Sanctuary (Jezebel's Ladder Book 3) (21 page)

Head lowered, she was humbled by
what he was offering. “What can I do for you in return, doctor?”

The potential! What would this
one do for a friend?
Toby tried to remain smooth and magnanimous. “Don’t be
ridiculous; this is my job. I just have so much of it right now.”

“I notice you have a lot of aerial
printouts in your desk organizer.”

“Yes. Sojiro prints the photo,
representing a file in Snowflake’s memory. I categorize and label each image.
When I’m done, he renames the file for me.”

She blinked a few times, and her
fingers tapped idly. “If you had naming authorization, you could do the labels
yourself.”

“I thought only a planner could
program Snowflake.”

“We’re pretty tight. Snowflake
bends the rules for me.”

“It would make my job mapping plant
genomes and planting schedules much easier. You could do such a thing?”

“Already done,” Mercy said.

“Impressive,” Toby said, when he
meant ‘scary.’ To cover for his nervousness, he asked, “What’s the planning team
doing now? Apart from the wedding I’m not invited to.”

She smiled. “Our next hurdle is the
hop to Midway—we like that name better than the string of letters and numbers
it had before. It’s about another three light-years away.”

“I have difficulty believing the
math is a real roadblock to you.” He meant the plural ‘you,’ but Mercy blushed
a little at the compliment.

“There are two possible jump
points, and we’re working out the equations for each—the actual vector changes
every microsecond. The cheapest hop comes out too close to the new sun. I’m
lobbying against it, but Lou claims he can pull us out of the fire, no problem.”

The mention of the other man’s name
was like a bucket of sand on the campfire, ruining the s’mores. “Of course Red
is backing the hotdog.”

“Yeah, but Sojiro’s with me. Park
won’t commit until the numbers are all in, and Z is torn.”

“Are you going to win?”

“I’m hoping Lou will withdraw his
claim when I show what a single system’s failure will do to us.”

He nodded, fascinated by the engineer.
They chatted politely for some time after, but he could tell she wasn’t
interested. When he reached out to shake her hand in thanks, she could barely
control her flinch. Without proper anesthesia, he would never be able to touch
her.

He decided to make a custom syringe
for her in his vacation kit, just in case.

During the weeks of Tau Ceti spring, all the astronauts kept
busy. They took every measurement possible in the system without launching a
probe. Zeiss made a deal with Mercy: he would vote against the close approach
to Midway if she voted against the use of the probe. “I’d rather use it to map
the world where we’re going to be living, not the place we know we can’t.”

Even here, there was politics.
Mercy agreed, and both measures went the way she expected.

The last week before the wedding
was especially busy for Yvette because she was the best man and primary
physician groundside. Two days before the blessed event, Johnny had a reaction
to the Iguana Bourguignon he’d been experimenting with. Afterward, they
narrowed the problem to the bootleg vodka in the sauce combined with some of the
lizard’s digestive enzymes. Zeiss banned the first batch of alcohol for use outside
medical facilities.

Mercy had to baby the chef, hold
the puke bucket, and watch his IV so he stayed hydrated. Frantic, Pratibha
found her in the cook’s cave. As head colony planner and de facto mayor, she’d
grown accustomed to power. Combined with her upcoming nuptials, it wasn’t
attractive. The dusky-skinned Bridezilla roared, “The streamers are not hanging
themselves!”

“Yvette ordered me to do this, but
I’ll get the surplus toilet paper next shift.”

“I’m not decorating my wedding like
an outhouse!”

You’re not decorating at all,
Mercy thought. However, she said nothing and held out a hand to warn the man to
keep silent. After the colony coordinator vented, Mercy would redirect her and
buy herself time to think of an alternative. It was the diplomatic version of
shouting ‘squirrel’ in front of a dog.

The pale cook next to her had the
ill-advised temerity to say, “It’s not like we packed pink-and-white crepe
paper for the mission.”

The bride unloaded a torrent of
invective against the poor man. As the blistering tirade wore on, the cook’s unshaven
face shifted from amused, to bored, and finally to just a bit frightened. He
had brains enough to realize that if he said anything to defend himself, it
would only dig him in deeper. He turned to Mercy, pleading with his eyes.

“There are all kinds of pink and
white flowers in Honey Bee Meadow,” Mercy suggested, nudging Johnny.

After a moment of fish-mouthed
confusion, the cook recovered, running with the ball. “I saw that at a wedding
in Milan.
Bellisimo
.”

Pratibha softened as she pictured
the long house decorated with flowers, more reminiscent of a movie set than a
log cabin. “Yes. It’ll be elegant. Mercy can gather them, and you can both
chain the blossoms together in alternating colors.”

Johnny started to object, and Mercy
interrupted him with a hip check because he didn’t understand subtle. His
volunteer nurse said, “We’d be honored . . . but then who’d bake the cake?”

This confused the bride for a
moment. Johnny seized the initiative. “I cannot do it alone. I would
contaminate the batter. I have explained it to Mercy. She must cook the pieces
now so we can cool and shape them. Otherwise, the butter icing will slide off.”

It wasn’t precisely butter, but
Mercy didn’t contradict him.

“Then what are you waiting for?”
the bride demanded.

“The . . . um . . . solar oven is still
baking your plates,” Mercy said, raising her hands in helplessness. “Talk to
Risa.”

“Right. She had the wrong shade of
blue and had to reglaze them all. Blast it. I wish Sojiro were down here. He
gets how important all this is. I’ll have a word with Mrs. Herkemer.”

The bride paused on the way out the
blanket-covered portal and said, “Wait!”

Johnny groaned and his head sank
into a soy-foam pillow, a material they’d found ideal for mattresses and wall
insulation. He was going to play the sick card, the coward.

Pratibha asked, “Who is going to
pick all my flowers?”

Just then, Lou wandered by,
shirtless, taking a break from the construction. Mercy had watched him laboring
briefly as she fetched cool water in a bucket. Despite his many flaws, he was
easy on the eyes. “Captain Llewellyn!” she called out.

He stopped and poked his head in.
He had a towel around his neck and his wavy, blond hair was tousled. He even
smelled good. It wasn’t fair. “You summoned me, milady?”

“You remember Honey Bee Meadow, don’t
you?”

“I named it,” Lou bragged.

“Good, then you can go there with
the wheelbarrow,” the bride said, leading him away.

“You can’t just co-opt people for
slave labor,” Lou objected.

“Remember your joke this
morning—where you said ‘holy cow’?”

“I was trying not to swear so much.
There were ladies present.” His eyes flicked toward Mercy.

“That phrase is offensive to
Hindus. As the only member of that minority in camp, I get to specify the
punishment.”

When they were gone, Mercy
whispered, “I feel a
little
bad about that.”

“Suffering is good for the soul,”
Johnny said philosophically.

****

The morning of the wedding, Sojiro
returned to camp early at the bride’s request, leaving Toby alone in Olympus. Live music wasn’t possible, but they had every digital tune imaginable. However,
Sojiro argued with Pratibha as if it were
his
wedding. “I have the
entire
Longren
opera, but I’m telling you that ‘Here Comes the Bride’ is
too trite.”

“We are not playing
Ahunga’s sports-music selections before the dance.
I refuse to have people doing the wave at my wedding.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Ahunga O Te Ika Whenau Whanganui—my
husband-to-be,” she stressed.

“Oh, Auckland. Why didn’t you say
so? I just think that you should give the full-orchestral version of Pachelbel’s
Canon
a try before you make up your mind.”

“You don’t know good music. You don’t
even have a copy of ‘
Mehndi Lagaungi mai Sajna ke Naam ki
’ for us to
dance to.”

“I got the song from
Zubeida
.
I’ll teach everyone the Bollywood moves.”

“It’s not the same!”

“Just listen to the Pachelbel.”

Hair bedraggled and flour on her
face, Mercy snuck up on the pair. When the bride was distracted by earphones,
Mercy whispered to Sojiro. “We stayed up all night working on the cake. I got
the color wrong on one of the layers and had to scrape off all the icing. The
masterpiece is in the cooling cave. I’m going to sleep while I have a chance.”

As Mercy crept away, Bridezilla
snapped, “Where are you going?” Before the weary woman could answer, Pratibha
continued, “Lou isn’t finding enough of the right shade of white. Go show him
what I’m talking about.”

With a sigh, Mercy made a stop in
the medical facility to grab an aerial view of the flowers in the meadow. She
planned to circle the white candidates, hand the photo off to the pilot, and
then sleep. She bumped into Yvette in the office. Her hair wavy and perfect, the
nurse said, “You look like hell.”

“Thank the bride. I like your puffy
sleeves. I didn’t know that came as an option on the uniforms.”

The nurse rubbed her eyebrow with a
middle finger. “Who knew Rachael could sew this well. Pratibha has borrowed
Risa’s wedding dress, so my sleeves had to match.”

“Oh my. Risa used her entire weight
allowance to bring her
dress
?”

“Herk had to bring the veil. She
wants any future daughter or daughter-in-law to wear it.”

Mercy covered her mouth to hide the
grin. “I thought Z was funny when he brought Swiss chocolate bars.”

“Oh, that sounds good,” Yvette
said, salivating.

“Do you know where I could find
Lou?”

Yvette shook her head. “He went to
the meadow for another load.”

“I just saw the wheelbarrow out by
the shed, empty,” Mercy said, growing suspicious.

“Perhaps he has taken a vacation
from estrogenville, as he calls it. This is his last day off for a week.”

Lou and Yvette were both going to
be up in Olympus with her for the next week—awkward. Mercy resented the
wedding, especially given she was never likely to have one.

Sensing her depression, Yvette
asked, “What’s wrong? I thought you’d at least be glad to see Toby when we
switch.”

“Ick. No. I’m nice to him because
of what he’s doing for Yuki. I only gave him a second chance because Auckland asked, and I didn’t have anything to give as a wedding gift. Toby gives off a
definite Gollum vibe.”

Since Yvette hadn’t read
the
Hobbit
, Mercy had to explain. “A creepy bloke who lives in the dark and
eats anything weak that wanders too close.”

“Not at all. I can tell he’s been
under enormous stress lately, though. He retreats emotionally when he feels
pressured. I saw a documentary once about parrots. They can live past a hundred
in the wild, but the average age in captivity is only three years. They get
lonely.”

“What do you recommend I do?”

“Look for signs he’s reaching out.
In the wild, a parrot will chew up a choice bit such as a grape and spit it
into the other bird’s mouth as a sign of affection. Of course, if you’re not a
bird, and he sits on your shoulder, the chewed food goes in your ear.”

“Gross! What does it mean if he
stares, drooling, at my bare legs and feet?”

“Hmm. Things have degraded further
than I thought. He’s not supposed to be alone with any female patient when
pants are off. I should probably have a talk with him.”

“Don’t agree to any riddle
contests.”

“
Qu’est-ce
?”

“Never mind. I have a slacker to track
down.”

****

Mercy pushed the wheelbarrow all
the way to the meadow. Her neck and upper back were cramped in pain by the time
she found Lou hanging in a hammock between two trees, sleeping. Without a word,
she put down the wheelbarrow and tipped the hammock on its side, dumping the
pilot onto the grass-covered ground.

“What are you doing you psycho
b—Mercy, how are you?”

“Tired and looking for a way to
unload a whole lot of mad. I can see why you’ve been having trouble locating
just the right blossoms.”

“What, do you blame me? The first
batch I brought was too ivory . . . but only after I brought a second load of
the same. She had time to compare them to the dress in the meantime. The next
batch was too bone. She wanted more snow white.”

Mercy held up a hand. “I get it. My
neck cramp is creeping into the base of my skull imagining her voice saying
that. I just want to sleep.”

“That I can help with.” He unhooked
his hammock, and laid the fabric on the ground. “Put your lab coat down as a
pillow.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Lou held out his hands, appealing
to an imaginary crowd. “I can’t very well give you a massage through your
armor. How else can I relieve that tension?”

Remembering how Yvette’s massages
always helped, Mercy was tempted to return to camp to ask for one. But if she
did so, Bridezilla would catch her again. Sighing, Mercy said, “I suppose—a
quick one.”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. I have a
reputation to uphold. We’ll do this right. I won’t stop till your pain is
gone.”

As she unbuttoned her lab coat, she
stopped to twirl her finger. “Turn around, no looking. I don’t want you using
this as an excuse to gawk at my chest again.”

“Fine.” He covered his eyes and
turned around.

When she was prone, she told him.
“Okay. You can start now, but no groping.” She squeezed her headset in her
right hand, just in case she needed to call for help.

Moments after he straddled her
buttocks, the sensual pleasure began. Working his warm hands up her back, he
released knots she didn’t know she had. Every new area he concentrated on made
her moan or sigh softly. After almost thirty minutes of this, she felt like
pizza dough in his hands. It was several moments before she recognized that his
lips and teeth were on her neck massaging—no—
thrumming
her body like a
cello. And could he play like a virtuoso. Quivers traveled to her toes, and
echoes lingered in places in between.

Mercy opened her mouth to object,
but nothing came out but a pant. He stroked the back of her neck with his lips,
and she shivered. Her lids fluttered lazily to see if he knew the effect he was
having. When she turned her head, his fingers kept caressing the spots. Her
whole body breathed in to say the word, “Yes.” But she bit her lip to stop the
proclamation. She didn’t pull away; it felt too good. However, she didn’t need
to feed his monstrous ego.

“I was thinking,” he drawled,
playing her spine like a piano keyboard.

That makes one of us
, she
thought, struggling not to whimper.

“Would you do me the honor of
escorting me to the wedding tonight?”

Her first reaction, despite his
vile manners, was,
As long as you don’t stop.
Then she remembered Yuki
and chastised herself.
Lou
is a pig. Why is he asking you out? The
ugliest sheep?
Barely audible, she asked, “Oleander was working?”

He replied reflexively. “Yeah.
Security.”

That alone might not have dissuaded
her. However, when she sat up, she felt her bra slip. “D-did you unhook me?”

“Of course. For a better massage.
Your bra is probably causing a lot of your neck and upper-back pain. Your chest
is—”

Mercy stood up, holding the lab
coat in front of her and struggling to find a way to rehook the bra. “I
trusted
you!” He was staring at her again, so she turned away and shrieked.

He tried to stay smooth. “I can
help with that if you—”

She picked up the hammock and beat
him with the rope. “Pervert.”

“Watch it! I can’t replace that.”