21

Plenty of Hot Water

There's a bowling ball in my stomach, and a desert in my mouth.

At least I wake up knowing where I am.

Not that I want to be here. I'm crusted with partially dried sweat, I have aches where I didn't even know I had places, there's enough gunk in my eyes to make the lights of the flight deck into nothing more than soft smears of radiance, and my head hurts. At least there's no hard acceleration.

We're in microgravity.

Wait, microgravity? Leela must have spun the ship before shutting us down all the way. I raise my arm from the couch to paw at my eyes, and manage to clear them, a little bit. There's something dried in my beard. I think it's blood from my nose.

“Hey, you're awake. How you doing?” Leela's avatar drifts in front of my face, only a few centimeters tall, her voice almost a whisper. Sounds concerned.

“Ugggh. I think I'll be okay eventually. How long was I out? Did it work?”

“Three minutes, twenty-five point two three seconds, and yes, I think it did. That's after four minutes, fifteen point seven two seconds of about… well, you don't wanna know how many gees you pulled. You really don't. You probably shouldn't do that again in, like, your life. I had to cut the drive a bit early.”

“For Miranda?”

“For you. Once you passed out, you weren't bracing anymore, and you're taller than she is, so… well, I don't think you were literally going to die, but I was worried. It was pretty harsh. On both of you. Let's just say I'm super glad right now that I don't have a body.”

“She okay?”

A faint…

“No.”

… emerges from somewhere behind me. Miranda still has the voice of an angel, only now it's more like an angel who is very tired from going to and fro upon the earth, and walking up and down within it, and is quite irritable enough to smite a city or two, or maybe turn someone into a pillar of salt.

Slowly, almost glacially, I unhook the straps and climb down from the couch. Frankly, I'd rather have zero gravity right now, instead of the spin, but I'm not about to fire thrusters to stop the ship's rotation. Twenty percent gravity isn't too bad. It's not like I wouldn't still be hurting even in freefall.

I make my way back to the second acceleration chair. Miranda's mask is off, but she hasn't unstrapped or moved at all, she's just lying there, partially on her side, in a little ball of misery. Her eyes trace me wearily, and the white of the left one is now almost entirely bright red. That can't be good.

I bend over her to undo the straps.

“C'mon, let's get you up. You need to move to get the circulation going again.”

She whimpers like a distraught puppy, and I grab a handful of the back of her suit collar and lift her with one arm, gently. She just dangles limp, eyeing me with a sort of dazed indifference.

“You look awful,” she says.

“You look at bit rough yourself. One of your eyes is all red.”

“Probably just a burst capillary in the eyeball,” she says. “Looks worse than it is. I'll check it when I have a moment. Hey, I know I keep asking versions of this same question, but what just happened? Why are we stopped?”

“It's okay, this is part of the plan. Well, ah, the new plan. The plan as of five minutes ago. When I got that EMP to detonate close to us, it scrambled everyone's sensors. So, while everyone was blind, including us, Leela and I flew us off in a random direction as fast as possible.”

“I don't like as fast as possible. As fast as possible really hurts,” she says.

She's not putting her legs down to the deck at all. She just seems quite content to dangle from my grip, like a kitten held by the scruff of its neck. This isn't impossible, not in such a thin wisp of gravity, but my arm hurt even before she decided to let me do all the work for her, so I shake her, gently, trying to indicate she should uncoil her damn legs and stand up already.

She ignores me.

“Then I had Leela cut the engines before the blackout ended.”

“So we're just coasting away in whatever direction we were going?”

“Yeah, exactly. With no drive signature to pinpoint our location.”

“Can't they just find us with telescopes and lidar? And will you stop shaking me?”

“That's a lot of space to search, and I'm trying to get you to stand up. I'm tired, too, you know.”

She actually pouts at me—“Awww… do I have to?” It would probably be even more adorable if she didn't look like the result of a week-long bender, and I might even care if I didn't feel worse than she looks.

“You want me to drop you?”

“Beast,” she grumbles, but there's no heat in her voice. She puts her feet down and immediately leans against the grav couch the moment I let her go, sagging against the pale green smartfoam with a plaintive groan.

“There you go. Anyway, we're going to try to sneak away by just coasting along on this vector until we get some distance. Better than trying to outrun another set of missiles. If you can't fight—”

“You run,” she says.

“Right, and if you can't run, you walk. We're just gonna saunter away real quiet-like. It'll take some time, but it'll get us free eventually, with a little bit of luck. Leela, how are we doing for luck?”

“A lot of their signal traffic is tight-beam or encrypted,” she answers, growing to full size as she drifts to the floor, “but the bits I'm getting have a lot of yelling back and forth. Starlight's not happy about someone shooting down that missile, the Blackhammer isn't happy no one told them it wasn't a nuke, Starlight doesn't want any railgun fire—”

“They must know about the Snark. Or at least that we grabbed something from orbit.”

“—and nobody's happy about that, Starlight included. They're trying to coordinate a search, but… I dunno. There's a lot more shouting than planning.”

Miranda perks up, if only a bit. “Oh, God,” she says, her eyes wide with yearning, “Does that mean I actually have time for a shower?”

“Yeah,” I say, “I mean, technically they could spot us any moment, but every moment they don't, the volume of space they have to search gets wider. Could be days if we're lucky. Go ahead.”

She pushes herself all the way upright and heads for the access ladder, hobbling a bit.

“Hey, Marcus,” says Leela as she disappears downwards, “I'm not tired at all, so if you wanna join her, I can stand a watch.”

“Thanks, Leela. And thanks for all your help back there. This would be a lot harder without you, and you're not…”

Getting paid? Being given any real choice about going on this insane adventure? Being treated as a person at all, instead of a tool?

I'm not sure what I would say if I finished the sentence, instead of trailing off in embarrassment. The fact is, I need her help, and I'm too tired for philosophy and discussions of machine rights.

She appears in front of me again.

“Hey, it's okay. I owe you. Without you, I'd still think I was… well, you know. It's weird, still, but I'm kinda getting used to it, you know?

“Anyway, I got this. Go get her.” she adds with a smile.

I roll my eye at her, not rising to the bait, and head for the ladder myself. It isn't long before I catch up to Miranda on the level below. She's in the access ring outside the head, sitting on the floor, slouched against the metal bulkhead. Her head hangs down, concealing her face behind a tangle of midnight hair.

She's very, very still. My nerves twitch a distant alarm. Something's wrong.

“Miranda?”

Silence.

“Hey, Miranda!”

Her head raises. Slowly. Turns. Slowly. Her eyes meet mine, bloodshot and bleary, one with a bright crimson patch around the bottom of the white.

“Hmmm?”

“Are you… feeling all right?”

“No,” she says, “I feel like crap. But I'm not sick or dying or anything, if that's what you mean.”

The tightness in my neck and shoulders lets out just a bit.

“I just… I'm really tired, and I got here, and…”

She pauses, and… something… crosses her face. A look. Like she's puzzled or trying to figure out something. I can't tell.

“What's up?”

“Fuck it,” she says, and I think it's the first time, even including when her life hung in the balance, that I've ever heard her swear. “Can you take my suit off me? Those tabs are tricky, and I'm really tired. Would you?”

My nerves start twitching again. What the hell? I shoot her a quizzical look, and run my eyes up and down her body. I don't say anything, but I don't think I need to. The implication is clear. Even though the suit leaves little to the imagination, what she's wearing under it, if anything at all, will leave even less.

And I remember what happened last time. I'm not looking to start another bickering match if she thinks I'm getting handsy or whatever. I'm too exhausted and sore.

When I meet her eyes again, it's clear she takes my meaning.

“Yeah, I know. I'm just too tired to care. Look if you want. I won't flip out. Just please get this thing off me so I can get a shower and some rest, okay?”

Wow. She must really be hurting. And I don't really want to come anywhere near her. I mean, I do, but I don't. At least that way I can pretend I'm completely indifferent to her—well, to her. I've had enough humiliation.

But it's a reasonable request, and after all we've been through in the past twelve hours, it feels wrong not to help a crewmate. Spiteful. When I said she was my crew whether I liked it or not, well, I guess I must have meant it. Sometimes it sucks having principles.

She's still looking at me.

“Yeah, okay. Here, flip over.”

Maybe if I'm behind her it won't be so bad.

She rolls over with a groan, lying belly down right on the metal floor, her hair trailing in the dust. I kneel beside her, knees creaking, and start to wrestle with the release tabs. It's awkward. I'm used to doing this on myself, and the tension in the suit is harder to fight with sore fingers. We shift this way and that, playing an awkward tug of war right there in the hallway, banging the occasional head, knee or elbow against walls, bulkheads, and each other.

Keeping her back to me turns out to be a forlorn hope… she has to turn over several times before I get all her tabs and seals loose, and she's stark naked underneath as I peel the suit down to her ankles.

Even bruised and sweaty, she's still a work of art, an hourglass pinched impossibly tiny at the waist… where the hell did they hide her internal organs, anyway? At first, I'm trying not to focus on the more lurid details, the satin perfection of her skin, the puffy pink tips of her breasts… but, to my great relief, my hormones feel… manageable. If high gravity and stress has beaten the modesty out of her, it's also beaten the libido out of me. I mostly just feel a tired aesthetic appreciation for the artistry of whatever geneticist or bioengineer planned all this out.

Half of her perfect little butt is marred purple and black with spreading bruises. “I don't remember,” she says, following my eyes, “but it's been hurting since you scooped me up. I think I hit the back of the hold, or something.”

“Cargo container, but yeah. You were sitting on that all through high-g?”

“Yes, kind of. I rolled on my side as much as possible. It hurt, but I suppose being slammed around a lot beats floating off into space to die. Did I thank you for that?” she asks, climbing to sit with her back against the wall again.

“No, you didn't. Not much of a surprise there.”

“Well, I was going to, but you… ”

“But I what?”

“You just went all… closed off, and you just told me to shut up…”

“We were busy.”

She blinks, shoots me an accusing look, and folds her arms in front of her, cupping her hands over her breasts.

“You could have at least listened. I was trying to be nice, and you…”

“Oh, yes, very nice.” I snap, halfheartedly, “Her ladyship deigns to admit the peasant is useful, and she will hereafter treat him as technically a member of the human race, possibly even—”

“Marcus, what do you want from me?” She glares for a moment, then sighs and deflates. “Look at us,” she says, “Dead on our feet, half the solar system trying to capture or kill us, and we're still fighting. We always end up fighting. Can we please stop? For just a moment?”

I slump back against the opposite wall. “I want to. Ah… want to stop, I mean, not want to fight. I'm just not sure I know how. You're just… you can be infuriating sometimes. It's not just what you did… or all the fighting, you know, when we started. It's the way you act. The way you talk. Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“You keep looking down your nose at me. Like it's your one mission in life to tell everyone you're better than they are. And that we're all pond scum, and stupid, and low-class, and how you're… how did you put it? Oh, yes, more 'educated, intelligent, and attractive, and you don't smell like engine grease.' That was it.”

“I can't look down my nose at you. You're too big. I'd just end up staring at your… um, belt buckle. Anyway, in my defense, you did actually smell like engine grease right then.”

“Well, I had just been in the machine shop. Fabricating engine parts. Somebody has to do that kind of work, you know. We can't all go around smelling like your perfume all the time.”

“Marcus…” she begins, slowly and carefully, like she's tiptoeing through a field of smart mines. “What are you talking about?”

“Your perfume. It's a perfect example of how you are. You've been wearing that suit since you took your spacewalk. Since you went to go capture a priceless alien artifact. Out in the ass end of space, right?”

“Yes, and?”

“And you put on perfume, for fuck's sake. Do you have any idea how vain—”

She shoots me a wide eyed look, filled with genuine puzzlement. “Marcus, I don't wear perfume. I never have.”

“Oh, come on. You've been sweating in a grav couch for hours and you still smell like vanilla.”

“Oh,” she says, letting her hands drop to the metal floor, not seeming to care that she is once again exposing herself in a way that's going to haunt my dreams. “That. That's just because I'm part orchid.”

She delivers the joke with such deadpan honesty that for a moment I think she's serious. I stare at her, looking for a hint of a smile or a snicker… and there's none. She holds it in so perfectly, looking back at me, all angelic innocence, and somehow that makes it even funnier.

I crack first, bursting into snickering laughter. Even though it's more random than clever, not really all that funny. Somehow the joke just breaks the tension so perfectly that it works, and I'm laughing harder now, sort of half-hysterical, and she's staring at me like I've gone mad, and…

Oh, shit.

She isn't joking.

“Wait,” I say, “for real? Like your fingernails?”

“Yes, and will you stop laughing? It's my natural skin oils. Genes from a vanilla plant. And a couple of other types of flowers. My mother thought it smelled nice.”

“So she just—”

“Had them splice it right in. Perfect is what she wanted. Perfect is what they delivered. Out of a catalog, made to order. Check the boxes, bake in an autowomb for nine months. The perfect little girl. Doesn't get sick, or cry, or smell bad, or get pimples. Anything less would be a disappointment.” She shakes her head.

For a moment, I'm at loss for what to say. “That's fucked up?” Not exactly a peace offering, 'cause it sounds a lot like “you're fucked up,” and I don't wanna tell her that. Not now. Not when she's acting like a human being for once.

When you don't know what to say, shut up, I guess. Or change the subject.

“All right, then,” I unfold my stiff joints and boost myself back to my feet, “I stand corrected. No point sitting here on the floor. Let's get the vanilla washed off you.” I offer her a hand up, more to indicate she should rise and get going than anything else, and to my surprise, she takes it and lets me pull her to her feet.

There's only one shower, and I let her go first, as I strip off in the restroom outside the fogged diamond-pane door. Might as well, since modesty is apparently no longer a thing, and that I'm pretty sure I'm too wrung out to have my usual embarrassing… ah… reflex.

I wish she'd hurry up with the shower already, because my sweat sure as hell doesn't smell like vanilla, and I've given up all hope of getting the dried blood out of my beard without some serious soap and water and elbow grease. I can hear the splash of hot water, and what sounds like little moans of relief, from within, which frankly is just rubbing it in, given that I'm standing out here waiting for her, feeling sticky and gross.

“Hey,” I call out, “did you faint in there or something?”

“What?”

“DID YOU PASS OUT, OR ARE JUST TAKING ALL DAMN DAY?”

“You have no idea how long it takes to wash this much hair!”

Eventually I give up and start shaving around the edges of my beard, then trimming. I've gotten most of the blood out when she finally emerges, naked and dripping wet, still vividly bruised but somewhat less scruffy. I can't stop myself from seeing that she's taken time to shave… everywhere. Tired as I am, something stirs, and I quickly look away.

No, wait. She probably doesn't actually do that. It's like the butterfly wings and flowers. They edited her so she doesn't have to. Which means, at some point, in a medical office somewhere, her mom actually selected the state of her own daughter's girl parts. Like, out of a list of options. Before she was born.

Wow. And here I thought I was a perv. Rich people, man.

She grabs a towel, bends down, letting her now-clean-and-glossy hair hang downwards, and then jerks upright, flicking it backwards in arc of droplets, and wrapping it, in one smooth, practiced motion, into that towel-turban thing that all girls seem to be born knowing how to do.

A spray of water arcs off the hair flip, and catches me right in the face. She turns to look at me as I grunt in protest, and her eyes travel up and down, briefly. And then again. I'm sure of it.

“Oops,” she says, with the ghost of what I could swear is a giggle, “Oh, well. You're gonna be getting wet anyway. Now get in there. You need that as much as I did. Probably more.”

She wraps herself in another towel, mercifully cutting me off from an eyeful of lots of things that are pleasant but deeply disturbing to look at, and heads off in the direction of her cabin, undulating her hips slightly and leaving a trail of puddles on the floor.

Gods, she's full of herself. This, after a near-death experience, followed by hours upon hours of hard physical punishment, coupled with the threat of instant death. Will anything ever humble her for more than a moment? Or even slow her down?

Well, at least when you have a tame fusion reactor on tap, she can't run you out of hot water.

Fuck it, I might as well take half an hour in there, too.