McCollum - GIBRALTAR STARS (25 page)

The two women found a quiet spot in a corner. They made small talk while the waitress, a middle-aged woman whose day job involved operating a power excavator, took their order. For her second job, she had shed her dust-encrusted surface suit for a genuine Bavarian dirndl dress. She returned to the bar, retrieved two objects from a jury-rigged ship’s cryo cooler, and quickly returned with two frost-covered bulbs filled with amber-gold liquid.

“Two beers, as requested,” the waitress said.

She removed a couple of small coasters from her tray, put them in front of the women, and then set a drinking bulb on each. A traditional bowl of pretzels completed the order.

 “Anything else, dearies?”

“We’re fine, thank you.”

“Call me if you need refills.” With that, she moved with a practiced skating motion toward a table of vacuum monkeys who seemed to have been here quite a while.

“Ever drink beer from a bulb before?” Lisa asked

“Can’t say I have,” Susan responded.

“There’s a trick to it. She held up her bulb. The frost was quickly dissipating as moisture from the air condensed on the surface. “Note the lack of the usual foam or bubbles. That is the clue that the bulb is pressurized. Pick it up, put your thumb on the lever, stick the nozzle in your mouth, like so,” she demonstrated. “Now, as gently as you can, press the lever…”

A quiet hissing noise and the odor familiar to bar patrons across the galaxy suddenly suffused the air. As quickly as Lisa started the flow, she halted it. “Now you try.”

Susan followed her example. Thumb on the control, she inserted the nozzle between her lips and squeezed. There was a harsh noise and an immediate spate of coughing as liquid sprayed from her nostrils. The coughing came to a ragged halt while Lisa used a cloth to clean up the minor mess.

 “Too much thumb on that one,” Lisa said, laughing.

Susan tried again, this time with better results. After a few minutes of idle chat interspersed with sips of refreshment, she had her technique down to a science. That was when Lisa decided the time was right to broach what was on her mind.

“Tell me about Mark. How did he seem to you?”

Susan shrugged. “Tired, I suppose. I told him he looked haggard.”

“How did he respond to that?”

“He acknowledged it.”

“He did? He must be really tired.”

Susan nodded. “He explained that Nemesis is a difficult environment. There are so many things that can go wrong that it is hard to relax. Eleven were killed in setting up the base, I understand.”

 “He told me about them in his letters. Tragic. Still, compared to wars in history, we have suffered amazingly low casualties so far. Of course, I couldn’t maintain my Olympian attitude if Mark were one of them.”

“What I don’t understand,” Susan answered, “is why they didn’t find a warmer planet to set up shop.”

“Didn’t Mark explain that?”

“Something about the cluster being undetectable.”

“Right. Without a star to act as a marker, the Broa will never figure out where our main base is. Unlike a starship, you just can’t go traipsing around the universe via stargate. You have to have a definite destination in mind.”

“Oh.”

“The problem with rogue planets is that they are orphans — no star to warm them. That’s why they are called ‘rogues.’ Actually, Nemesis is a lot warmer than it ought to be. It’s the flexing caused by the other planets. At least, that is what Mark says in his letters.”

“It’s colder than a witch’s teat,” Susan agreed.

“A what?”

“Just an expression I once heard. We were there for three days offloading cargo, and everywhere I went, I had to wear an electrically heated bunny suit. You can see your breath in the pedestrian tunnels.”

“How did you two run into one another?” Lisa asked, hoping her delivery did not betray her intense interest in the question.

“By accident,” Susan lied. “I was on my way to lunch when I saw him. He was traversing a cross-passage, visible for maybe a second. It startled me. It took me a moment to react.

“Anyway, when I got over my shock, I ran after him, yelling his name like an idiot. From the expression on his face, he must have thought so when he turned around and saw me.”

 “So, Mark invited you to dinner?”

“Not right away. We adjourned to
Gideon
’s mess. That was where I told him that he looked haggard. We had coffee together while I brought him up to speed on the gossip from New Mexico. Our conversation was cut short by a call from his boss. A tractor had buried itself in a snow bank or something. That is when he invited me to dinner.”

“Did he seem depressed?”

“Not particularly,” Susan responded. “Just tired. Sort of like you seem to me now.”

“I’m tired, all right,” Lisa agreed. “Bone tired. How was dinner?”

“Delicious. Apparently, your husband has some pull with the chef. He had dinner waiting in a thermal box, with a red rose on the table.”

Lisa grew silent for a dozen seconds. Her expression, which had been open and friendly, became indefinable. When she spoke again, there had been a change in her voice.

“You and Mark had dinner in private?”

“We did.”

The pause from Lisa was longer this time. Finally, choosing each word carefully, she said, “There is a question I would like to ask you, but I’m not sure how to phrase it.”

“You want to know if I slept with your husband,” Susan responded.

“Well… yes!”

“The answer is no. I did not.”

Another long pause ensued.

“Would you tell me if you had?”

“Under normal circumstances? No. I would lie. However, in this case, virtue is the easy call. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing at all?”

Susan shrugged. “If you must know… I offered. Mark turned me down.”

“He told you he didn’t want to have sex with you?” Lisa’s question was dripping with incredulity. “That doesn’t sound like a man.”

Incongruously, Susan chose that moment to laugh. “You know, that was my exact thought at the time! You think you have them figured out, and they throw you a curve. It took me a few moments to comprehend what was going on.”

“What?”

“It seems that Mark loves you very much. Don’t misunderstand me. He was tempted! I have enough experience to read the signs. Yet, when the time came, he refused to play. The moment passed, we had dessert and coffee, and then he took me to their version of this place.

“I think I met just about the entire male population of the planet. There was standing room only around the walls that night. I don’t know how they selected who it was that would come over and ask me to dance or in what order. I think they were holding a silent auction back in the corner. All I know is that I danced with about thirty different men.”

“How lucky for you.”

“It was therapeutic. My ego was bruised right about then and that dance did more to cheer me up than I would have thought possible. I also confirmed a suspicion that I have always had about the male of the species.”

“What’s that?” Lisa asked, still subdued as she tried to process what she was hearing.

“You never see them, but they just
have
to possess six hands!” she said, giggling. “That is the only thing that explains it.”

Despite herself, Lisa laughed too. “Isn’t that the truth?”

Her laughter was so unexpected, she paused a moment to reflect on it. Here she sat, drinking with a woman who admitted propositioning her husband. She should have been angry.
How could she sit here laughing with the hussy?
she wondered, reaching back into her memory for an antique concept of her own.

Apparently, she decided after nearly a minute of introspection, deep down, she must believe Susan’s story. She
wanted
to believe it, both for the sake of her own sanity and for her marriage.

The manic mood passed as quickly as it arrived. What replaced it was an indefinable sadness. Her husband had faced temptation and passed the test. Yet, what good did that do her when he was 200 light-years away in the deep black?

“Susan,” she asked, plaintively, incipient tears in her voice, “what can I do?”

The answer came without hesitation. “You must go to him. He needs you. He had the willpower this time. He may not be as strong the next time opportunity presents itself.”

Lisa nodded. It was the sort of advice only a woman can give another woman. Men just didn’t have it in their genes to see beyond the surface of the words.

Susan watched Lisa’s features change. She saw doubt replaced by confusion, then calculation, and finally, resolve.

“Excuse me.” Lisa reached for her communicator. A couple of numbers punched and she had it up to her ear. A tinny voice answered on the other end.

 “Yeoman Beal? This is Lisa Rykand. Is the admiral still on duty?” (Short pause.) “May I schedule an appointment? (Short pause, tinny voice.) No, this afternoon. It won’t take long.”

There was a much longer pause, followed by the tinny voice again.

“I’ll be right there.”

Lisa slid off the stool and turned to her guest. “Thanks for the advice. Order another drink. Tell the waitress to put it on my bill.”

 With that, she turned and hurried out of the bistro, moving as fast as Sutton gravity would allow.

#

Mark Rykand was again in his vacuum suit, watching two cranes lower a large rectangular frame into place. The building going up was the largest in Port Grayson, or would be once they had the insulation on its sides. Unlike the igloo-shaped residential domes, this was a massive storeroom that would house a portion of the billions of spare parts a fleet needed to maintain its operational readiness. It was the first of hundreds that would soon dot the ice plain that was Nemesis’ most prominent feature.

“Take the strain off that cable, Bartowski!” he ordered as his readouts indicated one of the cranes was behind the other in lowering the frame into position.

There was no response. None was required. Almost immediately, the strain meter display in his helmet showed a change from amber to green. The frame continued to drop toward the nearly one thousand pilings that were the building’s foundation.

A brisk wind was blowing — some 200 KPH if the readouts in his suit were to be believed. Luckily, Nemesis’ hydrogen and helium atmosphere was not very dense. The blowing gale around him lacked the punch of a hurricane on Earth. In fact, the whistling of it was barely audible. As light a punch as the wind packed, however, the building framework was large and cumbersome and the cranes were having difficulty keeping it steady.

As the beams inched their way downward, his earphones reverberated with a squawking noise, followed by the voice of one of the crane operators.

“Commander Rykand!”

“Yes, Sweeney.”

“The Port Captain wants to see you ASAP.”

“What about?”

“The orderly didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

“Okay, watch that left anchor. It looks like it wants to drift eastward in the wind. Don’t let it get out of hand. I’ll be back as soon as I find out what our lord and master wants.”

With that, Mark trudged to where a surface airlock sat next to a large pile of building materials.

On most planets, surface airlocks were entrances to underground tunnels, and once inside, sloped down. On Nemesis, the cold required him to climb up. Luckily, in the last two weeks, they had brought a new tube into operation. This one led directly back to Headquarters.

Once he reached the Hub, he made his way to the suiting station and began the egress process for his suit. As usual, rivulets of condensate streamed down to pool at his feet. It took practice to keep the water out of one’s boots when they were unclamped. If the inside liner got wet, it could be dangerous the next time out.

Having changed into his shipsuit, Mark hurried to the lift that would take him up to Administration and to the Captain’s office.

“Commander Rykand, reporting as ordered, sir!” The exaggerated military salute was something of an in-joke.

“Mark, so there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you,” Captain Gunderson boomed. ‘Boom’ was the only volume his voice seemed to have. “You have a visitor. Someone you haven’t seen in awhile.”

“Visitor, sir?”

“Hello, Mark,” a familiar voice said from behind him.

He turned to see Lisa smiling broadly, standing in front of the visitor chair tucked behind the open door.

“Lisa! How did you…?” It took a moment for his brain to grasp that she was really here and that talking was not what he wanted at the moment. As his voice died, his legs moved. Stepping forward, he swept her into his arms.

The kiss was long and passionate and totally inappropriate for the office of one’s commanding officer. Nor did Gunderson seem disposed to avert his eyes. After nearly a minute of trying to forcefully join his wife’s flesh with his own (and not in the Biblical sense), he slowly became aware of the big, grinning man standing behind the desk. His only thought was
pervert!

“What are you doing here?” he asked breathlessly when the kiss finally ended.

“I marched into the Admiral’s office and told him that I wanted leave to see my husband or else he could get himself another translator.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He gave me more than I asked for.”

“How long?”

“I have to head back in eight days. I’ve asked Captain Gunderson if he could spare you for a few days.”

“What did he say?” Mark asked, looking once more at the grinning Gunderson.

“He agreed.”

“I did indeed, Commander. You are hereby granted leave for the next seven days. I don’t know what you two are going to do on this godforsaken rock for that long…” the words were accompanied by a lewd chuckle, “but you have my blessing. Now get the hell out of my office before the rest of the men think I’ve gone soft.”

“Yes, sir!” came the combined response.

Mark tucked his arm around Lisa’s waist and nearly lifted her off her feet as they hurried to follow orders. He guided her back to his quarters, gaining more than a few quizzical or envious looks along the way.

When they closed and locked the door behind them, they once again kissed. This one was more tender than frantic. When it was done, he thrust her back to arm’s length and gazed at her. There was an expression on her face that he recognized. It was her “I have a secret” face.