by Rob Guy
“Got it.” And despite himself, Harry smiled.
“I’m taking the top bunk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Raquel squinted at him, and threw her bag onto the bed. “Time for chow I think. You hungry?”
“Starving. Lead the way, bunk buddy.”
The mess room lived up to its name. It wasn’t exactly dirty, but neither was it all polished tiles and glass. State of the art space liner it was not. Harry relinquished his chance to eat with the paying guests, who were cordoned off in one corner, in order to eat with Raquel. The guests’ eating area was slightly better than the crews’, with pressed pseudo-velvet chairs instead of the hard, sweat inducing regular ones, and multi-colored tablecloths and cosmic inspired prints on the walls. A hard faced female tech stood at the entrance, her dedication to keeping out any member of the crew apparent as she double-checked all room key cards.
Harry and Raquel made a passable meal from the auto-server of boiled rice, pseudo-chicken with lemon sauce, and for dessert, what Harry thought were, but couldn’t possibly be, mangoes in syrup. Raquel commented that it would have been a last minute thing. One of the passengers must be a high flyer. Either that or it was a clerical error. They washed it down with a genuine beer, something Harry insisted on buying them both. It was ice cold, and just what he needed.
As they sat eating, Harry took the time to try and get to know his new bunkmate. It was hard not to look at her. She was a classic, voluptuous beauty, with deep ebony eyes and a complexion like alabaster. One thing was puzzling him though. He decided he couldn’t wait any longer.
“Belch,” he said casually, moving rice with a fork. She looked at him. “Is that really your name?”
“Burrrrrp! Yep,” Raquel answered, wiping her mouth.
Harry laughed, and was delighted when she joined in. It had broken the ice. “So what’s your story? Are you really working on this tug or sight seeing, like me?”
“Working,” she replied, starting on the mango. “Those two guys you saw me with at the airlock? My workmates. Sat over there actually, both of ‘em. By the looks you’re getting I don’t think you’ll be making friends any time soon.”
Harry turned round, spotted them, smiled with a wave, before turning back round.
“Christ, do you have a death wish?” Raquel said, her head lowered over her dessert.
“Just trying to make friends. You never know.”
Raquel shook her head and grunted. “You’re not sight seeing. How did you get that by security?” She dabbed her spoon at his shoulder without looking up.
“You noticed, huh? Trained eye. Interesting.”
“So?”
“I’m a bailsman, or felon retriever I think is the latest nomenclature.”
“Why wear it in here? I don’t need protection.”
“I can see that. Occupational hazard.”
“Who you chasing?”
“You believe me?”
“You can’t make that shit up. Besides, you don’t look like a cop or some ego maniacal Space Marshal to me.”
“How would you know?”
“Seen plenty. He’s just sat down over there.” She indicated the man with a sideways glance. Harry did likewise, and saw a corpulent, sweaty individual devouring a plate of something only recently de-frosted. He was wearing grey fatigues with ankle length laced black boots and a black beret. But to make sure you definitely knew who he was there was a large badge over one breast pocket emblazoned with Space Marshal.
“So, who you after again?”
“A guy who took a whole lot of money from some other guys, and high tailed it to Mars. At least that’s the official line. I’m on my way to bring him back.”
“Pardon me for saying, Mr Bailsman, but Mars is that way.” The spoon pointed over his head. “What you doing heading for Venus Station?”
“Call it a hunch. Something’s not right about this case. There are two people on the Station that I would like to talk to, get a few things cleared up.”
“Who’s paying for all this?”
“I can’t tell you that. I think I’ve already told you more than I should have. How’s the mango?”
“Good.”
Harry followed the fruit around the bowl before giving up and taking it in his hands, much to the amusement of Raquel. Funny, but it didn’t seem wrong telling her all the stuff about the case. Larry, were he here, would have told him to clam up by now.
Harry was enjoying the mango. He had finished it and the remains of the beer when the captain made an announcement over the PA.
“Attention please all passengers and crew, attention. It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that the ship’s cat, Henry, has passed away.”
Raquel held up her hands. “Hey, don’t look at me.”
Harry laughed and shook his head.
“He was a good moggie and kept the Dragonfly vermin free for over ten years. He will be sadly missed by us all. There will be a short service by the aft airlock at 1200 hours tomorrow, whereupon we will eject his ashes and commit dear old Henry to the cosmos. Except for essential detail, ship personnel attendance mandatory. Passengers are also invited to attend under pain of death. Ha ha!”
Harry and Raquel exchanged bemused looks.
“Cocktails and light buffet lunch will follow. Come meet your fellow passengers! On a more technical note, the A.C. on decks 4 and 5 has shorted again. Until it is fixed, passengers and crew are requested to refrain from smoking, and any heavy exertions. That is all.”
4
Hansel & Gretel
Over the next few days, Harry and Raquel became good friends, but to Harry’s frustration that was all. He couldn’t understand it. He was a reasonably handsome man, young, well built, with a libido ready to cut through walls. And here he was sharing a room with a buxom, well-hipped goddess with tumbling raven hair who seemingly just wasn’t interested in the opposite sex.
They would meet up at mealtimes when Raquel was on the right shift, and occasionally she agreed to an informal get together when she wasn’t working. But that was it. When they were alone she would talk about ship stuff that Harry wasn’t even remotely interested in. Jumpless for weeks, this only added to his malaise, which over the days grew heavier and heavier, as did his scrotum.
He made no attempt to force himself upon her. Despite the knowledge that she would pretty much castrate him in his sleep if he did, even with Henry out of the way, he had a vast respect for her, something that at first had surprised him. For whatever reason, Raquel had chosen an occupation heavily dominated by men. Harry could not recall a single ship he had been on where the position held by Raquel was also taken by a woman. For a man such as Harry, all the places he had been, all the shit he had seen, he respected Raquel deeply for what she was doing. He just wished he knew what she did to relax! It certainly wasn’t sex, at least not with him. Maybe she didn’t like men. He found it difficult to accept that she might not find him attractive. Surely his actions at their first meeting, his machismo if you like, accounted for something. So far it had been the first and only time he had seen her vulnerable. Yet one thing Harry Watt was not, and that was a quitter.
It was during one particular dull afternoon aboard, that things got a little brighter, and intriguing too. It happened that whilst they were sharing coffee in the mess, Raquel mentioned that some of the containers carrying the pseudo-asbestos had cracked open, and leaked their gunk everywhere in a section of the cargo hold. Harry was putting on his most, I’m really interested face, whilst stirring idly at his drink.
“This’ll cost them a pretty penny when it’s all done,” Raquel was saying.
“Cost who?” asked Harry, rubbing a hand down one side of his face.
“The company, who else? Real odd name too, Handle and Gretchen or something.”
Harry bolted upright. “What?”
“Eh? What’s with you?”
“The name, what was it?”
“I can’t remem
ber exactly.”
“Was it Hansel and Gretel?”
“Could be. Why?”
“Can you show me the crates?”
“No chance. Not until it’s cleaned up.”
“Please?” Harry said, his smile showing his teeth, and he was blinking rapidly.
“Boy, must be something important, right? Something to do with your case maybe?” Harry continued to smile at her. “Well, I’m sure you can do better than that.”
“Pretty please, with chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top?”
Raquel chuckled. “That schoolboy look again, those dimples. You know I can’t resist.”
Raquel was good for her promise. On her next shift she managed to get them both through security after promising sexual favors to the guard. Harry was astounded on hearing this, naturally, and was more than a little angry when Raquel laughed at his expression. They were stood in the corridor leading to the cargo elevator.
“He’s sixty five and has the on set of dementia,” she said. “He calls me Betty half the time.”
“One day he’ll remember, and then what are you going to do?”
“Get Betty to do it for me.”
“Funny. Why in Hell would you have a security guard with dementia?”
“We get the pick of what’s down here, dumb ass.” Harry recoiled at the insult, remembering his last meeting with the Judge. “That’s how we got mangoes. Not a clerical error I found out, but one of the guys down here.”
“Sounds like a good scam you’ve got going.”
“Sure. Plus Bruce is only three weeks from retirement, full pension. We all keep quiet about it and cover for him. If the Company get wind of it they can get rid of him, and only have to pay him half what he’s entitled to. Any appeal would take years.”
“Yeah yeah. I don’t need the full run down, thank you.”
“You’re peeved, aren’t you?”
“Oh you think?”
“Why?”
“Why? Why, she asks. Mon Dieu! Well maybe it has something to do with offering sexual favors to a guy twice my age when I’ve never had a sniff. Plus I think it’s bloody cruel. You know, I hope Bruce or whatever his name is regains full cognitive function and demands payment!”
“My my, which side of the bunk did we get out of this morning?”
“Wrong side, as usual. Are we there yet?”
Raquel turned her nose up and walked on. They did not speak again until they reached the hold. They were an age in the elevator car and all the time Harry wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what that something should be. He ought to apologize, after all here they were. He was about to get a great lead on the case, he knew it, and it was thanks to Raquel. Yet all he could think about was that she wouldn’t give a second thought to offering to screw a slightly confused, myopic pensioner, whilst at the same time leave him dangling.
The doors opened and they entered the cargo hold. It was dark, and smelled of oil and fresh earth. Raquel told him they didn’t have long, and that they mustn’t switch any lights on. It was a sure way to bring security down here in a hurry. Despite this it wasn’t difficult to find the damaged crates in the gloom. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous depths, and Harry, forever keen to play the fool, held his flashlight under his chin and pulled faces. Raquel shook her head and pushed him away.
It seemed that two of the crates had worked loose from their housings, and as they had hit the hard alloy floor they had cracked open and spilled some of their contents across a small area of the floor. On closer inspection, Harry could see that inside each crate were a number of flasks, each containing an amount of the brown powdery pseudo-asbestos. It was one of these that had broken on impact, or more correctly, had done so as the second crate had followed the first and smashed it to smithereens. The spillage had by now solidified, and resembled a huge diarrheic turd.
As a precaution the area had been cordoned off. Well, sort of. The maintenance guys had simply thrown up a temporary fence using four hat stands and decorative bunting. Raquel said it must have come from the Governor’s container. Using the remains of one of the crates someone had scrawled,
Beware! Some bad shit here!
Obviously they were not expecting paying passengers or indeed Health & Safety down here any time soon.
“They’ve started cleaning some of it up,” Raquel said. She shone her flashlight on the ground about their feet. There were remnants of the spillage, now rock hard, with shards of blue ceramic stuck in it, the remains of the broken canister.
“Must be bloody hard stuff,” she added, noting a broken shovel and a large blunt drilling bit. Placed near the base of the remaining crates someone had stacked the unbroken canisters and tied them together before lashing them to a stanchion. Harry went over and knelt down to examine them. He tugged at the cord holding them together and plucked one out.
“Careful!” Raquel said, making him jump.
“It’s okay, only glass, or something.” He straightened up, turning it in his hands. He scoffed.
“What is it?’ asked Raquel.
“It says, ‘Extremely hazardous. Appropriate PPE to be worn?” He looked at Raquel.
“Personal Protective Equipment.”
“Ah, thank you.” He read on, ‘Do not inhale. Keep away from children and naked flames.’ That made him chuckle. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“It also says, ‘Just add water.’
“So?”
“There’s not much water on Venus, honey.”
“Oh. Boy, you’re good at this aren’t you?”
Harry smiled at her, his best well, it’s nothing really, smile. There was hesitation in Raquel’s eyes, and then she too smiled, her darks eyes sparkling back at him.
Okay, what’s that? Admiration? Attraction?
He decided to play it cool, but it didn’t stop him stumbling as he walked backwards, and shone his light up at the crates above them. “Can’t see a name,” he said, his voice just a little shaky. “Where did you see it?”
“Round the other side. Are we on to something?” Harry looked at her quizzically. “I mean, this is exciting, isn’t it?”
“There is a certain appeal when a new lead comes up, sure,” he said, trying to be as matter-of-fact as he could. He definitely sensed a change in her, a quickening of her speech, as well as her breath. He couldn’t ignore her chest rising and falling like a pair of bellows.
“Round here,” she said, and led them round the other side of the stacked crates. Harry followed her, taking it in turns to stare at her hips, and fine, rolling buttocks. “Here, see?” Raquel shone her light up to reveal stencilling on the crate. Sure enough there it was. Hansel & Gretel Exports. New Utah, New America.
“Mon Dieu,” breathed Harry.
“Is it what you hoped for?” Raquel asked, in the same hushed voice.
“Absolutely, baby. Absolutely.”
Harry was not thinking how his response could be construed as referring to something else, something lacking in his life for months now. However, Raquel had other plans. She dropped her light, grabbed him by the lapels of his tunic, and kissed him hard on the lips. Harry caught a brief taste of cigar, and the scent of sweat and grease, not all together unpleasant given his circumstances, and responded in kind. Was this the moment when he finally got to know her the way he wanted to? Her bellows were pressed as hard as her lips against his chest. Her hand reached down to say hello to his growing manhood.
Oh boy! This is it!
There was the sound of a door creaking open. They froze, she in mid grope, he in mid ecstasy.
“Betty? You in here?”
“Christ, it’s Bruce,” Raquel hissed in a whisper.
“Isn’t he deaf too? Don’t stop.”
“Shit, we gotta go.”
“No we don’t. He’ll leave in a minute.” Harry made a grab for those hips.
“Get off!” she hissed again.
They heard footsteps getting closer, and the b
eam of Bruce’s flashlight played across the crates to the side of them. Raquel moved away and walked into the light.
“No,” Harry pleaded, in a voice like one who’d had their favorite toy taken away.
“Hi, Bruce. Yes, I’m here.”
Bruce aimed his light at her, peering over his spectacles. “Ah, there you are. Your friend here too?”
“Yes he is.” She beckoned Harry to come out with a frantic flap of her hand. Harry looked to the heavens, then he too stepped out. The light shifted from her to him. All Harry could see was a white sleeveless shirt, a black baseball cap and the glint of a pair of spectacles scrutinising him. All the while he was aware of the dwindling lump in his pants.
“You know you folks shouldn’t be down here. Not safe since the spillage.”
“We were just leaving, weren’t we?” Raquel looked at Harry, then a quick glimpse at his crotch. She giggled, and put a hand to her mouth.
“Yes,” said Harry, far from happy.
They picked up their respective flashlights and made a quick exit. Bruce watched them leave before turning his attention back to the broken crates.
5
Love’s Labour’s Lost
“So, Harry, what you got, huh?”
Harry was back in his room, pacing up and down, rubbing his hands together. “Headlock’s company is all over this job to cool Venus down, fine, I’m cool with that too. Ha ha!. And it doesn’t need a genius to know where a hydrologist fits into all this. Or two even.” He stopped, his expression fixed on the floor. “But where’s he getting the water from? And where the hell is Larry? I need his input. Come on you old goat!” He looked at the ceiling. “Well?” he asked, his hands held out in expectancy. He pulled a face and continued pacing.
But, to Hell with trying to figure out Headlock’s machinations. Harry had a more important matter to attend to. Getting inside Raquel’s knickers. At last he was going to get his hands on the prize, as well as other parts of her body. It had only taken him three days, but she could be forgiven for holding out that long. Yes, this was going to be one hell of a night!
