She rubbed her stomach. “Are you kidding? I haven’t eaten for three days. I was trapped in the spine of my ship and couldn’t visit the galley or the rest of the ship.”
“Well let’s take care of that.” I lead her to the galley and started taking packages out of the boxes of supplies that lined one wall and covered the galley tables. I had emptied the container that was dropped and brought everything inside and just put it along the wall. I pulled out some pre-made chicken cordon bleu and made that. In all I made four servings, figuring that we would probably each eat two. I was hungry too.
She took a bite and then began to hungrily shovel in the food. “This is so good,” she said. She paused to take a drink of Kool-aid and then shoveled more into her mouth.”
“These are space rations,” I said. “They are not really considered the best of cuisines.”
“These are new rations then,” she said, “Our food has to last years and I bet you these would taste bad too if they were in storage for decades, even with the effects of relativity.”
“Yes, I guess so,” I agreed. “I don’t think I could stand to be on a ship that long between ports.”
“It’s tough,” she said. “I am on my first push out from Epsilon Eridani. We were to go right back after stopping at Earth, but forty years will have passed when it’s only been four years four me. My parents will be in their nineties. The trip after that, I would have been visiting my sister’s great grandchildren. I wanted to be a spacer though and signed on with the first ship that would take me.”
“Wow, you must have just left before…,” I started to say.
She put down her fork. “Before what?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I should tell you, but I will. About twenty years ago ships started getting faster. You could have been home already.”
“How fast?” she asked. She picked up her fork again and took another bite. She had a look of relief on her face. “I thought something horrible had happened.”
“Faster than light,” I said. “A journey only takes the amount of time needed to go far enough away from the sun and then it is instantaneous.”
“How far away?” she asked. “I could get home next year?”
“Depending on the spectral type of the sun, it varies. In the solar system it is about ten astronomical units.”
I heard a pattering sound coming from beneath her chair as she stared at me open mouthed. I looked down and saw a growing puddle.
When she noticed what she did, she looked down and turned bright red. She looked at me. “I’m so embarrassed. What you said took me by surprise.” She stood up and looked down at herself. “I get like this when I am taken by surprise. Perhaps I should be wearing diapers.”
I was inclined to agree with her. “What happened on your ship when this happened?” I asked.
“It’s just been happening the last couple of weeks. They put me in EVA diapers. I heard they were going to beach me on Earth because of it.” She shuddered.
“Well you are pretty much stuck here on Triton until a relief ship comes. We are about twenty astronomical units out from where any ship goes anymore. The only reason we keep Triton open is to support stragglers.”
“Stragglers?” she asked.
“People like you. Slower than light ships that left before they came home to find out that the universe changed and transportation is faster. Anyway, I have some EVA diapers. You probably should wear them until we find out how often you wet yourself.”
She sighed. “Well okay,” she said. “I will.” She got up and I led her to the airlock. There were spacesuits there. Some were for walking across the planet, but others were for fixing ships in space. The station used to be a lot bigger and at one time it was a full support base. Now it was just an outbuilding with a section converted to quarters. The full supply of spacesuits and accessories were there. I opened a cupboard and found a pack of EVA diapers and gave it to her.