Superluminal (7 page)

o0o

The point stabilizer was itself a complete city in two
parts: one, a blatant tourist world, the second, a discrete permanent
supporting society. Laenea often experimented with restaurants here, but this
time she went to one she knew well. Experiments in the point were not always
successful. Quality spanned as wide a spectrum as culture.

Marc’s had been fashionable a few years before, and
now was not, but its proprietor remained unaffected by cycles of fashion.
Pilots or princes, crew members or diplomats could come and go; if Marc minded,
he never said so. Laenea led Radu into the dim foyer of the restaurant and
touched the signal button. In a few moments an area before them brightened into
a pattern like oil paint on water.

“Hello, Marc,” Laenea said.

Only the imperturbable perfection of Marc’s voice
revealed its artificial nature. At first Laenea had found it discomforting to
speak with someone so articulate, but now she unconsciously thought of Marc
simply as someone slightly over-concerned with precision.

The display brightened into yellow. “Laenea!”
Marc said. “It’s good to see you, after so long. And a pilot,
now.”

“It’s good to be here.” She drew Radu
forward a step. “This is Radu Dracul, of Twilight, on his first earth
landing.”

“Hello, Radu Dracul. I hope you find us neither too
depraved nor too dull.”

“Neither one at all,” Radu said.

The headwaiter appeared to take them to their table.

“Welcome,” Marc said, instead of good-bye, and
from drifting blues and greens the image faded to nothingness.

Their table was lit by the reflected blue glow of light
diffused into the sea, and the fish groaked at the window like curious hungry
urchins.

“Marc has… an unusual way of presenting
himself,” Radu said.

“Yes,” Laenea said. “He never comes out,
no one ever goes in. I don’t know why. Some say he was disfigured, some
that he has an incurable disease and can never be with anyone again. There are
always new rumors. But he never talks about himself and no one would invade his
privacy by asking.”

“People must have a higher regard for privacy on earth
than elsewhere,” Radu said drily, as though he had had considerable
experience with prying questions.

Now that Laenea thought about it, Marc had never spoken to
her until the third or fourth time she had come.

“It’s nothing about the people. He protects
himself,” she said, knowing it must be true.

She handed Radu a menu and opened her own. “What would
you like to eat?”

“I’m to choose from this list?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“And then someone cooks it, then someone else brings
it to you.”

Radu glanced down at the menu, shaking his head slightly,
but he made no comment.

Laenea ordered for them both, for Radu was unfamiliar with
the dishes offered.

Laenea tasted the wine. It was excellent; she put down her
glass and allowed the waiter to fill it. Radu watched scarlet liquid rise in
crystal, staring deep.

“I should have asked if you drink wine,” Laenea
said. “But do at least try it.”

He looked up quickly, his eyes focusing; he had not,
perhaps, been staring at the wine, but at nothing, absently. He picked up the
glass, held it, sniffed it, sipped from it.

“I see now why we use wine so infrequently at
home.”

Laenea drank again, and again could find no fault.
“Never mind, if you don’t like it —”

But he was smiling. “Twilight is renowned for making
the worst wine in the settled worlds. I’ll have to stop being offended
when someone says so, now that I’ve tasted this.”

Laenea smiled and raised her glass to him. She was so hungry
that the wine was already making her feel lightheaded. Radu, too, was very
hungry, or sensitive to alcohol, for his defenses began to ease. He relaxed; no
longer did he seem ready to leap up, grab the waiter by the arm, and ask him
why he stayed here, performing trivial services for trivial reasons and trivial
people. And though he still glanced frequently at Laenea — watched her,
almost — he no longer looked away when their gazes met. She did not find
his attention annoying, only inexplicable. She had been attracted to men and
men to her many times, and often the attractions coincided. Radu was extremely
attractive. But what he felt toward her was obviously something much stronger;
whatever he wanted went far beyond sex. Laenea ate in silence, finding nothing,
no answers, in the depths of her own wine. The tension rose until she noticed
it, peripherally at first, then clearly, sharply, a point separating her from
Radu. He sat feigning ease, one arm resting on the table, but his soup was
untouched and his hand was clenched into a fist.

“You —” she said finally.

“I —” he began simultaneously.

They both stopped. Radu looked relieved. After a moment
Laenea continued.

“You came to see earth. But you haven’t even
left the port. Surely you had more interesting plans than to watch someone
sleep.”

He glanced away, glanced back, slowly opened his fist,
touched the edge of the glass with a fingertip.

“It’s a prying question but I think I have the
right to ask it of you.”

“I wanted to stay with you,” he said slowly, and
Laenea remembered those words, in his voice, from her half-dream awakening.

“‘I remember you,’ you said.”

He blushed, spots of high color on his cheekbones. “I
hoped you wouldn’t remember that.”

“Tell me what you meant.”

“It all sounds foolish and childish and
romantic.”

She raised one eyebrow, questioning.

“For the last day I’ve felt I’ve been
living in some kind of unbelievable dream…”

“Dream rather than nightmare, I hope.”

“You gave me a gift I wished for for years.”

“A gift? What?”

“Your hand. Your smile. Your time…” His
voice had grown very soft and hesitant again. “When the plague came, on
Twilight, all my clan died, eight adults and four other children. I almost
died, too…” His fingers brushed his scarred cheek. Laenea thought
he was unaware of the habit. “But the medical team came, isolated the
cryptovirus, and synthesized a vaccine. I was already sick, but I recovered.
The crew of the mercy mission —”

“We stayed several weeks,” Laenea said. More
details of her single visit to Twilight returned: the settlements near
collapse, the desperately ill trying to attend the dying.

“You were the first crew member I ever saw. The first
off-worlder. You saved my people, my life —”

“Radu, it wasn’t only me.”

“I know. I even knew then. It didn’t matter. I
was sick for so long, and when I came to and knew I would live, it hardly
mattered. I was frightened and full of grief and lost and alone. I
needed… someone… to admire. And you were there. You were the only
stability in my chaos, a hero…”

His voice trailed off in uncertainty at Laenea’s
smile. “This isn’t easy for me to say.”

Reaching across the table, Laenea grasped his wrist. The
beat of his pulse was as alien as flame. She could think of nothing to tell him
that would not sound patronizing or parental, and she did not care to speak to
him in either guise.

He raised his head and looked at her, searching her face.
“I joined the crew because it was what I always wanted to do,
after… I hoped I would meet you, but I don’t think I ever believed
I would. And then I saw you again, and I realized I wanted… to be someone
in your life. A friend, at best, I hoped. A shipmate, if nothing else. But
— you’d become a pilot, and everyone knows pilots and crew stay
apart.”

“The first ones take pride in their solitude,”
Laenea said, for Ramona-Teresa’s rejection still stung. Then she
relented, for she might never have met Radu Dracul if the pilots had accepted
her completely. “Maybe they needed it.”

Radu looked at her hand on his, and touched his scarred
cheek again, as if he could brush the marks away. “I think I’ve
loved you since the day you came to Twilight.” He stood abruptly, but
withdrew his hand gently. “I should never —”

She rose too. “Why not?”

“I have no right to…”

“To what?”

“To ask anything of you. To expect —”
Flinching, he cut off the word. “To burden you with my hopes.”

“What about my hopes?”

He was silent with incomprehension. Laenea stroked his rough
cheek, once when he winced like a nervous colt, and again: The lines of strain
across his forehead eased almost imperceptibly. She brushed back the errant
lock of dark blond hair. “I’ve had less time to think of you than
you of me,” she said, “but I think you’re beautiful, and an
admirable man.”

Radu smiled with little humor. “I’m not thought
beautiful on Twilight.”

“Then Twilight has as many fools as any other human
world.”

“You… want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

He sat down again like a man in a dream.

“Have you contracted for transit again?”

“Not yet,” Radu said.

“I have a month before my proving flight.” She
thought of places she could take him, sights she could show him. “I
thought I’d just have to endure the time —” She fell silent,
for Ramona-Teresa was standing in the entrance of the restaurant, scanning the
room. She saw Laenea and came toward her. Laenea waited, frowning; Radu turned
and froze, struck by Ramona’s compelling presence: serenity, power,
determination. Laenea wondered if the older pilot had relented, but she was no
longer so eager to be presented with mysteries, rather than to discover them
herself.

Ramona-Teresa stopped at their table, ignoring Radu, or,
rather, glancing at him, dismissing him in the same instant, and speaking to
Laenea. “They want you to go back.”

Laenea had almost forgotten the doctors and administrators,
who could hardly take her departure as calmly as did the other pilots.
“Did you tell them where I was?” She knew immediately that she had
asked an unworthy question. “I’m sorry.”

“They always want to teach us that they’re in
control. Sometimes it’s easiest to let them believe they are.”

“Thanks,” Laenea said, “but I’ve had
enough tests and plastic tubes.” She felt very free, for whatever she did
she would not be grounded: She was worth too much. No one would even censure
her for irresponsibility, for everyone knew pilots were quite perfectly mad.

“Be careful using your credit key.”

“All right…” One was supposed to be able
to keep one’s files private, but enough power and money could, without
doubt, overcome the safeguards. Laenea wished she had not got out of the habit
of carrying cash. “Ramona, do you have any cash? Can you lend me some?”

Now Ramona did look at Radu, critically. “It would be
better if you stopped being so willful and came with me.”

Radu flushed. She was, all too obviously, not speaking to
him.

“No, it wouldn’t.” Laenea’s tone was
chill.

The dim blue light glinted silver from the gray in
Ramona’s hair as she turned back to Laenea and reached into an inner
pocket. She handed her a folded sheaf of bills. “You young ones never
plan.” Ramona-Teresa hesitated, shook her head, and left.

Laenea shoved the money into her pants pocket, annoyed more
because Ramona-Teresa had brought it, assuming she would need it, than because
she had had to ask for it.

“She may be right,” Radu said slowly.
“Pilots, and crew —”

She touched his hand again, rubbing its back, following the
strong fine bones to his wrist. “She shouldn’t have been so
snobbish. We’re none of her business.”

“She was… I never met anyone like her before. I
felt as if I were in the presence of someone so different from me — so
far beyond — that we couldn’t speak together.” He grinned,
quick flash of strong white teeth behind his shaggy mustache, deep smile lines
in his cheeks. “Even if she’d cared to.” With his free hand
he stroked Laenea’s green velvet sleeve. She could feel the beat of his
pulse, rapid and upset. As if he had closed an electrical circuit a pleasurable
chill spread up Laenea’s arm.

“Radu, did you ever meet a pilot, or a crew member,
who wasn’t different from anyone you had ever met before? I
haven’t. We all start out that way. Transit didn’t change
Ramona.”

He acquiesced with silence only, no more certain of the
validity of her assurance than she was.

“For now it doesn’t make any difference
anyway,” Laenea said.

The unhappiness slipped from Radu’s expression, the
joy came back, but the uncertainty remained.

They finished their dinner quickly, in expectation,
anticipation, paying insufficient attention to the excellent food. Though
annoyed that she had to worry about the subject at all, Laenea considered
available ways of preserving her freedom.

But the situation was hardly serious; evading the
administrators as long as possible was a matter of pride and personal pleasure.
“Fools… ” she muttered.

“They may have a special reason for wanting you to go
back,” Radu said. Anticipation of the next month flowed through both
their minds. “Some problem — some danger.”

“They’d’ve said so.”

“Then what do they want?”

“Ramona said it — they want to prove they
control us.” She drank the last few drops of her brandy; Radu followed
suit. They rose and walked together toward the foyer. “They want to keep
me packed in foam like an expensive machine until I can take my ship.”

At the front of the restaurant, Laenea reached for
Ramona-Teresa’s money.

Marc’s image glowed into existence.

“Your dinner’s my gift,” he said.
“In celebration.”

She wondered if Ramona had told him of her problem. He could
as easily know from his own sources, or the free meal might be an example of
his frequent generosity. “I wonder how you ever make a profit, my
friend,” she said, “but thank you.”