I love the publicity, because the more attention the media pays us the harder it’ll be for Rockledge or one of those other big corporate monsters to attack us.
And Lonz has found a bee-yoo-tiful nickel-iron asteroid hanging out there just two weeks from where we are. Laser measurements show she’s a little over a hundred meters by thirty by twenty or so. Enough high-grade iron ore in her to give us a corner on the steel market for all the Lagrange construction jobs!
We’re gonna be rich!
I need the guidance counselor.
[Computer]: How may I help you?
I’ve got a problem.
[Computer]: Yes?
About a woman. Two women, really.
[Computer]: Go on.
It’s Grace Harcourt and Sheena Chang. They’re snarling and spitting at each other like a pair of cats.
[Computer]: Why do you think they’re behaving that way?
It’s over me, stupid! Why else?
[Computer]: Tell me what happened.
We’re cruising toward this nickel-iron asteroid, going to make rendezvous in a few days. So I call the partners together in the lounge again to decide on a name for the rock.
And Sheena pipes up, “I don’t think it’s right for us to be destroying these asteroids.”
That surprised me. But coming from her, I tried to explain things gently.
“Look, Sheena,” I said. “The whole reason we’re out here, the reason you and everybody else joined this expedition, is to get the natural resources that these asteroids contain and bring them back home, where people need them.”
“You smashed up Aphrodite until there’s practically nothing left of her, and now she’s going to crash into Mars or the Earth or maybe even fall into the Sun and burn to death!”
“Sheena, it’s just a hunk of rock.”
“It’s part of nature. It’s part of the natural environment. We shouldn’t be tampering with the environment. That’s wrong.”
“Oh good Christ!” said Grace, with a huff like a disgusted steam engine. She was sitting on one side of Sheena; Hubble was sitting on the other, sucking on his smokeless pipe.
“There’s nothing alive on these asteroids,” Hubble told her, back to his patient fatherly voice once more. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to mine them.”
“I still think it’s wrong,” Sheena insisted. I saw tears in her eyes.
“How long are we going to put up with this drivel?” Grace snarled.
Sheena went almost rigid in her chair, like somebody had wired it with a couple thousand volts.
Grace said, “I’ve spent most of my working days listening to airheaded actors and actresses attach themselves to causes.’ Sheena, what the hell’s the matter with your brain? We’re talking about a dead chunk of rock. There’s millions of them out here. Get real!”
Sheena just sat there for a minute or so, looking shocked. Jean Margaux was sitting right behind Grace; she had a funny kind of eager grin on her face, like she was waiting to see the gladiators rip each other’s guts open. And Rick Darling was right beside Jean, with a cynical smirk on his bloated puss.
[Computer]: His cat was smirking?
Puss! Face! It’s slang, you dumb pile of germanium.
[Computer]: You are expressing your suppressed hostilities; good.
I’ve never suppressed a goddamned hostility in my whole goddamned life!
[Computer]: Go on.
Where was I—oh, yeah. I was just as surprised at Grace’s outburst as any of the others. Marj and Bo Williams were sitting in the back of the lounge. Bo started to say something but Sheena got there first.
“Listen, Miss High-and-Mighty Columnist,” she said to Grace, “I had to kiss your backside when I was in the acting business, but now I’m going to be independently wealthy, thanks to Sam, and you can go scribble yourself!”
“You plasticized bitch,” Grace shot back, “I’ll bet my backside is the only one in southern California you haven’t kissed.”
“Jealous?”
“Of you? Take away the implants and what’ve you got?”
“A dumpy broad with cellulite on her hips, like you.”
“At least I’ve got a brain in my head!”
“So does a rat!”
They were nose-to-nose now, yelling, starting to get out of their chairs.
I jumped between them. “Hey, hey! Calm down, both of you!”
“Get this airhead out of here, Sam,” Grace said. “There’s nothing going on above her neck anyway.”
Sheena’s eyes were blazing fury. “She’s jealous, jealous, jealous! Look at her, she’s turning green all over!”
Hubble got up and coaxed Sheena back toward her quarters. I held Grace by the shoulders until they left. She was trembling with rage.
“This meeting’s over,” I told the others. “We’ll pick a name for the asteroid later.”
I walked Grace forward, toward the command center, away from the other passengers’ quarters where Sheena and Hubble had gone.
I kept some good cognac in my quarters. Hardly ever touched it myself, but it looked good in its cut crystal decanter and I thought it might help calm Grace down. Me, I prefer beer.
“What the hell happened in there?” I asked Grace.
She sat in the couch, still quivering so much there were almost whitecaps on her cognac. I pulled up the powered recliner chair to face her, with the coffee table between us. My quarters aren’t luxurious, but there’s a little more space to them than the passengers’ suites. Rank hath its privileges, after all.
Grace knocked back half her cognac, then said, “I can’t take any more of her, Sam. She’s driving me nuts.”
“Sheena?”
“Who else? The way she flaunts herself. Makes eyes at all the men.”
“I thought she had settled onto Hubble.”
“She’s after you, Sam. Can’t you see that?”
“Me? I haven’t laid a glove on her since the first month out.”
“And she resents it.”
“That’s crazy.”
Grace put her snifter down on the coffee table. It was plastic, of course, but painted to look like ebony.
“Sam, she’s looking for a father figure. That’s you.”
“That’s Hubble,” I corrected her.
Grace shook her head. “It was Hubble until the food orgy. Then she saw that Lowell was just as human and silly as the rest of us. But, you, mon capitaine, were aloof and noble and doing your duty on the bridge while the rest of us were stuffing ourselves—in more ways than one, I might add.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said.
“You’ve got to listen to me, Sam! You asked me to find out who the Rockledge agent is….”
“Sheena?”
“No, of course not. But if she’s sore at you, if she feels you’ve rejected her, she could become a very willing tool for whoever among us is working for Rockledge.”
That stopped me. “Sheena, helping Rockledge. Hmp. With an enemy like that, who needs friends?”
“This isn’t funny, Sam.”
But it made me laugh anyway.
Suddenly Grace got up from the couch, came around the coffee table, and plopped herself in my lap.
“You big dummy,” she said. “I’m trying to protect you. Can’t you see that?”
Then she said the words that strike terror into the heart of any man.
“Sam—I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Well, what could I do? I mean with her sitting in my lap and all? One thing led to another and we wound up in bed. Grace is very tender, very sweet, underneath that facade of the tough Hollywood columnist that she wears most of the time.
But now she wants to hang around my neck. And this ship isn’t big enough for me to hide! Besides, if she’s right about Sheena I ought to be working on her, getting on her good side, so to speak.
[Computer]: In bed, you mean?
That’s her best side, pal.
[Computer]: Is that necessary? It will complicate the interpersonal relationships….
Everything’s already so goddamned complicated that I feel like I’m a pretzel trapped in a spaghetti factory. What should I do?
[Computer]: What do you want to do?
I want to get them both off my back!
[Computer]: And what would be the best way to do that, do you think?
That’s what I’m asking you!
[Computer]: How do you feel about this situation?
Oh Christ! I know this program. Whenever you’re stuck you ask me how I feel. Get lost! Turn off!
[Computer]: Are you certain you want to do this?
End the program, dammit! When I want to jerk off I’ll do it in the bathroom.