Chewing Rocks (13 page)

Sno reached up and patted her suit, “Thanks for the ride,
big fella.”

She turned to Lee, who was blushing deeply
, and smiled to herself. He had been trying to make her uncomfortable and was trapped in his own embarrassment without any way to leave the room and still save face. She wanted to let him stew in his own dilemma, but he was going to be her host for a while.

She reached into the thigh pocket of her suit
, retrieving her panties and t-shirt. She did not really want to pull them on, because she smelled so bad she did not want to transfer her odor to the only clothes she had. She held them out modestly in front of her.

She said, “M
ister Lee, thank you for the rescue. Before I can get dressed I need to shower. I was in my suit way too long to be good company.”

Lee shook his head, but he turned his back and waved her to follow him. “You smell fine by me. I mean, you beat the way Jackson smells after a meal of my chili.
Our beds and showers are this way.” Without turning around to face her, he opened the door to the dorm room. “Our showers are at the end. Soap and clean towels are on the shelf. Feel free to use any of the shampoo or stuff there. Neither Jackson nor I use any feminine smelling stuff or hair conditioner or the like, but you are welcome to use whatever you find.”

“I’ll keep track of what I use so we can add it to my charges
,” she said, her voice coming out a bit snippier than she would have liked. The man had started to come off as a jerk, but she had the idea that it was all a front. His embarrassment gave lie to his attitude.

“Nah, sorry about that
, no charge,” he said. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be on the bridge if you need anything. Just give me a call.”

With him embarrassed or not, she had no intention of calling either man while she was in the shower. Nudity was one thing, but there were some activities she wanted to keep to herself. Anything do
ne in the bathroom was not for public viewing.

There wasn’t anyway to lock the
dorm room door so she tossed her dirty clothes onto an empty bunk and stepped into the shower. One thing about a mining ship’s shower is there was no lack of water. Water was almost all recycled with the exception of the minuscule amount evaporating into the air as additional humidity. Most of that was eventually recycled through the air recycling systems. Living in a completely closed ecology had its advantages.

Sno tried to relax as she let the water soak her skin, but she could
not quite loosen up. She was on a strange ship, crewed by two earthers. Either, or both men, could come busting in on her at any moment, demanding more from her than she was willing to give.

Sno
was washing her hair for the third time, luxuriating in the hot water, when she thought she heard the corridor door open. But when she looked out of the shower, the doom room was empty. Maybe she was being paranoid again, but she did not trust earthers; not even those who had just saved her life. She checked around her in the vents and corners looking for hidden cameras or peepholes in the shower stall, but she did not find anything. She was sure she was just being a bit paranoid, because with just the two of them on board, who would they have to spy on if they had not picked her up. Still, she thought, maybe there are more than two.

Chapter 12.0

Sno
delayed getting out of the shower for so long she was sure she had recycled their water tanks twice through. She was almost ready to shut the water off when she heard the door to the corridor open again, or thought she did. She clenched her fist and poked her head around the shower wall, but the dorm room was still empty.

With great reluctance she shut the shower off and grabbed a towel.
The Sedona carried a good commercial grade of towel, designed to dry a person off, without taking up more space than necessary. The towels on the Blinkin were twice that size. And so soft! Sno’s eyes grew wide as she slid the material across her skin. She had felt such luxurious cloth before, but it had never occurred to her to use something so nice for an activity as ordinary as drying yourself off after a shower. She could not tell whether she was more amazed at the softness or because the towel smelled like flowers in the park after a good watering.

A beeping behind her in the shower caused Sno to jerk around. A hissing noise followed the beeps. Her fists were clenched and she rose up on the balls of her feet. She glanced cautiously back into the shower not knowing what to expect. A small series of nozzles had popped out from behind a row of tiles. The nozzles where spraying a chemical on the walls of the shower. It smelled like
ammonia or chlorine or a combination of the two. She could see soap scum and a few stray red hairs swirling away down the drain. A quick mist of water washed away any remaining chemicals leaving the shower sparkling and smelling like…lemonade or tang or something citricy. She could not quite identity the smell, but it was pleasant and dissipated almost as quickly as it had begun.

“I’ll be
,” Sno said to herself. Since she did not clean the showers on the Sedona, they often got pretty rank by the time she got back to the Ceres dock from a mining trip. “I need to get me one of those for myself. Then I can quit paying Larry at L&S to clean the head between trips.”

Sno reached down to the bunk to grab what clothes she had, and her hand froze. Her underwear was there, but it wasn’t in the small wrinkle
d pile she had left it in. They were in the exact same spot, but they were a different shade of white and they were neatly folded. Underwear folding was something she did not do.

“Those p
erverts have been messing with my panties,” Sno snarled. She was as embarrassed as she was angry. These were her granny panties and they had not been her cleanest underwear when she had put them on, however long ago that had been. These panties had seen better days. There were holes, not just around the seams, but there was a big hole in the right cheek where she had snagged them on the edge of a drawer in the Sedona’s galley. Plus, this pair had an embarrassing brown skid mark stain in the crotch. All in all, a pair of panties that would have made a pervert ecstatic, but the last pair she wanted anyone to see.

Sno shook out the folds and was amazed to see the stains in the crotch were gone. The holes in the seams had been sewn
shut; even the hole in the right cheek area was darned closed. The panties and the t-shirt smelled like new flowers. They did not smell like the same flowers as the ones in the central park in the middle of Arizona City, but they smelled like whatever you called the kind of flowers with the thorns. She slid them on. They felt better than if they were new; somehow softer and somehow fluffier.

She shook her head and could
not figure out how to make cloth fluffier. Next to her underwear was a small stack of other clothes. There was a blouse, a pair of shorts and pair of soft cloth booties for casual ship wear. She could tell nothing had been her size a short while ago, but somehow someone had remanufactured existing clothes to her size.

The empty bunk had a fresh mattress laid out, with sheets as soft as the towels and blankets that smell
ed new, not flowery, just new. There was even a small pillow. Sno opened the sliding drawer under the bunk. Stacked inside were a couple of other shirts, folded so neat they looked new, as if they had just come from the box. But it was obvious they had been remanufactured from existing clothes of different sizes. There was also another pair of shorts and a second set of booties. It was all her size and each shirt smelled like a different kind of flower.

“
Holy cats!” she said. “If I am going to be kidnapped and raped by earthers, at least they are going to be civilized about it.”

There was a knock at the corridor door. Lee’s voice called out, “Are you dressed, Sno?”

“Yes, Mister Lee. I am covered,” Sno answered.

The man came in the door and Sno was struck again by how short he seemed. She was surprised Lee and Jackson could have found anything
they had ever worn that could be remade to fit her stretched frame.

She said by way of thanks, “Nice clothes.”

Lee said, “Don’t mention it. It was just old stuff we had laying about. We needed to throw it out anyway, so don’t sweat it. Jackson was worried you had drowned in the shower, so he sent me to check on you.”

Sno nodded, “I guess I did spend a while in there.
I hope your recycler is up to the task.”

Lee
groused, “That is not a problem on this old P.O.S., Jackson can’t spend an hour in an EVA suit without wanting to spend an equal amount of time in the shower. He is working up a tizzie even now, since he let you go first. If you and I go get something to eat, he can get in here and get cleaned up.”

Sno’s mouth watered at the mention of food. “Food? That I could use. I haven’t had anything in quite a while.
Last I had came in a prepacked box and was something called mandarin orange squid in fettuccini. It was filling but not quite satisfying, you know?”

Lee stopped and looked at her, “Mandarin
orange what? Squid?” He shoved a fat finger deep in his mouth and made a retching noise. “I hope it sounds worse than it tasted.”

The two stepped into the galley. Jackson nodded and scooted past them.

Sno said, “He really is in a hurry to get in the showers.”

Lee replied
. “Nah, he is just a bit bashful. You have put him off a bit.” He pulled dishes from a cupboard and set the table while she looked on. She would be more of a hindrance than a help, not knowing where anything was kept, but next time she would remember.

“Well, as soon as we can I w
ould like to put a call into the Whyte offices. They can get a ship out here to get me and get Sedona up and running again. I won’t intrude any more than I have to.”

“The damage has been done, Red. Don’t worry about Jackson
being shy. He will get used to your presence or he won’t. I ain’t worried about him, neither should you be.” He pulled covered dishes from the microwave and set them between them. He indicated she should sit down. “His feelings aren’t your concern. You’re here and that is that.” Lee said.

“It’s Whyte not Red
,” she shot back.

“Huh?” Lee asked.

“Don’t call me Red,” Sno said. “My name is Whyte, or you can call me Sno, but you cannot call me Red. Red is just the color of my hair. You wouldn’t want me to call you short, fat, bald guy would you?”

Lee
shrugged, “Don’t know as if I care. You can call me a grumpy, short, fat, bald guy, a-hole, pudwacker or just plain buttwad. It don’t make me no never mind. A rose by any other name.”

It was Sno’s turn to say, “Huh?”

“A rose…a rose by any other…you know, Shakespeare?”

She gave Lee a
blank look. “A rose? Is that the flower with the thorns?”

Lee looked at the ceiling, “Yes,
Your Honor. We did rescue the girl. She was pretty and all, but we had to throw her back; too ignorant to keep.”

Sno snapped. “Yeah, you and who else, little man?”

Lee said, “Easy, I didn’t mean-”

Sno interrupted
, standing up, “I don’t take to being called stupid.”

Lee blushed deeply, “Take it easy, Sno. S
it down…please? Look, I didn’t call you stupid, I called you ignorant. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t get into a snit. There is a big difference between ignorant and stupid. Ignorant simply means you don’t know. Stupid means you can’t or won’t learn. I don’t know you well enough to call you stupid.”

Sno snapped back, “You won’t live long much past doing it the first time anyway.”

Lee replied, not quite looking her in the eye. “I believe you. Relax, I did not mean anything by it. We are all ignorant on more matters than we are not. Please eat.” He pulled the lids off the dishes and she was almost overcome by the multitude of odors.

Lee saw her look
and gestured for her to dig in and help herself.

Sno did
not think she even came up for air until after her second plateful. She glanced up at Lee and saw him watching her. “I guess I was shoveling this down, huh?”

Lee said, “You did seem to be enjoying it. I am not surprised that this tasted good after something called
mandarin orange squid in a box.”

Sno asked, “What is this?”

Lee shook his head. “At the risk of getting another verbal thrashing from you, you mean to tell me that you haven’t ever eaten lasagna before?”

It was Sno’s turn to shake her head. “I have had lasagna, but I haven’t ever had anything that tastes like this. What is that green stuff?”

Lee replied, “Jackson is good in the galley. I am more of a barbeque guy, myself. I can do a rack of ribs to die for, well maybe not to die for, but certainly to kill over. Oh, and the green stuff is asparagus.”

He held up a hand to stall her questions, “Asparagus is a vegetable kind of thing, but you could guess that. Jackson likes it. I can get it down when it has been flash frozen like this
and with a good hollandaise sauce, but fresh…yeah that is the good stuff. Oh, it may be good to eat and all, but it makes your pee smell funny.”