John Westen had it hidden in a locked safe on the command deck. I believe he would have implemented that upgrade if he hadn't died on the trip to Proxima B." She smiled. "I put it up in the data system under JohnW."

"I'll check that out. Thanks."

She grabbed his left arm. "Before I go, I want to explain a new idea that we came up with, and it involves you men."

Charles decided not to react to her statement, other than to nod.

"We want to create the opportunity for we women to socialize with you men on a more organized fashion. Since we outnumber you, we thought it would be nice if three of us could socialize with each of you men to play games and have fun. We've already determined who will go with whom. I, Vicky and Hilary will socialize with you. The other men will have their three socializing gals."

Charles kept his emotions under control. He didn't want to start a fuss even though the idea would create problems.

"We women will come to you men's quarters one evening a week to have fun. It should help us enjoy a . . . let's just say, a more pleasurable relationship with you men."

He struggled to keep his emotions under control. "I'm not sure that we would want to do that."

Alice stared at him with her mouth partially opened. "Why not?"

He looked away for a moment before turning to her. "I don't think we want to be coerced by a threat to confine us."

Her eyes momentarily expressed panic before she frowned. "I . . . we are not going to do that."

"I'm not convinced that you're being honest."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't imply that this was a demand."

He looked away for a moment before turning to her. "I don't believe you. I think that you should leave me alone."

She stared at him with a surprised expression before turning and walking out of his quarters.

When Charles met up with Carl, Dave and Robert on the engineering deck, he found them working on attaching the Tachyon emitters to one of the engines.

"Where were you?" Carl asked, sounding a bit perturbed.

"Alice told me that they wanted to have socializing meetings with us."

Carl gave him a disgusted look. "Now what?"

"They've assigned three women to each one of us. They'll come over to our quarters once a week to socialize."

"That doesn't make sense," Dave said. "What kind of socializing do they have in mind?"

"Yeah!" Carl added. "They're the ones who want us to solicit them, but act like they would punish us if we did."

Charles wagged a finger at him. "You're right. I think we should refuse this new idea.

"Right," Carl added.

Robert laughed. "Does that mean that they'll confine us in cells if we don't agree?"

Charles sighed. "I'll tell them that we're not going to comply. If they threaten us, we'll go on strike."

"We agree!" Dave declared.

Carl pointed to an engine assembly. "We only have one more of these emitters to attach. Give us a hand, fool."

Charles sighed before he climbed up a ladder next to them and helped them move a large heavy tube to one of the main engine accelerator tubes. It was hard sweaty work but necessary to the faster than light process.

It wasn't until later the next evening that Alice, Vicky and Hilary came to his quarters as if nothing was wrong. He was seated in an easy chair watching an old episode of Star Trek, Mirror, Mirror, the one where the Enterprise crew was slipped into a parallel universe in which the Enterprise was part of a barbaric Empire where torture was used as a method to control.

"What are you watching?" Hilary asked, her face twisted with disdain.

"Something that might resemble our situation," he replied with a frown.

The women occupied a couch facing his chair. He noted that they were wearing robes.

"Why the robes?" he asked.

"Our clothes are wearing out. The commanders obviously assumed we wouldn't need that much clothing."

Charles suppressed a grin. "It's possible that the agricultural deck robots can make new clothes for us. They planted cotton and flax, which they could fashion underwear and outer clothing."

"How convenient," she reacted. "That would suggest that they realized that we would be in this frozen nexus where we would suffer perpetual boredom."

Charles waited until she was done complaining before he stood up. "What do you gals want?"

They looked up at him for a moment before Vicky made an unexpected request. "How about some beer?"

Charles barely got a chance to turn his head to have a robot serve some beer when two of the robots had already begun to obey the request.

"Do those mechanical creeps have to watch us all of the time?" Hilary asked.

"It doesn't matter," Charles said. "They're programmed to do that. They're just machines. They don't judge us."

Vicky had to add her complaint. "I get this ugly feeling that they're watching us all of the time."

The command system is programmed to constantly watch us," Charles told her. "Probably to make sure we're safe."

"I'll bet it was for the men to spy on us women," Hilary said.

"I can assure you that we're not doing that," Charles replied with his expression radiating seriousness.

"I'll bet!"

After they were served beer, Vicky looked at Charles and grinned. "Do you think we're being too demanding?"

He struggled to present a stoic face. "I'm not a psychologist. My experience with women is . . . well, not very satisfying."

"Maybe this isn't the best way to reestablish a congenial experience," Alice said.

"Perhaps it would make more sense if we got together to discuss ways we can alleviate our predicament."

They stared at him for several minutes before Hilary smiled at him. "Yeah, but there's really no reason why we can't be casual when we do it."

Charles smiled. "Ok with me."

"They giggled.

"I think I would prefer to wear skivvies," Vicky said. "Uniforms are not very comfortable."

"They're supposed to be functional," Hilary said. "Not comfortable."

"I've gone through this ship's equipment lists and found that the allotment for female crew members is ten percent of that for male crew members," Alice said. "That would suggest that females would eventually be wearing much less than males."

"That figures," Hilary said.

Charles remained quiet. The last thing he wanted was a possible dispute over something he had no knowledge about. He was not sure what Alice was up to, considering his anger after he was tricked into being a prisoner in her holding cell.