Over the next couple years, as much as one could expect, things went more or less as planned, except that sometimes the Chaser’s launch date seemed to be turning into an asymptote, continually approached and never actually reached.
Yanci worked full time on the ship’s Technology Planning Board and was elected the vice-chair. He was now an absolute shoo-in for the Chaser.
Sherry’s job didn’t match her major, but she was a raving success at it, doing logistics for a Titan Colony construction company based in TC2. The biggest problem was that her boss thought she was indispensable, so he got playfully nervous every time she left town to do her volunteer work, documenting education outcomes for the children of HX Chaser construction workers. Sherry had made no secret of her own Chaser ambition, and he was also nervous about that, a lot less playfully.
That left me, and I was stumbling a bit. A year into our partnership, when I’d been on Titan only a few months, Will bailed on me. That was hard. I’d been concentrating on doing the presenting part of the business to get contracts and on establishing a good information flow from client archives into our company once we had a contract. She’d been doing some marketing and a lot of back office. When we looked at our progress after a year, I felt I was doing really well for a historian, but Will felt her DBA was being wasted. She had an offer to join Telling You Your Job®, Ltd., an established management consultancy firm.
“Joe,” she told me, “this’s been fun, and you’ve been good to work with. But it’s time for me to get serious about my career. I’m going to make five times what I’m making here, and that’s just for my first year.”
I kept my bitterness inside, and we parted on good terms. She found me a replacement partner, Evita Rankulche, an old girlfriend of hers from Hubble U with a mere BBA. And Will did feed us business whenever she could, so she may have ended up helping RightInStone’s business more by going than by staying.
But I still had a big problem: I wasn’t getting the profile I needed to keep up with Yanci and Sherry. I could write about them and even get it onto the respected Titan Herald-Courier journalog, but nobody wanted to pick up anything I wrote about myself. The Chaser was getting further away for me!
While I was looking for a solution, one of those things-that-just-happens happened: Yanci had never outgrown his love of NJ jet skis. When he cracked up on his skis at a resort next to Thuong Methane Lake, the accident should have been minor. But it got freaky. The heating in his suit’s right leg failed, and neither Yanci nor his rescuers noticed it until after his leg froze nearly solid, and he was in the hospital for nearly a month for two or three operations repairing the damage.
But the strangeness didn’t end there. Naturally enough, Mr. Krazney beelined for the hospital, even faster than Sherry and I did, and he was mightily concerned about his son’s recovery. But it turned out something more than fatherly anxiety was involved. The second time Sherry and I visited him in the hospital, I noticed Yanci had a lot of nurses, all female, with different aprons than the nurses we’d seen at the desks and in the halls, and they weren’t shy about giving my future brother-in-law their attention. He introduced all five of them, but it wasn’t their names that caught my attention, if you know what I mean. By the end of the visit, I was willing to be in the next bed with both legs broken if they’d tend me, too!
As we descended the lift shaft, Sherry asked, “Did you notice all those auxiliary nurses?”
“Well … yes … ummm,” I mumbled. My brain wasn’t the only part of my body that was still remembering the way they’d touched Yanci and smiled at him. “I did wonder why their uniforms were different,” I managed to remark.
Sherry looked at me sharply, then laughed. “Of course you noticed them! But not the right way. Those are the top lookers in Titan Colony’s debutante set. Yeah, Yanci’s loving it, but there’s no way he recruited them. That’s got to be Pop’s work.”
The day that Yanci came out of the hospital, we had a celebratory lunch at the Restaurante dos Artistas, one of the colony’s stuffier eateries. Yanci walked in with one of the nurses on his arm, no longer in uniform. “I’d like you to know that Yolinda Piñera has agreed to become my wife,” he told us.
Sherry and I were speechless. Grace and Agostinho Krazney were both silently beaming, clearly not surprised at their son’s announcement.
“Congratulations … to both of you,” I finally said, standing up and kissing her hand.
“I’m delighted to see you again, Joe and Sherry,” Yolinda murmured. Her voice was just as beautiful as the rest of her. “Mr. and Mrs. Krazney.” She nodded to all of us.
As he sat down on the banquette with her, Yanci said, “Of course since I’ve gotten serious with Yolinda, my plans have changed. I’m still committed to making the HX Chaser project the very best it can be, but I won’t be heading out on her. I’ve got a new love of my life now.”
The way the two cuddled then would have been sweet, if it hadn’t totally upended my expectations. What I should have done then was cuddle Sherry while forcing a smile onto my face. Instead, my knuckles whitened as I attempted to strangle our table. I could hardly think, but I managed to say something deeply embarrassing.
“If I can speak frankly, Yanci: Are you sure your second head isn’t doing your thinking for you? You’ve wanted to be on the Chaser ever since it was announced!”
Everybody at the table knew I wasn’t joking, which left Yanci with three choices: Sock me, offer to take me outside and sock me, or smile. Thank heaven my boyhood friend had more class than I did right then. He smiled a genuine smile, not a bared-teeth battle sneer, and I knew we’d really lost him. Next to me I felt Mr. Krazney relax, knowing he’d won.
“I have wanted it, Joe. But while I was in the hospital I gave a lot of thought to why. I wanted it to help humanity, and because it was really exciting. But I can help humanity and do exciting things here on Titan, too, without leaving Yolinda. I can raise a family here, while you and Sherry represent the Gang of Three on the Chaser.”
His father nodded approvingly throughout Yanci’s speech, and then showed himself gracious in victory. “Now I can give Sherry and you my blessing, Joe … for going on the Chaser and other things you may have in mind.” He winked at us. Yeah, over the past few years Mr. Krazney had been doing his research, all right. Sherry and I kept separate apartments, but we’d been sharing beds. “Do you prefer your champagne sweet or dry, Joe?”
I had enough sense to go easy on the champagne—dry, of course—and by the time lunch was over, I really appreciated the silver lining: Sherry and I would make it! And if one of us had to stay behind, that one should be happy doing so.
As I escorted her back to her apartment, Sherry and I decided we wanted to be the first people married on the Chaser. It would be our own little history-making while we were making history. So we had three projects:
First, we had to make sure the Chaser’s captain was willing to go along with our plans. There was no opposition there.
Then we had to convince Mr. and Mrs. Krazney it would make sense, and they could have a celebratory reception without us afterwards. That was harder, but we succeeded. We put off trying to convince the Bolognese side until we could do it in person. Someday.
Finally, we had to get the Chaser underway as soon as possible!