Meat Ladder to Mars: Sample of Chapter 2

2. Orbital Systems Analyst

Evening brought a breeze off the ocean and the brilliant red sunset permeated the smog until, saturated, it dispersed in purple and crimson scraps on a great yellow atmospheric puddle. Zosime didn't have the humor to go out to Bushmeat, but she had to get something to eat. And if Gopman or Chesky were there, she could maybe set down the pigshaped stone lodged in her right ventricle, which thudded against her soft heart tissues and restricted her lungs. Time and routine had weakened her show of propriety, and Gopman seemed approachable. Just as before she'd let go and laughed at Clayton, she now felt ready to talk to her superiors if the situation should arise.

She took the bus to Agege, where a train from the north ended and didn't connect at all to the central Lagos station, and waited in the street, feeling charitable toward the surely lost North Dakotan. Beside her a leathery rope of elder woman, wrapped in her most attractive striped kaba, drew across the road with a big basket in her arms. —Chicken and rice! she called out, —made at home! Zosime's nose was hungry, but her stomach wasn't.

She peered carefully for Clayton into the flux of people streaming past, the carts and taxis and bicycle rickshaws or scrimshaws or what the word was in English, in case she saw him wan- dering around. But she didn't peer too long. She joined the throng of bodies, the muddy, spicy odor of moving night, and walked or waded toward the stadium, around a rain-cracked stucco façade and into the roofless confines of the bar.

Launch systems analyst Gopman set his bottle of Star down and whispered hey to launch chief doctor Chesky. —That's the intern. The ex-intern.

—Ah god, where?

They hunched over their beers at the bar, surrounded by anonymous foreign workers but still trying to form a private space. Here the two men tended to let go of their pretense of professionalism, a custom they clung to here in Nigeria in case anyone back at home looked.

—So you had any dates yet? Chesky teased his colleague, who scratched his gel-stretched blond waves and rolled his eyes. —I don't know dude ... I just keep thinkin, yknow, in Africa, that they're just gonna think my dick's too small. His chief stuttered out a loud laugh. —Serious shit! Haven't you thought of that?

—I don't know ... Chesky's eyes looked up from his beer, turned left and collided with those of the bright young former intern.

—Doctor Chesky! Godsend said in Chinua Achebe's stately English, —so it's true you have dinner here!

—We're launching our space shuttle tomorrow full of cargo going to Mars, Chesky boasted to his beer, to the barkeep, —tonight we're drinking.

The chief didn't stop the kid from sitting down, who ordered a plate of chicken in half Eng- lish and half Yoruba. Despite spring's increasing heat the former intern's shirtsleeves, chest and back were still fresh as morning. He had the focus of a student about him; wide, attentive eyes.

—Ah, to Shango himself! he said, —some real men must be preparing to travel to him. But as far as who sends them up, have you consulted with the boss about finding me a new position?