Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  “I’m not sorry one bit. On Earth, humanity was a plague species, and I left because all my hard work in restoration ecology was going down the tubes. I’m glad that won’t happen here.

  Mother Nature with combat boots, Joe thought, and then she lobbed an artillery-grade question at him. “So, do you enjoy reproducing—or do your tastes in recreation sometimes run in nonreproductive directions? Do you sleep with girls, boys, or both?”

  Questions like that didn’t faze him; he’d fielded them all his life. But not every questioner deserved an answer. “Why do you want to know?”

  She stood on the trail between him and the way back. Her chin jutted up at him. With the stern air of a judge, she said, “After last night, some people are wondering about you, and I’m one of them. I don’t care how much romantic hell you raise around here except in just one regard. Eddy and Wimm are very good friends of mine, and I don’t want to see a home wrecker in their future. In fact, I won’t stand for it.”

  Joe smiled. “I can go either way, but my taste in men is very specific. It runs toward tall, blond, and striking. Not sweet little dark-haired guys like Eddy. I like Eddy and Wimm. They remind me of my dads.”

  Berry’s expression changed to quizzical. “Let’s go get my jeep out of the mud while you tell me more.” She led the way back to the road with a spring in her step.

  Joe said, “My mother was an artist. She had two friends, a gay couple, and all three shared a house. They helped her have me. Then they helped raise me. Two dads.”

  The jeep, a compact vehicle with massive batteries, was mired in muddy slush at a low spot in the rocky road. Joe shoved the jeep, straining against the weight of the batteries, while Berry revved the motor. Icy mud spattered on Joe, and the jeep crawled out of the mud.

  “I don’t usually care for whitecoats, but you seem all right,” Berry told Joe. “Hop in!”

  Berry drove with a lead foot and a carefree air, and the jeep lurched up the mountainside, careening on the muddy turns. Watching her hands on the steering wheel, Joe shouted, “Why are you wearing a wedding band?”

  Berry smiled, deepening the elaborate wrinkles at the edges of her eyes, crow’s-feet like an oriental fan. “She’s my spouse, and she’s up on the Ship, First Tier. Ten years from now, when she comes out, we’ll be the same age.”

  Samantha Berry reminded Joe of Aunt Adrian—the old friend of the family who had been as sensible as Silke was not, and had done more than her share to give Joe the upbringing he needed. He’d been the fairies’ child. In spite of occasional taunts from other kids, mainly American ones, he’d been happy as child of Silke and Mike and Jean-Claude and Adrian.

  He could call up the memory of his home life then with as much eidetic clarity as anything else in his life. He could remember enjoying home, parents, holiday. Strangely, though, he didn’t feel what he remembered. For that matter, he could remember lovers after Mira, mostly female, a few males. He could recall what he’d done in bed with each of them, too, but he couldn’t remember feeling in love since Mira. What the hell had he been doing those years? Working. Walking. Inventing. Suddenly Joe thought about fairy tales, the ones about changelings who grow up to find that they have no soul. It was an uncomfortable thought.

  Wait. Before Joe left Earth, there was Tamas. A researcher in Joe’s own field—a rival, in fact—but at the end, in a maelstrom of fear and fury, Joe had been seized by a desire to leave several of his favorite discoveries somewhere other than the company he worked for. It had turned into more than that. Willowy for a male, shorter than Joe but not by much, blond and striking—and very bright—Tamas understood Joe’s work. They didn’t have long with each other. But their love affair had meant as much to Joe as the novel gene sequences that Joe had handed to Tamas.

  For the first time since stasis, Joe remembered Tamas, with an aching alloy of loss and pleasure that he was glad to be able to feel.

  Samantha Berry revved the jeep up the last grade to Unity Base and hit a shallow washout. Joe’s stomach lurched from the washout and a thought that hit him out of the blue.

  In more than one way, Tamas had resembled Catharin Gault.

  It was a long, hard afternoon for Catharin, work unbroken by the annoyance of Joe Toronto, who for once was not around. Finally Catharin retired to her bunk room. Afternoon sunlight flooded her small west-facing window, making the room as cozily warm as she wanted it nowadays. Which was warmer than she used to keep her room temperatures. Ever since stasis, Catharin had been oversensitive to cold.

  In snug privacy, Catharin opened her personal notebook and read the wand that had been discreetly sent down to her from the ship. Among other things, it detailed a thriving test-tube pregnancy implanted in a woman who had volunteered to carry it to term. If birth was premature, it could be sustained outside of the birth mother’s womb now. But there was no sign of trouble. Joel had added a personal note: Cat, we better think of a name.

  As agitated as she was tired, Catharin closed the reader and lay down under the blue blanket, dislodging Nunki to do so. Nunki regrouped and curled up beside her.

  Catharin remembered vividly what she had told Joel months ago, before she came down to the planet. Joel, our reproductive future is in jeopardy. I don’t know if anyone is going to have a child the natural way ever again. Maybe it will only happen in test tubes, with a lot of material sifted down to a viable egg and sperm. Then in volunteer wombs, and probably most of those will miscarry, but we may be able to save some of them.

  Joel, I’ve tried an experiment. To learn what we can. It’s in-vitro fertilization with some of the most damaged eggs and sperm. Both astronauts.

  Uh, you and who else?

  Mine and yours, Joel.

  Joel had paced. She had thought that he was upset. And then Joel had walked over and put his hand on the nape of her neck. He whispered, “I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way,” and his voice had the lilt that she loved to hear, and she had wished to God that he were not married. She’d distanced him and her own feelings by saying, It won’t live. But it will teach us something.

  Later, “Joel. There’s one woman in particular who would be a good choice to carry it. Your cousin. She has many of the same genes you do. She’s volunteered.”

  And now it was Joel’s turn.

  We better think of a name.

  Catharin tossed and tangled herself up in her blanket. A different remembered voice from a different man came back to haunt her. Who do you want? God?

  I played God, she thought. Without having a god’s wisdom.

  19 Blue Time

  Sam let Joe out before she went to garage the vehicle. Slapping his shoulder affectionately, she pointed him at the men’s outside shower. “Hose down,” she reminded him.

  Emerging from the shower in a poorly fitting, generic coverall, Joe was attracted by a silvery thread of sound, conspicuous in the too-soundless outdoors. It came from behind the hangar, where he found Becca Fisher sitting cross-legged on a large rock under a furry pine. Playing a silver flute that gleamed in the midday sun, she acknowledged Joe’s arrival with a nod between one note and the next. Joe did not recognize the song except as something Irish. It fascinated him. So did she, although he was not quite sure why. Becca was a small woman. She had a slight upper body relative to her hips. Her face looked androgynous, formed of delicate edges and planes rather than soft curves.

  “This world seems incomplete. That’s why I like to play my flute outdoors. This world needs bees and birds.”

  Joe was badly dressed, but it did not matter. Women had found him attractive ever since he was a young teenager. “You and I could fix the lack of birds and bees,” he said.

  The offhanded proposition made Becca turn bright pink. She said quickly, “I meant environmental sounds.”

  “You’re right. Play some more.”

  She rearranged herself on her rock and played a new song. Her eyes flicked to him under long translucent lashes.

  The metal must have be
en cool to her lips. Joe’s wet hair was ice cold. But he did not mind. He felt warm—alive—inside. And true to his old form, the activity of his imagination matched that of his libido. The next time she paused, Joe said, “You’re Pan in disguise, aren’t you?”

  “Pan?” A look of consternation crossed her face. “I thought Pan was male, with goat’s horns and hoofs.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Hopping to her feet on the rock, and therefore at Joe’s eye level, she demanded, “Are you calling me a goat?”

  “No. It’s just that your music sounds like spring.” And you have strong legs and nimble feet. And goats can be pretty.

  “But Pan had a wooden panpipe.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be made of wood nowadays. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To bring spring to a dormant world?”

  A smile tweaked the edges of her lips.

  Joe put his supper dishes in the cleaning window just as Wimm hit the switch to roll the mess hall’s shutters closed against the night. From the narrow end of the hall, Manhattan made a serious announcement, a variation of the usual one. “It is now 1300 p.m. Those who are taking walks, remember the rules. Buddy system. And the full moon rises at sunset. That means admire it, but stay close to home, and nobody leave the dome after full twilight begins at fourteen hundred.”

  Joe joined the unhurried exodus from the mess hall. He lifted his jacket from its peg in the mess hall’s back wall and put it on, walking out the dome’s main door by himself.

  Becca Fisher veered toward him. “Planning to break a rule?” She hurried to match his stride.

  Joe slowed down. “Got your flute under your jacket? Going out to sing up some crocuses?”

  Becca gave him a little grin. “Too cold to play a metal instrument, Joe.”

  “In that case, I know a good place to watch the moon rise. Interested?”

  “That isn’t breaking the rule, but it’s bending it.”

  “Game?”

  “Game.” Becca zipped up her jacket.

  It wasn’t far down the road to the trail to Sam’s favorite outlook. From behind Becca, Joe enjoyed watching her walk. She moved energetically, with hands tucked in jacket pockets and an appealing, feminine sort of swagger. She said, “I like the way the light slants through the pines. It’s like home if I squint. I mean Brightwood, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains. What’s that, a trail? Does it lead to where you want to go?”

  At the trail’s end, Becca stopped on the brink of the promontory. A cold, wet wind from the sea knifed through the fabric of their jackets.

  “Brr!” said Becca. “Great view, but I don’t think I can stick around up here until moonrise.”

  “It’ll be warmer just below here, and there’s probably a spot nearly as good to watch the moon come up,” Joe pointed out. They scrambled down the shoulder of the promontory. Below the promontory a stream ran swiftly, with an almost metallic clatter of small rocks. And the wind still felt cold.

  “Brr. I can’t stand still here either,” Becca admitted.

  “Then let’s go downhill some more.”

  “This isn’t the time to start a long hike,” she reminded him.

  “At the rate the sun moves, we’ve got an hour before twilight. See that grove of trees the stream flows into? They’ll break the wind.”

  He was right; the whatever-kind of trees did break the wind and make it easier to linger in one place. Becca looked at the trees, her forehead furrowed in puzzlement. “These aren’t furry pines. They look like another kind of tree that usually grows farther downhill. Smaller, but the leaves look the same, sort of like oaks.”

  Joe said, “According to Wing, there’s nothing on Green as highly evolved as oaks. These are analogues to gingkos, which are much more primitive than oaks. They flourish at a lower elevation.”

  “We’re in a sheltered valley here. Maybe the ginkgo-things like it farther down because it’s warmer, but this little valley is right for them.”

  Joe felt comfortable here. Becca, on the other hand, still needed to move to stay warm. A heavy, wide mass of logs was lodged in the streambed. Debris from the blast that flattened the mountain for Unity Base, Joe guessed. Becca pranced back and forth across the deadfall, surefooted, with small feet in neat boots. Joe thought about the graceful, wild, goat-footed god Pan.

  Becca looked up at the crowns of the trees, where late light streamed between their slender, platted branches. “With sunlight behind the leaves, they look like thin, carved slices of turquoise.” Wonder was written on her upturned face. Her lower lip glistened, as though she had absentmindedly moistened it with her tongue. “This was a great idea.”

  The stream ran wider and deeper. On impulse, Joe jumped to the opposite side.

  “Here I come.” Becca gathered herself for the leap.

  “Isn’t it kind of long for you?” Joe asked. Becca answered by launching herself across the water. She made it, but the stream bank started to crumble under her feet.

  Joe caught Becca. Then he pulled her closer and kissed her. He felt her back stiffen in surprise, so he quickly let her go and pocketed his hands. They stared at each other.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “That sound.” She took his wrist. The gesture pleased him, telling him that she had accepted his kiss or at least overlooked it.

  Following the bright, liquid sound, they discovered an astonishingly green dell. Trees ringed the dell, thick with turquoise leaves. Dapples of late sunlight splashed on lush ferns growing in the dell’s sides. The bottom of the dell was green and lush, with the stream running through the middle of it. Golden mist hung above the purling water. Most surprising of all, the air felt warm, like going from winter to spring in a few short steps.

  Joe said, “It heard you, Becca. The mountain heard you playing.”

  She knelt onto the green floor of the dell. “This is moss, not grass. Sweet clean moss.” Joe crouched beside her on the moss. Too warm for a jacket, he took his off and dropped it in a heap. Becca unfastened hers. Under the jacket she wore a simple shirt, unbuttoned to the collarbone.

  She flopped down beside the edge of the stream and dangled a finger into a pool with pieces of golden fog hanging over it. “There’s snowmelt coming from upstream. But there’s warm water bubbling up here. And look, colored pebbles.” She held up a handful of glistening stones. Joe recognized Wing’s amber.

  Joe knelt beside her, and with an urge that he could not resist, placed his hands on the sides of her hips.

  Becca quickly rolled out from under his hands and curled up between him and the edge of the water, knees against her chest. “What do you want?!”

  Joe backed off. “I wanted to kiss you again. I’m sorry.”

  “Just don’t take me by surprise.”

  “Okay.” Joe sat down. Consumed with desire for her, he wrapped his arms around his knees. Lust or love or life itself—he wasn’t sure how to identify the feeling, but it flared, driving out the stasis-cold that lurked in the depths of his being. Arms locked around his knees, Joe barely contained himself. “You might want to leave,” he said, his voice rough.

  “And I might not.” She came to him, put her hand on his shoulders, and lightly kissed the side of his face.

  Touching her chin with his fingertips, he brought her face closer to his, tracing the edge of her jaw, as delicate as porcelain under his fingertips. This time he kissed her longer than before; long enough feel the soft, moist warmth of her lips against his. Laughter bubbling up, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back harder.

  Breaking off the kiss—third or tenth, Joe had lost count—she sat bolt upright. “Oh, no! It’s late!”

  Joe opened his eyes to see Becca profiled against pure blue twilight. “Don’t go away,” Joe said.

  “I’m not. You’re going with me. Rules are rules.”

  Joe touched her neck, which felt warm and moist. He tangled his fingers in her hair. “Don’t make us
go,” he pleaded. “It’s cold out there. A little while longer won’t matter. We’ve already broken the rule.”

  “I’m enjoying this,” she admitted. “But you’re the one who got in trouble in twilight.”

  “I was hurt,” he said quietly. “And scared.”

  She soothingly ran her fingers through his hair. Joe offered her another kiss. She accepted it, with warm soft lips. His hand slid onto the curve of her back. She breathed rapidly, and her back was supple, flexing into him.

  With his fingertips, he traced the fine edge of her jaw, and the side of her neck, followed the edge of her shirt to where it was buttoned between her breasts. He curled his fingers around the material, marveling at how soft and warm she felt against his knuckles, under the shirt. He gently pushed her to lie down, and she let him, and the moss under them smelled like challah bread or patchouli, and felt as soft as bedding.

  She pulled away from him abruptly. Joe moved to stay beside her, but the urgent tone of her voice brought him up short. “Joe! Where have we come to?”

  Wondering what she wanted to know, Joe answered, “A world called Green?”

  Bathed in blue light, her body language telegraphed alarm. She sat up straight, arms folded over her breasts. “Do right and wrong exist here like they did on Earth?”

  Joe’s body was riveted on pleasure, but he held himself back from the woman and tried to marshal some kind of intelligible thought for her. “Sure. Just like day and night exist here. It’s the same universe.”

  “But there’s Blue times too, and that’s different from Earth. I wouldn’t do this on Earth. Is what we’re doing right or wrong?” she asked urgently.

  “Neither. It’s Blue,” he said, as sure of the truth of that as he was unsure of what logic made it so.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Teased out by the sweet, ambiguous smell of the moss, old memories and feelings came to Joe’s mind. “I loved a woman for the first time at the University in Toronto, when I was fourteen.”