Jaeckle rapped on the metal hatch of the blister. After a long moment, the bolt slid back and the door opened. There was the Earth, immense, breathtaking, sparkling blue and brilliant white, gliding past beyond the Lexan windows. But Jaeckle barely noticed the spectacular panorama. He focused on Carla Sue, long, lean, and angry. He could tell from the tightness of her lips and the knit in her brow that the delay in unlocking the blister hatch had been carefully calculated.
Jaeckle closed the door softly, carefully. Carla Sue waited until she heard the click of its latch. Then:
“If you don’t think I’m beautiful anymore, I’d be obliged if you would tell me before you tell the rest of the world.”
Her voice was deadly calm. Carla Sue was never strident, never out of control. Even when she was angry. Even in the heat of lovemaking. Her mind always ruled her body.
Jaeckle summoned his most sheepish grin.
“Don’t try to mollify me, Kurt. Flabby legs. I know what you were driving at.”
“I was stressing a point, Carla. I told you when I first asked you to be my assistant that I would make comments you might construe as critical. You can’t take them personally.”
“So you think I’m still beautiful.”
“I think you are brilliant and beautiful.”
Carla Sue’s expression changed from an angry frown to a grudging smile. Jaeckle moved forward to kiss her, but his knee struck her hip before his lips reached hers and she tumbled away. He caught up with her and squeezed her lips into a pucker. Those lips. Microgravity had improved them, if nothing else. They were redder, thicker, pouter. They made him want to unzip his fly on sight, and many times he had. He kissed her deeply, then spun her around so that they both faced the Earth.
“I never know where we are,” said Carla Sue.
“The North Atlantic. We’ll cross the Azores soon.”
He felt warm toward her, warmer than he had felt in days. It wasn’t a sign that their relationship was on the rebound. His conversation with Jared Lewis had solidified that decision. He recognized it as the last flourish of ardor before he pulled one of his patented disappearing acts.
“Did I ever tell you what people did in the Azores?” he said, nestling against her from behind.
“Mmmmm,” said Carla Sue.
As head of the North American research team aboard Trikon Station, Thora Skillen should have been respected and admired. Instead, she counted herself the loneliest person on the station.
She walked the treadmill in the ex/rec room, setting herself a blistering pace, working out her fury and contempt for those around her with tireless long-legged strides. David Nutt, she seethed to herself. A good name for him. The perfect name. And Commander Tighe, Mr. Machismo himself. Warning me about Roberts bugging Nutt’s files. As if I didn’t know how irresponsible Roberts can be.
There were five other men and women in the ex/rec room, working the bicycle, the rowing machine, throwing darts in the strangely flat trajectories of weightlessness. No one spoke to Thora Skillen. No one even looked in her direction.
She was a tall, athletically lean woman in her late thirties with severe, chiseled features and prematurely graying hair. Almost a classic face, strong and serious, like a sculpture from ancient Athens. She seldom smiled.
She knew that they called her “Stone Face” behind her back. That, and worse.
She was in the prime of life: a brilliantly successful molecular geneticist who already had taken on heavier responsibilities than women ten years her senior. Everyone predicted a splendid career for her, but Skillen knew better. Her career was already finished. Her life was finished. She was merely going through the motions.
Thora Skillen was dying. No one on Trikon Station knew that except the medical officer. But the males who dominated the worlds of scientific research and corporate politics knew it. They knew it full well.
The only reason they had selected her for Trikon Station, she realized, was to make an experiment of her. They wanted to see what effect microgravity might have on the corruption that was eating away her lungs. Her work, her brilliance, her drive and dedication all meant next to nothing to them. She was a laboratory animal, that’s all. Naming her head of the North American segment was a sop, a meaningless bone thrown to a dying lab specimen.