Greg Bear - Darwin's Radio

“Water, please.”

As she went to the kitchen, Mitch sniffed the flowers on the etagere, roses and lilies and baby’s breath, then circled around the couch and sat at one end. His long legs seemed to have no place to go. He folded his hands over his knees.

“I can’t just scream and shout and resign,” Kaye said. “I owe it to the people I work with.”

“I see. How’s the vaccine coming?”

“We’re well into preclinical trials. Some fast-track clinical trials in Britain and Japan, but I’m not happy about them. Jackson — he’s in charge of the vaccine project — wants me moved out of his division.”

“Why?”

“Because I spoke out in the dining room three days ago. Marge Cross couldn’t use our theory. Doesn’t fit the paradigm. Not defensible.”

“Quorum sensing,” Mitch said.

Kaye brought him a glass of water. “How’s that?”

“A chance discovery in my reading. When there’s enough bacteria, they change their behavior, get coordinated. Maybe we do the same thing. We just don’t have enough scientists to make a quorum.”

“Maybe,” Kaye said. She stood, once more, about a step away from him. “I’ve been working in the HERV and genome labs at Americol most of the time. Finding out where other endogenous virus like SHEVA might express, and under what conditions. I’m a little surprised that Christopher—”

Mitch looked up at her and interrupted. “I came to Baltimore to see you,” he said.

“Oh,” Kaye said softly.

“I can’t stop thinking about our evening at the zoo.”

“It doesn’t seem real now,” Kaye said.

“It does to me,” Mitch said.

“I think Marge is moving me off the press conference schedule,” Kaye said, perversely trying to shift the conversation, or to see if he would allow it to be shifted. “Wean me away from being a spokeswoman. It’ll take me some time to earn her trust again. Frankly, I’m glad to be away from the public eye. There’s going to be a—”

“In San Diego,” he interrupted, “I reacted pretty strongly to your presence.”

“That’s sweet,” Kaye said, and half turned, as if to run away. She did not run, but she walked around the table and stopped on his other side, again, just a step away.

“Pheromones,” Mitch said, and stood tall beside her. “The way people smell is important to me. You aren’t wearing perfume.”

“I never do,” Kaye said.

“You don’t need it.”

“Hold it,” Kaye said, and backed off one more step. She raised her hands and stared at him intently, lips pressed together. “I can be easily confused now. I need to keep my focus.”

“You need to relax,” Mitch said.

“Being around you is not relaxing.”

“You’re not sure about things.”

“I’m certainly not sure about you.”

He held out his hand. “Want to smell my hand first?”

Kaye laughed.

Mitch sniffed his palm. “Dial soap. Taxi cab doors. I haven’t dug a hole in years. My calluses are smoothing over. I’m out of work, in debt, and I have a reputation as a crazy and unethical son of a bitch.”

“Stop being so hard on yourself. I read your papers, and old news stories. You don’t cover up and you don’t lie. You’re interested in the truth.”

“I’m flattered,” Mitch said.

“And you confuse me. I don’t know what to think about you. You’re not much like my husband.”

“Is that good?” Mitch asked.

Kaye looked him over critically. “So far.”

“The customary thing would be to try things out slowly. I’d ask you out to dinner.”

“Dutch treat?”

“My expense account,” Mitch said wryly.

“Karl would have to come with us. He’d have to approve the restaurant. I usually eat up here, or at Americol’s cafeteria.”

“Does Karl eavesdrop?”

“No,” Kaye said.

“The doorman said he was serious beef,” Mitch said.

“I am still a kept woman,” Kaye said. “I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is. Let’s stay here and eat. We can walk in the roof garden later, if it’s stopped raining. I stock some really good frozen entrees. I get them from a market in the mall down below. And salad in a bag. I’m a good cook when there’s time, but there hasn’t been any time.” She walked back to the kitchen.

Mitch followed, looking at the other pictures on her walls, the little ones in cheap frames that were probably her own contribution to the decor. Small prints of Maxfield Parrish, Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham; photos of family groups.

He did not see any pictures of her dead husband. Perhaps she kept them in the bedroom.

“I’d like to cook for you some time,” Mitch said. “I’m pretty handy with a camp stove.”

“Wine? With dinner?”

“I need some now,” Mitch said. “I’m very nervous.”

“So am I,” Kaye said, and held up her hands to show him. They were trembling. “Do you have this effect on all women?”

“Never,” Mitch said.

“Nonsense. You smell good,” Kaye said.

They were less than a step apart. Mitch closed the gap, touched her chin, lifted it. Kissed her gently. She pushed back a few inches, then grasped his own chin between thumb and forefinger, tugged it down, kissed him more forcefully.

“I think it’s okay to be playful with you,” she said. With Saul, she could never be sure how he would react. She had learned to limit her range of behaviors.

“Please,” he said.

“You’re solid,” she said. She touched the sun wrinkles in his face, premature crow’s feet. Mitch had a young face and bright eyes but wise and experienced skin.

“I’m a madman, but a solid one.”

“The world goes on, our instincts don’t change,” Kaye said, eyes losing their focus. “We’re not in charge.” A part of her she had not heard from in a long time liked his face very much.

Mitch tapped his forehead. “Do you hear it? From the deep inside?”

“I think so,” Kaye said. She decided to fish. “What do I smell like?”

Mitch leaned into her hair. Kaye gave a little gasp as his nose touched her ear. “Clean and alive, like a beach in the rain,” he said.

“You smell like a lion,” Kaye said. He nuzzled her lips, laid his ear against her temple, as if listening. “What do you hear?” she asked.

“You’re hungry,” Mitch said, and smiled, a full-bore, thousand-watt, little-boy smile.

This was so obviously unrehearsed that Kaye touched his lips with her ringers, in wonder, before his face returned to that protective, endearing, but ultimately disguising, casual grin. She stepped back. “Right. Food. Wine first, please,” she said, and opened the refrigerator. She handed him a bottle of semillon blanc.

Mitch pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pants pocket, extended the corkscrew, extracted the cork deftly. “We drink beer on a dig, wine when we finish,” he said, pouring her a glass.

“What kind of beer?”

“Coors. Budweiser. Anything not too heavy.”

“All the men I’ve known preferred ales or microbrews.”

“Not in the sun,” Mitch said.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“The YMCA,” he said.

“I’ve never met a man who stayed at the YMCA.”

“It isn’t so bad.”

She sipped her wine, wet her lips, moved up closer, lifted on her toes, and kissed him. He tasted the wine on her tongue, still slightly chilled.

“Stay here,” she said.

“What will serious beef think?”

She shook her head, kissed him again, and he wrapped his arms around her, still holding his glass and the bottle. A little wine spilled on her dress. He turned her and put the glass on the counter, then the bottle.

“I don’t know where to stop,” she said.