by Viola Grace
Tears stung her eyes as she stroked Gilland’s hand. “Cheri,” she whispered.
A disc-servitor hovered nearby, chiming.
“It is dinner time.” Gil stood in a quick, fluid movement that rustled his robe like dry autumn leaves. He raised her to her feet and held out a cream silk gown. “Do you intend to walk to the house naked, or wrapped in a sheet?” The deep timbre of his voice rippled with laughter.
Suleah turned and thrust her hands into the sleeves, shrugging the robe over her body. His fingers lingered on her shoulders, searing her skin. She leaned into his body, to savour him. Intoxicating, this man, an addiction, like some heady drug.
He gently pushed her forward. “If we stand here any longer, Sully, we will be late for dinner. To distract me, tell me what you were dreaming. You looked at me as if I was a ghost.”
“I thought you were.” She turned and pressed into him, her body inch for inch against his length. No ghost, this man. Warm, lean, hard. All man, her Gilland.
Laughing, he lifted her away from him. “You want me again, so soon?”
Suleah frowned. Gil had never said that before. Always voracious for each other, neither had ever said no to the other’s demands. Maybe he was tiring of her? His friends had said he would—sooner or later.
His family and friends hoped sooner... Some of her friends, too, wanted the mesalliance to end. Their betrayals had hurt the most.
Above her the protective transparent dome rippled, sending shadows like birds of prey swooping across the grass. She glanced up. The screens had turned opaque.
“What’s happening?” she asked Gilland. She’d never trusted those screens. Gilland had built a transparent dome around their asteroid to appease her—she couldn’t imagine the construction cost.
“Just a... an energy fluctuation. Nothing to worry about, sweetheart.”
The artificial asteroids circling Polarium were home to the super-rich and powerful. Gilland owned two asteroids, their house built on the largest, and most distant, so they could watch the swirling oceans of light tearing across Polarium’s crystalline surface. Sometimes chunks of crystal were flung into space to form rings around the giant purple star. Gravity eventually brought the crystals back to Polarium, but until then, the sun refracted the rings, illuminating the night sky like hundreds of fairy lights.
Unique, Polarium—no wonder so many travelled the galaxy to watch the formation and destruction of the rings.
Our own special theatre, Gilland had said, insisting that the screens and the dome would never fail, their home forever safe.
Suleah relaxed as the vista returned to normal. The giant star and its swarm of asteroids with homes and spires built impossibly high, and gardens under screens that protected them from the vacuum of space. If a screen should ever fail—Gilland had always laughed at her fear of dying—
Dying... dead planet. Rigel Alpha 23...
Suleah gasped as pain lanced her side. Gilland turned to her.
“What is it, Sully?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. Nothing. Just a bad dream. She took Gil’s hand, again. “I love you.”
His smile was the caress of summer. “Mon amour.”
Gil always had the touch of the theatrical. Mon amour, ‘my love’ in his ancestral tongue.
Ahead of her, the three-storied chateau glittered in the afternoon sun. She always loved this home, their retreat. Built from fire-crystal, the walls shimmered with the colours of the Polarium spectrum that in addition to the Terran rainbow comprised of gold and silver. Above the main building, with its four copper turrets, the bronze dome, resembling an ancient cathedral dominated the skyline. Xanadu. They named their home after the old Terran poem—Xanadu with its stately pleasure dome...
The crystal-embossed doors slid open with a sigh, and immediately they were besieged with servitors. No humans lived in their retreat. She and Gilland favoured privacy. They rarely invited friends to their home; rarer still were the visits of the few family members who maintained contact with Gilland. He, the errant son, who chose his woman and his life, and be damned to family expectations.
Suleah followed her servitors to her own apartments, while Gilland strode down the opposite passageway. They kept their own apartments, to pursue their own work, and hobbies, coming together at night.
Once inside her room, she slipped the robe from her body and stepped into the cleansing cubicle. She chose water instead of laser beams. Warm, fragrant liquid swirled around her, over her, cleansing, soothing, reminding her of Gil’s touch. Gil’s touch... her body pulsed with wanting him. Again. After dinner, she would have him. She’d bed him in a new way, tease him. Gil enjoyed her inventiveness. She’d read Kama Sutra so often to keep Gilland amused.
The cleanser fanned her with warm air, drying her. Returning to her bedroom, she smiled to see the fabric arranged on the four-poster bed. Copper chiffon, decorated with crystal seed pearls, another gift from Gil.
She stepped into the gown and servitors flew around, lifting the diaphanous garment, fastening it about her body. She raised one foot and then the other for the machines to place sandals on her feet.
Suleah sank down onto the chair while the servitors hovered, like fireflies, brushing and styling her hair.
“No,” she said, frowning at the reflector. “Leave it loose.” She waved away the jewellery proffered by another machine. Suleah leaned forward, studying her reflection. The copper gown matched her hair. In stark contrast, her eyes were dark, her skin cinnamon. She programmed the servitor to replenish her makeup. Her eyelids were metallic green, her black lashes long and thick. Her lips shimmered an opalescent pink, and her cheeks a faint rose.
The servitor offered her a range of perfumes. She chose ‘Egyptia,’ her favourite. It reminded her of the times she spent in her mother’s house in Old Cairo.
The doorbell chimed.
“Come,” she said, turning.
Gilland strode into the room and halted. His grey eyes widened, as he gazed upon her. She tossed her head.
“You stare at me so, sir.”
He paused as if struggling to find the correct response. Gil was never at a loss for words. “I admire loveliness, Suleah. Stars! You are beautiful!”
She admired him, too, the deep crimson of his tabard, hugging the width of his shoulders, the black ‘tards highlighting his long, muscular legs and the soft, jewelled slippers that on another man might be considered effeminate. But not Gilland. He wore his hair loose about his collar. She much preferred it that way to the austere tail required by Imperial Star Service regulations.
“I have something for you,” he said, holding out a long black velvet box.
She rose to her feet and accepted it. Opening the container, she gasped in shock. Exquisite and so rare, the strand of pearls, since no one killed oysters, the shells died of natural causes, their jewels collected over many years.
“Gil, you shouldn’t have.”
Again, that perplexed frown at her outburst. “I thought it would please you. If you prefer, I will gift you something else?”
She shook her head. “The pearls are perfect. It’s just you spoil me. Too many gifts.” She felt the imbalance—his gifts, her acceptance of them. Rarely could she reciprocate. What did you give a man who could buy the star system of Polarium?
“Ah.” He smiled. “It gives me such pleasure to... spoil you.”
“Will you fasten them for me?” She turned around.
After a brief hesitation, she felt him lift the hair from her nape. She shivered as he leaned into her, a deliberate movement to contact her body. He fastened the catch and drew her back against him. They regarded one another in the mirror. She moved in his arms and raised her face for his kiss.
His lips touched hers, a tentative exploration, deepening suddenly, tongues questing, bodies entwining. The thick velvet of his hair slipped between her fingers as she cupped his neck, holding him still for her kiss. She raised her leg and his thigh settled between hers.
He broke away from her and held her out at arms’ length. “Kiss me like that, again and...”
“And?” She arched a brow.
“Our dinner will spoil.”
“Perhaps I should eat you instead.”
She laughed at his stunned look. Despite his experience with women, Gil was often shocked—when she set her mind to teasing.
He offered her his arm, and they walked down the passageway, to the great dome. Their stately pleasure dome.
Inside, the room was hung with filigree brass lanterns. In the centre of the floor, a round carpet of mottled green and blue and red was encircled by many large cushions. An ornate copper brazier, burning sandalwood, cast a red glowing shadow over the opalescent walls.
They sat opposite one another on cushions, while servitors floated before them, offering food and drink. All her favourites were displayed on the platters.
Suleah bit into the sliver of carris root. “Ugh! There’s something wrong with the dispenser, Gil. This doesn’t have any taste. Well, that’s not true. It tastes like... dust.” Dust—something she should remember. Red dust... clinging to everything... Her temples pulsed as she tried to recall—
“Come here, Sully.”
“Patience, Gil.”
He laughed and joined her side. Taking her into his arms, he kissed her deeply, thoroughly. His mouth slipped to her cheek, to her neck, to the hollow at the base of her throat. Now, this was more like Gil, taking the initiative, slow, thorough. She arched back to accommodate his questing.
Gilland pulled away, and Suleah regarded him, puzzled.
What was he up to, playing the reticent, inexperienced lover?
“I prefer to sample you in small doses, for now. But later...”
His smile and his eyes made promises that made her writhe from inside to out.
A servitor, carrying a bottle of champagne, hovered at Gilland’s elbow. Moet. Their favourite.
“Allow me,” Sully said. Gilland waved the servitor to her, and she carefully took the bottle from its mechanical claw. She sat cross-legged, the bottle between her knees.
“I envy that bottle,” Gilland said, reclining against the cushions, his dark gaze sultry. He’d said that a long time ago, their first night together in Xanadu.
Suleah smiled to remember. and lifted the foil with her fingernail. “Ouch!” She drew back her hand as the metal wrap sliced through the skin of her second finger. “I... Oh, no!”
The world, her mind, turned inside out with the memory. Dread seeped through her veins.
“What’s wrong?” Gilland asked, sitting up, no longer smiling.
Suleah studied her hand, the wound on her second finger. The older wound on her third finger. Both from a Moet wrapper. Now and... stars! Before. Before! Red dust clinging—now she remembered. The pain, the fear as she fought to regain control of her flyer. Her side ached, her temples throbbed from injuries inflicted but somehow healed. Or, was it all a dream?
Flinging the bottle away, she jumped to her feet, staring at him. His troubled gaze met hers. For a moment his grey eyes were lit by rainbows.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
He frowned. “This grows tiresome, Sully. If you are in the mood for a game, I know something more entertaining than this feigned loss of memory.”
She stared at him. A typical Gilland response. How she wished he was her Gil. But his kiss, his touch was different, subtly different. She had wanted to believe.
“I cut my finger,” she said. “Just now. Just like before on the Rigel outpost.”
“Your dream!” A hint of ice had infiltrated his voice, so, too, his eyes.
“No! A dream doesn’t do this!” She held out her hand, indicating her finger. The one bloodied, the other with a faint seam of an old scar.
Her gaze met his. His eyes swirled with rainbows, red dominant. Oh, stars!
“What are you?” she whispered.
Gilland flung himself to his feet and spread his hands.
“Don’t come near me!” Suleah bent down and lifted the Moet bottle, brandishing it.
“It will be the first time anyone has used champagne as a defensive weapon against me.”
How much like Gil, that last remark. She swallowed down hard. This was not her Gil—must remember that!
“I know you aren’t Gilland D’Ambrose. Who are you? What are you? I want explanations, not lies.”
He sighed. “Will you sit down?”
“No.” She glanced around. “This place isn’t real. Is it a hologram?”
“What is reality, Suleah? By your definition, this place cannot exist. Yet it does. It is real.”
There was a shifting of substance around her and where moments before she stood in the chateau, now she found herself in the leafy courtyard garden of her family home and in the distance the hazy outline of the great pyramid. Her mother squatted down before one of the garden beds, weeding it meticulously. Her mother, young and beautiful. Her pet kitten, Khan, wound around her mother’s hands as she worked. Khan was now eighteen years old. These were her childhood memories, dredged up by whom? By what?
Suleah forced her gaze to Gilland. “No lies. Who are you?” The silence lengthened between them.
“I am Gilland. As much as I can be.”
Another blurring and the next reality found them both in Suleah’s stark outpost apartment. Yet she knew it for the illusion it was. Gilland stalked around its confines.
“To live in such a place, no wonder your species is so unhappy. There is neither beauty nor grace. I much prefer the other.”
Suleah blinked and found herself, once more, in Xanadu. From somewhere she heard music. Gentle, low. Parsifal—her favourite opera.
“This is all done for you, Suleah, for your comfort.”
“I was killed in the crash. That’s it, isn’t it?”
He took a step towards her. “In a manner of speaking.”
She again brandished the bottle of Moet. “Stay back!”
“I mean you no harm, Suleah. Least of all you.”
“Is this heaven, Gil? We’re both ghosts. You can tell me the truth. I’ve never feared my death.” There are worse things in life than death. And if you are with me...
“There are worse things in life than death,” he said, frowning. “What has happened to make you believe this?”
“So we’re ghosts, and you can read my thoughts?”
Gil cocked his head to one side as if listening to something—maybe someone? Cold tracked up Suleah’s spine. “It is true; we are ghosts of our former selves. But so much more in this reality. In time, we will be able to communicate mind to mind, although I do enjoy the sensation of speech. The resonance of the mind has its beauty, but so too, the spoken word.” He paused. “You were brought here, Suleah. Oh, how can I explain all that I must? Live here with me. We can make it heaven if you wish.”
“Where is here?”
Again, he cocked his head to one side, his eyes turning glassy. She caught another’s thought, a sensation of surprise. “They said you would be difficult. Your transition was—”
“My what?”
“Transition.” He spread his hands. “You are on the planet you have unimaginatively named outpost twenty-three, Rigel sector.”
“That’s not possible. Only the survey team lives there.”
“True, in the reality you know, but we both exist in another reality. This place we now inhabit was untouched by destruction.” He paused. “I will not hurt you, Suleah. Can we at least sit and talk over the champagne? It is a shame that it goes to waste.”
“I’m not sitting and talking to you. And you can have your damn champagne all to yourself. I want out of here. Now. I want to return—”
“That is impossible.”
Suleah swallowed the panic and the fear. This person, no, this creature, had lied to her before, why not now?
“I am not lying. I cannot do so to you, or any other.”
“All humans lie.”
“But I am not hu... Ah! Touché!” He smiled bitterly, admiration in his eyes. “Clever of you, Sully, to entrap me thus. I am not human, but I can be so many things to you.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am a who, not a what. I am as real to you as you...”
“You aren’t Gilland.”
“I am more than Gilland. Or so I could be to you if you would allow it. Allow me, please.”
Suleah studied him, trying to remain detached. Stifling her fear, her anger, her outrage. Become the scientist, Sully. Become the cold-hearted bitch, the ice-maiden—analytical, unemotional. So hard to do, because this creature looked like her Gil in every detail. She wanted him to be real. Perhaps... she shook her head. No, it was a nightmare, not a dream!
“We always dared to dream, you and I, Sully. Why do you resist this? It is your desire.”
“Damn it all; it’s not my desire. And I no longer dream. Dreams are lies.” She blinked against the sting of tears.
“Words and dreams are only lies if you make them so.”
“Then what is this about us, if not a lie?”
“A different perception of reality.”
She laughed without humour. “A fancy way to say a lie.”
“I exist, as you, in this dimension. It is our Retreat.”
Retreat from what? Who? She was scared again.
Gil shook his head. “Have no fear here, Suleah. Outside this Retreat fear and pain exists. Here, there are only... dreams. Dreams that can be real. My species was once like you, flesh and blood creatures with ambitions and passions and a tendency for self-destruction. Your kind managed to evade the desolation we inflicted upon ourselves, our world. A few sensed the oncoming catastrophe and escaped.”
“To space?”
“No. We long ago ceased to travel the cosmos. We had more than one universe as our playground.”
“So you were able to move between the layers of existence?”
His eyes glowed, his look one of pride as he studied her. “Few who come here understand this so quickly. You are special, Suleah.” He smiled at her derisive snort. “In our folly we shaped dimensions. We forged a Retreat by the very same process that made a wasteland of our planet. Now, we exist on our world, but in a different dimension. In time, we learned to harness other powers to shape-change our Retreat, so that it could be anything we desired.”