Starborne (41 page)

Noelle has drawn back into herself during this part of the story. She has wrapped her arms tightly around her body, and it seems to the year-captain that
she is trembling a little.

“
But something good came forth out of that, didn
’
t it?”
she asks. “
There was Dionysus the god. Semele
’
s son. He survived the flames, didn
’
t he?”

“
Yes. He survived. Zeus spared him, and scooped him up in the m
o
ment of Semele
’
s de
struction, carrying him off and hiding him from Hera
’
s wrath until he was grown.”

“
So, then. That
’
s the point of the story. The miraculous birth of the god Dionysus.”

She is definitely trembling, he sees. Shivering, even. They are still naked after their s
wim, but it is, as always, quite warm here in the recr
e
ation area.

“
The point of the story is that Semele overreached herself and died,”
the year-captain says. “
Dionysus is just an incidental part of the myth. The point is that ordinary mortals can
’
t hope
to have unrestricted contact with gods.”

“
The birth of a new god can
’
t just be an incidental part of anything,”
Noelle says. The year-captain thinks he hears her teeth chattering.

“
Are you feeling all right, Noelle?”

“
Just a little chilly.”

“
It isn
’
t chill
y in here, though.”

“
But I feel that way. Maybe we should go on across into the baths.”

“
Yes. Yes. A little time in the hot tub will get you feeling better in no time.”

The baths are just on the other side of the corridor from the lap-pool. They collect th
eir towels and discarded clothing and go across. The room is empty when they get there.

“
Why did you tell me that story?”
Noelle asks him.

“
You know the answer to that, don
’
t you?”

“
Yes. Yes, I do.”

“
I can
’
t help feeling worried about what will happen when you try to
—”

“
It isn
’
t the same in any way. I
’
m not Semele. The angels aren
’
t Zeus.”

“
How do you know what they are?”

“
I don
’
t,”
she says. “
Not really. How could I? But I just don
’
t think
—
I
’
m quite confide
nt that I
—
that they
—
that when I
—”
She is r
e
ally shaking, now. They are at the edge of the hot tank. The usual pr
o
cedure is to step quickly into the cold tub, then to go on to the hot one, and to finish by returning to the tepid tank or even the cold one. B
ut i
n
stead of going into any of them now Noelle stands trembling at the brink of the hot tub for a long moment; and then she turns, suddenly, and presses herself into his arms.

He enfolds her and holds her tightly and gently strokes her back, tr
y
ing to soo
the her, trying to comfort her and ease whatever terror it is that has taken possession of her. All of it very manly and paternal, and then a moment later not paternal in the least, for the year-captain is trembling too, and they stand there for a long wh
i
le in a close embrace.

Then she breaks free of him and steps a few paces back. She is smi
l
ing, and her eyes, those mysterious sightless eyes that are nevertheless often so expressive, have taken on a strange mischievous light. She reaches out a hand toward
him.

The year-captain is amazed at how her body, which he has seen on so many other occasions here in the baths and in the pool, now suddenly seems unfamiliar
—
different, transformed. The same full round breasts, yes, the same flat belly, the same deeply i
ndented navel. But it is all di
f
ferent. There is an inner light emanating from her. She is gleaming, r
a
diant. He is powerfully drawn to her. He wonders how he had ever managed to fail to find her attractive
—
why she had never seemed to him, really, like a s
exual being at all. Certainly she seems like one now.

“
Come,”
she whispers, and tugs at his hand, and leads him deftly and unhesitatingly over the tiled floor into one of the little lovemaking rooms that adjoin the baths.

They sink down together onto the h
ard narrow bed. It is entirely o
b
vious to him now that he has wanted this since the beginning of the voyage, that he has always been drawn to her, that he has hedged hi
m
self around with a host of caveats and uncertainties and self-imposed prohibitions prec
isely because he has desired her all along with such frightening intensity.

He covers her lips, her throat, her closed eyelids with kisses. She clings to him, murmuring, thrusting herself against him. At the last m
o
ment before he could possibly turn back h
e remembers that odd thought he once had had, more than a year before, that she might actually be a virgin, and even that her telepathic powers might somehow depend on the preservation of that virginity and would be forever lost at the first touch of a ma
n
’
s insistent body.

No. No. That
’
s idiocy. She isn
’
t a creature out of some fantastic myth. Her telepathy is not a magical power that can be lost through the violation of an oath of chastity.

And in any case there
’
s no longer any possibility that he can hol
d back, not now, nor is Noelle willing to allow it. Her legs part and he e
n
ters her quickly, almost roughly, and in that moment Noelle throws back her head and lets out a cry that is surely one of ecstasy and not of pain, and in almost the same moment he c
omes. He is completely unable to prevent that from happening. It erupts from him with a force that he has not felt since he was eighteen. And he hears her ecstatic hissing gasp, feels her bucking almost convulsively beneath him.

He wonders, in the first be
wildered and almost distraught moment afterward, whether Yvonne has experienced their pleasure too, som
e
where far away. Whether Yvonne has come with them, even, perhaps.

They lie still for a little while. Neither of them speaks. He is faintly stunned by wh
at has happened; and also relieved, enormously relieved, that the long half-conscious courtship is over, that they have at last put an end to all the games of attraction and repulsion that they have been playing with each other almost since the beginning
o
f the voyage, and finally have allowed themselves to come crashing together in the u
n
ion
—
a union of opposites, is it?
—
that had been ordained for them all along. He is pleased, pleased and happy, and a little amazed, and just a bit frightened, also.

Then very shortly he feels his strength returning, coming back to him with unexpected and almost improbable quickness, and they begin to move once again, less hastily this time, less wildly. It is as though they have traveled in just these first few momen
t
s beyond the initial stage of breathless heedless frenzy and are already beginning to become exper
i
enced lovers.

This time when it is over she grins up at him and says, “
I waited and waited. I thought you never would.”

“
I was afraid.”

“
Of me?”

“
Of damaging
your powers, somehow.”

“
What?”

“
As though the magic would go away if you
—
if I
—
if you and I
—”

“
Silly. You
’
ve read too many old fables.”

“
Maybe I have.”

“
Yes. I definitely think you have.”

***

But now, even now, even after all that, another week goes by and
still nothing is done about reaching out to the angels. This time the excuse is that Noelle and the year-captain want to explore their newfound bliss; the effort of the angel experiment will certainly be an immense drain on her energies, and so it is bet
t
er to postpone it a little while longer, they tell themselves, while the two of them devote their energies to endeavors of a more familiar kind.

The truth is that they are both still afraid to make the attempt. He continues to have Semele
’
s fate on his min
d, troubling him all the more now that a new dimension has been added to their relationship; and she has hesitations of her own, a complex mixture of things
—
the natural fear of the unknown, and that curious feeling that she would somehow be unfaithful to
Y
vonne if she were to speak with the angels, and also a certain sense that she was simply inadequate to the task, incapable of fulfilling the high hopes that her shipmates are investing in her.

But it has to be attempted. Of that much the year-captain is ce
rtain. Whatever the risks, it has to be attempted. They all placed themselves permanently at risk the moment they first affiliated themselves with this project. If there is a possibility that Noelle can extricate them from their predicament, then that pos
s
ibility must be explored. He sees no choice. He can
’
t allow himself so great an evasion.

They have had no contact with Earth for many ship-weeks, for months, even, and the psychological effects are beginning to manifest themselves in a host of t
roublesome ways. It has started to seem almost as though Earth has been destroyed in some great cataclysm, that they are the sole surviving representatives of humanity, an ark, unfettered by any ties to the past whatsoever and permitted to reshape the rul
e
s of their lives whichever way they please. The year-captain
’
s conservative nature rebels at such anarchy. Earth still is there. The voyagers are b
e
holden to Earth for their presence here. This mission is being executed at the behest of Earth, to fulfill c
ertain needs of Earth.

But with Earth lost to them forever in the vast whirlpool of the skies
—

He bides his time. He waits for his moment.

He and Noelle are recognized now aboard ship as lovers. Hiding it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, anyway: he
has no desire to i
m
pose on her the sort of hole-and-corner relationship that he had carried on for so long with Julia.
Let
them see.
Let
them know. They were all expecting it to happen, anyway: he understands that now. Some, like Heinz, evidently had seen
the whole thing coming a couple of years b
e
fore he did. Julia, too: she smiles knowingly at him, as if to acknowledge that the long-awaited inevitable has at last occurred. Julia doesn
’
t seem to be hurt by it. Quite the contrary.

So he and Noelle are seen
together in the baths, in the
Go
lounge, in the corridors. He spends nights in her cabin, or she in his
—
the first time since the beginning of the voyage that he has known anything but sol
i
tary sleep. She is a marvelous mixture of passion and innocence, or
at least the semblance of innocence; there is unexpected skill and fire in her lovemaking, but also an eagerness to be led into unfamiliar paths, to be taught previously unknown ways. It reminds him, after a fashion, of the way Noelle had approached learn
i
ng
Go
once upon a time: the atte
n
tiveness, the seriousness, the concern with understanding the fundame
n
tals of the game
—
and, ultimately, the revelation of enormous mastery.