by Scott Rhine
Yuki told them. “I kept no records of the actual transmissions, but the times and dates of each sample are recorded on my contact lens.” She peeled the interface off her eye and laid it on the table. “Primarily, I used it to monitor when my name came up in conversation—I’m not very well liked. Secondarily, I kept track of Toby because I still don’t trust him. It’s how I was able to tip off Mercy about what he was doing.”
“Have you ever listened to Conrad and me?” Red asked.
Yuki stared at the table top. “Once, I overheard some foreplay. Your exact words were ‘How does this outfit look when I wear it like Yuki?’ Next, he was growling, and you were shouting, ‘Yes.’ I stopped listening as soon as I realized what was happening.”
“Because you knew it was wrong?” asked the commander.
“No. It hurt too much to hear how happy you were,” Yuki admitted. “I have almost nothing left now in possessions or allotment, but I have been honest in everything, to my detriment—all because I wanted to do right. I will accept any punishment, but I beg to continue serving on the translation team.”
Zeiss sighed. “My wife and I will talk. Clearly, we can’t tell the crew at large, or they’d lynch you—that would break the charter and cause us to fail the test.”
Yuki sighed with relief.
Red interrupted. “My price for keeping quiet is a high one. You can’t have sex with Park until you’ve been dating for an appropriate time.”
“Dating?” Yuki asked, dumbfounded.
“You know, dining, talking outside the bedroom, and becoming friends. Z and I dated for years and got married before we—”
“Years?” Yuki shrieked.
Again Zeiss held out a calming hand. “The societal standard is three dates, but you and Lou aren’t good judges of propriety. Let Park decide when he’s ready.”
Who says I want to sleep with him? one part of her argued, while her body clamored, That’s too long to wait.
“For my condition: before you sleep with him, you have to tell him how you toyed with him to avoid getting caught,” Zeiss demanded. “You need to learn the path of honesty from the beginning.”
The condition twisted in her gut. “Yes, teacher.”
Chapter 14 – In Search of Sasquatch
To avoid awkwardness or violence from running into Nadia, Yuki and Park spent most of their time for the following weeks in Olympus. Many in the camp pitched in and donated spare clothing to the vandal’s victims. On her frequent visits to Olympus, Mercy shared the latest gossip. “The mayor said she would have done even worse to you if you came near Auckland. She donated an entire knit winter outfit. I saw Nadia try it on, and she looked like a mountain man or a midget Sasquatch. My Lord, the woman hasn’t bathed since the mission. She just hides in her house and barks at people.”
Mercy brought some fresh greens for a salad, and she was peeling the carrots at the sink in the dining room as they talked.
Uncharacteristically, Yuki nodded and volunteered no news of her own.
“Come on, what have you been doing up here all this time?” Mercy asked. “I know you’re racking up duty hours.”
“Toby wanted to transmit the procedure for the multi-talent pregnancy cure back to Earth. He claims it will arrive over fifteen years sooner from here than Oblivion. The next system is so far away, we’re not sure Earth will even be able to hear our broadcast. We’d have to wait till we got back in person. Red vetoed it. The Wannamaker files worry her, and she wants to see the treatment work before she advocates it to others.”
“We don’t want to let that technology loose unless we’re sure it helps and what all the side effects are,” Mercy said. From her tone, there had already been a few negative repercussions that she hadn’t shared with the public. “That’s what the others are doing. What about you?”
“You know that interface Sojiro cooked up for the powered lasso? Well, neither of the pilots have been able to steer it, not while concentrating on flying. Since I’ve been practicing with controls for my arm, I can do it, no sweat. So I’ve been nominated to go with them on the next mission to collect minerals for our computer chips.”
“Exciting! How has it been going with Park?”
“He was a little disappointed when I outdid him at the lasso controls, but he’s been a perfect gentleman, damn it,” Yuki replied. She picked up the head of lettuce, stabbed it twice in the heart, and bashed it on the counter until the stem fell out.
“So, he hasn’t suggested sex yet,” Mercy deduced, taking the abused head of lettuce from her.
“We eat together in the evenings, and he’ll chat with me if there’s no one else around. I persuaded him to talk about his family. His dad was some kind of hero, a nuclear engineer who stayed at Fukushima even when he knew it was leaking. He wanted to save the people in the province and died of cancer soon after. My father is wanted in three countries for swindling and petty theft. Woo Jin was actively pursued as a designer by every major military contractor. As an astronaut, he earns less than a third of the salary he should. That’s something Nadia hammered him about, but money doesn’t matter much to him. He has a very dry sense of humor, and not many people can tell when he’s joking. He’s the master of deadpan delivery. Sometimes when someone makes a fool of themselves, he shrugs with his lips and poses with his hand to his chin like he’s some aristocrat going ‘hmm’. Nobody else knows why I’m laughing.”
“Does he want kids some day?” Mercy asked, knowing that her friend was sterile.
“That isn’t a deal breaker. His sister died of some kind of dystrophy, and he might be a carrier. Since he didn’t want to see that happen to anyone else, he got fixed, too. I explained that I saw too many people starving when I grew up to ever bring someone into such a crowded planet.”
“Depressing. What else do you talk about?”
“When we take walks down to the orchards at sunset, we hold hands, but he’s too keyed up to share much. Red rides his ass about the flight simulations. He’s too stiff at the controls and worried that he’s going to do something wrong, which means he doesn’t react in time. He ends up crashing a lot when everything’s not perfect. He’s so keyed up about the meteor run tomorrow Park hasn’t said a word all day.”
Mercy shrugged. “Lou gets nervous the day before a mission, too. Everyone has different ways to deal with it. Just be supportive.”
True to her prediction, Park remained silent at the dinner party with friends, even though Yuki had gone through the trouble to learn the recipe for Orange Chicken. That night, he also refused to stroll with her on the boardwalk.
In her own room she lay awake half the night, worried that she might be losing him. Park could be having buyer’s remorse. Was he staring at the ceiling of Sojiro’s room, thinking about poor Nadia?
The next morning, they were first in the ready room because, lacking an arm, Yuki needed an extra twenty minutes to adjust her spacesuit. Park was almost white with anxiety, his respiration fast and shallow. That’s when she hit on the solution. Park didn’t have his bulky suit on yet. “Woo Jin, I can help you relax on the mission,” she said. “Do you trust me?”
“With my life.”
****
Smiling, Park took the stick of the shuttle a little over an hour later. Twice, Red let him maneuver closer to the asteroids for practice. He didn’t balk once. Eventually, Red asked, “What happened to you, Wizard?”
In the next seat, Yuki said cheerfully, “I gave him a little something for the stress.”
Park nodded dreamily.
Red’s expression went from pleasantly surprised to hostile. “You can’t dispense medication to my crew.”
“It’s not a drug,” Yuki said delicately. “It’s something Lou recommends for pre-mission jitters.”
“Oh my God. In the ready room?” Red squeaked.
“So you told him?” Zeiss asked.
“It wasn’t sex,” Yuki insisted.
Red gave her an incredulous look.
&
nbsp; “Just a little lip service,” Yuki clarified.
“And he was okay with this?” Red demanded.
Park said, “We’re moving in together.”
“You need to tell him,” Zeiss insisted.
Yuki sighed, fumbling the lasso controls for the first time so that they had to make a second approach on the target. “After we get back. I need to concentrate.”
“Am I going to die soon?” Park asked with his eyes wide. “Is that why she did that for me? Don’t get me wrong. It might be worth the illness.”
Smiling at the compliment, Yuki said, “No, honey, you’re fine, and what I gave you was the barest taste of what two people can share.” His face said he didn’t believe her, so she continued. “I’ve done some things as a spy I’m not proud of, and Z is old-fashioned. He wants me to tell you everything before I’ve snared you too deeply in my web.”
Because Park’s worry was back, Red had to handle the controls. The brief mineral mission was a success, but Park didn’t say another word.
After allowing herself to be immersed in the decontamination gel and filling her lungs with it, Yuki found herself hoping for another incident or any reason she wouldn’t have to tell Park the truth.
****
Vomiting up the purple-tinged goo in the shower was less painful for Yuki than waiting for Park to finish decontamination. On the bright side, the trip through had erased most of the scars the arm-destroying explosion had left on her body. Now she would have nothing to be ashamed of when naked. Ironically after she told him the truth, no one would want to see her that way.
By the time Auckland left the receiving area, Park was merely showering the gel off. Because he had elected to take the last pod, all the other crew members were gone. Yuki was already dressed and had her hair fixed. She also wore a pair of Mercy’s shorts and a bikini top because the pregnant woman wouldn’t be wearing either soon. The top was a little loose. Maybe if she looked nice, he wouldn’t spit on her.
Finally, Park came out of the shower stall in his trunks. With his short hair, he looked like he’d just finished a workout. Blowing off in the drying alcove, he asked, “So what’s the big mystery?”
Yuki avoided. “Z already knows about this, so I’m not in legal trouble. I confessed everything the night you broke up with Nadia.”
“Not my finest hour.”
Going for broke, she blurted, “I seduced you in order to distract you from evidence of something I’d done wrong.”
“So you don’t really like me?”
“Oh, I do. Probably the first guy in the crew I’ve really respected. That’s why I didn’t sleep with you on the spot . . . although I wanted to.”
He blinked. “Is this some sort of twisted woman logic? You only want relationships with jobless guys who treat you like crap?”
Her eyes watered. “No. I genuinely care for you. I like being with you. I didn’t want to get physical with you because I didn’t want you getting hurt. You deserve better.”
His face screwed up, trying to follow the reasoning. “You seduced me because you were a spy on a mission?”
“Basically, but that’s over now. This is the real me.”
“I’ve had a clearance for almost thirteen years. I’ve always wanted some exotic woman to try to wrangle secrets out of me. That’s part of what attracted me to Nadia. I’d pretend she was trying to steal secrets for the Russians.”
“Was she?”
“No. She doesn’t like talk before or after.”
“During?”
“Directions.”
“Ah.” Yuki paused in the silence, waiting for him to process the information.
“Could we pretend that you’re still a spy?”
Hope blossomed inside her as she shyly smiled. “Like role-playing?”
Park grew excited. “Yeah. You could dress up in a really killer outfit and pick me up in a club.”
“Cos-play? I’m good at that. What comes next?” she asked, leaning over to display her ill-concealed chest.
“Don’t you decide that?” he asked.
“We decide that together,” she explained, kissing him lightly on the forehead. “Points will be awarded for creativity.”
Park went pale with anxiety again.
“Relax,” Yuki said, pressing against him as she kissed him full on the mouth. He was ready now. Let him simmer. She’d waited a year. The anticipation would do him good. “I think there’s a pair of prototype Gore-Tex leggings in the recycling bin upstairs that’s not too badly ripped. I’ll find them and then we can experiment.”
With a whimper, he began climbing the ladder.
“Woo Jin, darling, bring your uniform. How else is the spy going to recognize you in the crowd?”
He fell over himself gathering his gear.
****
After they loaded the last meteor into the extractors, Red and Park goosed Sanctuary to ridiculous velocities to meet the moving nexus point. They had enough minerals for every planned project and two new large microfabricators.
When Mercy had eighteen weeks left in her pregnancy, Lou took Sanctuary back into subspace for the longest jump yet—five weeks of winter. Once more opalescent, the light from the habitat windows grew a little dimmer with each passing day. They had to leave the windows open longer to compensate. Yuki was a little sad when the days grew so cold that Mercy decided to stay home and Park no longer wanted to take evening walks. For a while, they compromised on lunches on the patio. Surprising everyone, Yuki learned to cook a few traditional Korean dishes, although her first attempt at kimchi sent her boyfriend to the infirmary.
“You didn’t tell me it was bad,” she scolded.
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” he insisted. “I think it may have been okay without the fermented fish bits. You add those later in the recipe. Maybe ask Johnny for help on the radio next time.” Park ventured into the Hollow now on a regular basis, but Yuki never went mountainward past the habitat’s equator. Likewise, Nadia never went lensward. The energy expert still blamed Yuki for wrecking her comfortable life.
With Yuki’s new mineral-sifting duties and romance, her days in Olympus passed rapidly. Zeiss continued to tutor her in hand-to-hand. Soon, she was able to tap him once a session. When she hit him twice in as many minutes, Yuki said, “You’re distracted, boss. What is it?”
“There’s still some sort of persistent fuel drain I can’t account for,” Zeiss muttered. He normally didn’t like to talk during workouts because it could be misconstrued as flirting.
“The stasis generator?” she guessed.
“No. The decline happens even when that’s turned off.”
“You’ll figure it out. Maybe you just need to stop worrying for a while and relax,” she suggested. Sitting in the corner, Park now grinned at even the mention of the word ‘relax.’
Nodding to Park, Zeiss said, “Maybe tomorrow you can spar with a new partner. If it works, we can phase out my tutoring. I think you’ve learned about all I can show you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you have enough to keep busy otherwise?”
“Sojiro still gives me the odd programming or firmware assignment for the linguistic project. Though, I rarely know how a given module fits into the grand scheme.”
“Red still wants you on a tight leash, with no chance for sabotage or eavesdropping. You have to earn trust back.”
“Yes, sir.” She bowed at the end of their session.
****
On the next to the last day of winter, a Sunday, Yuki woke late and savored hiding from the world under the thick, feather-stuffed comforter with Park. Because it was their day off, the man hadn’t set the alarm—bless him. They hadn’t made love last night, nor the night before that. Instead they talked and held one another. For the first time, here was a man who didn’t leave. Even when they disagreed, he still kissed her good night and good-bye. His face had the innocence of a child’s as he slept. The wall behind him bore a realistic p
ainting of a cloud plume blowing off Mount Fuji. Sojiro had left his airbrush set beneath until he decided where to place the Shinto shrine in the foreground. Since it was too cold to paint in the barn, the artist had been decorating personal quarters in Olympus whenever he had a difficult problem to work out.
On the left wall was a low, wide dresser of polished walnut, which she shared with Park. Someday she hoped to have a mirror. Unless they were in bed, he left the door between their room and the command center open so they could react to emergencies. For privacy, they had a folding, rice-paper screen to change behind. The room was spare, but every item in it was a work of art crafted with love. Yuki watched Park in this setting for half an hour before texting Sojiro a thanks for the landscape. ‘You’re right, it feeds the soul.’
Seconds later, Sojiro called her headset, and Yuki crept out of the room to answer it. She made the exchange as hushed and brief as possible.
Nonetheless when she returned, Park stirred. “Whoozat?”
“Sojiro,” she answered.
“Mmm. No workout today.” He rubbed one eye with the heel of his palm. Sometimes he did this in his sleep and elbowed her unintentionally.
“This time, he called for me. He invited me to the computer cave for a special linguistics project meeting at seven this evening.”
“I’ll be your bodyguard,” he insisted.
“You don’t have to go. It’s your day off.”
“It’s about our normal walk time. Do me good. You make me more food and force me to hibernate till noon. I’ll have the body of a grizzly soon.”
After dinner, they dressed for the cold. Park had a crude coat layered over a handsome cardigan that made him look like the dean of a science college. Short of funds, Yuki normally wore their comforter outside on the patio. She had to borrow an overcoat from Toby to attend—he was already locked in for the night. The air around Olympus bit her nose as she bounced the short distance to the elevators. The frigid swamp was perpetually foggy, and frost had flocked the tops of the tallest trees.
As they wandered through the orchard, Yuki was shocked to see Yvette and two others lighting braziers in the murk. “What’s this for?” she asked the nurse.
