Chapter 63: Space Station

I FELT PARTICULARLY DISGUSTED when I’d finished at the preacher creature’s house. When the flames died in his torture chamber, the ash dissolved into dust and evaporated into the primordial mass from which he had come. I collected the priestesses into Areola and left, getting back to the hotel before morning. Once there, I locked the doors and entered Areola where the priestesses, with Zhi and Artemisia, met me and bathed me in the pool and in the glow of their light.

The victims we had rescued were in various conditions, some having not fully transformed into the automatons the traffickers were trying for and others having gone so far into a different head space that there was nothing we could do for them but purge them of the drugs and return them to the natural world, usually just inside or outside a hospital that could care for them.

Why? Why not care for them in Areola? Those brought into Areola ceased aging, no longer subject to death. It would have been cruel to keep them trapped in their damaged minds forever. At least in the natural world, they would age and die and be released from their pain. It was the best I could do. I truly wished I could heal their minds, but they were beyond the reach of even The Bob.

“Cleveland,” I said. “This one looks intriguing.”

I looked at the crew and my family and they nodded. They’d presented me with a list in some semblance of order that would let me jet around the world again interviewing the candidates and recording the show.

May Abernathy was the candidate in Cleveland. Doug had a good cover for me. I was a new resident of an incubator office building. It was a concept in which new companies could rent discounted office space that included secretarial services and janitorial services. He confided that he’d found a person trying to organize a space and funded him, so I was essentially renting an office for my import/export business from myself.

Nonetheless, May had started a janitorial service and hired a small staff of maids who cleaned four office buildings in the office park and got free office space in our building in return for cleaning ours. I landed in Cleveland and became a desk jockey named ... I’ll just go by Bob for convenience’s sake. Just understand that I didn’t register the business under my name. I was not The Bob in Cleveland.

“Oh, good evening. Are you Mr. Bob? I was told today a new company opened in this office. I’m May and I’m here to clean,” said the sturdy brunette in my doorway.

By sturdy, I mean she was solidly built. With her sleeves rolled up, I could see the muscles in her arms, and it was a cinch that she was not petite. But she was nonetheless attractive and had a bright smile.

“Oh. Hello, May. They told me I should expect you to come in tonight. I’ve just been ... well, working, obviously. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late,” I said.

“No problem. I can come back a little later. I don’t want to interrupt your work. I’ll vacuum last.”

“Thank you. Could you tell me how this works? I’m still new at it all. You just come in and clean? How frequently and what do I owe you?” I asked.

“You don’t owe anything for me. Unless you need something special done.”

“Special?”

“There’s some kind of marketing guy on the third floor who gets carried away and I have to scrub the marker off his window. He just starts writing his plan and outlining campaigns and uses every available surface. Washing windows is something we do once a month. If you need it more often, that will cost you.”

“I see. But normal cleaning each night, like emptying the wastebasket and vacuuming the floors is just included?”

“Yes. Of course, if you really like my service, an occasional tip is nice, but not expected. Same with Christmas gifts, but that’s a long way away,” she laughed.

“I’ve been so focused on my travel arrangements that I guess I really didn’t listen that well during the introductory orientation. Secretaries are the same, right?”

“Sort of. You’ll find a lot more services they offer are in the extras category. Telephone answering, message taking, and greeting visitors is in your package. If you dictate letters or need someone to type up a proposal, that service is extra.”

“I see. Thank you for taking the time to explain. Sometimes I get confused.”

“That’s not at all unusual. The concept has been around a while, but in order to work, a big investor has to basically underwrite the operation in hopes that there will be a big payout when your business matures. Import and export, your door says.”

“Yes. It’s funny. I never even see what I’m shipping, but I still travel all over to make deals. I’ll buy a shipload of grain in the Midwest, sell it to a broker in the Middle East and buy a tanker full of oil there to ship to Florida. That kind of thing.”

“You just buy these things?”

“It’s more like brokering. I find a client in the Middle East who wants the grain and I negotiate the pricing and delivery parameters with the grain producers in the Midwest. The only part of the transaction I see money from is my commission. Which is usually pretty good.”

“Wow. Uh ... Sounds really interesting, but I should let you get your travel plans made and I should get back to cleaning. See you later.”

Introduction accomplished. I set about stage two, which was emptying and breaking down all the boxes Doug had shipped to me for my ‘new office.’ Everything was well-organized, so by the time May got back to my office, I had a stack of boxes to take to recycling.

I timed things right so I was backing out of my door with a stack of corrugated in my arms and bumped into May.

“Ah. We meet again. I was just trying to get these boxes out of the way so you can vacuum. I’m sorry, but there’s a lot of paper dust in there.”

“No problem. This is my last room for the night.”

“Can you tell me where to take all these for recycling?” I asked.

“Oh, just leave them. I’ll get them out to the loading dock.”

“Loading dock? It’s no problem. I don’t want to create extra work for you. I’ll take them down. Can I take anything for you?”

“Really? Um ... If you want to. Let me dump your baskets and you can take my bag of recycling with you.” She quickly added the few scraps of paper I’d thrown in my recycling basket to her bag, tied it off, and handed it to me. “If you use the first set of stairs, the dock is right at the foot of them. The recycling dumpster is to the left of the dock.”

“Thank you. This won’t take but a minute.”

It took a few minutes and I was afraid I would miss May by the time I got back from juggling the flattened but still unwieldy boxes. When I got back to my office, she was just winding up her vacuum’s cord. The office was spotless. My desk had even been wiped down and everything on it was arranged tastefully.

“If you leave papers or anything related to your business on your desk, I won’t touch it. But if it is just your decorative items and office supplies, I’ll dust them and make sure everything on your desk is clean.”

“You’re so efficient. I guess I can close up for the night. If you’re off now, I’d happily buy you a drink. I’m so wound up and excited about having an office that I could use a drink to settle down. For three years I’ve been running my business out of the front seat of my car and my briefcase.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t usually. But ... um ... give me a minute to stow my things in the janitor closet and I guess I’ll join you, just to celebrate your arrival.” She glanced at my desk and then took off for wherever her janitor closet was. I grabbed my hat and satchel and was locking the door when she returned.

“There’s a little after hours bar across the parking lot if that’s okay with you,” she said. “We might even meet some of the other late workers from the office park there.”

“Sounds great.”

We got to the little bar and there were a couple of other office workers that May stopped to introduce me to. She was obviously known and liked by everyone. We sat at a table and ordered drinks.

“So, Mr. Bob, I noticed that you have a pen set in recognition of service to Space Pioneers. What did you ship for them? Have inside information on where their launch is going to be?”

“Oh, no. I’m afraid not. I arranged a shipment of parts that were urgently needed from Japan to California. I think, frankly, they could have sent an email and gotten them just as quickly. But my company expedited the customs process and made sure the correct fees were paid, so I suppose we did our part,” I said.

“It’s too bad about their delay. I could have told them they wouldn’t blast off on the schedule they’d set,” she sighed.

“You could? How’s that?”

“They’re going about it all wrong. I appreciate the idea of wanting to keep their launch location a big secret, but everything I’ve researched indicates the ship they are building is way too small to be effective for interplanetary travel. Maybe for resupply and communications, but not for colonization. Even if The Bob has a portal, like he says he has.”

“You doubt that?”

“I’m a physicist. There are a few things I understand about things like instantaneous travel from one point to another,” she said.

“I thought you were a janitor!” I said.

“I own a janitorial service company and I clean offices in our building in exchange for an office and services myself. But I’ve got a PhD in Physics with a thesis on orbital escape velocities. Their little ship can’t carry enough fuel to escape from Earth’s gravity well and power a flight all the way to Mars. And they have to understand, of course, that it’s a one-way trip because they won’t have enough fuel to get back, even out of the weaker gravitational field of Mars.”

“Wow! What are you doing cleaning offices?”

“Check the job boards tomorrow for employers seeking a Doctor of Physics with a specialization in orbital mechanics. Oh, there are jobs for scientists with my qualifications, but they aren’t engaged in space travel. NASA is still a good old boys network, no matter what you hear about the training of female astronauts. Did you know that even in the sciences, women are paid less than 80% of what their equally qualified male counterparts are? Don’t get me started.”

“Well, how about going to work for Space Pioneers? I hear they have a good reputation for women in the business.”

“I haven’t managed to get anyone to return a call from Space Pioneers. That’s why I joined the applicants for that TV reality show. Stupid, really. It’s not like The Bob would ever look twice at me. I know I’m a nerd and I’m ... a little bigger than most of the candidates he’s had on his show. And I don’t just sleep with a guy because he’s rich.” She kind of laid that on the table and looked at me until I’d met her eyes. “I’d never be able to get out of bed if I did that. I just want a chance to show my stuff,” she said. She might be self-conscious about her size, but I saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. I’d love for her to show her stuff.

Okay, I needed to tone down my runaway libido and really think about what she had to offer.

We headed back to the offices—me to my car and just before we parted, I said, “May, I really liked spending a little time with you and appreciate you making a couple of introductions. I am leaving tomorrow afternoon for a week ... eight days. Is there a chance we could get together again when I get back?”

“Hmm. I guess so. Just something light. I’m really not at a stage in my life where I can consider anything serious. Okay?”

“That’s great. Let’s plan for a week from Friday evening. I’d just like to sit and talk for a while. Nothing serious. You sound like a great friend.”

She waved as I opened my car door. I held it open long enough to let my camerawoman crawl in before I slipped in.

“She didn’t say anything about being a PhD in physics in her application,” Paul said as Julie sat on his lap. He’d read through the apps with Julie when they weren’t screwing. Or when I wasn’t screwing her. He was our resident expert in Astrophysics.

“I’d just hire her on the spot,” Karla said. “What kind of an idea does she have that will get us into space faster?”

“I’m not sure it will be faster,” I said. “But it should be interesting to discover. I was careful not to probe too deeply when we went out.”

“What a loaded word,” Deedee said as she settled into my lap. “You can probe me deeply, lover.”

That was a great thought. In fact, it was how I spent most of my night in a hotel room in Cleveland before I caught my flight to Europe the next day.

I flew in business class to Amsterdam and first class from Amsterdam to Bucharest, Romania. I found the flight attendants to Europe to be less flirtatious than the ones I’d encountered flying to Asia. I suppose it all depends on who is on your flight. I’m sure there are both flirtatious flight attendants and strictly-business flight attendants of all races on every airline.