Chapter 23
DUNSANY ROADS ORBITAL
2352-APRIL-18
Before I changed back into my shipsuit, I grabbed another quick shower to freshen up a bit. The night watch was likely to be long and I was going into it tired. I stashed my towel and civvies in my locker and the bag of whelkies caught my eye reminding me that I needed to get two more of them out. It took just a moment to pull the fox and wolf that I had spotted earlier and put them in the pocket of my suit.
The chrono said 17:30 and I slipped across the passage to deck berthing. Bev was there, getting ready to go on watch herself.
“Hey!” she said. “Good to see you survived your first night on liberty.”
Taking a closer look at my face, she asked gently, “You did survive?”
“You know how it is,” I told her and shrugged.
With a single quiet laugh she said, “Oh, yeah. You sure livened up what would otherwise have been just another boring evening.”
Somehow I had a hard time imagining how any evening that had Brill, Beverly, and Diane all in the same room could be boring. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wolf. “I wanted you to have this. A little thank you for going to Henri’s with me.”
“Oh, I should be thanking you,” she said with a hoarse little croak in her throat. She took the small bundle and opened it. The wolf’s eyes seemed to glint even though they were only carved wood. She smiled when she saw it and I could have sworn that her smile matched the expression on the carving in an eerie kind of way. “Wow,” she said, holding it up to the light. “These are amazing, aren’t they?”
I chuckled in the back of my throat. “Not as amazing as the woman holding it,” I said softly.
She looked around the wolf she held in her hand and focused on me. “You’re a pretty smooth talker, Boy toy.” There was not the usual teasing overtone in the way she said it this time, and it caught me in the pit of my stomach. She reached out and cupped a hand behind my neck, pulling my face towards hers. For just an instant, I thought she was going to kiss me, but she tipped her head forward and bumped our foreheads together once gently before releasing me.
“Thank you,” she said. Her breath was a soft caress on my cheek before she withdrew. “Now get your delightful little butt out of here. We’ve gotta go on watch.”
I turned to leave and she gave my butt a playful little spank as I left. It pleased me inordinately for some reason. Kinda friendly—almost.
I went up to the mess deck for coffee before heading back down to environmental. Pip and Cookie were in the final stages of the dinner buffet so I just waved, took my coffee, and left. It smelled like Cookie’s spiced beefalo was on the menu for dinner and the aroma made me drool.
When I stepped through the hatch, Diane looked at the chrono and said, “You’re early.”
“Yeah, a coupla ticks, but I was ready and I wanted to see you.”
“Everything all right?” she asked with real concern in her voice.
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances.”
She gave a weary little smile and patted my arm comfortingly. “I still wanna know what you said to Big B. Whatever it was, it seems to have worked.”
“We had a good time up at the flea market. That helped, too.”
“But she was so miserable all morning.”
“Yeah, I gathered. Do you know why?”
“Well, she didn’t say for sure, but I can guess.”
“Murdock?”
“Partly. She felt like an idiot for setting you up like that. How did you spot it?”
“I heard you on the mess deck and I kinda expected it after that day at Henri’s. Even if I hadn’t heard the name, I’d have known who the plumber was by the way you and Bev were acting.”
She looked a little embarrassed. “I’m usually not that bad, but that person pulls my chain every time I think of her.”
“It wasn’t really about Murdock, though, was it?”
She shook her head. “No, it was that you went after Alvarez right after.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I wanna come back to that in a tick or two but can I ask you about going up to Henri’s? We haven’t really talked about that afternoon much and I need a little reality check.”
“Sure, Ish. Ask me anything you want.”
“Oh, don’t tempt me with that one,” I told her with a smile.
She laughed.
“Okay, did something happen that day?”
“What do you mean, happen?”
“I’m gonna tell you what I felt like and you tell me if I’m off base compared to how you saw it, okay?”
“Sounds fair, go ahead.”
“The four of us bonded in some really odd—but really nice—way. I don’t know if it was the march up there, the march down, you guys watching me change my clothes, or that I really liked having you watch me. Maybe it was I just felt so protected by the three of you. That would be okay if I were the only one who felt it. So, with that big buildup, my question to you is—”
“Yes, I did, and still do,” she interrupted. “I don’t know what, why, or how but we had something when we came down on the elevator that we did not have going up.” She was looking at me intently. “Is that what you mean?”
“Exactly. I didn’t know I was lacking it, but now that I have it, I never want to lose it, and I don’t even have a name for it.”
“Yes!” She almost shouted.
“Well, that’s what I told Brill. Along with the reason why I went for Alvarez.”
“Oh, my.”
“You were grinning when you saw Alvarez lead me off the floor,” I observed.
“Yes, I was.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking, you dog and I was so happy for you.”
“And you were a little sad, too?”
She shrugged. “Life on the Lois demands some sacrifices.” She looked at me shyly—which was shocking enough—but then asked, “You won’t laugh?”
“Well I can’t promise that, but I’ll try not to.”
“That day, back when you were working in the mess and you came and we changed out the algae matrices…?” she said, letting the statement trail off suggestively.
“Oh, gods, you’re kidding?” I told her.
“Nope. You looked so damn good.” She sighed and shrugged helplessly.
“Yeah. Which is what you were telling me with the ‘understand what it means to be a spacer’ stuff?”
She nodded. “Different ships have different cultures. It’s strange. Gregor did not like it here because of that. I’ve been on those ships before. There are some advantages, but I didn’t like being a bunk-bunny.”
I chuckled. “I can’t picture you as a bunk-bunny.”
“Yeah, well, lots of men—and not a few women—seem to think I’m attractive. I found it too distracting for comfort. Saying no isn’t easy on a ship like that,” she said this last part while looking off to the side in a kind of distaste—almost like she wanted to spit. “So, yeah, I was a little sad that I couldn’t have you, but I was glad for you that you were leaving with Alvarez. She’s something else.”
“Okay, so why do you think I went after Alvarez?”
“To show us you didn’t need us interfering with your love life.”
“That’s what Brill thought, too.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope. What I told Brill was that if I couldn’t have one of you three, then I wanted to get as close as I could get. There were only two other women in the bar that I was remotely interested in beside you three.”
“You think I’m in the same league as Brill and Bev?”
“What you think you’re better?” I teased her.