Harry Harrison - The Daleth Effect

“No, not really.” She laughed to cover her confusion. “I mean I am married to a Dane, but I am still an American citizen, passport and all.” Now why had she told him about that?

“Papers,” he said, lifting his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Meaningless. We are what we think we are. Our deeds reflect our ethos. I am stating it badly. I never did well in philosophy, or in anything other than physics and mathematics. I even failed stinks once, forgot a retort on the burner and let it explode. And I never thought much about anything other than my work. And Esther, of course, when we were married. People used to call me a dry stick, and they were right. I never played cards, nothing like that. But I could see and I could think. And watch the attempts to destroy Israel. And when the idea of the Daleth drive came closer and closer to reality, I thought more and more about what should be done with it. I remembered Nobel and his million-dollar guilty-conscience awards. I thought of the atomic scientists who had been certified or who had committed suicide. Why, I kept thinking, why can’t something be done before the discovery is revealed? Can I not turn it to the benefit of mankind instead of the destruction? The thought stayed with me, and I could not get rid of it, and—in the end—I had to act upon it. I did not think that it would be easy, but I never thought it would be this hard…”

Arnie broke off and sipped at his drink. “You must excuse me; I am talking too much. The company of men. A woman, a sympathetic ear, and you see what happens. A joke.” He smiled a twisted grin.

“No, never!” She leaned over impulsively and took h hand. “A woman would go mad if she couldn’t tell ht troubles to someone. I think that’s the trouble with me! They hold it all in until they explode and then go out and kill someone.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you very much.” H patted her hand clumsily with his and lay back heavily eyes closed. A fat bumblebee hummed industriousl) around the hollyhock that climbed the side of the house. the only sound now in the still of the afternoon.

Nils sang happily in a loud monotone, scraping away at the paint blister on the cockpit cover. The harbor was deserted; on a summer Sunday like this every boat was out in the Sound. He would be too, as soon as he finished this job. He hated to see any imperfections on his Mage, so he ended up doing much more painting and polishing than sailing. Well, that was fun too. He had muscles and he liked to use them. Though they would ache tomorrow after the months of enervating lunar gravity. He was barefoot, stripped to his swim trunks, sweating greatly and enjoying himself tremendously. Singing so loud that he was unaware of the quiet footsteps on the dock behind him.

“That’s a terrible noise that you are making,” the voice said.

“Inger!” He sat up and wiped his hands on the rag. “Do you make a habit of sneaking up on me? And what the devil are you doing here?”

“Accident, if you can call fate that. I’m with friends from the Malmö Yacht Club, we’re just out for the day.” She pointed at a large cabin cruiser on the other side of the harbor. “We tied up here for lunch—and some drinks of course, you know how thirsty we Swedes get. They all went into the kro. I have to join them.”

“Not before I give you a drink—I have some bottles of beer in a bucket. My God but you look good.”

She did indeed. Inger Ahlqvist. Six feet of honey-tanned blonde, in a bikini so small that it was hardly noticeable.

“You shouldn’t walk around like that in public,” he said, aware of the tightening of the muscles in his tomach, his thighs. “It’s just criminal. And torture to a poor guy who has been playing Man in the Moon for so long that he has forgotten what a girl even looks like.”

“They look like me,” she said, and laughed. “Come on, give me that beer so I can go get my lunch. Sailing is hungry work. How is the Moon?”

“Indescribable. But you’ll be there one of these days soon. DFRS will need hostesses, and we’ll bribe you away from SAS.” He jumped down into the cockpit, landing heavier than he realized, still not adjusted to the change in gravity, and opened the cabin door. “I’ll get one for myself too. Isn’t this the weather? What have you been doing?”

He went to the far end where he had the green bottles in a bucket of water with chunks of ice. She stepped into the cockpit and leaned down to talk to him.

“The same old round. Still fun, but don’t think I haven’t envied you all this Moon and Mars travel. Do you mean what you said about the hostess thing?”

“Of course.” He clicked the caps off both bottles with an opener fixed to the bulkhead. “No details yet, secret and all that, but there are definite plans for passenger runs in the future. There have to be. Do you realize that we can reach the Moon base faster than the regular flight can go from Kastrup to New York? Here.”

He handed her the bottle and she stepped forward to get it.

“Skal”

She drank deeply, lowered the bottle with a contented sigh, her lips full and damp. Just inches away. There was no thought involved.

His bottle dropped to the deck, rolled, spilling out a pale stream of foam. His arms were around her back, the flesh of his hands against the warmth of her skin, her thighs tight to his thighs, the pressure of her breasts flattening against him. Her mouth was open, her lips beer-moist against his.

Her bottle dropped, rolled, clattered against the others. They did not hear it. They were falling.

Arnie’s mouth was slightly open, and his head had fallen over to one side; he was breathing deeply and regularly. Martha rose slowiy so as not to disturb him. If she stayed in the still heat of the garden any longer she would fall asleep too, and she did not want to do that. She went into the house and slipped into a light beach jacket, then knocked on Skou’s door. He opened it, wearing a pair of earphones, and waved her in. He had converted the back bedroom into a command post and, there was a table full of communications equipment. He issued instructions and switched off.

“I’m going to the harbor for a bit,” she told him. “Professor Klein is asleep in the back yard and I didn’t want to bother him.”

“That’s our job, watching him. Ill tell him where you went if he wakes up.”

It was only a five-minute walk. Martha went along the beach, carrying her sandals. The sand was warm and felt good between her toes. She stayed away from the water, which she knew, even now, would be far too cold for swimming. The air was still, almost soundless except for the flut-flutting of a helicopter overhead. Probably part of the guard for Arnie. There were a number of extra cars and trucks parked in her neighborhood, and she knew that some of the neighbors had unexpected guests. That poor, tired little man was being guarded like a national treasure. Well he probably was one. She waved to a party of friends sunning themselves on the beach, and climbed the stone steps to the top of the seawall. The harbor was almost empty of boats, and there was Mage —but Nils was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps he had gone across the road to the kro for a drink? No, he usually stopped there on the way to get some bottles of beer. Where could he have gotten to? Below decks probably.

She was about to call to him when she saw the beer bottle on the cockpit floor, and next to it, trailing through the half-open door, a piece of blue fabric. The halter top of a bikini.

In that single instant, with heart-stopping clarity, she knew what she would see if she looked into the cabin. As though she had lived this instant before, sometime, and had buried the memory which was now surfacing. Calmly—why? she wasn’t feeling calm—she stepped forward to the edge of the dock and leaned far out, holding onto the bollard anchored there. Through the door she could now see the starboard bunk, Nils’s broad back, and what he was doing. The arms that were tighdy pressed against that back, the tanned legs…