“Well, if you’d just told me you had tickets for it, I could have—”
“What, am I supposed to report every little thing to you? Are you going to try to keep tabs on every little move I make?”
“Well, no, but I thought you were going to be out late again tonight, and—”
“And you could go slinking off to whimper all about me to your father!” Ellen sighed and shook her head. “Honestly, Corin! You’ve got to grow up and get away from him some day.”
“I’m pretty far now! I only see him when he’s in town, and that’s only once or twice a year.”
“Real solid citizen, isn’t he?” Her lip curled. “Can’t even hold a job in one town.”
“He’s a salesman!”
“Yes, and after forty years at it, he still can’t make sales manager. You shouldn’t ever talk with that loser!”
The rage surged up, but so did the shame—and with it came the sharp awareness that he shouldn’t pick on a woman. So he just stood there, growing pale and rigid.
“Look,” she said, “if you know I’m right, just say so.”
Corin turned on his heel and slammed out of the apartment.
He went back the next day, packed his clothes in one suitcase and his books and knickknacks in another, and walked out. There was nothing left that mattered; he could buy a new computer easily enough, and he wouldn’t miss any of the little presents she had given him.
All that was left was two months’ rent on the lease. He sent it in a single check and didn’t tell her his new address.
The pain was back, but it was dull, remote. Corin found his oxy intake in his mouth; he spat it out and cranked his eyelids open.
The captain’s face grinned down at him.
Corin squeezed his eyes shut.
“Back on duty, mister,” the captain said cheerfully. “I patched your suit ... and you, too.”
“Set my ... ribs?” Corin opened his eyes again.
“Taped them. It’ll hold you till we’re through here.”
Corin looked down and saw a wide band around the abdomen of his suit. “What happened to the pain?”
“An anesthetic.” The captain’s grin widened. “Plus five shots of adrenaline.”
Just then, it bit. Suddenly, the mental fog cleared, and Corin felt fine, just fine, if feeling like a current was flowing through you was ‘fine.’ “I don’t need that much, Captain.”
“So pay it back when the battle’s over.” The captain jerked his head toward the console. “For now, get over, there. Your buddies are having a great time blasting blips, but you’re the only one who talks Weasel.”
Corin felt the elation begin. He grinned, set his feet under him, and pushed off.
He grabbed the center of the console and swung himself down to stand behind Kank and Lisle. The screen was alive with green blips and red blips, and the two marines were each moving a set of cross hairs around the field, pressing trigger buttons and leaving bright spreading pools of yellow wherever they touched a green blip.
The com grid chattered crazily in Weasel.
“That’s for me,” Corin said.
Kank looked up, irritated, then reluctantly moved aside to make room for him. Corin swung himself down onto the odd contour that served as a Weasel chair.
The chattering went on.
Corin could just make it out; it translated roughly as, “What the hell is wrong with you, Frigate Thirteen?” He pressed the mike patch and shrilled back, “Control system malfunction. Beware! Move clear! Directional control system malfunction! Fire control system malfunction!”
On the right-hand side of the screen, a larger blip was appearing, and in the view port, a disk was swelling as Lisle nudged his joystick—the Khalian cruiser, such as it was. Corin realized he couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. If he could just stall the Weasels for a little longer ...
“Sheer off! Sheer off!” the Weasels were chanting frantically.
“Control system malfunction!” Corin yammered back, watching Lisle center his cross hairs on the biggest blip. “We have lost steering capacity! Acceleration is locked at full thrust! We are attempting to regain control! Stand by!”
“Cease firing!” the Weasels answered in a manic gibber.
“We cannot,” Corin answered, and Lisle hit the button on his joystick. Corin went on, “Guns are locked at full fire. We are trying to cut the circuit, but it will not respond.”
The laser beam was on its way, lancing out at the speed of light toward the cruiser, invisible where there was no atmosphere, no dust. Corin locked his sights onto the cruiser too, and hit his button, staring at the expanding disk of the cruiser, hoping, hoping ...
The next Weasel phrase translated roughly as, “They are mad, or their ship is!” And another gibber answered, “They must be destroyed.”
Then light blossomed on the side of the cruiser.
“But you were so right!” Corin stormed, turning away from Nancy. “Everything was perfect while we were dating! You were so beautiful, and the music wrapped us up, and the two of us were all there was, just the dancing and your eyes—”
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Do you know what you’re doing to me? Stop it!”
He turned back to look at her—eyes red and swollen, tangled hair hiding half of her pudgy face, bathrobe a little too far open, showing just a glimpse that was supposed to be tantalizing but was flat now, and sagging.
“Your friends would be my friends, you said.” He moved back toward her. “And my friends would be your friends.”
“If you think I’d be seen in public with that bunch of superannuated sociopaths—”
“All right, so we won’t! Do you realize how long it’s been since I’ve even talked with Sean or David?”
“Aw, poor little boy! Not a friend in the world!”
He reddened. “Not yours, certainly.”
“You don’t think I’d let them see me like ... this!”
“Why not?” he flared. “You let me see you like this.”
“But you’re my husband!”
“So I deserve less than your friends?”
“You should be ashamed to let my friends see what you’ve turned me into.”
“Oh, so I made you drink like a fish? I made you quit going to the health spa?”
“Yes! And I just can’t face them now.”
“I won’t ask you to,” he sighed, turning away. “But I did want to take you out again. We used to have such a good time.”
“While you still had a job, sure,” she snapped. “And you asked me to give up mine ...”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
“You did.” Her lips thinned. “I distinctly remember you sitting there on the sofa nibbling my ear and saying, ‘Give it up, honey. I’ll take care of us both.’ ”
“I didn’t! We were sitting there on the sofa, all right, and I was nibbling your ear, but you were saying, ‘Look, now that you’ve got such a good job, I don’t really need to keep working, do I?’ And I said—”
“I did not! How dare you accuse me of lying! Just because you couldn’t keep your ‘good job.’ ”
“Look, the company went broke!”
“I should have realized you’d choose a loser!”
He looked up slowly, eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She gave him an acid smile. “It takes one to know one.”
He was beside her in a single stride, fists clenched, eyes glaring.