Transcript

Chapter V · Blood on My Jets

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Chapter five of Blood on My Jets by Algus Boutras. This LibriVox recording is
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in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter five. What was
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Pat doing? Tied up with Thorston? She was a high grade operator,
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now, as far from the immature teas I'd known at the academy as I
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could imagine. Where'd she learn to handle a gun like that? Where'd she
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got in the experience that let her handle a job this size by herself?
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I couldn't answer that, not any of it, and it was driving me
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nuts. I stared over at the control banks, at the forward screen,
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watching the stars and beating my brains out. We'd been out in space for
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two days, and I hadn't dared to try and find out. You don't
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when you're alone with the woman you love. She was standing next to me,
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and I looked up at her. The coveralls gave a pretty good indication
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of what lay beneath. Then It was top grade. Not that her figure
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was that spectacular. She had something more than figures on a tape measure.
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There was a precision, a slim freshness and freedom to the way one curve
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flowed into another. It sounds silly, but The way she held herself reminded
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me of a thing I'd seen once, a rocket transiting the sun, fire
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sparkling from the shimmering hull and the milky way behind it. I finally caught
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what I was trying to phrase. She looked as if she was poised for
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flight. She grinned down at me. Like it, she asked, chuckling.
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Her green eyes crackled with light, and there were little demons in her
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laugh. I tried to think of a clever comeback, but I couldn't.
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I just said yes, I did like it, and I hated it at
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the same time. The ship was fast, but space is big. I
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had a week to plan my next moves while we worked our way through the
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area between Earth and Mars's orbit where the TSN kept the raiders down. But
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the week went by and I didn't think of anything. I'd be working over
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the control board and then I'd look up and she'd be smiling at me.
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I'd raise an eyebrow and she'd stick he hung out. We shared cigarettes.
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I'd take a drag, hand her the butt, and she'd cuffed me when
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I blew smoke in her face. Hey goon, she'd say from behind the
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plotting board. Do you hear the one about the ladies sociologist who wandered into
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Bessie's place on Venus? I taught her original verses to the Song of the
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Wandering Spacemen. Then she taught me the verses she knew we crossed Mars's orbit.
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I couldn't think of any way to find out what I'd been killing myself
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over, except to ask, ever hear the do os? I asked,
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quietly, what che in chlorophyll? Tablet's kierum? She asked. I laughed
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so hard that I cried. I don't think so, I answered automatically,
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and got busy checking the breech assembly on one of the ship's rocket launchers.
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Lay off that ape face, Pat said, we won't need it. How
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Come, if anybody comes round looking unfriendly, just give him this on the
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radio, she said, and whistled off a recognition signal and Martian I turned
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slowly away from the launcher. Thorston did have a deal with the Martys.
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What was more, Pat was in on it. She had to be.
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She looked at my face. Was the matter lump? Something you ate?
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Sit down, Pat, I said, pointing to the navigation table go on,
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sit down, I yelled. She turned white. You know what kind
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of a ship this is, don't you? I said, feeling like I
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was a hundred years old. Sure, she nodded. She was beginning to
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get it. You weren't supposed to know about that. I didn't, not
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until we were space born. Didn't she realize? Couldn't she see what she
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was doing to me? Pat? Do you know what'll happen? If the
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Martys get this drive? They'll be able to hit Earth and Venus with everything
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they've got, coming out of nowhere and going back into hyperspace when they're through.
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The TSN won't stand a chance against them, She shrugged. They probably
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would if they ever got it, but they won't. Harry's going to assemble
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the drive, install it in his ships, and then we'll take off.
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The Martys'll be stuck. Wait a minute, you just mentioned taking off.
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Where to? She looked up at me. Harry says, there's another planet
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out in hyperspace, somewhere circling another star. He says, people can live
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on it. Her eyes were shining, and I remembered a girl on a
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terrace back at the Academy with a dream in her voice that I'd been too
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dumb to recognize he does, does he can? He prove it? How
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do you know what he's really going to do? Because he told me,
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She flared, He's going to bypass the fumbling bureaucrats who run things on Earth
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and take mankind out to the stars. Man kind, Ash, the toughest,
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the strongest men in space and their women. Space belongs to us,
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Ash, not to those earth bound lilies. And whose speech are you repeating?
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I said, getting more and more mad every minute? Thorstan's yes,
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all right, if you think so goddamn much of him, Suppose you tell
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me where he is to you now, I asked, he's my husband.
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She didn't even hesitate. I started for her before I could even think of
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words for the double crossing. She came off the navigation table like a coiled
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spring. She had a gun in her hand. Ash, get back.
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I don't want to hurt you, Ash. Can't you see why do you
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think I'm the kind? Who? I kept coming? No, I said,
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I can't see why. I'm not built so I could see why,
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And yes, I do think you're the kind. I don't know why I
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had to pick you, she screamed. Then maybe I remembered something. Maybe
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I found something out after it was too late. She was crying, but
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she was bringing the gun up at the same time. I didn't care.
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I didn't care if she pulled the trigger or not. I told you,
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I said, between my teeth. She had the gun aimed right at me.
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Her face was gray and her hand was shaking. I told you the
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last time what I'd do if you ever pointed a gun at me Again.
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My voice was coming out low, but it had absolutely nothing in it.
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It was just words coming out one by one. The gun muzzle was shaking
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badly. She put up her hand to steady it. I she said,
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there were tears running down her cheeks in a steady, wet stream. She
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should have pulled the trigger. I think she should have, but she didn't.
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I smashed my fist against the gun and it was out of her hands,
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crashing into metal somewhere ash. She screamed and raked her nails across my
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face. She kicked up her knee and fire exploded in my groin. I
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fell forward, slamming her down on the deck, and threw my entire dead
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weight across her shoulders. I didn't have to her head had hit the deck,
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and she lay unconscious, blood seeping out through her hair. She wouldn't
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talk to me. She lay on her bunk, her chest rising and falling
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under the straps i'd buckled around her. I tried to explain, to make
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her understand somehow, Pat, I've got a responsibility to the people I work
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for. I've spent the last ten years keeping characters like Harry Thorston from taking
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over this system. It's a rough job, and it's a dirty one.
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I can't help that. I don't like it, Pat, It's got to
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be this way. She wouldn't talk to me, She wouldn't listen. I
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walked out of her cabin, locking the door behind me, locking a door
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and forgetting what's on the other side, or two different things. I went
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up to the control room and set a course for Titan. Maybe once we
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got out there, I'd be able to convince her. It was a lousy
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hope. I didn't even understand her. She was like something I'd never seen
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before. How could she be like she was? How? God damn it?
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How? End of chapter five