The Golden Space (18 page)

Teno raised a hand, then walked off, cutting across a grassy hill to another path, striding in the direction of Mikhail’s home.

She made fists of her hands. She strode quickly to the gate. The tent was up now, and the blond man had disappeared inside it. She leaned against the gate. The stranger peeked out as he lifted a tent flap, and caught sight of her.

He waved and came out. She opened the gate and went toward him. “My name’s Leif Arnesson.” He showed his even white teeth. “And who might you be?”

“Nola Reann.” She glanced at the faded green tent. “I didn’t expect to see you again. Are you going to stay?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Why give a man a scare and run away? It hardly seems sporting. I have everything I need, though I hope I can prevail on someone to feed me a good dinner once in a while. That is, if Lawrence doesn’t run me off. I suppose he’s a bit peeved.”

“He won’t make you leave. He believes he has the truth, so he can’t very well bar someone from it.”

Leif sat down on the ground, folding his legs. “He was scared. These death cult people are all the same.”

“I don’t think this is a death cult.”

Leif snorted. “Anyone who says death is all right is a death cultist, wouldn’t you say?” He brushed back a lock of hair. “He isn’t the first one of those I’ve seen.” He had lowered his voice, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “I visited another bunch a while back. The leader was scared of me. She talked a lot about suicide and risks, but I didn’t see her rushing to have her name programmed into Mr. Death’s banks.” He laughed.

Nola stepped back. “What did you do?”

“I barely got out of there. They burned my leg off, and the rescue team just reached me in time. The attack on me gave some psychologists an excuse to go in. While I was in the hospital regenerating, I found out that some of the cultists had killed themselves, but the others, including the leader, had been sent to an asteroid. It’s where they belong, don’t you think?” He grinned. “No way out if their reconditioning doesn’t take.” He rose and flexed his legs; he was almost as tall as she. “Bet you can’t tell which one I lost.”

“Isn’t it dangerous to go looking for trouble?”

Leif sat down again. “Oh, the danger doesn’t bother me. I don’t take real chances, anyway. I just don’t like seeing what idiotic ideas do to people.”

“The people here seem content.”

“I thought you were a skeptic.”

“I am. I’m just stating a fact.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t seem to know what you think. Why did you come here, anyway?”

She looked down. “A man I knew came here. I followed him.”

Leif was staring at her slender legs. “A man. Well, that can be remedied. Do you have to wear those wires all the time?”

“All the time I’m here.”

“You were born out there, then.”

“Yes.”

“Do they get in the way?”

“Not at all.”

“Maybe you can give me a chance to find out whether they do or not. You could ask me to dinner some evening.” He reached up and touched her fingertips. “You remind me of a birch tree.” He took her hand. “But there are spiders’ webs on your limbs.” She had heard that particular comparison before. “I do hope we’ll meet again soon.”

She released her hand, turned, and walked back to the gate, thinking of Mikhail.

Yasmin’s loom clattered and hummed. She had designed a new tapestry and was waiting for the loom to weave it. “It’s bad enough that he’s here,” she said to Nola. “But you needn’t have asked him to my house.” She was talking about Leif.

“He’s only been here for a couple of days,” Nola responded. “When he sees how jolly you all are, maybe he’ll change his mind about Giancarlo. After all, he didn’t hurt him. He has a strange sense of humor, that’s all.” She watched the loom, almost hypnotized by the clicking and the geometric pattern of the tapestry. Her attention was caught by one blue line in the middle trapped between mirror images of a hexagon surrounding six-pointed stars. Something was drawing her to Leif; he seemed dangerous, and instead of repelling her it attracted her. He was reckless; he claimed that he avoided real danger, yet he had almost died. She wasn’t used to reckless people; on Luna or in orbit, they were too likely to have accidents.

“At least we won’t be alone with him tonight,” Yasmin murmured. “I asked some guests of my own to supper.”

“Hilde and Jiro?” Nola asked absently.

“Teno and Mischa.”

Nola looked up. “Tell me something,” she said carefully. “Do Teno and Mikhail spend a lot of time together?”

“Why, I don’t know. I guess they have been together a lot recently. Teno’s very calming, in a way.”

“Teno can’t accept what the rest of you believe. Doesn’t that disturb you?”

“I don’t know if that’s true. Teno has to approach it from a different direction, of course.”

“And if Teno stays, it helps Giancarlo. By letting Teno stay, Giancarlo seems to approve of what the biologists do, and in return Teno can say his teachings are reasonable.”

The loom clattered to a stop. Yasmin rose and lifted the tapestry from it, glanced at the pattern, then threw it over the back of the sofa. Now that she had finished the design and seen it woven, she seemed to have lost interest in the tapestry itself.

The door chimed. Yasmin went to answer it. Nola stared over the sofa at the window beyond. The sky was darkening early; it would rain.

Leif entered the room. He wore only his shorts; pale hairs curled over his tan chest. Nola masked her unease with a smile.

The others did not join them until Yasmin had finished cooking. Teno and Mikhail sat across from Nola and Leif. Yasmin was at the head of the table.

After a flurry of greetings, they fell silent. Only the tinkling of wineglasses and the clatter of cutlery on the plates could be heard. Outside the open window, the clouds still threatened.

Nola felt disoriented. She had drunk too much with Leif earlier while he skewered the world with verbal knives. She saw the settlement, and those beyond it, crumbling and vanishing from the earth. It all seemed impermanent and transitory; it was as though their long lives only emphasized the far longer life of the universe. Even a life of a million years was less than a second of cosmic time; they would flutter through their lives and disappear from the world, and the universe would be as it was. In the end, the remains of their decomposed bodies would mingle with the dust of those who had lived only a few years.

Nola realized that she had been staring; Yasmin was looking at her questioningly. Leif and Mikhail were eating heartily; Teno had taken only vegetables and sipped water instead of wine.

Leif was watching Teno. At last he said, “You’re a strange one.”

“I was part of an experiment of sorts,” Teno said calmly.

“Oh, I suspected as much. I think I know where you’re from. Allen’s project. Wasn’t that it?”

Teno nodded. “Does my being what I am bother you?”

“Not at all,” Leif replied. “We should have done more biological modification, maybe tried something radical. What difference does it make? We’re all immortal, and that’s the most unnatural thing there is. Anything else is a minor modification.”

Nola turned toward him. “Are you a biologist, Leif?”

“I was, once.” He frowned. “Why be one now? There’s nothing for us to do; truly original work ended some time ago. All we have to do now is make sure everyone stays alive and happy. Everything’s perfect the way it is, isn’t it? Don’t you think so?” He slumped in his chair and said more softly, “How mistaken we were. Death was our spur; we once knew we would die, but at least our knowledge and our achievements would go on. Now we have what we want. There’s no need to know anything except how to keep what we have.”

Nola leaned toward him. “I thought you didn’t approve of people thinking death might be good.”

“I don’t. But we lack motivation, which death once provided.”

“That’s not true away from Earth.”

“Just wait.” Leif poured himself more wine. “Most of you, on the average, are still younger than people here. You’ll reach the impasse—you’re getting there already. A short time after the Transition, a ship left the solar system. It was the first. I think it was also the last. We’ve never sent another.”

“No one knows what happened to it,” Yasmin murmured.

“Why should that stop us? All the more reason to follow up, wouldn’t you say? But we don’t.”

“There are others who feel as you do,” Teno said. “The biologists who gave me life wanted change. I and those like me were made for the world as it is now. You still have instincts for a different kind of life.”

“Then why are you here?” Leif asked, waving an arm and almost knocking over his wineglass.

“We’re young. We’re still learning. We have to understand. That is why I’m going to experience the little death soon. I shall see what happens to me. You’re welcome to attend.”

Mikhail reached over and took Teno’s hand for a moment, then released it. Nola gripped the arms of her chair, pressing her nails against the smooth wood.

“I’ll want to see that,” Leif replied. “Giancarlo will be surprised to see me there.”

Yasmin looked around at everyone, and then began to speak of some poetry she had read recently. Her voice sang as it recited the Arabic. Nola did not know Arabic, but apparently the others did. Yasmin sighed as she reached the end of a verse. “There’s no other language for poetry,” she said.

“Perhaps,” Teno said. “There’s so much behind every word. Perfect for metaphors; you can hardly avoid them, but it’s difficult to make a straightforward, unambiguous assertion in such a language.”

Yasmin smiled. “You would say that.”

It was very dark outside now. The air was still. The dim light in the room left faces in shadow. Teno seemed to be smiling, but that had to be an illusion. Leif lolled in his chair. Mikhail’s mouth curved; his eyes gazed longingly at Teno. Once, Nola thought, he had looked at her that way. His eyes met hers. For a moment, she thought he would speak.

She felt as though she were smothering. The air was humid; the silence pressed against her ears. She stood up slowly.

“Nola?” Yasmin said softly.

“I’m tired. I think I’ll excuse myself.” Nola continued to look at Mikhail.

“If you like,” Yasmin said, “come back down later.”

Nola turned to go, then let one hand rest on Leif’s shoulder. “If you like, come upstairs later.”

“Oh, I’ll come now.” He followed her to the staircase without saying a word to the others. Nola glanced at Mikhail. He didn’t care. She was surprised that she had thought he would.

She led him up to her room, opened her door, and put her hand on the wall panel. The ceiling flowed with light. She took off her robe.

Leif said, “You’re direct. No flirtation for you.”

She shrugged.

“That fellow down there is the one you followed, isn’t he.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell.”

“It makes me sick.”

“It shouldn’t.” He shed his shorts. He was a dark shape with a golden nimbus around his head. He came to her and traced the wires on her body. “You’re right.” His fingers touched the metal threads over her hips. “They don’t get in the way.”

She turned to the floater and led him inside, then signaled the generator. She drifted up and he reached for her, pressing his lips against one small breast. He seemed more awkward in the floater; his head bumped hers. She circled his waist with her legs and held him as her fingers caressed his chest.

His fingers dug into her skin, clawing between the wires on her back, then grabbing at her ribs; his hands seemed hard. She thought of Mikhail, remembering how he had twisted under her as she had hovered over him. She nudged Leif with her legs, then released him, brushing his belly lightly with one hand.

Leif spun and twisted. His feet met a shield, and he launched himself toward her. She held his shoulders with her hands. His blue eyes were wide; his mouth was a straight, narrow line. He gripped her again, firmly; his hands held her buttocks. The walls outside the floater swirled past her until she was floating upside down, with Leif behind her, their feet pointed at the lighted ceiling. She gasped as his fingers danced over her; he let her drift away, then touched her again, and she moaned as he floated under her.

She was about to speak but something in his eyes, a flicker, stopped her. They circled each other, touching only with lips and fingers until he suddenly reached for her. Her shoulders bounced against a shield. He was holding on to her very tightly, gripping her waist while thrusting against her. Before she could pull away, he was inside her, hanging on to her hips, his body arching away from her; she could not see his face. She heard him cry out. She shuddered and moaned, drawing up her knees until her feet were against his ribs. As she came, she cried out, and part of her mind seemed to leave her body with the cry.

He let go. She drifted toward the floor. She did not look at him. She felt his breath on her ear. His arms circled her, more gently this time. She closed her eyes, still feeling the roughness of his hands.