Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour Read Free Page A

body was fit and smoothly muscled, and she had large, firm breasts, and yet Garlan had not given her the same looks he had favoured Aneka and Delta with. Rice was clearly not at all interested. She had been brought along in case there was any life on the lifeless, volcano-strewn rock. Life normally seemed to find a way to develop whenever it possibly could, but not on Farrington’s World.
    ‘Hi,’ Rice said. ‘You want this?’ She indicated the shower and then picked up a towel to dry herself. Most Jenlay were not at all shy, and Rice was no exception.
    ‘I figured a shower might freshen me up before I have to go out again,’ Aneka replied. She had not yet figured out whether Rice was not into Garlan, not into men, or not into sex. The second would have been mildly unusual, but not unheard of, the last would have made her almost unique.
    ‘I’ll be out in a second.’
    Nodding, Aneka began pulling her boots off. ‘You know, if you’d be more comfortable, I could probably fly you back up to the Hyde tomorrow.’
    ‘No… Tempting as it is, and useless as I am for my specialisation, I may as well stay and try to be useful. I’m as good with scientific equipment as most here, better than some.’ She looked up and gave Aneka a slight grin. ‘And I’m good eye candy. Not that you don’t have that covered yourself. Besides, Indaia’s interesting to talk to.’ She put the towel to one side and stepped into some light slippers before leaving the cubicle carrying a light, Nusilk wrap. Slipping the wrap on, she leant up against a crate to watch Aneka undress, not bothering to tie it closed.
    Aneka reached a conclusion. ‘What’s your problem with Garlan?’
    ‘He’s a shoo.’ The word meant ‘pig’ in Rimmic. Core Jenlay used it as an insult, but then so did the Rim Worlders. ‘I dated him for a few months last year. And then I found out he was spending his time with Trudy whenever he claimed to be working late. I wouldn’t have minded sharing if he hadn’t kept it secret.’
    ‘Can’t be fun being stuck here with him.’ Naked, Aneka climbed into the shower cubicle and started the water.
    ‘Less fun for him. Trudy never found out about me. I’ll leave you to it since there’s no room for two.’
    Aneka shook her head as she heard the door open and close. Jenlay barely ever considered the idea that someone might not be interested, even if some of them had a more active libido than others.
    ‘Al, would you get me a connection to the Hyde?’ she asked in the silence of her head.
    ‘Connected,’ Al replied almost immediately.
    ‘Jansen to Garnet Hyde,’ Aneka said, her thought transmitted through her own internal radio to the base’s communications rig and so up to the orbiting spacecraft.
    ‘Hi, Aneka,’ Shannon’s voice came back almost immediately. Obviously the blonde pilot was on duty at the moment. ‘What can we do for you?’
    ‘Just checking in. How’s the mapping going?’
    ‘Smoothly. That is one topographically boring rock. Lot of young, fairly low mountain ranges, and there’s the volcanos, I guess, but the surface gets recycled too much to be very interesting and we’re seeing no signs of anything living.’
    ‘Yeah, we have a very bored biologist down here. I offered to take her back up to you, but she wants to stick around and try being useful.’
    ‘Shame, she’s gorgeous.’
    Aneka laughed aloud. ‘You have Drake to keep you entertained.’
    ‘Uh-huh, and when we’ve wrapped the high-def maps I plan to let Aggy deal with keeping us in orbit and abuse our solitude outrageously.’
    ‘Don’t be mean. My partner’s back on New Earth.’
    Shannon’s chuckle barely made it over the channel, but it sounded distinctly dirty. ‘Go see Monkey and Delta. She may look a bit shy, but she’s a minx once she gets going.’
    ‘Right… Call you if anything happens. Jansen out.’
    Aneka was not going to do as suggested. Monkey found her attractive, sure, but he was still not