Wildcatter

“I do. Lucky me. I don’t have anything much to do with running the ship or exploring the planet. My job is the crew. I have to keep us all happy. I am authorized to try analyzing, tranquilizing, and screwing.”

Seth chuckled. “JC fancies himself as an athlete?”

Jordan sipped his drink thoughtfully. “Maybe not. Two women, two herms, and two guys does sound like orgy week, but I think that one of the women is a bit of a prude and the other herm looks forty-ish, so we may be misjudging Old Ugly. He could have chosen better bimbos if that was what he wanted.” Jordan smiled. “You hold four tickets in the lottery. I have five.”

“So what’s the rest of the talent like?”

“You’ll meet them all in a few minutes. They’re on their way.” Jordan raised his glass for a toast. “Bon voyage and happy landings. May you become filthy rich and wallow in unheard of decadence all the rest of your days!”

“Same to you.”

Looking into those laughing blue eyes, Seth realized that he was already being assessed as a future partner and that Jordan Spears must make a good-looking woman when they changed. She might not be as flirty then as he was being at the moment, but one of Seth’s tickets looked like a sure winner.

He took another sip of whatever was in his glass. It tasted of sunshine and smelled like lithe young woman. “Do gofers get as much action as captains?”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Jordan said. “All cats are gray in the dark.”

Day Minus 46 to Day Minus 4

Dreams of colonizing planets of other stars are just that, dreams, and must always remain so. For the price of one starship you could build a city at the bottom of the ocean or a skyscraper on Mars. The only cargo that can ever justify the cost of interstellar transport is information.

Fonatelles, op. cit.

Everything after that seemed like anticlimax. Yet time, which had crawled like a snail for months, suddenly went into hyperdrive.

The following day the crew flew to Space City to begin final training, and JC joined them there two days later. The mockup of the ship’s living quarters was depressingly small, a claustrophobic line of windowless rooms no larger than a three-bedroom apartment. Seth had always been a solitary person, and the lack of privacy bothered him more than he had expected. He found himself due to share a room with First Officer Hanna Finn, a cuddly-looking redhead with a sharp sense of humor and an even sharper temper. She was the one that Jordan had called a prude, and she proved it the first night. There was nowhere to have a private chat with her ahead of time, a quiet sounding out of intentions. They would not be alone together until bedtime.

So he sprayed his teeth very carefully, shaved, washed, prettied up, and went to tackle the problem. The two single beds stood parallel, half a meter apart, leaving little space in the room for anything else. He closed the door on the world and the galaxy. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, reading-reading a real paper book, too! Seth had never seen one outside a museum. It must have used up a fair part of her baggage allowance.

He sat down on the other bed and leaned back against the wall.

After a few moments she turned and frowned at him.

“What are you staring at?”

“I wasn’t staring. I was admiring.”

“And hoping, I presume?”

“Of course. But we can leave that until we know each other a lot better.”

She snapped at him like a terrier. “No, it’s something we can settle right now. I never engage in promiscuous sex. Carnal relations should be restricted to traditional marriage. Forget your lecherous ideas. The beds will stay apart.”

“That’s fine by me, ma’am,” he lied. It had been a long time. She was a striking woman and he had been hoping. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will never change my mind. And I always read my Bible before retiring.”

“What’s your favorite bit?”

The big green eyes registered cynical disbelief. “Matthew, Chapter 5. You know it?”

“Oh, yes. Great stuff. I’m not sure I want to inherit the Earth though. I’m planning to earn it.”

“Holy Scripture is not a fit subject for humor. Your ability to quote it isn’t by any chance related to the fact that I left this book here earlier and it happens to open to that page?”

“Certainly not. My favorite is the bit in Paul’s e-pistle to the Carthaginians about faith, hope, and love. Love’s the greatest, he says.”

“He didn’t mean that sort of love, and he was writing to the Corinthians, not the Carthaginians.”

Seth sighed and sat up to remove his tee-shirt. “As long as you don’t do it aloud, I shan’t complain.” He preferred to sleep naked, but decided to leave his shorts on. Jordan had promised him four tickets to the lottery, but the first one he had drawn was not a winning number.

* * *

For the next five weeks the crew were kept frantically busy, spending hours every day in final training. Some of that had to be done elsewhere, so they were not entirely confined to the mockup, and could adjust to the cramped quarters gradually.