Aloft (Petronaut Tales) Read Online Free PDF Page A

before,” she said, hurriedly.
    “Oh, sure.  We’ve worked big carriage suspensions.  A motorized dais that raised and lowered, too, and had a bunch of dancers leaping around on it for, uh, a play or something.”
    “See?  So Upforth’s could lend experience with scale, while we figure out the whole ‘aloft’ part.”
    “Ensie.  I just want to be sure we wouldn’t waste your time.”
    Ensie took a deep breath through her nose.  “It would take a lot of time,” she said slowly.  She curled her hands into little fists, rubbing her thumbs against her fingers as she looked up at him.  No giggling.  No giggling!
      “We’d have to meet, uh… quite a few times, probably.”
    Cooper looked down at her.  His hands unlocked from behind his back and floated to his sides.  “Quite a few times?”  he said, quietly.
    “Oh, yeah.  A big project like this could take hours and hours of collaboration.”
    He nodded.  One of his large fingers pointed to the desk.  “Here?”
    As he tapped the surface of the desk, Ensie thought of purposes for the wide flat surface that had never even crossed her mind before.  She’d never wanted to get started on a collaboration so badly.
    “Or your workshop,” she said.  “You know.  Whichever sounds more productive.”
    “Either sounds good to me.”
    “Great.”
    “Great.  Can I say—”
    “I just want to—”
    They both spoke up simultaneously, and leaned a little closer at the same time.  It brought them many centimeters closer than either had meant independently.  Ensie froze there.  He was so close that her hairnet was almost brushing the center of his chest.  She turned her face up to him and saw something very interesting in his eyes.
    “You first,” she whispered.
    Cooper took a long moment before speaking.  “Can I just tell you that I’m looking forward to working with you?”
    “Likewise…” Ensie shifted her hand so their fingertips on the desk were touching.  “Cooper.”
    He shifted his hand on top of hers.  Warm pressure, skin-to-skin, flooded up her arm and into her chest.  The contours of his rough palm were fascinating as she explored them through the fine hairs and delicate nerves of the back of her hand.  Her vision went a little blurry as she dedicated all her brainpower to experiencing his touch against her skin.
    A massive noise clattered through the hallway just outside.  Ensie recoiled before she recognized the sound of the tool cart for what it was.  Cooper started too, raising his hand up and away.  He flushed the color of an overripe apple and he refused to meet her eyes as the tech outside pushed the noisy cart from one workroom to the next.
     “I.”  Ensie brushed the nonexistent dust off the blueprints again, trying to get her voice under control again.  Cooper slowly put his hands behind his back.
    “That, uh.”  He cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry.  That was unprofessional of me, and I’m sorry.”
    She looked up at him.
    “I shouldn’t have… I mean, I didn’t mean anything by, by touching you.”
    “You didn’t?”
    “Well, I… it’s not...  There’s a time and a place, that’s all.  Unprofessional,” he rambled, shaking his head.
    Ensie felt the grain of the desk beneath her hand.  “I made you think unprofessional thoughts,” she murmured.
    Their eyes met.
    “It’ll never happen again,” he said, something low coloring his voice.
    Ensie raised one eyebrow in an unspoken ‘really?’ she would have been very proud of if she had been able to see herself.
    Sunlight flooded the room as their lips pressed together.
     

 
    “Fantastic,” Upforth said, hardly believing his ears.
    “On behalf of my team, I feel just the same way,” Ensie said.  “I think this partnership’s going to be absolutely vital to the success of the Flicker.”
    “We’ve got something to add to your ranine technology.”  Upforth said it proudly, like a statement, but couldn’t keep a