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We're not fifty-something, Connie.

We're young. Young and beautiful. Remember?

The tuna was better for having steeped for a day, and Connie got a loaf of that really great Wellspring bread out of the cupboard. "Last one," she'd said, bracing her feet against the shivering floor, brandishing a sharp knife. Sandwiches, pickles, chips and Sealtest French Onion Dip, a plastic bottle of Welch's for me, decaffeinated diet Coke for her.

Think about it.

No matter how hard you try, Connie dearest, you ain't got time to get fat now.

I kept reaching out to touch her thighs, pat the warmth between her legs, and when we were done, we stretched out, bunk rocking gently underneath us, nuzzling our faces together. Inside her pants, my hand was nice and warm, Connie smiling against the side of my face and murmuring, "Incorrigible."

I wanted her to call me Scottie again, wanting to feel the way it would melt my heart.

BAM\

The bunk jolted so hard it threw us up in the air a bit and, from the other side of the room, Julia screamed, a high drawn out wail like a special effect in some cheap movie or another.

Crackl

The capsule tilted hard, walls shuddering and groaning around us, tipping back the other way, so we fell together against the inside wall of the bunk. There was a tumbling sound from the floor, Paul cursing incoherently, not even words, near as I could tell. When I looked, he was scrambling on his hands and knees, trying to get back in bed.

Stroby out there, fluorescent lights flickering.

Ballasts failing, I guess.

I turned back to Connie, driving Paul and Julia and everything else from my head. She was scared-looking. White-faced. Wide-eyed. Eyes searching mine for something, anything.

I kissed her softly and reached under the waistband of her pants, putting my palm flat on her belly. Smiled. In the background, you could hear Julia sobbing. Nothing from Paul. Hey, Paulie. Gotcher pillow over yer head yet?

Connie seemed to smile back.

I said, "I'm glad you're brave."

The bed jerked under us and the angle of the floor steepened a bit. Outside, things were whacking and booming, so loud I couldn't imagine what was happening. Jesus. Sounds like sheets and blankets flapping on a clothesline. Gigantic sheets and blankets. In a hurricane.

She said, "I never knew I was. Until just now."

I slid my hand the rest of the way down into the warmth of her crotch, getting my fingers where I needed them to be. Outside, there was a loud groaning sound, the sound of a giant tree falling in some logger movie. What the hell am I thinking of? Sometimes a Great Notion? That Paul Newman thing. The guy drowning, pinned underwater by a log. Don't laugh!

I wonder what Connie will say if I try to fuck her now? Maybe if we time it right, we can be coming just as the capsule implodes. I strangled a giggle.

Paul was saying something now. Babbling.

Connie pulled back a little, holding my face between her hands, looking at me. "I never saw two people as scared as Paul and Julia. Why aren't you afraid?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess ... I was only ever afraid of people. This ... Hell. I would've died someday anyway."

"Are we going to die right now?"

Outside there was another long groaning sound, followed by a deep thud, like someone slamming the hood of a i950s-era sedan. I said, "We'll know pretty soon. One way or another."

She pressed her back into the wall, lifting her leg so she'd be more accessible, and said, "What if we live?"

I shrugged. "What difference does it make?"

It was difficult to get our pants off, scrunched in the bunk like that but we managed, the bed hopping and shuddering around us. And some time in the middle of it all, accompanied by the squeal of what might have been the wind and somebody screaming, the lights went out.

We didn't notice until afterwards.

Which, when you got right down to it, came as a surprise.

Afterwards?

Well.

Quiet.

Very quiet.

Paulie and I stood in our spacesuits, filling the capsule airlock, integrity checks