Children of Steel (7 page)

"Is that all that has to be done?" asked
Terease

"No, here take these," she handed each of us
a small plastic bottle. "Anti-fungal, take one a day in the morning
for a week. The spray should kill most of the fungus in a couple of
minutes. The pills will get the rest of it. Here look."

She played the light over Terease's body
again, and the patches were rapidly breaking up and shrinking.

"Thanks Kate, I owe you one," I said.

"No problem Raj, give that spray a few more
minutes to work before you get dressed, and you young lady had
better start taking a little better care of yourself. I'll see you
two later." With that she dropped her stuff back in her bag and got
up to go.

"Thank you Kate.”

"You're welcome Terease. Bye."

I showed her out of the room, and turned the
lights back up.

"Well, let’s go get some breakfast.
Okay?"

"Sure," she said with a shy smile,
"Okay."

We gave the spray a few more minutes, then
put on our uniform coveralls and went down to the mess.

It was busy down at the mess, and we both had
to wait in line. I again presumed to pick for both of us, but she
didn't seem to mind. I made sure I took a lot of food this time, I
was pretty hungry too.

We carried our trays over to a table in the
corner, and fell to with a relish. At least she was eating well
now. A couple of weeks and about twenty pounds, and she'll look
fine. Of course somebody was going to have to start teaching her to
fight and in the beginning I might as well be the one. Eventually
I'd have to see about getting Banner or Herza to teach her, but
there wasn't any rush yet.

I noticed that as people started to sit at
our table she slid just a little closer towards me. I guess I was
getting to be the lesser of two evils. I heard a "Hey Raj, what's
up?" and turned around to see Gabe heading over.

"Oh, hi Gabe pull up a seat."

He sat down across the table from us. "So,
who's your friend? I don't recall seeing you anywhere."

"Gabe, this is Terease, Terease this is my
friend Gabriel. He's another one of the ship's shuttle pilots."

"Hi Gabriel." she replied shyly.

"Hello Terease," he gave a little bow, "any
friend of Raj's is a friend of mine!" He turned to me, "Raj, I
heard we're gonna be doing EP sims today."

I groaned, "Ugh, I hate 'Ten Thousand Ways to
Die', with a passion."

"Well, at least we're in jump drive, so if
you get grounded it's no biggie."

"Excuse me, but what's an EP sim?"

I was so surprised to hear Terease I nearly
choked on my food, Gabe didn't hesitate to explain.

"Oh, that's where they set up every disaster
that the warped minds of the Company's Flight instructors can come
up with in the flight simulators. If you get killed you're grounded
for the day, and if you loose a ship that they feel was savable,
you have to make a presentation on what you did wrong."

By now I had my food back under control,
"Yeah, mess up enough times and they can even ground you for
good."

"Sounds horrid. Glad I'm an engineer."

"An engineer huh? I didn't know that Leopards
went in for that brainy stuff." said Gabe.

"Well," Terease said quietly with a shy
smile, "It's not that hard."

"Oh? I haven't the foggiest notion of how, or
even why the jump drive works, do you Raj?"

"I just fly 'em I don't fix 'em." I said
smiling between bites.

"Oh, it's not that difficult," she began and
launched into a technical discussion that lost me after about 10
seconds. I looked over at Gabe and could see he was starting to get
a little glazed around the eyes too. He looked at me and I gave him
a wink. I looked down the table at the few other people sitting
around, they looked pretty impressed too. Lost, but impressed.

When she finally came up for air about two
minutes later Gabe said, "Well, I can see where all the brains are
at this table, you lost me way, way back."

She looked over at me and I shrugged "Hey,
I'd think you'd be the first to agree that I'm no genius."

"Yes, but you do have your fine points," she
smiled, and then continued on very quietly, "and if I ever find one
I'll let you know."

Gabe started to laugh, and I grabbed my chest
"Ah, I've been mortally wounded," and laughed too.

Even Terease joined in a little, and I felt
that maybe I'd live through this after all. We continued making
small talk, and then got up to go our own ways. I walked with
Terease a little ways down the corridor.

"Um, what time does your shift end?" I
asked.

"Should be the same as yours, about 1800
why?"

"Well, I thought you may like to start
learning how to fight so you can fulfill that threat of yours
someday."

"Do I have a choice?" she asked with a
smile

"No, but this time I'm not the one doing the
enforcing, Balizar, as security head, insists that all crew members
know how to defend themselves. I've been volunteered for the
duty."

"Okay, where should I meet you?"

"My cabin, I'll have to see about a private
gym. I don't want anybody to see your back yet. Or how
inexperienced you are, some of the people on board might get bad
ideas."

"Well, I have to stop by my cabin to get a
few things, and then I'll meet you at yours."

"Oh, before I forget I uh, sent somebody down
to clean your cabin."

"You What!?" She stopped and glared at
me.

I checked the hallway to make sure nobody was
in earshot, it was clear both ways.

"Well, I didn't want you to pick up any of
that stuff again. Also let's face it, the place stinks. I wouldn't
be surprised to find out that you can't get back in it for a couple
of days either. We don't want people to find out the real reason
it's been cleaned, do we?" The last I said more as I plea than a
request.

"Oh, okay." she grumbled "But don't try to be
nice, it makes it hard for me to keep planning my revenge."

"After this morning’s bite I was kind of
hoping you'd call it even."

"That evened out the shower," I winced as she
reminded me of that. "Everything else is still under
consideration."

With that we parted ways and I headed down to
the shuttle deck to pick up my gear, and see what they had planned
for us. Sure enough Gabe had been right, and on a Sunday too! Well
at least it was an easy duty day. I found an open terminal, and
sent a mail message to Balizar, telling him I thought I should take
care of Terease's training, as she had none. Hopefully he'd have it
on her schedule by the time she checked and I'd get away with that
little bit of a fib. Then I grabbed my stuff and headed for the
Simulator deck.

I found Ron grabbing the first unlucky
victims and setting them up for their runs. As there were only two
Simulators and eight crews it was going to take awhile. I looked
around for Rudy, and found him talking with Gabe and his WSO, Dave.
Dave was a gray wolf and about ten year's older then us, he stood
about five eleven, average for a Wolf actually. He was a pretty
good guy and even though he was one of the older hands he didn’t
mind hanging out with us. He also had been around quite a lot
apparently and was always a good source of information.

"Hey guy's what's up?"

"We are," said Rudy, "We got the next one in
about thirty minutes."

"Good, I hate waiting for these things."

"So, Gabe tells us you got a new
conquest?"

"The conquest part is still under debate,
she's a tougher nut to crack than you'd think."

"Oh?" said Gabe, "she seemed to be sitting
pretty close to you there at the table."

"I think that was due to your overpowering
presence Gabe, you just scared her into my arms!" I chuckled.

"Well, she looks pretty nice, a little
underfed though, there isn't anything wrong with her is there?"

Un-oh, I knew Gabe was pretty sharp, I was
afraid he might notice that. "Nah," I lied "it's her first
assignment and she was working so hard trying to make a good
impression, that she let herself get run down and caught some flu.
Then she felt like an idiot, so she wouldn't go see the med about
it. You know how the brainy types can be."

"Yeah, and combine that with one of you
stubborn Leopard types, and I can see where that'd happen. I guess
that explains why I haven't seen her before either."

"She came aboard the Engineering module while
we were all dirtside. If it hadn't been for the clan meeting, we
would never have met. She's still a little shy."

"Well if she sticks around you that'll
change," said Rudy. "One thing you aren't, and that's shy."

"Obnoxious is a little more like it." Said
Dave with a smile.

"To know me is to loath me, huh? Then how
come I get all the girls?"

"When we figure that one out we'll all be
rich," quipped Rudy "come on, lets review some of this stuff just
in case. It's our first EP sim together so you know they're gonna
lay on the team work stuff pretty heavy."

I agreed with him on that so we sat down and
started to run down everything that was in the manual and even
practiced a few of the more common things just to tune up our team
work.

Much later as I headed back to my room, I
thought about the sim session we had just completed. I hadn't done
too poorly, and neither had Rudy. Dave though had to do a speech on
the two-man ejection sequencer, after he bailed out and left an
‘unconscious’ Gabe behind.

I found Terease sitting on my bed as I
entered my quarters; she was looking at my family pictures, the
group photo and the photo of Cassandra and myself.

"Is this your family?" she asked, gesturing
to the first picture.

"Yeah, that's us. That picture was taken just
before I left for shuttle training and the others left for their
new assignments."

"Who's the girl?"

"That's Cassandra my sister, and one true
love." I said with a sigh.

"Your sister? Isn't that incest or
something?" She had a real sour expression on her face.

"You don't know about crèches do you?" I
sounded a little disgusted now myself.

"No, why?"

"Nobody in a crèche family is actually
related. No parents."

"What do you mean, 'No parents'?"

"Just that, none, nada, zip."

"Then how were you born?"

"Listen," I said sitting down on my desk, "My
mother was a test tube, and my father was a DNA extruding machine.
I was conceived by a committee, and planned by a technician. Where
did you
think
I came from?" I asked embarrassed. Talking
about such things wasn’t exactly socially acceptable.

"I honestly never gave it any thought," she
replied abashed, "I mean, I know about genetic engineering and all.
I've just never met anybody before who was."

I laughed out loud at that! "Haven't met
anybody? Terease, nearly every animan on the ship is a crèche
baby!"

"What? But nobody ever says anything about
it."

"It's not considered polite conversation,
you'll notice nobody ever asks you about your parents either."

"I guess that would also be the reason the
clan's are so important to everybody."

"Pretty much, the Clans watch out for their
members, help all the different species get along with each other,
keep us from running afoul of human laws, and actually handle most
legal matters allowing the human courts to mostly ignore us."

"Sound's a lot like a family to me."

"You're learning. How was your room?"

"Closed for maintenance, but my clothes were
at the laundry pick-up so I'm not too bad off. So tell me about
Cassandra."

"What's to tell? We're in love and if fate
ever should smile on us, we'll get a joint assignment and probably
even settle down as lifemates."

"I don't see you saving yourself for
marriage."

"Hey, virtue is a human hang-up and sex is
not love. Anyway I am not master of my own life yet, not by a long
shot. I could be dead next year. We could conceivably never meet
again. Who knows? It's a big universe, and I'm a small cat."

"Not that small!" she said looking me up and
down.

"That's only because you're smaller." I
smiled, "come on, I found us a small practice room. It's time you
started to learn to fend off all those admirer's you're going to
have in a few weeks." I led her off down the hall to the rec area I
had reserved then.

"Oh, you know something I don't know?" She
asked.

"I figure Gabe will start making passes in a
week or so, and shortly after that it'll be open season."

"But he's a Fox!" She said aghast.

"So? Mixed pairings aren't that
uncommon."

"Oh? Have you been party to many?"

"Listen," I said quietly, "Don't tell
anybody, but my number of lovers can be counted on one hand.
Without using all your fingers even."

"So, I take it that's a No."

"Hey, I'm still learning how to flirt. On two
of those conquests
I
was the conquest!"

"Really? And here I though you were a big man
of the world."

"That's the problem with size," I admitted,
"just because you're big, people think you're mature too. Hell, I
just try to do as I'm told, let the 'older and wiser' heads figure
out what to do."

By that time we had reached the practice
room. I chased out the previous group and closed the door. We
stripped down, and I spent the next hour running her through
stretching exercises and some basic techniques.

This was followed by a trip to the showers,
then a mutual grooming session as I gave her a lecture on the
proper way to care for your fur and claws. There was obviously
nothing wrong with her teeth. After that it was dinner, where she
again surprised me by eating more than I did and off to bed.

When she laid down on her side and I on mine,
I thought about it a second then decided the hell with it and said,
"Look if I'm going to get bit in the morning then I might as well
deserve it." and I snuggled up close to her back. I was quite
surprised when she snuggled back and said "Okay." I fell asleep
felling much happier about the day.