"You have the duty?" McCorkle asked?
"I'm afraid so," Brian answered. "The official greeter."
"So what'd you do last night?" McCorkle baited him.
"Worked out." Brian recalled his two hours in the gym.
"I had a workout of my own," McCorkle gloated. "Lieutenant Traffensteadt from communications. Damn, she was hot."
Brian tried to recall the week he had last had sex. Five months ago, if you didn't count his hand. Adrienne. She was in communications as well. They were first together three weeks after he arrived and then many times during his first three months. For some reason, she got pissed. He never understood it. She broke it off. For a while he thought the spark might still be there, that whatever had pissed her off would fade, but it didn't and now she was gone, back to earth a month ago.
Brian gazed at the docking station through the large, three by four window. That was large by Habitat standards anyway; windows on the International Lunar Habitat were usually portholes or more often small rectangles no wider than a person's eyes.
The space transportation vehicle or STV came into view. It moved from left to right across the window, approaching the docking station in the customary "sideways" fashion.
"She about screwed my brains out," McCorkle boasted. "You here to escort a greenhorn? Who's the lucky turd?"
"A doctor might not appreciate being called a turd. Dr. Allison Sparks."
"And who comes here that isn't a doctor?"
"This one's different."
"How so?"
"She has a Phd.," Brian answered, as if all of them didn't. "In contemporary art," he added.
"Art! Art on the moon!"
"That's what they tell me," Brian remarked.
"An art consultant on the moon," McCorkle laughed. "Only those dick-heads in Florida could dream that up."
The STV was locked into the station. Passengers were probably already filing off. Ahead of them was the corridor from the docking station to where Brian stood. From his vantage point, it was just a long enclosed walkway, resembling an elongated white railroad car.
"They're in decomp," McCorkle told him, referring the the room between them and the corridor, the area where the abbreviated space suits required for travel were shed.
Suddenly, a green light above the hatch to McCorkle's right lit up. The sergeant spun the wheel in the door's center and swung it open. Brian estimated there were fifteen people waiting to come through the hatch.
He recognized most of the faces--people who had been on leave. If anyone else was new, he didn't care; he simply had to find the bitch they'd sent him to fetch.
"Dr. Sparks?" he called across everyone's head.
"Here." He heard a voice. Then she stepped into view from behind the left edge of the hatch. Maybe this duty isn't so bad after all, Brian thought. She had stunning blue eyes that sought him out through the heads that bobbed back and forth. She raised a hand and finally made her way to where he stood, after most of the passengers had moved deeper into the ILH.
"Hello, I'm Brian."
"I'm Dr. Allison Sparks." She extended a hand and they shook. Brian studied her face. When he didn't speak, she blew out a sigh and said, "Well, it's good to be here."
"This your first trip to the moon."
"As a matter of fact, it is. I went on one of the tourist flights into earth orbit while I was in high school, but this is actually my first trip into space. Kind of late, I suppose."
"It's exciting at first," Brian suggested, "but after a while, it's kind of--well, isolated."
"The excitement hasn't worn off yet for me and maybe it won't. Sometimes we make our own excitement, Mr.--"
"Head. Brian Head. It's my job to show you the International Lunar Habitat and your new quarters. It's a two day stint, so don't feel that you have to learn everything in an hour. Shall we." Brian made a sweeping gesture with his hand.
She walked in front of him toward the center of the Habitat. The jump suit wrapped her ass a little too tightly for Brian's comfort. His almost forgotten crotch came to life. To calm himself, he started chattering about the ILH, hoping his momentary excitement wouldn't become to obvious in the stretchy jump suit he, himself, wore.
The four docking stations and their corridors made an "X" on top of the Habitat, he informed her. "We have four stations at the tips of the X," he went on, "but traffic is usually only twice per week. Supplies, bring new personnel and take others off."
"How long have you been here?" she asked him.
"Eight months. I get a two-month leave at twelve. Something I'm looking forward to." They stepped into the elevator. He leaned against one wall; she stood opposite him in front of the other. He tried not to be too obvious but his glances took in the length of her body.
"Damn!" she exclaimed. "Excuse me--that just feels so weird."
"It's the gravity. It's not as much as earth but you've been weightless for three days. Be careful of when it stops. We'll skip these first two floors--communications. We'll get off on the lounge floor. Then we'll look at the mess deck and I'll so you your quarters."
"Eventually, I have to see everything. It's my job to bring humanity to all of the Habitat. That's what I've come for."
"That's why we all come--isn't it? Humanity."
"Oh," she cried and then laughed, as the elevator came to a stop. Brian reached and took her arm in case she fell.
"This is the lounge deck. Let me show you what's here." He pointed out the movies shown after work and earth-based television next door on a similar screen, the game room, the library, and the gym. All of it small but all there.
"Let's take a break here," Brian suggested, indicating a grouping of six seats surrounding a small table. An automatic juice/coffee bar stood at one end of the grouping.
"Will that thing make a chai latte?" Allison asked.
"One chai latte coming up! If it won't make it, you'll get a prize for being the first to stump it. In seconds he took two drinks from the dispenser and passed one to her.
"Ummm, that's perfect," she said. "And what is that you're having?"
"Citrus chamomile tea," he answered. "It's delicious, but I only drink it for the health benefits."
"And what are those?"
"Well, I'm not sure but I'm afraid to stop; it could be the last thread my life is hanging by."
She laughed. "Things can't be as bad as all that." She still smiled at him. "What do you do?"
"I'm a propulsion tech, but since we never move, I'm a general flunkie unless I'm doing maintenance or one of the STVs is having problems. So you're bringing art to the moon?"