Dark Lightning (Thunder and Lightning) (19 page)

I figured Travis was waiting them out, and I think a lot of other people realized that, too. And I’ll bet that what they expected at the end was not a vote but a pronouncement from Captain Broussard, even if the pronouncement was simply to wait until Papa got back with his new data.

Which is what I expected. We still didn’t know enough to make a decision. We were sounding each other out, trying to see how the sides would be drawn when it came to crunch time.

It was all boring as hell, even when tempers began to flare up. And to my surprise, it was all rather hot and sweaty. It must have been pushing ninety degrees in the music room. That room is carefully temperature controlled because of all the antiques in there. If it was hot in there, it was because Mama, or Travis, or both of them
wanted
it to be hot. I smiled to myself. I think they were counting on attrition from the heat.

I was about to nod off myself when Mama caught my eye and made a circular motion with her hand. I wasn’t sure what she meant, then she took advantage of a short lull in the jabbering and held up her hands and let out a whistle. I wish I could do that; my whistle is pathetic.

“People, it looks like we’ll be here awhile. I want to take this opportunity to freshen everybody’s drinks. You can have water, coffee, soft drinks, beer, wine, cocktails. How many want coffee?”

Mama was looking at me.

Oh.

I quickly took the orders. I pushed open the door, closed it behind me, and went down the hall to the kitchen.

I had water heating in the big coffeemaker and dumped some French roast beans into the grinder. Since we couldn’t grow coffee in the ship, Travis had made sure there was enough of it in stasis to last everybody even if we decided to cross the galaxy. It came out of the bubbles still hot from the roaster.

The grinder made such a racket that I didn’t hear Patrick come into the kitchen until he spoke.

“My mother suggested that you might need some help,” he said.

I almost jumped out of my skin, but I hoped I covered it well. He was standing a few feet away, with a friendly smile on his face.

“I should have thought of it myself, I know, but frankly, ah . . .”

“Polly,” I prompted.

“Anyway, Polly, I waited so many tables in the last few years that I’ve got a real aversion to carrying a tray. I swore a mighty oath never to work in the service industry.”

“Not following in your father’s footsteps, right?”

“No way. He doesn’t care. In fact, he discourages it.”

“I decided not to follow in Papa’s footsteps, too,” I said. “So I’ve ruled out being a physics genius.”

He looked puzzled for a second, then got the joke.

“I think I might rule that out, too. Considering I barely squeaked by in senior math.”

“Same here. In fact, all the sciences are my weakest subjects. Cassie is the big brain of the pair.” Hoping he wouldn’t want to see a girl who was smarter than him at something. Sorry, but that masculine domination thing is still alive and well, even after more than a century of equality. I think they carry it in their testicles. They want to be taller, smarter, and stronger than the girl they are with, and I’m willing to let them think they are, poor fools.

I showed him where the coffee mugs were, and the serving trays, and he began setting it all out.

“Spoons?” he asked.

“That drawer right there.”

“Sugar bowl? Cream?”

It was pleasant, mostly, working beside him. I was awfully self-conscious, almost close enough to touch him now and then, and I felt big and awkward. We were almost eye to eye. One of us probably had a half inch on the other, but I wouldn’t bet on which one it was.

I got the coffee perking, then, for a moment, there wasn’t anything else for me to do. A dozen mugs were lined up neatly on one tray, and the sugar bowl and cream pitcher and napkins and spoons on another. I turned around and leaned back on the counter, smelling the good coffee as it flowed through the ground beans and into the big pot.

“What we need with this is some cookies,” he said.

“You think?”

“Definitely. Unless you want to order up some sinkers.”

“Sinkers?”

“That’s diner slang for donuts. You dunk them in your coffee.”

“Papa does that. I sort of think that ruins the donut.”

“I’m with you. I like my coffee black and strong.”

I decided not to mention I load mine up with three sugars and three little buckets of creamer. Somehow, drinking your coffee black and strong just sounds tougher, doesn’t it? Not that I wanted to sound
too
tough . . .

Truth was, I was still flustered.

“You have any cookies?”

“I don’t know. We usually do unless Papa breaks his resolution in the middle of the night.”

He laughed. “My dad’s the same way. Let’s look, okay?”

So we embarked on a quest for cookies. They would be in the pantry if we had them, so he followed me in there and we started looking on the shelves and into bins and compartments.

Our pantry was fairly large. But two people was rather intimate company. I was getting a little light-headed, bumping into him now and then as we moved about. I was nervous being that close to him; I couldn’t seem to find anywhere to stand, or figure out what to do with my elbows. I had a severe attack of the klutzes, something I’ve had around boys before. I felt knock-kneed, fumble-fingered, cross-eyed, duck-footed. It was a miracle I didn’t dump a canister of flour from the top shelf all over his head.

I could smell the pleasant masculine scent of him. I wondered if he could smell me, and if it was a good smell. I was thanking my lucky stars that I’d had time to shower and freshen my face and hair, and regretting I hadn’t used just a dab of perfume. Something subtle, like Doe Bunny in Heat, or Ravish Me, You Gorgeous Hunk.

It didn’t take us too long (dammit!) to determine there were no cookies in the pantry.

He shrugged. “Oh, well. They don’t deserve them, anyway.”

“You think not?”

He rolled his beautiful eyes. “A lot of hot air if you ask me.”

“I’m so glad to hear that. I thought I was going to die of boredom for a while there.”

“Don’t worry. I know CPR.”

“Chest compression? Mouth-to-mouth? Like that?”

“Sure. Like this.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips.

My head didn’t explode, but it was a close thing. My toes curled, my ears flapped, my eyes rolled up, and up, and all the way around like a two-window slot machine, all the muscles in my legs changed to peach jelly, and my nipples turned into cherry pits. As for the little girl in the boat, let’s not even go there.

He pulled away and looked into my eyes from about four inches away. I was about to fling myself on him—I mean, literally, I saw my arms around his neck, legs wrapped around his hips—when he touched my cheek in a friendly way, smiled again, and turned and left the pantry.

Now, what was
that
all about?

The kiss hadn’t been passionate, but it hadn’t been brotherly, either. I wanted to put my hand on his crotch and see if I’d had any effect on him, as he’d had on me, but I’m too well brought up for that.

Keep calm, spacegirl,
I kept telling myself. This could be the start of something big. Don’t blow it.

Hard advice to follow, when you’re floating three feet in the air.

On the other hand, I cautioned myself, it could be just a line he had used a hundred times. “I know CPR,” and
smackeroo
!

On the third hand . . . what exactly was the problem if it
was
a line? Did I care if he just wanted to get in my pants? I sure wanted to get into his. But for now, it seemed, we were just going to pretend it never happened. This is, unless I threw myself at him and told him I had lived all my life for that moment, and please do it again, and would this countertop do? But somehow I sensed it wasn’t the time or place.

Which just goes to show you, you should grab every opportunity that comes by. You never know when you’ll get another.

—

So I poured hot coffee into all the cups, and he arranged everything to his satisfaction on his tray, and I started to pick mine up.

“Best way to carry it is up high,” he advised me.

“How’s that?”

He took the tray with the coffee and, in one smooth motion, had it up and balanced at shoulder height on the palm of his hand.

“See? This way you can raise it or lower it as you make your way through a crowd. You can see where you’re going. And it leaves one hand free.” He smiled, and set the tray back down. “Now you try it.”

I thought of telling him there wasn’t likely to be a crowd in the hallways between the kitchen and the music room, but what the hell. I was game, or wanted to look that way. So I shakily and carefully lifted the tray and had it halfway up . . . and had a vision of the whole thing falling right onto him. No, this wasn’t the time or place to learn waitressing skills.

“Sorry,” I said, setting it back down and lifting it by the handles. “I’d better stick to what I know.”

“Suit yourself. Sure you don’t want me to carry the coffee?”

“I can handle it.”

He gestured gallantly with his free arm, and I passed him and went into the hallway.

The kitchen is in front of the house, close by the family/party room, and the music room is all the way in the back. The hallway was a good thirty or forty yards from front to back. It’s wide enough for people to walk three or even four abreast.

He had the free hand, and he was a gentleman, so he pulled the door open and gestured me inside. I took two steps and froze.

Max Karpinski, my darling uncle Max, all four hundred pounds of him, was standing near the middle of the room with his back to me.

Standing beside him was Governor Wang, and her face looked very funny. I realized she was wearing some sort of mask. Goggles over her eyes, and a thing over her nose and mouth. She looked like a frog.

Uncle Travis was sprawled a few feet away from Max, prone, his face turned toward me. A .45 automatic was about a foot from his right hand.

Everyone else in the room that I could see was either on the floor or sitting in chairs, loose-limbed, heads lolling or thrown back. No one that I could see was moving.

I caught a whiff of something that smelled a little like peppermint, a little like ozone. Just a whiff, and for a moment I was dizzy. I exhaled hard and held my breath.

Uncle Max started to turn, ponderous as a minor planet. He had something in one hand that looked like a weapon, and a gas mask on his face.

I hurled the tray with the hot coffee at him. A little splashed on my hand, but I didn’t even feel it. Max, on the other hand, felt it plenty. He howled, tried to backpedal, and fell right on his huge behind. One of the mugs hit his face and drew blood.

I slammed the door closed.

Then I was backpedaling, running into Patrick and knocking him off balance. There was a clatter as spoons and sugar and the tray came crashing to the ground.

“Hey—”

“Shut up. Patrick, try not to breathe. They’ve all been gassed.”

“What do you mean—”

“I mean they’ve all been gassed. I think they’re all alive . . .” I was playing the tape back in my head, and I was pretty sure I saw a couple of people breathing, and I hoped it wasn’t wishful thinking.

Mama, Mike, Marlee, Travis . . .

No good thinking about something I couldn’t do anything about. We had to get moving.

“That sideboard,” I shouted at him. “We need to knock it over.”

“What—”

“Don’t ask questions, just
do it
!”

I moved to the far side of the sideboard. I think it was a sideboard. It was an antique, Georgian, I think Mama said once. It was tall and narrow, with drawers on the bottom, a shelf, and glass-fronted doors at the top. About seven feet tall. I put my shoulder to it and shoved. It moved a little.

“Help me, dammit!”

He still stood there, stunned. I screamed, and hit the thing again, and it rose up on two claw feet, teetered . . .

. . . and went over just as the door started opening. A hand came through, holding Travis’s gun. The sideboard hit the door and the hand, and someone—I’m pretty sure it was Max—howled and dropped the pistol.

The glass doors opened and broke—sorry, Mama—and all the antique crockery we never used came spilling out all over the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

I pushed the door again, jamming the fingers hard enough to break them, and the same someone howled again before getting his hand back. I got the door closed and shoved the sideboard against it.

I picked up the pistol, ejected the magazine, and saw I had a full load of seventeen. A Glock, I think. Probably a hundred years old but obsessively maintained, like all of Travis’s weapons.

“Cassie,” someone shouted on the other side of the door. “This isn’t what it seems. Come in, and I’ll tell you what happened.”

“No thanks, Uncle Max.”

“They’re alive. I had to—”

I jammed the magazine back home and aimed at the door, holding the gun the way Travis had taught us. I really wanted to fire at chest level, hoping he was still standing there. But I thought better of it. You have to be very careful with a gun, and most of the people I loved were in that room. Alive, if Max was telling the truth, and I thought he was.

“And I’m
Polly
, you fat son of a bitch!” I shouted, and aimed at the top part of the door.

I put three rounds through the upper part of the door, so they would hit the ceiling. The shots were deafening there in the hallway. Splinters flew. I heard something heavy hit the floor. No way I’d hit him; he was merely hitting the ground and trying to make himself small. Good luck with that, you quarter ton of pork.

When I turned, Patrick was standing with his palms pressed to his ears and cheeks, stunned.

“We’ve got to get moving,” I told him. I grabbed his right hand and slapped the pistol into it. He looked down at his hand as if it were an alien thing. He’d probably never touched a firearm before. “Keep your finger away from the trigger unless you mean to use it. The safety is off.”