“We’re supposed to lie on the glass. Another panel will lower from the ceiling to sandwich us between the lights.”
“Great.” He hopped up on the platform and stretched out on the surface. There was plenty of room for Jane and probably three other people. He draped the fabric of the robe over his privates, placed the slivers of plastic over his eyes, and said, “I’m ready.”
Soon he sensed she was lying beside him. She said, “Paratiso,” and there was a quiet whirring sound as the screen above them lowered. He lifted his hand, rapping his knuckles against it gently. It was hovering maybe a centimeter above his nose.
The glass warmed. Despite the eye protection, even with his eyes closed, he could see a faint magenta glow around the edges of his peripheral vision. He wondered how long this treatment would take, but he didn’t feel like asking her any questions, so he stayed silent and spread the palm of his burned hand evenly over the glass.
“Alan?”
He sighed. “What?”
“You don’t need to be embarrassed. It’s a normal physiological response.” She sounded crisp, rehearsed.
“I know that. We don’t need to talk about this.” This was why he never hung out with any individual girl for very long. He didn’t like being drug through a bunch of emotional crap.
That didn’t deter her. She continued, sounding less assured as she went on, “I know you saw the IUD. I just…I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m flattered. I am. But I’m not interested in casual sex. You…I just thought you should know that.”
An IUD? Huh. He’d thought that was some kind of birth control, when he’d seen it. Her embarrassment seemed to confirm that. He wondered briefly if that had been her idea or NASA’s. Then he realized that wasn’t really the important part of what she was saying to him.
He needed to say something to her that struck some kind of balance between reassuring her and not shutting any doors. The minutes stretched out. What would sound like he was interested in having a real relationship with her, without sounding creepy after what just happened?
His voice came out a little harsher, a little more defensive, than he wanted. “You’re reading way too much into this. I don’t know anything about your female gadgets. I never made any assumptions about you. I don’t see you that way, Jane.”
“Oh—I didn’t—I mean—you….”
He softened his tone. “Jane, you’re a beautiful gi—” he caught himself, just in time, “—woman.” He let out a breath from between tense lips. “Look, nothing I say right now is going to sound right. You know that, don’t you? Can we just drop it, please?”
She snorted softly.
“You’ve got enough to worry about. You don’t need to be thinking about….”
“I don’t want to think about that either,” she said quietly.
“I wouldn’t either if some alien was mind-fucking me.” He immediately regretted saying it. He was all riled up. He didn’t know what he was saying anymore. He slid his left hand across the glass until he made contact with her…arm. Probably just her arm. He tapped it hesitantly with his fingertips, hoping she’d realize it was an apology.
“But he is doing it to you. I think he’s doing it to all of us.” She spoke softly, barely above a whisper, and her hand latched onto his suddenly, her grip almost painful.
He swallowed hard and squeezed back. “No, I’d know.”
“Would you? How could he know everything that’s going on? How could he know the trouble you and Walsh were in?”
“There must be sensors, cameras—”
“I thought so too, at first. But, he knew that when we went back into the capsule, I never said a word about what had happened to me to any of you.”
A cold, uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. “Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah.”
He squeezed her hand again. “Well, so far he seems like a good guy. He’s helping us, right? He helped you to get to us…in time.”
He should probably tell her that it really had been barely in time—that he’d forgotten where he was and what he was doing a couple of times. He’d forgotten to share the air. He’d almost let go. But how could he tell her that—that seeing her face in that moment had been such a relief, that he owed her his life, that he’d do anything for her? He didn’t know how to say that.
They went silent for a while. He let his hand go limp, but it remained in contact with hers. He wasn’t sure what that meant to her. The light spectrum had changed at some point, he realized, was less intense, more red. He wanted to ask her to tell him everything, every detail that had happened to her from the first, but Walsh would eventually get to that and she shouldn’t have to repeat everything three times. “Well, it’s pretty effed up, but it’s far better than what I expected to happen when we opened the hatch.”
“What was that?”
“I was pretty sure there was going to be something really grotesque that was going to eat us. I thought they might play with us for a while, maybe, before they started tearing us limb from limb.”
“You really thought that?”
“Yep.”
“Then why did you want to go so bad?”
“Lifelong dream. Only opportunity and whatnot.”
Her hand twitched. He imagined she was probably shaking her head, maybe even chuckling silently. “You must watch a lot of scary movies.”
“Used to. Haven’t seen a good flick in probably four or five years. Working too much. What was the last movie you saw?”
There was still laughter in her voice. “Hm. Can’t remember. Probably some chick flick with my girlfriend, Sam. I didn’t get out much.”
“You weren’t dating?”
“Since my divorce? No. I haven’t dated since high school.”
He hesitated, but he really wanted to know. “Why did you split up?”
“He’s a lawyer. You probably knew that.” She paused.
Maybe it was too personal. He shouldn’t have asked.
But she continued, her voice sounding more melancholy. “One day I just realized he and I didn’t envision the same future anymore. I began to feel like the time he spent with me was just another form of work. It felt like he was tallying in his head how many hours he was going to bill me for and I couldn’t live like that anymore.”
“He’s an ass.”
“He was involved with someone else within weeks. It had been over between us long before I came to that conclusion. I was holding him back.”
“Jane—that’s not true. He was being an idiot. You deserve better.”
“We were kids when we got together. You can’t know who you’re going to turn into when you’re seventeen. No, you—you’ve got the right idea. Perpetual bachelorhood. You get the best of all of it.”
“Hardly.”
“Oh, come on. Your place is a man-cave. You’re quite a player. It must be fun.”
He froze, clenching her hand involuntarily. “What? Who told you that?”
“Gene and Lisle when they came to visit from JPL.”
Those bastards! He’d warned them to stay away from her. He sputtered uncontrollably, “They weren’t there for a social call. They were there consulting, and I never left them alone with you!” Crap. Now he’d said too much. She had a way of bringing that out in him.
She chuckled, out loud this time. “No. You didn’t. They joined me for lunch once when you were in an engineering meeting that they weren’t required to attend. It was a very enlightening meal.”
He had a new reason to make it through the mission alive. He had to get back to Earth so he could wring their geeky necks.
“They—they’re not the most reliable witnesses,” he said sourly.