Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (35 page)

“You always were good at sales,”
Conrad admitted. He plugged the ring into the
Sanctuary
network, and a
design for a colony supply ship appeared on the wall. “You have until Laura
emerges from decontamination to pitch your plan. If these advisors agree, then
we all have to sell the idea to my wife.”

Kaguya approached the whiteboard,
picked up a marker, and began drawing circles. “Dark lab seven is a cluster of
small, cupped craters that began as a profitable mine for titanium and iron.
The biggest is less than a kilometer high and under ten across. The surface
around the craters is rich in ilmenite, titanium, and iron necessary for
building and repairing spaceships. In the first step, the mining company
cannibalized the meteoric iron at the center of each crater to construct a
smelting facility.”

“Why in the craters?” asked Zeiss.

“Because the lighter colored
material uncovered by the impacts is anorthite, which had aluminum, silicon,
and magnesium for manufacturing the living quarters.” She sketched an inner and
outer ring around the main crater, plus bubbles at each crater and tunnels
between. “Once the war was over, the demand for titanium on Dark Side
plummeted, and Mori bought the base cheap for waste storage. One side effect of
the ore density and magnetism, however, was to shield the base from orbital
observation. Seven became a black lab, the home for several of the most
ambitious experiments Mori Electronics has ever attempted, including
self-deploying power grids.”

Meanwhile, Stu studied the NERO
ship design with interest. He interrupted the briefing several times to
compliment on the innovative aspects and how well it complemented
Sanctuary
.

Laura woke in a round shower stall, coughing gobbets of
purplish goo. The urge to purge wracked her body so hard it brought tears to
her eyes. Mira knelt beside her. “It’s all right. Get it all out. Deep
breaths.”

Deeply embarrassed, Laura dripped
with slime and shivered until Mira lowered a spray nozzle of warm water. When
Laura could stand and rinse her own hair, Mira exited via a frosted-glass door.

Examining her legs, Laura noted
that her collection of bruises and scratches were gone. After she finally felt
human again, she stepped out of the shower.

Her biological mother introduced
her to a full-body blow dryer and warned, “Don’t have unprotected sex until you
check in with Yvette. The alien cleansing eliminates most forms of birth
control as unwanted foreign material that disrupts the body’s natural
functions.”

“Speaking from a strictly design
point of view, yeah.” Laura pulled on a new flight suit. She tried not laugh
when her mother gave her a bundle of condoms. Zipping them into her front
pocket, she noticed the nametag was simply Laura. “Isn’t a first name unusual
for a paramilitary organization.”

“Stu didn’t know your last name
when he invited you, but we knew his intentions were serious.”

Laura ran her fingers along the
gold lettering. “This doesn’t feel real.”

Mira said, “Maybe if I showed you
the rest of the habitat?” She leapt into the control room, waving to Joan.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Stu?” At the
large airlock to the habitat, Laura tugged on soft boots.

“He’s already in debriefing. The
pods arrive in order. I had to threaten him to get him to leave. My spending
time with you first gets him off the hook for jumping in the sack with you so
fast.”

“Pft. Took me a month to wear him
down. If I’d had my way, I’d have thrown him on the table during our first
dinner together.”

Mira opened her eyes wide. “I
forgot you had a more … liberal upbringing.”

“What? You didn’t wrap men around
your little finger with Empathy?”

“That’s different.” Mira changed
the topic of conversation by opening the golden door.

The view outside momentarily robbed
Laura of speech. Bouncing out onto the gray paneled boardwalk, Laura admired
the architecture. Above, the saucer was ringed with a pergola made of
antigravity tiles. She stood on the railing of what resembled a water tower
inside a giant hamster ball. A floating staircase spiraled down toward the
greenery of the habitat. “Everything is so lush. I’ve never seen so many
different types of crops in one place.”

“It helps that the biosphere has no
seasons and that we control the weather. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to
harvest everything we need.”

Descending the staircase felt like
a dream. Each step, she weighed a little more and fell faster. She could see a
swamp below with a yellow brick road leading toward the other hemisphere. When
Laura reached the pecan trees, she said, “It’s a paradise.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Mira replied.
“The trip to the settlement takes about forty minutes.”

Now that they were alone, Laura
resumed the previous discussion. “So you never seduced a man?”

“Tried a couple times—epic fails.
My height and my bra size were stunted until I was sixteen, to reduce
complications from being a multi.”

“Even as the shortest one on the
team, everyone in this biosphere is intimidated by you, and you made the UN’s
Most Wanted list. So kudos for attitude.”

“As a prodigy, I was always better
at math than people,” Mira admitted.

“They wouldn’t let me do math, but
DNA just made sense to me. I didn’t have friends growing up other than my
m—Kaguya. I didn’t have dark hair and eyes like the girls at my school. Nana
turned the few who tolerated me into competition. Later, I thought boys would
be a substitute for peer approval. If they wanted me, I felt better about
myself.”

“But that type of friendship
doesn’t last,” Mira said. “You just feel worse when you find out the truth.”

“Stu is different—honest. Being
around him is …”

“Stewart is sweet and has great
spatial abilities, but he’s not in your league in so many ways. Are you sure
you’re not rushing into this?”

Laura couldn’t meet her mother’s
eyes. “I’ve done a lot of awful things. Stu is one of the few people who sees
me as … pure. I need his vision of the world. Sometimes you just
know
when someone is right.” After a pause, she asked, “How did you manage to win
over my father?”

“Conrad was a teaching assistant at
Sirius Academy and my best friend for years.” Mira described a slow courtship
neither had recognized. “On my eighteenth birthday, he resigned his position to
train as an astronaut with my team. Everyone else knew he loved me. Someone
finally told me what was going on before Kaguya could steal him.”

“Wow. I heard almost the same story
from my mom with her as the love interest. I know she loves the commander. You
can’t fake that for twenty years.”

Mira halted in a strawberry field
to pick up runners that were trying to stray into other fields. “Her feelings
didn’t keep her from committing atrocities.”

“People call you and my father
criminals,” Laura said, not ready for any more family revelations. “After
everything you did to her, Mother defended both of you and your mission to
space. Try to have the same kindness toward her and find the good.”

“Fine.” Mira knelt in the
well-ordered row, faced away. “Your
mother
and I took many of the same
classes with Conrad. She was prettier, popular, and, as far as he knew, richer.
She was even kind to us, but Conrad
chose
me
. Kaguya ignored that
choice and tried to force him to bond to her—twice. Her having my eggs, our
babies
,
stolen feels like the third strike to me.”

“I would have been destroyed
without her,” Laura insisted.

Mira placed her forehead on the
ground and shouted each word for emphasis. “I missed twenty years with you.
I’ll never have another child!” This iron-willed woman who had driven the most
noble and far-reaching treason of the century sobbed into the dirt.

“But she brought Monty and me here
so you could have the next hundred years with us.” Laura knelt beside her. “We
have to find the positive.” She held her new mother, much as she held her old
during her spells, stroking her back and whispering sweet phrases.

Mira whispered, “I won’t have a
hundred years. Finding the route back to Earth aged my nervous system by a
decade. I hated my mother for burning out the way she did, but she was right.
There’s always another emergency, another reason to burn my personal candle at
both ends.”

****

With pauses for discussion and tourism, Laura’s journey to
the Llewellyn farm took three hours. Near dusk, Stu had his feet propped up on
his porch railing. A candle lit the picture window behind him. Laura hugged her
mother at the gate to the white picket fence, reluctant to part.

Stu said, “We can meet Mira for
breakfast before our shift tomorrow.”

Laura glided up the yellow brick
path to the farmhouse. It was primitive and pitifully small, but signs of love
were everywhere, from the handmade curtains to the lacquered porch swing.
Several of the boxes from her Tokyo apartment were stacked beside the living
room window.

Mira sniffed. “Back to duty so
soon?”

“Everyone is,” Stu explained.
“We’re coordinating a rescue mission for Aunt Mary and the other Rio folks
several days from now. That will give our allies time to move into place and
Snowflake time to rebuild.”

“You actually contacted people from
Earth?” asked Mira.

“Yeah. That was risky, but we found
our third enemy—something that started as a Russian oil company. Our opposition
has a huge arsenal. We’re still mapping the illegal stuff in orbit: beam
weapons, ore haulers that disappeared from manifests, secret lunar outposts,
and spy gear.”

“Where’s Kaguya?” Laura asked.

“Bunking with Nurse Yvette.
Outhouses don’t appeal to Kaguya, and she thought you and I should have some
time alone.”

“You don’t sound excited,” Laura
noted, giving Stu a peck on the cheek.

“Kaguya’s volunteered to spearhead
a dangerous distraction that should cripple Mori’s offensive capability.”

Laura panicked. “What did you
people talk her into? She gets like a little girl when she’s without me for too
long.”

“I know,” Stu said, stroking her
hair. “That’s why Mo and I will be going with her as backup.”

“You’re risking yourself, too?
Without talking to me first?”

Mira said, “The planning committee
wouldn’t commit to anything like this without me. We have to assume that Mori
can hear anything we say over our radios outside this ship.”

“Nothing is decided,” Stu said,
holding up both hands. “The commander just listened to proposals. I told the
others, no matter what happened, I wouldn’t let them endanger my mother-in-law
without me flying the getaway vehicle.”

“Oh.”
Damn, he always follows up
a boneheaded mistake with something sweet.
“She’ll need to take my
wristwatch, my choker, and whatever other useful jewelry I can find.”

“Okay, I know the choker can change
her voice so people won’t recognize her, but why the watch?”

“Analog. The blinking dots on the
digital ones can send her into a trance,” Laura said, giving a partial answer.
No sense giving away all her secrets. “You want her to be on time, don’t you?”

Mira pressed for details, but Stu
replied, “Tomorrow is soon enough, ma’am. I kept the others away from you two
for the whole day, but I promised to carry my bride over our threshold.”

“Oh seven hundred it is, Ambassador
Llewellyn. Thank you for introducing us.” Mira wandered toward the lamplights
of town with a few backward glances.

Laura waved good-bye.

“May I?” Stu opened the front door.

Laura nodded, and he swept her off
her feet. He carried her through the door, gazing adoringly into her face. From
the living room, she could smell something delicious wafting from the kitchen.
“Heavenly.”

“Apple pie, from our trees. I
peeled and sliced them while I was waiting. Gave me something to do,” he
admitted, setting her on her feet.

“Is that all you had planned for
the evening?” she asked with a smirk.

“I also rolled the leftover crust
in cinnamon and sugar to make those little—”

She shut him up with a kiss on the
lips. “Are there any other rooms you’d like to show me?”

He led her to three doors. “That’s
the attic. That’s my old bedroom, and that’s the room my parents used.”

Only his childhood room was open,
so she led him inside. He had another candle burning beside the full-sized bed.

“So, Ambassador, you’re going on a
dangerous mission that you may not return from.” Laura unzipped his flight suit
down to his underwear. His chest wasn’t the strongest or the hairiest she’d
ever seen, but it would do. She was in love with the man, not the body.

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

She kissed his neck, causing him to
gasp. “Then as a patriotic Sanctuarian, I should give you a hero’s send off.”

His eyes were riveted on her as she
unzipped her own outfit. “I don’t need fireworks, Laura. I just want to be able
to lie next to you the whole night.”

“The whole night it is, then,”
Laura agreed. Opening their personal link, she shared her own burning
excitement to overcome his shy reserve. The press of warm skin against skin
drove all semblance of thought from his head. She knew he would give her
whatever she wanted.

****

As the sun came up, Laura lay in Stu’s arms eating apple pie
straight from the pan.
He’s still here. This is real.
His eyes followed
her every movement.
“What?” she asked.

“Everything you do is sensuous.
Watching you is better than chocolate.”

She smiled and licked her spoon
clean in what she hoped was a suggestive manner.

“Would you like me to make you
eggs?” he offered.

For some reason, she felt that he
was getting the short end of the partnership. Without wealth, she didn’t have
much to offer. “I’m sorry I don’t cook or clean. I’m afraid I won’t be a very
good wife.”

“Pilots have a lot a time off. I
can handle that. You’re great at other things.”

“Like sex?” she teased.

“No complaints, but I meant your
skills with genetics and trials. You’re also an Index and a Quantum Computer—a
natural for the planning committee. What would you like for breakfast?”

“You’re not leaving this bed.”
Laura snuggled into him like a blanket.

Several minutes later, a chime
sounded. He sat up. “I have to check my mail. It could be urgent.”

She wrestled with him until they
were both giggling. Eventually, he shouted, “Audio on. Read subject.”

Through a speaker in the night
stand, Conrad’s voice said, “Requested Vacation.”

“Wait, you have electricity?” asked
Laura.

“Of course. I used candles because
girls like that sort of thing. Read body,” Stu ordered.

Conrad’s voice continued. “Stewart,
because your combat mission has been approved, you’ve been granted leave for
the next forty-eight hours.”

Stu relaxed. “That means we can get
some sleep.”

Yeah, that’s what it means.

She waited for him to drift off
while spooning. Then she moved subtly. When he developed the inevitable
erection, she gave him the most erotic wake-up call of his life.