Aloft (Petronaut Tales) Read Online Free Page A

looked at the door. 
    And even if it wasn’t Business , the morose thought crept through her defenses, it’s not as if anything’s going to happen.  Any friendly vibes you’re getting are because he’s good at his job.  Do you really think that there’s anything about you that would inspire unprofessional thoughts in a civilian guy like him?  When he’s meeting all the other wisecracking Aerial girls and the Parade squad knockouts on the same day?  Count yourself lucky you’re getting to talk to him at all.  You’re just—
    The door inched open.  Ensie leapt to her feet behind the desk.  There he was.
    “There you are,” she said, rubbing her hands against her hips.
    “So sorry,” he mumbled, turning sideways to come through the narrow door.  He sounded a little out of breath.  “I… I thought I heard you say ‘third building on the right,’ but I must have misheard.  That’s actually the, uh, fuel center, I learned, where you guys are doing some crazy things with petrolatum…”
    “Oh, gosh, you went to the refinery?”
    “Yeah, through a back door.  Got a little turned around with the fumes.  But then someone—I forgot his name—pointed me here…”
    “Spheres, I led you to the refinery without a mask!  I am so sorry.  I don’t know why I… I meant to say ‘ first building on your—’”
    “You did.  I’m sure you did.  I just heard it wrong—”
    “No, no, I’m sure I said… I don’t know what I said!”
    “Listen, with these ears, all bets are off.  It’s a miracle I’m here at all.”
    “It is.”
    They stood facing each other with their hands flat against their hips.  The sunlight illuminated the lower halves of their bodies.
    “I’m Ensie,” she said, for no reason. 
    Why, oh why, oh why do I speak?
    He smiled at her.  His teeth were a little small and his gums were a little long, so when he smiled he looked like a kid, with a child’s whole-hearted good humor.  “That makes, what, the third time we’ve done introductions?”
    “I’m sure, probably,” she laughed.  She touched her fingertips to the desk and found herself leaning towards him.  “ My third time, at least.  And somehow I’m still not sure what your name is!  Carper?  Cooper?  Caper?”
    “Cooper Carper, actually.”
    She felt herself smiling like a porpoise.  She ordered her lips to stand down.  Business .  “Nice to meet you, Mister Carper,” she said, very professionally.
    “You too, technician.”
    She tilted her head at him.  ‘Technician?’  Who are you, Sir Tomas?  “You can call me Ensie.”
    “Well, then,” he said, pressing the door closed behind him with a click, “you can call me Cooper.”
    Business!
    “I’m on a project now for a concept craft called the Flicker,” she said, brushing the blueprints with her hands as she stared fixedly at the parchment.  Cooper came over to the side of the desk to look.  His hands floated in space for a moment as he considered resting a big palm on top of the desk to lean over the plans, as she was doing, which would have brought their heads very close together.  But instead his hands interlocked behind his back in a sort of parade rest and he just bent his head to look down.  Ensie tried not to watch him as she folded the dog-eared corner back into place for the thirteenth time.
    She laid out the specifications for the grasshopper-like craft, discussing fuel projections, the airflow models they’d run, and the properties of the alloys they’d debated for the hollow, curved wings.  Cooper’s head bobbed up and down, and he offered a succession of mmm’s and I see’s at appropriate times.  As she heard herself talk, she fidgeted with the bottom edge of the desk and only allowed herself quick glances up at his face.  It was hard to tell if he was following the run-down at all, which gave her a heavy feeling in her stomach. 
    Burn me.  Maybe Mister Upforth had a good reason for wanting that woman Skye