Superluminal (9 page)

And she wondered if Radu felt the same way; she discovered
she was afraid he might.

As they lay on the warm flagstones edging the pool, Laenea
moved closer and kissed him. He put his arm around her and she slid her hand
across his stomach and down to his genitals, somehow less afraid of a physical
indication of reluctance than a verbal one. But he responded to her, hardening,
drawing circles on her breast with his fingertips, caressing her lips with his
tongue. Laenea stroked him from the back of his knee to his shoulder. His body
had a thousand textures, muted and blended by the warm water and the steamy
air. She pulled him closer, grasping him with her legs. This time Laenea
anticipated a long, slow increase of excitement.

“What do you like?” Radu whispered.

“I — I like — I —” Her words
changed abruptly to a cry. Her climax again came all at once in a powerful
solitary wave. Radu’s fingers dug into her shoulders, and Laenea knew her
short nails were cutting his back. Radu must have expected the intensity of
Laenea’s orgasm, but the body is slower to learn than the mind. He
followed her to climax almost instantly. Trembling against him, Laenea exhaled
in a long shudder. She could feel Radu’s stomach muscles quivering.

Laenea enjoyed taking time over sex, and she suspected that
Radu did as well. Yet she felt exhilarated. Her thoughts about Radu were bright
in her mind, but she could put no words to them. Instead of speaking she laid
her hand on the side of his face, fingertips at the temples, the palm of her
hand against the scars. He no longer flinched when she touched him there. He
covered her hand with his own.

He had about him a quality of constancy, of dependability
and calm, that Laenea had never before encountered. His admiration for her was
of a different sort entirely from what she was used to: grounders’
lusting after status and vicarious excitement. Radu had seen her and stayed
with her when she was helpless and ordinary and as undignified as a human being
can be; that had not changed his feelings. Laenea did not understand him yet.

They toweled each other dry. Radu had scraped his hip on the
pool’s edge, and Laenea had raked long scratches down his back.

“I wouldn’t have thought I could do that,”
she said, glancing at her hands. She kept her nails cut to just above the
quick. “I’m sorry.”

Radu reached around to dry her back. “I did the same
to you.”

“Really?” She looked over her shoulder. The
angle was wrong to see anything, but she could feel places stinging.
“We’re even, then.” She grinned. “I never drew blood
before.”

“Nor I.”

They dressed in clean clothes from Kathell’s wardrobe
and went walking through the multileveled city. It was, as Radu had said, very
early. Above on the sea it would be close to dawn. Below only street cleaners
and delivery carts moved here and there across a mall. Laenea was more
accustomed to the twenty-four-hour crew city in the third stabilizer.

She was getting hungry enough to suggest a shuttle trip
across to #3 where everything would be open, when ahead they saw waiters
arranging the chairs of sidewalk cafés, preparing for business.

“Seven o’clock,” Radu said.
“That’s early to be open around here, it seems.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have a
communicator.”

“I don’t.”

“Then how do you know what time it is?” Laenea
glanced around for a clock, but none was in sight.

He shrugged. “I don’t know how, but I always
know.”

“Twilight’s day isn’t even
standard.”

“I had to convert for a while, but now I have both
times.” He shrugged. “It’s just a trick.”

“Useful, though.”

A waiter ushered them to a table. They breakfasted and
talked, telling each other about their home worlds and the places they had
visited. Radu had been to three other planets before earth. Laenea knew two of
them, from several years before. They were colonial worlds, which had grown and
changed since her visits.

Laenea and Radu compared impressions of crewing, she still
fascinated by the fact that he dreamed.

She found herself reaching out to touch his hand, to
emphasize a point or for the sheer simple pleasure of contact. He did the same,
but they were both right-handed. Flowers occupied the middle of the table and
kept getting in their way. Finally Laenea picked up the vase and moved it to
one side, and she and Radu held hands across the table.

“Where do you want to go next?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.
I still have to go where they tell me to, when there’s a need.”

“I just…” Laenea’s voice trailed
off. Radu glanced at her quizzically, and she shook her head. “It sounds
ridiculous to start talking already about tomorrow or next month or next
year… but it seems all right — it seems like I should.”

“I feel… the same.”

They sat in silence, drinking coffee. Radu’s hand
tightened on hers. “What are we going to do?” For a moment he
looked young and lost. “I haven’t earned the right to make my own
schedules yet.”

“I have,” Laenea said. “Except for
emergencies. That will help.” She smiled. “Besides,” she
said, “we have a month. A month not to worry.”

o0o

Laenea yawned as they entered the front room of
Kathell’s apartment. “I don’t know why I’m so
sleepy.” She yawned again, trying to stifle it, failing. “I slept
the clock around, and now I want to sleep again — after what? Half a
day?” She kicked off her boots.

“Eight and a half hours,” Radu said.
“Somewhat busy hours, though.”

She smiled. “True.” She yawned a third time, jaw
hinges cracking. “I’ve got to take a nap.”

Radu followed her along the hallway and down the stairs to
her room. The bed was made, turned down on both sides. The clothes Laenea and
Radu had arrived in were clean and pressed. They hung in the dressing room
along with the cloak, which no longer smelled musty. Laenea brushed her fingers
across the velvet.

Radu looked around. “Who did this?”

“What? Straightened the room? The people Kathell
hires. They look after whoever stays here.”

“Do they hide?”

Laenea laughed. “No — they’ll come if we
need them. Do you want something?”

“No,” he said sharply. “No,” more
gently. “Nothing.”

Still yawning, Laenea undressed. “What about you, are
you wide awake?”

He was staring into a mirror. He started when she spoke, and
looked not at her but at her reflection. “I can’t usually sleep
during the day,” he said. “But I am rather tired.”

His reflection turned its back; he, smiling, turned toward
her.

o0o

They were both too sleepy to make love a third time. The
amount of energy Laenea had expended astonished her. She thought perhaps she
still needed time to recover from the hospital. She and Radu curled together in
darkness and scarlet sheets.

“I do feel very depraved now,” Radu said.

“Depraved? Why?”

“Sleeping at nine o’clock in the morning?
That’s unheard of on Twilight.” He shook his head; his mustache
brushed her shoulder. Laenea drew his arm closer around her, holding his hand
in both of hers.

“I’ll have to think of some other awful depraved
customs to tempt you with,” she said sleepily, chuckling, but thought of
none just then.

o0o

Something startled Laenea awake. She was a sound sleeper and
could not think what noise or movement would awaken her when she still felt so
tired. Lying very still she listened, reaching for stimuli with all her senses.
The lights in the aquaria were out; the room was dark except for the heating
coils’ bright orange spirals. Bubbles from the aerator, highlighted by
the amber glow, rose like tiny half moons through the water.

The beat of a heart pounded through her.

In sleep, Radu still lay with his arms around her. His hand,
fingers half curled in relaxation, brushed her left breast. She stroked the
back of his hand but moved quietly away from him, away from the sound of his
pulse, for it formed the link of a chain she had worked hard and wished long to
break.

o0o

The second time she woke she was frightened out of sleep,
confused, displaced. For a moment she thought she was escaping a nightmare. Her
head ached violently from the ringing in her ears, but through the clash and
clang she heard Radu gasp for breath, struggling as if to free himself from
restraints. Laenea reached for him, ignoring her own racing heart. Her fingers
slipped on his sweat. Thrashing, he flung her back. Each breath was agony just
to hear. Laenea grabbed his arm when he twisted again, held it down, seized the
other flailing hand, partially immobilized him, straddled his hips, held him.

“Radu!”

He did not respond. Laenea called his name again, then
shouted for help. She could feel his pulse through both his wrists, and she
felt his heart as it pounded, too fast, too hard, irregular and violent.

“Radu!”

He cried out, a piercing and wordless scream.

She whispered his name, no longer even hoping for a
response, in helplessness, hopelessness. He shuddered beneath her.

He opened his eyes.

“What…”

Laenea remained where she was, leaning over him. He tried to
lift his hand. She was still forcing his arms to the bed. She released him and
knelt beside him. She, too, was short of breath, and hypertensive to a
dangerous degree.

Someone knocked softly on the bedroom door.

“Come in!”

One of the aides entered hesitantly. “Pilot? I thought
— pardon me.” She bowed and backed out.

“Wait — you did the right thing. Call a doctor
immediately.”

Radu pushed himself up on his elbows. “No,
don’t, there’s nothing wrong.”

The young aide glanced from Laenea to Radu and back at the
pilot.

“Are you sure?” Laenea asked.

“Yes.” He sat up. Sweat ran in heavy drops down
his temples to the edge of his jaw. Laenea shivered; she was sweating, too.

“Never mind, then,” Laenea said. “But
thank you.”

The aide departed.

“Gods, I thought you were having a heart
attack.” Her pulse began to ease in rhythmically varying rotation. She
could feel the blood slow and quicken in her temples, in her throat. She
clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms.

Radu shook his head. “No, it wasn’t illness. As
you said — we’re never allowed this job if we’re not healthy.”

“What happened?”

“It was a nightmare.” He lay back, his hands
behind his head, his eyes closed. “I was climbing, I don’t remember
what, a cliff or a tree. It collapsed or broke and I fell — a long way. I
knew I was dreaming and I thought I’d wake up before I hit, but I fell
into a river.”

Laenea heard him and remembered what he said, but knew she
would have to make sense of the words later. She remained kneeling and slowly
unclenched her hands. Blood rushed through her like a funneled tide, high, then
low, and back again.

“It had a very strong current that swept me along and
pulled me under. I couldn’t see banks on either side — not even
where I fell from. Logs and trash rushed along beside me and past me, but every
time I tried to hold onto something I’d almost be crushed. I got tireder
and tireder and the water pulled me under — I needed a breath but I
couldn’t take one… Have you felt the way the body tries to breathe
when you can’t let it?”

She did not answer, but her lungs burned and her muscles contracted
convulsively, trying to clear a way for the air to push its way in.

“Laenea —” She felt him grasp her
shoulders: She wanted to pull him closer, she wanted to push him away. Then his
touch broke the compulsion of his words and she drew a deep, searing breath.

“What —?”

“A… moment…” She managed, finally,
to damp the sine-curve velocity of the pump within her. She shivered. Radu
pulled a blanket around her. Laenea’s control returned slowly, more
slowly than any other time she had lost it. She pulled the blanket closer,
seeking stability more than warmth. She should not slip like that: Her
biocontrol, to now, had always been as close to perfect as anything associated
with a biological system could be. But now she felt dizzy and high,
hyperventilated, from the needless rush of blood through her brain. She
wondered how many millions of nerve cells had been destroyed.

She and Radu looked at each other in silence.

“Laenea…” He still spoke her name as if he
were not sure he had the right to use it. “What’s happening to
us?”

“Excitement —” she said, and stopped.
“An ordinary nightmare —” She had never tried to deceive
herself before, and found she could not start now.

“It wasn’t an ordinary nightmare. You always
know you’re going to be all right, no matter how frightened you are. This
time — until I heard you calling me and felt you pulling me to the
surface, I knew I was going to die.”

Tension grew: He was as afraid to reach toward her as she
was to him. She threw off the blanket and grasped his hand. He was startled,
but he returned the pressure. They sat cross- legged, facing each other, hands
entwined.

“It’s possible…” Laenea said,
searching for a way to say this that was gentle for them both,
“it’s possible… that there is a reason, a real reason, pilots
and crew don’t mix.”

By Radu’s expression Laenea knew he had thought of
that explanation, too, and only hoped she could think of a different one.

“It could be temporary — we may only need
acclimatization.”

“Do you really think so?”

She rubbed the ball of her thumb across his knuckles. His
pulse throbbed through her fingers. “No,” she said, almost
whispering. Her system and that of any normal human being would no longer mesh.
The change in her was too disturbing, on psychological and subliminal levels,
while normal biorhythms were so compelling that they interfered with and would
eventually destroy her new biological integrity. “I don’t. Dammit,
I don’t.”