Wandering Star

by Steven Anderson

  I sighed and took another bite. “I’ll be so happy when we make our next planet fall on Cleavus. No inhabitants, no problems.”

  Hannah took her foot and ran it up the back of my leg then slowly down again. “Only those we bring with us.”

  I smiled at her hoping that Jake hadn’t noticed that my eyes had been closed for the past two seconds. Hannah’s eyes were soft looking back at me. “Yeah,” I replied, “just those.”

  Jake looked at his watch. “I need to be getting back to my work on the cliffs. Do you want to come with me, Ted? I could use your help in classifying the little shells. They all have three parts here.”

  “No,” I answered. “I have a debriefing with General Barrows at 1500 at the hotel. I think I’ll just hang out there until then.”

  “OK, I’ll see you tonight for dinner.”

  Jake left and Hannah called a cab to take us back to the hotel. We didn’t talk as the vehicle carried us the short distance.

  “My room,” Hannah said as we entered the lobby.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s closer.” She took my hand and we walked down the hall.

  She shoved her door open and pulled me in. I was just able to give it enough of a kick with my foot for it to close behind us. She led me into her bedroom and then turned and kissed me with surprising tenderness given how urgently she had been pulling me along. I put my hands on her cheeks as we kissed, letting my fingers get tangled in her hair, caressing her ears. She tipped her head back, sighing, and I kissed my way down her neck to her collarbone. I slowly unbuttoned her blouse, never letting my mouth leave her skin as I followed downwards until the last of the buttons were undone and her blouse fell open.

  I could feel her heart beating rapidly under my lips, matching the sound of mine pounding in my ears. She sat down on the edge of her bed and I slid her blouse down over her shoulders and kissed her right breast and then her left, circling her nipple with my tongue, holding it gently between my teeth. She pulled her shoulders back, arching her back and pushing up against my mouth, moaning softly. Her hands moved down my sides and lifted my shirt up over my head. I came back down on her after the interruption and let my mouth travel gradually down her side, across her belly below her navel, pulling the waist of her skirt up to kiss under it.

  “Don’t stop there,” she begged, “it opens in the back.”

  I flipped her over roughly and she giggled. I pulled her skirt down, noticed that she was not wearing anything under it. The skirt joined my shirt and pants on the floor.

  “Must have been kind of drafty,” I commented.

  “Oh, it was.” She giggled again as I flipped her onto her back. “You should check for frostbite.”

  I did so, starting at her knees and working my way up along the insides of her thighs until I was sure that every part of her was warm and happy. It took a very long time, but I wanted to be thorough.

  When I had finished, Hannah was lying with her hands over her head with her eyes closed and her mouth open in an almost smile, almost snarl. I kissed her softly in the hollow between her breasts, tasting the sweat on her skin.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at me. “I’m getting cold. Will you please cover me up?”

  I did so, lying down on top of her, spreading her knees apart. She wrapped her legs around me.

  “Yes,” she sighed, then panted, “yes, that’s exactly what I needed.”

  Sometime later Hannah woke me up, her head comfortable on my shoulder.

  “Ted, I need to get ready for work and you need to get ready for General Barrows.”

  I opened my eyes, looked at her and closed them again.

  “Ted, if you don’t get up I’ll miss work, you’ll miss your meeting, Angela will come pounding on my door, and we’ll both be fired. It will be a terrible scandal.”

  “So?”

  “I think I may have compromised your ability to weigh risk and benefit,” she sighed, getting up. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

  I got up and followed her, but she put her hands on my chest and pushed me back out of the bathroom. She gave me a lingering kiss, her tongue lightly touching mine and then closed and locked the door.

  “Ted?” she called out to me. “I’ll come to your room when I get back tonight. Be ready.”

  “OK,” I answered, not exactly sure what being ready might entail.

  I got dressed, returned to my room and tried to focus on being ready to answer questions from General Barrows. I need not have bothered. The conference room had been reconfigured with a podium up front with a few chairs on each side. A row of cameras and media personnel faced the podium. I sat between Alice and Marcus while the General read a prepared speech and then we posed with him for still pictures. Afterward Marcus, Alice and I slipped away from everyone and went downstairs to the pub.

  “So, how do you two like being nothing but props for the General’s little theater?” Marcus asked.

  “Nine days, six hours and 22 minutes,” Alice said, raising her glass to me. I touched my glass to hers, smiling.

  Marcus looked confused. “Nine days…?”

  “Until we are on board Wandering Star and breaking orbit,” I answered.

  “I almost wish I was going with you. Almost,” he emphasized as I started to invite him to enlist. “I will just have to settle for Alice’s prayers.” He said it sarcastically but Alice’s answer was serious.

  “I’ve told you before that I pray for you every day, Marcus.”

  “And with that I think it’s time for me to go.” He stood and shook my hand. “Ted, I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but next time you’re on Dulcinea call me. I’ll buy the first round.”

  I got up and hugged him. “You can count on it.”

  I sat back down, still smiling.

  “Did you notice that Lieutenant Jeffers wasn’t in attendance?” Alice asked.

  “Yes I did. I thought it was odd that the General never even mentioned him.”

  “It seems he’s gone missing, Absent Without Leave.”

  “You know where he is.”

  She frowned at me. “I never know these things, I only suspect or conjecture.”

  I raised my glass to her again. “Then here’s wishing the Lieutenants Jeffers and Recano a long happy life together. They earned it.”

  “Yes,” she said but her eyes had turned sad and I feared that Jeffers’ life would be neither long nor happy.

  She studied the ice in her glass for a minute then said, “I like this pub, Their Finest Hour, it’s very cozy. It’s been years since I was last here. This hotel has a lot of history. Did you know part of this structure was built shortly after initial colonization as the original Hilton?”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve never stayed here, of course, but I hear the rooms are nice.”

  “I suppose so. Mine is kind of old fashioned and musty.”

  “Nice view?” she asked, staring into her drink.

  I paused before answering, feeling as though the temperature in the room had just gone up five degrees.

  “It’s OK. I imagine it’s better in the summer.” Alice glanced up at me briefly then went back to slowly stirring her drink with her straw, waiting for me to continue.

  “You, um, you’ll have to see it sometime before we leave.” I liked Alice. People had tried to kill us on that island and we had helped each other survive. She was an amazing person and my friend but after having spent part of the afternoon in Hannah’s arms and in Hannah’s bed, inviting Alice to my room seemed like a very bad idea.

  Alice looked up at me smiling, but then her expression changed to one of frustration, almost anger. I quickly realized it wasn’t directed at me when Angela and Professor Vandermeer came over to our table.

  “Dad, I had thought you must have left by now.”

&n
bsp; “Not at all. I was just talking to General Barrows about one of your pet projects. I thought we could share a cab and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  I glanced at Angela, who looked as lost as I was. I wondered if either Alice or her father ever approached a conversation other than obliquely.

  “Fine,” Alice replied, pushing her chair back from the table. “Ted, perhaps we can get together sometime for a quiet lunch?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.” I stood and she held her hand out. I helped her up, which seemed to please her.

  After they left Angela and I sat back down.

  “Any idea what that was about?” I asked.

  “Which? What the Professor and Barrows were talking about or the back and forth just now between you and Alice?”

  “The Professor.”

  “No idea. I overheard them talking about why Lieutenant Jeffers wasn’t able to attend but I wasn’t really paying attention.”

  “That would be Alice’s pet project. I told you about Jeffers and the OP Lieutenant, Recano? Alice arranged that particular match.”

  Angela nodded. “And you and Alice?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think she has an interest in spending more time with me. Considerably more time.”

  Angela frowned, looking at me with her eyes narrowed. “Remember the terms of your contract, Theodore.”

  “Would that apply?” I asked, feigning innocence. “She’s just a passenger on her way to Bodens Gate, not a member of RuComm.”

  Angela started an angry reply but I held up my hands to stop her. “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in that kind of relationship with her. She’s just my friend.”

  “Keep it that way, and do it without hurting her. I don’t want to lose you to some stupid romance.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, hoping that she would assume the flush in my cheeks was because of Alice.

  “I’d like you to help Jake for the next week. With the schedule cut short he’ll need all the help he can get.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “It should be nice for you, getting some work done without your life being threatened.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  I went back up to my room and found a message from Jake asking me to meet him for dinner at the Paloma Cantina near campus.

  He was sitting in the bar when I arrived, talking to a waitress with short shorts and long blonde hair. Her body was not as radically adapted to the lower gravity as Alice’s, but she seemed very slight by Earth standards. Jake introduced us.

  “Ted, this is Erin Cardiff. She’s a graduate student in the biology department helping with the cliff study.”

  She smiled and shook my hand. “And Jake has been supporting my tuition payments by coming here every night and over tipping. What can I get you, Ted?”

  “A beer would be fine.” She hurried away and I watched Jake watching her.

  “So, Jake, Erin seems very….nice.”

  “Brilliant, actually. She’s considering joining RuComm after she graduates next spring.”

  My beer arrived, Jake and Erin exchanged shy smiles and she went to wait on other customers, almost tripping over a bar stool as she looked back at him.

  “Where does this leave you and Hannah?”

  “Hannah seems to have moved on to a new love.”

  I choked slightly on my beer. “Oh?”

  “Her work. It seems that’s all she cares about. Certainly not me. Lunch today is the most I’ve seen or talked to her all week.”

  I smiled. “So not your true love after all?”

  “Well, Hannah never was the sort of girl for loving, really. More just a girl for fuc—”

  I slammed my glass down on the table, cutting him off.

  He looked at me, shocked. “What is with you?”

  “Hannah is our teammate and our friend. Show her respect.”

  “Sure. I will. I just thought you’d be thrilled that we were done with each other.”

  “I am, more than you know.”

  “You’ve changed.”

  “So people keep telling me.” I sighed and took a long drink from my glass, nearly draining it.

  “Jake, tell me about the little tri-valve mollusk things you’re studying.”

  “Sure.” He took out a pen and started sketching on the napkins, explaining the ages and distribution of the dozens of different types of shelled creatures making up the white cliffs north of the city. Erin brought us food and joined us when she could, adding detail to Jake’s drawings and greater depth to his explanations. He was right about her, she was brilliant.

  After dinner Jake and I walked back to the hotel together.

  Jake asked me, “Do you want to meet at the pub later for a drink? I have a report to write up first. Or are you planning on spending the evening in bed reading?”

  “I plan to go to bed early and stay there.”

  “Boring.”

  “That’s me. I’ll see you in the morning, Jake.”

  I went back to my room and slept for a couple of hours, my dreams troubled and incoherent. There was a gentle tap on my door about 2230, the sound so soft I almost missed it.

  “Are you ready?” Hannah asked when I opened the door. “There’s not much time, we need to hurry. Get your coat.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked as she hurried me along the hall and silently down the stairs. Or at least she was silent. I felt like I was stomping the whole way in comparison.

  “Shush,” she warned, “try to be quiet.”

  “Sorry, I have big feet.”

  “I noticed.”

  She pushed the door open on the beach side of the hotel and we walked across the cold sand down to the water.

  “We probably could have done this from your balcony but this is better,” she explained. She looked at her watch and pointed at the eastern horizon. “’Behold, a marvel in the darkness’.”

  The larger moon was just rising in its final quarter, its light reflecting off the waters of the bay. As we watched it was joined by the smaller moon, rising faster and slowly crossing in front of her larger sister following her own orbit across the night sky.

  “I was talking to an astronomer last night and he mentioned that this conjunction was happening at moonrise. I had to see it. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

  I looked at her, the pale light reflecting in her eyes. “Yes.”

  She laughed. “You know we can all tell when you’re lying, Ted.”

  She looked at me closely, tipping her head. “Damn.” She stepped closer and slid her hands into my coat pockets wrapping her fingers around mine. “You know that just because you think something is true doesn’t make it true.”

  “It does tonight.” I kissed her and we turned our backs on the beauty of Dulcinea’s moons.

  When we reached my room I asked her, “Hannah, have you finished your reports for tonight?”

  “No, but that’s OK. I can do it later. It should only take an hour or so.”

  “Do it now. I’m all right just being here with you, and I don’t want you to be thinking about anything else later.”

  She slipped her coat off, smiling at me. She was wearing her dress that left one shoulder bare and I started regretting my offer.

  “Do you know the difference between you and Jake?”

  “I’m not sure I want to have that conversation. Ever.”

  “Jake is simple,” she continued anyway. “I always know what he is thinking and what he is going to do. Jake is mostly all about Jake. For example, I knew that if I ignored him for a few days that he would drift away. There are so many distractions for him at the University.” She sat on my bed, adjusting pillows to make herself comfortable and logging onto her display pad.

  “You, Ted, sometimes surprise me. I thi
nk it’s because you over-analyze everything. It takes you forever to reach a decision and it’s always logical in some way, I just can’t always predict in what way. On the plus side, your ability to take your time and pay attention to the details can be very… satisfying.”

  “If you keep talking like that I’m not going to let you finish your report.”

  She smiled and wiggled her toes at me.

  I sat at the table and pulled up the status reports Jake had sent me to better understand his project. Hannah and I talked quietly back and forth for the next hour as we worked. She finally set her pad aside and walked over to the window, pulling the blinds open.

  “Can you please turn off the lights? I want to look at the moons again.”

  I did so and came up behind her, placing my hands on her hips. She leaned back against me and I kissed her neck and bare shoulder. She put her hands on mine and guided them to where she wanted them to be.

  “Ted?”

  “Yes?”

  “Undress me please. Right here.”

  I undid the clasp on her dress and she let it fall around her ankles.

  She turned sideways to the window and I embraced her, looking down at the blue moonlight shadows highlighting her breasts.

  “When did you first know that you wanted me?” she asked, her breathing becoming more ragged as I lightly traced descending circles down her back with my fingernails.

  “I fell in love with you our first night here, walking back to the hotel after dinner.”

  “Yes, I know that. But when did you first want me?”

  I went to my knees in front of her, my mouth moving slowly from left hip to right.

  “Answer,” she gasped. “Want to know.”

  I looked up at her, my cheek resting on her belly feeling her hips still swaying. “When you stole my geosim program, and then sat there on the table with your legs swinging back and forth, defying me to challenge you.”

  “Yes, thought so.” She put her hands on my shoulders pushing me lower and made a sound somewhere deep in her throat.

  We made love there on the floor in front of the open window, moonlight glistening on her skin, the urgency of our desire too great to make it to the bed. When I could breathe again I picked her up and placed her under the covers. I laid down next to her, curling up against her back. She pulled my arm around her like a blanket, kissed each of my fingers and went to sleep, a slight smile just touching the corners of her mouth.