by Joe Vasicek
“I’m fine,” he muttered, feeling anything but fine.
Reva frowned. What was going on? She could see herself through Isaac’s eyes just as clearly as she saw him through her own. She could even follow his thoughts, as if she were inside his head.
“Something is very wrong,” she said slowly.
She can hear my thoughts, too? Isaac thought to himself. Panic swept over him as he realized what that meant.
What is he so afraid of? Reva wondered. But then, she felt his arousal and realized exactly what he was so embarrassed about.
Isaac slumped down in the water and wished that he could die.
Reva was shocked, too, but it soon gave way to curiosity. She’d never seen herself through a man’s eyes before, much less experienced that sort of attraction to a woman. It was… different. Which raised the question, was this the way he always saw her?
“It’s not what you think,” said Isaac. “It’s just, um…”
“Just when I’m naked?”
She remembered waking from cryo on board the Imperial battleship, how everyone had been all weird and pervy around her. When she’d escaped, Isaac had rescued her, and for several days it had been just the two of them on board his starship. She’d refused to wear clothes for most of that voyage. Was this how he’d seen her all that time?
“No!” he said quickly. “Not at all. I mean, yes, it was awkward at first, but I eventually got used to it.” I’m not like the men who mistreated you.
She looked into his mind to confirm what he had told her. Instead of their long voyage together, though, she saw the time in the maintenance closet when he’d lost control and nearly raped her.
“No,” Isaac whispered, covering his face with his hands. His shame was so heavy, it felt as if it were crushing him.
Reva recoiled from the visceral strength of his self-loathing. The shame and guilt was so overwhelming, it made her heart cry out for him. She looked deeper into his mind, and saw what she’d been for him these past few months: a ray of light, a reason to keep living, a bridge between all that he’d lost and his hope for the future. A lump rose in her throat as she realized just how broken he was.
“It’s all right,” she said, putting a hand on his knee.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated over and over.
“No, don’t be sorry. I believe you.”
He looked up at her and realized that she was telling the truth. He could see it in her eyes just as clearly as he saw it in her mind.
There had to be something she could do to make it better. He was such a tangled mess of unmet needs, some of them buried so deeply that he couldn’t even recognize them. The more she looked into his memories, the more she saw how thoroughly he’d denied himself.
Isaac tensed. “Uh, Reva—”
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “Don’t be afraid.”
She rose onto her knees and came forward until she was nearly leaning over him. He tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go short of climbing out of the pool.
Touch me.
His forehead began to sweat. “What?”
“It won’t hurt,” she whispered. “I promise.”
She could feel his pent-up vitality practically bursting at the seams. A part of that sexual energy carried over to her, stirring similar passions. She wanted to see what happened when all that pressure was released.
“Reva, I don’t—”
“Shh,” she said, pressing a finger against his lips. Don’t talk.
She took both his hands by the wrists and pressed them against her breasts. Isaac’s whole body stiffened, and his heart began to race. His legs turned to water as hot blood rushed to his loins.
Reva gasped at the sudden urgency of his passion. She’d expected it to be strong, but she had no idea it would come on so fast.
“Please stop,” he whispered, trying weakly to pull his hands away. She held them there, though, and like magnets they seemed to stay of their own accord.
“Why?” she asked.
“It—it shouldn’t be like this.”
It’s been too long since either of us had a good lay. A release would do us good.
She let go of his wrists and leaned onto his chest, pressing her lips against his. His resistance fell away as his hands migrated to her hips almost of their own accord. It was just like all those times in the maintenance closet, except that the ruse was over.
This is wrong, a nagging voice whispered in the back of his head. His lips ran down her neck as she parted her legs to straddle him.
It’s not wrong if I want it, too.
Not now, though. Not like this.
Then when? If we’re going to die here, let’s make the most of what little time we have.
In a semi-dreamlike state, he yielded to her as their lovemaking began. Their passion overwhelmed all rational thought, to the point that he could no longer tell Reva’s thoughts from his own. But there were other minds mingled with hers—other streams of consciousness that belonged to neither of them. And as their passion reached its climax, an otherworldly sensation swept over him, as if millions of silent voices had suddenly become self-aware.
Melded Minds
When Isaac woke up, he was covered in mud. His arms were wrapped around Reva’s waist, who lay on the ground with her back to him. He yawned and began to run his hands along her side.
Realization struck him like a laser bolt. He let go of her and sat upright, his heart pounding as a wave of dizziness swept over him. What had he done? What had they both done? He felt filthy all over, and not just from the mud.
As he stumbled to the pool to wash himself, Reva stirred and came awake. A warm and pleasant afterglow still lingered with her. It had been a fantastic night, and she hoped that Isaac could say the same.
Isaac recoiled in horror as Reva’s memories were confirmed by his own. He stumbled to the river and splashed his face with cold water, purging away his sleepfulness and numbing himself with the cold.
Reva sat up and frowned. What was he doing? He seemed upset, but she didn’t know why.
“What’s wrong?” she called out.
He ignored her and waded out into the river, dropping to his knees and doused his head.
Reva rose to her feet and walked over to the pool, trying to think what she could do to calm him.
“Isaac,” she called.
Isaac turned to face her, quickly averted his eyes, then decided to look at her anyway. The sight of her body no longer aroused him as much, either because he was angry or because there was nothing left to the imagination.
“What have we done?” he asked.
Reva shrugged. “We made love. What’s wrong with that?”
He stared at her incredulously, as if she’d casually admitted to murder. It was clear that he had an unhealthy view of sex—but why? Almost immediately, she found the answer.
“Stars of Earth,” she said, her eyes widening. “That was your first time?”
“Yes, it was,” Isaac admitted.
Reva frowned. “But why? Who were you saving yourself for?”
Blood rushed to Isaac’s cheeks. He didn’t know what violated him more: the way that Reva had stolen his virginity, or the way that she now poked through his mind.
“For my future wife,” he told her. “That was always the plan. I’d save myself until I met the right girl, and we’d settle down together and start a family together.”
“But why was it so important for your first time to be with her?”
Reva regretted the question almost the moment she asked it. Now it was Isaac’s turn to rummage through her mind, just as she had poked through his.
“Holy shit,” he exclaimed. “Your first time was with a fifty-year-old man?”
“Hey!” said Reva. “It’s not what you think. He was everyone’s first time. He was the teacher!”
“You were only thirteen? Stars and constellations of Earth!”
Reva didn’t know what to say. She
felt profoundly embarrassed and didn’t know why. Gilgamesh had been the sex-ed teacher on Anuva Station. Every girl’s first time had been with him. It was perfectly normal and natural that hers had been, too.
Or was it?
“Sex really means nothing to you, does it?” Isaac stated more than asked. “It’s just another bodily function, like sneezing or taking a piss.”
“At least I’m open about it,” she retorted. “You, on the other hand, repress it so hard that you can’t help but get all pervy.”
“That’s not true,” Isaac muttered, though inwardly he knew she had a point.
“Sex is a perfectly normal part of healthy living,” she continued. “Too much can be unhealthy, but so can too little. And getting none at all is like starving yourself when you’re hungry.”
Reva stared at Isaac, hoping her argument would get through to him. Instead, he pushed back all the more.
“No, it’s not like that at all.”
“We did nothing wrong,” she said. “I gave myself to you willingly.”
“But I didn’t.”
Reva’s gut clenched as she remembered how he had asked her to stop. In the heat of the moment, she had ignored him.
Did that make it rape?
“You still enjoyed it,” she said defensively.
Isaac stared at her, speechless. Her self-rationalization was so twisted that he didn’t know how to respond.
Reva knew she was wrong even as the words escaped her lips. She tried to put on a stoic face, but it didn’t matter because Isaac could see into her mind—could even hear her thoughts as she groped frantically for some plausible-sounding excuse.
“You—you came on to me first,” she stammered.
“I kept my hands off of you until you forced me to grope you.”
“But you were thinking about it.”
“So?” Isaac said. “I didn’t act on that thought, did I?”
“Don’t pretend to be a gentleman. You wanted that—you needed it. I did you a favor.”
“Listen to yourself, Reva. Can you even hear what you’re saying?”
A dozen hurtful comments came to Reva’s mind, but she resisted the temptation to lash out. None of them could do anything to help.
“Can—can we just pretend like this never happened?”
I doubt it, Isaac thought. He didn’t mean to say it, but Reva picked it up as if he had.
“What is wrong with you?” she cried, clenching her fists. “It was one time!”
Isaac turned his back to her and sat on the bank of the river, hugging his knees to his chest. The whole thing was a mess, and he didn’t know how to fix it. He just wished it would all go away.
* * * * *
Reva stormed off, taking the glowlamp with her. When Isaac protested, she threw it back at him, not even caring that it left her in the dark. She could see the glowing blue lights off around the corner and knew that her eyes would soon adjust anyway.
What was Isaac’s problem? Why did he have to take things so hard? Yes, she had technically raped him, but could he really blame her? She had only wanted to help him, to satisfy his unmet needs. Couldn’t he see that?
Where are you going?
It was Isaac, poking around in her mind again. She groaned and rolled her eyes.
I just need some space.
Yeah. Me too.
But no matter how hard she tried to shut him out of her mind, he was always there, in the background of her thoughts. It was starting to creep her out.
What the hell had happened to them, anyway? Why could they read each other’s thoughts? It had something to do with those blue alien lights, clustering among the lichen and darting across the cave. She remembered the cold chills as she’d touched one of them, only to see it shoot across her skin and sink into her chest. After that, her memories started to get fuzzy.
The air was a lot cooler away from the hot springs. She shivered and hugged her chest. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw hundreds of little blue lights clustered around a particularly large rock formation, illuminating a mass of lichen near the base. They spread out and slowly began to circle her.
“Go away,” she said, but the fear soon left her. The lights didn’t mean her any harm. If anything, they were curious.
Isaac shivered as he saw the lights approach her. How did she know that they didn’t mean to harm her? How could they “mean” anything at all? It was ridiculous to ascribe human emotion to these… these…
“I just know,” Reva answered him, squatting on her ankles to reach out to the nearest one. It darted away, but another one tentatively approached her.
Reva—
The light touched the tip of her finger, sending a mild electric shock up her arm. She shivered and drew back, but the unpleasant feeling soon left her. When she looked at her hand, she saw that she held the light in her palm.
A strange sensation of awareness came over her, as if she were viewing her own body from the inside out. Every bone, every muscle, every tendon of her hand was laid out clearly before her. It was as if her body were a piece of hardware that she could open up and examine, tracing every wire and following every connection.
Uh, Reva?
But she was too fascinated with the light to pay Isaac any mind. It almost seemed like a living creature, though it lacked a physical form. As she felt it interact with her hand, she wondered if she’d developed the same telepathic connection to it that she and Isaac now shared. Or maybe the lights were the telepathic connection, these alien beings of energy. If that was true, then by melding with them she and Isaac had melded with each other.
Isaac frowned and stood up, pacing in thought. If Reva was right… But how could she be? They were just lights, as lifeless and inanimate as electricity or plasma. It was absurd to think of them as sentient beings.
How else would you explain it? Reva thought to him. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Nothing makes sense anymore.
She touched her hand to the lichen on the side of the stalagmite. The light flowed off of her and back to the cluster of its friends. As it did so, Reva could sense the composition of the rock formation as clearly as if it were a book, each mineral layer laid down by the steady drip, drip, drip of the cave.
She closed her eyes and reached out further, focusing her mental energy. As she did, she sensed not only the stalagmite, but the lichen as well. Each alien cell unfolded to her, with all of their complex biochemical processes.
Reva, are you there? I can barely sense you.
“I’m here,” Reva said. Her voice was so loud that it made her jump. I’m here, she repeated, this time in her mind.
You’re drifting off on me. What are you doing?
Reaching out, she answered, closing her eyes to refocus.
She reached out until her awareness encompassed the cavern in which she stood. Every stalagmite and every stalactite, every pool of water and patch of lichen—her awareness encompassed it all. Her head began to ache, but she reached out still further, until she could see (or rather, feel) the adjacent cavern, where Isaac stood frozen in fear. She saw him not only through his own eyes, but from other perspectives as well.
Reva!
She gasped and clutched her head as the aching grew worse. Still, something told her that she wasn’t finished, that she had to go still further.
I’m all right, she told Isaac. Stay there.
With that, she took a deep breath and pushed herself to the extent of her limits. Her awareness stretched to other caverns, first a dozen, then a hundred, then well over a thousand—a vast underground network that encompassed a significant fraction of the planet. As her awareness spread to each one, the lights began to respond, examining her the same way that she examined them. It was as if she were standing in front of an auditorium of more than a million people, each of them perfectly silent as they waited for her to speak.
Can you see this, Isaac?
See what? Isaac asked. The words no sooner
formed in his consciousness than he felt as if he were being watched. A shiver ran down his back, giving him goosebumps.
Come back, Reva. I’m scared.
Scared of what? she asked. They mean us no harm. We’re as alien to them as they are to us.
How do you know that?
Reva thought for a moment.
Because I can see into them the same way that I can see into you.
A word suddenly came to her, starting in the deepest recesses of the caves and reverberating inward until it found her. Shivers ran down her spine, an electric tingle from the back of her neck to the ends of her toes. It didn’t come from her or from Isaac, but from the vast alien network that she and Isaac had tapped.
MOTHER.
Isaac frowned. What was that?
Reva took a deep breath of the cool cave air. She reached out and heard it again.
MOTHER.
Please come back, Isaac plead with her. In the shadows cast by the glowlamp, he saw a sudden flurry of motion.
Reva saw it too: hundreds of blue lights streaming across the floor and walls, rushing toward her like an unstoppable flood. When they reached her feet, they shone brightly enough that she could see the tattoos on her legs. One by one, they climbed onto her body and ran across her skin, making it glow.
Isaac ran as fast as his legs could carry him, stumbling on the slippery mud floor. When he reached the other cavern, the blue lights were so dense that they nearly drowned out his glowlamp. Reva stood in the midst of them, her skin illuminated so clearly that he could see all of the details in her henna tattoos.
“Reva!”
Isaac’s voice sounded simultaneously loud and distant. It pulled Reva out of her trancelike state and forced her to confront the physical reality around her. Through Isaac’s eyes, she saw her body shimmering with energy, but his alarm was completely unwarranted.
“Don’t be afraid, Isaac,” she told him. “Everything is fine.”
Like hell it is, Isaac thought as he ran toward her. He had to get her away from this place. If he didn’t, the lights—
Reva held up her hand, gesturing for him to stop. Almost immediately, his legs seized up, and he stood rooted to the floor. She could feel him straining to move his unresponsive legs, but his body was no longer under his control.
