Breath of Life

by Christine Pope

  He went to the table where his various implements were stored and retrieved a sharp knife from one of the drawers. “Make a cut here,” he said, and indicated a spot on one of the gray branches just below where a flower emerged. Then he handed the knife to me.

  The knife felt heavy in my hand, even though in reality it wasn’t all that big. I held it awkwardly, hesitating. Intellectually I knew the plant wouldn’t start bleeding the second I cut into it, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to lay the blade against the smooth bark.

  “Here,” Sarzhin said, and reached out to guide my hand to the proper position.

  His gloved fingers were warm, the material that covered them as soft and smooth as I remembered. Those fingers wrapped around my hand with a gentle but firm touch, shifting the position of the knife, guiding it to the proper place to cut. And the blade went through the branch without much resistance, the little cutting falling neatly into Sarzhin’s other hand.

  At once he released me, but the heat of the flesh beneath the supple gloves seemed to linger on my skin. A not entirely unpleasant tingling sensation traveled up my arm. My voice sounded breathless even to me as I asked, “What next?”

  He put the branch with its leaves and flower in my hand. “Bring it to the work bench.”

  I did as he instructed, and then he explained how I should strip off the leaves and set the cutting in a container of dry sand he’d set aside for that purpose. From there it would rest for a few days before being transferred to a pot.

  It all seemed simple enough, and from there we moved on to taking more cuttings, this time of a vining plant with dark purple leaves from Epsilon Eridani. That specimen had to be placed immediately in a container filled with a particular blend of nutrients, but the overall procedure was basically the same. Sarzhin only watched as I made the cut, and perversely I found myself almost disappointed that he had not assisted me the way he had with the plumeria. Crazy, considering I’d spent so many days trying to avoid his touch. Now I wanted some kind of excuse to prolong even the brief contact we’d just shared?

  “Do you grow them all like this?” I inquired, after I had topped off the vine’s slim-necked container of nutrients. “From cuttings, I mean?”

  “Not all.” He reached up and lifted a plastic bottle from one of the overhead shelves. “Remember to always clean the implements after you’re done with them.” And he placed the bottle in my left hand, as my right still held the knife. “Fresh rags are in the top drawer.”

  I set down the knife, looked where he had indicated, and found a pile of synthetic cloths neatly folded in stacks. It was a simple enough procedure to pour some of the disinfecting solution on the knife and wipe it down with a rag, then return it to its own drawer. “So how else do you grow the plants?”

  “Some from seed, if I know they will breed true.” For some reason he glanced away from me, even though the hood—as ever—hid his expression. “Some come in bulbs and corms, brought here from off-world. And some of those will reproduce as well, if they find the conditions acceptable. But many do best with cuttings. It is not as involved as you might think—I have the databases of fifty worlds to aid me.”

  It seemed complex enough, but then I was new to anything much more than planting a bunch of tomato and squash seeds in trays and hoping for the best. But obviously Sarzhin knew what he was doing, as all around us were lush reminders of the loving attention he gave every growing thing in his care, from the tiny dwarf succulents of the Stacian deserts to the tall red-leafed trees he’d told me came from the island of Japan on Gaia.

  “I’m glad you’re showing me,” I told him then, and knew as I said the words that they were the simple truth. With some surprise, I glanced down at the chronometer on my wrist and realized we’d spent almost an hour together. The time had gone by so fast I barely realized it was passing.

  “It is my pleasure.”

  The response was something almost anyone would have said, and yet the phrase somehow seemed to resonate in that deep voice of his, imbuing it with far more meaning than the empty pleasantry of a simple human exchange.

  Unsure of the best way to respond, I settled for a brief smile, and then mumbled something about having to check my mail to see if one of my professors had gotten back to me regarding a question on my last paper. That was true enough, but it wasn’t the real reason why I wanted to go back to my room. His words had been a far cry from the nightly marriage proposal, but somehow in Sarzhin’s tone I had heard an echo of the need that underlaid every one of his requests…and I knew there was nothing I could do to fulfill that need.

  He nodded, and let me go. I tried to tell myself as I left the greenhouse that I hadn’t seen the sudden slump of his shoulders, nor heard the quiet sigh that escaped his lips as I passed, so soft it could have been only the sound of the ventilation system.

  But I knew better.

  “Anika, will you marry me?”

  I closed my eyes, the lingering sweet aftertaste of the wine I had just drunk turning bitter in my mouth. Why did he continue to force the matter? Did he think if he kept at it long enough, somehow he’d chip away at my resolve, a patient river slowly wearing away a stubborn stone?

  “You know I can’t.”

  “So you tell me, every evening.”

  To someone who didn’t know him well, his tone might have sounded as calm and even as it always was. I had spent too much time in his company, though, had used too much energy studying the patterns of his voice, since the rise and fall of his tone was the only thing—besides the bits of body language I could glean through the heavy robes—that I really had to give me any clues to what he might be thinking or feeling. Another person wouldn’t have heard the edge of tension under those smooth, rounded syllables. His voice was beautiful; I had no idea whether the rest of him was or not.

  With an uncharacteristic restlessness, he pushed his wine glass away. At once the mech appeared to remove it. Sarzhin made an odd little gesture, as if to stop the mech, then shook his head and settled back in his seat.

  “Does what I look like matter so much to you?” he asked then. “A spouse’s appearance can change—there are accidents, aging. Yet people stay together despite all that.”

  “But at least they knew what the other person looked like before any of that happened,” I protested. “You can’t equate the two. And you know appearances don’t mean that much to me. I mean, remember the way I looked when I showed up here.”

  My remark elicited a shake of his head, followed by what sounded like a very unwilling chuckle. “You have a point, I suppose.”

  That small laugh encouraged me a little, but I guessed from the slump of his shoulders he was still disappointed in me.

  For some reason, I was almost disappointed in myself. Maybe someone else would have had the courage to accept him, to give the answer he’d been waiting long weeks to hear. Maybe another woman would have been content with merely knowing what a good companion he could be, how kind and intelligent and everlastingly patient.

  For some women—and the disloyal thought that my sister might have been counted among their number passed across my mind—maybe his money would have been enough.

  But I wasn’t any of those women. True, my tastes in reading and watching vids tended toward adventures and mysteries and the occasional horror tale, if I could manage to hide it from my parents, and not romances. Even so, I’d harbored a few very secret notions of the sort of man I thought I might want to be with one day. Foolish notions, I suppose, of someone tall and handsome, with multiple doctorates and the ability to both pilot a starship and fight off a Stacian sand-serpent single-handedly, but even my admittedly pie-in-the-sky fancies had never extended to a dark-cloaked Zhore whose face I had never seen.

  What I didn’t really want to admit to myself was that Sarzhin, if you left aside the niggling little detail about him being an alien, was pretty close to ideal, except for the aforementioned sand-snake-fighting talents.

  I made myself look
at him then. The dark hood was facing toward me, but what he saw, I couldn’t say. For all I knew, his eyes were cast upward, to the high windows with the rain continually cascading down them.

  “Isn’t it enough?” I asked him. “For me to be here with you…helping in the greenhouse, and talking with you over dinner? I really haven’t been here all that long, you know. Can’t I have more time to…I don’t know…think about it?”

  He didn’t respond at first, but only tilted his head, as if gazing past me to the living artwork of vines and waterfalls that covered the wall behind my chair. A few seconds later he pushed his chair back and rose, then came to stand by my chair. I forced myself to stay where I was, although at all our other dinners he had never made such a movement toward me.

  Just the faintest brush of those gloved fingers against a lock of hair as it lay against my shoulder, and he said, “Take all the time you need.”

  And then he was gone, the black robes flowing around him as he left me sitting there. Another of those odd tremors went through me, and I lifted my own hand to touch that one piece of hair. His fingers hadn’t moved it, but mine did. Something like a sharp, stinging twinge seemed to move from that hair to my fingertip, and I jumped. Perhaps it was just an echo of the pain he had felt.

  With an abrupt gesture, I pushed all my hair back out of the way and rose out of my seat. I needed to stop acting like an idiot. Sarzhin had granted me some grace. Now I only needed to understand what to do with it.

  The next night, when we had finished dinner and the mech had cleared away the plates, the time came for Sarzhin to ask the eventual question…except he didn’t. He only hesitated, and watched me from under the hood, and said in questioning tones, “Anika?”

  I could only shake my head mutely.

  “Ah.”

  And that was it. He let me escape to my room, where I had all the time I needed to get back to my schoolwork. Not that I could concentrate much at that point. Was it really so simple? A shake of the head, and no awkward words?

  I should have been relieved. For some reason, though, I felt oddly bereft. The evening seemed wrong without its usual punctuation of question and refusal. What was I supposed to do now?

  Be careful what you wish for, some part of my mind jeered at me, and I told it to shut up, and then went to my computer to check my messages.

  Despite these small bumps, and despite a growing sense of unease that I had made some sort of fatal mistake, the pace of our lives continued without much disruption. It was something of a shock when I received my final grades several weeks later and realized I had been living under Sarzhin’s roof for almost three months.

  I had a month-long break before my next round of classes started, and I didn’t quite know what I would do with myself. True, I could increase my time with Sarzhin in the greenhouse, but I worried being around him that much more would only contribute to the awkwardness between us. I had been using my schoolwork as something of a buffer, a welcome distraction to keep me occupied. Sarzhin had accepted my course load without question, but now I was unencumbered, I worried what he might think if I kept coming up with excuses to stay away from him.

  Not that I disliked being in his presence. Nothing so simple as that. When we put aside our uneasy detente, I did like talking to him. For all his isolation here, he was extremely well-read and appeared quite interested in interplanetary politics. He provided insights that I know helped me with some of my papers, especially the ones on xenolinguistics. If circumstances had been different, he was actually someone whose company I might have sought, just because I enjoyed being around him more than I did just about anyone else on Lathvin, with the possible exception of my father. In fact, loath as I still was to admit it to myself, I had actually become quite fond of the Zhore.

  Fondness, however, isn’t too sturdy a basis for a marriage.

  My father and I had continued to exchange messages on a daily basis, and from time to time I’d even get one from my mother. Not that she ever said anything much beyond hoping that I was well. As dull as her mail might be, at least I didn’t have to continually dodge questions from her the way I did with my father. I’m sure he knew I was hiding something, but I kept my word to Sarzhin—I said nothing of the marriage proposals, even though they appeared to have stopped for the moment.

  One morning, only a few days into my break from university, I received mail from my father with astonishing news: Libba was engaged, to a junior professor at Epsilon Eridani. Even more amazing, she was traveling with her fiancé to Lathvin IV so he could meet the family, and my father wanted to know if I could possibly come to visit for a few days?

  I wanted to say yes, but of course I had no idea how Sarzhin would respond to such a request. Still, as Libba and Cole were apparently already en route, I knew I’d have to ask sooner than later.

  At that time of day I knew I’d most likely find the Zhore out the greenhouse, waiting for me to join him, as we generally did most of our work in the morning, sometimes continuing into the afternoon if the project was involved enough. Sure enough, he was there tending a row of carnivorous orchids from Cygnus Alpha. Luckily, we were both far too large to be considered prey by the orchids; their preferred snacks were small insects. At least I’d timed my arrival well, as the flowers were all shuddering by the time I got there, the sign that they’d already been fed and were happily digesting their late-morning meal.

  Sarzhin turned as I approached. “What is it, Anika?”

  “I just had mail from my father.”

  “And?”

  Why did it suddenly feel so difficult to make such a simple request? “My sister is coming for a visit—with her fiancé. So my parents would very much appreciate it if you would let me go see her.”

  He said nothing at first, but only set down the plastic container and pair of long-nosed tweezers he’d been holding…the delivery method for feeding the orchids, which did have a tendency to nip. When he spoke at last, his voice sounded oddly strained. “For how long?”

  I lifted my shoulders. “I’m not sure. A week or so. She’s supposed to arrive the day after tomorrow.”

  “I can’t let you go for that long.”

  The comment was delivered in such a matter-of-fact way that it took me a few seconds to fully digest it. “You can’t—why not? I’ve been here for over three months, and you won’t let me go for even a week?”

  “A week is…impossible.” He turned toward me, gloved hands knotted into the folds of his robe.

  “Impossible?” I repeated. Anger flared in me then, for his flat refusal, for the hours and minutes he’d taken of my own life with no apologies, no explanations. It wasn’t as if I’d announced that I was leaving, never to return. I didn’t bother to moderate my tone as I continued, “You want to know what’s impossible? Forcing someone to come live with you for no reason, resorting to blackmail, asking—” And I broke off then, because somehow I knew bringing up the marriage proposals was a line I didn’t want to cross.

  He held up a hand. “Enough, Anika. I did not say you could not go. I only said you could not go for a full week.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is not enough that I said it was impossible?”

  “Not if you won’t tell me why.”

  “I cannot do that.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at him. By that time I had already begun to be quite tired of the mysteries and the unanswered questions. His refusal to grant what seemed to me a very simple request only infuriated me that much more.

  He took a step toward me and then paused. Somehow I knew he wanted to reach out to me, but had stopped himself at the last minute. “You will see your family,” he said quietly. “For three days. On the morning of the third day, you must return here to me.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “If you don’t—well, let us just say the outcome will be something neither one of us desires.”

  Which I guessed was code for him reporting my father to the magistrate, althoug
h one would think there had to be some sort of statute of limitations on petty thefts such as my father’s appropriation of Sarzhin’s moonflowers.

  Three days. I had no idea how I could explain myself to my parents, or worse, Libba and her fiancé, but I supposed I could come up with something. My father’s message had said the pair planned to remain on Lathvin for some two weeks; any shorter a stay, and the trip here wouldn’t have been worth the effort. Three days seemed like a pitifully short time, considering that I hadn’t seen my sister in more than five years. Still, it was better than nothing.

  “Fine,” I said. “If you want to be unreasonable, I guess there isn’t much I can do about it. I’ll let my father know I’ll be there two days from now. That’ll give Libba and her fiancé time to arrive on-planet and get settled in.”

  Sarzhin replied, “I am sorry you think I am being unreasonable. If you only knew—”

  “Yes, if I only knew,” I cut in. “Unfortunately, as you don’t seem inclined to tell me anything, it’s sort of hard for me to know what the hell you’re talking about!”

  With that I stormed out of the greenhouse, a little astonished at myself for confronting him in such a way. He made no move to stop me, but only watched in silence as I left. And later that evening as we sat down to dinner, he said nothing of our earlier scene.

  Perhaps it was spiteful of me, but that night I almost wished he would ask me to marry him again, just so I would have the opportunity to turn him down.

  Although Sarzhin might have been parsimonious in the time he had allotted me to visit my family, otherwise he took every care to ensure I would go there and come back safely. My family’s homestead lay a little more than five kilometers away from his property, a distance I could have easily walked, even in the constant rainstorms that plagued the planet, but he insisted I take the spare transport vehicle after he learned I could drive one well enough.

  “That way, you can get home more quickly,” he told me, after he handed me the vehicle’s remote.

  Which home? I wondered. Yours…or my parents’?