CHAPTER TWO
Al climbed out of the simulator, stretching his legs and scratching the back of his neck. Day seventeen, and they had him running programs already. That was very, very good. He was determined to get on a mission, there were only two left, and the other guys had all been around forever, which meant that he had a lot of catching up to do.
A nurse unzipped his white flight suit and started removing his electrodes while a young Air Force kid came running up with a coffee.
"Thanks, Dave," Al muttered, taking the beverage. Different branch of the service, but recognition was recognition, and Al hadn't forgotten what it felt like when a senior officer knew your first name. As he expected, the boy moved off with his head a little higher and his shoulders a little squarer. Al turned towards the Ops terminal, ignoring the nurse who was now rubbing adhesive away with a cotton swab soaked in isopropyl alcohol. "So, Nick, how'd I make out this—"
He stopped. The person in the white coat was not the young intern from USF who had been manning the station all week, including this morning when Al had got into the mock module. It was a woman. A petite, red-haired woman in her thirties, with dramatic makeup and enormous rhinestone earrings. Hot damn, she was gorgeous.
"Where's Nick Bradley?" Al asked silkily, sauntering over to lean against the console. The nurse let him go with a sigh of exasperation. "And where have you been all my life?"
"You're running two point five minutes slow," the woman said as if she hadn't heard him. Her voice was a deep contralto, and had a faint, unfamiliar accent. "When they start you on the real programs you won't stand a chance."
"What's your name, beautiful?" he asked, reaching out to stroke her cheek.
She slapped his hand away and gave him a very cold look. "Didn't you even see the lubricant warning light?"
"There was no lubricant warning li—" Al frowned, his acute memory producing an image he had not processed at the time: a yellow light blinking on at the edge of his peripheral vision, only to disappear almost as soon as he looked at it. "It went out within two seconds," he said, shrugging.
"You didn't report it. Did he, Mister Harrison?" She turned to the person manning the radio, the one who had been playing mission control. He shook his head.
"Why report it? It went away," Al said, smoothing his hair. "Come on, bella mia, what's your name?"
With a tight-lipped look of displeasure she extended a jewel-encrusted hand with the longest, most perfectly manicured nails Al had ever seen. "My name is Elsa Ildiko Orsós," she said as they shook. "I am one of the programmers. One of the best."
"Mmh, Elsa. Pretty name," Al cooed.
Elsa ignored him, continuing with a businesslike lilt at odds with her undeniably beautiful face. "Nicholas has a meeting with his preceptor, which is why I am here. It's a good thing I am, too, because it looks like he's been much too easy on you. You're never going to make the grade if you continue like this."
"Sure I'll make the grade," Al said, letting his eyes drift to the soft curve of her breasts under the lab coat. Just move that lapel a little further to the left… "I'm as good as any of the other guys."
"Navy," Elsa scoffed. "They think they know everything!" She turned a hard eye on Al. "You're never going to make it onto the roster," she said. "You'd be better off going back to your little boat."
"Flygirl, huh?" Al asked, still sounding the waters. He could almost taste the sherbet-colored lips now. "Your old man an Air Force jet jock or something?"
"I'm not married," Elsa said stiffly. Defensively?
"My condolences," Al said, his voice indicating that he was anything but sorry. This wasn't the conversation he had been expecting to have right out of that little tin can. He took his eyes briefly off of the somewhat hostile vision of loveliness and wiped away a trickle of sweat that had been running down behind his ear. He didn't much like enclosed spaces. He hadn't really realized that until he had arrived out here.
"Save your condolences for yourself: you'll need them once Control sees how you're performing—or rather, not performing."
"Well, Elsa, allow me to introduce myself," Al continued smoothly, not allowing her taunt to discourage him. She was obviously playing hard-to-get. "I'm—"
"You're Albert Calvichy, the new recruit from California," Elsa said brusquely, her accent tripping over his name and blurring it into some kind of impressionistic rendition.
"They tell you about me?"
"You're a war veteran. You've been a pilot for eighteen years. Your record is almost spotless, except you seemed to have trouble with authority before 1967." She answered mechanically, like a pre-recorded message playing back on command.
"And after," Al said smugly, thinking about the way the veins in Quon's temples would stand out when it became plain that he wasn't making any progress, while at the same time suppressing any memory of what invariably followed.
"You're also arrogant, and you have far too high an opinion of yourself," Elsa finished. "Also, you're running slow in the simulator."
"I'm not running slow!" Al protested. "I was well within the time limit!"
"I'm not talking about the time limit, I'm talking about the way you measure up to the astronauts," Elsa said.
"I'm an astronaut."
"Not yet," she snorted. "And if you don't start doing better in there, you never will be."
Al grinned. He was obviously making an impression: she was trying to give him a leg up. "Maybe we could have dinner tonight and you could give me some tips on improving my time," he suggested silkily.
"You want to improve your time, try reading the flight sim manual," Elsa snapped, getting to her feet and marching away.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThe ten Apollo hopefuls were assembled in the clinic for their weekly weighing-in and checkup. The wait for the physician was just about the only time they were all together. Al was still something of an outsider. He was the only Navy man in a group of Air Force guys. Only Colonel Simmons had served in the war, which made Al's war record a bit of a pink elephant that no one wanted to think about. They were all well-muscled, blue-eyed WASPs. Most importantly, they had all been together for months, and Al was a newcomer. Nevertheless they made some effort to be friendly, and Al did his best to reciprocate.
"So, guys," he ventured during a silence. "What do you know about Orsós?"
"Or what?" Lieutenant Taggert asked vacantly.
"Orsós," Al said. "You know, Elsa."
Hoots and laughter filled the room, and Al chuckled and raised his eyebrows to hide his discomfiture at his exclusion from the joke.
"You think you're quite the ladies' man, that's right, Calavicci?" drawled Jacobs, a Titan of a Texan.
"Aren't all Italians?" Al asked, smirking.
There were some good-natured snickers.
"Yeah?" Jacobs said. "Well, steer clear of that one—she ain't a lady!"
The laughter redoubled.
"Seriously, Calavicci," Taggert said. "Stay away from her. Elsa Orsós is trouble."
"How so?" Al asked with a wicked, lecherous grin that had the desired effect of producing laughter on his terms for once.
"Well, for starters, she hasn't worn a bra since 1968!" Taggert chortled.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl left the sickbay in a bad mood that had nothing to do with the conversation about the gorgeous but apparently intractable programmer. He had lost three pounds this week, and the flight surgeon had left him in no doubt as to his options. Either he had to start gaining on his own, pronto; or he had to be referred to a dietician, which would undoubtedly mean nauseatingly sweet health drinks and strange uses for eggs; or he could accept reassignment and hope the Navy took their men skinnier than NASA did.
These doctors all seemed to think it was easy to remember to eat. The truth was that Al had grown so accustomed to ignoring the snarls and gnawing of an empty stomach that he often didn't even realize he was hungry until he started reeling with inanition. Even when he did stick to the schedule laid out for him by the nutritionist at Balboa he could never eat as much as they seemed to think he should.
With the physician's ultimatum still ringing in his ears he turned down the corridor towards the cafeteria. He was determined not to wash out, and if that meant force-feeding himself, so be it.
There weren't many people here at three in the afternoon, and Al was able to walk straight through to the counter. He grinned at the young woman behind it.
"Fill 'er up, beautiful," he said, winking happily as he set down his tray. She blushed.
"Anything in particular, sir?" she asked.
Al shrugged. "I don't care. They tell me I have to eat."
She laughed a little, thinking it was a joke. She was a cute little thing with short, curly golden hair, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four.
"What's your name, honey?" he queried.
"Lauren," she answered shyly.
He tried it out, rolling it around on his tongue like fine Chianti. "Lauren," he said. "Lauren. I can't say I'm surprised."
"Huh?"
"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman!" Al delivered, enjoying the flush of gratification that suffused her pretty round cheeks. "You in here every day?"
She glanced at his rank pips. "Lieutenant Commander," she said conspiratorially as she filled a bowl with soup and set it on his tray; "I'm married. Lauren Taggert."
"We-ell!" Al said. "So my wingman is more than one heck of an astronaut." He paused, and she delivered the perplexed look perfectly. "He's also one heck of a lucky guy."
Lauren's smile showed every one of her perfect teeth. "There you go," she said, handing him his tray. "Enjoy, uh—"
"It's Calavicci," Al said; "but for the wife of my fellow stargazer, it's Al."
"A-Al," she said, with the hesitancy of a shy girl not used to using strange men's first names. "I am," she added, as he was about to turn away.
"Am?"
"Here every weekday," Lauren elucidated hastily, her voice trailing off.
"Well, I have a feeling we might be seeing a lot of each other, my dear," Al said, winking again and turning to look for a seat.
There were plenty of empty tables, but the one that caught his eye was at the back of the room, and had one occupant: the gorgeous redheaded programmer. He grinned as he approached. She was nursing a bowl of vegetable soup like the one of his tray, focused intently on a book. It was a paperback novel entitled Surfacing, but some woman Al had never heard of.
He set his tray down opposite hers.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked.
She looked up in surprise, and then her eyes hardened. "Is there anything I can say that will make you go away and hopefully die a horrible death?" she asked.
"Not a thing," Al told her brightly, sitting down. "Lovely weather we're having," he commented.
"We're in Florida," she said. "Did you expect, maybe, snow?" She turned back to her book.
"Is that any good?" Al asked, taking a forkful of vegetable stir-fry and tasting it. Not bad. A little bland and rubbery, but not bad. "I've never read it."
"I wouldn't expect you have," she said, once again not quite getting the words out correctly.
"So? Is it any good?"
"As if you're going to read it," Elsa scoffed.
"I might… if a lovely lady were to tell me it was worth reading!"
She slammed the book down and glared at him. "You may not realize this, but I am a professional, and I am here in my professional capacity. You wouldn't talk to Nicholas Bradley like this, and I'm not going to let you talk to me like this, either."
"Nick Bradley isn't a dazzlingly b—"
Elsa shot to her feet, her jaw working and her eyes blazing. "I'm not interested in playing this game," she said, her voice like ice. "You want a woman, go into Orlando and buy one, but when you're around me you keep your filthy male mouth to yourself."
So saying, she strode off. Al chuckled a little. Ah, the magic of women's lib. He turned his attention to his plate of institutional food, using the edge of his knife to push the rice away from the rest of his meal. Guess he should have been more particular about what the girl—Lauren, what Lauren had put on the plate after all. He took several more mouthfuls of stir-fry and then tried the soup before he noticed that Elsa had forgotten her book.