[Computer]: Go on.
Let’s see … I think it was Nelson Algren who said that three rules for a happy life are: One, never play cards with any man named ‘Doc.’ Two: never eat at any place called ‘Mom’s.’ And three: never, never go to bed with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
[Computer]: Um-hmm.
I went to bed with Sheena Chang last night. Big mistake.
[Computer]: Sheena Chang, video actress. Proclaimed one of the ten most beautiful women in the world by 21st-century Fox/United Artists/MGM/Fujitsu Corporation. Latest starring role: Tondaleo, the sultry Eurasian prostitute with a heart of gold, in Invasion of the Barbarians from Outer Space. Age: twenty-seven. Height…
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s her. Sultry Eurasian, all right. I was really surprised when her agent told me she had agreed to come on this voyage. I had only called her on a lark; thought it’d be fun to be on a slow boat to China with her.
[Computer]: To China? Navigational data shows we are heading …
Just a figure of speech, dammit! Stop interrupting!
Anyway, I never thought she’d give up two years in the middle of her career to come sailing out to the Asteroid Belt with me. But she did. Last night I found out why.
She was all hot breath and sizzle until I got her clothes off her and put her in my bed. We had made it before, in the threesome with Marj Dupray down in the zero-gee section. Sheena had been a wild woman then; Marj wasn’t so bad herself, for a skinny fashion designer. They were both tanked up on champagne and whatnot. After all, that was our first night out.
[Computer]: I see.
Well, anyway, last night Sheena and I have a private little supper in my quarters. She’s wearing a low-cut dress so slinky she must have sprayed it on. One thing leads to another and finally we’re both in the buff and on the bed.
I say to her, “I was really knocked out when you agreed to come on this trip.
That’s all it took. The floodgates opened.
[Computer]: Floodgates?
She started crying! At first I thought she had drunk too much wine with dinner, but then I remembered that she had downed a tub of champagne that first night without batting an eye. She just blubbered away and babbled for hours, right there in the bed. Naked. One of the ten most beautiful women in the world.
[Computer]: Why was she crying?
That’s what I asked her. And she told me. And told me. And told me! Her career is going down the tubes; her last three videos lost money; her implants are slumping; her husband is suing her for divorce; her boyfriend’s left her for a younger starlet; her agent’s making bad deals for her; her cat died…. Jeez, she just went on and on about how her life was ruined and she was going to kill herself.
[Computer]: Perhaps she should speak to me. I may be able to help her.
Yeah, maybe. Anyway, it turns out that her publicity agent convinced her that taking this voyage would be just the thing to give her career a boost. When she comes back she’ll be the first actress to have flown to the Asteroid Belt. They’ll make a docudrama out of it. They’ll get Michael J. Fox III to play my role. Ta-da, ta-dum, ta-dee—so off she goes on the good ship Argo.
[Computer]: Ta-da, ta-dum, ta-dee?
Ignore it. Two days out, Sheena starts thinking that maybe she made a mistake. Two weeks out she’s certain of it. Her publicity guy and her agent have connived behind her back to get her out of the way so that the new starlet her boyfriend’s shacked up with can take her place. Her career is ruined. Her body’s falling apart and she can’t sue the plastic surgeons because the publicity would ruin her even more. She’ll be out of the limelight for two whole years. By the time she gets back everybody’ll have forgotten who the hell she is, and she’ll be an old woman by then anyway, past thirty.
[Computer]: According to her dossier she will be only twenty-nine when this mission ends.
So she lied about her age! Anyway, Sheena doesn’t want to make love, she wants to kill herself. It took me all goddamned night to calm her down, cheer her up, and convince her that when we get back from the asteroids she’ll be rich enough to buy 21st-century, et al.
[Computer]: According to the prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission—
I know, I know! So I exaggerated a little. She needed cheering up.
By the time I got her to stop talking about killing herself, it was damned near morning. I had to get dressed and go to the bridge for the first-shift systems review. She wriggled back into that slinky dress of hers, still sniffling a little. Then she dropped the bombshell.
[Computer]: Should I activate the damage-control program?
No, stupid. But gimme the logistics program.
[Computer]: Logistics.
Sheena Chang is not to receive any drugs, medications or pharmaceuticals of any kind. Understand? In fact, all requests for medication, stimulants or relaxers from any of the partners is to be reported to me immediately. Understood?
[Computer]: Understood.
Okay. Get the guidance counselor back.
[Computer]: Guidance counselor.
The bombshell Sheena handed me was metaphorical. You understand what metaphorical means?
[Computer]: I have a thorough command of twenty languages, including English.
Wonderful. She told me that one of the partners is an agent for Rockledge International, the multinational megacorporation, the soulless bloodsucking vampires of the corporate world, the gutless sneaking bastards who’d steal your cojones and sell them to the highest bidder if you gave them the chance. I’ve tangled with them before; they’re always trying to grab everything for themselves, the two-bit sonsofbitches.
[Computer]: You disapprove of them.
Only as much as I disapprove of cannibalism, genocide, and selling your mother to a Cairo brothel.
[Computer]: I see.
So there’s Sheena sniffling and squeezing her boobs into her dress, and she tells me I’ve been so nice and kind and patient that she’s going to warn me that one of the partners is secretly working for Rockledge.
“Which one?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she says.
“Then how do you know that one of them is on Rockledge’s payroll?”
She finally gets her bosom adjusted—believe me, it took all my powers of concentration not to go over to her and give her a hand. Anyway, she says:
“A couple of nights ago, it was kind of late and we were in the lounge having a nightcap or two….”
“We? Who?”
She shrugged. I was still in the buff and immediately came to attention. Sheena paid no attention and I thought she’d probably seen bigger. But not better.
I asked her again, “Who was in the lounge with you?”
“Oh, golly, we had been drinking for a while. And Rick had handed out some really weird candy; he’s got a whole trunkful of shit, you know….”
“I know.” I was starting to get exasperated with her birdbrain act. “So Darling was there. Who else?”
“Oh, Marjorie, and Dr. Hubble. Grace Harcourt, she was sitting with me. I don’t remember if Bo Williams was there or not. And I’m sure Jean Margaux wasn’t. She wouldn’t be, the snob.”
“So who said what? What’d you hear?”
“It was just a snatch of conversation, a man’s voice, I’m pretty sure. Somebody said something about money piling up at a bank in Liechtenstein….”
“Liechtenstein?”
“That’s right. He’s getting a monthly stipend from Rockledge International and it’s gathering compound interest all the time we’re away on this trip!”
She looked pleased that she remembered that much. But that was all she could remember. Or so she said. Somebody was on Rockledge’s payroll, in secret. And it was probably a man.