by P. J. Fox
And yet…Alice seemed strangely subdued. “Do you care for him?” asked Aria.
“He’s nice,” Alice allowed.
“Just nice?”
A smile cracked her subdued façade, lighting it up like a ray of sunshine. “Yes,” she said, “just nice. He invited me on a shooting expedition. There will be people there,” she added hurriedly. “It’s quite a large party—I think. Bell was invited, too, but demurred on account of the fact that she can’t shoot.”
“Can you?”
Alice blushed. “Ram promised to teach me.”
Aria noted the use of his given name, but said nothing. “And you’d like that?”
Alice nodded. “I think so, I just….” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“What if he’s…not nice?”
“You’ll get to know him,” Aria said encouragingly, “and you’ll find out.”
Alice seemed so young; had Aria ever been that young? Here she was, chewing her lip and looking like she’d been asked to face a firing squad because a man had asked her out on a date. Alice had a bad case of the nerves, Aria decided; that was the only explanation. She must like this dashing young captain, otherwise why would she have agreed to see him again? Moreover, as Aria pointed out, Ramesh Gore at least had the reference of being a Blue.
Kisten had been prevailed upon to include a few eligible bachelors in the day’s festivities—or, rather, had been prevailed upon to see that someone did. He didn’t, as he’d witheringly explained, have time to play social director. Aria suspected that his aide, Lieutenant Motiani, had been delegated the task. Aria had met the man once, and he’d seemed agreeable enough—and exactly the type who thrilled to the idea of playing matchmaker.
“It’s just…all happening so quickly.”
Aria started, surprised. “What is?”
“This!” Alice spread her hands. “Arriving here, meeting all these new people, adjusting to a new culture. The food, the clothes—everything. And now…people treat me like an adult. I’m nineteen, and I won’t be turning twenty for months. No one’s ever treated me like an adult before.” On Solaris, nineteen year olds weren’t adults. They were glorified children, expected to attend school and not much else. Industrious types might wash dishes now and then. Within the Alliance, a nineteen year old woman was highly eligible.
And, Aria knew, under a great deal of pressure. She pointed this out to Alice, as gently as possible. “You don’t have to let anyone court you—or get married.” She raised a hand, forestalling comment. “Yes, I know, Deliah has strong opinions on this subject; I know, too, how much you admire her. But at the end of the day, Deliah wants the same thing that I do: for you to be happy. She, perhaps misguidedly, thinks that marriage is the only route to contentment for a woman. But I promise you,” she said seriously, “it’s not. Six months, or even a year from now you’ll still be young. Take your time.”
“You didn’t,” Alice pointed out.
Aria sighed. “With me it was…different. And I’m older, too,” she said, latching on to the obvious argument. “I’d also dated other men.” Alice, she knew, had not. “It’s important, I think, to have a basis for comparison. I’m sure that Captain Gore is a lovely gentleman, but there are many lovely gentleman hanging around. Meet them all and then decide.”
“And in the meantime,” said Alice bleakly, “Naomi will snatch him up. She only likes men that other women like.” Realizing what she’d said, she clapped a hand over her mouth.
Aria laughed. “This is true!” She looked around the library. “Speaking of which, where is Naomi?” Kisten’s would-be mistress had vanished, and Aria couldn’t say that she was sorry. Naomi’s presence had cast a pall over the group. None of the other women liked her and, as far as Aria could tell, Naomi didn’t like them. She’d kept herself aloof, her face fixed into a simpering moue of disgust that would have done credit to Pasha.
Pasha, no stranger to social climbers, had given her short shrift. Subsiding into a corner, Naomi had pouted in silence while everyone else chatted and traded joking comments about the stupidity of men. Pasha, Aria had to admit, had a point; why Naomi suddenly considered herself so superior to everyone else—including the vaunted daughter of the House of Singh—was a complete mystery. She’d sashayed into the library like she not only owned the place but found it lacking, and proceeded to declaim on the subject of proper court behavior. About which, Pasha had observed unkindly, she knew nothing. Aria was tempted to believe that Naomi’s affectation was due to insecurity, but worried that she was giving the girl too much credit.
The unexpected outcome of her flight from Solaris had shaken Aria’s confidence, and she hadn’t been a strong woman to begin with. She hadn’t foreseen anything of what had happened next, not the least of which was her own marriage, and the realization of her own short-sightedness had been devastating. She’d questioned every decision she’d made ever since. Was she really happy? Could she trust her own emotions, or were they doomed to always betray her? She didn’t know—and she was afraid to find out. She shivered.
Pasha’s slightly nasal voice cut through Aria’s mental fog. “I can’t stand it here,” she announced for the thousandth time. “The fevers, the boils, the prickly heat, and this rationing! Who ever heard of such a thing? My husband says I have to choose between the air conditioning and the second freezer.” A situation that was, clearly, the height of outrage. “The raptors in the fog, the monkeys falling dead out of the trees—really!”
“It’s cholera,” supplied one of the women.
Cholera was ravaging the poorer quarters, as it did during every heat wave. There was a terrible shortage of qualified medical personnel on Tarsonis, but what few they had were doing their best.
“What a terrifying place to be pregnant,” said another woman. “Did you hear that that girl from the north compound died? The young one?” Her expression was hard to interpret as she described the complications, the unavailability of a suitable surgeon and, eventually, the woman’s death from heart failure. No one mentioned whether the child had survived, and Aria felt a chill. Somehow, she’d never considered the possibility of children before. But she was married, of course—wasn’t that what married people did? Have children?
“Well I refuse to,” the first woman said.
“Nonsense,” Pasha replied. “You’re both being ridiculous. I’ve given birth to three children since coming to this accursed rock and they’re all fit—in body, at least, if not in mind. Natives,” she whispered, and proceeded to launch into a long tirade about the evils of too much exposure.
“Everyone seems nice enough,” Alice ventured uncertainly.
Pasha favored her with a patronizing look. “Wait until you’re married, dear. The native women—well, there are rumors.”
“Rumors?” Alice echoed, eyes wide.
She was so young and impressionable, Aria thought with a pang. Aria herself was beginning to feel—if not old, then older. She felt like she’d aged two decades in the past two months.
“They’re lewd,” Pasha hissed, “and continually devising stratagems for how to gain lovers.”
Aria arched an eyebrow in unconscious imitation of Kisten. Most of the women present were regarding Pasha with a species of awe usually reserved for politicians and prophets as she detailed how Tarsoni women—or Charonite women, or Moche women, Aria mused—had insatiable sexual appetites. Like many women of her class, Pasha gave every appearance of being cultured; museums, concerts, garden parties and polite conversation with the educated had all rubbed off on her and she reflected that residue back at the world like a mirror. But scratch the surface and she, like Aria’s other guests, was little more than an overgrown child. Too much pampering and sheltering had stunted her, giving her no real world experience with which to frame these concepts.
Pasha was afraid of losing her husband, and so almost anything made sense to her. Anything, Aria amended silently, that tended to reinforce her worst fears about the st
ate of her marriage—and the comparative desirability of other women, especially women who liked Tarsonis and who might be more capable of…showing a man her appreciation. Men and women on Brontes led such different lives; was it any wonder that they couldn’t relate to each other?
Aria noted with amusement, too, Pasha’s apparent forgetting of the fact that she was one such licentious native. But Pasha didn’t think of Aria as Solarian, of course; no one did. Within the span of mere months, she’d been completely subsumed into Bronte culture. Pasha treated her like a fellow Bronte because, to Pasha, she was.
Within the span of mere months, Aria had also grown up. She knew, even as she let her mind wander, that she wouldn’t have responded like this before. She might have called Pasha out on her ignorance or, God in Heaven, she might have believed her. It was difficult to say, really, as she felt no connection to the girl she’d been. Only remembered her vaguely, a one-dimensional shadow.
Alice tugged on her skirt. Aria turned. “I’m worried about Naomi,” the other girl whispered.
Aria felt about Naomi much as she did about Pasha: she should be offended, but she wasn’t. Naomi couldn’t help herself, any more than Pasha could. She glanced up at the ornate ormolu clock on the mantelpiece; Naomi had been gone an awfully long time, and there were a great many strangers in the compound tonight. Perhaps Alice was right to be worried.
“I’ll check on her.” She flashed Alice a small but reassuring smile.
Alice nodded. “Thank you,” she said gratefully, the relief showing plain on her face.
Alice, Aria knew, had no yearning to search the gardens at night. Or perhaps she had a later assignation that she was worried about missing. Aria hoped so, for the other girl’s sake; Alice had been so lonely. She’d attached herself to Deliah and scurried about in her overbearing shadow, but she had no real friends of her own age and needed them desperately. Even a casual romance, Aria decided, would do her a lot of good.
She stood up and, excusing herself, stepped out onto the patio. The door had been propped open to catch the nonexistent breeze, and moths hovered in the faint glow of the lamps. Outside their hazy corona, darkness ruled. Aria moved silently through the small garden and, ducking through a rarely used arch almost entirely obscured by ivy, stepped into the main garden—which was, if possible, even more enchanting by night. Moonlight filtered through the clouds, tracing the edges of the world in silver. Even the waterfalls seemed to dispense, not ordinary lake water but shimmering, coruscating gemstones. She reached out and felt the petals of a night blooming rose, releasing a heady fragrance into the night.
Hundreds of lightning bugs winked on and off. Aria drew in a sharp breath, her sense of wonder satiated almost beyond the point of tolerance. Never before had she been so sure of her first conviction, that this wasn’t a garden but a fairy kingdom—her fairy kingdom.
It was a relief, too, to get away from all those women. Yes, they were her friends, even Pasha after her own fashion, but the fishbowl nature of cantonment life could be stifling. She moved silently down the path, trailing her fingers through the roses and feeling too impossibly content to be alive.
She’d completely forgotten to look for Naomi, but after a minute she realized that she was hearing Naomi’s voice.
She crept forward silently, peering through the apple trees at the scene beyond. They’d finally bloomed, and the scent of the waxy white petals lay heavily in the humid air. Her breath caught, and her eyes widened, but she made no sound. Naomi was wearing the same diaphanous green gown, only she appeared to have lost her sattika. Her exposed skin gleamed white in the moonlight, a large opal winking at her navel. Her blouse was cut low over the generous swell of her breasts. Naomi had always been the sort of lushly attractive woman that men desired, and she knew it. But Aria had never seen her so flushed, so passionate, and her need gave a new dimension to her beauty.
Kisten had obviously been enjoying his brandy; his coat hung unbuttoned and he, too, was flushed. His garland had disappeared. And his lips were locked on Naomi’s.
SEVENTY-ONE
His hands came up to her shoulders, gripping them as he gently but firmly pushed her back.
“Naomi,” he asked, “what are you doing?” His voice was low, and entirely sober.
Aria held her breath, afraid of drawing attention to herself.
“What do you mean?” she replied, striving for coquettishness. She was obviously surprised and trying to pretend otherwise, acting as if Kisten was teasing her rather than rejecting her—or was too innocent to take her meaning. “I should think that, to a man of your experience, that would be obvious.”
“Naomi, I’m a married man.” Kisten seemed slightly taken aback.
“What does that matter?” She sounded indignant, now, as though she viewed his declaration as little more than a thinly veiled excuse.
“I’m not going to betray her,” Kisten said gently.
“Betray her?” repeated Naomi, aghast. “It’s not like you’re faithful to her.”
“In my own way, I am. Naomi,” he said firmly, “the answer is no.”
“Why?” she demanded angrily, a shrill edge to her voice. “Why do you have to feel this stupid sense of obligation? Is it because she’s my friend, so you’re afraid she’ll find out?”
“You’re not her friend,” Kisten pointed out, still speaking with the same measured tone that one might use with a small child.
“But you—you came out here and—”
“I came out here to be alone, and to think. I have a lot on my mind,” he added.
“I could help with that,” she said, reaching up to massage his shoulders.
He picked up her hands and returned them to her sides, the meaning of his gesture unmistakable.
“But I don’t understand! I’d do anything you asked!” She was pleading, now. “I love you. She doesn’t. She’s questioned every choice she’s made since she left Solaris, and she’d leave you in a heartbeat if she could—leave you and go back to him. But I’d never leave you.”
“Perhaps,” allowed Kisten, “but that’s between me and her.”
“It’s not fair!”
“Naomi,” said Kisten finally, “there’s a chance that, if this were merely about sex, my answer might be different. But you want affection, more, even, and that I don’t have to give.”
“Because of this stupid sense of obligation—”
“No,” he said, with the faintest trace of anger. “Not obligation, desire.”
“Am I so disgusting that you can’t desire me? Is she—”
Aria stepped out into the moonlight, surprising them both.
The silence was complete, broken only by Naomi’s rapid breathing as she stared at Aria with something very like horror. Kisten neither spoke nor moved. He might have been a statue, for all the appearance of life he gave. Somewhere, a frog croaked. It was hoping to attract a mate, of course; the realization struck Aria as absurdly funny given her own circumstances.
The first question out of her mouth surprised her. “Naomi, why do you hate me?”
“Because you have everything!” the other girl screamed. “You had everything on Solaris, too! Your family had pots of money but you were always the poor little rich girl, suffering because you were so lonely while the rest of us were suffering because we had real problems. But you never cared about that, did you? And then your boyfriend was mean to you, so you had to leave the planet! Who could imagine a worse tragedy,” she mocked, “than a failed relationship. Except it wasn’t failed—he still wanted to marry you! You ran away, you empty-headed little nitwit, because he wasn’t good enough for you.
“The handsomest, most eligible man in Cabot wasn’t good enough for you. And I thought, good, she’ll finally realize what a stuck up little brat she is and regret having tossed aside a decent man like a piece of trash. I’m not proud of it, but I thought it. But no!” she cried. “You threw over Aiden and met a prince.
“And you’re still whining a
bout how uncertain you are! Boo hoo, poor little Aria doesn’t know what she wants. Running away from home was just too hard, so now she has to question every decision she makes while everyone fawns over her and pats her on the back for even trying!”
“And this is your opinion of me,” Aria said, shaken.
“Your husband will screw anything that moves,” Naomi said nastily, “but I’m not even good enough for meaningless sex—unlike every other girl in this cantonment.”
Aria shrugged. The whole wretched mess was suddenly so clear to her: shamed by Kisten’s rejection and desperate to compensate for her own feelings of powerlessness, Naomi was striking out the only way she knew how. And although she wouldn’t want Aria’s pity, in that moment she had it. Because she was right: Aria did have everything. She had security.
“Naomi….” She trailed off hopelessly. She’d known Naomi disliked her, but this all-consuming hatred…. “I’m sorry,” she said honestly. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
Naomi reared back, as if struck. “You’re sorry for me?”
Naomi, of course, had always thought Aria dull and timid and plain; certainly she lacked Naomi’s voluptuous curves and ability to charm. Had Naomi only ever wanted to hang around Aria, so she could look down on her? Aria felt hot tears pricking the backs of her eyeballs and, a moment later, an arm around her thin shoulders. She leaned against Kisten’s shoulder, shivering even in the heat and grateful for the solidity of his presence. It was comforting, and always had been. He’d always made her feel safe, even when she hated him. Did she hate him now? Love him? She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she felt. Part of her wanted to scream, but part of her wanted to laugh. This was all just so stupid.
“I’m sorry,” Kisten said softly, “that you had to hear this.”