XI
From the way Anders flicked the scout out of its berthing bay, then briefly overcontrolled as he set his course, Lisele knew this smaller model was more agile than the ones he and she were used to. And that the difference had surprised him. "A little twitchy, is it?" she said.
He grinned at her. "You'll find out, when it's your turn. I'm assigning you the next watch, and then Arlen."
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She shrugged. "Just riding herd on it, in mid-course, won't show me much."
"Turnover will, though. And it comes during your second tour of duty." Now the man looked positively smug. "You might want to practice some simulated landings, too."
"Me?" What was going on, here?
"Who else? I haven't landed a scoutship since before the Deux left Earth; I don't think Arlen ever has. But for two-three months, back on Shaarbant, you had Tregare's remaining scout on a regular milk run between Sassden and Shtegel."
Well, that much was true; Lisele nodded. "I'll practice."
"So will Arlen and I, of course. Just in case. But you're my first choice."
She nodded. "Don't worry; I'll do it."
She left to have a snack; this mission had her stomach too jumpy for full meals. The scout contained no galley as such: there was a cubby for food preparation, and one small table. Alina Rostadt sat there now, with an emptied plate and a full cup. "Join you?" Rostadt nodded, so Lisele also sat.
Between bites, she said, "Could you do me a favor?"
"I imagine so. What is it?"
Feeling an odd embarrassment, Lisele pulled at one of the longer tufts of her irregular growth of hair. "This is how it comes back in; yours'll be the same way. Could you cut it back to look more even, all over, and maybe trim the edges neater, sides and back?"
Alina smiled. "Surely. When I need it, you can do the same for me." So a few minutes later, the dinette became a barber shop; at the end of the process Lisele wore a reasonably smooth cap of short hair-about two centimeters-and the edges were indeed neatened. Looking at the hand-held mirror, she realized what she saw. Quite by accident, she would arrive on Sitdown with a standard UET cadet haircut.
There'd been some discussion of the "appearance problem." Consensus was that partial truth would make the best story: the Tamurlaine had narrowly escaped the radiating gravitational anomaly, and of the scout's crew of eight, only deWayne Houk and Lisele had been shielded, fortuitously, from the effects. How many more of the fictitious hundred had also been lucky? "Well, how about twenty, give or take a
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couple?" said Eduin Brower. So, if asked, that was the way the question would be answered.
For the trip's duration, Captain Delarov specified a communications sked: four-hour intervals. At the first of these, all the scout's crew were awake and present. There weren't enough seats to go around, so deWayne Houk stood leaning over Lisele's position while Alys Molyneux sat on the deck beside Anders Kobolak's. Houk had his hand on Lisele's arm, but the move might not be on purpose, so she didn't say anything except "Excuse me." And moved her arm free of his touch.
". . . roused Mei again," the captain was saying. "Both because she's our best at committing persons to freeze, and in order to bring her up to date on our current situation. But now she's putting Darwin down once more, and then herself. So as you know, from now on I'll be your only contact."
She paused. "I'll keep our channels open at all times, of course. And set to record if I'm asleep, or absent for other reasons. In particular I want you to forward, for recording, all communications you receive from Sitdown as you approach that planet." Another pause. "No such contact yet, I take it?"
Anders Kobolak affirmed the captain's guess; Arlen Lim-mer added, "We're in no hurry to talk to those Uties. When we get there, that's time enough."
Before Delarov could answer, Eduin Brower spoke. "You got you a point, Limmer. But not what you think. Uties don't call each other that, so we don't either. You get it?"
"I think / do," said Naomi Gray. "When the Pattern left Earth, that term probably didn't exist. It's a dissident invention, and just by our tone of voice we can't even say it without sneering. I agree with Chief Brower; we have to wipe the word from our vocabularies."
It was the most talk Lisele had heard from this quiet woman, and it impressed her. She said, "I vote the same way."
She could visualize Delarov's nod, before the captain said, "Another discrepancy caught. I wonder how many more there'll be, that we may overlook." Her sigh was audible; then she said, "If there's nothing else, for now, this is Delarov, signing out."
Lisele's first watch brought no problems. She did run sims, on maneuvers as well as landings, and began to get the
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Measure of this new* spacecraft. When Arlen Limmer relieved her, she was hungry again.
At the cooking cubby she found Eduin Brower cursing in a monotone. "Damn; I can't get the timing right!"
Lisele saw the mess he'd taken from frozen to charred. "Here; let me do one for you." When she'd prepared two packets, they ate without talking much. While she dawdled over coffee, Brower left.
"Well. Hello, Moray." She looked up, as deWayne Houk came to sit alongside her. "It's been time, hasn't it? Time to think more, might be."
As he sipped coffee, she said, "Think? About what?"
"Us, could be. Your young fella, bald he doesn't look so much; I'm right?" He ran a hand over his own hair. "Your own self, and me, we look better."
Houk's colorless mop, now hanging raggedly over ears and nape, didn't strike Lisele as more than marginally presentable. She said, "If you want to pass for a UET Drive-tech you'd better get someone to cut that for you. It's getting scraggly."
"Well, sure. I'd like you to do for me." The man put his palm to her cheek, fingers curled behind her ear and stroking the skin there. "Yes, I like that."
"I wasn't volunteering." Now as he turned to face her his right hand clasped the top of her left shoulder, near the neck, with fingers kneading.
Peace take the man! Always before when he'd touched her, he'd made it seem accidental, and acted as if he didn't notice.
Now, though: for a moment she panicked; then, almost without volition her right hand reached across to curl around his third and fourth fingers. He was saying something, how he knew she'd come around and be sensible: "-young sprout like you needs a man as knows what's what; that's all." So she tightened her grasp and bent his two fingers back until, abruptly, his words stopped.
Immediately she released the punishing hold. "Chief Houk? A personal question?"
Mumbling around the stressed fingers he'd jammed into his mouth to soothe them, he said, "Ask the hell away!"
"What's your proficiency in unarmed combat?" He didn╒t answer, so she said, "Before you put a hand on me again, I
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think you'd better brush up." Her thoughts eddied. It wasn't me, doing that. Not really. It's what I've got from Rissa, just knowing her all this time.
She was certain of it; Lisele's unprecedented act was precisely what her mother would have done. Or close. . .
But Rissa wasn't here, and Lisele was, stuck with Houk's presence for the mission's duration. So she said, "Chief? Truce. Okay?"
"Begging heaven's love, what for?"
