Entry 66

"You have a little brother too, right?" I asked. It was not every day that Ven talked about himself. He had always been sort of aloof and standoffish. I really did not know much about him other than he hated androids and loved his ship.

"Yes," Ven answered. "Rome is eighteen."

"Wait! Rome? Your sister's name is Florence and your brother's name is Rome?" Ven had to be pulling my leg. He could not be serious.

"Yes." A frown touched Ven's face. Then he motioned to the other station and said, "This console is for when..."

"Hold it," I grabbed his arm, causing him to look down at me with his frown. Even frowning he was handsome. "Your sister's name is Florence, your brother's name is Rome, and your name is Ven? Is Ven perhaps short for Venice?"

"That is not what we are here to discuss," Ven said. "Now, this console is for when the Artificial Cognizant is completely incapacitated. From this console I can control the ship manually." I was listening to Ven, I promise I was. I was listening to him babble about having to calculate trajectories by hand if the Artificial Cognizant was down, which was why captain's had to have at least a passing familiarity with orbital mechanics. I really was listening. But thinking about Ven's name actually being Venice - the name of an Italian city, just struck me as extremely funny. Ven did not have some action hero name like Vin Diesel. His name was Venice Barker.

I burst out into laughter.

"There is nothing funny about a ship being so incapacitated that it must be controlled manually," Ven said crossly.

"I know," I laughed, tears coming from my eyes because I was laughing so hard. "But your name is Venice Barker."

"And your name is Carlee Earhart," Ven responded. "Stating the obvious is certainly not funny."

"I"m sorry." I still couldn't stop laughing. "It's just that you're this big tough guy and your named after an Italian city." I tried to get my laughter under control, after all it really isn't nice to laugh at people, but I couldn't help myself. For some reason I found it extremely funny.

"Carlee, if you don't stop laughing right now I will rethink my decision to teach you how to fly and operate Blaue," Ven's tone was sharp and quickly sobered me. I knew he was serious, and I suppose I could not blame him. Undoubtedly laughter like mine was the reason why he told people his name was Ven and not Venice. I could just imagined a younger Ven getting teased by his peers.

"I'm sorry, Ven," I said. "I know its not nice to laugh at people. I didn't mean to."

"No one ever does," he said coldly. "Now, shall we continue our lesson?" I nodded.

"Yes, Ven, I would very much like to hear more about what happens when Blaue is inoperable," I answered.

"Good," he said. "This console has no view screen like the others. These little screens all display different facts but none of them have the display power of a view screen. This screen gives us an idea of our attitude - by attitude I mean orientation in space. This screen gives us an idea of our position, velocity, and acceleration with respect to our destination...." I listened quietly as Ven explained the several small screens at the station and made sure to keep down any laughter.

But Ven's real name is Venice Barker, and that is funny.