Farthest Reef Read Online Free Page A

free of Jupiter’s mighty gravitational grip. They were doing it the hard way, a direct full power insertion into a trajectory that would take them to Mars. Usually they used gravity to slingshot ships to their destinations, to save fuel and minimize stress on the ship’s superstructure. A power launch meant they were in a hurry.
    The cabin lights never came back to their full brightness. Alex looked out the window. “Must be using the null-gee,” he muttered as he floated to a wall panel and removed a geebrew from the food locker. He lingered for a moment examining the gourmet food packets. “First class all the way,” he said, opening a faux-turkey sandwich. It begin began to heat up as he removed its wrapping. Soon it was too hot to hold, so he let it float free in the air, cocooned in a small cloud of steam. “Cold sandies are jus’ s good,” he grumbled. He gave the sandwich a tap, sending it spinning toward the seat by the window, then uncapped the squeezer of geebrew and pushed his body in the same direction. He arrived at the seat and got comfortable just in time to snatch the free falling sandwich. Weightlessness didn’t bother Alex. He’d spent enough time in free-fall to get used to it. And a steady diet of geebrew kept bone loss and tissue degradation to a minimum.
    There was a knock at the door. “Open!” he said, loud enough to be heard above the thrumming of the ship’s engines.
    Mel, the passenger he’d met earlier, gingerly opened the door and peered inside. He grinned when he saw Alex. “Ah … I was going to ask you to join me for lunch. But I guess …”
    Alex grinned. “Just in time,” he said, tossing the sandwich into a trash receptacle. “This faux-turkey is as faux as it gets. They must have something better aboard the ship.”
    “Going to the canteen,” said Mel. “Hate to eat alone. Join me?”
    “Sure,” Alex capped his brew bottle and pushed himself toward the door. “No sense wasting the brew,” he said, stuffing the squeeze into his togs.
    “Without the null-gee we’d be stuck in our seats. Full burn the whole way,” said Mel, admiring Alex’s agility. “I heard there’s a group of Marilyns aboard.”
    “Monroe clones? Pleasure series, right?”
    Mel smiled and winked. “Always a treat.”
    “You forget I’m married to a Sensor.”
    “Yep. A sainted Mary series. Lucky you. Not at all, Mr Rose. No harm in a little fun, though. Right?”
    “I’m more interested in food, thanks.”
    Alex and Mel floated through the hatch and clipped onto a yellow cable. “How did you know it was the yellow one?” asked Alex as they were carried down the corridor.
    “Passenger cables are always yellow,” said Mel. “Easy to see, drunk.”
    They sat in a gee-booth watching a holo-show hovering above the central bar as they talked. Mel was a former Construction Battalion chief who had the same affection for Ganny life as Alex. “Strange for an ice world to be s’ warm,” he reflected. “Now there’s the war for the Atlantic. Crappers. I like it quiet. CB’s were always there first, puttin’ out fires or taking hits trying to build something. The way the corpies ran it made me hate ’em all.” But Mel did more joke telling than angry reminiscing. Sadly, he had more tales to tell than the bar had people to listen, and Alex thought it was unfortunate since each one seemed to contain a message worth relating.
    Alex noted with pleasure Mel’s comment about the Gannys. That alone told him that the man had his priorities straight. He enjoyed the conversation, and with complimentary geebrews frequently offered them, he decided the trip might not prove to be so bad after all.
    The highlight of the evening came at its end. On their way back to their respective staterooms, he and Mel were navigating a tight corridor when they chanced to squeeze past all six of the Marilyns, one giggling body at a time, each one an uncanny resurrection of that female icon of twentieth century