New Title 1 (21 page)

~

Shay Vaughn regarded Gaston Lambert in the low light of his bedroom, trying not to look overly concerned, nor overly critical. Their sex had been short and uninspired that evening, despite Shay’s best efforts to encourage him—not to say that it was not enjoyable, but certainly not memorable—and now, Lambert didn’t seem to be able to sleep. She knew better than to question the sex at such a moment… unfortunately, she really wasn’t sure what to say about the thing she knew weighed so heavily on his mind.

Finally, trying to be as matter-of-fact as she could, Shay said: “I understand Walter Gordon caught an HST to Panama. They’re expecting a break in the ash layer, long enough for a transport to get through. He expects to be in Verdant tomorrow.” Lambert did not reply, or even acknowledge that he’d heard her. “Then you two,” Shay continued, “can start planning on a strategy to influence Lenz—”

“Don’t tell me my job,” Lambert said quietly but firmly.

“Sorry,” Shay said, running a hand across his temple. “I just wanted—”

“I know what you want,” Lambert cut her off again. “We both know who you work for… and it’s not me.” He said it matter-of-factly, with no trace of bitterness or rancor. Finally he turned to face her, his eyes hidden by the gloom, but Shay was positive he could see her clearly. “But it’s pointless. There’s nothing Gordon can say to change facts. There’s nothing that’s going to make this problem go away. There’s nothing that will make a larger population sustainable on this satellite… nothing we have to give, anyway. And any increase would be miniscule compared to America’s population. Therefore, there’s nothing I can do here that will ultimately help America.

“And, God help me, I’m not even sure how much I care anymore,” he added. He rolled back onto his side, his eyes open (Shay could see them now) and staring up at the ceiling. “My presidency is already a foregone conclusion. I can continue to issue orders from up here, but the people have already concluded that I am a failed leader, ineffectual when it really counted.”

“No,” Shay said, stroking his forehead, wanting to say that she didn’t believe it was true, that he was being too hard on himself. But she didn’t continue… because, ultimately, she knew he was right. No matter the truth, the people had surely condemned him by now for not being able to somehow stop the outflow of lava and ash, with his bare hands if necessary, and save their asses. It was horribly unfair… but it was also a fact. People actually were that simple in understanding and that unforgiving of their leaders.

“At this point,” Lambert continued, “I just want to cut my losses and back out while I still can. America will scorn me… I might as well preserve myself.” He paused, and took a series of deep breaths. “And the fact that I’m even thinking like this… makes me sick.”

~

Enu Thompson responded to the tone of his personal phone by looking at the aide in bed next to him. After a quick glance, she dutifully handed him the phone, then slid out of bed and padded across the room. Enu watched her naked backside, and waited until she had closed the door on the bathroom, leaving him alone, before he responded. “Thompson.”

“It’s Kris. I need some information.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’ve discovered there’s an experimental project of some sort going on. Coo Hardy is heading it, and Dr. Silver is supervising it. But they’re keeping it very quiet, even keeping the details from others in the command chain.”
Kris paused to let that sink in.
“Is there any possibility that they’re working in cooperation with anyone in our offices? Maybe doing something under the table?”

“If they were,” Enu countered, “do you think I could tell you?”

“You might,”
Kris replied,
“if it would make it easier for me to accomplish my job of infiltrating CnC.”

Enu considered for a moment before he replied: “We don’t have them working on anything for us. Do anything you can to find out what it is, and especially if it could help or hinder us.”

There was a pause at the other end, as Kris weighed his answer.
“That’s all I need,”
she said finally.
“Thank you. Good night.”

“Night.” Enu closed the connection, and waited. After a moment, the bathroom door opened, and the aide walked back into the bedroom and slid back under the covers.

She kissed Enu passionately, and when she pulled back, she asked, “Problems?”

“Yeah,” Enu replied coldly. “Everybody asks me too many questions.”

~

Hunter and Goldie watched as the spherical payload was lowered carefully onto a wheeled platform held in place by a technician from the science section. Another man from the science section, Lin Sen Chiu, stood nearby with a pad that he was apparently using to gather data from the payload, even as it was being transferred to the cart.

Chiu seemed to be nodding a lot, which finally prompted a reaction from Hunter. “Hey, doc, what did that thing do, anyway? Anything at all? I mean, what is it?”

Chiu regarded Hunter calmly as he asked his questions. Finally, he replied, “It’s just designed to take scientific measurements. And that’s what it did.”

Hunter shook his head. “We’re this close to going to war with the planet Earth. And you guys are measuring the solar winds.”

Chiu shrugged. “Among other things. We won’t be needing your services any more today. Thank you both.”

Hunter took the hint. “Well, I guess we’ve been dismissed! C’mon, Goldie, I’m ready for a drink.” Goldie did not respond, other than to fall in step beside Hunter and past Chiu.

Chiu watched in silence as Hunter and Goldie walked away, Hunter throwing one last snide glance his way, before they disappeared among the gear and scaffolding of the bay. Then Chiu turned to a second technician standing by, handing him the tablet. “That goes straight to Dr. Silver, right now. Okay, let’s go secure this.”

“I hope you weren’t too bored watching
Operation: Petticoat
last night.” Maria called out her comment from her dressing table, just loud enough for Calvin to hear from the bathroom.

“Oh. Is that what that was?” he replied politely. “Yeah, it was okay.” In fact, it hadn’t been… Calvin just didn’t like submarine programs. And it wasn’t simply a claustrophobia issue: Submarines of the twentieth century represented some of Man’s first attempts to create fully isolated environments for long-term occupation; and whenever he saw them in a movie or other program, he was always reminded of how they were always a few inches away from disaster, from a suffocating leak, or a hull-crushing pressure; and how helpless the crew generally was to be rescued (oh, sure, in the movies, they were always rescued… but it was so obviously melodramatic, and miraculous, and
unlikely
, that he was always painfully aware of what the real outcome of most of those accidents were). Subs were the original life-support deathtraps, and it simply creeped Calvin out whenever he saw one.

Of course, he recognized the irony of his situation, living in a structure not much different from a submarine, surrounded by an outer environment even more hazardous than the deeps of the ocean… but larger by many orders of magnitude, and 300 years more sophisticated besides. And it didn’t hurt that he didn’t need to duck his head wherever he walked through a hatch, either…

Calvin finished shaving, and rinsed his face clean, absently watching the last drops of his shaving foam drip into the water in the sink as he contemplated his day. He was tempted to simply throw up his hands and go to Ceo Lenz, tell him that the force field idea was a hare-brained bust, and retreat to his office for the duration of the crisis. He wished there was another way, but he simply couldn’t see it.

“Well, it’s just a fun movie,” Maria was saying, as she stepped into the bathroom and reached past Calvin for a deodorant bar. “And that Cary Grant… he’s so smooth!”

“Smooth,” Calvin nodded. He just couldn’t see it. Cary Grant acted… as if he was
always acting
. What kind of an actor was
that
? And he hadn’t thought the movie was particularly funny, anyway… quite obviously made for the titillation factor of sexy girls in close quarters with randy sailors. Throw in a few women’s underwear jokes.
Hilarious
.

“Oh, yes,” Maria was saying. She rubbed the bar on her underarm, then paused, and considered the bar for a moment. “Cary Grant always looks like the kind of man who never has to worry about sweating,” she said lightly.

“Would that we were all like him,” Calvin commented, throwing Maria a wry glance, then staring back into the sink.

“Oh!” Maria nudged him playfully. “Finish up, so I can get in here.”

“Yup…”

“And when you’re out there,” Maria continued, indicating with a nod that she meant the rest of the apartment, “find out from Erin if she wants some breakfast—”

Maria abruptly stopped speaking when Calvin rushed by her, headed quickly for the bedroom door. He paused before he reached it, spun about, stepped into a pair of loafers, and snatched a shirt from his closet. He bolted out of the bedroom, past a startled Maria. “Cal! What are you—” But she stopped when Calvin passed Erin’s room, passed the entrance to the kitchen, and continued on to the front door. He was still pulling his shirt on as he flung the door open and bolted out towards the promenade.

“
Cal!
” Maria yelled, but Calvin was already gone.

A moment later, the door to Erin’s room opened. Their daughter peered out, looked in one direction at Maria, in the other direction at the open door, and back again to Maria. “Mom? What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” Maria told her daughter. “You want breakfast?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Erin said as she glanced in confusion back at the front door. “Is Daddy all right?” Maria didn’t answer right away, so she took a step toward her parents’ bedroom. “Mom? Is Dad okay?”

“Yes, dear,” Maria finally answered. “Just in a hurry, I suppose.”

Erin came into the bedroom, and saw Maria standing by the bathroom door. She was staring at the forgotten towel on the floor, the sink Calvin hadn’t drained, and the globs of shaving foam bobbing on the top of the water.

~

Valeria Epstein half-gasped, half-moaned as she leaned back and rocked her hips up and down on the man she was straddling. One arm was stretched back, planted firmly on his right pectoral for balance, as her weight was supported by her thighs and his hands on her hips, both working in concert to keep her bouncing forcefully down upon him. Her other arm was wrapped across her chest, holding her breasts down, as all that bouncing often left them sore, and teasing one nipple herself to maintain an electric intensity of sensation. She had already reached and passed her third orgasm, but she kept with it, knowing his fourth (possibly fifth, but she was often notoriously bad at keeping up with her partners’ progress) was just moments away. When it came, signaled by his chest-deep grunt and his hands digging into her hips, she jammed herself down and reveled in the sensation of his shivering manhood losing itself within her.

When they were both done, she eased herself off and rolled herself tiredly onto her stomach, her loose black hair cascading over her shoulder blades like a fan. “Oh, my God,” she said, caught somewhere between laughing and gasping. “We need to have celebratory days off more often.”

“Why wait for celebratory days?” Leon Parker, one of her colleagues, quickly rolled over so that his naked body partially draped over hers. He was still rock-hard, despite having just spent himself, and she smiled to herself as his penis rubbed against the back of her thigh. “Speaking for myself, I could do this every night.”

“
Sure
, you could,” Valeria mock-complained. There was no one in the world randier than a math nerd after his incredibly complex abstract equations have just been proven in a real-world application… and that was just the way she liked them. “But I’ll need most of a day before I’ll be able to walk normally again!”

“Well, if that’s your problem,” Leon leered, “maybe we should just get you a wheelchair and—”

“Oh no you don’t!” Valeria yelped, rolling out of bed to avoid his grasping hands. “
Mea Culpa
! Besides, I need something to drink. Coffee?”

“No, I’m awake.”

“I noticed.” Valeria padded out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, fully aware of Leon’s eyes lingering over her naked derriere. Along the way, she passed a string of clothing on the floor, leading from the living room to the bedroom… hers and his… and she reached down and grabbed a shirt… his… to put on. “God, I needed a break after the last week of Jacqueline’s projects!” She started to set up a pot for coffee as she talked. “I was beginning to feel like my head was going to explode from all those coordinate-setting equations…”

“I know what you mean.” Valeria looked up to see Leon coming around the corner. He had recovered his shorts from the floor, which was probably the only thing that prevented her from abandoning the coffeepot and wrapping herself around him again. As it was, the evidence of his manhood pressing against the fabric of his shorts almost melted her right there. “Crisp and Melvin are probably still arguing over those power equations she gave us! Melvin is positive the Phi factor is designed to be used for accuracy, but Crisp swears it’s a mass adjustment factor relayed to subsection twenty-eight! I thought they were going to throw down right there in the lab!”

“Well, whatever it all means, I’m glad Jacqueline got what she wanted out of it. I just don’t see how it’s all going to be of any use for a freight tracking system, of all things… it’s much too involved to be practical.”

“Who cares?” Leon said, embracing her from behind, then turning her about to face him when she put the coffeepot down. “If Jacqueline wants to reward us with days off every time we solve a theoretical equation for her, I’m all for it! Especially if I get to spend my days off with you—” He was cut off by Valeria’s mouth pressing against his, and the two of them seemed content to forego any further conversation… or coffee.

Suddenly, they were both startled by an insistent pounding on Valeria’s front door, followed by a ring from the door chime, and an urgent voice Valeria couldn’t recognize. They exchanged glances, before Valeria went to the door, and opened it just enough to peer around its edge.