Ian Douglas - Abyss Deep

“Come on,” Murdock said. “I’ll show you the base.”

Two hours later, we’d been through the dome top to bottom, and met a number of the researchers there. They seemed like nice ­people, most of them, and that left me with a nagging depression. It was entirely possible, even likely, that every one of them was already dead, that I was speaking, in a way, to their digitized ghosts.

But the ordeal ended at last, and I emerged back in the lounge area on board the Clymer.

“That’s it, E-­Car,” Doobie said. “I’m outta here!”

“Have fun,” I told him.

And I resolved to have chow in the mess hall, then retire to my quarters for a quiet evening alone.

Supper was a mystery-­meat culture that was actually pretty tasty if you dialed up the habanero sauce. It was well past the main mess period, and the place was nearly empty. I finished up, then went back to my quarters.

“Elliot?” It was Joy. My secretary had orders to always route her calls through. I was surprised to find she was standing right outside my compartment. “Can I come in?”

I thoughtclicked the hatch open and she stepped inside. She palmed the touchpoint on her shipboard utilities just below the throat and they evaporated as she came into my arms, gloriously nude. “I had to see you,” she said. “I … I volunteered for the Haldane expedition, but they wouldn’t take me!”

“I know. I looked up the personnel manifest.” They were only taking twenty-­four Marines, after all, out of a company numbering almost two hundred ­people. Someone had to stay behind.

“I was trying to swap assignments with Gibbs, but he wouldn’t agree to it.” She looked disgusted. “The idiot wants to go.”

“Well, apparently, so do you.”

“Because I want to be with you.”

I reached up for my own touchpoint and clicked my uniform away. By that time, I didn’t even need to go to my in-­head menu and turn on my CC-­PDE5 inhibitors. I was ready… .

But of course Sergeant Tomacek chose that moment to come through the door.

Bruce Tomacek was one of the three Second Platoon Marines with whom I shared a berthing compartment, a nice enough guy, but with a nasty tendency to tease newbies unmercifully.

“What the fuck?” he asked when he saw our embrace. “Hey, E-­Car, if you’re on restriction you’re not supposed to enjoy it!”

“Do you mind?” I asked. “We’re saying good-­bye.”

“Nope,” he said, grinning as he dropped into the chair at the compartment’s small desk. “I don’t mind at all!”

Privacy was always tough to come by on board a Navy vessel, but we did have an answer. The compartment’s rack-­tube hatches occupied the bulkhead to the left of the door, four circular openings that cold be sealed shut with a thoughtclick. At just a meter wide, they were a bit on the claustrophobic side for two, but it could be done. I helped Joy into mine, gave the leering Tomacek a dirty look, then skinnied in next to her. I thoughtclicked the hatch shut, and we were alone.

Each rack-­tube had internal lighting, Net connection pads, environment controls, and a flow of fresh air from hidden vents. The padding was warm and soft, as was Joy. I took her in my arms and we snuggled close.

“Just like the hoteru,” she said, smiling into my face.

“Well, except for the gravity, yeah.”

Rabu Hoteru was the Japanese honeymoon hotel in Geosynch. Joy and I had spent a ­couple of nights there on liberty once, just after we’d come back from Bloodworld. Zero-­gravity sex is a lot of fun, but it helps if you and your partner are … restrained, somewhat. In microgravity, every movement has an equal and opposite reaction, and what is euphemistically called “the docking maneuver”—­and staying docked—­can be a bit tricky.

The answer was softly padded tubes in the honeymoon suites, where you and your partner could get plenty of purchase for your more energetic acrobatics. The ends were left open, so you could look toward the head end of your tube and see the endlessly wondrous spectacle of Earth hanging in star-­clotted space.

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