He whispered back, “Is it wrong to say that you’ve got me seriously turned on?”
She smirked and said through a bite, “You’re always turned on.”
“Yeah, but this is a different kind of turned on. I can’t believe the way you kicked that woman’s ass.”
“So you keep saying.”
“I imagine that you could kick my ass.”
“You imagine correctly.”
“That turns me incredibly and shockingly on.”
“Keep it in your pants.”
“I think I love you.”
“In your pants.”
Tanaka raised a small sake cup. “So, we’re in agreement. You will act as agent for our product on the colonies that our English friends have not already arranged for.”
Caleb raised his cup. “And Hanson as well. We’ll try anyway.”
Everyone joined him in raising a cup. Georgie Boy said, “We managed Soul. Hanson’s an ‘ard nutter to crack, mates.”
Spruck held his cup higher and said with a slight slur, “To cracking Hanson. Shouldn’t be hard with product like this.”
“Kanpai!” said Tanaka.
“Kanpai,” said the rest in return, clinking their cups and throwing back the sake.
Part Four: Arrival
Chapter Twenty-Three: Harry’s Bar
A light groan of dismay escaped Caleb’s lips as the smell of fresh cut Vermont grass evaporated from his dream. Like the last puff of smoke from a snuffed candle, the dream was suddenly gone, replaced instead with cold empty space. Rather than a lazy day lounging on a broad lawn overlooking the Chesapeake, Caleb woke to the Sun streaming into the cockpit of the Diamond Girl and blazing a line across his eyes. Somehow, one of the mirrored panels that Harry counted on to direct the feeble sunlight onto his crops had been knocked out of alignment. As Caleb pushed himself back out of the bright line, he spotted the sexbot that Spruck had dumped his latest earnings on. The extraordinarily beautiful looking machine was making a walk of shame back to Harry’s bar. But for a pair of go-go boots that shuffled along in efficient baby steps, the Asian looking model was naked, its bright white skin glowing against Rhea’s gray moonscape.
With a groan, Caleb stretched and felt his head pound with an epic hangover. His mouth tasted like he had licked the floor of the bar. His memory of the previous night was thin enough that he didn’t doubt the possibility. He needed to get one of Harry’s cure-all greasy breakfasts into his gut pronto. A beer wouldn’t hurt, either. Reluctantly climbing back into his filthy elastoware, he put a text out to the rest of the gang to let them know he was going to eat. They could join if they wanted. A rooster crowed feebly beyond the main cabin bulkhead, the bird hopelessly pecking away at its cage in the ship’s storage. The squawk wasn’t sounding as robust as when Caleb first brought the birds aboard. He’d have to make sure Bert was taking proper care of the creatures.
As he climbed through the exosuit hatch, a weak grin pulled at his cheeks. What a strange business he was in. Though the peddling of the monk’s elixirs was still the primary function of his gang’s small enterprise, they had found themselves bartering and trading all manner of sundries and whatnots as they traveled around the system.
Caleb felt the air briefly compress against the back of his neck as the exosuit hatch closed. He settled into the clammy thing and decided right then that he could wait no longer. He needed to get to Hanson where everything on and in his ship could be cleaned top to bottom. He opened the outer hatch and was greeted by the mother planet, huge and overwhelming, taking up the entire horizon. Titan was orbiting close by, and the great orange ball beckoned to Caleb with Hanson’s promise of comfort and civilization. Their next stop, the moon Pan, was also in sight. Nestled in Saturn’s rings, the small satellite carved a neat gap between the rings that shone like a big black band. Not for the first time, Caleb marveled at the sight of the thin strips of billions of ice crystals that made up the rings. It wasn’t summer in Vermont, but it was equally breathtaking.
Caleb had developed a sort of side-to-side, toe-to-toe motion to move across the ground. Harry’s airlock was only fifty feet away. So much work for fifty feet. His head started pounding to the rhythm of his movement. Natalie was just stepping away from the Phoebe, and she gave him a wave. Her voice broke in on his com link, the surprise of it adding an exclamation point to the head pounding. “Morning, baby,” she called, with her trademark chipper voice. The woman could drink a bottle of what-blinds-you the night before and the next morning sound like she just finished a jog high on coffee, maybe amphetamines. He hated her for such skills or genes or attitude or whatever it was. He chose not to say anything back, instead, asking himself why he’d sent out the general invite for breakfast—Natalie was the opposite of a hangover cure. He glanced back at the Phoebe. No lights, no long-legged Jennifer stepping out behind Natalie for breakfast. With his drunk on the night before, a pass had been made. His hand briefly tingled at the memory of it laying on her thigh. Drunk herself, Jennifer had let him leave it there for a moment, avoiding embarrassing him by batting it away. She had waited until the others were engrossed in conversation before turning to look at him square in the eyes. Everything was there: what are your intentions, where do you think this could go, do we need this distraction, yes, I find you attractive as well, but not enough to complicate our arrangement, if we could just fuck and move on that would be great, but that’s not how it would go down, would it? He had slowly removed his hand, the warmth of her thigh lingering on his palm. Caleb shook his head free of the memory, exacerbating the headache. He had three women on his team, all in their forties, but with GDF11 therapy, no different from three twenty-eight-year-olds—three hot twenty-eight-year-olds. If he didn’t get laid soon, he’d fall into a different kind of distraction. Hell, he was already there.
The eggs were real. The cheese was from some plant fat with flavoring. The beer was as real as anything gets in space, and Caleb could feel his headache slipping away. Strange how the antidote to poison was more poison. Saanvi had joined him and Natalie, and the three of them ate in silence.
Caleb finally said, “So I’m thinking about going to Hanson when we’re done on Pan.” The grenade of a suggestion lay on the table. Would anyone pull the pin?
“Why?” asked Saanvi
Boom.
“Everything about me and my ship is filthy. A good cleaning is only available there. I want to sit in the park and watch some life go by, maybe while drinking real wine. If I don’t get some time around some green, other than Harry’s crops, I’m going to go nuts.”
“We could shop,” said Natalie. “This girl could use some fresh duds.”
Spruck came in from the exosuit locker with a big post-coital grin. He called out to Harry, who stood behind his bar polishing glasses, “Thank you, sir. Your girls are the finest in the galaxy.”
Caleb’s lips puckered as if he was chewing a lemon. “You know you’re sticking your dick into a robot, right?”
Spruck sat with eyebrows raised in gleeful agreement. “You finished with those?” He slid Caleb’s unfinished cold eggs over and shoveled them into his mouth. Speaking while chewing he said, “Have you been with one of those things? No? Well trust me, if you had you’d never want to stick your wick into anything else. They’ve got this pulsing, wavelike—”
Natalie held up her hand. “Nope. No, no. I gave up my bunk on the Belle last night so I wouldn’t have to hear this. Mixed company, eating breakfast, hangover, and well, shut the fuck up.”
“Yes, please shut the heck up about that,” added Saanvi.
Caleb sat back. “Salty language from you this morning, Doctor.”
“Your fault.” Then she looked at Spruck. “No, his with the drinking games. Both of your faults.” She looked back at Caleb. “Yours for bringing us here.”
Spruck wasn’t letting it go, saying, “Just sayin’, she can talk about Beethoven if I want while the pulsing waves are moving to the score. Try doing it to the
Fifth Symphony. Dum, dum, dum, duh . . .”
Caleb, Saanvi, and Natalie all protested at once.
Harry spoke up from the bar. “The male model can do the same thing and then some.”
Natalie and Saanvi stole a glance at each other and were both grateful for the interruption as Jennifer entered the bar, her snug elastoware still relaxing as it released its hold in the pressurized atmosphere. She sat down at an adjacent table looking bleary-eyed.
“We’re going to Hanson,” said Natalie chirpily. “After Pan.”
Jennifer raised an eyebrow, “I forget. Did we vote on that last night?”
“It’s a suggestion,” said Caleb warily.
The five had agreed to vote on everything, yet by default they relied on Caleb for leadership. Many votes had become epic arguments, and part of him just wanted to be a dictator.
Spruck ate another bite of Caleb’s eggs. “The warrants on us just get revoked?”
Caleb said, “We only assume there are warrants. It’s not like we’ve seen posters up on the walls.”
“And there’s Caleb’s and Jen’s friend Monty,” said Natalie brightly. “He’s back in good graces. Right? You said, he was reinstated, right?”
“That’s what we heard,” said Caleb cautiously.
Jennifer said, “Monty can only just be out of the woods. He’s not going to jeopardize that now.”
“He’d probably still look the other way if we asked him,” said Caleb.
“Why?”
“Because you and I saved his life and then some. He owes us. He’s our only ticket. We have none to get into Soul. I need some green time and some ship maintenance beyond the mom-and-pops out here. And my exosuit smells like death.”
“Not just your suit,” added Jennifer, wrinkling her nose at him.
Caleb considered his body odor and decided that that was the ultimate reason for her rejection last night. A good scrubbing and some new clothes is all he needed. And maybe a haircut. He was looking like a Viking. He said, “I can go alone. I fly alone. I can catch up with you later.”
Spruck said, “I hear the Hanson prison is overcapacity. Still, if we found ourselves there, there certainly aren’t any girls in the men’s wing.”
“You mean robots?”
“Whatever.”
Bert walked into the bar and stood in front of Caleb. “Sir, the fowl that you asked me to look after have died. If you had allowed me access to your ship last night as I requested, I’m certain that I could have mitigated this. I’m am now wondering if you want me to bring the carcasses in here, so that you might sell them to the proprietor as fryers?”
Caleb said, “First, that sucks. Second, your etiquette programing is way out of line. It’s not your job to question my decisions.”
“You kept some of the birds?” asked Jennifer.
Caleb said, “What? I like real eggs.” He pointed at Spruck and his empty plate. “We like real eggs. It might be nice to eat some other than here. Besides, I figured the birds would make a nice gift for Monty.”
Spruck said, “Ahah! You’ve been planning on Hanson for a while.” He turned to Bert. “In case you didn’t know, Caleb has decided we should go to Hanson.”
“Suggested, suggesting, it’s a suggestion,” said Caleb with mild frustration.
Bert said simply, “There are arrest warrants on all of you.”
“Let me start fresh,” said Caleb. “We don’t actually know that. That being said, I’m thinking of going to Hanson. In case you didn’t notice the big orange ball on the horizon, the Titan orbit is coming up fast in relation to Pan, so it’s a short flight if we do the job quickly there. I need repairs and a good cleaning among other things. Most importantly, I need some time in the Green. I really really need some time in the Green.”
“Me, too,” said Natalie with conviction. “This chocolate statue is in need of some pampering. I’ve also got a supply list a mile long that the 3-D printers out here just can’t provide. I read that a cosmetics printer down on Titan surface is finally online. I’ve been out of my shade of lipstick for a year and a half. I’ve got just enough left in a tube for them to color match it.”
“We all have lists like that,” said Saanvi, coolly, soberly, primly. “But we can’t ignore the arrest warrants. I have no doubt that they exist.”
Caleb sighed. “Monty. Monty will get us in.”
Saanvi sighed. “You’re really willing to risk that?”
Harry stepped over to the table. “Good morning. Breakfast for the rest of you? How were the eggs, Caleb?”
“Spruck thinks they’re delicious. I’m not so sure about the cheese.”
Harry shrugged. “Printer never quite gets cheese. I’m still waiting on those goats you promised.”
Caleb opened his hands. “Working on it. Obtaining chickens off Helene is easy. The farmers over there are stoned all day on some fungus they’ve got growing in all of that chicken shit. Now they’ve got sake, too. The goat builders are a different lot. Muslims. Sober as sober gets. They’ve got some serious defenses, and I can think of no way of conning them. On the other hand, speaking of chickens, I’ve just come into some freshly slaughtered. Perfect for the fryer.”
Natalie asked, “Not complaining about trading, Harry, but why don’t you just offer to buy the Helene goats directly?”
Harry indulged her. “Sweetie, the goat folks are no different from the chicken folks or anyone else who build livestock out here. A monopoly is a monopoly. Goats are for genuine goat cheese. Genuine goat cheese costs a fortune. You want steak, you only get it in Hanson or Soul, and you better be filthy rich. You want real eggs . . . well now Harry’s is back in business—but you better be kind of rich. Now what’s this about dead chickens?”
Chapter Twenty-Four: The VIP Treatment
The robot, Samantha, reversed thrust to slow her descent before she hit the Titan atmosphere. Her approach needed to be stealthy, so rather than some type of cumbersome rocket or equally bulky parachute and airbag rig, she was equipped with an experimental propulsion system known as an electromagnetic thruster, Cannae or EmDrive. The engine sat in a small structure attached to her shoulders, which held it out above her head. It was a simple and elegant device that utilized zero propellant. An electrical charge from her batteries got the quantum process going. After that, the device relied on subatomic interactions with virtual plasma to slow her momentum down, effectively creating thrust in the opposite direction to her travel. There were no fireworks. She simply slowed down as though she was spraying an invisible aerosol from her head. The machine broke all manner of rules within theoretical physics by deriving its power from a still-fickle and difficult to contain quantum world. It was the first use of an engine like this, and back on Earth, yet another planet-wide celebratory cheer erupted in the ether that was its interconnected humanity.
Her deceleration into the Titan atmosphere was so controlled that she was able to avoid most of the burn of a speedier entry. A pair of ultralight composite wings unfolded from her back, and she slowly glided toward the surface. The lethal air was dense and yellow, the terrain below not unlike an Earth desert without vegetation. She passed lakes of methane and craggy lifeless mountain ranges, all the while descending toward her preprogrammed landing spot. She dropped altitude quickly until eventually landing with her feet running to bleed off the 50kph of momentum that remained. When she could simply walk, she shed the Cannae drive from her shoulders, discarding it on the ground; ejected the wings; and shucked off the heat-proof suit that had protected her glossy white skin. Underneath, she wore a simple tight-fitting orange and green jumpsuit, common for robots working on Titan. A casual observation would cause an onlooker to assume as much. Nevertheless, she looked different than most of the robots that men had brought with them to slave in the new world. She was bald; again, not uncommon, but she was also beautiful, strikingly beautiful. Her face had been made to be perfectly symmetrical; the eyes large and brown surrounded by dense black lashes, with ful
l red lips framed by high cheekbones and a strong jaw. The intent was to be disarming. Even humans who held little regard for robots would have a difficult time not giving deference to a face made to incite their natural instinct to bow to beauty. Her body matched the face in its exquisiteness, and even went a step further, slightly exaggerating the feminine proportions to match a figure that would be more commonly found in a graphic novel. High round buttocks with hips that spoke of easy childbearing to the DNA of the male human swept down into long tapering legs that evoked both strength and grace. Her narrow waist led to a hard flat stomach with just the hint of a pooch in the lower belly. The breasts were C-cups with a poutiness that gave rise to high pointing nipples, further accentuated by the spandex nature of her jumpsuit. Her arms were lean and strong, the hand long-fingered with perfect red nails. In other words, her looks would leave nearly any observer breathless and assuming that perhaps she was built for pleasure. Yet, the cleverness within those big brown eyes was plain to see and was meant to leave the same observer feeling subconscious guilt over assuming such. Rather than drawing leers, she was instead a creature that would cause most onlookers to cast their eyes downward either out of deference or more likely shyness. Some would ignore her as they ignored all machines working in the background of life. If they did look at her with any confidence, they were likely to assume that this regal looking robot had business being where it was or where it was going and leave it alone.
Samantha’s landing left her twenty kilometers west of the elevators to Hanson. Though Titan was traversing into the shadow of Saturn and the surface would be pitch black within a few minutes, her eyesight and assorted spacial-relations sensors could more than handle the dark. She nevertheless quickened her pace.
Caleb was downright giddy. He’d managed to guilt Jennifer into flying with him to Pan. To his surprise, she was living up to the bargain. Natalie had agreed to fly with Saanvi, who had learned how to pilot the shuttle and would now pass it on to Nat. That left Bert to fly with Spruck.
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