Good God! Had the entire crew gone insane?
This was where Seth must say that he completely understood her feelings and respected her beliefs, and that he would on no account expect her to deviate from her principles for his sake.
The words stuck in his throat. He could not be such a hypocrite, after all the times he had lain in the dark and cursed her. The right answer would be something like, “Right on!” but he managed to keep it to a mumbled, “Thank you. I look forward very much to accepting your offer at the earliest possible—”
Face as red as her hair, Hanna jumped up and ran out of the room.
The day after that, she declared herself fit for duty and assumed command. She set to work planning the next jump, leaving Seth and Meredith to continue their hospital duties. Two days later, Jordan and Reese returned to work also. Only JC was still too weak to climb out of bed.
Seth ran into Jordan in the showers. He was shaving; she had been showering and emerged rubbing her hair with a towel. Eyes met in the mirror. Icicles formed amid the steam.
“Good to see you operational again, ma’am.”
“And you’re quite back to your old self, aren’t you?”
Seth examined his upper lip carefully, but decided that there was no escape from words like that spoken like that. “What do you mean?”
“Meredith Tsukuba’s a good lay, is she?”
Denying it would be futile. Crew behavior was the captain’s prime responsibility, so while Control would not gossip to other people, it would not refuse a direct question from the captain. Besides, women always knew such things by instinct. Although Seth had proposed marriage to Jordan, since then he and Meredith had been humping like alley cats. They might have been reacting to a harrowing shared adventure, or just indulging in rampant lechery. No matter; he was doomed whatever he said now. He shrugged.
“She’s really good—eager, inventive… Try her, next time you switch.”
He stared at his reflection. There was no cartoon icon above his head to indicate a flash of inspiration. But there should be! And like all great ideas it provoked a why-did-I-not-see-this-sooner? reaction. Blind idiot!
Meanwhile he had missed what the captain had said.
“Beg pardon, ma’am?”
“I said I have to reassign cabins. We’ll need to hot-bunk some.”
“I could fetch bedding from the shuttle, doss down in the elevator. Should be warm enough if we leave the door open.”
“We can do better than that.” The captain stalked over to the door.
Seth said softly. “Jordie?”
She looked back, eyes cold.
He said, “My offer is still open.”
“No, it isn’t.” She reached for the door handle.
“Wait!” Seth called. “We haven’t had the wake yet.”
The wake was a spacer tradition, an all-hands, no-holds-barred review held on quitting a world, when everyone concerned could report, brag, or complain. It could be a funeral or a celebration, or both.
Jordan’s glare informed Seth that it was the captain who called the wake. “I’m waiting until the commodore could join us.”
“I think it should be held as soon as possible, ma’am. Very urgent.”
“Why?”
“I believe it would be advantageous for, um, most of us.”
At that moment Reese came in. She glanced from one to the other and read the body language. “This a private fight, or can anyone join in?”
“Take a number.” Seth turned back to the mirror—where he saw both women blush.
Jordan said, “How’s JC, Reese? Could he attend a wake this afternoon?”
Day 423
I’ve told you about Blackadder’s Law: “Every world is different, except that they’re all out to get you.” Once in a while, though, a wildcatter will smile and whisper what is known, for obvious reasons, as “Whiteadder’s Amendment.” Its wording varies widely, but is usually along the lines of, “But sometimes one will give you a very special treat.”
Fonatelles, op. cit.
The walls and ceiling of the control room were displaying the starscape outside, dominated by the devilish red glow of great Betelgeuse, although the blue giant Bellatrix now glowed significantly brighter than before. Seth had brought a chair from the mess for Meredith and placed it beside his own at the foot of the table. She was in it already, stroking Whittington, while that faithless turncoat purred in her lap. One by one the others drifted in: Reese, annoyed to be dragged away from the lab, where she had been studying Cacafuego fever; Hanna fidgeting because one of her ferrets was late returning; Jordan still pale from her sickness; and Maria, who honored Seth with a sultry smile designed to boost his heart beat significantly, deliberately followed by a stare at Meredith intended to stop hers altogether. There were now two sex bombs aboard Golden Hind, an explosive mixture even without including Seth’s earlier commitment to the captain.
Lastly came JC, grayer and significantly thinner after his ordeal. He was not so reduced that he could not play the royal role, though. He smiled graciously to his loyal subjects and took the chair at the head of the table, normally occupied by the captain. That was another part of the tradition, for a wake had no fixed agenda, and even the captain’s performance could be shredded. The record was invariably submitted as a report to the financial backers and almost always made public too, so that reputations could be made or shattered. In a wake the ambitious could try to boost their careers and the spiteful could satisfy grudges. Wakes had been known to end in brawls and attempted murder.
Seth savored nostalgic memories of other meetings around this table: jubilation at the announcement that they were heading to a niner world, joy when they saw it for the first time, dismay when they found the beacon, and the dawning hope later that there might yet be something to salvage. Now the mood was sour, almost putrid. It was not the planet at fault now, it was the people. The team had lost faith in itself. He thought he knew why, and was astonished that no one else seemed to have worked it out.
JC had barely laid his hand on the table when he was interrupted by a rainbow flash outside the ship—the missing ferret had returned from a jump. Hanna half rose, then settled back. Control could dock the probe and download its information. An hour or two didn’t matter.
“A good omen!” JC said. “Control, the wake is in session. Lights, please.”
The universe disappeared, beige walls and ceiling returned. Something of the old JC was revealed also. He knew all there was to know about chairing meetings. When it came to public relations, he could spin like a pulsar. Leaning back, relaxed in his chair, he beamed around and addressed Posterity.
“It is a great honor to preside at this historic wake aboard Mighty Mite’s Deep Space Ship Golden Hind, presently wending its way homeward after its epic visit to the world we have named Cacafuego, ISLA catalogue number GK79986B. Before summarizing the team’s astonishing discoveries, I must pay credit…” To Jordan for a harmonious voyage out, to Hanna for a speedy and safe one, to Maria for a skilled analysis of the problem world…
“And certainly to the renowned Dr. Reese Platte, our biologist, who has not merely nursed every one of us back to health in her capacity as chief medical officer, but has managed to solve the mystery of the unknown infection that—”