Damon Knight: Orbit 14

He managed a smile. “Have you heard me complain?” “Weren’t you just . . . ?” She lifted her head.

Slowly he nodded, felt pain start. “I suppose I was.” But I don’t change. He shut his eyes suddenly, before she read them. But that’s not the point, is it?

“Maris, do you want me to stop staying here?”

“No— No ... I understand, it’s all right. I like the company.” He stretched, shook his head. “Only, wear a towel, all right? I’m only human.”

“I promise . . . that I will keep my eyes open, in the future.” He considered the future that would begin with dawn when her ship went up, and said nothing.

He stumbled cursing from the bedroom to the door, to find her waiting there, radiant and wholly unexpected. “Surprise!” She laughed and hugged him, dislodging his half-tied robe.

“My God—hey!” He dragged her inside and slammed the door. “You want to get me arrested for indecent exposure?” He turned his back, making adjustments, while she stood and giggled behind him.

He faced her again, fogged with sleep, struggling to believe. “You’re early—almost two weeks?”

“I know. I couldn’t wait till tonight to surprise you. And I did, didn’t I?” She rolled her eyes. “I heard you coming to the door!”

She sat curled on his aging striped couch, squinting out the window as he fastened his sandals. “You used to have so much room. Houses haven’t filled up your canyon, have they?” Her voice grew wistful.

“Not yet. If they ever do, I won’t stay to see it . . . How was your trip this time?”

“Beautiful, again ... I can’t imagine it ever being anything else. You could see it all a hundred times over, and never see it all—

Oh, guess what! My poems—I finished the cycle during the voyage . . . and it’s going to be published, on Treone. They said very nice things about it.”

He nodded smugly. “They have good taste. They must have changed, too.”

“ ‘A renaissance in progress’—meaning they’ve put on some ver -ry artsy airs, last decade; their Tails are really something else. . . .” Remembering, she shook her head. “It was one of them that told me about the publisher.”

“You showed him your poems?” Trying not to—

“Good grief, no; he was telling me about his. So I thought, What have I got to lose?”

“When do I get a copy?”

“I don’t know.” Disappointment pulled at her mouth. “Maybe I’ll never even get one; after twenty-five years they’ll be out of print. ‘Art is long, and Time is fleeting’ . . . Longfellow had it backwards. But I made you some copies of the poems. And brought you some more books, too. There’s one you should read, it replaced Ntaka years ago on the Inside. I thought it was inferior; but who are we . . . What are you laughing about?”

“What happened to that freckle-faced kid in pigtails?”

“What?” Her nose wrinkled.

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty-four. Oh—” She looked pleased.

“Madame Poet, do you want to go to dinner with me?”

“Oh, food, oh yes!” She bounced, caught him grinning, froze. “I would love to. Can we go to Good Eats?”

“It closed right after you left.”

“Oh . . . the music was wild. Well, how about that seafood place, with the fish name—?”

He shook his head. “The owner died. It’s been twenty-five years.”

“Damn, we can never keep anything.” She sighed. “Why don’t I just make us a dinner— I’m still here. And I’d like that.”

That night, and every other night, he stood at the bar and watched her go out, with a Tail or a laughing knot of partyers. Once she waved to him; the stem of a shatterproof glass snapped in his hand; he kicked it under the counter, confused and angry.

But three nights in the two weeks she came home early. This time, pointedly, he asked her no questions. Gratefully, she told him no lies, sleeping on his couch and sharing the afternoon . . .

They returned to the flyer, moving in step along the cool jade sand of the beach. Maris looked toward the sea’s edge, where frothy fingers reached, withdrew, and reached again. “You leave tomorrow, huh?”

Brandy nodded. “Uh-huh.”

He sighed.

“Maris, if—”

“What?”

“Oh—nothing.” She brushed sand from her boot.

He watched the sea reach, and withdraw, and reach—

“Have you ever wanted to see a ship? Inside, I mean.” She pulled open the flyer door, her body strangely intent.

He followed her. “Yes.”

“Would you like to see mine—the Who Got Her?”

“I thought that was illegal?”

“ ‘No waking man shall set foot on a ship of the spaceways.’ It is a League regulation . . . but it’s based on a superstition that’s at least a thousand years old—‘Men on ships is bad luck.’ Which is silly here. Your presence on board in port isn’t going to bring us disaster.”

He looked incredulous.

“I’d like you to see our life, Maris, like I see yours. There’s nothing wrong with that. And besides”—she shrugged—“no one will know; because nobody’s there right now.”

He faced a wicked grin, and did his best to match it. “I will if you will.”

They got in, the flyer drifted silently up from the cove. New Piraeus rose to meet them beyond the ridge; the late sun struck gold from hidden windows.

“I wish it wouldn’t change—oh . . . there’s another new one. It’s a skyscraper!”

He glanced across the bay. “Just finished; maybe New Piraeus is growing up—thanks to Oro Mines. It hardly changed over a century; after all those years, it’s a little scary.”

“Even after three ... or twenty-five?” She pointed. “Right down there, Maris—there’s our airlock.”

The flyer settled on the water below the looming, semitransparent hull of the WGH-709.

Maris gazed up and back. “It’s a lot bigger than I ever realized.”

“It masses twenty thousand tons, empty.” Brandy caught hold of the hanging ladder. “I guess we’ll have to go up this . . . okay?” She looked over at him.

“Sure. Slow, maybe, but sure.”

They slipped in through the lock, moved soft-footed down hallways past dim cavernous storerooms.

“Is the whole ship transparent?” He touched a wall, plastic met plastic. “How do you get any privacy?”

“Why are you whispering?”

“I’m no— I’m not. Why are you?”

“Shhh! Because it’s so quiet.” She stopped, pride beginning to show on her face. “The whole ship can be almost transparent, like now; but usually it’s not. All the walls and the hull are polarized; you can opaque them. These are just holds, anyway, they’re most of the ship. The passenger stasis cubicles are up there. Here’s the lift, we’ll go up to the control room.”

“Brandy!” A girl in red with a clipboard turned on them, outraged, as they stepped from the lift. “Brandy, what the hell do you mean by— Oh. Is that you, Soldier? God, I thought she’d brought a man on board.”

Maris flinched. “Hi, Nilgiri.”

Brandy was very pale beside him. “We just came out to—uh, look in on Mactav, she’s been kind of moody lately, you know. I thought we could read to her. . . . What are you doing here?” And a whispered, “Bitch.”

“Just that—checking up on Mactav. Harkane sent me out.” Nilgiri glanced at the panels behind her, back at Maris, suddenly awkward. “Uh—look, since I’m already here don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll go down and play some music for her. Why don’t you— uh, show Soldier around the ship, or something . . Her round face was reddening Jike an apple. “Bye?” She slipped past them and into the lift, and disappeared.