Shattered Bonds (continued)

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Wendy stared at him, trying to force her mind to focus on the present. She had no memory of hearing him walk up and wondered if she might have dozed off there at the table. Shaking her head slowly, she looked down at her coffee, relieved to see steam still rising from it. If she had nodded off, it had only been for a few moments.

“Medical . . . situation,” she told him. She had almost said “emergency”, but it really had not been, and she did not want to alarm him.

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

Wendy shook her head again. “Just the [aliens].”

Pasquale gave her an inquiring look.

Wendy felt the tightness return to her chest. She forced herself not to wipe at her eyes.

“One of them—Rentu—was dying,” she told him, forcing each word past the lump reforming in her throat. “. . . old age.”

Pasquale’s expression took on a layer of compassion and sadness. “That sounds serious to me,” he remarked.

His tone was a gentle prompt for her to continue. It carried the barest trace of his ancestral French accent. It tended to come out in the vowels, particularly when he was upset or excited. When she did not immediately respond, he sat down across from her, continuing to cradle his own mug between his hands.

Pasquale was older than she was, by at least two decades. His skin was only lightly tanned, lacking the rugged creases of age that the faces of many others of his generation carried. There were lines and wrinkles there, to be sure, but they seemed to have been smoothed out with time, rather than deepened. His skin had not yet acquired the same coarse papery texture as had some of the other older colonists, such as the Colonel.

Wendy found that surprising, considering all of the time that the colony’s geological specialist spend outdoors. Of course, she considered, he could avoid the worst parts of the day, as the rocks would still be there. That, though, did not explain why he was up at this ungodly hour, even he if he pulled kitchen duty. (She had tasted one of his omelets once; she sincerely hoped that he had not.)

He seemed to read her question before she could bring herself to state it.

“I was helping Derek with some maintenance at the large equipment yard,” he said. “He likes the company.”

Wendy managed to suppress a smile.

Uh huh. And you don’t mind watching his rippling muscles when he’s not wearing a shirt.

She had to admit that, aesthetically, that the man was gorgeous. Yet, there was something about the colony’s lead engineer that failed to attract her. There were other men in the colony, some not nearly as handsomely constructed as Derek, who made her breath catch and pulse race. As he had never shown any interest in her anyway, it was not a problem that felt needed solved.

“I’d already planned an expedition with Tony and Alex to the southeast hills to collect new samples for this morning,” he explained. “So this,” he said, raising his mug, “and hope it keeps me going until we return.”

He gave her wide, genuine smile, chuckled, and took a deep swallow of the dark liquid. Breathing a sigh of satisfaction, he leaned back and returned his attention to Wendy.

“I am sorry about your friend.”

Wendy looked up at him, surprised.

“The [alien],” he explained. “You must have known him well for it to bother you so.”

Wendy stared down at her mug. “Not so well,” she murmured.

“Still,” Pasquale insisted gently, “it must still be hard.”

Wendy nodded, feeling the tears form at the corners of her eyes again.

“He was very old,” Wendy said quietly, still not meeting Pasquale’s gaze.

Pasquale nodded slowly and then sipped again at his coffee.

“I’ll be fine,” Wendy offered, still not quite daring to look directly at the geologist.

This claim, though, brought a renewed smile to his face. Reaching across the table, he squeezed her hand gently.

“I know you will,” he stated with a compassionate confidence. “But it will still bother you,” he said. “That’s what makes you a fine doctor.”

Wendy felt a reluctant smile form on her lips. Some of her inner gloom faded and she finally looked up at Pasquale. He released her hand and, for a moment, she thought he might raise it to his lips for a chaste kiss.

He did not, placing it instead gently back on the table, and she found herself mildly disappointed.

“Thanks,” she told him with sincere appreciation.

He smiled, continuing to study her face.

Whatever he intended to say next was interrupted by a sudden crash from the kitchen area. They both started to rise in alarm, pausing when they heard Karla’s familiar voice from the kitchen.

“Damn those boys! How many times have I told them not to stack those pots on the floor?”

Wendy looked away from Pasquale and snickered, the humor washing away nearly all of her remaining melancholy. Pasquale grinned. Leaving their coffee behind, the two of them went to see what disorder had raised Karla’s ire that morning.

Karla looked up as they reached the doorway. She knelt, picking up items from the floor. She was several centimeters shorter than Wendy, and looked even smaller crouched there on the floor.

Seeing Wendy, she grimaced with annoyance. “I’m fine,” she snapped, only half-irritably. “Other than having to wash all this again.”

Pasquale bent down and started gathering some of the spilled utensils. Wendy righted an enormous stock.

“Just toss those in the sink,” Karla directed Pasquale. “That,” she told Wendy, “that . . . just leave there for now.”

“Damn kids,” she muttered again, grabbing the last dropped spatula. “I should wake ‘em all and make ‘em wash it all over again,” she went on, speaking as much to herself at to Wendy and Pasquale. “But then breakfast’d be late and I know how cranky y’all get when the vittles aren’t ready on time.”

She stopped and peered at the two of them as if really noticing them for the first time. “What are you two doing here?” she asked suspiciously. “You aren’t on the morning list.”

Wendy and Pasquale exchanged a guilty look, even though they had done nothing at all wrong.

“We, um,” Wendy managed to get out, “were just having coffee.”

Karla’s eyes studied them intently. “Uh huh,” she replied dubiously. “Well,” she went on, saying, “unless you really do want to help, I’d suggest you’d get out of here.”

Wendy glanced quickly at Pasquale, saw his silent agreement, and, as one, they turned and headed quickly back through the doorway.

Once back in the main dining hall, they both burst into laughter. Hearing it echo in the otherwise empty room, they suppressed it immediately, reducing it to barely strangled sniggers.

“I think,” Wendy finally said, taking a deep breath in the hope of quieting of the last of her laughter, “I’d better head back. I haven’t even showered yet.”

“Nor have I,” Pasquale agreed, still chuckling softly.

He reached over and squeezed Wendy’s arm lightly. It looked as if there was something more he wanted to say, but he seemed to decide to keep it to himself. Releasing Wendy’s arm, he turned and headed for the door that led back out into the compound. Wendy considered finishing her coffee, but felt the slight acid burn of it growing in her stomach. She had suffered minor bouts of morning sickness during the early weeks of her pregnancy. Although mild, she had no wish to tempt fate.

Not smart, Wendy . . . and on an empty stomach.

She turned and hurried back toward her dwelling—just in case.

Greg was awake and up when she got there. He looked up from his tablet as she enter, sipping from a container of some kind of pinkish juice.

“Where’ve you been?” He seemed more mildly curious than actually interested.

“One of the [aliens],” she explained, not really wanting to get into it yet again.

Unfortunately, it seemed to get his attention. “Oh?”

She tried a half-shrug, hoping that would forestall him. “Just old age . . . again.”

“The wasting thing?”

Wendy nodded.

Greg looked thoughtful. “Been seeing a lot of that.”

“They’re getting old,” Wendy replied, snapping quite a bit more than she had intended.

Greg regarded her with a curious frown.

“I’m going to grab a shower,” she announced and headed toward the bathroom.

Although she had hoped that would end the conversation, she could feel Greg’s eyes on her back the entire way.

#

Wendy was working at the colony’s clinic, transcribing some notes from the morning’s cases, when Daniel arrived for his appointment. She was alone. There had been no serious cases, and none that had required sustained attention from previous days, so Greg had gone off to assist one of the veterinarians with an inspection of the new calves and piglets.

Daniel picked through the bowl of candied fruit she kept on the desk to coax the children with until he found one he liked. He popped it into his mouth, chewing it slowly.

“I heard you had some excitement this morning.”

Wendy suppressed a sigh.

How many more times am I going to have to revisit this?

It was, she knew, one of the attributes of a small colony. News—news of any kind—traveled fast. Reputations could be demolished in mere hours, particularly if the transgression was serious enough and there was little else of interest happening that day. Scandals were difficult to hide if even one witness reported it to someone else. Someone heading out to the [alien] village in the middle of the night was a rare enough event, but Wendy decided that it must have been a particularly slow news day for her midnight journey to have gathered this much attention.

“Not really,” she replied, not taking her eyes up from the tablet. “One of the [aliens] died—old age.”

Daniel nodded. “A shame,” he said solemnly. “They’re good people.”

This brought a smile to Wendy’s lips. Daniel was one of the few older colonists who had fully accepted the [aliens] as a fully sentient and capable race.

“What can I do for you?” she asked him, placing the tablet aside and looking up at him. “You were a little . . . vague when you called.”

Daniel looked away from her and down. His throat moved as he swallowed.

Oh my god, Wendy thought with surprise. Is he blushing?

Daniel was several centimeters taller than she was and nearly whipcord thin. He was well past eighty and more fit than many of the men a third his age. It was only during the past few months that his tightly lean muscles had begun softening toward fat. It was not hard for Wendy to imagine him, based on the images and movies she had seen brought from Earth, of him dressed in a ten-gallon hat, raising vast herds of livestock, and roaming his lands atop a proud and majestic horse.

Here on Urd, the closest he came to that vision was being in charge of the large crop beds. They had no horses, and, while they had tractors and similar equipment, little of it resembled their historical counterparts. Gone, for example, was the dark exhaust from being powered by petroleum-based fuels. It was nearly all solar, wind, or, in a few cases, steam power here.

“Well . . . Doctor . . .” he began formally.

It was all Wendy could do not to allow her eyebrows to disappear up her forehead and into her bangs. It was not uncommon for Daniel to refer to her as “Dr. Aimes” professionally. She had finally gotten him to call her “Wendy” in purely social settings, but it seemed to have taken her getting those first gray hairs in order for him to do so. This seemed different even that. The man appeared to be genuinely uneasy, almost . . . embarrassed(?!) by what he wanted to ask.

“Would like to discuss this with Greg—Dr. [] instead?” she offered gently. “He’s just over at the stock pens. I can reach him easily.”

“Hmm?” He seemed genuinely surprised by the offer.

Wendy felt a little guilty at, however unintentionally, flustering the man even further.

“No,” he assured her hurriedly. He managed a light, if somewhat strained smile. “You’ve poked and prodded just about every part of this poor body, I should be able to ask you about it.”

Wendy stood back and waiting, watching Daniel without actual staring at him. His fingers fidgeted and she wondered just what he was having trouble with.

“I’ve been spending time with this lady,” he finally said, his eyes touching just about every point in the room except for Wendy’s face. “We finally, well, felt it was time for . . . well, to be intimate.”

Wendy watched as his expression collapsed and he looked as forlorn as she could ever imagine him being.

“I guess I’m not the man I once was,” he finished, breathing a deep sigh.

Biting back a grin, Wendy breathed out slowly, relieved to learn that the problem was not as serious as she might have feared. She was also annoyed to discover that her own cheeks tingled with awkward embarrassment. It was scarcely unheard of for men of Daniel’s age to still be sexually active—some even quite so. Since the average human lifespan had tipped over the century scale, the dividing line for “middle age” had been a very fuzzy one indeed.

Still, the problem that he described could be a potential symptom of more serious cardiovascular or glandular issues. Judging from his remarkably good physical condition, and lack of any previous complaints, she was overly concerned—yet.

Picking up her tablet, she stared down at it for several moments, using it chiefly as a prop so that she could regain her professional demeanor. She took the time to access Daniel’s medical records, pleased to see that he had maintained a regular schedule of checkups without an inordinate amount of cajoling. Looking over his past two years and examinations and results, she saw nothing that raised any alarms.

“Well,” she finally said, swallowing back one last threatening giggle. “Let’s see what’s going on before decide that, shall we?”

Daniel nodded, appearing to relax slightly now that something, at least, was being done.

“You know the drill, I think,” Wendy said, giving her his best bright and comforting smile.

“That I do,” he agreed, and began removing his tunic.

Wendy picked up the portable diagnostic scanner, calibrated it, and waited while Daniel.

I want to look half as good at eighty . . . for a woman, that is. She paused on a new thought. I wonder who this “lady” is . . .

Several possible candidates came to mind, but none of them had been reported to have been in his close company. Whoever it was, he had managed to keep it discreet—an impressive achievement in a community this small.

Maybe there’s no one and he’s just been . . .

Wendy dismissed the notion immediately. Had that been the case, Daniel would probably have accepted it and perhaps mentioned it at his next regular examination. It was entirely in his nature to be more concerned over the welfare of those around him than himself.

She really had no valid medical reason to ask him who it was. All of their ancestors had been clean of any of the usual venereal diseases before leaving Earth, and no new ones had yet cropped up. The few infectious diseases that had managed to crop up could be transmitted in many other ways other than through sexual contact.

Running a preliminary scan, the diagnostic tool reported nothing out of the ordinary. He body fat had increased slightly since his last examination—she had seen that when he had come in—but was still well within the range for someone his height and age. There were more detailed and, unfortunately, more invasive tests that she could conduct, but she saw little need for those.

Composing her expression carefully, she turned back to face Daniel, who still sat bare-chested on the examination table.

“Daniel,” she began, forcing herself to be as serious and straightforward, as possible, “these preliminary results don’t show anything wrong that might be causing . . . your situation. In fact,” she went on, tapping on one set of data showing on the tablet display, “your hormone levels are more than just fine. You could spare some to a few of the other men.”

Daniel chuckled at that, but still looked uneasy.

Wendy put the pad aside and then took Daniel’s hands in her, waiting until he finally met her eyes.

“Daniel,” she said calmly, with only the barest hint of a smile that she simply could not wipe away, “I’m pretty sure it was just . . . nerves.”

She watched him begin to relax. He sat up straighter, seeming to regain most of his customary quiet confidence.

“Now,” she went on. “There a couple of things that I could prescribe,” she said. “But most of them can sometimes have a side effect of . . . well, what you described.”

Except that you didn’t, she snickered silently to herself.

“I’m willing to give them to you,” she offered, “but I think you might be better off talking to Lisa first and seeing if she might have some non-pharmaceutical suggestions that might help before we go that route.”

“I’ll think about that,” Daniel replied.

Uh huh, I’ll just bet you will.

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

Wendy shook her head. “Not for now.”

Daniel smiled at her, showing lines of narrow, perfect teeth. He shrugged back into his tunic and faced her again.

“Thank you for your help, Doctor.”

Wendy smiled back. She was convinced that, had he been wearing a hat, he would have tipped it to her. She held the curtain for him as he left and watched as he left the clinic. He walked with a renewed confidence, self-assured without being cocky.

I have a feeling that “lady” is in for a real treat tonight.

She did not bother to hide her grin that time.

I wonder who . . .

She stopped, suddenly remembering something she had seen.

No . . . she tried to convince herself. She’s less than half his age . . .

Even as she tried to dismiss the idea, Wendy wondered whether she should start preparing another prenatal program.