Chapter 11 : Crystal

Jack was woken by a call from Hugo.

“Hey Jack why don’t you come up to the bar on level eight. There’s someone you should meet. She‘s, like, a friend of a friend.”

It seemed a strange time for Hugo to be calling. Jack checked the time which was still set to ship’s clock, and judging from that they had landed twelve hours ago and they should be asleep. He switched it to P36 clock and it read 32:15, almost midnight here.

“You’d be well advised to stay on ship’s time Hugo, and get regular sleep. This thirty-three hour day might be OK for the locals but it will debilitating for us.”

Having said that Jack was already feeling quite alert, and was wondering who it was that Hugo had met.

“Just this once, Hugo. I’m coming up.”

Jack went into the bathroom for a wash and looked at himself in the mirror. He had been sleeping in his clothes and they were now crumpled, and he needed a shave, but he judged his appearance just about acceptable. His hair, though, had been growing uncut for weeks and was flopping down over his forehead, looking just as it did when Jack was a teenager, and as he swept it back with a wet comb he flashed back to his youth, to his idle college days, grooming himself for a date with a girl picked up at the morning lecture.

Helped through the maze of corridors by signs posted at every junction, Jack found his way up to the bar. It was a large, double height space with lights beaming down onto a circular service area in the middle. Tables were arranged around the edge of the room where the light barely penetrated, and a few couples sat there in quiet, discreet conversation. One woman sat on a stool talking to the bartender. He found Hugo talking on a phone, at a table in a dark corner. Hugo broke off his conversation sharply and rose to meet Jack.

“You should meet Crystal. She’s a friend of this news editor Grinko that I used to write to.”

Jack wondered how this rookie, who had never been out of the solar system before, and as far as Jack could tell had never even had a serious relationship, could fix him up with someone within a day of making port in this remote colony. Perhaps there was more to Hugo than met the eye. He led Jack over to the woman at the bar, offered a perfunctory introduction and went back to his corner, and the bartender went back to polishing glasses, leaving Jack and Crystal alone.

“You look just as I imagined”, Crystal said, smiling and casting her eyes over Jack.

She was fine-looking woman, a brunette, with small pointed nose, and large dark eyes set deep into an exotically wide face. Jack hadn’t met anyone this attractive in quite a while and he was taken by surprise.

“Hugo was talking about you, he was talking about this burly pilot who sleeps at the controls like a bear guarding his den.”

“I might have been a bit protective”, Jack said, “given that this is Hugo’s first mission. The important thing for him, for his career, is that he hasn‘t screwed up, and I guess he didn‘t get much of a chance.”

Jack put a card on the bar and asked the bartender for some red wine, and was presented with a glossy menu offering dozens of options. He looked enquiringly at Crystal.

“All this is made locally ?”

“All on the second floor, in fact. There‘s a big biolab there, I visit occasionally to get some analysis done. I’ve been experimenting with my diet.”

Crystal suddenly seemed pensive and stared into her glass, and Jack casually took the opportunity to look at her figure. Her tight-fitting dress revealed a well-muscled frame, that of a woman who might have worked with men. He wondered if she had served in the Fleet, or perhaps the SSS, and an unpleasant thought occurred to him, as he remembered Irwin’s threat to probe into the unexpected rendezvous with Hal. Could she have been sent here to investigate him ? Jack lost interest in the wine varieties and ordered the first one on the list. He resolved to find out as much as he could about Crystal and to tell her nothing, for now.

“What sort of diet experiment is this ?”

“I don’t live in the habitat any more. I have a cabin, and I eat a few of the native plants. I‘m evaluating the options for a natural diet here. We have a whole world and we eat synthetic food designed to support a population like the earth‘s. Doesn‘t it seem crazy to you ?”

As Crystal looked at Jack she seemed defensive, bracing herself for a verbal assault.

“I have only just arrived here”, Jack said, “so you will have to explain to me why anyone who doesn’t live in this building seems to be regarded as psychologically unsound by those that do.”

“Psychologically unsound ? Who said that ?”

Jack took a long, slow drink of Greenshoot wine and let the carefully calibrated flavors play inside his mouth. He paused and looked coolly at the beautiful woman next to him.

“Crystal, why don’t you tell me all about yourself ?”

“I came here as a journalist. Well, actually I wanted to be a journalist, but I had trouble finding a job, and I was running out of money, so I decided to spend what I had left on the flight to Greenshoot. My idea was to write some sketches, interviews, and sell them to publishers on the earth. I thought it would make my reputation. Then I suppose I was going to go back, but it didn’t work out that way. I didn’t make the sales I’d expected, and I got know people at the news station here, because I was always hanging around the President’s office and competing with them for access, and they offered me a job. Well I quit that last summer and built the cabin. I still write a few pieces for them. Maybe I‘ll write something about you, Jack. You must have a few stories for me.”

“Why did you leave the news service ?”

“Now that’s getting personal.”

“You had an affair with the editor ?”

“Who told you that ?”

Jack speculated again. “Grinko.“

Crystal simmered for a while then got up to leave. Jack caught her by the arm and she spun her head round and glared at him. Seeing her standing there, her wide hips stretching the fabric of her dress, so volatile and spirited, he was captivated. If she was conning him it was a class act, too good perhaps for the SSS. Jack gave her a sheepish smile and something seemed to pass between them, for Crystal relaxed and sat back down again.

“It wasn’t just about that”, she said taking another gulp of wine. “After a few years here it gets stifling, even if you’re used to living in a small apartment. I took to hiking, along the ridge that overlooks the habitat going north, and back along the shoreline where the railway runs. Those tracks, by the way, they predate the habitat. They were built pre-war.” Crystal pointed a finger upwards and gave Jack a wry smile. “Anyway, at the end of the line someone built a beautiful house and I got to know him and his family. His name is Scooter Marlin. If you’ve seen a promotion for the colony you’ll have seen this house, with the sea, and the forest behind. Of course I couldn’t get anything like that built, next to that my cabin is tiny, but I got a taste of something different out there with the Marlins and I didn‘t want to go back.”

“Perhaps you could show me this place you’ve got out in the woods.”

“Yeah, I like that, Jack.”

“Tomorrow I will have a few jobs to do on the ship. So how about the day after ? That will be day four hundred and twenty of your year. Unless you have a better name for it.”

“There’s a referendum coming up on calendars. You’d be entitled to vote even though you’re a visitor. But right now we just use the numbering. I think it’s best if I come and find you and show you the way to the cabin. You wouldn’t want to get lost out there.”

“I‘m in level 6 suite 17. You have a nice evening Crystal.”