Fighting Gravity (15 page)

When I arrived at the playing field Pete wasn’t there yet. I began warming up and stretching but I ignored everyone around me.

When Pete did come in he was, if anything, interacting with me even less than normal, which wasn’t much to begin with. He didn’t meet my eye and only offered a quick greeting when he passed.

He named off two team captains and we began to divide up. I was selected for the team that Pete was not on. That was normal because, in spite of what they thought of me, it was obvious that I was the one person willing to play my best against Pete, ignoring his title and instead seeing the position he held on the field. So I was assigned to play opposite him.

The game for the day was soccer and the teams were well chosen. At one point, as Pete drove the ball down the field, my defense caused him to slip and go down. I took advantage, stole the ball, and turned that into a goal for my team. We did our whooping and hollering but Pete stormed over, planted his hands on my chest, and shoved me so hard that I stumbled a few feet backward.

“Watch where you’re going, will you?” he spat.

I shoved him back. “What the hell is your problem?”

Silence fell over the entire group. I didn’t need to look around to know that everyone was watching. Pete was staring at me, anger still boiling below his expression but overwritten for the moment by shock. I growled, glaring at him, and dropped to one knee, bowing my head. “Forgive me, Your Excellence, I forgot myself.”

I waited. He made a disgusted noise. “Oh, get up.” He traded positions with a lordling on the other side of the formation and demanded, “Well, play!”

The man who’d come to take Pete’s position across from me regarded me with a mixture of amazement and grudging respect. “Either you’ve got a pair the size of an elephant’s or you’re the stupidest man I’ve ever met.”

I snorted, too angry to be amused. I jerked my head in Pete’s direction. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we.”

He just shook his head.

-

Play resumed but no one was paying much attention. Pete’s team won in the end. My teammates practically helped them. When the game was over, Pete left without a word. I wasn’t far behind but in the opposite direction. Hard glares radiated against my back.

I returned to the lab after showering. I managed to be somewhat productive but I was distracted. I didn’t go to dinner that night. I was angry and didn’t trust myself.

Dinner had been over for at least a couple of hours when the door to the lab opened and Pete entered. He stood there without saying a word, but there was no anger or frustration in his face. If anything, he looked embarrassed. He came over to the stool where I sat, and I pulled him to me so that he was between my legs, my arms around him. “What was that, today?” I asked.

He sighed. “I’m sorry about that. I’ve been on edge all week.”

I shrugged. “It’s nothing. I’ve been irritable too. More than irritable really. Moody. Ask Jonathan. He’s probably sick of me now.” I put my forehead to his chest. “This is harder than I thought it would be,” I admitted.

He put his head on mine; I felt him nod. “But you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like to be you, just that my life is very, very different. If you say that going public would be bad for you, well, you would know.”

We held each other. I wanted to disagree with him, tell him that I was being stupid and that I wanted a real relationship more than I wanted to stay out of the spotlight for all the right reasons. But I didn’t.

“I just need time,” I said, willing it to be true. He nodded again. I lifted my head and kissed him.

We didn’t use the lab for its intended purpose that night. There was, between us, the unspoken acknowledgement that we were going to make the most of this, our only time together.

fg
16

Weeks passed; months. Subtle changes crept into our public lives as I lost the fight against the pull of Pete’s personal gravity. On the playing field he dropped the pretense of indifference. From time to time we’d joke around in a casual manner that earned us puzzled looks or vicious glares from the others.

He included me in the reception for the delegation from the amphibious Naxari. He explained it away as a safety precaution. Since our atmosphere was deadly to them, and vice versa, but they got claustrophobic in enviro suits, the reception was conducted on separate sides of a glass wall with accommodations made for sound to pass between the two groups.

I pointed out to him that most people knew the difference between a physicist and a biologist. He pointed out that the rooms obviously had special seals or something that I would know about. I rolled my eyes at him, but secretly I was pleased and fascinated.

Two or three times, when there was some special entertainment scheduled, he invited me to join him after dinner. That was worse than the games; while the actual programs were nice, the difference between the other guests and me was more obvious in the formal setting, and the general shunning more blatant.

Pete had trouble stomaching the treatment I received from those around him, but to defend me would have made people wonder. What little he did only made things worse anyway. When he made an effort to talk to me or in some way emphasize the point that I was his invited guest, the others only made more of an effort when he was around and less when he wasn’t.

I assured him that I didn’t mind, or at least, that I was inured to it. It did bother me. I would have preferred not to go to the more formal functions, but I went. It was my concession to the much larger role Pete wanted me to play in his life.

It became easier, with time, to deal with the self-inflicted separation. Routine wore away hurt and resentment. We even did some lab work now and then.

As we got closer to our return to Earth, Pete began to hint that things would have to change. The first time we talked about it, he asked me if I still wanted to be reassigned to the IIC. I thought he was only asking in order to prove he’d learned a lesson from having reassigned me unilaterally the last time. When I saw the relief on his face when I told him I didn’t want to go, I realized he hadn’t been sure of me at all.

With that question out of the way, his references to our future became more circumspect. He would mention how much less time he’d have once we returned to the palace, how little he’d be able to visit my lab. He talked about how many more people would be around, how much more scrutiny he’d be under. I listened and nodded but didn’t comment.

I wanted more for the two of us as much as he did, but I’d come to the uncomfortable realization that our relationship wasn’t the only thing that would change. While we remained a secret, I was still Jacob Dawes the physicist. I’d worked hard for that, to get people to see
me
, not just where I was from. If I gave in to what Pete—what we both—wanted, I wouldn’t be Jacob Dawes anymore. I’d be The Guy Who’s Sleeping With the Emperor.

But the closer we got to Earth, the more it began to feel that he was already being taken away from me, and it became harder to remember what I was afraid of.

Still I waited. I had another reason: Kirti. I could reconcile myself to what all of this meant for me, but in the end, Kirti was going to be hurt no matter what I did. She was far too important to me to not do everything I could to salvage our friendship. She would be hurt, furious. But I owed it to her to tell her in person.

Of course, the whole Empire would know about us three point five seconds after someone figured it out. If I didn’t wait until after I’d seen her to make any public appearance with Pete, it was possible that she’d hear of us the way most would: old fashioned gossip.

But the IIC, in many ways, was a world unto itself. The focus and value system of the place put little importance on the frivolous goings on of the outside world. A matter of pure social gossip, no matter how important a person it pertained to, could go unknown at the IIC for weeks. I couldn’t count on her not hearing of us, but the odds were in my favor.

My gut twisted with guilt when I thought of Kirti. Still, there was no way to undo what had been done. I didn’t want to, anyway.

-

It was little more than a week before we were to land, and I decided it was time. Pete and I were working in the lab that night, closing down one of the remaining experiments. He moved to stand behind me. Sliding his arms around my waist, he put his mouth to my ear. “Let’s take a break,” he murmured.

“Mmmm.” I smiled, melting back into him. He took my hand and began to lead me toward the couch but I didn’t move.

“What?”

I shook my head. “Let’s go to your room.”

He stared at me, incredulous, and then beamed.

“Really?” he whispered. He moved back to me, pulling me close, searching my eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He grinned like a boy on his birthday and, taking my hand again, led me to the door. He dropped my hand before we left the room, but I was glad about that. Deciding to take our relationship public and shocking everyone with sudden and unexpected public displays of affection were quite different things.

We walked together, an air of electric excitement between us. Before long we entered a section I’d never been in, the area reserved for the nobility. It was still early enough in the night that we passed several individuals and couples in the hall. They all stared; their attempts to pretend otherwise ranged from impressive to pathetic. No one knew what to make of an unclass in their section with the emperor himself. We passed through a double doorway into an exclusive section of the exclusive section. “The Imperial area,” Pete said. “No one comes in here unless I invite them.”

“Do you invite people often?”

“Never.”

That explained the open mouthed expressions on the last couple we’d passed. There was a huge set of doors just past the entrance and Pete led me through those.

And I realized that all those months I’d thought I was giving careful consideration to becoming a part of Pete’s life, I hadn’t even had the first concept of what Pete’s life was like.

There was enough space in those rooms for twenty emperors.

There was a dining room for a dozen important people who never got invited, and a guest bathroom for those never-invited guests.

The bed looked like it would swallow us alive. The bathtub was a pond in the middle of a tile meadow.

The only place I felt I could catch my breath was a small room off the main, an old-fashioned library. There was only one chair, a lamp, and small table before a lit fireplace. Rows of books covered each wall, their colored spines like so many dropped crayons.

Pete was watching me as I wandered through the rooms, his face amused.

“It’s…incredible.”

He shrugged. “It’s supposed to be.”

He started to take off his jacket and a pair of servants stepped forward. I let one of them help me out of my jacket but I was uneasy, and Pete took on a thoughtful look as he watched me.

“Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all for tonight,” he dismissed them.

I watched them leave through a door out in the sitting room. When they were gone Pete approached me and, standing closer than was necessary for the task, began to unbutton my shirt. “I thought you’d be used to having a servant by now,” he said.

I thought about that. “Jonathan’s never been around when I was intending to take someone to bed.”

Pete’s smile was suggestive. “Don’t do that often?”

“Never,” I answered, pulling him against me. “But I plan on doing something about that.”

His grin widened. “So do I.”

-

I woke the next morning to find Pete still asleep beside me. In defiance of the monstrous bed, we were both tangled together at one edge, my arm thrown over his chest. I lay still, reveling in the sheer peace and contentment of waking beside him. I would have kicked myself for having kept us from this for so long if I hadn’t been too happy to feel anything else.

I wasn’t awake for long before he stirred and opened his eyes. A slow smile spread across his face when he met mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The puzzled furrow appeared between his eyebrows.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” I said.

He shrugged. “This is a big deal. Your life is going to change as soon as you walk out that door.”

“It’s worth it.” I leaned over and kissed him. A long, luxurious kiss. I lay my head on his arm when we stopped for breath.

“Pete, I’d like to go back to the IIC.” He drew in a sharp, quick breath, tensing. “No, no, not like that,” I chuckled. “I mean, I want to visit. I’d like to take the samples and results of my work here.”

“When?”

“As soon as we get back; that day or the next. I’d like to stay a couple of weeks, I think. That should be enough.”

He nodded without comment and was quiet again.

“I love you,” he murmured.

I smiled. “I know. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

He pushed me over onto my back and it was us, together. Nothing else mattered. I have few memories that compare to the one of that morning.

-

We had breakfast in a “little” breakfast room, our table set near the window-wall looking out at the field of stars.

We were almost finished eating when he asked, “Do you want me to have your things moved here, or do you want to keep your room?”

I didn’t need to think about it, I’d decided to take the plunge and halfway down was a stupid place to try to stop.

“I don’t think I need my own room, do I? I’ve got plans for you that will keep us up pretty late. I may be too tired to go anywhere after that.”

He grinned.

fg
17

We left the room together but parted while we were still in the nobles’ section of the ship. His office was down one of the hallways there. I was almost back to the public part of the ship when I stumbled onto Duke Blaine. He was leaving a room that I would learn belonged to a minor but lovely noblewoman. His face registered shock, then annoyance, but settled on anger.