“So we can get this in fewer takes,” Gary explained. “Rufus will be looking for any little thing that’s wrong—”
“And fixing it in post,” Hannah replied. “We don’t have to get everything perfect.”
Then why do I have to keep getting dermal fillers and cosmetic dentistry procedures? But Gary nodded anyway and positioned himself for the next round of recordings, his hands clasped in front. At Hannah’s signal, Gary turned on his brightest smile, waited three beats, and started reading from the teleprompter.
“Water,” he said with forced gravity. “Life on Earth is dependent on it, and cannot survive without it. But Mars, thought to have once been possibly as lush as our own home planet, is now a dry and desolate wasteland.”
Except, Gary knew that wasn’t entirely true. There was actually quite a bit of water on Mars, at the polar caps and even trapped in the soil. The biggest problems were extraction and desalinization, both of which were simple enough procedures—as the Mars Ho candidates were probably about to learn for themselves. The byproducts of those procedures were another matter.
But breaking into the script with facts and figures no one had written for him and which the viewing audience probably didn’t care about wasn’t going to win him any points with Hannah. It would all just get edited out anyway as so much scientific tedium.
Behind the camera, Hannah frowned when he paused too long. Gary reinforced his manufactured smile and picked up where he’d left off.
“Any human colony on Mars would be short-lived indeed without easy and regular access to water—which means recycling and reclaiming water sources within the colony habitat, and learning to identify and harvest new sources of water on the planet itself.”
He made a deliberate effort not to wince at the text, and he needed a few seconds before he could push through with the rest of it. He took a breath, his smile never wavering.
“The challenge before you today may seem straightforward, but it carries the weight of what may possibly turn out to be your very survival—”
“Hey, Gary!” Barbie appeared in the bulkhead opening to his right. She was beaming her giggly girl grin at him and—he noticed, with alarm—had her coveralls unzipped even farther down than before. “Whatcha doing?”
“Working,” Hannah replied with irritation. “And we’d very nearly gotten that one, too. We’ll have to start again.”
“Surely that’s not the case,” Gary suggested, and Hannah shot daggers at him in response. He swallowed hard. “But, yes. We can do it again. Shall I go back to the beginning?”
“Oooh!” Barbie purred as she pushed into the compartment and into Gary’s eye-line, blocking his view of the teleprompter while remaining out of range of the camera. “Can I watch? I promise I won’t get in the way or anything. I would just love to watch you work. And, you know, maybe get some pointers about being on camera, too?”
She drifted toward him, her close-cropped hair curling away from her scalp in a halo of black silk. “And then maybe we can work on that side project. You know, the one Rufus wants?”
Gary grimaced—with the full knowledge that on his recently rejuvenated face even the greatest disgust would likely register as amusement. “No, Barbie, I thought I was fairly clear on that—”
“You ready, Gary?” Hannah asked from behind the camera. She didn’t even look at Barbie, ignoring the distraction and waiting for it to get bored and leave on its own.
“Yeah, hang on.” Gary turned back to Barbie. “This isn’t a good time. We’re right in the middle of—”
“That’s all right.” Barbie’s ardor waned only slightly with his rebuff. “You know where to find me, when you’ve got a few minutes.”
“No, Barbie, that’s not—”
“Don’t work too hard!” She made her way back out of the galley and looked to be headed toward the docking bay. She glanced over her shoulder at Gary and purred, “I’ll be waiting.” And then, mercifully, she was gone.
Gary blew out a long breath. This was not the sort of production he’d signed up for. He looked to Hannah with the intention of issuing an immediate apology, even though he wasn’t responsible for Barbie’s stupid crush or her refusal to take no for an answer. But Hannah didn’t give him the chance.
“I’m sorry, Gary. Is our work schedule interfering with your personal life?” Her scowl deepened as she gestured toward her gear bag. “Want to borrow one of my cameras to commemorate your joining the 200-mile-high club?”
“Is that really necessary?” Gary was conscious of the cameras trained on him, recording every word. But he wanted to make genuine peace with his producer.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Hannah’s voice remained calm, and Gary guessed she was also aware that her every syllable would end up in the hands of Rufus Day. “Being a dick on Earth isn’t enough, so you’ve decided to expand your territory.”
Gary frowned at her for a long moment—or, the nearest approximation of a frown that the botulinum treatment would allow. Was Hannah jealous? This seemed like an overreaction for something as basic as romantic possessiveness.
“Hannah, do you want to talk about what’s going on?”
“No.” She went back to the teleprompter screen and cued up Gary’s text. “What I want is to get these shots off my list so I don’t have to spend any longer than necessary in your lecherous company.”
“Excuse me?”
Hannah plastered on a blatantly fake smile. “Oh, nothing. I was just hoping we could get through the day’s work without you propositioning the entire crew. Or worse.”
“Worse?” Gary felt his blood pressure rise, which in free-fall just gave him a stuffy nose. Did Hannah honestly think something had happened with Barbie? That he’d used the adoring fan for some purely gratuitous purpose? The idea turned his stomach. That Hannah might think him capable of something like that felt like a punch in the gut. “Hannah, what’s, what do you think is going on here?”
She kept her eyes on her tablet. “Nothing.”
Gary was going to have to draw her out. “Will you talk to me? Please?”
She looked up, her mouth a hard line as she hovered behind the camera for long, silent seconds. She looked more hurt than angry, but Gary didn’t know her well enough to be sure. But as she pouted or stewed, he noticed the tiny wisps of hair that had escaped her tight bun and floated about her head, catching the light with her small movements and making her look more like an irritable water sprite than a frustrated AFP.
Christ, Gary. Who’s caught up in the lovely illusions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream now? He blinked once, and again, then harder still, trying to see her differently. It was no use. The weight of her accusation still squeezed at him, but he felt a curious disinterest in clearing his name. More than anything, he wanted to see her smile.
“Hannah?”
“It’s nothing.” There was a tiny crack in her voice, right on the last syllable, and he saw her sniff back the tears that were beginning to form.
If she started to cry, the tears wouldn’t run down her face but would instead grow as filmy, salty orbs, Gary knew, effectively blinding her. Gary checked his pockets for a tissue.
“Don’t bother.” She wiped her sleeve across her face. “I’m fine.”
“There’s nothing going on between me and Barbie. I would never do that—”
“That’s fine.” She tucked the free-floating strands of hair back into place and readied herself behind the camera. “Let’s just get this done.”
“Sure, but then can’t we—”
“Just pick it up from the top of the screen.”
“Okay.” Gary took a breath, glanced at the teleprompter, and spread his mouth into a wide smile that felt painful and dishonest, but a smile he knew read as confident and reassuring on camera.
“Any human colony on Mars would be short-lived indeed without easy and regular access to water—which means recycling and reclaiming water sources within the colony habitat, and learni
ng to identify and harvest new sources of water on the planet itself . . .”
Hannah had given up on him after the last take. They’d at least been able to work together. As much as Gary wanted to find his way back into Hannah’s good graces, he knew enough to give her some space and time first.
He was officially off the clock, for a little while, and he needed some rest and relaxation. Preferably somewhere far away from Barbie.
He had a near miss as he headed toward the Churly Flint’s galley and heard Barbie’s tittering laugh in response to some folksy rhyme Manny was reciting. She wasn’t a bad kid, Gary reminded himself, just star-struck and operating under some weird circumstances. But he’d turned and headed for the Midden instead.
Brett and Joey were huddled over a magnetic chess board that was strapped to the galley table. Gary pushed himself inside, looking for full-strength coffee. The layout of the Midden’s galley was different than the Churly Flint’s, not that he’d figured out that one, either. He opened a few cupboards without finding what he was after, though he now knew where the wet wipes and freeze-dried ice cream were located. He opened another cupboard stocked with pouches of various dehydrated protein products. He tried not to make a face when he spotted a packet labeled “hot dog flavor noodle.”
“Gary.” Brett didn’t look up from the board. “Help you find something?”
“A place to hide, maybe?” Joey chuckled.
Gary tried to retain his good humor. “Something like that. And black coffee, if you’ve got it?”
“Corner cabinet,” Joey replied as he moved his queen, eliciting a sharp hiss from Brett. “Over your head and to the left.”
Gary located the cabinet in question—much larger than the others—and found it stuffed to the seams with pods of coffee and tea. He selected one labeled “Sowelu Dark Roast” and glanced about for the hot water.
“Next cupboard down,” Joey offered.
“Thanks.” Gary slid the coffee pod into the beverage machine, pressed the giant green button on the front, and waited. He turned his attention to the chess game.
Brett held his forefinger steady on one of his pawns while he considered the board, then picked up his bishop instead and shuffled it across the board to take out Joey’s bishop.
Joey’s mouth spread into a wide smile.
“What?” Brett asked in dismay. “That’s what you wanted me to do, isn’t it?”
Joey shook his head. “Actually, that’s what I was hoping you wouldn’t see.”
“So why are you smiling?”
Joey shrugged. “You’re getting better.”
“You’re messing with me.”
“I’m not messing with you.” Joey lifted a pawn and moved it one space diagonally to capture Brett’s bishop.
Brett groaned.
Joey peered at him over the board. “What? Your game really is improving.”
“Just not fast enough.” Brett leaned back and dipped his chin to scrutinize the pieces and his options.
A sharp ding announced that Gary’s coffee was ready. Gary wasted no time wrapping his hands around the warm bulb and taking his first sip through the narrow, built-in straw. He smiled as the smoky flavor slid down his throat and jolted his senses.
“Good stuff, huh?” Joey asked. “We traded a Slolum ship for that stuff. Let them take an Indian satellite contract in exchange for six hundred coffee pods and twenty-four pairs of clean socks.”
Gary took another sip. It was possibly the best coffee he’d tasted on or off the Earth. “A Slolum ship?”
“Slolum Enterprises.” Brett was still studying the board. “Multinational corp out of, where? Pretoria?” He moved the black king to a safe square.
“Mumbai,” Joey replied. “New ship, in orbit just a couple of days, fully stocked, when their only contract fell through. Seeing as we were running low—”
“Joey?” Barbie’s voice broke in. Gary cringed and started looking around. Joey grinned at him and pointed to the speaker over his head.
Joey reached for the comm panel on the wall. “Yeah, Barbie. You need something?”
“Yeah, for you to start your shift. You’re twenty minutes late relieving me.” She sounded no-nonsense over the comms. There wasn’t a hint of giddy awe. “So, are you on your way up here or not? ‘Cause I’d be happy to trade a shift for your share of the next media download.”
“I’m on my way. Don’t go appropriating my data reserve.” Joey glanced at the chess board, then lifted his eyebrows at Gary. “You wanna take over?”
“I’ll lose,” Gary replied.
Brett laughed. “It would be good for my morale.”
Gary slid over to take Joey’s place, and Joey pulled himself out of the galley and into the upper corridor.
But up was still a relative concept. Gary’s own explorations of both ships had proven what he already knew: they were built for orbital and zero-g maneuvers only, with no heat-shielded wings or landing gear as a reference point to keep him from constantly recalibrating.
Gary eyed the chess board. “My move or yours?”
“Yours,” Brett replied.
Gary tried to make sense of the pieces and their placements. It had been a long time since he’d last played chess—with Ruth, his sister’s eldest, just before she’d started medical school. Ruth was a chess wiz; she claimed that reading the board and learning to strategize translated to better focus for studying, better resource management during exams, and better prioritization and planning in general. And Gary had sat listening with stars in his eyes. Ruth had big dreams, and now she was doing her neurosurgery residency at Johns Hopkins, making her dreams real.
Gary stared at the chess board and tried to remember the rules.
“You need some help?” Brett asked.
Gary let go of his coffee, picked up a piece at random—the last white rook—and made what he hoped was a legal move. He was not thinking three moves ahead.
“You sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Why not?”
Brett eyed him with suspicion. “You’re not like a secret grandmaster or something, luring me into doing something stupid with an easy sacrifice or by opening up a hole with a hidden trap in it, are you? I mean, that was just a stupid move you made, right?”
“Absolutely, completely stupid,” Gary replied.
Brett breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Maybe I’ll finally win a game then.”
Brett advanced his own rook one space. Gary moved his queen diagonally. Brett responded by moving a pawn a single space.
Gary advanced one of his pawns.
“Queen to E4,” Brett announced.
Gary captured one of Brett’s pawns.
Brett moved his queen to capture Gary’s pawn. Gary took a hard look at the board, and knew Brett had him.
“White resigns,” Gary said. He knocked over his own king, and it stuck to the magnetic board with a loud click.
“Another match?” Brett was grinning, flush from his victory.
Gary didn’t have anything better to do. “Set ‘em up.”
Gary’s focus was marginally better during the second game, though he kept getting distracted by thoughts of Hannah—her angry eyes full of fire, and her microgravity mermaid hair. Her ability to compartmentalize and focus on her work even when she was obviously so pissed at him that she could barely look at him. And how very much he wanted to kiss her whenever she scowled at him.
And how he was pretty sure she’d smack him if he tried.
Gary moved one of his bishops automatically, not tracking what he was doing. Brett asked him again if that was really the move he wanted, and Gary nodded dumbly. The second game ended quickly, with another victory for Brett.
Brett set up the board again while Gary puzzled over how best to ingratiate himself to Hannah. How could he prove that he had no interest in Barbie?
But there was something deeper at work. Hannah had been suspicious of him since the start. Every time he thought she was warming
up to him, something froze her over again.
But hadn’t he been just as suspicious of her, at first? Worried that she was another DayLite stooge sent to keep tabs on him. There were two sides to any equation. He hadn’t been a strong student in mathematics—one of his biggest disappointments with himself, and one of the reasons he hadn’t qualified for astronaut training. But he was determined to make this particular problem balance out. He just had to figure out what the unknown variables were.
Gary advanced one of his pawns.
“She’s not a bad kid,” Brett said as he mirrored the move and then waited for Gary.
Gary blinked. “Who’s not so bad?” He moved another pawn. Again, Brett matched him.
“Barbie.”
Gary advanced a pawn to take out one of Brett’s. Brett sighed in disappointment as he recaptured the square with another pawn. Winning was coming too easily now, with Gary on the other side of the board.
Gary advanced another pawn, and Brett countered by moving a knight toward the center of the board. Gary shifted yet another pawn.
“She works hard,” Brett said, moving a black pawn. “Harder than most. To prove herself, you know.”
Not quite sure what he was hoping to accomplish, Gary pushed one of his knights toward the center of the board. “Because she’s a woman?”
Brett shrugged as he brought out his second knight. “It’s her name that’s the problem.”
Gary thought back to the introductions that were made when the ships docked. Joey Snarf. That name was odd enough and had no doubt caused some trouble over the years. A name like Barbie Goggle-Belver was an unfortunate mouthful, but he didn’t understand how it would stand in the way of moving up the ranks in the unglamorous world of space salvage.
“Goggle-Belver?” Gary asked. Realizing the game was waiting on him, he picked up a bishop and moved it across four spaces.
“Niece of Nicholas Belver.”
Gary tried to place the name, without success. When Brett completed his next move—bringing up his own bishop—he looked across the board at Gary. “Nicholas Belver? The CEO of BGCorp?” He paused, waiting for recognition to register on Gary’s face. “Belver Global Corporation.”
Lovers and Lunatics (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 2) Page 9