The Governess

A Trip In Space

A week later Fleur was traveling with the Elynesian genetic engineer to his home country. First the two of them had to fly with a commercial airliner to Northern Queensland, where they would board a spacecraft which would launch them into an orbit around Earth.

"I have never imagined I would ever travel business class," the young woman told her employer, while she was looking out of the plane's window to a world she would not see again for the next seven years. The sight made her feel a little bit sad, but Fleur realized that she had to take this opportunity to work and live in one of the space settlements – as it would probably never happen again. Her friends and family had been both shocked and happy for her, when she had informed them that she would leave Earth for a job as a governess.

"You should be glad that the Elynesian government is willing to pay for our traveling expenses. Not that they lack the necessary funds, as our gold reserves measure at least sixty thousand metric tons and probably a manifold of it." "Why do they pay for it?" "I am a member of the Elynesian Academy of Science and in that role I am an important adviser for my government – at least when it comes to matters of science policy or issues that are highly dependent on scientific knowledge. And as you might guess, there are lot of such matters in Elynesia, so my importance in society could hardly be overrated. Not that I like to brag about myself, though."

"And how is the Elynesian government related to the Ulde case?" the upcoming governess curiously asked. "The minister of education and youth affairs has asked me to take care of her. And all costs of her up bringing are paid by the ministry." "And why would they do that?" Charles Bow shook his head and he said quite firmly: "We shall discuss this very topic once we are safely in Elynesia and not a second sooner."

Fleur suddenly realized that she had become involved in some secret of the Elynesian government and it made her feel quite uncomfortable. Simultaneously the young woman remained fascinated by her mysterious pupil, Ulde. What condition did she suffer from and why would her condition be of an interest for the Elynesian state? The young woman did not believe for a second that the authorities were funding her upbringing and education solely for the sake of compassion. There had to be more behind it, something bigger, way bigger.

Nevertheless she did not discuss the matter any further during their flight to Australia. It took them about thirty hours to arrive at Cairns Airport, during which Charles Bow was mostly sleeping. There they had a transfer to a small charter plane, which brought them to Weipa Airport. There they took a bus to the Northern Queensland Space Center, that part seemed to take centuries and Fleur almost felt asleep.

From the NQSC they were launched into outer space. However, the journey to Elynesia was also divided in two separate flights: the first from Queensland to the Jules Verne Space Station, which was located in a High Earth Orbit, and the second flight brought them to the fourth Sun-Earth Lagrange point better known as SEL-4.

"Our destination," Charles Bow explained, "is the Settlement of Hawking. That is a rotating wheel-shaped space habitat. It has a diameter of about two kilometers and is home to some fifteen thousand people." "I always thought that you Elynesians lived in big rotating cylinders," Fleur remarked. "Most do, but Hawking is one of the oldest space settlements and had been designed for a much smaller community. Those famous cylinders are designed to accommodate several millions of people and they were build much later."

"You work in Ilium Novum," Fleur said. "Yes, I do. There are a couple of flights between both settlements and it's a trip of only twenty minutes or so. However, my physical presence at the University is not really often required. Many lectures, in particular those of the introductory courses, have been recorded on video and for the overall majority of other occasions I can use holographic presence."

"And your research? How do you do that?" "The University of Ilium Novum has a lab in Hawking, where I can do most of my research work. Actually I like that arrangement, as in a small community there will be fewer people to interrupt you, while you're busy. In academics there are always people who need something from you, which has no relation whatsoever to your own work." "So there are not many people who work with you at this lab?" "No, only a dozen. Mostly some PhD students, but no other teaching staff and absolutely no bickering professors."

"What kind of work is done by Hawking residents?" the young woman asked. "Hawking is primarily the seat of several government organizations, primarily subsidiaries of the big ministries. Their names, well I have never bothered to learn them, so I won't expect that you would. Civil servants constitute about fifty-five percent of the working population. And the remainder of the population is working all kind of services like shops and schools and so on."

Apparently Hawking was not the most exciting place to live. Nevertheless, Fleur was glad not to be forced to go living in Ilium Novum, a city with no less than one million inhabitants, as a quiet town was much more to her taste.

Nevertheless almost everything she knew about Elynesia concerned its capital city. But perhaps, the young woman thought, that was not really surprising, as Elynesian politics was what most Terrestrial media seemed to care about and the live of ordinary Spacers was probably too similar to that of Earthlings to be worthy to report about. And even only a little bit of Elynesian political developments ever reached the Blue Planet, the parts that concerned Earth directly or indirectly.

Suddenly Fleur realized that she knew very little of her employer, with whom she would live together for the next seven years. Charles Bow, on the other had apparently a file of her entire life at his disposal. And up till now, he had hardly told her any information about himself. That asymmetry did not feel right.

"Charles, could you, please, tell me a bit about yourself?" "What do you want to know?" "Well," Fleur said, "everything. I guess you have been born in the late 2010s." "That's true, I am fifty-two years old. I was born on Earth but my parents immigrated to Elynesia when I was twelve. My father had been an engineer and my mother an agricultural scientist.

"After completing high school I studied biology at the University of Ilium Novum and I eventually got a masters degree in applied genetics. Subsequently I did a PhD in synthetic biology under supervision of professor Richard Veldman." "Veldman," Fleur said, "the name sounds vaguely familiar. I believe I read something about him a while ago, or maybe I saw it on television. But unfortunately I cannot remember what."

"That could be possible," Charles said rather flatly, "he is a well-known and brilliant scientist with a long list of achievements in his field of expertise and because of it he has quite a deal of notoriety on Earth. And he also has some rather controversial if not completely disgusting opinions, even for Elynesian standards."

"What kind of person is he?" "I would strongly recommend you to stay as far away as possible from him. He isn't really that a pleasant person." "Is it likely I'll ever meet him?" "Not really, he has recently moved to the Asteroid Belt and as far as I know he does not intent to return to the Sun-Earth Lagrange points anytime soon. Which is something I not really mourn, to be honest."

The tone of his voice told the young woman that she could better avoid the subject of Veldman in the future. Apparently the two scientists had had some kind of a serious fall out and given that Charles and not Veldman would be her boss, the less Fleur knew about their conflict the better it would be for her. Anyway, she thought, the way he spoke of his former supervisor would make one believe that the other man was a mad scientist from a twentieth century comic series.

"Charles, do you have any hobbies?" she asked to change the subject. "Actually, I am quite a workaholic. But in my scarce sparse time I like to watch classic movies. And I hike regularly to relax." "At least these are things we could do together, at least if you want." "And why should I not want that?" Charles Bow asked with a big but somehow also sinister smile.