The Passenger Ch. 10

Eventually her voice broke and she gently pushed against my head, moving it away from her hot, wet center. Then she just lay there, panting, her body utterly slack, and I realized she'd reached her limit. The bed was soaked and so was I. She'd always been quite wet when she came, but never like this. I gently kissed those slick, glistening folds between her thighs one more time before disentangling myself from her. My back and knees hurt, and I got up carefully from where I'd been kneeling beside the bed. She had her eyes closed and her breath came heavy. Sweat ran down her face, and her hair was plastered against it. She was so beautiful.

I carefully lifted her legs and turned her so that she was fully on the bed, and more or less in a dry spot. I smiled. With the ship's climate control keeping the temperature just right and comfortable, we didn't need blankets, and right now that was probably a good thing.

I quietly cleaned myself up in the shower. When I came back, she hadn't moved. I watched her lovely, sleeping face for a few long moments, once again realizing how beautiful she was and how much I loved her. Then I quietly left the cabin and walked over to the autokitchen. We hadn't had dinner, and a quick snack was definitely in order. I had thoughts that needed thinking. I briefly considered waking Anne and bringing her something to eat, but she probably needed sleep more than food right now. Her system was geared differently from mine anyway, in that for her food only supplemented her other internal energy resources.

Before we had our shower, she'd put the flower that Layne had given her on the table in a small glass of water. I looked at that flower with entirely different eyes now.

"So you did a bit of research of your own, didn't you, Layne?" I mused. "Trying out your latest experiment on Anne, maybe? Nice of you to let us know about it. We'll have to speak about that, you and I."

Strange guy, Layne. I'd have to learn more about him, somehow. Much more. Maybe Raz might be able to give me some details on his background. But would he? Raz can also be discreet when he wants to be. Not to mention the fact that this little experiment of Layne's could very well be meant as a message to Raz. As far as I understood it, Raz had not told Layne about the interesting applications of Manaka's latest cash crop, but Layne, with his obvious background in intelligence gathering, could very well have found that out all on his own. It was entirely possible that this was his way of telling Raz that the big secret was out. Or maybe that there were other cash crops to be had as well, with similar applications on different markets. Or... Blackmail, perhaps? Unlikely. Or

I shrugged. No use trying to figure it out now. I finished up and walked quietly back into the cabin. Anne made soft noises in her sleep. A lock of her hair was draped across her nose and I gently moved it aside. She didn't wake up, but she moved restlessly, and her breathing was much deeper than usual when she slept. Her nipples and her clit were still much larger than normal. The clear nectar of her arousal glistened between the lips of her pussy and a glistening drop of it ran down her thigh. Carefully I touched one of her nipples, felt how hard it was. She moaned softly, but still she didn't wake up. She was obviously deeply asleep, but she was also still deeply aroused. Whatever the active substance in that flower might be, she had inhaled it, which meant it was volatile. It would have spread through the entire ventilation system by now, and she was still exposed to it.

I left the cabin, took the glass with the flower from the table and walked over to the airlock. As usual when we were in port, the inner airlock door was open while the outer one was closed. I put the glass with the flower inside the airlock and hit the 'cycle' button. The inner door slid shut, and I heard the outer door slide open.

Good. It would take the air scrubber some time to remove the flower's last traces from our internal atmosphere, but once that was done she should settle down. I quietly went back into our cabin, lay down on the bed and curled up next to her. Then the world went away.

* * *

Morning came soon. Fortunately I've grown used to dealing with rapidly changing day/night rhythms over the years, so all I needed was a cup of of hot and strong caffeine to get me back on the job, but Anne was still out, and not just as a result of Makaka's nineteen-hour days. I decided to let her sleep. She probably needed it.

I opened the inner airlock door, stepped through and shut it behind me. I stepped onto the ramp, feeling the ship's artificial gravity transition into Manaka's zero point nine four gee as I went. The day ahead was dim, red and dusty, just like every other day on Manaka. As I took the last sip from my cup, a rumbling whine in the distance told me that something heavy was approaching. Most likely that would be Blaar with the fuel tanker. My guess proved correct: a few minutes later the rickety old fuel carrier hissed to a halt, rocking back and forth on its oversize balloon tires as the shrill whine of its turbine slowly died down.

"Morn'n', chief," Blaar said as he climbed off the ancient tanker.

"Blaar," I nodded. "Is Layne around? I need to talk with him."

Blaar looked at me for a few long moments while he picked at his front teeth with a dirty fingernail. Then he nodded slowly.

"Say'd ya wud. Be 'round jus' naw."

"He said that, huh? What else did he say?"

Blaar considered that for a second or two, then shrugged.

"Nuffin' much. Ya know."

I didn't, really, but trying to discuss that with Blaar was probably not going to be very productive. So I waited while he got busy, but not too busy, with the fuel lines. We were about halfway through the refueling when Layne made his appearance.

"Layne," I said, giving him a long, hard look. "A word?"

He smiled a thin smile.

"Sure. Any time," he said. "Although you look like you'd rather punch me in the face instead."

"I haven't ruled it out as an option," I said. "Meanwhile, feel free to start explaining yourself any time you like."

"First, how is she?" he asked.

"She's fine. Still asleep. Start talking."

He shrugged.

"There's really not too much to say. There was no real risk involved. That plant was either going to have a, shall we say, beneficial effect, or none at all. I needed to find out which one was the case."

"And you think that experimenting on someone without their knowledge, much less their permission, is the way to do it?"

"Well, telling you about it was of course out of the question. The placebo effect would have skewed the results. And I pretty much had to use you two. There's no-one else here."

"Why?"

He gazed in the distance, at the the dusty air, at the dust obscuring the horizon, at the dusty field on which we stood.

"There's something really weird about the plant life on this world, Harvey. The locals appear to be completely immune to any of its effects. They don't even realize what sort of effect some plant species can have on offworlders like you and me. Raz much prefers to keep it that way, I understand. But he needs to know what we've got here, and I'm not a good test subject. The placebo effect would have ruled me out in any case, apart from the fact that the effects of this particular strain appear to be gender-specific. And at the end of the day we both work for Raz, as I understand it, so testing it on you guys wasn't much of a choice at all."

"Oho," I said to myself, said I.

Myself nodded slowly, having come to the same conclusion.

"I see." I said slowly. "This wasn't your idea. It was Raz'."

His poker face spoke volumes. Empty volumes which had been shredded and burnt; their ashes scattered to the winds.

"I'm not saying anything like that," he said blandly.

"Duly noted. Now, what else are you not saying?"

He shrugged.

"Nothing that I can think of, offhand," he said blandly.

But I was not so sure. Last night I'd simply assumed that it had been Layne who had been dabbling in Manakan botany, but now that I thought about it some more, I was beginning to have rather serious doubts about that. Layne was obviously a seasoned, thoroughgoing professional, but he was almost certainly a hardcore intelligence operative. For him to have similar skill levels in genetic engineering as well, or at least in biology or botany, was stretching it just a little too far. It takes a lot of training and a lifetime of experience to become an operative as good as he was, which left little room for an additional career as a gengineer. Unless he was a genius in the field, in which case he'd not have ended up in intelligence in the first place. And that meant that my initial assumption was almost certainly wrong.

Of course my chances of getting him to admit any of that, let alone to squeeze any additional details out of him, were minute at best. The man had always been a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and every layer I managed to peel off him revealed at least two new layers of secrecy.

At that point my musings were interrupted by a loud, explosive hiss. Reflexively I turned my head to look at the source of the noise, but it was nothing serious. Blaar, apparently done with the refueling, had disconnected the fuel line, and the old tanker vented its pressure as noisily as it did everything else.

And then it hit me.

Blaar. The apparently unskilled, dimwitted gopher who might or might not be related to Layne, but who, judging by looks, almost certainly came from the same home world as Layne did. Blaar, who had "accidentally" botched the repair of a simple repulsorlift coil exactly so that the result had been the very weapon we'd needed to neutralize Vergence's strike team. Blaar, who had been around all along, in plain sight, but somehow not drawing any attention at all, neither from me nor from Anne...

Coincidence? Maybe. But not likely.

His job of turning a standard repulsorlift coil into a pinch field generator suggested that the man had at least an excellent working knowledge of weapons systems. What if he had a background in bio-genetic engineering as well? At the very least, he was obviously as skilled in keeping a low profile as Layne was. Which made for an interesting picture, not to say a rather ugly one. A combination of undercover methods, weapon systems and gengineering expertise could really mean only one thing. And Manaka was the perfect out-of-the-way place for a discreet bio-weapons lab...

I looked back at Layne. He wore his blank expression again, but I new that my face had been an open book to him. He knew exactly what I was thinking. And his poker face was all the answer I needed.

"Great," I said to myself. "So where does that leave us?"

Myself thought it over for a moment.

"You trust, Raz, right?" he said then.

"Yes. With my life."

Myself shrugged.

"Then it's simple. He'll know the score and he trusts Layne. That will have to do for now."

Inwardly I nodded. Myself was right. As usual.

"Alright, then," I said to Layne. "If you say so."

He nodded slowly, and once again I realized he had been reading my mind. Not that he was a telepath, of course, or at least I had no reason to assume that he was. But skilled operatives at his level usually can read body language and minute facial expressions the way a telepath can perceive thoughts directly. Espionage is a line of work in which only the very best survive, and Layne was still here to talk about it, or rather to keep his mouth shut about it.

But then a faint smile broke through his blank expression.

"I'm retired, Harvey," he said. "As I'm sure Raz will tell you. Speaking of Raz: seeing as you're headed out to Gawrr just now, please give him this when you see him."

He handed me a gray rectangular container, about the size of a small lunch box. A tiny green light set into its surface slowly blinked on and off.

"Cryo storage container," he explained. "Specimen, seeds, air and soil samples. We can't do a proper chemical analysis here to isolate the active compounds, but his company labs shouldn't have any problem with it."

I turned the box over in my hands a few times. If the effect that the flower had had on Anne was anything to go by, this could net Raz a fortune. Or should I say, another fortune?

"What's that?" Anne said behind me.

I turned and she stepped closer, put her arm around me and kissed me. A light was dancing in those wonderful green eyes of hers. She looked happy.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty. How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Great," she said.

But her smile gave a lot more meaning to her answer than that single word ever could.

"This is Raz' latest cash cow," I told her, showing her the cyro container. "Or at least it will be, judging from recent experiences."

"I see," she said, glancing at Layne.

"In all fairness, it was Raz' idea," I said.

"Oh?" was all she said.

I nodded.

"Oh well," she said. "He's paying for our fuel and he's provided our jump calculation for Gawrr, so I suppose he's entitled to getting at least some work out of us on this trip. Although I don't suppose this will be the last Manakan plant he'll need to have tested."

"Indeed. So I suppose we'll be seeing each other again," I replied, looking at Layne.

Layne smiled.

"Ask Raz," was all he said.

* * *

Almost twenty hours later we were outside the gravity well of Manaka's dim and wan sun, and on our way to Gawrr.

"You know, my love," Anne said, getting up from the co-pilot's seat and stretching luxuriously. "I think we've got some more research to do."

I said nothing, because watching Anne stretch is high on my list of the true, great pleasures in life. She held out her hand and I took it. Then she put her arms around me and we kissed, long and deeply.

"We probably could do with a shower first," I said.

"Definitely," she agreed. "But then I need to get you into bed. After last night I owe you a few good orgasms, and the deeper inside me you are when we cum, the better it will be for both of us."

As it turned out, she was right.

Epilogue

I stood by the Slowboat's instrument panel, gazing at the luminous black nothingness of hyperspace outside the viewport. After a few long moments I felt her warmth behind me. Then she stepped closer to me, put her arms around me from behind, and gently pulled me against her until her breasts pressed softly into my back. As was usual these days, we were both naked. Most of the time we didn't even bother to dress anymore while we were in hyperspace. All we wore, most of the time, were Por's little biomed sensor discs. The new models were so small and thin that we didn't even notice them anymore.

"A credit for your thoughts," she said softly.

"It's good to know the rate still hasn't gone up," I chuckled.

I felt her smile.

"Some things are still priceless," she said.

I nodded slowly.

"Yes, my love. Indeed they are. Speaking of which: are you feeling itchy at all?"

"Itchy? No. Why?"

"I was thinking of that proverbial seven year itch kind of thing that people talk about. After seven standard years or so in a relationship you're supposed to start feeling restless. But I don't. We've been together for well over seven years now, and it just keeps getting better and better."

I felt her smile.

"Yes, it does. And I can't believe it's this long already. It seems more like seven weeks rather than even years... And I only want more of it. And I want more of you."

She reached around me until her hands found my cock. Gently, slowly, she began to stroke it, and within moments her touch worked its usual magic.

"Maybe the price of your thoughts hasn't gone up," she said softly, "but at least something is."

"You do that to me, my love."

Many things had changed for us since we had dropped Deke Ryder off at Manaka. For starters, we were now part of a rapidly growing interplanetary business venture. Rather than paying us a retainer or a consultancy fee or some other compensation, Raz had offered us a partnership in the new business instead. He had been quite honest about the possibility that it might come to nothing and we could very well end up being broke, but I don't think any of us really believed that it wouldn't take off. So we'd accepted his offer and we'd never regretted it. We'd barely started, but we were already very well off.

The Slowboat was no longer the tramp freighter she had been when Anne and I had so suddenly walked into each other's lives. She was now a proud company vessel, and it showed. We'd wanted to make a few changes, but what Anne had done with the ship's interior would put a luxury liner to shame. "It'll be an investment, Harvey," she'd said, sounding deceptively reasonable. "We'll be spending a lot of time on, ehm, product research, and I intend to do some of my best work on you here. So we'll need a proper workbench, wouldn't you agree?" The look in her eyes had spoken volumes.

I do respect the irresistible forces that control our universe. It's futile to try and fight gravity, or entropy, or the progress of time. Anne's little redecorating project, as it turned out, fell much into the same category. Trying to stand in her way, or even reason with her, would have been as futile as an attempt to reason with the curvature of space in hopes it would agree to flatten itself out. Not that I complained when I saw the result. She'd done a truly wonderful job.

The decent-but-utilitarian mess table and chairs were gone, and in their place we now had comfortable furniture. Gawrran wood paneling lined the bulkheads, and a set of drapes separated the cockpit area from the rest of the ship. It was... homey, I suppose the word is. She'd turned it into a nice place to be, a place where we could relax and spend our time together in warmth and comfort.

But all of that paled in comparison to our new stateroom. We'd ripped out the old captain's and passenger's cabins and moved things around a little, so that we could fit a decently sized bedroom. Once Anne was done, she'd turned it into something that wouldn't have looked out of place on a presidential yacht. Thick, creamy, wall-to-wall carpet; mood lighting, and a bathroom fitted with marble-patterned tiling and a shower cabin of Gawrran design and size. And the bed was nothing short of enormous.

Still, what mattered most was that the Slowboat had shrugged off her past as a tramp freighter in more ways than just appearances. She made regular deliveries now to various pharmaceutical distributors on an ever-growing number of worlds, and she spent the rest of her time mostly between Gawrr and Manaka. More than that, though, she had become our home even more than before. Maybe we could raise a child or two here. We weren't quite ready for that yet, but we both knew that one day we would be, and there are always plenty of orphaned children looking for a home and a pair of adoptive parents.

Not that any of it had come for free, of course. We'd had to earn it, and we were still earning it. Our role in Raz' little project to develop "prrroducts forrr the humanoid marrrket", as he so euphemistically called it, continued to be a vital one. But not quite in the way we had expected.

"You arrre an atypical human couple, Harrrvey and Anne Rrryderrr," doctor Por had said. "While norrrmal human sexual patterrrns tend to show a decrrrease in mating frrrequency overrr time, you show no such decline. You consistently mate frrrequently and, if I may say so, unusually vigorrrously. Especially you, Harrrvey, appearrr to display an consistent and unusually high level of virrrility, while Anne's level of desirrre forrr such frrrequent mating is also rrratherrr anomalous. Desirrre forrr one's mate is entirrrely norrrmal, of courrrse, but what I see herrre well surrrpasses that. Beforrre we continue with any otherrr line of rrresearrrch, we should look into whateverrr it is that causes this anomaly. I expect it should prrrove verrry useful."