Poul Anderson: Star of the Sea

Floris tore from him. “It was a lie!” she yelled. She sprang to her feet, stumbled around the coffee table, paced back and forth on the floor. Sometimes her hands strained against one another, sometimes fist beat palm, over and over. “All those years were a lie, a trick, I was using her! And she believed in me!”

Everard decided he had better stay seated. He poured himself a new drink. “Calm down, Janne,” he urged. “You did what you had to, for the whole world’s sake. And you did it lovingly. As for Edh, you gave her everything she could have wished for.”

“ Bedriegerij —false, empty, like so much else I have done.”

Everard ran the silky fire over his tongue. “Listen, I’ve gotten to know you rather well. You’re as honest a person as I’ve ever met. Too damn honest, in fact. You’re also a very kind person by nature, which matters more. Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue. Janne, you’re wrong when you imagine there’s anything here to forgive. But go ahead anyway, put your common sense in gear and forgive yourself.”

She stopped, confronted him, gulped, wiped the tears, and spoke with a gradually strengthening steadiness: “Yes, I . . . understand. I, I thought about this . . . for days . . . before I made my proposal to the Patrol. Afterward I s-s-stuck by it. You are right, it was necessary, and I know that many stories people live by are myths, and many myths were manufactured. Pardon this scene. It was quite a short while ago, on my world line, that Veleda died in the arms of Nehalennia.”

“And the memory overwhelmed you. Sure. I’m sorry.”

“It was not your fault. How could you have known?” Floris drew a long breath. The hands clenched at her sides. “But I do not want to lie more than I must. I never want to lie to you, Manse.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, half in fear, half in foreknowledge.

“I have been thinking about us,” she said. “Thinking hard. I suppose what we did, coming together, was wrong—”

“Well, ordinarily it would’ve been, but in this case it didn’t foul us up in our job. If anything, I felt inspired. It was damn wonderful.”

“It was for me.” Still she grew inexorably more and more calm. “You came here today in hopes of renewing it, did you not?”

He attempted a grin. “I plead guilty. You’re hell on wheels in bed, darling.”

“You are no prutsener.” The faint smile died. “What further had you in mind?”

“More of the same. Often.”

“Always?”

Everard sat mute.

“It would be difficult,” Floris said. “You Unattached, I a Specialist field agent. We would spend most of our lives apart.”

“Unless you transferred to data coordination or something else where you could work at home.” Everard leaned forward. “You know, that’s an excellent idea in itself. You’ve got the brains for it. Be done with all that risk and hardship and, yes, witness of suffering which you’re forbidden to prevent.”

She shook her head. “I do not wish to. In spite of everything, I feel I am worth most in the field, my field, and will be until I am too old and feeble.”

If you survive so long. “Yeah. Challenge, adventure, fulfillment, and the occasional chance to help. You’re that sort.”

“I could come to hate the man who made me give them up. I do not wish this either.”

“Well, uh—” Everard rose. “All right,” he said. It felt like bailing out of a plane. You gave yourself to your parachute. “Not much domestic bliss, but in between missions, something extra special and entirely our own. Are you game?”

“Are you?” she answered.

In midstride toward her, he halted.

“You are aware of what my work can require,” she said. Her face had gone pale. It’s not a blushing matter, he thought at the back of his mind. “On this past mission, too. I was not all the time a goddess, Manse. Now and then I found it useful to be a Germanic woman far from home. Or I simply wanted a night’s forgetfulness.”

The blood thudded in his temples. “I’m no prude, Janne.”

“But you are a Middle American farm boy. You have told me so, and I have learned it is true. I can be your friend, your partner, your mistress, but never, down inside you, anything more. Be honest.”

“I’m trying,” he said harshly.

“It would be worse for me,” Floris finished. “I would have to keep too much from you. I would feel I was betraying you. That makes no sense, no, but it is what I would feel. Manse, we had better not fall more in love. We had better say good-bye.”

They spent the next few hours together, talking. Then she laid her head on his breast, he hugged her for a minute, and he departed.

Mary, mother of God, mother of sorrows, mother of salvation, be with us now and at the hour of our death.

Westward we sail, but night overtakes us. Watch over us through the dark and bring us on into day. Grant that this our ship bear the most precious of cargoes, your blessing.

Pure as yourself, your evenstar shines above the sunset. Guide us by your light. Lay your gentleness on the seas, breathe us forward in our faring and home again to our loves, carry us at last by your prayers into Heaven.

Ave Stella Maris!