We turn slowly together in the center of the playroom. Her hair is splayed out asymmetrically, framing her face in a mane -- an exquisite, blond, feminine mane. Clean fragrance tingles my nostrils; quiet, peaceful music wafts through the cabin. There, through the window, is the orange planet, an enormous harvest moon seventeen thousand kilometers below.

"Max?"

Soft, warm breasts. The heat soaks into my skin. She moans into my ear as the planet sets over her right nether cheek. Earlier she'd lashed my face with her hair side to side as we kept time to the music. Now we're nearly motionless, nearly silent, the rhythm an undercurrent rather than --

"Max!"

An irritating female voice calls my name. "Max Hunter? Where are you?" Laura's voice intrudes into our privacy. "There's an alarm."

Centimeters away, Andra's eyelids come up to half-mast in little flutters, uncovering bright green irises.

Laura calls again. "Max? I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but it's Pasadena on voice. They've got an alarm. Your department."

Damn!

We drift apart, Andra's hair coiling around her face, over her eyes until she shakes it away and giggles at my nakedness. I float rearwards into the wall and grapple for a hand-hold. "This is our time off, Laura."

She plows on. "It's the downlink. Too noisy. They got an alarm."

"Let them figure it out. Why the hell do we have to hold their hands?" The words are directed at Pasadena, but the tone is meant for her. Silence extrudes from the speaker. Sometimes silence is a loud noise.

Across the softly lit cabin against the opposite wall, my wife drifts pouting, knees together in coquettish modesty, breasts floating high, nipples bracketing me with a walleyed gaze. Desire resurges, makes me ache.

"Max? Are you there?"

"Goddamnit!" In flagrant undress I carom off two walls, yank open the hatch, and sail through the storm cellar into OPS-2.

Laura's mouth forms an amused little "o" as she drags her eyes full length across my body from toes to head, pausing a beat to record a dying erection. Blue-gray eyes settle on mine, and after a long, long second ticks by I see the pupils dilate ever so slightly. Charles is nowhere around.

"He's not here. This is our chance, lover," she giggles.

The anger bubbles over. "There's a conjunction coming. What the hell did they expect?" I'm sorry as soon as it's out, but too late. Her smile vanishes.

"It's your area," she snaps. "They're worried, and I can't help." She'd stamp her foot if possible, but instead she floats in mid cabin, righteously indignant, arms folded across her waist trapping and cradling her breasts inside the flight suit. They were already -- well -- obvious, but now they stand out even more, nipples puckering the material.

It's her fault. If she hadn't done that, this wouldn't happen. Without conscious bidding -- against my will, in fact -- the erection revives.

Before further stupidities ensue, the higher brain functions engage and I push off without a word through the node and around the corner into OPS-1. I'll work the problem there. Naked.