Orca liked the episodes in which Mr. Schubert appeared much better than those in which the Navy demanded that Mark Harris perform some military task, and he unquestioningly obeyed. When they were little, Orca and her brother had made up stories in which Mark Harris told the military what it could do with its silly plots, then swam away and conducted guerrilla warfare against the landers until he had freed all the imprisoned cetaceans, scuttled all the whaling ships, and mobilized public opinion to ban propeller-driven craft so the sea regained its peace. That matched her people’s history more closely. But even as a child she had forgiven Mark Harris for failing to accomplish all those tasks. Unlike the real divers, he was all alone.
Orca slid her salmon off the grill onto a plate and settled down to eat in front of the TV. She took a sip of champagne, savoring the bubbles that sent the alcohol straight to her head. The Man from Atlantis was best watched slightly drunk.
“Want to sleep in my room tonight?” she said to Gray.
“Sure,” he said, and speared a bite of her fish.
o0o
Laenea half woke, warm, warm to her center. A recent dream swam into her consciousness and out again, leaving no trace but the memory of its passing. She closed her eyes and relaxed, to remember it if it would come, but she could recall only that it was a dream of piloting a ship in transit. The details she could not perceive. Not yet. She was left with a comfortless excitement that upset her drowsiness. Her heart purred fast and seemed to give off heat, though that was as impossible as that it might chill her blood.
The room around her was dim. All she could tell about it was that it was outside the hospital. The smells were neither astringent antiseptics nor cloying drugs, but faint perfume. Silky cotton rather than coarse synthetics surrounded her. Between her eyelashes reflections glinted from the ceiling. She must be in Kathell’s apartment in the point stabilizer.
She pushed herself up on her elbows. Her ribs creaked like old parquet floors, and deep muscle aches spread from the center of her body to her shoulders, her arms, her legs. She made a sharp sound, more surprise than pain. She had driven herself too hard; she needed rest, not activity. She let herself sink slowly down into the big red bed, closing her eyes and drifting back toward sleep. She heard the rustling of two different fabrics sliding one against the other.
“Are you all right?”
The voice would have startled her if she had not been so nearly asleep again. She opened her eyes and found Radu standing near, his jacket unbuttoned, a faint sheen of sweat on his bare chest and forehead. The concern on his face matched the worry in his voice.
Laenea smiled. “You’re still here.” She had assumed without thinking that he had gone on his way, to see and do all the interesting things that attracted visitors on their first trip to earth.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
“You could have gone…” But she wanted him to stay.
His hand on her forehead felt cool and soothing. “I think you have a fever. Is there someone I should call?”
Laenea thought about her body for a moment, lying still and making herself receptive to its signals. Her heart was spinning much too fast. She calmed and slowed it, wondering again what adventure had occurred in her dream. Nothing else was amiss. Her lungs were clear, her hearing sharp. She slid her hand between her breasts to touch the scar: smooth and body temperature, no infection.
“I overtired myself,” she said. “That’s all… ” Sleep was overtaking her again, but she said, drowsily and curiously, “Why did you stay?”
“Because,” he said slowly, sounding very far away, “I wanted to stay with you. I remember you…”
She wished she knew what he was talking about, but at last sleep was the stronger lure.
o0o
Radu sat on the edge of the bed and brushed a lock of Laenea’s hair from her forehead. She remained soundly asleep. He was glad she had wakened, though, however briefly, for he had been getting worried. Since Kathell’s aide brought them here, Laenea had barely moved.
Radu had barely moved, himself, since putting her to bed. Now that he knew she would be all right, he stood and stretched. The enormous bedroom was more than spacious enough to walk around in, but Radu wanted to let Laenea sleep undisturbed. He opened the door. The hallway was deserted.
The apartment was so large he had to be careful to keep his bearings. He paused before a wall of photographs: Kathell’s crippled white tiger, signed portraits, a small airship. Her blimp’s envelope was gold, its gondola black. It was a far cry from the patched and ancient craft Radu used to fly on Twilight, but the picture brought back pleasant memories. That summer, the year before the plague, had been the happiest of his life. At fifteen he had had the responsibility for the airship for a whole season. He had traveled all over the western continent, freer than he had ever been before or since, even on the starship crew. He wondered if Laenea liked blimps.
He looked around the apartment for a while longer, but found no one to talk to. Surrounded by unrelenting luxury, he felt uncomfortable. He returned to Laenea’s room, sat near her bed, and waited.
o0o
When Laenea woke again, she woke completely. The aches and pains had faded in the night — or in the day, for she had no idea how long she had slept, or even how late at night or early in the morning she had visited Kathell’s party.
She was in her favorite room in Kathell’s apartment, one gaudier than the others. Though Laenea did not indulge in much personal adornment, she liked the scarlet and gold of the room, its intrusive energy, its Dionysian flavor. Even the aquaria set in the walls were inhabited by fish gilt with scales and jeweled with luminescence. Laenea felt the honest glee of compelling shapes and colors. She sat up and threw off the blankets, stretching and yawning in pure animal pleasure. Then, seeing Radu asleep, sprawled in the red velvet pillow chair, she fell silent, surprised, not wishing to wake him. She slipped quietly out of bed, pulled a robe from the closet, and padded into the bathroom.
After she had bathed, she felt comfortable and able to breathe properly for the first time since her operation. She had removed the strapping in order to shower, and as her cracked ribs hurt no more free than bandaged, she did not bother to replace the tape.
Back in the bedroom, Radu was awake.
“Good morning.”
“It’s not quite midnight,” he said, smiling.
“Of what day?”
“You slept what was left of last night and all today.”
“Where’s Kathell?”
“I don’t know. Her party was being packed up to go somewhere else. She said you were to stay here as long as you liked.”
Laenea knew people who would have done almost anything for Kathell, yet she knew no one of whom Kathell had ever asked a favor. This puzzled her.
“How in the world did you get me here? Did I walk?”
“We didn’t want to wake you. We cleared one of the large serving carts and lifted you onto it and pushed you here.”
Laenea laughed. “You should have folded a flower in my hands and pretended you were at a wake.”
“Someone did make that suggestion.”
“I wish I hadn’t been asleep — I would have liked to see the expressions of the grounders when we passed.”
“Your being awake would have spoiled the illusion,” Radu said.
Laenea laughed again, and this time he joined her.
As usual, clothes of all styles and sizes hung in the large closets. Laenea ran her hand across a row of garments, stopping when she touched a pleasurable texture. The first shirt she found near her size was deep green velvet with bloused sleeves. She slipped it on and buttoned it up to her breastbone.
“I still owe you a restaurant meal,” she said to Radu.
“You owe me nothing at all,” he said, much too seriously.
She buckled her belt with a jerk and shoved her feet into her boots, annoyed. “You don’t even know me, but you stayed with me and took care of me for
the whole first day of your first trip to earth. Don’t you think I should — don’t you think it would be friendly for me to give you a meal?” She glared at him. “Willingly?”
He hesitated, startled by her anger. “I would find great pleasure,” he said slowly, “in accepting that gift.” He met Laenea’s gaze, and when it softened he smiled again. Laenea’s exasperation melted and flowed away.
“Come along, then,” she said to him for the second time. He rose from the pillow chair, quickly and awkwardly. None of Kathell’s furniture was designed for a person his height or Laenea’s. She reached to help him; they joined hands.
o0o
The point stabilizer was itself a complete city in two parts: one, a blatant tourist world, the second, a discrete permanent supporting society. Laenea often experimented with restaurants here, but this time she went to one she knew well. Experiments in the point were not always successful. Quality spanned as wide a spectrum as culture.
Marc’s had been fashionable a few years before, and now was not, but its proprietor remained unaffected by cycles of fashion. Pilots or princes, crew members or diplomats could come and go; if Marc minded, he never said so. Laenea led Radu into the dim foyer of the restaurant and touched the signal button. In a few moments an area before them brightened into a pattern like oil paint on water.
“Hello, Marc,” Laenea said.
Only the imperturbable perfection of Marc’s voice revealed its artificial nature. At first Laenea had found it discomforting to speak with someone so articulate, but now she unconsciously thought of Marc simply as someone slightly over-concerned with precision.
The display brightened into yellow. “Laenea!” Marc said. “It’s good to see you, after so long. And a pilot, now.”
“It’s good to be here.” She drew Radu forward a step. “This is Radu Dracul, of Twilight, on his first earth landing.”
“Hello, Radu Dracul. I hope you find us neither too depraved nor too dull.”
“Neither one at all,” Radu said.
The headwaiter appeared to take them to their table.
“Welcome,” Marc said, instead of good-bye, and from drifting blues and greens the image faded to nothingness.
Their table was lit by the reflected blue glow of light diffused into the sea, and the fish groaked at the window like curious hungry urchins.
“Marc has… an unusual way of presenting himself,” Radu said.
“Yes,” Laenea said. “He never comes out, no one ever goes in. I don’t know why. Some say he was disfigured, some that he has an incurable disease and can never be with anyone again. There are always new rumors. But he never talks about himself and no one would invade his privacy by asking.”
“People must have a higher regard for privacy on earth than elsewhere,” Radu said drily, as though he had had considerable experience with prying questions.
Now that Laenea thought about it, Marc had never spoken to her until the third or fourth time she had come.
“It’s nothing about the people. He protects himself,” she said, knowing it must be true.
She handed Radu a menu and opened her own. “What would you like to eat?”
“I’m to choose from this list?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“And then someone cooks it, then someone else brings it to you.”
Radu glanced down at the menu, shaking his head slightly, but he made no comment.
Laenea ordered for them both, for Radu was unfamiliar with the dishes offered.
Laenea tasted the wine. It was excellent; she put down her glass and allowed the waiter to fill it. Radu watched scarlet liquid rise in crystal, staring deep.
“I should have asked if you drink wine,” Laenea said. “But do at least try it.”
He looked up quickly, his eyes focusing; he had not, perhaps, been staring at the wine, but at nothing, absently. He picked up the glass, held it, sniffed it, sipped from it.
“I see now why we use wine so infrequently at home.”
Laenea drank again, and again could find no fault. “Never mind, if you don’t like it —”
But he was smiling. “Twilight is renowned for making the worst wine in the settled worlds. I’ll have to stop being offended when someone says so, now that I’ve tasted this.”
Laenea smiled and raised her glass to him. She was so hungry that the wine was already making her feel lightheaded. Radu, too, was very hungry, or sensitive to alcohol, for his defenses began to ease. He relaxed; no longer did he seem ready to leap up, grab the waiter by the arm, and ask him why he stayed here, performing trivial services for trivial reasons and trivial people. And though he still glanced frequently at Laenea — watched her, almost — he no longer looked away when their gazes met. She did not find his attention annoying, only inexplicable. She had been attracted to men and men to her many times, and often the attractions coincided. Radu was extremely attractive. But what he felt toward her was obviously something much stronger; whatever he wanted went far beyond sex. Laenea ate in silence, finding nothing, no answers, in the depths of her own wine. The tension rose until she noticed it, peripherally at first, then clearly, sharply, a point separating her from Radu. He sat feigning ease, one arm resting on the table, but his soup was untouched and his hand was clenched into a fist.
“You —” she said finally.
“I —” he began simultaneously.
They both stopped. Radu looked relieved. After a moment Laenea continued.
“You came to see earth. But you haven’t even left the port. Surely you had more interesting plans than to watch someone sleep.”
He glanced away, glanced back, slowly opened his fist, touched the edge of the glass with a fingertip.
“It’s a prying question but I think I have the right to ask it of you.”
“I wanted to stay with you,” he said slowly, and Laenea remembered those words, in his voice, from her half-dream awakening.
“‘I remember you,’ you said.”
He blushed, spots of high color on his cheekbones. “I hoped you wouldn’t remember that.”
“Tell me what you meant.”
“It all sounds foolish and childish and romantic.”
She raised one eyebrow, questioning.
“For the last day I’ve felt I’ve been living in some kind of unbelievable dream…”
“Dream rather than nightmare, I hope.”
“You gave me a gift I wished for for years.”
“A gift? What?”
“Your hand. Your smile. Your time…” His voice had grown very soft and hesitant again. “When the plague came, on Twilight, all my clan died, eight adults and four other children. I almost died, too…” His fingers brushed his scarred cheek. Laenea thought he was unaware of the habit. “But the medical team came, isolated the cryptovirus, and synthesized a vaccine. I was already sick, but I recovered. The crew of the mercy mission —”
“We stayed several weeks,” Laenea said. More details of her single visit to Twilight returned: the settlements near collapse, the desperately ill trying to attend the dying.
“You were the first crew member I ever saw. The first off-worlder. You saved my people, my life —”
“Radu, it wasn’t only me.”
“I know. I even knew then. It didn’t matter. I was sick for so long, and when I came to and knew I would live, it hardly mattered. I was frightened and full of grief and lost and alone. I needed… someone… to admire. And you were there. You were the only stability in my chaos, a hero…”
His voice trailed off in uncertainty at Laenea’s smile. “This isn’t easy for me to say.”
Reaching across the table, Laenea grasped his wrist. The beat of his pulse was as alien as flame. She could think of nothing to tell him that would not sound patronizing or parental, and she did not care to speak to him in either guise.
He raised his head and looked at her, searching her face. “I joined the crew because it was what I always wanted to do, a
fter… I hoped I would meet you, but I don’t think I ever believed I would. And then I saw you again, and I realized I wanted… to be someone in your life. A friend, at best, I hoped. A shipmate, if nothing else. But — you’d become a pilot, and everyone knows pilots and crew stay apart.”
“The first ones take pride in their solitude,” Laenea said, for Ramona-Teresa’s rejection still stung. Then she relented, for she might never have met Radu Dracul if the pilots had accepted her completely. “Maybe they needed it.”
Radu looked at her hand on his, and touched his scarred cheek again, as if he could brush the marks away. “I think I’ve loved you since the day you came to Twilight.” He stood abruptly, but withdrew his hand gently. “I should never —”
She rose too. “Why not?”
“I have no right to…”
“To what?”
“To ask anything of you. To expect —” Flinching, he cut off the word. “To burden you with my hopes.”
“What about my hopes?”
He was silent with incomprehension. Laenea stroked his rough cheek, once when he winced like a nervous colt, and again: The lines of strain across his forehead eased almost imperceptibly. She brushed back the errant lock of dark blond hair. “I’ve had less time to think of you than you of me,” she said, “but I think you’re beautiful, and an admirable man.”
Radu smiled with little humor. “I’m not thought beautiful on Twilight.”
“Then Twilight has as many fools as any other human world.”
“You… want me to stay?”
“Yes.”
He sat down again like a man in a dream.
“Have you contracted for transit again?”
“Not yet,” Radu said.
“I have a month before my proving flight.” She thought of places she could take him, sights she could show him. “I thought I’d just have to endure the time —” She fell silent, for Ramona-Teresa was standing in the entrance of the restaurant, scanning the room. She saw Laenea and came toward her. Laenea waited, frowning; Radu turned and froze, struck by Ramona’s compelling presence: serenity, power, determination. Laenea wondered if the older pilot had relented, but she was no longer so eager to be presented with mysteries, rather than to discover them herself.
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