When I went back to environmental, I took a fresh mug of coffee with me. Diane had gone, but Brill was sitting at the console. “You didn’t have to wait,” I told her, indicating my tablet.
“No problem, Ish. I’m going to grab some supper in a tick. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I nodded. “The food helped perk me up and I can always wander around the ship.”
“How’re you doing on the spec two materials?”
“Really good. I’m still not confident that I could pass the real exam, but I’m getting mid-to-high eighties on the practices. That’s probably good enough, but I want to go over that fluid thermodynamics section a couple more times.”
She stood then and shook out her legs one at a time. “You’ll have plenty of time.”
“So? We’re going to see Henri tomorrow afternoon? Who all is going?”
“Diane, Bev, you and me.” I was relieved they had not bothered the second mate, Ms. Avril.
“Jillian has the duty tomorrow, or she would have come. That’s too bad, because I think she’d have had a great time.”
Secretly, I was not sure how much fun I was going to have but I was grateful to the watch standing gods for delivering me from officers.
“How’re you doing with Francis?” she asked.
“Okay, as far as I know. He’s been friendly enough. I don’t think there’s any residual animosity for tricking him or anything.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of how you are relating to him. He played a nasty little trick on you and those cracks about you and Diane were completely uncalled for.”
I shrugged. “Wind through the sails, boss. The tablet thing was just stupidity on my part. I can’t imagine why I never noticed. Ultimately, he probably did me a favor because I doubt that I’d be getting ready for the spec two exam if I hadn’t spent a month banging my head against spec one.”
“That’s true enough. You’d be ready for spec three though.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. In the end, it’s irrelevant. As for the Diane thing, he was right about that. I am too easy to tease about women. Maybe having my face rubbed in it so badly helped me, too.”
She smiled sympathetically. “Well, Diane thinks the world of you, Ish. We all do.”
“Aw, thanks. Growing up, I didn’t have sibs or an extended family. I always wondered what it would be like. I think I’m getting a feel for that now.”
Laughing, she nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. Well, I just wanted to touch base with you before heading out for supper. I’ll be aboard all night, so if you get in a bind, or can’t stay awake or anything, bip me, okay?”
“I’ll be fine. The nap and the coffee helped.” I held up my mug with a smile. “There’s plenty more where this came from.”
“Okay, I’ll stop being a mother hen. Carry on, Mr. Wang.” She laughed as she headed for the hatch.
I liked hearing her laugh.
I settled into the console and ran a little checklist of things I needed to do before morning. Diane had changed out the water line filters on the number three scrubber pumps earlier in the day. Nothing else needed scheduled maintenance until we had to swap the algae matrix in a couple of days, so I got no help there. I only needed to do one VSI and decided to save that for 03:00. It would give me something to do on the back side of the watch. Sitting there at 18:30, twelve stans looked like a long, long time.
There was nothing to be done about it, so I put my feet up on the console, made sure my coffee was in easy reach, and settled into my studies. I had a long time to sit, nothing else to do, and nobody was likely to interrupt me. I pulled up the section on liquid thermodynamics and started from the beginning.
Chapter 16
DUNSANY ROADS ORBITAL
2352-APRIL-15
Eventually the long night ended. Francis showed up right on time at 05:45 and smiled in sympathy when he saw me. “You holding up?”
“Kinda. Not as bad as I thought it would be. I got a lot of studying in.”
He looked uncomfortable at the mention of studying, so I added, “You did me a favor with the bookmark thing, you know?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“If you hadn’t set it to spec one, I’d still be slogging through spec three and wouldn’t have even thought about leapfrogging a rating.”
“Well, I still feel bad. I thought sure you’d have caught the file setting as soon as you brought up the lesson.”
“Hindsight, eh? I should have. I’ll never make that mistake again, but you were also right about me being distracted. There was a lot going on then. Are you ready to take this on?” I jerked my head at the console.
“No, but it’s my turn.”
“All ops normal, Mr. Gartner. No maintenance scheduled or performed. You have the watch.”
“I relieve you, Mr. Wang. I have the watch. And keep an eye out for the girls this afternoon. They’ve got something up their sleeves.”
Laughing I headed for my bunk and a few stan’s sleep before I found out what it might be.
I had set my tablet to bip me at 12:30 so I had time for a shower before leaving for Roubaille. I woke a lot more refreshed than I thought I might be. My body had adapted to the watch cycle pretty well. Something about teaching it to sleep when I needed to and to stay awake when that was required. The old ideas of morning and night seemed a trifle artificial in the twenty-four stan world of watch standing.
When I came out of the san, Bev, Brill, and Diane were all waiting for me. Normally, that would have been scary enough but under the circumstances, I almost turned around and walked right back in. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was met with.
Beverly, of course, was in her black leathers, but instead of the usual armor plating under it, she wore a kind of silky chemise in a pale color that looked white next to the midnight black of the leathers. The material glowed against her darker skin. She was not wearing the jacket buckled at the waist the way she usually did, but instead she left it open all the way down the front so that the tails swung free. With her buzz cut hair, tattoos, and piercings she looked both fascinating and terrifyingly fierce.
Diane wore heels and a black suit with an absolutely stunning green silk blouse unbuttoned so far she risked imminent danger of indecent exposure. The collars of both the blouse and the jacket were turned up to frame her face but also accentuated the plunge by extending the V even farther. Before I managed to track up to her face, I could not help but be aware of the softness swelling under that silky, silky blouse.
When I finally got a look at Brill, the urge to retreat to the san became almost too much to bear. She looked awe inspiring, wearing a pair of straight legged slacks and very pointy shoes. Her legs seemed to go half way to the overhead before disappearing into a dark-red tailored jacket with offset black buttons. This was not the scarlet red of blood but a richer almost burgundy color without the purple overtones. The tailoring on the jacket was impeccable. The fabric hugged every curve—and there were some fascinating curves. Her jacket had a standup collar—it was almost military and oriental all at once, but really neither. She wore no blouse under the jacket, or at least none that I could see. This left her long neck, throat, and upper chest exposed in a way that shipsuit and tee never would. She did not have Diane’s cleavage, but she did not suffer one iota from the lack. She had done something with her hair, too. It had a kind of wild, spiky appearance that was totally at odds with the collected and cool Brill I was used to. She was smiling in a way that was very disturbing because of the way my body was reacting.