Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality: The Complete Novels Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell (39 page)

Two months back, Pat and Susan had both been laid off because of budget cutbacks. Since the layoff, Pat had been doing temp work and writing copy for a Web site called The Bad Grrlz’ Guide to Physics (www.badgrrlzguide.com). The Web site, Pat had told Susan, would provide bad girls (or bad grrlz) with a justification to do what they wanted to do anyway. Susan had her doubts about the project, but working on it seemed to make Pat happy, so Susan kept her reservations to herself.

In a raffle sponsored by a writers’ magazine Susan had won a cruise on the
Odyssey
—from New York to England, with stops in Bermuda and the Azores. She had invited Pat to come along, and Pat had accepted with enthusiasm.

While Susan unpacked, Pat read aloud from a brochure that she had found in the “Welcome Aboard” fruit basket. “The
Odyssey
offers its fun-loving, adventurous passengers a fully equipped gymnasium, an aerobics studio with classes running from early morning to late evening, two dining rooms, three swimming pools, five restaurants (including a pizzeria), and eight bars. The
Odyssey
crew wants to make your stay with us a memorable experience, an adventure in luxury.”

Susan hung the last of her sundresses in the tiny closet. She felt neither fun-loving nor adventurous. Instead, she felt more than a bit timid and uncertain.

“Why are you still wearing that?” Pat asked her.

Susan glanced down at her hands and realized that she was twisting her wedding ring on her finger, a nervous habit that had developed in the past few months. Her divorce had been finalized just before she left for the cruise.

“I thought you signed the divorce papers,” Pat said.

Susan nodded. “Just before I left.”

Pat frowned. “So you’re not married anymore.”

Susan stared down at the ring on her hand “I guess I haven’t figured out what to do with it.”

“Stick it in a drawer until you figure it out,” Pat advised. “Who knows—you might meet some cute guy.”

Susan gave her friend a warning glance. She had made Pat promise not to play matchmaker on the cruise. Susan wasn’t in the mood—and she certainly didn’t trust Pat’s opinions about men.

But Pat was probably right about wearing the ring. Susan tugged it off her finger and shoved it into her pocket.

At 6:15, the pilot who had guided the
Odyssey
from the harbor to the open ocean disembarked, boarding the pilot boat and heading back home. Tom Clayton watched the pilot boat head for New York and relaxed a little. Escorting the pilot off the ship was his last duty related to the ship’s departure from New York City.

Tom always liked putting out to sea. The ship was at its most vulnerable when it was in port. Port was where the trouble was. People could bring contraband aboard; stowaways could sneak aboard. Once they were at sea, the ship was isolated from the rest of the world. Tom enjoyed that sense of autonomy.

The
Odyssey
was a grand old lady with a checkered past. She had been built in 1961, at a time when the shipyards of France were turning out grand ocean liners. But the
Odyssey
had been built in a Yugoslavian shipyard, ordered by a Brazilian coffee company that wanted to get into the cruise business. Christened
Thetis,
after the sea nymph of Greek mythology, the ship had been sold just a year after delivery, a victim of a bad year for the Brazilian coffee crop.

The British company that purchased her renamed her
Wendolyn
, an Anglo-Saxon name meaning “wanderer.” The Wendolyn made a number of transatlantic voyages, a solid, reliable passenger liner. The company that owned her was perpetually undercapitalized, a bad position for any player in the cruise industry. As a result, the standards aboard the
Wendolyn
never quite measured up to those set by the
Queen Elizabeth
, the
Norway
, and the other great ocean liners.

After a number of years of faithful service, the
Wendolyn
was sold again, this time to a British-based, Ukrainian-owned cruise operator. Renamed the
Happy Traveler
(a sad fate for a former sea goddess), the ship was retrofitted to accommodate more passengers. For a number of years, she cruised the Mediterranean, a budget cruise ship for the family market, a grand ship that had fallen on hard times.

Finally, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a California-based, Italian-owned shipping company purchased the ship at a bargain price. She had been retrofitted, upgraded, renamed the
Odyssey,
and relaunched as a luxury cruise ship.

Having spent five years as second in command of security aboard one of Princess Cruises’ megaships, Tom had signed on to be the
Odyssey’s
chief security officer. He had, over the past three years aboard, grown fond of the
Odyssey.
According to the engineering staff, the ship still suffered from her years of neglect. In the latest retrofit, they said, money that should have been spent on upgrading engineering and infrastructure had gone to cosmetic improvements of the passenger areas. The
Odyssey
had her problems, but she was still a solid and dependable vessel.

Tom figured this cruise for an easy run. It was a repositioning cruise; the company was moving the ship from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean for the winter. They would reach England on November first. He had scanned the passenger list and had noticed no obvious troublemakers. A large convention of historians from California had booked their cabins together at a discounted group rate, but he didn’t figure them for trouble. Probably a group of stuffy academics on their way to tour Europe. There was the usual assortment of savvy cruisers who had sought out the repositioning cruise for its bargain price.

Tom glanced at his watch. He had just enough time to stop by the security office for a final check before he got dressed for dinner.

The security office was near the bridge—a small room furnished with two desks and a filing cabinet full of forms, procedure sheets, and company memos. Tom kept his desk clear, dealing with each day’s paperwork as it came in. He didn’t much like spending time in the office; he felt he could do a better job on his feet—talking to people, keeping an eye on things.

The other desk in the office was currently occupied by Ian G. Macabbee, a blonde Californian computer expert in his mid-twenties. Officially, Ian’s title was “Information Management System Analyst/Integrator.” The company had supplied him with an official etched glass nameplate with that title. But Ian had covered the official title with a different title, neatly printed in large, block letters. It said “Consulting Propellerhead.”

Ian had been aboard the
Odyssey
for just over two months, installing and debugging the “A Pass” system, a computerized security system that tracked passengers, crew, and all visitors as they boarded and exited the ship. Each passenger and crew member had a key card that served as a pass to the ship and a key to their stateroom. Each gangway was equipped with a card reader. The system read the cards as people boarded the ship or disembarked and noted who was aboard and who was missing. Passengers also used their cards, known aboard ship as “cruise cards,” to charge drinks and services that were not included in the cruise package. Ian had set the system up and had been monitoring its performance.

Though he’d been cruising in the Caribbean for weeks, Ian retained the pallor of a man who spent his life in front of a computer screen, living on coffee and junk food. During his first week aboard, Ian had ordered only coffee, turkey sandwiches, and fries from the galley. After a week of this, Osvaldo, the steward who took care of the bridge staff, had taken on the task of improving Ian’s diet. Ian still drank too much coffee, but he ate what Osvaldo brought him—and his diet now included fresh fruit and an occasional salad. Ian was still thin, but he no longer looked quite as malnourished.

When Tom stepped through the security office door, Ian looked up from his computer screen and grinned. “So who is she?” He spoke quickly, as always, riding as he did on a constant caffeine buzz.

Tom frowned. “Who is who?”

“The beautiful redhead you were escorting to her stateroom,” Ian asked.

Tom sat down at his desk, shaking his head. “How do you know about that?” Then he held up a hand. “No, wait—let me guess.”

Ian grinned and poured himself another cup of coffee from the pot on his desk. The coffeepot was on a tray from the galley. By the aroma, it was quite fresh.

“The coffee was delivered by someone who talked to someone who saw me.”

Ian nodded. “Osvaldo delivered the coffee. He had talked to Mario who was making up a stateroom on the Calypso deck when you passed by. According to Osvaldo, Mario said she’s quite attractive.”

In his first week aboard the
Odyssey
, Ian had taken it upon himself to know everything that happened aboard the ship. He wanted to know who was sleeping with whom, who was angry about what and why. He had an astounding predilection for gossip and intrigue. He was, he explained to Tom, very fond of information.

“Just a lost passenger who found her way onto the bridge somehow. She was asking Gene Culver for directions when I passed by.”

“Why didn’t Gene escort her himself?” The cruise director, the man in charge of the ship’s entertainment and passenger activities, had a reputation as a ladies’ man. Ian knew that, of course.

Tom smiled. Ian was grilling him, but Tom was willing to indulge the younger man. “Gene was not having a good day. He was talking to a tweedy looking chap about a writing workshop.”

“Max Merriwell,” Ian said. “Excellent science fiction writer. He also writes fantasy as Mary Maxwell and mystery as Weldon Merrimax.” Ian opened one of his desk drawers, pulled out a hardcover book, and tossed it to Tom. “That’s his latest. I just finished reading it last night. Wonderful book.”

“Seems like he has too many names,” Tom said.

Ian shrugged. “He writes in different genres under different names. He doesn’t want to confuse his readers.”

Tom laughed. “Then I’d say he’s going about it the wrong way.”

“Well, his pseudonyms are not common knowledge.” Ian sipped his coffee, smiling a self-satisfied smile. He was, Tom had noticed, fond of knowing things that were not common knowledge.

“How did you find out?” Tom asked.

“I’m on an Internet mailing list with people who make it their business to know this sort of thing. When I found out Max Merriwell was coming aboard, I asked about him.”

Tom nodded and glanced at the book in his hand.
There and Back Again
, by Max Merriwell. On the cover, a woman with a tattooed face gazed into a cube in which stars swirled.

“You can borrow it,” Ian said.

“I don’t read much fiction.” Tom handed the book back to Ian and sat down at his desk. He glanced at the stack of papers in the center of the desk—Ian’s print—out from the A Pass system. Over the past month, Tom’s security staff had been trained in the new system and had simultaneously maintained the old system, relying on roster sheets and paper records. On this cruise, the switch to the new system would be complete and security would rely on the A Pass system.

Tom glanced at the print-out, knowing that Ian would tell him what he needed to know before he could ask.

“Everything went smoothly,” Ian said, not waiting for Tom to review the print-out. “All crew accounted for. Last visitor disembarked at 4:15 with minutes to spare.”

“Great. I checked at the gates, and there didn’t seem to be any problems there.”

Ian nodded, sipping his coffee.

Tom glanced at his watch, then stood up. “I’ve got to get ready for dinner.” On the
Odyssey
, company policy required officers to dine with the passengers, making small talk and serving, according to company memos, as “ambassadors for Odyssey Lines.”

Ian nodded. “I’ll see you there.”

“Really?” Tom was surprised. As a consultant, Ian was exempt from this requirement. He had, on all the earlier cruises, opted to eat with the rest of the crew, rather than dining with the passengers.

“I decided it might be interesting. So I checked with the purser and he signed me up.”

“Interesting?” Tom shook his head. “You have an optimistic streak I’d never noticed before. You’ll probably be seated with six little old ladies.” Some officers enjoyed presiding over a table at dinner; Tom regarded it as a necessary part of his job.

“Watch your tongue,” Ian said. “If they’re passengers, those little old ladies are vertically challenged senior citizens.” The company had recently sent out a memo on the politically correct terms to be used for passengers.

“Have it your way.” Tom left the office, closing the door firmly behind him.

Ian returned to his computer screen. With a few key strokes, he called up the list of passengers dining in the Ithaca Dining Room at the eight-fifteen seating. They were listed by table; he searched for Tom’s table. Eight passengers and Tom.

He tapped a few keys to call up the passenger list. According to Mario, the beautiful redhead was in stateroom 144. Two women occupied that stateroom: Susan Galina and Pat Murphy. For good measure, he located Max Merriwell, too. He returned to the seating chart, bumped four passengers to other tables, and inserted himself, the women from stateroom 144, and Max Merriwell.

He smiled. Much better, he thought. He liked Tom, but he thought the security officer could use a bit of loosening up. It had been more than a year since Tom had had a girlfriend; that’s what Mario had told Ian. Tom had dated a singer for a while, but she’d transferred to another ship, and he’d been on his own ever since. Ian thought Tom deserved good company at dinner, and Ian was happy to arrange it. And even happier to set wheels in motion and see what happened.

It was shaping up to be an interesting cruise, he thought happily. He was looking forward to meeting Max Merriwell; he was looking forward to seeing what, if anything, developed between Tom and the redhead. And the ship was heading into the Bermuda Triangle.

For the past few weeks, Ian had been reading up on the Bermuda Triangle. He didn’t believe all the stories about ships and planes that had disappeared there, but he was interested in them, just as he was interested in anything that smacked of conspiracy and cover-up. He didn’t believe in the mystical power of the Bermuda Triangle, but he enjoyed the fervor of those who did. He tried to keep an open mind.