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Pacific and the weather is pleasant and warm. Carla Tynan has brought her yacht up to the surface to spend a while sunbathing on the deck. A few years ago, when she had the NOAA job, she put most of her savings from her software patents into getting her skin cancer-proofed, so she could enjoy the sun no matter what happened to the ozone, and into MyBoat, her submersible yacht.
    That meant she was officially broke, which badly upset Louie, her husband at the time, though she certainly hadn’t touched his money or even asked for any of it.
    She slides her big, eye-covering glasses up her nose, scratches all over (nothing like the privacy of mid-ocean), and resolves not to think about Louie again for a while. Maybe she’ll think about a couple of papers she’s been noodling on … it’s about time to get her plate warmed up over on the non-profit side of the table, because if you’re going to freelance as a scientist, you’ve got to keep the other scientists saying that you’re a real one. Not paying his non-profit dues is exactly how poor old Henry Pauliss got stuck in government.
    Then again, she hasn’t done accounts in a while, and it may be time to do a little private-sector systems design or algorithmics and make some cash. There are a couple of add-on gadgets she’d like for MyBoat and she still hasn’t paid off her last purchases from the cadcam shop in Tanzania. Anyway, she’s been goofing off for weeks, not doing much more than experiencing romance wedges, sunbathing, and fishing. It’s her third trip around the world on MyBoat , and this time she just went straight from Zanzibar to Singapore without bothering about landfalls … she’s begun to admit to herself that once you’ve seen this particular planet a few times, there may be plenty of unvisited places left, but there’s a discouraging sensation that all you’re doing is filling in the holes.
    Well, now, wasn’t that what made Louie so attractive in the first place? Be honest , Carla … he was one of eight people who’d been to another planet. Not that he talked about it much, and the thing that seemed to impress him most was “how alone it was”—nearest thing to poetry she’d ever heard out of that man.
    She raises up on her elbows and looks over her body, chuckling a little. You wouldn’t think anything quite this thick and muscular—she was a weight lifter in college, and she’s run to fat a bit since—would have gotten the attention of the Assistant Mission Commander for Martian Operations; god knew there were a lot of eager little tight bodies ready for him when
he got back, but no, less than two years after his return, there he was on top of Carla Schwarz, Girl Scientist.
    Carla’s mother pegged the trouble two hours after she met Louie: “Both of you want somebody to take care of, and both of you would rather die than be taken care of.”
    It looks like Mom was right about whether the marriage would work out, because here Carla is: MyBoat , with room only for her and her work, does not seem small to her, and there Louie is—come to think of it, he may be passing overhead right now for all she knows—tending watch solo on the USA’s last space station. They’ve got a date for “five good dinners and a lot of time in bed” next time he hits dirt and she’s near a port; that might be a year or two from now, but neither of them is in any hurry.
    Maybe she’ll treat herself to calling Louie later this evening. He usually seems glad of the conversation when she does, and it’s been a few weeks.
    So much for the resolution not to think about him.
    The phone tied to her wrist rings. It’s Henry Pauliss, and the news is pretty astonishing; at least she won’t have to decide what to do with her time for the next few weeks.
     
     
    When XV was introduced in 2006, it was denounced roundly for being even more attention-absorbing than television. It was also praised highly because it allowed anyone to have the experience