clamp his hand over his nose just before he hit. Unfortunately by then he was tilted over somewhat so he landed on his side. The hard water slapped him fiercely.
He struggled back up to the surface, his whole side numb. At first. The sharp stinging began as he bobbed up. He let out a pained groan.
Jasmine’s laughter cut off, and seconds later she was at his side. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Sure. Fine. No problem.” His shirt felt as if it was made from metal. He struggled to undo it, then found she was towing him to the steps at the side.
“You silly thing,” she chided. But there was still a huge smile on her face.
Orion had managed to get one arm out of the sleeve. He clung to the steps with the other. “Jasmine?”
“Yes?” She was still smiling at him, her eyes sparkling.
“Have you got a boyfriend?” Where the chutzpah had come from to ask that he didn’t have a clue.
She leaned forward and kissed him. It seemed to go on for a long time. Orion wasn’t really sure. Her tongue was inside his mouth, setting off loud fireworks in pleasure centers he didn’t even know existed before.
When she pulled back, he blinked uncertainly to see her grinning wickedly. “That was a no,” Jasmine told him impishly. She pushed off from the steps, floating on her back, still grinning at him. “Just in case you didn’t realize.”
“I did,” he whispered helplessly.
Her arm moved fast, and splashed a whole load of water over him. He splashed back. She giggled, and started kicking up a spume. Orion tugged his shirt off completely, and set off in hot pursuit.
They messed around in the pool for nearly an hour before Jasmine said she was going back up to her room to dry off for lunch. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she promised as she pulled her robe on again. “Get the cook to make me a burger, with Italian fries, you know, the herb ones. And a side salad.”
“I’ll do it,” he promised loyally.
He clambered out of the pool and found a towel in the locker by the showers.
“Your association seemed to be developing well, friend Orion,” Tochee said. It was sunning itself on the lower terrace beside the pool. Nearly all of its colored fronds were dry again, ruffling in the warm breeze.
“Do you think so?” Orion asked as he watched Jasmine walk up the stairs to the upper terrace. She waved happily when she was at the top, then hurried off into the mansion.
“I am not an expert judge of your species, friend Orion, but you were behaving most harmoniously together. It is my belief she enjoyed your company. If she did not, she would not have remained with you; she was under no obligation.”
“Hey, that’s right!” He picked up his sodden orange shirt. “I’m going to find the cook and then get a clean shirt. Do you want anything?”
“I believe I would like to try more of the cold vegetable lasagne, with cabbage, please.”
Ozzie had started the morning full of determination. Anger-driven determination, as he would be the first to admit. It would have been sweet to show that pompous dick Nigel how to fix the Dyson Alpha barrier generator. He set to it with an open mind and a burst of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, he soon found out that having Tochee with him wasn’t such a good idea. He became a little tetchy with the alien’s constant questions and apologetic answers to his own inquiries. It soon became very plain that Tochee had only a very limited knowledge of physics. Whether that extended to its entire species, Ozzie promptly stopped caring. All he’d hoped for was a little insight, that Tochee might come at the problem from a different angle. Not a chance.
By the time Tochee left to “take a break,” Ozzie could have cheered. It had also become depressingly obvious that there had been a significant amount of excellent work done on analyzing the data that the Second Chance had brought back. An alarming quantity of which he was struggling to understand. If he’d been wetwired with maximum interface, and had full access to both his secure store and his asteroid’s RI, he might have managed conversance with the plethora of theories that physicists had put together. Even then, they were only theories.
But this life around, his wetwiring was limited to the biochip inserts he’d received in preparation for walking the Silfen paths. And although the mansion’s security staff were undyingly courteous, he wasn’t allowed access to the unisphere.
An age later, he stood inside the big projection of grandiose lattice shells wrapped around their peculiar rings, and gave it a hearty curse. The green clouds of equations that summarized humanity’s finest thoughts on the problem retreated, taking their luminescence to the corners of the study. He almost shut down the projection. Now he’d actually seen the Dark Fortress his earlier notions about it were fast becoming a fantasy inspired by petulance. His virtual hands patted down several columns of icons as if they were annoying insects, and the projection swung around him, running through a complete cycle. It still didn’t make any sense, so he resurrected the second image, a simulation of the shells after the barrier had failed. The extraneous quantum signature was as plain as possible, but without a more accurate image it was impossible to see what it was actually doing, which section of the generator it was disrupting. And the Second Chance had never returned for a close look. The starship had maintained a watch during its visit to the Watchtower, but the data it received from such a distance was constant. Nothing had changed. Ozzie returned the image to a real-time playback. This recording was nothing more than a smudge of data against a backdrop of alien stars. That didn’t help him much either. Then he gave it a surprised glance; it still hadn’t changed. He told his e-butler to run to the end of the recording, and highlight any detected variations. An intriguing notion was forming at the back of his mind.
The study door opened, and a girl walked in. Even Ozzie was impressed by how gorgeous she looked. Of course, the way she was standing there in a toweling robe that was completely open down the front to reveal a wet swimsuit probably helped that meteor-strike first impression. And after so long walking the paths it wasn’t just Orion who was desperate for the company of a woman.
“Hi there,” he said. “You must be the Sheldon girl.”
She gave him a knowing smile and shut the door in such a deliberate, firm fashion that Ozzie’s heart rate quickened. “Jasmine Sheldon, according to the certificate which got me through the front door,” she said as she advanced on Ozzie. A hand was combed sensually back through damp hair. “But we both know that’s a little white lie. The Dynasty office in Illanum gave me a nice little summary of all the hanky-panky going on here. Very kinky of you.”
“Ah well, you know how it is, the kid’s had a rough few years. You’re, um, the least I could do for him.”
She was still advancing. Ozzie wasn’t sure if he should fling himself at her or run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
“How about you?” she asked. “Have you had it rough for a few years?”
“Boy, you are quite something. At least he’ll die with a smile on his face.”
She stood directly in front of him, a sinful smile playing on her lips. “You’re very famous, Ozzie. I hope you don’t mind but I couldn’t resist asking for this one little favor.”
“What’s that?”
“A kiss. That’s all. Just. One. Little. Kiss.”
Ozzie sucked in a breath, and checked the door behind her. “I dunno, man.”
“Ohhh.” Her lips came together in a mournful pout. “I’d be very grateful. It’s not every day you get to meet a living legend.”
“Ah…”
She stood on tiptoes, puckering her mouth up for a kiss. Her hands came up on either side, and gripped his tightly, fingers twining together. They kissed.
Ozzie’s e-butler told him the i-spots on his palms were being remotely activated to allow a simulated environment program to decompress inside his inserts. An emergency disconnect icon was flashing brightly as his intrusion counterware reacted. The weird electronic incursion interested him more than anything else. He granted the program full virtual interface authority and shifted the counterware to monitor status.
The result was like being teleported into a Russian doll of images. He now stood at the bottom of a translucent gray sphere clad in simple white coveralls, with the girl standing in front of him in the same garment. She had a slightly different face than her physical self; some features had been realigned, and the hair was shorter and golden, but it was definitely her. Outside the sphere, giant replicas of himself and the girl were locked in an embrace that he could still feel rather pleasantly on his lips. Beyond that, the Dark Fortress data swirled like a foggy nebula, boxed in by the study walls.
He brought his hand up to touch his mouth, a sensation that was overlaid on the kiss. He gave a dismissive grunt. “Okay,” he said, “you wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Of course, but first, please try and maintain the kiss.”
“Like that’ll be difficult.”
“Very funny. This simulation should be impervious to any sensors in the mansion, and we’re accelerated in here so the kiss will be good camouflage. Don’t get your hopes up, stud-boy, a minute in real time is all the grope you’ll ever get.”
“Please to meet you, too, babe. And you are?”
“Mellanie Rescorai. The SI sent me to find out what happened to you.”
“I know that name. Oh, yeah, the one who gatecrashed my home with ten thousand guests.”
“Take it up with the SI. I have an updated SIsubroutine which I can decompress into an array for you, if we can find an independent one large enough in the mansion.”
“My inserts should be able to handle it,” Ozzie said. He ordered his e-butler to clear five of the biochips, shunting their files and programs into the remainder, and erecting some very strong fireshields.
“I doubt it,” she said.
“Let’s try, shall we.”
The surface of the gray bubble flared with squalling tangerine and mauve lines. His e-butler told him the biochips were filling up fast.
The lines settled down into interlocking spirals. “Hello, Ozzie,” the SIsubroutine said.
“Neat deal,” Ozzie said.
“You were about to reveal who built the barrier when Sheldon security broke the link.”
“Oh, yeah, what an evening that was.” He explained what Clouddancer had told him about the Anomine race.
“So they will not repair the damage,” the SIsubroutine said.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“MorningLightMountain won’t be a problem for much longer,” Mellanie said. “Nigel and the others have decided to use the nova bomb against Dyson Alpha. They’re also going to destroy any other stars that MorningLightMountain has colonized to make sure it is dead and can’t threaten us ever again.”
