Dathrow gestured to his wrist when he caught Poppy’s curiousglance. “Wheaton will be back later to take you to get your band fitted. Hesuggested you watch the videos he has loaded onto his viewer to learn some ofour history and culture.”
Poppy stepped inside the room and turned around to ask howto do that when the door swished closed and she was alone.
“Well shit,” she said to the empty room. “What the fuck do Ido now?”
Exploring the quarters, she found the bathroom with a showerthat seemed fairly easy to use. After setting out her toiletries in the smallspace, she walked back to the living area. The apartment consisted of tworooms. The living room had a small kitchen with a peninsula coming out from thewall to separate it from the main area. On one side of the room was a smallwhite leather couch and the opposite wall was blank with a large screen flankedby electronics.
“Okay…video…video…where could you be?” Talking to herselfwas apparently going to be her only company this evening so she might as wellgo for broke. “Helloooo….maybe this button. Nope. Maybe this one? Nope.”Pushing random buttons on the wall was probably not the smartest thing to do ona spaceship, but things didn’t seem to be blowing up so she was going to keepgoing. “How about this one? Ah ha! Score.”
A video system popped up onto the blank wall space oppositethe couch and she wondered if it was touch screen or there was a remote. Afterfiddling with the wall, she figured out it was some type of touch screen.Everything was marked with odd symbols, so she hit the one that was listedfirst. A movie was starting up so she sat down and got comfy. Then she almostfell off the slick white couch. Holy shit! This was porn! And not even goodporn, but really cheesy, cheap porn. How could a woman function withfingernails that long? Okay, wrong video. Way wrong video. Selectinganother movie, she found yet another porno. Seriously? What was wrong with thisguy? Apparently he had the libido of a teenage boy if all these videos werepornos. By her count she had another fifty to go.
Twenty-five videos later, she found something that appearedto be a history program. This must have been what he was talking about, becausethe men resembled some of the warriors she had seen on the Intake Centerscreen. Unfortunately for her it wasn’t in English, so she wasn’t going to getanywhere by watching this. Well that was a total fail. After an hour had passedand she had nothing to do, she took a fleece blanket out of her duffel andsnuggled in with her e-reader and iPod.
She awoke to the feeling she was floating and realizedsomeone was carrying her. Smelling leather and sunshine, she understood Wheatonwas back and carrying her into the bedroom. She must have fallen asleep whilereading. How much time had passed? As she became more awake, she realized shewas actually pretty hungry.
“Food,” she said in a sleepy voice, patting Wheaton’sshoulder.
“Food? Did you not eat?” He stopped walking toward thebedroom.
“How the hell would I have eaten? I was left here notknowing what to do and couldn’t figure out how anything would work. Where’s thefucking fridge?”
“I apologize. I meant to return sooner. The meetings kept melonger than I planned.” He turned around, carried her back to the living roomand sat her down. “Stay and I will get you food.”
He turned and busied himself at a small counter. Poppy tookthis time to try to clear the cobwebs from her head. Watching him move was likewatching a dance. He was extremely large but moved silently back and forth atthe small counter. No movements seemed to be wasted. Wheaton turned toward herwith a plate piled high with french fries and a cold sandwich.
Wheaton was hoping to distract Poppy with food while hefigured out how to explain his earlier absence. When he had left her after theship had docked, he could tell she was directing anger his way. On the ride toSquadron One, she had reached for his hand at one point and he had felt almostfrozen in place. His earlier episode—when he had nuzzled her neck andrumbled—had been so out of character for him it was enough to cause him concernand he had decided to visit the med center to have a scan run to make sure hehad not contracted an Earth disease during his visit.
Her tears on the flight to the ship had upset him, whichadded to the fear that something was wrong. When she had reached for his handand he had felt a warm tingle followed by his chest feeling heavy, he hadquickly found a med pad and placed a request for a regen bed immediately. Whenhe had left Dathrow to take care of his new bride, Wheaton had gone to getscanned from head to toe. The regen bed had come back showing normal scans onall fronts, so he was stumped as to what was happening. At the very least itwas disconcerting.
“You have regular food here?” she asked, taking the platefrom him. Apparently she was hungrier than she had thought. She practicallysnatched it from him as if she hadn’t eaten in a week.
“Yes, we took classes to become familiar with common humanfoods. We have a generator that will make
