[Confluence 01.0] Fluency

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  She felt a surge of anger. Varma’s answer was infuriatingly pat. “I’m not a mental patient, Ajaya!”

  Varma raised her brows and spoke slowly. “Of course you’re not.”

  Varma’s methods were always cautious and considered. Jane knew that. She swallowed her anger. She was not a petulant child. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

  Varma nodded and waited for her to begin.

  “I was heading for Tom. I… the gravity went out, then came back on. When I fell, my leg was broken—”

  “Did you see your leg? How did you know?” Varma interjected.

  Jane ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back in a practiced, unconscious gesture, wishing she had something to tie it back with. It felt clean and silky. That was unexpected and she filed that fact away with some confusion as she continued. “I’d never felt pain like that before. It looked wrong—really, really wrong.”

  “Yes, that’s what Walsh and Alan said. It was the angle.”

  Jane nodded, slowly, the mental picture coming quickly to mind: that horrible, disgusting angle—and then the bone, the ragged, bleeding tissues glimpsed through the gel. “Yes. Then Tom came and rescued me. Except it wasn’t Tom.”

  Varma’s eyes narrowed, but she betrayed no other sign of emotion.

  Jane hesitated, not sure Varma would believe her. “It was Ei’Brai.”

  Varma nodded curtly. “That would explain it.”

  Jane stared at Varma hard. She’d expected disbelief. Blithe acceptance felt wrong. Warning bells were going off in her brain, but she couldn’t figure out for sure what they meant.

  “He carried me and put me in some kind of medical device. He put Tom in one too.”

  “Yes. That’s where we found you. Thomas is still submerged.”

  “Oh. He—is he okay?”

  “I believe so. Every indication is yes. Of course, my methods of measurement are primitive by comparison. The device is still working on him. I have the impression he’ll be in there a long time. We’ve submerged Walsh as well.”

  Jane took an involuntary step back and put her hand out to the wall to steady herself, the other still clutching the sheet to her chest. What the hell is going on here? She looked up and noticed that Alan was standing in the doorway, holding a ship-colored plastic object in his hand, listening intently to their conversation. How long had he been there?

  “Walsh? You put him in a tank? Why?”

  Ajaya stood and moved briskly to a large protuberance on the wall. She touched it lightly and it slid open. She pulled out another tunic—greenish, just like theirs—and extended it to Jane. “We had no choice. He became catatonic, just like Tom. The rest of us appear to be fine—for now, anyway. We’re working on it, Jane. We’re going to find a solution. I’m confident of that.”

  Jane looked from Varma to Alan, bewildered.

  Alan surged forward. “Are you hungry, Jane? The food we’ve managed to make has a weird texture, but some of it doesn’t taste too bad. We’re still analyzing the parameters of the printer’s output. The technology is pretty fucking amazing. It’s fun to tinker with.”

  Varma rolled her eyes. “Yes, Alan and Ronald have spent a lot of quality time with the food machine. Do you want to get dressed first or nibble on something?”

  Jane swallowed hard. “How long have I been out?”

  Varma grimaced before answering, “Seventeen days, Jane.”

  She sat on the bed heavily and let all of her disbelief show on her face. It had felt like a long time, but not that long. “How—when—did you find me in the gel? Did you pull me out?”

  Alan ducked his head. “I tried to cut you out with a knife. The tank didn’t like that. It sort of… fought back.”

  Varma patted Alan’s arm. “We decided it might be wise to leave you alone and just observe you for a while.”

  “It healed my leg.”

  “So it would seem,” Varma agreed. “I’d like to get back to work, if you don’t mind? I think Alan can take it from here?” Her voice was light, breezy, but she sent Alan a meaningful look as she left the room.

  Jane watched her go, completely nonplussed.

  Alan perched himself casually on the edge of the bed a couple of feet away.

  “Back to work? What is she doing? How did you all get past the nepatrox? Food machine? What the hell, Alan? Start talking!”

  “A lot’s happened, Jane. Sure you don’t want to eat?”

  “Do you want me to drink the Kool-Aid, too? No, Alan—tell me what’s going on!”

  He smirked and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, the most valuable thing that’s happened is we’ve had some very primitive communications with your alien friend.”

  “What? Ei’Brai? How? I thought he couldn’t communicate with us unless we could speak Mensententia?”

  “Oh, he’s not speaking to us, at least not anything we can understand. He sends us mental images. It’s like playing a game of telepathic charades. We have to figure out what he’s trying to tell us to do. When we do, he, ah…” He seemed embarrassed. It was a new look for him.

  “What?”

  “He stimulates the part of the brain that registers pleasure.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “He does that to you too, Jane?”

  She looked down and clutched the sheet a little tighter. The memory of the erotic dream in which Alan had played a starring role came vividly to the front of her mind. Her cheeks felt hot. She hoped she wasn’t blushing.

  He huffed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  She searched for something to say that would obviate their mutual embarrassment. “What does that mean? What has he told you?”

  “He convinced us to stay in the storage room for a while. That was the first thing. That… I didn’t… that was…” He was clenching and unclenching his fists. His eyes were hard and hot on her.

  “Why?” she whispered. Her voice sounded husky to her own ears.

  “We think he released a gas in the hallway. We heard a lot of noise. It sounded like they were climbing the walls and killing the crap out of each other. Then it got quiet and the doors opened. When we walked out there, they were mostly dead or dying. That’s not to say more haven’t hatched by now, I’m sure, the stinky little bastards. One of ‘em got me in the leg. I couldn’t walk on it for two days. We’re going to have to deal with them eventually.”

  “How did he convince you to stay there?”

  His jaw worked. “I told you. He showed us images of stuff. We talked about it. Ajaya put it all together.” He didn’t seem to want to say any more about it, so she decided to drop it for now.

  “He told you where I was?”

  “Yes. And how to find you.” His lips tightened. “We didn’t know what was going on. I thought—I thought you were dead at first. It took us a while to figure out what was happening to you, and to Compton. We decided, eventually, to put Walsh in there too. That decision wasn’t made easily. Ultimately, we let Ajaya make the call.” He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

  He was so intense. More so than usual. His eyes would probe hers, and then travel down hungrily before he would twitch them away self-consciously. She felt a thrilling feeling growing inside her, settling low, and throbbing. It seemed they were safe now. She wanted to trust that, but she needed to hear more.

  “What have you been doing all this time?” she asked him.

  “Learning.” He smiled, his eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Ajaya and Ron have been learning the language—they go down to a language lab on level 15 and spend a large part of every day there. Ajaya knows some Latin, but we’re all just limping along. It’s not coming as easily to us as it did to you, Jane. Ajaya says she can almost get the gist of what the alien dude is saying to us now.”

  “But you haven’t been studying the language? What have you been doing, Alan?”

  “I’ve been studying it some. But I go down to Engineering. He shows me stuff, amazing stuff. How it
all works. This ship is so much more than we ever could have imagined, Jane. This is going to change everything.”

  She smiled at his expression. This was the side of him that she could understand. Their interests weren’t the same, but they shared the same kind of enthusiasm for their interests. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, but she didn’t know how to uproot herself and get closer to him without it feeling silly and forced.

  “You mentioned a printer, earlier—what did you mean by that? Some kind of food machine?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He picked up the green container from the bed and held it out to her. Inside was a small mound of speckled, tan cubes. “The closest thing we have to this back home is 3-D printing technology. You pour in the raw material—the stuff we found the first day in those tubs—and it spits out these things.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “The stuff that looked like cat litter?”

  “Oh, yeah. Yep. That’s exactly what it looks like.” He laughed his raucous laugh. She liked the way he laughed. Unfettered. It was so true to his personality, to the way he lived his life.

  She tittered and took the container from him, slowly, intentionally letting her fingers brush his. He scooted closer, clearly interpreting the gesture as an invitation.

  She felt flushed.

  “Yeah. You pour it in and make selections and it configures the crystals to taste different ways. We’ve been experimenting with it. Some of it’s pretty weird tasting. Most of it’s palatable.”

  “What does it taste like?” she asked hesitantly.

  His smile turned mischievous. “I’m not saying. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

  She looked down into the bowl, sure she was grinning like a loon. “Are they all the same? They look the same.”

  “I didn’t know what you’d like. Each one is different. You tell me what you like.”

  Somehow he’d gotten closer when she wasn’t looking. She felt pleasantly unfocused. He was so near, she could feel his warmth on her bare arm.

  She selected one at random and nibbled at a corner of it. It was moist and dense. Her first thought was that it was bland, but, as she chewed, flavor burst from tiny granules imbedded in it. There were fruity elements—no single fruit came to mind, though. It was pleasantly acidic and slightly sweet and there were floral notes that made it seem really refined and lovely. It was somehow the essence, the very best of fruit.

  “Which one is that?” he asked, light dancing in his eyes as he watched her chew.

  “I think it’s some kind of fruit. I like it.”

  “Yeah, that one’s okay. Try another one.” He seemed to come to himself with a start. “Oh, sorry. You probably want something to wash it down with. Here.” He pulled a limp object from a concealed pocket on the loose tunic he wore. It was a tube, made from a soft version of the ubiquitous greenish plastic. It was warm, from being close to his skin. “It’s a water pouch. Works pretty much just like ours. Just stick that thing in your mouth and slurp.” He leaned in close to point at the outlet of the pouch and his other hand snuck behind her to rest on her back. It felt like a hot brand. It was all she could think about.

  “So, we haven’t talked about the fact that you’re wearing a dress,” she said with a soft snort. She felt giddy. She sipped the water, eyeing him slantwise, like a teenage girl.

  He seemed to like that. He leaned closer, amused. “It was this or the bathrobe.” His hand slid up to cup her bare shoulder and pull her closer. “I like what you’re wearing, though,” he murmured in her ear.

  Oh, God. He was good at this.

  This was probably a really stupid idea. It would surely end badly. But she didn’t want it to stop.

  She couldn’t say anything to him. What could she say? She couldn’t think.

  She just sat there, head bowed, waiting for him to make his move. Her chest heaved and fell. The sheet was slipping and she wanted it to.

  He wanted her. Her—frumpy Jane Holloway. This gorgeous genius of a man wanted her.

  So his nose was too big. So he needed a shave. So he laughed too loud. So what?

  He smelled divine. Musky, masculine. A hint of sweat. The good kind. He’d been exercising or something.

  “Aren’t you hungry, Jane?” His breath was hot on her ear and his hand was already taking the dish and pouch away.

  She managed a tremulous smile. She was going to let this happen. It would be okay. He might hurt her later, when they finally got back to Earth. He might find someone younger, prettier. But she wouldn’t worry about that now. That would take all the fun out of this.

  This. This moment was all that mattered, right now.

  He was hovering so close, just a breath away from kissing her. He was teasing her, drawing it out. The anticipation was delicious.

  He was panting softly too. His hands roamed over her back, bare now; the sheet had slipped down.

  She looked into his eyes. They were boring into hers, hungry and questioning. He was waiting for her to say this was okay.

  She leaned into him, just the slightest movement, her hands finding their way to touch him, his bearded face, his shoulder. He reacted instantly, pulling her hard against him, covering her mouth with his.

  Kissing wasn’t nearly enough. She clutched at him, trying to get closer. The angle was all wrong. Sitting perched on the edge of the high mattress was awkward.

  His hand slid up to her bare breast and she gasped against his mouth. Gently, reverently, he kneaded and squeezed and lightly brushed his thumb over her nipple.

  She pulled ineffectually at the filmy tunic that was keeping his skin from her.

  He broke off the kiss and stood, pulling the tunic over his head. He dropped it to the floor, and came back to her, pushing her back and scooping her legs up onto the bed in a swift, practiced motion.

  He rested his hip on the bed, his hand skimming her skin. His eyes roved over her body. They seemed to devour her. It was a heady feeling.

  The evidence of his desire pressed firmly against her thigh.

  She experienced a moment of disquiet. The only man she’d ever been with had been Brian and that was a long time gone now. Alan was athletic. His body was firm. She was out of practice, out of shape, and accustomed to a mindless succession of uneventful missionary. She wondered if she could be the kind of lover he wanted.

  He dispelled her fears instantly. He touched his nose to hers playfully and kissed her hard and deep, his tongue swirling around hers, while he slowly ran his hand up her thigh, pushed her leg aside, and cupped her. His touch wasn’t greedy or callous, but reverent with an aching sweetness that seemed counter to his nature.

  She arched against his hand and let out a whimper. His caress was gentle, insistent, and precisely targeted for maximum impact. Leave it to the engineer to know how things worked.

  Was this an indication of the kind of care and sensitivity she could expect from him? If so, she’d underestimated him utterly. She was so overwhelmed that she was unable to do much more than cling to him, as his fingers and lips played over her, until she was at the very edge of it, trembling and gasping with it.

  She opened her eyes to find him contemplating her unguarded expression with a hint of a smug smile on his lips. A giggle bubbled up out of her unbidden. She ran her hands over his back restlessly, putting pressure on him, trying to pull him into position.

  He resisted, his fingers sliding in her slippery wetness, his tongue rasping over a nipple. She put her hand over his, stilling its movement and the incipient waves that were imminent. She captured his mouth in a kiss and took him in her hand to increase his sense of urgency. “I’m so close,” she moaned against his lips. “Please, Alan, come with me.”

  He groaned against her neck, a guttural sound that made her pulse race even faster, then complied without further prodding. It was just the two of them. There was nothing else.

  His eyes locked with hers as he slipped inside. It felt entirely new, more intensely gratifying than ever before. He held his b
ody high and, glancing between them, slowly began to move, the wet length of him sawing up across her clitoris.

  Her legs trembled. She arched, crying out, heedless of who might hear, as she shuddered with potent, chaotic spasms.

  She gasped for breath. Still he watched, nostrils flaring, jaw set, sharp eyes penetrating. He picked up the pace.

  She rocked to meet each thrust, every sensation heightened, building already, again, to the next peak.

  He buried his face in the hollow of her shoulder, clasping her closer, grunting, pumping, tracking her ascent, until he drove them both over the edge together.

  He stayed in place, his weight pleasantly pressing on her, and kissed her fervently. He rested his forehead against hers, and choked out, “We thought… I thought… Oh, fuck, Jane. I thought I’d lost you before I could ever even have you.”

  Anguish? From Alan Bergen? Over her?

  He smoothed her hair.

  She searched his bloodshot, watery eyes and saw truth staring back at her.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “Alan, I’m ok. Everything’s going to work out. We just have to trust him. It’s the only way.”

  His lips tightened and he slid to her side, one hand left possessively on her waist. “Yes. I see that. At what cost, Jane? What does he want from you?”

  “I—I’m not sure what you mean. He’s trying to protect us, keep us alive.”

  His expression turned fierce. “He wants more than that and you know it! What’s he telling you, right now? Did he just…?” His expression shuttered down and he sank heavily onto the bed, one hand capturing one of hers, squeezing hard.

  She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his angst. It didn’t look right, didn’t settle right over his features. She didn’t like seeing him so uncertain. She wanted to see him smirking, confident, strong.

  “He’s not here right now,” she murmured, shrugging self-consciously. Why did she feel… guilty? Ashamed?

  “Tell him to take us home, Jane.” There was a plaintive note in his voice that didn’t belong there, not when he had seemed so sure of himself half an hour before.