James White - Mind Changer

“No? said O’Mara seriously, “the wrong species.”

She stared at him openmouthed and aghast.

Kledenth said, “Are you getting therapy for it?”

Slowly she began to laugh, loudly and long. O’Mara stared at her without changing his expression until the laughter subsided into a broad smile.

“You sounded so, so serious when you said that? she said, “and you look so dour and unapproachable that I never suspected that you could have a sense of humor. But don’t ever make a joke like that in the pooi or you’ll be the one responsible for drowning me.”

In the event, neither of them drowned, although the enthusiasm she displayed while making sure he stayed afloat made the process feel like a bout of mixed wrestling. And while they were sitting on loungers at the edge of the pool before or after a swimming lesson it was worse, or better, because she could see that he was attracted to her. She kept telling him to relax, to be less serious about everything and to remember that he was, after all, on leave. It was obvious that he was becoming a challenge to her. But he wasn’t playing hard to get, just feeling too embarrassed and uncertain about himself to play at all. He kept trying to find e,~cuses to return to his cabin to avoid being alone at the pool with ler for too long.

He was, after all, only human.

In the dining room, on the recreation deck, and in the big observation lounge, where there would be nothing to look at but each other until Kreskhallar emerged from hyperspace, the soft assault continued although attimes it became less frontal. In the lounge there was nothing to do but talk, usually about and often with the other passengers, and drink various other-world concoctions that were intended to lower his resistance and/or remove his inhibitions, which they didn’t. She said very little about herself other than that she had recently graduated top of her year-she didn’t mention her specialty-and that to celebrate her parents had paid for this five-world, star-traveling convention that would enable her to visit worlds she was never likely to see otherwise while indulging her hobby among people of like mind.

O’Mara told her even less about himself, because the uniform, which he had taken to wearing on every social occasion like a suit of green armor, told her what he did in real life.

But there was one evening, when the ship was ten hours out of Traltha’s planetary capital, Naorthant, and the stars and myriad moons of the Tralthan system had been shining into the darkened observation lounge, when he had returned alone to his cabin with his resistance very low indeed.

Angrily he wondered why he was acting like some stupid knight errant from the legends that the passengers discussed endlessly among themselves. What was he trying to prove? She was an intelligent and very desirable young women, so much so that he couldn’t understand why she had any time for a coarse, ugly person like himself at all. And there was no way that it could become a permanent commitment, because it would end when Kreskhallar returned her to Earth in four weeks’ time. Nobody in Sector General would ever know about it, whatever “it” turned out to be, and if they did find out, neither Craythorne nor anyone e>~ would care. He was on leave, after all, and he had been told by his chief to relax and enjoy himself.

He wasn’t being unfaithful, he told himself again and again as he tossed sleepless in his bunk while in the darkness of the cabin pictures formed of Joan wearing even less than she had worn in the pool. It was utterly stupid, probably even insane, to feel that he was being unfaithful to someone who didn’t even know he was alive.

H is idea of casual dress would have been a clean set of Monitor green coveralls with the insignia removed, but Joan would have none of that. Instead she insisted that he dress like a tourist for the sightseeing trips of Traltha’s famed beauty spots and, inwardly kicking and screaming, he was dragged into the Earth-human section of the spaceport’s shopping mall, where she became a sartorial tyrant regarding his wardrobe. He had never been the kind of person who merged into the background, O’Mara thought ruefully, but the result was so loud and garish that he was sure people would be able to hear as well as see him coming.

Traltha was a heavy planet pulling two-plus Earth Gs which meant that, except when sleeping or resting flat, they were required to wear gravity-nullifier harnesses at all times. O’Mara could have stood upright and moved about without one, but the others did not have his experience on space construction sites and could have fallen over and broken something and he would, after all, merely have been showing off.

The first time Joan appeared wearing hers she remarked that the antigravity harness could easily have doubled as a medieval Earth chastity belt.

On the atmosphere flights to justly famous Dunelton Gorge and the beautiful Bay of Trammith, and during the two-day stopovers for sightseeing, they traveled, talked, seriously and otherwise, and had all their meals together, but O’Mara had the feeling that a little distance was beginning to grow between them. By then he had learned how to swim well enough to try doing it from the gently sloping golden beach that fringed the bay, accompanied, naturally, by his shapely lifeguard. But their tour guide forbade all swimming, pointing out that Trammith was a nature preserve sparsely populated by a rare and protected species of sea predators who didn’t care what or who they ate, so there was no close physical contact with her either in or out of the water.

Had she simply given up on him, he wondered, because he had refused to take the many chances she had given him and was backing off while she still had some pride left? Or, now that he no longer wore uniform and was beginning to show more interest in her, was she trying to encourage him further by playing hard to get?

Only a nasty, devious-minded psychologist, he told himself, would have a thought like that.

He couldn’t believe that someone with his unfriendly personality could get into a situation like this. As soon as they returned to Naorthant spaceport he could simply detach himself from it by going to the Monitor office and boarding the next available ship going somewhere, anywhere, else. But that would be a stupid as well as a cowardly thing to do because, he was beginning to realize, he had been having a very enjoyable if recently a frustrating time on Kreskhallar. So whatever way the situation developed, he told himself firmly, it wouldn’t be all bad.

Early on the first night out they were on the recreation deck looking out at the stars and blue-green, mottled image of Traltha shrinking astern while they argued about the Arthurian legend of ancient Earth.

… This is another one of your legends that I’ve never understood? Kledenth was saying. “You had an aging, wise, and enlightened king who, because of the pressures of maintaining order in its country, neglected the physical and emotional needs of its much younger life-mate and queen, who in turn became so emotionally involved with its younger and physically more attractive bodyguard that it ignored the promises of fidelity it had already made and ultimately an unlawful mating for pleasure took place. As a result the once stable and prospering kingdom disintegrated and everybody died, or lived unhappily ever after. I read the story and watched some of the dramatizations, but I still can’t understand why the king allowed it to happen. Was it as wise as you say, unable to communicate its emotions, blind, or just plain stupid? I think it’s a bad story that doesn’t deserve to be told.”

“The point is’ said Joan, “that it’s a bad, sad story that could have been good. I don’t mind if the characters have to suffer provided there is a happy ending. But if people could read the signals correctly, there would be a happy ending without anyone having to suffer?