Roxanne didn't like being dehydrated. In fact, as her bubble approached the little starship, she made a mental note to avoid dehydration in the future unless it was absolutely necessary. It didn't help that she was just a bit nauseated, although she'd made sure to have an empty stomach for the departure, so the airsickness bag in her pocket wasn't needed. Her hair was in constant motion, responding to every movement in the air around it, as it would if she were under water, but faster. The ship wasn't much like the starships in movies. It was a geodesic globe composed of five-sided flat panels because that was the shape that would enclose the most area with the least mass, and the less mass they used for the ship itself, the more cargo they could carry. The only way to tell which direction was the front was by the fact that there were three panels in a row there that were glass. Through the middle one, she could see Minion already in the pilot's seat, which was the driver's seat from the Invisible Car. He waved as the brainbot towed her past the windows, "up" to the airlock. The Earth was behind her; only a crescent of it was in daylight, but that was enough that she cast a faint shadow against the hull. As she approached, a group of three panels flipped open like a flower blooming. The brainbot pushed her bubble through the opening into the airlock itself. The panels flipped shut, sealing her in, and she heard the hiss of air filling the little compartment. When the screen on the far wall showed the words Full Pressure, she unsealed her bubble, pushed herself out of it, then stowed it in one of the compartments on the wall, as she'd been told. It was a clumsier process than she expected because of the lack of gravity; she had to hold onto a handhold with one hand while stuffing with the other or her shove would propel her away from the wall. Then she touched the button that opened the round interior hatch and pulled herself through. It shut automatically after her.

There was only a narrow passageway between the skin of the ship and the crowd of cargo containers. It offered plenty of handholds on both sides, so she pulled herself along easily until she came to the passenger compartment. She grinned at Minion, who looked straight "up" through the lid of his dome to grin back at her. Then she kicked off gently from the edge of the window and tried to kip around in the air so as to reverse her position and land in her seat (actually an acceleration couch) on her back. It didn't work; she struck the seat with her right shoulder and bounced off.

"Here you go, Roxanne." Minion had been calling her by her first name ever since the wedding, although he still called Megamind Sir. He caught her other shoulder with one mechanical hand and the wrist extended until he was able to gently place her in her seat. He held her there while she grabbed the safety harness.

"[I could have done this myself]," she said in Tseri[gulp]uu.

"[I know, but I wanted to make sure you were in place before the boss came in, so you wouldn't bump into each other. Look. Here he comes.]" As she strapped herself in, Megamind floated by the window, against the background of the mostly-dark Earth. He was curled up as if doing a somersault, spinning madly, bumping into the wall of his bubble every once in a while, and it looked like he was laughing. a few minutes later, he appeared above the passenger compartment.

"[Catch me]." he said, holding out his arms to Roxanne. For a moment, both she and Minion were afraid he was going to barrel into her, but he pushed off gently and glided to her. As their arms went around each other, he let the back of her seat take his momentum so that they ended up in a stationary hug, which proceeded into a very active kiss. When he broke off and settled into his seat, she saw a brainbot hovering outside the window with a bottle of champagne in one grasper.

"Are all systems go, Minion?" the blue man asked in English.

"Affirmative, Sir."

"Then will you do the honors, Roxanne?"

"Sure. I hereby dub thee Adventure." The brainbot smashed the bottle against the hull just below the windows. The champagne flashed into vapor droplets, spraying away in all directions along with the chunks of glass. The brainbot rose out of sight. A few minutes later, two brainbots flew into the passenger compartment and attached themselves to the hull on the curve above Minion on either side of the highest point of the window. The mechanical hands worked the controls. The ship began to turn away from Earth, aiming just to one side of the thickest part of the Milky Way, as the stereo began to play "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf. Roxanne and Megamind held hands, their hearts racing and their smiles as wide as their facial muscles allowed.

The beginnings of acceleration pressed them into their seats. A screen mounted behind Minion's seat came to life, showing the view behind them, just the Moon at first, but then the crescent Earth as well, shrinking with distance. As the acceleration increased, they released their hands and put them on the armrests of their acceleration couches, knowing that if they didn't, it would really hurt when the g-forces got serious. After a few minutes, the Sun became visible in one corner of the screen. Minion let the song play three times while they were pressed harder and harder into the cushions behind them. At the end of the third, he threw a switch. The windows and the screen went black. They were weightless again.

"[We are now in Wormhole Space]," the fish said. "[Have fun, you two.]" A wall rose out of the floor, dividing the compartment into two with Minion, the brainbots and the controls on one side, Megamind and Roxanne and the screen on the other. Steppenwolf got fainter and fainter and when the wall met the hull above them, there was silence.

"Stereo," said Megamind. The screen displayed a set of stereo controls. "Play 'Stir It Up'," he said and the song he had named, by Bob Marley and the Wailers, began to play at a soft volume. Roxanne had once told him that this was the sexiest song she knew, and each of them had, at some point in their five weeks of marriage, played it to get the other in the mood. Not that it was needed this time. Zero-gravity sex was something both of them had fantasized about. The wall between them and Minion was installed specifically to give them the necessary privacy.

"My place or yours?" she asked.

"How about this? We'll get out of our seats and fasten the harnesses and we'll use yours to stow our clothes and mine if we need something to hang onto."

"Sounds good." They unstrapped, rose from their seats, turned and clipped the straps over the empty places where they had been. He removed his belt and holster and tucked them under one of the straps of her harness. Then on second thought, he took it out again, reached around behind and under her seat, wrapped the belt a couple of times around the anchors that held the seat to the floor, and buckled it so that his ray gun was under the seat where they'd be very unlikely to bump into it by accident. While he was doing that, she unzipped the back of his costume and began to push it off his shoulders, while keeping one leg tucked under her harness to give herself leverage. As he straightened up, he let her pull the sleeves off his arms from behind, using both of her hand at once so that the front of her jumpsuit, a velour that matched her eyes, was pressed against his back. He made a little purring sound as she kissed the back of his neck. Then she took hold of the fabric at his waist and pulled the rest of the costume (including his black skivvies) down over his slender blue hips and thighs, stopping at his knees. Each of them bent down, unbuckled and removed one of his boots and the accompanying sock. Naked, he tucked his costume away and turned to face her. They moved into each other's arms, their eyes meeting, their lips smiling with pure love. She kissed his collar bone; he took her earlobe in his mouth. They nuzzled and fondled and made little "Mmm" noises, holding onto each other a little more firmly than usual to prevent being pushed away from each other by the pressure of their other touches. He drew back just enough to unbutton the jumpsuit and she held his shoulders to help him. Then she moved her hands to his waist so he could push the velour off her shoulders and observe (purely for research purposes, of course) the way her breasts behaved under weightless conditions. Her modest cup size meant that he could get almost a whole breast in his mouth; he proceeded to demonstrate that ability, first with the left breast, then with the right, with plenty of tongue action. He slid the garment down her body, following it with his mouth, teasing her by giving her genitals nothing but a quick kiss in passing, then proceeding down her thighs, knees, calves, ankles. Her shoes were sticky-soled rock climbing shoes. The laces went through nine pairs of eyelets; they took almost as long to remove as Megamind's boots had.

Once her garments were tucked in beside his, they moved over to his seat. He leaned his back into it and hooked his arms under the shoulder straps. With no need to keep their balance, she found that she could use almost any part of her body to caress any part of his. She experimented with this new capability for quite a while, and he responded in kind. Then she wrapped her legs around his thighs and began to play with his naughty bits, observing the way they moved without gravity to bias them in any one direction. He was soon very hard. She slid up his body, took the base of his erection with one hand and held it while she slid herself onto him.

The rhythm was odd at first. They were used to moving with force on the upthrust, then letting gravity do all the work on the downstroke. Making an equal effort in both directions was new to them. However, they were both fast learners and Roxanne was getting very close to being the first Earth woman to have an orgasm in Wormhole Space when Minion's voice interrupted, shouting first in Tseri[gulp]uu, then in English. "Dmë[click]! Stop! Stop right now!"

"Why, Minion?!" Megamind demanded to know.

"The oxygen's being used up too fast." The couple's irritation turned quickly to fear.

"What? Show me the readout." Up to this point, he and Roxanne had remained joined, but now they separated, both turning to the screen, which showed several digital numbers. "History," he ordered, and columns of smaller numbers appeared. He scrolled downward, looking all the way to the beginning of the columns. "The deviation began before we ever came aboard," he said.

"So are the brainbots taking more oxygen than you thought?" Roxanne asked.

"Possibly, possibly not. It began between eleven and midnight, about the time Minion's spare suits came aboard. Brainbots, infrared scan on the cargo carrier with Minion's spare suits in it. The most likely explanation is that something is going on in that one, either combustion or respiration. Either one will produce enough heat to show up on a scan."

"But, Sir, there's nothing flammable in there, and respiration implies something alive, which means something that stowed away. If we'd had any mass beyond what we planned for, it would have affected fuel usage, and that's right where it's supposed to be."

At that point the scan finished and they all watched in silence. An infrared scan through multiple layers of cargo doesn't have very high resolution, but in this case the shape it showed was so familiar that they didn't need fine details.

"Wayne," Roxanne whispered half to herself.

Megamind turned and shouted at the wall behind them. "You superpowered idiot! Didn't you know that the air supply in a sealed space like this is finite? And that your presence as a stowaway would not have been allowed for when we set it up?"

"Sir, getting mad is almost as bad as sex when it comes to using up more oxygen than necessary."

The blue man put his face in his hands. "I know," he said despairingly, "but how can I possibly calm down? I'd need strong drugs, and that's something I didn't think to pack."

"I've got some," said Roxanne.

"What?" both aliens said, almost in unison.

"It's called Allerquil. It's antihistamine with codeine. It's the only way I ever get any sleep during pollen season. Where's my luggage?"

"In the compartment right over your head," said Minion. Megamind was already reaching up. He pushed a dark spot and the whole 'ceiling' of the little compartment opened. In one half of it, Roxanne's familiar suitcases were visible. She pulled out the biggest one, unzipped it and started digging, ignoring the way the entire top layer of her possessions were floating away. She had brought a year's supply, twelve bottles, just in case there was something on Harolup that she was deeply allergic to. She got out one.

"Here it is." She turned to her blue beloved. "I usually take two and it puts me right to sleep."

"Then I would say take three. We want a really deep sleep that will reduce our metabolism as much as is safe." While she had found the pills, he had fetched a squeeze bottle of water. "I shall do the same."

"Wayne," called the fish while Roxanne opened the bottle and pulled out three pills. "Can you hear us?"

"I hear you." The erstwhile hero's voice was faint. Roxanne swapped the pill bottle for the water bottle, popped the first pill, sucked water and swallowed. "Have you ever had Allerquil?" Megamind was reading the label on the pill bottle.

"Never."

"There's a formula here based on weight," said the blue man. "What do you weigh?"

"Three ten."

"By the formula, a normal dose for you would be three, so I would say take five. You want a deeper than normal sleep."

"Sure. How do I get it? Just push everything aside and come to you?"

"We'll have the trouble-spotter find you. It seems approopriate."

Roxanne, done taking her pills, was curious. "Trouble-spotter?" Megamind put all three pills in his mouth, took the water bottle back from her, drank and swallowed with a large gulp.

"I'll show you," said Minion. "Just a sec." The wall came down an inch. A thing like an insect flew through the gap. When it flew close, skillfully avoiding the floating clothes and toiletries, she saw that it was a tiny robot composed mostly of air jets aimed in all six possible directions, with a camera eye like a black glass bead and a finger-length antenna protruding at an angle between two of the jets. Megamind held a pill between his thumb and forefinger. The trouble-spotter came close, took it from him with tiny graspers, and flew "up" the passageway to the airlock. "Let us know when you get the first one," the fish added.

"Roxanne," said her husband. "In your experience, how long does this stuff take to take effect?"

"Fifteen or twenty minutes."

"Then let's spend it putting away all your stuff so we don't have things settling on our faces while we sleep."

It was a clumsy job, gathering the escaped contents of her suitcase and putting it all back. Without gravity, there was no natural reason for any of it to stay in the suitcase, so she ended up zipping the lid most of the way shut, leaving just an corner that could be lifted. Many garments that she had carefully folded when she'd packed on Earth now got shoved in any old way. She ended up staying by the suitcase while he bounced around the compartment, grabbing things out of the air and tossing them to her. Every once in a while the trouble-spotter would come back and take another pill from him. It flew off with the fifth one just as they were finishing up. The pill bottle was the last thing to go in before she zipped up. Then they pushed the suitcase back into the compartment, shut it, and descended to Megamind's seat.

"Should we put our clothes back on?" she asked as he unfastened the harness.

"Let's not. If we're still unconscious when we get there, the medical people will want a look at us first, and if we're already naked, it will make their job a little easier. Besides, I want to be close to you while we fall asleep."

And if we're dead when we get there, they'll have the consolation prize of an alien autopsy, she thought. That was the unspoken fear. The drug might save them, and they'd wake up on Harolup, or it might not be enough, and they'd never wake up at all. Megamind settled into his seat, she sat on his lap, and he clipped the straps around both of them.

"Vit o[squish] Amnang öu."

"I love you, Roxanne."

"No regrets."

"None. This has been the very best five weeks of my life. I sometimes wonder how Harolup itself can possibly live up to my anticipation of it. And, of course, Harolup has brought me you, because if they had not contacted me, I might never have told you of my feelings for you, never discovered that you returned them, and never held you naked in my arms."

Roxanne decided that he was talking too much. She shut his mouth with hers. They exchanged no more words in the time before they fell asleep.

###

Waking up after a night on Allerquil was always a long, slow process for Roxanne. She was in a gravity field and at first she thought she was still single and back in her apartment. The insides of her eyelids looked reddish brown, which meant she was someplace well lit. She wondered for a moment whether she had slept through her alarm.

Then the events of the last few months came back to her. I'm alive! We made it! Even though her body wasn't really ready, sheer curiosity forced her eyes open. The ceiling above her was curved silvery metal. There was a screen above her; she was looking at it almost edge on, so she couldn't tell what it was displaying. To her left was a wall with another screen on it, displaying Tseri[gulp]uu text and graphics that included a simplified cartoon of a heart that beat in rhythm with her own. At the foot of the bed were two strangers, one male Yi[gulp]vi and one Opuulu. (She had no idea how to tell the Opuulu sexes apart.) The Yi[gulp]vi's clothing and the Opuulu's suit were both the same color blue as the Yi[gulp]vi's skin. Both were looking at her with contained eagerness. At the same time, she saw that she was still naked. Her first impulse was to cover herself, but her limbs still felt like they were made of lead, so she didn't move. The two glanced at the screen.

"I'm sorry to startle you," the Yi[gulp]vi said in English. "I'm your translator. Please tell me your symptoms so I can tell the doctor."