Worlds Enough and Time Page 12

  He wanted more than that. He wanted to marry me; join the line.

  I told him I had to think about it, and then talk to him, and then ask the others. It had to be unanimous, and I wasn’t sure that Dan or even John would go along with it. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted it, as dear as Sam is to me.

  He kissed me and left me alone there in the editing room. I came up here to think into the keyboard.

  So much of the literature we’ve been trying to reclaim or recall has to do with love. Old-Fashioned romantic love, often, with its sinister subtexts of ownership, male superiority, female manipulation. A sexual and emotional union that not incidentally reinforced the power of the church and the state over individuals and families.

  I guess my first love, with Charlie Increase Devon, involved a strong element of that. Maybe he also cured me of it. Or maybe it was like other childhood diseases, that you contract once and then become immune. Even as I wrote that down, I saw how silly it was—some people never experience romance and some never grow out of it—but I’ll leave it. I’m going to erase all this anyhow.

  Could I love a third man without diminishing what I have with the other two? I wish we had more precise words for love, dozens of them, like the Eskimos supposedly had for snow. I do already love all three of them, in three distinctly different ways. Daniel needs me and I need to nurture him, protect him. John is my comforter, and still my mentor. (People who don’t know us well would probably assume that the relationships went the other way, because of John’s deformity. But I don’t even see it anymore, except as a sign of the patient strength, the calm acceptance, that drew me to the man in the first place.) And what about Sam?

  On Earth, where we were working with groundhog survivors, he saw how upset I was when Daniel and John called down to ask me to allow Evelyn to join our line. I knew and liked Evy but resented the timing, the handicap of not being there to physically confront them. I would have said yes anyhow, so I gave permission as gracefully as I could. As soon as the comm link was broken, though, I started to mope and growl and bitch. Sam offered himself and I jumped his lanky bones.

  We grew pretty close pretty fast. We have the same kind of intelligence, shallow but broad, and therefore many enthusiasms in common. We make each other laugh. The sex wasn’t all that great, but he had youthful enthusiasm and recuperative power.

  Then the project turned into a disaster, a bloodbath and plague that we barely escaped. A grisly nightmare the reward for months of backbreaking labor. During the week of quarantine outside New New, Sam and I kept making love with frantic desperation. (There wasn’t much privacy, and some people were scandalized. They were people I didn’t mind scandalizing, though.)

  I thought then of asking him to join the line. It would have made an interesting symmetry, since he was the same age as Evy, nineteen. Twelve years younger than me—and a damn sight younger than my lecherous husbands! Sorry, Evy. I do love you like a sister but still sometimes get angry at them. Even thoughtful hunchbacked philosophers get pulled around by their dicks sometimes.

  Dramatic memories aside, how do I feel about Sam now? Admittedly, I’ve been a little annoyed that he didn’t respond to my gentle hints with instant lust. But his proposal puts that into perspective. He’s the kind of man who makes timetables and sticks to them. When he worked for me on Earth, for all his wacky humor, he was about the most dependable person I had. He was also physically brave and showed infinite patience and compassion with the Earth children, who could be real monsters.

  Okay, I’m trying to talk myself into this. It didn’t help that I dropped by Creche to look at the baby this morning. Her little hand curled around my finger.

  I have a bad case of softheartedness. Prime, I have to talk to you.

  ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN

  Prime appeared in the usual corner, leaning back comfortably in a nonexistent chair. Sometimes she was unsettlingly nude; this time she was wearing the gray labor fatigues that Sam and O’Hara had worn on Earth. Since Prime looked only six months younger than O’Hara had been at the time, the effect was as startling as she had intended.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” the image said.

  “So talk me out of it, Use that binary brain of yours.”

  “First you ask for a favor and then you insult me. If my brain is simply binary then yours is a lump of jelly.”

  “Should I do it?”

  “Yes and no and maybe. Should I elaborate?”

  “I’ve got time and you’ve got electricity.”

  “Take ‘no’ first. Daniel is having a real uselessness problem. He has a title that makes him technically part of the ruling class, but the thing he’s in charge of doesn’t exist anymore. Your declaring interest in another man is not going to help his image of himself.”

  “He gets a certain amount of solace from you, and even more from Evelyn—”

  “Really?”

  “The ratio is one point three to one. Now you propose to bring into the relationship a man the same age as Evelyn. He will see this as an act of sexual aggression.”

  “Hold it. All these years you’ve known how often Dan has sex with me and with Evelyn?”

  “And with other women, yes. Only women, in case you’re interested.”

  “I think you know a lot that I would rather not know.”

  “Everything the ship knows, I know. I only brought this up because it’s important to the discussion you initiated.”

  “What’s the ratio with John?”

  The machine paused. “That’s complicated, as you know. He has been intimate with you two point eight times more often than with Evelyn, since Launch.”

  “That’s an interesting locution, ‘intimate with.’ You’re protecting my feelings.”

  “It’s not my job to make you feel bad. The question you’re not asking is one you already know the answer to.”

  “He’s more likely to have actual sex with her.”

  “He loves you fiercely, and has since you were married. His attraction to Evelyn is obviously physical. If by ‘actual sex’ you mean a contact that includes ejaculation …”

  “What else would I mean?”

  “With her it seems to be always.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  “You knew that.” The image sat forward. “Which brings us to the ‘yes’ part. If you bring Sam into the line, John may relax. He may see it as spreading out the responsibility for keeping you happy, and so when he does come to you, it will be with less anxiety, and he will be more likely to … complete the sexual act.”

  “You know a hell of a lot about sex for somebody who’s never done it.”

  “Through the ship’s sensors, I monitor the sexual function of over nine thousand people. Patterns emerge.”

  “You once described to me that privacy thing in your algorithm. If I asked you how often Harry Purcell had had sex with Tania Seven, you wouldn’t be able to tell me.”

  “I could if it was necessary for your welfare. These things about Evelyn and John, it hurts me to say them, in the only way that I can feel pain. But this is a context you established. And that context, along with my estimation of your response, determines what I am allowed to say to you.”

  “Give me some more of the ‘yes’ part.”

  “The one who would benefit most from the marriage would be Sam. At twenty-four, he’s under a lot of personal and social pressure to join a line. The other two women he’s involved with are only sexual partners.”

  “That’s another thing I needed to know?”

  “You’ve met them both. Did you think he played chess with them?”

  “At the pool, I remember, those two. With the breasts.”

  “The first time he had sex with you, before he could get up the nerve to ask, you did play chess. You played fairy chess and he spotted you a barrel queen.”

  “I’d forgotten that.”

  “I never forget anything. That’s one advantage you have over me.”

 
“You don’t think he’s really interested in either of them?”

  “You are the one he asked to marry. He does love you. But you have to be clearheaded about it. He’s certainly aware that your line allows casual sex with people outside the line. It’s an important factor.”

  O’Hara looked at her twin for a long moment. “Now there’s something else you’re not telling me.”

  “It’s not something you need to know.”

  “If it’s about Sam I need to know it.”

  The image picked at nonexistent threads. “When I was hooked up to you during our initial orientation, we talked in some detail about your experiences with Charlie Devon, on Devon’s World. When I asked about one particular sex act, your fear response was instant and strong: respiration and pulse increased, you sweated profusely. Your adrenal medulla squirted norepinephrine. Your anus clamped shut like a trap.”

  “The ropes.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sam … ties up those women?”

  “One of them, Lilac. Sometimes she ties him up.”

  “Sam?”

  “It’s a common enough practice. More common here than in New New.”

  “Sam?”

  “You were very young and afraid of Charlie’s hugeness and physical strength. He could have ripped your head off with one hand. One reason you fell for him was that he was so mysterious and scary. With Sam, the ropes would be different. But I don’t think he would ever ask you. He would rather continue doing it with Lilac.”

  “Maybe I’ll ask him. Shock him out of his shorts.”

  “That’s the spirit. He would never harm you.” The image crossed and uncrossed its legs, actually looking nervous. “Marianne. Be realistic. So far in this life you’ve fallen in love with two giant foreigners, two alcoholic intellectuals, and an Irish hunchbacked philosopher. So Sam is an introverted Jewish polymath who sometimes likes to combine restraints with oral sex. He’s probably the most normal person you’ll ever be interested in.”

  ONE PART HARMONY

  The harp was easy to play, though of course it would take years to be able to play it well. Sam had put a daub of color at the top of each string, linking major triads, so O’Hara was able to strum simple melodies after only a few minutes’ experimentation. There were knobs on the base that gave the instrument an electronic dimension, so you could add vibrato and echo effects, but O’Hara liked it better plain, unplugged. It was just the right size for her to set the base in her lap and rest her chin on top of the vertical arm, so the chords sang inside her head, amplified by bone conduction.

  She was sitting on the bed she shared with Daniel, playing a blues progression over and over, eyes closed, memorizing and didn’t hear the quiet door slide open.

  “Taking up the harp?” Daniel said.

  She started; almost dropped it. “Scared me!”

  “Sounds pretty.”

  “Yeah.” She strummed across the strings. “Sam made it for me.”

  “Sam?”

  “Wasserman. The historian. Remember? We were lovers, back in the New York rescue thing.”

  He nodded silently and stepped over to the sink for a glass. Looking at her in the mirror: “Lovers again, then?”

  “No.” She watched his face give away nothing. “It’s more serious than that.”

  Daniel poured two centimeters of boo into the glass and diluted it with an equal amount of water. “Go on.”

  “Why don’t you guess.”

  “No games, Marianne. It’s been a bad day.” He took a sip and leaned against the wall. “Eliot had a real hair up his ass about TE&S allocations. I’m gonna get TE&S’ed out of existence.”

  “Sam wants to marry me. Us.”

  “Join the line.”

  “Of course.”

  Dan put the drink down and sat on the bed, his back to O’Hara. “Jesus. Everything happens at once, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry about the timing. Could I have some of that?”

  Without speaking, he prepared her an identical drink and brought it around the bed and sat next to her, not touching. “You love him?”

  “If you want a simple answer, yes.”

  “But you haven’t been …”

  “No; he’s funny that way. Shy. And you know I wouldn’t have kept anything like that secret from you.”

  “I know. I’m just … it’s sudden.”

  “It was sudden for me, too. Let’s both just think on it for a while.” She drank half the drink in a gulp and coughed. “So what’s the TE&S problem?”

  “Have you talked to John and Ev about him?”

  “Not yet. Ev’s not off till 1800; John’s probably napping. Meeting for dinner anyhow, remember?”

  “I remember.” He looked at the wall for a long moment. “Eliot’s working from an unassailable position, of course. I need less TE&S than anybody in the Cabinet. I need less than half the people in this can need.” TE&S was the three-dimensional budget unit “Time, Energy, and Supplies,” time meaning manpower.

  “You need a certain amount just to keep things going.”

  “That’s been my argument. Keep a skeleton staff in case we do come back on line with New New. Of course I’d never say ‘in case’ in front of Eliot or Tania; it’s always when.

  “So Eliot in his wisdom has said that I don’t need any staff at all. When we do hear from New New we’ll automatically acknowledge the signal, and then it’ll be at least a week before we can have any kind of back-and-forth conversation. Plenty of time for me to recall my staff from wherever they’ve been ‘temporarily reassigned.’ It’s logical, at least from Eliot’s point of view.”

  “You don’t think those assignments would be temporary.”

  “Exactly—or even worse, they’d be selectively temporary. Suppose it’s a couple of years? The only people I’d get back would be people who hadn’t been able to advance in their new positions. All my most talented would be better off in their new jobs, reluctant to come back and start over.”

  He was growing animated, reliving the argument he’d had with Eliot. “And goddamnit, it’s not as if we sit around on our hands all day! We have to have strategies for all kinds of scenarios! What if New New comes back on just to slap us with another cybervirus? All the incoming data have to be isolated, analyzed, filtered. What if they come on for only a week or a month or a day? There’s a hierarchy of data we have to ask for, and that hierarchy changes every hour!”

  “He should be able to see that. All those thousands of people working to reconstruct things. Why ask for stuff we already know?”

  “Eliot sees what he wants to see.” Daniel finished off his drink and went around to fix another.

  “That’s the problem. You and Eliot have different world views. He’s basically a cheerful pessimist.”

  Dan laughed. “And I’m a morose optimist.”

  “In a way. Eliot knows in his heart that we’ll never get back on line with New New. They’re all dead. Whereas you think—”

  “What do you think?”

  “Me? About New New?”

  “Yeah. Am I wasting my time, and everybody else’s? Waiting for ghosts to come on line?”

  “No. Even if it were only a thousand-to-one chance. We have to be prepared.”

  “Thanks. Somebody else thinks I’m not useless.” He looked at the glass of boo and poured it back into the bottle. “Look, I’ve got to … go do something. See you at John’s.”

  “Okay.” She watched him hurry off. Dan was truly upset, for him not to drink. Or maybe he was headed for a woman, which didn’t seem likely. But who could figure out men? She picked out a simple melody over and over and recalled what they had said. Maybe she could’ve broken it to him more gently. No. Maybe she should have asked him to stay, and talk it out. No. Don’t push him. Maybe she should have said nothing; waited until they were all together tonight. No, he’d say why didn’t you tell me earlier? Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Papa gonna buy you a mockin’ bird. If that
mockin’ bird don’t sing, Papa gonna buy you a diamond ring …

  TWO PARTS DISCORD

  16 August 99 [27 Muhammed 295]—It was the worst thing I could do, emotionally, but she drew me like a magnet. Before I went to talk Sam over with everybody, I went down to Creche and watched the baby. From behind glass, invisible.

  I understand the rationale for not touching; you can only touch the baby while she’s also in contact with the creche mother. So as not to confuse her bonding. But part of me needs bonding, too.

  It would be different if I hadn’t had the miscarriage. With him I had worked out the whole emotional scenario. He would grow in my body and grow, until I was ready to burst, and then I would push him out in blood and pain and they would cut the cord, but the connection would still be there, and as he grew into boy and man he would still be me, flesh of my flesh as they say. This one and I have only two cells in common, one of them altered and one of them fooled, but in genetic terms she is more me than any natural child could be, and so how am I supposed to feel toward her? I love her with an irrational intensity. I know a lot of the love is referred pain, for the boy who died without a name, with only a hint of life, more or less reverently recycled. They asked me whether I wanted a ceremony and in my stupid rage I said no. It might have put him to rest. Given me some peace.

  Night before last I sat down by the herb garden in the darkness, and I realized that with every breath I was breathing him. A few molecules of him, cycling through the air, and I tried to take some comfort in that, but you follow it to its logical conclusion and it becomes grotesque. Next season I’ll eat a piece of cabbage or goat and it will be partly him, which is to say partly me, and it will pass through and become soil again, or nutrient solution, and I realized that he and I and all of us aboard this can are trivially immortal, through the noble agency of shit. In and out of these temporary bodies.