The Ascension Factor

"Yes," Ben said. "We'll get out soon. Things are going to get very hot here very soo..."

He stiffened suddenly and swore under his breath. He pointed at a Vashon security patrol working their way down the pierside toward them: two men on each side of the street. They poured an insidious stillness over a choppy sea of commuters and shoppers in the marketplace. The press of commuters crowding toward the ferries parted for them without touching.

Each guard carried a small lasgun slung under one arm, and from each belt hung various tools of the security trade: coup baton for infighting hand to hand, charges for the lasguns, a fistful of small but efficient devices of chemical and mechanical restraint. They each wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses - trademark of the Warrior's Union, the Director's personal assassination squad. Among the people there was much smiling, headshaking, shoulder-shrugging; some cringed.

Crista watched the pair work their way along the dockside street and felt the small hairs rise on her arms and the back of her neck.

"Don't worry," Ben said, as though reading her mind. With his hand on her bare shoulder like that she believed it was possible that he was reading her mind - or, at least, her emotions. She loved his touch. She felt a new flood of his life enter through her skin. It stored itself somewhere in her brain while her eyes went on watching the street.

The security team left one man in front of each building in turn while the other searched inside. They were close.

"What do we do?" she asked.

He reached to the other side of the bed for a bundle of Islander clothes and set them in her lap.

"Get dressed," he said, "and watch. Stay back from the plaz."

There was a sudden, concussive whump and a flash of orange from the harbor, then a roil of black smoke. The street turned into a scramble of bodies as people ran to their boats dockside and to their firefighting stations. Pandorans had used hydrogen for their engines and stoves, their welding torches and power production since the old days. Hydrogen storage tanks were everywhere, and fire one of their great fears.

"Wha... ?"

"An old coracle," Ben said, "registered to me. They will be busy for a while. With luck, they will believe we were aboard."

Another whump took Crista's breath away, and as she pulled on the unfamiliar clothing she saw that the security squad had not disappeared with the crowd. They came on with the same precision and deliberation, door to door. The street was nearly empty as everyone else who was able-bodied fought the fires or moved nearby boats to safety.

While Ben stood watch beside the window, Crista pulled on a heavily embroidered white cotton dress that was much too big for her. Her breasts, though not small, bobbled free inside. She held the fabric away from her flat belly and looked questioningly at Ben.

He tossed her a black pajama-type worksuit of the Islanders that appeared identical to the one he wore. From a drawer beside the bed he pulled a long woven sash and handed it to her.

"I don't know how to tell you this, but you're pregnant. Quite a ways along, too."

When she still didn't follow his intent, he said, "Strap the worksuit on your belly to fill out the dress," he said. "You'll need it later. For now, you are a pregnant Islander. I am your man."

She strapped the worksuit around her as instructed and adjusted the dress. In the mirror beside the hatch she did look pregnant.

Crista watched in the mirror as Ben wrapped a long red bandana around his head, letting the tails fall between his shoulder blades. It was embroidered with the same geometries that appeared on her dress.

My man, she thought with a smile, and we're dressing to go out.

She patted the padding on her stomach fondly and rested her hand there, half-expecting to feel some tiny movement. Ben stood behind her and tied a similar bandana around her forehead. He gave her a floppy straw hat to wear over it.

"This ma

"Yes, of course. Sunk the year before I was born."

"Yes," he said. "You are now the pregnant wife of a Guemes Island survivor. Among Islanders you will receive the greatest respect. Among Mermen you will be treated with the deference that only the guilty can bestow. As you know, it means absolutely nothing among Flattery's people. We have no papers, there wasn't tim..."

Two whistles at their hatch. Two different whistles.

"That's Rico," he said, and matched her smile. "Now we get to go outside."

***

The things that people want and the things that are good for them are very different... Great art and domestic bliss are mutually incompatible. Sooner or later, you'll have to make your choice.

Beatriz dozed awhile on the couch after shutting off her alarm. The dark, plazless office at the launch site helped keep the fabric of her dream alive. Freed from the confines of her mind, it flowed about the room with the ease of a ghost. In a way, it was a ghost.

She had been dreaming of Ben, of their last night together, and there were parts of the dream that she wanted to savor. It was two years ago, the night before she made her first trip up to the Orbiter, before she met Mack. She was nervous about her first shuttle flight to the Orbiter, and Ben was going off to the High Reaches to meet with some Zavatan elder. In spite of the fact that they'd been lovers for years, they both felt awkward. It was ending, they knew it was ending, but neither of them could talk about it.

It was early evening, clear and warm. A shot of sunset still streaked the horizon pink and blue. They sat aboard one of Holovision's foils at dockside, in the crew's quarters. She remembered the familiar shlup-shlip of water against the hull and the occasional mutter of wild squawks settling down. Children played their evening games before being called in for the night and they whistle-signaled from pier to pier. She and Ben had talked of children, of wanting them and of bad timing. This night the rest of their crews had discreetly left them alone. She found out later it was at Rico's suggestion.

"Women are the answer," Ben said, handing her a glass of white wine.

"And what was the question?"

She touched glasses with him, sipped, and set it down. She did not want to ride a rocket into orbit in the morning with a hangover.

Ben's green eyes looked particularly beautiful against his dark skin. His lean, muscular body had always been perfect with hers. She couldn't understand why he had to go off on his wild projects chasing down Shadows when he could stay and work with her. She'd covered as much death as she cared to, it was time they thought of themselves.

I want to report on life, advances, progress...

"Women represent life, advances, progress," he said.

The hair prickled at the back of her neck.

"Are you reading my mind?"

"Would I dare?" he asked.

Those green eyes twinkled in their way that shot something straight into her heart. Whatever it was was warm, and it always melted downward like a hand inside her underwear. Beatriz was a strong woman, and she knew it. She also knew that Ben Ozette was the only man who ever made her weak in the knees. She sipped her wine and kept the glass at her chest.

"What am I thinking now?" she asked, feeling she had to change the subject.

"You're wishing I'd get on with whatever it was I was going to say so that we can get on with the evening."

She laughed a little louder than she liked, and ran a hand through her black hair.

"Why, Mr. Ozette, what kind of girl do you think I am?"

He ignored her flirtation. His ma