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Later, much later, it seemed, Sylvia and Carlos had exhausted the heat. They lay holding each other.
Is this what we really craved? Not the blaze, but the gentle warmth afterward, the peace you can only share with one who has walked the fire with you?
She played with the tight, dark curls of hair on his chest. "How did you end up at another star, Carlos? Not the stuff we all said back on Earth at the group-compatibility workshops."
"Great, weren't they? Jesucristo, the lies that were told that month."
"We all wanted to come pretty bad. Nobody was going to say anything to queer their chances."
"The truth." He sighed. With her face against his chest, she felt, more than heard, his heartbeat. It was strong, and slowing now. He had been as hungry for her as she had been for him. Or for someone.
God, this wasn't the time for thoughts like that. She shunted them back into her head and enjoyed the glow.
"How did I get here? Well, in therapy, you might remember when I said I'd been called back from Beijing where I was doing research on the T'ang Dynasty."
"You say that as if it isn't true."
"Oh, it's true all right. I had another reason for being in Asia for six years."
"Some almond-eyed lovely. I'd wager."
"You lose."
"Ooh. Guess what the stakes were. Claim your prize, you terrible man."
"Insatiable woman. Let me catch my breath. Where was I?" He ran his finger slowly down her back, then kissed her as softly and sincerely as she had ever been kissed in her life. "Oh, yes. Why was I in Beijing?" He laughed. "My family estate is in Patagonia, Argentina. We have fairly extensive holdings, actually. We raised shorthorn and Hereford, and Corriedale sheep. Very old family."
"Your whimsy certainly isn't high Spanish."
"Hell, half the time we spoke English. My mother was Canadian. I picked up colloquial Spanish in Mexico, in prep school and college. There was this little problem back home with a young lady. Her eyes, were, I recall, almond. The vegetable analogy unfortunately extended to her tummy, which was begi
She felt a cold flash. "And you left—"
"No," he said quietly. "I didn't really love her, but I would have done the honorable thing. My father got there first, with checkbook in hand. She was poor, you see, and Papa wasn't having any of it. She went to visit untraceable cousins in Santiago del Estero, and I went north."
She relaxed again. "Where you stayed out of trouble, I hope."
"Hardly. I seem to have this talent."
"Mmmm. I've noticed."
"I was nothing but an embarrassment to my family. I can laugh about it now, but I really made a mess of things. I drank and gambled and wenched, and had the bad grace to stay in the top ten percent of my class. My father bought me out of one fix after another. Finally I got the royal invitation to get the hell off the continent. Live in Asia, drawing generous funds from the Bank of Hong Kong, or live pe
"A remittance man."
"Exactly. Want to know something?"
"What?"
"I'm half sure that my father bribed someone to get me my berth on
Geographic. I don't think China was far enough away."
"Not a chance. You earned every mile. Your father must have been an interesting man."
"Aristocrat to the hilt. Used to retell Grandfather's war stories with relish. It was ‘when the peons revolted' this, and ‘in the fall of 1998' that, and firing squads and torched villages, and Indians dragged out of the jungle by their necks. He had holos of stacks of heads..."
He fell silent, and she didn't disturb his trance. At last he emerged. "To him it was all ‘us' and ‘them.' We had the land, they wanted it. As simple as that. I told him I hated that life, that I'd never be a part of it. And here I am. Watching the herds." Carlos chuckled darkly. "And fighting the natives, for that matter. Enough of that. How about some more of this?"
Sylvia looked to the clock on the wall. It was three in the morning.
"No. I think that I had better go."
"When will... oh, nuts. Chula mia, it sounds ridiculous, I mean, it's hard to have someone here that I care about, and not know when I'll be able to be with her again."
"I don't know yet. I'm just glad we had tonight."
"As am I. Take care, chiquita."
She kissed him again and then rolled carefully out of the hammock. She took a thorough shower, then slipped her clothes back on and left. Carlos was already asleep.
The fog had cleared some. Morning was still hours away, but she felt lighter, and warmer. Most importantly, she knew that she could face Terry with a clear conscience. What had happened between her and Carlos had nothing to do with her marriage, or her love for Terry.
But even if it had...
Chapter 25
LIFE CYCLE
And now the matchless deed's achieved,
Determined, dared, and done!
CHRISTOPHER SMART, "Song to David"
Mary A
Cadma
"Fine, darling. You look a little sick, though."
"I just hate leaving the important things to someone else."
"Trust me." She inhaled harshly, then released the breath as a contraction wracked her body. "Not much—uhhh—longer now."
Jerry patted her stomach comfortingly. "Just a few minutes, little soldier. We're almost ready for you."
"It's all right." She fought to stabilize her breathing, felt her pelvis stretch painfully, then release. She gasped for breath. "Ten light-years from home and—" she labored for another breath—"we still don't have a better way to do this."
"Well, there's a Caesarean—"
"Invented in B.C. times for God's sa—ugh!" The pain stabbed again, increasing in intensity and frequency. She gripped Cadma
"Now breathe."
All of Mary A
Dimly she heard Jerry say, "Cadma
"But—"
"But what? Get lost. Colonel, This is probably the only place on Avalon that you aren't needed."
"Mary A
"Go, stupid," she managed to say before another wave of pain hit her. Then another, and a third that broke like a receding wave, leaving her exhausted upon the shore.
"Breathe!" Marnie urged, and wiped Mary A
"Breathe!" With a start, she realized that she had literally forgotten to inhale. Everything vanished from her universe but the killing pressure in her abdomen, the sensation of a new life struggling through the darkness.
The light separated into coherent dots, floated away. Then they weren't dots at all.
They looked like tiny fish.
Samlon?
She almost laughed. What a time to think about—
"Breathe!"
This time the sensation was strong, almost like being pulled inside out, a long, shudderingly exquisite moment beyond time. The breaths and the minutes blurred, each a discrete entity, each forgotten as soon as it was gone. Consciousness fogged. How could she stretch so, without tearing? She would die. She would faint. The moment would never end, would go on and on—