Her only disappointment was that the gravity was Muinan-standard: artificially generated just as it had been on the tanz. They didn’t need to keep their helmets sealed, for the air was perfectly breathable, if a bit swampy thanks to a slight imbalance in the atmosphere system, located in five of the radiating spokes. Great big vats of algae that had been steadily producing oxygen for the last few days, but now needed some balancing.
After she had calmed down just a little, Laura checked Sue’s status, saw she was still asleep, and ruthlessly sent an override.
Even with an alarm clock playing in her head, it took next to forever for Sue to respond, and when she did, it was with: "This had better be good."
"He took me to the moon."
"Laura, hon, interested as I am in your sex life, I really don’t need a daily update. At least not without more interesting details, and at a more reasonable time of day."
"No. You’re not listening to me. He took me to the moon. I. Am. On. The. Moon."
"…serious?"
"Serious." Laura shared her visual stream, panning from the current algae bed to the clear curved ceiling, with half of Muina a magnificent spotlight in the sky.
"But how?"
Laura explained, letting all her reaction stream out until Sue said: "You’ve started to repeat yourself."
"I needed to babble."
"Hmph. Well, my opinion of Serious Soldier has gone up several notches. He’s not so stick-straight after all, if he’s pulled the kind of strings that would have to be involved in taking you along. And just to win some brownie points! I wonder if he could have done that with any old popsy, or if you being Grendel’s Sainted Mum made it possible."
"I don’t think Cass would appreciate that comparison. Still, it’s…something of a revelation, watching the way the technicians behave toward Gidds. A couple are like the Setari, all deep respect and a tendency to stand straighter. Others are this weird mix of dismissive and resentful. They can’t go forward with the base until he gives the okay and they’re so annoyed and nervous at the same time."
"Maybe you’ll give him a bump in the opinion polls. So when’s the wedding?"
"Sue…"
"Don’t even pretend you’re not going to marry him. I know you. And he obviously does, too, inside and out. His deep dark secret turned out to be a couple of years of mooning over your picture—and that totally was a deliberate reference—and you were wavering on heading back to burnt before territory about shacking up with him, so he decides on a big, romantic gesture. Not gifts, not dinner, not even flowers: he’s taken you on a business trip. To the moon. Because of all the things it was in his power to do, that’s the one that would reduce you to incoherence. Face it, the man knows what makes you tick. Now ask yourself: would you be half so happy without him around?"
Laura didn’t respond immediately, then said: "I don’t think I can answer that right now. There’s no room in my head for anything except that I am On The Moon."
"Bosh," Sue replied, succinctly, and broke the connection.
But being in space was a dream come true for Laura, and the next location they visited was especially overwhelming. The central dome: a wide bubble with no floor but the surface of Elune, and no artificial gravity. They sealed their helmets before they went in, just as a precaution, and had to work to stay upright.
"Can I bounce?" Laura asked, long past caring about adult dignity.
"I do not see why not, Tsa Devlin," said the most senior of the technicians, who was apparently Isten Notra’s second-in-command.
Laura bounced. She fell over quite a bit, too, and her hair fell all in her eyes and wavered in odd directions, while her suit was smeared with Elunan dust. She had to go get decontaminated afterwards, just in case, but that was just another new and interesting experience.
Mindful that this was actually work for Gidds, Laura had refrained from throwing her arms around him every few minutes, and instead paid rapt attention to the technicians. Her plan was to wait until the flight back to start to try to put into words the things she wanted him to know, but after settling into her couch and delighting in watching take-off, she somehow lost nearly all of the four hour flight back and woke to a half-heard snort and an internal clock which felt like a lie.
But perhaps it was for the best, for when she turned her head to look at Gidds, she found she didn’t want to talk at all. She wanted to kiss those delicate temples, and trace that jaw, and—
Gidds turned his head and looked at her, and she would swear for the rest of her life that he went pink. He definitely knew without doubt or ambiguity exactly what line her thoughts were taking, and for all of the remainder of the flight they lay and just stared at each other.
The fortunate privileges of rank meant Gidds had a flyer waiting for them both, and Laura got to sit behind him and the pilot this time, and spent the entire time studying the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, picked out in the tiny dim internal light of the flyer.
It was well into the evening by the time they stepped back onto her patio, and she offered the pilot a barely-held-together smile of thanks, and walked inside.
Then, after an eternity of restraint, she took Gidds' hand.
Laura had never had genuine, clothes-tearing-off sex before. At least one button of her sensible shirt pinged off a wall, and it was to be hoped that Julian didn’t emerge from his cave, but Laura did not at that moment care overmuch for the sensibilities of teenaged boys. She and Gidds fell onto her bed and lost themselves in sheer urgency: a short frantic necessity.
"I’d apologise for making your job today very difficult, but I think you brought it on yourself," Laura said at last, panting in the aftermath.
"I underestimated you," he said.
They both laughed like giddy children, and then stopped talking again and just kissed until they could make love a second time, a slow, tender coming together, all bright around the edges with a startled joy that endured even into Laura’s dreams when finally they slept.
Chapter Twenty
Rising in the pre-dawn, Laura left a brilliant man tangled in her sheets, and pulled on warm clothes and a beanie before venturing outside.
No leaves on the trees now: the last colour of autumn was lost. Sharp chill spiked her nose, but yesterday’s rain had thankfully passed. She followed the path to Arcadia’s north-east point, and settled on her favourite seat to watch the dawn, and wait for Gidds.
After a look at his schedule, she had sent him an email containing only a rough electronic sketch of the island, with a single x to mark her seat. He arrived precisely when she’d guessed he would, crisp and correct in yesterday’s uniform, and paused beside the bench.
"This place is full of you."
"My favourite spot on the island," she said. "I wanted it to be here."
His eyes went wide, and his face very carefully still, but all he did was sit down. Not interested in stretching the moment, Laura took his hand.
"Gidds. Will you come live with me with a view to getting married some time?"
"I would like that," he said, in a voice that did not waver, but suggested shortness of breath. "Very much."