Tiona snorted, “Actually, I’ll bet he is. The video of you riding it has been all over the net! He’s probably feeling pretty jealous about now.”
“Good,” Reven said, turning to look out the window so she could surreptitiously wipe at the tear threatening to dribble out of the corner of her eye. There was a minute or so of silence. Tiona didn’t say anything and Reven was waiting to get her emotions back in control. Finally Reven turned back toward Tiona and found the young woman biting her lip uncertainly. “What?” Reven asked.
Tiona didn’t say anything for another minute, then looking very uncomfortable she said, “Would you like some advice on how to make him even more jealous? How to look good so he wishes he’s with you instead of the… girlfriend?”
Reven felt a warm feeling flow over her. Tiona looked good now, but Reven had seen her on the net many times and knew that Tiona could look beautiful if she wanted to. Reven admired her much more for the things she’d done, but, if Tiona could teach Reven how to look that good… “Yes!” she breathed.
Tiona got an embarrassed look on her face. She glanced down, “I… really shouldn’t be trying to give you any relationship advice. I’ve had a whole series of crappy boyfriends.”
In surprise Reven said, “I thought you were going with Nolan Marlowe?!”
Tiona shrugged, looking very sad. “We may be breaking up. Another in my long series of failures.” Her eyes came back up to focus on Reven and she quirked a wry grin, “You probably shouldn’t take any advice from me.”
Reven grinned at her, “Don’t give me relationship advice… Just teach me how to make Eddie jealous. That’s all I need.”
Tiona grinned back, “I think I know how to do that. Wanna go shopping tomorrow?”
Reven’s eyes widened, “Yeah!” She frowned, “But I don’t have very much money.”
Tiona said, “Think of it as an advance on the licensing fees for your sky-board.”
***
In her car on the way to pick up Reven, Tiona tried to steel herself to call Nolan. She still hadn’t had a serious conversation or even set a time to talk to him. She felt guilty about it. Sometimes she thought about how much fun she’d had being around Carolyn and thought that it was perfectly reasonable that Nolan would have spent time with the pretty blond. Other times she felt betrayed that he had. Every time she tried to picture calling him, she couldn’t decide how she would initiate a conversation when she did.
Sometimes she would decide that she’d answer the next time he called, thereby letting him begin the dialogue. But, he’d stopped calling—perhaps because she’d had her AI start replying to his calls with a message that she didn’t want to talk to him. A message she’d removed and felt guilty about now. But don’t I deserve a little more persistence than that? she asked herself.
She’d just opened her mouth to ask her AI to put through a call to Nolan when her AI said, “You have a call from Eldon Weiss.”
Relief washed over her that she didn’t have to talk to Nolan right now. Also, she felt excited to talk to Eldon, who she really liked. “Put him through… Hi Eldon,” she said, trying not to sound too excited, “what can I do for you?”
“Um,” he said, not sounding at all happy, “I’m trying to find out what’s going on with the next asteroid mission? You said I could go and I’ve been waiting to find out when I should show up. But since it’d been several days and I know they usually go out after a two-day layover, I finally called down to GSI to ask. Uh, they told me it’d already launched? Can that be? After all, you’re still here.”
Tiona’s heart had jumped into her throat when she realized that during the depths of her funk she’d forgotten that she’d promised Eldon a ride on the next mission. She didn’t want to tell him she’d forgotten him, but she didn’t really want to tell him the truth either. After a moment she settled for saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have told you that the mission parameters were changed. They’re going on a long mission to pick up a very large metallic asteroid and wouldn’t have time to stop off for prospecting other types like you want. I felt sure you wouldn’t want to go, but I should have checked in with you so you’d know what was going on.”
“Wouldn’t have time?” Eldon said doubtfully. “It only adds a couple of hours.”
“Well, yeah, but this is a three-week mission by itself so they’ll be getting pretty antsy about any added hours. Besides, you wouldn’t want to go on a mission that long anyway, would you?”
“I would if it might mean getting access to some more specimens,” he said. “Especially since it’d be happening during summer session when I’m not teaching. I’ve got a couple of papers I could be writing and some analysis I could do while we were in transit.” He sighed, “Are there any other missions going, or is this the only saucer that goes to the asteroids?”
Tiona found that she didn’t really want him going on a mission if she wasn’t getting to go with him. She wondered if she would have felt this way if her relationship with Nolan hadn’t tanked. It didn’t really matter that much though, since she could tell the truth on this one. “We don’t have as many space-worthy saucers as a lot of people assume. A lot of the saucers people see are ones that aren’t sealed for vacuum. They’re meant to work within the atmosphere for heavy construction, large object transport, firefighting and things like that. We’ve leased out quite a few twenty-five meter orbit capable saucers that are being used to launch satellites and deorbit junk, but they aren’t set up with radiation protection for deep space travel. At present NASA has the one we gave them on a long-term mission to Neptune. GSI has a pair out surveying the moons of Saturn and one chasing a comet. We only have the one seventy-five meter one that goes out to the asteroids and back.”
“That reminds me,” Eldon said, “I thought we were going to go look at that cometary type NEO that came around the sun?”
“Yeah, sorry. After I talked to you about it I realized that we were only going because somebody at NASA had their underwear in a bundle, wanting to know what it was right away. Essentially, they were asking us to invest significant resources so they could learn something that they’ll be able to determine without any significant expenditures if they just wait a few months.”
“But aren’t you curious yourself?” Eldon said, sounding very disappointed in her.
“Sure I am. But I’m also running a business. If I impractically expend large chunks of the resources of that business every time somebody wants an answer to a question now, at our expense, instead of a few weeks later for free, we’ll go broke.”
Still sounding disappointed, Eldon said, “I think you’re better funded than…”
Tiona interrupted, “But we won’t be if we start haring off over trivial questions every time some impatient nerd wants an answer now instead of tomorrow.” Tiona felt chastised and she was getting really irritated about it. Her car was descending at the Davis farm so she used that opportunity to say, “Sorry, I’ve have to go. Got a meeting.” She had her AI break the connection. Maybe I don’t like him as much as I thought.
Riding in Tiona’s flying car had Reven highly excited. She gawked out the windows and exclaimed over the views. When they’d landed at the mall, they couldn’t go in until Reven had had time to look at the big lift discs underneath the car, then in the trunk at the fusors and the thrust discs and finally under the front hood at the small electric motor that powered the brakes and the steering when they were on the ground. Not much of a girly girl, Tiona thought as she practically towed her away from the car. Reminds me of myself when I was younger.
Once they were in the stores, Tiona realized she’d really never had much experience shopping with other women. She knew her own sizes and how to find what she liked, but little about what might fit Reven, or look good on her, or be in style for her age group. They were in a store that catered to teens, wandering around and randomly trying on things, none of which seemed to work.
Tiona saw a salesgirl across the store who ap
peared to be about Reven’s size and coloration. She was a little older, but wearing a cute outfit that looked like it had been purchased there. Tiona made a beeline for her.
The girl looked a little apprehensive, probably because Tiona was focused on her all the way across the store. When Tiona arrived, the girl said, “Um, may I help you?”
Tiona pointed Reven out, “We’re buying clothes for that girl…” she paused at the sales girl’s moue of distaste. “Yeah, she’s not very stylish. That’s what we’re doing here—trying to fix that issue. You look like you know what’s in style and you’re probably about her size. I’m hoping you can help her pick out some stuff.”
The girl frowned, “That’s not my area of the store…” she began.
Tiona held up her hand to interrupt the girl while she spoke briefly to her AI. “I’ve just had my AI transfer $100 to your AI. There’s a lot more where that came from if you make this happen and do a great job.”
The girl’s eyes widened. Tiona thought that, working in a store that catered to teenagers, she’d probably never had anyone try to tip her before. Actually, she realized, most people that worked in these types of stores probably never got a tip. In a few minutes the girl had swapped her responsibilities to another girl and started towing Reven around the store, picking out stuff for her to try on.
Her arms loaded with clothing, Reven called a halt. “You can’t buy all these for me!”
Tiona pulled Reven off to the side a little and said, “Reven, I already have more money than I could spend in several lifetimes, GSI’s making me even more money, and someday I’ll inherit a lot more money from my dad. Think of it this way—by letting me spend money on you, which is a lot of fun, you’re actually doing me a kindness.”
Wide-eyed, Reven gave a jerky nod.
There followed a whirlwind orgy of clothing appraisal. Once the salesgirl knew that cost was no limit she was out pulling things off of hangers while Reven was putting them on in the dressing room. It quickly became obvious that Lisanne was right, Reven was hiding a slender, shapely body underneath her farmer’s clothing. Reven did draw the line at some things that she thought were too frilly, but the salesgirl quickly picked up on that as well. In about an hour, they had a substantial stack of snug jeans and varying lengths of dressier pants from shorts to a set of drag-the-floor bellbottoms that the salesgirl claimed were about to be all the rage. They also had a pile of blouses and tops, a couple of belts, and Reven had even agreed to a few skirts. The salesgirl said, “That’s all we really have here, but there’s some really nice stuff down at Delly’s and,” she glanced down at Reven’s feet, “you need some cute shoes! I can send you to a friend of mine at Delly’s and another one at Shoeshop if you like?
By the time they left the mall, the girl from Shoeshop had to help them carry all their bags. Tiona left three very happy salesgirls in her wake.
As they drove back to Reven’s place they were giddy for a bit. The conversation died out for a few minutes then Tiona hesitantly said, “If you’ll accept one bit of advice from someone who shouldn’t give advice because she’s had nothing but crappy relationships?”
At this Reven snorted, “I haven’t had any relationships, so I’ll take any advice I can get.” She glanced at Tiona, and gave her a wry grin, “You should at least be able to tell me what to avoid, right?”
“Yeah,” Tiona said with a depressed sigh. “Whether it’s any good or not, here it comes. Don’t chase after the handsome-sexy-jerk of a guy, thinking that once he loves you he’ll change his ways. Men are not fixer-upper’s. I’ve seen you in those new outfits and I can guarantee you your old friend Eddie’s going to be thinking about what he missed out on once he sees you in those clothes. But, if he gets friendly again, remember how he’s been treating you. Pick somebody else. Somebody who’s nice to you anyway, not just now that you’re the hot girl with the sky-board.”
Reven gave her a wide-eyed look, “I don’t look hot!”
Tiona lifted an eyebrow, “Yes you do. Oh, and,” she handed Reven a small tube, “try on this lip gloss, that’s all the makeup you should need.”
***
Though there was little for her to do, Levon reappeared on the bridge when they were ready to launch the lander. The massively muscular appearance of the lander crew’s high gravity, low oxygen bio-mods made her uncomfortable, so she avoided having much to do with them. The lander’s separation from the mothership proceeded without problems. They fired their big ion drive and the lander began to move away. Levon found herself on tenterhooks, looking for an excuse to leave the bridge and go down to the lander’s bay.
She’d be able to fly in the newly empty space!
Levon was just rising off of her rest to leave when Third Officer said, “Captain, do you wish to speak to the crew of the lander?”
“Why?”
“To, um, inspire them.”
Levon closed her eyes, irritated, but realized that a message from the Captain would be expected. “Connect me to them.” She paused for a moment, then assuming she was connected, began speaking, “Crew of the lander, the best wishes of the crew of the Flying Light go with you. In addition, remember that all of the Rendor people are depending on you as well. This system, while not perfect…” Levon realized she shouldn’t have said anything about the quality of the system. Other than the fact that they wouldn’t be able to fly on the oxygen bearing planet, the system actually met almost all of their needs. Hoping that no one had noticed this bobble in her speech, she continued, “has almost everything we need. We should be able to begin populating the larger body of the binary system as soon as you’ve eliminated any dangerous lifeforms. We’ll be able to float habitat in the thick atmosphere of the second planet. We’ll be able to build habitat underground on the fourth planet. We’ll be able to mine the plentiful asteroids of the system to build space habitat. Untold billions of rendas will be able to move here from the home system, many with only minor bio-mods.” She paused for dramatic effect, “Our first step begins with you and your genegineers. I know you must feel some trepidation as this is the first time we’ve had to eradicate an intelligent species and they’ll presumably try to resist your efforts. However, they must have very limited if any ability to modify DNA or they would have repaired the huge deserts that we can see on their world.” Levon paused, not quite sure how to conclude her speech. Finally, she simply said, “Do us proud.”
I think I did that well, Levon thought with some surprise. She glanced around at her officers and was offended to realize that they looked surprised as well. “I’m going to check the lander bay.”
Levon was initially angered when she arrived at the lander’s enormous bay and found several of the crew flying around in it. They were pretending to fly from one location in the bay to another in order to check on stowage and examine the small space sleds stored in there, but the number of long flights gave away the fact that they were mostly just enjoying themselves.
For a moment she considered banning them from the bay, but then realized she would have little excuse for coming down here and flying in it herself if they weren’t allowed to. Realizing that Third Officer was nearby, Levon flew over to Third and found great relief in it, though flying in a weightless environment was never as exhilarating as flying on a planet. She said, “It looks like I’m not the only one who’s been looking forward to a chance to fly. Set up a rotation so that all of the crew can come down here and fly occasionally.”
Though Third was surprised that Levon had expressed concern over the crew’s well-being, she kept it hidden. Maybe the captain’s recovering from whatever happened to her during transition, Third thought, I hope…
***
Tiona was on her way to GSI. It had been nearly 2 weeks since that fateful day she’d found Carolyn at Nolan’s house. She’d been spending a lot of time at GSI, getting involved in the science of thrusters, something she’d always told herself should be her field of interest, rather than gallivanting around the sola
r system. She worried that she was only trying to keep herself busy in order to avoid talking to Nolan. I’m a woman dammit! Aren’t we the ones who are always supposed to be telling our men, “We need to talk?” The men are the ones who’re supposed avoid confrontation and emotional discussions by going fishing. She’d actually seen Nolan several times—when Carolyn had invited her to go with them on some adventure! It was like she and Nolan had become one of the many planets orbiting Carolyn’s brilliant charisma. Tiona always had fun. She and Nolan acted friendly and talked about inconsequential things.
However they avoided the elephant in the room. Day after day she resolved to have a serious talk with him. To figure out where they were going. Yet, she always found something more important to do…
Her AI said, “You have a call from Dr. Kim Singer.”
Singer was the comet scientist at JPL who’d had her panties in a twist over the NEO. She’d been pretty pissed when Tiona told her that GSI wasn’t going to put on a special mission to go look at Singer’s fascinating object. For a moment Tiona considered talking to her, At least it’ll get my mind off of how I should be calling Nolan. However, Tiona didn’t want to listen to another harangue about how GSI owed it to the scientific community to shuttle Singer to look at the rock she was interested in. “Give her my apologies,” Tiona said, her mind already turning back to Nolan. I could at least send him a message…
Tiona’s AI said, “Dr. Singer says it’s an emergency.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be an emergency if you had to pay for it. Nonetheless, Tiona decided to accept the call and was about to say so when the AI said, “You have a call from Dante. He also says it’s an emergency.”
“I’ll take the call from Dante… Dante, what’s happened?!” Her mind was picturing some disaster. A habitat punctured by a meteoroid, a lift disc dropping a heavy load on a city, a message from one of the saucers out at Saturn with a thruster failure.
Vaz 4: Invaders Page 15