Dreams and Swords

by Katherine V Forrest

  “I was cloaked always by darkness. And for the dead in battle, no examination is ever made of them except for the obvious death-dealing wounds.”

  Harper uttered, “Were there ... others of you?”

  “Yes. There was vast provender, more than enough for us all.”

  Harper closed her eyes. “Then how many of you ... are there?”

  “I have no way of knowing.” Drake shrugged. “For very good reasons I believe that only the fittest of us ever continue to survive. And we have learned there is safety in numbers—small numbers. We have also learned to be exceedingly clever at concealment—so much so that we are mostly invisible to one another as well.”

  Harper stared at her. “All those years, those decades, all these centuries ... you’ve spent them ... alone?”

  “Not always.” Drake sighed. “I met women, yes. Some I grew very close to. Some I believe loved me.” She seemed to reflect over, to choose her words. “For endless years I touched none of them, allowed none to touch me. Having never forgotten the sight of others like me in their frenzied feeding upon the living, I dared not trust what the touch of living flesh might cause in me.”

  Harper inhaled slowly. What had the touch of her own living flesh caused in Drake?

  “Then I returned to my country. I had not come back since ...” After a moment Drake continued, “But in the year twenty twenty-one I had to return. And as you know, I returned as mourner.”

  Harper nodded somberly at Drake’s allusion to the “limited” East-West engagement waged over the hapless, innocent buffer countries of Eastern Europe, a soul-searing catastrophe which had begun to heal only a century or so ago.

  “With the borders sealed, I entered from the Black Sea as a medical volunteer. Hundreds of millions were dead, but tens of thousands were still living, awaiting death from the irreversible chemicals in their bodies ...

  “It was in my village that I met Eva. She was but twenty-three years old, and the virulence lay gathering within her—but she was filled with the vibrant life, the innocence, the hopefulness of a child. She was to me a mirror image of my dearest Nadja, and amid all that devastation our love grew like a miraculous flower ...

  “The vampire legends had lingered in the villages of my country. Eva had grown up with them. Her clear, unsophisticated insight penetrated my defenses ... she instinctively knew what I was. She came to me for love and would not hear of my fears, would not countenance danger. Afterward, when her illness struck, I gave her what strength I could to cushion her terrible, bewildered grief over her mortality, and when the time came I eased her path into death, having already given in to her wish for the vampire kiss, for life afterward with me.”

  The vampire kiss ... Involuntarily, Harper placed a hand over her heart.

  Drake looked down at her own hands, turned them over, examined them. “It is as I told you, Harper—for my species it is survival of only the very fittest. Eva could not bear the way we had to exist. Our wholly nocturnal lives, the secrecy, the hiding, the constant movement to protect ourselves, our need of that very specific sustenance, the entire dark nether world of our lives. Once, she was shut away by the authorities in Chile—she had been found wandering at night in a state of mental collapse. It was very difficult for me to obtain her release before she perished under their unwitting hands. But it was soon after that that one morning she walked out into the sunlight. I know she wished to protect me from her increasingly dangerous fragility, but I believe she had also come to need the peace of death far more than my love. We had been together nine years.”

  “I’m sorry,” Harper murmured, “I’m truly sorry.”

  Drake nodded acknowledgement. “Her death drastically weakened my own emotional structure. Eventually I resumed my nomadic and solitary life, and thereafter, when I met a woman who found me desirable, I gave her nothing. Nothing. Finally she would drift away as I knew she would, leaving me again to myself.”

  Harper was pierced by the poignance of these revelations which served also to explain Drake’s behavior with her. Never would she trade one year of her natural span for any number of years of Drake’s half-life ... She murmured, “I consider myself a loner, but I couldn’t bear such loneliness as yours.”

  Drake gave her a smile of melancholy warmth. “I judge you to be independent-minded and courageous. One day an individual will love and respect that strength ... You’re very young, Harper, with a fierce grip on life. Tenacity kept me living too—at first. But during those terrible early years, I was certain I would simply walk into the sunlight one morning and put an end to it.

  “Then I discovered something outside myself and virtually unknown to a woman born of my time: art. And with that art came maturation of my intellect. At various times throughout the centuries I have been a musician, philosopher, historian, sculptor, writer, artist—disappearing and changing my profession when too much fame or public scrutiny forced me to do so. And then, late in the twenty-first century, I discovered the challenges of advanced space-age technology ...” Drake trailed off, lost in reflection.

  Harper shook her throbbing head. The thesis that she was sane seemed to be again unraveling. She needed to know about that vampire kiss, she needed other answers as well. She asked, “Back then, was that when you laid the groundwork for becoming a starship captain?”

  “It had its genesis then, yes.”

  Again Harper shook her head. “I can’t imagine how you’ve accomplished any of this.” She gestured with both hands to take in the spacecraft. “You’re contracted to ExxTel, everyone knows about the thoroughness of their information network. I can’t see how anyone could possibly slip through such a sieve.”

  Drake smiled. “What if I told you I have access to my records, that I can input and erase whatever data I choose?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you,” Harper said flatly. Drake’s suggestion was preposterous. “They have a standing offer of a billion credits to anyone who can break through their maze of protective programs.”

  “What use do I have for a billion credits? Self-protection is my single concern. Their systems were indeed interesting and ingenious—they required sixty-five years to penetrate.” Drake shrugged at the gaping Harper. “I had more than enough time to devote to the challenge of the puzzle.”

  It was all too incredible. Too many incredible facts piling one onto the other. She was crazy, Drake was crazy, it was all crazy. Harper said sardonically, “I suppose that’s how you rose to become a starship captain—falsifying records?”

  “In small part. I obtained education and specific training in unconventional ways, but I advanced along traditional career paths. An enduring human instinct is to avoid nocturnal hours—and so ample opportunities exist for those willing to live and work in the darkness. Periodically I enter ExxTel’s files to adjust my name and date of birth and other facts relating to me. In a monolith such as ExxTel, the personnel I interface with come and go, leaving insufficient continuity to bring suspicion.”

  Harper felt an icy touch of fear. “Am I the only one then who ... knows about this?”

  Drake studied her. “Over time, few have even remotely suspected. Since the twentieth century my greatest protection has been the refusal to believe vampire legends—especially by scientifically grounded persons such as yourself. To my knowledge, none of the women accompanying me to the Antares asteroid belt have ever added together the clues I cannot help but provide.”

  And it was by purest accident, Harper admitted ruefully, that she herself had. “There haven’t been any men on your voyages?”

  “I request only female military liaisons, and the Space Service has always acceded.”

  Harper blurted, “I suppose you’ve made love to them as you did with me.”

  “Yes,” Drake said.

  Harper forced her stunned mind into motion. If all this was actually true, then those other women who had accompanied Drake ... surely she could not have managed to infect them all? Yes, she answered herself, she
could have. And if she had, none of them might ever realize it until their deaths decades from now, when they tried to rise from under the straps binding them onto a conveyor feeding them into a crematorium ...

  “What have you done to me?” she choked. She was hurtling down a corridor of terror. “If you’re really a vampire, you satisfy your sexuality only in the act of feeding. What have you done to me?”

  “I have enjoyed you fully.”

  The hair rose on the back of Harper’s neck; she rubbed a frenzied hand across it. “In the name of anything sacred,” she hissed, “how did you give me your vampire kiss?”

  “I have not given it to you, nor to anyone since Eva.”

  Harper exhaled, her limbs suddenly trembling.

  “When my dying Eva wanted me to make love to her, I could not refuse. And I discovered with her the greatest ecstasy of my life. Greater even than with Nadja. Because I learned that another kind of fluid can also nourish me. It too is a vital fluid—from that place in a woman that creates life. You give it generously. You give it during that length of time when I am most fully enjoying you, and even more copiously as you approach and then experience the heights of orgasm.”

  Looking seriously at Harper, Drake added, “You’re turning quite red.”

  “My Trad upbringing,” Harper muttered, rubbing at her flaming face.

  Drake continued, “I made love to you only because you wanted me. I come only to a woman who wants me.”

  Harper shook her head in bafflement. Certainly she had not invited that first approach from Drake ...

  “I have the capability of assuming mammal form. As a consequence I also have a highly developed olfactory sense. I knew of your desire and arousal, I could smell that nourishment I so keenly enjoy.”

  Again Harper felt her face flame. Mortified, feeling stripped of every defense, she lashed out, “How could you take such advantage of me? And all those other women? Don’t you feel any responsibility?”

  “Harper, have you not enjoyed what we shared together? How have I taken advantage?”

  “You preyed on me. Preyed on all of us. Played with our emotions. You—”

  “Harper.” Drake pushed a lock of hair from her forehead, then sat up on her chaise and circled her arms around her knees. “Harper, have you at any time felt love for me?”

  Harper looked at her. At the creamy smoothness of the pale face, the finely chiseled, aristocratic features, the elegant slenderness. Furious at feeling within her the edges of desire, she hurled the unvarnished, tactless truth: “No.”

  Drake nodded and smiled, as if Harper were a bright pupil who had found the only logical response to an illogical question. “I’ve given you nothing to love. Not for decades have I given anything that anyone could love.”

  “You think that confers some kind of nobility? You wanted me, you’ve made love to me every single night. Didn’t you care anything about me at all?”

  Her face closing, Drake did not respond.

  It occurred to Harper that while Drake had given nothing of herself, she had opened her own self to Drake in every way. She said carefully, “Have you become attached to any of your women companions during your months alone with them in space?”

  Drake looked away from her.

  “Please. I need you to tell me.”

  Drake said tonelessly, “You’ve been a captivating and admirable companion, my physical gratifications have been extraordinary, this has been in all ways the loveliest of voyages. I have given as much physical pleasure as I know how to give, I have taken in return the by-product of your pleasure. Beyond that, since there is no future for us, there is nothing more to be said.” She turned resolutely away from Harper.

  Studying the poetic handsomeness of Drake’s face in profile, she absorbed this response. Her glance fell on the drink Drake had placed on the module beside her. “Tell me,” she said, deflecting the topic still vibrating between them, “when you don’t have a woman to make love to, where do you get the blood you need?”

  Drake turned quickly back to her. “I use existing technology to synthesize it.” She seemed relieved at the new direction of Harper’s questions. “But synthetic blood is not ...” She searched for a term, then said with an amiable shrug, “It is lacking. For you it would be as if you were always surrounded by appetizing food yet limited to consuming only gruel. But it does sustain me, and in a manner which is ethically necessary.”

  Harper pointed to the tomato juice. “Is that what you ... consume?”

  “No.” Drake smiled. “I like its smell, which seems earthy and warm, and the color, which is ...” She trailed off.

  “How often must you take your nourishment?”

  “It’s variable. I can and do frequently exist in a famished state for weeks. After I have truly feasted, as I have during this time with you, then I prefer to exist without food for a lengthy time afterward rather than return to ... my gruel.”

  “You mean you diet between women.” She could not account for her sense of betrayal, her jealousy and resentment. “For those few weeks until another woman comes on board.”

  Drake did not respond.

  Harper’s ire turned against itself. Why belabor this woman, whose singular and determined morality had redefined the compelling needs of her nature? Harper said, “And you’ve never told any other women on these voyages anything about this.”

  “Only you. Since you are the only one who has ever guessed.”

  Harper voiced a new apprehension: “Why tell me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll expose you, tear down this whole facade?”

  Drake fixed weary eyes on her. “I become ever more bored with the facade. I become less and less patient with the restrictions of my existence.”

  Harper nodded. In Drake’s place her own patience would have exhausted itself centuries ago. She said, “I saw your quarters, the blackness. Do you actually keep a coffin in there?”

  Drake chuckled. “That part of the legend is somewhat exaggerated. We do need darkness during the hours of the sun, and complete darkness is most beneficial. The smallness of my quarters, this tiny ship in the vastness of space—it’s equivalent enough to a coffin. In my quarters I have collected soil from many places on Earth, especially my own land, and I sleep with it gathered around me. It seems to bring me peace.”

  Drake smiled at her. “For your own sake I must solemnly caution you against attempting to reveal me. You are indeed sane, but others will probably not agree.”

  “True,” Harper said, grinning at the thought of relating these astounding events to anyone—especially when she herself was convinced only intermittently that she was not hallucinating.

  “In any case I am never truly safe,” Drake mused. “I know that if I continue to live, one day they will come for me. With their stakes and axes, just as they came so many centuries ago in my village. Human beings always believe their own era to be more enlightened than any before, but they still avoid examination of the origin of their own food, their own blood-drenched sustenance. And of all taboos, cannibalism remains the ultimate perversion. Even those who are not affected by xenophobia would hesitate to extend tolerance to a vampire.”

  She gazed out at the whirling crystals. “Eva learned that immortality does not bring with it the will or the desire to live. For centuries I have held and kept the power of life. But Harper, more and more I dream about dying. I dream about journeying to a particularly gracious star system—perhaps the Pleiades—and allowing my ship to simply fall into one of its lovely stars. But mostly I dream of returning to Earth.”

  Drake looked at her; Harper was held unmoving by the grieving dark eyes. “I dream of the sun, Harper. I long for it. I often wonder if, when I walk out into that sun, I will know for an instant its warmth as I remember it, as I used to know it ... before it begins the disintegration of my flesh ...”

  “You have too much to offer ...” Harper faltered; there were no words to comfort the immense tragedy of Drake’s existence. “You have ... pricele
ss gifts for the ages to come.”

  “Yes.” Drake’s voice held an ironic edge. “When our voyage is over, Harper, you will walk away forever and forget. There is no choice.”

  “Walk away, I must,” Harper said slowly. “But forget you, never.”

  Drake’s smile bathed her in its tenderness. “That is the one immortality all of us hope for.”

  Harper gazed wistfully back at her. “If only I had learned about you sooner. I have two months—only two months—to hear eight centuries of eyewitness Earth history.”

  “Yes,” Drake said, her voice suddenly eager.

  Drake’s beauty seemed to have acquired a youthful energy and sheen, and Harper looked at her in affection. “I still need to adjust to what you’ve told me,” she said with a grin, “especially about my body being food for you.”

  “Your body is not my food,” Drake gently corrected her. “Your pleasure is my food.”

  “I know I don’t taste like gruel,” Harper said, still smiling. “Do I taste like some other specific food?”

  “The pleasures of you are infinitely lovely,” Drake said softly. “Each night, and throughout the lovemaking of each night, there are differences, you taste differently everywhere. Your mouth is sometimes like sweet spring water, sometimes like cream. Your body varies everywhere in taste and smell, the scents are like grass and rain, sometimes like peaches or apples or berries. Your breasts taste like buttered honey, your thighs contain the most intoxicating spice ...” She trailed off, looking closely at Harper.

  Feeling the heat in her body rise to her face, knowing she had no defense whatever, Harper said recklessly, “And the place you’ve left out?”

  Drake rose from her chaise, came to her. “Sweet wine that slowly intensifies into flavors I will not attempt to describe.”

  Taking Drake’s hands, Harper murmured, “Is it possible ... to return the ship to weightlessness?”

  “Of course. Every night, all the way back. But later,” she whispered, reaching for Harper. “At this moment I smell sweet wine ...”