The laughter was deep in her throat. He felt her breasts sweep across his chest as she swung on top of him. 'I'm fucking a hundred-and-ten year old?' she sounded amused.
He laid his hands on the small of her back, smooth and cool. 'Yeah; great, isn't it? All the benefits of experience without the con -'
She came down kissing him.
He put his head to her shoulder, drew her tighter. She stirred in her sleep, moved too, her arms around him, drawing him to her. He smelled the skin of her shoulder, breathing in the air that had been on her flesh, was scented by her, perfumed by no perfume, carrying her own smell only. He closed his eyes, to concentrate on this sensation. He opened them, drew in her sleeping look again, moved his head to hers, his tongue out flickering under her nose to feel the flow of breath, anxious to touch the thread of her life. The tip of his tongue, and the tiny hollow between her lips and her nose, vexed and caved, as if designed.
Her lips parted, closed again; her lips rubbed against each other, side to side, and her nose wrinkled. He watched these things with a secret delight, as fascinated as a child playing boo with an adult who kept disappearing round the side of a cot.
She slept on. He rested his head again.
That first morning, in the grey dawn, he had lain there while she inspected his body minutely.
'So many scars, Zakalwe,' she said, shaking her head, tracing lines across his chest.
'I keep getting into scraps,' he admitted. 'I could have all these heal completely, but... they're good for... remembering.'
She put her chin on her chest. 'Come on; admit you just like showing them off to the girls.'
'There is that, too.'
'This one looks nasty, if your heart's in the same place as ours... given that everything else seems to be.' She ran her finger round a little puckered mark near one nipple. She felt him tense, and looked up. There was a look in the man's eyes that made her shiver. Suddenly he seemed all the years he'd claimed, and more. She drew herself up, ran her hand through her hair. 'That one still a bit fresh, huh?'
'That's...' he made the effort of trying to smile, and ran his own finger over the tiny dimpled crease on his flesh. '... that's one of the oldest, funnily enough.' The look faded from his eyes.
'This one?' she said brightly, touching one side of his head.
'Bullet.'
'In a big battle?'
'Well, sort of. In a car, to be precise. A woman.'
'Oh no!' she clapped a hand to her mouth, mimicking horror.
'It was very embarrassing.'
'Well, we won't go into that one... what about this?'
'Laser... very strong light,' he explained, when she looked puzzled. 'Much longer ago.'
'This one?'
'Ahm... combination of things; insects, in the end.'
'Insects?' She quivered.
(And he was back there; in the drowned volcano. A long time ago, now, but still there, still within him... and still safer to think about than that crater over his heart, where another, even more ancient memory dwelt. He remembered the caldera, and saw again the pool of stagnant water, the stone at its centre and the surrounding walls of the poisoned lake. He felt once more the long slow scrape his body had made, and the intimacy of insects... But that remorseless concentricity didn't matter any more; here was here and now was now.)
'You don't want to know,' he grinned.
'I think I'll take your word for that,' she agreed, nodding slowly, the long black hair swinging heavily. 'I know; I'll kiss them all better.'
'Could be a long job,' he told her as she swivelled and moved to his feet.
'You in a hurry?' she asked him, kissing a toe.
'Not at all,' he smiled, lying back. 'Take all the time you want. Take forever.'
He felt her move, and looked down. Her knuckles rubbed her eyes, her hair spilled, she patted her nose and cheeks and smiled at him. He looked at her smile. He had seen a few smiles he might have killed for, but never one he'd have died for. What else could he do but smile back?
'Why do you always wake before me?'
'I don't know,' he sighed. So did the house, as the breeze moved its equivocal walls. 'I like watching you sleep.'
'Why?' She rolled and lay on her back, turning her head to him, the hair rolling bounteously to him. He laid his head on that dark fragrant field, remembering the smell of her shoulder, stupidly wondering if she smelt different awake than asleep.
He nuzzled her shoulder and she laughed a little, shrugging that shoulder and pressing her head against his. He kissed her neck and answered before he forgot the question completely
'When you're awake you move, and I miss things.'
'What things?' He felt her kissing his head.
'Everything you do. When you're asleep you hardly move, and I can take it all in. There's enough time.'
'Strange.' Her voice was slow.
'You smell the same awake as you do asleep, did you know that?' He propped up his head and looked into her face, grinning.
'You...' she started, then looked down. Her smile looked very sad when she looked back up. 'I love hearing that sort of nonsense,' she said.
He heard the unsaid part. 'You mean; you love hearing that sort of nonsense now, but won't at some indeterminate point in the future.' (He hated the awful triteness of it, but she had her own scars.)
'I suppose,' she said, holding one of his hands.
'You think too much about the future.'
'Maybe we cancel out each other's obsessions, then.'
He laughed. 'I suppose I walked into that one.'
She touched his face, studied his eyes. 'I really shouldn't fall in love with you, Zakalwe.'
'Why not?'
'Lots of reasons. All the past and all the future; because you are who you are, and I am who I am. Just everything.'
'Details,' he said, waving one hand.
She laughed, shaking her head and burying it in her own hair. She surfaced and gazed up at him.
'I just worry it won't last.'
'Nothing lasts, remember?'
'I remember,' she nodded slowly.
'You think this won't last?'
'Right now... it feels... I don't know. But if we ever want to hurt each other...'
'Then let's not do that,' he said.
She lowered her eyelids, bent her head to him, and he put out his hand and cradled her head.
'Maybe it is that simple,' she said. 'Perhaps I like to dwell on what might happen so as never to be surprised.' She brought her face up to his. 'Does that worry you?' she said, her head shaking, an expression very like pain around here eyes.
'What?' He leant forward to kiss her, smiling, but she moved her head to indicate she did not want to, and he drew back while she said:
'That I... can't believe enough not have doubts.'
'No. I don't worry about that.' He did kiss her.
'Strange that taste-buds have no taste,' she murmured into his neck. They laughed together.
Sometimes, at night, lying there in the dark when she was asleep or silent, he thought he saw the real ghost of Cheradenine Zakalwe come walking through the curtain walls, dark and hard and holding some huge deadly gun, loaded and set; the figure would look at him, and the air around him seemed to drip with... worse than hate; derision. At such moments, he was conscious of himself lying there with her, lying as love-struck and besotted as any youth, lying there wrapping his arms around a beautiful girl, talented and young, for whom there was nothing he wouldn't do, and he knew perfectly and completely that to what he had been - to what he had become or always was - that sort of unequivocal, selfless, retreating devotion was an act of shame, something that had to be wiped out. And the real Zakalwe would raise his gun, look him in the eye through the sights and fire, calmly and unhesitatingly.
But then he would laugh and turn to her, kiss her or be kissed, and there was no threat and no danger under this sun or any other that could take him from her then.
'Don't forget
we've got to go up to that krih today. This morning, in fact.'
'Oh yes,' he said. He rolled onto his back, she sat up and stretched her arms out, yawning, forcing her eyes wide and glaring up at the fabric roof. Her eyes relaxed, her mouth closed, she looked at him, rested her elbow on the head of the bed, and combed his hair with her fingers. 'It probably isn't stuck though.'
'Mmm, maybe not,' he agreed.
'It might not be there when we look today.'
'Indeed.'
'If it is still there we'll go up, though.'
He nodded, reached up, took her hand, clasped.
She smiled, quickly kissed him and then sprang out of the bed and walked to the far level. She opened the waving translucent drapes and unslung a pair of field glasses from a hook on a frame-pole. He lay and watched her as she brought the glasses to her eyes, surveyed the hillside above.
'Still there,' she said. Her voice was far away. He closed his eyes.
'We'll go up today. Maybe in the afternoon.'
'We should.' Far away.
'All right.'
Probably the stupid animal hadn't got stuck at all; more than likely it had dozed off into an absent-minded hibernation. They did that, so he heard; they just stopped eating and looked ahead and stared with their big dumb eyes at something, and closed them sleepily and went into a coma, purely by accident. The first rain, or a bird landing on it would probably wake it. Perhaps it was stuck though; the krih had thick coats and they got entangled with the bushes and tree branches sometimes, and couldn't move. They would go up today; the view was pleasant, and anyway he could do with some exercise that wasn't mostly horizontal. They would lie on the grass and talk, and look out to the sea sparkling in the haze, and maybe they would have to free the animal, or wake it up, and she would look after it with a look he knew not to disturb, and in the evening she would write, and that would be another poem.
As a nameless lover, he had appeared in many of her recent works, though as usual she would throw the bulk of them away. She said she would write a poem specifically about him, one day, maybe when he had told her more about his life.
The house whispered, moved in its parts, waving and flowing, spreading light and dimming it; the varying thicknesses and strengths of drape and curtain that formed the walls and divisions of the place rustled against each other secretly, like half-heard conversations.
Far away, she put her hand to her hair, pulled one side absently as she moved papers on the desk around with one finger. He watched. Her finger stirred through what she'd written yesterday, toying with the parchments; circling them around slowly; slowly flexing and turning, watched by her, watched by him.
The glasses hung from her other hand, straps down, forgotten, and he wandered a long slow gaze over her as she stood against the light; feet, legs, behind, belly, chest, breasts, shoulders, neck; face and head and hair.
The finger moved on the desk top where she would write a short poem about him in the evening, one he would copy secretly in case she wasn't happy with it and threw it out, and as his desire grew and her calm face saw no finger move, one of them was just a passing thing, just a leaf pressed between the pages of the other's diary, and what they had talked themselves into, they could be silent out of.
'I must do some work today,' she said to herself.
There was a pause.
'Hey?' he said.
'Hmm?' Her voice was far away.
'Let's waste a little time, hmm?'
'A nice euphemism, sir,' she mused, distantly.
He smiled. 'Come and help me think of better ones.'
She smiled, and they both looked at each other.
There was a long pause.
Six
Swaying slightly, scratching his head, he put the gun stock-down on the floor of the smallbay, held the weapon by its barrel, and squinted one-eyed into the muzzle, muttering.
'Zakalwe,' Diziet Sma said, 'we diverted twenty-eight million people and a trillion tonnes of space ship two months off course to get you to Voerenhutz on time; I'd appreciate it if you'd wait until the job is done before you blow your brains out.'
He turned round to see Sma and the drone entering the rear of the smallbay; a traveltube capsule flicked away behind them.
'Eh?' he said, then waved. 'Oh, hi.' He wore a white shirt - sleeves rolled up - black pantaloons, and nothing on his feet. He picked the plasma rifle up, shook it, banged it on the side with his free hand, and sighted down the length of the smallbay. He steadied, squeezed the trigger.
Light flared briefly, the gun leapt back at him, and there was an echoing snap of noise. He looked down to the far end of the bay, two hundred metres away, where a glittering black cube perhaps fifteen metres to a side sat under the overhead lights. He peered at the distant black object, pointed the gun at it again, and inspected the magnified view on one of the gun's screens. 'Weird,' he muttered, and scratched his head.
There was a small tray floating at his side; it held an ornate metal jug and a crystal goblet. He took a drink from the goblet, staring intently at the gun.
'Zakalwe,' Sma said. 'What, exactly, are you doing?'
'Target practice,' he said. He drank from the goblet again. 'You want a drink, Sma? I'll order another glass...'
'No thanks.' Sma looked down to the far end of the bay, at the strange and gleaming black cube. 'And what is that?'
'Ice,' Skaffen-Amtiskaw said.
'Yeah,' he nodded, putting the goblet down to adjust something on the plasma rifle. 'Ice.'
'Dyed black ice,' the drone said.
'Ice,' Sma said, nodding, but none the wiser. 'Why ice?'
'Because,' he said, sounding annoyed, 'this... this ship with the incredibly silly name and its twenty-eight trillion people and its hyper-zillion billion squintillion tonnage hasn't got any decent rubbish, that's why.' He flicked a couple of switches on the side of the rifle, aimed again. 'Trillion fucking tonnes and it hasn't got any goddamn garbage; apart from its brain, I suppose.' He squeezed the trigger again. His shoulder and arm were pushed back once more, while the light flickered from the weapon's muzzle and sound stuttered. He stared at the view in the sight-screen. 'This is ridiculous!' he said.
'But why are you shooting at ice?' Sma insisted.
'Sma,' he cried, 'are you deaf? Because this parsimonious pile of junk claims it hasn't got any rubbish on board it can let me shoot at.' He shook his head, opened an inspection panel on the side of the weapon.
'Why not shoot at target holos like everybody else?' Sma asked.
'Holos are all very well, Diziet, but...' He turned and presented her with the gun. 'Here; hold this a minute, will you? Thanks.' He fiddled with something inside the inspection panel while Sma held the gun in both hands. The plasma rifle was a metre and a quarter long, and very heavy. 'Holos are all right for calibration and that sort of crap, but for... for getting the feel of a weapon, you have to really... really waste something, you know?' He glanced at her. 'You have to feel the kick, and see the debris. Real debris. Not this holographic shit; the real stuff.'
Sma and the drone exchanged looks.
'You hold this... cannon,' Sma said to the machine. Skaffen-Amtiskaw's fields were glowing pink with amusement. It took the weight of the gun from her while the man continued to tinker with the weapon's insides.
'I don't think a General Systems Vehicle thinks in terms of junk, Zakalwe,' Sma said, sniffing dubiously at the contents of the ornately-worked metal jug. She wrinkled her nose. 'Just matter that's currently in use and matter that's available to be recycled and turned into something else to be used. No such thing as rubbish.'
'Yeah,' he muttered. 'That's the crap it came out with as well.'
'Gave you ice instead, eh?' the drone said.
'Had to settle for it.' He nodded, clicking the armoured inspection panel back into place and lifting the gun out of the drone's grip. 'Should take a hit all right, but now I can't get the damn gun to work.'
'Zakalwe,' the drone sighed. 'It wo
uld hardly be surprising if it isn't working. That thing belongs in a museum. It's eleven hundred years old. We make pistols that are more powerful, nowadays.'
He sighted carefully, breathed smoothly... then smacked his lips, put the gun down and took a drink from the goblet. He looked back at the drone. 'But this thing's beautiful,' he told the machine, taking up the gun and flourishing it. He slapped the weapon's darkly cluttered side. 'I mean, take a good look at it; it looks powerful!' He gave an admiring growl, then took up his stance again and shot.
This firing fared no better than the others. He sighed and shook his head, staring at the weapon. 'It's not working,' he said plaintively. 'It just isn't working. I'm getting recoil, but it just isn't working.'
'May I?' Skaffen-Amtiskaw said. It floated towards the gun. The man looked suspiciously at the drone. Then he turned the gun over to it.
The plasma rifle flashed from every available screen, things clicked and beeped, the inspection panels flicked open and shut, and then the drone gave the gun back to the man. 'It's in perfect working order,' it said.
'Huh.' He held the weapon in one hand, up and out from his body, then slapped the back of the stock with his other hand, whirling the big rifle round so that it spun like a rotor in front of his face and chest. He didn't take his eyes off the drone while he did this. He was still looking at the machine when he twisted his wrist, brought the gun to a stop - already aimed straight at the distant black cube of ice - and fired it, all in one smooth action. Again, the gun seemed to fire, but the ice sat undisturbed.
'The hell it's working,' he said.
'How exactly did your conversation with the ship go, when you asked for your "rubbish"?' the drone inquired.
'I don't remember,' he said loudly. 'I told it what a complete cretin it was for not having some junk to shoot at, and it said when people wanted to shoot at real shit they usually used ice. So I said, all right then, you scumbag rocket... or something like that; give me some ice!' He held out his hands expressively. 'That was all.' He dropped the gun.
The drone caught it. 'Try asking it to clear the bay for firing practice,' it suggested. 'Specifically, ask it to clear a space in its trapdoor coverage.'
Use of Weapons Page 13
