The Outback Stars (41 page)

“How did you stand it for so long?” she asked. “The gossip, the harassment—you shouldn't have had to.”

Myell turned his head. “It goes on every day, if not in our division, then in others.”

Jodenny wished she could dissolve their EV suits and wrap her arms around him.

“The day we met,” he said. “I was thinking of not coming back to the ship. Then you came up to me and said my boots needed to be polished. Who could resist? I fell in love with you right then and there.”

Jodenny couldn't find anything to say.

“Sorry.” Myell sounded crestfallen. “I guess that's out of line.”

“No,” she replied. “It's been so long since anyone said that to me … do you want to know when I fell in love with you?”

“Do you love me?” Myell asked.

“Yes.” And saying it lifted a great weight off her heart, a weight the size of the
Yangtze.
“We'll both probably be court-martialed, and it's the most reckless thing I've done in years, but yes. I do love you.”

He smiled. “Then tell me.”

“When we were in your brother's guest room and you couldn't understand why I was there, but you trusted me anyway. You were wearing a beige sweater.”

“And you were wearing a nightgown with red roses on it.”

“I thought you might knock on my door that night.”

“You wouldn't have let me in.”

She grinned. “Probably not.”

They resumed their search, working steadily from different ends of the shaft. At one point fatigue overtook Jodenny and she checked her watch. Morning quarters had come and gone. Her stomach rumbled with hunger and her throat ached. Three days to die of thirst, was that it? The silence of the tower struck her as cruel, and she clicked on her comm switch.

“Terry? Where are you?”

“Forty-two,” he said. “More rebar. You?”

“Level eighteen. Plastics.” Jodenny worked her way past more bins. “How's your oxygen?”

“About a half hour left.”

“Mine, too. Let's get back to the command module.”

Back in the module, they waited for the tanks to run down and swapped the old units for new ones. The thought of returning to the dark slots made Jodenny weak in the knees, and Myell seemed in no hurry to return either, but they had to keep looking. Sometime around lunchtime, just as Jodenny was beginning to believe she'd never eat again, her comm clicked.

Myell said, “I've got something here. Some kind of medical imaging equipment.”

“It's a start. Where are you?”

He didn't answer.

“Terry, this is no time for heroics. Tell me where you are, and that's a direct order.”

“Sorry.” He didn't sound at all contrite. “Write me up when we get out of here.”

Jodenny understood his reasoning but she wasn't going to stand for it. His last report had put him somewhere on thirty-eight. She sailed up the shaft, picked level thirty-seven at random, and moved down it with a few choice, muttered curses.

“You should go up to the command module, Jodenny. Safer that way.”

“Not for you.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Not for me.”

Standard EV suits didn't come equipped with Geiger counters. He would have no way of determining how many roentgens he'd been exposed to or when to stop. She imagined his hair and teeth falling out, the sperm dying off in his testes, and the lesions that would sear his skin.

“It'll go faster if we work together,” she heard herself say. “If they come fast enough, the radvaxes will take care of everything.”

“I've got five crates open,” he said. “Get out of here before you expose yourself.”

A trail of red alarm lights lit up above her head. Jodenny squinted at their brightness and followed them toward Myell. Even if the bridge sensors were immediately noticed, what priority would it rate, a radiation leak in an unmanned tower, and how long would it take to send a team out to investigate? She hoped to hell the duty officer was paying attention. When she reached Golf block she saw Myell floating listlessly.

She pushed her face plate close to his. “Terry?”

His expression was resigned. “I wanted you to stay safe.”

“Safe is when I'm with you,” she told him. “Come on. Let's get out of here.”

*   *   *

They took refuge in the command module and reminisced about Mary River.

“I almost went with Colby and Dottie to that dance,” he said. “They wanted me to come and socialize. I don't know what I would have done if I'd walked in and seen you there.”

“Same thing you did when you saw me drive up with him. Kept quiet until you knew what was going on.” Jodenny cocked her head. “That's your way, isn't it? You keep quiet until you know the whole story.”

He shrugged inside his suit. “Sometimes I just keep quiet.”

Strapped into the chairs, they turned off their lights to conserve power and sat in the red glow of the emergency exit light. The shaft before them was so dark and fathomless Jodenny imagined it was like the Alcheringa itself.

“Jodenny,” he said, as if trying the name out for size. “Kay. Where did you get the name Kay from, anyway?”

“Jodenny Katherine Scott. Katherine comes from my mother.”

“Is she still alive?” Myell asked.

“No. Both my parents died when I was an infant.”

“I'm sorry.”

She had never known them. Had never had anyone like that to love and lose. But his mother had killed herself when he was just a child, and his father had drank himself to death afterward.

“We're going to get out of here,” she told Myell. “There's not going to be any death today.”

“I know,” he said, but there was little conviction to his voice. She checked her watch. An hour had passed since he'd started opening crates. If the bridge hadn't noticed by now, they might not notice at all. How long did it take radiation sickness to kick in?

“Terry, I never thanked you for being on my side from day one.”

“All part of the job, ma'am.” He reached out and patted her gloved hand clumsily.

Her eyelids grated like sandpaper. She needed rest in a desperate way, but feared running out of oxygen while asleep.

“Hear that?” Myell asked drowsily some time later. “Drums.”

She heard nothing. “Talk to me. What was it like, growing up on Baiame?”

“Like hell,” he said. “Can't you hear them? I'm not delirious, I swear it.”

The hatch opened, spilling light into the module. Help had finally come.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The first rad tech who saw Jodenny yelped in alarm. “Jesus! What the hell—”

“I'm Lieutenant Scott,” she said. “This is Sergeant Myell. We were trapped and left to die here by Commander Osherman, Lieutenant Quenger, and Chief Chiba. Notify Security and the officer of the day. The source of the radiation leak is some opened crates on level thirty-eight. And there's a dead body up in the observation module.” Jodenny powered past the techs with Myell in tow. “We'll be in the access ring.”

Gravity pulled her to her knees the minute she tried to step past the hatch. Myell wasn't much stronger but they managed to sit upright and started stripping off their helmets and EV suits. They slumped to the deck when they were done.

“You would think they'd put sofas out here.” Myell rubbed the sides of his head with both fists. His hair stuck up in spikes, and he smelled as rank as she did.

“How do you feel?” she asked him.

“Happy to be alive. You?”

“Happy,” she agreed.

They were alone, the rad techs still in the tower, no one else yet arrived. The loss of heat from the suit made Jodenny cold all over. Myell must have been cold too, but instead of looking for a blanket he leaned in close. His eyes were dark and wide.

“Kay,” he said.

She would have replied but his mouth was on hers now in a clumsy, fumbling kiss, and though his lips were cold they were also soft, and faintly salty, and for about ten blessed seconds she forgot about everything. So many weeks of waiting. So much longing, pent-up, on both their parts. She hadn't known how hungry she'd been for him. Myell was a strong kisser, not shy at all, but when she tried to pull him down to the deck he groaned and broke away.

“Not in public,” he said.

“I'll resign,” she said.

“No.” Myell brushed her hair back from her face and let his hand fall away as two medics from Emergency Services appeared. Within moments the medics were scanning them for radiation exposure.

“Christ,” one said, which didn't sound encouraging at all.

“We've got to get you both to Decon, Lieutenant,” the other medic said.

Jodenny replied, “Not until the OOD shows up. You could go, Sergeant.”

“No thanks, Lieutenant. I'll wait with you.”

The Officer of the Day was Lieutenant Hasonovic from Drive. By the time he arrived, Jodenny and Myell were sitting on the medical litters with thermal blankets around their shoulders. Myell's face had started to turn red and Jodenny felt so tired she could barely stay awake, but they'd both taken their first doses of radvax.

“Record my statement on your gib.” Jodenny waited for Hasonovic to turn it on. “Sergeant Myell and I were inspecting the DCS when we were assaulted by Commander Osherman, Lieutenant Quenger, and Sergeant Chiba. We discovered the corpse of Commander Matsuda in the observation module and with no other way of establishing a link to the
Aral Sea,
triggered a radiation leak to alert the bridge of our presence.”

Jodenny paused. “Anything else, Sergeant?”

Myell blinked owlishly. “That sounds like everything.”

“Okay. End of statement.” Jodenny turned to the ES techs. “We're ready to go.”

“Wait!” Hasonovic followed them down the passage. “Did you say corpse?”

The nearest decontamination station was at the civilian hospital in T11. Jodenny lost track of Myell there, although she was sure he wasn't far. A female nurse with blunt black hair helped her shower and dress in Sick Berth pajamas. A second dose of radvax followed, and then she was put to bed in a small room. The doctor who came to talk to her was a tall, gangly woman with a wide face.

“I'm Dr. Genslar, and you're extraordinarily lucky.” She ran a fast-tissue repairer over Jodenny's cheek, which was covered with a large bruise from hitting the deck when she was mazered. “Without those radvaxes, you'd be vomiting up your intestines right about now.”

“That's nice.” Jodenny closed her eyes. “How's Sergeant Myell?”

“He'll live a fine, productive life.” Dr. Genslar studied her gib. “You've got visitors out there, but I told them to come back in about eight hours.”

Jodenny closed her eyes. “Make it ten.”

Sometime later a nurse woke her up for a third dose of radvax. Still half asleep, Jodenny inspected the pillow to see if any of her hair had fallen out. She probed her teeth with her tongue. None seemed loose. Maybe it was too soon, or maybe it wouldn't happen at all. She went back to sleep and dreamed of floating in the darkness, listening to Myell over the comm as he said he was opening up more smartcrates. When she woke the next time, voices were arguing nearby.

“How long is she going to be out?” Al-Banna asked.

Dr. Genslar answered, “As long as it takes, Commander. Those two took in mighty high doses. Any further exposure and those radvaxes wouldn't have done shit.”

The voices retreated.

Although sleep was still an inviting option, Jodenny forced herself to focus on the medical equipment around her. She disengaged the dermal packs delivering saline to her body. The head was a few inviting feet away, and she considered it a good sign when the room stayed steady while she used it. The deck was cold beneath her feet, but she found a robe hanging in the closet and wrapped it over her pajamas before going in search of Myell.

A few meters past her room there was a nurse's station. The nurse on duty had her back to Jodenny as she answered a ping. Jodenny shuffled to the next room, which was empty, and to the one after that, in which Myell lay sleeping. She touched his face, kissed him to make sure he was still breathing, and returned to her own bed in hopes of catching a few more hours of rest.

The next time she woke, she had a headache but was definitely in the mood for breakfast. Dr. Genslar came before the food did and asked, “Ready to return to full duty?”

“Not really.”

“Good. You're not Superwoman. You're going to be dragging your feet for the next few days.”

“Am I released?”

Dr. Genslar consulted her gib. “If you can eat and keep it down, I'll consider it. Do you have your story straight?”

“Which story?”

“The story about how you and that handsome sergeant wound up in the tower together. I've heard a few theories already, none of them flattering.”

Jodenny's cheeks heated up. “I told the OOD what happened.”

“And you've got burns on your skin that look like mazer marks,” Dr. Genslar said agreeably. “Doesn't stop people from gossiping anyway. So who do you want to talk to first? The list keeps growing. Commander Larrean, Commander Al-Banna, Commander Picariello, Lieutenant Commander Vu, Chaplain Mow, Dr. Ng—”

“Sergeant Myell.”

Myell shuffled in while she was eating breakfast, and from the slightly wary look on his face she guessed Genslar had mentioned the gossip to him, too. Or perhaps in the unforgiving hospital light he saw the obstacles in front of them more clearly. Maybe the ordeal in the tower had driven him to a place he hadn't intended to go, and here was where he corrected his path.

“Hi,” she said, her throat dry.

“Hi.” He came closer to the bed but didn't reach for her hand. “You look better.”

Jodenny studied his eyes. “So do you.”