Звезда Пандоры

“Idiot,” he grunted. The inspection panel clipped back into place; he gave the locking pins a few thumps with the top of his medium pliers to secure them. His e-butler gave the autopicker array a resume operations order, and the arms slowly stretched out again. Clippers snicked at the top of clusters. The movements began to speed up. Mark nodded in satisfaction, and pulled his sunglasses out of his overalls pocket.

“They’re coming here, Dada,” Sandy yelled out.

The car had slowed to turn up the drive into the Vernons’ vineyard. It didn’t look like anything a Randtown inhabitant would own.

“Come on then,” he told his kids. “Let’s go meet them.”

They ducked between vines as they ran toward the drive, calling for Panda who was off chasing wobes, the local fieldmice-equivalents. Mark reached the end of the row, where he got a good look at the fancy car as it neared the house. Its sleek shape clued him in on who was visiting.

The MG came to a halt beside the Ables pickup; and the suspension lowered itself back down from the extended rough-ride position so that the wheels fitted back into the chassis again. A gull-wing door opened in the side, and Carys Panther got out. She was wearing a chic paneled suede skirt and expensive hand-tooled cowboy boots, with a simple white blouse. Her dove-gray Stetson was carried in one hand.

Barry gave a welcoming whoop and rushed forward. Sandy was smiling happily, it was always exciting when Aunty Carys visited.

“Nice metalware,” Mark said sardonically.

“Oh, that?” Carys gave a dismissive wave toward the MG. “It’s my boyfriend’s wife’s car.”

Mark made an exaggerated appeal to the heavens. She always had to make an entrance.

Neither of the two housemaids who brought breakfast to the room at eleven o’clock would meet Mellanie’s gaze. They put the big trays down on the table and walked out.

“Screw you,” Mellanie told them after the door had shut behind them. She started lifting the silver lids off the plates. Room service might be crap, but the kitchen was certainly four-star. “Tuck in,” she told Dudley.

He sat opposite her, as nervous as a school kid facing the principal. She could remember that sensation well enough.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“Your story.”

“Is that all I am, a story?”

“We are all stories, ultimately. I want to help you, Dudley, I really do. If you can come to terms with what’s happened, you’ll be so much happier. I think I can do that for you. I really do.”

“And us? What about us?”

She smiled cheekily, picking up a strawberry and licking it in a suitably wicked fashion. “You don’t think I give myself like that to anyone I don’t care about, do you?”

His answering smile was one of cautious relief. She pulled her chair around the table until she was pressed up beside him. With him watching in silent fascination she picked up another strawberry and held it delicately in her teeth. Very slowly she undid her bathrobe and pulled it open, then leaned in toward him, guiding the strawberry into his mouth. He bit into it, their lips touching.

“Oh, God.” He was trembling, his eyes damp.

“Now you feed me something.”

Dudley held up a slim slice of pancake dripping with maple syrup. She laughed as the drops fell on her breasts, then nibbled her way up the pancake slice. Dudley leaped at her, knocking the breakfast trays across the table. She was amazed he’d shown that much restraint, and laughed again as her chair went flying backward. They both tumbled onto the floor, with Dudley tugging frantically at his own bathrobe.

He fucked her there and then on the expensive moozaki rug with orange juice leaking down on top of them from the overturned glasses on the table. Then she was pulled over to the bed and fucked again.

“I’m going to need another bath,” she said after he’d finally spent himself. Even though he’d done his best to lick all the syrup and juicy lolabeans off her chest and thighs she was still awfully sticky.

“I’ll join you.”

She grinned, snuggling up against him. “So when did you meet Paula Myo?”

“Before the flight,” he said, sighing. “They took me out of rejuve for the interview.”

“They did what?”

“I was undergoing partial rejuvenation before the flight. There wasn’t time for a full one, but I was quite old, physiologically, so they were going to bring my age down as much as they could before they started my crew training. Paula Myo had me taken out. She questioned me and Wendy. I can’t remember much of what I said, it was very disorienting having the procedure interrupted. That’s why I wasn’t as young as I wanted to be when we left. Not as young as Oscar Monroe wanted, either.”

“Don’t start putting any value on what that old lush says. You said Myo was quizzing you about a break-in.”

“Yeah. My bitch ex talked to Bradley Johansson, who was masquerading as a reporter; he asked her about the organizations who funded my observation. The next thing we know our home was broken into and every file copied from the house array.”

“What did Myo think the connection was?”