Gateway To Xanadu (12 page)

Then you slide it open in the normal way.”

The compartment now showed weapons again, and Val had no trouble bringing the same up on the end compartment. It was a simple little trick, but it kept snoops, official or otherwise, out of places they didn’t belong. I closed my compartment again and so did Val, then I climbed to my feet.

“You’d better get your cabin closed before we go into anything else,” I told him, kicking off my deck shoes and starting to open my ship’s suit. “If someone walks off with my knife, I’ll take it out of your hide. We’ll continue with the lessons after I’ve had a shower.”

I left the ship’s suit where it fell and headed toward my bathroom, paying no attention to the way Val was looking up at me. I recognized that look from the two-month trip we’d so recently completed, but as I’d told him earlier, play time was over and business was our first concern. The bathroom was really small as far as liner accommodations go, but the shower cubicle was more than twice the size of the one I’d used so long on the ship, and it felt downright spacious. As soon as I had the door closed I turned the water bar on, and then was again standing under a falls on a planet with air and sunshine and open spaces all around.

I was just about ready to add soap to the water when the cubicle door opened, startling me. I began to turn automatically toward I-didn’t-know-what, when a big, naked body squeezed its way in, pushing me toward the cubicle’s far wall.

“I closed my cabin and your knife is still perfectly safe,” Val said, looking down at me through the warm, streaming water. “Just to be sure, though, I brought my hide back in case you had any other use for it.”

“Val, we’re on assignment now,” I said in exasperation, pushing my wet hair back so that I could look up at him. “From now on we have business to consider, and mixing business with pleasure is . . . . ”

“One way of making business more pleasurable,” he interrupted, moving even closer and putting his hands to my arms. “Have I ever told you how good you look soaking wet?”

“No, you haven’t,” I muttered, discovering that it was impossible to back away from those caressing palms. “As a matter of fact, I could have survived without hearing it this time. Val, you have your own shower in your own cabin, and I’d appreciate it if . . . . ”

“We use that next time,” he murmured, sliding his hands behind me to pull me against him. “I can’t see any problem with that, but only if it’s as nice as this one. This shower is so-soft. ”

That all depended on how you looked at it. From my particular point of view there was nothing soft at all, not the big, wet body I was pressed to, not the thick, wet arms holding me, and especially not the very evident interest that was searching me out. My hands went to those arms as my breasts pressed into wet, black chest hair, and I looked up into deep, unwavering black eyes.

“Val, we’re on assignment,” I nearly begged, silently damning the fact that once those hands touched me I was a goner. “You can’t . . . ”

“Walk away from it now,” he interrupted for the third and last time, tightening the hold he had on me.

“But if you want me to, I will, Diana. Tell me you want me to walk away and I’ll do it.”

His head came down in the pouring water, and his lips made sure I wouldn’t be telling him anything for a while. I put my arms around his neck as his hands began moving all over me, the sensations I felt forcing me into demanding his lips as strongly as he was demanding mine. I knew I was a damned fool for not standing my ground, but after all, he was already there . . . .

Our travel time to Xanadu O.S. disappeared behind hours of work getting Val prepared for what would be coming at him in the course of a normal, uneventful day. The hardest part turned out to be figuring out what he didn’t know, which could be something as insignificant as how to press an annunciator tab, all the way up to handling a planet-bound or atmosphere vehicle. We took care of the driving and flying parts by deciding he was much too good to do his own menial labor, and also added him to that large group of Federation citizens who knew nothing about Federation politics and cared even less. “Why would I care?” became an integral part of his vocabulary of phrases, but that didn’t cover things like making phone calls, knowing how much to tip human servants, or using public bathrooms. Everything I took for granted and did without even thinking about had to be examined, and then we ventured out of our cabins to find things we’d missed and practice ones we hadn’t. By shifting our day-night schedule we avoided most of those people we’d taken the shuttle with, and thereby avoided the trouble my cute idea could have brought.

Or, at least we avoided most of it. The majority of our shuttle companions stayed with the schedule they’d been following on Faraway Station, shifting only slightly to accommodate themselves to the nearest major liner schedule. Val and I took a minor schedule, eating at the tail end of the six-hour meal slot of whatever meal we were having, and then wandering around the ship during the time Faraway people would be sleeping through their “night.” During Faraway “daytime” we did our own sleeping-as well as one or two other things that my partner considered essential to his health and well-being. He laughed off my few half-hearted attempts to keep him on his own bed by saying the assignment would not really start until we reached Xanadu O.S., then distracted me with a question on something important. His casual taking over direction of my in-bed activities annoyed me, but there was no time to argue the thing through with him. We needed every minute we had for getting him acquainted with Federation ways, and I decided that once we were on Xanadu and out of each others’ laps, closing the door in his face would be a lot easier. The distraction he provided bothered me, but once I began closing in on my target, no outside distractions would have a chance of getting through to me.

“That assignment is more important to me than I am,” I said, lowering myself into a seat with my back to the man who insisted on being my partner. “Some people call it dedication, but most have trouble understanding the attitude. They’ve never been in the sort of situation I’m usually in, you see, where hundreds or thousands of lives can be lost if I screw up. That sort of thing makes you very dedicated very quickly, and the attitude carries over even to assignments -like the one we have now. It isn’t a habit I’m willing to try breaking, so if you’re feeling put-upon you can ask Ringer to find you another partner.

I prefer working alone anyway.”

I kicked off my deck shoes and pulled my feet up into the chair, finding it just wide enough to let me sit cross-legged as ,I usually- preferred doing. There was a thick, unresponsive silence behind me, the sort of silence my “uncaring” attitude toward my co-workers often brought me, and then Val came around to stand in front of my chair.

“Most people don’t understand dedication,” he said very quietly, drawing my eyes up to the sobriety looking down at me. “All they understand is how hard it is to live with someone who has it. And there’s no question about it being hard. I’m sure you don’t run into many who are willing to put up with it.”

“No, you don’t,” I answered shortly, looking away from him again as I wondered why he needed such an elaborate preface to announcing that he’d rather partner with someone else after all.

“It sounded as though you’d made that same offer to other people at other times,” he pursued, still trying to lead up to it gracefully. “Many of them take you up on it, did they?”

“Enough,” I said, looking around the cabin as I began feeling bored and a little tired. It was almost our

“night,” and the thought of sleep was starting to be appealing.

“Enough to make you feel that working alone is the better bargain?” he asked, still relentlessly pursuing whatever point he was trying to make. “Enough to make you expect the offer to be accepted more often than it’s turned down?”

“Look, Val, being one of the majority isn’t something that should upset you,” I said, getting abruptly out of the chair while still looking around the cabin. “I know it’s shattering to the male ego to learn that a female considers other things more important than him, but you’ll get over the shock faster if you admit straight out that you don’t like the idea. The admission will help you to think of all sorts of more important things that you could be doing, and then you’ll see how appealing the thought of being somewhere else is. Before you know it you’ll be a lot happier than you are now, and we can both get on with what has to be done. Have a good night’s sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

I began to turn away from him, knowing he’d find his way out fast enough once there was no one in front of him to protest his changed position to, but a big hand was suddenly wrapped around my right arm. I glanced up at him, really not in the mood for any more back and forth, and was surprised to see what looked like pain in his eyes.

“I don’t like the idea of you considering other things more important than I am,” he said, holding both of my arms as he looked down at me. “No other woman has ever dismissed me from consideration the way you do, and I sure as hell don’t like it. But that doesn’t mean I intend walking away in disgruntlement to soothe my bruised ego, it only means I intend doing something to change the situation. Just what that something will be I don’t know yet, but walking away won’t be a part of it.”

“If you’re thinking of me as a challenge, you’re out of your mind,” I told him, making no effort to keep the disgust out of my voice. “There have been men who looked at me that way before, their noses out of joint because I didn’t fall swooning at their feet like the rest of the female population. Their ultimate disappointment just about crushed them, but knowing it would didn’t stop me from doing it anyway.

Ruthless, they called it, and they were absolutely right. It’s one of my better character traits. I’d like to go to bed now, so I’d appreciate your letting go of me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your character that a few good, hard whackings on the backside wouldn’t take care of,” he said with a faint grin, keeping those hands tight around my arms. “I’m not looking at you as a challenge, Diana; only a boy sees a woman in that light. What I’m doing right now is trying to figure you out, trying to stay in one piece while- I--‘m doing it, and trying to decide what makes you so different. When I have a spare minute; I’m also going to see what I can do about that so-called sense of humor of yours. As a defense mechanism, it does more than you know. Ever since we first met, I’ve had this overwhelming urge to defend myself.”

His grin widened at that point, trying to show me he was kidding, but I couldn’t seem to find the wherewithal for sharing the joke. As embarrassed and as upset as he’d felt he should have turned around and walked away, and I didn’t understand why he hadn’t. Without saying anything I tried to pull away from him again, but this time he drew me close and put those arms around me.

“You said you were tired and want to go to bed,” he murmured;. the words as soft as the way he stroked my hair. “That sounds like a good idea to me, so let’s do it.”

“Not with you,” I said in a whisper as I shook my head, tensing so quickly in his arms that they had to tighten to keep me near him. “Not with anyone. I want to go to bed alone.”

“Alone,” he echoed with what seemed like difficulty, the pain that had earlier been in his eyes now in his voice. “You’ve had to do most things alone, haven’t you, Diana? And for so long that it’s become a way of life. Stop trying to squirm loose and push me away, you’re not fighting against what you think you are. We’re going to bed together, but all I’ll be doing is holding you. You can be as alone as you like-as long as my arms are around you.”

He picked me up then and carried me to the bed, got us out of our clothes and under the covers, then simply put his arms around me again. It was warm and comfortable in those arms, his chest against my cheek a solid, positive presence, and once he was asleep my arm stole around him to hold him the way he held me. I couldn’t say anything about what he’d done and refused to let myself think about it, but holding back that arm just then was totally beyond me.

The rest of our travel time on the liner wasn’t long, but we took a precaution we should have taken right from the start. In order to avoid any more trouble, Val changed himself to look like a very plain, nondescript individual. If I’d been used to his quick-change act I would have thought of it sooner, but I wasn’t and I didn’t. That time “better late than never” seemed to work; no one recognized him.

Compared, to Faraway Station, Xanadu O.S. was a madhouse. Rather than the one shuttle trip from liner to Station that had been used on Faraway, Xanadu required the three that every major Station did. People left one liner shuttle and ran to a second, or took up places on a line, or sat themselves down to wait the necessary time. Some few, with longer waits ahead of them, went to have a meal on the Station or arrange for accommodations. People moved everywhere, including those who, like us, meant to stay for a short while and then go down to the planet. Lights blinked, the crowd noise pounded at us, people jostled us, and Val finally understood why we had had our last conversation with instructions in my cabin.

We fought our way through the insanity together for a while, then split up to see to the individual chores I’d assigned us. Since we were staying on the Station and then going down to the planet, our luggage had to come out of bond and be checked through customs, and that was the job I had given to Val. He had looked at me with wordless questioning in his eyes, probably wondering if I were setting him up again, and I had had to reassure his qualms. In full truth I would have preferred seeing to the luggage myself, but it would have looked odd having a grown man tagging idly along behind me while I did it all, and we couldn’t afford to look odd; better to take separate directions and get it all done without any fuss.

The twelve registration alcoves still had people on line in front of them despite the fact that we’d waited for the third shuttle before coming over, so there was nothing for it but to pick one and join the crowd.