"Pheromone Pharmacopia"

by Brandy Dewinter

(c 2001, All rights reserved)

Chapter 8 - "Mishap"

     Vanna's voice trailed off with that whispered memory, her eyes 
perhaps seeing where the sound had gone since they were clearly not 
focused on anything in Sandy's room.  After a moment, she shivered 
slightly as though shaking off an enclosing shroud, lowered eyes telling 
more of the tale despite her silence.  The blush did not speak clearly 
enough for Carol.

     "What do you mean, 'Jaymi is right'?" the tall redhead demanded.

     The incongruity of a demure blush on Vanna's elegant face was 
surprisingly charming - a sign of a new aspect of her personality 
developed in the course of her experience.  She didn't answer though, at 
least not in words.  Instead, she looked at Jaymi, smiling at the 
recognition in the slender brunette's eyes that she had understood. 

     Carol saw the interplay, but rather than push at Vanna she decided 
to go straight to the source, Jaymi, later.  She still felt the tale was 
incomplete, though.  "So what happened next?" 

     "Oh," Vanna replied with a grin that teased even as her easy words 
proclaimed full openness.  "The next day we went on his yacht to visit
the Statue of Liberty."

     Then her voice got serious again, earnest as she tried to share 
something from her heart despite her previous reticence.  "That is so . . 
. powerful.  Have you ever seen it?  I mean really seen it, from the water 
as you approach?  As we rode over on the yacht I could really feel, for 
the first time I think, what America means.  Can you imagine all the 
immigrants who passed that statue, what it represented to them?  We are 
the hope of the whole world, and that hope is summed up by that great 
lady; tall, lighting the way for the rest of us, proclaiming liberty  
built on an unshakeable foundation of honor."  

     "I got all silly and sentimental," Vanna admitted, remembered majesty 
again putting a glisten in her eyes.  She realized it, she probably had 
no choice but to realize it as her throat tightened and she whispered, "I 
still am, I guess."

     Despite her earlier demand for juicier news, it was Carol who reached 
over to embrace her shorter teammate.  At least, she was the first.  

     Marilyn's soft voice eventually intruded in a way that was more 
completion than interruption of the moment.  "I think we need to be 
getting to sleep, now.  It's late."  

     It was proof - as though any were needed - of Marilyn's timing that 
none of the team members twitched at her voice, yet all started moving 
even as she spoke.  By the time they had sorted themselves out smiles 
had become light-hearted again, with Carol laughing as she threatened, 
"I'm going to get the rest of that story out of you."  

     Vanna chuckled that oh-so-elegant laugh she had been taught, but her 
smile showed no concern.  It was unclear whether that was because she 
really wouldn't mind telling, or whether it was because she had no 
intention of *ever* sharing what had happened between her and her 
unexpected beau - which was part of the fun, of course.

    Marilyn was the last to leave Sandy's room, deliberately so as she 
ushered Jaymi out.  "You go to your own room, no hovering over Sandy all 
night," she ordered the slender girl.  Then Marilyn turned back to Sandy, 
an incipient hover in her own attitude as she asked, "Are you going to be
all right?"

    "Of course," Sandy said easily.  "I'm fine, really."  Then her voice 
got quiet with memories that were beyond words yet colored the ones she
did say.  "I've been through much worse."  

     The next morning, no one outside the team would have seen any hint of 
a problem in Sandy's bright smile.  Even Carol gave her a funny look, as 
though trying to decide how much of her enthusiasm was real and how much 
was cover.  The tall redhead's question remained unspoken though, as the 
hovering tech prepared her for what was now going to be her assignment. 

     "I wish I were going with you," the tech, a too-thin, dark-blonde 
girl named Chrissy, said as she fussed with the taller woman's forest-green 
skinsuit.

     Carol's bright smile didn't really reach her eyes, but she nodded.  
"It should be fun.  How many guys did you say would be diving with me 
today?"

     "Oh, ah, that's not really what I meant," Chrissy said, blushing.

     "What?  All those men and you're NOT thinking about them?  Just 
what *were* you thinking about?" Carol said, smirking, then her lids 
drooped into a sultry invitation and her voice got husky.  "Or . . just
*where* did you want to go with me?"  

     This sparked even more of a blush in the over-matched tech's cheeks, 
but the real message was in the way she wouldn't meet Carol's eyes.  After 
a pause much too long to support the denial, Chrissy whispered, "That's 
not what I meant either."

     "Too bad," Carol whispered in return, reaching out with her gloved 
hand to caress the smaller woman's cheek.  

     Chrissy didn't flinch from the touch, but neither did she follow up 
on the opening.  That was not a further message though, since they were 
interrupted by yet another suit tech bringing the helmet to Carol's suit.

     "I thought this sort of thing went out about the time Lloyd Bridges 
learned to swim," she complained as the man lowered over her head a huge 
elliptical helmet with an absurdly small clear port.  

     The new tech, a man she hadn't really met whose nametag read simply, 
'Jake', laughed and said, "Why, this is newer than new.  Amazing Space 
Adventures says that this is what all the space babes will be wearing in 
2007."  He paused for effect, then explained, "Of course, that issue was 
published in 1957."  

     "What?" Carol asked.  Or at least, her mouth formed that word.  It 
was another second before Jake completed connecting the umbilical so that 
her mike and helmet speakers worked.  

     Even through the small window in her head bubble, Carol could see the 
others laughing, and she assumed it was at her expense.  Her attitude was 
not improved when she noticed that Sandy had started performing on her 
assignment too, as the team camera operator, and so had recorded whatever 
joke had eluded the redhead.  Carol's eyes flashed with a reminder that 
even with her hair hidden by the helmet her temper was still very real.  
Before she could say anything though, the speakers inside her helmet 
crackled with official business.

     "Can you hear now?" Jake asked through his own mike.

     "Yes," Carol replied, the sound repeated with an artificial echo from 
speakers throughout the area.  

     "I think we'll wait until we get to the tank to add your weights," 
Jake decided, offering a polite hand to help Carol stand on her stilt 
heels.  

     Chrissy looked as though she might move forward to help Carol as 
well, but Vanna was already there.  None of the other team members wore 
their helmets for this exercise, though Sandy's face was even more 
obscured by the camera she carried.  Dancing lightly despite her towering 
heels, Sandy circled the gaggle of beauties plus one proudly preening 
male technician, as they moved from the dressing room to the training 
facility.   

     At the entrance to the exercise chamber they were stopped by the 
artificially avuncular tones of Waylon Jennings.  "Whoa, there, litt . ., 
ah, ladies.  The pool area can be mighty slick and I wouldn't want you to 
slip."  

     "Thank you for your concern, but I think we can handle it," Marilyn 
said with more apparent patience than the rest of the team was feeling.

     "That's okay," Jennings insisted.  "We're experts at this."

     He waved his technicians in to take the place of Carol's teammates, 
blandly ignoring any potential that the SMITE team could be as competent 
as a 'real' astronaut team, even in walking across a tiled floor.  

     In fact, the floor was relatively slick, especially so for the dagger 
heels incorporated in the team's specialized skinsuits.  However, the only 
woman having any trouble was the one in imperial purple, Jacqui Cleaver.  
The multi-level irony of that was not lost on the team, but of course it 
was missed completely by Jennings.

     The training facility was a huge swimming pool, a tank over 40 feet 
deep, where astronauts who were preparing for extra-vehicular activities 
would rehearse the specifics of the tasks in a simulated weightless 
environment.  For each actual astronaut, there were always at least two 
safety divers wearing conventional SCUBA gear, along with a bustling 
beehive of personnel who were nominally supposed to stay dry.  

     Carol's situation was unique in that her skinsuit was much more akin 
to the wetsuits of the divers than the typical bulky NASA spacesuit.  Her 
first task was simply to get dunked so that it could be determined what 
weights would be required to offset her inherent buoyancy, much less than 
that of typical trainees.  In the end, a few dive weights at her trim 
waist, wrists, and ankles, along with some careful additions to the 
backpack that housed her air and power supplies, and she was ready for her 
first try at replacing a solar panel.  

     Sandy filmed it all, first moving close to get shots that proved it 
was still really Carol inside the bubble helmet, then back to show the 
scope of support an astronaut receives.  The rest of the team remained 
with the other strap-hangers who had no apparent duties.  Or at least, 
almost with them.  As always, there was an immediate segregation as the 
'real' astronauts moved a few steps away for private conversations.   

     Perhaps to show that their own shoes were so much better on the wet 
deck around the tank, Jennings and 'Oz' Anderson stood close to the edge 
of the pool.  Sandy was the only team member who happened to move close 
enough to 'accidentally' eavesdrop on their conversation.        

     "I think we're gonna have to get suits like that for ALL the 
astronauts, now," Anderson said, leering at the girls in a way he probably 
thought was subtle.  
  
     "Shit, Oz, you'd look like the Pillbury doughboy in one of them 
suits," Jennings said, laughing.  

     "In one of *those* suits," Anderson countered, "even *I* would look 
good.  I mean, look at Beaver.  Would you have ever guessed she was that . 
. . shapely?"  

     "Mighty fine, that's for sure," Jennings agreed.  "Mighty fine.  But 
. . ."

     "I know what you mean," Anderson said.  "So, which one would you like 
to be marooned in space with?"  

     "Damnit, Oz, we're professionals.  These women are our, ah, clients 
and we need to behave."

     "Yeah, right," Anderson snorted.  "Hell, Waylon, I'll 'behave' just 
fine.  But even *your* training program can't keep me from thinkin' what 
I want." 

     Jennings didn't respond, at least not with words, but his eyes told a 
story that he probably considered no impediment to his own 
'professionalism'.  

     "Not a bad choice," Anderson observed with a conspiratory snicker.  
"If you like curvy blondes and don't have much need for intelligent 
conversation." 

     "Talking was not the . . . communication I had in mind," Jennings 
admitted quietly, glancing around to see who might have heard.  
Unfortunately for him, and even more so for Anderson, he didn't turn quite 
far enough to see Sandy drifting closer.  

     "For an old fart, you've got good taste," Anderson continued.  "Not 
*great* taste, mind you, but, like I said, not bad."  

     "Oh, and just what's wrong with my, ahem, taste?" demanded Jennings.

     "It's not what I would call, ah, subtle," Anderson declared.  "That 
Marilyn is almost as pretty as her namesake, but choosing to copy Marilyn 
Monroe is just what I mean.  How obvious can you get?"  

     "Hell, Oz, I told you I wasn't thinkin' about her *mind*," Jennings 
snorted.  

     "Even so, I think there are, um, depths I'd like to, ah, explore in 
that dark-haired girl," Anderson said.  

     "The young one?  I thought you were more grown up than that," laughed 
Jennings.

     "No, though she's obviously the prettiest," Anderson countered.  "I 
was talking about the one called Jaymi.  There's just something about her.  
I think she needs to be shown what being a woman is all about." 

     "Yeah, right, like you know," Jennings said.  "Hell, Oz, there's only 
one part of a woman you know anything about, and not much about that."  

     "I'm hurt," Anderson said, theatrically holding his hand over his 
heart.  Then he laughed and said, "Besides, there's at least a couple more 
places of interest.  Though, once you add those in you do have about all 
that matters."  

     "Say that to the Beaver and you'll lose your interest in women . . . 
permanently," Jennings warned.

     "I'm not as dumb as you look," Anderson said with a laugh.  "But the 
others, well, I'll probably rent the movie when it comes out, but I think 
I'll just leave the sound off."

     "Good plan," Jennings said, laughing in agreement.  "I'll bring the 
beer."  

     "Oops!"  A woman's voice interrupted their mutual satisfaction.  

     Sandy's high-heeled foot suddenly appeared beside them, thrown up 
waist high in an obvious attempt to recover lost balance.  It was not 
enough.  A heartbeat later her shoulder caught Anderson in the waist.  
Like dominos, her impulse was translated through him into Jennings.  
Curiously, only Anderson and Jennings actually fell down.  

     And down.  Into the pool they had been standing near so casually.  

     When they surfaced, Sandy was standing near the edge, having recovered 
her balance thanks to their 'help'.  

     "Oh, Mr. Jennings," she cried.  "I'm so sorry.  You told us to be 
careful, but I just slipped."

     "S'oll roight," Anderson answered for the sputtering Jennings.  
"Oi'm sure i'couldn' be helped."  

     "Uh, yeah," Jennings agreed, hauling himself from the water.  He 
ignored Sandy's offered hand in favor of those from the other bystanders 
who had gathered at the edge of the pool.  The ones who were not wearing 
steepled heels.  

     "You should go get dried off," Marilyn observed with ostentatious 
concern too perfect for Jennings to recognize as a parody of his own 
attitude toward the women.  

     "I, ah, can't do that yet," he replied.  "As Test Director, I have to 
be here until the astronaut trainee is out of the tank."  

     "Oh, that's too bad," Sandy said in tones dripping with remorse.  
Somehow her tones weren't reflected in her eyes, though.  Perhaps it was 
because she was not 'dripping' as badly as some others.  

     A warning buzzer soon indicated the end of the training exercise 
anyway.  The waiting support team helped Carol back to the dressing room 
and had her out of her own wet skinsuit and into a dry one with practiced 
efficiency.  The SMITE team, now including Jacqui as at least an honorary 
member, were waiting in the debrief conference room before Jennings and 
Anderson arrived.

     "Okay, Sandy," Marilyn asked.  "What really went on out there?"

     "I slipped," she said simply.  

     "Yeah, right," Jaymi laughed.  "I've seen you do cartwheel in heels 
higher than that, and on surfaces at least as slick.  Tell us what really 
happened."  

     Sandy glanced at Jacqui, asking a question and receiving an answer in 
the flicker of an eyelash.  She nodded acceptance of the message, 
gratifying the newest team member with that simple acknowledgment.  

     "They were . . . discussing us.  In terms they no doubt thought were 
flattering, but weren't really.  You know?  Anyway, I decided those pigs 
needed a bath."  

     "Hell, girl," Jacqui said, "I've heard that sort of thing ever since 
I came here.  You'll have to get used to it."  

     "Hell, girl," Carol said to Jacqui in conscious repetition, "I've 
*said* worse than whatever they could have said.  That's not the point."  

     "Right," Marilyn agreed.  "If we're going to be properly prepared for 
this mission, we need their honest respect and fair assessments.   
Condescension could kill us, if it results in poor training."  

     "Ah," Jacqui said softly.  "Good point.  I, um, chose a different 
route to gain my own acceptance."  

     "You mean you earned it," Marilyn said directly.  "And you're right.  
By the standards of typical astronaut candidates, you did.  Our needs and 
those of our mission are unique - and not just in the obvious ways.  But 
don't make the mistake, as Jennings did, of assuming we're not competent.  
It's just that our competence takes a different form."  

     "I'm beginning to understand that," Jacqui nodded, with more respect 
than she might have had a few days before.  

    "All that's just fine," Vanna said, breaking in with an artificially 
overdone giggle, "but I want to know *who* they were interested in."

     Sandy laughed and was about to tell them, when any further 
conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Jennings and the rest 
of the task analysis team.  As usual, the debrief lasted longer than the 
actual exercise, but the conclusion was that Carol had done well, her long 
arms an aid in an environment where brute strength had long been recognized
as not a primary need.  Carol herself was strangely quiet, answering 
questions quickly and directly, but not volunteering anything.  Most 
surprisingly, she passed up obvious opportunities to throw in her usual 
sexual innuendoes.  

     Jennings looked like he was even going to comment on it at one point, 
Carol's brisk professionalism that is, but in the end all he did was toss 
a condescending 'good job' her way.  After a review of the next day's 
exercises, the team was dismissed.  
  
     "You wanna go get a cup of coffee?" Vanna invited Jacqui.

     "Uh, thanks, but, um, if you don't mind, I'd like to go *around* the
tank facility," the petite brunette replied, then grimaced a little.  "I 
need a little more practice in these heels before I spend any more time on 
that wet tile."  

     Carol stayed seated for a moment as the others gathered up to go.  
Marilyn noticed, as she noticed everything, and paused for a moment in her 
own activities to let the others get away.  The first thing she did when 
they were alone was . . . nothing.  She let Carol have the time to bring 
up whatever was bothering her, just being there in case now was the time.

    Marilyn looked like she had about decided it was *not* the right time
and turned to go, but despite Carol's attempt to hide behind lowered eyes, 
she gave herself away with an audible sniff.

     "What's wrong, dear?" asked Marilyn.

     "Nothing," Carol whispered.  

     In response, Marilyn didn't say anything.  At least, not with words, 
but she sat down with a firm finality that made it clear she wasn't 
accepting that answer.  

    When Carol looked up, the tears in her eyes were past hiding, past 
denying.  Her voice was still a whisper, vanishing softly into the corners 
of the conference room but only after passing by the attentive team leader.

     "This is not really me, you know?" Carol began.  

     Perhaps to her surprise, her leader nodded sadly.  "I know, Carol, 
and I'm sorry.  I needed you to fill a specific role on the team - and you
do it very well - but I've always known you weren't comfortable in the 
role of a sex-obsessed vamp."

     "You have?"

     "Yes," Marilyn confirmed.  "But I needed you to feel motivated to do 
your best, at least in the beginning, so I couldn't offer you any real 
alternatives.  After that, well, things were working too well to derail 
with some sort of shakeup.  Maybe that was a mistake."

     "Maybe," Carol said softly, the unaccustomed criticism of her 
commander making her tone hesitant.  

     Marilyn started to say something more, but Carol interrupted her.   
"It's not being part of the team," the redhead declared.  "I love that.  
I love being attractive, and I don't have any . . . , I mean I don't 
feel embarrassed about looking like . . . "

     Her words were interrupted by a cautioning hand from Marilyn.  "This
is probably not the right place to discuss some things," the blonde said.   
"Let's go get our own cup of coffee."

    "Oh, right," Carol agreed, blushing.  "I'm sorry, maybe we should 
just . . . "

     "Stop right there," Marilyn interrupted again.  "This is important 
and we need to work it out, just not here."  

     Nodding, Carol gathered up her things and they both left the 
conference room.  The day was pleasantly cool, at least for Houston, so 
after dropping their briefing materials off in their respective rooms, 
they took a stroll to an isolated place on the grounds.