Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

He had always reckoned the next day’s killer hangover punishment to fit the crime. He had not been seriously tempted to wander since. Come to think of it, he had not been seriously drunk since, either.

“You don’t want me.” Pat’s voice was fiat, despairing.

“You know better than that-you damn well ought to.”

Though subsiding, Irv still stirred at the memory of her touch. “But what I want and what I’m going to do are two different things. Pat, jumping on you is tempting as hell, but it’s just more trouble than it’s worth-for me, for Sarah, for Frank, and for you. For Louise, too, if she happens to get up to pee at the wrong moment.”

“She won’t,” Pat said, but Irv saw her sag.

He nodded slowly to himself. If privacy was her hang-up, reminding her she didn’t have it seemed like a good idea- assuming, of course, that he really didn’t feel like getting laid. Well, that was the assumption he had made, and he still thought it was the right one. “Pat, if what you need is being alone, you should have had a good time on the collecting trips you took with Frank.”

“I hoped that, too,” she said bleakly. “Didn’t work, not for me, anyway. Frank, now-Frank had lots of fun. It’s easy for a man-you get your jollies every time.”

“Frank doesn’t know you don’t?” he asked. She shook her head. “Maybe you ought to let him know.” Maybe I ought to shut up, too, he thought. A marriage counselor I’m not.

“How am I supposed to do that?” she demanded, setting her hands on her hips.” ‘Gosh, I’m so sorry, honey, but for the last year you haven’t turned me on at all’?” Her voice was a dangerous parody of sweetness.

Irv winced. Definitely I ought to shut up, he thought. “There are probably better ways,” he said carefully.

To his surprise, she started to laugh, and even sounded as though she meant it. “Do you know, Irv, you may be too sensible for your own good. It’s hard to be sensible when you’re horny.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “It’s hard to be sensible when a fine-looking wench tries to kick your feet out from under you, too.”

“Hmm. I didn’t think of that. You suppose it would have worked?” Pat leaned toward him. “No, don’t run away,” she said when he started to pull back. “Now the only question is, should I kiss you or punch your lights out?” She ended up doing a little of both, pecking his cheek and tromping on his foot hard enough to hurt. “There. That’ll keep you guessing. Now, what time has it gotten to be?”

He blinked at the change of subject, then pulled back his sleeve so he could check his watch. “A little before nine.”

“Go to sleep,” she told him. “I’m too wound up to sleep now, so I may as well start my stretch early.” “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Go on, will you? I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Irv took a couple of steps, then looked back doubtfully. Pat sent him on with an impatient wave. He got out of his shoes, climbed quickly into his sleeping bag, and zipped it up. Sleep took a while coming, though.

Louise lay a few feet away. From the way she was snoring, she was out like a light. Irv suspected that he could have led a brass band past her without waking her up, let alone playing slap and tickle with Pat. Suddenly he wanted her more than he had when she was in his arms.

He shook his head. Turning down a woman who offered herself like that was not one of the easier things he had done. He laughed at himself. “It’s not as if I’ve had a lot of practice,” he said under his breath.

“What’s that?” Pat asked.

“Nothing. Just brainfuzz.” He rolled over and eventually went to sleep.

“Adin, dva, tri!” Rustaveli shouted. At “three,” he and the American doctor pushed on the rover with all their might. She was even smaller than Katerina, but determination and no little strength made up for her lack of size. Grunting and sweating, she and Rustaveli fought the rover’s weight until it overbalanced and flipped back onto its wheels. It jounced a couple of times, then sat still.

“Well done!” Valery Bryusov cheered from a few meters away. His left arm was splinted and in a sling rigged from a piece of blanket. He made a rueful gesture with his good hand. “I wish I could have helped.”

“Never mind, Valery Aleksandrovich.” Rustaveli sprang onto the rover and tried the motor. The vehicle rolled ahead. He stopped it and grinned. “Thanks to Sarah, ah, Davidovna, you are fixed, now it is fixed, and we will be going back to our comrades.”

“Carefully, I hope,” Sarah said. She picked up the blankets she used to supplement the flimsy costume that was all she wore inside her pedal powered plane and started to redrape them.

Bryusov stepped forward to help her, but Rustaveli beat him there. After so long with just Katerina to think about, he was astonished at how much the mere sight of a different woman excited him. But when his hands “accidentally” started to slide down from her shoulders, the flinty look she gave him stopped him in his tracks. “Excuse me,” he muttered, surprised at how embarrassed he was.

“All right, then,” she said. But her voice did not imply that it was all right; her voice warned him not to try it again. This, he thought, could be one seriously stubborn woman. Maybe he should be just as well pleased not to be spending three years of his life in close company with her. Nevertheless-

“Sarah Davidovna, we are in your debt,” he said.

“I especially,” Bryusov agreed. “The more so as you had tomake a journey dangerous to yourself to help me, and our nations are not the best of friends.”

Under the awkward blankets, she shrugged. “There aren’t any nations here, just people-and not very many of us. Compared to anyone or anything else on Minerva, we’re all closer than brothers. If we don’t help each other, who will?”

“You are right,” Rustaveli said, though he knew Oleg Lopatin would have hurt himself laughing at such a notion-and perhaps Colonel Tolmasov, too. For that matter, he doubted that all the Americans on Minerva were as altruistic as this Dr. Levitt; otherwise, for instance, Tolmasov would have been happier dealing with Emmett Bragg.

While Rustaveli was working through that chain of thought, Bryusov asked what the Georgian should have. “How may we help you now, Sarah Davidovna?”

“You, Valery Aleksandrovich, can help best by staying out of the way and not risking any further harm to yourself,” she said firmly. “Shota Mikheilovich, if you would, you could help me swing Damselfly around so that it faces back toward Jotun Canyon once more. That will save me the trouble of flying around in a long, slow semicircle before I can head back to my own people.”

So much for the brotherhood of all men on Minerva, Rustaveli thought. Still, the request was entirely reasonable. “Show me what to do.”

He walked over to the ultra-ultralight with her. “Very simple,” she said. “You take one wingtip, I’ll take the other. Then we walk around till the plane points the way we want it to. Just be careful not to poke your fingers through the plastic skin.”

“Da,” he said absently. He was amazed at how easily the plane moved. “This, ah, Damselfly cannot weigh even as much as I do.”

“Not even close,” the American doctor agreed. The aircraft soon pointed east, but she still looked discontented. Rustaveli understood why when she said, as much to herself as to him, “Now how am I supposed to get into the blasted thing?”

He saw the problem at once. The canopy opened at the top, and there was no way to clamber up without tearing the plastic film of the fuselage to ribbons. He rubbed his chin; whiskers rasped under his gloves as he thought. Finally he snapped his fingers, or tried to-the gloves effectively muffled the noise. “Suppose I drive the rover alongside your plane here? You could climb on top of the roll cage, and I will help you down onto the seat inside the plane.”