In the reduced lighting it was difficult to get a read, but she looked a bit older than the average spacer and she was dressed—not just dressed up, but dressed. She had on an impeccably tailored blouse in what might have been white or pale blue. The lights made it difficult to tell, but it was a very light color. She wore a dark-gray, wool jacket over it. I couldn’t really tell because of the way she sat, but I thought she was wearing matching slacks. In the one word description category, she defined class.
I found it very interesting given the locale. If she were with a group, it would have made more sense, but she sat alone at a table where she had the only chair.
I faded into the woodwork for a time and watched. She sat alone but apparently relaxed, which was unusual even for a woman alone in a restaurant, let alone a spacer bar.
I crossed to where she sat, deliberately moving into her line of sight before coming toward her. “I hate to drink alone. May I join you?”
Her eyes flicked to my face then went back to looking at nothing out in the distance. “That line was old even when I was your age, kid,” she said but had a bit of a smile. I took note that she didn’t say no.
“All the good ones have been old for much longer than that, I suspect.” I smiled back. “I still don’t like to drink alone.”
“Sorry, kid. Only one chair and I’m not getting up,” she said, not even looking this time.
“Chairs are not the problem. If you tell me to leave, I’ll be gone.”
She looked at me then, in a quick up and down motion, before staring back at nothing. “I’m old enough to be your mother. Do you have some kind of Oedipal complex?”
“Actually, and not to be rude, but I think you’re old enough to be my grandmother. That’s a comment on my age, not yours. Besides which, I have no desire to kill my father and you don’t seem to be the Jocasta type.”
She looked at me directly for the first time. “Jocasta?”
“Oedipus’s mother. Her name was Jocasta. You don’t seem much like her.”
“Did you know her well?” she asked with an amused smile.
“No, but you don’t seem the type to hang yourself,” I told her.
“Don’t be too sure.”
I smiled at her then and stuck out a hand. “Call me Ishmael,” I said.
“Is that some kind of comment about me being a whale?” she blurted.
I shook my head. “No, Ahab was obsessed with whales. Ishmael was just swept up in his wake, as it were. And I’m not that Ishmael.” I kept my hand out. “Are we going to play stump the chump in the literature category all night or are you going to introduce yourself?”
She looked me in the eye for the first time. She had beautiful eyes but they were so sad. They were also calculating. Finally her lips curled up on one side in a charmingly crooked grin, and she slipped a cool, smooth hand into mine. “Cassandra.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.
She was still looking me in the eyes and she hadn’t let go of my hand. “What do you think, Ishmael?”
“I think I need to find a chair,” I told her but made no move to reclaim my hand.
She nodded one tiny nod, slipped her hand from mine, and used one of those well manicured fingers to indicate which chair she thought I should fetch. I knew right then that I was in for an interesting evening. I pulled up the chair and settled across from her where I could watch her face. She drank without speaking. Delicate sips, looking into the glass each time as if to verify the location of the loose pieces of ice. I nursed my gin and tonic. It was my first and I suspected it would be my last of the evening. I was not much of a drinker, although I appreciated the social lubrication that such rituals provided. We didn’t speak again for quite a while.
Finally she asked, “Are you always like this?”
I considered the question with a great show of pondering. “No, sometimes I’m much worse.” There was something familiar about her. I could not place it. It wasn’t the perfectly coifed, cropped, gray hair. It wasn’t her face. She did not look like anybody I recognized. Despite my earlier comments, she looked Roman or Greek with a strong nose, direct eyes, firm chin, and lips I needed to stop thinking about before things got out of hand.
“Okay, Ishmael,” she said. “What’s the game?”
“No game. I walked in, got a drink, and sought the most interesting looking woman I could find. That would be you, and so far you’re living up to my expectations.”
“I’m an interesting looking woman?” she asked with a disbelieving chuckle. “What does a buck like you find interesting in a woman old enough to be his grandmother?”
“Well first, I never knew my grandmothers, so I don’t have any preconceived notions on that front. Second, you’re sitting alone in a spacer bar. That’s interesting. My sense is that people come here to drink and to socialize. You’re doing the drinking, although not very much and not very fast. I’m curious as to why you’re alone. Last, you’re wearing one of the most exquisite suits I’ve ever seen and I’d bet it was tailored for you. Spacers don’t come here in suits like that. So, you’re an enigma.” I smiled and took a drink without taking my eyes off her. “And I like a woman with a little mystery.”
By then we both finished our drinks and the waitress came over. “Whatever the lady is having and I’ll take a ginger ale,” I told her.
Cassandra snickered as the waitress was leaving. “Ginger ale?”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you want to get drunk first?” There was a shadow of bitterness in that question.
“First?” I asked.
“Before you make a pass at me?”
“Oh, I already did that.”
“What? You’re drunk?”
I shook my head, “Made the pass. I’m just waiting to see how it gets received.”
“You’re serious,” she said with a strange smile.
“What are you doing here, Cassandra? You’re not where you need to be.”
“Oh? And you know where I need to be?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t know you well enough to know that, but here doesn’t seem like a good place for you. If I had to guess, I’d say you know that too. But here you are anyway.”
“Why not? Can’t a woman go out on her own?” she asked, challenge in her tone.
“That’s not what I’m saying, but something’s wrong here and I can’t put my finger on it.” I shook my head. “This is a meat market, but you didn’t come here to get laid. I don’t think you know why you came here.”
“You don’t know anything, kid,” she said, sliding her empty glass away from her with a flip of her fingers.
The waitress brought our drinks. I paid and gave her a nice tip. When I looked back, Cassandra was closed off again. That eerily familiar feeling was beginning to bother me.
“Why did you come here, Cassandra?” I asked.
“I can go where ever I like,” she snapped.
The DJ finished his setup and started making a lot of noise at that precise moment. Cassandra seemed almost startled by it in spite of the fact that she’d been sitting there not ten meters from him for the last half stan. We were way too close to the speakers.
I stood up, downed my drink like it mattered, and skittered the empty across the table. I held my hand out to her and nodded toward the door. She looked at her drink, looked at my hand, and back at the drink. The music went into a particularly painful riff and she stood, leaving the drink but taking my hand. I led her out of there and we made our way to the lift.
She walked beside me. I held on to her hand and she did not try to reclaim it. It reminded me of Alvarez in a way. She stayed closed off. I wondered what she was thinking but it was still turning out to be an interesting evening. We got on the lift and I punched six.
“Do you know where you’re going?” she asked, pulling her hand from mine and crossing her arms in front of her.
I shook my head. “Somewhere up there. Six should have restaurants and shop
s. Not too many people around so we can walk without getting bumped into. But not so few people that I need to worry about you trying anything funny with me.”
She had a dazzling laugh.
In the light of the lift she was absolutely striking. Yes, she was probably sixty, but as Sandy had pointed out, that was barely middle aged. She had a classically gorgeous face and the gray in her hair wasn’t solid like I had thought when in the bar. It was more of a silvery highlight in her pale blonde hair. She stole my breath. The suit emphasized the lushness of her body, and while she was only a little taller than I was, still statuesque.
“What?” she asked.
I blinked and looked away, not even aware I had been staring. “I’m sorry. Seeing you in the full light took me by surprise. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but the light in that bar was rather faint and while I knew you were something, I had no idea you were this beautiful.”
“Please…spare me.” It wasn’t just a bitter edge in her voice; it was bitter to the core. Bitter enough to drip on the lift’s deck and sizzle on the metal.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “Spare you?”
The lift opened and we walked out. She was as stiff as a titanium cross-brace. “Spare me, pup, you think I don’t know what you’re doing?” Her voice was raised and a couple on the other side of the corridor looked over to see what the commotion was about.
I looked at her for a long moment. “Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me, Cassandra,” I said at last.
Noticing the curious stares of the people around us, she turned away from the lift and started walking. There’s something about station corridors. You can’t just stand in them. I don’t know if it’s the curved horizon that drags you forward, but she was no more immune to whatever force it was than anybody else I knew. I fell into step and waited. “I have a mirror,” she said bitterly.
“Perhaps you should let somebody check it out. It seems to be reflecting badly.”
“Do you take me for an idiot?” she spat.
“Well, I didn’t up to now, but you may convince me yet.” I was afraid I knew what this was about. I had seen this before and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
“Oh, give me a break!” She turned on me and got right in my face. She was actually about three centimeters taller than me. Not a lot but enough that she could look down. “I’m an old woman! I’ve had more men try to get into my pants than you can imagine. That ‘oh, you’re so beautiful’ line might work on young chickies but you can’t expect it to work on an old bat like me. What do you take me for?”
Gods, she was magnificent. I just looked at her with a smile and noticed that there was a closed shop behind her with a glass window in the door, I caught her arm and whirled her about so she could see her face in that mirrored glass. I never would have been able to move her if I hadn’t caught her by surprise. I pointed to the window. “You’re magnificent. Look at that face!” I grabbed her chin and tilted it to the side. “Yes, you’re older than me, but if the problem is that I’m too young then I can accept that. Truthfully, I probably don’t have much to offer someone like you. But if this is what it means to be an old woman then I can’t wait to get old enough to take you on because you’re worth any ten of those young chickies that seem to have you so bothered.” I caressed the side of her face and watched the way my hand moved across her cheek and skin, tracing the cheekbone. “Look at that structure. There’s a woman there—somebody who’s worth spending time with.” I slipped my fingers through her hair, still watching her in the mirror and slowly getting a hand full of the softly cropped hair at the back of her head. I gave it a little tug and felt the resistance but also the quickening in her breath. “Look at that magnificent creature. So alive I can barely stand to look at her for fear of her fire.” I released her hair and let my hand slide down her neck as I slipped an arm around her from behind. I hugged her to me so I could reach my mouth up to her ear. “Look at that shape,” I whispered. “That’s the shape of a woman—a fully grown woman, not some half developed child.” I pulled the tails of her coat back and let my left hand trail down her side, cupping her hip bone before moving down the outside of her thigh, smoothing the luxurious fabric. I looked at her eyes in the mirrored glass and said, “That’s what your mirror should be showing you.” I gave her a tick or two to look. “If it’s not what you’re seeing, maybe you need to get your eyes checked.”
We stood like that for several heartbeats and finally she let out a quivery breath, and smiled at me in the glass. “Damn, you’re good,” she said, a little laugh in the back of her throat.
I knew at that instant who she reminded me of. I shrugged and said, “Classical training. Don’t underestimate the value of a liberal arts education.” I had no idea what the phrase meant, but it was something I heard around the house a lot as a kid.
She straightened away from me and I let her go, letting my hands slide across her body in a farewell caress. She turned to me and started to say something, but I stepped in close and kissed her mouth very, very gently. She kissed me back. It was wonderful but in two heartbeats, it was over.
I stepped back to give her room. “You were about to say goodnight, weren’t you,” I said.
She looked at my face for a long moment. “Yes, I was. But thank you for the use of the mirror.” She reached out with one of those long-fingered, cool hands and cupped my cheek in her palm. “It’s the circumstances, Ishmael Wang.”
“I understand,” I said and added, “Captain.”
Surprise splashed across her face. “Captain?” she asked.
“You are a captain of one of the ships docked here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m not in uniform. Guessing an officer, okay I can get that, but how did you know I was a captain? It wasn’t a guess, was it?”
“No, not a guess.” I turned my mouth into the palm of her hand and kissed it. “You could be naked and I’d still know.”
She caressed my cheek before withdrawing her hand. “Now that’s a line I haven’t heard,” she said, the edge of a grin curling her lips. “I’m half tempted to test it out.”
“Goodnight, Captain. Safe voyage,” I said, then I turned and left her there while I went back to the ship alone.
Chapter Twelve
Betrus Orbital
2352-June-12
Breakfast woke me. Rather the need for breakfast did. I had gotten back to the ship early and took the opportunity to go for a long run and relax in a much-needed sauna. I did not know which ship Cassandra was from and it was just as well. It pained me to see her hurting so much. I hoped I’d helped her, but I’d probably never find out.
Pip was on the mess deck and grinned when he saw me coming. “There you are! I saw you more when you were an engineer.” He started throwing together an omelet for me.
I grinned. It was true. “Well, if you weren’t sneaking off the ship through the cargo lock all the time,” I teased him. “How’d the co-op do yesterday? And don’t be so stingy with the mushrooms!”
“It went well. I think they’ve cleared a hundred creds anyway. I missed the final tally for the day, but it was well up there by afternoon. How are you holding up?”
“It’s nerve-wracking,” I told him. “I keep hoping against hope that something will break, but I have no idea what. There are a couple of open berths with other companies out there now, but I can’t see anybody on the crew going for any of them. Unless somebody leaves, we’re full, and I’m surplus.”
“Well, you’re still here now. What are you always saying? Trust Lois?”
“Oh, I do. There’s stuff flying around behind the scenery. I have no idea what, but there’s stuff flying.”
“What are you up to today?” he asked.
“I need to get some sleep. I’ve got the night watch and the last twelve hours on the gangway was hard enough during the day. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like at 03:00 tomorrow.”
“I’ll make sure the urn’s full
for ya. You remember where we keep the coffee if you need to make a pot, right?” he teased.
“Funny man. I think I can figure it out.”
He slipped the omelet on a plate and I went to find a seat. I was the only one there which made choosing easy. I just took the first one. Pip came out to sit with me while I ate.
“Where were you last night?” I asked. “I was looking for you to go out around 20:30.”
“Oh, I ran into that pair from the Alistair at the flea. Jeanette and Katie?”
“The tag team with the bet from back on Dunsany?”
“Yeah, that’s them. They wanted me to prove it wasn’t a fluke.”
“Tsk! Tough break for you—all that performance pressure.”
“Well, I took it as a complement on my warm and sensitive nature,” he said self-righteously. “And I keep my fingernails clipped. So what do you have planned for today?”
“I’m gonna go up to the flea this afternoon and see if I can find anything to buy.”
“Well,” he said, “don’t get too carried away. My mass allotment is only fifty kilos.”
“Oh,” I suddenly realized a further implication of my leaving. Pip and I had pooled our mass allotments and traded jointly. “How’s the batik going?”
“Very well—we sold about half of it already. Nothing to write home about in terms of profit, but we’ve broken even on the prints already and only sold half so we’re on track to double that. It’s all we can do at this point,” he said.
“Well, that and be ready to jump on any opportunities that come our way.”
“Did you jump on any last night?” he asked with a leer.
“I met someone interesting and we went for a walk. Beyond that, a gentleman doesn’t tell,” I informed him primly.
“Well, I know that. That’s why I asked you.”
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