Diamond on Your Radar

by F P Adriani

  “Yeah,” said Tan, but he looked at me when he said it.

  I just smiled at him in response.

  A server walked up to the table and the woman next to Tan ordered a drink. Her voice became very energetically girly when she then offered to buy him a drink.

  Behind my closed lips, my teeth pressed against my flesh too hard.

  But Tan told the woman, “No, that’s okay. Not drinking tonight.”

  “Is anyone who doesna drink?” said the guy beside the woman, and going on his bad slurred grammar, he definitely wasn’t among the teetotaling crowd.

  “I don’t always drink!” said the woman in her excited way as her eyes latched on to Tan. Her lips had probably been painted cherry-red, but they were glowing a sun-like orange-red in the bar’s orange light; a matching moon-suit covered her torso, but she had the suit unbuttoned so low that most of her damn tits were hanging out. She didn’t have much more than I had on top, but she was so damn obvious about what she did have. I wanted to roll my eyes at her desperation.

  …But then she began hanging on Tan’s arm, and so did her boobs. At first I didn’t care: Tan was laughing and, going on his sarcastic face, I could tell he thought her an idiot.

  At the same time…he wasn’t outright rejecting her; as we all sat there and bullshitted about nothing, Tan was getting redder in the face and began stumbling over his words. At one point he tried to pull away from the woman, which only made her cling on more, which apparently made him give up with the pulling.

  Behind tightening lips, I ground my teeth: he should have pushed her off him from the get-go. Sometimes he was too fair to women, at least I hoped that had been responsible for his behavior here….

  When the server came back with a second round of drinks, including a second one for me, the woman’s eyes finally left Tan and noticed me again. A half-vacant smile on her face, her hand pointed up at my hat. “So what’s that?”

  “My stage name. Frank and I are in a band.”

  “You playing here night?” asked the drunk guy.

  I quickly shook my head at him. “We came ahead of the rest of the band.”

  “So how long have you been on the Moon?” the woman asked as she turned to Tan again.

  “He’s been here a bunch of times, but this is my first time,” I cut in.

  Tan flashed me a What?!? look, but I only flashed him hard eyes back. And, going on his sharpening eyes, he seemed to get the message.

  He nodded and smiled at the woman, while her boobs seemed to move closer to him. “Oh,” she said, “where do you like it around here?”

  “I like everywhere I’ve been,” Tan said, and I wanted to clap at his seeming absorption of the ten-second training course I’d given him.

  But this woman was determined. “Oooo,” she cooed, and now her orange-hot mouth moved closer to him. “Maybe we can hit the reg and see some of that everything together?”

  Quickly I sat up more in my seat. “We’re busy this trip—with the band.” I gestured up at my black hat.

  “I play the wind-horn,” Tan said, to no one in particular. He’d moved—slightly—away from the woman again.

  “Actually, Frank, we need to go practice now,” I finally said to him. Then I shot up from the table and rushed out of the bar.

  I moved down the strangely empty street outside, but a moment later I heard someone’s footsteps coming closer fast. My hand inside my jacket near my gun now, I was about to turn around—when Tan caught up with me.

  He pulled me into the nearest alleyway, where it was dark and lonely, with only our rapid breaths for company.

  He sort of pushed me back against a concrete wall—or maybe I’d pushed myself.

  His arms were alongside my head, his forearms leaning flat against the concrete. “Why’d you take off like that?”

  “I got sick of looking at her hanging all over you,” I said, my voice picking up heat I wished it hadn’t picked up.

  A small, quiet stillness from him. I watched a soft glow of light begin to outline the side of his face.

  Then, slowly, he said: “In the room earlier, you told me to maintain the cover—that’s what I was trying to do. And I was thinking about you the whole time, getting you in a place just like this….” His mouth moved closer to mine then soon met mine, and I felt his warm tongue pushing the rest of my body in a certain direction, which reminded me of the first time we’d ever kissed.

  My hands slid into the soft coolness of his hair, and then they roamed down over his suit beneath. But of course the contraption wouldn’t allow me to feel his skin.

  His mouth suddenly separated from mine and then he said fast, “Let’s go back to the motel.”

  *

  Sex was another thing you usually had to get unsuited for on Earth-Moon, as we did this night. But I didn’t care that much because we normally didn’t last that long together during any one session, as was the case this night.

  On one of the bubble beds I was soon moaning loudly near Tan’s ear as he executed his last sharp thrusts inside me, making my cunt contract even harder as his dick went all the way in; I could feel myself both forcefully sucking at him and pushing back against him in the delicious to-and-fro of orgasming.

  Tan’s hips stopped moving; he dropped down onto me hard, pressing his flushed face into my neck.

  “Moon-sex. We just had Moon-sex,” I said, and then I was sorry I’d said it. It wasn’t like this had been my first Moon-sex, which Tan knew too, if he’d remembered everything I’d told him….

  He must have. He said, “Yeah, Moon-sex,” but it came out too low, as if he wasn’t talking about something uplifting but was instead talking about a downer.

  I quickly flung my arms around him tighter, saying, “You’re the best!”

  I felt him press a soft kiss at the nape of my neck.

  *

  We took a quick shower together, and when we were finished, he asked me if we’d accomplished anything at the bar.

  I looked at his damp face. “Not really. The meeting’s tomorrow. And, except for the bar’s layout, I saw nothing useful tonight.”

  “You still haven’t told me what happens after the meeting.”

  I was silent for a long moment as I dried myself with a fluffy white towel. I kept my head low. I didn’t want to look at him; I didn’t want to disappoint him, or see disappointment in him. “I’ll have to go back—to where I’ve been before. Like that time I was with him. Colony 6. The next one over.”

  “All along I’ve thought coming here is crazy. And you haven’t done anything to change my mind. How dangerous this all is—going back to the scene of the crime!”

  “It’s not exactly that. I’m not going there.”

  “But we’re in the jurisdiction. All around here—you’re more vulnerable.” He walked away from me, kind of stormed away from me, and as I followed him back into the bedroom, my eyes remained latched onto his angry bouncing ass-cheeks. His ass was really red, from the hot water, and I wanted to reach out and feel his damp round heat there….

  But he wasn’t exactly in a good mood, and before I could even touch him, he was pulling up blue pajama pants over his ass. I began putting on my own pajama pants, and when he finished dressing, he laid his moon-suit inside one of the bubble beds.

  My voice was shaking when I spoke. “There’s always room for two to sleep in one of the beds, if people don’t mind being a little squished.”

  He shrugged, a very offhanded motion. “So come in this one.”

  “You look like you don’t care either way.”

  “Pia,” he said on a sigh, not looking at me, “I’m just really tired.”

  “All right, all right. You sleep there, I’ll sleep here.” I rushed into the other bubble bed.

  And then I heard him sighing again as he shut off the room light.

  *

  I lay on my back in the semi-darkness; a small gap around the window shade allowed faint light to sneak into the room and flit around, touc
hing the furniture, the frames on the doors, the cases on the floor, and, finally, the bed beside mine.

  I kept my eyes there. I couldn’t hear much, I couldn’t hear if he was sleep-breathing.

  I did, however, wish I could do my own sleep-breathing, but sleep seemed to be eluding me. Maybe the pill from on the ship had a rebound effect; I’d never taken that particular one before then, and it might not have agreed with my physiology….

  Suddenly I felt a slight but persistent vibration, as if from beneath the floor. I waited and waited and waited…but then I didn’t feel the vibration again.

  Now I worried about moonquakes. I was used to the possibility of them from on Diamond, which also had some seismic trouble-spots. But moonquakes were a lot more serious because of the potential for dome breaches. And who the hell knew what they could do to the Earth-Moon itself. I no longer trusted in the solidity of moons or planets, no matter how solid-rock-like they seemed….

  Over the past few years, life had seemed to change so much; it had become increasingly complicated. So had my little life.

  In a sense, my old life had been pretty simple with only two imperatives: do a job, and make sure you survive the job.

  But now I had a whole bunch of other things to consider, a whole bunch of circumstances and people that were mostly beyond my control but that I still needed to try to control. Every day now, I had to worry about other lives, other feelings, other thoughts.

  And, at this moment, in the dark of a place that I really didn’t want to be in, I did not feel as if I had been successful in juggling other lives inside my own life.

  Sighing, I plopped over to my side, fully facing Tan’s bed now. Like mine, his casing was partially closed. And beyond the faint, white-gray light highlighting the casing’s metal frame, I thought I saw movement.

  “Tan?” I said, very softly, so I wouldn’t wake him if he was asleep.

  “Mmm,” I heard him mumble.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No—woke a little before.”

  “I feel really lonely,” I said then in that same very soft voice.

  “So why don’t you get out of there and come in here?”

  “Why don’t I, indeed,” I said, a smile on my face now as I grabbed my moon-suit and slipped out of the bed.

  *

  The next morning I left Tan in the bed we’d finally shared; then I went down the street to use a public-library computer to research something.

  I was wearing my red jacket again over my moon-suit, and my gun was beneath the jacket. As I walked, I checked around me, but saw nothing unusual, no one following me, no one even looking at me. Everyone seemed quite self-involved in their own spaces. They were probably all hung over, and the street seemed a lot deader than it had yesterday. Not that I minded that much—except that the busier an area, the more cover each individual person had. I hoped the people-traffic would pick up more that night when I went back to the bar….

  It did pick up. This time, Tan and I walked to the place through the crowded streets, and along the way it seemed like we banged into every single person on Earth-Moon.

  My stomach felt stuffed to full capacity; we’d just come from that same restaurant as the day before, and I’d eaten way more than I should have. My suit-booted feet seemed to move a little slower than normal, my joints seemed stiffer than normal. It could have been that I was experiencing some effects from the indoors here….

  “You okay?” Tan asked as he suddenly came up beside me. He’d fallen back into the crowd a bit, but then he’d waved at me to keep going anyway.

  “I’m tired,” I said to him now, “and a little achy.”

  His right hand rubbed at his left shoulder. “Me too. I think it was the bed last night. They’re not exactly comfortable.”

  “I’m sorry—it’s my fault because I didn’t want to sleep alone.”

  “What makes you think I did?”

  I reached over and grabbed his free hand, giving it a hard squeeze—the last chance I’d get to touch him before we’d reach the bar and pretend that we weren’t an item.

  *

  When we got to near the side entrance of Nightlights, I pulled Tan into a darker spot under a tree. “Keep your eyes open and on my back too. If you see anything unusual, record it.” From one of my jacket pockets, I removed his camera and handed it to him.

  Then I pulled open the door and was assailed by an offensive…color.

  Every night was a different light color in these joints, and tonight was a yellow-light night—a cold, sharp, lemony yellow light…not exactly a comforting hue. But maybe that discomfort would help keep me alert.

  My eyes traveled over the bar’s big main room—and almost immediately I spotted the tits-hanging-out-woman from the night before. Once again she was waving, and now her mouth was moving, seemingly in an Oooo—oh-oh! as she excitedly bounced up from her seat at one of the tables.

  Of course she wasn’t waving at me; she was waving at Tan. I heard him groan beside me. Then he turned Now what? eyes my way.

  “Just go over there and mingle like you’re here to mingle,” I said, as quite loud music suddenly started up. Tonight there was a real-live band; they were playing on a stage at the back of the room, and most of the bar-goers’ heads seemed fixed on the spot.

  “I’m gonna walk around a bit,” I said to Tan, and then I began doing that walking.

  I moved closer to the stage and executed some little dancing body-bounces as if I were enjoying myself and the music. Then I spun a bit to the side so I could check on Tan at the table with the woman: the same two guys were with her, plus another guy and gal, but Tan sat opposite the woman this time.

  I turned my head again, absorbing the view around me, absorbing any faces I could make out, any personalities. There seemed to be mostly single people there that night. Generally, I could spot not-in-a-relationship people by the way they occupied a space: as if they were used to moving their bodies while alone only, in a self-contained way. In crowds, they always seemed cautious, even awkward, as if they were too worried about remaining outside of other people’s spaces. When you were in a relationship, your motions expanded, and you didn’t worry so much about who you bumped into because you were used to regularly bumping into another body….

  My eyes fell on the bar on the side of the wide room. An enormous mirrored panel occupied the whole wall behind the bar, and I could see the reflections of the people sitting before it. There were two groups of people who looked like friends, and then there were a few other people seemingly sitting by themselves. The one guy that interested me—he was banked on both sides by the groups of friends.

  I went back to feigning interest in the band, but, every now and then, I’d turn my head in the lone guy’s direction.

  The courier file had only contained a small, older picture of Dylan. The file described him as having a broad back and a slight limp.

  I couldn’t tell if the guy at the bar had a limp, but he did have a broad back, as well as scraggly dark hair that reached below his shoulders.

  Keeping a careful eye on the whole area around the guy, I watched and waited. And then suddenly there was an opening beside him.

  Pulling on my suit-gloves, I moved closer to the empty barstool on his right. When I reached there and sat down, one of the bartenders strolled up to where I was.

  She was a big woman, and she wore a black corset-type thing over a blue moon-suit; I thought her get-up bizarre. But if that was her fashion-statement, who was I to criticize?

  I said to her now, “If you have it, I’d like one purple tree juice.”

  “Reg?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  She nodded as she turned her back to me.

  I didn’t look to my left. But in the wall mirror I could see his big right hand was clasped around a glass containing a brown liquid.

  When the bartender brought me the juice, I paid her with a Traveler’s Check, and she gave me change in Moon dollars, which
I slipped into one of my jacket pockets.

  I took a quick sip of the juice—and winced because I of course found it lacking: a lot of food was imported to here, and that meant quite a bit of the food was either canned, dried or frozen, just like this juice had been. I had long ago become spoiled by the fresh purple juice on Diamond; there was nothing like fresh….

  The guy on my left finally spoke: “You like that purple stuff?”

  “Purple tree juice is my favorite drink,” I said, grinning ahead of me at the mirror. Now I lowered my glass and slipped my hand into one of my inside jacket pockets, pulling out the metal box. I laid it in my lap under cover of my jacket as my fingers removed the sticky-tape’s backing on the box’s top; then I pressed the package to beneath the bar, between me and the guy.

  His hand didn’t move toward the package, but my grin moved toward him.

  And then he said under the cover of the music, which had gotten louder: “I was wondering if you’d show up.” Even in this sharp yellow light, his face somehow looked a tired and dull pale gray, as if he hadn’t slept in a while, or as if his face had been drained of life, of energy, of will.

  I was a little shocked—not that others on Earth-Moon didn’t ever look that way. But it just wasn’t a good state for a Miscellaneous to let himself slip into.

  I said to him now, “Actually, I came last night too, but, as far as I saw, you weren’t around.”

  He took a big gulp of his drink as he stared ahead of him to behind the bar. “I had something to do. A woman to go with. That’s what I do now: find some woman I don’t know and pay her to fuck me. What else have I got to do in this shithole full of shallow flakes?”

  A warning bell went off in my head. “You shouldn’t behave so risky.” Um, then again, who was I to give advice on that score….

  “I might not have much time left. I think I’ve been made,” he said now.

  “What?” I replied, the warning bell ringing again.

  His brown eyes fell on my face. “Think I spied a tail on me yesterday. But before I could confirm it, the guy disappeared.”