Starbound by Joe Haldeman

Author:Joe Haldeman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Married People, Space Opera, Interplanetary Voyages, Fiction, Science Fiction, American, Human-Alien Encounters, Adventure, General
ISBN: 9780441018178
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

12

MEDICAL HISTORY

1 September 2088

So Elza thinks Moonboy is a little crazy. Maybe more than a little. He’d been acting more odd than usual for a couple of weeks, I saw in retrospect, but it hadn’t made a big impression. He’d been moody as long as we’d known him; so now he was a little moodier, withdrawn.

I’m somewhat snoopy, but then that is what I’m paid to do. So when Elza said she was going down to the kitchen for a snack and set down her notebook without turning it off, I did what was natural for me and leaned over to take a look.

It was Moonboy’s medical file, open to a confidential psychological evaluation, eighteen years ago. It was in a folder labeled “Aptitude for long-term assignment, Mars Base.”

The box the psychiatrist had checked said “marginally acceptable,” with a scrawled “see attached” alongside. I tapped on it, and the document was fascinating. Disturbing.

Moonboy had had inpatient psychiatric treatment, on Earth, for assault and claustrophobia. When he was eleven, a stepfather had gotten angry with him for crying and taped his mouth shut, then bound his arms and legs in tape, too, and pushed him into a dark closet for punishment. He choked on vomit and died, but was revived on the way to the hospital. He never saw the stepfather again, but the damage was done.

“Pretty interesting?” I hadn’t heard Elza come back.

“I’m sorry. Compromising professional ethics.”

“Well, I’m not a psychiatrist, and Moonboy wouldn’t be my psychiatric patient anyhow. I really shouldn’t have had access to the file. But I saw a thread to it and just asked, and it opened. You could have done the same thing.”

“I’m surprised they accepted him for Mars.”

“Hmm. A married pair of xenologists probably looked like a good package deal, and Mars itself isn’t too bad for a claustrophobe. The base is big, and you can go outside. Unlike here.”

“There are other factors for his moodiness,” I said. “You’re sitting on one of them, I must point out.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I should talk to him.” She picked up the notebook and tapped through a few pages. “Meryl’s okay with it. I talked it over with her. She hasn’t been a saint.”

“That’s not too relevant.”

“I know, I know.”

“Are you still . . .”

“No, not really. We haven’t closed any doors, but . . . yeah, I should talk to him.”

“Would it do any good for me to talk to him? Give my okay?”

“No. He knows you’re not bothered by it. Besides, you’re an authority figure to him.”

That was comforting. “Authority figures might be a problem, if one had tried to murder you at age eleven.”

“Didn’t just try. Though he doesn’t remember dying. He passed out, puking, and was revived. He still doesn’t know he died.” She shuddered. “What a bastard.”

“He does remember the incident up to that point?”

She tapped some more and shook her head. “Guy doesn’t say whether he learned that from Moonboy himself or from hospital records.” She put it down and leaned back, hands behind her head.

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