Ian cast himself into a self-imposed exile since losing his hand. He stayed locked in his habitat, providing no communications nor receiving any visitors for weeks. After a month of Tamara filling in the gaps to keep mining operations running, the decision was made to make her the official administrator of Clover Meadow. One of her responsibilities was to oversee preparations for the shuttle to Earth, and adding Ian to the flight manifest.
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Tamara sat in the communications kiosk with her arms crossed. The video terminal she faced had a direct feed (through several satellite links) to Johnson Space Center. There was a five minute delay between sending and receiving messages across a quarter million kilometers space. While the terminal was meant to help the colony to feel closer and connected to Earth, it just ended up underscoring the fact that they were so achingly far away from home.
“We’ve become increasingly concerned about The Administrator’s performance of late,” Dr. Maria Bessel said with a mid-Atlantic accent. “We have been monitoring the illegal activity he has been overseeing, if not encouraging. But we didn’t interfere as society was still forming. Now that the colony has moved on to the ‘norming’ phase, we engaged certain tools to naturally drive towards this outcome. This makes the transition of power much easier. Colony members have reached a point that they now realize a change is needed. And you have become that change. So congratulations, Tamara! You are officially now The Administrator.”
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“Well, thank you,” Tamara said carefully. “But it sort of sounds like you drove Ian to get his hand amputated.”
She waited five minutes for a response. Though the video feed was fuzzy, Tamara could see a small, smug smile cross the flight director’s face. Then she straightened up, resuming an officious posture. “As far as our role, we may have injected some focused messaging into his socials,” Dr. Bessel explained. “Playing on emotions, stoking paranoia. Perhaps depression. But don’t presume you’re completely innocent here. And don’t pretend you’re not the real reason he went off the deep end.”
“So you just made all of this look like Fate.”
After a five minute delay the flight director laughed, unconcerned about decorum. “We’ll have to discuss Greek mythology another time,” she said. “It’s one of my favorite subjects. Welcome to the leadership ranks, Tamara. You should be very proud.”
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Standing at a distance in her EVA suit, Tamara watched as Ian boarded the Earth-bound shuttle along with three others whose rotation had ended, and one whose mother was critically ill (though he probably wouldn’t arrive before she passed.) There were no goodbyes as she let Ian maintain his social isolation. She no longer had feelings for him, and regarded their time together as a faded bookmark in a large tome of what lay ahead for her and the mission.
She turned away and headed towards Engineering, taking playful bounding steps as she went.
Eventually the shuttle launched and returned home.