Conversations On The Fortune’s Fist: Eleven

Luisa Kamajeck cursed the twenty years of riding out grav-fluxes on unforgiving cargo-hold deckplates as she bent her aching knees to peer into the cupboard in the officer's mess. No fancy new joints for Ishukone's cargo-jockeys, she thought sourly.Not worth the expense. Not a 'hazardous job'. No matter that a snapped safety cable at full thrust can take off an arm as easy as any plasma charge.

It was an old complaint, worn thin and familiar with repetition, one that she'd kept on the inside of her teeth for forty years and would for forty more  if the spirits give me that long.

It seemed unlikely.  Still, there was a time I gave up on seeing twenty-five. Days on the Sapphire Star towards the end that I didn't think I'd see the next morning, let alone the next birthday. Luisa found the bottle she was looking for, hooked it out along with a glass to go with it, and straightened, barely suppressing a groan. Never can tell, Lulu, what's around the corner. Never can tell.

Spirits know I never saw  this job coming.

The mess door opened, the lack of a knock telling Luisa, if not who it was, then at least that it was one of the other three people with business here, this time of night.  

"'lo," Michael Mitcheson said, letting the door hiss shut behind him.  

Luisa grunted an acknowledgement and poured herself exactly one finger of vodka.  Invelen's gift, podder largess, better than I've ever had or will again.

Mitch grinned. "I see you missed me, then."

"Yeah, but one of these days my aim will get better," Luisa told him, recapping the bottle as Mitch pulled a chair out from the table. "Hope you came back ready to work, Chief. Didn't put your back out or anything."  

"Well, I had the best medical care," Mitch said, straight-faced.  

Luisa snorted. "Is that what you decadent Gallentes call a double-enten-whatsit?"

He let the smile show then. "Possibly."

"Well, cut it out," Luisa told him. "Don't think you'll be getting any extra leeway around here because you're a married man, Michael Mitcheson."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Mitch assured her. "Although, thanks for the new quarters."

"Don't thank me," Luisa said. "Pilot's idea."  

Mitch rocked back on his chair, balancing it on two legs. "Pilot's idea, your work orders, right?"  

"Maybe," Luisa admitted. She glanced at him, sipped the fine Pator vodka. "So you happy with how your little plan worked out?"

" My plan?" he asked. 

She shrugged. "Wasn't Nerila's, was it? Doesn't take eyes like Fisk's to see the only way you'd get a ring on  her finger is with a gun to her head. Metaphorically speaking." Luisa sipped her vodka again. "What are you going to do? If your wife finds out she's not the only one on this boat who knows how to deal from the bottom of the deck?"

Mitch shrugged. "Tell her the truth." He let the chair settle square on all four legs again and grinned at Luisa. "That it was your idea."  

She gave him her best and blankest noncommittal stare, the one that usually saw her walk away with the pot  in any game that doesn't have Fisk and Nerila in it. "Can't have senior officers flouting regs, can I?" Luisa heard more of an edge to her voice than she'd meant as the words came out and couldn't think of a way to soften it, waited to see if Mitch'd take offence. 

No. He kept grinning. "Oh, so that was why, was it?"

"Well, and I'm a soppy romantic at heart, of course," Luisa said, dry as vacuum. "Like the rest of us from the State. Let nothing come in the way of true love, all that stuff? Very Caldari, you know." 

"Oh, sure." Mitch reached out to open the cold storage without getting out of his chair. "Fortune, we're not short of left-overs, are we?" He tugged out a plate of pastries and set it on the table. "But, you know, I wondered. Why  that way. At the party. You could have just reported us, would've worked out the same."

"Yeah, I could've." Luisa selected a pastry and peeled off a flake of crisp sugared dough.

"So why? Why the scene?"  

"Knew she wouldn't let it go," Luisa said. "That girl ... she  is a romantic. Wasn't going to see the mean old XO sacking two crew for falling in love, was she?"

He studied her. "Pilot calling you on something in front of the whole crew, wouldn't have thought ..."

Luisa looked at him levelly. "It's  her boat, Mitch. Not mine." 

"Well, I  knew that."

Luisa shrugged. "Now  she does." She contemplated the pastry and peeled another flake. 
"Not going to be here forever, Mitch. There'll be day Pilot's got to say no to her XO and mean it and there'll be more at stake than, excuse me for saying, the over-heated nether regions of couple of Gallente fools." She shrugged again. "Better she practice when it doesn't matter than fail when it does. I've seen that, I know where it goes." Goes real bad. Real fast.

She shivered at the memory, looked up to meet Mitch's gaze and could tell she hadn't entirely managed to hide it.  Don't ask,her stare said, best XO tool she had, that stare, flat and cold and promising a short,cold walk to anyone who crossed her. Don't ask. Don't presume I'm going to indulge you further than our interests run in common. Don't push your luck. 

Don't think for a second we're friends.  

For one long moment she thought Mitch was going to ignore the warning, and then the door opened and he closed his mouth on whatever he had been going to say.  

"Hope you brought  folding money this time," Nerila said, pulling a deck of cards from her pocket as she slid into a chair. 

"You feeling lucky, then, I guess?" Luisa asked.  

"One way of putting it," Nerila said. She cut the cards one-handed and began to shuffle as Fisk followed her in. "Gonna share that, Luisa? Or you getting stingy or something in your old age?"

"Or something," Luisa said, sliding the bottle down as Fisk fetched two more glasses and took his seat.  

"Yeah," Mitch said, watching Nerila's hands as she fanned the cards and gathered them up again. " Or something is right."

One Woman Jack Madison Should Have Married, But Didn’t

97

"Move-move-move," Jack yelled through back through the door of the 'pit. The 'lifter shuddered with the impact of boots as the medics hauled the injured over the lip of the hatch with brutal speed.  

A red-headed woman with the winged patch of a pilot stitched to her sleeve and the callsign 'Firetail' on her nametag followed them, pushed past to the 'pit.  

"What took you so long, Pruzza?" she asked with a grin, swinging herself into the empty co-pilot's seat beside him.

"Stopped for a bit of sight-seeing," he said drily, glancing out the window at the marines now retreating toward the 'lifter, falling back in pairs, laying down suppressing fire as they did. " Garghikor River's very pretty this time of year, you know, with the defoliants and all."

She laughed, harder than the joke was worth. "Drop your second seat out the window as you banked for a better look?"

"Must have," Jack said.  Running for the hanger with control yelling co-ordinates over the com, "Firetail's down, she's down, taking fire ... Milko's on his way, Prudence, hold on the runway, hold, hold!"

Fly this bird single-handed on my  worst day. 'cestors take me if I'm going to hang around for Milko to get his fly zipped.

"Gonna owe you a drink later," Firetail -  Gina - said.

"Big enough to swim in, love," Jack told her. "Maybe it's time you learnt that full-throttle isn't the only way to fly."

Gina laughed again, a full-throated chuckle that Jack could have found distracting if it hadn't been punctuated by the low thump of artillery fire coming closer as the enemy gunners found their range. "I'm plenty sweet on the stick when I want to be," she said.

"Not what your call-sign tells me," he said.  Come on, boys and girls. Twice as many of you as this old crate is rated to lift. Gonna be wallowing around over the top of the trees for too long as it is. Hurry it up, now.

"Oh, that," Gina said, leaning around on her seat to look back into the cabin. "Nothing to do with flying. Clear, let's go, go!"

He pulled hard on the stick, gunned the engines, the old 'lifter too simple for her systems to succumb to jamming, answering to brute force and subtle manipulation in equal parts.  Come on, sweetheart, help your Uncle Prue out here, up, up, up ... good girl. "How'd you get it, then?"

"Buy  me a drink and I'll show you," Gina said, still looking back into the cabin as they gained a few feet of altitude, engines straining with the load. 

"Show me?"  Come on, now, good girl, up, over the trees, not into them, there's a love ...

She turned to face him, eyes dancing, and Jack thought that even with her face half-over grease and dirt and her hair falling into her face, she was just about the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. "Well, Pruzza, carpet matches the  dra-"

Whomph

Can't see can't hear I'm hit I'm dead this is it too early I had things to do I've got a kid for - 

He could feel the 'lifter slewing sideways through the air, vibration through the stick telling him port-side engine was gone, pulled up, up, up, no idea where he was but knowing  down was guns and trees and death and up was open sky. Blinked, cleared a little red from his vision, saw a tilting treeline through his shattered windscreen and spat a curse he couldn't hear.Up, up, up, sweetheart, do it for your Uncle Prue, come on, come on ...

Blinked again as the trees disappeared beneath him, felt the starboard engine  thump and miss a stroke, held his breath and felt it pick up again. Indicators showing fuel hemorrhaging somewhere, red lights blinking all over the board. Up was safe and he pulled back on the stick, nursing the limping engine with a delicate tap-and-touch on the pedals that gave the lie to his second wife's complaint that he was the world's worst dancer. Up, sweetheart, up, up ....

It was the wind whistling through the shattered windscreen that made him realise his hearing had returned.  But that's all I can hear...

"All right back there?" he shouted.

Silence.

"You blokes all right back there?" He glanced away from the blue sky in front of him to turn and look back into the cabin and saw -

Jerked his gaze back to the instrument panel.  Gonna be in trouble in about five minutes when the fuel's gone, he thought.Think about what you're gonna do then, Jack. Think about that. Don't think about - 

He swallowed hard, took one hand off the yoke, and pushed what was left of Gina 'Firetail' Gerraci out of his lap.

Five Women Jack Madison Shouldn’t Have Married, But Did

One: The Childhood Sweetheart. (84)

"If the army accepts your application," Tirria said, propping herself up on one elbow, "We'll have to get married."

Jack laughed, looked up at her and saw she was serious. " Married?"

"I looked it up," she said. "Spouses get housing, relocation allowances when you get posted to ... to  wherever. Gotta be married, though."

"Bit of a big step, eh?" Jack said. "I mean, don't you think ... we should wait a bit? I don't think it's even legal until I'm eighteen."

Tirria settled back down beside him, mop of auburn curls tickling his jaw. "Yeah," she said, tracing a circle on his chest with one fingernail. "But do you really want us to be spending all those long months apart?"

"Well, no," Jack said.

"If we don't get married, we will be." Her hand drifted lower. "And I'd  miss you, Jack."

He caught his breath. "And if we're married, the army will bring you with me?"

Tirria nodded.

"Right," Jack said. He stretched, snagged an empty tinnie from the bedside table and snapped the ringpull from the top. "Tirria Arbias, will you do me the honour of becoming Mrs Tirria Madison?"

She held out her hand to let him slip the flimsy scrap of tin over her ring finger. "Why Jack, I thought you'd never ask."



Two: The Ballroom Dancer. (88)

"So how'd you get that nick-name?" Jeppie asked, leaning back against the bar.

"Prudence is my middle name, love," Jack said. "Jack Prudence Madison. Pleased to meetcha."

"Oh, yeah?" she said, sounding unconvinced. "Prudent, are yah? Gotta tell you, Pruzza, 'prudent' ain't even my dictionary." She grinned. "Everything from 'probably' to 'prune' went the night I couldn't find any other paper to get the fire going."

Jack took a long swallow of his beer, watched the way her throat moved as she did the same. "What fire?"

"Long story," Jeppie said. She glanced around at the crowd, then turned back to him, playing with a lock of ginger hair behind her ear. "Hey, you want to get out of here? There's a place down the row with a real sprung floor, live band."

She's decided I'm the best on offer, Jack thought, amused. For a slow night in small town.

"Can't dance," he said.

"I'll teach you," Jeppie offered. "And you can teach me about prudence.  All about prudence."

He grinned. "Sounds a fair deal."

Jeppie tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and tugged him towards the door. "You and me, Pruzza," she said. "I reckon we'll make quite the team."

Three: The One With The Ex (92)

"Hey, careful there!" Jack stooped to snag the toddler before he could run past him and into the traffic. "Where do you think you're going, little man?"

"Oh, thank you!"  

The woman's voice was flustered, but when Jack looked up he met the gaze of a tall, slim strawberry blonde who looked like she'd keep her cool on the hottest day of the blazing end of summer.  Like a tall glass of iced milk, he thought, swinging the toddler up and depositing him back in his mother's arms.

"No worries, love," he said genially, taking the opportunity to look for a wedding ring on her hand. "Got a few myself. They move pretty bloody fast at that age."

She laughed. "A 'few'?"

"Two," he said, then corrected himself. "Three. Four, if you count the one I found out was the other bloke's."

"And do you?" She shifted her son to one hip and shaded her eyes with her free hand, looking up at him. "Count that one?"

Jack shrugged. "She's gonna grow into a beaut sheila one day. May as well take all the credit I can, eh?" He held out his hand. "Jack," he said.

She hesitated, and then lowered her hand, squinting against the glaring sun. "Machai," she said, putting her long, cool fingers into his. "Machai Tennigal."

"Mrs Machai Tennigal?" Jack asked, holding her hand just a little too long.

Machai shook her head, her sleek bob flaring slightly with the movement. "Miss," she said. "Now."

"Buy you a milkshake, Miss Machai Tennigal?" he asked.

"Buy  him a milkshake," she said with a gesture to her son. "Buy me a beer."

Jack laughed. "I think you might be my kind of sheila, Machia," he said.

She gave him a sly sidewise smile as she stepped past him toward the pub. "You know, Jack," she said. "I think maybe I might be."



Four: The Marine (98)

"I could kill you with one hand," Arlinna said, tucking a lock of hair dyed blood-red behind her ear. "Does that turn you on?"

"Not especially, love," Jack admitted. "It's more the rest of the package."

She laughed and leaned forward, bringing the  rest of the package within reach of his eager hands. "You know, Pruzza, if we got married, we could do this every night."

"Sign me up," he said hoarsely.



Five: The One With The Tattoos and the Headlights.(101)

Jack rolled over, winced, and swallowed hard.  'cestors, how much did I have to drink ... last ... night?

Cautiously, he opened his eyes.  Looks like my room, he thought. That's a good start. It's not a gutter. Well done, Pruzza.

"Hey, honey," a voice from the other side of the bed said.

He rolled over and stared at the redhead smiling at him. "G'day love. You would be?"

She raised her hand and displayed the gold band on her ring finger. "Mrs Jack Madison," she said.

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Ten

Nerila shuffled the cards. "Ladies high, deuces wild, bent and skip straights." She grinned. "Everybody got that?"

"Shall we just give you our money now?" Luisa asked dryly, pouring herself a little more vodka.  

"If you like," Nerila said, beginning to deal. "Certainly save time."

"N-n-n ..." Fisk said. He flushed as the other three looked at him, waiting, and found a word that didn't lock between mind and mouth. " Earn it."

Mitch picked up his cards. "Think you can make Nerila  work for a winning hand?" he said. "You really are brain-damaged, Fisk."

Fisk caught Nerila's quick shift in her chair and Mitch winced.  

"M-m-m ... could be," Fisk said, studying his cards.  Three, five, seven acorns. "Still t-t-take your m-m-m ... cash."

"Oh, you want a side bet?" Mitch said. "How much?"

"Mitch," Luisa said, a warning note in her voice.

"Pilot pays well, Luisa, but not so well I can afford to pass up the chance to take candy from a baby," Mitch said. "Fisk wasn't so good at cards before he put his hand up for the experimental brain-dice-'n'-slice." He studied Fisk. "Two bits a point?"

Fisk nodded.  

"Your funeral," Nerila said, flipped a card over in front of Luisa and then fumbled the next. "I mean - "

Fisk took a breath, and made himself smile. " Had that," he said. "D-d-didn't we?"

There was a pause, and then Nerila spluttered with laughter. " Hells, Fisk," she said, dealing him the nine of acorns, and turning the jack of bells over in front of Mitch. She flipped up the ace of leaves in front of herself and tapped the cards together in her hand. "Ladies and gentlemen and Michael Mitcheson, place your bets."

"Fold," Luisa said.  

Fisk pushed a marker into the centre of the table, followed it with another.  

"The CTO raises," Nerila said.  

"See that," Mitch said, matching the action to the words.  

"And me," Nerila said. She turned the ace of acorns over in front of Fisk, the Jack of acorns in front of Mitch, and dealt herself the queen of leaves. "Possible flush for the CTO, pair or more in the engineer's greasy hands and the doc might just have a royal-high flush."

Fisk pushed another two markers into the centre of the table.  

"Idiot," Mitch said, matching him.  

"Man's got a right to lose money," Nerila said, adding her own bet.  

"On a low-high flush?" Mitch said as Fisk bet again. "Man, don't know know enough to quit while you're behind?"

"N-n-n.." Fisk said, watching Mitch and Nerila add their bets. "N-n-n ... st-st- strongest suit."

Luisa sipped her vodka. "Obviously."  

Mitch matched Fisk's raise. "Anything further from Ami?"  

"I'd have said," Luisa said.

"You don't always." Nerila tossed her own chips into the pile.  

"Some things are operational," Luisa said, watching as Fisk raised again. " Someone's got to pay attention to procedures on this boat."

Mitch kept his gaze on his markers as he matched Fisk's raise. "You got nothing in that hand, soldier boy, to beat a pair of jacks."

Fisk shrugged. "G-g-g ... s'pose m-m-m ... luck's r-r-un out."

Mitch snorted. "Only  now you realise that?"

"Slow.  Learner." 

Nerila studied her hole cards and then bet again. "Let's see your cards, Fisk."

Stronger than he used to be, Fisk's fingers closed a little too hard on the cards and he opened his hand reflexively before the pasteboard crumbled, scattering the ace, three, five, seven and nine of acorns across the table.

Mitch shook his head, turned up three fours and reached for the pot. "Full house beats a flush."

Fisk reached, faster than he'd meant to, faster than he'd been  able to, a week ago, and covered Mitch's hand with his own. "C-c-can't count." he said. "N-n-n ... g-g-g ... bad f-f-for engineer."

Nerila grinned. "He's right, Mitch. Man's holding a skip straight flush. The money's his."

Mitch paused, then swore.  

"P-p-p ..  and side-b-b-bet," Fisk pointed out. "P-p-p .. hand it over."

Mitch swore again, and then smiled. "Guess I was wrong about how scrambled your brain was, eh, soldier boy?"

"G-g-g ...  suppose so," Fisk said, raking the chips toward him.

Nerila reached across the table to gather up the cards. "Guess you were wrong about running out of luck, too," she said.  

She glanced at Luisa, and Fisk caught her give the XO a tiny nod, looked at Luisa and saw a faint smile twitch the corners of her mouth.  

"C-c-could have  asked." he said. 

Luisa leaned forward. "Could have asked what?"  

"D-d-don't n-n-n ... have to  rig g-g-g ... cards." Fisk watched Nerila's long fingers turn and ruffle the cards, able to see now the flick and turn she used to disguise breaking out an ace, the deft, almost imperceptible movement as she palmed a queen. "T-t-test. C-c-c-could have j-j-just asked." He pointed at Nerila's hands. "Th-think you m-m-m ... lost one."

Nerila went still. "You saw that?"

Fisk nodded.

"Well," Nerila said, dropping the hidden cards back into the pack and starting to shuffle again. "Guess those optional extras Captain Vikarion gave you really do work as advertised."

Fisk tapped his chest, smiling. "N-n-n .. a'  improved."

"Matter of opinion," Mitch said. "No offense, solider boy."

"N-n-n ...  wasn't m-m-m .. of a talker," Fisk said. "Even b-b-before."

Mitch snorted. "Well,  that's true," he said. 

"Thought about how you're going to give orders to your marines when you can't get a sentence out?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk raised his hand, extended two fingers, tapped them on his forearm and jerked his thumb to the door.  

" Mime?" Mitch said incredulously. "You're going to give orders in mime?"

"C-c-c-combat.  Code." Fisk said. 

"And over coms?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk concentrated, and Luisa's com buzzed. She raised an eyebrow, and flicked the switch.  

"Squad two, left," Fisk's voice said from the device. "Squad one, with me. Watch your fire and - "

Luisa flicked it off. "So, straight from your brain to their ears?"

Fisk nodded, tapped his head. "Inside. C-c-com."

Luisa looked at Nerila, who nodded. "All right," the XO said. "You're cleared for return to duty.  Provided you pass the physical."

"Th-th-thank," Fisk said.  

"Don't make me sorry," Luisa warned, her gaze level.  

"N-n-n ..." Fisk shook his head. "Won't. Will d-d-o  better. N-n-n .. future." He tapped his chest again. "N-n-n ... a' improved."

"Yeah," Mitch said. "New and improved."  

Conversations on the Fortune’s Smile: Nine

Nerila checked the controls on the last biostorage stasis unit. Like the others, it was at optimal. Like the others, it would keep the corpse inside exactly as it had been at almost the moment of death, give or take the time for transport and the autopsy. 

Except unit 3, Nerila thought. Helmi Alpassi. Not quite as she was at death. 

About six inches shorter, for one thing.

She turned to leave, saw an unexpected figure in the doorway and felt her heart-rate kick into overdrive in the second it took her to identify her visitor.  Fisk.

"Gonna make you wear a  bell around your neck," she said, aware her voice was shaking. 

"Sorry," Fisk said. "You looked busy."

Nerila shrugged. "Administration, mostly." She around at the stasis units and back at Fisk. "Probably not the greatest idea for you to be down here, Fisk."

He followed her gaze. "I wanted to talk to you. Your tech said you were down here."

"What about?" she asked. "No, wait. Come on."  

When she took his arm to draw him with her out of the room and towards her office it was a couple of seconds before the bicep beneath her fingers relaxed and he acceded to her urging. Nerila got him into her office with the door closed before she said anything else.  

"How are you feeling, Fisk?" she asked, pointing him at the visitor's chair.  

"Fine." He shrugged as he sat, ran one hand over the fuzz beginning to show on his scalp. "Like nothing worse happened than a bad haircut."

"Mmm hmm?" Nerila fished a scanner from her drawer and pointed it at him. "Headaches? Dizzy spells? Sleeping okay?"

"No. No. Yes."

The scanner gave her readings in the normal range.  Pulse a little fast. Nothing that she wouldn't expect to see in a fit and healthy young man under a fair bit of stress. "So what did you want to talk to me about, Fisk?"

He hesitated, looked down at his hands, and then met her gaze. "Cloning."

"What about cloning?" Nerila asked gently and evenly.  

"That body ...  my body. Is it possible ... can you clone that brain? That pattern?"

"No, Fisk. Cloning only works on a living brain. Otherwise we would have. Back-ups are the sec-" She stopped.

"Second best option?" Fisk finished for her.  

"Medically." Nerila stressed. "Because it's not guaranteed. That's all."

"Sure," Fisk said. "Sure." He hesitated again. "So, you can't put that pattern - those memories on a new clone?"

Nerila shook her head firmly. "No. Not possible."

"If you can't put it on a blank clone, could you put it on an active one?"

"An active - " Nerila sat back in her chair. "No-one writes a neural pattern over an active clone. A  living person."

"But could you? Write it ... " Fisk tapped his temple with one finger. "On here?"

"Not only do I doubt I  could, I wouldn't." Nerila leaned forward, folding her hands on the desk. "Fisk, the injuries ... the pattern would be badly damaged."

He shrugged, and said with a tight smile. "I'm backed up. Living proof right in front of you. And damaged or not, there are things in that brain that aren't in this one. What happened."

"Fisk ...  no. It's a bad idea."

"A worse one than sitting around doing nothing when there might be a way to find Pilot?"  

Nerila sighed. "Look. I know it's frustrating. But - "

"You  don't know." Fisk's voice rose for the first time. "I've watched that feed. The XO thinks I can pick something up that Ami didn't understand, but there's nothing. Whatever I heard, whatever they said, it's not on the recording." He clenched his fists. "It's in the brain of that body down the hall. So help me get it out."

"It's not medically possible." She smiled to soften it. "I'm good, Fisk, but I can't raise the dead."

"Can somebody else? Station medical? Pilot's Sansha friends? Some experimental procedure?" Fisk smiled tightly. "I'll volunteer to be the first guinea pig."

"I really doubt it," Nerila said. "I really,  really doubt it."

"Will you ask? Will you find out?"

Nerila hesitated.  

"Pilot's been gone a week, Nerila," he said. "A  week. You know what can happen to someone in a week?"

"You're asking a  doctor that?" she snapped.

"Then  ask. Find out. Ask Ami's CMO. Ask on station. Ask the big research corps."

Nerila shook her head. "It's a bad idea. It's worse than bad."

"Just ask, Nerila." Fisk put his hands flat on her desk and leaned forward. "We all owe Pilot. Just ask."

Reluctantly, Nerila nodded. "I'll ask. No promises past that. But I'll ask."  

She saw him relax, then.  I promised to ask, Fisk. That's all.

The words died on her lips.  

Doesn't matter how loud I say them, she thought. He'll hear what he wants to.

What he  needs to.

Whatever I say.

Conversations on the Fortune’s Smile: Eight

(This story is also part of the Into the Dark series, co-authored by Silver Night, the first story of which can be found here)

It ought to fit. Mitch turned the gasket a millimeter to the left, turned it back. It ought to fit.

It didn't.

He held it under the worklamp bolted to the side of his bunk and considered whether or not to file another fraction off the rim. Too much more and we'll be dealing with lateral movement when she spins up.

Maybe one more pass with the file ...

The door chime interrupted his thoughts. "Yeah," he said. "S'open."

Nerila.

She stepped inside, breaking  rule one , tapped the keypad by the door to close it behind her in violation of rule two, tapped it again to engage the privacy lock in flagrant and direct contravention of rule three.

Never be in each other's quarters. Never be alone together in any place either one of us might be known to expected to be. Never do anything that might make Luisa suspicious.

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. His quarters were so small he would only have needed to stretch a little to touch her. He resisted the temptation. "This is asking for trouble from the XO."

Nerila folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, shot one quick glance at him from red-rimmed eyes, and stared at the floor. "I don't care," she said to the deckplates. "I don't care."

Mitch put it together then: her hair still damp from the shower, the false-floral scent of soap that eddied around her every time she moved, her long surgeon's hands reddened by scrubbing, the note of sour alcohol on her breath.  

"Autopsies?" he asked gently.  

Nerila nodded.

It turned out he didn't need to stretch at all, or perhaps she was already moving towards him as he opened his arms to her. She pressed her face against his shoulder, clutching at him as if she were drowning.  

As if we both were.

" Six!" she blurted, heaved a shuddering sigh, and was silent for a long time. 

When she finally let go of him and lifted her head, Mitch asked: "Were they all .. in Significance?"

Nerila nodded. "Yeah. So tomorrow, or the next day, or next week ... " She shrugged. "It'll be like it never happened. For them, anyway."

He brushed his fingers over her cheek, erasing traces of tears. "That's good."

"It  happened, Mitch." She sighed, slipping her arms around his neck, more loosely this time, and leaning against him. "But yeah. It's good. Mitch?"

"Mmm?" he murmured against her hair.  

"When did you have your last scan?" she asked.  

"Dunno, exactly." He thought about it. "Couple of weeks after the first one? Maybe ... three months?" He shrugged. "Got busy, you know?"

"Me too," Nerila said. "If I got shot in the head tomorrow, I'd wake up ... none of this would have happened."

He ran his hand down her back. "It would have happened."

"Not to  me," Nerila said. "Mitch, let's go tomorrow, let's get the scans done. I don't want ... I don't want this not to have happened. I don't want to forget. Tomorrow, Mitch, I don't care how busy it is. Please?"

He tightened his arms around her. "Yeah," he said. "First thing."

Nerila sighed in relief. "Okay," she said.  

Mitch hesitated, and then asked: "Do you ever think about it?"  

 "About what?"

"About ... about what it'll be like. In the long run. Once, twice, three times ... losing a week here, a month there. Who we'll be, ten years in the future. What we'll keep."

Nerila shook her head. "Ten years? I don't think about ten days, Mitch. Day at a time." She laughed without humour. "Had a future, once. Traded it for a glass vial. No. Ten years? No-one can plan that far ahead."

"You never think about it?" he said, smoothing his hand over her hair, gently so the callouses on his palm wouldn't snag the strands. "What you want?"

She sighed. "You know, if Pilot doesn't ... if Ami can't find her, if she's too late ... you know where she left her money to?"

"Camille, right?" he said. "And her family. If anyone can find them."

"Mostly. Enough, for the kid to live out her whole life in luxury, that's for sure. But not all. The rest ... to the crew. To  us." She drew back a little, looking up at him. "That's how life is, Mitch. Someone can just stop, a pilot even, a pilot inside her own security. And people like you and me can wake up richer than we ever dreamed. What kind of plans can anyone make in a universe like that?"

Mitch shrugged.  

Nerila narrowed her eyes. "What, you have plans?"

"Some," he admitted.  

"Like what?" When he hesitated, she poked him in the chest with one long finger. "Like  what? And so help me, if you say anything that involves marriage and babies and a fishing lodge on some backwater planet ..."

He smiled down at her. "Marriage and babies such a bad idea?"

"With me it is," she said seriously.  

"Not what you want?"

"What I want ..." She shrugged. "This ship. This job. My licence.  This. Today, and tomorrow."

"And the day after?"

"Worry about it then," Nerila said. She studied him. "That a problem?"

"No," Mitch said. "No. It's not a problem."

"Good," Nerila said. She yawned suddenly. "Can I stay? Tonight?"

"Bunk's pretty small," he said.  

She grinned. "I'll fit."

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. "Asking for trouble."

"Not if Ami can't find Pilot," Nerila said sadly.  

"She'll find her," Mitch said.  

"Let's blow that bridge when we're on it," Nerila said. "Mitch. I can't be - let me stay."

He couldn't say no to her.  I couldn't ever say no to her, not from the first time she sauntered into the engineroom with that smile.

And I knew we were asking for trouble, even then.  

The bunk  was small, and neither of them were built on the petite scale. Nerila fell asleep almost immediately, her drop into oblivion one Mitch remembered from the days when he was still drinking his way down the ranks, one he envied her now. 

No, it's not a problem.

Not yet, it isn't.  

He shifted her a little, not needing to worry she'd wake, trying to stretch the cramp out of his arm.  Marriage and babies ... He wouldn't have put it that way, exactly, but he couldn't deny that some idea of a life where he and Nerila could eat together without worrying about rumours, could talk about the day ... Could wake beside each other, every morning. Could lie like this, every night ...

Maybe in a bigger bed,  he thought, trying to stretch his arm again. 

Blow that bridge when we're on it, he thought. Won't be today, or tomorrow.

Or the day after, even.

He lay and thought about the uncertain future, about  bridges and trouble and somewhere there might be a bigger bed and shared breakfast, listening to Nerila breathe, staring sightlessly into the dark. 

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Seven

On his way out of the door of the mess, Private Visa Honka hesitated, then turned back. "M'm," he said. "Do you think she'll be different?"

"Who?" Corporal Satu Weilin asked absently, most of her attention on the datapadd she'd been reading while she ploughed through two helpings of flavour-enhanced beef-substitute.

"Alpassi. Do you think she'll be different. When she comes back."  

Weilin looked up, letting the datapadd drop to the table. "Different  how?" 

"I don't know." Honka shrugged. " Different."

"She's still Alpassi," Weilin said firmly.  

"Yeah, but ..."

" But nothing. She's still Alpassi. She just won't remember the last two weeks. And she'll be bald." It was Weilin's turn to shrug. "Worse things than being bald."

"How did it happen?" Honka asked.  

"Landcar accident. Brake failure, or something." Weilin looked at her empty plate, then glanced at the servery. "Flipped, broken neck. Instant."

"That's ....  random. For a marine."

"Life happens, right? At least for Alpassi, this time, life happening wasn't fatal." Weilin pushed her plate away. "Thanks to Pilot's generosity."

Honka paused. "I don't know what I should say to her."

"Just treat her as normal," Weilin said. "She's  Alpassi. Just ... bald. And a little amnesiac."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so," Honka said without conviction.

"You'll do more than  guess so," Weilin said sharply. "It's an order, Private."

"Yes'm," Honka said.  

He turned to go, and was almost out the door when Weilin spoke again.

"Visa," she said quietly. "If you don't know what to say to her - remember. We're all in the Significance program. Next time it could be me. Or you."

"Bald and amnesiac?" Honka said with a ghost of a grin.

"In your case, Private, an improvement," Weilin said dryly. "Now get out of here. Don't you have range-time booked?"

Honka sketched a salute, and was gone.

Weilin listened to his footsteps fading down the corridor, then made a note on her datapadd for CTO Hurun.  

He wants to know what to say to her, she thought. What to say to a woman who died three days ago and arrives back on the ship tomorrow.

As if I know.