by Ginger Booth
They began to walk toward where they left Eli and Copeland parked with their trying nanny. “I wasn’t suggesting it would be easy,” Clay allowed. “Our problem is hard, and so is theirs. And we’re helpless without them. But for a meet and greet, it was a good start.”
They strolled with their own thoughts for a few minutes. Then he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “And we escaped Mahina. It’s kind of nice to see something new under the sun.” He grinned.
She poked him. “Remember that downside of saying we’re married. We humiliate ourselves by playing the field.”
He shrugged. “I don’t agree with that theory. But I agree to behave.”
She nodded thanks.
“So long as you do,” he qualified.
5
A couple days later, still stuck in Waterfalls, Copeland wiped his ice-cold glass of melon water across his brow and chest and sighed. He shifted on his stool before the ‘large’ tray table Aurora supplied for him to work on. He could fit two tablets on it, plus his water. Eli, a few feet away, solved the cramped study space problem by perching his study tablet on his knee, and reserving his even smaller bistro table for note-taking.
But cooling his forehead with ice water reminded the engineer of how much he missed Ben. When did I get so dependent on Ben?
Aurora reminded him, “Cooling yourself that way kills the bakkra.”
“Sounds good to me,” he acknowledged. “The more the better.” Intellectually, he knew that microbes had no legs. They did not wriggle and crawl across his skin. He only felt like they did.
“You don’t understand,” Aurora attempted again. “I am here to guide, to help you to integrate peacefully with our biota. You are clearly a very angry person. As you kill the harmonized bakkra, other breeds take their place.”
“You’re getting redder,” Eli translated in a mutter. “Around the cat whiskers.”
Copeland rolled his ice water across both cheeks. The kissing-assault nurse left him with living pearly peach fingerprints on his face. And around his loincloth, dammit! Including between his thighs. Aurora found this hilarious when they met. She offered to help him cultivate a more ‘harmonious’ appearance.
He trusted he’d disabused her of that notion. Most annoying of all, the short and languorous counselor bore his favorite female figure. And where everyone wore nothing but bakkra and loincloths, he was all too conscious of their bodies. The Denali came in all the usual human ages and sags and bulges, though rather short to his Mahina settler eyes. Aurora’s wide hips and firm little bust were hot.
Her personality sucked.
“Eli? You’re blue!” a voice called out behind him.
Copeland’s head whiplashed around. “Ben!” he breathed.
Eli called out and waved with enthusiasm. “Hey, welcome to Waterfalls! How did you enjoy the bio-lock?”
“What a trip,” Ben hedged his response. “The forest tunnel was mind-blowing.” He steered his grav lifter and its cargo to join them, and gazed around. Based on the lack of walls or structure to the open space they sat in, he elected to set the parking brake by a nearby urn of purple flowers. “Who are your friends?”
Eli introduced Aurora first, and explained her presence, to the extent either of them could account for Aurora. The woman even slept with them the past two nights. “And Whiskers,” he added, with a wave of fingers to Copeland.
“It’s me, Ben,” Cope growled.
“Oh!” Ben recoiled, then looked closer. “Wow. You look kinda like the guys outside, the hunters.”
Aurora explained, “He wears his emotions on his face, as do we all.”
Copeland gritted his teeth, grimacing at the hostess. “Apparently I’m an angry person. Hunter bakkra thrive on me, and nice people flee.”
“Yeah, people in here seem to wear more shiny pastel colors,” Ben noted, studying Eli’s pale blues and greens. He looked to Aurora with a smile. “So Eli’s colors tell you…?”
“Asexual,” she supplied. “Indifferent to human companionship. I would be happy to help you cultivate a more approachable outlook, Eli. And you, Ben.”
Ben un-smiled. “Why do you have whiskers?” he asked Copeland. “Those are pastel, and…” A finger expressed ‘around your privates.’
Eli chuckled silently. He hadn’t found it nearly as funny when he started growing bakkra on his skin. Dr. Tyler’s medical diagnostics only reported internal parasites. Denali took skin bakkra for granted, wholly integral to their culture. The lavender and peach ones even bestowed mild euphoria and pleasant hallucinogenics.
Copeland fervently hoped to change the subject. “Never mind.. It’s good to see you! How’s everything back on the ship?”
Ben sank cross-legged on the almost-cool floor by his feet. The youth filled them in on the happenings shipboard. Cortez and Kassidy had cleared the fuel barrels from the engine room, and the kitchen garden was back in business. Sass’s return proved that she and Clay could simply flash-freeze themselves without bakkra boarding the ship. They still awaited Copeland and Eli to devise something suitable for the rest of the crew. Ben was sent – surprise! – to help accomplish that.
All of them were waiting on Copeland to pull some rabbit or another out of a hat. He sighed. On his tablets at the moment was his research on Denali structural materials. They didn’t seem to produce much steel. Bamboo had many admirable properties, but not in ship construction. Yet Thrive wasn’t getting off this planet without a serious overhaul of her fueling system. Two crew, then three, worked their asses off in the engine room during the landing, and simply couldn’t keep up. The fuel needed to climb out of this gravity well could only be more ravenous.
Ben’s happy conclusion surprised him out of his dour review of his to-do list. “But most of all, I’m supposed to make sure you take a break, Cope. Captain’s orders.” He grinned. “We’re on vacation.”
“Vacation?” Cope echoed in disbelief. “We can’t even re-enter the Thrive until I rig a bio-lock.”
“Yeah, but Sass says it’s not urgent. She and Clay can go in and out now. And you deserve a break. So we play and work. You too, Eli.”
“Outstanding,” Eli breathed. He sat back to reconsider his tablets in a new light.
Copeland tried to picture not-working, and worst of all, trying to enjoy Waterfalls. In his experience, he needed the first 3 days of vacation just to mentally detach from his job. He loved his work. And there was so much of it to do. And now Sass decreed that his priorities could all wait for him to goof off? What the hell?
Aurora brought a stool for Ben and drew him up to his feet. Cope froze as she planted her hands on the gunner’s breasts and kissed him. “Welcome to Denali!”
“Huh,” Ben replied quellingly. “I mean, thanks.” His frown landed on Copeland.
“What? They do that. It’s annoying.”
“They seem very friendly,” Ben accused.
“Too friendly,” Cope and Eli both muttered.
Aurora ran a finger down Ben’s arm. “It’s important that you not emulate your shipmates. I think you could be beautifully patterned.”
Involuntarily, Ben’s eyes took in Aurora’s perky breasts and lovely batik-like pastel patterning. Bakkra infestations weren’t conducive to fine lines. But young men and women on the mating prowl made an effort to cultivate attractive if blobby markings.
“Like they did?” Ben demanded.
Cope desperately wished Aurora would get her hands off his… My what? Abel referred to the kid as his teddy bear. He felt a blush warm his face. No doubt Aurora read the glow. His reds brightened when his skin warmed.
“Your friends are not cooperative at all,” Aurora confided in Ben. “But you! You could be exquisite! Such a lovely personality.”
“How do you figure that?” Ben demanded. “I just got here.”
“Look,” she said, placing her hands on his chest again. “See how the pattern is taking?” Indeed, peach hand prints were developing across his pecs.
&nb
sp; Hm, Copeland thought. Maybe the nurses got the message not to paw the Mahinans. His peachy finger whiskers were already growing pretty vivid by the time they met Aurora. Perhaps Ben had escaped groping til now. Oh. Togas. Ben learned to tie on a loincloth for toga day.
“May I show you the pleasure garden?” Aurora invited. “Give you the grand tour of the dome? Copeland won’t mind. Will you, Copeland?”
Copeland found that he minded very much indeed, and wanted to throttle the bitch. I have no claim on Ben. “Good to see you,” he managed to whisper. He didn’t meet Ben’s eyes, though.
“I’d love a tour,” Ben declared. “Show me everything. This pleasure garden, does it include ladies interested in…?”
“Of course!” Aurora purred in delight. “And they will eat you up!”
And she led him away.
Eli placed a hand on Copeland’s back. “You could have asked him to stay. You could still catch up and join him.”
But if a woman was what Ben wanted, who was Copeland to stop him? For himself, every girl he’d seen here made him wish he was home safe with Ben in their cabin.
He stood abruptly and spotted them walking away. What do I want? He hesitated.
Eli sighed and settled back to his tiny table. “Go. Give him a choice.”
“What?”
“Go now,” Eli clarified. “I’ll explain later.”
Still unsure he was doing the right thing, Copeland started walking to catch up with them. After a few hesitant steps, he broke into a limping trot.
A few hours later, propped on cushions in the pleasure garden, Ben finally persuaded Aurora to go check on Eli. He smiled after her until she disappeared behind a potted hedge. “That woman is very annoying.”
Copeland sighed, flat on his back beside him. Though not too close. Sharing body heat was contraindicated.
It’s rego hot in here. And this is winter!
“Just wait until you’re fully painted,” Copeland advised. “She’ll start reading your mind.”
“Kind of amazing,” Ben mused. “I’ve never been so turned off by naked bodies.”
“Yeah?” Cope asked. Was that hopefully?
Ben shook his head, groping for how to explain it. “They seem as alien as the wildlife. More so. I don’t expect to connect to a rubber plant, or a pterodactyl. But these people – I have no idea whether I’m connecting? Offending? Flirting? I don’t understand what they want from me. Like smoke signals, kilometers apart, but the breeze keeps smudging it away.”
“Exactly.” After a brief lapse into silence, Cope added, “Hey. It’s really good to see you again. Missed you.”
Ben chuckled. “I know, right? We’ve been in each other’s back pocket for half a year. The past few days, it’s like I kept turning around to tell you something. But you weren’t there. Dad sends his love. And Nico.”
“Don’t,” Cope said abruptly. “We always talk about them.” He rolled onto his belly, then propped himself up on his arms to catch an air current.
“You’d rather talk about us?” Ben challenged him. Cope never wanted to talk about their relationship. Anything personal was a hard slog.
Ben picked out another sweet potato noodle from their bowl and slurped it. Mahina had printed soy protein. Sagamore featured fish paste and rice. Denali’s world cuisine revolved around sweet potatoes, morning, noon, and night, the productivity king of starchy vegetables. They grew well here during the warm winter. Summer was too hot to grow anything.
Cope surprised him. “Yeah, I want to talk about us.”
Ben’s eyebrows rose. He dared not respond for fear of startling the shy creature before him.
Cope continued haltingly. “I don’t want anyone else. I’d be OK promising that forever. But that’s because I…”
As the pause grew long, Ben prompted, “Because you… Don’t want anyone? Like physically.”
“I don’t know.” Cope gulped.
Ben scooted over to lay alongside him. This was evidently acceptable manners in the garden, though he hadn’t seen anyone humping yet. He suspected lovers met here, then found somewhere more private to close the deal.
“Careful, my angry might rub off on you,” the engineer warned.
“Hasn’t yet,” Ben quipped. “No matter how hard you try. John Copeland?”
“Yeah?”
Ben leaned to whisper in his ear. “I’m not an angry person.” Experimentally, he kissed the ear. “And I can out-wait you. Forever.” He pulled back to let the breeze flow between them again.
“Deal,” Cope replied. Ben had never seen such a sweet unguarded smile on him. The glow spread slowly and transformed him.
“Wait, what did we just agree to?” Ben broke out laughing.
6
From Thrive’s bridge, Sergeant Wilder shot yet another twitching pterry. Goody, I finally have a job to do, he thought.
For months on end, the Thrive’s security chief had scant occupation aside from keeping in great shape. His billet job was salad prep working for Jules, the 16-year-old housekeeper.
And occasionally he beat the crap out of Copeland. The engineer volunteered to dance now and then, for anger management. Wilder grinned wryly. The only time the settler ever beat him in a fight, Wilder let him. A stretch like Cope was no match for a highly trained urb like himself.
Security wasn’t an issue in deep space.
Wilder couldn’t complain. Living on the Thrive beat hell out of exile to Mahina Orbital. The sergeant especially resented the station’s new CO. How could he know turning her down for sex would have consequences? Vindictive bitch. Not that life on the orbital hadn’t been repulsive in every way.
Speaking of repulsive, the number of pterry corpses in their parking lot was growing excessive. A dead green-speckled monster – they called it a rhino – was lying across their sonic perimeter, too.
He needed to get rid of some carcasses. He could call the hunters again. He sighed. He did not approve of relying on Zan’s merry band to manage his yard. He’d far rather be out there himself with a gun. But what could he do? Until Sass’s pet engineer coughed up a bio-lock he couldn’t leave the –
Wilder grinned at a sudden thought. It wasn’t like he and Cortez, his lover and guard subordinate, needed to man the guns all the time. The sonics did their job well enough. The guard duo just popped up here once an hour or so to euthanize anything still wiggling.
“Cortez?” he commed her. “Busy?”
“Not especially. Ice wands.”
Wilder snorted amusement. Jules’ teen arts and crafts project of the day was making stylish ice wands to sell to the natives. With Copeland goofing off in the city, Cortez hated working for Jules. “Great! Meet me in the hold!”
“This is awesome!” Cortez clambered into the shuttle’s second seat, and quickly familiarized herself with the gun controls and grapples. “This isn’t much different than the MA cruisers back home.”
She and Wilder both worked for Mahina Actual Security, the citadel police force, before falling from grace and getting exiled to orbit. The younger sarge, with his winning personality, was more successful than her at earning promotions. But she mastered the technical skills well enough.
“You sure you know how to drive this thing?” she asked.
Wilder scoffed. “Never met a flyer I didn’t love!” He peered at the pilot control panel more closely. “If I could just figure out – Ah. The eject button.” He grinned at her.
Something about that boyish expression inspired her to inquire, “Did you ask the captain’s permission?”
“I’m head of security. Acting on my own initiative.”
“Such a boy.”
Wilder sighed. “Fine, fine…” He flicked his comm. “Sass, Wilder. Cortez and I are taking out the shuttle to rearrange the corpses. Alright by you?”
“Uh – sure! Excellent idea, sergeant,” Sass confirmed. “You know how to fly it?”
“We both do, captain.”
“Don’t hit the ej
ect button,” she warned. “That ejects your seat from the shuttle. What you need is the green release lever under the stick to undock you from the ship. Maybe I should come with you.”
“I’m sure I’ll figure it out, cap,” Wilder drawled.
Cortez recognized the male resistance to directions when she heard it. She pointed to the thrusters on the panel in front of him. If they didn’t have attitude control before he released the lock –
“Stay below 90 meters,” Sass warned, “and give the side fences a good leeway as well. Those sonic barriers zap hard.”
“Sar. Wilder out.”
Cortez back-handed him lightly. “She’s a good boss. You’re rude, Isfahan.”
“Yes, Dina.”
She hated her first name as much as he did. “Get the thrusters on before we undock or –”
Wilder released the clamps. As she expected, Thrive’s clamps released its little rider with a nudge which in space would have pushed the shuttle outward at a snail’s pace to clear the parking nook. In a 1.1 g gravity field, instead it nudged the shuttle to roll and spill out. Cortez managed to stab the thrusters alive before the flyer was totally upside-down. Wilder hadn’t enabled the artificial gravity in here, so she was hanging from her seat harness.
Laughing in delight, Wilder completed the sideways roll and came out straight. “That was fun!”
“Don’t break the toy,” she growled back. Unlike her feckless lover, she’d endured Sass’s punishment for ship-damaging idiocy before. Sass didn’t yell. The captain favored an intense guilt trip and treating the miscreant as a dim-witted two-year-old. The chief engineer’s pound of flesh was even worse. Not an experience Cortez cared to repeat.
“Pterries, Cortez,” Wilder retorted. “Keep your eye on the ball.”
That was difficult to do as Wilder zipped a few laps around the 100-meter cube to get a feel for his range and controls. He was flying by display only. Cortez flicked on the night vision on the window so she could see the greenish trees, ground, containers, and mother ship whipping by.
