by John Boyd
“Not before next Wednesday. At the moment it doesn’t have a quorum in Washington, but I think we’re being given a runaround.”
Wednesday would be June 9, less than two weeks before the summer solstice. If Cohen failed, Kyra would be marooned on earth. Breedlove had felt Kyra’s fears at the prospect on the meadow, but the girl who had transmitted her anxieties to him then, by the touch of her hand, was different from the woman she had become. She no longer evinced the detached attitude toward suffering which had drawn the comment of his mother. Even the pity she felt for Slade in his chagrin was genuine, her consolation touched with sympathy.
“Don’t be so downhearted, Ben. You’re not responsible for that old committee, and I know you’re doing everything you can for me—short of violating the law.”
Reinforcing Breedlove’s growing hope that Kyra might adapt to earth was his confidence that the government knew what it was doing. By now the President had all the facts he needed to make the correct decision, and Breedlove remembered Slade’s remark that Kyra was no genetic threat to the earth apart from her tribe. Separate provisions could be made for them. If they had only a fraction of Kyra’s adaptability, they could find a home on earth. Even Myra had been frightening only in a psychological sense, and she could learn to control her hostility. On earth, too, Crick would be able to find his longed-for playmates, and green hair was statistically only slightly more unusual than red.
He could almost convince himself to pull for General Norcross in the dispute being waged in Washington. Norcross had all the findings about Kyra at his disposal, and the general would never risk the security of the continent, much less the planet, unless he was very sure of what he was doing.
Such reasoning came easily to him when alone in the suite with Kyra, where he could hear the swish of her slacks as she passed, the tinkling notes of her laughter, and surreptitiously watch the halo the light formed around her hair as she sat reading. Conversationally she was delightful. Once in reading Gray’s “Elegy,” she took exception to the lines:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
“Breedlove, flowers are brazen hussies. They bloom. They don’t blush. They wear bold colors when all other plants wear green and flaunt them to tempt every roaming, sex-mad bee.”
Such an original fancy would have drawn him to any woman, and in Kyra it made him more aware of a beauty that was becoming more alluring with each passing day. The hips beneath her narrow waist seemed to grow more rounded, their sway more pronounced as she walked, and her bouncing breasts grew fuller. His behavior toward her was at all times proper. If anything, his was still Shelley’s “desire of the moth for the star,” but the gravitational pull of earth’s committees was swinging the star closer, and Kyra had virtually promised herself to him if she should stay.
If she had to be on the planet when the transit of the sun swung southward, he wanted to be near her to comfort her when the seasonal terror he had glimpsed in the wardroom began. Then, when the summer storm had ebbed, he would make her a citizen of earth by marriage. As his wishes became his desires, he decided to plead his suit with Kyra honestly and openly, but he would have to transfer her from this penal atmosphere, the dining-room sycophants and hallway snoopers, into an atmosphere of candlelight and wine, in short, Pierre’s.
But there were the guards who checked her bed at midnight, the anger of Slade if he was detected sneaking out with her, and there was the threat of Huan Chung, who might or might not be a figment of Slade’s imagination. One night, as his fancies idly played with the idea of escape and the perils Kyra might face outside the walls, she looked over from a book she was reading and said, “ ’Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.’ ”
“Why did you think of that?”
“I was remembering Lady Macbeth,” she said. “Those are her words. Now, there was a woman. It was she who said, ‘We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.’ ”
“Kyra, you can read my mind!”
“Not at all, dear Breedlove. I can read your facial expressions.”
Chapter Thirteen
He never broached his plans to Kyra, because he could devise no scheme for getting her out of the motel and, finally, because he did not have to. Set in motion by a telephone call from Abe Cohen, Friday afternoon, the parts of the plan fell together like a self-assembling jigsaw puzzle while Breedlove merely stood and watched. Cohen’s call came at the end of the lawyer’s day in Washington.
“The hearing’s set for Friday the eighteenth. The committee’s chairman is being called back from an African junket. Meanwhile the State Department’s moving for an open session, and State has an argument. A secret session to grant a nonresident alien uranium would destroy U.S. integrity and jeopardize the Nonproliferation Treaty. I’m using a counterargument from HEW to get the President to sign, but he’s wary of secret agreements, and the HEW argument is not as strong as I thought.”
On news he would have considered catastrophic a week earlier, Breedlove hung up the telephone feeling elated. The eighteenth was only three days before the solstice, international agreements took priority over Kanabian biology, and this committee would never get Kyra off the ground. More immediately, Cohen’s call gave Breedlove a reason to enter Kyra’s bedroom, where Fawn was styling her hair.
Seated before her dresser mirror watching Fawn at work, Kyra looked up at Breedlove when he entered and said, “From the gleam in your eye, I’d say you’re bringing bad news.”
“Cohen called. The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy won’t convene until the eighteenth.”
“ ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace,’ ” she intoned. “Well, Breedlove, it looks as if you’re going to father a new breed of hybrids after all… Doesn’t Fawn have nimble fingers?”
“She comes from a long line of porcupine-quill pickers,” he commented, surprised by Kyra’s blitheness.
“With this hair style,” Fawn said, “you’ll look ravishing.”
“But for whom?” Kyra asked, her gaiety gone. “Tinkers and Evers and Chance? I can hardly bear to face those plastic palm fronds another week, or Ben’s tales, Gravy’s leers, and Little Richard’s adoration. Breedlove, why don’t you spring me out of this joint and take me dancing at Pierre’s?”
“I’ve been trying to figure a way to smuggle you out and get you back in time for Slade’s bed check.”
“It would be easy tomorrow night,” Fawn volunteered. “On Saturday I punch out at eight p.m. You could slip Kyra’s dress into the back of your car. I could bring Kyra a black wig and Coppertone for her skin, and she could walk out in my uniform as me.”
“That’s a terrific idea,” Kyra said, “You could bring a platinum wig and make-up and take my place in bed. I’m sure Breedlove would slip you a few bucks for baby-sitting our guards. And I know I can get Ben off the premises Saturday evening. Would you take me, Breedlove?”
“Of course, but we’d be alone out there with no protection.”
“I don’t need any protection, unless Huan Chung shows up in drag and you fall in love with him.” No longer asking his advice or consent, they continued the planning, even considering such details as a table reservation at Pierre’s, which Fawn would make from an outside telephone. Fawn was as excited as Kyra, and so cooperative Breedlove broke into the conversation with the remark, “If this comes off, Kyra and I will name our first hybrid girl ‘Fawn.’ ”
If either heard his remark she ignored it.
Saturday morning Slade did not drop by the suite after breakfast, and Breedlove thought he knew why. Slade had broken the news of the committee’s delay manfully enough at dinner, then sunk into a morose silence Kyra seemed to share. Now the twice-dishonored prophet refused to show himself in Kyra’s suite. Instead he remained in the patio, alone, dressed in a swim suit, lounging in a deck chair and staring into space, a completely dejected man.
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br /> At breakfast Breedlove said to Kyra, “Slade’s down by the pool alone, sulking like Achilles in his tent.”
“I’ll dive down and cheer him up, but I want you to stay here. I hope this weather holds for tonight. I can literally taste a pas de deux. I read this book on ballet, and I just love its expressions.”
“Treat me nice, and I might treat you to a pirouette.”
“I’ve never mistreated anyone in my life, and I’m five thousand years old. But I fear I’m breaking my record this morning. I’ve got to be brutal with Ben to get him off the premises while we’re making our escape.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“Mentally emasculate him. Crush him. Then give him a framework on which to rebuild his manhood. You see, Ben cares for me, but he cares more for himself as a daring, do-anything guy.”
“And you’re doing a good job of not telling me what you’re going to tell him.”
“You’re too honest and law-abiding. You’d want me to stop and consider. Ben won’t. He’s a frustrated two-gun man straight out of the old West. He gave me autographed copies of his books and I read them. By his fantasies ye shall know him. Pass the toast. I need an excuse for more honey.”
A few minutes after breakfast, lithe but voluptuous in her bikini, Kyra emerged from the bedroom and walked onto the balcony. Nodding to her guards stationed there, she leaned over and called down to Slade: “Good morning, Ben. Isn’t the world bright and beautiful?”
“It’s beginning to look a little better now.”
“It’s the beginning of such a joyous weekend, I’d like to share it with you. May I come down and join you?”
“You’re what my doctor ordered.”
“No, Ben, not me.” The tenor of her voice changed. “What you need is a bandage for your busted gut. Remember the gut you were going to bust if I weren’t off this planet by—when was it? Ah, yes. Yesterday. But, don’t despair, you two-dollar pistol with a defective firing pin. I’ll come down and mend you.”
It was the most gratuitous act of public humiliation Breedlove had ever witnessed, and then she was plunging into the pool to slither toward him with the undulations she had learned from the dolphins. Breedlove looked out the window to see her emerge dripping from the pool to squat beside Slade and begin talking with an intent look on her face. Slowly Slade regained his composure as she talked. The lines of his jaw set. His face hardened, and he began to nod slowly, agreeing with the arcane argument that Breedlove had not been permitted to hear.
Suddenly Slade smiled, a smile of joy and release, nodded emphatically, and Kyra rose and kissed him on the forehead. Hand in hand they dove into the pool together to swim its length and back, and Breedlove drew back from the window amazed. As quickly as she had crushed Slade, Kyra had revitalized him.
That afternoon Slade left the motel shortly after Fawn arrived with the escape gear and word that she had reserved a window table at Pierre’s for nine o’clock that evening.
“Talk with an English accent, Tommy, when you get there. To be sure you got good seats, I pretended I was your social secretary and reserved the table for you in the name of Lord and Lady Greystoke.”
“But, Fawn, that’s Tarzan and Jane.”
“I thought the name sounded too aristocratic for me to invent. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a French restaurant.”
It was a balmy evening. Stars glittered in a cloudless sky. A breeze lapped the waters of the sound and rustled the pines which scented the point on which Pierre’s stood. Walking beside Kyra from the valet parking station to the rustic entrance of the restaurant, Breedlove felt joy swelling within him. “Your hair shimmers in the starlight.”
“Wait’ll you see it by candlelight.”
They entered to be greeted by a headwaiter whose eyes blew kisses at the beautifully gowned, beautifully coiffured, beautifully poised, and beautiful Kyra. He did not ask for their name, but merely bowed and said, “This way, m’lady.”
He led them across the empty dance floor through suddenly hushed voices that resumed as they passed. He caught comments on Kyra’s dress from the women and comments on her figure from the men, and he knew that Kyra with her acute hearing heard more. He could tell from the sway of her hips, for he had grown good at reading her movements, that she was delighted to be in this environment.
They were seated at a corner table with view windows opening on the sound and its wooded shoreline. Gazing around her enchanted, Kyra settled into the chair, and the waiter handed them menus. Breedlove ordered martinis, and the waiter bowed out with a “Merci, m’lord.”
“French again,” Kyra said, glancing at her menu. “We should have brought Gravy along to translate.”
“Please, Kyra. Let me enjoy my dinner.”
So the evening began in banter, and Breedlove planned to keep it thus for a while, to ease gradually into more serious matters. Over the drink he spoke in generalities of the radiance of her smile, of the lights in her eyes, and how her simplest movements were imbued with a grace unknown in earth women.
“Breedlove, I’ve smote the living liar! Oh, look…”
Lights glittering, the night boat for Victoria glided by, casting its lambency on the waters. In silence they watched the receding ship until Kyra, with a tremor in her voice, said, “How fleeting and beautiful the varied sights of earth.”
The longing in her voice threw him off his timing. Impulsively he grasped her hand and said, “Stay here, Kyra, with me.”
The orchestra was filing toward the bandstand as she said, “If I were a woman of earth, nothing would please me more than to stay with you to the end of my days.”
“Would you be willing to marry me?”
“If I were of earth and feeling as I feel now, if you asked, we would leave tonight for your cabin, and after you were able to walk again, we’d hurry to the preacher and I’d make an honest man of you. But for now, let’s dance.”
He led her onto the floor. While jitterbugging in the family’s living room, he had discovered her lightness. In these more measured steps he learned of her rhythm. Her body flowed with the music and almost pulsated with the percussion instruments. Through the entire set her head nestled on his shoulder,—they danced in silence. Apotheosized by her grace, he feared words might break the spell.
After the swirling finale they returned to the table to find a plate of hors d’oeuvres. Even here they ate in silence until he finally said, “You do dance divinely.”
“For all your mass, Breedlove, you’re good too.”
They ordered the meal and he ordered wine, but the conversation went slowly in the euphoria that followed their dance. But his euphoria helped ease him into the areas of conversation he wanted to explore.
“When I first saw you, I wanted very much to help you in what seemed an impossible task. You captured my heart as a charming, bright, but dependent little girl. In the past week my feelings toward you have been changing. They seem to be broadening… deepening…”
He struggled for the most accurate and least offensive word.
“ ‘Ripening’?” she suggested.
“ ‘Maturing.’ I’ve begun to look at you, well, less as a girl and more as a woman.”
“I’ve known of the feelings growing in your heart, and they please me. I love the way you peek at me when you think I’m not looking, the way your eyes follow me when I pass, and the way the swish of my slacks sends you.”
“There’s no need telling you anything. You know it all already.”
“But I like to hear you say it. Besides, I’m not guiltless. I’ve been showering with my door open, hoping you’d peek.”
“Have you been tempting me, you Jezebel?”
“My season’s coming on. If I can’t get any uranium out of this planet, I want to get something.”
“If you’re stranded here you have a prime piece of merchandise right on your counter. Every man who lays eyes on you falls in love with you after his fashion, but I think I can offer yo
u a quality of desire no other man can offer. I would make no demands on you. I’d only want to be with you, to nurse you when you’re sick, to provide for you, to protect you when you’re threatened. I told you I’m no great lover, but I—”
“Methinks you protest too much about loving.” She held a palm to him for silence. “Who are you to judge whether you’re a lover or not? Leave that to your loved one. I’m your loved one, and I say you’re the greatest lover on earth for me.”
“How can you say that when I’ve never made love to you?”
“Are you talking about love, or about copulation, earth style?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it so bluntly, but I suppose I am talking about copulation, in a way. After all, it’s a function of love.”
“Well, I declare. If you’re worried about your ability to give me pleasure as compared with some sex hero as you imagine Gravy to be, forget it. In the art of fornication as practiced on Kanab, probably neither of you could do as well as Crick, and he can’t function yet. As far as your capacity to manufacture sperm is concerned, I’m sure you’re adequate. You haven’t been castrated, have you?”
“I wouldn’t be talking like this if I were,” he protested. “I’m talking about my love for you as a woman, and on earth sex is a part of the relationship. It gives a man and woman in love a way to express tenderness toward each other on a continuing basis.”
“But it’s a rather brief pleasure, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it has symbolic value. It testifies to the union of a man with a woman and excludes others from their union.”
“On a planet with the variety earth offers, doesn’t that exclusion get tedious?”
“In some marriages, yes. But if a man and woman truly love each other, the act of love becomes an expression of their intimacy, a sharing and an exploration.”
“How much exploring can you do in such a limited area?” she asked, rhetorically, he hoped. “From the way your psychologists explained the mechanics to me, it’s less a sharing than a borrowing and lending or a transfer.”