He saw that the simple event of coupling was surrounded with an aura, a different halo of associations for each sex. An act of essential self-definition. It truly was difficult to express how profound the difference was.
A surge came in him and he thought again of Manuel. That bright, trusting girl back there—she had wanted Manuel so badly. And when he left, the only way to hold on to him was to try, in a strange way, to flee from herself, and become what she wanted to hold.
Helen groaned and clutched at him, as if for shelter in this private storm, and gave an abrupt, piercing cry. He stroked her and wept and for the first time in many years he saw truly again, in Helen and in that girl of long ago, the other side of a wide mute river he could never cross again.
FOUR
Nigel shivered. The drama had been intense, close, more intimate than anything artificial he had ever experienced. They had obviously selected a drama tuned to his age, his sex—and then pulled the rug from under him, jolted his expectations.
He wasn’t that rather tired, dulled man, and yet, yet—there was something … Even the man’s dialogue was slightly British, like one who had lived abroad for decades, just as Nigel had. Yes, it was a damned finely tuned bit of business. And not at all amusing.
But amusement was not the aim. With a blurring sense of movement everything shifted, melted, reformed—
And he was the gaunt little man, spotting his mark on the dingy Berkeley street. Nigel felt himself swept along as he approached the heavyset, distracted figure and said, “Something?”
From there the drama proceeded as before, giving Nigel a rather distant view of the events, letting emotions seep away—
Another swirling, blurred transition. Nigel became Helen.
“We’re not doing anything,” he said, and felt the rising waspish irritation. He knew what was coming and yet the emotions that came through from the fictional Helen moved him. Events carried him forward. Robert simmered in his tight-faced anger, the senso started, Helen’s shock lanced through him—
And he saw that it was like his own, with Carlos. But worse. It hit deeply. There was betrayal with it, a hollow feeling of the ground opening under Helen. She had struggled to see her own past clearly. Everything she had felt, each day, now meant something different. This taciturn stranger next to her in the slick chair knew everything about her but had been hiding himself—herself—every day of their lives. Helen had stroked him, receive him into herself, accepted and savored his male-ness, all without a thought—
Helen struggled bleakly, trying to find a hold. She would have to begin again, learn to accept Robert as something both more and less than she had ever thought, make herself—
Nigel tore himself away from the churn of emotions. He thumbed ESCAPE and the tangled world dropped away.
They peeled the pod back and crisp light flooded in. He wriggled out. The attendants smiled professionally. He ignored their warm, well-modulated voices, their polite questions. He wrapped himself snugly in a blue terry-cloth robe and started toward the dressing room.
“Wait! Your consultation—”
“Not having any.”
“It’s part of the—”
“Not mandatory, is it?”
“No, but we—”
“Thought so. I don’t have to talk to you sods and I frigging well don’t intend to.”
“It will go on the record,” the woman said as a warning.
“Dear me. Pity.”
“Isn’t it a little obvious to be so hostile to analysis?”
Nigel hesitated, knowing he should be civil to this person, even if he was shaken. He teetered on the brink, feeling the weight of her expectations, how the society of the ship would evaluate this, and in the long gliding moment felt a sureness come into himself that had been there before, but that he had lost years before. “Fuck off,” he said precisely.
“How did it go?” Nikka asked.
He lay back, letting their jury-rigged machine minister to him. It burbled and sucked and the pumps rattled, but it worked. He had actually come to feel a certain affection for the damned thing. “Hated it.”
She sighed. “That will not put you further into the good graces of—”
“I know, I know.”
“You saw the maps of that moon? Craters everywhere. They’re calling it Pocks. No official name yet.”
“Appropriate. Think you can wangle some surface duty?”
“What surface duty?” She sat up. “The net hasn’t even discussed—”
“I found a system interface into the engine section. They’re lower than they thought on plain old deuterium inventory. Before we ignite the drive again, they’ll need to store up some.”
“From the moon, uh, Pocks.”
“Right.”
FIVE
Look man Pocks is riddled jess same as Europa an’ Callisto an’ the resta the Jovian moons, dozens like this, seen one you seen ’em all
Some interestin’ ice flows see there that escaprment methane ice maybe
Might as well send down some scientific personnel with the mining crew
Could take some deep borings, even find a vent for access to deeper, get a good metal abundance measurement, make the ExoGeo boys Earthside happy
