Eating Memories by Patricia Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

head to the back of his brain. “Point to home now.”
    He pointed. Martingale moved the ship, but he moved it wrong, Home came up off the floor: but it was way to the left again.
    Martingale moved the ship a lot of times, bur he never could keep it right. Sweet Tooth got tired of pointing and sat down and tried to sleep. Jean woke him up.
    “Keep pointing, Sweet Tooth. You have to keep pointing out home to Martingale. You want to get home, don’t you?” Jean’s voice sounded like she was mad at him, so Sweet Tooth sat up and pointed again. Home was just at the edge of the floor to the front, and Martingale was going to it, but over it, too.
    “I’m losing power. We’ll never make it back this way,” Martingale said.
    “How long before meltdown?” Jean had walked over to where Martingale sat, leaving Sweet Tooth alone. She leaned over Martingale. Her body was like a dance.
    Martingale scrubbed his face up and down. “Five hours before we go critical. Get him in the navigation bowl.”
    Jean stood up quick. Her back was straight. Her face was white.
    “You do it. You tell him. You’re his idol. Queen of the hive, He’d do any goddamned thing for you. If he’s got any metal on him, get it off. In fact, get his clothes off, too. Tell him to fix our position. Override the computer. The steam’s playing hell with it.”
    “No,” Jean said. Sweet Tooth had to sit up to hear her, her voice was so soft.
    “You’ll lose all of us, then,” Martingale said. “Larry and you and me, and him, too. You’ll lose him, anyway.” He took his hands away from the console and set them in his lap, the way Sweet Tooth did when he didn’t want to do something. Only Martingale looked sad.
    “It’s your fault,” Jean said.
    Sweet Tooth thought she might be talking to him and it made him feel hurt. Then Martingale said, “I know.”
    “Everything’s your fault.”
    “I know. Does that-make it better?”
    “I’m going to report you for this, Martingale. You’ll get your license taken away.”
    “Big deal, Jean. Big goddamned deal.”
    “You should get in there. You should get in there and set the controls. It was your fault. No one else should have to die for you.” Jean was sniffling the way Sweet Tooth did when he had a cold.
    “I can’t,” Martingale said, and he still didn’t look at Jean. He looked at the console as if it were telling him something he didn’t want to hear. “I don’t know where home is.”
    After a while Jean came over and told Sweet Tooth to take his clothes off. “It’ll be hot in there,” she said. She let him keep his shorts. “You get in there and you set the controls as quick as you can, okay? Quick like a bunny.” Her eyes looked away from him. “Then you get out. Understand?”
    He nodded his head up and down. He didn’t smile because Jean was real serious.
    Before she opened the door, she said to him again, “Quick like a bunny, Sweet Tooth. Don’t stay in there long.”
    He felt funny standing there with his feet bare on the floor and his shirt and pants off. He put his hands over his chest so that Jean couldn’t see him. His body was ugly, all fat and pink; not like Martingale who had big muscles.
    She opened the door. He ran inside. Sweet Tooth turned around in time to hear the sound the door made when it locked him in the hot room.
    “Sweet Tooth?” Martingale said through the intercom.
    The floor wasn’t bright, but it was burning, He could feel it. He was running in place real fast, faster than he had ever gone. “Hot, hot, hot,” he said, touching the intercom button.
    “I know,” Martingale told him. “”Set the controls and get out.”
    “Door locked!” Sweet Tooth wailed. “Jean locked the door!”
    “I know . . .”
    There was a sound and then Jean was speaking to him. “Sweetie? Sweetie? Sit down in the chair and set the controls for home. Put the console on MANUAL.”
    Sweet Tooth didn’t want to hear what Jean was saying. The triglas was all