'SEE YOU MORNING' 096 True Partner

‘SEE YOU MORNING’ 096 True Partner

Fortunately, the medic position was not a critical post, and there were plenty of reserves. Brittany spent the entire afternoon following Lübeck around, and her transfer was processed quickly. She went back to her original room and moved her belongings into Lübeck’s room.

Lübeck had no desire to linger over official duties either. With nothing pressing, he clocked out on time. When he opened the door, he saw Brittany arranging her personal items. The scene before him felt like a replay of two months ago. How many times in a lifetime can a moment you long for truly repeat itself?

Lübeck stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He stopped Brittany in the middle of her busywork, took her hand, and drew her to stand before him. He looked into her eyes, studying her face, as if checking whether she had been hurt during the time he had lost her, whether she had changed, whether she was no longer the same person she used to be.

“Captain Lübeck, what’s wrong?” Brittany asked softly.

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

Brittany said nothing. She threw herself into Lübeck’s arms.

Lübeck held her tightly, his arm covering her mouth and nose, but she still murmured through it,

“Me too.” Then she looked up at Lübeck.

“Tell me, when did you change your mind?”

“When they asked me to choose a partner, I asked about you. They said you had been assigned to another unit.”

“Hmph, why did you make me wait so long?” As she spoke, Brittany twisted her body and pounded Lübeck’s shoulder twice with her fists, half-complaining, half-coquettish.

“I’m sorry. The truth is, I never quite let you go.”

“Then why? Oh, you were thinking about your ex-wife, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to forget her, so I didn’t erase my memories. She and I made a promise—in the next life, she’ll come find me again. But I don’t know where she is, or when. Actually, I’ve been trying to find her shadow in you. It’s just, heh, it’s a bit funny. I’m not even sure you’re her.”

“Oh,” Brittany replied, saying nothing more. She was clearly thinking.

“So what if I’m not her?”

“None of that matters anymore. You are you. I’ve realized I care about you too.”

“Mm,” Brittany buried her head in Lübeck’s chest again, as if a weight had been lifted.

“Let’s go for a walk. Dinner time’s almost here.”

“Okay.”

Mars has almost no atmosphere, so the base personnel can only stay inside the buildings. There is almost no outdoor work unless absolutely necessary.

Lübeck held Brittany by the waist and walked along the corridor beside the windows toward the dining hall. It was a clear day—Mars’s atmospheric visibility was especially good—though all there was to see were red rocks and gravel, an endless desolation. The people on Earth had no idea that amid this barrenness, a human base of their own kind was already operating.

The food at the garrison mess hall couldn’t compare to the rehabilitation center—it wasn’t as refined—but the officers’ dining hall was still plentiful. Lübeck no longer held any prejudice about her freeloading off the officers’ meals. Thinking of all thosenoons she had sacrificed her own lunch just to see him again, he felt a pang of tenderness for her.

But halfway there, Brittany suddenly had an idea and said,

“You treated me to lunch. Can I treat you to dinner?”

“Oh? Sure.”

When a senior officer walked into the soldiers’ mess hall, he immediately drew a flood of attention. Lübeck could only nod and smile at each person in turn. He also noticed that these soldiers were all teenagers and twenty-somethings—some conservative in demeanor and dress, some fashionable, some cyberpunk. Brittany seemed to enjoy the spotlight, walking briskly ahead and pulling Lübeck along behind her.

But their dinner quickly turned from an ordinary meal into a Cinderella reality show. Before long, soldiers from Lübeck’s unit recognized their captain, and wave after wave of people came asking for photos. Lübeck kept fending off these young people while finishing his meal, then looked at the happiness radiating from Brittany’s face and thought: this isn’t her treating me to dinner—this is her publicly establishing a relationship with me.

After an unusually lively dinner, the two left the dining hall and started walking back along the corridor. Outside, it was completely dark, with only yellow and red lights from various base facilities, dim and gloomy. But the corridor lighting inside the base was exceptionally bright—perhaps to keep the mood of people in the enclosed space comfortable.

After their walk back to the room, the food in their stomachs had mostly settled. Brittany had long noticed the integrated trainer in Lübeck’s suite, designed for low-gravity muscle training. She pointed at it and asked, Can I use it? I haven’t done my physical training today.

“Of course,” Lübeck said, then sat down to one side, flipping through the materials on his new ship while occasionally glancing up at Brittany. Although Lübeck had commanded the same model of aerospace carrier before, when he opened the new documents he’d received, he found that this ship was significantly different from the last—an improved version, essentially a new class, with a larger hangar and flight deck. Most importantly, it had a biosphere self-sustaining system built into the interior, so this time the crew included a group of botanists, zoologists, farmers, and breeders.

Aren’t male-female partners also part of the ecosystem? At this thought, Lübeck looked up at Brittany. At some point she had taken off her uniform jacket and tossed it aside, tied a red athletic headband around her forehead and hair, and was wearing a set of light gray uniform undergarments. Sweat had soaked her collar and underarms, and the fitted fabric traced the curves of her figure perfectly.

Yet Lübeck felt no stirring. Was he getting old? He wondered. But he had just reversed his age—his body was at peak 25-year-old function. So why no sexual impulse? Was it that he didn’t physically love her? But he had definitely felt excitement the first day he met her. Why was he so calm now? Was it because she already belonged to him, and without suspense there was no passion? Or was it that after decades, he no longer expected anything from the affair between men and women? By not choosing to erase his memories, had he lost some of the freshness of a new beginning? But erasing his memories would mean forgetting Ruth forever—and where was she now? Lübeck began to wonder: had he chosen Brittany because he was afraid of losing?

“Erich, do you need this equipment?” Brittany called from the other side of the room.

“No, I’m good. Go ahead.” Though his reply was calm, the way she had just called his name echoed in his mind, stirring memories of the past with Ruth beside him. Looking at Brittany, this woman’s care and persistence for him could not be ignored either.

She seemed to have a straightforward personality. After finishing her workout, she put her sweat-soaked clothes in the washing machine, then gathered up Lübeck’s as well and tossed them in too. Then she turned back, stood in front of Lübeck, and said,

“I want to take a shower. Do you want to?” After saying that, she took another step closer, leaned her body against Lübeck’s arm, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding his hand.

The scent radiating from Brittany’s pores after her workout seemed to stir something in Lübeck. He stood up gladly and accepted her invitation.