The Man Who Never Missed (12 page)

The look Juete gave the man was not that of someone meeting a stranger. She smiled and said something—Khadaji was too far away to hear what—and the man smiled back at her. Khadaji turned away and stared at the wall, not seeing it.

It was an irrational feeling, he knew. Monofidelity was an archaic concept, one he’d never believed in before. People did not own each other in a civilized society; no one had the right to expect another to become any sort of chattel. Certainly he had enjoyed a liberal intercourse all his life, and there was no reason to expect Juete had done differently. Cuntmaster came to his mind, a word he had refused to speculate upon after Kamus had dropped it into their conversation a couple of days earlier. No, her past was her own, just as her present and future should also be. Khadaji knew that. Intellectually, he knew.

Why, then, did he feel like screaming? Was he like all the others who hung around the exotics? Possessive? Jealous?

“Not now!” That was Juete’s voice, pitched to carry.

Khadaji turned, to see the big freight handler holding onto the exotic’s arm, urging her in the direction of the front exit. She looked at Khadaji, her eyes pleading.

He didn’t remember the move, but he was suddenly on the outside of the bar, heading for them. His mind was filled with murder. He would chop the freight handler into bloody slabs—

Kamus moved to block his path. “Easy, son. Mang’s got it.”

Khadaji faltered for a step. He was about to tell the old man to get the hell out of his way, but he saw the bouncer holding the freight handler’s arm as he had held Juete’s, walking him toward the exit.

Khadaji’s rage bubbled, heading toward a full boil. No. He didn’t want Mang to walk the man out! He wanted to handle it himself. She was his woman! He wanted to—to—

To what, Khadaji? said the little voice that lived deep in his mind. To kill him? Like you did the fanatics on Maro? Is that the mark of a civilized society? When you grow angry, solve the problem with death?

He stopped breathing for a moment with the shock of what he had been about to do. The old man stood his ground, watching, and Khadaji’s hatred and anger left him in a rush as he exhaled. There was something very wrong with what he’d been about to do, something which was linked to the way the Confed squatted upon the worlds and systems of the galaxy. It was important, but he couldn’t quite grasp it, it eluded him.

“You okay, son?”

He wasn’t, but Khadaji nodded.

Juete walked to where the two men stood. Kamus looked at the two of them for a moment, then left.

“He was your lover,” Khadaji said. The anger was gone, but the gut-twist of jealousy was still there.

“Yes. Briefly.”

“Two days ago. When you left work early.”

“Yes.”

“There have been others since we—”

“Yes.”

Khadaji turned his head and looked away from her. Behind the bar, Kamus was mixing some chem, doing Khadaji’s job. What customers there were paid no attention to the couple standing and talking.

“It bothers you,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“But—why? Aren’t I enough for you?”

He did not expect the answer she gave. “No. You aren’t.”

It hurt, to hear that. He wanted to hit her, but instead, he clenched his hands into fists. He felt the nails cut into his palms. There was a wrongness here—

“It isn’t your fault,” she said, her voice soft. “It’s the way we are. What attracts you to me works both ways, Emile. My drives are more intense than yours—or any normal human’s. I must have that energy, it’s built into me the same way as the color of my hair and eyes are built in.”

Khadaji did not speak, he only stared at her.

“I like it, Emile. Sex. The entire process, meeting someone new, the discovery, the consummation, the afterglow.”

“But I love you,” he said. It sounded like a whine, even as he said it.

“I know. And I love you. But my needs have nothing to do with that.”

Again, he was unable to say anything.

“You don’t understand. It’s always that way with normals.” She touched his arm. “Do you know what the leading cause of death is among normal people? Most diseases are curable now, so old age and accidents are the ways ordinary people mostly die. But among exotics, the chief cause of death is murder.”

“Murder?”

She nodded. “Yes. Mostly by non-exotics. We are slain by jealous lovers, by cunt- or dickmasters who sell us, by the envious who wish they could be like us. Three of five exotics who die are killed—sometimes we kill each other.”

“I—I—didn’t realize—”

“Of course not. Because of what we are, of what we do, we become targets of those around us.”

“But—couldn’t you… tone it down? There must be drugs or therapy which could—”

“—stop our sexual drives? Yes, there are. But would you choose such an option? And even if you did, you might find it was no real cure. We are still desired. As you desire me now, despite all I have said.”

Khadaji felt guilty. He did want her, he had an erection, he was ready.

She continued. “I could take combinations of hormones and pheromone suppressants and other chems, and become a kind of normal. I could dye my skin and hair, wear colored lenses and look and act normal. If I wanted to.

“If I wanted to. But I don’t want to. I like being attractive, I enjoy bedding lovers, men and women, it’s what I am. If you love me, you will have to learn to accept it.”

A thought loomed, then, something Khadaji didn’t want to consider. But once alive, the thing would not die. “Did you have me become your lover because I could protect you from people like the freight handler? Or the cuntmaster?” “You saved my life,” she said. “I wanted to be grateful in the best way I knew how. And, later, I wanted to continue, because you are a good lover. But—certainly I considered your physical abilities an asset.”

He felt dull. Blind, deaf and stupid, that’s you, isn’t it, Khadaji?

“I am sorry if I have hurt you, Emile. I do think you are a lovely boy.”

“I’m a man, not a boy!”

“Then act as a man. Consider what we exchange and decide if it is enough. I told you before I have learned to look out for myself. You must understand this.” She allowed her hand to drop and touch the front of his pants lightly.

He felt his already stiff penis jump as she moved her hand away. He wanted to turn and walk away from her, he felt betrayed, he wanted to tell her he would not play her game. But he did not.

When Juete left work, Khadaji followed her.

Their lovemaking had never been so intense, so good.

Afterward, when she was asleep, he cried softly. What was he going to do? He had thought she was to be his, eternally, that she loved him as he did her. Could he learn to live with her lovers, with the things which drove her so differently than he was driven? He thought that he could. It would still be better than any relationship he had ever had, but it would not be what he first thought it would be.

He had been naïve, he understood now. Something Pen had said came back to him. He needed other teachers. Well. He had learned something. About himself. From her.

He looked at Juete, her perfect whiteness nestled under the black silk of her sheets. She was beautiful and he did love her. But it was not the same as before.

Not the same.

Chapter Twelve

THE COMFORTABLE RHYTHM of work, exercise and Juete remained the same, on the surface. The work was becoming easier, almost dull. Now and again, there would be something he had to look up, but mostly, he was able to do in two minutes what would have taken ten a few months earlier. The sumito exercises felt solid, he practiced them daily and his control increased slowly and steadily. And Juete was as good as ever. She was discreet; Khadaji never knew for certain when she had lovers. He was sure she did meet other men and maybe women, when they were not together. She spent most of her off-time with him, but not all of it. He wanted to ask, but he never did. He could stand it, if he didn’t have to know. When he thought about it, he was honest enough to know his imagination had to be painting a much worse picture than the truth. But he could stand it.

The days and weeks slipped by in a monochromatic routine which became his security. The highs were few, but then, so were the lows. Work. Exercise. Juete. There was no major factor against which he could complain, nothing was really wrong, there were no sharp points of discontent jabbing at him. He lived day to day, in a kind of fuzzy disquiet.

Eventually, it was a customer who brought things to a focal point for Khadaji, an old woman lost in the depths of expensive wine. She spoke to Khadaji because he was there; he thought she would have said as much to the wall, had he not been.

“—nine’y-seven, boy, that’s how old. I might have—wha?—another twenny-five years lef? Tha’ be all righ’, I had the body I did when I was for-forty! But like this? Why should I bother? I could’uh been so much more, y’know? I had chances, I could—could—have gone to Earth, been the mis’ress of a rich bi’ch. I could’uh been powerful, rich, somebody! Bu’ I pissed it away, I din wanna take the chance. I thought I’d have time, plen’y of time, I was young, I was forty! An’ now I’m old and it’s all gone pas’ an’ it’s too late.”

She looked up from the glass of clear wine and stared at Khadaji, who stood silently behind the bar. The pub was nearly empty and he had no chem to mix.

“But you don’ unnerstan’. You’re a kid, you think you’ve got all the time there is, don’cha? Blow off a year here, piss away a year there, it don’ matter, you got plen’y to spare.”

She lifted the wine glass, drained it, and set it carefully back onto the bright surface of the bar, as if it were still full and she was afraid of spilling it. “But you’re wrong. Wrong.”

Khadaji nodded, but it was more for himself than the old woman. There was no flash of sudden knowledge, no cosmic rush of feeling, but there was a moment of… focus. Why was he here? Working in a backworld pub, listening to a drunk, nailed into a routine which was comfortable and pleasant, but going nowhere? He tried to think about the feeling he’d had during the battle on Maro, when he’d deserted the military, but that certainty, that sense of purpose, was only a faint memory. When had it faded? Why? He did remember the horror he’d felt at all the killing. A Confederation which could condone such had to be evil. It had to be opposed.

Well. You’re certainly in a position to do a lot about it here, aren’t you?

“One more,” the old lady said.

Khadaji mechanically punched in the order and waited while the dispenser filled the glass with the fermented products of three kinds of grapes. Funny, how deep his knowledge of such things ran. The cuvee of this particular liquid was a blend of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, a single-fermentation process. Given time and another round of fermentation and tirage, still wines could become champagnes. He knew this, but he did not know many other things, important things.

“Hurry up, honey, I only got maybe twenny-five years lef’, remember?”

He set the glass in front of the woman and added the cost to her credit tab. She clutched the wine with both hands.

Khadaji shook his head. Tending pub wasn’t going to teach him how to resist the Confed. He had to educate himself, he had to learn how the beast was built, how to find its Achilles’ heel—or if it even had such a weak point. He stared at the old lady and understood what it was she had said. There was so much he needed to know and so little time in which to learn it. He had to start now.

Yes. Now.

Most of the patrons had gone home, including the old woman who liked still wine, and only the hardiest of the vampire crowd remained, talking quietly among themselves. Juete was also gone—and not alone, Khadaji had seen.

When he told Kamus, the old man was philosophical.

“I figured,” he said. “You were beginning to get the look. Most tenders are afflicted with itchy feet, I never can keep the good ones very long. I was hoping you’d settle in with Juete and stick for a while longer, but if you’re set, I won’t kick. I’ll give you a good vouch. You’ll stay long enough to let me break in a new tender?”

Khadaji nodded. “Sure.”

“If it’s none of my business, say so, but—where you going?”

“I don’t really know, Kamus. I’ve got some things I need to work out, some studying to do. I thought I might try Bocca, in the Faust System.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the place to go if you want education. If it’s taught anywhere, they teach it on Bocca.”

“So I’ve heard.”

The old man looked thoughtful for a moment. “What about Juete? You seem tied to her pretty tight. You plan to try and get her to go with you?”

Khadaji thought about that for a long time before he answered.

He had planned to tell her before they made love, but he didn’t want to spoil what might be the last time. Afterward, when they lay quietly in her soft bed, it was easier.

“Leave? Why?”

He had not told anyone before, save Pen, but he tried to explain it to her. He started with his life in the military, told her about his feelings before and during and after the slaughter on Maro. About the feeling of… wrongness that he had seen, and the knowledge that he must do something about it.

“You are only one man,” she said. Her voice was soft.

“A single man cannot hope to change the ways of an entire galaxy.”

“You’re probably right,” he said. “I don’t think one man can change it all. But maybe I can affect it some, in some small way.”

“You would be a ripple in an ocean, at best.”

He sighed. “Maybe. Better a ripple than nothing.”

“Bocca is a tropical world,” she said. “—Hot, rainy, a burning sun. My skin would not survive without constant screening. You would ask me to accept that?”

For a long moment, he said nothing. “Would you go, if I asked?”

She was quiet for a time, as well. Then, “We have been good together. I can see your love for me, and I feel such for you, in my own way. But you’re asking me to leave my home, the world of my birth, a place where I am hardly accepted, to go to a place where I would be more of a freak.”