Chapter Sixteen
Gage lied to Leviticus at least ten times from the time he started his quarter physical to the point when he got him to sleep inside a locked cryochamber. With any luck, his clone buddy would never know he’d been lied to.
Gage didn’t blame Leviticus for being leery of him or being afraid of what could happen to him on board Gage’s ship. The buyer who had bought him and Leviticus together had been the type of weirdo who liked watching two identical boys fight each other. That said, Gage had fought Leviticus more than any other human being. They had exactly the same physical prowess and minds that had initially had the same functionality. When they fought, it was like playing yourself at chess. Leviticus always did what Gage thought he would do and vice versa. It was also hard for Gage to keep his focus. He didn’t want to hurt someone who was so thoroughly himself. It was surreal to hit Leviticus and not feel the burn of the punch himself. Sometimes he thought he felt it anyway.
Their master didn’t want to sell them when he did. He loved watching them tumble and often brought them out to perform for guests because watching two identical boys rip each other apart was the best entertainment that could be had.
Living there and fighting Leviticus had been a better life than the one Gage had been given in exchange. That was when he had been sold to Olivine’s father. He had decided that Gage was the better of the two because when they had been handed over, Leviticus had been wearing a frayed vest and cut-off jeans and Gage had been wearing a suit with no shirt under the coat. As he was, he looked like a better gift for his daughter than Leviticus. Gage was dressed that way because he was being loaned out as a prom date. He was chosen for that honor by lottery.
That day, Leviticus had been shipped off to Olivine’s cousin, Raylynn, and Gage had been sent to live as Olivine’s pet. That was why Leviticus didn’t like sharing abuse stories. He was abused by Raylynn, but not in the same cursed, twisted way Gage had been abused by Olivine. Leviticus didn’t like having his pain marginalized by someone who had been hurt so much deeper, which was why he didn’t like comparing abuse stories.
Not only that, but Leviticus didn’t run the risk of running into Raylynn anywhere. She had died in a helocarrier accident just one year after all ten of them were rescued by police.
Leviticus really had all the luck, except for Iona.
Gage had been working himself up to it. If he didn’t sleep with Iona before they landed on Io, he might not get another chance. Could he do that without messing himself up even more?
He returned to the infirmary and gave himself the quarter physical. Then, feeling that that wasn’t enough to make sure he was healthy, he proceeded to give himself the half physical, with a urine sample and a throat swab. He shot himself up with the antibiotics as he waited for the tests to come back. Unable to wait, he went ahead and took blood from his arm and put that in for testing along with the other samples.
“What are you doing?” Iona asked from the door. She wasn’t in the paper dress she normally wore for the physicals, but she wore a white slip that was probably the closest thing to the paper dress she owned.
“Oh, I am giving myself a physical,” he explained feebly.
Radiant as an angel, she took a step forward in her wooden sandals. “You don’t usually take blood.”
“Well, I don’t usually feel like I’m on the verge of a panic attack. But I feel awful. I’m not settling. I’m in outer space. That woman is on Europa. I’ve already set our course and Europa is getting further and further away, but it’s not far enough for me. You know, I really hoped that I’d make it through my whole life without seeing her again. I thought I’d live the rest of my life without her raking her eyes over me, thinking of new ways to make me feel like less than a person.”
Iona placed a hand on the bandage he’d used to stop the blood from where he’d drawn it. “Hmm… Do you want me to swab out your throat?”
He sucked in his breath. “You’re a little late. Get on the table. I’ll do your physical.”
“Is Leviticus asleep?”
“Yeah.”
She got on the table and for once, Gage did not put on his white lab coat. He moved her cascading pink hair out of the way, so he could place his stethoscope over her heart.
“Do you think you’ll be able to trust Sleeping Beauty Inc. in the future?” she asked.
“Uh… I’m trying not to think about it because if I think about it, I’ll break something. I’ll check my bank account before I go to sleep just to see what kind of compensation Madam Damsel had in mind. Oh, I wanted to tell you how great you were in the cargo bay of the tower. You being brave enough to stay with me through all that rattling in the box was really something.” He looked in her eyes and then in her ears.
“Did I fall all over you to thank you for what you did at my performance to save me from falling on my face, breaking my nose, and humiliating myself in front of all those people with phones? Even if I don’t get a stellar contract, I’ll at least get one because I still have my pretty face. That’s all thanks to you.”
“Don’t mention it. Hold still.” Gage was having a hard time getting through the rest of the quarter physical. Now that he planned to take her to bed, he was having a hard time being patient. “Are you feeling sick?” he asked, trying to keep his head clear as he went through the checklist.
“Gage, would you ever think of leaving Sleeping Beauty Inc.?”
Gage looked at her. She was surprised that Madam Damsel had put him in that position with Olivine. He wished he could share the feeling. As it was, he was mostly impressed that they had been able to keep his position at Sleeping Beauty Inc. a secret as long as they had.
He parted his lips to explain that he didn’t think there was a single place in the universe where he wouldn’t eventually be betrayed when a light came on behind Iona's head. It wasn’t the white light that signaled he had a communication link waiting in the cockpit. It was the red light that signaled there was a problem in the engine room.
“We’re about half finished here,” he explained, pointing at the light behind her with his eyes, “but I need to go check on that.” He patted her on the knee. “Stay here.”
It was a quick walk to the engine room, where Gage saw the deep space thrusters sputtering. He turned them off with some heavy exertion on a red lever. Then he marched back to the cockpit and read the error log.
There were more systems struggling than just the deep space thrusters. That was the thing about ships that entered and exited atmospheres. Not that Europa had much atmosphere, but the tiniest thing could make a starship unstable. He had taken meticulous care of the Cannonball III as it was his home, but meticulous care didn’t mean that it would never break. And what a time to break! Looking at the walls of the cockpit was frightening. As a pilot, he’d seen many rooms inside starships torn apart and the living spaces inside destroyed. He could see a vision of the cockpit of his ship with great holes in it if the tiniest thing went wrong. He felt the armrests of the captain’s seat and realized that the danger might be so immediate that once he got out of his chair, he might never sit in it again.
He instantly felt sore guilt over the idea of taking Iona to bed. Everyone on board was safer if they were in cryostasis. He could even control the ship from his pod if there was a sore enough emergency. However, thinking rationally about how to contain the situation didn’t ease his remorse over his selfishness. All three of them could die if he was careless and they were his responsibility. He was the pilot.
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Putting his analytical brain to work, he ran the trajectory of the Cannonball III two different ways before he was satisfied. They’d make it to Io.
Back in the infirmary, he gave Iona the news. “We have a problem.”
She waited for him to tell her the problem with her hands clasped together tightly.
“The deep space thrusters are dead. It might be something I can fix, but it would be better for all of us if I didn’t try. I might throw off our trajectory if I tried. Long story short. We’re not going to make it to Io in a month.”
“No?”
“No. We’re lucky. We’ve got four things working in our favor right now. First, the thrusters didn’t fire in strange ways before the alarm went off. They could have done that and sent us off in a completely different direction. Second, we got good thrust after we left Europa, so we got up to a decent speed that we can continue to take advantage of even after the thrusters quit. Third, Io is coming toward us. We don’t have to chase it. And lastly, we’re not fighting Jupiter’s gravity since Io is closer to Jupiter than Europa. The gravitational pull is strong enough to give us a little extra oomph on our flight path. If I don’t touch another control, we’ll get there safely just coasting.”
“But it will take us longer than a month?”
“Yeah, it’s going to take us a little over two months.’’
“What about our plan? We were going to stay awake?” Iona asked out loud.
“That’s not such a good idea anymore,” Gage said hollowly. “When the thrusters malfunctioned, a few other systems struggled as well. I’m not sure what else could go. These ships tend to be built in such a way that they’re not really repairable. When we land on Io, I’m going to need to take it to a shop and there’s a good chance they’ll say it’s unfixable. They’re likely to decommission this ship and hand me another one. The thing is that if something else breaks, like life-support, you won’t be safe unless you’re sleeping in your cryochamber. You need to be in a cryochamber.”
Iona looked crushed. “Will all my extra time with you be spent on this ship with both of us asleep? I bought you and the Cannonball III for three months. Those three months will be gone when we arrive on Io.”
“It’s not fair,” he said in a professional tone. “As a representative of Sleeping Beauty Inc., I can put a few of your fears to rest. Space travel can be unpredictable and Sleeping Beauty Inc. understands that. You paid for a return trip to the moon of your choice after your visit to Io and though it will most likely not be on the Cannonball III, your return trip will be taken care of.”
“And the time I was supposed to spend with you?” she grumbled in resignation.
He winked at her. “Things might not go very smoothly on Io and we might be stuck there for a long time.”
She smiled.
His wink had been meant to put her at ease and it seemed like it had worked. That was a pilot’s charm, making the passengers feel safe, even though he was counting the seconds on the digital clock over her shoulder worried that he wouldn’t get her into a cryochamber before the ship fell to pieces.
“Let me finish your physical and put you to sleep,” he said with an easy motion.
When he completed the quarter physical, he gave her a clean bill of health and told her that it was nice to see her healthy because she usually wasn’t when he saw her. All smiles, he helped her off the table and led her into the main guest room.
Iona moved to get into the cryochamber wearing the little white dress.
Gage took her hand and spun her in a circle in front of the closet. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to change into something else?”
“Like what?” she questioned, her eyes wide in surprise.
“May I choose something for you?”
She nodded her delight.
Gage slipped into the closet. He really didn’t want to tell her that there was not only a good chance that they’d crash on the surface of Io, but it was also a completely reasonable supposition that he might have to eject her chamber like an escape pod and she might need to be rescued from the desert volcanoes of Io. She might be alone for some time before being rescued and being dressed in a white slip dress intended to make her look like a sex queen was not at all a good idea.
He found her a pair of jeans, a bra, a tank top, a hoodie, a jacket, socks, and boots. Io had a warmer surface than the other Jovian moons, but he didn’t know where they’d crash. He handed her the bra.
“Start with this,” he said, just a hand sticking out between the closet doors.
“Okay,” she said pleasantly as she took the bra.
“Are you wearing panties?”
“Not as such,” she admitted.
Unhappily, his mouth filled with saliva. He slapped himself across the face.
“Who wears panties to a physical?” she complained on the other side of the closet doors.
“I agree. I’ll find you a pair,” he said as he opened the panty box he had been avoiding. He found the pair that had the biggest butt on them and handed them to her.
“You like these ones?” she asked skeptically. “I want you to know I only wear these when I’m on my period.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but they don’t look like they’ll ride up your bum and I want you to be comfortable.”
“Okay,” she said when she had them on.
He handed her the tank top, then the jeans after an appropriate interval, then the hoodie, the socks, the boots, and the jacket.
He came out when she was zipping up the hoodie. “You look so cute!” he said brightly as he helped her slide into the jacket.
“Is this because you don’t want to sleep with me?” she asked with narrowed eyes.
Gage wasn’t sure if it was better for her to believe that his clothing choices were because he wasn’t attracted to her or because he thought they were likely to crash. “If you get into the cryochamber with no more fuss, I’ll give you that tongue kiss you asked for,” he said, hoping to distract her.
She hurried to get in.
Gage bent over her and started pressing the buttons to prepare the cryochamber for activation. “Once upon a time, there was a king and a queen that longed for a child,” he began.
Iona looked at him funny.
He was being odd and he knew it. If Iona went to any Sleeping Beauty Inc. location without a bidder, she’d be put into cryostasis until someone purchased her contract. She almost always had a bidder, so she hadn’t been put to sleep much except for when he put her to sleep on his vessel. The first time he had put her to sleep, he had started telling her one of the Sleeping Beauty Inc. fairy tales that were always told to the girls to help ease them into unconsciousness. He had said as much as, ‘Once upon a time’ when Iona had told him not to bother.
“I don’t need a fairy tale. I’m a grown woman and I need money to feel like a princess, not stories.”
Gage had never tried to tell her another story, but this time, he wasn’t reciting the story from the Sleeping Beauty Inc. literature.
“After praying to ten magical fairies, their wish was granted and the queen became pregnant. Her pregnancy was hard and painful and when it finally came time to deliver her baby, the midwife was very surprised to realize that the queen was not giving birth to just one child. Every one of the fairies had granted her wish and she had not just one baby in her belly, but ten. Ten boys, all at once. The delivery was disastrous as the queen passed from life after carrying so many infants at once. Later on, the strain of looking after ten babies was too much for the King and all his servants. They could not keep track of all of them and each one of the boys went wild in his own way.”
Gage’s hands moved around her as he buckled her inside the cryochamber.
Softly, he continued the story. “One boy took to the forest and became like wood. One took to the sea and became like the ocean spray. One took to the skies and became like wind. One took to the mountains and became like stone. One took to the volcanos and became like fire. Another joined the lions and became like sound. One took to the books and became like words. One got in the sugar pail and became like sweetness. One took to the armory and became sharp like a sword. And the last one… he took to the stars and became like time.” Gage pressed his forehead against Iona’s. Their breath mingled momentarily and Gage breathed her in as he said his last line. “And he asked you to join him.”
He kissed her, and he felt her breath catch.
She loved him.
No one could kiss someone the way Iona kissed him without being in love. No one had ever been in love with Gage before and he could taste the difference.
A white light went off over the cryochamber and Gage got off Iona and pressed the buttons to close the lid and fill the chamber with sleeping gas. Her hand pressed against the clear lid until they could no longer see each other through the white fog.
She wasn’t asleep yet, but there was nothing more to see.
He had a message in the cockpit, but he’d be damned if he’d take it there. He went straight to his own cryochamber and got suited up. When he was dressed in his armor, he got inside his cryochamber and prepared to send a mayday signal to Io and to monitor Iona’s chamber. He couldn’t go to sleep himself until he was certain she was asleep and her chamber was functioning properly.