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"It's not so bad, is it, Cadzie?"
"It's like Carlos said a couple of months ago: ‘It's been a whole lot worse.' " He dug at the ground with the toe of his boot, making a mental note to get some of the soil lichens started soon. "I just wanted to have this to get away from everything, and I seem to have brought a bit of the Colony up here with me."
"You can't get away from—" Sylvia started to say, but Carlos quieted her.
"Amigo, if you really don't want us up here, any of us, just say the word. We love you. We're grateful to you. We're still embarrassed about the... fiasco. Hendrick, Greg, the others, they're just responding to you the way men have responded to leaders since Alley Oop."
"I never wanted to be a leader."
"Some of us don't have choices. Just let them do a little more work—hell, you can use it, you know that's the truth—and then send them back. You'll be alone, and Greg will have had his therapy."
It was true, all true, but dammit, why was it so hard for a man to just be alone?
When Nature is calling, plain speaking is out
When the ladies, God bless ‘em, are milling about;
You may wee-wee, make water or empty the glass
You can powder your nose, even Joh
Shake the dew off the lily, see a man about a dog
When everyone's drunk, it's condensing the fog.
But please to remember if you would know bliss
That only in Shakespeare do characters—
"What the hell. Hendrick's right. It's been a good day. Listen, you two have a safe flight back. I'm going to go sing dirty ditties."
He shook Carlos's hand, kissed Justin and helped Sylvia buckle herself in.
Then Cadma
Feeling unseasonably warm, Cadma
"I think he's going to make it," Carlos said.
"I never really doubted it." Sylvia looked at him. "How about you? I haven't really seen the old Carlos much lately."
"Has he been missed?"
"Muchly. Avalon's unmarried lovelies mourn almost nightly."
Carlos skimmed the Skeeter sideways, riding out a gust of wind. "What, in formal ceremonies? Perhaps it is time I began making my rounds again."
He paused thoughtfully for a moment. "Only the unmarried ones?"
"Discretion, Carlos. Please."
"I'm nothing if not discreet." Carlos could have begun the descent then, but he kept the Skeeter hovering. "And what about you?" he asked soberly. "Terry's problem is hardly a secret. I know how you and Cadma
"I promised Terry. Anyone but Cadma
Slowly, Carlos began to dip toward the landing pad. He chose his next words carefully. "And where does that leave Senora Faulkner?"
Her answering voice was small. "Looking for a friend?"
Carlos reached out his hand, covering hers. Her fingers seemed so small, so warm. "Since Bobbi, I think that is what has stopped me. I haven't been looking for a relationship. Or just a palomita. I think I, too, need a friend. Perhaps..."
"... we could both stop looking?" Sylvia squeezed Carlos's fingers, then pulled away and hugged Justin to her.
I hope so, Carlos said to himself, surprised by the intensity of his response. Warmth and cheerfully lecherous optimism spread through him like a brushfire.
Carlos hummed happily as he brought the Skeeter in for a landing.
Chapter 24
REMITTANCE MAN
I strongly wish for what I faintly hope;
Like the daydreams of melancholy men,
I think and think in things impossible,
Yet love to wander in that golden maze.
JOHN DRYDEN, "Rival Ladies"
Sylvia touched her lips to Justin's brow. She savored his baby smell of powder and clean linen. Her hands were cold, and she was careful not to touch him as she tucked the edges of the blanket around him. Seven weeks old today. I should remind Terry.
Justin had begun to lose the newborn's wrinkly look, to cease being a generic baby and take on a personality of his own. He could focus his eyes, reach and grab with coordination, make sounds that often seemed appropriate to the situation. Terry had read Kistakovsy's classic revisions of the Gesell studies and pronounced Justin well ahead of normal development.
Those things mattered, but there was a way that they didn't. Genius or idiot, she loved the tiny, helpless child as she had never loved anything in her life, as if he were still a part of her own body.
Plastic stars and pterodons dangled above his crib. They would circle at the slightest touch of a breeze. For now, they, like Justin, were still.
Terry was in the front room clearing away the debris of the evening meal.
Her hands shook. She couldn't let Terry see that. She forced herself to calm down, and thrust them beneath her arms until they started to feel warm.
Terry stacked the last dishes in the cabinet beneath the sink. One hand gripping the wheelchair arm, muscles in his arm and back standing prominent as he leaned far forward to reach. Done, and he smiled in satisfaction. His wheelchair purred as he glided it over to her. "Justin asleep?"
"For now," she said, honestly relieved. She waved at the sink area.
"You're getting good at that. Making order out of chaos."
"Yeah. What I am. I'm good at. I never had arms this strong. Which reminds me—"
"The expedition."
"Yeah. Time to turn the plans over to Zack. It could be five or ten years before anyone actually goes to the mainland, but hell, our resources won't have changed much. The plans'll still be good. I'm afraid to tell Cadma
"Yeah... I've expressed enough milk to keep Justin happy if he wakes up. I'll only be gone a couple of hours." She stretched, forcing a mild yawn. "We have to get the tapes edited and off. We're overdue on our broadcast."
"You've been busy," Terry said.
His face, always slender, seemed unhealthily gaunt despite his smile.
She knelt by the wheelchair. "You'll be all right?"
"Oh, I'm fine." His quick smile faded slightly, and he was looking past her. His gaze lingered on diplomas and plaques, a photo album, a pair of crystal goblets: the things they had brought from Earth.
"What are you thinking of, love?"
His smile saddened. "It's been a long time since you've called me that."
"I've thought of it every day."
"Have you?"
"Yes, of course—"
"You can't know how much I want to believe that. It's a trite old story, isn't it? Arranged marriage that results in love. Love on one side, anyway."
"Terry—"
"And then I found it was mutual. Marry, then fall in love. It really works. It wouldn't surprise our Hindu friends. They've known it all along. Go get your work done and ask Carlos to drop around once in a while. I don't see him enough."
She slipped on her shawl. It was a web of gold and umber yarn, every strand turned by the hand of her mother, over a century before. Its touch stimulated tactile memories: warmth, closeness, softness. It was one of her little pieces of home.
The click as the door latched behind her was uncomfortably loud.
After a few days of clear weather, the fog had descended upon Avalon with a vengeance, thicker and soupier than any night since the first grendel assault. It penetrated through the shawl as if she were naked, chilled right to the bone.