Владимир Андерсон – Abandoned World: The Awakening (страница 3)

But the difficulty was that for some reason he wasn't paying much attention to her. It looked like he liked her too, but he didn't really need much of anything. Morgan could keep up a conversation with her, make jokes, show her something, but nothing more than that. As soon as work time was over, he'd retreat to his room.

And the more original way to look at it was that the last project she had to conduct was with him. Morgan was the head of one of the departments in the energy section responsible for monitoring the fusion reactor. Checking, measuring, predicting and being sure of everything that happened to it – that was his central task. Natalie was assigned to investigate the possibilities of expanding its power at maximum efficiency while using Helium-3, which she had just learned how to adapt to use from the surrounding ground.

Morgan showed and told her everything about the reactor's operation. In places where the data was highly classified, he'd said so. He'd even recommended that the two of them petition to release the data to her, but she'd thought that was premature. In truth, though, she just wanted to spend more time with him. He felt safe and secure, as if he was a shield from the problems around him, and when she was in the same room with him, she felt safer than ever.

On this day, she wanted to know more about him. Maybe it would encourage him to do something. After all, there weren't that many people on Apollo 24, and he'd pick someone eventually.

– Do you ever get tired here? When you're working. – she asked, after they'd been working on the schematics of one of the fuel rods for an hour and a half, trying to figure out how to configure it for helium-3.

– I'm more tired when I'm not working," Morgan answered without looking at her. – I'm here on my day off, too.

– And you don't get tired of it? – she moved a little closer to him. Just a little. The office they were sitting in didn't even have windows to the outside, and given that the entire area was three by four meters, but it was hard to imagine a more intimate setting.

– It happens. – Morgan turned to her and looked straight into her eyes, and there was something in those eyes that showed his returning interest in her. – But it passes quickly when I go back to work… I'm more interested in where we're going to do all this…

– I don't understand you. You mean "where"? What are the options? – She really didn't know what he meant.

– You see, what's working now is a nuclear reactor. And judging by the processes that are going on in it, it's safe to say that if it were to explode, the whole of Apollo 24 would be wiped out. Maybe it wouldn't hit something standing in the distance, but the station itself would be turned inside out in seconds… What we're studying right now is a fusion reactor. Even though it's probably the size of this room, it will be three times more powerful… And the question is, will we be allowed to build it on the station itself?

She really hadn't thought about that at all. To her, even the talk about the explosive danger of their already operating reactor seemed more like scare stories told to keep people awake on the job and to make them more responsible. After all, if it went out, for example, they were just as likely to die as if it exploded, just longer.

– Yeah, you can blow up if you work every day…" she said with a sigh, starting to think it wouldn't work at all. He's too immersed in his activities, obviously, which he enjoys day after day. They say you can fight abusers, but you can't fight workaholics. It's a perfectly legal withdrawal from your personal life, certainly in the conditions we live in.

Morgan smiled, and she thought he looked at the curve of her breasts in the jumpsuit for what seemed like an eternity, but still:

– You say that like you don't even want to live.

– How can you call it life when everyone around you is just thinking about how to do a better job… You know, they often hide behind the desire to get some results, but that's not the point. I've seen how they work – they sit idle, they spend their time for nothing, and there's no use… You need a spark – a desire to find something. When you have it, then you'll get results. And then you will do something with interest, and at some moments you will also delay until you finally get what you are looking for. And you will be satisfied with yourself, and you will want to spend time after that in pleasure… Because you will know that only after having a good rest, you can get a new spark, which will also lead you to the next success… That's what I mean. – Her eyes directly glittered as she said this, with a tone that wasn't instructive or haughty. She just wanted to say that everything has its own time, and the time that you are entitled to should not be thrown away as something unnecessary.

Morgan shook his head affirmatively, looking at the blueprints again. Still, he was handsome, too. Not just smart and calm, but handsome, too. It was the kind of masculine beauty that was not immediately apparent and could not be boasted of as a picture. This beauty is more charismatic, radiant, as if there was a difference between a face made of bronze or shabby paper. This one was made of bronze.

– I take it you didn't have a good time in Texas? – he finally said.

– Not really… You can't argue… Have you ever wondered why our blocks are called that? Like

states?

– No… Somehow I never thought about it… But they are quite logically located on the sides

of the world.

– That's true. But then why is the station itself called Apollo and not America or the United States, for example? We are told that we live in the former USA in North America. Would that make sense? Or if it's a city, why not just call it that city?

– Natalie, this kind of talk… You've only known me for a couple months and already you trust me so much....

– All right. If you can't be trusted, then I'll know… And I'll know what a bore you are. Now

do you see why you're talking about something you can't call life? Everybody's either horny or boring. Sometimes both at the same time.

It sometimes seemed to her that it was true that all men were strictly divided into these two types. Some think with their dicks, others only with their heads. And the ones who could think with their heads and only satisfy her with their dicks had never been found. That would be ideal, and it seems she's not going to find one. They're all either all about cock or all about brains. I mean, it's like he looked at her breasts, he was attracted to something. But he didn't. That's exactly what it seemed like.

– When you made the helium-3 discovery, what were you thinking? – Morgan turned to her again and stared into her eyes. Her beautiful, bright green eyes. And so appealing that she immediately stopped thinking of him as a nerd.

– I was just interested… I studied it because I was interested. Not to do any good for anyone.

Or to get a better place to live. No… But because I was interested… And I can definitely say that's why I did it… Interest is the spark that drives us to something more....

– What about our fusion reactor project?

– That's up to you. – Natalie said the words slowly, first averting her gaze and then returning it to Morgan's eyes at the end of the sentence. She wanted him to be interested in something. If not her figure, her beauty, or her intelligence, then at least some mystery, even if there wasn't one.

And it seemed to work, because he smiled. He smiled just a little, and shook his head affirmatively:

– Then we can definitely make it work. We could go have coffee at my place once we're

done. Is that okay with you?

A small stone flew off her shoulders, though there were literally many other stones still on her back as she did so:

– Well, unless you insist.

– I insist. So here's the deal We've got another half hour on these drawings today. And to

keep our conscience clear, we should finalize them properly…

***

His quarters consisted of four separate rooms, not just two like hers, but four at once-not just luxurious by our standards, but unprecedented. Natalie hadn't even known it was possible to live like this, or that there were private rooms of this size on the station.

– How's the coffee? – Morgan asked. Before he poured her a mug, he asked about what kind she liked to drink it in, what she liked to put more of, and, most interestingly, how she understood the process in general. It was strange and surprising at the same time – she had never really thought about the fact that people could do the same things while inwardly understanding completely different things. It wasn't until he asked specifically about her way of seeing that she realized that it was something that came out completely different for everyone. She was the one who drank coffee to relax, smelling the delicious aroma and nothing more. And someone else drank it to perk up, to take a break, to think about something. And probably a lot of other things she couldn't even think of. And these thoughts about coffee made her think that all things people could do in the same way, from the simplest to the most exclusive.