Learning to Blush (15 page)

“Okay, so… Obviously you’re imagining her with your future brood, and you’re not attempting her? Just because she’s sorta flirty?”

Thorton’s face reddened. “Your family wouldn't even ap—”

“You think Tim or Tom would care? Hell, Tim would
love it
. He’d do anything to attach himself to you and Graham more—hell, Graham looks like a bathtub toy Tim had when he was a kid. It’s like he has his own real-life Captain Spaceman. Tom won’t care. He’d love not having to worry about Penny getting knocked-up by the first tattoo-artist she goes to see. And Mike would get over it. Mike at least tolerates you since you’re an engineer and he has some speck of respect about that.

“But at the end of the day, if you’re a match, my family’s whole opinion and five bucks might buy one of them a latte. At least you’d be happy, and Penny would be too. If she eventually tires of you or falls for some other guy, cross that bridge when you come to it. She’ll have to learn the hard way. I recall you strapped
my
ass for the small offense of blowing up the engine!”

“Small offense? Try life-threatening and
career-ending
, you little…” He stopped yelling mid-sentence, gritted his teeth as if Ellie had given him stomach pain, and then began to massage his temples. He took a deep breath. “I worry about how I’d react if I caught Penny even making eyes with another man,” he admitted, trying his very best to ignore her last comment. “I’d lose it! I mean, even at the bar back on your planet I wanted to kill all the men that were there simply for looking her way! I don’t want to feel like that!”

The red shoes kicked carelessly despite his ranting. “Well, I hear your concern, Boss. But I think it’s too late for that.”

“What do you mean?” he asked the shoes slowly.

“Well, think of another guy having sex with her. Wait, no—think of any sexual scenario you’ve ever imagined with Penny, only think it was someone else who got to do it!”

At the quick image of a man taking Penny in the bottom, Thorton felt blind fury. He gripped his hands immediately into fists.

“See what I mean, Boss? You just turned purple.
Breathe
. You just
imagined
it.” She snorted when he did, realizing she was right, and took a deep breath. “You’re already damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You don’t want her with someone else, and how long do you think that will take on a planet with a two-men-for-every-one-woman ratio? If you lay claim to her, then even if Penny doesn’t have it in her to stay—uh—
true
, maybe the other men will respect your claim enough to do their own best to steer clear.”

He brooded silently to himself for a while.

“Or maybe she’s not worth the trouble. I mean, sure—you might be lonely for the rest of your life if you never find your mate and the girl who you already claim to love is out there waiting for you… But…”

“But she doesn’t believe in monogamy,” he reminded with frustration. “I’d ruin her life.”

“You love her. You wouldn’t ruin everything… I mean, Graham has been really, really angry with me before but he’s never really hurt me. Same deal! You would never hurt Penny if she was your mate. I mean, she probably wouldn’t be as easy as
me
, but…”

Thorton moved his body so he could try to tell if Ellie was inwardly laughing. But she didn’t seem to be. Did Ellie really think she was an
easy wife
? Was she really that delusional? “Wait—how did it happen that I’m taking advice from you?” Thorton suddenly asked, reviewing their conversation for insanity.

“Because I care about you and I care about Penny. I’m a common-interest party! My opinion totally matters!” she cried defensively. “You’re obviously not happy, Penny’s not happy. If you’re not a match, just continue being unhappy! But you should at least play the odds!”

Thorton sighed. “It’s not quite that easy—”

“Yeah, it
is
that easy, Boss. Hell, Graham and I got together by
accident
. I mean, grow a backbone—” Suddenly a large piece of steel crashed out of the vent and smacked him right on the forehead.

He grabbed his forehead, repressing most of what he wanted to curse somehow, but still emitting a gritted, “
Son of a bitch
!” He brought his hand away and saw blood. “Oh, you are dead—”

The shoes were gone, and he could suddenly hear her voice from across the hall, still in the ventilation shaft. “Sorry about that. You should probably learn not to stand in the
drop-zone
…”

“Grr! Grah!” He couldn’t form words; he was too busy pressing his hand against his injury. “Strapping!” was all he could eventually bark, but he was sure that Ellie had already well-fled the scene.

He stomped angrily towards his room and brushed past Graham on the way, who had been walking while reading his electronic tablet until he noticed Thorton with blood oozing between his fingers. “You okay?” Graham asked.

Your wife must be destroyed.
Thorton nearly Shal’taed that to Graham, since Thorton was thinking it with every ounce of his being. But he was already beginning to get embarrassed; he’d known it was an accident, and he hadn’t been clear of her work zone like he should have been. “Yeah,” he grunted.

“Need stitches?” Graham asked, pacing along next to him.

“No.”

“Want to say what happened?” Graham pressed.

“Nothing happened.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” Graham replied. “I’ll just make a note on your medical report then that your forehead simultaneously combusted. Be prepared for a lot of tests when we get back to Swaraan,” Graham replied loftily. He was still trailing next to him, as if Thorton was suddenly going to open up. He heard Graham hum and then he put up his wrist and tapped his communicator. “Where are you, Eleanor?” he asked, seeming to put it all together.

Ellie’s voice immediately came back through the small com, but she was close enough for her voice to echo from above the ceiling. “I didn’t do it! He was in the drop zone! The DROP ZONE.”

Graham's reply was very casual and patient. “Can you come here, please?”

“But I didn’t do anything!”

Graham dropped his wrist and looked up. “Are you in the ventilation?” he asked the ceiling, putting his hands on his hips.

The vent remained silent.

“Eleanor?” Graham asked impatiently.

“I didn’t
do
anything!” the vent cried again stubbornly.

“I was in the drop zone,” Thorton finally admitted, wiping his fist over his forehead. He still looked up with annoyance. “Eleanor, if you don’t have proper gear on in the next two minutes, you and I are going to chat, and only one of us will be sitting down for it. Get it? Come out of there, it’s not good for your lungs.”

“But I’m nearly done, anyway.”

“You’d better be done in the next minute and forty-nine seconds, or else my belt’s coming off!” Thorton snapped, and then felt the bump that was already protruding from his forehead. “
Damn monkey
,” he added with a grumble, turning back towards the direction of his room.

“Come out of there right now, young lady. I mean it,” Graham added firmly with the tone of an embarrassed parent. “You have
sixty seconds
.”

Losing Graham wasn’t so easy. Graham rushed his pace to catch back up with Thorton and walked into his room with him. “Alright, Commander—so we’ll be landing in the next five hours. Michael is actually somewhat proficient now with radio systems; he passed the test I gave him on that, so I’m putting him on that
first
. Also, he’s sort of a bear of a human, so I think he, Tim, and Tom should be able to handle the welders. I have to go find some fuel for us, so I want you to oversee the repairs. Do not—I repeat—
do not
put Eleanor as Michael’s manager. I’ve watched how that dynamic works, and it doesn’t. The only person in the damn universe who can get all those kids to work is Michael, so if you need a number-two, that’s your man. Otherwise I wouldn’t trust Tom and I’d trust Tim less. They’re still kids who think everything is a video game. That worries me, as does their attention span.”

Thorton cleaned his wound in the sink. “They have
attention spans
?” he replied. Except when they were playing video games, Thorton hadn’t seen those boys focus on anything for longer than five
seconds
. He’d seen
squirrels
that weren’t so distraction-prone.

“Exactly. Proves what happens when they don’t use the cane in school. And they certainly didn’t get it at home, either. As far as I can collect from what Ellie tells me, those kids had some of the most careless parents imaginable. It’s lucky they turned out as well as they did. Practically no schooling at all, either. Which is too bad, because they’re
smart
. Really smart. Penelope’s test scores were… interesting.”

Graham looked at his wrist and clicked the com-link. “Time’s up, Eleanor.”

“Give me five minutes?” the com begged.

Thorton turned as he was done applying small bandages to his scrape, mending his skin back together. “Is she
serious
?”

Graham massaged his temples. “I should have brought the damn paddle.”

“Yeah,” Thorton agreed. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. You thought she was dead at the time, remember. Meaningless to tan a corpse.” He toweled off his hands and asked, “So what was so 'interesting' about Penny’s scores? And what test is this? She didn’t take the engineer’s exam.”

“No, she didn’t. But her language skills are as high as a native-born Swarii, and she doesn’t have robocuffin in her blood to help brain function. After six
weeks
, she’s as good—or better—at our own language as we are, Thorton. Her brain’s able to break down things in a way similar to
ours
but she does it much more efficiently.” He shook his head. “And she’s so young… Her potential is astounding. I think when I get her to Swaraan I’d like to maybe adopt her or something, get guardianship. Get her into a good learning program that will—”

“Whoa, whhooa…” Thorton said, slicing his arms through the air. “Come again, now? Adopt her?”

“Only for a couple of years until she’s old enough to go to the mating festival. I don’t care what the Earthlings say or what young arbitrary age they chose to call a girl an ‘adult’, but as far as
our
standards go, she’s still a dependent. Her brothers are nice boys, but personally I wouldn’t trust them with a goldfish. Michael’s young, single, and in five years he will either be one of the youngest engineering commanders in history or his attitude is going to get him shot by whoever his Captain is. Either way, I don’t want to burden him with the responsibility of caring for her… Especially with as head-strong as she is! In a lot of ways, she’s less behaved than Eleanor. Eleanor is at least controlled by some degree of shame or embarrassment… I didn’t notice that about Penny yet. It’s disturbing. I don't think she's used to getting attention from anything she says or does…”

“I’ve noticed that, too,” he admitted. “Since day one… But…” There was something about the fact that Graham noted that in their culture, she was still practically a child, that made Thorton feel really horrible about how much he desired her. The thoughts he had had! The
fantasies
! He had even dreamed about Penny’s belly growing round with his future children…

Ellie was right. Thorton had already felt a claim to Penny.

“I doubt she’d ever go willingly to a mating festival,” he said, nonchalantly, trying not to display any emotion about it. “She’s anti-marriage and all that…”

“Yes. I’ve heard that line of idiocy out of her,” Graham said, typing something into his electronic pad. “It was very amusing. She’ll change her mind about that, though, or I’ll change it for her by then. With Earth as guarded as it is, she has to know she’s not going back there anytime soon. It’d be good for her to get a man who can care for her when she’s old enough.”

“Age-wise, you know… Ellie’s not much older than she is,” Thorton felt he needed to point out.

“Ellie was young to be mated, true. She was also too young for the way that Frian piece of scum was treating her,” Graham replied defensively, looking up from his tablet. “You saw what he did to her!”

Thorton could only imagine what Ellie’s master had done to her. What he had seen was the Frian undress her and fondle her in public before beating her like some sort of mutt who'd piddled on the carpet. Even so, Graham hadn’t mated with Ellie to save her from the Frian Prince, Jazeel. Graham had mated with her on accident, because of a split-second decision he'd made when he hadn’t felt like he needed to guard himself. Graham hadn’t thought he COULD mate with Ellie at the time. It was astounding that she was a half-breed, and even more amazing that Swarii could breed with humans at all…

“I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying—you haven’t complained about her age… Much. She’s mature, you know…?”

Ellie suddenly walked through the door, looking like a giant dust bunny. Of course she did; she was always there to prove Thorton wrong.

“Ah, God,” Thorton conceded with an eye roll.

Ellie raised her arms, as if she was a prize she was showing to an audience at a game show. “See? I’m done. I’m out of the vent.” She glanced over at Thorton. Her eyes were the cleanest part of her body. “And I’m perfectly healthy.”

Graham had an expression that was attempting to look firm. But Thorton knew him too well—Graham was trying to keep from laughing. “And perfectly filthy, Eleanor. I’ve known many a cleaner potato.”

For once, Thorton had the sterner look. Thorton could feel it—he could feel her going back into the same pattern she had before she stole the ship, and then nearly killed herself. Hell, they all nearly died when extracting her from that planet!

Eleanor needed more boundaries. She needed rules. And she needed the rules
enforced
. “And that’s why you should wear face gear, at least. You know I’ve known men that’d died from getting a virus in their lungs from the crap breeding within the ventilation system. Weirder stuff has happened. But that’s not the point. The point is safety gear.”