And... presto! All wrapped up, nice and tidy. Sort of. In a way...

3

Endurance Base, Mars; the flight deck-

What he enjoyed about women: the soft, warm scent of their skin. The way that their garments folded and stretched across the rounded topography beneath, outlined in light or tender shadow. The way long hair, loose and swinging free, brushed his face and chest like a silk curtain. Their fierce, uncomplicated response, once the process was begun.

What he did not enjoy: the afterward. Strangely enough, he was quite good at sex; excelled at it, in fact. Each of the women he'd been with had expressed a high level of satisfaction with his performance… physically. It was the awkward after-part, when (casual encounter, co-worker or friend) she waited there… expecting some key phrase or mysterious signal… that he continually mishandled.

The deck was hard, the recycled air cold as hell, and neither of them fully clothed. Machinery and instruments cut on around them, having been, for some reason, switched off. Something flickered briefly in her dark eyes as Linda sat up. Then it faded, leaving her looking rather puzzled, he thought. Silently, John handed her the tank top she'd come to him with. She accepted it with a brief nod, her face reddening.

This was it. The moment when he was expected to say something…meaningful. He'd already learned that talking shop didn't work any better than his carefully memorized and catalogued 'small talk' phrases. He tried to think, as Dr. Bennett's expression took on that… whatever it was…that look. The one he knew meant trouble; tears or shouting, with possibly a slap into the bargain.

Then, as if he'd dreamt it… or heard it in a movie, somewhere… a short speech came to him. What the hell, huh?

"I'm glad you're here… Linda. I love you, and I want you to stay."

That brought her up short and sharp.

Dr. Bennett had been experiencing that most terrible of emotions: humiliation. Having, it seemed, given herself to John Tracy, she'd gotten nothing from him afterward but silent, blank rejection. As if, having gotten what he wanted, he had no further use for her. Now this…?

There was a lot of noise, suddenly, from comm and living quarters. Folks were up, and moving their way.

"Okay… you actually mean that?" Linda asked the slim, handsome pilot, who'd risen and begun to dress. All at once, he looked away, expression cold and taut.

"Sorry," she said, shaking her tousled head. "I didn't mean to confuse you, John."

He relented enough to offer her a hand up, which she grasped and held to, nearly having her arm yanked off in the process. By this time, the flight deck comm was going nuts, and someone was pounding upon the hatch. Apparently, somewhere in the night's rambunctious antics, she'd found time to lock it.

Linda gave his hand a quick squeeze, saying,

"You take Houston and Kuiper. I'll open the hatch before Pete blasts a way through. But, John…?"

Tracy paused in the act of turning away, tall and beautiful as a sculpture in the flickering instrument light.

"…if what you said to me was true, then I'm… I'm happy to hear it. If not, this ends here and now. I'm not a piece of playground equipment. Understood?"

He said nothing (Linda had the strangest impression that he was afraid to speak), only nodding again. Message received, and comprehended.

John went to the comm panel, taking a seat in the pilot's chair as Dr. Bennett headed aft. For some reason, he hailed Kuiper, first.

Commander Porizkova's face was drawn, her voice urgent.

"Endurance, Kuiper! Respond, please. Are you… Ah, young Ivan! Is it well with crew and vessel, where you are?"

She'd begun to smile, small wrinkles forming around her pale blue eyes. She'd addressed him in Russian, so John replied in kind, slipping (as he often did with TinTin) back into English for occasional American catch phrases.

"Yes, Ma'am. We are… 'all in one piece'… here. And yourselves?"

She tucked a strand of floating, straw-colored hair away from her face. Behind her, John could see a few of the European crewmen bobbing around at various hurried tasks.

"Yes, Ivan; thanks be to God," and she crossed herself backward, in the Greek Orthodox manner. "There are no two pieces, here. I called only to check status, and update expected arrival time."

Except… just like John, and Linda and the suddenly arrived Pete… she seemed confused somehow, and deeply relieved. Specifics were exchanged, and joking promises of smuggled Vodka.

John was jerked halfway out of his seat before Kuiper's mission commander signed off. Roger Thorpe, a big, savage grin on his face, shook the pilot like a terrier with a sock toy. Kim Cho kissed them both several times, and even the doctor came back, for a different, gentler sort of embrace.

"All right… enough!" Pete McCord snapped, managing to sound pretty severe, despite the satisfied smile on his homely face. "I've still got to answer Houston, and it's better if we don't sound like we've developed oxygen narcosis, up here. Just... settle down. It's gonna be another fun-filled, action-packed day of goddam digging. Nothing more."

But the mission commander didn't quite believe that, himself. The sun was rising, filling Endurance's flight deck with the tawny-brown, familiar glow of a Martian dawn. Night, at last, had ended.