by M. D. Cooper
Erin returned her kisses passionately, lifting a hand to gently press against the back of her neck. Then Erin’s lips left Isa’s as she moved her kisses down Isa’s neck. Soon, Isa forgot all about shampoo and conditioner and traditional showers, as Erin began kissing her breast and sucking gently at her nipple. She steadied herself against the shower wall as pleasure coursed through her.
“Hey,” said Martin. “Don’t start without me.”
Erin chuckled and stopped what she was doing.
“Gee, thanks, Martin,” said Isa, straightening up and giving a mock glare at the man who was standing in the bathroom doorway, hands on hips.
“We’re just enjoying the novelty of an old-fashioned shower,” Erin said mischievously. “What’s wrong with that?”
“From what I remember, you don’t need an ‘old-fashioned’ shower to do that,” Martin replied. “So do you dry yourself with one of these?” he asked, lifting a cloth from a rail.
“It’s called a towel,” said Erin, laughing at the joke, as Martin owned a rather impressive array of towels—though none made of natural fibers like these. “Didn’t you study any history?”
“I was more interested in natural history. Are you two done?” He held the towel open. “Want some help getting dry?”
Erin stepped out of the shower, and Martin wrapped the towel around her.
“Hey, what about my conditioner?” Isa asked.
“We can do that in the morning,” said Erin. Martin was rubbing the towel over her back and sides. She took a corner of it to massage her hair dry.
“Okay,” Isa said. “I’m going to use the air dryer for my hair, or I’ll be here all night.” She turned on the dryer and stood under the blast of warm current. By the time her hair was dry, only a minute or two later, Erin’s towel was on the floor, and she and Martin were locked in an embrace.
“Huh, now who’s starting early?” Isa asked, stepping out of the shower. When neither Erin nor Martin responded, she added, “Y’know, if you two wanted a taste of each other’s dinner, you could have done it while we were eating.”
Erin glanced at her, laughing softly. “I bet you didn’t mean for that to have nearly as much innuendo as that.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
She walked across to the couple and took Erin’s hand, leading her out of the bathroom. Erin allowed herself to be led, but Martin failed to let go of her, and so was towed along by default. The three of them reached their four-poster and tumbled onto it in a confused group, laughing.
Working out the logistics of three people making love was still a novelty to them, but they had a lot of fun trying. Erin tended to apply her engineer’s mind to the problem, Martin had a habit of focusing on others’ needs, while Isa just gave in to sensuous delight.
Later on, as she curled up with Erin and Martin to finally go to sleep, she elected to be the medium spoon. Erin was little spoon and Martin was big spoon. Isa wanted to be in the middle because the nightmares she’d suffered from her time at the Sirian mines hadn’t abated; if anything, they seemed to be getting worse. When she woke up scared and in darkness, it would be a big comfort to find herself between the people she loved.
Isa was on the verge of falling asleep when Martin whispered, “Hey, guys. Are you still awake?”
“You know, technically, that term isn’t correct,” Erin replied. “We aren’t guys, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I made you both honorary guys a while ago.”
“Okay,” Erin said. “I can accept that.”
“So,” said Martin, “I had an idea. I was wondering, what do you think about us having a baby? Not now, obviously, but it’s something we could think about.”
Isa was suddenly wide awake. “Huh? A baby?” she repeated.
“That’s funny,” Martin remarked. “I thought I just said that.”
“Seeding the Med back on Carthage isn’t enough for you?” Erin asked. “You want a human baby, created from all three of us?”
“Sure,” replied Martin. “It wouldn’t be difficult. I could make random selections from our three sets of genes and create the embryo in my lab.”
“I don’t know,” Isa said. “It’s a big step. And Erin is always so busy, I guess I’d be the one to carry it.”
“You wouldn’t have to,” said Martin.
“You mean we could use a proxy womb?” asked Erin. “Seems a bit cold-hearted.”
“No,” Martin said, “not a proxy womb exactly. We could grow the baby in one of my marine seeding wombs. I could fix the temperature, the nutrients, etcetera. It would be cool. A real water baby.”
“You plan on growing our child in the ocean?” Erin asked indignantly, sitting up.
Isa felt her turn to look at Martin even though they were in pitch darkness. She giggled. It had only been a moment since Martin had suggested the possibility of having a baby, and now the idea had suddenly become ‘our child’.
“It’s just an option that’s open to us,” said Martin. “If neither of you wanted to be pregnant, growing the baby in the ocean is a solution. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Hmm…” said Erin. “I’m not sure you won’t give it fins and a tail instead of legs, too.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Martin said.
“Hey, you two,” said Isa. “Cut it out.”
Isa pulled Erin down to the bed again and cuddled her. Erin and Martin often seemed to rub each other the wrong way. The fact that they had simply fallen in love rather than having been perfectly matched by an AI was apparent.
“I wouldn’t mind carrying and looking after our baby if we decide to have one,” Isa admitted. “It would certainly give me something to do. But I was looking on job sites tonight while we were eating, and I saw an opportunity I want to apply for. If I don’t get it, maybe we can think about increasing our family to four at some point.”
“What’s the position?” asked Erin.
“It’s right up my alley, actually. You know how I used to work in Placement Services? They’re trying to increase the numbers of settlers on Tyre and Troy. Everyone wants to stay on Carthage, but it’s better for New Canaan as a whole if the populations are more spread out. The information on Tyre and Troy doesn’t seem to be enticing people to leave Carthage, so Placement Services wants to commission a couple of people to make infomentaries on the other planets. Give a more personal view, you know?”
“Sounds like a great opportunity,” said Martin.
“I thought so, too,” said Isa. “But I might not get it.”
“Of course you will,” Erin said. “They’d be stupid not to have you.”
“Aww, thanks,” Isa said. “I’ll apply in the morning.”
She snuggled against Erin’s back, and Martin wrapped an arm around them both. Soon, Isa was drifting to sleep again.
Then Erin suddenly stiffened. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Isa asked.
Erin pushed down the comforter and moved out of Isa’s arms. “I just got a report from a monitoring station out near Sparta. I didn’t know they had their arrays up, so I never asked…dammit, I have to go.”
“Erin,” Martin said, “what’s going on?”
Erin was already on her feet. “Damn. How do I turn on the lights?” She tried a voice command, and when the lights didn’t respond, she cursed some more. “Where’s the light switch? I have to find my clothes. I have to go back to Carthage.” She crashed into something. “Dammit. How the hell did people used to manage without the Link?”
“Erin,” Martin said, louder. “Calm down. Unless you’re planning on commandeering the Odyssey, there aren’t any flights until the morning.”
“I might just do that. Where’s the damned light switch?”
Isa felt Martin reach away from her. There was click, and Erin was suddenly visible in the middle of the room, naked and with tousled hair half-obscuring her face.
Isa said, “Come and sit down and tell us what this is about.”
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Erin returned to the bed and picked up a robe. As she was putting it on, she said, “I guess it can wait until morning, but I’m going to have to go back to Carthage early. The monitoring station had a perfect view of the explosion at Irridia and picked up the beta particle emissions and gamma waves…. The thing is, by their calculations, there were only gamma waves from the first blast.”
“Only gamma waves?” Isa furrowed her brow, thinking back to what she knew of nuclear fission. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Erin nodded vigorously. “At first they thought that the beta particles from the first explosion were mingled with the later blasts, but they mapped them all out and determined that the initial blast did not give any off—just gamma rays.”
“This is way beyond my ken,” Martin said as he stared into Erin’s eyes. “What does it mean?”
“There’s just one thing that matches that explosion’s energy and profile and only gives off gamma rays: antimatter.”
“Antimatter?” Isa asked. “Why would they use antimatter?”
“Exactly,” Erin replied. “They wouldn’t. It would be insane to use it with all that uranium in the ore. And not only why would they use it, but how the hell did they get it? They would have had to file a special request, and even if they had, it would have been denied because…well, about a thousand reasons.
“I suspected sabotage from the beginning, but I couldn’t find any evidence; I’m pretty sure I just got it. I think the supervisor was trying to discredit the lead engineers. I need to report this to Tanis.”
REVISITING
STELLAR DATE: 03.16.8937 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: High Carthage Station
REGION: Carthage, New Canaan System
Erin handed Max a sheet of hyfilm that outlined the anomalous readings. He lounged in his chair as he scanned the sheet, one arm hanging over the chair back, one leg stretched out in front of him.
Before Erin had completed the return trip from Athens, Tanis had sent orders for Max, Pippa, and Anwen to come to Carthage from Irridia. They’d arrived at the ground spaceport—which had finally been given a name: Excelsior—just before Erin, and they’d met in the detainment area to avoid further delay.
Across from her, Max snorted, and Erin was tempted to tell the man that his general attitude was irritating, but she guessed he knew that. As he read, she watched him closely for any telling reaction, but he wasn’t giving anything away. After a moment’s further perusal, he tossed the hyfilm onto the desk that separated them. It slid across the surface to Erin, where she halted its progress with an outstretched hand.
“So?” Max asked.
“You can’t pretend you don’t see anything strange,” said Erin. “You’ve been in the business too long and you’re good at your job—when you aren’t busy being an obnoxious ass, that is.”
Max’s lip curled, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The beta particle readings are too low. So what? What does that have to do with me? Why don’t you ask your pet twins? They’re the ones in charge, after all.”
“Too low? Check again, Max. In the initial explosion, they’re nonexistent. There weren’t beta rays until the uranium started to go up. These readings tell me that what happened on the moon wasn’t an accident.” Erin sat back and folded her arms. “There was no antimatter on site, and no one had requisitioned any, yet it was used. The only conclusion I can draw is that the disaster was due to deliberate sabotage.” She paused before looking him directly in the eyes. “A man died. I’m going to give you one chance, now, to own up to what you did. If you do, I’ll ask the governor to go easy on you. I can’t promise anything, but if you drag this out, you’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
Other than his attitude, Erin had no proof that Max was behind the sabotage, but if he bought her bluff, it would make things a lot simpler.
“What?” Max exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise. “You’re saying I deliberately screwed up the operation? Why the hell would I do that?”
“You did it because you were angry at being passed over for a leading role on the project. You wanted to make Pippa and Anwen look incompetent. That’s clear enough. So are you going to admit it, or are we going to do this the hard way?”
“Huh!” Max sat up straight and rubbed his chin. “I was angry. I’m sick and tired of having to take orders from people who don’t have half my experience or knowledge. I suppose I can see why you might think I would do something stupid like that. But I didn’t. I knew Jacob Cimorelli. I’m not a monster.” He watched Erin’s reaction with hooded eyes.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I don’t think you intended for anyone to die. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone did die, and that’s not even counting all the excess damage and delay your escapade caused.”
“But I didn’t do it,” Max repeated through gritted teeth. “You can’t pin this on me. If anyone messed up, it was one of the twin-morons in charge.”
“Don’t be an idiot. No one ‘messed up’. You can see as well as I can that this wasn’t an error. It was deliberate.”
“Well then I don’t know,” Max yelled, throwing up his hands. “I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. I can’t believe this! As well as having to work under inexperienced fools, I get blamed whenever something goes wrong. You want to know what happened? Talk to them, not me.” He jabbed a finger toward the next room, where Pippa and Anwen were waiting to be interviewed.
“Last chance, Max,” said Erin.
He blew out a frustrated breath and stood up. “I’m not sticking around for any more of this.”
As he strode toward the door, Erin ordered, “Wait outside. I’m not done yet.”
Without answering, Max marched out.
Erin decided to give him time to cool down and asked Pippa to come in.
“Is something wrong?” she asked as she sat down. “Max is really mad.”
“Yes,” Erin said. “Something is wrong. Did Max leave?”
“No, he sat down in the waiting room. I guessed it had to be a serious matter, if we were summoned here to Carthage. Did you find out something more about the accident?”
“Yes, I found evidence,” said Erin. “But what surprises me is that you didn’t look over the same reports. They were sent to the Euphemia, as well.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I assume you went through all the readings from the debris field?”
“No I didn’t, actually. That was Pippa’s responsibility.”
“But…” Erin paused and then sighed. “I said I wanted to speak to Pippa, Anwen. What are you doing here?”
“She was just finishing her drink. We didn’t think it would make any difference if you saw me first.”
Moments later, a shout came from outside the room, quickly followed by a crash and the sound of something hitting the wall.
“What the hell?” Erin ran to the door.
She opened it to see Max and Pippa on the floor in a corner of the waiting room, locked in desperate combat. They grappled wildly, each trying to get control of the other, but neither could manage to get the upper hand.
“Enough!” Erin shouted, and she ran over to pull the two apart.
With a final heave, Max threw Pippa off and struggled to his feet.
“He attacked me,” Pippa exclaimed as she also stood up.
“Damn you all,” Max yelled. “You’ve all got it in for me. I’m not going down for something I didn’t do.”
He pushed Pippa aside. She made a grab for him, but he raced out of the room.
A guard was running down the corridor. “Should I shoot him?” he asked Erin as he reached the doorway.
“I’ll get him,” Pippa exclaimed. She pushed past Erin and th
e guard, and ran after Max.
“Pippa,” Erin called. “Don’t. Come back here.”
“Should I shoot her?” asked the guard.
Erin only gave a groan of exasperation. “Wait here,” she said to Anwen as she set off after Max and Pippa. “Come with me,” she called over her shoulder to the guard, who was glancing between Erin and Anwen.
Erin knew that and didn’t reply. She still wished the guard had shot his pulse pistol and not waited for her OK.
Max had turned a corner in the corridor, and Pippa was also disappearing around it. Erin called out again for her to stop, but the woman ignored her. By the time Erin reached the corner, neither Max nor Pippa were in sight.
Beyond, a double door that led outside stood partially open.
Walter laid a map of the airport over her HUD, and Erin saw that the doors led out to a series of warehouses where cargo drones sorted outbound shipments.
By the time Erin reached the doors and stepped through, Max was weaving between cargo carts, almost at the closest warehouse, and Pippa was close on his heels, just a few meters behind the man as he ducked inside.
She glanced back at the guard, seeing over the Link that his name was Fetzner.
Erin stopped at the entrance to the warehouse, and Fetzner came to a halt beside her.
The warehouse’s main doors were wide open, and within, they could see long aisles of floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with boxes of goods and equipment, waiting for transport off-world. A drone buzzed past, a small container swinging from its grapple. Then an autolift crossed the end of an aisle in the distance.