Collateral Damage (2 page)

“Well, do you know what I think?” Waryd asked, his voice grim. “I think a duty stretch this long, without a single soul for company, is nothing short of inhuman. Sure, both our companies want to cut costs, I can understand that. Maybe one person
is
more productive than two, although I’m personally beginning to doubt that rationalisation. But what about the intangibles? What good’s a planet full of minerals if your analytical geologist goes insane? You might as well
give
the planet to your competitor.”

Meyal merely lifted her eyebrows. She didn’t disagree with anything Waryd was saying, but verbalising them was tantamount to heresy, and she liked the perks – and her family’s well-being – too much to start spouting revolutionary slogans.

“It takes a lot of money to send one of us out this far,” she said instead. “When you figure the cost of transport, plus atmosphere, plus supplies, it all adds up.”

“Sure, but—”

“And it’s very competitive,” she added, “especially when current law says that an uninhabited planet’s resources can only be assigned to one company for exploitation.

“Plus…,” she hesitated. “I’m not sure what you’ve been reading but, from the bulletins that have been reaching me, the competition between our companies sounds like it’s heating up. Who knows? Maybe we’ll  be hearing of a takeover bid soon.”

“I know which way I’d bet,” Waryd muttered.

Meyal clicked her fingers. “And let’s not forget the freelancers. Protecting claims against a host of small operators seems to be taking up a significant amount of our companies’ budgets as well.”

“Freelancers!” Waryd snorted. “That’s the term they use for small operators who are smarter and more nimble than they are.”

Waryd was right. He was also wrong. Meyal would have joined one of the so-called “private outfits” herself, but they simply didn’t offer the range of benefits that a big entity like XeGeTech did.

“Well, for whatever reason,” she remarked, attempting a calm tone of voice, “we’re employees of two megacorps. Whether we like freelancers or not doesn’t come into the equation.”

“Don’t tell me you weren’t even tempted to join one of them?” Waryd was clearly inquisitive. “I can’t understand it, especially from a smart woman like yourself. You could have had a bigger share of profits, direct input into decisions, more control over how you live your professional life.”

“Fewer medical benefits,” she countered, “no allowances for family members left on Earth, no guarantee of income.”

“You’re being way too practical, Meyal.” He stretched out an arm. “There’s an entire galaxy out there waiting to be explored and you’re worried about guaranteed income? Doesn’t the…romance of space appeal to you at all?”

“If it’s so romantic, how come
you’re
not out there? The same reasoning applies to you. Why stick with an outfit like ExoSystems when you could have joined a bunch of freelancers?”

At least Waryd had the good sense to look abashed. He lowered his head. “Yeah, well, some of those outfits aren’t very reputable. And I suppose it can be a bit difficult telling the good ones from the bad.”

Meyal’s voice was dry. “You don’t say.”

She had heard nasty rumours floating around about some of the freelancers. Scandals involving pirated software, gutted orbital pods, and dead bodies. She wasn’t about to bet the lives of her family, or herself, against such dubious entities.

He looked back up, a devilish glint evident in his eye. “Of course, a smart person would be able to do some homework first. Separate the bad freelancers from the good.”

“Is that all this is to you?” Meyal asked, exasperated. “Romance, the grandeur of space, and betting that you’ve dug up some background information that
hasn’t
been manipulated by the very people you’re researching?” She shook her head. “I’m not about to bet on something like that, Waryd. Not when lives are at stake.”

Why was he pushing the issue of the freelancers? Until now, Meyal had considered Waryd to be a carefree personality, but the doggedness of his remarks made her question her opinion.

He must have picked up on her unease, because he suddenly shrugged. “I was just exploring my options. I know we tend to talk mostly about ‘other stuff’,” he winked at her, “but I’m getting restless working for a B-grade outfit like ExoSystems. I was just wondering whether you were too. Getting tired of XeGeTech, that is.”

Meyal didn’t want to tell him her plans. She didn’t think they had that kind of relationship and she wasn’t comfortable sharing the kernel of a thought that had been bouncing through her brain for the past few weeks . Instead, she mirrored his shrug. “It’s a bit early yet to be thinking of that. For me, at least.”

She made a show of finishing her drink. “Look Waryd, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go grab some sleep.”

“Sure thing. I’ll call you again. Soon, okay?”

She dug up a smile. “Okay.” And terminated the call.

Not that she’d ever admit it to him, Meyal thought over breakfast the next morning, but Waryd was right. XeGeTech must think they employ robots. Not only was she forbidden to talk to anyone else who approached the orbital – unless they were of, or had been sanctioned by, the company – but her sector supervisor had told her, back at the start of her deployment, that there were
no
other occupied orbitals around Falcin V. Which had made Waryd’s initial ping a huge surprise.

In the six weeks since they’d first made contact, they had moved from wary acquaintances to chat-sex partners. And now….

Now, regardless of what she’d said the previous night, she wanted so much more. She wanted to feel Waryd’s muscles move beneath her fingertips, stroke the hair-roughened skin of his, breathe in his scent as she ran frantic hands over his body. She missed the sheer
physicality
of another person.

Her fingers curled around the cereal spoon more tightly. When she had signed away twelve months of her life, it was with the strict understanding of one very important objective. She was buying basic financial and medical insurance for her family, and a future for them all. In return, all she had to do was lock herself away at the end of the universe for a year.

In the beginning, it hadn’t seemed so bad. She had passed the psych tests with flying colours, religiously read and memorised the tips for surviving in extended isolation and, as the counsellor told her with a half-cynical twist of her lips, if things got difficult, all she had to do was think of the money – the big gleaming pile of credits waiting for her at the end of the XeGeTech rainbow, made even fatter with her accumulating mineral bonuses.

With no chance of a visit from family or friends, and the prospect of entertaining company scientists a rare event, Meyal thought she could keep things under control. And yes, thoughts of the fortune waiting for her helped. Whenever she became lonely, she either dove even more deeply into work and put all thoughts of home from her mind, or imagined her ex, Shad, begging her to take him back once he found out how much she’d earnt, courageously working at the edge of space. Both distractions worked. In fact, they had worked so well that, over the past three weeks, she had been thinking of signing up for a second contract, maybe after splurging on a couple of months of hedonistic pleasures. That was what she hadn’t wanted to share with Waryd the previous night. The fact that, not only was she
not
thinking of ever joining a freelancer outfit, but that she was actually seriously considering staying on with XeGeTech.

There was just one fly in her personal ointment. And that was Waryd.

Just the thought of him made her groan, filling her with a yearning that made what she had felt for Shad a vacation-time infatuation. Not that she would ever admit that to Waryd. He already had too much sex appeal for his own good, without her flattering him with fantasies of what she wanted to do to him if they ever met face to face. In the final analysis, she couldn’t afford to be distracted by Waryd or by anything he had to say. There was too much at stake.

Pushing her bowl away, she gulped at her beaker of juice. It was the good stuff, organic, freshly pulped and frozen at A-grade Earth processing plants before being shipped out with her to Falcin V. All her food supplies were top quality, no doubt harvested by serene monks on hillsides far away from the pollution of urban centres and seas of heavy metals that now afflicted Earth. She wondered what her family were eating. Even with the extra credit allowances, she knew it wasn’t close to what they needed to buy the kind of juice she was drinking.

Heavy metal accumulation in the food chain, ever-present smog and acidic rain, the relentless waves of extinction sweeping the planet…. It wasn’t really a question of the people of Earth wanting to get off their benighted planet. The fact of the matter was, they
had
to. And, by pinpointing deposits of valuable ore, Meyal felt she was doing her bit to ensure that technology could be built fast enough to enable a choking population to leave their contaminated nest. If anything could make her feel better, that realisation should.

So what if she’d chosen a megacorp as her employer, rather than a freelance unit? She had made her decision based on pragmatic factors. Factors that had nothing to do with Waryd’s so-called “romanticism”.

Meyal pushed her chair back roughly and got up, taking the dirty dishes to the sanitation unit.

“Sure. Join a freelance unit, maybe get more profits but leave my family to suffer in the meantime? I’d have to have rocks in my head.”

She snorted at her own joke as she headed for the Analysis Room.

The next three weeks settled back into their normal routine. Waryd didn’t mention the freelancers again and Meyal pretended that the conversation hadn’t taken place. After a couple of days of awkwardness, they even resumed their chat-sex sessions. Meyal hadn’t realised how much she’d missed them.

“Your cock looks so smooth and lickable. Like a big tube of all-male goodness.”

Waryd, kneeling with his legs splayed open before her, pumped his erect dick, his eyes closed. Meyal watched the way his balls bobbed up and down, in rhythm to his hand’s movements, and swallowed.

“I can just imagine taking you in my mouth,” she told him, her voice husky. “You slide over my tongue. I’m hot and wet inside.”

“Yes, yes,” he groaned. “You feel wonderful, Meyal.”

“Can you feel yourself hitting the back of my throat? The head of your dick pressing against the slick softness?”

“Yes, I can,” he said through gritted teeth.

Meyal saw beads of perspiration form on his face and trickle down the taut lines of his throat.

“I moan, but my cries are muffled. I’m stuffed full of your dick and all I can do is close my lips and try to milk it.”

She watched as the moisture tickled at his chest. It vanished beneath a mat of dark, wiry hair, before appearing again as it tracked down the tight dips of his abdomen, then was swallowed by the beckoning triangle at his groin.

“My hot mouth envelops you as I suck. I move in and out, in and out, as you feel pressure building in your sex. Your balls tighten and you feel an explosion coming from the back of your cock. I suck you once more, harder this time, and my teeth scrape against your delicate skin….”

With a shout, Waryd came, his legs seesawing along the floor while spurts of white – tinged the palest of blues via the holo technology – erupted from the flushed head of his dick, splashing the floor in small thick pools.

“I swallow your hot cum before letting you slip from my mouth,” Meyal finished, “and give your head a tender kiss.”

Waryd liked it when she brought her stories to a conclusion, instead of stopping the moment he reached orgasm. He said it made him feel as though they were more connected.

He continued rocking for another minute, his spasms gradually lessening. Finally, his legs were still and only his chest heaved. His head was angled down, his hair spiky with sweat, and the sound of his breathing echoed across both orbitals.

Watching him, Meyal was once more filled with a wild yearning to touch his body and run her palms along his slick, heated flesh. Her desire was a physical thing, making her fingers itch and drying the skin on her lips so she had to lick them feverishly. He looked so masculine, so alluring, that she took an involuntary step forward.

He looked up at that moment and the crooked grin on his face melted her heart.

“That was, uh, incredible,” he said. “As usual. Did you, er….”

“Just before you,” she assured him, with a smile.

“That’s good.” His head sank once more onto his chest. “That’s good.”

She could have kissed him. But she couldn’t.