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Authors: John Barnes
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through her sodden hair with disgust. “Thank Nakasen for a shower before final acceleration,”
she said. “And a clean dress uniform still left.”
Dujuv stared at a spot on the wall, not admitting that Myx was there.
Jak shrugged, keeping up his personal pretense that he was on good terms with both the other CUPVs. “I’m just looking forward
to no duty for a while. They work you hard on Spatial ships, compared to sunclippers.”
Sesh had saved money by booking the three of them into a “three-passenger suite,” as the Spatial called a closet-sized space
with a toilet/shower and three adjoining coffin bunks. As Myx showered and Duj sulked and waited, Jak pretended to read ethnography.
Dujuv obstinately insisted that he was not jealous, angry, or upset with Myxenna, and maintained that he toktru had never
liked her. Myxenna, for her part, was happy to be friends with anybody, and lovers with anybody attractive, but she was absolutely
not about to try to deal with any of Dujuv’s emotions. On Jak and Myx’s last night together in his apartment, when she had
sneaked in after Jak had seen Fnina for quick sex and the obligatory romantic public passionate farewell scene, Myx had said,
“All right, there’s a medical explanation for Dujuv. But it’s not a compliment to have someone devoted to you like a codependent
Saint Bernard.”
The shower turned off. “You can have the next one,” Jak said to Dujuv, who silently rose, grabbed his towel and shower things,
and floated patiently by the door till Myx emerged wrapped in her towel. He airswam in.
The moment the door closed, Myx gave Jak a big smile, took off the towel, made sure he took a good look, winked, and airswam
into her bunk to dress.
It probably helped her feel attractive, but it ruined Jak’s concentration on solar system ethnography. Today’s topic was
Unit 15: The Mars Origin Cults and the Eleven Martian Nations with MOC Beginnings, Part 1: Four Nations that Still Maintain
MOCs.
Privately Jak still thought of the topic as “the four dumbest gangs of savages in the solar system, and how to humor them,”
but he had at least learned to suppress such thoughts while taking his exams, and had a passing mark on all six of them so
far, with three to go.
This time, he reminded himself. Then only six more times through the whole course before graduation. Unless he finished at
the top of the class … he smiled. He had finally thought of something to make himself laugh.
The acceleration alarm sounded all clear, and instantly the enormous weight that had been crushing Jak down into the safety
couch turned off, and he returned to near-weightlessness. The last, hour-long burst of the quarkjets had been the worst, not
because the acceleration was any greater, but because it had all become extremely familiar and there had been nothing to do
about it. The gray-sleep drugs, the painkillers, and the breathing assister all helped, and making sure you peed before lying
down really helped, but eight g is eight g, and an hour of it feels just like lying on a bed with seven of yourself stacked
on top of you. And after five previous one-hour bursts, with an hour break between each, as
Up Yours
zigged and zagged its way down to orbital velocity to match the Aerie, the knowledge of what was coming and how it would
feel had settled into Jak’s bones.
Beside him, Myxenna sat up, groaning, and even Dujuv looked pale and tired. The one consolation about their utter unimportance
to the ship was that they didn’t have any immediate duties after any of the acceleration bursts, and therefore they had a
few minutes to stretch out the kinks before anything else came at them.
As they all floated, stretching, in their small cabin, trying not to bump into each other, a subtle force caused them all
to drift toward the wall of coffin bunks. “Cold jets,” Jak said, “they’ve started the last course corrections.”
The speaker in
she said. “And a clean dress uniform still left.”
Dujuv stared at a spot on the wall, not admitting that Myx was there.
Jak shrugged, keeping up his personal pretense that he was on good terms with both the other CUPVs. “I’m just looking forward
to no duty for a while. They work you hard on Spatial ships, compared to sunclippers.”
Sesh had saved money by booking the three of them into a “three-passenger suite,” as the Spatial called a closet-sized space
with a toilet/shower and three adjoining coffin bunks. As Myx showered and Duj sulked and waited, Jak pretended to read ethnography.
Dujuv obstinately insisted that he was not jealous, angry, or upset with Myxenna, and maintained that he toktru had never
liked her. Myxenna, for her part, was happy to be friends with anybody, and lovers with anybody attractive, but she was absolutely
not about to try to deal with any of Dujuv’s emotions. On Jak and Myx’s last night together in his apartment, when she had
sneaked in after Jak had seen Fnina for quick sex and the obligatory romantic public passionate farewell scene, Myx had said,
“All right, there’s a medical explanation for Dujuv. But it’s not a compliment to have someone devoted to you like a codependent
Saint Bernard.”
The shower turned off. “You can have the next one,” Jak said to Dujuv, who silently rose, grabbed his towel and shower things,
and floated patiently by the door till Myx emerged wrapped in her towel. He airswam in.
The moment the door closed, Myx gave Jak a big smile, took off the towel, made sure he took a good look, winked, and airswam
into her bunk to dress.
It probably helped her feel attractive, but it ruined Jak’s concentration on solar system ethnography. Today’s topic was
Unit 15: The Mars Origin Cults and the Eleven Martian Nations with MOC Beginnings, Part 1: Four Nations that Still Maintain
MOCs.
Privately Jak still thought of the topic as “the four dumbest gangs of savages in the solar system, and how to humor them,”
but he had at least learned to suppress such thoughts while taking his exams, and had a passing mark on all six of them so
far, with three to go.
This time, he reminded himself. Then only six more times through the whole course before graduation. Unless he finished at
the top of the class … he smiled. He had finally thought of something to make himself laugh.
The acceleration alarm sounded all clear, and instantly the enormous weight that had been crushing Jak down into the safety
couch turned off, and he returned to near-weightlessness. The last, hour-long burst of the quarkjets had been the worst, not
because the acceleration was any greater, but because it had all become extremely familiar and there had been nothing to do
about it. The gray-sleep drugs, the painkillers, and the breathing assister all helped, and making sure you peed before lying
down really helped, but eight g is eight g, and an hour of it feels just like lying on a bed with seven of yourself stacked
on top of you. And after five previous one-hour bursts, with an hour break between each, as
Up Yours
zigged and zagged its way down to orbital velocity to match the Aerie, the knowledge of what was coming and how it would
feel had settled into Jak’s bones.
Beside him, Myxenna sat up, groaning, and even Dujuv looked pale and tired. The one consolation about their utter unimportance
to the ship was that they didn’t have any immediate duties after any of the acceleration bursts, and therefore they had a
few minutes to stretch out the kinks before anything else came at them.
As they all floated, stretching, in their small cabin, trying not to bump into each other, a subtle force caused them all
to drift toward the wall of coffin bunks. “Cold jets,” Jak said, “they’ve started the last course corrections.”
The speaker in
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