Fragment

9:41 P.M.

Nell told Hender to follow her and he told the others. They sprang on two legs down the stairs inside the central hull of the Trident, their heads bobbing and stretching and twisting as their eyes pointed in all directions.

“Where are we going?” Geoffrey asked, bringing up the rear.

“To the gym.”

“There’s a gym?”

“They wanted us all to have ripped abs. You didn’t watch the show?”

“No.”

“Thank God. OK, Hender. In here.” Nell motioned them into the ship’s gymnasium, a wide white room lined with gleaming new exercise equipment. An alcove at the far side contained six shower stalls and a separate locker area with benches.

Nell led them between the shower stalls and opened the last one on the right. She reached in and turned the water on.

“No water!” Hender said.

“OK water. Not salt. See?” She reached in and tasted it. “OK?”

Hender reached out gingerly and touched it. “OK!”

“You can go in-”

Before she could finish, Hender walked into the stall, and then he rippled with a rainbow shiver as he felt the water turn warm. “Oooo.”

“OK?”

“Ooohkaaay,” Hender sighed ecstatically.

Nell laughed.

The other hendros each opened their own stalls without as sistance, turned on the water with only minor fumbling, and stepped in.

“Wow, they catch on fast!” Geoffrey said. He noticed his hands were shaking. Even as a scientist, especially as a scientist, he still felt a religious awe in the hendros’ presence. Just seeing their alien heads pop over the shower stalls at each other, tittering and chirping, was a revelation of the humbling power of life that could create fantasies in reality and invest such disparate matter with a divine spark. He realized Nell was watching him. He shrugged, speechless.

“I know,” she murmured.

Andy came in with a stack of towels.

“Just in time!” Nell said. “They’re actually taking showers!”

“WOOO-WAH!” one of the hendros squealed, and the shower door nearest Geoffrey burst open as the creature leaped out, dancing and dripping. Geoffrey reached in and adjusted the knob to bring the temperature down.

“There, that’s better. OK now!” He nodded as the hendro’s color slowly turned from fiery red back to soothing greens and blues. The hendro reached into the stall and twisted the knob with one hand back and forth, feeling the water with five symmetrical fingers. Then it warbled a descending scale of strange consonants. Hender answered with a rising scale from his shower stall. The blue hendro then stepped back inside and closed the door with a soft click.

“I hope they leave some hot water,” Geoffrey said. “I could use a shower, too.”

“All I want to do is to get out of these wet clothes,” Nell said. “And then sleep for a week. Andy, can you take care of them from here? You can give them each a room in the starboard pontoon.”

“Sure, Nell. Where are you going?”

“Shopping,” she replied. “Come on, Geoffrey.”

He raised his eyebrows but said nothing as he followed her down the corridor to a large room forward of the gym.

It was the largest walk-in closet Geoffrey had ever seen. Rows of clothes arranged by sex and by size hung from long racks stretching the length of the room.

“These should fit.” She tossed him some jeans and a T-shirt. “Underwear and socks there.” She pointed at a tall stack of shelves near the door.

“Incredible.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, pulling some khaki slacks off a hanger. She took another T-shirt like Geoffrey’s and some panties and socks from a drawer. “That should do it. Now let’s take that shower.”

Geoffrey snagged some briefs from the shelf and backed away from the door as she turned off the light and closed it behind her.

“There are a few advantages to being on a floating television studio,” she told him.

“Is there enough water for so many showers?” Geoffrey said, hurrying behind her.

“Sure. There’s a desalinization plant on board. Three thousand gallons a day.”

“Amazing. I plan to use two thousand of them right now.”

When they returned to the gym, the hendros were out of the showers, each holding a pair of towels in random hands as they uncertainly watched Andy pantomime drying his back. A few tried to copy his motions before dropping the towels and giving a quivering twist up and down their bodies that sent a spray of water in every direction. “OK, that’ll work!” Andy said. “Oh, hey, guys.”

“Hey Andy.”

Zero came in the door with a fresh camera and memory stick. “Did I miss much?”

“They just took showers,” Nell reported.

“Oh wow.”

“OK, Hender,” Andy said. “Let’s take a tour! I’ll take them to their rooms, Nell.”

“Where are we putting them up?”

“In the starboard pontoon.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll come with you,” Zero told Andy. “You coming, Nell?”

“We got to get out of these clothes. We’ll catch up.”

Andy looked at Geoffrey for a moment and back at Nell. “Sure.” He smiled and shook Geoffrey’s hand. “I never thanked you, Binswanger. So… thanks.” Andy looked at Nell and grinned, nodding his head as he left. “Follow me, Hender!”

The hendros followed Hender and Andy, and Zero tailed them all down the passageway, camera to eye.

Nell closed the door to the gym.

“Now, I figure the best way to do this is we can take our clothes off in the shower stalls, then I can leave first to get dressed and you can come out after.”

“Yeah, that works,” nodded Geoffrey, glad to have a game plan.

They put their fresh clothes on the benches in front of the lockers and then pulled their shoes and socks off.

Nell looked at her single old beat up Adidas, the other having fallen into the sea. “My favorite tennies,” she mourned.

“Sorry. Keeping your foot from becoming a spiger snack seemed more important. Any shoes on board?”

“Oh, yeah. We’ll pick some out after we’re done.”

They walked toward the showers feeling giddy as teenagers for some reason. Both silently reminded themselves that they were mature and trustworthy adults. Level-headed and mature scientists. He took the shower in the far right corner and she took the one next to it.

They turned on the showers and started draping their seawater-soaked clothes over the dividers.

“Is there any shampoo over there?” she asked.

“Uh, yes.”

His arm came over the stall with a bottle of red Suave shampoo.

“Thanks.”

She touched his hand as she grabbed it and quickly started humming as she started washing her hair.

“You’re getting out first, right?”

“Right.” She lathered up and then rinsed off, trying to forget that they were both naked. “Need the shampoo?”

“No, I got it.”

She stepped out of the stall and grabbed her towel. “OK, I’m going to the locker.”

“OK, I’m not looking.”

She wrapped the towel around her waist and walked with her back to him. As she quickly turned the corner into the locker area and started drying herself off, she was thinking about Geoffrey and sex and sex with Geoffrey and keeping her eyes resolutely on the photographs taped to the lockers. As she straightened to dry her hair, she noticed the laughing snapshots of the obnoxious Jesse, and beautiful Dawn, and ever-polite Glyn, and bragging Dante and the others, and tears spilled without warning from her eyes. She sank down on the bench and brought a hand to her face as she quietly sobbed.

“Nell.” The warbling clarinet-like voice startled her. She looked up to see Hender in the middle of the gym, rubbing his chin with one hand and cocking his head.

She tugged on her towel but was sitting on it and had to stand up to pull it around herself. Hender was creeping forward the whole time, his eyes scanning her up and down and sideways.

“Hello, Hender!”

“Nell,” Hender warbled softly, moving gently closer.

She backed away and Hender stopped, turning his head to look at the photos on the locker doors. He reached his hands out to touch Glyn, Dawn, Jesse, and the others who had died when they landed on the island twenty-four days ago. He touched Dante’s picture with recognition. He turned his head to her and his eyes withdrew under his furry lids. “Nell thank you.”

Hender softly padded out of the room on six feet, his head down.

She sniffled and stared after him. Then she rubbed the tears from her eyes, dropped the towel, and reached for her panties.

“Here I come!” Geoffrey warned, rounding the corner.

“Oh, I’m not dressed yet!” Nell yelped.

“Oh!” Geoffrey lifted his hands in surprise and his towel fell from around his waist.

With a speed that astonished even him, Geoffrey hurtled back around the corner. They doubled over, helpless with laughter.

“OK, get dressed, woman! How long do you take, anyway!” he howled.

“I’m doing it!” she snorted, throwing her towel in his direction. “Put a towel on!”