Scardown-Jenny Casey-2 Read Online Free Page A

role, and perfectly replaceable.
    “Second Pilot.” Master Technician Liu Paiyun released his webbing and drifted from his station, turning gracefully to face Min-xue. “Have you any problems today, or are you just here for your checkup?”
    “None,” Min-xue answered. “Well, no more than the usual, but nothing to complain of.”
    “Excellent.” The master technician rubbed the palm of a broad hand across his tight-cropped black hair and smiled in a way that made the corners of his eyes wrinkle tight. “Then come with me, Min-xue; after we finish with your physical, I'll conduct your quarterly psychological examination. As long as you're already here—”
    “I'm not due for that for another six weeks,” Min-xue answered, and the master technician called up his chart.
    “I know.” Paiyun had thick wrists, still well muscled despite free fall, and arms long enough that bare strips of skin showed below the cuffs of his uniform. Those wrists—and the big, blunt hands attached to them—moved with assurance through the projections, motions as deft as Min-xue's when the young pilot was at the
Huang Di
's controls. “But we need a fourth for mah-jongg, you see. And there's no reason we can't combine two tasks into one.”
    He glanced over his shoulder. Min-xue smiled. “Thank you, Paiyun,” he said. “That would be—very nice.”
     
    The mah-jongg set was magnetic, the tiles softly burnished steel with a tendency to adhere to one another even when the player did not necessarily wish them to. Min-xue floated comfortably in a corner of Medical's crowded ready room, tethered to one padded wall by a length of soft webbing and a plastic clip. Liu Paiyun had carefully set things up so that Min-xue would have his back to the wall. Most gracious, but then Medical understood better than anybody except another pilot what, exactly, the pilots endured—
    “—out of patriotism, Min-xue?”
    “I beg your pardon, Paiyun?” It was nice to be on a casual basis with one person on the
Huang Di,
at least.
    “Oh.” Paiyun shuffled his tiles. His broad fingertips left faint oily dapples on the metal. “If I gave offense, I'm sorry. I had asked”—he glanced to the other two technicians, Chen and Gao—both only seniors—for confirmation. Chen smiled. Gao nodded.—“why it was that you agreed to enter pilot training. Given the risks. An exemplary young man such as yourself.”
    “They only take the best,” Min-xue said, without pride. He chewed his lip, feeling toward an answer that might make sense to Paiyun. “If my performance had not been acceptable—”
    “That was not my implication at all.” Paiyun looked down, ostensibly to lay a tile on the board with a soft, magnetized click.
China.
Min-xue smiled at the boxy red ideogram.
    “—no, Paiyun, I know it wasn't.” Min-xue let the smile widen. “It was the adventure, of course. And the idea that I might be good enough to be accepted. And—”
    They let the pause hang in the air long enough to be notable. “And?” Gao said. He looked down then, as if afraid he had been rude to the pilot, and turned away to fetch another round of drinks in plastic bubbles.
    “I'm a second child,” Min-xue said, enjoying the widening of his tablemates' eyes more than was probably fitting. He gripped the stem of the game board between his feet to keep himself from twisting as he accepted a bubble of cola from Gao. “There wasn't much place for me at home, and there was a girl, you see—”
    “Ah.” Paiyun smiled. “This girl, you'll marry her when we go home, then?”
    “I don't think so,” Min-xue answered, keeping his face impassive and strong. “I do not think she would like to be married to a pilot.”
    “No?”
    “No.” Firmly. He bit the valve on the cola and drank deeply. “No, not at all.”
    The little group fell silent. Chen shuffled his tiles, click and hiss of steel against other steel.
    Min-xue sighed and jerked his thumb toward the bulkhead behind