Free The Key by Pauline Baird Jones Page B

crashed.” He made another adjustment, aware Briggs watched him closely.
    “Anyone tell you,” Briggs said suddenly, “you talk too much?”
    He heard a sleepy chuckle and looked up. Sara was watching from the cockpit, her arms resting on the edge, her chin on her arms. She looked …better.
    Fyn grinned. “So I hear.”
    “So, it went good in the sim. You’ll be happy to hear he out flew me. I’m only a little bitter about it.”
    They both looked up at her.
    “How do you know?” Briggs rubbed his face, leaving a streak of grease across his cheek.
    A touch of color popped into her cheeks. “I have a computer in here, you know.”
    Briggs shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it.”
    “I could tell you, but then you wouldn’t need me anymore.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Briggs drawled, “Higgans can’t quick step for shit.”
    Sara blinked a couple of times. “Okay, there’s a picture in my head… that is not pretty.” She bumped the side of her head. “Whew. That was scary.”
    “Higgans?” Fyn asked. “Isn’t he—”
    Briggs glared at him.
    “I don’t think I know Higgans.” Fyn knew when to play dumb.
    Briggs straightened and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, Tall Girl , I think she’s ready for her test flight.”
    Sara straightened. “Really?”
    “You check the avionics for me, while I radio the Colonel.” He looked over at Fyn. “Shouldn’t have taken your zoombag off.”
     

Three
     
           That night Fyn got a chance to learn about “booming”—and to see yet another side to Sara. Music wasn’t an alien concept. The way her group did it was beyond alien.
    The room they’d set up in was bigger than the cafeteria but still not huge. There were a few tables and chairs around the edge of the room, and the “band” was situated on a small platform toward the rear.
    Sara played something she called a keyboard. There was also a set of drums—his people had something similar, though not so complicated—guitar things, if he remembered the name right, and a tangle of equipment that Sara said was to make them loud.
    They were warming up when Fyn arrived with Carey. The room was already starting to fill up with people, but they managed to snag a spot close to the small stage, on the side where he could watch Sara.
    The discordant sounds weren’t, in Fyn’s opinion, a promising beginning, but eventually they began to sound more orderly. Sara had warned him that Major Foster liked to start with a bang. He wasn’t sure what that meant.
    Suddenly the sounds stopped. The room quieted and a sense of anticipation filled the room.
    “Evening,” Foster said. “Let’s do this.” He nodded to his group, then started to sing without instruments, something about a baby liking to rock, but it wasn’t a sound that would put a baby to sleep.
    Sara came in on her keyboard, her hands dancing across the keys, the movements complicated to see and hear. She didn’t look down and he didn’t know how she kept track of where she was.
    The song ended to applause, then the music turned slow. Couples began to move into the center of the room, wrapping their arms around each other and swaying. After a while, Sara began to sing.
    Her voice was liquid smooth as it flowed out into the room. She didn’t look at him as she sang, but it felt like she was singing to him.
    He didn’t understand all of the words, but he did know it was about how men and women dealt together. As he watched her, he realized this was another place that Sara lived. He looked around, but it didn’t seem as if anyone saw her. It was almost as if she were just another instrument and not a person at all.
    Fyn got asked to dance. It was okay, though after Sara, the women all seemed really short. When the band took a break, Fyn asked Carey, “Doesn’t Donovan ever dance?”
    Carey looked surprised. “I suppose she could, if she wanted. Or someone asked her.”
    Carey looked at Sara. She was mopping her face with