Acid Sky (13 page)

Clare stared into the dark, swirling water. For a moment, she had forgotten where they were; she could have been in a greenhouse on Earth, walking through it on a warm night. But they were sixty-one kilometres high, flying in the skies of an alien world, and here they were, recreating a little slice of their home planet.

Once again, the warm feeling of security and contentment washed over her. She looked at Coombes, standing next to her. They were quite alone. He really was quite attractive – and he was gentle, kind, intelligent. None of the awkward rules about dating applied – they both held the same rank, and he was outside her direct chain of command. And it had been a long time.

A
very
long time. Her body seemed to be making up its own mind without her conscious intervention, and a thrill of excitement washed over her. She wasn’t on duty until 07:00 tomorrow morning.

Oh, what the hell.

She moved closer to him, and he put his arm round her middle. They stood there for a long moment, and then Clare turned her body to face him. She was quite tall, and her eyes were on a level with his. She put one arm round him, and their faces moved closer. Neither of them spoke; the only sound was the trickle of the water through the tanks, and the hum of the air plant.

The reflections of the man and woman deep in the water came together slowly and kissed, broke for a moment, then kissed again more urgently, their hands moving over each other, their images multiplied and scattered in the water’s quavering surface.

CHAPTER TEN

The patch of morning sunlight, that had lain unnoticed and motionless on the floor of the cabin for the last hour, started to move. It crept slowly across the room as the
Langley
imperceptibly dipped a wing and turned in the sky. The patch of light changed shape, and rose over the edge of the bed that lay along one wall. It slowed as the
Langley
settled out onto its new course, and finally came to rest with one edge resting over the woman’s hand that lay outstretched on top of the bed.

Several minutes passed, and then the hand moved slightly, as if aware of the warmth. The woman was waking up.

Her eyes blinked open, and for several moments, her gaze flickered about the room. They were the eyes of someone who had forgotten where they were, and they settled briefly on certain objects, then moved on, before returning again, as if to affirm that the object was still there. Then the eyes changed; they lost their questing look, and opened wide as memory came flooding back.

So that’s where I am,
they seemed to say.

Clare sat up on one elbow.

Well, that had been nice. She glanced behind her in the bed, but of course he wasn’t there; he had slipped back to his own cabin at some point during the night, as he said he would. But the pleasant memory of a night of unrestrained lust remained. Well, not
completely
unrestrained; they had had to keep the noise down for fear of disturbing the cabins to either side. She smirked to herself.

She was slightly sore, of course, but that would pass. And aching, too; she felt stiff as she sat up properly, and her arms hurt. She lifted one arm and examined it. Yes, there were some bruises where he had …

Where he had
what?

She frowned at the marks, and then pulled the duvet off her body. She was covered in bruises, mainly on her arms, but there were some on her legs, and –
she had bite marks all over her.
There were some on her breasts, and as she turned herself sideways she could see some on her buttocks and thighs. She didn’t feel any concern, just puzzlement; she simply had no recollection of him doing this to her. She remembered coming back to her room with him; they had made out on top of the bed, and then … and then …

She remembered his body against hers, she remembered worrying about making too much noise, she was sure she … Her memory was like a disjointed patchwork – she could feel isolated flashes of pleasure and hear the sound of his voice in her ear, but she struggled to recall exactly what they had done.

Must have been drunker than I thought.

Except she had only had two beers, and her head felt fine otherwise. She reached over to her comlink on the nearby table to see the time. It was lying face down, and she had to turn it over to see the display. As she did so, she saw that there was a strange mark round one side of her wrist. She pulled her hand back and examined it closely. It was a slightly reddened, striated mark, and she looked immediately at her other wrist, to see a fainter mark there. Although she’d never seen one, she felt a growing certainty that it was a rope burn.

Why can’t I remember?

She glanced at the time on her comlink, and her vision contracted in horror as she focused on the numerals. It was 08:05, and the alarm had gone off over two hours ago.

‘Nice of you to join us,’ Lorna Gray remarked as Clare slid into the copilot’s seat next to her. Clare started an apology, but Gray silenced it with a wave of her hand. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I’m not going to report you. Just don’t do it if you’re going out with Shaffer, or you’ll find yourself on a charge, okay?’

‘Okay. Sorry.’

‘All right. Let’s get going. I’ve done the pre-flight without you, so if we’re quick we might still be able to make our slot without attracting attention.’

To save them time, Gray called for the tug to take them over to the deck elevator straightaway, while they busied themselves with a rapid run-through of the checklists and verifying the flight plan in the aircraft’s computer. They were going over to the
Wright
with some freight and six passengers, and then returning later with some spares that the
Langley’s
maintenance team had begged off the other carrier.

They finished the checklists and flight briefing while the aircraft was fuelled on the elevator, and a few minutes later, they rose slowly out of the hangar into the blue sky of the morning.

‘Do you want to do the takeoff?’ Gray asked.

‘Sure.’

‘Okay, it’s all yours.’ Gray sat and watched as Clare set takeoff power and gave the signal to the tower, then they were thrown back in their seats and were airborne, rising into the clear blue sky.

‘Positive climb.’

‘Gear up.’

The Frigate accelerated into the climb, and Clare turned it onto the departure heading. They were kept busy for the next few minutes, talking to the tower and sorting out the aircraft, and then they settled into the long cruise across the empty sky to the distant
Wright
.

Clare gazed out over the vast expanse of clouds below them. What had seemed like a featureless sea of white foam took on a new appearance when viewed through the polarised sun visor on her helmet. There were gullies and ridges, hills and valleys in the clouds, some of them just a few kilometres in size, but other features extended seemingly across the entire cloud deck, great terraces of cloud from horizon to horizon, following some wind feature in the atmosphere. There was also the occasional castle or city, poking up out of the main deck, with wispy turrets and minarets that rose, teetered, and then slowly crumbled back into the foam.

Gray checked the flight computer again, and turned over control to the autopilot. The Frigate’s engines reduced power, and the aircraft altered heading slightly, aiming for a point in the sky where its path and that of the
Wright’s
would cross in an hour’s time. She scanned the controls and navigation display, making sure that the autopilot was doing the right things, before looking over to Clare in the right-hand seat.

‘So what happened?’ she asked.

‘Huh?’

‘What happened to make you so late?’

‘I thought you didn’t want to hear.’ Clare didn’t turn her head.

‘So now I’ve got more time. Course, if you don’t want to tell me …’

Clare smiled sheepishly as she raised her sun visor and turned to face Gray. ‘Okay, but it’s a bit weird. You know Coombes?’

‘The weather officer? Sure—’ Gray saw the look on Clare’s face and stopped. ‘Oh no. You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.’

Clare sighed and closed her eyes in confirmation that she had.

Gray shook her head. ‘Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. You’ve been on board all of two days, and you lay the weather officer. This gives a whole new meaning to carrier quals. So what did he do to you? Tie you up so you couldn’t get here in time?’

‘No.’ Clare tried to laugh, but it wouldn’t come out. ‘But this morning, when I woke up, I felt really weird.’

‘What, like you’d been fucked senseless all night long?’ Gray said sarcastically.

‘Well, I felt like I’d had a great time, but—’

‘And you think that’s weird? Listen, lieutenant, there’s plenty people on board this ship that would love to have that kind of weirdness in the morning.’

‘Look, will you
listen?
’

Gray threw up her arms. ‘Okay, okay. I’m listening. But this had better be good.’

‘I felt fine, but I have no memory of what happened. Nothing. I remember coming back to my room, I remember – making out with him – then, nothing. And look—’ Clare pulled back her sleeves and showed Gray the bruises. I don’t remember how I came by these. I’m covered in them.’

‘I think we all know how you came by them,’ Gray said slowly, but she had stopped smiling. ‘You really have no memory of what happened?’

‘None. And I slept like the dead. That’s why I was late; I didn’t even hear the alarm.’

‘What did you have to drink?’

‘Two beers. Both before nineteen hundred.’

‘And you feel fine?’

‘Absolutely. I felt great. I just – slept a lot, and I can’t remember what happened. I tell you, it’s weird. And there’s something else. Donahue said something about Coombes. She said: “Watch yourself with him.”’

‘
Watch yourself
with him?’

‘Yes. That’s what she said.’

Gray stared at Clare, and didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then, quite slowly, she said: ‘Did he give you anything?’

‘Give me anything? Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Anything.’

‘I don’t think so. Certainly not before we got back to my cabin. But I don’t think I’d remember even if he had.’

Gray nodded, but she didn’t meet Clare’s eyes, and was quiet for a bit after that.

Gray did the landing on the
Wright
, and then there was an hour’s turnaround while the Frigate was refuelled and the consignment of spares loaded for the return flight.

They went to get a coffee in the galley. The interior of the carrier was similar to the
Langley
, but there were some differences. The
Wright
had been the first of its class, and the following two carriers had benefited from the lessons learned during its construction. One of these was the position of the galley. On the
Wright
, it was at the aft end of the ship, and had a huge sweep of windows looking out over the clouds. It was an impressive view. Clare asked Gray if she knew why it had been moved on the later carriers.

‘No one knows for sure, but the rumour is that it was too far to carry the captain’s meals to his stateroom at the front of the ship, so they moved the entire galley.’

‘No shit.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me, you know.’ Gray sipped her coffee and stared morosely out of the windows. ‘I’ve heard even stupider things that have turned out to be true. Like, they spent a whole year arguing about whether the carrier should have a left and right, like an aircraft, or a port and starboard, like a ship. Seems that a lot of the top brass had Navy connections, because it ended up as port and starboard. But we have left and right wings, because ships don’t have wings. I tell you, it could only happen in the Corps.’

‘I’d never thought about it.’

‘Most normal people wouldn’t. How are you feeling?’

‘A bit down, I suppose. I—’ Clare stopped. The question had come so unexpectedly that it caught Clare by surprise, and she realised what she had just said.

‘
How
down?’ Gray looked straight at Clare.

‘I don’t know. Like, just down.’

‘Depressed?’

‘A bit.’

‘Like the Sun’s gone out of the world?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Gray’s sharp questions were beginning to irritate Clare, more so because it was exactly how she was feeling, and it had been growing all the way across from the
Langley
. ‘You’re not exactly a ray of sunshine yourself today.’

Gray looked back at her, and her face had gone hard. ‘Well maybe it’s because I have a co-pilot who can’t remember what she did last night, turns up late for duty and has mood swings?’ She drained her coffee and stood up. ‘Come on, they’ll be finished fuelling by now, we’d better get back to the hangar.’

‘Hey, I didn’t—’

‘Forget it,’ Gray said, and stalked off.

Gray handled the takeoff herself, and hardly spoke on the return journey, only occasionally asking Clare to perform a checklist action or speak to the tower. Clare left it a full hour before trying again. She knew she’d annoyed Gray, and she felt bad about it; the young lieutenant had been the first person to show her friendship and support since arriving.

‘Hey, I’m sorry.’

‘Are you now.’ Gray stared forward at the featureless vista of clouds.

‘I know you were trying to help. I’ve just not experienced something like this before.’

Gray nodded in a noncommittal way, but said nothing, so Clare continued: ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. Waking up like that, and not being able to remember anything, and then coming down. He must have given me something.’

‘Sure sounds like it to me,’ Gray said, unbending slightly. ‘Maybe more than one thing.’ She sighed, and paused for a moment. ‘Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but we’ve got some – issues with drugs on board. Don’t ask me how it started, or why anyone wants to risk their career that badly, but there it is.’

‘A drugs problem –
here?
’ Clare was aghast. ‘How can anyone be that stupid? Everyone’s tested!’

‘Sure we’re tested – on the way up, on the way down, but have you ever been tested in space, outside of the medical when you came aboard? And believe me sister, you might think this place is great, but you’ve only been here a couple of days. After a few weeks, you’ll find there’s not much to do on board. It’ll be a whole month before there’s another beer night. So after six months, someone offers you drugs, and they say it’s undetectable, maybe you’ll do it. Trust me, we’ve got a problem, but nobody wants to admit it.’