The Birth of Flux and Anchor by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Action & Adventure
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2017-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

THE HUMAN FACTORS

Gorton awakened him gently in the morning, and he got up, feeling like he still needed another week’s sleep but oddly without pain or discomfort either. There was, in fact, almost a warm glow inside.

He remembered the previous night, but wasn’t sure how much was real, if any, and how much was a dream, a reaction to this eerie place. The genital region had some dried-on material he had to wash off, but certainly if it was a dream it would have been a really wet one.

Connie was also in a surprisingly good mood, and sponged herself off before putting her clothes back on. There was something different about her, Haller thought, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was something in the way she moved, certainly—sexier, more erotic even, but that just might be the aftereffects of his dream. She seemed younger somehow, more twentyish than in her thirties. He knew it was more than imagination when she put her clothes back on. The pants seemed ill-fitting, while the day before they’d been about right, and the shirt was much too small, ending above her navel by some distance. The material shrank to fit, but didn’t enlarge again unless thoroughly washed and heat-dried.

She came over to him, looking puzzled. “Toby—do I look any different to you?”

“Um—now that you mention it, a little. I thought it was just me. Your more than ample proportions seem, well, more ample, and you look ten years younger.”

“I feel ten years younger, at least. You don’t look so bad yourself, by the way. Trimmer, leaner, more muscles showing.”

They both looked over at Gorton, who seemed to take no notice and had changed not a bit. He was preparing prepacks for breakfast. “You think maybe there’s something out here they’re not telling us about?” he wondered aloud.

“I think there is. I wonder what Special Projects’s gonna think about this?” She paused a moment. “By the way— thanks for the fuck last night. I really needed it.”

He was shocked and startled beyond words. Then it had happened—and she’d known it! Finally, his mind started to assemble what he knew into place and he asked, “Um— about last night. Did you feel anyting—unusual? I mean, strange?”

“Well, it was the best one I ever remember, and that’s saying a lot. I’m not saying that because you’re the boss either.”

“It’s been a while for me,” he said honestly. “I guess it was just all built up inside.”

“Me too,” she told him. “Jeez, I still feel turned on. I feel like a hooker after a month’s vacation. If you or laughing boy over there made half a pass, I’d tumble even in that hay.”

Gorton seemed to take no notice of what they perceived as their changed appearances, and Haller decided to see if he could put some things together. “I think I know how you got back to Anchor on your test,” he commented almost casually.

The corporal looked up. “Yes?”

“You go with the flow.”

Gorton stared at him for a moment.

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