The 97th Step (25 page)

"Any more fun than that would have killed me," Pen said, grinning. He chuckled. "Of course, I've been practicing mentally for months."

"I know. I felt the wind from your panting on my back often."

"It showed, huh?"

"Some."

She lay back, keeping one hand on his arm, and stared at the ceiling. Pen could not have said how much time had passed, but it was full dark outside, and it felt late. As if he cared about anything outside this room.

"Why do you leave your door open?" she asked.

He rolled slightly to one side and nuzzled her armpit. The dark hair there was silkier than that between her legs.

"That tickles!"

He pulled back slightly, then slid one hand down the length of her body, then back up to touch her face.

He felt like a man who had been awarded his heart's desire, and for no reason he could readily understand. That she would be here, relaxed under his touch, actually enjoying it. It amazed him. "It's funny," he began, "you'd think a thief would lock up everything. Not me. I grew up in a house where doors were never shut inside. My father used to say nothing could be hidden from God, so there was no point. I didn't know at the time that my mother had refused to sleep with him for years, so he had nothing to hide, either from God or me. I rejected God, along with a lot of what my father tried to beat into me, but I never dropped that one habit. Odd, isn't it?"

She dragged her fingertips down, over his chest and then his lower belly. It gave him a chill.

"I have a question for you," he said.

"Sure."

"Why did you do this? Make love to me?"

"Because I wanted to. Because there is something about you that attracted me from the first time I saw you."

"Yeah? So, why'd you wait so long?" The question was not serious, but she gave him a serious answer.

"I had to be sure. I've felt attracted to a lot of people, but it takes too much energy to pursue that very far. For me, sex has to be part of something else."

"Such as?"

"Such as love."

That one rocked him. Love? He didn't know what that was. He felt desire for Moon, even now, when the flesh was certainly too weak to do more than smile and remember. He felt good to be around her. He respected her abilities, as a fighter and teacher. And now, as a lover. It had been intense. But love?

"I don't think I'm worthy of that," he said. It made him sad to say this, because he was afraid it would destroy this precious moment in his life; sad, because he wanted very much to please this woman, as long as she would have him. Sad, because he thought it was true. He was unworthy.

"I know you don't think so," she said. "But you are, nonetheless. You haven't learned how to love yourself yet. You don't know who you are." She sat up and swung her legs around tailor-fashion, to face him. "Have you ever heard of Emery, the Earth philosopher? Twentieth or Twenty-first Century. 'When you know who you are, you know what to do. You know when and where to do it, and with whom.' "

"Never heard of him. Interesting philosophy. Did this guy tell you how to get to know who you are?"

"In a way. That's part of what we're trying to do with the Siblings. First, we try to teach each other; then, we try it on the rest of the galaxy."

"Doesn't sound easy."

"No," she said, bending down. She did something with her hands, a soft and fluttery motion.

"I think you're wasting your time there—" he began. After a few seconds, he grinned down at her uplifted face. "Jesu, it's a miracle! You've brought it back from the dead!"

"Dead? Ah, Pen, it was only a little tired. I'll see if I can't kill it this time…"

She laughed then, and he joined her. To hell with philosophy. Some things had to be experienced directly, and words only got in the way.

"Oh, yes!"

If there was a Heaven, surely he had achieved it.

But even through his pleasure, he heard that tiny voice in his mind—the voice that belonged to the part of him that watched all that he did, and would never be still.

You have thought that before, Mwili. Or Ferret. Or Pen, whatever you choose to call yourself.

And it has never lasted, has it? And it never will, either. Face it.

No, he told it mentally. Go away. Leave me alone!

Perhaps the voice stilled. Perhaps not. Either way, he lost the sound of it in the surging wave that crested and carried him to new places with this new woman. For a few moments, at least, the sound went away, along with the darkness, the worry, the memories. He and Moon danced the oldest man and woman dance, yin and yang, and all else was less than a shadow.

For a few moments.

Twenty-Four

PEN AND SPIRAL were on their way into "town." A shipment of electronic parts had arrived at the port, and as the two were on maintenance detail this week, it fell to them to fetch the supplies. Spiral drove the four-wheeled ground vehicle, a lumbering relic that jolted the two men at every bump or hole on the ill-kept surface of the road.

"What are you grinning at?" Spiral asked.

The top of the GV was down and the breeze from their motion was soggy, but welcome. Pen now wore all eight items of Undershroud, the long-sleeved shirt and long pants of the Third Layer covering the First and Second, and despite the breath-ability of the fabric, was warm in the direct sunlight of the morning.

"Grinning? Was I grinning?"

Spiral laughed. "Like a cheetah with a fresh kill. You could be wearing three hoods and it would show.

You've been doing that a lot the last few months. Staring off into space and looking like you've discovered the punchline to some grand cosmic joke."

Pen chuckled. "Not me."

Spiral hit a particularly deep rut, and the GV jolted its two passengers. If not for the restraining safety belt, Pen would have been bounced clear of the seat.

"You hit that same hole every time—does it have some special significance for you?"

"Reminds me of a girl I used to know," Spiral said. He accelerated the GV on one of the few straight stretches of road between the order and their destination. "I don't suppose that Moon would have anything to do with your attitude lately?"

"Moon?"

"Come, come, Pen old boy, you don't really think the rest of us are all blind, do you? You've been discrete, but—really! I suspect if we could harness the sexual energy you two have been spending, we could shut down the power station."

"Spoken like a true Second Layer retard," Pen said. Unlike Pen, Spiral still wore the short shirt and pants of Second Layer.

"Ooh, nasty! Well, my lord lofty and mighty Third Layer Pen, you won't see these arms and legs except in the swimming pool, come next week."

Pen glanced at Spiral, interested. "Really?"

"I test in three days. Want to get in on the score pool? Take a hundred percent and you'll clean up."

"I'll clean up the kitchens for a week with that kind of brainlock. A hundred? Hah! Who do you think you are—Von?"

"Well. Ninety-five, maybe."

"Yeah, sure. Eighty, maybe."

"You cut me deeply. Pen."

"I was there when you asked Jade the difference between a Confederation factor and a senator, Spiral."

"It was a joke."

"I'm sure the class thought so. We had to sit and listen to Jade drone on for another forty minutes."

"You have no sense of humor."

"I think I'll take seventy-five for your score."

"Your dick should rot off."

Pen smiled. He liked Spiral. Hell, he liked everybody these days. The man was right—Moon was the difference. Not just the sex, though that was fine, but the whole process of being with someone, sharing parts of the day, talking about things that meant nothing to anyone else. And she was teaching him things.

He wanted to please her, so he studied with renewed intensity, worked to learn all the things she thought he should know. It was a strange mix of teacher-lover-friend, his relationship with Moon. He had never known anything like it.

The GV rounded the last turn before the prefab orange storage sheds appeared. As civilization went, the enclave of the Siblings was head and shoulders above the port and its surroundings. A few of the natives had stayed on the island, and they seemed to gravitate to the port. There was a small store, a bar, and little else, outside the port, save for the storage sheds, and those usually empty. The Siblings did export small amounts of food—copra and wine, mostly—more for appearances than for need. The order had a way of finding money. Although no one had ever asked him to do it, Pen had eventually deposited most of the stads he had stolen into the order's account. This was his home now, these were his people, and what was theirs was his. It only seemed fair that it work the other way. The biotech lab had an expensive cell injection gun now, due to his contribution. And the newest students carried bug and rain repellors courtesy of a jewel theft on a planet light- and real-time years away. It made Pen feel good to do that.

"Uh-oh."

Pen pulled himself from his mental wanderings to see what had disturbed Spiral. The cause would have been impossible to miss.

Just ahead were four Confederation Jumptroopers, wearing tropical whites, and carrying short, brutal-looking carbines. As Pen watched, two of the troopers, a man and a woman, detached themselves from the other two and walked toward the local bar. Spiral drove the GV past the remaining two troopers, who watched it pass. Next to the main building of the port. Spiral pulled the GV to a halt, stopping the electric motor. The cooling metal ticked as the two siblings looked back at the troopers.

"The Confed rep must be here," Spiral said. "He comes out a couple of times a year.' *

"I've never seen him," Pen said.

"Usually Von—Moon, now—sends somebody to take care of him. He gets a 'gift,' drinks or tokes until he's moronic, then leaves. Looks like he brings an escort squad to fly him home. I've never seen troops here before, either. He's probably in the pub."

"Moon didn't mention that he'd be here," Pen said.

"Think because you two share a pillow she tells you everything?" It was another of Spiral's jokes, but Pen felt somehow as if he'd been slighted. Why hadn't Moon told him, since she knew he was going to the port?

"Come on. Let's get the supplies and get back."

Pen glanced away from the troopers at Spiral. "You sound nervous."

"Nan, not me. I just don't much like being around soldiers." He was silent for a moment, then, "I used to be one."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Impress, standard tour. I was young and stupid, and even so, I found the Confed military mind to be something less than flexible. If something moves, they tend to shoot it and then examine the remains for answers."

"Nice thought pattern."

"And you being a Three Layer man and all, you didn't know that."

"In my former line of work,
everybody
was likely to trigger a few blasts in my direction if I stood still too long. Confed, local cools, property owners, it didn't matter. Who looks at the face behind a weapon pointed at them?"

The two alighted and moved toward the cargo area. Spiral said, "You ever miss it? Life in the speed channel?"

"Not for a San Yubi second."

That's what he said, but he felt that old familiar crawl of epinephrine along his nerve endings as he had passed the soldiers, hormonal urges to duck and cover. It had been a big part of him once, those stretched and tight-skinned rushes. He glanced at the troopers, measuring them, very much aware of them, watching him and Spiral. No, he told himself. I don't miss it. Not really.

They had the GV loaded with the supplies when the Confederation Representative emerged from the town's pub, escorted by two of his four troopers. The rep, resplendent in patterned-silk kilts and tunic, walked with the care of a man on a tightrope. He wasn't weaving or stumbling, but to anyone who'd spent more than a few hours in a pub, his physiological state was only too apparent. The grin he wore could consume a carload of excreta.

The pair of troopers had obviously had this duty before. They boxed the rep, side and side, and moved at his pace. To call it slow would have been kind. A slug would have had little difficulty moving from the procession's path.

Pen and Spiral were about to enter their car and depart when the rep spied them. The group of three Confeders was about ten meters away.

"Ah, it's more of the blanket-covered brothers. Or is it sisters?" He laughed, a braying haw-haw-haw, and nearly stumbled as he stopped his already slow motion. "You boys—or is it girls?—really know how to show a man a good time. Except for one thing. C'mere!" The man waved, an exaggerated motion that nearly unbalanced him. One of the troopers leaned in a little and, with one hand, braced the rep.

Pen and Spiral glanced at each other.

"Great," Spiral said. "We get to play with the drunk."

"Just stay calm," Pen said. "You can humor him for a couple of minutes." The two siblings walked toward the others.

"You males or females under those shrouds? I mean, just left whatshisname, the old man with the tea-colored skin and black eyes. Cube, is it? And he's male, right enough. How about you?"

The soldiers were grinning.

"We're male. Honored Representative," Pen said.

The man haw-hawed again. "Really? Sure, your voice sounds deep, but you could be a woman anyway.

Who could tell? I used to know a whore in Sidney could sing bass. How can I be sure?"

"You have our solemn word," Spiral said.

The rep shook his head. "Nope, nope, nope, won't do. The only way to be sure is to see for myself.

Myself. Tell you what, shuck off those covers and let's take a quick peek, hey?"

Pen smiled nervously under his hood. He turned slightly to favor one of the soldiers with his attention, even though he spoke to the rep. "Sorry, Honored Representative, but we are not allowed to remove our shrouds in public."

"Hey, hey, no problem. There's nobody around but us. And if anybody wanders by, I can have my troops clear 'em out and it'll be as private as a security-sealed vault."