“Well? We’ve gotten along well these past weeks.”
“I know, Colette.” For one as perceptive as Ethan knew this woman to be, that should be answer enough. She elaborated anyway, rushing, hurrying her words so as to be rid of them as fast as possible.
“I asked you to marry me. Are you going to, or are you staying here?”
“I—I don’t know. I suppose I need more time to think. I’m not stalling you, Colette, I’m telling you the truth.”
She snorted derisively. “Every man I’ve ever known concluded any bad talk with that last homily.”
“I’ll tell you before the shuttle lifts, I promise.” He grabbed her shoulders, held her as long as he dared. She was warm.
“If that’s the way it has to be.”
He let her go. “That’s the way it has to be.”
She forced a slight smile. “I guess that’s better than an outright refusal. See you.” She turned, flounced out the door. A gust of wind brought a few ice flakes swirling inward, dying even as they struck his face. Two Tran knights followed her out, conversing easily as they ignored the bitter cold. To the natives they were reposing in a sheltered harbor, where they could stroll about outside almost naked. Only Ethan and the other humans had to hurry into their cabins before unprotected skin froze solid and crisp as a honeycomb.
It was an indication of the readiness with which the local Tran had accepted humanxkind and manifestations of its advanced technology that the natives in the shuttleport did not look up in awe when the shuttle’s braking engines fired and it settled snugly into its berthing pit, tight as a snail withdrawing into its shell.
As the engines died, the internal supercooling elements built into the skin of the delta-winged atmospheric craft went to work. Soon hull and engines themselves were cool enough to touch.
Suspensors moved out from waiting bays. Businesslike words were exchanged between the shivering shuttlepilot and the landing crew. Packages and crates began to move from concealed storage bins into the shuttle, while in return the tiny ship gave birth to a multitude of smaller sealed shapes.
Local handicrafts were traded off for knives and lamps and stelamic weaponry. Fragments of poor quality but still immensely valuable green ozmidine bought radios and tridees and hand communicators. Ethan thought back to the immense volcano known to the Tran as The-Place-Where-The-Earth’s-Blood-Burns and the cavern filled with ozmidine they’d discovered inside. He wondered what whoever was dominating the local trade would have thought of that breathtaking deposit of the ultraprecious green gem.
Nearby, Hellespont du Kane began chatting cheerfully with the physician the starship captain had thoughtfully sent down in the shuttle to attend his unexpected, famous passenger. Colette stood watching him, responding perfunctorily to September’s gruff and somewhat obscene good-bye and Williams’ more polite, deferential one.
Then there was nothing else to do, no one else to talk to, and Ethan found himself walking over. She moved to meet him.
Several silent moments passed. Perhaps the fact that his mind was now made up enabled him to match her stare more resolutely.
“How’s your father?” he finally said lamely.
“As well as can be expected.” She had to force herself to blunt her natural sharpness. “I keep trying to get him to consent to a body switch… he refuses additional revivifications. He won’t do it. I don’t think it’s a death wish. The psychostics say it’s not. But he won’t agree to it even when he’s senile, let alone during his occasional bursts of full lucidity. Keeps telling me it’s time I took over, that he’s held the reins long enough.”
“You are ready to take over, Colette.” Ethan spoke softly yet with enthusiasm. It was extremely difficult to sell Colette on herself. “I know how the merchant families work. I have to. I work for one myself.”
“Ready or not, I have to.” Her reply was so soft it was hard to believe it came from her. “What do you have to do, Ethan?”
He smiled. It wasn’t easy. “I’m sorry, Colette. Truly I am.”
“First they say they’re telling the truth, then they always say they’re sorry.”
“Colette,…” Ethan fought for words. “I’m not a teller, I’m a told. You were raised, trained to give orders. I’ve matured learning to take them. Advice I can offer, but never orders. I don’t think I’d be any good at it. I’d mess up any executive position you gave me, and then you’d be forced to cover for me. You’d have to explain me to my colleagues, the really qualified executives and compusymbs.” He shook his head dolefully. “I couldn’t handle the kind of snickering I’d be subjected to. And I won’t accept a life as an ineffectual parasite.”
“You have a peculiar conception of what being mated means.” She sounded almost desperate without appearing to beg. “You could do whatever you wanted to, anything at all. Travel, hobbies… it doesn’t even have to be with me.” The gaze lowered just a little. “You could… even have other women on the side, if you so desired. I’d fix it so you could afford the best.” She looked up again.
“You’re a good man. You could do what you wish, so long as you…” she hesitated, “came back to me.”
“No, Colette. I have something I have to see through, here.”
For an instant something flared in her eyes. “It’s that muscular teddy bear, isn’t it?”
“No.” Ethan’s denial gained strength from his honest, obvious surprise. “Elfa’s not a factor. I don’t know what she sees in me, but she’s a member of another race.”
“That hasn’t stopped people in the past,” she countered accusingly.
“It stops me. Where Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata is concerned, any interest other than anthropological is strictly one-sided. Her side. I gave you the real reason. I could never be a professional student, professional traveler, professional hobbyist. Or a professional husband.”
She seemed ready to leave, then grasped him so suddenly and hard he had to fight to regain his balance. She broke away just enough to plead, speaking so softly no one but Ethan could have heard. He found himself momentarily mesmerized by those metal-bright green eyes.
“You’re the first man I ever met who treated me like a human being. You were good to me, and you were honest with me. I know I’m ugly.”
“You’re anything but that, Colette.”
Her smile was full of pain. “For months I was the only human woman around. I enjoyed the isolation. I’m conversant enough with physiopsychology to read in your eyes my loss of five kilos for every month of that isolation. As soon as we reached any outpost of human civilization you’d see me for what I am, for what no doctor can correct. It’s happened since we’ve been here, at this outpost. I’m obese, sarcastic, and bitter to the point of dissolution.”
“The last two you need to survive the important position you’re going to assume,” Ethan told her. “As for the first, that’s an image you have of yourself.” He thought of something September had told him. “Physical shape and attractiveness have little to do with each other. In the dark, all mankind looks alike.
“No, the reasons I can’t marry you have to do with our mental makeup, not our physical.”
She let go of him. His arms would show red where she’d gripped him. “House du Kane has businesses and branches on most of the populous worlds and many of the colonies. If you ever change your mind, Ethan Frome Fortune, you can get in touch with me.” She grinned tightly. “Twenty-two double R, Ethan. It’ll expedite anything.”
“You’ll find someone else.”
“With my attractions? I can offer my cardmeter balance and my position. Those won’t buy what I want. I’ve asked and pleaded, Ethan. I won’t beg.”