“I’ll help you clean, if you like,” he offered.
“Will you?” She lifted a hand and stroked the side of his face. “You’re a nice man.”
He smiled at her touch. “Does that mean you’re willing to do not unpleasant things with me again?”
She slid her heel along the back of his leg. “It’s definitely a possibility.”
“Excellent.”
Epilogue
“So the good bit is that Hoss’s protégé lit the forest on fire with his eyeglasses?” Lauren asked, her brow furrowing.
“Yes.” Tick sat in a swinging bench with her in the grow room in the center of the ship, the scents of flowers and ripening fruit teasing the air. He had one arm around her shoulder as she snuggled into his chest, and the other held his tablet, which was open to the book he had finally had a chance to finish reading.
“That’s more appalling than good, don’t you think?”
“What? It’s hilarious. The kid wanted to show off that he knew plenty about survival, and he started a forest fire instead.”
“It wasn’t hilarious when I accidentally set that fire in my university lab. Chemical sprinklers went off over the whole class, and six fire-suppression robots streamed in. One knocked over our geriatric professor in its hurry to put out the flames.”
“Oh?” Tick wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You’re sure that wasn’t hilarious?”
“It was embarrassing, and I lost lab access for two weeks.”
“Well… if you don’t want me to share any more good bits, I suppose I can keep them to myself.” He lifted his hand to turn off the display, but she stopped him, resting her fingers on his forearm.
“You can keep sharing them. I don’t mind.”
“No? Good.” He kissed her on the temple.
“As long as you don’t mind me mocking them.”
“I don’t mock your good bits.” He waved to the tablet open in her lap as he gave a little kick to start the swing swaying again. Earlier, she’d read a passage to him from a research paper. “Of course, that may be because I don’t understand them well enough to mock them.”
She swatted him in the chest with the back of her hand, the playful gesture making his heart sing. Back when she had been calling him A27, he never would have believed they would end up as friends and lovers. He’d hoped it would happen, but belief had definitely been lacking.
“You usually get the gist,” Lauren said. “When you’re paying attention instead of looking at my breasts.”
“It’s true that I am easily distracted by having you close.” He grinned and leered at her breasts, pleased that she didn’t seem to mind. She even grinned back, her eyes twinkling. “I did get a non-fiction book so I can maybe learn a few things about your work and have a better chance of understanding.” He pulled it up on his tablet.
“Microbiology for Dunderheads?” she read.
“Yup, not only does it explain things in simple terms, but there are animated cartoon videos that pop up and tell you how to pronounce things, so you don’t look like an idiot when you try to talk about them. I’m learning about prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells now.”
Her earlier grin turned into a smile of… was that appreciation? She lifted her fingers to his jaw, tracing its line and making him swallow as his mind drifted to matters far more interesting than prokaryotes.
“I got you a book too,” he said after clearing his throat. “Just in case you want to learn about my field of study.”
“Tracking?”
“Yup.” He pressed a holo button and flicked the file to her tablet. “You might like it. There are similarities between our two fields.”
“Oh?”
“Look at chapter two.”
She gave him a suspicious squint, but opened the file. “Tracking for Dunderheads. Chapter two: Identifying Animal Scat and What It Can Tell Us.”
“We both study poop.” Tick grinned. He had been tickled when he realized they had this unlikely commonality.
An indignant expression crossed her face, and she looked like she would object, but instead she snorted softly and leaned back into him. “Yes, we do.”
Voices came from the doorway, and Tick grumbled to himself. Even though crew members visited the grow room regularly, either to snatch fresh fruits and vegetables or to enjoy the peacefulness of the foliage, he had hoped that he and Lauren would have the spot to themselves this evening for their first date. They’d had sex three wonderful times since the night in her lab, and perhaps in a backward order, they were now enjoying snuggling and reading in the aftermath of a tasty noodle dinner prepared by the ship’s cook.
“...saw them come in here,” a familiar voice said. Ankari.
“Maybe they wanted privacy,” Jamie replied.
“Oh, I think that’s a given. Did you see the way they rushed out of the mess hall together? And the way Lauren was the one holding Tick’s ass?”
“Heath’s ass,” Jamie said.
“What?”
“She calls him Heath.”
“I would too.”
“Your business partners are looking for you,” Tick murmured, hoping the women wouldn’t make it to this back corner. Numerous potted trees and racks of grow boxes sheltered them from casual observation.
“They’re stalking me,” Lauren replied quietly. Maybe she also hoped they would go away without finding what they sought. “They’re inordinately fascinated by the fact that I’m having a sexual relationship with you.”
“Do they not know that we both study poop, so it was inevitable that we would end up together?”
She swatted him on the chest again as Ankari and Jamie found the path that led back to the swing.
“We’re going to pretend we didn’t hear that question,” Ankari said, taking the lead. She carried a plate in her hands. “Because it would demand an explanation, and I fear it would be a weird explanation.”
“What?” Tick asked. “You and the captain never discuss fecal matter?”
“Rarely. And never while snuggling.” Ankari waved toward their position on the swing, Tick with his arm still around Lauren’s shoulders and her leaning against him. He refused to contemplate moving, and it pleased him that Lauren didn’t seem interested in pulling away because of witnesses.
“That’s odd,” Tick said. “Don’t you find that odd, Lauren?”
“Extremely so.”
Jamie wasn’t saying much, just grinning as she looked at the two of them. Tick supposed it was better that Lauren’s friends approved of this relationship rather than being against it. He could handle some good-natured female snooping—or stalking.
Ankari lifted the plate she’d brought. “Since you two rushed out so quickly, you missed dessert. Double-chocolate-chunk bars. They’re very tasty and full of sugar. We thought you might need some extra calories tonight.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” Tick murmured.
“When Heath and I have vigorous and extended coitus where he stimulates me in such a manner that I have multiple orgasms over many hours, it’s usually electrolytes that I crave more than carbohydrates,” Lauren announced. “Do you not find this to be the case with your sexual partners?”
She sounded so clinical—so analytical—that Tick almost laughed. Ankari’s and Jamie’s eyebrows shot up. Whatever they had expected Lauren to say, that apparently wasn’t it.
“Uhm,” Ankari said. “Yes.”
Jamie nodded, then shook her head, then hesitated and nodded again. “Maybe we should go.”
“Leave the chocolate bars,” Tick called after them.
Wordlessly, Ankari set the plate on the rim of a banana tree pot before she and Jamie turned out of sight.
“Did I say something socially inappropriate?” Lauren asked.
“Not at all, but I’m too busy thinking of vigorous and extended coitus to judge.” Tick slid her over into his lap, pleased when she did not object.
* * *
Lauren stepped out of the way to let
the stream of mercenaries leaving the ship pass. The captain had granted some of them a couple of days of shore leave at Far Edge 6, a station on the outskirts where they were not likely to run into military patrols. If any of the mercenaries were worried about potentially being targets for irritated soldiers, they did not show it as they trotted to the disreputable-looking kiosks, pubs, brothels, and casinos lining the concourse right inside the docks. They laughed and joked, not able to spend their money quickly enough. They were big enough and brawny enough that the sleazy men in trench coats full of odd bulges did not confront them openly, but Lauren saw a few figures pointing at the men and strolling after them to present some scam or another.
“You’re sure you want to leave the ship here?” Lauren asked her sister, who was eyeing the grimy shops and pubs as they walked toward a transportation station. “I suppose it’s a good place to assume a new identity, but I don’t know how you’ll find a suitable lab for research purposes. This entire place looks...” She touched the nearest wall and drew her hand back to check it. A greasy smear darkened her finger pad. “Grimy.”
“It will do for a starting point,” Hailey said. “Besides, your captain didn’t seem interested in having me continue on as a passenger. As soon as he had his money, he promptly asked where he could let me off.”
“I could have had Ankari talk to him.”
“This place will do for now. I assure you I don’t intend to stay. I doubt there are many Grenavinians lurking in the treeless alleys here.”
“You still intend to hunt down Grenavinians?”
“I do. I have more reason to do so than ever now that I have the means to isolate your strain of bacteria.”
Lauren frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“I always knew it would be unlikely that you would share your work with me.” Hailey withdrew an opaque vial from her purse. “I paid one of your subjects a small amount to provide me with a sample.”
“They wouldn’t have a sample of—oh.” As she stared at the vial, Lauren realized her sister meant to do exactly what she and Ankari had done with the fossilized alien feces, albeit with a less fossilized version. She did not know if Hailey had the knowledge to isolate the bacteria, but supposed she could find someone who did. She scowled at the idea of her work being set free into the system as a whole without her permission.
“It was my backup plan all along.” Hailey tucked the vial away, careful to keep her purse away from Lauren, as if she might lunge for it to steal back the sample. The notion did cross Lauren’s mind. “I’d hoped you would share your work with me, and we could be research partners, but...” Hailey shrugged.
“Did you actually ever care about that?” Lauren asked, surprised. “Us doing research together?”
“Of course, Lo. I know you’ve never valued my work, but I thought that might change when you saw that it’s not all fluff, that humans do have this potential locked away within their brains.”
“I hadn’t realized that what I said or thought mattered to you.”
“Of course it matters. I respect you. I always have.”
“But not so much that you won’t steal my work.” Lauren flicked her hand toward the purse.
“How can it be stealing when anyone with access to the sewer system can grab a sample?” Hailey smiled. “I’ll post my findings on my private account on the network. You’ll have access. If you bother to look.”
Lauren hesitated, not wanting to condone any of this, and yet… if it truly mattered to Hailey…
“I’ll look.”
“Good.”
“Be careful out there,” Lauren said, eyeing the dubious station. She hoped her sister had learned something from her escapades with Mandrake Company, that a little prudence was wise when pursuing one’s passions. She worried she would eventually hear of Hailey’s real death, rather than her faked one.
“I always am.”
Hailey smiled at one of the sleazy men in trench coats, one eyeing her up and down as he leaned against the back wall of the transportation station. His trench coat might have been a touch less dirty and made from slightly nicer fabric than the others. It was hard to say. Hailey clearly found the man promising for some reason. She unfastened the top buttons of her shirt, letting her cleavage show, then wiggled her fingers toward Lauren in a parting wave. She walked toward the man, sashaying her hips. He smiled in approval, letting his gaze roam even more boldly.
Lauren shook her head, wondering what the man her sister intended to use for the night would think if he knew she had a vial of poop in her purse.
“You lost, pretty thing?” someone asked from behind Lauren.
Frowning, she turned around to look at two of the station dwellers, big men with greasy beards and hair and the ubiquitous trench coats that one out of three people here wore. She realized she was a good hundred meters from the airlock the Albatross was using and that the guards stationed at it wouldn’t be able to see her through the intervening kiosks. Since she and Hailey had still been talking when they had reached the end of the airlock tube, Lauren had walked a ways with her. She hadn’t thought to keep one of the hulking mercenaries nearby until she finished. She glanced back, but Hailey had already disappeared into the crowd with her chosen patsy.
“Not lost, no,” Lauren said, tempted to call for Heath over her comm-patch. He had mentioned taking a walk out here later to stretch his legs. Would these thugs try to impede her if she reached for the patch? “Thanks for asking after my safety, though.” Maybe being polite would convince them to leave her alone. She tried to veer around them, to head back to the ship, but one reached for her arm. Damn it. Why hadn’t she thought to bring her tranquilizer gun out here? She was just as likely to need it against creeps as she was against raptors.
A hand clamped down on the grabby man’s wrist before his fingers could lock onto Lauren.
“She’s not lost,” Heath said, stepping in from the side and giving both men hard looks. “She’s with me.”
A warm, pleased feeling came over Lauren, replacing her fear. Yes, she was with Heath, and she trusted these brutes wouldn’t be a problem now.
Their eyes narrowed, and one stroked his beard thoughtfully as he considered Heath. He was just as tall as they were with more muscle and less fat, and he wore laser pistols and his knife openly on his belt. He also wore that fur cap, which one of the men twitched his eyebrows at, but neither of them commented on the out-of-place fashion choice. They must have decided their odds against him would not be good, because they backed away.
“Better keep her close then,” one said. “Women around here that get lost don’t stay lost for long, if you take my meaning.”
“Yes, it’s very clever.” Heath flicked his fingers to shoo them away, then offered his arm to Lauren. “May I walk you back to the ship, my lady? Or perhaps you would like an escort to do a little shopping?”
Lauren linked her arm with his, giving him a smile for his timely appearance. “I don’t think you can buy anything here except alcohol, adrenocharge, and fenwad.”
“So that’s a no?”
“That’s a no.” Lauren pointed toward the airlock.
“That’s too bad. I wouldn’t mind standing redoubtably and fearsomely at your shoulder while you peruse the kiosks. I wouldn’t wish you to be in any danger, of course, but I do like being able to protect you.” He looked down at her with a slit-eyed gaze, his eyelashes nearly dusting his cheeks.
They had engaged in intercourse several times now, using her cabin rather than her lab, thankfully, and she had come to recognize that expression and knew he was contemplating sex. He seemed to contemplate it oddly often—multiple times a day. She couldn’t say that the activity came to her mind that frequently, but when he combined his sultry look with a massage, she often found herself amenable to it.
“I’m fortunate to have such a strong protector,” she said, knowing the comment would please him. And she meant it. Back on the core worlds, she had never needed a man to lo
ok out for her, but the rim was dangerous, and she lacked Ankari’s martial arts and firearms prowess. Having protection, especially protection that she enjoyed walking beside, was nice.
“And for such a reasonable price,” he said. “Some people pay hundreds of aurums for bodyguards.”
“Whereas all I have to do is allow you access to my orifice?” she asked.
He grinned. “I was going to say you could have me for free, but if you’re offering orifice access, I would be foolish to refuse.”
“Ah. I do feel that you’re worth that.” She leaned closer to him as they walked, sliding her arm around his waist, then, with a shy smile, slipping her hand down to cup his butt. It was silly, but for some reason, she continued to like that particular hand rest.
His slit-eyed gaze changed from amused to smoldering. “On second thought,” he murmured, “I believe I’ve had enough of shopping. Perhaps we could enjoy my shore leave in my quarters.”
“There are still cookies in my lab.”
“I do have a newfound fondness for your lab.” He lowered his hand to her butt, and she bit down on a goofy grin as they walked back to the ship, arms wrapped around each other. “Though you seemed distraught by the amount of defiling that went on in it last time.”
“Yes, a great deal of cleaning was required. Perhaps we can move the cookies to your cabin.”
“So long as my collection of fur caps doesn’t alarm you.”
“Of course not.” She crinkled her nose at him. “What do you mean collection? There’s more than one?”
“Maybe we should go to your cabin.”
“Hm.”
THE END
Bonus Novella: Quashi
1
Chanda tripped and almost fell flat on her face when Airlock 73 came into view. She had expected a couple of women in lab coats. Instead, it looked like a prison yard.
Mandrake Company- The Complete Series Page 173