Shy... (39 page)

“It is in fact.”

“Again, I think I am doing well enough to get the job
done.”

Stern shook his head. “If this is your idea of good enough,
I feel sorry for your wife.”

Dole took a step toward Stern. Stern stood his ground and
waited. Stern was a head taller than Dole. His chest was broader and his
uniform showed more defined muscle. Being in zero gravity outside the ship so often
had robbed Dole of some of his definition. He had a gut forming too. Dole still
had dark hair, but Stern’s silver hair over his chiseled jaw line gave him a
rugged look that probably helped him win his lovers and his ship.

“What do you mean by that, Stern?”

“If you are this careless with the ship, I just hope for
Constance’s sake that you are more precise when you fuck.”

“Fuck you, Stern. Leave her out of this.”

Stern pointed at Dole. “We are all in the same ship.
Everyone is involved in what we are discussing. That is my point.”

“I can’t wait until we step foot on alien soil and that
isn’t true anymore.”

Stern shrugged. “I’ll miss these little talks, but at least
my ship will be serviced faster, huh?”

“You feel free to suit up and show me how it is done,” Dole
said.

“You want me to show you how to do your job, Dole? I can do
that.”

Dole stared at Stern and his sneer turned into a smile.
“Care to make it interesting?”

Stern pointed at Dole’s belly. “You want double rations, if
you find the crack and fill it first? Is that it?”

“Bigger.”

“You want me to get you laid?”

Dole took a step back. “What? I’m married.”

“So was I.” Stern laughed. “If you find the crack and fill
it before I can, you get to fill Lt. Spence’s cracks.”

“What?” Dole held up his hands. “Skyler? What are you
talking about?”

Stern shrugged. “You know another Lt. Spence? Yes, Skyler
Spence. All tits and ass. She lost a bet to me earlier and owes me two more
pokes. She’d do you once to be clear of the bet, if I offered it.”

Dole narrowed his eyes. “You’d give up two dates with
Skyler Spence to try to prove me wrong?”

“I don’t think I’ll lose,” Stern said.

“What do you want from me?”

“If you lose,” Stern said. “When you lose, you follow my
instructions of search patterns for the last months of our flight.”

Dole rolled his eyes. “Sounds great to me.”

“And I get a night with your wife,” Stern said.

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, you were going to take a go at Lt. Spence’s heavenly
body, but you’re going to get pissed at me? Crack for crack, Dole. Fair is
fair.”

“My wife would kill me.”

“Where is she going to go?”

Dole actually laughed. “Yeah, that’s my point. She’ll make
me stay outside the ship for three months.”

“Well, either way, soon she will be the only pussy you get
for the rest of your life unless you think there are some horny aliens on that
world covered in nothing, but purple grass that we might have missed. “But
possibly one more night with a trim, fit, dirty officer. Unless you know I’m
right in which case you should just do it my way and be done with it.”

Dole stared Stern up and down thinking about him having his
way with Skyler Spence and then imagining the same with Constance. Constance’s
breasts were not as large as Lt. Spence’s, but Dole’s wife was thick in all the
right places. Artificial gravity had been good to her.

“I want more,” Dole said.

***

Stern tilted his head. “I don’t have any other deals I can
call on with the other female crew, Dole.”

“If I win, I’m off hull duty for the rest of the trip. One
of your crew can fill the cracks for practice for the next three years.”

Stern licked his lips and sighed. “What will you do for
three months?”

“Me? I’ll be recovering from my night with Skyler. Unless
you know you’re getting beat.”

“You’re on, Dole. Suit up.”

They exited the airlock together. They were both toting a
full cold weld kit harnessed onto their suits.

The commander spoke through the short radio in his helmet
to the speakers next to Dole’s ears in his helmet. “Good luck, Dole, or I’ll be
stretching your wife out where she won’t be the same again.”

“Fuck off, Stern.”

“I think I might have her meet me in the Zero G observation
deck. You ever fucked in zero gravity, Dole? They’ll have to rewrite the Kama
Sutra for the positions I’ve invented in there.”

“We should have brought more air filters,” Dole said.

He started walking down the side of the hull with his mag
boots gripping the side with each step. He expected Stern to be following him,
but he looked back to see the commander walking up toward the top of the ship.
Dole shook his head inside his helmet. He had already searched the top. Stern
was wasting his time. Dole starting thinking about fucking Skyler Spence in
zero gravity. His suit grew tighter. He thought about Stern doing the same to
Constance and the jealousy mixed with the feelings of arousal. Dole walked
faster to find the damage first before Stern earned the right to damage his
wife all night.

Dole crisscrossed the belly of the ship. Technically, he
was upside down relative to the design of the ship, but from his perspective,
the entire universe had twisted over for him. Dole looked out from the ship at
the endless universe. The constellations were alien from the ones he had
learned as a kid on Earth. They changed every few days at their current
space-bending speed.

At these speeds, time was moving differently for them than
the rest of the universe. They were aging slower and if he could see Earth from
here, they would be running in fast forward. Three years for them was closer to
ten or fifteen on Earth. By the time Stern got back to Earth, what was a six
year trip for him would be thirty years from when he left. If they swung too
close to a black hole on the way home, it might be closer to fifty.

Dole and Stern were not men of Earth any longer. Dole was
calling an alien world of endless grasslands home soon and Stern was a citizen
of space with everyone he used to know on Earth living, aging, and dying
without him.

Dole had memorized the way the stars would look from the
surface of the world they would be colonizing. He knew where Earth was on that
star chart. The stars from the moving ship changed to fast to learn. He did
locate Earth each day he woke up, so that he could spot its direction in space
while he walked outside the ship.

He lifted his hand to the new constellation that included
Earth’s sun. He stuck up his thumb to cover the spot. He moved his thumb to
look and then covered it again.

Dole realized he was going to miss looking toward Earth from
outside the ship. Maybe it would not be so bad to lose. He thought about Stern
flying back to a world with his isotopes which will have left him behind. He
sensed the commander’s loneliness. Then, Dole remembered if he lost, Stern
would pound Constance while floating around the observation deck.

He went back to searching the ship.

Dole worked his way back up the starboard side of the hull.
He was approaching the zone he had already searched. He began to realize that
he might have missed it the first time and Stern might be right. If Stern was
right, Dole might be in trouble. How would he even explain the bet to
Constance?

He ran to the top of the ship and zigzagged his way back
toward the engines. If Stern was right, then his only chance was to come from
the other direction and hope he found the spot first.

Dole saw Stern kneeling on the hull and his heart dropped.
He approached the commander and saw Stern feeding beads of metal into the
crack. Each bead flattened and adhered itself to the ship. In the void of
space, two pieces of metal touching would fuse at the molecular level requiring
no heat to weld like in an atmosphere.

“You cheated,” Dole said into the short radio.

Stern looked up and Dole saw him smiling through the
faceplate. “I’m almost done, but you can check the edge of the crack to see
that it was meteor and not sabotage like you are apparently accusing, Dole.”

“You already knew it was here and tricked me into the bet.”

Stern turned his attention back to the welding. “I told you
straight out that I knew how to find it. There is a better, more systematic way
to search for damage than what you do. Now, you’ll do it my way. That was the
deal.”

“Fine,” Dole said.

“After I fill this crack, Dole, I’m going to fill your wife’s.
Have her meet me on the ob deck after dinner.”

“You aren’t serious,” Dole said.

“Don’t try to back out,” Stern said.

“I can’t make her do it.”

***

Stern stood from finishing the fix and resecured his gear.
Dole had to admit it was good work. “A bet is a bet. Don’t act like you
wouldn’t have banged Lt. Spence and sat in your cabin for the rest of the
flight. I expect you to follow through the same way you would have made me.”

“You can’t make me. You won’t throw me off the ship.” After
Dole said it, he became aware that they were standing out in space and no one
was there to see. Stern was military trained and in better shape than Dole.
This would not go well. Maybe this was his plan all along.

“No, I won’t,” Stern said. “In fact, I’ll find an excuse to
keep you on the ship. You’ve done enough to earn an insubordination charge, I’m
sure. That’s enough to get you ruled a danger to the colony. You’ll be brigged
for the return voyage. I’ll make you weld for three years home in exchange for
food. Then, you face the charges. Right?”

“What charges? Insubordination?”

“No, the felonies that got you on this ship.”

Dole swallowed. “Lots of colonists are forgiven penalties
on Earth for signing up for recolonization. My crimes were nonviolent. I’ve been
cleared for coming here.”

“I know everything about you, Dole,” Stern said. “Bank and
insurance fraud. I know. But I also know if you break your contract with new
charges and return to Earth, you’ll face twenty years. Time of Earth slows down
once you land there, remember?”

“I’m not going to be blackmailed into making my wife your
sex slave,” Dole said.

“Nothing like that,” Stern said. “Just fulfill the bet. One
night. In fact, just bring her to the observation deck willing to pay up and we’ll
just make it one bang. You’ll both be in your cabin before bedtime.” Stern
waved down at the sealed hull. “I work efficiently.”

Dole said, “The observation deck is public.”

“I’ll shut it down for repairs and mark the job as yours. You
just bring her.”

“She won’t understand.” Dole whispered.

Stern walked past Dole toward the airlock. “She has had to
forgive your debts and mistakes many times before, Dole. That’s why she is on
this ship with you. I don’t know everything about women, but I do know for a
certainty that if they will fly across the galaxy with you, they will do most
anything else for you too. See you both after dinner.”

***