Already. Lori would have appreciated a few hours to acclimate to her new surroundings or to simply relax and enjoy progressing this far in the competition. But there remained a global audience to entertain.
Lori and April wound up in the medical unit on their first try at getting to the galley, then dead-ended at one of the two EVA airlocks. Finally arriving at the ISS-5’s confined galley, Lori was startled to find Trent hovering upside down above the collapsible table, his scruffy mane floating around his head like a halo. But Leah yanked on his arm and Trent spun around to hook his feet into a pair of loops secured to the “floor.”
Still in their pressure suits and holding their helmets, April and Lori floated just inside the galley doorway. Lori spotted Mark and relaxed into a reflexive smile. She noted with some disappointment how his jumpsuit no longer clung to his musculature in microgravity, and she made a quick mental wish that they could just get to Mars already.
She let her helmet float beside her while she glanced around the galley for any obvious cameras.
“Any ideas on what we’re in for now?” Leah sucked dark fluid from a clear plastic bulb—coffee.
“I really hope it’s not a challenge involving the space toilet,” Trent remarked.
The galley’s wall-mounted screen—considerably smaller than anything in the biodome—flickered to life. Gary Nelson’s familiar smile filled the screen, but no one openly groaned at his appearance this time.
“Welcome to orbit! I trust your flight to International Space Station 5 was both smooth and exciting.” Gary took a sip from a mug branded with the Highland Coffee & Tea logo. He swallowed and smiled. “As you’re settling in and getting your ‘space legs’ . . .” Gary paused for laughter, though there was only a polite chuckle from the galley. “. . . it’s time to turn your focus to the long and important journey ahead. Even though only eight of you will continue to Mars on the first colony flight, each of you has earned a spot at the colonial base.”
Gary’s statement was met with stunned silence. Lori felt her heart grow lighter in her chest. They were all going to Mars? Or would Gary snatch that hope away with his next sentence?
“Two of you have been designated as alternates for this first, truly historic colony mission,” Gary continued after another calculated pause. “These alternates will assist in the final preparations of the first colonial flight. They will oversee the launch and will monitor communications with the first colony team during their journey to Mars.”
Gary took another coffee break, lifting his mug in a toast while keeping the Highland logo centered on the screen.
“That doesn’t sound all that exciting,” Dina said. “Just hang around the space station while everybody else has all the fun?”
“All the fun and all the danger,” Guillermo reminded her. Dina shrugged.
Lori glanced again at Mark. Everyone here is going to Mars. Alternate or not, these were the people she would spend the rest of her life with. Most of them she didn’t know particularly well, and she had lingering misgivings about being cooped up for a few months in a crew capsule with Guillermo, who still made shy, expectant eyes at her.
But Mark was looking back at her, and she was sure she caught the trace of a smile before he turned back to Gary on the screen. Then an icy dread sudden poured over her.
I am going to Mars.
The truth pressed down on her and left her short of breath. Now that she was on the cusp of realizing her dream, she suddenly despaired over her worthiness. Lori would be one of the mothers of a new world, just when she no longer had her own mother to guide her.
“And so, without further delay . . .” Gary grinned and took a dastardly long time to exchange his coffee mug for a piece of bright orange card stock, folded and sealed as though he were announcing the winner for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes.
But there was no impatient grumbling in the station galley. All eyes were on Gary. Three members of the station crew crowded in behind Lori, looking over her shoulder with just as much anticipation as Gary broke the seal and unfolded the card.
A look of calculated surprise played over Gary’s features. “The alternates for the first Mars Colony Program mission are . . . Yoshiko Eguchi and Dina Bishop!”
The response in the galley was a furious, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” from Dina and a gracious, “Well, I suppose that makes sense,” from Yoshiko.
Lori’s gaze went immediately to Mark, who was already looking her way. She felt her cheeks flush as he gave her a quick nod and an awkward thumbs-up. Lori grinned and felt April’s playful nudge in her side as she started entertaining girlish fantasies about sex with Mark Lauren in microgravity.
“For the rest of you, take these next few days to sort out your berth assignments and finalize your communications and gear. And don’t forget to enjoy the view!” Back at The Ranch in Arizona, Gary gestured to his side as if he had a window overlooking planet Earth right next to him. “It very well could be your last glimpse of your home planet.”
The screen went dark.
“Way to sell it, Gary.” Leah was scowling, even with Trent’s supportive hand resting on her back.
Lori was feeling her own strange mix of exhilaration and foreboding. These few minutes in the galley had been a rollercoaster of grief and celebration and even lust. Gary made a good point about taking time to reflect.
April made a face. “He could have chosen those last words a bit better.”
Lori reached for her helmet and turned to exit the galley, but she overshot and kept rotating around. She would have felt more embarrassed if she hadn’t caught sight of Trent and Dina having similar difficulties. Everyone else seemed hesitant to let go of their tethers.
On Lori’s second rotation, one of the station crew caught her with a clap on the shoulder.
“Congratulations, Lori!” The man’s short, blond beard was scraggly and made Lori self-conscious of her own ponytail, fanning out behind her like a space nimbus.
She glanced at the black ID strip on his navy blue ISS uniform. “Thanks, Gilbert. How did you know my name?”
Gilbert’s face lit up with laughter. “We’ve been watching up here, too. Literally everyone knows who you are.” He pushed past her to congratulate the other finalists and alternates.
Lori caught Mark looking her way again. She smiled at the warming tickle spreading over her skin beneath her pressure suit.
April reached for Lori’s elbow. “Let’s get out of these ridiculous suits. We’ve got some packing to do.”
The station’s observatory alcove, with its cupola window, was quiet and unoccupied.
Mark hooked his left foot into a wall-mounted tether and let himself float. The view was spectacular. The blue-and-white majesty of Earth rotated slowly and steadily beyond the thick window, and Mark felt his breath slow and his body relax into the unfamiliar sensation of microgravity.
He’d read about the serenity—even the euphoria—that overcomes astronauts as they reflect on the view of Earth from orbit. But the reality of becoming one more speck in Earth’s ring of manmade satellites, bound to but removed from the vibrant, bold world turning beneath him, was more than his mind could make sense of.
He wondered if he’d ever again be this close to his former home.
Life was fragile on the station. The constant ambience of clicks and whirrs reassured him that all was right on their orbiting lifeboat—even if the whole facility smelled vaguely of metal and warm plastic. One bad accident, though, and the station would be toast. There were layers of redundancies to keep catastrophe at bay, and each mishap inevitably led to improved safety measures. But space was a hostile place to creatures who need warmth and oxygen and water.
The Earth had spun on its axis long before Mark first drew breath, and it would continue long after he was gone. The planet would revolve around the sun whether the Mars colony was successful or not.
Mark’s mouth curved into a smiling awe and brushed away the salty orbs
at the corners of his eyes. The station raced into another sunset, the troposphere turning to liquid gold in contrast to the brilliant, sure blue of the upper atmosphere. This. This was what all the effort and struggle had been for. This threshold of another new beginning. He felt a familiar, visceral stirring that hearkened back to the questing blood of his adventuring ancestors. And he had so very far yet to go.
The station moved into the darkness of night. Mark had never felt so small, so humble, so wonderstruck, or so energized. He felt suddenly very alone.
Home. He turned the word around in his mind and tried to dig into it. Warm breeze and golden sunlight on his skin on an August afternoon. The rich, earthy smell of an evergreen forest after a spring rain. Salt on his lips and the bracing chill of an ocean swim. The thrilling, familiar touch of a lover on a snowbound night. The comfort of a shared meal by a roaring hearth fire as clouds gathered in the sky. The camaraderie of the Mars Ho biodome as the contestants gathered to rate the beverage machine’s repulsive attempts at hot chocolate.
These future colonists, who both maddened and comforted him, had become something of a family. Mark had expected as much, but he hadn’t felt the reality creeping up on him. As the night-dark Earth turned beneath him, the mission felt almost perfect.
His thoughts turned to Lori, and a shadow fell over the joy he’d felt the moment before. Every time he’d thought he’d had her figured out, she seemed to take a new tack. Straightforward at first, then silly. Then angry, and then infuriatingly flirty, and at last so vulnerable and raw that he’d wanted nothing so much than to curve his body around hers as a protective shield.
Months of travel lay between the colonists and their new home. And there was this itching urge to set things right with Lori.
The only trouble was, Mark had little idea how to go about it.
“Hey, there,” a familiar voice came from beneath him. “Room for two more?”
Mark turned, careful not to over-rotate or get his foot tangled in the tether, and found April and Lori floating up the short tunnel toward the snug observatory. April’s eyes were eager and bright as she took in the view. Lori hung back a little.
“It’s one hell of a sight.” He winced at his lame remark, and pulled himself closer to the wall to make room, the space turning cozy and close.
April glanced at Mark and tipped her head in Lori’s direction, her eyebrows lifted in question. Lori was absorbed in her own awe at the sight of the dark jewel spinning slowly through the night beyond the window, and she let out a small exclamation of surprise when April grabbed her wrist and pushed her toward Mark.
Unable to stop her motion, Lori collided into Mark and sent them both into the curved wall. He got one hand on her arm, the other on her hip, but then he found himself holding her close instead of trying to steady her.
April grabbed at the nearest handhold on the other side of the alcove. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, though Mark caught the mischief on her face. “You know, still getting my bearings.”
Lori looked up at Mark in embarrassment. But then there was the tiniest pause, a subtle hesitation before she pressed away from him, and he was sure he saw her smile.
“I think this is where you tell Lori to say goodbye to her underwear again.” April chuckled.
Lori’s cheeks burned bright as she glanced at Mark for his reaction.
“That’s not . . . I thought I explained that to you,” Mark stumbled in his reply. “People have taken that entirely out of context.”
“Relax, you guys.” April nodded toward the window. “I think it’s time for us to say goodbye to everything.”
There was a long, reverent silence as they floated together and looked out on the lush, animated world they were to leave behind—headed toward a barren, hostile wasteland of a planet where every breath would be a victory.
“It makes you think, doesn’t it?” Lori broke the silence. “About what’s important.”
Mark looked away from the window. It was impossible to ignore how close she was, their knees and elbows touching. Just inches away, she smelled lightly of apple blossoms—maybe from some scented lotion she’d found on the station. Mark inhaled deeply and tried not to think about what they all might be smelling like after a few months on their Mars-bound ship, even with the promised luxury of “space showers.”
April gave him an encouraging nod. Mark took another deep breath. “Lori . . .”
“Oh!” The moan of delight was sharp and distinct, though slightly distorted as it vibrated through the nearest air vent. “Yes!”
April’s eyebrows shot up in bemusement. Lori turned deliberately away from Mark, and he resisted the urge to spin her around again to face him.
“Plenty of people thought it was the two of you,” April said. “The second most likely couple, maybe, after the Blocks.”
A deep, grumbling voice came from the far end of the tunnel. “Are we going to have to listen to this all the way to Mars?” Trevor pulled himself toward the window, forcing Lori closer to Mark to make room for him.
April laughed. “We’re not going to have all that much privacy once we get there, either.”
“Trevor’s one more suspect off the list, I guess,” Lori said.
“Anyone got earplugs?” Melissa pushed her way into the viewing alcove. “I was trying to read.”
“I was trying to sleep,” Guillermo appeared in the tunnel. “No luck with all this racket.”
They pressed into upper corners to accommodate their growing number, but it was still a tight squeeze. Mark didn’t mind as Lori nestled in at his side.
April was counting heads. Guillermo and Melissa exchanged a shy smile as they huddled together. Dina and Yoshiko were notably absent, but they were on separate duty assignments in the control room and the arrival capsule.
“Okay, so that leaves . . . Leah?” April’s eyes grew wide. “And Trent?”
Trevor chuckled.
“Nothing in my spreadsheet would have predicted . . .” April braced herself against the wall. “Well, fair play to the geek.” She turned a sharp eye on Guillermo and Melissa. “And you two? This is a thing now?”
Melissa glanced sideways at her new partner. “I guess so.”
April looked pointedly at Guillermo. “So why flirt with Lori, if you’re hooking up with Melissa?”
“Hooking up?” Trevor asked. “Is that what we’re all doing now?”
April gestured toward Guillermo. “I want to hear what this one has to say for himself.”
Mark wrapped his arm around Lori’s waist and pulled her closer to give April more room to maneuver. It was time for the finalists to have an adult discussion about their intended pairings and any guidelines they might want to agree to. He would have preferred a more structured conversation over coffee in the galley, but Mark had no trouble letting April take the lead. He was just glad not to be in her line of fire.
“Well.” Guillermo dipped his chin as he met Lori’s eyes. “I didn’t want you to feel bad, after all that transpired between us.”
Mark tried hard not to laugh. A new explosion of romantic moaning from the air vent didn’t help.
“But that brings up a good question.” Melissa raised her voice to be heard over the heavy panting and rhythmic thumping. “What are the rules for dating in space? They were never too clear on that.”
“Yes, should we assume it’s a foregone conclusion . . . ?” Trevor looked meaningfully at April. Mark felt Lori bristle beside him, and his smile faded quickly.
“Yeah, about that . . .” April’s words were cut off by a further escalation of sexcapade noise.
Molly, the space station crew chief, appeared at the far end of the tunnel and glared at the assembled colonists. “What the serious fuck, you guys? You’ve been here, what? Five hours? And you’ve already turned the station into an orbiting sex palace?” She waved her hand at the domed window. “And you’re hogging the view.”
“Sorry.” Lori pushed away from Mark, and he wasn’t su
re to whom she was apologizing. She eased through the scrum of colonists and down the short tunnel, passing the glowering Molly with a contrite nod.
Mark moved to follow, but was hampered by April maneuvering into position to confront the station chief.
“We’re new here,” April said. “We’re still figuring things out.”
Molly nodded. “I just wish you’d figure things out less loudly.”
On cue, the sex noise from the vents reached a final crescendo and then dropped off. The assembly chuckled in relief, and Mark slipped past them down the tunnel to track down Lori.
He came almost immediately to a four-way junction. He hung onto a wall-mounted handle and tried to figure out which way Lori had gone. Which way was the galley? Would a turn to his right take him toward the bunks or back to their launch vehicle? The space station was an unfamiliar environment even without the lack of discernible “down” and “up” messing with his head.
Mark turned left. He came to another junction, and this one had directional signs posted. He doubted Lori would have gone to the fitness center, to the right, or to the control room to the left. He continued forward and paused again when he arrived at a six-way intersection.
Exasperated and lost, Mark took a breath. “Lori?”
She peeked out into the corridor beneath him and gave a smile that could have been anticipation or resignation. She reached up to tug on his boot. “I’ve found someplace we can be alone.”
She ducked out of sight, and Mark followed.
Mark lost sight of her again as he floated down the corridor. Then Lori’s arm shot out and pulled him into a narrow cupboard.
When Lori shut the door behind him, there was just enough light for him to make out the features of her face. It took a few moments of polite shoving to comfortably fit both of their bodies in the tight space.
“I think it’s maybe for a spare EVA suit?” Lori said. “Though we’re nowhere near any of the airlocks, I don’t think. Honestly, I don’t know where anything is up here. It’s just one confusing passageway after another.”
Mars Ho! (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 1) Page 21