Orson Card - Earthfall

"Please, may I come in?" he asked.

She laughed but let him through the door. "Of course, Vas, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Except that I'm tired all the time, but that's the same complaint that everyone else has. If you've come to cut the vegetables for supper, then I'm delighted."

"Do you really need help with the vegetables?" asked Vas.

"No, that was a figure of speech. I'm actually sewing. Volemak insists that we all learn to sew with these awful bone needles. They're so thick that with every stitch they open gaping holes in the fabric but he insists that someday there'll be no more steel ones and so-well, it makes no sense to me, not even in the desert did we have to-I'm boring you, aren't I?"

"I'm sorry," said Vas. "Not boring me. But I was listening more to your voice than your words, I hope you'll forgive me. Elemak is a lucky man, to have a wife whose common speech is so like music."

She looked puzzled at the compliment, but then laughed lightly. "I don't think Elemak feels very lucky," she said.

"Then Elemak is a fool," said Vas. "For him to turn away from such goodness and beauty as-"

"Vas, are you trying to seduce me?" asked Eiadh.

Flustered, Vas could only deny it. "No, I can't-did I lead you to think that I-oh, this is embarrassing. I came to talk. I've been lonely and I thought perhaps you-but if you think it's not proper for us to be alone in the house here-"

"It's all right," said Eiadh. "I know my virtue is safe with you."

Vas put on his best wry smile. "Everyone's virtue is safe with me, apparently."

"Poor Vas," she said. "You and I have something in common."

"Do we?" he asked. Was it possible she felt toward him as he felt toward her? Perhaps he shouldn't have denied his seductive intent so quickly and emphatically.

"I mean besides the obvious," she said. "It seems that both of us are fated to play secondary roles in our own autobiographies."

Vas laughed because it seemed that she was waiting for him to laugh. "By which you mean..." he said,

"Oh, just that we both seem to be buffeted here and there by the choices that other people make. Why in the world were we ever brought aboard a starship, can you think of a reason? Just a matter of chance. Falling in love with the wrong person on the wrong day at the wrong point in history."

"Yes," said Vas. "Now I understand you. But can't two bit players like ourselves nevertheless make our own little plays, on a small stage in the wings, while the famous actors make orotund speeches before the great audience of history? Can't there be some kind of happiness snatched in the darkness, where the only audience is ourselves?"

"I'm not the snatch-in-the-darkness type," said Eiadh. "I married stupidly and I knew it almost at once. So did you, I'm afraid. But that doesn't mean that I'll jeopardize the future of my children, not to mention my own future, for the sake of some kind of consolation or vengeance. I take what happiness I can in the light, out in the open. Loving my children. You have good children yourself, Vas. Take comfort in them."

"The love of my children isn't the love that I hunger for," he said. He dared to be direct with her because he realized that she saw through all his attempts at clever indirection anyway.

"Vas," she said kindly. "I have admired you for so long, because you bear everything with such patience. I no longer have any problem knowing which kind of strength, yours or Elemak's, is the better kind. But part of what I admire is that you are able to bear it all without flinching. Let's not become like they are. Let's not stoop low enough that we finally deserve what they're doing to us."

Vas was not an unobservant man. He noticed right away that she seemed to be referring to something recent, not ancient history from back in Basilica. She seemed to assume that he already knew something that he did not know. "You will never deserve what Elemak is doing to you," he said, hoping that it would prompt a certain response.

And it did. "You don't deserve what Sevet is doing to you, either," she answered. "You'd think she would have learned her lesson long ago, but some women learn nothing, while others learn everything."

Vas's head spun. He had dwelt so long on the memory of the years-ago betrayal with Obring that it hadn't crossed his mind that Sevet might be taking someone else into her bed. Yet there were many opportunities. When he was out in the fields, taking his turn; when he was standing watch; when he was off those two times with Zdorab, using the ship's launch to explore and map the surrounding country. Sevet might have-but surely even she would not-not a second time, not after she lost so much, lost her voice... .

But then, I wasn't the one who took her voice from her, was I? That was Kokor, and then we were out of Basilica by the time Sevet's voice healed. Sevet might know to fear Kokor's temper, but what has ever taught her to fear mine?

The time has come, Vas realized. This time there would be no patience. This time there would be no Elemak to stay his hand. Sevet and Obring would die, and then he would turn to Elemak and rid Eiadh of the burden of that monstrous husband forever. Then, with all impediments out of the way, then she would turn to the man who had freed her.

Or not. Who really cared whether anyone loved him or approved of him at all? He wasn't trying to win anyone's love or admiration except his own. He had been too long without it, and it was time to get it back.

"Hard to believe that she could still be taken in by Obring," said Vas. "You'd think she would see through him now, when he's outgrown his boyish charm-as if he ever had any."

She laughed, but there was a puzzled look on her face. Now, what could that mean?

It meant that it wasn't Obring. Sevet was being unfaithful, but not with Obring.

Then he remembered what she said before. About how they had something in common. "I mean besides the obvious," she said. What was the obvious? So obvious that only Vas had missed it. Everyone must know. Everyone.

She must have seen the realization on his face, because it was her turn to look stricken. "Oh, Vas, I thought you knew, I thought that's why you came here, to get even with them. But I wasn't angry, you see, because I don't want him in my bed anyway, so I don't much care where he puts his sweaty body and I thought ... I don't know why but I just assumed that you had the same attitude but I see that you don't, you didn't know, and I'm so sorry, I... ."

He didn't hear her finish because he got up and left her house. Elemak's house.

"Don't do anything foolish, Vas," she said softly. And then, because she knew perfectly well that there was a very good chance he would do something foolish, she went in search of help, Volemak had to know that there was a quarrel brewing. He would know how to put a stop to it. Eiadh should have done this long ago. Adultery was a terrible thing in their tiny community- Elemak himself had laid down that law in the desert years before. Eiadh had never complained because she honestly was glad not to have to have him close to her, with those angry hands that had broken a helpless innocent being, those hands that had brutalized and terrorized everyone aboard the ship. Better to sleep alone and dream of the only real man she had ever known. A man who once, when he was a boy, had loved her, or at least longed for her. A man who now didn't so much as look at her with pleasure.

With all her childish longing for Nafai, it had never occurred to her that the reason Vas hadn't complained about Elemak's and Sevet's adultery was because he didn't know. How could he not know? Were men so much more blind than women? Or did he imagine that just because he might have stopped wanting Sevet, her own sexual desires would naturally just wither away?