Passage

by Thorby Rudbek

  “I didn’t realize you could be such a tease.” He grinned back at her.

  “But,” Karen continued, aware that she had found a new way to amuse her companion, and making a mental note to try it again in the future. “Being older than I thought I was, doesn’t change my sadness at not knowing your planet.”

  “There’s some really beautiful spots,” Richard confirmed. “I went to a few of them: England, especially the countryside and the south coast, and around the Great Lakes in America. Lots of the U.S. is beautiful, though a bit drier than the U.K. – and… oh, yes! The south of France. I would have loved to show all those places to you; I have a rather strong feeling they would have been even nicer if we had been able to go there together.” He stretched, then reached awkwardly and rubbed at a sore bunch of muscles in his lower back.

  “You didn’t tell me you were hurting again!” Karen picked up on his thoughts easily, even though she was not watching him at that moment, and felt somewhat ashamed that she had not considered his well-being after their adventures in the Quebec forest – where he had man-handled the heavy brassy cylinders – the old, broken one that indirectly had been the cause of her parents’ extended exile on Earth, and the ‘new’, or more accurately, unused, and previously unidentified spare one that had allowed them to commence their journey back to Arshonna.

  “It must have been when I pulled the Power Coupling Unit out of that hole in the forest floor.” He was so used to the little aches and pains that weight-lifting often caused (an activity he had been prescribed and had taken up in a very disciplined manner during his rehabilitation period after the coma) that he had ignored the after-effects of his ‘big pull’, unconsciously brushing it aside, knowing that the pain would diminish eventually.

  “‘Restore’, Medic, please; Richard needs some fixing up.”

  “Really, it’s nothing,” Richard winced as he found a particularly knotted area, then a puzzled expression came over his face. He got up and bent down, touching his toes, then he leaned over backwards. “Hey! I forgot how fast it works! How would you explain it, Tutor?”

  “The Medic can replace human tissue with synthetic material that is essentially identical. Of course it always uses the optimum status for all replacements.”

  “You mean this bit of me back here isn’t really me now?” Richard rubbed his back, trying vainly to detect some strangeness in the area.

  “It is totally integrated into your biosystem; it will act exactly as normal tissue would, and will be replaced naturally by your body’s regenerative processes.”

  “Impressive!” Richard was at a loss for further words. He sat down again and looked at Karen with contentment as she conjured up another interesting delicacy from the seemingly endless options available.

  “What about chocolate?” he said finally, though he had long passed the point at which his hunger had been satisfied. “Life isn’t complete without that!”

  “Oh, yes, I was going to try that.” Karen called up a keyboard and started to type rapidly. “What about us, Richard?” Something about the description of the workings of the Medic made her think about their relationship, and how well they already understood each other. “How do other couples get to know each other, if they don’t share their innermost thoughts like we do?”

  “Hmm.” Richard considered this for a moment. “Remember what I said after you shared the Arshonnan language with me?”

  Karen nodded, and Richard realized he would not need to elaborate further on his feelings from just a few days before.

  “Well, there are lots of people who would feel too exposed by such a process. I was scared by it at the time.”

  “But now you feel very comfortable,” Karen continued for him. “Knowing that I understand and agree with you–”

  “Most of the time, and that we can help each other compromise when we disagree,” Richard finished off for her.

  “Sharing your thoughts and memories has helped me understand so much more about the world, and about you,” Karen stated simply.

  “I thought I understood quite a lot,” Richard explained, recalling some of the bitterness, emptiness and unfairness that he had brooded on after his recovery from the coma. “But your feelings about life and protecting the innocent regardless of the cost cleared away a lot of dumb ideas I had.”

  “Not really dumb, just unaware.” Karen smiled. “I think we proved that arithmetic doesn’t always work.” She waited for him to catch her thought.

  “Is it: one plus one equals one? Or more like: one plus one makes ten?” Richard left the question unanswered and took the brown stick Karen offered him. As he tasted it a moment later, he realized she had managed to make his favourite treat whilst talking to him. “Chocolate orange!” He exclaimed. “Now we are all set!”

  Karen laughed, her dimples showing briefly in her merriment.

  A few minutes later, both Richard and Karen were starting to feel the effects of the long and action-packed day they had experienced, and with their appetites suitably satiated by the fantastic foods available to them, they were close to sleep. Karen was leaning back against the wall, and Richard watched her, marvelling at what to him was the most beautiful face he had ever seen. As her silvery hair seemed to blend into the mossy surface, it made her look like some wood nymph from the fantasy stories he liked so much. He picked up some disjointed thoughts as she dozed, and found himself blushing, as he was featured prominently in what he now realized were her dreams.

  “Karen… Karen.” He repeated gently. “I think we should go and sleep now.”

  “I was!” she yawned hugely. “Did you have to interrupt?”

  “I think we should sleep somewhere… different,” he said awkwardly.

  “This is where I always sleep.” Karen closed her eyes and rolled over on her side, from which position she watched him from beneath her almost closed eyelids.

  “Karen!” Richard reached out and stroked the loose strands of hair off her face. As his hand came in contact with her skin, he caught the full extent of her thoughts. “Woah! That’s some brew you’re mixing-up in there!” He breathed softly. He knew that his own feelings were in similar shape, so he backed off a few inches and forced himself to sit still. Taking a deep breath, he carried on in a whisper, as she seemed to have fallen asleep again: “You just do what you normally do; I’ll go way down the other end and fix myself a separate place.” He sighed as he got up and walked away, relieved that he was doing what he felt was right, but also partly sad that he and Karen felt unable to share everything they were with each other, at once. I guess she would be proud of me for my self-control. He smiled as he looked back at her peaceful and trusting expression, then he asked Tutor to project some kind of screen between them. A moment later the star field appeared to shift slightly, and Karen and the other half of the Moss Room were no longer in view.

  Richard experimented with the room controls, and with Tutor’s help he managed to recreate the feeling of his old waterbed over a suitably large section of the floor. Satisfied with the effect, he walked off to the Pool Room and finished his preparations for sleep. Within ten minutes, Richard had returned, climbed under the sheets, and fallen into a deep sleep.

  Karen waited until the divider appeared, then she got up and stretched lazily. She pulled off her soft boots and threw them ahead of her; then she wriggled her toes into the mossy flooring and walked towards the other Pool Room. She kicked the boots through the entrance and followed after them. Once inside, she lowered herself slowly into the water, enjoying the sensation as the clothes seemed to dissolve away. This time the pool remained hot and steamy for a long time as she floated on the surface and contemplated the future. She imagined the beautiful scenery of Arshonna, and the tearful reunion she would soon have with relatives whom she had never met, but to whom she felt strongly attached. They can tell me about my parents, especially my mother. I wonder what she was really like?

  Karen climbed out and waited the usual few seconds while t
he Pool Room completed the drying process. She paused for a moment, then, when she had confirmed with Tutor that Richard was asleep, she dispensed with the robe she had intended to request and selected a length of silky cloth instead. Wrapping it loosely about her shoulders, she shimmered back into the Moss Room and walked over to her favourite spot, where her little hollow was ready to accommodate her. She let the wrap slip down her back and drop to the springy floor at her feet, then she lowered herself down and curled up in the depression. Soon she was deep in sleep, like her fiancé. Her pale-skinned body gleamed under the bright stars; there was no scar visible where the bullet had passed through her, almost ending her young life, just half a day earlier.

  ***

  Richard dreamed.

  The grey mist surrounded him as it had so many times before. It thinned out until he could see a long tunnel stretching out ahead of him. A dull roar reverberated through the mist, then a long tube appeared, followed by the body of an impossibly sleek tank. Richard backed up, and found himself pinned against something hard and flat. He turned and faced the huge black wall that somehow was Citadel, blocking his only way of escape. Panicking now, he rolled over on the soft surface of his bed, and found himself looking down the tube, which he now realized with horror was the business end of the muzzle of the tank’s gun. His head seemed to freeze in that position and he saw the explosion begin, in slow motion, far down the barrel. The orange fireball expanded rapidly as it raced up the cylindrical guide, then somehow it was no longer in the barrel, but filling the entire tunnel, getting closer every second.

  Richard took a deep breath to scream, and…

  Then a hand touched him lightly on the forehead, and he sighed, dropping back instantly into a deep, untroubled sleep.

  Karen laid down, quite close beside him, fingering the soft silky wrap which she had draped over her left shoulder and across her chest, providing the smallest measure of privacy in the event that he awakened, and she watched him for a while, her face still showing a slight frown because of the disturbing nature of the dream she had just absorbed. Hesitantly, she touched his face again, then, satisfied with the calm she now sensed, she got up quietly, turned and walked back through the star screen to her hollow. Her wrap slipped from her shoulder, being held loosely by the hand that had given the caress. The starlight played over her pale skin as she walked, a living version of an ancient Greek statue.

  ***

  When Richard awoke, he felt strangely uneasy, though he did not know why. The first thought that came to mind was: ‘where am I?’ Once that had been answered by his still sluggish brain, he looked over at the star divider and remembered his feelings of the previous night with a smile. The dream, however, had faded completely from his conscious memory. I wonder which one of us is having the most trouble keeping to our ‘principles’? He stretched luxuriously on his wonderfully flexible and comfortable bed, and started to get up, then he paused to ask a question of the amazing computerised character which he had accepted like a wise old friend.

  “Tutor? How long have I been asleep?”

  “Eleven hours, twenty seven minutes.”

  Richard whistled softly. “I guess I must’ve been really bushed. What about Karen?”

  “She woke up at the same time that you did.”

  Richard pondered this, deciding that it felt correct, somehow. “Can you give me an audio connection to the other side of the star divider?”

  “Done.”

  “Hi, Karen,” Richard began, with the merest hint of uncertainty in his voice. “Good morning, or whatever time of day it is.”

  “Hello, Richard!” Came the cheerful response. “I guess we can call it anything we like; why shouldn’t it be morning if we want it to be?”

  Richard shrugged as if to say ‘you’ve got a point there’, then, as he thought about the concept of time, a related idea came to him.

  “Say, Tutor, is this Star Field the only view from Arshonna that can be displayed?”

  There was a momentary delay as Tutor searched through the Scout Craft’s patchy but still extensive data banks, then Karen’s mentor responded:

  “There is another view available.”

  “What is it?” Karen’s voice came through excitedly from beyond the divider, where she had just sat up, so that there appeared to be a living copy of the famous statue of the mermaid from the entrance to Copenhagen harbour, right there in Citadel’s Moss Room.

  “It is a simulation of a daytime view of a series of hills with sparse vegetation, under a greenish-blue sky dotted with white clouds. It is labelled ‘west from apartment building fourteen-seventy six’.”

  “Show it!” Richard and Karen shouted simultaneously. Karen hastily grabbed the silky cloth that lay across her legs and wrapped it around her shoulders, draping it down the front of her torso and covering herself quite effectively.

  The stars went out of focus, then the whole room seemed to burst into light. Richard blinked and looked around in astonishment. The mossy floor had vanished, to be replaced with a strangely coarse, spiked layer of pale green vegetation about an inch deep, which sloped up away from Richard towards a clump of bush-like purple humps. These rose from a height of three feet to over ten feet, effectively blocking off the far end of the room. Overhead, small white clouds slipped quickly by, and a slight breeze brought the fragrance of an unknown flower to complete the idyllic scene.

  Something fluttered a little further up the slope from him and over to one side. Richard turned and saw Karen kneeling with an intense look on her face as she stared past him down the slope. The flimsy fabric fluttered as it reacted to the wind, exposing her pale white thighs to a point about a foot above her knees. Seeing that she had obviously not yet had time to dress made him wonder what had happened to his bed, as he could feel the coarse grass-like growth beneath him. Richard glanced down, relieved to find that the sheet and blankets which had covered him throughout the long and mostly restful night were still there, despite the disappearance of the simulated waterbed beneath.

  He turned and looked to see what had absorbed Karen’s attention so completely. The grass-like surface rippled away down a long slope behind him, opening up into a huge plain dotted with dark green objects that looked somewhat like trees, interspersed with the occasional purple bush. There were no man-made structures to be seen anywhere, and, in the far distance, the ground sloped up again to blend into a low line of dark green hills which stood out boldly against the turquoise sky.

  Richard caught a stray wisp of thought from Karen, and turned to see her walking back up the hill towards the purple bushes, the white fabric outlining her form as it was pressed against her back by the breeze.

  “Wait! Before you get dressed…”

  Karen turned around, still clutching the cloth together with one hand at her midriff. The wind blew it around her, causing it to cling to her legs and body and float out behind her like a banner.

  “I really think I should go,” she smiled, and she blushed as she shook her head, causing her hair to ripple out behind her like the mane on a galloping horse. The fabric slipped off one shoulder, and Karen grabbed it hastily with her other hand before any more of her body was exposed to his view.

  Richard smiled back, shifting his gaze hastily from her bare shoulder to her smiling face.

  “Yes, I guess you should, but don’t get your usual gear on, let me make the selection for you. This scene has given me some ideas.”

  Karen nodded, turned away gratefully and walked upwards until she passed between two bushes, shimmering out of sight.

  Richard looked down the slope for a few more seconds, then he got up, wrapping the bedding half-heartedly around his middle. He took a couple of steps down the grassy hill, then blinked as he recognized the end of the room, marked by a thin line of purple bushes. Beyond them the scene stretched on, but although it looked just a real, it appeared to be outside a curved sheet of glass. Richard stepped confidently through the bushes and into the Pool Room, where
he dropped the blankets and started to explain to Tutor about the clothes that he wanted for his companion and himself. By the time he had swum about a little, and the room had performed its usual magic on his body, Richard had itemized all the components of the outfit and was satisfied that it would suit the purpose for which he intended it.

  He climbed out and waited the few seconds required to complete the drying process, then looked down in approval at the blue shorts and paler blue tee-shirt, and the white ankle socks and springy runners which had magically appeared. Richard stepped back into the main room and looked up the slope at Karen, who was dressed in a pink outfit that resembled his in every other detail.

  She was standing with hands on hips, bending her knees alternately as she tried out her new shoes for flexibility. Her hair was braided into a single, long ponytail that was fashioned so that it lay over her left shoulder and hung down to the waistband of her shorts. “So, just what kind of game is this, anyway?” Karen asked as soon as he reappeared.

  “It’s called squash. I only hope Tutor can recreate the court.” Richard walked up to her and stopped a few feet down the slope, taking in her appearance.

  “Okay, so I look good in this outfit,” Karen smiled easily. “I think a lot of relationships would be better if the other person could hear their companion’s thoughts like we can.”

  “There wouldn’t be so many unfaithful husbands, that’s for sure.”

  “Or wives.”

  Richard stepped closer and hugged his girl tightly. She reached upwards and held his broad chin with one hand, turning his head so that she could kiss him. Several minutes passed. Finally, Richard stepped back and cleared his throat in an exaggerated manner.

  “You never would have disinterested the other guys at school if they had seen you looking like this.”

  “The other guys?” Karen smiled again. “‘Squash’… is that what you called this game?”

  Richard felt the double-meaning in her comment, and hurried with the instructions for the court. He found it unsettling to see the entire fabric of reality disintegrate around him yet again, but the familiar surroundings of the court seemed to settle his nerves quickly enough. Finally everything was ready for play to begin.