Inseminoid Read Online Free PDF Page B

creature’s scaley skin and placed it under a microscope but what he saw meant nothing to him.
    Hours had elapsed since the creature was delivered, though Karl wasn’t any closer to figuring out what its composition was. Finally, they had to take a break.
    “How about a cup of coffee?” he suggested.
    Sandy laughed. “I never thought you’d ask. Some people can go on pure adrenalin like you, but some of us need artificial stimulation—” she paused suggestively “—like caffeine.”
    Karl quite enjoyed working with Sandy. They got along well. Too well, in fact. She was most definitely a fine woman to look at. Karl was a sucker for fair-skinned blondes, especially ones with big breasts. And that was Sandy. Her smile? God, he loved her smile.
    They had just begun their rotation together. Karl believed Sandy looked up to him as a father-figure. He was, after all, nearly twice her age. His hair was thinning and the lines on his face revealed the strain of too many years of space travel. He was flattered that Sandy was infatuated with him. That’s something you don’t expect from the rotation, especially when the reasoning behind it was that romantic entanglements were not in the interest of ultimate efficiency.
    Some people, especially the younger ones, found mate-rotation acceptable, but not Karl. Okay, sexual functioning often led to problems on long expeditions and yes, in the past emotional pairings had caused unwanted conflict but, hell, Karl could remember when the chase was nearly as much fun as the catch. Since rotation became the policy, sex had become downright boring.
    Sandy must have been reading his mind. “I’m glad you chose me for your assistant.” she just blurted out.
    Karl was floored. “You had the best record. Why shouldn’t I have picked you?”
    “I didn’t have any experience. There were others . . .”
    Karl cut her off. “You’ll get all the experience soon enough.” He stopped for a second and studied Sandy’s sullen face. “You know, you should smile more often. You’re always so intense and serious.”
    “I’d like to relax—to let myself go—but I’m so afraid people won’t take me or my work seriously.”
    “Don’t worry about people. There are doers and there are talkers. Mark my words, one day you’ll be so fine a doctor and scientist that all these people you’re concerned about will be like flotsam in your jetstream.”
    That brought a smile to Sandy’s face. “Thank you, Karl.”
    Karl knew he wasn’t going to like it when the time came to switch partners. But he shrugged, all too aware of the facts of intergalactic life.
    Mitch was suited up and waiting in the airlock for Mark to deliver the slabs. He was impatient to get down to work. As the vehicle’s grunting sounds grew closer Mitch opened the outer door to the airlock. The forklift bounded inside and the door closed.
    They worked quickly, lifting the stone blocks from the forklift and transferring them to a large four-wheeled motorised wagon.
    When the wagon was fully stacked, Mitch opened the inner door and guided it across the complex using his remote control unit. He never could quite get the hang of it and the wagon kept crashing into the wall. At last, he manoeuvred it down the long narrow corridor leading to his study.
    Barbra was there waiting for him. She was a tall, statuesque twenty-three-year-old woman. She’d been one of the professor’s students; now she was his assistant and as devoted to him as he was to his work. Her schoolgirl crush had flowered into deep love.
    “That’s a lot of work,” she said.
    “I know. I’d better get started.”
    “Can I help?”
    Mitch thought for a moment. “As a matter of fact you can. Would you wipe the dirt and grit from the first twenty-five? But be careful not to rub out the numbers.”
    Barbra was pleased to be of assistance.
    Mitch shed his suit and moved to the wagon. He dusted the top tablet with his shirt sleeve and looked at it closely.