Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7)

by Dahners, Laurence

  Morgan eyed her with some surprise. How could someone so toned, so obviously physically fit, claim to be tired after ten minutes of skiing? If she was a struggling beginner Morgan could believe it, but Raquel showed no evidence that the run had been difficult for her. Nonetheless, she stood beside Raquel a few moments until the girl pushed off down the slope, once again fol cnce halowing, as near as Morgan could tell, tightly to the route Morgan thought Lane had followed going down that section.

  After that run they went down the mountain on the intermediate slopes again in the same fashion, with Raquel following exactly in the path of whoever skied ahead of her. Raquel continued stopping to “rest” every ten minutes or so, claiming to be worn out, but then skiing perfectly as soon as she’d rested a few minutes. On their third run down the mountain, Raquel finally began skiing freely on her own, rather than just imitating whoever had led. She even led the way down a couple of sections, when both Morgan and Lane had stopped with her while she rested.

  After that third run, Raquel said she wanted to go into the lodge for some of the hot chocolate she’d seen advertised. Morgan glanced at Lane, thinking that it seemed like the kind of thing someone would do who was just there to chase boys, not to really ski. But, she shrugged and said, “Sure, I could go for a hot chocolate myself.”

  Raquel said, “You don’t have to babysit me. You guys could make a run on your own if you wanted. Pick me up for the next one?”

  “No, hot chocolate sounds like a most excellent indulgence. Let’s head in.”

  Raquel said, “I’ll stand in the line for a hot chocolate for each of us while you guys get us a table. Would you like some donuts or something else to eat?”

  “No,” they laughed. “We’ll get a table.” Morgan said

  To Morgan’s complete astonishment, Raquel returned with three large hot chocolates, covered in whipped cream and a half dozen large donuts. Wide eyed, Morgan said, “Who’s going to eat all that!”

  Raquel stared in chagrin at the tray she’d brought, “I thought you might change your mind about the donuts. I guess I went a little overboard, huh? I was feeling pretty hungry after all that exercise though.”

  “Didn’t you eat breakfast?”

  Sitting down on the bench, Raquel said, “A little,” she ducked her head, looking embarrassed, “I kind of eat a lot though.”

  Lane straightened up and pointed out that the ski bums who’d been waving at them their first ride up the lift had just come in the lodge. Lane pulled off her stocking hat and swept fingers through her pale blond hair, fluffing it up. Morgan rolled her eyes but took off her cap too. Raquel grinned at the two sisters but left her hat on. The boys made their way over to the table. The one in front smiled at Lane and said, “Mind if we sit with you ladies? There aren’t any empty tables.”

  Lane said, “Sure.” Morgan glanced around and saw that, though there weren’t any empty tables, several had more empty seats at them than their own. One of the guys headed off to “get beers,” while the other two sat down next to Lane and Morgan. Morgan felt a little embarrassed to have these guys chasing afte c choff to “r them in front of Raquel. Then she worried that Raquel might get too friendly with one of the guys, which, as Shan’s sister she didn’t want to see.

  As usual, Lane turned on her flirty charm, getting introduced to Jordan and Axel. Lane then introduced Morgan and Raquel to them. The guys were students at CU Boulder.

  The third guy came back with three large beers and a big plate of nachos. He sat down across from Raquel. Lane asked his name and he said he went by “AJ.” Lane introduced him around to the others. When she got to Raquel the girl had just finished stuffing a donut in her mouth and couldn’t talk, but she stuck out a hand to shake, grinning amusedly at everyone. Swallowing, Raquel said, “What do you guys study in school?”

  Axel and AJ were in civil engineering. Jordan pridefully said he was studying aerospace engineering. Morgan found the way he said it annoying, as if he were bragging, but Raquel raised her eyebrows and said, “Aerospace? That’s cool. What do you want to do with it when you’re done?”

  “Oh, I’ve already got a job lined up working on the new space habitat being built by D5R.”

  “You do?” Raquel said, with a wide grin. “What’ll you be doing for them?” She took a big swig of her hot chocolate.

  Morgan thought it a little weird that Raquel didn’t tell him she worked at D5R herself. Jordan said, “I’m not sure yet. One of their recruiters contacted me, I guess because of my scores. She told me that I just needed to show up and they’d find work for someone like me.” He frowned a little, “She implied that they needed some design help for the next segments of their habitat. Some of it’s pretty complex you know?”

  Raquel just smiled and took a huge bite of another donut. Morgan felt that letting the conversation drop at the end of that little brag seemed kind of rude so she said, “Actually, Raquel works at D5R. Maybe you’ll be seeing more of each other in the future?”

  Jordan’s eyes widened, then narrowed a little. “What do you do there?”

  Raquel pointed at her full mouth a second as she chewed. When she’d swallowed, she said, “A little of this and a little of that.”

  “Kind of a ‘girl Friday’?”

  Raquel grinned and nodded, “Kinda,” she said, licking icing off a finger.

  “Does your section have anything to do with the habitat?”

  “A little,” Raquel said, picking up the last donut.

  Morgan’s eyes widened. Had anyone else eaten a donut? She glanced around, as far as she could tell Raquel had eaten all six! If she kept that up she wouldn’t have that amazingly slender figure much longer. Her eyes narrowed, unless my brother’s new girlfriend is bulimic?

  Lane pointed up at the big screen hanging nearby, “Hey, check out the newsfeed. It’s something about D5R.”

  They all looked up and saw a man waggling his fingers around. He twisted and turned them, picked up a ball ced m">and tossed it in the air. Wondering what the big deal was, Morgan dropped her eyes to the text runner, “… Mr. Parker has only had the D5R fabricated prosthetic hand for a few weeks. He can already do almost everything with it that a normal hand can do. As the amputee community has become aware of his phenomenal outcome they have besieged D5R and Dr. Hanson, the UNC surgeon who performed the procedure, for access to this technology…” Morgan looked back up at the video, now in a zoomed in loop of the other movements. That’s an artificial hand?!

  Lane turned to Raquel, “Did you know about that prosthesis?”

  Raquel shrugged, “A little.”

  “Holy crap! How did they keep that a secret?”

  “It wasn’t so much that it was a secret, as that no one thought it would work. It isn’t really newsworthy if you’re trying something crazy.”

  Morgan narrowed her eyes. It sounded that Raquel knew more than just “a little” about the project. She was about to ask just what Raquel really did there at D5R when Jordan stood up and said, “Let’s hit the slopes!”

  To Morgan’s astonishment, as they all got up, she realized that Raquel had eaten some of the guys’ nachos too. When Raquel headed into the bathroom before going out, Morgan tagged along to listen outside the stall. She worried that she’d hear the sounds of Raquel emptying her stomach. With a mixture of relief and concern she heard nothing to suggest it.

  In line for the lift, Lane managed to insinuate herself between Jordan and Axel, suggesting that AJ ride up with Raquel and Morgan.

  On the ride up Morgan turned to AJ, “So do you guys ski every weekend?”

  AJ stared up the mountain, “Jordan skis a lot of weekends. His family’s rich. I can only afford one trip a year.”

  Morgan looked him over, realizing that his equipment looked pretty well worn. “Where’d you grow up?”

  “Colorado Springs.”

  She glanced back at the chair behind them where she saw Lane leaning on Jordan and laughing. “Is Jordan as smart as he puts on?”


  “He’s pretty smart. He hardly ever studies and still gets reasonable grades.”

  Morgan lifted an eyebrow, “What does he do?”

  AJ grinned, “He’s the life of every party.”

  “So I should warn my sister away from him?”

  “Nah, he’s harmless and she’ll have fun…” then after a pause, he quietly said, “As long as she doesn’t expect too much.”

  At the top of the lift the boys turned left onto a somewhat difficult intermediate run. As Morgan expected, Lane followed them, and Raquel followed Lane. To Morgan’s relief Raquel showed no evidence of difficulty on that slope. Morgan saw Jordan looking back over his shoulder at th chouLane.em, then he pulled up to a stop at the top of one of the easier black diamond runs. “You girls up for some real skiing?”

  Lane hooted and said, “Let’s do it!”

  Morgan turned to Raquel with concern, “You think you can take this one? If not, you and I can take that one to the right and meet them at the bottom.”

  Raquel looked over the edge, “No, I think I can do that one now.”

  They started down, Jordan just as good as Morgan had expected, Lane pushing herself a little too hard, trying to keep up with him. The other two guys were both good skiers like you might expect in Colorado, though not in Jordan’s class. Then Raquel eased over the edge.

  Morgan’s eyes widened. Raquel didn’t do anything spectacular but she made the run down that difficult slope look easy and somehow… flowing… riding over and around the moguls like she was mounted on tall, soft springs. In fact it looked so easy that it gave Morgan the feeling that she wasn’t really going all that fast. Raquel didn’t lose any ground on the guys ahead of her even though they gave the appearance that they were skiing far harder than she was. Morgan dropped over the edge herself, thinking, the girl had to have been pulling our leg when she said she’d only done a little skiing.

  When Morgan pulled up to the bottom of that little run she saw that the next section was marked as a double black diamond. Her first reaction was that they’d need to take the “easy” crossing trail that they’d stopped on over a little to a less difficult slope for Raquel. Then she realized that if Raquel could make the run they’d just done look easy, that she’d almost certainly be fine on the double black. Morgan side stepped over next to Raquel, “What the hell? I thought you were supposed to have only been skiing a couple of times! How in the world did you conquer a black diamond run like that?” She raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  Raquel’s smile faded and her eyes widened. She glanced back up the slope they’d just come down and then over at some of the other runs that could be seen around the bowl. “Um, yeah… Sorry, I’ve skied more than I let on. It was when I was young so I didn’t think it would come back to me so quickly”

  Jordan looked up from where he’d been talking to Lane, “You ladies ready to go on down this next section?”

  Then they heard Shan’s voice from upslope, “Hey, wait up!”

  Looking up they saw Shan bombing down the run above them, skiing beautifully like Shan always did. He blasted out on to the little flat area where they’d stopped, slamming to a skater’s stop that threw snow onto Raquel and Morgan. He gave them a big grin. “What’s this? I leave you guys alone for a couple of runs and you’ve already picked up some strange men?”

  Raquel grinned at him, “Heck yeah, if I’m not gettin’ the attention I need from my current man, there’s no harm in finding another, is there?”

  Shan lowered an eyebrow, “Oh, I’ll give you some attention all right. con the”

  Lane quickly introduced Shan to the guys as her brother.

  Jordan said, “Let’s do this thang!” and dropped over the edge onto the double black. Lane edged over behind him. The other two guys did too.

  Shan looked after her, “Well, that was unsociable of my little sister.” He turned to Morgan, “I can run on down the easy trail with Raquel if you want to take that double black with Lane and your new boyfriends?”

  Morgan laughed, “Your girlfriend’s been holding out on you. She’ll be able to go down this double black. She’s a good skier. Show her the way and she’ll follow you down. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  Shan’s eyes widened. Then he sighed, Morgan would have sworn, in frustration. He pushed over the edge and blasted down the double black, pushing really hard as if trying to prove something. Too hard evidently, because he wiped out spectacularly, flailing around, losing both skis and skidding down the mountain in a cloud of snow. Chuckling Morgan turned to Raquel, “Men!”

  But Raquel was gone.

  In fact, she saw Raquel rocketing down the mountain in Shan’s wake, going faster than Morgan had ever seen anyone shoot such a steep, bumpy slope. Not on tall soft springs this time, more like short hard springs. Much of the time the girl caught air from one mogul to the next.

  Morgan braced herself for Raquel to start flailing down the mountain end over end behind Shan. The girl shot past the still skidding Shan and vanished in a huge cloud of snow just like Morgan had feared. However, when the cloud cleared, Raquel was below Shan, having caught him in her arms and brought him to a stop. Morgan realized that cloud of snow wasn’t from another spectacular crash, but had been blown up by a phenomenal, crashing skater’s stop on the steep side of the mountain. Morgan gaped after them a moment, then started picking her own way down the mountain, stopping to pick up Shan’s skis on the way. When she arrived she heard Raquel sniff and say, “Well of course I thought you were hurt! It looked like a couple of your limbs flew off back there!”

  Morgan’s eyes widened as she saw tears drying on Raquel’s cheeks. Sure, that was a spectacular wipeout, but why would an incredible skier like Raquel assume he’d been hurt?

  Shan reached out to wipe off the tear and said tenderly, “Hey Raq’, you do much more skiing, you’re going to see worse wipe outs than that. Really. I’m fine.”

  Much more skiing?! Morgan snorted to herself, Shan still has no idea! She must have been skiing since childhood! Wait ‘til he’s actually watched her ski, he’ll be sooo embarrassed!

  They made a few more runs, Lane pushing herself hard to keep up with Jordan. Axel tried to pair up with Morgan but she found herself much more attracted to the less racy AJ. Morgan caught Shan staring at Raquel while she ski cwhian. ed. Morgan had to admit watching the girl ski was really something to remember. No matter the difficulty of the slope, Raquel descended it gracefully and with elegance. The fact that her ski tights looked great on those stunning legs didn’t hurt either.

  Shan’s gaze sometimes looked admiring, at other times he followed her with a hunger in his eyes. But Morgan saw amused aggravation in his contemplation as well. “Hey Brudder, what’s that look?” she asked him, “Your girl’s an amazing skier, why’s that leave you looking all frustrated?”

  Shan snorted, “I could tell you,” he turned and gave her his best ominous look, then finished in a low raspy tone, “but then I’d have to kill you.” He pushed off down the next double black, forestalling more questions. Morgan shook her head. Shan seemed to be pushing really hard, as if he had something to prove. She hoped he didn’t blow out a knee.

  At the Kinrais family dinner that night Lane bubbled over with enthusiasm for Jordan and the other two guys they’d met. She had agreed to meet them that night at a local dance club and wanted Morgan to go along. “Shan, you and Raquel should come too. It’ll be a great time!”

  Shan hesitated, then said, “I’m up for going out dancing with my girl if she’s not too tired?” He waggled his eyebrows at Raquel.

  Raquel shrugged, “Sure.” She raised her own eyebrows. “Do they know how to clog here in Colorado?”

  “Hey! I can do other dances you know.” Shan turned to Lane and got a serious look on his face, “Hey Sis, it’s not my place to interfere, but I have a bad feeling about that guy. I think you’re just a conquest to him.”

  “Jordan? You’ve got to be kidding!” Lane’s face got red.
“You never like any of the guys I date, that’s a given. But, I’ll have you know Jordan’s some kind of genius. He’s graduating at the top of his class in aerospace engineering and already has a job at D5R designing their new space habitat. He’s going to be working with that Ell Donsaii you admire so much! In fact, he’s already given her advice about a better orbit for the habitat.” She snorted, “You know, he’s actually just the kind of guy you’re always trying to set me up with, though not so nerdy.” She raised an eyebrow, “He’s fun, unlike your dweeb friends you’ve had call me.”

  Shan turned to look questioningly at Raquel. She looked into his eyes and shook her head, then turned to Lane. “Hey,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship, and, obviously I don’t know everything that happens at D5R.” She shrugged, “But I can tell you with absolute certainty that D5R doesn’t have any recruiters out looking for talent and isn’t hiring anyone for a habitat design team. Jordan’s been lying to you about that… so maybe he’s lying about some other things too?”

  White faced and pinched, Lane said, “But you just said you didn’t know everythi cknongs tong that’s going on at D5R.”

  Quietly, Raquel said, “But I would know that.”

  Lane stared at her a few moments, then shook her head sharply, “I trust Jordan. I think this is just one of the things you don’t know.”

  Raquel shrugged, then smiled brightly. “OK, but in case you do want to check him out, my AI’s just sent you a link where you could read up on the D5R habitat. A few questions should help you figure out whether he really knows enough about its orbit to give Donsaii advice, huh?”

  Lane stared at Raquel hard and Morgan thought for a moment that Lane might explode and say something they’d all regret. Then she said, “OK, I’ll look at your website and ask him some questions… But you’ll see,” she said forcefully, “he’s really brilliant.” She got up and stalked to her room.

  They went out pretty late because Lane “didn’t want to get there before Jordan.” Nonetheless, when they got there, Jordan was nowhere to be seen. Obviously disappointed, Lane pulled Morgan out on the dance floor with her while Shan and Raquel went to buy drinks.