Dark Benediction

“I said—” The opening of the hatch interrupted her thought. A dazzling brunette in a filmy yellow dress bounced into the compartment, bringing with her a breath of perfume. Suds looked at her and emitted a loud guttural cluck. A kind of glazed incredulity kneaded his face into a mask of shocked granite wearing a supercilious moustache. The girl ignored his presence and bent over the table to chat excitedly in French with Mme. d’Annecy. Suds’s eyes seemed to find a mind and will of their own; involuntarily they contemplated the details of her architecture, and found manifest fascination in the way she relieved an itch at the back of one trim calf by rubbing it vigorously with the instep of her other foot while she leaned over the desk and bounced lightly on tiptoe as she spoke.

“M’sieur Brodanovitch, the young lady wishes to know—M’sieur Brodanovitch?—M’sieur!”

“What—? Oh.” Suds straightened and rubbed his eyes. “Yes?”

“One of your young men has asked Giselle out for a walk. We have pressure suits, of course. But is it safe to promenade about this area?” She paused. “M’sieur, please!”

“What?” Suds shook his head. He tore his eyes away from the yellow dress and glanced at a head suddenly thrust in through the hatch. The head belonged to Relke. It saw Brodanovitch and withdrew in haste, but Suds made no sign of recognition. He blinked at Madame again.

“M’sieur, is it safe?”

“What? Oh.’ I suppose it is.” He gulped his brandy and poured another.

Mme. d’Annecy spoke briefly to the girl, who, after a hasty merci and a nod at Suds went off to join Relke outside. When they were gone, Madame smilingly offered her pen to the engineer. Suds stared at it briefly, shook his head, and helped himself to another brandy. He gulped it and reached for his helmet. La d’Annecy snapped her fingers suddenly and went to a locker near the bulkhead. She came back with a quart bottle.

“M’sieur’ will surely accept a small token?” She offered the bottle for his inspection. “It is Mumms 2064, a fine year. Take it, M’sieur. Or do you not care for champagne? It is our only bottle, and what is one bottle of wine for such a crowd? Take it—or would you prefer the brandy?”

Suds blinked at the gift while he fastened his helmet and clamped it. He seemed dazed. She held the bottle out to him and smiled hopefully. Suds accepted it absent-mindedly, nodded at her, and stepped into the airlock. The hatch slid closed.

Mme. d’Annecy started back toward her counting table. The alarm bell burst into a sudden brazen clamor. She looked back. A red warning signal flashed balefully. Henriburst in from the corridor, eyed the bell and the light, then charged toward the airlock. The gauge by the hatch showed zero pressure. He pressed a starter button, and a meter hummed to life. The pressure needle crept upward. The bell and the light continued a frenetic complaint. The motor stopped. Henri glanced at the gauge, then swung open the hatch. “Allons! Ma foi, quelle merde!”

Mme. d’Annecy came to peer around him into the small cubicle. Her subsequent shriek penetrated to the farthest corridors. Suds Brodanovitch had missed his last chance to become a stockholder.

“It wasn’t yo’ fault, Ma’am,” said Lije Henderson a few minutes later as they half-led, half-carried her to her compartment. “He know bettuh than to step outside with that bottle of booze. You didn’t know. You couldn’ be ‘spected to know. But he been heah long enough to know—a man make one mistake, thass all. BLOOIE.”

Blooie was too graphic to suit Madame; she sagged and began retching.

“C’mon, Ma’,am, less get you in yo hammock.” They carried her into her quarters, eased her into bed, and stepped back out on the catwalk.

Lije mopped his face, leaned against a tension member, and glanced at Joe. “Now how come you s’pose he had that bottle of fizzling giggle water up close to his helmet that way, Joe?”

“I don’t know. Reading the label, maybe.”

“He sho’ muss have had something on his mine.”

“Well, it’s gone now.”

“Yeah. BLOOIE. Man!”

Relke had led the girl out through the lock in the reactor nacelle in order to evade Brodanovitch and a possible command to return to camp. They sat in Novotny’s runabout and giggled cozily together at the fuzzy map of Earth that floated in the darkness above them. On the ship’s fuselage, the warning light over the airlock hatch began winking, indicating that the lock was in use. The girl noticed it and nudged him. She pointed at the light.

“Somebody coming out,” Relke muttered. “Maybe Suds.

We’d better get out of here.” He flipped the main switch and started the motor. He was backing onto the road when Giselle caught his arm.

“Beel! Look at the light!”

He glanced around. It was flashing red.

“Malfunction signal. Compressor trouble, probably. It’s nothing. Let’s take a ride. Joe won’t care.” He started backing again.

“Poof!” she said suddenly.

“What?”