Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4) (21 page)

The next morning, Risa
waited beside Yvette in the access tube to the showers. When Herk appeared in
his Speedo, he held up his perfect, pale arms. “Look, the burn scars are gone,
but I kept the tattoos.” He’d been worried about the Magi healing those scars
as well. The couple hugged. Soon after, they left to get his gear and ran home
to the Hollow for a celebration.

The
appointed hour for Yuki’s arrival passed with no news, Park poked his head in
every fifteen minutes for the first few hours. Eventually, Yvette told him,
“The indicator on the shower says she’s only one-third done. Auckland and I
will take turns waiting until she arrives.”

On
the third day, Auckland was in the showers prepared to assist her. All Yvette
heard was Yuki’s weakened plea for water. She had to be starving after all this
time.

Silent,
Park paced, gripping a bundle of flowers and a muffin. He swayed a bit, and his
eyes were slightly bloodshot.

Yvette
asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

“Sorry.
Lou kept saying another beer would help the anxiety.”

“How
many have you had?”

“All
of them.”

“What
are you afraid of?”

“If
she has her arm back, she might leave me for someone better. She’s amazing.”

“Sit
down before you fall down, you idiot.”

Park
did so. With nothing to burn off nervous energy, he ate the muffin and looked
guiltily at the wrapper. Rolling her eyes, she pocketed the garbage so he
wouldn’t have to leave to recycle it. To distract him, she asked about the
rover.

“Red
already has the first three days of scouting preprogrammed with that team. They
did soil samples first. Rachael needs to know about rock composition for
building self-sustaining shelters. Toby wants to know about micro-orgasms.”

“Organisms,”
Yvette said, correcting the drunken drive designer.

“Whatever.
They can’t wait to go down to the planet surface. It’s all any of them talk
about on the Iwo Jima team.”

“Iwo Jima?”

“The
beachhead. Since Herk passed his physical today, he’ll be on for certain. He’s
the one who named it. The whole construction team so far will be: Herk, Risa,
Toby, Oleander, Nadia, Rachael, and Johnny. Red and Zeiss will deliver them and
the camping supplies. We’re not sure of the details, but they’ll need to take
several trips to unload everything.”

“But
we don’t even know where they’ll be breaking ground.”

Park
shrugged. “Z put Rachael in charge of planetfall. Once Lieutenant Eliezer knew
the environment, she already had shopping lists for our storehouses and
fabricators.”

“Red
said that scouting will take months.”

“It
will take that long to construct the tents and—”

Yuki
emerged from the shower, damp and glowing with joy. Her skin was flawless, and
her left arm was completely restored. “What’s a girl have to do to get a bite
to eat around here?” Tired but sparkling with happiness, her eyes met Park’s.
He scooped her up and twirled her around, dropping the flowers in the process.

When
she could speak, Yuki said, “I missed you, too.”

With
a frantic edge to his voice, Park said, “Don’t leave me alone like that again.”

She
scanned his face and inhaled. “You’re drunk.”

Yvette
said, “And insecure about a woman who won’t commit.”

The
nearly naked Japanese woman stroked Park’s cheek. “Fine. You wore me down. I’ll
take your damn name. Now let’s raid the pantry for a snack and then go back to
our room.”

“Give
her plenty of clear fluids, broth and tea,” Yvette suggested.

“Don’t
you want your clothes?” Park asked as Yuki dragged him up the ladder.

“Tomorrow.”

The
nurse shouted after them, “Merry Christmas!”

Auckland
emerged from the shower stall a moment later.
“Miracles.”

“The
body was obvious. Any improvement in her memory?” asked Yvette.

“No.
If anything the wall of white, as she calls it, has become more solid. The mind
protects itself from pain.”

Or the Magi protect themselves from snooping
, Yvette thought. What she said was, “You’re
wiped out. Lie down in my bunk for an hour then head home to Pratibha with the
good news. I’ll clean up here and file the paperwork.”

“Thanks,”
he said, taking her up on the offer.

After
completing all her duties, she still had several minutes left in her shift.
When Yvette checked her e-mail, she found a long reply from Toby. In it, he
reiterated his love for her. She read it three times: the first as his victim,
the second as his potential therapist, and the third as the woman who had
offered herself to him so long ago.

It
was the second role who replied to Toby in a chat window. If he was so eager to
resume active duty on Labyrinth, he would need many therapy sessions to
requalify. Since there were no other psychologists on board to help him, she
would be willing to work with him to begin that process.

“I
don’t want to go,” he answered. “Zeus has forced me into the underworld.”

“Why
don’t you want to go? You’re an astronaut,” she asked.

“You
won’t be there.”

“We
can still speak,” Yvette wrote.

“Can
we?”

“The
others will need to know you’re staying balanced so you can take care of them.
I owe that to the crew.”

“Then
I look forward to our talks,” he wrote, “for the crew’s sake.”

****

Yuki
and Park intended to have a wedding ceremony in the barn, but the bees in the
ceiling bothered her too much. Instead, they opted to recite their vows on the
saucer’s patio. With equipment for a possible landing hogging every available
fabricator, Yuki had to make do with her golden kimono for the ceremony. She
hid her left hand in her sleeve because the fingers on the repaired arm
sometimes rippled like seaweed in the tide. Auckland cleared her for duty
because the electrical disruption only happened under extreme emotional stress.
With therapy, the doctor assured her that even this side effect should fade.

Still,
it took four weeks to coordinate all the schedules. The best man, on the shimmer-armor
team, was working around the clock because the control circuits would turn to
blue smoke almost at random.

Referring
to herself as a beach ball in a wheelchair, Mercy was the matron of honor. The
doctors said she could safely deliver any day, whenever Stewart decided to
arrive. In a formal kimono, Sojiro looked more dashing than the groom. Only
Nadia failed to attend. The new couple spent most of Yuki’s hazard pay on thin
wedding rings, as well as punch and cake for the reception. They had nothing
left for gifts to each other or even furniture. For that reason, the Herkemers
made them a round, rattan chair, and the Zeisses purchased a large cushion for
inside.

Risa
said, “We learned a lot about Yuki up in the shuttle bay. She’s not afraid of
hard work, and she doesn’t give excuses. I respect that. We hope the two of you
are happy together for long past this adventure.”

Yuki
bowed in thanks. Coming from Risa, that meant something. The team had accepted
her just in time for her to become a spy again. She stared at the well
manicured fingernails on her left hand and wondered how often the Magi
listened. The gift of the Magi had been a sham, a weapon in disguise. Would
history books call her the Trojan Whore? She grieved at how easy it had been
for data about the meteor impacts to slip between the cracks in all the wedding
excitement. No one suspected her of burying something they all needed to know.
When she wiped away a small tear from her eye, everyone assumed it was out of
gratitude.

Sojiro
presented the couple with a memory stick. “When Hurricane Nadia hit, one of the
things Park lost was his personal data directory. He asked me to salvage what
I could. It took me a while, but last night, I finally managed to recover some
of the data. I’ll need the memory card back after you load it on your pad, but
I think this is what you were looking for.”

Park
accepted the stick reverently and then ran from the patio into the saucer.

“Where’s
he going? The party’s not over yet,” Yuki demanded.

“Give
him a moment, and he’ll show you,” Sojiro told her.

While
they waited, several people complained that Toby had been hogging rover time to
sample every new plant they encountered. “We’re covering half the terrain we
could be,” Red griped.

The
nanobiologist defended himself. “When we land, you’ll all want to know what’s
edible, and Johnny will want to know the plant nutritional values. A
catalogue of half the plants, animals, and insects could take decades for the
whole team. Getting everything would take several lifetimes.
I’m also confirming the presence of minerals that
Yuki only suspected. With all these volcanoes, obsidian could be a major
resource like it was for the Mayans. By mapping this now, we’ll be able to live
off the land sooner and relieve some of
Sanctuary’s
burden. Our goal is
a self-sustaining, long-term observation post. Sometimes working slower now
means we’ll be able to go faster later.”

Rachael
nodded her agreement. “Go survey team.”

“So
what’s the Top Secret find you made that you couldn’t tell me about last
night?” Yvette asked.

Mercy
raised her eyebrows at this casual comment and nudged Lou. Her husband
snickered.

Yvette
blushed. “He was working late, and I was inquiring after his health.”

Smirking,
Red said, “The news is big but not appropriate for a wedding reception. This is
Yuki’s day.”

“I
don’t mind,” Yuki replied. “We’re all here. Tell us. At least someone is making
progress.”

Toby
said, “The rover encountered its first aborigine.”

Returning,
Park said, “I suppose that red-letter day will make remembering my anniversary
easier. Did it see the rover?”

Red
shook her head. “There was no thermal activity because the native was long
dead. Even so, we’ve limited the periods without a human operator to eight
hours in the wilderness and four hours in the jungle. I’ve increased
sensitivity on the detectors that request crew intervention.”

“We
uncovered a skeletal arm holding a crude spear. There were five long fingers
and a small, opposable thumb,” Toby explained with glee. “The close-range,
fine-grain sensors picked out dozens more bodies of the same density and
pattern in the area. The equipment is lighter weight than ground-penetrating
radar, but the resolution isn’t high enough to make out a complete skeleton.”

“A
Stone Age graveyard?” asked Yvette.

“A
mass grave that dates to sometime in the last fifty years,” Toby said.

Zeiss
said, “Our focus should be the Stone Age technology rating, which gives us many
more options for pages we can offer them.”

“How
did they die?” asked Yvette, placing her hand over her heart.

Eager
for interaction with her, Toby replied, “They appear to have been caught in an
avalanche on a narrow section of trail. Not only does this tell us we’re near a
population center, but this site is a treasure trove of xeno-anatomy and
anthropology. I can hardly wait to procure a specimen in person, though I was
hoping for a fresher corpse.” Suddenly embarrassed, he paused when people
stared at him as if he were a ghoul. “Perhaps this wasn’t appropriate for a
social event.”

“It’s
okay, Toby,” Yuki said, before he sank into depression. She tried to smile
reassuringly, but part of her wondered,
Is this grave site an omen for my
marriage?
“We asked, and you were honest. My fault. Have some more cake. No
one has touched the coconut half yet.”

Yvette
mouthed a “thank you” to Yuki. Toby still had to be led from the party to
recover, but at least it wouldn’t cause him a setback.

Auckland
muttered, “I told him this was a bad idea, but
he has some misguided notion that if a woman lets you see her naked, you’re
obligated to attend her wedding.”

Changing
the subject, Yuki noted the computer pad in Woo Jin’s hand. “We agreed no work
or computer games today. People first, then things.”

Her
new husband smiled. “This is for you. It is what Nadia broke my computer to
destroy—one of my most treasured memories.”

She
pushed the play button on a video. It was a low-resolution phone video of a
circus arena. An eighteen-year-old Asian girl, in a bodysuit that clung to her
like wet paint, climbed a silk banner as a man announced her stage name, Cora
De Lisse. The outfit revealed more of her flexing muscles than it concealed,
and her gyrations on the spinning silk made her look like she was flying. The
billowing, white fabric behind her took on the shape of wings.

“Is
that porn?” asked Mercy.