Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“If you know them, then you know I didn’t.” But Saul was feeling a rising excitement, at odds with his calm words.

“So what did they do, lie back and think about the Pledge of Allegiance instead of the Washington Monument? No, you can’t do that!” Saul had begun to rub her breast and erect nipple. She pushed his hand away, but their lower bodies remained in contact. “I said I’d have to show you, so I’m doing it. I was sure I knew what would get you going. I was right, wasn’t I? You’re not impotent, far from it. You pointed out that I never met Tricia. I didn’t need to meet her. She fought her way up from nowhere, and all that experience showed up in bed. Her husbands had never known anything like it. Right? You must know.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to. You gave me my answer. Now I’ll give you yours. Once you knew you were going to have dinner with Tricia, you arranged to come here and have dinner with me first. See, I probably look nothing like her, but I had the right feel to me. I was like your double-protection insurance policy. You know we could easily go for each other — we’re already doing it. So if you can’t perform with me, chances are you won’t be able to make it with her, either. You’ll be safe. But if it’s a roaring success with me, the way you think it might be, then we’ll fuck all night until you’re so tired you couldn’t get a hard-on tomorrow to save your life.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

“Of course it wouldn’t. I know men. Sexually, yesterday is like last year. But that’s what you had in the back of your mind when you came here. And that’s what’s really making me mad, and it’s the reason we’re not going to do anything tonight.”

“I could make love to you right now, right here.”

“I know you could. Do you think I can’t feel what’s happening down there? But you’re not going to. I’m not a trial run for a session with Tricia Goldsmith. My pussy isn’t a magic charm that you can wear around your dick to protect you from her.” Yasmin put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God, I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’ll have to fire me.”

“You said you hoped we would make love.”

Yasmin pushed him away. “I didn’t say make love. I said fuck. Anyway, that was before I understood why you came here. If I left it to my feelings, we’d be rolling on the floor this minute. I’m not pretending I wouldn’t enjoy it, either, or that I’m not attracted to you. And I love working with you at the White House, and for all the right reasons — nothing to do with sex. I have tons to learn, and you teach me so much.”

“Learn about politics? I’m not sure I’d call that the right reasons.”

“A better reason than most. I’m not saying we won’t be lovers in the future, either. I think we will. But that has to be for the right reasons, too. And we should have privacy, and plenty of time. I bet there isn’t even a lock on that door.”

“I never looked. So what happens now?” Saul’s excitement was waning as he accepted the idea that tonight Yasmin would not be persuaded. Again, there had been a subtle shift in the relationship. In this area, Yasmin was asserting her rights.

“We go to bed — separately,” she said. “And tomorrow I head south to the syncope facility.”

“Not alone, you don’t.” In another domain, his own authority came into play. “Something is happening downriver. You’ll have a military escort.”

“Fine. I have an escort. You do your inspection of this base. Then you return to Washington and have dinner with Tricia. If it helps when you’re with her, think of what you’ll be giving up with me if you fall into her clutches again. I don’t mind being used in that way. And here’s a taste of what you’d be missing.”

She put one arm around his neck and gave him a long, searching kiss, while her other hand worked its way slowly down his belly. He reached around her upper thighs to pull her closer. She shuddered, took a step backward, and said, “Don’t get me going again. I’m the one who has to say no, and that’s not fair.”

“Not fair? You started it.” But Saul released her. “Do you want to leave here before I do?”

“You mean, to protect my good name?” Yasmin smoothed her dress and checked its fastenings. “I think it’s too late for that. We’ve been alone for hours.”

She opened the door and looked out into the hallway. “So much for reputations. Nobody. I suppose even a security man can tell when he’s not wanted.”

She walked a couple of steps ahead of Saul, then turned her head. Already she was looking more perky. “One thing you might want to fix, just in case you meet somebody on the way to the rooms.”

“My hair?” Saul reached up to smooth his graying locks.

“Your zipper.” Yasmin kept on walking. “You know, I don’t think your mother would approve of me. I’m not a nice girl.”

Pride goeth before a fall. That, and. a hundred other admonitions not to get too cocky.

Art lay on his back, shielded his eyes from the morning sun with his hands, and made another attempt to find a comfortable position.

The planks beneath him were of wet unseasoned timber, flat to the eye but not to the back. He had just spent six hours proving that. For the previous four hours he had been working a paddle, when any chance to lie down and rest seemed like a prospect of bliss.

Be careful what you wish for; you might get it. You didn’t often experience such immediate verification.

After they came out of the storm drain Art had thought that the biggest problem in reaching the syncope facility was solved — and he was not the only one. Seth, too confident too soon, had predicted that he would locate a boat with no trouble.

Four hours of floundering in deep snow by the riverside taught them otherwise. They traveled less than two miles. At last they found not a powerboat, able to carry them quickly and comfortably downstream; nor a sailboat, where the wind could help. Their big find was a battered and unwieldy scow, half-rotted in its timbers and with mildewed cushions on its single seat. A pair of cracked paddles floated in the three inches of scum that had to be tipped from its flat bottom.

Spend the night moving downstream, or remain huddled on the snowy riverbank? That choice was easy. You pursue progress, even if you suspect that it is an illusion.

Art had gladly taken his turn paddling in the freezing hours before midnight, when hard physical effort was the best way to stay warm. He had labored again in the predawn gloom, when a great rush of wind raised whitecaps on the shallow river and drove the boat fast downstream.

The weather front passed through in less than an hour. When it left, the temperature was fifty degrees higher. Extra clothes had to be discarded, left in a heap in the bottom of the boat for use as makeshift bedding.

Now it was Art’s turn to take it easy, drifting in and out of uneasy half sleep while Dana and Seth paddled the hulk downstream. Even with the steady push from the current, the boat was achieving no more than a couple of miles an hour. At this rate it would take days to reach the Q-5 Syncope Facility. By the time they got there, Oliver Guest’s body in its cubicle could be thawed and rotten.

Why bother? Why keep going?

For the same reason that Seaman Edgar Evans, who pulled a sled the day he died, had kept going: you paddled because if you wanted to live you had no choice.

The change in the weather was bizarre. Twelve hours earlier Art had been chilled through every layer of clothing. This morning he was down to pants and a short-sleeved shirt, and still he sweltered under blue skies and rising sun.