Triton

Lawrence raised his chin. “Really, you’re succeeding in making her sound like someone in whom I could not have the least interest—and certainly not in her scurrilous correspondence.”

Bron relocked his hands between his knees. “Well, that’s the type she is. Anyway, there we were, at the restaurant. It had been really rough on me, with the arrest and the interrogation. And I just felt I needed something—not sex; something more than that, some sort of ... I don’t know: support, friendship, warmth, compassion—though, believe me, once she got the slightest inkling I did want something more than sex, she decided sex was out as well. From then on it was just a big flat nothing. I mean, I couldn’t talk about what had happened to me, what I’d been through; it was just too dangerous. But she didn’t even have a clue that anything was even wrong. There was just no understanding at all ... They don’t understand. They can’t understand. Men just have to go through it alone.”

“You were saying something about bravery?” Lawrence hefted the case again.

“Well, yeah. I mean I don’t want to make a big thing of it; but, well, when I wanted to come back here, to check out you, and Audri and the kids, first I

had to break through an enforcement cordon. It wasn’t really that hard; I just mixed in with a crowd of the Poor Children of the Avestal Light and Changing Secret Name. Years ago I used to attend their instruction, so I could fake a mantra—well enough to got by, anyway. And I got through like that. I’m not saying it took a lot of ingenuity; but it took some. And in a time of social crisis, somebody’s got to have that kind of ingenuity, if just to protect the species, the women, the children—yes, even the aged. And that ingenuity comes out of the aloneness, that particular male aloneness. It’s not even conscious. I mean I wasn’t even trying that hard. But in time of crisis, some things just have to be done. Sometimes it’s keeping your mouth shut, or not doing something you want to that’ll endanger others. Sometimes it’s doing something you wouldn’t do normally, like breaking through an enforcement cordon, or a window, or even through somebody’s really dumb ideas.” Bron laughed. “I’m just trying to imagine that crazed bitch I was out to di

The vlet case slipped from Lawrence’s hands, crashed to the floor, and fell open. Two of the side drawers flew out, scattering over the rug cards, dice, and red and green figures.

Bron stood up.

Lawrence, with a small cry, fell to his knees, muttering, “Oh, really ...” and, “For crying out ...”, and went scrabbling after the pieces, looking more and more upset.

“Hey,” Bron said, after a moment, “don’t get so .. • Here, I’ll help you get—”

“You’re a fool,” Lawrence said, suddenly and hoarsely. “And I’m tired. I’m tired of it, that’s all there is. I’m tired.”

“Huh?”

Lawrence clacked two dice back in place, reached for a third—

“Hey ...” Bron heard the hostility in the clack and tried to retrace what he’d said to that point where it had been generated. “Oh, hey; when I said faggots didn’t understand, I was just being—I don’t know: bitchy. Look, whatever you like to screw or get screwed by, you’re still a man. You’ve been alone. After all, you live in this place, don’t you? You did just as much as I did to make sure Audri and the kids were all right. I mean it was really your idea to—”

Lawrence sat back; pale, wrinkled hands dragged against dark, wrinkled genitals. “You’re a fool! You’re a foolf You’re a fool! You’re going to talk to me about bravery?” One hand snapped up and pointed out the door. “There’s your bravery. There’s your ingenuity. Right across the hall, in Alfred’s room—no, they haven’t cleaned them out yet. The people who did that to them, busily doing what must be done for the survival of the species, and so efficientlv! Without the loss of a single soldier. On either side.” Lawrence’s hand fell back to the floor among the pieces. “What I came in here to tell you in the first nlace ...” Lawrence took a breath, let it go. His shoulders fell. “The war is over. They just a

But Bron had not started to kneel. Looking at the crumpled letter still in his fist, an image of the Spike, on Earth, ‘in the confusion’, had hit him as vividly as a scene returned by chance odor: he had staggered. His heart knocked back and forth around his ribs. The thoughts flooding into his mind were too violent to be called thinking (at least that thought was clear); he watched Lawrence pick among the pieces. Finally—was it a minute? Was it five?—he asked, hoarsely: