Sundowner

by Claremont, Chris

  She pushed up to her feet, surprised at the effort it took. Her body felt cast from soft lead, incredibly heavy and able to move only with tremendous difficulty.

  “May I walk you home?” Hobby asked.

  Nicole shook her head, “I’m fine, just tired.”

  “Exhausted is more like it.”

  “I don’t have far to go, and I know the way. But thanks for the offer. Perhaps some other time.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  She said her “good nights” and made her way along the foyer, face twisting in dismay as she blearily focused on her watch and discovered how late it was. Another round or two, she thought, we could have had breakfast.

  There was an unseasonable chill to the air, enhanced by a breeze blowing off the water. It took a bit of a struggle but she managed to pull on her sweater, the thick-weaved cotton falling bulkily to her hips. From the lack of activity around the hotel pool as she walked along the promenade, it sounded like all but the most lovelorn rocket jocks were back in the barn.

  At the entrance to the dock, she paused a moment to clear her head. The prefab, modular jetties were normally safe as could be, and as well lit as the shore. But they still floated on the water and there were always plenty of opportunities to put a foot wrong.

  She was almost to Sundowner when she sensed another presence close by, in a flash of prescience disturbingly similar to the one that had alerted her to Hobby’s boat. Under other circumstances that inner warning might have been enough to save her. But Hobby had been right, she was exhausted; her reaction came with the speed of cold molasses, and she was only partway through her turn before she was blindsided. The impact spun her completely around, the smooth leather soles of her sandals finding no decent purchase on the dock; one foot went over the edge and the rest of her followed.

  The water shocked her awake, but that wasn’t much help. Her sweater dragged her down as effectively as diver’s weights—she couldn’t seem to muster the coordination necessary to wriggle out of it—and her skirt kept tangling up her legs, so she had to work twice as hard to keep afloat. She tried to call for help, got a mouthful of oil-tainted salt water for her trouble that triggered a bout of choked coughing. No sign of whoever had bodychecked her; somehow, she doubted he’d run for help.

  There was no grace to her as she floundered towards her boat, just a steely determination that she was damned if she’d drown in her own berth. She lunged for the toe rail, couldn’t find a handhold, fell back with force enough to dunk her head under. She had no chance to grab a breath of air and for the few interminable seconds it took her to break the surface she danced along the edge of panic. There was no strength left in arms or legs, and she was rapidly losing what little mental focus remained.

  Rage made her try again, and this time she caught a cleat. She hung there a long moment by both hands, gathering her strength, trying to do the same with her wits. She had no idea where on the boat she was. From the stretch, more likely forward than aft. She tried to picture in her mind the location of the cleats, came up empty. The logical move would be to make her way along the hull and pull herself aboard by the cockpit, where the deck was closest to the waterline. But logical wasn’t always smart. She had a suspicion this was her only shot and that one more immersion might prove her last.

  She cursed herself for not accepting Hobby’s offer of an escort, but she was far more angry at how completely she’d been taken by surprise. That was grounder carelessness; astronauts were supposed to know better.

  Gritted her teeth, wasted a breath—from lungs already burning hot with strain—for another call for help. She wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t answered; it hadn’t sounded terribly loud even to her own ears.

  Pulled. Nothing happened. Tried to swing an ankle over the toe rail, couldn’t even lift her leg all the way into the air. Damn skirt. And she couldn’t risk letting a hand go to pop the waistband buttons and try to get rid of it; hard enough for two hands to keep a grip, she had no faith in one alone, even for a minute.

  Kicked up once more, cried out as she barked her ankle, ignored the pain because she’d managed to catch hold. Now all that remained was to drag the rest of her onto the deck.

  She lunged for a stanchion, but her fingers slipped off the smooth metal, and she had to scramble to keep from losing her purchase. Even so, in the momentary confusion, her leg slipped, and she found herself back almost where she started, hanging from the lowest lifeline, the plastic-wrapped wire cutting into her fingers.

  Suddenly a hand closed over one wrist, then the other. A strength that put hers to shame hauled her waist-high into the air, while a familiar voice called on her to make one last effort.

  “Damn it, Nicole,” a woman, in a tone used to instant and pretty much unquestioning obedience, as she pitched herself backward, angling Nicole’s torso over the deck, “I can’t do this by myself, you’re too bloody heavy!”

  “Not my fault,” Nicole mumbled, managing to catch a foot on the toe rail and heave herself finally aboard.

  She lay sprawled facedown on the weatherworn teak, thinking absurdly that Sundowner was about due for a refit. Her impromptu swim had been one adrenaline rush too many, with a crash to match. Simple thoughts were all she could manage, actual movement was utterly out of the question. No matter. It was a nice night, she’d stay where she was and let the sunrise wake her. She’d feel awful but that beat the alternative.

  Her rescuer, however, had no patience with such intentions.

  Hands hooked under her arms, rolled her over on her back, then lifted her to her feet.

  She didn’t want to see the face of the woman who held her, but the slip lights didn’t allow much choice.

  Judith Canfield shook her head, expression speaking more eloquently than any words, then ducked slightly to tumble Nicole over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. That was when Nicole decided enough was enough, the hell with fighting the inevitable.

  By the time Canfield straightened to her full height and turned towards the cockpit—and the companion way down to Sundowner’s main cabin—Nicole was blissfully and completely unconscious.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  She’s young, barely more than a kit, with a youngling’s invulnerability born of arrogance, striking her own trail off from the family, ignoring bared fangs and open claws at this open defiance of law and custom as she follows the sun westward to the edge of the world. She hadn’t believed such a wonder existed, this Great Water that beggars experience and imagination both, stretching up and down the coast and off into the distance as far as she can see.

  The first time she opened her eyes, the world was doing a passable imitation of a runaway carousel. She knew her boat couldn’t spin so fast, if at all, but that was what it looked like so she went back to sleep in hopes things would improve later on.

  Smell woke her next, tea steaming hot and close at hand. Her vision was smudged like a windshield smeared with oil and rubbing the heel of a palm across her eyes made only a marginal improvement.

  She thought of sitting up, tabled the notion almost immediately. No will, less energy, and a conviction that her present horizontal state was the safest for her.

  She heard someone bustling behind her in the galley, managed a cough to let her know she was awake.

  Canfield came into view, mug of coffee in one hand, half-eaten bagel in the other.

  “You’ve seen better days,” she said.

  “Kind of you to notice,” Nicole grumbled in reply, adding an automatic “ma’am,” because even though Canfield was dressed casually in slacks and a polo shirt, she was still a full General and Nicole’s boss.

  “Here,” Canfield said, laying down her own mug to indicate the one she’d set by Nicole’s side. “Herbal tea,” she explained, “the taste isn’t half-bad and it shouldn’t put too much strain on your stomach. Can you sit up?”

  “Give it a shot.”

  She winced as she wriggled her elbows underneath he
rself and used them as a lever. The pain in her chest was something fierce, so intense it left her short of breath. Canfield had to help her the rest of the way.

  “Where does it hurt?”

  “Where doesn’t it?” was Nicole’s rhetorical whine in reply. “Lungs mostly. My mouth tastes like a refinery.”

  “Not the cleanest water I’ve ever seen, I’ll grant you that.”

  “About par for an anchorage, actually.” Her words were broken by a bout of coughing, followed by a longer pause as she took some tentative swallows of the tea. “I just wish I hadn’t tried to swallow so much of it.”

  “No major bumps or bruises that I could find. I have a car, though; I’ll be happy to run you over to the hospital.”

  Nicole bent her left leg at the knee, bringing her foot as close as she could, using eyes and fingers to probe her sore heel. Found a patch of gauze taped professionally in place.

  “Scraped skin mostly,” Canfield told her, “but you’d drawn blood so I thought it best to wrap the wound.”

  “Thank you,” Nicole said.

  “I’m glad I was here.”

  “Makes two of us.”

  “I didn’t see whoever dropped you.”

  Collage of shape and scent, bouncing helter-skelter out of memory, so intense a barrage of images that it made Nicole dizzy. Across the cabin, Canfield turned sharply as Nicole subvocalized a growl, the fingers of her visible hand flexing as though to extend a set of claws. It was the smallest of gestures, a reaction so quick and reflexive it could easily have gone unnoticed. Only it wasn’t, by either of them.

  “Probably for the best,” Nicole said, and let her body slump partway down the headboard, as disturbed by her reaction as by the attack itself. And as unsure how to respond to both.

  She heard the sudden sound of feet on the dock outside, three or four people, nervous—from the way they kept shifting their weight, unable to stay still.

  “Ahoy, Sundowner,” called a young woman with a pronounced Scots accent.

  “She’s asleep, Jen,” a man’s voice said, looking for any excuse to slip away, “leave her lie, we’ll come back later.” Nicole couldn’t make out the details of the woman’s reply, only that it was clear she wasn’t about to give him the chance.

  “I’ll talk to them,” said Canfield, but Nicole waved her to a seat, grateful for the interruption.

  “My boat, General. My life.”

  Admirable sentiments, put immediately to the test as Nicole swung her legs over the edge of the bunk. This wasn’t a hangover—she hadn’t drunk more than a beer all evening, which in a way was part of the problem—but the residual effects of her day on the water. Behind her eyeballs, where no one but she could see, Nicole made a rueful face and shook her head. Totally sun-fried. She’d let herself become dangerously dehydrated.

  She had all the sensations of a fever without actually running one. A headache right up across her forebrain, stapled in place with baby railroad spikes, plus the feeling that some parts of her body were held together with barbed wire—while others had been flooded with helium. Her skin felt flushed, almost glowing, and her stomach rumbled demands for food while the very thought of eating made her nauseous.

  No two ways about it, she was a mess. If she had half a brain, she’d take Canfield up on her invitation. Of course, if she’d had half a brain when it really mattered, she wouldn’t be in this state to begin with.

  And she felt she had something to prove.

  Somehow, after getting her below last night, Canfield had managed to strip Nicole of what she’d been wearing and get a T-shirt onto her. Nicole gave it a cursory tug as she fumbled up the companionway steps, hoping to achieve a modicum of decency.

  Another glorious day; midmorning, she decided, from the sun’s position overhead. For those first moments though, after she emerged, she was blind with the glare; the railroad spikes inside her skull, oh-so-exquisitely sharp, immediately doubled in number and size. But they didn’t kill her, so she merely waited for all the various elements to sort themselves out. Which they did, in surprisingly short order.

  Arrayed on the dock was a quartet of rocket jocks, three men and a woman, part of the crowd of baby astronauts that had commandeered the hotel. None of the faces looked familiar but Nicole assumed they’d been part of the crowd she’d encountered. The men looked appropriately shamefaced. From the way they’d arranged themselves, Nicole knew immediately they were here because of Jenny and they really didn’t like it.

  She said nothing. Just stood and watched and wished for the mug of tea Canfield had made her. As if the General had read her mind, a hand popped up beside her, holding out the mug. Nicole took it, indulged in a solid swallow, gazing disdainfully at the four below.

  “Nicole Shea?” the woman hazarded at last.

  She took another swallow, thankful that her insides were behaving themselves, and answered with a cursory nod, refusing to cut the delegation the slightest slack.

  “I’m Jenny Coy, Flight Leftenant Coy, a blue suit like yourself,” the woman went on in the face of Nicole’s determinedly minimalist response, while Nicole tried to reconcile Jenny’s Asian features with a strong Highland Scots accent. The Lieutenant gave the man next to her a pointed, prompting glare, and Nicole amended her initial assessment; Jenny was far beyond annoyed, she was actually angry.

  “About last night... ” Jenny prompted.

  “We were out of line,” the man finished, and Nicole suddenly realized they had no idea what had happened on the dock, they were talking about the earlier encounter on the promenade. “If we’d known... ”

  “Who I was,” she finished. “That’s the difference? Otherwise, what? I’m a piece of meat?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Fine,” she said. Bullshit, she thought.

  She made a dismissive gesture with her free hand, no longer interested in prolonging the conversation.

  “You’ve made your apology. I accept. Have a nice day.” And she started to turn away.

  “You got a hell of an attitude, lady,” snapped one of the others, bridling at her acid demeanor. “Especially for a sublight driver.”

  “Damn it, Axel,” Jenny cried with a slap to his bicep. Not a playful blow, either, for all that she was shorter and slighter than the men. “Will you put a lock on your damn mouth!”

  “Back off yourself, Jen. If she’s so hot, how come she spends most of her life on the ground? No offense, ma’am,” said to Nicole in calculated insult.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Nicole said quietly, “this is a private dock.” Her own blatant subtext, get the hell off my porch.

  They got the message—Jenny Coy was furious and not bothering to hide it, this hadn’t gone at all the way she’d planned—but before they could act on it, Nicole sensed a presence behind her. Shock stamped the astronauts’ faces and Jenny snapped an altogether unnecessary, “Atten-shun!”

  “Captain Shea may be willing to overlook last night’s... activities, gentlemen,” Canfield said, stepping around Nicole and all the way into view, “I am not feeling quite so charitable. Especially since someone blindsided her into the anchorage here not long afterward, nearly drowning her.”

  Nicole spared the quartet a look. They knew who was responsible, as did she. And possibly, she suspected, Canfield in the bargain. But none of them were about to offer a confirmation. Nicole wondered where Rocky was, and if the Hal was aware of what his friends were doing on his behalf.

  “We didn’t know,” one said.

  “Things last night,” this from Jenny, “they sort of got a little out of hand.”

  “A somewhat misplaced use of understatement, Lieutenant,” said Canfield, without mercy. “Try some of this kind of behavior out along the Frontier, you could very easily find yourself breathing vacuum.”

  “No real harm was done, General.” Another of the men, not comprehending that safety lay in silence.

  “Consider that, Lieutenant, your great good fortune.
As Captain Shea said, this is a private facility. I’m sure you can all occupy yourselves to better purpose elsewhere.”

  There was an awkward moment, where the realization that they’d been summarily dismissed vied with their pride’s need to make a graceful exit. Nicole’s eyes met Jenny’s, and she hoped the younger woman understood this wasn’t the way Nicole had planned things, either. The guys were already on their way, and with a small gesture of apology, Jenny turned to follow.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Nicole said to Canfield.

  “From your perspective, no,” Canfield conceded. “From mine, absolutely.” A gently pointed reminder that their relationship, however close and even heartfelt, was not between equals.

  “No offense, General,” Nicole asked as she dropped past the General into the cabin to refill her mug, “but why are you here? I mean, I’m grateful for the timing... ” She let her voice trail off.

  “Variation on a theme. Since Mohammed was unable to come up to the mountain... ”

  “Very considerate. But all you had to do was ask. There’s nothing in the test program at Edwards that can’t absorb a few days absence on my part.” Subtext thought, How the hell else did you think I could manage this? Meaning the boat. “And truth to tell I would have welcomed the flight time beyond low Earth orbit.”

  “This had the virtue of being less... official. I wasn’t planning a royal summons, Nicole, I just wanted to see you.“

  Nicole looked up from the nav station, where she’d just tapped in a request for the local weather. “Well,” she said, “this is too spectacular a morning to waste; d’you feel up to a taste of open-water sailing?”

  “Are you able to handle it?”

  Nicole grinned, her first genuinely cheery expression since she’d surfaced. “After yesterday’s overindulgence, you mean?”

  She rummaged in a locker, came up with a pair of battered baseball caps emblazoned with the boat’s name, tossed one to Canfield.