by N Lee Wood
He sat at their feet, head bowed docilely, not touching his own tiny cup, until the other woman finished, made polite excuses, and left. Only when she had gone did he allow the anger out.
“Does the entire planet know I’m your lover?” he demanded, using the same Vanar word Raemik had.
“Probably,” Pratima said, serenely.
He glanced in the direction Bralin had left. “And now quite literally the entire inhabited universe knows. Tell me, am I a popular character in the Pilot’s latest entertainment? Anyone placing bets on me for the next episode?”
“Not about you and me, although every Pilot is certainly aware of your presence on Vanar,” Pratima said quietly. “Nathan, why does it surprise you to find you are known? Of course people are curious about you.”
“Is that what I am? A novelty? A rare animal in a zoo to be stared and pointed at?”
She paused, her head to one side, then, “Why are you so angry?” “How can you ask that?” he said hotly, dropping any pretense of meekness. “You snap your fingers and expect me to jump, then parade me in front of your friend like a prize bull.” He stood up, pacing away from her. “I expected better than that from you.”
“Did you expect me to be someone other than Vanar?” she said quietly behind him. There was no emotion at all in her voice.
He was shaking. Westcastle had smelled like the sea in the winter when the sporadic acid rains churned up salt into the air from the desolate badlands. Sometimes, when the light was right, he would pretend the shimmering mirages on the horizon really were water, wanting desperately to believe in a magic that, if only he prayed hard enough, would deliver a boat to sail him away and set him free. He had never stopped believing in that magic. He didn’t want to now.
“Did you expect me to be someone other than Hengeli? I’m not your whore, Pratima, not some plaything to be used and thrown away when you get tired of me.”
When he turned toward her, some trick of the light filtering through the pseuquartz threw a slant of rainbow-prismed color across the room, splashed against her white skin like colors spilled from a child’s paint box. “I see,” she said softly. “Do you want me to take you back to the Estate?”
His pride made him badly want to say yes, but he knew if he did, he would never see her again. She was not a woman who would come around to ask his forgiveness.
“No,” he said, miserable. “I love you.” She didn’t react any more than if he’d told her the correct time or that the weather looked like rain. “I want you to love me.” He gestured toward the exit where Bralin had gone. “I don’t want to be just a bit of lewd gossip between Pilots.”
“You want more respect than that,” she said, and he wasn’t sure it was a question.
He walked deliberately back and sat down next to her. “Don’t I deserve that much? Or are you really so Vanar that every man is nothing to you?”
She was the one who finally looked away. “I’ve never lied to you, Nathan. But whatever I feel about you, whatever you feel for me . . . is irrelevant.”
“Why?” He heard his voice break.
She laughed sadly. “Because I’m a Pilot.” When she looked up again, her pale eyes glittered wetly. “I’d have thought you’d have noticed by now.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said, and took her hands. “Do you love me, Pratima?”
“I don’t know. I do know that I want you, more than anyone I’ve ever known.” Again, it was that cool lifeless voice, totally devoid of feeling.
“Then take me with you.”
“I can’t.”
“For godsake, why not?” he demanded, not bothering to amend the gender of the deity he swore by. “You’re a Pilot, you can do whatever you want!”
Her mouth twisted in a spasm of anger and pain, but she left her hands trapped in his. “Even Hengeli is discerning enough to make the distinction,” she snapped. “I didn’t say I won’t. I said I can’t. Nathan, I live inside the Worm. If you think it’s lonely here, you can’t imagine what it’s like on a Pilotship. I live with a hundred other women who are so completely like me, it’s as if I am alone. When I speak with my sisters, I’m talking to myself. When we make love, it’s only masturbation—”
She laughed at his shock. “What did you imagine we were like? We’re human beings, too. We have feelings, we are capable of love. There’s nothing I want more than to be with you. But you can’t survive in a Pilotship. The first time we passed from one End to the other, every atom in your body would be torn apart.”
“I could stay on one of the liners in transport—”
“How would I reach you? A Pilotship is part of the Worm itself. There’s no access between a Pilotship and the cargo we transport.”
“You got from there to Vanar,” he pointed out.
“Yes,” she said. “On an automated single-passenger shuttle I have no control over. It goes to Vanar and back and that’s all. There’s only one way on and off this planet for me. And only for me.”
“Then stay on Vanar. Stay with me, Pratima.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “I can’t. That would kill me.” “You’re here now, and you seem far from dead,” he objected.
“I only come to Vanar once a year, and I don’t stay planetbound any longer than I have to. It hurts me to be here. Every minute I’m here, this planet is literally tearing me apart inside.”
His mind shifted desperately for a solution. “I’m supposed to marry in a few months. But if I married you, I’d wait for you, Pratima. I’d be here every year, for however long you could stay...”
The horror on her face stopped him, the tear that fell down her cheek catching the rainbow light. “You really don’t understand,” she said in dismay. “I live in the Worm—”
He shot to his feet, shouting down at her in anger. “I know you live in the goddamned Worm, Pratima!”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “—time is different for me.” Suddenly, he realized, and stared at her. “The last time I was on Vanar was to give birth to Raemik. A year ago. My time.”
He felt suddenly light-headed.
“If I don’t conceive this trip,” she was saying softly, “I’ll have to come back next year. My time. A year for me is nearly fifteen for you.”
“You live forever and die young,” he said, and sat down heavily. “The Worm exacts a heavy toll on Pilots. I have only a few more years left. And yet I will still outlive you.”
“That’s what Raemik meant.” He looked at her numbly, then reluctantly shut his eyes, blocking out the light. “He wants me to tell you he won’t cooperate. That you should leave and come back next year.” He opened his eyes again to stare at nothing.
She sat quietly beside him for a long moment, then left to retrieve a bottle of xerx brandy. Pouring the honey-colored alcohol into a cut crystal glass, she held it out to him. He took it from her but held it passively without drinking.
“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” she asked, no anger in her flattened tone.
“No,” he admitted. “Why not?”
“What difference does it make?” He glanced at her. “As if you didn’t know. I didn’t want you to leave, Pratima. I didn’t want to spend the next year without you.”
“And fifteen makes a difference?”
He laughed acidly, a sharp bark of pain. “All the difference in the world. Make it a hundred. Make it forever.” Lifting the glass to his mouth, he threw back the burning liquor in one gulp. “The first time I find someone on this fucking awful planet who might actually make my life tolerable, and it has to be you.”
He suddenly threw the glass, not caring how old or expensive it was, and smiled in grim satisfaction as it shattered against the pseuquartz wall. When he turned to her, she stood very still, watching him with her too pale eyes. Her fear depressed him.
“Why should you give a damn,” he said, his throat constricted. “You’re a Pilot, what could a malinam naeqili be to you?”
She didn’t move, st
anding with nearly the same inertness he had seen in her meditation. Only her eyes were alive, ghostly shimmer in her colorless irises. “I do care, Nathan. Where did you get the idea Pilots are so powerful?” she asked softly.
“I’m not blind,” he snapped, and gestured at the huge room with its luxurious furnishings. “You live like a queen, you go where you want, you take what you want, what else could I think?”
“I told you before, this place doesn’t belong to me. Nothing belongs to me. I don’t pay for anything, because I have no money. Pilots own nothing.” She didn’t smile. “Legally, Pilots themselves are owned. We are property. Extremely valuable property, but my caste is even lower than a naeqili.”
He found his mouth hanging open, and shut it, feeling the muscles in his jaw clench. Turning away, his legs felt wooden as he walked toward the small waterfall and the clear pool. Silver-scaled fish darted away from his shadow on the rippling water.
“But you’re a Pilot,” he said, incredulous. “Without you, Vanar would be just another planet around just another star.”
She hadn’t moved when he turned toward her again, watching him with deathly stillness. “Being a source of power doesn’t mean I control it. Nor am I even the key....”
“Raemik.” He shook his head in contempt. “Men can’t survive on the Pilotship, and however long the time dilation lets you live, you’re not immortal. They hold your men hostage.”
Her mouth quirked thoughtfully. “ ‘Hostage’ isn’t a word I might have chosen, but it’ll do. I can take what I like on Vanar because I can’t take it with me. It all stays behind when I leave. I can do whatever I like on Vanar because nothing I do can endanger the Family’s control over the Worms or its revenues. And it’s important to keep Pilots happy. It upsets a Pilot’s equilibrium to be unhappy.”
“Are you happy, Pratima?” he asked, less angry, and was glad this time his voice hadn’t cracked.
She didn’t answer for several long moments. “Not particularly,” she said impersonally, gazing off into the distance outside the pseuquartz.
“Am I making you unhappy?” he said, afraid of the answer.
She looked at him directly. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the mingled sense of relief and shame wash over him.
She said calmly, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. You’re not Vanar. I don’t know what you expect from me.”
“Despite all the enthusiastic rumors, I really am not a homicidal maniac. I would never hurt you.”
A fleeting smile curled past her lips. “I know that.”
“What about Raemik? Are you and the Nga’esha really going to let him get away with disobedience?”
“The Nga’esha may not like it, but it is not their decision. He is still just a child. We are not barbarians, and I would never force Raemik. Never.”
“Then there’s no reason for you to stay on Vanar any longer, not if it means risking your health.”
“Oh, Nathan.” The quaver in her voice was the only indication of emotion. He watched her silently, amazed at her slight trembling, her reserved demeanor still intact. “If you think I’ve stayed down this long waiting for my brother, you’re wrong. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re the first breath of fresh air I’ve ever known. I’ve only been two places in my life,” she said, her voice steady. “Vanar and the Worm. I envy you, having seen so many other worlds.”
“Not that many. And it seems Vanar will be my last,” he said bitterly.
She ignored him. “You’ve met different kinds of peoples, seen different cultures. Your experience is so rich. You’re trapped on Vanar because of the choices you’ve made, good or bad. I’ve never had any choices: the narrow limits of my destiny were written the moment I was conceived.”
Her eyes flickered, as if she were looking inward, not quite seeing him. “I’m not complaining; it’s far from an unpleasant life. The people who designed Pilots weren’t cruel; we enjoy what we do. We live for what we do. We are part of the Worm, we can’t exist without it. It’s the only real love Pilots can ever know.”
She focused on him as he frowned. “But it’s a very solitary existence. I see the rest of humanity go by from behind a barrier, untouched and untouchable. The only other men I’ve ever known were Vanar. I know them, they know me, there’s no complication. Everyone understands their place. Nothing risked, nothing lost. I would have done my duty on Vanar, relieved the boredom the best I could, and been happy to go home to the Worm and the comfort of my sisters’ company. I would never have fallen in love. Pilots don’t fall in love.”
“Certainly not with foreigners.”
The silence stretched. “No, certainly not with foreigners.” She stood with her back stiffly erect, sharp chin held high. “I wish now that I’d never met you, Nathan,” she said serenely. “But that’s a child’s wish. I wish I had been smart enough to have avoided you, but the temptation was too great. I wish I had the strength to lie to you, tell you I don’t want you. I wish I could simply leave and not come back until I know you’re only dust and memory.”
“You’re hoping I’ll do it for you,” he said. “Tell you I hate you for this, tell you to leave me.”
After a long moment, she nodded wordlessly.
“I can’t.” He was unwilling to cross the small distance between them to touch her. “I’m a selfish man and I’ve had little enough in my life. Stay with me, please. I’m never going to escape Vanar, Pratima. In four months I have to marry Kallah. Give me that much. Stay with me until then.”
“It will cause you problems.”
“I’ll have the rest of my life to regret it.”
“It will cause me problems.”
“Stay anyway,” he said ruthlessly.
For a moment, she looked as if she would refuse, then she nodded slowly.
He didn’t know which of them moved first, but found himself holding on to her tightly, enfolding her with both arms as if she would dissolve if he didn’t. They didn’t make love for a long time after that, but somehow, simply touching each other was more than enough, nearly unbearable.
XVII
THE RAINY SEASON BEGAN EARLY, AND HE WORRIED THE SVAPNAH seeds might be washed away as his experimental plot turned to mud. He drew up plans with painstaking care for a greenhouse in hopes of being permitted to build it. He had tried to interest Aelgar in the plans, explaining his ideas with much enthusiasm but, so far, no effect.
After another wet afternoon spent waiting futilely for Pratima at the kaemahjah, he gave up and started for home. He nearly walked past Lyris huddled under her brightly colored umbrella, his own obstructing his view.
“Hello, Nate.” Her familiar voice stopped him.
He knew who it was before he turned around uneasily. He wondered why Lyris hadn’t come inside the kaemahjah, especially since it was obvious from the state of her sati she’d been waiting outside in the rain for some time.
“Hello, Lyris,” he said finally, keeping his voice neutrally polite. Warm rain pattered against his silk umbrella, running in droplets at the end of the spokes around his head. He was acutely aware of her inspection. Although wet around the hem, his blue sati was folded and tied precisely, the clasp Kallah had given him pinned at the shoulder, the decorative end of the fabric draped correctly over his head. His hair had grown long enough to lay properly across his left shoulder in a plain braid.
“You’re looking well,” Lyris said finally, and laughed, “Almost like a native.” He didn’t answer. Her own red sati was less than immaculate, the mati underneath wrinkled. She wore the subcaptain’s pin he had only seen on her ship’s coveralls as a sati clip. She seemed more uncomfortable and out of place in Vanar dress than he did. “Pratima was attending a conference between the Nga’esha and my mother-line’s Family all afternoon,” she remarked, the malice clear. “You’ve wasted your day.”
“My days are spent trying to improve my Vanar,” he said dryly, “and are never wasted.” He couldn’t he
lp adding, “Jealous?”
She squinted angrily, then smiled with false cheer. “Of course not. You ended it with me long ago. In any case, it’s not like I would be envious of another woman, is it?”
He said stonily, “What do you want, Lyris?”
Her bright smile widened. “To twist the knife, Nathan. What else is there?”
He felt his lips thin tightly against his teeth, and forced himself to smile. “Nice to know you still care. But if you’re finished now, I have things to do.”
He turned away and grimaced as she fell into step beside him. “Oh, but I haven’t even started. I’m leaving tonight, I’ve got a ship to St. Kiranne.” He forced himself to take even steps, keeping his eye on the pockets of rain puddles in the wide street. A taxi hoverfloat whooshed by, inches off the wet street, throwing a small spray like a wake off the prow of a speedboat.
“You’d like St. Kiranne,” Lyris was commenting lightly, her lilting accent flowing over the words like a hint of song. He’d once thought he could listen to that voice forever. “They’ve done such an amazing job of terraforming the place, you’d never know it was just a lifeless rock before. It’s like a tropical rain forest without all the nasty bugs. Flowers bloom everywhere all year round. A whole army of botanists and gaiaists to keep it balanced. And the cities, open, free. People make love in the park in broad daylight. It’s a totally egalitarian, technocratic Republic, you’d love it there—”
“Lyris,” he cut her off, pleased with how bored his voice sounded. “I know where St. Kiranne is. I’ve lived on Vanar almost two years now, and I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the fact I’m a prisoner here. You’ll have to do better than this.”
She danced slightly in front of him, her eyes bright. “I’m so happy you’ve adjusted,” she said, her voice spiteful. “But I also know that sometime next week when you’re sitting on your ass getting stoned while waiting around for that freak lover of yours to grace you with a quick fuck, you’ll be thinking of me. You’ll know I’ll be a hundred light-years away from here. I’ll find myself a cute young thing to share a bottle of wine with in a seaside bistro. I’ll be sitting there knowing you’re thinking of me, and we’ll raise a toast to you, Nathan, trust me.”
