Call of Worlds

by K. D. Lovgren

  The rubyglass, she thought. Before, she thought it was what happened in the cave that changed them. It was only when she found the tiny crystal Roan had found in a crevice and given to her, buried and forgotten in her pocket, that she remembered and wondered. What if what happened in the cave wasn’t about what had happened, but where? What if this was what rubyglass did?

  She didn’t have to speak to Roan much at all anymore. It was like her and Rai, after they’d spent so much time alone on the Ocean.

  She found him testing the well and sat down in the grasses near him. Wrapped her fingers around his ankle.

  This was enough to tell him how she felt. He kept on with what he was doing. When he was done, he dropped down next to her. Slid his hand under her shirt to rest upon her bare back.

  She put her head on his shoulder.

  Cooley saw them, gliding by in a roller with Sasha. Kal didn’t move. She didn’t have to pretend anything. This was who she was right now, and anyone could know. Anyone could see. Anyone could go fuck themselves if they didn’t like it.

  15

  Out

  Once the ice had been broken, the rubyglass seen, things were different. They couldn’t help but be.

  Once Kal and Roan had touched each other, they wanted to do it again.

  Finding places and times when they could be alone wasn’t that difficult, since they already had their work together each morning, touring and checking the sites around the camp. Now it took longer.

  Kal walked into that dinner after the trip to the cave and saw Sasha, with the real Sasha looking back at her, and felt nothing except pleasure at Sasha’s recovery. She knew the feelings she’d had were still there, somewhere deep. The combination of the trickery on the ship, Sasha’s rejection of Kal’s open request they pursue something further, Kal’s experience alone on the Ocean, and the rebirth she’d found on Demeter had created a distance. She didn’t want to wait around and see if Sasha threw her a crumb. The mutuality she had with Roan was so much better and messier than the perfection of longing for the ideal.

  Kal was sexually replete. She didn’t have to wish for anything anymore with someone who was on the fence and temperamentally probably always would be. Sasha could have who she wanted, her pick, because that was her magnetism, built in. Most of what made her a great leader was her training and experience. The rest was something indefinable that made people want to follow her. A spark of that, Kal thought, was her allure, to more than just Kal.

  Kal knew it all too well, after Rai had told her how many people on the Ocean had sexual thoughts about Sasha. After some time apart, Kal thought the blatant fact that Sasha didn’t care in that way about any of them was the key. She was hard to resist because of her indifference.

  With Roan, Kal set the pace and the nature of their interactions. He liked it. He accepted and encouraged whatever she chose with a badly hidden amazement and gratitude Kal found irresistible in itself. To want and be wanted was novel. And inebriating. Kal walked about on a precarious high she could find again with a look across the room, a touch of fingertips, even seeing Roan’s empty jacket where he’d thrown it after a nighttime jaunt. It was a long time since Kal had been in the flush of a new and reciprocal eroticism.

  If it affected Sasha, losing her devotee to another, she didn’t show it. Not that she would, Kal thought. Sasha would know the gross unfairness of any display of pique or jealousy on her part after how she’d treated Kal. If it hurt her a little, Kal didn’t mind. Kal had pined a long time. Sasha’s discomfort, if there were any, would never equal the hours Kal had spent thinking about her and wishing things were different.

  Did she sometimes think about Sasha when she was in Roan’s arms? The fantasy sequence in the corridor of the Ocean with Sasha seemed just that, another one of Kal’s daydreams, a little more vivid that the others, easily recalled in her body’s memory. She fantasized when she was with Roan sometimes, as she was sure he fantasized scenarios, too. She didn’t know who his past loves were, or what his fantasy life was, and it suited her fine. They had both what was happening between them, in real time and space, and the worlds in their own minds to draw on, to make it even better. Kal loved the blank slate of their pasts. Sometimes she imagined Sasha with them, too.

  It was all part of the sensual re-education she was giving herself, as the new person she’d become on Demeter.

  Roan was strong. They didn’t talk more about where that strength came from or what its consequences might be. It made him an interesting lover. The combination of his strength and the lower gravity made for possibilities neither of them had explored before. At least Kal hadn’t. She couldn’t be sure about him.

  She loved to float during sex and float through her days on Demeter. She was so in the now and in all time, more connected to what her aunt and her people had tried to teach her, that even though she was millennia away—even if light year travel were possible—she was right where she was supposed to be. The nowness and its coexistence with always-ness were simultaneous and noncontradictory. Physical connection renewed her understanding and acceptance of it, over and over again. Maybe that was what an orgasm was. The window into the re-creation of now, of all time being now.

  How Roan saw her she didn’t know, except for the message in his eyes. Here, she was accepted. How strange was it that so far away with strangers was the first time she felt at home?

  What her aunt had said—about the portal being a door opening to allow her through it to a place she was supposed to be—was something Kal thought about a lot.

  Now that Sasha was getting back to herself, Kal knew the discussion and decision about Sif would come soon. She herself would have to initiate a conversation about it among the three captains if they did not do it first. Kal accepted it as her duty. One more day, she decided, for Sasha to have a few sleeps as herself before Kal would speak to the two captains in privacy about Sif.

  Would Cooley bring up who or what was concealed on the Land? How could Kal bring it up without revealing how she knew, or inadvertently drag Roan through the mud if investigation revealed his involvement? He had tried to protect Kal and Captain Cooley. Kal considered he’d done his duty honorably. However much she might have resented his method, she understood it and thought she would have done the same, herself. She and Roan were both people of action, and if it required wrestling with each other sometimes over what they each thought was right, so be it.

  Kal liked Roan’s way. When they played now, sometimes they re-enacted their respective attacks, with much different outcomes. It amused and excited them both. Roan especially found Kal’s pounce on him endlessly funny. Each time she felt an inward pride that part of what made it funny to him was its novelty. She had taken him down. Who knew how long it had been since someone else had done it? Tricky could outmaneuver strong. A good lesson to remember.

  Before she talked to the captains, she needed to discuss the situation with Roan. She liked their non-verbal communication and disliked having to break the mood, set ever since their trip to the mountains. Still, it needed to be done.

  Post-coital was the best time, she decided. After an encounter in the roller, while they lay back and rested, Roan partially smothering Kal with his weight in the way she liked, she said, “I have to talk to the captains today.”

  He lifted his head from where it lay on her chest.

  “I don’t know if you’ll come up,” she said.

  “Are you going to tell them about breaching the Land?”

  “I don’t intend to. I can’t tell where the conversation will lead. I’m not a very good liar. And Sasha knows me well.”

  “Does she?”

  “Like you know everyone on the Land. Better than you want to, probably.”

  “How well does she know you?”

  Kal cocked her head. “You mean…”

  “There’s a vibe between you.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  He rolled over into the other seat.

  “Does it bot
her you?” she asked, curious.

  “No.”

  She clambered over onto him. Brushed his hair back from his ears. “Good.” She kissed him deeply. “Did you have something with one of your crew?” she asked, when she came up for air.

  His lips were shiny, wet with their kiss. He licked them. “Do you want to talk about all that?”

  She shrugged. “Will it make things weird?”

  “We don’t know how long we’ll be here. Memory lasts a long time.”

  “True.” She sat back, her lower body supported by his thighs. He spread them slowly, so her bum began to sink. She grabbed his arms and laughed. “The whole truth might come out, about our visit to the Land. We have to face that. From what you know of Cooley, will it be a problem?”

  He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She had climbed back up to safety and now sat across his lap, her feet resting in the roller’s other seat.

  “Yes.”

  “Which part of it?” She traced the line of his deltoid. “Breaking into the Land, finding out about something in isolation, you and me getting it on?”

  “All of the above.”

  “Really?” Kal made a red mark on his skin, a curve on the arch of his muscle, with her fingernail. “She doesn’t strike me as that reactive. Ever since I landed, she’s been…nice. No other word for it. She could have kept throwing her weight around, making me feel like an ass. She didn’t. That takes some self-control.”

  “She has self-control.”

  “You think she still doesn’t like me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What could she do to me?”

  “What could they do to you?”

  “Sasha wouldn’t do anything.”

  “You underestimate her,” he said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yes, Kal. Trust me.”

  “How do you know?” She sat up and grasped his chin in her hand, searching his eyes. “What don’t I know?”

  “Didn’t you see them in the roller, taking in the scene, when we were by the well?”

  She let go. “Yeah.”

  “Did you get a good look at their faces?”

  “Not really. I was distracted.” She touched him. His serious expression didn’t shift.

  “It’s not jealousy, Kal. They outrank jealousy. Sexually, they could care less, no matter what you think about Sasha’s secret passion for you.”

  Kal felt a quiet shiver around her neck. She was never as opaque as she thought she was.

  “They know a bond when they see one. That’s what concerns them. And we’ve already proved them right. If you don’t come out with everything, it will confirm what they already know. I don’t want you to tell them everything. You’re going to have to, no matter what we want. Or they could have us be over, like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  He was hardening under her touch, but he ignored it. She admired his self-control, as he admired Cooley’s. The kind of command he had over his own choices—despite his wants—was what impressed her about him, almost to awe when she really thought about it. It might be the quality she most admired. And envied. She put on a good show, but self-control wasn’t her strength. She thought she hid it well enough to fool most people. It didn’t fool him. It might be why he let her run wild in the way she was with him. He knew she needed the release. The sensation of freedom, with at least one other person she didn’t think wanted to control her. And it was the reason he did have some control, though she tried to conceal that fact from him.

  “You think I should go in there and tell them everything about everything?”

  “It’s what I would do.”

  “Why don’t you?” She squeezed.

  “They don’t need to hear it from me, right now. You’re the golden girl.” He smiled faintly. “Don’t you know that?”

  “No.”

  He lifted his hand and reached behind her head, gathering up her thick hair, and pulled her head back. “I’ll show you.” He licked her neck. She let go, releasing him. He pushed her head against the dash of the roller, shoving her shoulders up so her upper body was balanced, and plunged in. She gasped. Her feet were tucked neatly over his shoulders as he thrust. It was different, this time, him taking the initiative and driving the direction of their intercourse. She relaxed, letting him move her body with his, letting go of her desires for his, and doing so found a different passion unlocked inside herself.

  Him being her toy was a delight and a power play she enjoyed. This felt like a communication from him, purely physical, something he was trying to tell her. His most important words weren’t words, she knew. Physical movement was his medium. A gesture was a message.

  This was a letter, a love letter of sorts, and she read his body by letting him have her own. What he did with it gave her pleasure. Maybe she was finally ready to hear a voice other than her own. As she let go with him, let herself be moved by his waves, riding them, she felt the desire to take back control. Unleashed, his strength carried her along with it.

  The shift of power between them let the energy loose in a way she couldn’t have predicted, combustible and unstable. As it built she wavered, feeling the strength of it and instinctively pushing against it, trying to tamp it down since she didn’t know what it would do. It was like an electricity coalescing around them, frightening and unknown.

  He pushed through, asking her a question, again and again, and her body answered, despite her mind trying to reason its way out.

  “Roan,” she said, frightened. He brought his head up and caught her eyes with his. It was still him. She watched his open mouth, taking in the air to breathe, the contracting muscles of his torso, how one arm held her while the other supported himself against the dash. His eyes told her he felt it. He knew her fear because he felt it too. Trust, his body said.

  She relinquished the part of her asking questions, pushing against any exploration other than her own. What was new wasn’t in either of their power. If it wasn’t either of theirs to control she could let it go.

  Electric, suspended in tension, cohering molecules rushing toward each other, exploding in sequence like firecrackers on a string, over and over. She was losing herself.

  When she gave it all away her body went rigid, her mind splattering with connections, atomic unrealities she couldn’t comprehend. This wasn’t her. She was no longer herself. He wasn’t Roan.

  She was trapped in pleasure, a fly drowning in honey, unable to resurface, knowing she would die. Fire burned her cells, remaking her into something she didn’t want to be.

  Why, why, why…her voice resurfaced, far away and unwanted by this thing between them.

  Like a master switch had been flipped, Kal collapsed, disconnected from Roan by whatever possession had joined them beyond their wills. She lost consciousness.

  Kal tried to open her eyes. Her eyelids were stuck together. Blindly, she tried to lift her right hand to her face. It was numb and trapped. Her other hand was free. She felt around. Her arm was trapped under Roan’s lifeless leg. His leg was heavy as a tree trunk when she tried to lift it. She found one of her feet and braced it against his leg, slowly extracting her dead arm from underneath. Everything either hurt, prickled with unbearable pins and needles, or was completely numb. She wanted to see. The longer she couldn’t open her eyes the more she began to panic. What had happened? Where were they?

  She breathed through her nose. Her mouth was also stuck together. She felt tears rise up in her sinuses and trickle down her face. With her good hand she felt for Roan’s cold ankle, crawling up his leg with her fingers, spider-like, trying to feel for life. When she reached his upper leg she felt the warmth of blood circulating under the skin. Bringing her hand to her eyes, she tried to feel her mouth and eyes to see what covered them.

  There was no blindfold or gag. Rubbing gently at her eyes, using the salt tears to loosen the lids, she got one eyelid free, then the other. Her vision was impeded by a film over her eyes. She massaged her
lower lids to try to get the tears to moisten her eyes and remove the glue-like substance adhering them. With some effort from her tongue she got her mouth open, taking a deep inhale.

  They were still in the roller. She was in the front footwell on one side. Roan sprawled on the seat above her. With her cloudy eyes she couldn’t see him well. Crawling up onto his body, she felt for his mouth and pried his lips open. In the side compartment she found a water cube and pressed it to his mouth, puncturing it on his teeth. Most of it ran down his chin but some went in. She used her wet fingers to scrub at his eyes, unsticking them faster than her own. He was out. Pushing his face sideways and down so he wouldn’t choke on the water she’d given him, she clutched another water cube to her own mouth, swallowing it down in two gulps. The dissolvable substance left behind from the cube helped her clean her face better. Her vision improved.

  They were both naked. It was as if they’d been knocked unconscious during sex. She didn’t understand it. The presence she’d felt before, the uncontrollable something, was gone. They were alone in the roller and out in the fields, in a hollow without a ship in it. They never had encounters around the ships. The thought of the person or people or whatever it was inside either of the ships was enough to take the shine off that idea.

  Digging deep into the storage compartments, Kal brought out cube after cube of water, crushing them against herself, then Roan, trying to get off the strange substance they were both lightly covered in. She couldn’t roll him over, but she got the front of him mostly clean. Dragging a fluffer coat out of the back, she covered him.

  Naked, she booted up the roller and spun them out of the hollow, on the way back to camp, before his skin had begun to dry.

  If something or someone wanted to scare the hell of her, they’d succeeded. She was ready to talk to the captains.