Alternate Realities (9 page)

I wiped the last trace of tears from off his face and he did not blink. I leaned close and kissed him again.

“It does no good,” he said.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said, and I didn’t. I just held him and hurt for him like my own heart was breaking, because they made me that way, my psych-set was involved, and I couldn’t help him. “It’s a very old story,” I whispered, prattling on because I knew his whole reality was upset and I had to make it make sense to him or he was in trouble. “It’s the lady’s fancy, that tape; and so she named us what she did when she bought us, and maybe there’s a little truth in the names—because she did think about which she gave to whom, after all, and
she’s
read our psych-sets—But it’s a joke, Lance, it’s our lady’s joke, a play, a thing from very long ago and some world with nothing to do with ours. You understand that? It’s not
ours
. The
Maid
is just a dream Dela takes up when she’s bored. You’ve always known that, and it’s always true. How long have you been with her?”

“Twenty years.”

And me with my five, I was going to tell him what truth was. That long he had belonged to her: I had had no idea it could have been so many years, or I had never added it up and thought. Thirty-six. He had been sixteen when he came to her. That long he had been fixed on her, and Dela was all his life ... always Dela, Dela, like some guidance star his whole self was locked onto. Lover after lover she took—but Lance was always waiting when love was done.

Love—not us. Ours was a tape-fixed complex of compulsions and avoidances; pain if we turned away from our duty ... pain, and guilt; and this horrible twisting inside, at any thought of losing what we were fixed to, and created to do.

And there was deep irony in it all, because Elaine—the real Elaine, the one realer than I—had destroyed herself trying to turn Lancelot’s love to herself, when it was fixed on Guinevere: she had to try, because in the story Elaine was fixed on him and he on his lady, and that made sense within my frame of reference. I was not supposed to fix on him, but pain always went straight to my gut and made me try to stop it; and he had the most pain of anyone aboard.

That was what had happened to me when I saw him hurting like this. And because I had done this to him myself, that settled a horrible guilt on me. I lay there thinking desperately that maybe I ought to get up and go to our lady and tell her what I had done, but that was bound to bring down one of her rages, and I didn’t see how it could help Lance either. The last thing he wanted, I was sure, was for Dela to find out how much he knew or that he had failed with me just now.

I had a sense of empathy: it was my training; and I put myself in Lance’s place, who had always to endure these voyages in which the rest of us took pleasure, endure them and wait for Dela to tire of her new lovers and to come back to him, which she always had. But there was no coming back from this voyage; and Griffin was not getting off the ship, ever. Where that led in Lance’s poor mind, I was afraid to follow. I remembered how strong he was, and I knew how desperate he was, and I knew that Griffin was both strong himself and could get desperate as this place fretted at him—and that scared me beyond wanting to think about it. One of us could never raise a hand to a born-man. An avoidance was built into us which would send us hurtling into blank long before the hand left our side.

But Griffin was dangerous. My lady had always fancied dangerous men, because there was very little in this world she could not control or predict, and she liked her games wild and enjoyed a certain feeling of risk.

It had never occurred to me before that Lance himself was dangerous. He had been there too long, too quietly, was too much one of us, bowing his head, taking even blows, accepting the worst that ever my lady’s associates chose to do—

My lady chose dangerous men, and this one had been with her for twenty years, pretty as he was, and while it was always Modred strangers stepped aside for, with his dark and cold face—

Something had snapped in Lance. Maybe it would heal. Maybe like Vivien, who had gone in a single day from managing my lady’s accounts to being in charge of the hydroponics which were going to keep us all alive, he would do some kind of transference and pull himself out of it. He still shivered now and again, and the look on his face stopped being pain and became a lock-jawed stare at the ceiling. He blinked sometimes, so it was not a blank; and the eyes were lively, so he was thinking, in that place inside his skull to which he had gone. But his face that had always been sad was something else now, as if there had been some harsh wind blowing that he was staring into, and I was not even there.

I never was, for him. That part of the story was true.

And finally he decided he would stop thinking about whatever it was, and he got up and got dressed, while I decided I had better take the tape and hide it somewhere until I could get it to Modred, before something worse happened.

“Don’t,” Lance said, holding my hand with the tape in it.

“It’s got to go back. I’ll take it to Modred.”

“He can run a copy. Can’t he?” He took the tape from me.
He
put it away, in his locker. I stood watching and reckoning that he was caught in it now like I was. He would listen to it again, and it would become his as it was mine. I shared it now, like it or not.

“I wish you’d asked before coming in on me,” I said.

He turned and lifted his hand to my face, touched my cheek. It was a strange gesture, for him. I could see him doing it to Dela. Then he hugged me against him like the old friend I was to him. “Don’t tell her I couldn’t,” he asked of me.

“Of course I won’t,” I said. “Bed with me and sleep a while. It’ll be different. You’re tired, that’s all.”

But it wasn’t different, and then I was really frightened for him; and I knew that he was scared. There began to be an even worse look on his face, that was not merely sadness, but torment, and worse still for the likes of us—anger.

He was gone the next morning, after breakfast. The whole ship was about such routine as existed in such circumstances, the crew trying to get their own equipment into order, checking out things that they knew how to do, and there had been no emergencies. Dela took to her bed again, and Griffin stayed mostly about the sitting room, what time he was not poking into things about the control room, the monitor station, and the observation dome, bedeviling the crew with worry over what he might do—grim and scowling all the while, with Dela taking pills for her nerves. A second day in this place, all too much as novel as the first, any time anyone wanted to look at the horror on the screens, and watch the acid light eating through our neighbors, or to look out on that vast dead wheel which held us all to its mass. Dela called for
that tape
, and my heart stopped; but the original, at least, was back where it belonged: Lance had seen to that, so we were safe. And soon my lady slept the deepsleep, lost in the dream.

Vivien was up and about her new business, keeping Percivale busy finding this and that for her out of storage. She had appropriated a large space topside, a private queendom into which she had brought loads of stored tanks and pipe and electronics over which Percivale sweated. So all of us were accounted for.

Except Lance, to Vivien’s extreme pique.

There was no one else who had reason to think anything might be amiss. He might even be off about the lady’s instructions. And Modred or others of the crew might know where he was, since he must have been on the bridge getting that duplicate tape run sometime around breakfast ... but I was afraid to ask questions and make much of his absence.

I searched ... quietly, between duties I had to do, between fetching Vivien this and that. And I found him finally, in almost the last place I thought to look before starting on the topside holds ... in the gym that lay bow-ward of the galley, all by himself, drenched in sweat despite the cold in there.

I stood there in the open doorway with my heart beating hard with relief. He saw me. He said nothing, only walked on over to another of the machines and meddled with it, by which I decided he didn’t want to say anything, or see anyone. He started up his exercise again as if he could force his body to do what it ought by making it stronger. Or maybe that wasn’t his reason. In any event he should hardly be here when others had duties ... but I was far from saying so.

I closed the door again, walked away to the galley, figuring that the crew might appreciate something hot to drink about now. I tried to do something useful—and all the while Lance’s look kept gnawing at me, dark and sullen.

The lift worked, not far away from the galley. I heard someone come down, and went to the door, expecting maybe Percy, who was coming and going on Viv’s errands. It was a man’s tread.

I met Griffin.

Maybe fright showed. He looked at me and frowned, and I vacated the doorway, letting him in. “Have you seen Lancelot?” he asked, setting my heart pounding afresh. “They said he might be around the gym.”

I cursed them all, the crew—who had sent Griffin down here, to get him off their necks up there, I reckoned. I even tried to think of a lie; but he was a born-man and his frown turned my bones to jelly. I nodded meekly, found a tray and some cups to occupy my sight and my hands. “I was going to make a snack, sir. Would you like?”

“You think we have enough to be making up meals off-schedule?”

I looked at him, already unnerved; and yes, I had thought of it, but the crew had needs, and the lady had given no orders. Griffin couldn’t tell me what to do. He was a guest, not giving orders for my lady. But he had that kind of voice that made muscles flinch whether they wanted to or not. “They’ve been working hard up there,” I said, “by your leave, sir. Would you like some?”

“No. They’re not working up there. Except doing the hydroponics setup. That.” His eyes raked around the galley as if he were hunting for fault. “I’ll be in the gym,” he said then. “If Dela asks.”

“Sir,” I murmured, eyes lowered, a quick turn toward him. He left. I leaned on the counter a moment, not wanting now to do what I had set out to do as an excuse; but I was afraid to follow him.

I busied myself after a moment, not hearing him come back, made the coffee and took it up. It was what master Griffin had said, that there was not much going on about the bridge. The hateful screens stayed the same. Gawain was there alone. Modred and Lynn were out in the observation bubble—strange to have everyone on the same shift, but when I thought about it, it was not as if we would be needing the mainday/alterday rotation. Not here. Gawain called the others, and they were glad of the coffee; Percy and Viv came too, Percy in sweat-stained coveralls and Viv in a neat beige suit.

“Is Lance
fixing
something down there?” Viv asked, and then I knew who might have told Griffin, if she had found it out to tell. I frowned. “He was working over the machines,” I said without a flicker. Lance had problems enough without being dragooned into Viv’s merciless service. “I think he’s busy.”

“Huh,” Vivien said, and sipped her coffee.

“What did Griffin want?” I asked. “To use the gym?”

“He asked where Lance was,” Percy said.

“I’d been looking for him,” I said.

“Griffin?”

“Lance.”

“Could have asked,” Modred said.

I fretted, sipped my own coffee. “I’d think he’d have come back by now.”

“Griffin? He’s been everywhere this morning. Insisted to have us explain controls to him.”

“He’s handled insystem craft,” Gawain said tartly. “He says. Elaine—drop a word to my lady. The
Maid
isn’t in a position we can afford difficulties. You understand.”

“I’ll try,” I said, looking at my coffee instead of at the screens, with their terrible red images. “I’ll do it when she wakes up.”

It made me cold, that worry of Gawain’s, and this restlessness of Griffin’s. Griffin, who was down in the gym; with Lance—in his frame of mind.—Why aren’t you working? I could, hear Griffin asking Lance, meddling-wise. What are you doing down here? And I could see Lance with that sullenness in his expression, that hurt that was there, exploding—

I put my cup empty onto the tray. Gawain did. The others lingered drinking theirs, so I had no excuse to go. “I think I may have left a switch on in the galley,” I said.

“Comp can check it,” Percy said.

I abandoned excuses and left the bridge, forgetting the tray, hurried to the lift and rode it back down to the lowermost level, walked quickly down the dim corridor forward.

The gym door was open. I walked into that echoing place with its exercise machines and its padded walls, hearing grunts and crashes, and my heart stopped in me, seeing the two of them, Lance and Griffin, locked in fighting. And then I saw them more clearly, that they were wrestling, stripped down. They grappled and shifted for advantage. It was sport, a game.

—and not. They struggled, bled where fingers gripped, strained and heaved strength against strength. Muscles shivered and shifted blinding quick. They broke, panting, eye to eye, shifted and charged again, seeking new advantage, making the echoes ring. Both were sleek with sweat, both matched height for height and reach for reach, in weight and width of shoulder and length of arm and leg. Dark head beside bright, olive skin next golden, they turned and moved and strained, locked in a grip that neither one would give up, and I ached watching it, turned half away, for it seemed that bones and joints must crack ... looked again, and they seemed blind to all else, still locked, glassy-eyed, each trying to make the other yield. A born-man, in contest with one of us. And that one of us could fight a born-man, even in sport—

I knew why Lance wrestled, and what he fought, and I was cold inside.

Lance, O Lance, it’s not a game.

Not for either of them.

“Griffin,” I cried. “Master Griffin!—I think you should see my lady. She’s been locked away too long. Please come.”