Enigma (11 page)

“I’m glad you waited for us.”

She smiled. “We knew you’d be out before too long. Coulson promised us that. Is Merritt what people call you? It seems too formal for everyday—don’t you have a nickname?”

“Not one I like.”

“Then I’ll call you Merry, and try to see that you are,” she said, then grimaced at her own pun. “What would you like to do first? The grand tour? Lunch? What?”

“Is there a place from which you can see your planet—” He paused, searching his memory. “Does it have a name?”

“After a fashion. Astrography calls it Survey General Catalog 182 Cygnus-4.”

“That seems too formal for everyday,” he parroted. “Doesn’t it have a nickname?”

She laughed easily. “Planets should be named by the people who live on them, don’t you think? And no one lives there.” She paused, then added, “Though some of us think we could.”

“Are you that lonely for natural gravity?”

Her face became serious. “No—for open spaces. For a place to stand facing a world instead of a wall. When I joined, I was thinking about roaming an infinite universe. I never really stopped to realize that I’d be seeing it from inside a series of very finite, fragile bubbles.”

“Sometimes you can forget the bubble’s there,” Thackery said, remembering. “I never have,” she said with regret. “Come on. We’ll go down to the playroom. You can get a good view from there.”

Seen through the binocular telescope mounted at one of the playroom’s viewports, the unnamed world wore a crust of sludgy brown and orange. Forgetting Diana standing beside him, Thackery scanned its undulating surface. He noted the thin arc of atmosphere visible at the sunward limb, studied briefly one of the turgid hydrocarbon fountains, watched the advancing shadow of night race across a lifeless world. But despite his eager yearning to do so, Thackery could not engage his emotions in the viewing.

“Nothing,” he said in a soft sad voice.

“Why do you say that?”

He had not meant to speak aloud, and her question invaded a private space left momentarily unguarded. “Nothing like home,” he said, straightening and turning away from the telescope. She seemed to accept the elaboration at face value. “Does Earth still feel like home to you?”

“Doesn’t it to you?”

“I can’t let it,” she said simply. “Not if I want to be happy here.”

Her honesty demanded an equally self-disclosing answer. “Force of habit,” he said with a weak smile. “At the moment nowhere really feels like home.”

“Until you get on
Descartes?
”

Thackery nodded absently, looking around the playroom. The semi-circular white-walled room was part gymnasium, part resort courtyard. A multiplicity of colored lines on the floor of a sunken central arena attested to the room’s versatility.

“Would you like to see the rest?” Diana asked suddenly.

“The rest?”

“Come on,” she said.

From a compartment adjacent to the playroom, Thackery was led up a ladder into a tunnel bored out of a solid mass of spongy, rough-textured porifoam. Before they had gone a dozen steps the tunnel began to close in on them, driving them to hands and knees in order to continue. Moments later, the station’s gravity fell off dramatically, and their awkward leaden scrabbling became the graceful touch-and-push of the micrograv veteran.

Wondering but unquestioning, Thackery followed Diana through a maze of tees and branch tunnels. They passed tiny alcoves, dove confidently through a many-entranced spherical chamber, and caught glimpses of—but never caught up to—other visitors.

“What is this place?” he called ahead to Diana.

“It’s a good place to get lost—so stay close,” she answered, a playful note in her voice.

At last she stopped, curling through the opening to one of the alcoves. He followed and found her floating in the synglas half of a small surface blister. Behind her was star-glitter and the disc of the bronze planet.

“Close the privacy panel,” she said, her pupils large.

He turned and complied. When he turned back, she had anchored herself with widely-set toeholds. Locking eyes with him she reached up to her throat, and the top of her jumpsuit fell open to bare soft skin. A moment later, she undid in one smooth motion the long zipper which ran from instep to groin to instep. Underneath was all Diana.

“I hope you like this view better,” she said.

After fifty-nine days of celibacy, he didn’t question his luck. She was supple, hot-skinned, lubricious, and he came to her eagerly. They tasted each other, explored each other’s contours, then joined in a coupling prolonged and intensified by the restraint forced on them by the absence of gravity. Thackery took from her a pleasure uncomplicated and untarnished, and she took the same from him in a mutual selfishness which left both satisfied and neither cheated.

“Tell me about the last time you saw home,” she whispered afterward, clinging to his shoulder. He chewed at his lip as he thought back. “When
Tycho
left Unity—”

“No—not from orbit,” she said quickly. “The last time you were there.”

Thackery thought back farther. “I’d gone downwell to tell my mother that I was joining Survey, and to be with her. She took it badly, so I had some extra time. I went down to Cape May. I walked along the breakwater in front of the old gingerbread houses, and on the beach at the point.”

She dug her fingers into his arm. “Make me see it.”

Thackery closed his eyes to help sharpen the memory. “There was a strong breeze off the bay, and the smell of the salt marshes. Green-head flies were biting. There was a charter fishing boat coming in, with a flock of gulls following off the stern, begging for an easy meal. The sand was hot, even through my shoes, so I took them off and walked along the tideline with the sandpipers. I found a horseshoe crab shell, with the tail and three of the legs still attached.” He opened his eyes and smiled wistfully. “I wanted to bring it along, but it didn’t survive the sterilization procedures.”

“That’s a good last time.”

“I guess it is. I wasn’t planning it as one. It’s just a place I liked to go.”

“I know.” She pulled away from him and began to restore her clothing to its previous tidy state. “We have to go clear out your cabin on
Tycho
.”

“Why?” he asked, reluctantly following her lead and dressing himself.

“They’ll be starting to strip the hold soon.”

“Where will I stay?”

She slid the privacy panel into its hideaway, then looked back at him with head cocked to one side. “Didn’t I tell you? You stay with me tonight.”

When they reached her room, they fell into each others’ arms again. This time she urged him to a harsh vigor with whispered entreaties, opened herself for him and invited his entry,—clutched at him and made little moaning cries as they drove their loins together. Under her spell, Thackery disengaged his mind and lived through his senses, his nostrils full of her scent, his eyes fixed on her rapturous face.

And again, when they were spent she clung to him and wanted to talk. “I picked you out, you know,” she said with uncharacteristic shyness.

“How’s that?”

“When your crew data came in, they called in the volunteers and let us pick whom we wanted to escort. I picked you.”

“I can’t imagine why—but I’m glad you did,” he said, bending over and planting a kiss on her forehead.

Snuggling in closer, she coaxed him to talk about himself. He told her about Georgetown and Tsiolkovsky, about
Babbage
and
Descartes
, even about McShane and Andra, though that was difficult. He even tried to explain about Jupiter, though so awkwardly that she seemed not to understand.

At last, arm benumbed and eyelids drooping, he yawned convincingly enough that she turned off the light. But his thinking was clouded by a lingering testosterone high and the happy fatigue in his limbs, and he slipped away without realizing he had learned nothing of her at all.

Seated on
Tycho
’s nearly deserted bridge, Neale watched as a trio of waldoids unshipped the
Tycho
’s gig from the port cargo pod and nudged it free. The whole process seemed painfully slow, like everything the Cygnans did. It had taken the work crew four days to clear the hold, and only now were they beginning to transfer to it the equipment which had been stored away in the temporary hull blisters amidships. Yet Tamm, who had been so impatient to begin the mission, seemed not to mind at all that the original seven-day schedule was already being projected out to ten days—

“Ali?”

Neale turned away from the monitor and saw that it was Rogen who had interrupted her. “Yes?”

“Coulson has been trying to locate you.”

“I know.”

“He wants to talk about the personnel transfer—to go over some candidates for our opening.”

“I know.” She saw his look of consternation and added, “I’ve been avoiding him. I can’t stomach the man.”

“Tom Dunn keeps prodding me to get it settled, so he can start breaking in the new awk.”

She sighed. “I know. I suppose I have no choice. Any problems with the rest of the crew? Anything else I need to talk to Coulson about?”

“No problems.”

“No problems with the locals?”

Rogen’s smile was almost a smirk. “Hardly, sir.”

“Accommodations satisfactory?”

“More than. I’ve never seen the crew this happy, the men especially. They’re going to hate to leave. But they’ll be glad for the rest, if you know what I mean.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “I don’t. Explain yourself.”

A trapped look appeared on Rogen’s face. “Well, I’m sure it’s no surprise to you, eh? Didn’t you work out the arrangements with Coulson?”

“What arrangements are those?”

“The Cygnan escorts—Commander, you had to know. Commander Tamm knows about it.”

“Knows what?” Rogen spread his hands, embarrassed. “That they’ve been more than friendly. My girl, Kiena—well, hell, you’d expect some of it just because of the new faces. Coolidge effect, eh? But they act like they’ve been going without.”

“Son-of-a-bitch suit slitter!” she exclaimed, coming to her feet. “Curse me for a goddamn fool. Where’s Coulson?”

“He paged me from his office, I think.”

“Call him! Tell him to park his freezin’ ass until I get there. Those words exactly, hear me?”

Wayne Coulson wore the sanguine expression of an overconfident matador as he awaited Neale’s charge. Arrayed comfortably in a reclining chair with his feet up and a drink at his hand, he waved Neale into his office with the air of a gracious monarch.

“Am I suitably parked?” Coulson asked sardonically.

“Your people are screwing my people,” Neale said bluntly.

Coulson reached for his drink. “You sound surprised. Didn’t they believe in sex on
Dove?
”

“Your women are fertile,” she accused. “We hope so. Most of the menstrual cycles are in sync, and your arrival timed out perfectly.”

“Damn it, I should have known when you talked about having brats. But I assumed you’d at least be planning the births, not just throwing the whole thing wide open.”

“We did plan it. We went over your personnel files and let each woman choose among the hets in both your crews.”

“That’s damned mechanical, don’t you think?”

“Let’s not be puritanical, Commander. They’d have been bouncing the beds anyway just for novelty. What matter if there’s a practical side, too?”

“What practical side?”

“Why, doubling our gene pool right at the outset, of course. Commander, an Advance Base is not a ship. We’re going to try our damnedest to be a normal community.”

“A community of liars. Or do our men know what’s going on?”

“No. Why should they?”

“My people deserved the right to say no.”

“I can assure you no one was dragged into this against his will.”

“How about her will? What kind of woman would let herself be used this way?”

Coulson shook his head back and forth slowly. “Commander, I guess you’ve never discovered it, but being pregnant isn’t all nuisance and misery. Having a baby is a beautiful experience. I didn’t twist any arms.”

“But you weren’t honest. You’ve turned my people into freezin’ sperm donors.”

“We think this is the best way. We accept the responsibility of raising any children that result from this… exercise. If you tell your crew, what will it gain you? You’ll sour what for most of them has been a very pleasant experience, and fill their minds with thoughts of the son or daughter that maybe they’re leaving behind.”

She turned her back on him for a moment. “I hate agreeing with you on anything, but you’re right about that. I won’t tell them,” she said finally. “But I want
Descartes
brought to the dock within twenty-four hours.”

“Or what?”

“Hmm?”

“If you were my superior, that would be an order. But you’re not, so it must be the first half of a threat.” Neale cast about for a suitably large stick. “I’ll report this to Unity—”

“You’re so proper you’re going to do that anyway,” Coulson interrupted casually. “Besides, by the time they receive the report and can do anything about it I’ll be dead of old age. Face it, Alizana. You can’t move me and you can’t remove me. So why don’t you relax, and stop being so damned jealous.”

“Jealous!”

“Of course. Whether you’re jealous of the men or the women is the only question I can’t answer. Want to give me a clue?”

“You’re a shit, Coulson.”

“When it’s to my advantage, Commander. Now—shall we talk about finding you a replacement Auxiliary?”

It was Diana’s hands fondling his hardness that woke Thackery, drew him slowly and pleasurably up out of a dream that briefly blended with reality. He reached for her but she brushed aside his touch and moved to straddle him.

“Let me,” she whispered, and lowered herself on him. She rode him with a gentle rocking motion that, all too soon, ended in wet shuddering spasms.

“That wasn’t fair,” he complained good-naturedly as they held hands. “You rushed me.”

“We didn’t have much time, and I wanted to look at you,” she said tenderly. “You’re being called back to
Tycho
.”

“What? What for?”