“Such as?”

“If we can get some utility uniforms, we can unload a few empty cryochambers and when we get back on board for more, we lock down the ship and leave.  We can say we’re loading cargo and leave once the cargo is locked down.  No matter what, they don’t want the Cannonball III sitting around like an idiot.  Spaceships die if they’re not in space.  They’re made for space, not hanging out here on the surface of a world, so we could even get on board in utility uniforms and tell them it’s our job to get it into orbit.”

“Could you trick the security guards into letting you do that?”

“Yes.  Although, I do keep thinking about little red-haired me.  I hope he doesn’t get caught by that nutjob.”  

The elevator came to an abrupt halt.  Gage put a finger to his mouth to tell Iona that it was time to be quiet as whoever entered inspected the elevator.  Gage couldn’t see them at all, but he heard the muffled sound of their voices as they moved around beneath him.

When the elevator doors started to close with the inspectors inside, still talking, the elevator was ordered down and Gage literally scooped Iona off the floor and threw her at a horizontal I-beam that was part of the elevator shaft.  She landed badly, but quietly, sagging against the wall.  Gage followed but, but missed her beam and got the one under it.

“Are you okay?” he whispered to her.

“I am.  Gage,” she said, matching his tone.  He couldn’t see her, except for a tendril of her hair that spilled over the edge of the beam.  “There’s a camera pointed at me.”

He put his hands around the beam and did a chin-up that brought him up to her level.  He looked at the thing she was referring to.  “That’s not a camera.  It’s the home of a very powerful laser beam.”

“That’s supposed to comfort me?”

“It comforts me.  They’re not for us.  They’re for those,” he said, pointing toward an armored lizard that scuttled across a beam on the other side of the elevator shaft.

The machine Iona had been pointing to changed directions and fired at it.  The thing was burnt to a crisp and left in a pile of ash and bone.

Iona gasped and grabbed Gage’s arm.  “If that laser is shooting anything that moves, will it shoot us too?”

“Relax,” he said, soothing her by stroking her hand in his.  “They’re not programmed to kill people.  The control room won’t be able to track us through that laser’s movements because they don’t keep information about rillos in the air ducts.”

“Why not?”

“Frankly because there are too many of them to keep count.  We’re going to see a lot more of them down here and the lasers intended to kill them will be few and far between.”

“Will these rillos hurt us?” Iona asked, staring at the pile of ash.

“Maybe.  They’re pests indigenous to Europa.  Before humans settled the place, rillos had very few places that matched their needs, but it turns out that an upside-down tower with air kept a little warmer than the warmest places on the moon gave them a collection of perfect habitats.  The first worst thing about them is that they have very little bladder control, so every downward surface we’ll touch is coated in a little bit of their piss.  The second worst thing is that their saliva is slightly poisonous when it’s fresh and five licks from one will likely see a person of your weight unconscious.  Their tongues shoot out far.”

“How many licks would it take you?”

“I dunno.  More than five,” he said hopefully as he examined his surroundings.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked, looking around for a path that made sense.

“How acrobatic are you really?” Gage asked her with a sly look on his face.  “If we can go upward, we can cut across to the cargo bay two floors beneath where the ship is docked.  Take a look.  Can you get yourself up safely?”

Iona looked up the shaft skeptically.  “Not in this dress.”

“What have you got on under it?”

“Panties.  No bra.”

“Not even a strapless one?”

Iona cleared her throat.  “I would have loved to have worn a bra, but it would have tugged at my back fat.  Do you know how much back fat a woman has to have before her bra pinches at it and makes her look like the bra is barely containing her rolls of fat?”

“Like none,” he answered with a sympathetic shrug.

“Yeah.  Like none.”

Gage started pulling at the buttons of his shirt.  “Wear mine and get out of that dress.”

Iona winced.  “I can’t get myself out of it on my own.  I need you to undo me.  Can you do that, Mr. Chastity?”

He sighed in annoyance.  “Of course, I can do that.  I’m great with naked people.  I never want to screw them.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said as she turned her back toward him and let him undo her zipper.

“This is the smallest zipper I’ve ever seen,” he said as he fumbled with the tag.  

Eventually, he got it.

Iona pulled her dress over her head with her legs falling over the edge of the I-beam.  Gage whipped his shirt off his shoulders and handed it to her.  She took it and wrapped it around her bare skin.  

“What do we do with the dress?  Drop it down the elevator shaft?  Leave it for the rillos to nest in?”

Gage scrunched it up in a ball and pushed the whole thing into a pocket above the knee of his pants.  

“Men’s clothes are the worst,” Iona commented crossly as she did up the buttons of Gage’s shirt.  “As if you have pockets there!”

“You’d rather look sexy than have pockets.  What you’re really ticked off about is that you don’t look as sexy as men do with weird bulges on your legs.”

“Yes, I am ticked off about that,” she agreed.  “I’m also ticked off that I have to do all this in bare feet.  The floor is smelly and sticky.”

“You can get washed up on the Cannonball III when we get there,” he said, standing up and testing his weight against the I-beam above him.  “I’d better go first, then I can lift you up if you have a problem.”

“On Europa?  The gravity here is so light, we could probably fly if we put our minds to it.”

He smiled at her before lifting himself up to the next floor.