Superluminal

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  They paddled in the shallow end of the pool, reclined on the steps, flicked shining spray at each other. Laenea wanted Radu again. She was completely free of pain for the first time since the operation. That fact began to overcome a certain reluctance she felt, an ambivalence toward her own reactions. The violent change in her sexual responses disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.

  And she wondered if Radu felt the same way; she discovered she was afraid he might.

  As they lay on the warm flagstones edging the pool, Laenea moved closer and kissed him. He put his arm around her and she slid her hand across his stomach and down to his genitals, somehow less afraid of a physical indication of reluctance than a verbal one. But he responded to her, hardening, drawing circles on her breast with his fingertips, caressing her lips with his tongue. Laenea stroked him from the back of his knee to his shoulder. His body had a thousand textures, muted and blended by the warm water and the steamy air. She pulled him closer, grasping him with her legs. This time Laenea anticipated a long, slow increase of excitement.

  “What do you like?” Radu whispered.

  “I — I like — I —” Her words changed abruptly to a cry. Her climax again came all at once in a powerful solitary wave. Radu’s fingers dug into her shoulders, and Laenea knew her short nails were cutting his back. Radu must have expected the intensity of Laenea’s orgasm, but the body is slower to learn than the mind. He followed her to climax almost instantly. Trembling against him, Laenea exhaled in a long shudder. She could feel Radu’s stomach muscles quivering.

  Laenea enjoyed taking time over sex, and she suspected that Radu did as well. Yet she felt exhilarated. Her thoughts about Radu were bright in her mind, but she could put no words to them. Instead of speaking she laid her hand on the side of his face, fingertips at the temples, the palm of her hand against the scars. He no longer flinched when she touched him there. He covered her hand with his own.

  He had about him a quality of constancy, of dependability and calm, that Laenea had never before encountered. His admiration for her was of a different sort entirely from what she was used to: grounders’ lusting after status and vicarious excitement. Radu had seen her and stayed with her when she was helpless and ordinary and as undignified as a human being can be; that had not changed his feelings. Laenea did not understand him yet.

  They toweled each other dry. Radu had scraped his hip on the pool’s edge, and Laenea had raked long scratches down his back.

  “I wouldn’t have thought I could do that,” she said, glancing at her hands. She kept her nails cut to just above the quick. “I’m sorry.”

  Radu reached around to dry her back. “I did the same to you.”

  “Really?” She looked over her shoulder. The angle was wrong to see anything, but she could feel places stinging. “We’re even, then.” She grinned. “I never drew blood before.”

  “Nor I.”

  They dressed in clean clothes from Kathell’s wardrobe and went walking through the multileveled city. It was, as Radu had said, very early. Above on the sea it would be close to dawn. Below only street cleaners and delivery carts moved here and there across a mall. Laenea was more accustomed to the twenty-four-hour crew city in the third stabilizer.

  She was getting hungry enough to suggest a shuttle trip across to #3 where everything would be open, when ahead they saw waiters arranging the chairs of sidewalk cafés, preparing for business.

  “Seven o’clock,” Radu said. “That’s early to be open around here, it seems.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have a communicator.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then how do you know what time it is?” Laenea glanced around for a clock, but none was in sight.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know how, but I always know.”

  “Twilight’s day isn’t even standard.”

  “I had to convert for a while, but now I have both times.” He shrugged. “It’s just a trick.”

  “Useful, though.”

  A waiter ushered them to a table. They breakfasted and talked, telling each other about their home worlds and the places they had visited. Radu had been to three other planets before earth. Laenea knew two of them, from several years before. They were colonial worlds, which had grown and changed since her visits.

  Laenea and Radu compared impressions of crewing, she still fascinated by the fact that he dreamed.

  She found herself reaching out to touch his hand, to emphasize a point or for the sheer simple pleasure of contact. He did the same, but they were both right-handed. Flowers occupied the middle of the table and kept getting in their way. Finally Laenea picked up the vase and moved it to one side, and she and Radu held hands across the table.

  “Where do you want to go next?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. I still have to go where they tell me to, when there’s a need.”

  “I just…” Laenea’s voice trailed off. Radu glanced at her quizzically, and she shook her head. “It sounds ridiculous to start talking already about tomorrow or next month or next year… but it seems all right — it seems like I should.”

  “I feel… the same.”

  They sat in silence, drinking coffee. Radu’s hand tightened on hers. “What are we going to do?” For a moment he looked young and lost. “I haven’t earned the right to make my own schedules yet.”

  “I have,” Laenea said. “Except for emergencies. That will help.” She smiled. “Besides,” she said, “we have a month. A month not to worry.”

  o0o

  Laenea yawned as they entered the front room of Kathell’s apartment. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy.” She yawned again, trying to stifle it, failing. “I slept the clock around, and now I want to sleep again — after what? Half a day?” She kicked off her boots.

  “Eight and a half hours,” Radu said. “Somewhat busy hours, though.”

  She smiled. “True.” She yawned a third time, jaw hinges cracking. “I’ve got to take a nap.”

  Radu followed her along the hallway and down the stairs to her room. The bed was made, turned down on both sides. The clothes Laenea and Radu had arrived in were clean and pressed. They hung in the dressing room along with the cloak, which no longer smelled musty. Laenea brushed her fingers across the velvet.

  Radu looked around. “Who did this?”

  “What? Straightened the room? The people Kathell hires. They look after whoever stays here.”

  “Do they hide?”

  Laenea laughed. “No — they’ll come if we need them. Do you want something?”

  “No,” he said sharply. “No,” more gently. “Nothing.”

  Still yawning, Laenea undressed. “What about you, are you wide awake?”

  He was staring into a mirror. He started when she spoke, and looked not at her but at her reflection. “I can’t usually sleep during the day,” he said. “But I am rather tired.”

  His reflection turned its back; he, smiling, turned toward her.

  o0o

  They were both too sleepy to make love a third time. The amount of energy Laenea had expended astonished her. She thought perhaps she still needed time to recover from the hospital. She and Radu curled together in darkness and scarlet sheets.

  “I do feel very depraved now,” Radu said.

  “Depraved? Why?”

  “Sleeping at nine o’clock in the morning? That’s unheard of on Twilight.” He shook his head; his mustache brushed her shoulder. Laenea drew his arm closer around her, holding his hand in both of hers.

  “I’ll have to think of some other awful depraved customs to tempt you with,” she said sleepily, chuckling, but thought of none just then.

  o0o

  Something startled Laenea awake. She was a sound sleeper and could not think what noise or movement would awaken her when she still felt so tired. Lying very still she listened, reaching for stimuli with all her senses. The lights in the aquaria were out; the room was dark except for the heating coils’ bri
ght orange spirals. Bubbles from the aerator, highlighted by the amber glow, rose like tiny half moons through the water.

  The beat of a heart pounded through her.

  In sleep, Radu still lay with his arms around her. His hand, fingers half curled in relaxation, brushed her left breast. She stroked the back of his hand but moved quietly away from him, away from the sound of his pulse, for it formed the link of a chain she had worked hard and wished long to break.

  o0o

  The second time she woke she was frightened out of sleep, confused, displaced. For a moment she thought she was escaping a nightmare. Her head ached violently from the ringing in her ears, but through the clash and clang she heard Radu gasp for breath, struggling as if to free himself from restraints. Laenea reached for him, ignoring her own racing heart. Her fingers slipped on his sweat. Thrashing, he flung her back. Each breath was agony just to hear. Laenea grabbed his arm when he twisted again, held it down, seized the other flailing hand, partially immobilized him, straddled his hips, held him.

  “Radu!”

  He did not respond. Laenea called his name again, then shouted for help. She could feel his pulse through both his wrists, and she felt his heart as it pounded, too fast, too hard, irregular and violent.

  “Radu!”

  He cried out, a piercing and wordless scream.

  She whispered his name, no longer even hoping for a response, in helplessness, hopelessness. He shuddered beneath her.

  He opened his eyes.

  “What…”

  Laenea remained where she was, leaning over him. He tried to lift his hand. She was still forcing his arms to the bed. She released him and knelt beside him. She, too, was short of breath, and hypertensive to a dangerous degree.

  Someone knocked softly on the bedroom door.

  “Come in!”

  One of the aides entered hesitantly. “Pilot? I thought — pardon me.” She bowed and backed out.

  “Wait — you did the right thing. Call a doctor immediately.”

  Radu pushed himself up on his elbows. “No, don’t, there’s nothing wrong.”

  The young aide glanced from Laenea to Radu and back at the pilot.

  “Are you sure?” Laenea asked.

  “Yes.” He sat up. Sweat ran in heavy drops down his temples to the edge of his jaw. Laenea shivered; she was sweating, too.

  “Never mind, then,” Laenea said. “But thank you.”

  The aide departed.

  “Gods, I thought you were having a heart attack.” Her pulse began to ease in rhythmically varying rotation. She could feel the blood slow and quicken in her temples, in her throat. She clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms.

  Radu shook his head. “No, it wasn’t illness. As you said — we’re never allowed this job if we’re not healthy.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was a nightmare.” He lay back, his hands behind his head, his eyes closed. “I was climbing, I don’t remember what, a cliff or a tree. It collapsed or broke and I fell — a long way. I knew I was dreaming and I thought I’d wake up before I hit, but I fell into a river.”

  Laenea heard him and remembered what he said, but knew she would have to make sense of the words later. She remained kneeling and slowly unclenched her hands. Blood rushed through her like a funneled tide, high, then low, and back again.

  “It had a very strong current that swept me along and pulled me under. I couldn’t see banks on either side — not even where I fell from. Logs and trash rushed along beside me and past me, but every time I tried to hold onto something I’d almost be crushed. I got tireder and tireder and the water pulled me under — I needed a breath but I couldn’t take one… Have you felt the way the body tries to breathe when you can’t let it?”

  She did not answer, but her lungs burned and her muscles contracted convulsively, trying to clear a way for the air to push its way in.

  “Laenea —” She felt him grasp her shoulders: She wanted to pull him closer, she wanted to push him away. Then his touch broke the compulsion of his words and she drew a deep, searing breath.

  “What —?”

  “A… moment…” She managed, finally, to damp the sine-curve velocity of the pump within her. She shivered. Radu pulled a blanket around her. Laenea’s control returned slowly, more slowly than any other time she had lost it. She pulled the blanket closer, seeking stability more than warmth. She should not slip like that: Her biocontrol, to now, had always been as close to perfect as anything associated with a biological system could be. But now she felt dizzy and high, hyperventilated, from the needless rush of blood through her brain. She wondered how many millions of nerve cells had been destroyed.

  She and Radu looked at each other in silence.

  “Laenea…” He still spoke her name as if he were not sure he had the right to use it. “What’s happening to us?”

  “Excitement —” she said, and stopped. “An ordinary nightmare —” She had never tried to deceive herself before, and found she could not start now.

  “It wasn’t an ordinary nightmare. You always know you’re going to be all right, no matter how frightened you are. This time — until I heard you calling me and felt you pulling me to the surface, I knew I was going to die.”

  Tension grew: He was as afraid to reach toward her as she was to him. She threw off the blanket and grasped his hand. He was startled, but he returned the pressure. They sat cross- legged, facing each other, hands entwined.

  “It’s possible…” Laenea said, searching for a way to say this that was gentle for them both, “it’s possible… that there is a reason, a real reason, pilots and crew don’t mix.”

  By Radu’s expression Laenea knew he had thought of that explanation, too, and only hoped she could think of a different one.

  “It could be temporary — we may only need acclimatization.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  She rubbed the ball of her thumb across his knuckles. His pulse throbbed through her fingers. “No,” she said, almost whispering. Her system and that of any normal human being would no longer mesh. The change in her was too disturbing, on psychological and subliminal levels, while normal biorhythms were so compelling that they interfered with and would eventually destroy her new biological integrity. “I don’t. Dammit, I don’t.”

  Exhausted, they could no longer sleep. They rose in miserable silence and dressed, navigating around each other like sailboats in a high wind. Laenea wanted to touch Radu, to hug him, slide her hand up his arm, kiss him and be tickled by his mustache. Denied any of those, not quite by fear but by reluctance, unwilling either to risk her own stability or to put Radu through another nightmare, she understood for the first time the importance of simple, incidental touch, directed at nothing more important than momentary contact, momentary reassurance.

  “Are you hungry?” Isolation, with silence as well, was too much to bear.

  “Yes… I guess so.”

  But over breakfast (it was, Radu said, evening, so perhaps it was really dinner), the silence fell again. Laenea could not make small talk; if small talk existed for this situation she could not imagine what it might consist of. Radu pushed his food around on his plate and avoided looking at Laenea. His gaze jerked from the sea wall to the table, to some detail of carving on the furniture, and back again.

  Laenea ate fruit sections with her fingers. All the previous worries, how to arrange schedules for time together, how to defuse the disapproval of their acquaintances, seemed trivial and frivolous. The only solution now was a drastic one, which she did not feel she could suggest herself. Volunteering to become a pilot might be as impossible for him as returning to normal would be for Laenea. Piloting was a lifetime decision, not a job like crewing that one could take for a few years’ travel and adventure.

  Radu stood up. His chair scraped against the floor and fell over. Laenea looked up, startled. Flinching, Radu turned, picked up the chair, and set it quietly on its legs again. “I can’t think down
here,” he said. “It never changes.” He glanced at the sea wall, perpetual blue fading to blackness. “I’m going out on deck. I need to be outside.” He turned toward her. “Would you —”

  “I think…” Wind, salt spray on her face: tempting. “I think we’d each better be alone for a while.”

  “Yes,” he said, with gratitude. “I suppose… ” His voice grew heavy with disappointment. “You’re right.” His footsteps were soundless on the thick carpet.

  “Radu —”

  He turned again, without speaking, as though his barriers were forming around him again, still so fragile that a word would shatter them.

  “Never mind… just… Oh — take my cape if you want, it gets cold on deck at night.”

  He nodded once, still silent, and went away.

  In the pool Laenea swam hard, even when her ribs began to hurt. She felt trapped and angry, with nowhere to run, knowing no one deserved her anger. Certainly not Radu; not the other pilots, who had warned her. Not even the administrators, who in their own misguided way had tried to make her transition as protected as possible. The anger could turn inward, toward her strong-willed stubborn character. But that, too, was pointless. All her life she had made her own mistakes and her own successes, both usually by trying what others said she could not do.

  She climbed out of the pool without having tired herself in the least. The warmth had soothed away whatever aches and pains were left. Her energy returned, leaving her restless and snappish. She put on her clothes and left the apartment to walk off her tension until she could consider the problem calmly. But she could not see even an approach to a solution; at least, not to a solution that would be a happy one.

  o0o

  Hours later, when the grounder city had quieted to night, Laenea let herself back into Kathell’s apartment. Inside, too, was dark and silent. She could hardly wonder where Radu was; she remembered little enough of what she herself had done since he left. She remembered being vaguely civil to people who stopped her, greeted her, invited her to parties, asked for her autograph. She remembered being less than civil to someone who asked how it felt to be an Aztec. But she did not remember which incident preceded the other or when either had occurred or what she had actually said. She was no closer to an answer than before. Hands jammed into her pockets, she went to the main room, just to sit and stare into the ocean and try to think. She was halfway to the sea wall before she saw Radu, standing silhouetted against the window, dark and mysterious in the black cloak, the blue light glinting ghostily off his hair.