Grasping both my hands in his, he looked me straight in the eye and said with a little twinkle, "May you become the man you wish to be, Ishmael." He grinned, waved, and disappeared back into the shop, leaving me standing in the pa.s.sageway with an amused smile on my face.

I headed toward the lift with no real destination in mind and soon found myself wandering through the flea market. My first trip seemed so far away and so long ago. I watched for things I might take with me to Port Newmar, thinking that perhaps a few small items could go in my duffel for sale before I left the orbital there.

"Ishmael!" The voice caught me by surprise and I looked around to find that I had practically walked into the co-op booth without noticing. Tabitha stood there with a big grin on her face and Sean was behind her selling one of his afghans to what appeared to be a local. "You lost?"

I grinned in reply as I saw more of the co-op members busily engaged in trade of various kinds. Most of them smiled and nodded toward me, but didn't break off their dealing. "No," I laughed. "Just stopped by to see if there was something I could tuck in my duffel to sell when I get to Port Newmar."

"Find anything yet?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, I've only just arrived. Last time we were here, I found some nice batik fabric and some prints."

"Ooh," she said. "I remember that batik. It was gorgeous. That was right when we started the co-ed crochet team!"

"You guys doing okay with that?"

Sean finished his sale and came over to answer, "It's been great." He looked shyly at Tabitha who winked and grinned back. "We're making enough goods to really make some serious money. Sarah is taking to it like a duck to water, and she's getting top creds for her work too."

Something in the way Tabitha looked at Sean made me think that there was more going on than just crocheting, but I didn't get into it. I just smiled and said, "That's wonderful." After a few more ticks of small talk, I wished them continued success and wandered on down the aisles.

Seeing them reminded me that the reason we had done so well in the various flea markets was because of the co-op and it occurred to me that I wouldn't have a co-op to sell in at Port Newmar. While I could certainly rent a booth there, the idea of carrying cargo from here to there seemed, less attractive. In spite of that I wandered in the flea market until the chimes sounded the closing and I drifted out with the human tide.

With nowhere else to go, I headed back to the room. The clerk smiled and winked as I entered. I was not sure what the wink was for until I got to the room. I found my packages from Roubaille's and Beverly both waiting for me.

She sat on the sofa, clicking through something on her tablet and looked up as I entered. "There you are. Busy afternoon?" she smiled as she nodded at the tastefully bundled parcels.

I smiled back. "Pa.s.sable. I needed a few things for the trip. Went up to the flea to see what I could see." I made it a little sing-songy and trying to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest.

She grinned and stood, crossing to me, and giving me a hug. "I'm glad you're back. I'm starved. Let's go get something to eat."

She led me out of the hotel and headed to starboard. She stopped at the entrance of a tastefully decorated restaurant and kissed me in full view of anybody who happened to be watching a wanton and shameless public display of affection. I did so hope somebody was watching, because I think it was worth the look. "There's more where that came from," she whispered. We went in and when the maitre d' asked, she said, "McKendrick for 6 pm?"

He bowed the little maitre d' bow and escorted us into the restaurant to a booth while Bev enjoyed the looks from the other patrons. With her tattoos, multiple piercings, and buzz cut hairstyle, she usually got looks. She was, of course, in her black leathers, and wearing an exquisite, soft yellow blouse under the jacket. The blouse was unb.u.t.toned to her sternum, and it was obvious there was nothing but woman underneath-other than the surgical steel, of course. Beverly was gorgeous in her own vicious, animal way.

We had steaks, the house specialty, baked potatoes, and big green crunchy salads. Bev ordered a rich, fruity, red wine. We sat, ate, and talked like we had all the time in the world. Like we weren't spending the evening saying goodbye.

When the steaks had gone, like the salad and the wine, we ordered dessert. When the desserts had been ordered and eaten and the coffee drunk, we had to leave. Bev insisted on covering the check, "You're unemployed, remember?" she teased.

"Half-pay," I insisted, but she just shook her head.

We left the restaurant together and headed down the corridor, Beverly took me by the arm and we walked hip-to-hip back to the hotel. I flashed the lock and opened the door. She went in, shucked off her leather jacket, and kicked off her boots. The jacket went over the back of the couch before she turned to me. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked as she caught me admiring the way the black leather pants fit her.

"Oh, yes," I a.s.sured her. I could feel my chest tightening and my breath already beginning to quicken at the implication of her being there.

"Good," she said with a grin and held out her hand in invitation. "Then could I ask you to come over here and sit on the sofa and just hold me for a while?"

The request was so unexpected. I asked, "Are you okay?" out of reflex.

"Oh, yes," she said with a soft little sigh as we settled together. "It's just that I've wanted this for so long, I want to savor every moment."

That brought a pang as I realized what she had not said. I sighed and we wrapped around each other and just held on. I was surprised at how soft her cropped hair felt on my cheek. I had expected it to be more bristly, although I didn't know why. I found myself stroking her head and loving the curve of her skull in my palm and the way her hair tickled between my fingers while being too short to grasp. Eventually there was gentle kissing-fingers, foreheads, ears, eyes, and, after a time, mouths. Later we moved to the other room and she walked to the bed, while unbuckling her belt and slipping the leather pants down her legs, and at last, kicked them off. She dove face first onto the mattress, just bouncing on it slightly. The tails of her yellow blouse flipped up exposing lacy white briefs stretched deliciously across her backside. "Ooh," she cooed. "Somebody could get very, very naughty here."

She rolled over to her back and propped up on her elbows to look at me. "I'm sorry," she growled low in the back of her throat, "but it really does seem like you better get in here." Her blouse had pulled down from her right shoulder, and while it revealed nothing more than tattoos and a smoothly rounded shoulder, it only needed another few centimeters to expose considerably more. She drew up her left knee, allowing her thighs to open the tiniest amount in invitation, her briefs painting a pale target against her flesh.

A very long time later, after several rounds of sobbing, laughing, moaning and sighing-some of it Bev's-we fell asleep with only a sheet over us to keep in some of the warmth.

The feeling of something wet, tickling down my ribs woke me after a time. Bev's head was resting on my chest, one arm thrown up and over my shoulder and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s on either side of my upper arm. She had fallen asleep with her mouth open and was drooling on me. It was such a child-like, innocent thing to see after the long evening of deliciously depraved behavior, that I started to laugh but it caught in my throat and came out as a sob when I remembered that she would be gone soon-probably forever.

The movement of my chest as much as the sound woke her and her mouth closed. She raised her head a little, looking down to see what she was laying in. I saw memory flash across her face as she turned those fiercely beautiful eyes in my direction and she let out a small chuckle.

"Sorry about that," she said, as she used the edge of the sheet to wipe my chest and then her cheek.

I could not say anything just then, so I just hugged her head back down to my chest. I held her like that for a while and we fell asleep again.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Dunsany Roads...o...b..tal

2353-July-19

The sound of the shower woke me and I found myself alone in the bed. The chrono on the nightstand read 07:30. Good, I thought, she must not have the watch.

Bev came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of black briefs and a turtle-neck pullover clinging to her torso. I wondered, briefly, where she had gotten fresh clothes but she climbed onto the bed and was most distracting for several ticks without doing anything too naughty.

She was not exactly innocent, but she also pulled back before things got too heated and pointed toward the bathroom. "Shower now, you tomcat!" she said trying to be stern. "You smell like me. I want breakfast and I want it soon, so be quick." She lost the effect then by laughing.

It wasn't long before we were sitting down to breakfast and, compared to the leisurely meal of the night before, breakfast was all business. We went; we ate; we left. Outside the restaurant, Bev turned to me. "Will you be okay on your own for a few stans? I have some business to take care of back on the ship. Pip will be along shortly and you two boys will undoubtedly find plenty of mischief to get into."

"Would it make any difference if I said no?"

She shook her head with a grin.

"You're coming back, though, right?"

"Yes. I'll be back later today. And I'll be at the party tonight." She kissed me playfully on the nose and turned toward the lift, hips swinging loosely as she walked. I was not the only one watching her go. I noticed several men and at least two women tracking on her as she sashayed by.

I went back to my room and took stock. I was still wearing the clothes I had left the ship in, other than the change of briefs. I wondered again, what I might need for clothes on the trip to Port Newmar. There was nothing I could do about that except wait for Pip. Yawning and smiling, I crawled back into the rumpled sheets and fell asleep, smelling the scent of Bev's hair on the pillow.

Pip was as good as his word and showed up at 13:30 with his kit. "Nice digs!" he said as he walked in. "We paying for this?"

"Lois paid the bill in advance through the twenty-first. The Bad Penny is due to dock tomorrow so we've got another couple of days of living the high life. Do you know how long we'll have after they get here?"

"Naw. They'll clear customs and cargoes before they get too carried away with planning. We got plenty of time, though. I think as long as we leave here by the twenty-seventh, we'll be fine." He started poking about then and stuck his head into the sleeping room. "Nice. And well used, I see." He winked at me. He surprised me then by walking to the other end of the sitting room and opening a door on that end. "Ah!" he said, and disappeared through it.

I hadn't even noticed it, let alone considered it. I started to follow him but he came back out without his kit and said, "Good, I'll just take that one then." He pointed at the portable still set up on the table. "That was pretty clever thinking. The peeda just doesn't compare after you've had a tablet, does it?"

"No kidding. So what's the deal with shipsuits?"

"Aunt P and Uncle Q don't require them, but they're a h.e.l.l of a lot more practical than civvies underway. The big companies all provide them, but indies just buy their own. Kinda like having your own tools. Come on, we need to stock up."

He took me down to the oh-one level. Orbital stations were all the same. The oh-one was one deck down from the docks. Typically the upper decks were residential, tourist, and retail. Below was commercial. It was the first time I had visited the oh-one. While the oh-two level had entertainment catering to the Deep Dark crowd, the oh-one was all business. Consultants, import/export brokers, repair brokers, cargo brokers, even a tailor and a barber shop. Everything the well-heeled s.p.a.cer might need, including a chandlery selling anything you might want for a ship-from deck paint to fiber optics. Crew supplies had a whole wing onto itself. Duffel bags, shipsuits, environmental soft suits, hygiene gear, even blankets, sheets, and towels in standard ship sizes.

"We only need to get the minimum to get by for the next couple of months," he told me. "All this stuff will come around again when we hit the academy and they'll want us to buy theirs." He pointed to the racks of suits, "Find your size, you'll need two, and three sets of ship-tee and boxers."

"Any particular color?" I asked. The suits were in all colors of the rainbow.

"Gray, or light brown. Doesn't matter really, but I always feel like I'm glowing in those brighter shades." He already had two suits and a packet of ship-tees and boxers in his size.

I followed his lead. We picked up some Depil, deodorant and tooth gel, then headed for the checkout. My bundle came to just a bit under twenty creds. Pip was grinning as we rode the lift back to the suite. "You're enjoying this, aren't ya?" I said.

"You have no idea how much," he agreed.

"Aren't you sad to be leaving the Lois?"

"Oh, some, sure. But the Lois is just the latest step on a path that will have many more in it before I'm done. Look ahead, not back. That's my motto." Pip seemed very chipper.

"I thought your motto was *Enjoy the ride.'"

"That too," he agreed.

After that we were at loose ends. We wandered back to the room and I stowed the new gear in the bottom of my duffel. Of course that meant I had to take everything out first. The downside of these bags is that when you want to pack, you almost always have to dump it all out and start again. By the time I came back to the common room, Pip was scrolling through the list of ship arrivals.

"Anything new?" I asked.

"Naw, just looking."

"What'll we do now?" I asked. "It's 15:30 and the party isn't until 20:00."

"Sleep. We may not get much later."

He made sense so I went to my room and he went to his. I was not sure I could sleep, but no sooner had I laid down before Pip was waking me. "Hey! It's 18:30 and I wanna eat before we go."

I blinked up from a deep sleep as his voice echoed inside my ears for a bit. "Yeah. Good. Food before drinking. Yes." I sat up in my bed and grinned. "I need a fast splash and some clothes and I'll be ready to go. Find something cheap to eat."

He grinned and left while I clambered off the bed. After sleeping for two years on a narrow bunk, that hotel bed seemed big and empty. I grabbed a shower and fresh clothes-the pink shirt-and was ready for food. Pip waited in the common room and by 18:45 we were tucking into large, grilled sandwiches with fried potatoes and salads on the side.

"Long time since breakfast?" he asked with a grin as I practically inhaled the first half of the sandwich.

"Forgot to get lunch," I said with a sheepish grin.

Pip insisted we eat slowly and then take a turn around the level to settle dinner before going down to Jump! "Wouldn't want to arrive too early. We need to give them a chance to get it together before the guests of honor show up."

When we finally got down there, the party was still tuning up. Pip led me back to the same corner we had been in over a year before. I marveled that so much time could have pa.s.sed yet the memories were so clear. On the wall above our tables a banner read: Congratulations, Cadets. That was the extent of the decoration, for which I was grateful.

Lee von Ickles walked up to me and handed me a drink-gin and tonic-and said, "We'll talk in a bit. Have fun." He was gone again before I could thank him.

Tabitha Rondita sashayed up to me and all but mugged me right there. I was feeling delightfully rumpled by the time she finished. There was more than ample catcalling and encouragement to go around, I thought, but my opinion was not being consulted. I came up for air grinning though. Pip was getting a dose from Jennifer Agotto and I was amused to see her mother cheering her on. I grabbed a quick swig of my drink while I still could, because Sandy Belterson and Rebecca Salzman were both heading in my direction. I had the distinct impression I was about to be double teamed. I was right. Rebecca held me while Sandy helped herself to a kiss so deep I thought I better get my tonsils checked. To be honest, I offered no struggle. At least not more than necessary for Rebecca to make a good show of holding me. For her part, the kiss she gave me was gentle and sweet and she whispered, "Good luck, Ish," in my ear as she gave me a hug before letting go. She was not so gentle with Pip and when he came up for air, he seemed a little dazed.

After that, the party cooled down and well-wishers surrounded us. They came to shake or hug or kiss, sometimes all three. At least four of the women who came to wish me luck were not members of the Lois's crew but I pretended not to notice. I kept trying to see Bev or Brill but could not spot them. CC and Emile were both there so that meant Diane had the watch. Perhaps that's why she had said goodbye on the mess deck. I grinned a little at the memory.

I was startled by Mr. Maxwell, who stepped up beside me to shake my hand. "Best wishes, Ishmael. The captain sends her compliments. She wishes she could attend but the obligations of command prevent it."

"Thank you for everything, Mr. Maxwell. You've been great to serve under."

"Please don't let that get around, Mr. w.a.n.g," he said with a grin and a twinkle in his eye. "I have a reputation to protect." Before I could answer he pulled an envelope from his inner pocket and slipped it into my jacket. "A little something personal from the officers to help you on your way. You'll do us proud." He smiled at me then and winked. He was gone before I could even thank him.

Mr. Kelley and Mr. Cotton came up together while I was still looking to see where Mr. Maxwell had gone. They smiled and clapped me on the shoulders. Mr. Cotton even gave me a hug. They wished me well. "Thank you, both," I told them. They just smiled and took their exit cue. I realized then that the officers were clearing the decks for the crew to have a serious party.

Ms Avril was next in line and she leaned in to speak softly in my ear. "Alicia was my roommate at the academy. She sends her love," she said. Then she kissed me on the ear, flicking her tongue delightfully across the lobe. "Good luck, Ishmael," she said with a smoldering look and I suddenly had the image of her and Alicia Alvarez practicing that same look on each other at the academy.

"Thank you, and if you can let me know how those astrogation enhancements work?"

"I'll do that," she said, and brushed my mouth with her lips. "That's from me," she said with a wink. Before she joined the parade of officers leaving the party.

Lee was the last of the officers there and he stepped up next with a small flat box in his hand. He handed it to me. "When you go to the academy, they make you buy a tablet-one of theirs. When I heard the captain finally got you to apply, I ordered one for you and it was waiting for us here when we got in. It's not much, but from one systems guy to another, best wishes and use it well. Drop me a line now and again to let me know how you're doing."

I was speechless. I had no idea how much they cost, but it was an extravagant gift. "You shouldn't have," I said at last.

"Probably not. But I only ordered it. I didn't pay for it, so it's okay."

"Lois?" I asked.

"Who else?"

"Lois is being awfully nice to me."

He looked at me for a long moment. "You earned it."

"Thank Lois for me. She gave me a home when I needed one." It was all I could say without losing it again.

Lee seemed to realize that, and clapped me on the shoulder. "Maybe we'll have time to grab a quiet beer before you leave. Message me," he said, nodding at the package in my hands. Then he, too, headed out of the bar.

I looked around and Bev and Brill had arrived amid a swirl of shipmates so I just took a deep breath and a swig of my drink. I looked around and saw Pip at the center of another group of women, at least half of whom weren't from the Lois. He caught me looking in his direction and smiled. I grinned back and raised my gla.s.s. We had not been there a full stan yet, but the party had already started to warm up. The band finished setting up, the officers were gone, and the place was beginning to fill.

Salina Matteo came up to me then and gave me a kiss. It was not the lose a tonsil kind of kiss but still warm enough from a married lady with two kids, one of whom was watching with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Well," she said softly, "now I understand." Then she winked at me and stepped back. "Jennifer," she called to her daughter, "you might want to try this one. Just to see if you like it." She turned back to me and said, "I certainly did." I'm pretty sure I blushed then and she backed off a little. "You're a good man, Ishmael. You're going to make a great officer. The Agotto Trader's co-op is always looking for good officers to handle their business." She said it so salaciously that I had to laugh. It made me wonder what business needed handling.