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They studied each other for a moment. It was the weighted assessment of two contestants about to enter a competition.
Would she offer herself? Furuneo wondered. She was an attractive female: generous mouth, large green eyes, a pleasant oval face. He'd seen the holoscans of her figure - the Beautybarbers had done well by her. She'd maintained herself with all the expensive care her money could buy. But would she offer herself to him? He found this difficult to contemplate. Motives and stakes didn't fit.
"What're you afraid of?" he asked.
It was a good opening attack, but she answered him with a peculiar note of sincerity: "Suffering."
Furuneo tried to swallow in a dry throat. He hadn't been celibate since Mada's death, but that had been a special kind of marriage. It had gone beyond words and bodies. If anything remained solid and basic, co
Or could she?
"Fa
"Co
"Co
"I don't really know," Abnethe said, "but apparently I can exploit them without knowing."
"What're you cooking up?" Furuneo demanded. He wondered why his skin felt suddenly chilled in spite of the heat.
"Fa
The jumpdoor's vortal tube flickered open, closed, danced and shimmered. Abruptly, Abnethe no longer was visible in it. The door stood open once more, looking down now onto a su
Furuneo stared, unable to move. The young woman lifted her head, stared out to sea, lay back.
Abnethe's voice came from directly over his head, another jumpdoor obviously, but he couldn't take his gaze from that well-remembered scene. "You recognize this?" she asked.
"It's Mada," he whispered.
"Precisely."
"Oh, my god," he whispered. "When did you scan that?"
"It is your beloved, you're sure?" Abnethe asked.
"It's . . . it's our honeymoon," he whispered. "I even know the day. Friends took me to visit the seadome, but she didn't enjoy swimming and stayed behind."
"How do you know the actual day?"
"The flambok tree at the edge of the clearing: It bloomed that day, and I missed it. See the umbrella flower?"
"Oh, yes. Then you've no doubt about the authenticity of this scene?"
"So you had your snoopers staring at us even then?" he rasped.
"Not snoopers. We are the snoopers. This is now.
"It can't be! That was almost forty years ago!"
"Keep your voice down, or she'll hear you."
"How can she hear me? She's been dead for . . ."
"This is now, I tell you! Fa
"In person of Furuneo, concept of now contains relative co
Furuneo shook his head from side to side.
"We can pluck her from that yacht and take both of you to a place the Bureau will never find," Abnethe said. "What do you think of that, Furuneo?"
Furuneo wiped tears from his cheeks. He was aware of the sea's ozone smell, the pungency of the flambok blossom. It had to be a recording, though. Had to be.
"If it's now, why hasn't she seen us?" he asked.
"At my direction Fa
"You're lying!" he hissed.
As though at a signal, the young woman rolled over, stood up, and admired the flambok. She began humming a song familiar to Furuneo.
"I think you know I'm not lying," Abnethe said. "This is our secret, Furuneo. This is our discovery about the Calebans."
"But . . . how can . . ."
"Given the proper co
"This is a trick!" he said.
"You can see it isn't. Smell that flower, the sea."
"But why . . . what do you want?"
"Your assistance in a small matter, Furuneo. "
"How?"
"We fear someone will stumble on our secret before we're ready. If, however, someone the Bureau trusts is here to watch and report - giving a false report . . ."
"What false report?"
"That there've been no more floggings, that Fa
"Why should I do that?"
"When Fa
"Truthful essence in statement," the Caleban said.
Furuneo stared through the jumpdoor. Mada! She was right there. She had stopped humming and was coating her body with a skin-protective. If the Caleban moved the door a little closer, he knew he'd be able to reach out and touch his beloved.
Pain in Furuneo's chest made him aware of a constriction there. The past!
"Am . . . I down there somewhere?" he asked.
"Yes," Abnethe said.
"And I'll come back to the yacht?"
"If that's what you did originally."
"What would I find, though?"
"Your bride gone, disappeared."
"But . . ."
"It would be thought that some creature of the sea or the jungle killed her. Perhaps she went swimming and . . ."
"She lived thirty-one years after that," he whispered.
"And you can have those thirty-one years all over again," Abnethe said.
"I . . . I wouldn't be the same. She'd . . ."
"She'd know you."
Would she really? he wondered. Perhaps - yes. Yes, she'd know him. She might even come to understand the need behind such a decision. But he saw quite clearly that she'd never forgive him. Not Mada.
"With proper care she might not have to die in thirty-one years," Abnethe said.
Furuneo nodded, but it was a gesture only for himself.
She wouldn't forgive him any more than the young man returning to an empty yacht could forgive him. And that young man had not died.
I couldn't forgive myself, he thought. The young man I was would never forgive me all those lovely lost years.
"If you're worried," Abnethe said, "about changing the universe or the course of history or any such nonsense, forget it. That's not how it works, Fa
"I see."
"Do you agree to our bargain?" Abnethe asked.
"What?"
"Shall I have Fa
"Why bother?" he asked. "I can't agree to such a thing."
"You're joking!"
He turned, stared up at her, saw that she had a small jumpdoor open almost directly over his head. Only her eyes, nose, and mouth could be seen through the opening.
"I am not joking."
Part of her hand became visible as she lifted it, pointed toward the other door. "Look down there at what you're rejecting. Look, I say! Can you honestly tell me you don't want that back?"
He turned.
Mada had gone back to the hammock, snuggled face-down against a pillow. Furuneo recalled that he'd found her like that when he'd returned from the seadome.
"You're not offering me anything," he said.
"But I am! It's true, everything I've told you!"
"You're a fool," he said, "if you can't see the difference between what Mada and I had and what you offer. I pity . . ."