Wildcatter (23 page)

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Great, thanks to you. I’ve watched dozens of replays of me being carried by that team of stretcher-bearers you organized. It’s incredible! However did you do it?”

“Out of desperation. They’re smart little critters.”

“Well I can’t thank them, but I am eternally grateful to you.”

“No need. I’d have done it for anyone, even JC. It wasn’t just because you’re a red-hot sex bomb.”

“I bet that helped.” Golden eyebrows rose.

“You bet,” he admitted.

“So you do hope to cash in your IOU’s some time?”

His denial died stillborn. He nodded.

She said, “There is never any time like the present.”

Testosterone receptors started flashing in Seth’s limbic area.

“I’m still as weak as a newborn kitten.”

“I can fix that.”

He floated a little closer. “Sounds dangerous. I ought to get into shape first.”

“We must begin your training at once.”

He had to kiss her then. Her response was anything but sisterly, and for the next thirty minutes or so conversation was brief and incoherent.

Golden Hind
’s shuttle had always been off-limits to everyone except the prospector, but Seth had invited Jordan up there a couple of times “for an inspection.” The inspections had been mutual and intimate. So he’d had experience in free fall sex and knew how it was done. If Meredith did not, she had a natural gift for it. Convalescence was going to be a lot less boring from now on. As they floated in recovery mode, still tightly entwined, he reflected that this had been the fastest wooing he’d ever heard of.

“Mm,” she murmured. “That was very nice. What’s your turnaround time?”

“Usually an hour or so, but after that epic, I feel like I’ll need a month.”

“Dylan used to manage a lap every twenty minutes.”

“Screw Dylan.”

“I did. I bet I can bring you up to speed too.”

“You have my permission to try.”

Meredith was not only an enthusiast, she was an expert. She came close−twenty-seven minutes.

Paradise was short-lived though. Two days later, Control reported that the convalescents should now be able to return to standard atmospheric pressure, and they both reported for duty. Everyone else except Jordan had succumbed to the mysterious plague. Reese had been first to go and ought to be first to recover.
Golden Hind
was drifting in a haven about two hundred light years from Cacafuego. So far Hanna had been able to retrace the incoming jumps, but no one was willing to step into her shoes as navigator. A few days’ delay hardly mattered on such a journey.

By evening, Jordan looked blurred and battered; she reluctantly admitted to having a headache, which was the first sign of the mysterious infection. Seth fetched the medic tester. As soon as it took a blood sample, Control ordered complete bed rest. Jordan gratefully staggered off in search of an empty bunk. Was Seth Broderick now in charge?

In the commodore’s stateroom, Reese was conscious, but apparently content to lie and stare at the ceiling. Tied down on the other bed like a beached whale, JC mumbled and twitched in delirium.

“Dr. Platte, ma’am, I have the honor of informing you that you are now the ranking officer aboard. Ma’am?”

Reese rolled her eyes in his direction without moving her head. While she did not look her legal age of ninety-four, she was certainly not at her best. Her hair was a limp tangle; the clumsy tuck in her lip was more evident than usual.

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Take charge, ma’am.”

“I’m not capable at the moment. You, on the other hand, are Mr. Know-it-all, the universal understudy for the entire crew. Consider yourself acting captain until further notice.”

Seth felt as if he needed to shake seawater out of his ears. Since when had Reese ever paid anyone a compliment, especially him?

“Is that an order, ma’am?”

“No, it’s a statement of fact. You are the most fucking infuriating asshole, Broderick. You could run this ship singlehanded. You always know best. You run up the wildest prospector’s plog in history, which will bring you billions. You discover the only other intelligent species in the galaxy, so the rest of us will get nothing. Giving you orders doesn’t do any good. You don’t even take direct orders from the captain. I’d report you for mutiny if I wasn’t so ashamed.”

Seth’s scalp prickled. Either Reese was still delirious or she had suffered serious brain damage.

“Just when did I refuse a direct order from the captain?”

“When he ordered you to rape me.”

“Ma’am, one of us is having delusions. Captain Spears never did that, and never would.”

“They told me they did.”

Those bizarre hints… “You actually
asked
Jordan to tell me to do that?”

“Of course. I begged him to. He said he had, pretty much. But you didn’t do it. You think I’m old and ugly, don’t you?”

Before he could bite his tongue off, Seth said, “Pretty much. I mean you don’t look so hot right now.”

“When did I ever look hot to you?”

Seth jumped for the door. He slammed it behind him and stood out for a few minutes in the corridor, shaking and sweating. Eventually he whispered, “Fucking never.” After that he felt better.

* * *

He went back to the control room, where a weary-looking Meredith was fixedly watching a line of camels parading along the aft wall. Seth spread both hands on the table, and appointed himself acting captain. With surprising little difficulty, he persuaded Control to recognize Meredith as his deputy.

“I’d rather be first mate,” she said.

“No, that was my singing teacher, ten years ago.”

“She must have been a real prima donna.”

“She was good on encores, although not in your class. Why don’t you go off and get some sleep? There’s one bed left in the middle cabin. I know GenRegs insists that a human be awake at all times, but this is an emergency, so we can overrule it. I’ll make myself comfortable in the mess.”

Meredith stood up and reached out a hand to him. “Why don’t we both mess around in the mess first?”

A gentleman never refused a lady, especially that one.

* * *

Apart from the hydroponics, which needed a few hours’ attention every week, the ship almost ran itself. That was fortunate, because the acting captain and his deputy were kept busy attending to the invalids. Age seemed to make a difference. Both JC and Reese took a long time to recover. Hanna bounced back surprisingly quickly and was the first to venture as far as the mess.

Seth found her there drinking coffee when he returned from giving the semi-conscious JC a sponge bath. Her gorgeous red-gold hair had recovered its shine and her smile was not far behind. Of course, anyone would look good after JC.

“You look much better!” he said.

“And you look as gorgeous as always.” She turned scarlet. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

“Please don’t let my natural modesty stop you if you have anything more to add along the same lines.” He headed for the coffee.

Hanna wrapped her hands around her cup and stared down at it, not meeting his eye. “I am deeply ashamed of the way I’ve treated you, Seth. I’ve always tried to live by the principles my parents… I mean… No, let me say my piece. I was brought up to believe certain things and have always abided by them and I have never had cause to question them, but I see now that this is no longer the world for which those rules were … I mean they don’t necessarily apply as strongly in today’s society when we have … like, medical advances, for one thing. And we have unmarried men and women shut up together in close proximity for very long times, and I understand that men, especially young men, have stronger needs than women do and I deeply appreciate that you never questioned my decision or argued, unlike some others I could mention, and I respect you very much for that and I respect you even more for that wonderful EVA you just completed and the way you rescued that Tsukuba bitch, and if you and I find ourselves sharing a cabin again on the way home, I will let you … I mean I will try to be more cooperative and understanding.”

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.