Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4) (6 page)

“You are not nicknaming my baby
before he’s even born.”

Yvette spoke, like thunder out of a
clear sky. “She’s jealous.”

“What?”
asked Mercy.

“Pratibha’s
been trying to have a child of her own,” Yvette informed them. “You succeeded
without trying and before getting married. You’ve offended her sense of morals
and fair play, but mainly, she’s jealous.”

“I
think you’re right,” Mercy said.

Yuki
rose to her feet. “Well, as much fun as we’ve had with girl time, I have to get
back to the grind.”

“What’s
your next task?” Mercy asked, glancing at the cart.

“We
thresh the grain that has dried enough. Sojiro works the blower while I beat
the stalks and toss them in the air.”

“The
dried grass blows away, but the grain falls,” said Mercy, excited.

“Yes.”

“We
can help.”

While
they were working, Park stopped by and presented Yuki with a bundle of
handwritten pages. Puzzled, she flipped through the heavy math to reach the drawings
at the end. “Long rods pounded into the ground at different distances from the
same gravity generator… this describes a proof-of-concept heater.”

Park
shrugged. Softly, he mumbled, “It’s sort of like demonstrating electricity from
a potato—not very practical, but it shows you had a good idea.”

“Wow.
You’re amazingly smart. I can’t begin to grasp half of these equations,” Yuki
said, smoothing out her hair. For the first time since Mercy had met her, Yuki
actually seemed shy. “Thank you,” she said with a delicate bow that showed off
a tiny
bit more skin than it should have.

“I
won’t disturb you further,” Park said, excusing himself hurriedly.

Mercy’s
only comment was, “He must have used up his whole word quota for a month.”

The
hours of farm work made them perspire more than Mercy thought possible. She
used the word ‘torrid,’ and Yuki teased her about it for the rest of the
afternoon while they winnowed grain. Their sweat made bits of chaff stick to
them like confetti at a parade. Her skin itched as bad as the ivy marks on her
ankles.

The
moment they finished, Mercy tore off her T-shirt to reveal the sports underwear
she used for swimming. Jogging to the docks, she squealed, “Last one in is a
rotten egg!”

All
three of the women’s hats blew off in the race. Yuki fell behind quickly,
unused to any daily fitness regimen. Yvette beat Mercy by a nose and cannon-balled
off the side of the pier first . . . only to land in the mud flats a meter from
the actual water. The farther the ship traveled through space and consumed the
water as fuel, the more the lake receded.

Mercy
launched off the end of the pier into the clear shallows. When she spotted the
mud dripping from her friend’s backside and legs, she pointed and giggled like
a schoolgirl. The nurse responded by slinging a mud ball at her chest.

“Ouch,”
Mercy complained.

Yuki
hid on the pier behind the whiteboard people used to sign out the raft. Puffing
heavily, she said, “You guys are going to have to take off any clothes that get
dirty. Leave me out of this, and I’ll bring you towels to wear.”

The
next mud missile hit a piling and splattered Mercy’s knees. This time, Yvette
burst out laughing.

“Think
you’re tough, huh?” Mercy challenged. “I had three younger sisters, and I
know
how to mud-wrestle. We played a game called ‘Spank the Alligator,’ and I was Shanna
the Jungle Queen.”

“Dear
Penthouse, I thought it was going to be just another boring day at the beach,”
came Lou’s voice from beneath the pier.

Herk
said, “Five euros on the dirty blonde. She’s taken Krav Maga training.”

Both
men had been lurking under the pier for some strange reason.

Yvette
covered her mud-spattered bra with crossed arms and backed toward the shelter
of the raft.

From
the hammock slung under the pier, Lou said, “Naw, my money’s on the brunette.
She can find where anyone is ticklish.”

Mercy
strode forward, helping to block the nurse from view. “Kai Llewellyn, what are
you doing down there? Are you supposed to be checking fish traps? Is that
beer?”

Smiling,
Lou gestured broadly. “Welcome to the Sand Bar, the best place in
Sanctuary
to cool a keg . . . or it was.”

Herk
rose from his stump-stool and climbed the ladder to the decking. Without his
shirt on, everyone could see his wife’s name tattooed inside a heart shape on
his chest. “Bro, she just used your full name. That’s my cue to disappear.”

Yuki
echoed, “Me, too.”

Mercy
slogged closer, trying to lower her voice so the security guard wouldn’t hear.
“Pratibha is trying to deny the baby’s allotment. If you keep loafing, we won’t
have anything saved when the baby arrives.”

“This
is how pilots wait and unwind.”

“I’ve
heard. You boys sit around like construction workers without tools, hitting on
women. You won’t have another jump for six months.”

“I’m
not the one giving my allotment away to the enemy.”

“Yuki’s
been a good friend to both of us, and she needs help. Grow up.”

“You
control freak. You can’t plan out every minute of my life. I’m not a three year
old!”

“A
three year old would listen!” she said, raising her voice for the first time.
“If you keep unwinding every day, your beer belly is going to be bigger than
mine.”

Yvette
put her recently rinsed fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply. “Stop. One
at a time. I can teach you how to fight. Every couple needs to learn that. It
can take years of trial and ugly error on your own. Avoid using the word ‘you’,
and take turns expressing your goals and emotions. For example, Mercy doesn’t
want to control you. She
wants to spend more time with you and plan your
lives together. She wants your marriage to be a success.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,”
Mercy agreed.

“Those sound like positive things
if you’re not nagging,” Lou mumbled.

Yvette held Mercy back. “That tone
probably creeps in because she’s worried you won’t come back some night.”

“Ridiculous. She’s the only person
in this world I can see. She changed my whole coordinate system. In GPS terms,
she’s home.” The adoration in his face proved the truth of the statement.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Mercy said,
melting.

The nurse continued. “Lou thinks
the bar lifestyle is part of his identity, and he doesn’t want you to try to
change him. Closer to the truth is that unless he can boast about something to
other men, it didn’t happen. He’s probably bragging about you. Compromise for
now: let him have one hour a week free time and one beer. The rest is
negotiable.”

“Sounds fair,” Mercy said meekly.

Climbing out of the lake, Yvette
said, “I’m heading back for a shower. You two can talk things out like adults.”

“You were really bragging about
me?” Mercy asked.

“Yeah,” Lou said, still breathing
heavily from the argument. “You smell great. Can you tell me more about this
jungle queen game?”

Grinning wickedly, she used the
remainder of his beer to rinse off her stomach and legs. “If you want to finish
your drink, first you have to find it.”

They kissed and fell back into
Lou’s hammock. He nuzzled her neck, and she responded with a blissful moan. “Warmer.”
After several hungry sounds, and a practiced touch, Mercy’s bra leapt off. There
was no trace of the stolen brew on either nipple; however, he took the fingers
laced in his hair as a hint to search these very thoroughly. “Close. Oh, so
close.”

He found a small pool of alcohol in
her belly button but kept searching industriously for the rest.

****

That evening Mercy knocked on the
dormitory door, scratching her lower back and behind. Oleander covered her
mouth to hide a laugh. “Sand fleas from sex on the beach?”

“Sun poisoning, I think. My whole
backside is itchy with welts.”

Yvette snickered and rummaged
through her shelf for a remedy.

“You were on top?” Oleander
guessed.

“Yeah, evidently the dock had lots
of holes where the afternoon sun could get through.”

Oleander took a peek at the reddish
bumps. “Ouch. You burned this much in fifteen minutes?”

“Makeup sex lasts at least an hour
or it’s not considered sincere.”

“I hate you,” said the only female
member of the security team.

“I
can’t find my tea leaves for the poultice,” Yvette said.

“Oh,
Yuki took the tea to Olympus to help keep her awake tonight,” explained
Oleander.

“I’ll
have to hike up to the falls to get more,” Yvette complained.

Oleander
replied, “Regulations require people to travel in pairs. I’d escort you, but
I’m on duty in less than three hours.”

Mercy
was quick to offer, “If you can apply the anti-itch treatment in the field,
I’ll go with you now.”

“Let
me put on my boots,” said Yvette, changing into outdoor clothes. Exercise would
lighten the dark mood that had been creeping up on her, releasing much-needed
endorphins and serotonin.

“Why
aren’t you still snuggling with Captain Fantastic?” asked Oleander.

“He’s
snoring already, but between this heat and scratching myself raw, I can’t sleep.”

“So
you’d do things differently next time?” asked Oleander, eager for some regret.

At
week ten on Mercy’s pregnancy calendar, she was perkier than ever. Her face
went dreamy. “No, it was a perfect day. I’ll always remember it.”

As
Yvette led the way into the hills holding Mercy’s hand like a grade-schooler,
she decided that she would rank today pretty high as well. She could feel the
younger woman’s optimistic glow like a second sun. No one could be depressed on
an evening like this.

About
twenty minutes from camp, and halfway around the Counterweight Mountain, Mercy had emptied the canteen, “God, this heat’s terrible. I need more to drink.”

Yvette
took a trail branch that doubled back toward the waterfall. “Maybe a dip in the
cool water will help.”

The
climb seemed particularly hard on Mercy, whose face went flush. Soon, the
pregnant woman doubled over in agony. The mental shriek through the Collective
link was worse. Yvette went to her own knees, feeling her friend’s abdominal
pain as her own.
Dehydration, hives, fever, cramps—Mercy is losing the baby.
Holding her own screams in check, Yvette slapped the emergency-broadcast button
on her badge. “Auckland! Medical emergency.”

“Go,”
the doctor responded.

Week
ten was when a male fetus started producing testosterone, before any sonogram
could detect the gender. In rare cases, this hormonal trigger could cause
extreme reactions in multi-talents. “I think Mercy’s carrying a boy. Her body’s
going into full-blown rejection.”

“How
long has she been experiencing symptoms?”

Yvette
rolled on the ground, growling, trying to convince her body that the pain was
fictional before she could form her reply.
I’m so stupid.
“This morning.
Thought the causes were poison ivy and sun poisoning. Argh. It’s chewing her
insides out.”

“You
have to get her to Olympus in the next hour, or we could lose them both.”

Mercy’s
screech punctuated this fact.

The
nurse’s tears obscured her vision. “We’re near the summit. If I get her down,
Herk can use the cart to run her the rest of the way.” The pain kicked her in
the gut again. “Tell him he’ll need his Override talent because she’s
broadcasting hard.”

Oleander
interrupted on the common channel, “I’ll get the cart ready while Herk jogs up
to meet you.”

The
elevator to Olympus was over three kilometers away. If she did nothing for the
time it took Herk to run up, Mercy and the baby might die. “The gravity this far
up is low enough that I think I can manage a fireman’s carry.”

With
tremendous effort, she slung her friend’s body over her shoulder. The change in
position actually made both women breathe easier. Yvette took seven trembling
steps before the uneven ground twisted beneath her. Cartilage popped, and she
smashed into the rocky path. Both women cried out in pain, but Yvette managed
to keep her arms around Mercy’s head as they fell. “Sorry. My bad knee. Oh. Somebody
help!”

Yuki had programmed
Snowflake to scan nearby asteroids and comets so she could map their
compositions. It was good practice, and Earth might be able to use the data. The
visible portion of the star system would take months to process. Each shift,
she only needed five minutes to read the latest summary, leaving her with
almost eight hours to watch paint dry. To draw extra pay, she stocked shelves
in the Olympus infirmary with raw chemicals and proteins that Toby would need
for his experiments. Toby was already off-duty, locked in his large storage-room
cell for the night, and communications with him were restricted. She couldn’t
talk to Auckland much because laughter sent him into wheezing fits, and
Pratibha reordered the fabricator queues if Yuki flirted in anyway. This duty
was like babysitting an eighty-year-old man. Currently, the blue-tinged Dr.
Auckland lay on the sick bay cot, reading a biography of some South African
soccer player Toby had recommended.

Using
her best seduction skills, Yuki tried to get Park to chat. “Why is an engineer
training to be a pilot? Usually they’re not bold enough.”

“Have
to feel the controls for myself in order to design it properly or fix
problems.”

“Your
pilot call sign, Wizard, sounds so impressive. How did you earn it?”

“Red’s
fault,” he replied.

“What,
did she tell everyone you were magic in the sack or a technical whiz?”

He
rolled his eyes. “My name is Woo Jin. When she asked some D&D geek what it
meant, she pronounced it Wu Jen.”

Yuki
smiled. “A Japanese Wizard, but the fighter jocks had to approve it.”

“Lou
did after I adjusted his motorcycle to win some race. It was nothing.” He
remained silent for another half hour, at which point he complained, “Why is
there a jar of unpopped popcorn in the standby bedroom?”

“That’s
Lou’s,” she said with a snort. “We have a running bet. You put a penny in a jar
every time you have sex during your first year of a relationship. After that,
you take a penny out each time you make love. The old wives tale is that you’ll
never get to the bottom of that jar.”

“What
does that have to do with all the popcorn?”

“There
isn’t that much copper in our entire habitat. He had to substitute kernels of
popcorn.”

His
eyes bugged a little as he rattled the jar. After doing a little math on his fingers,
he looked crestfallen. “I’m going to bed early.”

She
sighed. Lou may have been a shallow asshat, but he knew how to entertain a girl.
She had advanced intelligence training, world-class gymnastics skill, a degree
in electronics with a minor in geology, and all these men could find for her to
do on a Friday night was alphabetize bottles on a shelf.

When
she heard the call for help on the emergency channel, Yuki sprinted out of the
infirmary, launching herself toward the control harness in the center of the
saucer. She shouted, “Snowflake, zoom all windows onto Yvette’s position. Add
sound.”

She
listened to the drama unfold as she strapped herself into the control couch.
Dread churned her gut, combining with the dizziness from her too rapid zero-g
transition to make her feel ill. “Mercy isn’t going to make it, guys. We have
to do something.”

Yuki
might not be cleared for much on the interface, but she’d been Mercy’s
assistant from the beginning. She had seen true wizards at work. As Yuki slid under
the head cowl, she asked, “Snowflake, can we do anything to help Mercy?”

It
chimed in the positive. Her interactions were pretty crude.

“
How
can we help Mercy?”

It
gleeped. She had to narrow the parameters.

“Display
the menu you first showed Mercy before she designed the helix stairs.”

Three
choices appeared on the interface screen. Pointing at the one Mercy had labeled
dangerous, Yuki expanded the menu item. A scale model of the ship’s interior
appeared, with a dotted line leading from the saucer to the concave mountaintop.

She
examined the diagram, blotting out the screams of the women on the ground. Mercy
had saved her life repeatedly; Yuki wouldn’t let the girl die without lifting a
finger. Mercy treated the ship like a BMW, assuming that anything she needed
was in convenient reach. Sojiro was always so Zen with the interface.
Imagine
a goose in a bottle. How do you get it out without hurting it?

Yuki’s
eyes flicked to the mountaintop in the diagram and zoomed in. “Add scale in
meters.” The indentation was exactly the same shape and size as the bottom of
the saucer.
Okay, that means it’s meant to land there. How? All I can
control are the antigravity dominoes, and they have to be close to the ship to
work.

Touching
the ship icon, she punched the reset button to restore the tiles to their default
position, tight against the hull. Thumps sounded outside the ship as a handful
of dominoes on elevator duty returned to their nests.

Auckland
bellowed, “What are you doing? We need the
elevator to bring up the patients once they arrive.”

The
circular pergola around the top of the saucer resembled what it really was—a giant
turbine. The boardwalk below it was some sort of directional vent system or
perhaps a second turbine in the off position. “Snowflake, spin up the turbines.
Prepare to take Olympus down to the mountaintop cradle.”

A
whir began like the sound of breath over a blade of grass. After a few tries,
the vibration became a whistle and gradually increased in pitch. Emergency crash
couches shooshed open in several walls as the entire saucer shook. The doors to
the dining and medical areas slammed shut and locked.
Well, the remaining blades
are mostly in balance. If I haven’t triggered a red warning yet, this thing should
get us there.

After
the noise grew loud enough to wake him, Park pounded on the inside of his door.
“Snowflake, open.”

The
interface gleeped. “No moving about the cabin while the engine is engaged.”

“What
the hell is going on?” Park demanded over the ship-only channel.

Yuki
ordered, “Mountainward, now.” She heard metal creak and strain as at least six
yellow warnings overlapped on her screen.

“Preflight
sequence takes twenty minutes,” Snowflake advised. “Preferred safe operation
takes an additional eight in checks.”

In
the diagram, flashing red docking clamps and the life-support umbilical appeared
to be the things holding them in place.

“Snowflake,
give me a visual feed on the clamps.” They looked simple enough. All she had to
do was pry open three sets of fingers. “Unlock the clamps.”

Snowflake
gleeped. “Unauthorized.”

Over
the emergency band, Yvette said, “Bring ropes. We slid down the slope a
little.” She made a spitting sound as gravel cascaded past her.

“Park,”
Yuki shouted. “Give me authorization.”

“I’m
not set up for voice interface. By regulation, we have to turn that off to sleep.”
They didn’t have the time to shut completely down and let him loose.

“Who
can give me auth?”

The
drive specialist frantically consulted his computer pad. “Lou’s asleep, too.
Mercy’s the only planner with access.”

Over
the emergency channel, Yuki said, “Mercy! I need you to tell Snowflake to grant
me docking privileges.”

Giving
birth to the words with gasps in between, Mercy wailed, “Snowflake. Help. Me.”

The
screen turned green, but Mercy officially had control. Yuki couldn’t change
anything, no matter how many buttons she pushed. The clamps released one at a
time. Evidently, this was supposed to happen before full spin-up because metal groaned
as the saucer tipped sideways. Men cursed, and cargo thumped around the craft.

“Brace
for impact,” Yuki shouted, grasping for her own safety straps. Cables snapped
after the second clamp released. She watched a hose snake through the
atmosphere, spraying valuable water into the air. In the low gravity, the drops
spread out in front of the solar window, forming a circular rainbow. She smiled
in spite of the danger. If they survived, it wouldn’t be the new mobility
people would remember. No. The wasted water was going to seriously piss Rachael
off. That alone would be worth the ride.

****

Yvette
was trying to make a leg splint out of olive branches and a bra when something
blotted out the sun. The spinning disco ball had a ring like Saturn that kicked
up a dust tornado. The hum was deafening and warbling like a buzz bomb about to
impact. She dove atop Mercy’s body shortly before thunder shook the mountain.

Moments
after the blades spun down to a dull whoosh, the storage-bay door lowered like
a ramp, and Toby ran out holding a rope and several blankets.

“You
came to help?” Yvette asked as he made his way down the dusty slope.

He
struggled, wanting the gratitude in her face to be for him, but admitted, “That
damn pet computer of hers came like Lassie when she called, and to Hell with
the rest of us. I was kissing the ceiling during the freefall. Park, come down
here! Help me get them both inside.”

“Just
her,” Yvette said, unwilling to reenter the storage bay.

Toby
looked sick. “Please. I’ll stay out here if you want.”

“No.
You need to save her and the baby.”

“For
you, anything. I’ll send Park back out to sit with you while you wait. Herk,
you take care of Yvette’s evac.”

As
Toby wrapped a blanket around each woman to prevent the onset of shock, the
nurse stared at him. How could he be so thoughtful now? This was training. Here,
his detachment and resistance to the Collective would be an asset. In his own realm,
Hades was king for a reason.

After
examining the pale Mercy, Toby whispered, “We’ll take her directly to the
stasis chamber.”

He
toted her to the ship before collapsing, and then the quiet Korean took over
inside.

****

Park
dropped Mercy from his shoulder into a black chair. He had some sort of
abrasion high on his forehead with a thin trickle of blood leading to his
prominent eyebrow. She blinked. One moment Yuki was fussing over him for his
bravery while wounded, and the next something gripped Mercy’s brainstem in
static.

Something
hissed in her ear like warm water rushing out after a long swim.

Before
the pregnant woman could analyze the sensation, Toby stood over her with a
mining helmet. “I need a small sample.”

She
screamed as she struggled against the restraining straps that were suddenly
wrapping her arms. Lou rushed in to grab her hand in the dimness. Just after
their hands met, another wave of pain washed over her, and Mercy saw stars—not
like spots of light, but almost like two spiral galaxies, one above and the
other below. She could feel reassurance pouring from Lou as well as the galaxy
below. Before she could analyze the sensations, Toby separated the two of them
and activated the stasis field.

After
a moment of dizziness and another sound like a sip through a straw, the scene
changed again. This time, the chamber was well lit, and Lou sat beside her. The
wide cylinder was surrounded by six shower tubes. Either a ladder or drying
niche nestled between the other pairs of stalls. She huddled in the stasis niche,
a pitch-black recess under the dining hall. “How much time just passed?” Mercy
asked.

With
no stasis field to interfere, Lou fumbled for her hand. “Three weeks. It took
that long to reattach the saucer without your expert help.” Her husband tried
to radiate calm, but she could feel the fear and loneliness underneath. “They
gave us a few minutes, until the anesthesia kicks in.”

Three
meters way in an open shower stall, Auckland watched an instrument panel.

“Why
is he standing so far back?” she asked.

“He
doesn’t like debilitating cramps. The medicine is to enable them to treat you
once they find the solution.”

“Am
I hurting you?”

He
squeezed her hand. “This hurts less than not seeing you.”

How is the doctor monitoring me?
When she investigated, she found that her chest and forehead were dotted
with electrodes.

“Inanimate
objects can enter the field safely,” she deduced as warmth spread through her
body from the IV.

Lou
smiled and stroked her sweat-bedraggled hair. “That’s you: always thinking.”

“What
did I miss?”

“Snowflake
came down to get you at Yuki’s urging. We lost a lost of water into the middle
of the sphere. You can see it just floating there.” His voice grew panicked,
and he breathed faster. “Damn it, don’t scare us like that. We need you. I need
you!”

“Shh,”
she said, stroking his gorgeous face. “You’ll be fine. We’ll get through this.”

“How?
They have to cure rejection. Earth hasn’t done that, and they have teams of
scientists. Red’s mom lost three kids because of her page talents. Did you know
that?”