Rockhoppers Ch. 02

Josh is eyeing, with slightly bleary suspicion, a brightly colored thimble of liquid the barman just deposited in front of him. Throbbing music is pounding from thin ribbons of speakerfilm dangling like flypaper, strung liberally from wildly coruscating light fixtures. He's found refuge in a booth at the edge of the club, taking a break from the throng of off-duty crew and intrepid station natives packing the dance floor.

He had been swiftly joined by one of his dance partners, a short woman of south asian descent, a jewel bindi glittering on her forehead. She's clad in some sort of active-mesh black dress, bodice tight, cut low in the front and very low in the back, the sleeves flowing all the way down to her glove-covered hands and a long skirt. Every time she moves odd little streamers seem to trail behind her limbs, like small colorful scarves of light, which lengthen with the speed of her gestures. Similar technology is apparently woven into her hair, an intricate black braid that hangs almost to her waist.

On the floor she'd favored spinning dances with large arm movements, concealing herself in veils of light until she'd suddenly switch to slow, undulating motion, moving her hands across generous curves revealed by the fading ribbons. The dance floor was fairly crowded, mostly by off-duty crew still in uniform, but her lightshow won her space. She'd given Josh more than his fair share of attention, despite the number of interested partners she had to choose from. Currently, one of her hands is playing with his longish curly hair, unusual in a spacer, while the other flickers in front of him, a miniature and obviously much-practiced dance of lights in its own right. In his half-inebriated, half-exhausted state it's almost hypnotic.

"It's impolite not to accept when a lady buys you a drink."

"It looks," he carefully enunciates, " like coolant. It's glowing!"

A flash of white teeth and her fingers swirl in front of his eyes, leaving streaks of light burned into his vision. "I am glowing," she says, pressing her not-ungenerous curves more closely against him with a shimmer of color, "don't you like glowing things?"

There is no safe answer to that but action. He drains the little thimble, which proves to be cold and more than a little spicy. "Well, that's one glowing thing."

Turning, swift as thought, he kisses her, the taste of the strange liquid still on his lips. Her surprise is brief, and her response enthusiastic, pulling herself up to meet him. They enjoy a moment of pleasant timelessness before Josh feels another presence standing beside their table. He breaks off the kiss and looks up. And up.

The woman standing there has to have fifteen centimeters on Josh, who isn't short by any human measure. She's slender for her height, Josh suspects he would still probably mass more than she does. Her features are angular, with a straight nose and light skin. Her hair, pale almost to white, is cut in a military bob, and she's wearing what is clearly a ship uniform, also white, with black-and-gold piping and a variety of small badges. She spares him a brief glance and then focuses her attention on his amorous dance partner, who, for her part, has just registered that Josh has stopped kissing her and is now turning to look at the newcomer.

Her eyes widen as the identity of their guest registers. She quickly releases her grip on Josh's shirt and scoots away from him, although his body blocks her from exiting the booth altogether. Josh, getting the sense that he might be the 'other woman' in this situation, makes to exit the booth himself to leave them to their drama.

The newcomer points a slender finger at him and spears him with a look, pinning him in place. She turns to regard the light-dancer for a tense moment, before reaching to take her dusky chin in a pale hand. As if to assert her own claim, she bends down and firmly kisses the smaller woman, who seems helpless not to respond.

The sailor breaks off the kiss and locks eyes with her prey for a moment, before again leaning in, this time to whisper something into the smaller woman's ear. She pulls back, looking again, until the other woman, eyes downcast, nods once. Releasing her grip, she takes a step back from the table and crosses her arms.

The light-dancer once more presses against Josh, leaning in until her lips brush his ear, "Come with me." Josh pulls back and looks at her for a moment, pleading in her eyes. He turns to regard the spacer, standing comfortably, staring at him. Seeing his regard, she raises one eyebrow and allows a flicker of a half-smile.

Josh stands up from the booth, his seat-mate following suit. Entwining her fingers in his, she pulls him along as they both follow the sailor out of the bar.

----

The public gardens on Galileo are a vast and cleverly architected series of maze-like foliage and open fields, supplemented by unobtrusive mirrors and indirect white lighting designed to help the forever-setting sun approach Earth-like levels of light.

Faith finds the entire experience delightful. It's been a long time since she's been on-planet, and she hadn't realized exactly how much she missed being surrounded by plant life. It wasn't quite like home, which was more savanna than jungle, but she still feels great seeing station families on a picnic, and she enjoys walking through forest paths that make her feel alone in the wilderness. She whiles away hours exploring the enormous grounds.

She's on a secluded path when she pauses beside a very fragrant flowering vine. Small genemod bees buzz clumsily and harmlessly around her hands as she pulls some of the tiny white flowers close enough to inhale. Above her, a small hummingbird feeds busily at a different clump of flowers.

"Lonicera albiflora, or white honeysuckle. We have to keep an eye on her, she's prolific. The scent alone is worth the trouble, though."

Grace turns to find another young woman next to her, in a station park-service jumpsuit with a friendly smile and dirt on her knees. Faith smiles. "It smells great. The whole park is wonderful. Amazing! I love it here."

The woman smiles. "This must be your first visit. It is amazing, I love working here. Let me show you something." She reaches past Faith's cheek and plucks one of the flowers off the vine. Showing it to Faith for a moment, she pinches the bottom of the fluted petals and slowly pulls, drawing the long stamen through the body of the flower until it pops free.

Holding it up in front of her audience's eye, she says, "See that droplet? Stick out your tongue!"

After a brief moment, Faith sticks out the tip of her tongue and the ranger touches it with the heavy droplet at the end of the stem. Immediately, a sweet, honey-like flavor spreads through her mouth, and she laughs in delight.

"That's why it's called honeysuckle! That's the nectar, what these little guys are after." She gestures to a bee crawling along her sleeve.

"That was neat, thank you so much!" Faith's stomach chooses that precise moment to gurgle, loudly. Embarrassed, she laughs, "Sorry, guess its almost time for dinner."

"Did you just get to the station today?"

"Yes, on a rock miner. We're getting refitted."

"I just went off shift, come with me and I'll take you to a place only the locals go for chow."

"Um, sure! That actually sounds great. My name's Faith."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Lauren."

Faith's new friend pauses a moment to safely deposit her hitchhiking bee on the vine, and then leads Faith down the light-dappled path towards the garden exit.

----

When she steps off the docking lift into Navy country, two levels up from the Rockhopper's berth, Nomi is wearing a slender black dress, heels, carefully arranged hair and a pair of earrings Bill had given her as a gift years before. She halts in front of the checkpoint manned by a pair of dapper young Marines, one of them a female in utilities and well-armed. The other, a handsome male in a more formal service uniform, approaches, careful eyes taking in outfit and doubtless myriad other small details.

"Good afternoon, Ma'am. This dock is restricted to naval personnel. Civilians must be accompanied by an officer."

"Hi. Nomara Sor of the miner Rockhopper, for Commander Grubenski of the Kraken, if it's convenient."

"Certainly Ma'am, one moment while I inquire."

He spends a few moments staring into space, politely facing slightly away and slightly upwards to indicate he's looking at something on a contact screen. Nomi can't stand using wearables like that, herself, preferring the locater she normally keeps clipped to her waist, currently secreted in a small handbag. His fingers seem to twitch spasmodically as he makes the query, and then still as he waits for the response. He turns back to her.

"A runner is coming from the Kraken, ma'am, they're just a few bays down, it shouldn't be long."

Nomi grins. "Thanks!" Looking him over, she turns to his armed female companion and says "Be sure to keep an eye on this one."

"Constantly, Ma'am." says the young marine in perfect deadpan, earning an eyeroll from her partner and a laugh from Nomi.

About then a young ensign in utilities trots up to escort her to the Kraken, and and hopefully to a long, tiring evening.

----

Grubber steps out of the lift onto the deck. A pack of old-timers at the union hall had marked this area on his locater as the best place to find bars that didn't water the booze or cater to dancing. He'd had to swap war stories with the retired miners for an hour or so, just to be polite, but he figured the information was worth the investment. Besides, the commissary had actual coffee.

Nowhere on the station is quite as dingy as he would prefer, more at home on the much smaller asteroid belt stations that didn't have two thousand employees and a small army of spider drones doing maintenance, one of which was scuttling across the ceiling a few meters over his head even now. Still, something about the quality of the light and the understated signage told him he was in the right place. No grand view of the stars here, but that was fine with him, he'd seen more stellar vistas than any man should have to.

He came to a spot where two bars faced one another across the plating, both of which had been recommended in particular by different oldsters. There wasn't much to choose between them on the outside.

'And sorry I could not travel both...'

With a mental shrug he walks into the closest, passing below a sign stenciled The Tumbler next to a crude drawing of an asteroid in a glass. As his eyes adjust to the pleasant dim inside, a voice floats out of the past calls out "Good lord, how far out do I have to go to get away from you, Grubs?"

With a startled bark of laughter, he peers around until he can make her out, moving out from behind the bar with a big smile to greet him. "Ain't nowhere far enough, Stella. In a couple weeks I'll be all the way out in the deep dark."

Stella is dressed like men hope barmaids really dressed a few centuries ago, with a tight corset under her breasts over a blousy white shirt with puffy shoulders, cut pleasantly low in the front, a short skirt, and heels. She probably can't be called young anymore, but she cuts a fine figure of a woman, and fills out the uniform with bawdy grace.

"God woman, you look great. How long has it been?"

"It's been at least ten years, and you haven't changed a bit. You look like the same ingot of hammered crap I remember from all those years ago on Pegasus. What's your secret?"

"Clean living. What happened to you? I asked around, but no one knew for sure. Shirley thought maybe you went back to Earth."

"Jesus, Shirley, I haven't thought about her in forever. What a bitch! Anyway plenty of time for life stories in a minute. Karl! Two single malts at the back table!"

The bartender, polishing a glass like all bartenders will until the sun gutters and fails, nods and pulls a bottle down off the top shelf behind the bar while Stella pulls Grubber deeper into the bar.

After they're installed at the table and they've both taken a slug, Stella begins to relate her story. "Well, you'll remember Eddie, right?"

"Sure, one of the bouncers. Upright guy, we went drinking a few times."

"Well, I was pushing thirty, and tired of the business..."

"Now that's a sad turn of events."

"Shut up. Anyways, Eddie was always sweet to me, never got grabby like some of the other bouncers, and one day I find him sitting by himself out at that old maintenance shed, you remember, I think they kept extra plating or something out there, everyone would just go sit out and smoke."

Grubber nods.

"So yeah, he's sitting there by himself, so I walk over to bum a stick off of him and he looks up and he's crying. I'd seen plenty of men cry, you know, all the time. That's what some of them paid for, almost. But Eddie never seemed like the type. So I sit next to him and rub his back and ask him what's wrong and he looks at me and he holds up a flimsy and says 'My momma died.'"

"I tell you I about melted and I hug him to me and he's crying and then I'm crying and the next thing I know I've booked both of us on a liner so he can visit her grave on Earth. We never put in notice or nothing, we just packed up and left. His people came from Alabama, so we stayed there a spell and found some work. A year or two later he works up the nerve to ask me to marry him, down on one knee and everything." She waves a ring with a tiny gemstone.

"So there we were, an ex-whore and a high school dropout, sort of scratching out a living. Stuff happened, you know, life, and Eddie gets offered a greenhorn slot on a miner, which I made him take. He passed his cargo cert six months later, and he's been a miner ever since."

"I'm not exactly the type to stay at home and crank out babies, only seeing my husband every six months or so, so I called Carly up back on Pegasus to see if I could maybe tend bar up there or something and see Eddie more often when he put in. She didn't have nothing for me, but she pointed me to someone she knew in the Navy, and they pointed me out here. She helped me with a referral to the bank and the Navy had a program to help get civvie businesses started up here on Galileo, so now, tada! I own the lease to this place."

Grubber blinks. "Sorry, kid, still stuck on the part where you said you left the business."

Stella slugs his arm, ungently. "Asshole."

Rubbing his bicep, Grubber grins at her. "Just fucking around, kid. Couldn't be happier for you two. Is Eddie on station? I'd love to have a beer with him."

"Nah he just lit out a couple weeks ago, but he might be back in before you take off. He's on a gas miner now, same corporation. He's three weeks on, one off."

"Yeah, we should still be here. I'm on the Rockhopper, page us when he gets in."

"You say that like you ain't gonna be drinking here every night."

"You say that like you'd be able to handle that much business."

She waves at the bartender, who comes over and bends down. She whispers something in his ear, and as he turns to leave, says "And bring us another round, thanks, Karl."

Karl vanishes further into the rear of the bar as Stella turns back. "So, the deep dark, huh. You on the New Pangea contract?"

"Yup. Three years. probably two to four months, subjective. Pain in the ass, but it pays great."

"Wow, I didn't know how long the bids were for. Three years. A few trips like that and I'll be as old and ugly as you are when you come to the bar."

"Sweetie, I was uglier at twenty that you'll ever be."

"I can't argue. I liked you, though, as a customer. You showered before you came to the club."

"Momma raised me right."

"Must have, couldn't have been the example of the other slobs on that station. That's one thing Navy bases like this have going for them, people are clean."

He raises an eyebrow as Karl delivers their next round. "Why would that matter? You're out of the business. I had to ask the union hall goats where to find a bar that wasn't all spit-and-polish."

"Welllll, about that," she says, sipping her scotch, "I don't whore anymore, but I don't think you could really describe me as 'out of the business'."

Grubber is about to follow up on that when something young, soft, warm, and very female oozes into the booth next to him.

----

"Sooo." Josh waits for the lift with his two new acquaintances from the club. "My name is Josh. What should I call you guys?"

The short dance opens her mouth to answer when the tall blond cuts her off with a gesture. She says the first words Josh has actually heard her speak all night, "I am Lilith. For tonight, until she earns her name back, she is Slut. If and when she is allowed to speak, she will address you as Sir and myself as Mistress."

This last was directed with hard eyes at the woman Josh now knew only as Slut, who stood now with her eyes downcast.

"Oookay," he replies as they step into the lift, "so, Lilith, where are we going?

"Tell him, Slut."

"We are going to m... we are going to Slut's apartment, Sir."

"Close call, Slut."

Slut does not reply, simply stands with downcast eyes. Josh is a little weirded out by this entire situation, but his underwear is rapidly becoming... constrictive, in spite of it. He decides to try and assuage his conscience. Addressing the dancer, he asks "Um, are you okay with all of this, all of what's happening?"

"Answer him. Completely."

"Slut gets what Slut deserves, Sir. Slut thought Mistress would not return for weeks, and Slut was lonely. Slut loves Mistress, and Slut loves belonging to Mistress. It... it's just so hard to behave when Mistress is away. Slut gets so lonely."

Josh turns to Lilith and looks her over, frankly. He finds it disconcerting to have to look up to meet the eyes of a woman, "The only person I take orders from is my captain. Don't expect..." a gesture at the submissive woman, "this."

Lilith smiles and steps closer, until she's looming above him, her eyes looking down into his from just a few centimeters away. Tracing a finger down the front of his shirt, she asks, "Would you describe yourself as in control of this situation?"

At that moment, the lift door chimes open on their destination. Lilith turns and strides out, robbing him of any chance for a response. Slut quickly follows her mistress, still trailing little streamers of light as she scampers to keep pace.

Josh watches them for a moment, considering, then moves to follow.

----

"Three years?! That's wild. The gas guys only harvest Jupiter for a few weeks at a time." says Lauren, mopping up her plate with half a biscuit.

Faith finishes a mouthful of salad before responding. "Well, rock mining usually pays a lot more than gas, which is why there are a lot of independent ships doing it. Most of the gas haulers are corporate, and it costs way more to build one. I'll be in stasis for most of the trip, so it will only feel like a couple of months to me, especially once we get the accelerator and the mechs started. I could work on a gas miner for a decade and not make as much as I can on this one trip."

"Wow! Well, but what about time back here though? I mean, you'll only be a couple of months older, but everyone else will still age objectively. Is your whole family on the ship or something?"

"Oh, no, I'm from Earth. My family is back there, and we write occasionally. My parents died in an accident when I was twelve, though, and I went to boarding school till I grew up, so it's all aunts and uncles and cousins. I had a boyfriend and we were both crew together on another ship, but that, uh... ended bad."