free hit counters
Mark and Jackie were a long way south of Spearfish Lake before the thrill of the moment began to wear off, and some of the old doubts began to rise in her again.
She felt like leaning over against Mark, close in the cockpit next to her, but thought better of it. Perhaps it would be better to keep what distance she could, just to keep them both from getting ideas.
Try as she could to look into the future, it seemed clouded. Mark had become a real friend in the few days that she had known him, and had always been the perfect gentleman. But what would it be like to be living with him?
That's what she would be doing, too — living with him, sleeping with him, in the same tent. Those words implied a lot more than she hoped they would mean.
She'd drawn a lot of money out of the bank at their brief stop there. If things got out of hand she would have the means to go home, even if it meant going home in shame. She knew she would rather not do that, either, but she could if she had to. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.
Although it was quieter in Rocinante's cockpit than it had been in the Stinson, it was still pretty noisy for casual conversation, so she kept her misgivings to herself. The decision had been made; the note left behind for Sarah and her father sealed it. There would be no turning back now, she resolved; still, perhaps it would be better to wait a few days and see how things went, as well as giving her father and Sarah a chance to cool off, before she called home.
They were passing well to the east of Camden when the largely forested land below began to open up into more open fields. Below, Jackie could see that the snow was largely gone; spring was already closer. Mark had a map folded open, thrown up on the dash. For the sake of something to do, she took it and tried to make sense of it.
After a minute or so she realized that the town off to her right had to be Atlanta; there was the double-tracked main line railroad running across their course, and the branch line heading north. All of a sudden, a curious question arose in her mind. Over the roar of the engine, she turned to Mark and asked, "Where are we going, anyway?"
"South," he told her in a loud voice. "As far south as we can get by flying hard. The farther south we can get, the warmer it'll be camping tonight."
"How about tomorrow?" she asked.
"Farther south, I think," he said. "Unless you can come up with a better idea. I'd kind of figured on going right to Florida, and see if we can find a place to hole up for a few days. I've been pushing so hard for so long, I think I need to kick back and do nothing for a few days, and learn how to slow down and enjoy myself all over again."
"Sounds good to me," Jackie said. "I'm tired of winter. Let's get all the way away from it." It was a good idea, she thought; it would give them a chance to learn how to live with each other — there was that phrase again — to work out how they would operate; that was a better sounding way to say it.
They landed a little after one at a small airport well over three hundred miles south of Spearfish Lake. It was noticeably warmer, although still jacket weather. Mark had Rocinante gassed up, and they managed to borrow an airport courtesy car long enough to drive to a nearby restaurant for lunch. "I think if we want to save money, we'd better pack a lunch if we're going to be flying all day," Jackie commented as they sat down in a booth.
"I hope there won't be many days that we'll be flying all day," Mark told her. "We'll come across a few days that we'll want to get some miles on, but flying all day, every day, kind of misses the point. The trick is going to be to get away from airports, either with Rocinante, or on our own. I just sort of have a feeling that just stopping in some farmer's hayfield isn't going to work as well as it did for the old barnstormers."
"Maybe we'll just have to find out." Jackie commented as the waitress walked up. All of a sudden, she felt free as a bird. This little restaurant might as well have been Rick's, and the waitress might as well have been her, a week ago. How long ago and far away that seemed, now! "Do you have any idea of where we're going to hole up in Florida?"
"Are you two going down to Florida for the Apollo launch?" the waitress asked. "I've always wanted to see one of those."
Mark turned to look at Jackie, to see her eyes opened wide in obvious wonder. "I didn't know there was one coming up," he said. "I haven't been paying attention to the news. Do you have any idea of when it's going to be?"
"Next week, sometime, I think," the waitress said. "I saw it in the paper this morning. You want coffee?"
"Black," Jackie said absent-mindedly, thinking about watching an Apollo launch.
"Black," Mark agreed, thinking the same thing as Jackie was thinking. "And is there a copy of the paper laying around here?"
They made it as far south as a little airport in Kentucky before the day found itself waning. Mark got permission to tie Rocinante down out in the grass, and camp under the wing.
Mark had never gotten around to setting up the tent, which he had mail-ordered back around Christmas. It had the reputation of being a good tent, but it was complicated to set up the first time, with many mistakes and errors before they finally got it standing. "It won't be as bad, next time," Mark said as he and Jackie found places afterwards to sit and blow up their air mattresses.
"Once we know what we're doing," Jackie agreed, "It'll go better."
A little later, Jackie stuffed her air mattress into the tent. Mark handed his in to her, and then their sleeping bags and clothes bags, then crawled in after her to unroll his sleeping bag.
As he crawled inside, Mark saw Jackie on her hands and knees, back to him, her pants tight across her fanny. "Boy, she's got a nice ass," he found himself thinking, and had to bring himself up short. This was Jackie, not Mei-Ling, after all. "A little on the crowded side in here," he commented.
"We're going to have to work out how we do this," Jackie said, turning around and sitting as best she could; the tent was a foot or more from being big enough for either of them to stand up in. "I mean, getting dressed and like that."
"It's going to be awkward," Mark agreed. "Maybe we should have brought your tent, too."
Jackie shook her head. "It's too late for that, now," she said. "Besides, you said we're pushing the weight limit."
"Well, if it doesn't work out, we can always get another tent," he promised. "I don't think it's going to matter tonight, anyway. It's going to be cold enough tonight that I think we're both going to want to wear our long handles. Let's get out of here and make ourselves some supper."
Mark had hunted high and low to find a camp stove that burned aviation gasoline, not white gas, since he didn't want to have gas in the luggage compartment, and it seemed ridiculous to have to worry about stove gas when he would have two tanks of aviation gas close by. He'd been unable to find a two-burner stove that was light enough or small enough to go in the plane, but had managed to come up with two army surplus stoves that burned just about anything. He showed Jackie how to fill the camp stoves from the fuel sump drain, then spread a ground cloth under the wing and set the stoves to burning. Soon, there was hot water boiling on one stove, and stew cooking on the other.
"We're going to want to work together on the cooking, I think," he said. "How about if whichever one of us doesn't cook washes up, and we trade off?"
"Sounds fair to me," Jackie said. "But I think we want to eat more than just beef stew every night."
Mark nodded. "Yeah, I think I could even get tired of it after a while. Look, with two of us, this food thing is going to be tricky. We can't carry a whole lot, because of the weight. That means we have to hit a grocery store every few days, and there are going to be times that it won't be easy. I've got several freeze-dried meals in, but they taste like crap and are as expensive as hell, and there aren't going to be many places that we'll stop where we can get them. I had to mail-order the ones I have."
"I guess that means that we get to open a lot of cans," Jackie shrugged. "I guess we can do that. If it's OK with you, why don't we just make do with coffee and cereal for breakfast, and just kind of have snacks or sandwiches for lunch."
Mark got up and dug around in the plane's luggage compartment as he answered, "That's kind of how I planned it. We'll eat out, once in a while, and I wouldn't be surprised if we got asked home to dinner on occasion. We're just going to have to live a little grubby, that's all."
"It doesn't look like we're going to get a shower every night, either," Jackie commented. "We're going to have to take a bath once in a while, though."
"I can probably stand you longer than you can stand me," he said, sitting back down with the folder of maps in his hand. "But when it gets too bad, we'll have to work out something. Find a place to go swimming, or maybe get a motel room once in a while."
Jackie was silent for a moment. Somehow, the thought of sharing a motel room with Mark was far more distressing than the thought of sharing a tent with him. "I wonder how we register at a motel," she said finally, with more than a little accusation on her voice, "Mr. and Mrs. Gravengood?"
Mark shook his head, understanding her fully. He had, of course, realized that he and Jackie could wind up in bed together at some point, and if it were handled right he was sure he wouldn't mind. However, if it did happen, it might not be a long step until she really became "Mrs. Gravengood". That was a possibility he hadn't really considered. Having a girl friend, even one that he made love with, was one thing; marriage was another. Not that it would necessarily be unwelcome when the time came, but he just had not thought that far ahead. "No," he said, finally. "We'll use our own names. If anybody asks, you're my sister."
"I'd have to be your half-sister," Jackie laughed at his unease. "After all, our names are different."
"All right, Sis," he laughed with her. "You're my half-sister. I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister."
"That's fine," she said, feeling some of the pressure come off. "I always wondered what it would have been like to have had a brother about my age."
They studied maps while they ate supper, giving special attention to the area around Cape Kennedy. The launch of Apollo 15 was still a week off, so they had plenty of time, but if they could find a good place to camp in the vicinity it would be a good place for Mark to unwind and for both of them to learn how to be together.
After supper, while Jackie did the dishes in the leftover hot water for the coffee, Mark dug the telescope out of the baggage compartment, and they spent some time looking around the sky, dark now that it was past the full moon. Time passed rapidly, and even though they wanted to get an early start the next day, it was later than Mark had hoped before he realized the time.
"I'll put away the telescope," he told Jackie. "Why don't you get your longies on and get in the sack while I'm doing it?"
"All right," she said, heading for the tent. It seemed ages to Mark as he walked around Rocinante, checking the tiedowns, before he heard her say, "You can come in now."
She held a flashlight for him while he got inside, zipped the tent door closed, and got out his long underwear. "Why don't you kill the light while I'm doing this?" he suggested.
She turned out the flashlight and said, "I'll roll over so I can't see you."
"Not much to see in the dark," he said. "Besides, I wasn't planning on taking off my underwear. But, thanks anyway."
As she lay there with her back to him, she heard him thrash around behind her, with a little anxiety crossing her mind. She was zipped in her sleeping bag, zipped into the tent, unable to get out quickly. She made up her mind she'd scream if he touched her, although she realized that a goodnight kiss would be nice; the kiss they'd shared at the airport in Spearfish Lake had been wonderful, but under circumstances like these, who knew where it could lead?
Eventually, the thrashing around stopped, and she heard him say, "Good night, Sis."
"Good night, brother," she said with a little smirk, still tense, still awaiting a touch that she both hoped for and feared, waiting until she heard the soft, slow breathing that told her that he was asleep, then waited longer, half wondering if going on the trip had been such a good idea after all.
Light was filtering through the tent when Jackie awoke. Something seemed out of place, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was.
All of a sudden, she sat up with a start. She realized that she wasn't in her bedroom at Spearfish Lake, or even out camping with her father: the day before, she'd run off with Mark, and they were in a tent somewhere in Kentucky, on their way God knew where, and her bones ached from the cold of the night.
She rolled over, to see that Mark's sleeping bag was empty and wadded up into a pile. Hurriedly, she unzipped her own sleeping bag and crawled out partway, then unzipped the tent and stuck her head outside.
The sun was just coming up, and she could see frost on the grass in the shadow of Rocinante's wing. Mark was sitting on one of the plane's wheels; one of the stoves was set up and hissing, with a pot of water on top of it. "Ah, the dead awake," Mark said. "Did anybody ever tell you that you snore?"
"I don't snore," she protested, reflecting that she was a little surprised to wake up and still be a virgin; she wouldn't have bet a nickel on it the night before. "I didn't sleep at all last night, it was so cold." And I was so scared, she thought.
"It was a little chilly," Mark agreed. "That's why I want to get farther south. It's still April, after all. You like a cup of coffee to warm you up before you get dressed?"
"I'd love it," she admitted. In but a moment, Mark mixed her a plastic cup of instant and handed it into the tent to her. It was very hot, hotter than she liked it, but the warmth of it coursed through her, making her realize how cold she had slept. She drained the cup and set it outside, then, not daring to expose her bare legs to the cold air, slipped her long handles off while still in the sleeping bag and pulled on her ice-cold jeans, wanting to scream at the chill. Getting her shirt from yesterday and her jacket on was not much better, but eventually she was able to clamber outside and stand up. "I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life," she said as he handed her a second cup of coffee.
"The sun will warm things up, soon," he said. "We can leave as soon as it melts the frost off the wings."
"Have they opened up yet?" she asked, nodding at the office.
"No," he told her. "If it's using the johns you're thinking about, I'd suggest the bushes on the far side of the hanger."
That was what Jackie had been thinking about, and she realized that she wasn't going to be able to wait much longer. She took a sip of her coffee, and realized that it was really too hot to drink, so she set the cup on Rocinante's cowling and traipsed toward the nearby hanger.
A few minutes later, she was back, and the coffee was just about right. "It's awful cold to be hanging my bare butt out in the breeze over in the bushes," she commented.
"Kind of em-bare-assing," he smirked.
"Yeah, that too," she said, laughing at the pun. "It probably won't be the last time I have to do it on this trip, though."
They each had another couple of cups of coffee, although cold cereal didn't seem appealing in the chill. While they sipped their coffee, they stuffed their sleeping bags, let the air out of their air mattresses, took down the tent, and packed everything but the stove and coffeepot in Rocinante.
By the time they had finished, the sun had stripped the frost off the Cessna's wings. "Might as well get going," Mark said, emptying the rest of the coffee water onto the ground. She took a rag and mopped off the windshield and the leading edges of the wings, then they both clambered into the cockpit.
"Before we get going, there's something I forgot about last night," she said, turning to him.
"What?"
"I kind of forgot to kiss you good night," she said, reaching over with her long arm, grabbed his far shoulder, and pulled him over to her. Their lips touched, and they kissed for a long time, feeling each other's warmth in the cold cockpit of the plane.
"I guess I'm just as glad you didn't kiss me good night last night," he said finally. "A kiss like that could get misinterpreted, real easy."
"Yes," she agreed quietly. "I think we'd better keep that out of the tent. For now, anyway."
They flew south all that day, stopping for lunch and fuel. They camped that night at a little grass strip in northern Florida, and it was a lot warmer — warm enough that they didn't bother with long underwear. They could have flown on to Cape Kennedy that day, but Mark had suspected that the airport at Titusville was big enough and busy enough that they wouldn't have a good place to camp, so he wanted plenty of daylight to make other arrangements.
As it turned out, they could have camped at the Titusville airport, but it was already filled to the point where all the regular tiedowns were taken. Mark had to get out the tiedown kit to tie Rocinante down, far down the runway.
The airport manager was able to make recommendations, both on the best place to watch the Apollo launch, and the best place to camp; he'd been faced with this question before. Unfortunately for Mark and Jackie, without a car, it would involved a lot of walking. "This wasn't quite what I had in mind for our first backpacking trip," he told her, "But we're going to have to play it like we're backpacking."
The packs had not been set up for backpacking; hers, had just had stuff thrown into it, two mornings and fifteen hundred miles before. It took them a while to sort and rearrange things for camping out for a few days. With their packs loaded, Mark locked the plane, took the telescope box in one hand, and they started for the airport gate.
It was a long hike along a busy highway to the area where the airport manager had told them might be both a good camping spot and a good place to watch the launch, still several days away. It was not really that hot — only in the high seventies, or so — but to the two of them, still conditioned fully to a Spearfish Lake winter, it might as well have been the middle of Death Valley. Both still had on long jeans; Jackie had on the one short-sleeved blouse she'd managed to throw in, and Mark had on a t-shirt, but sweat was still rolling down both of them. "As soon as we get camped," Jackie said at one point when they stopped along the side of the road for a drink and a breather, "I'm turning these jeans into cutoffs."
"Me, too," Mark agreed. "If we're going to spend the summer like this, there's no point in loading up on winter clothes. Did you think to bring a swimsuit?"
"Never crossed my mind," Jackie admitted. "You don't think swimsuits in Spearfish Lake this time of year. I probably ought to get one. Maybe we can hike back into town tomorrow and do some shopping."
"Tomorrow's Sunday," Mark told her. "Probably everything will be closed."
"Sunday already?" Jackie said, amazed. "I've lost track of time, already."
Finally — it seemed like all day, although it had only been a couple of hours — they found a suitable location, in some sandy scrub brush where they were concealed from the highway, overlooking a tiny bay with a beachy area that would probably do for swimming, although neither of them were too sure how much they wanted to get soaked in salt water and not be able to rinse off. Best of all, a few feet away from their campsite was a little hummock. From the top of the sandpile, they had a clear, though distant view, of the Saturn V being prepared for liftoff.
"It would have been nice to be able to camp by the ocean, instead of this backwater," Mark told her as they huddled in the shade of a bush, out of the midday sun. "That would have been a hell of a walk, though."
Mark had peeled off his shirt, by now, and Jackie wished that she dared do the same; then, comfort flying in the face of caution, she told him, "Don't get any ideas," and took off her blouse, but not daring to remove her bra, as well.
That was a little better, and after a while, they had cooled off enough to move ahead with erecting the tent. With it up, Jackie crawled inside and stripped off her jeans. With the tiny pair of scissors from her sewing kit, she chopped off the legs of the jeans and pulled them back on. She was a little surprised to find that she'd cut them off a lot shorter than she'd intended, but they'd have to do; besides, they'd be cooler that way.
After a while, they took the tent fly and with the aid of some sticks they found, managed to rig it up as a sun fly to get some shade. The afternoon was humid now, almost oppressive; thunderheads could be seen building up in the distance. They lay down in the shade of the fly; Mark told her, "I don't know about you, but I'm going to take a nap."
The idea sounded good to Jackie, and she lay down beside Mark, but sleep wouldn't come. She lay there, looking out across the water at the handful of boats out on the river, and at the far side of the tepid waterway, almost lost in the haze of the afternoon. Spearfish Lake seemed far away, almost in another world, distant and unreal. She wondered, not for the first time, what her father and Sarah and friends like Kirsten must be thinking, and found that it didn't concern her as much as she thought it would. So far, the trip with Mark had been fine, except for the sweaty hike this morning and the recovery from it, but she realized that this had to be part of the adventure, too.
She did find herself wishing that they had thought a little more clearly when they had been sitting in the hanger office not all that many days before, making out a list of things that she'd like to take on the trip. A swimsuit, of course, was one of the more glaring omissions, but it should have been more heavily oriented toward warm weather clothing, as well; otherwise, she wouldn't have to be sitting there in her bra and cutoffs. And sunscreen! Mark had an uncomfortable sunburn already, although luckily she had a complexion that tanned easily, rather than burning. It wouldn't have been a bad idea to have a book or two, or a portable radio, just to help while away slow, dull afternoons like this one.
She knew there ought to be something she could do, just to keep busy. All of a sudden, she had an idea. It wasn't perfect, but it would kill time.
The denim from the cutoff blue jeans wasn't a perfect material to work with; she could have done a much better job, in only a few minutes, with decent scissors and a sewing machine. But, it gave her something to do.
When Mark finally woke up some time later, she had finished the halter top. It wasn't a perfect fit; given the circumstances, there was a limited amount that she could do. Somehow, though, it felt better than wearing her bra in front of Mark; it felt more proper.
By then, the afternoon was wearing on, and the sun was down enough that they could come out from under the shelter and explore their domain, although there wasn't much to see — just more and more of the scrubby brush poking up through the sand. They wound up on the beach below their camp. "I kind of wish we'd brought the rod and reel," she told him. "It'd be fun to tie on a spoon or something and just throw it around out there. God knows what a person would catch, though."
"You left it back at the plane?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I didn't think I'd want it."
"We could get it tomorrow or sometime," he told her. "I can see that our water is not going to hold out very long. Maybe tomorrow, early, while it's still cool, one or the other of us should hike back and get some more."
"That's pretty well a got to," she said. "I don't think we've got enough to get through tomorrow, but it must be a good three or four miles back to where we can get some."
He looked out at the little bay. "You know, a swim might cool us off."
She looked longingly at the water. "I'd love a swim," she said. "But all I've got that I could wear in the water is what I've got on, and I really don't want to get it wet."
"I suppose you're right. What do you say we set up the telescope and take a look at the rocket?"
It only took them a few minutes to set the telescope up on top of the little hummock. Mark kept the tripod legs pulled in, so they could sit comfortably and study the activity around the huge Saturn, miles away. With a medium power eyepiece, it was pulled in quite close to them, although it was difficult to make out much of what was happening through all the shimmering heat waves. "I think they keep it lit up at night," Mark told her. "Maybe after dark it'll settle down and we'll be able to see something."
They spent several minutes trying to make something out of the spectacle in front of them. Finally, Mark put the dust covers back on the telescope, and they went back to camp, and lay down under the sun shade. A little breeze had sprung up by now, cool and pleasant but not cold. They sat for some time, not saying much of anything, just looking across the bay.
"You know, I hate to admit this," Mark said, "But I'm just the least little bit bored."
"I guess I am, too," she told him. Somehow, this was one thing she hadn't expected on the trip.
"I know what the problem is," Mark said. "We're both people that have to be doing something, and the past few months there's been more to do than there's been time for. Now, here I am, camped out on what might as well be a desert island, with a beautiful girl at my side, just like it was a dream, and I hardly know what to do with myself. But, it's like I said, I need to slow down and learn to take it easy and enjoy myself."
"I don't think of myself as beautiful," she said. "Just sort of ordinary."
"You're beautiful, Jackie," he told her gently, "If for no more reason than you're here with me. Have I told you yet that I'm glad you came with me? If I didn't have you here with me, then I'd really be bored. I think you're taking to this trip better than I am."
She turned to him and smiled. "Well, I'm glad you brought me," she said. She wanted to kiss him so bad that it hurt, but she knew that a kiss just then would be the first step to going places that she didn't want to go just yet — though she found herself realizing that the possibility of that happening bothered her less than it would have even a couple of days before.
Mark realized the danger, too. Calling Jackie "beautiful" was not a lie, for sitting there on the sand, in the late afternoon sunlight, she exuded a glow that he'd always suspected was there. It would have been fun indeed to liven up the afternoon with a little sex in the sand, and if Jackie had been like Mei-Ling, it would have happened long before. But, in Jackie, he recognized something more valuable, something not worth driving off over a brief fling, and he could feel that letting things get out of hand would scare her off for the long run.
He finally got an idea to defuse the situation. "Why don't you go over and sit on the side of the hill, there, and let me draw you. I need to get back in practice, if nothing else."
"Me?" she said as he crawled inside the tent for his pack, where he had a drawing pad and some pencils.
"Yeah, you. Don't know of any other pretty brunettes around here."
Rather reluctantly, with a little coaxing on his part, she went over and sat on the side of the hummock. "Don't worry about looking pretty," he told her. "Just look comfortable." He went back over into the shade of the tent fly, picked up the pad, and started to draw. Jackie felt very self-conscious for a few minutes, but as they sat and talked, she found herself becoming more at ease, while Mark worked away at the drawing.
Gradually she lost track of the time, and she had no idea of how much later it was before Mark put down the pad and just looked at her for a minute or two, then picked the pad up, and looked at the drawing. "Well, that's not too good," he said, "But we'll work on it. You make a good model, Jackie."
"Can I see?"
"Sure, come on over," he said.
She found that she had gotten a little stiff from holding still for so long, but it was good to get up and walk the few steps over to him. She took one glance at the drawing and said, "I'm not that pretty!"
"Sure you are," he said. "I'll admit, I could have done better. The shadow detail on your legs and your torso just isn't right, for example, but for a practice drawing, it's not worth fixing. I'll do better next time."
"But Mark!" she protested, studying the drawing of the long-haired, long-legged, well-built girl in a halter top and brief shorts half-sitting, half-laying on the hillside. "I don't have a build like that! It hardly looks like me."
He held the drawing up and compared it to her. "It looks a lot like you," he said. "I don't think I overemphasized anything. It just doesn't fit your mental image of how you look."
"Do you really think I look like that?"
"Pretty much," he said. "I'm no great artist, but it's a fair image, under the circumstances. We're starting to lose the light, but maybe tomorrow I'll do another one, just to show you I can do better."
As Mark turned to preparing supper, Jackie kept returning to the drawing. The girl in the drawing was pretty, and after a while, she realized that the girl was at least based on her. Could that be how she really looked to him? What a compliment if it was! She'd never thought of herself as being pretty, just too tall and too thin and rather mousy and shy.
Perhaps Mark really did see something in her that she didn't see in herself. It was an awesome thought, indeed. For an instant, she wondered how the drawing would have looked if she'd offered to pose nude for him, and she realized, surprised a little with her boldness, that sooner or later she'd make the offer.
Not yet. She wasn't ready for it, yet, but she realized that she was looking forward to the time when she was ready for it.
They took their time over supper, dragging it out until after the sun went down and they realized that twilight was falling rapidly, and they had to hurry around and get the dishes done and their air mattresses blown up before full darkness fell on them. Even after dark it was cooler, but still warm enough that they didn't bother getting more clothes on.
They sat around talking for a while after dark, and Mark smoked a cigarette, the first one in days. "We should have scrounged around and seen if we had enough dry brushwood around here for a little fire," Jackie suggested.
"That stuff wouldn't make for a big fire," Mark agreed, "But a little one would be nice."
"We'll have to do that tomorrow," she agreed. "Why don't we go up the hill and see if we can see anything more of the launch pad, now that the heat's settled down some?"
They trudged through the loose sand up to the top of the hummock, removed the dust covers from the telescope, and spent a long time looking at the rocket, brightly lit by floodlights around the base of the pad. "I can't imagine what it must be like to ride one of those things," Mark said, "But the view must be tremendous. I can't imagine what it would be like to look out the window and see the moon closer than you could ever see in an eyepiece."
The moon was down, just then, so when they got tired of looking at the Saturn, miles away, Mark turned the telescope on the sky and managed to hunt up Omega Centuri, the huge globular cluster that is one of the showpieces of the southern sky. "I saw this a lot better in Australia," he told her. "It was almost overhead, not down in the haze and the skyglow like this, but it's still a pretty sight. We should be able to see it better down in west Texas, when we're there a month or so from now. The air is a lot clearer and dryer there."
They spent perhaps a couple of hours, exploring the sky, both with the telescope and without it. Mark taught Jackie some of the constellations she didn't know, and showed her how to guide the telescope to some of the better things to look at. They explored space in the only way that was open to them, since they couldn't ride the huge skyscraper of lighted-up machinery a few miles away.
Eventually, they covered the telescope back up, and walked slowly back to the tent. As Mark unzipped the flap, he said, "I don't know if you're just too nice to say anything about it, or what, but I think I still stink from that walk in today. I'd sure like to clean up a little."
"Well, I don't think I smell too good myself," she said, "But we don't have fresh water to waste. Too bad we couldn't go for a midnight swim."
"Yeah, too bad we didn't think of swimsuits. Of course, it's dark enough, we could do without," he joked.
She felt herself blushing at the suggestion, no matter how dark it was, no matter how he meant it as a joke. On the other hand, the water would feel good... and she'd begun to feel just a little uneasy at herself for cringing at everything that might be considered a little suspicious. She was a little surprised to hear herself say, "Promise you won't turn on a flashlight?"
Mark was more surprised to hear Jackie's words than she was. He'd meant it as a joke, but apparently she was willing to take him up on it. Things could get out of hand, too soon, much too soon... "Great idea, but we'd better not," he said. "In the dark, we might not know if there's something there we wouldn't want to tangle with, like an alligator or something. I can stand you tonight, if you can stand me."
