BANDICUT FOUND THE enforced waiting almost intolerable. When Antares asked him if he would like to accompany her to Kailan's lab, he readily agreed. He had spent the better part of two days resting, and didn't know how much longer he could stand to do nothing but stare out into the misty world of perpetual night. All of the reports were promising, but no more than that. The robots reported progress with the factory; S'Cali reported progress at the Astari wreck helping the sick there, repairing the damaged sub, and gathering materials for the factory. They were waiting for some supplies to arrive on an Astari surface craft. Everything added up to the fact that they were just going to have to keep waiting a while longer.
"How's Li-Jared doing?" Bandicut asked Antares, as they rode in the back of a small sub toward Kailan's habitat.
"He's grieving for Harding," Antares murmured, "and working very hard to keep from thinking about it. He didn't want to return to our quarters last night. I think he wanted to keep working all night."
"He is a passionate—" Bandicut almost said man, and instead said, "companion."
Antares placed a long-fingered hand on Bandicut's. "Yes," she said. "And he's someone who cares deeply about his friends." Antares was gazing at Bandicut with wide-pupiled eyes. "You might not have realized, because you were in such distress—but he gave his daughter-stones to Harding in no small part because he was afraid for you."
Bandicut's breath caught. Had he been aware of that? He hadn't thought about it much; but then, that episode was pretty blurred in his mind. But now he could almost feel Li-Jared's concern, and fear, and shame for being afraid—and his hope that perhaps he could do something.
/// Antares is replaying the emotions for you.
Or at least remembering them vividly. ///
He nodded slowly to Antares. "Do you think there's anything we can do for him?"
"I think, just staying with him is all we can do. I do not know his Karellian emotions well enough to do more than guess."
Antares blinked. "And you—you are worried for your robots, and maybe for everything that is to come. Please tell me if there is any way I can help you."
Bandicut caught her hand for a moment in his, and finally smiled gratefully.
The sub rumbled, turned, and approached Kailan's habitat.
*
Bandicut worked a long day with the others, without much success—trying to help Kailan uncover useful and relevant information about the Astari, about the factory, the Maw, anything they could find. They couldn't find much. It was not, Kailan was sure, that there was nothing there in the Neri records. But what they had was broken up, lost in a knowledge-base whose design was too confusing, and whose instructions and signposts had gotten lost in the passage of time, or with the appearance of the Maw.
Li-Jared determinedly kept at it, in the belief that anything they might find could be useful. That was Kailan's philosophy, too, and Bandicut agreed; it made good sense to try to learn all they could. But he was tiring; he couldn't keep his thoughts on what he was doing.
/// You've been here a long time.
Do you think maybe you should
take a break? ///
Bandicut sighed. /Maybe so./ Antares had gone off to take a walk a while ago, and Kailan was deep in conversation with Li-Jared. He rose from the console where he'd been crouching, stretched, and wandered out of the chamber.
He ended up in a big lounge where the Neri—mostly females here—liked to relax while eating and drinking, or playing with the young. But it was deserted at this hour; he was startled to realize how long they had been working. Almost everyone in the habitat was probably asleep. He walked to the window and peered out into the water where lamps illuminated a fish corral, apparently constructed of partial enclosures of netting, without any visible means of keeping the fish in. Several small schools of half-clear, half-silver fish were gathered in the enclosures, despite the fact that they could leave anytime.
"It's something about the currents, I think."
Bandicut glanced up, startled, to find Antares standing beside him. She pointed to the end of the nearest half-cage, where a slow current was carrying suspended debris, including bits of food, through the enclosure where the fish hovered. "They just seem to like it there."
Bandicut nodded silently. Now it was relaxing to be standing here, looking out into the emerald and white world of the artificially lit ocean. Two Neri swimmers came into view, tending the farm, and a solitary sub moved around like a somnolent fish with headlights, performing slow pirouettes in the night as it performed whatever maintenance chores it was out there for.
"There's a nice little dome room upstairs, where we can have some privacy, if you feel like sitting and talking." Antares held up a basket of fruit. "I just came from the storeroom. We could—how do you describe it?—have a picnic."
Bandicut stared at her, astounded by the thought of a picnic at the bottom of the sea. He began to laugh.
"Is this not a good idea?" Antares asked, with a Thespi grin of uncertainty.
"No, no—I mean, yes," he said. "It's a wonderful idea. Thank you." He grinned a human grin, then turned with a gesture and let her lead the way.
It was a small residence room, with a half dome looking out. "This is where I stay, when I don't return to the other habitat. Come sit." Antares pulled a large pillow to the center of the room, and he pulled another, and they sat with the basket between them, passing out food. There were small, yeasty nuggets that tasted like a bitter bread, and orange, waxy fruits shaped like pears, and twisted dried seaweed. They ate for a while in companionable silence.
After a time, Antares said, "Do you think we were sent to this world deliberately, to try to help these people? Could someone on Shipworld have known about the Neri's struggle with the Astari, and the Maw, and the broken factory?"
Bandicut eyed a nugget of bread-fruit, thinking of the normalization that made it possible for him to sit here under— what?—maybe twenty-five or thirty atmospheres of pressure, breathing uncertain gas mixtures, and eating alien plants that would probably kill him under other circumstances. "It's hard to see it any other way," he said. "I guess what I wonder isn't whether they sent us here deliberately, which I'm sure they did— whoever they are—but whether they intend to bring us back again. Or will we be spending the rest of our lives here on this world, under this ocean?"
"Or maybe up with the Astari," Antares said.
"Or up with the Astari," he agreed. "It's not a bad place. It's quite beautiful, in many ways. And our friends . . . L'Kell and Kailan and the others. But it's not home, is it?"
She blew through puckered lips. "No. It's not home." She chewed a bread-nugget thoughtfully, then said, "You miss your home a lot, don't you? And the ones you loved. I can feel it in you."
He grunted. He had not spent a lot of time consciously grieving over his past life, and yet, now that she mentioned it, he felt a renewed pang.
"Yes?" she asked.
He nodded. "I've hardly had time to think about it. But yes. Yes, I do." He gazed at Antares, and allowed himself a confused smile, suddenly thinking about Julie Stone—and then, abruptly, about Antares. She was watching him with great interest. "But there's so much I don't know about you," he said. "And your world."
"Such as—?"
"I don't know. What was it that took you from your world, and brought you to Shipworld? Was your world saved, the way mine was? The way Ik's wasn't? What can you tell me about your world?"
Her lips turned up in a frown that seemed like a smile. "I do not know what became of my world. As far as I know, it was never in any danger."
"No danger?"
"But I was in danger. I was in prison, awaiting execution."
He remembered the image from the joining of their stones. "The forbidden love."
Antares nodded. Definitely a human gesture, this time. She had been studying him.
Bandicut felt a pressure in his throat, as he remembered the wall that had fallen between them, defining limits in the midst of their joining. "And now you feel as though you cannot know love again. Or . . . make love . . . to another. Yes?"
For a moment, she did not speak, though he felt her conflicted emotions pulling one way and another. She touched his hand, and he turned it palm-up and held her hand for a dozen heartbeats. And he knew, as he squeezed her hand, that she knew what he meant by making love. Close enough, anyway. He wondered suddenly how Thespi females made love, and what it felt like to them. Was it an empathic rush of free-flowing emotion? Was it like human coupling, with rising and crescendoing physical urges? Was it sex at all? He thought he had felt inklings of this, when they'd joined stones, but now he could not remember.
Antares raised his hand and pressed it to her throat, just above her upper breasts. He felt the stones come alive, touching hers . . .
. . . differently, this time. Almost disturbingly so. But not just disturbing: there was a sharpness, and excitement. As though all the images that before had whirled around them, gathering pieces of their past lives, had been stripped away . . . leaving only the emotions, and the inner sensations of the body. And then new images. Touching. Gently stroking. Fingers on skin. Stroking. Arms gliding together, fingertips brushing. Sensations and emotions mingling, before any physical arousal had begun. Then later came the physical, the flickering of fire in the loins. Dance of electricity in the arms, along the neck. Blossoming into the breasts, sparkling out into the top nipples first. Then the bottom pair slowly brightening, joining.
Bodies slowly coiling around each other, searching for best fit. Hands here, there. Arms enclosing. Mouths touching shoulders, one to the other. Fingers moving through hair. And then bodies pressing close, skin to skin, nipples to smooth chest. Legs opening and closing around each other, bellies rubbing softly. And with an eruptive sparkle, the tiny probe emerging from his stomach and embedding itself in the soft depression in hers . . .
And the two minds, two psyches, coiling around each other and joining
joining
joining who? Antares and
Who? The forbidden lover? Ensendor.
And then a curious shifting. For a moment a wall of grieving. Then the grieving dissolved into a different time, a different place, and the physical joining faded away. Emotions did not fade, but reformed, and bodies reappeared transformed, and he was joined, moving slowly. Slowly. Deeply penetrating. Prolonging. Entangled with, joined with Julie, his sensations inside and outside, the heat of her swallowing him. And the shuddering, and eruptive bursts. And slow dissolve . . .
He blinked, realized Antares' head was cradled on his shoulder, her hair falling against his neck. His hand, and wrist, slipping a little from the front of her throat, to the top of her upper breasts. He sensed her desire, uncertain and confused. He lowered his hand very slowly, and cupped her upper left breast. Then brushed with his fingertips. Felt nipple through soft fabric. Felt it grow warm to the touch.
This was wrong
no
why would it be
not wrong
different
Her hand covered his and held it there. Cradling the warm nipple. Hard. Feeling the spark, the tiniest electric tingle.
And her thought: Yes. There. Just that.
And he cradled her shoulder with the other arm, her head rocking slightly on his shoulder, and felt the wave of sorrow at what was and might have been, and fearful pleasure at what might be. And he held her, held her sorrow and pleasure in his arms, felt her trembling as it coursed through her . . .
Finally she raised her eyes, and peered into his, probing, searching for memories. She silently opened the front of her pantsuit and pressed his hand over her bared breast. Her nipple was hot and hard under his palm. Her hand moved along his arm. Lightly touching his chest, through the jumpsuit. And then lower. Lower. She touched, then tentatively closed her hand over him, holding the bulge of his erection through the fabric. His breath shuddered out.
Her breath sighed in and out, with excitement. But also surprise. Perplexity. Curiosity. "You're huge," she whispered. "How can you be?"
He groaned with pleasure, and despite all of his instincts and desires, began to laugh.
"Why are you—am I hurting you?" She started to remove her hand.
"No—no, don't stop—"
"Then—" Eyes large, bright, gold.
"It's just—" he whispered, barely able to speak "—how did you know—exactly the right thing to say?"
She did not answer, but parted her lips in a Thespi smile, and moved her hand very gently, slowly, following the undulating waves of pleasure. Thinking, or perhaps whispering, show me, and then finding the opening in the fabric and releasing him into the warmth of her hand and the softness of her belly . . .
*
/// That was amazing . . .
really amazing . . . quite wonderful . . . ///
He swallowed, focusing on everything, and nothing. A hundred thoughts flickered through his mind, and fled. He breathed slowly and deeply, letting his eyes come back into focus on Antares. /I didn't know you were there./
/// Oh yes—watching, experiencing.
Joining.
I hope I didn't interfere. ///
/No. Thank you./
/// You seem very . . . foggy . . . ///
/Happy./ He touched Antares' hair.
/// . . . and yet in a strange way, very clear.
But I sense now, she is beginning to
draw away again. ///
He stroked Antares' cheek. /You don't have to analyze, or explain—don't—/
/// She is holding you, fulfilled,
in a certain way— ///
/Please./
/// And yet she is sad, frightened,
afraid to hold on. ///
He caressed her face with his fingertips, then drew her close into the comfort of his neck and shoulder, kissed the top of her head, her hair. She smelled of pine and musk. /Let us enjoy it now, please, while it lasts. Ask whatever you want later. Not now./
/// Yes. Of course.
Sorry. ///
*
They went to sleep loosely dressed, but curled together in spoon fashion, or as nearly so as their not-quite-matched bodies would fit. Bandicut kept an arm around her, aware that whatever they had just shared might be a thing of the moment; and yet wishing not to let the intimacy evaporate if he could help it, or disappear behind a veil of caution and isolation. And knowing, even as he slipped off to sleep, that it was mostly beyond his power to control.
*
They woke much later—slowly, comfortably, but then with a certain amount of awkwardness, when they realized that Li-Jared was asleep in a corner of the room. Antares turned to receive his embrace, then sat up, pushing her hair back from her face. She began sorting through the leftover fruit. Li-Jared woke up, and joined them sleepily in quiet conversation and food.
Word came early in the day that S'Cali and the cargo sub had arrived from the Astari wreck, and Bandicut was wanted for a conference with L'Kell. He took the first sub that Kailan could arrange, leaving Antares and Li-Jared at work with the obliq.
Askelanda was the first to greet him, even before L'Kell. "We have a load of materials—not in great quantity, but perhaps enough to satisfy the factory, for a start."
Bandicut looked from Askelanda to Ik, who had returned with S'Cali, along with most of the remaining Neri. "And is it the raw material the factory asked for—or machines, or what?"
Ik answered, "Raw materials, mostly. Some was ferried out from the land; apparently the Astari ashore are honoring Morado's agreement. Some of it came from storage compartments on the wreck that the Neri hadn't even begun to explore yet. We think it covers most of what the factory asked for, but we have no real way of testing. The copper I'm pretty sure of; it's in thick coils. The rest is the Astari's best guess. I suppose the factory itself will have to make the determination."
"And the factory may be ready for us," L'Kell said, coming in from another room.
"Word from the robots?" Bandicut asked.
"A new transmission. They said that the reprogramming was going well, but complete self-repair and production restart now awaits the arrival of materials."
"How are you doing at getting a message back in to the robots?"
"That's the other news. Delent'l went down this morning to relieve Targus, and he finally located the entry membrane through the silt, and got a probe in. We're not sure about the transmission, though. Possibly the robots couldn't understand Delent'l's speech very well. Delent'l said he tried to explain that you would be coming in your star-spanner bubble, and he got a reply that sounded like—" L'Kell's voice deepened as he tried to sound human "—'Tally-ho, Captain.' '"
Bandicut burst into laughter.
"Is this meaningful to you?" Askelanda demanded.
"Yes. I think you can take that as a yes," he reassured the ahktah.
"Then the time has come to prepare for your departure," Askelanda said. He turned to the other Neri. "Please begin attachment of our guests' bubble to the sub." Then he asked Bandicut, "Do you wish to have anyone in the bubble with you?"
Bandicut thought about that for a moment. "Ik, would you like to come with me? It might be risky, but I sure could use your advice and wisdom."
*Bring all.*
Bandicut blinked, startled by the sudden voice of the translator-stone. His first thought was worry. /Charlie? Char, you there? You okay?/
/// Yes, I'm here. ///
/Why'd it speak directly like that? It never does that when you're here./
/// I think . . . they really wanted
to make their point. ///
/They want me to bring everyone? Just like that? Do you have any idea why?/
/// I think they see this mission as
the crucial determinant. ///
He raised his palms mentally, trying to comprehend.
/// No one expects you to be able
to put things aright here all by yourself.
Nor should you.
What they want is
for you to change the spin, the direction,
the way things are heading. ///
/So?/
/// So that's what we're after
on this trip, and maybe on this world.
John, I'm not really sure . . .
that we'll be coming back this way again.
Don't ask me why I think that. ///
Bandicut swallowed hard. He looked again at Ik and L'Kell and Askelanda, and said, "I think, actually, it would be best if we all went. Ik, Li-Jared, Antares. This is going to be a big mission. And I think I might need . . . all of your help. I would like for us—" he hesitated "—to stick together."
Ik gazed at him with glittering Hraachee'an eyes. "Then I should call the others. Should I not?"
Bandicut nodded, not trusting himself to speak.