The Outback Stars (45 page)

“No.” Jodenny stared out past the green and brown landscape toward the Team Space buildings in the distance. They'd stick her in some shit job again, something no one else wanted to do, and it was so much like being on Kookaburra that she didn't know how she was going to stand it. When something crashed against the nose of the flit it took her a few seconds to turn that way. The tourist who had lost control of his luggage cart began to argue with the Team Space chauffeur.

“Christ,” Senga said. “Stupid dill.”

The argument grew more heated. Senga stepped out to intervene. Jodenny squeezed the bridge of her nose, imagining the upcoming months of boredom, scandal, and innuendo. Meanwhile Myell was out there somewhere, maybe still ill from the radiation, maybe needing her help, and what was she doing? Sitting on her ass while others determined the course of her destiny.

Screw that, she decided, and slid out the side door.

She threw herself into the crowds and circled back into the terminal. Somehow she had to get some yuros, find out where Quenger and Ishikawa had gone, and stop whatever plans they had. No worries. She had barely gone five steps when she heard someone call, “Kay!” and Myell grasped her arm. He was dressed like a tourist and had dyed his hair blond.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Looking for Osherman and Chiba.” Jodenny peered at him earnestly. “Hoping to find you.”

Myell didn't immediately reply. She saw that he didn't know whether or not to trust her. Well, she'd certainly given him ample cause for doubt. She wanted to throw her arms around him and beg for forgiveness.

“Terry—”

“Come this way.” Myell hustled her down a concourse of tourist stalls and fast-food restaurants. Jodenny looked up for overhead cameras, sure they could be tracked by security forces, but Warramala was one of the least monitored places in the Seven Sisters: they valued privacy and liberty here more than anywhere else.

“Give me your gib,” Myell said, and when she did he tossed it into a trash can.

“Hey—” Jodenny protested.

“Fleet can track it.”

He hustled her into a rent-a-room, told her to stay there while he got her something to wear, and returned five minutes later with a yellow sundress, a wide-brimmed hat, and a pair of sandals. She changed quickly while he waited outside. When she emerged she said, “I know that fixing the inventory was Strayborn's idea.”

Myell's expression gave her nothing to work with. “We can talk later. We've got a boat to catch.”

“What boat? To where?”

With one hand holding a duffel bag and another on her arm, Myell walked her along the people-movers. “Port Douglas. It's where Quenger and Chiba went.”

“Why don't we fly up there?” Jodenny asked.

“Security there is too tight. The gates probably already have your picture.”

“Don't we need ID for the boat?” she asked as he stopped by a ticket kiosk.

“It's taken care of.” Myell punched in data and waited for plastic tickets to spit out. “I'm Alan Foster and you're my wife, Noreen.”

So they had gotten married. Too bad Jodenny didn't remember the details. She followed Myell down a ramp to the waiting passenger ferry. Four decks high and a hundred meters long, it was the largest ship at the piers. Rust and tan-colored Corroboree banners hung from several railings, and a throng of pilgrims stood at the stern receiving blessings from the river. Do-wops danced and sang on the open deck above them.

The purser who took the tickets from Myell asked, “You and the missus going all the way to Port Douglas?”

“Yes,” Myell said, with a fairly good Kiwi accent. “How long until we get there?”

“We'll be there Friday, sir. Just in time for the solstice and World Cup.”

After walking through a weapons scan they crossed the gangway. The ferry was old but clean, and Jodenny smelled fresh paint as Myell led her through a crowded lounge filled with passengers. Their cabin was small but decently furnished in various shades of blue. No deskgib, though, and no vids. A tiny balcony offered an obstructed view of the river.

“Lie down,” Myell said. “You don't look so good.”

“I'm fine,” Jodenny said, but her knees had gone weak and she sat in the armchair near the balcony. She grabbed a pillow to hide her shaking hands. Maybe she hadn't fully recovered from the radiation yet. Maybe the sheer audacity of what she had done, gone AWOL, was catching up to her.

“I'll have some lunch sent down once the galley opens,” he said.

“Where are you going?”

“Casino. We need more money.”

He left. Jodenny rubbed her eyes and watched the landscape glide past the window. The mighty Motuponui was the largest river on the continent, a wide torrent of freshwater that drained from mammoth lakes in the mountainous north. The river then crossed thousands of kilometers of dense rain forest. The ferry would carry them along the last leg of the river's journey through a set of timeworn hills, but for now the countryside was flat, the riverbanks in full, heavy bloom.

A steward sent by Myell brought her lunch a few minutes later. After devouring soup and sandwiches she went to examine herself in the mirror. If her picture wasn't all over the news yet, it soon would be. She rang the porter and borrowed a pair of scissors.
Good-bye, hair,
she thought as the locks fell into the washbasin. After sunset she ventured up to the lounge deck. A group of do-wops had started an impromptu concert with their guitars and drums while soccer fans clustered around the vids for the semifinals. The casino was already crowded, players jammed around tables and playing slot machines that shouted encouragement to bet even larger sums of money. Myell was slouched at a card table with a depressingly small pile of chips.

“Hi, honey.” Jodenny gave him a warm peck on the cheek. “Are you winning big?”

Myell blinked at her, his gaze fixing on her short hair. “About to, darling.”

“Your husband's a lousy player,” the man to Myell's left said.

“My husband is a great player.” Jodenny peeked at his cards and saw he was going to lose the hand. “Sweetie, I'm all out. Lend me some?”

Myell pushed her some yuros. Jodenny gave him another kiss and a squeeze of the thigh for good measure. At a crazy-seven table she took a stool between two immensely large women wearing Kookaburra T-shirts. Jodenny's cards totaled eighteen. She held and won fifty yuros. She bet half of it again, lost it when the dealer flashed a lightning card, doubled the second half on a wild hand, doubled it again by trumping the player next to her. At a farca table across the room she got into a game with more tourists and a man too casual to be anything other than a card shark plying his trade up and down the river. She let him win the first hand but came back to phase him in the second. Myell had lost most of his money and was morosely feeding the last of it to a slot machine.

“Come on,” she said. “I've got enough for us.”

Myell gave her a sideways look. “I want to finish.”

Jodenny went down to the shops. Although she cringed at the prices, she bought herself sturdier travel clothes and a pair of shoes. At a public gib she checked the headline news from Waipata and saw nothing about her or Myell. She returned to their cabin and indulged in a hot shower. Myell showed up after midnight with beer on his breath.

Jodenny said, “You can take the bed. I'll sleep on the floor.”

“No, ma'am.” Myell kicked off his shoes but didn't undress any further. He stood in the darkness, swaying a little. “That wouldn't be right. Floor's fine.”

He dropped a pillow on the floor and disappeared into the bathroom. Jodenny pulled the blanket from the bed and added it to his nest. After a moment's deliberation she scooped up both pillow and blanket and put them back in place.

He scowled when he came out. “I told you I'll take the floor.”

“You can take that side of the bed.”

Myell went to his side and sat with his back to her. She held off from touching his shoulders. His stomach growled in the quiet cabin.

“Did you eat?” she asked.

“I'm not hungry.” Myell lay down, resolutely facing away from her.

Jodenny curled up on her side. Let him sulk. He still had some apologizing to do for that fudged inventory, and leaving the ship without telling her, and making her worry so badly. She stared at his back in the darkness and made the magnanimous decision to apologize first.

“I'm sorry for doubting you,” she said.

His shoulder hitched up fractionally. For a moment she hoped they might discuss it, but he apparently wasn't in a conversational mood. “Good night, Lieutenant.”

“Good night, Sergeant,” she said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Myell woke with sunlight on his face. When he cracked his eyes open he saw Jodenny sitting in the armchair with her knees drawn up. Her short hair still startled him. It made her look older in a way that reminded him she was not a green ensign, nor a seasoned commander, but someone caught on a merciless learning curve somewhere in between.

The smell of garlic woke him further, and he eyed the tray on the table.

“Breakfast,” Jodenny said. “Yours. I already ate.”

He tried not to drool like a starving wolf as he tore into the mofongo and gulped down mango batida. The riverbanks, lush and green, slid by the balcony windows as the boat churned along.

“Thanks,” he said.

She gave him an appraising look. “Tell me what happened with the April numbers.”

Her and that damned inventory. Myell supposed, after sulking over it for most of a day and night, that she had a right to be angry. He rubbed his hand through his hair and recounted as best he could how they'd come to write off three hundred transactions. He didn't blame Strayborn any more than he blamed himself.

“So you did it because you wanted to get ready for inspection?” Jodenny asked.

“We did it because we were lazy. Because it probably was the battery, and the glitches didn't seem like a big deal.”

He couldn't bear to look at her anymore, not when she wore that piercing expression. Myell went to wash his face and hands. When he came out of the bathroom he saw that she had made the bed, put the tray into the hall, and tidied up the cabin. His domestic lieutenant. He wanted her so badly that he felt like he had a low-grade fever. Better to get out of the cabin before he embarrassed himself.

“I'll just—”

“No.” Jodenny faced him. “I was wrong. I took the first chance I had to distrust you because I was afraid. Of us and for us. Of what it would all mean.”

“There's no
us,
” he protested. “It's not worth the damage to your career.”

“There's been an
us
since the first day I met you. I want there to keep being an
us.
” Jodenny pressed herself against him and covered his lips with her own. In the kiss he sensed her sincere apology, her hunger for him, her eagerness to put things right. She pulled away first and gazed into his eyes.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Myell picked her up and carried her to the bed.

“We should probably go slow,” she said as she stretched out beneath his straddled knees and reached for his waist.

“I agree.” Myell kissed her forehead and the base of her throat, drinking in the scent of her skin, soaking in the heat that sparked between them. “Start back from square one.”

Jodenny slid his trousers down from his hips and worked her hand beneath his boxer shorts. “We'll get to know each other slowly. Be methodical.”

Clothes were a nuisance. Why had they ever been invented? Groaning, Myell pulled Jodenny's sundress over her head and unfastened her bra. Her warm, deft fingers made him grind down against her, his breath fast, his nerves on fire. “Are you sure?” Myell asked.

“Absolutely.”

She arched up to kiss him, and the hunger of her lips shot through him. His heartbeat sped up as he shifted, stiffened, moaned. He couldn't touch enough of her, couldn't help the need to inhale the smell of her hair. The fingernails of her free hand dragged trails of fire down his back and ass. If she stopped now he would throw himself in the river.

“Jo,” he murmured as her tongue flicked against his left nipple. “Are you sure, sure?”

“Less talking, more kissing,” she instructed, her breath moist and sweet. “And don't call me Jo.”

It had been too long since Wendy. Since any woman had touched him. He tried to slow down by thinking about DNGOs and COSALs but it was no use. Within moments Myell was climaxing helplessly in her hand. Everything fell away—worry, fear, doubt. The cabin blurred, or maybe that was just his watery vision.

He slumped beside her, trying to catch his breath. “I'm sorry.”

Jodenny kept kissing his chest. “Don't be. You needed that.”

He ran his fingers through the short strands of her hair. “What do you need?”

“Well,” she drawled with a wicked smile. “I'm glad you asked, sailor.”

They spent most of the morning exploring each other's bodies, and Myell did in fact learn a thing or two about pleasing supply lieutenants. After fortifying themselves with lunch from room service they went back to mapping erogenous zones and comparing notes. They dozed in the afternoon, the river sliding by outside, the sky a cloudless blue. For dinner they decided to dine out, but lost a half hour to washing each other in the small, cramped shower unit beneath a stream of hot water.

“Maybe we should eat in,” Jodenny said, her lips against the hollow of his throat.

“We need money,” he said.

They ate dinner in a dark, wood-paneled restaurant with wide views of the river. Myell couldn't stop touching her under the table. In return she slipped her right foot out of a sandal and rubbed it along the inside of his thigh. His fists tightened on the silverware. By the time they reached the casino it was already flush with high rollers. Jodenny's luck had turned, and she lost two hundred yuros to a trader from Los Niños. Myell began a steady losing streak and was sure he'd be broke before midnight, but a chance bet at roulette brought back most of what he'd lost.