“Well, I’m not the sociologist on the team or the mission commander.”
“Or maybe you don’t intend for them to know. Perhaps it’s some kind of covert job. I wouldn’t put it past Zeta Corp to steal.”
“I think you should consult with Dr. Howard Bragg, Mission Commander,” Genevieve insisted, cutting him off.
“Oh, come on!” he remonstrated. “Surely you know
something
of the mission,” he insisted in a gruff voice and waved a hand, clearly impatient with her. “You’re the captain of the ship, for God’s sake! You must be aware of the contingencies, the dangers. You can’t be running on empty, girl!”
She clasped her hands together on her lap, ringing them together nervously. Genevieve remembered wishing herself away at that point.
“Like I said, I’m not the mission commander,” she defended herself. “I’m in charge of getting us there. Then Dr. Bragg will be in charge. I won’t even be leaving the ship once we reach orbit.”
If
they reached orbit, she remembered thinking. “I’ll remain with Zac, orbiting Eos, while the landing party, led by Dr. Bragg, takes our shuttle, the
Chimera
, to the planet’s surface.” Trip kept his stern gaze on her and she finally relented with, “I can only say that they do indeed know we’re coming. Our recent communications with them have been friendly. But we haven’t yet received a formal invitation.”
“Ah,” Trip nodded. “And did your husband and his crew receive an invitation five years ago?”
Genevieve saw herself swallow hard before answering. “No, they didn’t.”
“Has anyone ever received an invitation?” he drove home.
Genevieve watched herself lower her eyes in surrender and felt her shoulders sag, like her image onscreen did. “No.”
Trip nodded to himself, as though he’d just verified something in his mind. “I heard that you did everything possible to get on this mission, despite significant reservations from your boss, Jim Frost. Why would that be?”
She remained staunchly silent. She’d decided not to answer his rhetorical question. It didn’t require an answer, as far as she was concerned. It was only a rousing remark and she refused to take the bait.
He tried something else. “So, is there a man in your life now?”
She inhaled sharply, about to retort that it was absolutely no business of his, then quelled the urge and with a deep exhale answered calmly, “No, there isn’t.”
“Not yet?” he prompted, taking the question too far, she thought, as though he had a personal interest. “Or are you still chasing ghosts?”
Genevieve threw herself back in her pilot’s chair with an exasperated cry. “What an asshole!” she steamed. “Look at me just sitting there. I can’t believe my self-control!”
“I can’t either,” Zac heartily agreed. “You actually had self-control back then?”
“Funny,” she groaned. Beneath her fury, Genevieve felt an undercurrent of discomfort seize her throat. What
was
she chasing? Or running away from?
After several other thrusts and parries, Trip ended the session, looking a little exhausted. Genevieve had managed to emerge relatively unscathed, at least in appearance, which made her sporting game for Trip later in the hallway.
“What a creep,” she muttered.
The clip ended and Cheryl came on again. She looked serious, no fake smile this time. “Gen, the spec team didn’t want to make any definitive assessments until we had more data, particularly from Zac I, but they did suggest that erroneous judgments arose because Zac II was programmed with too many human traits.” She shrugged noncommittally. “Just thought I’d mention it, considering your particular taste for anthropomorphism.”
A spike of discomfort briefly flared up and constricted her Genevieve’s chest. There. It was no longer just implied, but out in the open. Then she tucked it away as Cheryl bid her farewell with an insistent request that Gen message her as soon as she had the chance.
Without needing a prompt, Zac placed the next message on the screen. Genevieve fully expected it to be her boss with orders to shut the mission down until further notice. She watched in nervous anticipation as a portrait assembled itself of a very handsome and fairly young man in his sixties, with chestnut hair feathered back neatly and just a bit of grey at the temples. Jim Frost’s rugged boyish face bore few wrinkles except a network of lines that radiated from tender blue eyes as he smiled like a rogue. “Hi, Gen. Hi, Zac. How are you all?”
Her boss was an energetic, rather charismatic man who’d come to expect what he wanted. “I just wanted to say first off, that the data you’ve sent is looking great, Gen. The data on the nebula and on Eos has our scientists very excited. It’s the best ever since…” he stuttered. He meant Dan’s mission. “Eh, since a long time!”
It was when they entered the Nebula that Dan and his crew started to lose it, Genevieve thought. Something happened, and the crew began to experience both emotional and cognitive problems. She dared a thought
—
were she and Zac immune? Aside from bouts of mild depression, she wasn’t experiencing the chaos that befell Dan’s crew.
“Your images of the Pleiades Nebula from the inside are spectacular. You have our scientists buzzing with excitement. And you’ve both solved and created some controversies. Way to go, Gen! Nice job. I can’t wait for your next shots of Eos up close.”
Dan apparently hadn’t sent anything of consequence to mission control since they’d entered the Pleiades Nebula.
Frost firmed his lips slightly. “We’ve had a small tragedy here with Zac II, but all’s under control.” Not according to Cheryl, thought Genevieve. “The spec team may have found a glitch in the Zac II system. We’ll keep you posted. No need to abort the mission or stand down,” he ended, breaking into a wide grin, obviously addressing her reluctance to turn back. But it didn’t seem characteristic of him. She couldn’t believe Jim’s nonchalance in the matter. She hadn’t figured him as a great risk taker, particularly when it came to her.
Zeta himself was another matter. The eighty-year old magnate was a Jim cranked up to full when it came to ambition and getting what he wanted. Zeta had formed ZAC out of the disintegrating shell of NASA thirty years earlier and turned it into a major profit making company. And he did it by taking risks, even when it came to human lives, including his own. He’d been a NASA astronaut prior to turning a hand at business, and knew a little bit about risking everything. Jim, on the other hand, came from quite another background. He’d briefly been a pilot for WorldJet Shuttles before taking a job as manager of Zeta Aeronautics. He’d never been off world, never experienced any of the early disasters of vac or semi-hibe, knew nothing about space sickness or experienced the
Athena
series space bot fiascos first hand. Genevieve frowned, realizing that she felt some disappointment at his apparent lack of concern for her welfare.
“We’re so close, less than a hibe away. So long as your last appraisal of ship’s specs meets approval, I want you to continue with the mission, Genevieve,” Jim said. It was then that she noticed it or had she imagined it there? A tightness in his mouth that played counterpoint to an intense tenderness in those sea-blue eyes. Was he being coerced by Zeta executives? “Call me back as soon as you get this message, Gen,” he continued, his old smile returning. “I need to see those twinkling eyes of yours.”
The image froze, indicating the end of the message and after a moment of silence, Zac remarked, “He’s sweet on you.”
Genevieve laughed sharply, staring at the frozen image of Jim’s attractive face on the screen, and blushed. “Don’t be absurd,” she said. Actually, she’d come to that conclusion a long time ago. It had been yet another factor prompting her decision to join this mission. When she realized one day that Jim’s prying questions and frequent visits were the attentions of a suitor more than a boss, she’d panicked. Then Cheryl told her that Zeta needed a pilot to helm the mission to Eos, and Genevieve leapt at the opportunity. Jim went ballistic at first. Dancing around the real issue, that Dan had died on the previous mission mishap to Eos, Jim had lectured her on the risks involved in the journey and the inordinate time before she’d return, if ever, to Earth. Genevieve remained staunchly determined and insisted that Jim put her on the team. She was one of Zeta’s best pilots, she’d flown several deep-space missions, and she’d just spent six months training with Zac’s prototype. Jim had stubbornly refused her and with her persistence finally resorted to being blunt
:
she was too emotionally involved, he’d blurted out. Her husband had been killed on the previous mission. Jim thought she was totally ill suited, perhaps even dangerous, to this mission. Furious, Genevieve went over his head and got support from Zeta himself. So, with great reluctance, Jim put her on the team.
Genevieve wasn’t part of the delegation. During the trip her job was to look after Zac, while Zac looked after her and the sleeping delegation during hibe. Once they reached orbit, she was to keep communications open with Earth and ensure the delegation’s chances of a return, whenever that happened.
“I guess he’s not your type,” Zac offered.
Genevieve’s lips curled in a crooked smile. She leaned back and clasped her hands behind her head then lifted both legs onto the console, crossing them at the ankles. Her eyes remained fixed on the frozen image of Jim’s smiling face. Unable to resist the obvious temptation, she asked, “So, what’s my type, then? He’s awfully good looking, charming, kind, successful, confident and…”
“Probably not horny enough for you.”
Genevieve burst into laughter and planted her feet back on the floor. “What are you saying? That horny is more important than…than…” she stammered, waving her hands and trying to remember what traits she’d just described. She finally remembered one, “than kindness?”
“Kindness?” Zac exclaimed in a voice of mock contempt. “Kindness is for little old ladies who’ve already lived their lives and have settled on a comfortable but boring slide into obscurity. You want more than that, Genevieve. You’re only forty-seven. You want devoted, yes, and certainly courageous, ferociously loyal and honourable, but most of all you want
sexual
. Carnal. Obsessed with sex, particularly sex with
you
. Someone who hungers for you like a starving wolf. Someone who can join with you at every level: mind, body and spirit through the caress of your skin, the touch of your hair, but mostly the thrust into your vagina.”
“Oh, Zac,” Genevieve shook her head and turned the screen off with her toe. “What hyperbole. You’re describing my
jack
dreams. Even Dan wasn’t really like that. You’ve taken my memories of him and us, and enhanced them in hibe to something that we never were.”
“You can’t keep running to another world to lose them, you know,” Zac said quietly.
Genevieve blew out a long breath and swallowed. There were no secrets from Zac. At first she didn’t like that, but Genevieve eventually found a comfort in sharing the naked truth with Zac. “I know, Zac.” She frowned.
“You’re still young and very attractive, Genevieve. You just turned forty-seven last hibe. With life expectancy currently at a hundred and fifty, you’re not even at the prime of your life yet. A hundred years ago you’d be considered not a day over thirty.”
Sometimes she felt like she hadn’t picked up any wisdom beyond that youthful reckless age. “I’m just not ready yet for a relationship again.”
“It’s been over five years, Genevieve.”
“Gen!” she said more emphatically than she’d intended. “It’s Gen,” she repeated quietly, then abruptly rose and turned for the control room exit. “Time to check the nursery, then workout,” she changed the subject tersely. “We can finish diagnostics later, like you suggested. I need to shower and dress before I send my messages anyway.”
“Okay, Genevieve.”
Gen
, she thought, striding with rather clipped steps to the aft starboard pontoon, which housed all sleeping quarters.
It’s Gen, damn it!
Zac knew her so intimately, her sexual fantasies, her emotional fears, what brought on her laughter, what choked her. He told her dirty jokes, shared and argued philosophy with her, and teased her incessantly. He was her trainer, mentor and closest friend. Yet Zac refused to adopt her nickname. It was always “Genevieve”, never “Gen”. Why did it bother her so much? Damn it, Zac’s own name was an acronym.
Chapter Three
Genevieve sauntered past each door, glancing through the portal to scan the eleven crew members, each in their own room, bouncing around in animated sleep. Some were peacefully floating, some were randomly twitching or jerking.
This time, instead of her customary cursory glance as she walked briskly to her final systems check at the end of the hall, Genevieve stopped to peer more closely at Gordon Porter, who was sitting with his back arched in ecstasy and arms slowly waving like the conductor of a symphony.
It was an oddly gentle movement for Porter and caught her interest. He was a big man with indolent eyes, large thick limbs, and a body that moved like a primate. He stomped and crashed everywhere. She found his use of coarse language as offensive as his disrespectful reference to women’s sexual anatomy and figured him for a misogynist. In short, she didn’t like him. At first, she thought it was her professional jealousy tainting her view of him, since Bragg chose him over her to pilot the
Chimera
. But then again, Bragg wasn’t about to choose her, she thought wryly. And a few more brushes with Porter cemented her feelings about him. He was a scoundrel with little moral fibre.