April (6 page)

She was embarrassed at her own reaction, but not enough to keep her from stopping to find out if he was a transient, or a new resident. She sat down across from him  waiting for him to notice her. Sometimes she could catch a little scent of Earthies, even the ones that didn't follow station custom and put on stinkum, or used aftershave or such. This fellow though had a slight medicinal scent, faintly mentholated like a cough drop.

Now that she was close, she knew her first impression was wrong. He was looking down, but actually totally focused on the pad in his hands, rather than the port underneath. It was displaying some sort of blueprint, with regular rectangles and lines. He gave a little jerk of surprise and started to bring the pad up to hide it, but realized it was too late to do so and just thumbed it off. It was exactly how her friend Jerry had acted when she'd caught him looking at some porn on his pad and he had been embarrassed and guilty. He hadn't wanted her to know he was looking at such stuff.

This fellow's reaction was odd. Why would he care what she saw him viewing? He was maybe twenty-six, she decided. A bit older than she thought at first, but no life extension work, or he wouldn't have the sun damage she saw already around his eyes. He seemed uncomfortable with her. Her older brother Bob had taught her how to put on a sort of gushy persona with shy people and she decided to try that with this fellow.

"Hi! I'm April Lewis," she offered her hand. "I'm the Director's daughter and usually know new people, but I haven't met you. Are you finding your way around OK?" He took her hand carefully and gave it an unusually restrained one-pump, but still a grip instead of a spacer style touch. He had on very sheer gloves she hadn't noticed, but that wasn't unusual for an Earthie, quite a few of them were paranoid about disease.

"Hello, April. I'm Art," not offering his full name. "I'm not really lost or anything, I'm an intern with Mitsubishi, here for a short visit. Eventually I'm going to be an aeronautical architect, so I am studying how M3 was made, especially what was changed from the original design because it didn't work, so the same mistakes aren't repeated."

"Very interesting. I'm surprised my dad didn't bring you home to supper. He usually drags anyone from the company home at least once."

"Well, I'm only here for a week. Maintenance and Housing got me a room and arranged a bunch of walk arounds. I may even get a treat and go outside tomorrow, before I have to catch the shuttle back." That was something rarely offered without need.

"I think you're being modest," she teased, "you must have some pull to get decent accommodations. They usually just stick short timers in the barracks with the construction workers, instead of giving them a private room."

"I suppose they are treating me really well, but it still doesn't have a port. It's one reason I came here, because it said on the map this was here," he said, nodding at the glass.

"View-port," she corrected him. "A port opens." This didn't. It seemed odd, she thought, needing to point out proper terminology to an aeronautical architect student. "Looking out is not as relaxing as some people expect with the rotation," she explained, waving her hand at the black depths with a few bright stars whirling by. There was too much reflection off the glass to see very well anyway, with the corridor lights up full.

"When it comes around I see a shuttle," he said pointing out the port, "but it looks to be a United States of North America shuttle. I don't see the FedEx shuttle I'm supposed to go on tomorrow."

"It should be at the North hub. It'll be loading freight where the station doesn't turn, so you can't see it from here. The North hub is sort of industrial and unattractive. They don't like for tourists and VIPs to see the drab side of M3, so most passenger shuttles dock on the South. If you came in the South you should double check. Most freight haulers only have two seats to sell, so they don't redock for passengers."

"Yes, they told me that. I see this one is scheduled to leave before mine. If I come here will I be able to see it fire its engines to fall away?"

"Depends on the pilot. Some of them will burn their main engines right from their parking orbit and some of them move off real cautious with the attitude jets a kilometer or so, before they light 'em up. You could still see pretty well if you have a pair of binoculars."

He nodded his understanding, but changed the subject. "This communications room was originally on the hub. Can you tell me why it ended up here?"

"Sure, it's not really a mistake like you were talking about," April explained. "It had to be on the hub at first, because it was one of the first things needed before there were any spun sections. At first it was all construction traffic it was dealing with and guys had to be able to go in and out easily with a bulky hard suit on. My grandpa did some of the earliest work and told me a little about it. But after most of the construction was done and we got these corporate rentals, it had to be moved here, because the businessmen expect to walk down the corridor and have com and conference rooms and a place to eat close by.

If there is a big construction project going on they still set up a radio shack in zero G and tie it in here for the construction workers. This door is unusually close to the corridor break, because the only spaces left were on each side and they thought two doors would be confusing. See how it's offset against spin a little though? The structural members run up the exact middle and you can't fit a door."

Art nodded and held his pad up in camera mode for a shot of the corridor break.

"Would you like to come to dinner tonight?" she offered. "My dad could tell you lots more and if we can get my granddad to come by, he actually helped build most of M3. It's really not any bother, we're like a little town here. People even stop my dad in the corridor and tell him things they should e-mail to maintenance, he just goes ahead and relays it."

"Thanks, but I already promised dinner to someone I met." But he didn't say who, she noticed. Needlessly secretive people irritated her. "But I thank you and it was good meeting you," he said, leaning back and terminating the conversation by his manner. He didn't act like it was nice. It seemed to have made him cross with her. She had the subtle feeling this whole encounter had gone badly and wasn't sure why. He stood eager to leave now and tucked his pad back under his jacket, on his belt. April stood also, feeling slighted, because his demeanor was dismissive. He was practically rude after she had been friendly.

When he flapped his jacket back, to put his pad away, the cloying scent fanned to her recalled a vivid memory. The unexpected shock must have shown on her face, because he hesitated, looking back at her when he had started to turn away. He looked like he wanted to say something more and looked at her again like he hadn't really inspected her before and was correcting the mistake. His eyes scanned her brazenly, the creepy way men and boys had only recently started looking at her and hesitated, looking right at the lump of banana and scanner in her pocket.

She had the paranoid thought he knew she had something illicit, so strongly she hooked her thumb in the pocket and let her fingers slide in over the shape hiding it. She felt her face go hard at his lack of manners. She hated it when she lost control of it like that. The thought was crazy; there was no way he could know about her scanner. Yet if anything he froze for an instant seeming to skip a breath. Then he visibly came to a decision to drop it and walked away.

April stood there, too shocked to decide what to do, until she sorted out what her nose was telling her, finding no alternative to the memories it evoked.

* * *

About a year ago she woke up one night and went out to get a drink. When she came out of her room the light was on in the kitchenette and her dad was sitting at their small table. The same odor had permeated the room, as she had just whiffed from Art. There was a hard case on the table and an assortment of metal parts spread on a soft cloth. Most of them were meaningless to her, but the diamond textured grips of a pistol frame and the trigger guard on the front of it were obvious.

She'd just looked a question at her father.

"OK, I didn't mean for you to see this," he said. "But since you have, I need to make sure you will leave it alone after I put it away and not go looking to mess with it."

"I could just promise, but if you're going to trust me for that much, can't you tell me the whole story and have confidence in me to leave it alone because it's the right thing to do?"

"OK," he agreed, "sit down and watch." He started assembling the weapon, explaining as he worked. He held the complete unit sideways to her on both hands, in presentation. "This is what you call a Colt .45. The number is the caliber, or nominal inch size of the bore and the projectile which comes out of it. This basic design version dates from 1911," he smiled in satisfaction at her raised eyebrows at the date. "It's a Browning design actually. Colt was long dead back in the 1800's although his company was still doing fine, but I doubt if collector trivia interests you at this point," he allowed. Then he changed the tone of his lesson and showed her the procedure to load and cock, unload and safe it.

She picked up the bottle she suspected was the source of the odor because the paper label had an oily stain.  Yes, it reeked when she brought it close and it felt slick. A glass bottle with a paper label was something rarely seen above the atmosphere. Hoppe's #9 it said on the bright yellow label and described it as powder solvent. She wondered if Hoppe's # 1 through #8 smelled as strongly? Her dad took the bottle back and put it in a hollow in the fitted case after checking the cap was snug.

"April, I hope to never need this. Protection is Security's responsibility. I'm a manager not a politician and thank God, we don't have the crime everybody takes for granted Dirtside. In most any case I would walk away from an argument long before it became a fight, but sometimes there are irrational people and crazy circumstances and if it comes down to a man's family and friends being threatened with harm, you sometimes are left with no choice but to use force. It's the last ditch thing I'd do, literally backed in a corner. If you ever see things have gone so completely bad and I am not here to use this, then it would be better to leave it to someone like your grandpa who knows how to use it. Using it skillfully, while at the same time quickly weighing all the decisions and consequences of why you are doing so, or if you should use it at all, is a difficult skill set to acquire and you're smart enough not to use equipment you are not trained on, aren't you?"

"Sure, Dad. When have I ever skimped on safety?"

"You've always been a careful one," he agreed.  "This is a bit much gun for you anyway. Check it out," he offered and presented the grip to her. He was right, her hand was too small to even get a decent grip on it and it was uncomfortably heavy.

"I am going to put this back in my bottom drawer and I have no worries about it now we've discussed it." He tucked it away, gathered the case up and headed back to bed with no further comment.

* * *

What else smells like that? Nothing she ever smelled was remotely similar, it was as distinctive as vanilla and her nose was very discriminating. She was left with the inescapable conclusion the young man was carrying a firearm, which was definitely against all regulations and seriously worried her. He had already seemed unforthcoming and given the way she felt about deceptive people, she'd gladly bet everything else he said was suspect, until proven true. She finally composed herself enough to decide she needed to go back home. She had to talk to her dad and maybe he would send Security to see what this Art fellow was up to, before someone was hurt.

Going back home hubwise and against spin, she came out on her residential corridor. It was an open through arc, with none of the partitioning like the corporate country to hide the up curve, but it still had soft lighting and carpet.

Because it was the Director's home, they had a heavy-duty door just like a maintenance or equipment area. When she laid her hand on the entry pad to allow it to taste her, it gave a solid 'chunk' of six dogs retracting instead of a single latch. The hall she stepped into was also an airlock, but just a safety lock. The inside door was always retracted, unless it sensed a pressure drop, or you overrode and manually shut it. The cabinet in the short lock contained a pressure suit for each of them, just sized not custom and a couple SCI one-size-doesn't-fit-anyone p-suits, also for emergencies, rolled up into an orange cylinder.

When the door was audibly latched tight behind her, she felt tension ease she was unaware of holding and let out an unexpected sigh of relief at being safely home. She went into the kitchenette to put the banana peel in her mulcher, bag and all, as it was digestible. The green light showed it was safe to open, so the catalytic converter was keeping the methane levels down OK. She thumbed the lid open and tossed the peel in. There was only a faint earthy odor, like the fresh mushrooms she sometimes had on her salad at the cafeteria. She had two spider plants in the upper corners of her room and when she had made enough soil, would start a third. It made it smell better. She wanted a Peace Lily or a Song of India, but begrudged the floor space.

The com screen signal was blinking, so she went over and slapped accept. Her dad was looking at her, but the icon in the corner showed it was a recorded message.

"April," he said, "I'm with Tom Gollings. When he heard your mom was still in Australia, he invited me to dinner at his place. He says if you would like to come along too just drop us a message and they will set a place for you. He eats about 18:30, or if you want you can just eat with your own friends. Love you Sugar," he said, ending.

Damn. No way was she was going to the Gollings'. They had two obnoxious little kids and she wouldn't get a chance to talk to her dad privately there anyway.

She punched up his Director's address instead of his personal one and recorded with video. April described briefly meeting Art, but did not explain why she thought he might be armed. She promised to explain later, but suggested security might want to have a Taser or tangle gun to approach him. "I know it sounds over dramatic," she acknowledged and added "Nothing on the com from Mom," in case he hadn't checked and ended as abruptly as he had.