Skyfall

Not only that but she was goddamn good-looking. The blond hair, blue eyes and tilty-nose bit was okay, though she rarely smiled and wore a baggy jump suit for training. But Sundays were always free, a NASA rule in Houston, and on her second one she had accepted an invite for a hamburger barbecue around the pool at Doc Kennelly's. Doc was a stocky, smiling Irishman with a doting wife and seven noisy kids who was, behind the jokes and the Irish whiskey, the best space medic in the business. Nadya may have tried to dodge the invitation, but she never had a real chance to say no. She showed up at the party in a Russian cotton dress of such massive ugliness that she appeared more feminine and attractive by comparison. May Kennelly had taken one horrified look and whisked her into the house and behind closed doors. Some form of feminine argument, backed up by the stewpot climate of a Houston August, had got Nadya into a wispy blue bikini that brought on a whistling round of masculine applause. She accepted it with a small bow then did a smooth dive into the pool. The afternoon had been all a breeze after that. Once out of uniform Nadya seemed to be a more accessible person, ready to talk about trivial things, ready to smile. When Doc shouted Come and get it, Patrick grabbed two paper plates and loaded them up. Nadya was drying her hair with a thick towel and looking very good indeed in the bikini.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Ravenous. Like a Siberian wolf.”

“Then you're in luck. Doc's burgers have no relation to those rubber shoe heels we get in the commissary. Ground sirloin, Bermuda onions, Canadian cheddar — along with May's secret formula bean salad, cole slaw, garlic pickles, french fries, that's the way, douse them with ketchup, and all the rest. Dig in.”

She did, with an appetite as good as his, washed down with cans of Jax beer from the ice-filled washtub. “This is very good, “she said.

“You better believe it, real American home cooking for a Sunday afternoon. If you were back in Russia what would you be eating now?”

“That would depend where you were. The Soviet Union is very large you must remember, with many different peoples. At my home in Leningrad there would be herring and brown bread, perhaps cucumber in sour cream, very good in summer, and kvass to drink.”

“Kvass?”

“You do not have it here. It is a drink made from old bread….”

“Doesn't sound so great.”

“Oh, no, it is. Like a beer. Very good in hot weather.”

It was easy talk, not really important, but still fun. Nadya lay back on the grass, her arms behind her head, and even if he had wanted to Patrick could not have ignored the rise and fall of her breasts.

“Have you a family back home?”

“Yes, one brother and one sister. Both married and I am an aunt three times now. When I go home there is always plenty of family to see.”

“And you never married?”

“No. One day perhaps, but I've been too busy up until now. But you shouldn't talk. In ail the publicity releases from NASA I read that you are the only unmarried astronaut. What is your reason?”

“No reason, really. I guess I like being a bachelor and don't want to be tied down. I suppose I just enjoy playing the field.”

“This expression, I do not understand it.”

“Slang. You know, like playing around, only not so much the same thing. Going out with girls and enjoying a healthy sex life without worrying about hearing the wedding bells chime.”

Nadya sat abruptly and pulled the towel around her shoulders, her unrevealing working expression back on her face. “In the Soviet Union we do not talk about this sort of thing.”

“Really. Well we certainly do here. You get some of these wives alone and you'll hear some utterly fascinating things.

Relax, Nadya, it's just reality, you-know. I'm a healthy male of thirty-seven. You wouldn't really believe I was a virgin, would you? And you are, what did the release say, thirty years old, and damn good-looking too so you---”

“You must excuse me.” She rose swiftly to her feet. “I must thank Dr. and Mrs. Kennelly for their hospitality.”

They never talked this way again. Not that Nadya was distant or even unfriendly, just that the relationship always stayed a professional one. If they did have a chance for small talk, between training sessions in the simulator trainer when the computer was having problems, it was the kind of talk two pilots who barely knew each other might have during a flight. Trivial but never personal. This situation continued right through their months of training, right to the very end. They worked well together and both did their job in a highly professional manner. Period. After work they never saw one another unless it was at some official function, like the going-away party. This stage of the training was ended. In the morning the Soviet team would be jetting back to Baikonur — Star City — the big Soviet rocket complex. The next time they would all meet would be at Baikonur, for the launch.