by Ben Bova
The new Trikon scientist, Hugh O’Donnell, had a lean and unpolished sexiness about him. But he also had the look of someone who had been around the block a few times. He would see right through her ruse. Besides, she sensed something inside him so tightly wound it was ready to snap. She did not want to be near him when the moment came.
That left the crew.
Carla Sue mixed herself another squeeze bottle of coffee as the wardroom crowd dwindled for the last time. Lance Muncie and Freddy Aviles prepared their breakfasts at different galley stations, then settled at the adjacent table. Forget Freddy, thought Carla Sue. He was a freak, a cripple. No telling how much his accident had taken away from him.
Lance Muncie. The name echoed slowly in Carla Sue’s mind. She shaped it on her lips without making a sound. She had outgrown her taste for boys still wet behind the ears. But Lance seemed well suited for her plan. Physically, he was everything Kurt Jaeckle was not: young, tall, with the powerful body of a colt and the wheat-and-sunlight coloration of Middle America. He still wore the wide-eyed, slightly baffled expression of a kid seeing the world for the first time. Plus, the rumor mill said he had girlfriend trouble back home. Carla Sue patted her lips with a napkin. Lance Muncie was her man.
Carla Sue slipped her feet from the restraining loops and sailed over to the next table, her lips arranged in her Homecoming Queen’s smile. Freddy greeted her and nudged Lance to do the same. Lance obliged, though not very warmly, then turned his attention to his rehydrated scrambled eggs.
“So what’s your secret?” asked Carla Sue.
Lance was startled to realize Carla Sue was talking to him. He shot a nervous glance at Freddy, but saw only the gold canine catching a gleam from the overhead lights.
“Secret?” he asked. Halfway through a swallow, his voice was an octave higher than usual.
“For your muscle tone,” said Carla Sue.
Lance had one arm crooked around his tray. The exertion of keeping his arm flat on the table exposed long cords of well-defined sinew. Carla Sue held her hand a half inch above that arm as if tempted but not daring to stroke it. Her fingers were long and elegant. The nails were short, shorter than Becky kept hers, but neatly manicured. Lance shot another glance at Freddy. This time Freddy winked.
“It must be the eggs,” said Carla Sue.
“Eggs?” Lance guffawed. “It’s not eggs ma’am. It’s hard work.”
“I work hard, too,” said Carla Sue. She rolled up her sleeve and placed her bare arm alongside Lance’s. Lance recoiled, but could move his arm only so far before it lodged against the side of the tray. Carla Sue persisted. She laid her arm right on top of his, wrist to wrist, elbow nestling into elbow. Lance felt the warmth of her skin. A chill rolled up his arm and coursed down his spine. He wanted to move, but his arm was wedged between hers and the tray. It would take effort to extricate himself; he did not want to appear impolite.
“But even allowing that you’re a strong man and I’m just a weak little girl, I don’t have your tone.”
“Maybe you don’ work right,” said Freddy.
“Now that is a distinct possibility,” said Carla Sue. She looked at Lance with her lips trembling between a pucker and a pout. “I follow the regimen, but the regimen just might not be right for me. I think I need a coach.”
“Well—” Lance felt himself melting under the intensity of her blue eyes, the earnestness of her milky smile.
“Lance a good coach,” said Freddy. “He know the body, the human body. He can coach you real good.”
“Freddy—”
“Could you, Lance?” Carla Sue squeezed his hand. “I truly would appreciate it.”
“Well, you see—”
“Sure he could,” said Freddy. “You just name the time.”
“I usually work out about nine,” she said. “It leaves me plenty of time to cool down before bed.”
“At nine I’m supposed to—”
“He’ll be there,” said Freddy.
“The exercise room at nine this evening. See you then.” Carla Sue sailed out of the wardroom before Lance’s stammering could resolve into a negative response.
“What did you do that for?” asked Lance.
“You need to get your mind off Becky.”
“But I’m supposed to help you with your project. I do every night.”
“I don’ need your help tonight.”
“I can’t exercise with her. People will get the wrong idea.”
“There’s no idea to get.”
“But she’s Jaeckle’s girlfriend. You remember what that guy said back at the Cape.”
“Lance, my frien’,” said Freddy. “That guy don’ know shit. You work out with this lady at nine, eh?”
“This is how you do it,” huffed Lance between pulls on the rowing machine. “Extend and pull, extend and pull. Full range of motion.”
Carla Sue, wearing a white Danskin to set off the remains of her tan and hot-pink leg warmers to bulk up her nonexistent calves, floated beside his shoulder. She and Lance were the only people using the exercise equipment. In the farthest corner of the ex/rec room, Chakra Ramsanjawi and Hisashi Oyamo were at their nightly game of chess. Carla Sue could feel them staring in between moves.
“You try,” said Lance. He released the belt and drifted off the rowing machine.
With her ankles and knees primly pressed together, Carla Sue positioned herself over the machine and pulled herself onto the seat. She cinched the belt at the last hole, but her waist was so thin that some play remained. On her first pull, she rose slightly off the seat.
“Extend,” said Lance.
“I can’t,” Carla Sue said with a helpless trill. “I’m bobbing against this belt like a cork.”
“Oh,” said Lance. He brought one hand to his chin and inspected the situation. “Belt’s as tight as it will go.”
“I know that,” said Carla Sue. “I’m too slim.”
“Try again,” said Lance. He spun so that he had a proper view of the seat and Carla Sue’s butt. Carla Sue tugged at the oars.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “Belt’s too loose.”
“Does that mean I can’t exercise?”
“No. It means we should fix the belt.”
“Oh,” said Carla Sue. She gathered her lips into a classic pout. “Fix the belt if you want, but a real gentleman would hold my shoulders down.”
Reluctantly, Lance swung himself into position behind her. He hooked his feet to the bottom of the machine and placed his hands on her shoulders. He looked over at the chess game; Oyamo and Ramsanjawi stared at the board.
Carla Sue started to pull. Lance could feel the thin strands of muscle gathering and rolling beneath her skin with each repetition. He could hear the soft hum of her breath. He looked at the ceiling, at the other exercise machines, at the dart board, the chess game, anywhere but at the mane of blond hair and the thin thighs working below him. Chakra Ramsanjawi caught his eye and winked.
Lance felt something touch his hand. It was smooth and soft, with a hint of moist warmth. Carla Sue was nuzzling his hand with her cheek. He tried to move, but the pressure on his hand was too insistent.
At the urging of Freddy, Lance was wearing gym shorts and a tank top. He always hung loosely inside gym shorts and felt naked, as he often did in dreams. Now he was anything but hanging loose. He turned slightly so that Ramsanjawi could not see that he had an erection.
After the workout, Carla Sue suggested that they go to the observation blister.
“There is no better way to cool down,” she said, “than to watch a few thousand miles of Earth turning below you.”
Lance followed like a puppy dog.
They closeted themselves in the blister as Trikon Station passed over midday on the Indian subcontinent. Lance chattered about the jagged lines of rivers visible through large breaks in the cloud cover. Carla Sue dabbed a towel behind her ears. Whenever she moved too close to him, he seemed to drift away. But eventually, s
he maneuvered him to the edge of the bubble, against the bulkhead. Lance grew quiet, like a jackrabbit who senses a predator. Carla Sue hooked her ankle around his and, turning, wedged herself between him and the dome. He started chattering again, but she quieted him by pressing a toweled finger to his lips. She slowly withdrew her finger and replaced it with her mouth. He resisted with clenched teeth, but eventually he relaxed and accepted her tongue. She nudged her hand beneath the elastic band of his shorts. He tried to recoil, but there was nowhere to go.
“Feel good?” she said into his mouth.
“Uh-huh.”
“Just wait until I wrap my lips around it.”
“What?” A spasm coursed through Lance’s body, dislodging Carla Sue from her position atop him and tumbling her across the blister.
“Lance!”
But he was hitting at the doorlatch with the heel of his hand, his gym shorts riding low enough to expose a block of firm flesh. He pushed open the door and flew up into the Mars module, his feet fluttering like a bullfrog’s. “Well, I’ll be …” said Carla Sue. She felt like her grandmother.
Harry Meade poked his head out from the bristling shrub. The canyon wall was dark gray. Only a few bright stars and a smudge of moon were visible in a dirty sky turned orange by the distant lights of Los Angeles.
A breeze kicked up a dust devil near the footlights that fringed the driveway. Meade tucked his chin beneath the collar of his jacket, his two-day stubble grating like sandpaper on the leather. The days were hot, but the heat dissipated quickly in these canyons after dark. And everything was so dry. Even the plants seemed as dry and lifeless as theater props. They had spines and needles and branches that seemed to twist into barbs. One kept sticking him in the ass every time he moved.
The house resembled a Mexican hacienda, nestled between the loop of a circular driveway and the base of the canyon wall. A souped-up sport Jeep, its red finish reflecting the driveway’s footlights, was parked at the front steps.
Meade checked his watch. It was nine-thirty p.m. local time, which meant that it was five-thirty A.M. in London. Sir Derek had ordered him to phone at eight o’clock sharp.
Meade nervously slapped a pair of black calfskin gloves in the palm of one hand. The front door opened and out walked a thin man with a mass of dark curly hair, wearing a dark leather jacket. The man threw a briefcase onto the passenger seat of the Jeep, then climbed behind the wheel. The engine ignited with an explosion that echoed off the canyon walls. As the Jeep sped down the driveway, Meade noticed its vanity license plate: PW ESQ.
Meade waited for the sweep of the headlights to disappear and for the roar of the engine to die away. He pulled on the gloves, working his fingers snugly into the soft leather.
The smooth rubber soles of his Clarks made no sound on the pavement. The front door was carved oak inlaid with brass. Meade removed a wire from a pouch that hung from his belt. He inserted it into the keyhole and twisted it around until the lock released.
The security system began to whine, warning Meade that he had sixty seconds to tap the proper four-digit code on the little keyboard mounted on the wall just inside the door. He swiftly pulled a tiny black box from his pocket and clamped it over the complaining keyboard. Four digits lit up in the box’s tiny LED screen. Meade removed the box, tapped out the numbers. The whining stopped and the panel’s blinking red light turned steady green. He let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding. Then he made a mental note to arm the security system again before he left.
The foyer of Pancho Weinstein’s house was lit by brass lanterns hanging from exposed beams. The floor was terracotta tile. Meade crossed the foyer to a darkened room with an arched door. Shining a flashlight, he saw a glass-and-brass desk, oak file cabinets, and shelves stuffed with thick legal texts. Pancho Weinstein’s office.
The cabinets were locked but opened with a twist of wire. The drawers rolled on silent bearings. Meade riffled through the files until he found one designated O’Donnell. It was empty except for a retainer agreement signed in a spidery hand by a Cornelius O’Donnell and several letters written by Weinstein in connection with a probate matter.
Meade squeezed the file back into the drawer. His breath was hot in his nostrils. Goddammit, he thought. He had to find out something about O’Donnell. Otherwise he would have to face an unhappy Sir Derek.
Meade searched through every drawer of every file cabinet. There was no other mention of any O’Donnell. He considered rushing into L.A. itself. Weinstein had another office downtown. Maybe the real O’Donnell files were stored there.
But there was scant possibility of making it in time to phone Sir Derek. He was about to fail, and Sir Derek’s tolerance for failure had been rather low of late.
The voice of a woman singing drifted into the room, then faded. Meade held his breath. The voice rose again. It seemed to be coming from far away. Upstairs or outside, perhaps. Meade returned the flashlight to his pouch and drew his 9-mm Beretta from its shoulder holster. Carefully, quietly, he slid the action back to jack a round into the firing chamber. Then he walked out into the foyer, both hands on the gun, breathing checked, ears alert for sounds. The singing had stopped, but he could hear the faint lapping of water.
He stole up the stairs. Light was coming from the open door at the end of the upstairs hallway, slightly veiled by a billow of steam. Meade stepped into the bedroom, noiselessly. The air was filled with the dewy sweetness of a woman’s bath oil.
The bathroom door was ajar. Meade edged along the wall until he could see inside. The floor was white marble, partially covered by an oval rug that looked like a black animal skin. In the center of the floor was a raised bathtub brimming with bubbles, and amid the bubbles was a woman. She had short blond hair, but after dipping her head back into the water it turned reddish brown. She lifted a leg and ran a razor along the back of her calf.
Meade leaned out of sight. The woman had to be Stacey, who Chakra Ramsanjawi discovered had once been O’Donnell’s girlfriend but now lived with Weinstein. Maybe, he thought, he wouldn’t need to read a file.
Meade pulled a nylon ski mask over his head. By the time he had all the holes lined up correctly, he could hear the slapping sounds of Stacey leaving her bath. He peeked around the door. She stood with her back to him, one foot on the floor and the other raised on the side of the tub as she toweled herself dry. She was small, almost boyish, with muscular legs and a lean bum.
His shoes made no sound on the marble floor. He grabbed her from behind, wedging her jaw in the crook of his arm and pressing the gun to the top of her head. Her scream died in her throat. She kicked back at him, but her heels bounced harmlessly off his shins.
He dragged her to the mirror. Condensation rolled down the glass, but she could see well enough to make out the ski mask and the gun. Her body went rigid with fear.
“Now, little lady,” whispered Meade. “All I want is to ask you a few questions about Hugh O’Donnell.”
Stacey mumbled into his elbow.
“We’re interested in the chap, you see. But we can’t find out much about him.”
Meade loosened his grip on her jaw so she could speak.
“Don’t know him,” her voice sputtered.
Meade raised her off the floor and leaned hard against her buttocks so that the sharp edge of the vanity’s counter cut across her crotch.
“I don’t have time for games, Stacey.” He felt her body shudder at the sound of her name. “We know about O’Donnell’s business, we know about the lawsuit, we know you threw him over for his lawyer.”
“Don’t know him,” she gasped.
Meade slammed her against the vanity and traced the gun barrel along her quivering lips.
“Don’t know him, eh? Well, he knows you. Talks about you all the time. He knows you went looking for him at the motorcycle club. Are we talking about the same person you don’t know?”
With great effort she nodded, her delicate chin burrowing into the crook of his elbo
w.
“You talk and I leave. Understand?”
She nodded again; Meade relaxed his pressure a notch.
“His name isn’t O’Donnell,” she said with a trembling voice. “At least it wasn’t when we were together. His name was Jack O’Neill. Owned his own biotech business. Had big ideas about turning it into a million-dollar company. Some environmental group took him to court and he hired Pancho to get him out of trouble. But they didn’t get along. Pancho’d try to give him advice, but he’d never listen. Screwed the whole case up. He couldn’t take things going bad. He used to dabble with drugs. Nothing much, maybe a gram of coke here and there. But that trial set him off. Did everything. Coke. Speed. Name it. Couldn’t work. Borrowed money. Lost friends. Lost me. Disappeared.”
“When?”
“Late ninety-five. Can’t remember. Owed me a lot of money. Pancho too. For the case. I didn’t care. Pancho did. Hired a detective. Found him at Simi Bioengineering. New name, but it was him.
“Pancho traced back. Jack was arrested on a drug charge under his old name, but the case was never prosecuted. Popped up at a rehab clinic in Encino as Hugh O’Donnell. Somebody was footing the bill. We never found out who. Then he landed the job at Simi. Started a motorcycle club for ex-addicts and ex-alcoholics. Yeah, I went looking for the motorcycle at the club. Title’s in my name.”
Meade noticed tears dripping down his elbow. Stacey was crying.
“That it?” he said.
“I don’t know what else you want!”
Meade had ideas, but he didn’t have time. He bent Stacey over with his elbow digging into her spine and her tiny breasts mashed against the countertop. His free hand groped through the equipment in his belt pouch until he found the syringe. It contained enough tranquilizer to knock out a hippopotamus.