Sanctuary (Jezebel's Ladder Book 3) (17 page)

Minutes later, Mercy woke up feeling as if her ears had just
popped. Over her headset by her pillow, Red announced, “Reopening the shutters.
Estimated sixteen days to the next jump. We have to swing back to the jump
point at a new angle.”

Mercy groaned, muted the cheerful
torture device, and tried to return to sleep.

Before she could manage this, she
heard, “Mercy, time to get up.”

Cracking open an eyelid, she saw
Oleander.

The tall woman whispered, “Your engine
expertise is called upon. The hop only took us forty-five minutes relative. In
subspace we travel half a light-year per day in the slipstreams.”

“Wow! Over 175 times the speed of
light. That’s fast—about three light hours every minute. We could go from Earth
to Pluto in about two minutes—not much room for error.”

“Whatever. Z needs someone to check
the gravity generators before we start the deceleration and extreme turns. I
can’t sleep until we’re done.”

Mercy sat up, and the makeshift
blanket slid off. “Sure. Anything to help.”

“Um . . . I’ll loan you a brush.
You have straw in your hair and a few bugs.”

Screaming at the scuttling
sensation, Mercy swatted at her scalp, scrubbing her hair frantically with her
fingertips.

Lou pushed aside the blanket door.
“Is everything okay?”

“Bugs,” Oleander explained.

“Yeesh. Smith, your hair looks like
Medusa.” His eyes travelled downward to her chest, as if noticing her gender
for the first time. “Red was right; you have a
nice
rack.”

Mortified, Mercy pulled the jacket
over her. “I’m half dressed.”

“I’m an optimist. I prefer to think
of you as half naked.”

“Out!” Oleander ordered.

“How demeaning,” Mercy grumbled.

“No, demeaning is when they don’t
hold up a score card for you and still expect you to fetch them a drink. That
happened to me when the pilots were rating all the women at moon base, and I
was too old and flat. I think they were perfecting the five S scale that day: shape,
strut, smile, sass, and stamina.”

“You’re beautiful. Lou’s a
pig
.”

Oleander smiled. “He didn’t call
the next morning?”

“No, we never . . . He’s still
getting over Yuki and Vanessa. He’s afraid he’s cursed.”

“The best thing is to mount that
horse right away. The wedding will be a perfect chance.”

“Mount?”

Oleander waggled her eyebrows, and
Mercy blushed.

“I’m not used to women being so . .
. blunt,” the younger engineer admitted.

The older astronaut shrugged.
“People who deal in life-or-death every day tend to get to the point quickly.
We also don’t give a lot of chances. Space doesn’t grade on a curve.”

Mercy asked, “So you’re going to
make a play for Lou?”

“No, but you might. He’s afraid of
catching the Collective Unconscious page from me and somehow not being human
anymore.”

“He’s sort of Yuki’s guy.”

“Please! No ring; no foul. They had
a holiday weekend version of a one-night stand. If it makes you feel better,
then wait for as long as their relationship lasted. . . Done! Just because
she’s going to be frozen for years doesn’t mean you need to be.”

“No thanks. Red told me Lou is like
a rollercoaster that flips upside down—good for a short-term thrill, but you
tend to lose whatever’s in your pockets without meaning to. There’s usually
screaming involved, too.”

After a throaty chuckle, Oleander
said, “But some of that screaming is the good kind. Professor Z and Red
promised your parents they’d take care of you, so they’re understandably
protective. Some things a woman should decide for herself.”

“Why the push?”

“You’re depressed. A fling might
cheer you up.”

Putting on her jacket, Mercy said,
“Let’s go outside and inspect those engines.”

Walking around in the dim starlight,
Mercy could tell that a large, open swath of grass circled most of the
mountain. Pointing, she asked her guide, “What’s that?”

Oleander replied, “Rachael says it’s
a prairie—fallow ground for crop rotation. Many flightless birds live in this
region. We worry that the predators hunt in the tall grass. Don’t walk anywhere
you can’t see your ankles. It’s safest for now to walk along the river or stay
here on Counterweight Mountain.”

Laughing at the name, Mercy said,
“Someone’s a fan of Terry Pratchett.”

“Geek consensus. People suggested
names, and the one that received the most likes won.”

As they hiked to the peak, Mercy
marveled at the other woman’s leg muscles.

Once at the top, Oleander said over
the headset, “Olympus, we’re ready to begin the check. How’s the temperature?”

Over the radio, Red replied, “Same
as any other shutter-induced night.”

The chill Mercy felt must be due to
the height. Closing her eyes, she felt each drive sphere, one at a time with
her gravity sense, checking for any weakness or anomaly. By the end, she was
exhausted. “No flaws or fluctuations that I can detect.”

Red made a sizzling sound over the
link. “That means Z and I can come down, and Toby can babysit for the next week.
Not much can happen before then.”

****

The next afternoon, Oleander nudged
Mercy awake again. “I know this is your day off, but you volunteered to
cross-train in security. If you’re still interested, I can run you through some
paces before my next shift.”

Mercy mumbled, “You’d do that for
me?”

“Not for you. I have a splitting
headache. There was a brief burst of subspace radiation before we closed the
shutters. Everyone who was outside during the event has been experiencing
bizarre mental symptoms—everyone but you. Lou was a little loopy, almost drunk,
and Park is sleeping so soundly Nadia couldn’t rouse him. I don’t think we want
this effect when someone’s climbing the stairs, or we could have a fatality.”

“Do you think the effect is related
to our talents?” Mercy asked.

“I don’t intend to experiment, in
case it causes permanent damage, but I’m willing to give you a chance as a
guard to avoid going through this migraine again.”

In spite of the girl talk, Oleander
pushed Mercy to her limits for two hours. They started with stretches, and Mercy
went through several computerized ranged-weapons simulations. Oleander shook
her head, mumbling, “Pathetic. You scored the lowest in the team for firearms.”

Then they practiced basic
hand-to-hand until stopping for a hydration break. While the instructor wrote
on a clipboard, Mercy applied an icepack to her butt and dipped into the bucket
of cold water to blot her forehead.

Oleander grunted. “In martial arts,
I’d rank you somewhere between Risa and Toby. Red said you had decent training.
What kind?”

Blotting her armpits with the cool
cloth, Mercy explained, “Corp Sec taught me to use anything in my environment
to my advantage. I’m better at outthinking my opponent.”

Four meters away, Oleander nodded.
“Very well, I am a kidnapper. Defend.”

“Eep!” Rolling off the crude bench,
Mercy unfolded the rag and tossed it into Oleander’s face. She kicked the bench
into her attacker’s knees, hearing a satisfying thunk as she sprinted for the
door. Despite the other woman’s height advantage, Mercy reached the door ahead
of her and grabbed the hardwood spear propped there.

With a deft twist, Mercy tripped
her pursuer, sending her into the stone wall with a smack. “Oh, I’m so sorry.
That’s going to leave a huge bruise.” She dropped the spear to help the woman
sit. “Stay here with your head between your knees, and I’ll get that icepack
for you.”

As Mercy turned around, Oleander
recovered enough to wrap an arm around her throat. “What?” was all she had a
chance to gasp out before her air was cut off.

Oleander’s second arm pressed on an
artery, cutting off oxygen to her brain. Her attacker’s weight prevented Mercy’s
weakly flapping hands from reaching the spear before everything went dark.

****

Yvette leaned over her. “Headache?”

Mercy whimpered.

As the Frenchwoman poured a cup of steaming
liquid from a thermos, she said, “This tea is brewed from gingko leaves
harvested from this very mountain.”

“Thanks. I’m guessing I failed?”

“You’re not suited for the security
team; you’re too nice. She rated you marginally competent on spear and high on
running. She said you were cleared to go on long-range scouting trips with a
partner as long as you weren’t attacked by anything too cute or fluffy.”

“Ouch. In my defense, my dad was a Quaker.”

“Do you have any other skills you
might offer before we assign you ground duties?”

“I’m really good at swimming.”

“So are most of us. Sirius Academy was an island, and we all spent hours in the pool training. Although, Toby
still has nightmares about that crash simulator and won’t go into the water for
recreation. On the scale of pure hours logged, I’d venture that only Zeiss has
more experience than you, but that’s because his best friends were dolphins.”

Mercy’s face lit up. “Really? How?”

“He has a unique variation of the
Collective Unconscious. Whales and babies are drawn to him, too.”

“Yeah. The others tried to get me
to join the collective by reading that page. It felt like a cult.”

“Only you, Yuki, and Lou have
abstained out of those in
Sanctuary
. Lou was worried aliens would
influence people who read it. I’ve seen no negative evidence, only positives.
People can reaffirm you without words. You know you belong, and strong Actives
like Red can sense other people’s minds at a distance.”

“Isn’t it a sexually transmitted
disease?”

“That’s how most people get it, but
it’s about sharing. The sex has to be unprotected, and you need to sleep
touching for six hours—neither of which should be common for a one-night stand.
We all have biohazard tattoos, yet even strong talents only infect one in ten
contacts.”

“So, without pages to read here,
how could I catch it? I’m not into any spouse-swapping, orgy thing.”

Yvette laughed. “Bonded couples are
monogamous. Since Red is the Index page, she could share a little DNA with you
and pass the Collective talent. It would be like adopting you as a sister,
something she would not mind.”

“Monogamous would be good,” Mercy
said, thinking that Lou might really be worried about this side effect of the
Collective Unconscious.

“In a relationship, with this
talent, you can communicate more fully with your partner, even to the extent of
sharing orgasms.”

Mercy cleared her throat, embarrassed
at her own thoughts. “Pair-bonding is risky, though. I mean, if one of them
dies, the other doesn’t last long.”

Yvette shrugged. “This happens with
any couple who truly shares their life together, without pages. It is a choice
that both partners must make and continue to make. Such an intimate exchange is
rare but fulfilling.”

And neither of us are likely to
enjoy that.
Looking around the room to avoid eye contact, Mercy changed the
subject. “So what should I do here? For a job, that is.”

“Oleander recommended you for nurse
training. You held your own with Yuki’s accident, and you seem to be more
worried about others than your own safety. I can’t wave a magic wand to impart
the skills, but I can begin training you as a paramedic when I’m not in Olympus. It will mean hours of extra study for you. Meanwhile, you get kitchen duty and unskilled
agricultural work.”

“I suppose that makes sense. I mean
. . . yes, I’d like that.”

“I’ll put the first month’s
curriculum on your computer pad. Anything else?”

Mercy bit her lip. “Would it go
faster if I interned with Toby as well? You know, cataloging the biozones.”

“What zones were you thinking of
exploring?” Yvette asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“That depends. He still thinks of
you . . . romantically, and I didn’t want to step on any claim you might have.”

Yvette waved the thought away with
her hands. “I greatly respect Dr. Baatjies’ skill and he has a handsome face;
however, he is not . . . adventurous enough for my tastes.”

“His exploration is adventurous.
Heck, he’s an astronaut.”

The medical specialist sighed.
“Because Auckland is out of commission, Toby and I will never be in the same
place for more than a few minutes for the rest of the journey. Such a
relationship would never work out.”

Mercy narrowed her eyes. “You’re
avoiding the truth again. You like him. Why should the rest matter?”

Staring at the thermos in her
hands, Yvette said, “For anyone I give myself to . . . anyone with the ability
to pair-bond, I am contagious. My Ethics page would infect him. Toby’s rigid
worldview may not be strong enough to bear multiple pages.”

“So when you wanted sex on the
beach with him, it was a test? A metaphor?”

“Everything I am is exposed to the
whole world every day,
chérie
, and being forced to
tell the truth about everything is not a fate I would wish on someone I loved.”
Yvette touched Mercy’s face. “But it would warm my heart to know he was happy
and had a partner as kind as you.”

“Thank you.”

Mercy spent the rest of the day
peeling potatoes, boiling them, and then cleaning the kitchen after lunch. In
the afternoon, she trimmed bamboo poles to precise lengths before beginning the
kitchen cycle again. Because she was a little slow on the preparation, Rachael
let her shift to cleanup so she could start the online anatomy and zoology
courses. That evening she helped Risa assemble greenhouses for the Hollow so they
could start germinating seedlings for a garden.

She fell in bed the second night as
exhausted as the first, but with more bruises and scratches.