Damon Knight - Orbit 20

Too easy, Sam realized. She was too deep inside; all this was a glib overlay she was hiding behind. After dinner, she took two pills.

“Something new?” Sam asked.

“Not really. I used them when Stuart and I were breaking up. They got me through then.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Not when I take these,” she said too gaily, holding up the bottle of pills. She had changed into short pajamas; now she pulled a book from her bag and sat on her bed. “My system,” she said cheerfully, “is to take two, read, and in an hour if I’m still reading, take two more.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“At home I keep them in the bathroom. If I’m too sleepy to get up and get them, I don’t need them. Foolproof. Hasn’t failed me yet. Have you read this?” She handed him the book.

“Stop it, Victoria. What are you doing?”

She retrieved the book and opened it. “It’s pretty good. There’s a secondhand book store near the office . . .”

“Victoria, let me make love to you.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“We used to be good together.”

“Another time. I’m getting drowsy, floating almost. It’s like a nice not-too-high once it starts.”

“And you don’t dream? How about nightmares? You were having three or four a night last time I saw you. So bad you wouldn’t even wake up from them.”

She had became rigid as he spoke. She closed the book and let it drop to the floor, then swung her legs off the bed.

“What are you doing?” He felt the beginnings of a headache: guilt and shame for doing that to her, he knew.

“Water. More pills. Sometimes I don’t have to wait an hour to know.”

Presently she slept, deeply, like a person in a coma. She looked like a sick child with her brown hair neatly arranged, the covers straight, as if her mother or a nurse had only then finished preparing her for a visitor. He no longer desired her. That sudden rush of passion had been so sudden and unexpected, he had been as surprised as she. He had not thought of her as a sexual partner for months. Their sex had been good, but only because each had known the other would make no further demands. It had been fun with her, he thought, again with surprise because he had forgotten. It had been clean with her, no hidden nuances to decipher; no flirtatious advance and retreat; no other boyfriends to parade before him hoping for a show of jealousy. If they existed she was reticent about them, as she was about everything personal. No involvement at all, that had been the secret of their success.

He had planned to surrender the camper to Mimi and Diego, and share his tent with Victoria, out of sight and sound of the others, with only the desert and the brilliant moon growing fatter each night. Even that, showing her the world he loved so much, would have been something freely given, freely taken, with no ties afterward. They both had understood that, had wanted it that way.

He turned off the lights but was a long time in falling asleep.

Toward dawn he was awakened by Victoria’s moaning. He put his denim jacket over the lamp before he turned it on. She had the covers completely off and was twisting back and forth in a rocking motion, making soft, incoherent sounds. As he drew near to touch her, to interrupt her dream, she stiffened and he knew she had slipped into a nightmare like the ones she had had before. The first time he had shaken her, called her repeatedly, and after a long time she had screamed and gone limp. After that he had simply held her until it was over, held her and murmured her name over and over. She had not remembered any of the nightmares.

He slid into the narrow bed and wrapped his arms around her, whispering, “It’s going to be all right, Victoria. We’re going to fix it, make it all right again.”

It went on and on, until abruptly she began to fight him. Then she wakened and, gasping, she clung to him as he stroked her sweaty back. He pulled the covers over her again.

"Sh, sh. It’s over. Go back to sleep now. It’s all right.”

“No more! I want to get up!”

“You’ll be chilled. No more sleep. Just rest a few minutes. It’s too early to get up. Try to relax and get warm.”

The drugs and the nightmares were battling for her; the nightmares waited for a sign of weakening in the pills, ready to claim her swiftly then.

What had she seen? What was she still seeing when her pink pills lost their effectiveness in the darkness before dawn?

“How sick is she?” Serena asked. She was watching Farley and Victoria going toward the reservoir for a swim.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I like her. I don’t want to see her sick, maybe die. Farley likes her. Is she, was she your girl?”

“Not the way you mean,” Sam said laughing.

“What other way is there?” Serena raised her hands and let them drop, expressing what? Sam always knew exactly what she meant, yet could never put it in words.

After Serena left him on the porch, he wondered how sick Victoria really was. After six days on the ranch, she was tanned, vivacious, pretty. Maybe she was sleeping better. Farley was keep ing her busy riding, hiking, swimming, whatever they could find to do out in the sun and wind, and her appetite was good again. By ten or eleven she was ready for bed. And sleep? He wished he knew.

Farley sidestepped every question about what he planned to do. “Don’t rush,” he said. “She’s terribly tired. Let’s get acquainted before we dance. Okay?” He said he had learned nothing from his father.

“Aren’t we even going out there?”

“In time, Sam. In time. She quit her job. She tell you that? She’s in no rush. No place she has to go.”

She hadn’t told him, and it annoyed him that she had told a stranger. It annoyed him that Farley and Victoria were having long talks that excluded him, that Farley had announced their swim after Sam had said he was expecting a long-distance call. Most of all it annoyed him that Serena evidently thought of Farley and Victoria as a couple. An hour later, his call completed, he walked over to the reservoir, but stopped on the hill overlooking the lake. Victoria and Farley were sitting close together under a juniper tree, talking. Sam returned to the house.

It was not jealousy, he knew. It was the delay. Victoria had something, could show him something that he needed desperately. Every delay increased his impatience and irritation until he felt he could stand no more.

After dinner he said coolly, “Tomorrow let’s ride over to the gorge area and camp out.”

Victoria leaned forward eagerly. “Let’s. Let’s camp out.”

Farley’s face was unreadable. He watched Victoria a moment, then shrugged.

“In that case,” Victoria said quickly, “I’d better wash my hair now and get plenty of sleep.” There were spots of color in both cheeks and she looked too excited. She hurried to the door, said good night over her shoulder, and ran upstairs.

Farley leaned back, studying Sam.

“There’s no point in putting it off any longer,” Sam said. He sounded too defensive, he knew. Sullenly he added, “I’m sorry if I upset your timetable.”

“Not mine. Hers. She thinks she’s going to die out there. We had an unspoken agreement, a pact, you might say, to give her a vacation and rest before she had to face that valley again.”

“You know that’s crazy!”

“I don’t know half as much as you do, Sam. I seem to know less all the time. I don’t know what’s in the valley, don’t know what it will do to her to face it again. I don’t know why you think you can use her to see it too. Nope. I don’t know nearly half as much as you do.”

Sam had risen as Farley spoke. “Back off, Farley. I said I’m sorry. Let’s drop it.”