Two hours later, with the both of us working on the problem, we managed to get the power conversion matrix down to only a 10% chance of cascade failure, and efficiency over 90%. We were still getting excess heat build ups happening in various parts of the matrix each time we improved those numbers, however, and it was beginning to feel like a game of whack-a-mole. Fix one thing, and we’d have to trace back another heat bleed, fix another, go back and do the same.
We finally decided we’d had enough and needed a break. Each of us was feeling grimy and sweaty from dealing with the shield emitter’s heat output, so we parted ways to get cleaned up and meet back at my quarters.
Perhaps I was being overly anxious, especially in light of Boudya stating just the previous day that there were no issues between us, but in all my dating life, there were very few times a woman expressed a desire to “talk” without there being something to worry about. So the whole time I was getting cleaned up and prepped for her arrival, I was fretting about what we were going to be talking about.
I had just set out the Niktcha - the traditional brewing vessel for graptak, which I had borrowed from Tratsa on the way back to my quarters - when the chime sounded at the door to my quarters.
“Come.” I called out.
The door opened and Boudya peeked in, “Are you fully clothed this time?” she asked?
Chuckling with not a small amount of embarrassment, I motioned for her to come in, “Easy enough to make sure of when I’m expecting visitors ahead of time!”
Stepping into my quarters, I was somewhat relieved that she was dressed in an outfit that was, for a benastian, rather on the modest side. I’m not sure why, but the thought of her showing up in the usual kind of thing her people considered casual wear was as worrying as the anticipation of the direction our ‘talk’ would proceed in. Those outfits tended towards being little in the way of clothing at all.
Instead, she wore a simple flowing white shift of some soft cotton like fabric that accented her lapis blue skin incredibly. While modest in cut, as she stood framed in the doorway to my quarters, the light from the corridor behind her shone through it, casting her willowy silhouette against it for a briefest of moments, before the door closed behind her.
I must have taken a bit too long examining her outfit - okay, fine. I was staring. Happy? - because she quirked a half smile at me. “I know, right?” she said, crossing the room towards the lounge, “far more modest than my usual attire. But I’m attempting to not be distracting to that skilled young man at the helm, and most of the garments I’d packed into our little cache in the woods were strictly work clothes. Stacy helped me get this produced by the ship’s MiniFac last night.”
Shaking myself, I gave her a smile, “Well, as usual, you make it look like high fashion.” I motioned for her to have a seat, and she leaned in to kiss me on the cheek quickly before doing so, then glanced at the graptak service. “When Tratsa told me about graptak, I wasn't expecting quite such an involved layout.”
I chucked, looking at the service. It consisted of something that reminded me vaguely of an old Russian samovar made of decoratively glazed porcelain. It featured a motif featuring strange flora and what I could only assume was the graptak isopod itself. It stood on a small base allowing four matching tulip shaped cups with no handles. Three small jars containing the graptak itself, as well as the two most common additives, pingkon and ungtal, were set out opposite of the main vessel. All of this sat on an intricately carved tray of swirling figured wood.
“Most of the time, it's not quite such a layout.” I explained, “When you’re making it for yourself, it’s just adding the graptak powder to your favorite cup with hot water and letting it dissolve. But I was lectured quite sternly by Tratsa at one point about the sheer unadulterated rudeness of serving someone else graptak in such a way. It is only ever acceptable to do so for yourself it seems. She hinted that feuds have started in giobhioni history over such insults.”
While she settled herself onto the sofa, I went about following the directions Tratsa had drilled into me for preparing graptak in a niktcha, adding the proper amount of the dried graptak to the preheated water. “Did Tratsa check you out to make sure none of this was going to be toxic for you?” I asked her as I placed the lid back on the niktcha and sat back.
She nodded “Though she told me to be cautious of something called ungtal. She mentioned you had a somewhat adverse reaction to the taste.”
I cringed, remembering my one and only experience with the stuff, and pointed to the jar which contained it. “Seems human taste buds are not wired to find it palatable.” I explained, “or at least mine aren’t. It wasn’t horrible at first, if you enjoy things like Thai food - which I know you do. It’s when it kicks you in the teeth on the finish that it’s horrible. Kinda makes you feel like you just sucked back a shot of paint thinner.”
With a raised eyebrow, she carefully picked up the jar, lifted the lid and took a delicate sniff. “It doesn’t smell at all like that.”
“Yeah, there’s no hint whatsoever until after you’ve swallowed it.” I explained. “Then it hit me. I swear my face imploded, I grimaced so hard. Tratsa fell off her chair, she was laughing so hard.”
“I seem to remember a certain night I introduced you to bentyaxa”
The involuntary twitch that hit me at the mention of that experience made me thankful I hadn’t yet begun to serve the graptak. While not an entirely unpleasant experience, since it had lead to Boudya and myself finally hooking up, after months of my trepidation in getting involved with one of her species, that first wallop of the benastian liquor hitting the back of my throat still left my tongue numb at just the memory.
“I wouldn’t say it’s an entirely dissimilar experience,” I granted her, “but at least with bentyaxa, there’s somewhat of a desire to try it again. With ungtal, if I never ingest a single molecule of the substance again across any lifetime, it will be too soon. It is seriously that foul. At least to me it was, maybe it won’t taste so bad for a benastian. Feel free to give it a try.”
I smiled at her, hoping to communicate the most potent of dares to her with my eyes as I retrieved two of the cups from under the niktcha and worked the spigot on it to fill each of them, leaving a bit of space in hers in case she decided to try either of the additives. When I offered her the cup, she slowly shook her head.
“I think I’ll try it on its own for now.”
Picking up my own cup, I splashed the tiniest bit of the pale green pingkon into it. It was my usual way to drink it later in the day as it seemed to be more soothing than graptak on its own, and I found the need to soothe my nerves just then. I leaned back and said “So…”
Boudya sipped her graptak delicately, then raised an eyebrow at it. “This would be very popular back home I think.” Then she looked at me and sighed, “You’ve always been an overly anxious man when it comes to relationships, Thomas. You’ve spent the last 3 hours or so either trying very hard not to worry about this talk, or trying to figure out how you were going to diagnose the issue and resolve it. Am I right?”
My cheeks burned, even after all this time, she read me like a book. I nodded silently, taking another sip from my cup. You might think, due to my blase reaction to Stacy’s teasing, or Tratsa’s desire to investigate my human anatomy, that I had that aspect of life figured out. But I really didn’t.
“Alright, look,” she said bluntly, setting her cup down. “I told you yesterday that we do not have any outstanding issues. I’m not here for recriminations, there’s not going to be any chewing out, not reaming of assholes… That’s for after our talk…maybe.” She smiled, leaning back and crossing her legs. I half expected to hear Stacy make an off colour comment through my implant, but it didn’t happen.
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“The biggest thing I want to know is why you never contacted me after the inquiry.” She shook her head, “Thomas, I know parted with some rather harsh words when you went off on that first contract with that bastard Barstol, but I was still worried sick about you! And then you got back, and there were the charges, and the inquiry, and I was so relieved that you’d taken my worries to heart enough to cover your ass with backups of all the records. When the judgement was passed, I was waiting for you to make contact. After a week, I tried contacting you! But you’d resigned from the guild and disappeared to some backwater planet to help as a grunt equipment technician or something. Didn’t even seem to be checking your StellarNet accounts. I know because I asked Tindron to look into them for me!”
“I…” I began, then paused. My sister had been the only one I’d talked to during those years, and even her I hadn’t told the whys for me disappearing like that. “Boudya, I was just having trouble dealing with what happened, okay? You weren’t the only one with suspicions regarding Barstol. I didn’t trust the man either! Even without your warning, I was planning to cover my ass like I did. I took the job because I was hoping to keep him from endangering the other salvage workers. I thought maybe if I made him nervous enough about the records I was keeping, that he’d be more careful about the whole thing.”
Hot liquid spilled onto my hand, and I looked down to be shocked at the sight of the hand holding my graptak cup shaking violently at the memory. Boudya noticed as well, and reached out, taking it from me. “You took the job in order to…”
“Hopefully save lives, yeah,” I mumbled, “but what happened? I passed out going over readings from the derelict ship’s power core! And Barstol used that time to order the crew over to the ship without me signing off on it! And because of that they died. Every soul that he’d sent over there was lost. More were lost on Bertha’s Bones from the damage caused by the explosion. More still in our efforts to get to safety. And I could have stopped it if I just had not fallen asleep!”
“I’d have been awake to countermand Barstol’s order for them to begin operations. As lead salvage engineer, it was my job.”
The next thing I knew, Boudya had pulled me into her arms and was rocking me gently. I’d been holding on to that guilt for ten years, and hadn’t let anyone know it. I babbled it all out then, with Boudya’s arms wrapped around me. Of how I’d left the Guild because I didn’t trust myself to be in that situation of responsibility again. It was only Barstol threatening my sister that forced me to bury that fear and do the job as I had.
I don’t know if it was the stress and anxiety of the last couple of months finally crashing down on me. If it was triggered because Jesse, Boudya and Tindron were all as safe as they could be, here on the Elegance with me, or if it was something else, but everything I’d kept bottled up inside for the last decade came pouring out until I was so exhausted, I didn’t even notice when Tratsa arrived to monitor my sleep, nor when Boudya gathered me up and got me into bed.
I woke up sometime later, tucked under the covers in bed, with one long, graceful leg draped over mine, and soft, sweet breath against the side of my face. I carefully glanced over and confirmed Boudya’s sharp benastian features laying on the pillow beside me, softened as always by the peace of sleep.
After briefly contemplating trying to quietly slip out of bed, I realized it was going to be impossible - not only because of Boudya’s leg being thrown over mine, but because my own arm was being pinned down by her head. I knew the way she slept, and any attempt to slip out from underneath her would wake her.
“She seems to have you just a bit pinned, doesn’t she?” came the soft voice from the opposite side of the bed.
It says something about how I must have still felt rather exhausted right then, that I didn’t startle at all. A glance in that direction showed me Tratsa, dressed in what just might have been one of Boudya’s old t-shirts which had been cut down to nightgown length, and read “Natural E.D. Treatment”. She was sitting up against my headboard with a diagnostic tablet braced against her knees.
“All neurological activity normal,” she whispered with a smile, “I would have said ‘as far as I can tell with only two reference subjects for basis’, but thanks to you getting us hooked up with the StellarNet, I’ve got a whole lot more data on your physiology. And before you ask, whatever was, or wasn’t, explained to me last night, will be kept under medical privilege, just like with your human doctors. Nobody hears it from me without your consent, okay?”
Answering her with a simple nod, I reached over with the hand that was not pinned under Boudya, and caressed the side of her face. She turned her head and kissed my fingers - she’d become quite fond of that activity since I introduced her to it. “You should get some more rest. Emotional release on that level can be just as exhausting as a triple shift spacewalk. We can talk more when you’re rested. If I’m not here when you wake, I’ll be in the infirmary, okay?”
I nodded, and snuggled deeper under the covers, and closer to Boudya, before drifting off again.
----------------------------------------
The aroma that dragged me back to consciousness the next time was, not exactly like bacon, not true bacon anyway. Real, smoked and cured pig flesh was somewhat of a rarity in this century. A virulent disease around two centuries ago wiped out the porcine species almost to extinction, and what was left was kept strictly sequestered by the most wealthy in the Commonwealth. So real, greasy, smokey, crispy pork bacon was a treat few outside the gentry ever tasted in their lifetime. It was worth its weight in antimatter.
But the smell that seduced my senses back from the land of dreams into wakefulness reminded me of that one time I had been invited to eat at a captain’s table on my first salvage contract. There had, indeed, been bacon served for that breakfast. I’d felt like I was eating the very food of the gods!
When I opened my eyes, nose twitching and mouth watering, I noticed both Tratsa and Boudya were not in the bed any longer. Instead, I heard a soft chuckle from a short distance away. “I thought that would wake you up!” Boudya said as I lifted my head to see her setting a tray down on my small table. “I got this stuff from a synaxian contact of mine. Seems they have a creature from one of their colony worlds that is very close in biology to an old earth domestic pig. I explained bacon to him, and he immediately had to try producing it.”
She picked up a plate and brought it over to me. It was stacked with something that looked incredibly like the bacon I’d had at that captain’s table, but had a slightly odd colour to it, a green that was luckily not similar to any time of mould or rot I’d ever seen on meat before. I raised an eyebrow at Boudya but she just chuckled again “I know, the green throws others off too. But try it, I guarantee it’s not gone bad.”
Taking a delicate, hesitant bite of the smoky smelling meat, my taste buds were assaulted by that heavenly combination of salt and fat, the well developed flavors of the curing… the rest of the piece in my fingers disappeared without me even recognizing it had entered my mouth, and I was reaching for another piece as a man dying of thirst would reach for water.
“Ah ah!” Boudya laughed, snatching the plate away, “Get up lazybones, and sit at the table. We’ll share the bacon.”
Grumbling, I dragged my legs out from under the covers and over the side of the bed, heaving myself to my feet without thinking about it. It wasn’t until I took my first step towards the table that my mind registered the feel of the air recirculation system wafting against my bare skin…all of my skin.
Looking down and blinking, I confirmed I was completely undressed, then let out a long sigh. “Was I really that exhausted that I didn’t even rouse when you stripped me?”
A delightful chuckle burbled out of Boudya’s chest, “You were so sound asleep that Tratsa actually checked your vitals to make sure you were still alive!” She explained, “she helped by the way. I like her, and she cares for you, if maybe not she might.”
Part of my brain was screaming at me to grab the sheet from the bed to cover myself, but realistically, the only person in the room with me was Boudya. Forget the fact that we had been heavily involved at one time, she was also a benastian - a species who culturally worried as much about nudity as they worried about breathing too much. So I told that part of my mind to shut up, and walked over to the table and sat down. “She told me up front she wasn’t looking to form attachments.”
“Not looking for, and deliberately avoiding are two separate things Thomas, you know that.” she shook her head, “but as long as the two of you are satisfied with the situation between you, who am I to lecture you. Nothing wrong with having friends with benefits. I’m more curious about what’s going on between you and our ship's commander.”
“W-wha? Jo?” I said, feeling nervous for some reason, “We’re friends and allies, she’s got too much on her plate for anything else.”
“Mm-hmm,” She shook her head, pointing at the bacon, “Eat, and hydrate! You need it. By the stars you lost too much weight Thomas. I understand things were hard surviving when Barstol marooned you, but once you found the giobhioni, surely you’ve had enough to eat?”
“I’ve been a bit preoccupied.” I explained, reaching for the bacon plate as well as sliding what I knew was the giobhioni equivalent of eggs onto my plate. “Worrying about you and Jesse had my stomach a bit locked up. It was hard to have an appetite. Now that you’re safe, it’s just the damned contagion to worry about, so maybe I can get to looking a bit less like a skeleton.”
“Good.” she looked me up and down appraisingly, “I don’t mind a lean man, but there are limits.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but I guess I must have been blushing or something, because she interrupted me. “Relax! And eat already! I know it’s been a decade Thomas, but seriously, I’m not going to pounce you like a Zintaxian jaguar. We have some things to figure out, but I’m still going to tease the fuck out of you in the meantime! Just like when we first met.”
The memory of our first few months of friendship came barreling to the forefront of my mind and I could help but laugh. I’d never been up close and personal with a benastian before, and with all the press about how unrelentingly sexual they were, I was just a bit intimidated. Okay, I was a lot intimidated, especially since she kept zeroing her attention on me whenever we were in the same room.
“Alright, I’ll try to relax.” I said, crunching down on a bit of bacon, “as long as you give me some warning before you do go zintaxian jaguar.”
“But that spoils the fun!” she laughed, munching on some of the bacon herself. “Anyway, Tratsa said there were no anomalous readings during the sleep learning, so she’ll be back again for the next session. You’re to let her know when you’re getting ready for bed. She said something about being ready to assist if you were experiencing insomnia.”
“Sleep learning…” I frowned, having forgotten about that discussion the previous day, “Right, Stacy was going to try feeding me giobhioni engineering concepts through the implant to get me up to speed faster. I’ll be nice if it actually works, working on that shield emitter was so damned…”
I stopped, as our frustrations over getting the power conversion matrix repaired and calibrated came back to me, along with a wave of what my Mom had called ‘well d’uh’ moments. I bolted to my feet and almost ran towards the door of my quarters.
“Thomas! Where are you going?”
“Engineering! I know what we were doing wrong!”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Oh, right!” I turned around, ran back to the table, grabbed a handful of bacon, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and dashed out the door. I was so distracted, I didn’t even hear her shout “I meant clothes Thomas!”