Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

Hearing that your husband is crazy is a load off your mind? Saul didn’t say that. He could feel the mood swing. Tricia’s face was different now. In the old days, the looseness of mouth and flushed cheeks signaled sexual urgency. She sat down, and her stockinged foot touched his ankle and wriggled up his calf.

How could she move so quickly from worry to open lust? In the same way that he had moved in that direction himself, from the moment when she spoke of her husband as though of some stranger. Tricia always claimed that she just read Saul’s moods and responded to them. A chameleon, he thought. And then, a sign of how far from sober he was, La Dame aux Chameleons.

“Back in a moment.” Tricia was on her feet again. She slipped out of the room, touching the light switch as she went to leave Saul in semidarkness.

He stood up, too, and went to stand in front of the couch by the window. Outside, the city was brighter. General use of electricity was heavily restricted, but power was creeping back into the grid. Two weeks ago it had been riots and fires and murder in the streets. He had feared the collapse of society and a countrywide descent to barbarism. It turned out that most people, no matter what they might have said before Supernova Alpha, wanted their central government. To restore it, and keep it, they were performing miracles of improvisation.

An old cargo plane lifting off from National Airport reminded Saul of his flight back from Indian Head. That led his thoughts to Yasmin. By now she must have been to Maryland Point and the Q-5 Syncope Facility. She would be rejoicing, or she would be in mourning.

Yasmin was deeply suspicious of Tricia, without ever meeting her. She’s divorced again, and she’s hunting.

Yasmin sounded confident, a woman assessing another woman’s motives. But Yasmin admitted that she didn’t understand at all why Tricia had walked out of Saul’s life two and a half years ago. And Yasmin was not unbiased. Saul played a role in her own ambitions.

He heard a rustle of fabric behind him, and turned not knowing what to expect. In the old days Tricia had been a constant sexual surprise, coming to him as anything from demure virgin to nude porn star.

She was still wearing the dress of midnight blue, but she was now barefoot. She came into his arms and nestled her face against his neck.

“You’re still thinking, aren’t you? Saul, you shouldn’t. This is the time in the evening when your brain ought to be turned off.”

She snuggled close. He leaned over and smelled her skin, perfumed now with the added musk of sexual desire. He reached down to the hem of her dress and ran his hand up inside the front of it. As he expected, she was bare; and she was ready.

So was he, reassuringly erect and firm. Yasmin’s warning from the previous night was faint and far-off. But it was enough to make Saul murmur, as he nuzzled Tricia’s bare shoulder, “You feel so good. Why did you ever leave me?”

She was breathing hard through her mouth. She pulled away to look into his eyes. “I thought you didn’t want me. It broke my heart. I couldn’t bear it and I ran away.”

It didn’t make sense — he had told her that he did want her, very much. But in Saul’s present condition, perfect logic was not important. He put his arm around her and tried to ease her down onto the couch.

To his surprise, she resisted. “No, Saul. Not now.”

It could be part of a game, although it didn’t sound like one. He tried again. She pulled away and stood head lowered, her arms by her sides.

“I’m sorry.” Saul reached out and stroked her bare shoulder. “I thought you were ready.”

Thought. He had been absolutely sure. But Tricia was shaking her head and backing away.

“It’s not that, Saul. This is all my fault, I should never have started. I’m still a married woman. But seeing you, and kissing you, and you touching me, it made me so excited. I felt as though we had never been away from each other. But now — I can’t.”

She was leaning over, picking up her shoes. She hurried to the door, paused on the threshold, and turned her dark head. “Oh, Saul.” Her voice trembled. “I’ve missed you so much. You have no idea. I wish we could, but I just can’t. Not while I’m still married. Please forgive me, and let me go.”

She vanished into the darkened room beyond the door. Saul took two steps after her, and stopped. What would he do if he caught up with her? It wasn’t a sex game, she wasn’t being coy. He couldn’t — and wouldn’t — drag her back against her will.

Saul wandered through into the bathroom off the dining room. Tricia’s stockings and panties formed a crumpled ball in front of the sink. He reached down, picked them up, and stood with them in his hand. They provided more proof that Tricia had been very ready for lovemaking before she abruptly changed her mind. He thrust the stockings and flimsy damp panties into his pocket and stared at his own reflection in the long bathroom mirror.

He thought he looked normal enough. No visible evidence of the overwhelming sexual excitement that he had felt three minutes ago, or the awful sense of letdown he was feeling now. Tricia was probably feeling even worse.

But …

His instincts told him that something else was going on, something that he did not understand. He could not get to it without more information — and not in his present fuddled condition.

I’m still a married woman. And again. Not while I’m still married. Was she saying that she and Joseph Goldsmith were in the process of splitting up? She certainly had grounds, if Goldsmith had become a raving lunatic. But if she was in the process of getting a divorce, why hadn’t she said so outright?

Saul wandered slowly back toward his bedroom through a silent White House. He could see the irony, even if he could not appreciate it. He had been without sex for a long time, more than two years. There had been opportunities, with willing partners, but he had been unable to perform.

Now in the last two evenings he had been ready, eager, and able. In both cases, after a roaring start, the woman had balked and left him frustrated.

Saul took off his clothes and went naked to bed. Two successive blue-ball nights. He had known nothing like it in the four decades since he was an eager teenager.

There was only one consolation. Even if the statistic formed some kind of melancholy presidential record, it was not likely to find its way into the histories of the Steinmetz White House.

Celine awoke to music, faint, far-off, and very familiar. That driving bass and those dissonant brass chords had given her energy on a thousand mornings. It was the anthem for their expedition: Mars, from Gustav Hoist’s suite The Planets. The team had chosen it together after final selection. She listened to its urgent pulse for twenty seconds before she recalled where she was.

Earth. At last. But a changed Earth. Zoe, Alta, and Ludwig, companions for more than five years, dead. A difficult landing, followed by a bizarre encounter. The past twenty-four hours had been one prolonged nightmare.

She listened, grieving for lost friends, until the final chords. Music for the Mars expedition. So why was it playing here, deep underground in the lair of the Legion of Argos? Pearl Lazenby disapproved of all space travel.

Celine opened her eyes. If the music had given her strength on a thousand mornings, it must do so one more time. She sat up. Before going to bed she and Wilmer had pushed their cots together. Then she had fallen asleep so quickly that it made no difference. She glanced across at him in the faint light coming in from under the door.