Reede turned back, drawing Ariele toward her seat again. He kissed her as she settled in; she put her arms around his neck, keeping his mouth on hers a last long, sweet moment before she let him go. He reached down to activate the controls.
“Is it like suffocation?” she whispered. “Is it like freezing—?”
“No,” he said, and smiled. “It’s like peace.” He watched the dome come down; she held his hand until the last moment. He let her go, the unit sealed. He could still see her face through the translucent shield; knew that she could see his. He saw the apprehension in her eyes, watched it fade. She smiled. Her eyes closed, and she slept.
He checked the readouts, and then made his way silently to the final seat, which lay waiting for him. He settled into it. He felt no painful pressure anywhere along his battered body; it was as if he were lying down on clouds. He looked over as Niburu approached him, face to face with his pilot for once.
“I can handle it from here, boss,” Niburu said, answering his unspoken question. “The hard part’s done.”
Reede grimaced. “Don’t say that. Gods, don’t ever say that!” But he smiled again, faintly; touched Niburu’s arm. “What the hell would I do without you, Niburu?”
Niburu grinned. “Stay in one place for a while, maybe.”
Reede laughed. “They can put that on my grave. …” He reached down, triggering the shield that hung above his head. It began to descend. “Wake me up as soon as we reach Tiamat. I need to talk to Gundhalinu.”
Niburu nodded, as the shield’s smoky gray came down like fog between them. Reede felt a moment’s panic, the same panic he had seen in Ariele’s eyes, as the shield sealed in place. His eyes clung to the dim image of Niburu’s face as he struggled to keep his body under control. But a cool, tingling vapor was already filling the air, and as he breathed it in his apprehension faded, along with his vision. He smelled fresh wind and sunlight and exotic spices, pleasure and release… silence… peace….
Kedalion watched Reede’s eyes close, saw his blood-streaked face become young again as his consciousness slipped away.
Kedalion checked the readouts, satisfying himself that the unit was functioning properly. He turned away in the sudden, clicking silence, back to where Ananke lay passed out in the other seat. He pushed aside the charred cloth of Ananke’s coveralls, that he had cut open for better access to the livid burn that ran from shoulder to hip down his side. He saw the stretch of blistered flesh again, and grimaced. And then he pushed the ruined cloth farther aside on Ananke’s chest, slowly, almost reluctantly, needing to confirm to himself that he had not imagined what he had glimpsed in one harried, distracted moment in the middle of chaos.
He pushed the cloth aside. He stared, for a long moment, at what lay revealed beneath it: the smooth, gentle curve of a young woman’s breast.
Carefully he drew the cloth down over Ananke’s breast again, hiding her secret, covering her painful vulnerability. And then, as calmly as he could, he treated her burns, sealed them with a protective film of bandageskin, and applied a line of anesthetic patches up the length of her spine, to deaden the pain when she woke again.
At last he went forward to the pilot’s seat, climbed up into it; leaned back, staring out at the stars. Reaction caught him then, finally, overwhelming him with an exhaustion that was both physical and mental. He felt his eyes closing, against his will. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had felt safe enough, certain enough, to sleep for long, and he no longer had the strength to fight it. The LB was synchronizing orbits on autopilot; it would wake him when they eventually caught up with the Prajna. He could let himself sleep now, finally, for a few hours, if he wanted to … he could sleep…
“Kedalion…?”
Kedalion opened his eyes, groggy and uncertain even of what had wakened him. Ananke stood beside him; he started in surprise. “What—?” he said, not meaning to say anything.
“Sorry to wake you up. I …” Ananke settled into the copilot’s seat with elaborate care, tightlipped, wincing. “Sorry.”
“S’all right.” Kedalion straightened up in his own seat, shaking himself out, abruptly wide awake. He glanced at the displays, out at the night, habitually reassuring himself that everything was still going according to plan. He looked back at Ananke—the same face, the same eyes, the same body he had seen every day for years—trying to detect a difference in what he saw; perversely trying not to. “What is it? You all right? You need anything?”
“I’m all right.” Ananke shook his—her—head, gazing at him out of blue-black, slightly dazed eyes. “Did you … did you dress my wound?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Probably makes you feel like hell right now. But it’ll heal fine.”
She nodded, glancing away, biting her lip. “Hurts some, even with the pain stuff. Thanks, Kedalion, for—”
“No thanks needed.” He smiled, shaking his head.
She looked back at him, and he knew she was trying to guess what he’d seen, if he’d seen—if she dared to ask him…
“Yeah,” he said, ending her suspense. “I know. I saw … I couldn’t help it Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were a woman?” Half a hundred small anomalies over the years suddenly fell into place in his mind, making perfect sense in hindsight. The pathological shyness, the sidelong looks whenever he’d mentioned sex . . “Why?”
“Because you’re a man,” she said, as if that explained everything. Her arms rose unsteadily, one bandaged, one safely hidden by heavy clothing, to cover her breasts, as if they were exposed again, simply by his knowing they were there.
“Anyway,” she looked away from him again, “you would never have hired me on if you’d known. Would you?” Her voice turned accusing.
“Well … I don’t know,” he said frankly.
“And Reede would never have let me stay.”
“Maybe not … not then. Now—” He shrugged.
She looked back at him, stiffening. “Does he know?”
“No,” Kedalion murmured. He shook his head. “Nobody knows but me. And you.”
She sank back into her seat, her body trembling visibly with the effort of having held herself upright. “Hallowed Calavre …” she whispered, her hands clenching and unclenching on the cloth of her coveralls. “Why did this have to happen?”
“Why did you do it in the first place?” he asked. “Did you hate it that much, being a woman on Ondinee?”
Her eyes opened again, black with memory. “Yes,” she muttered, looking down at her body. Her voice took on the faintly singsong Ondinean accent that he had not heard in her speech in years, as she slid deeper into memory. “On Ondinee, men are everything, and women are nothing—like animals in the marketplace, bought and traded. Some, the rich ones, are lucky enough to be like pampered pets, dressed in jewels and fine cloth, taught to read, so that they have the illusion that they are human.” Her head came up again. “We weren’t rich. My father was a day laborer. My mother had been a dancer once, she taught me a little how to dance… . But my father wanted money, he wanted to sell me to the priests to be used in the temple rites. My brother … my brother was always trying to get me alone, touching me, and making me touch him—he told me what happens in the rites, how all the men can come and use you after … what the priests do, how they mutilate you, so that you can’t even feel any pleasure, because women are not even allowed that—” Her voice rose, and broke; tears poured down her face, blurring it with wetness, reflecting the instrument lights in alien traceries of color.
She was not looking at him, not seeing even the night, blind with tears of rage and betrayal. “And he laughed at my tears, and he pushed me down, calling me a whore, and he tried—tried to rape me. But I took his knife and I stabbed him! And I stole his clothes and I ran away. And I went as a boy after that, just so I could live, so I could work, so I could be human. … I thought someday, somewhere, I would be able to stop, but I can’t stop, because nowhere is safe, and whenever I look at a man and remember that I am a woman I’m always afraid. …” She wiped her face fiercely on her sleeve; a small sound, a sob or a noise of pain, escaped her.