Дэймон Найт - Orbit 4

“No!”

“Let’s go to your apartment and begin again.”

She says, “You’re being deliberately filthy, and I don’t know why, but there wasn’t any reason for you to spoil things. Maybe I was with you and maybe I wasn’t, but you wouldn’t know it, and if you did know it you should keep your mouth shut about it, and—”

“You have a birthmark the size of a dime,” I say, “about three inches below your left breast.”

She sobs and hurls herself at me, there in the street. Her long silvery nails rake my cheeks. She pummels me. I seize her. Her knees assail me. No one pays attention; those who pass by assume we are ridden, and turn their heads. She is all fury, but I have my arms around hers like metal bands, so that she can only stamp and snort, and her body is close against mine. She is rigid, anguished.

In a low, urgent voice I say, “We’ll defeat them, Helen. We’ll finish what they started. Don’t fight me. There’s no reason to fight me. I know, it’s a fluke that I remember you, but let me go with you and I’ll prove that we belong together.”

“Let—go—”

“Please. Please. Why should we be enemies? I don’t mean you any harm. I love you, Helen. Do you remember, when we were kids, we could play at being in love? I did; you must have done it too. Sixteen, seventeen years old. The whispers, the conspiracies—all a big game, and we knew it. But the game’s over. We can’t afford to tease and run. We have so little time, when we’re free—we have to trust, to open ourselves—”

“It’s wrong.”

“No. Just because it’s the stupid custom for two people brought together by Passengers to avoid one another, that doesn’t mean we have to follow it. Helen—Helen—”

Something in my tone registers with her. She ceases to struggle. Her rigid body softens. She looks up at me, her tearstreaked face thawing, her eyes blurred.

“Trust me,” I say. “Trust me, Helen!”

She hesitates. Then she smiles.

In that moment I feel the chill at the back of my skull, the sensation as of a steel needle driven deep through bone. I stiffen. My arms drop away from her. For an instant, I lose touch, and when the mists clear all is different.

“Charles?” she says. “Charles?”

Her knuckles are against her teeth. I turn, ignoring her, and go back into the cocktail lounge. A young man sits in one of the front booths. His dark hair gleams with pomade; his cheeks are smooth. His eyes meet mine.

I sit down. He orders drinks. We do not talk.

My hand falls on his wrist, and remains there. The bartender, serving the drinks, scowls but says nothing. We sip our cocktails and put the drained glasses down.

“Let’s go,” the young man says.

I follow him out.

The planet called Tu is a world of oceans and scattered archipelagoes. Tu has a sister planet, Seraph, hanging eternally fixed in her sky—a more tantalizing goal for space flight than our Moon. But Tu’s thousand-year-old civilization has almost no metals. With a wood-glass-and-plastics technology, the island people have hydrofoils, telescopes, even photography, but no heavier-than-air craft, let alone spacecraft: they can only look up and wonder.

Stories like this, as C. S. Lewis pointed out, are written for the delight of imagining a whole new world, with its continents, islands, plants, animals, people. Here, then, is the story of the Chainpearl Archipelagate, of Krirsarque and Bay fast; of the Ta-rulle Barge; of Tatja Grimm and Svir Hedrigs—and of their bold attempt to steal from Tar Benesh, the Regent of Crownesse, the only complete collection of a seven-hundred-year-old magazine called Fantasie, whose motto is, “Things are not what they seem.”

The tavern was old, luxurious—even respectable. Its sloping dance floor and high ceiling created the illusion that the hall was an open amphitheater. Crystal spheres cast an even, unwavering twilight over tables and patrons. Svir Hedrigs squinted gloomily at the newly polished table surface. Barely visible under the varnish were three centuries of minor vandalism. Krirsarque had been a university city for almost ten generations, and during that time, unnumbered students had carved their names in the durable furniture of the Bayside Arbor.

It was still early and not a third of the tables were occupied. The jongleurs were up on their platform, playing songs and doing acrobatics. So far their amusements had not drawn a single couple onto the dance floor. Hedrigs grunted his disgust, and extended long knobby legs under the table. He absently caressed the furry body of the creature sitting on the table. The animal turned its outsize head toward him and regarded the man with limpid black eyes. A deep purring sound came from its wide, pointed ears. Then it turned away and scanned the hall, its tall ears flicking this way and that. Far across the hall, a waiter looked severely in their direction, began walking toward them. When he got to within three tables of Hedrigs, he stopped, puzzled, with the air of someone who has forgotten his purpose. The waiter shook his head confusedly and headed back to the bar.

“Good boy,” murmured Hedrigs. Tonight he didn’t want to argue with anyone about his pet’s presence in the tavern. Svir had come out for one last fling before sailing tomorrow. Fling—ha! He knew he would just sit lumpishly till closing time. For the thousandth time he cursed Ids bad luck. Who’d have thought that his thesis topic would require him to sail all the way to Crownesse? Because of the season, that was more than ten days’ sailing time, unless one could afford hydrofoil passage— which he certainly could not.

The hall was filling now, but as he surveyed it, Hedrigs concluded with sick self-pity that this night he didn’t have the courage to tour the tables, importuning unattached girls. He slouched back and made a determined effort to finish his drink in one draft.

“May I join you?” The soft voice came from behind and above. Hedrigs choked violently on his skaal, spewing the liquid in all directions. His fit of choking gave him a chance to see that the speaker was as pretty as her voice.

“Please do!” He gasped painfully, trying to regain some shred of poise. “Miss, uh—?”

“Tatja Grimm.” The miracle lowered herself gracefully into the chair next to his, and set her drink on the table next to Ancho’s right forepaw. Svir felt himself staring. He daydreamed of encounters like this constantly, but now that he was confronted by reality he didn’t know what to do or say. Tatja Grimm was certainly not pretty: she was beautiful, beautiful in an especially wonderful way. From a distance she would have appeared to be a slender girl with a superb figure and reddish-brown hair. But Tatja Grimm was more than six feet tall— nearly as tall as Hedrigs himself. Her hands were slim and delicate—and larger than the hands of most men. But the most wonderful thing of all was the look of genuine interest and intelligence in her gray-green eyes. She was interested in him.

“And your name?” Tatja smiled dazzlingly.

The wheels went round and Svir remembered his name: “Svir Hedrigs.”

Tatja rubbed Svir’s pet about the neck. “And that,” said Svir, happy at finding something to say, “is Ancho.”

“A dorfox? They’re awfully rare, aren’t they?”

“Uh-huh. Only a few can survive ocean voyages.”

Tatja played with Ancho for a few seconds. The dorfox responded with satisfied humming. The human female was accepted.

Hedrigs’ hopes were shattered almost as quickly as they had crystallized. Three men came over and sat down, without a word to Svir.

“Miss Grimm, did you—?” one began. Then he noticed the dorfox. The newcomers sat silently and watched her and the animal. Svir didn’t know what was going on, but now he didn’t care. There was obviously more competition here than he could handle.