10.
 That evening, Venus decided on a direct act of heroism. The former beauty queen and author of romance novels, who worked as a technical librarian on Survey, stole down the hallway to the Inspector’s quarters about midway through the evening. A tall woman of rosy, milky complexion, she had spent hours doing up her raven hair in dozens of ringlets especially for this evening. She wore a red and white striped bikini under a gauzy white robe. Her stunning figure shimmered underneath just out of reach. She had an arresting face, angular, with ripe lips, a small nose, and a tall forehead. Her large dark eyes could tease a man to tears or laughter or passion, whatever she willed.
Now she knocked on the Inspector’s door. At first she heard no answer. She was afraid the goofy little Assistant Inspector would open the door. Instead, she heard an angry shout. She knocked again, and put her ear to the door.
“Enter, I said!”
She pushed the door open and stepped into the sterile atmosphere of a large state suite in which obviously nobody had lived for a long time. It was drab and colorless in there, and faintly musty. The Inspector’s possessions lay stacked against one wall, as yet unopened. A single suitcase sat open, revealing a bunch of tattered socks and graying underclothes.
“What do you want?” The Inspector lay in a fetal position on the bed and glared at her. His mouth was pinched tight, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“I came to see what you need, if anything, anything at all,” she said languorously, walking around the bed. “I see here a man who certainly needs someone to look after him, to maybe take him shopping and buy some really hot little undershorts, you know, red ones? That would be for Wednesday nights.” She sat on the end of the bed, a little bit afraid of him, but purring like a cat as she put on her best act. “And then on Thursday nights you could wear little black satin shorties.” She growled. “That’s my favorite color, black like the night.”
“Stop it!” he wailed, holding his ears.
She slowly undid her top, all but revealing two splendid, soap-white breasts. She purred: “And on Friday nights, why, my darling big guy, you won’t wear anything at all while I work on your condition, turning your software into hardware while you moan and—”
“Get out!” He was on his feet, tensely pointing. “Out, damn you! Out! Don’t you dare come around me with that sex stuff! Out, you brazen female! How dare you! Out!” He held a pillow defensively with both hands before himself as he advanced on her. There were fear and violence in his eyes.
She squealed in terror, gathering her robe as she fled to the door. She managed one more moment of courage as she turned and yelled into the room: “So what do you like, boys?”
“I hate sex! And I never liked girls!”
“We can get you anything you like!”
“Get out!”
“You’d be amazed how a good ejaculation will soothe your—.”
“Out, out, or I’ll kill you!” He brandished a black umbrella and ran toward her.
She screamed and ran down the hall. She wasn’t used to being rebuffed—in fact, it had never before happened to her. She ran breathlessly to tell her fellow officers.
* * * *
“That’s just terrible,” Mars said when he, Neptune, Apollo, and Diana heard Venus’s story in the officers’ mess in Ring 83. They snacked on orange pound cake soaked in Curacao liqueur while soft music played. Nothing like the old days, though—recorded dinner music, rather than the white-jacketed string quartet from Budapest circa 1933, who never realized they were in space. Mars wondered how the four elderly men would continue to show up on Doheny Street every Wednesday night at 7 for what they thought was just a very modern taxi to take them to a weekly gig somewhere out of town.
“You’re sure he doesn’t like maybe a mature man?” Diana asked, probably thinking of Vulcan, the brawny old metallurgist.
“No,” Neptune said, stroking his beard thoughtfully, “this fellow is real uptight. He’s afraid of sexuality. Too much power. Not enough control. He wishes the whole thing would go away.” He glowered: “I’ll tell you something else, too.” He leaned forward and the other put their heads closer to hear his whispered revelation: “He got into trouble his last few tours. I heard it through back channels. He interferes with the natives too, but in a very different way.”
Mars said: “Hah! So he’s not Mr. Perfect. Well, I’m going to think all night about how to fix his wagon.”
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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