Again Drake appeared in the galley about seven o’clock, wearing a midnight blue shirt with her black pants. Harper realized that if Drake had indeed “retired” to her quarters before six this morning, she had remained there for better than half a standard day.
As Drake drew her usual beverage from the autoserv, Harper welcomed her with a smile. “You do consume something besides tomato juice?” she joked.
Drake looked at her icily. Her voice descended to an even chillier depth: “My personal habits are surely of no consequence.”
Don’t presume anything, Harper raged at herself as she shrugged mute apology. Just because she’s interested in your life doesn’t mean anything beyond that. “Perhaps I’ll see you on the deck,” she said evenly, and left the galley.
Moments later Drake appeared and sat beside her. Scant minutes afterward Harper was thoroughly immersed in relating memories of her Traditionalist schooling.
“Biblical voodoo,” she pronounced in summary dismissal. “Ludicrous beliefs about universe creation and so many other irrationalities—you can’t even imagine.”
“I can indeed imagine,” Drake stated in her resonant tones. “How did you come to question your indoctrination? Most people never do.”
There was something besides acute perceptiveness in Drake’s eyes—could it be admiration? Harper answered self-consciously, “The settlement’s computers used data lockout, naturally. But anyone with half a brain could figure out how to bypass them and get into Earth’s major libraries. I had half a brain.”
“So you educated yourself. Enough to qualify for the Space Service. Amazing.”
Admiration, definitely it was admiration in Drake’s eyes. Warm with pleasure, Harper shrugged. “Not quite. I spent too much time indulging in novels, especially the famous ones from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I had to take potentiality tests and was lucky enough to finish in the top percentile for scientific aptitude. The Service’s own institutions completed my education to Service specification.”
“Tell me more,” Drake said. “Tell me what you remember about the potentiality tests.”
Why was she so interested in all this, Harper wondered. No one in her entire life had ever been interested in these nooks and crannies of her life. She said, “We’ve talked only about me. I’d like to know about you.”
Drake shook her head, her eyes suddenly distant, shuttered.
Harper held out her hands in placating gesture. “Just a few basic questions. Like where you were born.”
“In a village outside Bucharest. I want to hear the answer to my question about the tests.”
“How old are you?” Harper persisted.
The slow rise and fall of Drake’s shoulders clearly conveyed her inaudible sigh. She looked away, out the windows. “Eight hundred and twenty-two,” she replied. “If I want to talk about myself, I will. I don’t.”
Then neither do I, Harper wanted to retort. But the desire was too strong to experience again what this woman had given her last night—the new and highly pleasurable sensation of someone consumingly interested in her.
She answered Drake’s question. She answered many more questions about her education until late into that night, until Drake again sent her off to bed exhausted and emotionally depleted from the effort of recapturing the minutiae of her life.
Over the next weeks Harper’s waking hours fell into routine: the required systems monitoring and standard transmissions to Space Service Trade Liaison Headquarters; her meals and exercise regimen; exchanging communications with Niklaus; the observation deck. The hours were also spent in restless anticipation of Drake’s appearance in the galley and the long, intense evening that would follow.
Drake had, Harper admitted, become an addiction. Worse than that, with each successive evening Drake’s physical magnetism was pulling her ever further into its grip. The magnetizing force, she supposed, was Drake’s androgynous beauty, but whatever the causative factor, what difference did it make? She was beguiled by the pale, idyllic beauty of that face, the profound intelligence of those eyes absorbing every single word she uttered.
It was absurd. And hopeless. And demeaning. Not to mention paradoxical. Drake had lavished hours of her time and the complete focus of her mind on Harper, yet had relinquished not one iota of her essential being. The spiteful speculation Harper had indulged in a month ago about Drake being sexually dysfunctional seemed only too correct: Drake’s sensual response was given entirely to music and the beauty of the galaxy. Harper longed to touch that austere face, to reach some answering inner chord. But she could come no closer to Drake than she could to those stars beyond the view windows. And like those stars, Drake’s hard beauty served to attract and then inflame anything venturing near ...
In only these few weeks Niklaus had slipped from her thoughts, the daily message to him containing merely dutiful affection. She comforted herself that he would be there, loving and faithful, when she returned from this voyage, whereas Drake would be gone from her forever, a part of the coldly brilliant stars ...
The sumptuous romanticism of a flute concerto filled the observation deck. Harper sat on the sofa, waiting, staring at Drake who reclined on her chaise, a hand on her knee, absorbed in the spectacular hues of reflection nebulae shimmering over a vast open star cluster—the same star system Harper had watched throughout her solitary afternoon. Finally Drake turned from the view windows, and Harper knew with a surge of excitement that the evening would now begin.
“Tell me about your friends,” Drake said, getting up and moving toward her. “What are they like?”
“I’m pretty much a loner,” Harper confessed, stirred by the litheness of the body within the white shirt and black pants. “A few people I’d term good buddies, the rest are just acquaintances.”
“Sexual awareness,” Drake said, sitting beside her. “When did that begin?”
It was a first venture into this subject area, and after mild surprise Harper decided that Drake was simply filling in blanks.
“Sexual awareness,” she repeated, and grinned. “Probably around the age of seven. When I first understood that my gravest responsibility was preservation of my virginity. I got rid of the thing when I was twelve.”
Harper was pleased; she had made Drake laugh before, but rarely.
Drake said, smiling, “You had many dreams when you were growing up. What were your sexual dreams?”
Suddenly and inexplicably uncomfortable, Harper took refuge in generality. “I dreamed mostly of sexual freedom. Of never being in a stifling relationship like my parents had. Escaping all those sexual rules assigned by the Trads ...”
“Yes, but what kind of relationship, what kind of person did you dream of finding?”
Harper stiffened against discussing any of the men she’d chosen to be with, any of those emotionally sterile relationships. “I’ve always walked away from anyone who tried to interfere with what I wanted to do with my life.”
“From what I know of you,” Drake murmured, “I’d be very surprised if you didn’t. When you were growing up, you surely dreamed of a sexual ideal. What was that ideal?”
Drake’s dark gaze held her, pierced her. If she had ever before met someone who looked like Drake ...
“I ...” Harper searched for coherent thought. Her nipples tingled almost painfully into hardness, she felt heat within her thighs. “A gentle and very tender ... friend.”
“Who looked like ...”
“Dark hair,” she uttered, feeling the heat rise to her face. “Dark eyes.” She tried to look away from Drake but could not, and knew that the desire closing up her throat was naked on her face.
Drake’s hands taking hers—the first touch between them—unraveled her.
“What else.” The eyes were mesmerizing, the voice hypnotic.
Harper swayed toward her as if bent by a wind. “A face ... like yours.”
Drake’s hands released hers to grip her shoulders, to draw Harper to her.
Stunned, her body hammered by heartbeats, Harper slid her unbelieving arms around the slender body. Drake lowered her to the sofa, her lips a feather-light brushing of Harper’s face. Harper arched as Drake’s mouth came to her throat, as a velvet tongue began to stroke. She seized Drake’s hair, imprisoned Drake’s head between her hands and greedily absorbed with her lips the warm silk, the sculptured planes of the face so miraculously in her possession.
Drake’s mouth sought hers, took hers. Harper slid her hands under Drake’s shirt, then made a single sound as Drake’s tongue entered her. Drake’s hands momentarily held her face, then slid down to her throat, the fingertips caressing. Then Drake pulled open Harper’s jumpsuit, held her bare shoulders.
Melted by the slow strokes of Drake’s tongue, Harper shuddered under the hands that moved slowly down over shoulders to her breasts. The hands cupped firmly, the fingers immediately beginning a rhythmic rippling of her swollen flesh. Drake’s mouth finally left hers to come again to her throat, and Drake’s hands on her breasts squeezed, released, squeezed, released, until her breasts felt like bursting fruit. Drake slid her hands under her and clasped her hips. Then her nipples became a fierce sweet ache in Drake’s mouth as Drake’s hands on her hips squeezed, released, squeezed, released.
Drake raised her body and spread Harper’s thighs fully open to kneel between them. Harper felt her wetness on Drake’s palm, then writhed from the fingers that stroked her open. Overpowered by her need, she groaned as the fingers left her, watching feverishly as Drake brought those fingers to her mouth, tasted them.
“Oh, so very lovely and so very wet.” Drake’s voice was thick, her heavy-lidded eyes an unfocused darkness of pleasure.
Then Drake was bending over her and Drake’s fingers were sliding into her and filling her and Harper’s hips rose as she closed rigidly around them. With a low moan Drake moved down to her. Drawing swift breaths, Harper gasped her ecstasy as the fingers stroked, the velvet tongue stroked. Stroked and stroked and stroked her to an incandescence of orgasm.
Drake eased her fingers from her. Weakly, Harper wound her fingers in Drake’s hair to take her mouth away, but Drake grasped her hands, preventing her.
“I can’t ... again,” Harper whispered, “not ... after that. Not ... for a while.”
Drake took her mouth away. Her voice came in a murmur, from deep in her throat: “This next voyage will be as long as you could possibly wish.” Her mouth came back to Harper, her tongue slid into her, began a slow circling.
Harper flung her hands up over her head, her body undulant, a rolling wave of desire spreading all the way up into her throat. She wanted the velvet tongue everywhere, endlessly.
A timeless interval later, Harper felt her body being lifted, carried, lowered into a place of blissful darkness. She was aware of a fluttering sound, a whisper of breeze. Then she became part of the darkness.
Awakening in her quarters, Harper rolled over and stretched in delicious, unthinking languor before she realized her nudity and the origin of her contentment.
It was late morning, her status confirmation report was due in shortly to Headquarters. She could not, as she usually did, wake up in leisurely fashion and use this first hour for her exercise regimen. Not that she needed exercise, she reflected wryly, not after her body had been so continuously and exquisitely wracked by sexual tension unlike anything she had ever known ...
She climbed reluctantly out of bed, longing to have this time undisturbed to sort through the confusion of her thoughts.
Smoothing back the tangles of her hair, she smiled mockingly at her visage in the reflective wall of her quarters. So Drake was sexually dysfunctional, was she? If Drake had been any less dysfunctional, she, Harper, would not have survived the night.
Marveling at the euphoric lightness of her limbs, she examined herself from head to foot. She looked no different. Her body was its usual trim shape; there was no mark anywhere to signify any alteration in her. Yet there had been an alteration; she felt tangibly changed.
Cupping her breasts, she leaned closer to her reflection. The nipples were heightened in color, and they budded into hardness as she remembered how they had been savored in Drake’s mouth. She inspected herself further: her vulva was an even more enhanced shade of pink. Heat flooded her along with memory and colored all the surfaces of her skin.
Hastily she pulled on a jumpsuit, other memories of the night filtering into her. Drake had remained clothed; Harper had managed only to open her shirt. The breasts within that shirt had been small, their flesh soft and tender to her fingers, the nipples large, their firmness a constant whenever Drake’s body had lain on hers. She had not been able to kiss those breasts. She had not been able to kiss or touch Drake intimately anywhere. Drake had completely overpowered her.
Tonight all that would change.
As the morning ended and the afternoon wore on, as Drake did not appear, Harper’s mood plummeted from anticipation to depression, then veered off into anger. Drake had been the initiator of last night’s passion, the pure aggressor throughout. Therefore, by all logic it had been meaningful to her. And therefore she could have—should have—made an exception to her rigid routine and left her quarters to be with Harper. Harper had surrendered herself, Drake should understand that she needed the assurance of Drake’s presence during this vulnerable aftermath ...
To hell with her, Harper decided, and stalked off to her quarters. But as seven o’clock neared she could not remain there. She compromised by going up to the observation deck instead of to the galley.
Shortly afterward, when Drake entered the deck and walked to her chaise, Harper did her best to ignore her. Drake settled herself and did not speak; she did not look at Harper. Her eyes were distant and shrouded, as if their focus had turned entirely inward.
Harper looked at her in a fury of frustration. What could possibly be in this woman’s unfathomable mind? What could the reason be for her unfathomable behavior? Nothing in the experience of her own life or in any fictional life she had ever read could account for this unique, inexplicable, utterly maddening woman.
She was struck by the thought that Drake was feeling her own vulnerability. Drake had no choice about who accompanied her on her voyages, but by the pitiless dictates of her lonely profession, she also had no choice—whatever her libido—about resisting a futureless emotional involvement with any of her passengers. If Drake had restrained herself behind a carefully constructed wall of self-protection, this would explain her hungered, tireless passion last night, and her withdrawal now ... For that matter, it would explain all of Drake’s behavior.
Buoyed by this possibility, Harper managed a smile and a neutral tone. “A month ago when you listed what you enjoyed, you didn’t mention lovemaking.”
Drake seemed to emerge from her self-absorption with effort. Her answering smile was slow and luminous. “Did I not?”
Momentarily disassembled by the renewed potency of Drake’s beauty, Harper recovered herself and plunged ahead. “Last night—”
She was startled by the keening of an alarm.
“Code Two.” Drake was already on her feet.
Following her from the deck, Harper was grateful that the two-note wail was not the continuously shrilling Code One signifying a major magnitude crisis. But this alarm was different from the other coded alarm signals periodically sounding throughout the craft, benign notifications of gravity force fluctuations or requests for fail-safe confirmation of course changes, routine matters which Drake could and did monitor without emerging from her quarters. This alarm was ominous.
In the command cabin Drake swept a single glance over the monitor screens and announced tersely, “Breech in the aft deflection shield. It’s widening.”
The Code Two alarm became a Code One continuous shrill. Harper felt the hair rise on back of her neck. The shields were the vital energy force that protected the craft’s surface. A breakdown could leave Scorpio IV exposed to a lethal bombardment of space debris ...
>
Drake said, “Call up Robomechs AZ-niner-two and three. Robomech-four on standby.”
Harper flung herself into her seat and initiated the start-up programs that would activate the robots. Drake had already cleared three screens and was leaning over the console, tapping keys. Then she stood with one hand on a hip, the other poised over the console, watching schematics flash past at split-second speed.
The hand over the console pounced, striking a key. “There, right there,” she said with satisfaction. She continued to tap the key, rapidly magnifying a diagram and then freezing it on the center screen. “It’s bad. The entire shield function is breaking down.”
“Can it be repaired?” Harper was astonished by the calmness of her voice.
“Yes. I’ll need Robomech-four.”
“Right.”
If the crisis had needed any further underscoring, the need for Robomech-four had accomplished it.
Her head ringing from the Code One alarm, Harper entered the priority overrides that would channel all but basic life support computer functions into Robomech-four. Then she sat back. She had once observed in a laboratory setting the robot’s dissection of the radioactive heart of a military cruiser’s stardrive, three highly skilled technicians working in perfect synchrony to correlate and direct its awesome activities. There was no additional assistance she could possibly provide to Drake.
For the next hour she watched in rapt fascination as Drake, standing, her elegant body a stillness of tension, her eyes narrowed in concentration on the color changes transforming the frozen diagram on the center screen, worked the Robomech-four with nerveless surgical precision.
Finally, blessedly, the alarm cut off. Drake said distractedly, “Bring up Robomech-two for routine finish.”
Minutes later, at a nod from Drake, Harper terminated all the robot programming sequences, returned the computer to its normal functioning.
She turned to Drake, words of relief and admiration on her lips. But she was unaware of the words she spoke; she was staring at the first clear, readable emotion she had seen in Drake’s face: exhilaration.
Dreams and Swords Page 13
