La Double Inconstance (2030–31) — Episode 3
6: Tuesday evening: Anna de Kasparis
Dr Anna de Kasparis’s office is on the fourth floor of the ESA admin building, 400 metres and two blocks away from the dormitories where the astronaut-candidates live. Because of her professional duties, it’s large by the standards of staff members of her grade. A traditional desk occupies one corner but opposite there’s an alcove with a psychotherapist’s couch. Comfortable chairs circling a coffee table face her desk, the coffee facilities are just behind, close to the entrance door.
The candidates, as Anna thinks of them, imagine her job is assessment. She sees the guarded looks in their eyes, the slightest tinges of fear. They think that one down-check from her and they’re out. They feel her actions and motives are inscrutable: that they will never out-think her, never understand the real game she plays with them.
They are not entirely wrong.
The main reason she is there however - let us be frank, she thinks - is to manipulate them. To get the students to perform, to do things, in the way the mission requires. In the service of this important task she has very wide latitude indeed.
Today, with Capitaine André Richard Antoine, nicknamed Arlequin, she has to carry off something difficult. It’s going to be a difficult week all round. But, to be fair, it’s something she has to do with almost all of the astronauts: André is not the first and he won’t be the last; some are easier than others.
She normally wears the standard ESA coveralls. It’s part of the esprit de corps which binds them together, that and the secrecy. Because officially Europe has not militarised its operations in space.
But for this project with André she needs something more personable, something beyond the official. She needs informality, a chance for emotion. Without emotion there will be no buy-in. Accordingly, she wears the same outfit as this morning: black blouse, black skirt tight around her waist and flared over the hips, black tights, short black boots in soft leather. She’s lounging in one of the comfy armchairs, ankles crossed, when his knock comes at the door and he walks in.
She points to the coffee pot behind her (she’s already sipping at her mug); waits for him to settle himself. André Antoine, Arlequin, helicopter pilot she thinks to herself: muscular, a mesomorph, only slightly taller than herself, slightly younger. He has the usual air of wariness: he doesn’t know why he’s been summoned.
Her first question is disconcerting: “Tell me how you met your wife.”
He’s been interviewed many times; the ESA knows all there is to know about his biography so there’s just the slightest pause before he responds to this seemingly random and pointless question.
“I always wanted to fly helicopters, even as a child. I used to read about whirlybirds, daring rescues … and blowing up tanks! I was accepted into ALAT, the French army air corps, after graduation.”
“What did you study at university?”
“I did Aerospace Engineering at the Grenoble Institute of Technology.”
“OK.”
“After training I served at a number of bases in the south of France, interspersed with missions in North Africa. Military aviation is glamorous for some people: parties, a pretty wild social life.”
He looks at Anna with disconcerting directness.
“There were always women: uninhibited, intoxicated with danger. It took me a while to discover they’re a type.”
7: Tuesday evening: Meeting Sylvia
Anna nods: lubricating the flow.
“I understand - fast women, OK for girlfriends, not so great for wives perhaps. So what happened, were you looking for something different? Did you decide it was time to settle down and raise a family?”
“It was after I’d been selected for the Special Forces helicopter regiment based at Pau. We were deployed in the Sahel, in Chad, doing insertions against AQIM, that’s Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. This particular operation was in the middle of the night, we had to fly to a wadi to exfiltrate a team. I was in command, in the left-hand seat. I had a new guy with me who was actually flying the bird.
“We’d done many such missions, always at night. We’d drop a group to do their reconnaissance or raiding or whatever, come back after a few hours or a few days to retrieve them. There was rarely any trouble from our point of view.
“On this occasion they must have been followed, or perhaps it was just bad luck that they disturbed a bunch of bad guys near the exfiltration site.”
“How were you feeling during the mission?” asks Anna, examining his face.
“A little taut: we all know how things can suddenly...” he shrugs, “Anyway, my colleague set us down on a flat area of sand. I was checking the skyline. It was very dark and I remember the stars were bright in the night vision kit. I saw shadows but they were only spindle-bushes growing at the lip of the valley. It all seemed to be going well.
“We loaded the troopers and lifted off, still below the skyline, moving forwards slowly, looking to engage lift. We had our headsets on, so despite that we’re very quiet, you don’t hear much from outside. First thing I knew, sparks appeared from the valley top to my front-left. The gunner called it in and my pilot pushed the nose down, cranked up the pitch and angled us off hard to the right.
“That was absolutely the right thing to do. The guy with the AK must have just sprayed the general area from where he could hear us. The bullet went in my left arm and through part of my chest, luckily missing anything vital.”
“How did you respond to that?”
Anna looks fascinated: head cocked to one side, alert and focused.
“They always say ‘The training kicks in’ and the funny thing is, it does. I didn’t feel much pain, just the sudden shock of it happening at all. I told my pilot I’d been hit but I thought I was OK, and we agreed to divert to the nearest Forward Operating Base where I’d be able to get assistance. I lay back and squeezed through my flight jacket - I knew I was bleeding - and ten minutes later a medic was checking me out.”
“And they flew you back to Pau?”
“Casualty evacuation: the chest wound clinched it. They practically had a conveyor belt out of Chad at that time, a regular stream of wounded. It was a very nice military hospital in Pau and I had a very pretty nurse, Sylvia.”
“She made an impression on you?”
He laughs: isn’t it an old story?
“It’s not hard to be impressed by an attractive young woman who’s caring for you like she really cares. As I got better we spent more time together.”
“What would you say are her key qualities?”
“She’s amusing - she comes out with stuff like she’s an ingénue and just doesn’t care. And she doesn’t take me seriously; she’s not at all impressed by what I do. Base girls tend to think you’re a hero - they see the pilot, not the man. But Sylvia never cared about any of that. It was enough that I amused her and - to be frank - was totally obsessed with her.”
“And that you were clever and good looking?”
He smiles: “That, of course.”
“And now you have a baby. Do you still find her sexually attractive?”
“Can’t keep my hands off her.”
8: Tuesday evening: An offer
Anna, now brisk, moves in.
“This is a lengthy mission, more than half a year each way in a relatively small module. You’ll be sharing with Tania. Does that give you pause?”
All of these issues are familiar to André, the facts have been clear for weeks now. He wonders why Anna is bringing it up again; gives his stock answer.
“Separations are always difficult, I get that, just ask any of the guys. But there’s no real chemistry as such with Tania. We get on, but not in that way.”
“And yet this morning, after she saved you from disaster?”
“Yes, there was that.”
And with that, Anna is done with the preamble.
“The ESA is not in the business of breaking up families. There are good reasons for having male-female crew and not all of them are politically-motivated. But there’s plenty of scope for problems too. Sexual frustration could compromise the mission just as much as the dangers of crew liaisons. It would be irresponsible to ignore the issues on account of prudishness or ridicule or bad PR, don’t you agree?
André doesn’t really get where this is going but nods in agreement anyway.
“You and Tania will each be provided with a synthetic companion to address your emotional and intimate physical needs,” Anna says, recognising in herself the stilted language of sex education lessons in school.
“And before you laugh or show any other signs of embarrassment, the state of the art has progressed unbelievably over the last year. Your companion, although artificial, will be effectively indistinguishable from a human being. It will be just like those science-fiction stories with androids and synthetic people, because now, for the ESA, they really do exist.”
Dr Anna de Kasparis is right. The mission requires its operatives to be on the top of their game, without the burden of unfulfilled primary impulses. It’s as important as securing food and drink and the generals have always understood it. But there are no convenient brothels or ‘happenstance meetings’ in interplanetary space.
André nods, self-control has kicked in, seriousness has been restored. He wonders what kind of diagnostic this is.
Anna leans back and looks him in the eye.
“Now to the hard question: who will your partner be patterned after? The possibilities are unlimited and your choice will be in complete confidence.”
De Kasparis leans forward and, to André’s surprise, stands up.
“André, we will do literally anything for the success of this mission. For example, how would you feel with a pretty close copy of me as your devoted partner?”
She says this with just the hint of a sardonic smile... as she does a seductive twirl before settling back in her seat, daring him to laugh or not take her seriously.
For a moment André is off balance, feels a surge of lust; common sense intervenes in milliseconds. Don’t think, though, that Anna didn’t note that micro-expression.
He’s guessing it’s another test, she thinks, but it’s not: it’s a nudge.
“Such an entrancing offer,” he says calmly, “But I’d have to turn it down. Sylvia would go ballistic and it would be morally wrong, it would feel like infidelity. And I could never do that.”
“Well, I suppose there is one obvious alternative that could work?”
She looks at him intently, waiting for the penny to drop.
His body gets it before his consciousness; he looks flustered.
“Sylvia? She would never agree. And in any case you have no idea how she behaves in...”
Anna just sits there.
“She would never agree.”
“But you would, I take it. Well, we all have our part to play. I’ll be meeting your wife in two days time in Paris. You should expect to have an interesting conversation after that, when you see her this coming weekend.”
She stands up (the interview is over; he automatically follows suit) and she takes his hand solemnly, leading him to the door.
“Thanks, André, for being so understanding. You know how important this is. Really. Do your best. And remember. Secret.”
André vanishes down the corridor; Anna walks to her desk to write up her notes. Not one of the hard ones, she thinks. But Sylvia the traditionalist wife - that’s going to be a charm.
The full story text can be found in my SF novel: here:
- "Donatien's Children" (2022) — as a PDF, and
- "Donatien's Children" (2022) — on Amazon for easier reading.
