Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (8 page)

At one point, Nolan realized he’d had more to drink and stayed out later than any ever before in his life.

In fact, he thought as he staggered outside, that red glow was most likely sunrise…

***

Harlan paused with the forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. He looked back and forth between his daughter and his wife, “He’s what?”

Reven’s expression fluttered between apprehensive that Harlan might be angry and a teenager’s disbelief that her dad required explanation in detail of something
perfectly obvious
. She repeated herself, speaking more slowly as if Harlan was retarded, “He’s going to help me build a board with the new thrust discs under it. Since it won’t be using wheels, it’ll run smoothly even on rough ground.”

“Thrust discs?”

“Like from GSI. You know, the ones in the flying saucers. They’ll also be in the flying cars that have started coming out.”

Harlan slowly shook his head, “Those discs are
way
too big for a skateboard, besides they’re not available for just anybody to install in whatever they want. At least not yet.” He glanced at his wife again to see how she was taking this. She had a kind of smug look on her face that worried him.

Patiently, Reven said, “Like I said before, the Gettnors’ daughter is the one that
invented
the discs.
He
can get them any size he wants.”

Harlan glanced at his wife and she gave him a slow nod to confirm this astonishing claim. He turned back to his daughter, “New tech always costs a fortune. How are you going to
pay
for this?”

“He says he thinks it’ll be
fun
to make a fly-board. He’s got lots of money so he’s going to pay for the discs himself.” Reven tilted her head, “He thinks we might be able to sell the idea to GSI.”

Harlan’s eyes widened a little as he realized that GSI stood for
Gettnor
Space Industries. Why he hadn’t connected GSI with their new neighbors the Gettnors was a mystery, although virtually no one referred to the company by anything but its initials. Besides, who’d believe that the Gettnors on the farm next door were the same Gettnors who’d founded GSI! After a moment, Harlan almost plaintively asked, “Why would GSI buy the idea? They’ve
got
the thrusters.”

“He says, if the fly-board is fun, GSI could license the rights to build them to some other company.”

Harlan gradually put the forgotten forkful of eggs back on his plate. Suspiciously, he said, “
Fly
-board? You’re not thinking you could fly it… up in the air… are you?”

Reven swallowed uncomfortably, evidently worried that this might be a sticking point. “Well, it could. But the software could be set to limit how high it could go.” She shrugged, “You could set it so it wouldn’t go over 12 inches into the air if you wanted. Besides, Dr. Gettnor’s been talking about some kind of safety harness that would protect you even if it went really high.”

Harlan started shaking his head, but then to his surprise Clarice interjected, “Lisanne explained the safety harness to me. It’s essentially a weaker version of the one that was just in the news.” Evidently unsure whether Harlan had seen the story, she said, “The one that’ll lower someone all the way back to Earth from outer space?” At Harlan’s nod Clarice continued, “The harnesses sound pretty amazing, though I think we should make him show us how it’ll protect her before Reven even gets on
any
kind of fly-board.” She glanced at her daughter, “Even one that’s limited to a height of 12 inches would be dangerous if you got going very fast.”

***

Nolan cracked open an eye. The room was filled with brilliant sunlight. His head throbbed even more. Covering his eyes, he rolled away from the window, then tried opening them as slits.

Carolyn sat on the bed next to him, artfully wearing one of his old T-shirts with the collar carelessly slipping down over one delicate shoulder. Her hair looked perfect and he suspected she’d already showered, brushed her teeth, and put on makeup.

His shirt had
never
looked so good.

What the hell did I do last night… or this morning… or whenever I did it?

Giving him a brilliant smile, Carolyn cheerfully said, “Good morning!” She lifted an eyebrow, “Looks like someone’s out of practice on his drinking?”

Squinching his eyes shut again, Nolan gave the barest of nods.
Did I do something I’ll regret?

Carolyn said, “I found some Tylenol in your medicine cabinet, if you can sit up a little…”

He felt her shift on the bed. Cracking an eye again, he saw her leaning over to his nightstand to pick up some tablets and a glass of water. Swinging back, she held them in front of him. He leaned up on an elbow and took the tablets, popping them in his mouth. She handed him the glass and he took several swigs. With a groan, he said, “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

She grinned, “Well, I’m the one who talked you into drinking so much, the least I can do is nurse you back to life.”

Nolan fell back on the bed and pulled the pillow up over his eyes. Moaning for her benefit, he thought,
What have I done?! How am I going to get rid of her?
Then he guiltily wondered if he was acting like the proverbial womanizer, using a woman then casting her aside.
If only I could remember! Maybe I didn’t actually do anything to apologize for? Or—my God!—what if she’s pregnant?!

The bed bounced as Carolyn got off of it. Chirpily, she said, “I found some bagels and cream cheese in your fridge. In about 15 minutes, when you feel like moving again, you take a shower and come on out to the kitchen. I’ll have you some breakfast ready.”

Oh God! She’s practically moved in?! How am I going to tell her I’m in a relationship? Especially after… whatever I did with her last night.

***

Levon glanced at the instrument displays as she settled onto her rest on the bridge. The thermometer claimed that the ship’s interior had cooled substantially, but Levon found it hard to believe. Levon constantly felt lethargic, yet she could hardly sleep. She’d badgered the engineers several times to make sure the solar mirror was still functioning within tolerance and that something hadn’t gone wrong with the radiators. She understood that, this close to the star, the effective temperature outside of the ship was in the thousands, but… she turned a baleful eye on Sixth Officer. “Sixth! How can your systems cool the interior of this damned ship down from thousands of degrees outside, yet leave it so perfectly,
miserably
hot inside? By ‘perfect,’ I mean hot enough to drive me insane
without
doing the kindness of killing me!”

Sixth looked at her with frightened eyes that told Levon how angry she must sound. He began tentatively, “It’s an optimization issue Captain. The systems were designed to cool the ship enough to keep us alive, um, but not comfortable. A ship capable of keeping us comfortable would have to be larger… or have carried a smaller payload.”

Sixth waited a beat, evidently hoping that his explanation had been sufficient. Levon, however, was remembering how many times she’d heard this rationale during the interminable briefings about the ship before they left. She was wondering whether the transition had made her forget, or her irritability had made her ask Sixth rather than dredging it up out of her own memory.

Sixth, apparently deciding that his captain was waiting for further elaboration, continued, “Alternatively, navigation could have plotted us higher perihelion that wouldn’t have produced so much heat, but, as I’m sure you remember, the deeper we go in the gravity well, the better the chances of a successful transition…”

And if we hadn’t successfully transited,
Levon thought,
we’d have gone through this miserable heat and still be in the home system
. She didn’t want to admit that she’d known everything Sixth had just told her, but for a moment couldn’t think of anything to say to conclude the conversation. Finally, she said, “So, there’s
nothing
more you can do, is that correct?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Levon didn’t do him the courtesy of concluding the conversation in some fashion, she just turned away. “Fourth Officer, you’re promoted to Second.” Levon ignored Fourth Officer’s shocked look, turning to Fifth instead. “You need to bring another navigator out of hibernation to replace Fourth.” Levon turned to her own displays without further elaboration.

Behind her, Levon heard Fourth Officer say, “But… What will we do when Second Officer returns?”

“Biltan won’t
be
returning,” Levon said, using Second Officer’s actual name for the first time. She didn’t turn around. “The Doctor determined that he’d suffered irreparable brain damage in the transition. He’s been put down.”

“There was…
no
chance that he would recover?!”

“No!” Levon barked, partly because she didn’t want to think about the possibility. “And, we
can’t
keep dead weight! You
know
that!”

“But…”

“No buts!” Levon shouted. “It’s not
our
lives, but the lives of
all
rendas you should be thinking of!” Levon still had her back to Fourth Officer, her muzzle buried in her own displays. She knew they were afraid that they might be put down themselves if they had problems on the transition back home.
Levon
was afraid they might recognize just how worried she was that she herself had suffered some brain damage in the transition several days ago. Levon worried about her own thought processes …
Have the other officers noticed my sludgy mentation?
She wondered.
Do they wonder if I should be put down like Biltan was?
Partly to get their mind off of that possible track and partly to herself she roared, “Back to work! Let’s save
our
people
…”
That might have been properly inspiring,
Levon thought,
if I hadn’t sounded so angry when I said it
.

***

Reven stared at herself in the mirror, heart sinking. She’d gotten up extra early to milk the cows and give herself time for this. But now, as evidenced by all the smudged Kleenex in the wastebasket, she’d tried and failed three times. Blush on her cheeks made her look like a clown.

Eyeshadow made her look like some kind of monster.

Lipstick… She didn’t know what to think, but she didn’t think she looked like Reven.

The only thing that didn’t seem to be a complete failure was the mascara. Reven already had long, dark eyelashes and the mascara simply made them a little more so. Not enough more to make her look ridiculous… not the way everything else in her mother’s makeup cabinet had made her look.

A tear leaked out and ran down Reven’s cheek… trailing a faint dark stain from the mascara.

She turned on the hot water and picked up her washcloth,
This must be what they mean when they talk about “putting lipstick on a pig.”

A few minutes later she was examining her reddened, freshly scrubbed, but makeup free face when she noticed makeup stains on the new blouse she’d spent so much time shopping for.

Jerking off the blouse, she popped off a button.

Fresh tears…

Slouching down the stairs in her usual oversized T-shirt and old jeans she approached the breakfast table where her mother had bananas and cereal laid out. Clarice looked at her daughter and her eyes widened momentarily, but evidently the sullen look on Reven’s face made her think better of saying anything.

***

Levon walked onto the bridge, wishing once again she had room to fly, even a few beats.
On a ship this big, you’d think they could have left a small space where the crew could fly short distances!
Levon knew how difficult it had been to pack everything they wanted into the ship. She was aware of the compromises that’d been made and the equipment they didn’t bring for lack of space. When they’d discussed those things before leaving home she’d thought the decisions were reasonable.

Now that she was captaining this ship of the damned, she felt certain that somehow they could have found space to allow just a few wing beats of flight! She often tried to think of a way some part of the ship could have been dual-purposed so that the crew could fly there occasionally, even if not frequently. She hadn’t thought of a solution herself as yet, but she felt certain the engineers could have—if only they’d
understood
how critical it was.

Levon thought even more about flying now than she had before. No doubt that was because they’d moved far enough from their closest approach to this star that the ship’s temperature had dropped into an almost comfortable range. In a few more days, she thought, the temperature on board might actually be pleasant. Unfortunately, even before the temperature had become tolerable, she’d already begun to dread that point in their elliptical orbit—hundreds of days from now—when they once again got close enough to the star for her to be miserable. And then would have to go through the agony of transition again.