He will do these things, come September. This is Memorial Day weekend. He wanted me to bring him to my home at a time when nobody would disturb us. Mainly me. (What’s it like, meeting yourself in the living flesh?) I’m with Dad and Mom and Suzy in San Francisco. Tomorrow we’re bound for Yosemite. Won’t be back till Monday evening.
Him and me in my apartment. The other three units are vacant, I know, students also away for the holiday.
Well, I dare hope he’ll continue “respecting my honor.” He did make that nasty crack about me dressing like a man o una puta. Thank—well, be glad I had the wit to get up indignant and tell him this is respectable ladies’ garb where I come from. He apologized, sort of. Said I was a white woman, in spite of being a heretic. Indian women’s feelings didn’t count, of course.
What will he do next? What does he want of me? I don’t know. Probably he isn’t sure either, yet. If I got the same chance he’s got, how would I use it? It’s a godlike power. Hard to stay sensible with those controls between your hands.
“Turn right. Slowly, now.”
We’ve flown above University Avenue, across Middlefield, and yonder’s the Plaza; my street’s that—a-way. Yep. “Halt.” We stop. I look past his shoulder at the square building, ten feet below us and twenty ahead. The windows glimmer blind.
“I have rooms in that upper story.”
“Have you space for the chariot?”
Gulp. “Well, yes, in the largest chamber. A few feet”—how many, damn it?—“about three feet behind those panes at the very corner.” I’m guessing the Spanish foot of his day is not too different from the English foot of mine.
Evidently not. He leans forward, peers, gauges. My pulse gallops. Sweat prickles my skin. He means to make a quantum jump through space (no, not really through space. Around it?) and appear in my living room. What if we come out in the middle of something?
Oh, he’s experimented, in his Galapagos retreat. The nerve that that took! He’s made discoveries. He tried to explain them to me. As near as I can follow it, put in twentieth-century words, you pass directly from one set of space-time coordinates to another. Maybe it’s through a “wormhole”—vague recollection of articles in Scientific American, Science News, Analog—and for a moment your dimensions equal zero; then as you expand into your destination volume, you displace whatever matter is there. Air molecules, obviously. Luis found out that if a small solid object is in the way, it gets pushed aside. A big object, and the machine, with you aboard, settles beside it, off the exact spot you punched for. Probably mutual displacement. Action equals reaction. Agreed, Sir Isaac?
There must be limits. Suppose he gets it badly wrong and we end up in the wall. Splintering studs, nails shoved through my guts, stucco and plaster like cannonball, and a ten- or twelve-foot drop to the ground on this heavy thing.
“Saint James be with us,” he says. I feel his motions. Whoops!
We’re here, inches above the floor. He sets us down. We’re here.
Street glow dim through the windows. Get off. Knees weak. Start. Stop—his grip on my arm like jaws. “Halt,” he commands.
“I only want to give us better light.”
“I will make quite sure of that, my lady.” He comes along. When I flick the switch and everything turns bright, he gasps. His fingers close bruisingly hard. “Ow!” He lets go and stares around him.
Must have seen electric bulbs on Santa Cruz. But Puerto Ayora’s a poor little village, and I don’t suppose he peeped into the station personnel’s quarters. Try to look at this through his eyes. Difficult. I take it all for granted. How much can he actually see, as alien as it is to him?
Bike fills most of the rug. Crowds my desk, the sofa, the entertainment cabinet and bookshelf. It knocked two chairs over. Fourth wall, door open on the short hall. Bathroom and broom closet to the left, bedroom and clothes closet to the right, kitchen at the end, those doors closed. Cubbyholes. And I’ll bet nobody less than a merchant prince lived like this in the sixteenth century.
What immediately astounds him: “So many books? You cannot be a cleric.”
Why, I doubt if I have a hundred, texts included. And Gutenberg was before Columbus, wasn’t he?
“How poorly bound they are.” That seems to renew his confidence. I suppose books were still scarce and expensive. And no paperbacks.
He shakes his head at a couple of magazines; the covers must seem downright garish. Harshness again. “You will show me these lodgings.”
I do, explaining things as best I can. He has glimpsed (will glimpse) faucets and flush toilets in Puerto Ayora. “How I wish for a bath,” I sigh. Give me a hot shower and clean clothes, you can keep your Paradise, Don Luis.
“Presently, if you like. However, it shall be in my sight, like all else you do.”
“What? Even the, uh, even that?”
He’s embarrassed but determined. “I regret this, my lady, and will keep my face averted, save that I must see enough to be certain you make ready no trick. For I believe yours to be a valiant soul, and you have mysteries and devices that I do not fathom at your beck.”
Ha. If only I did keep a .45 under my lingerie. At that, I’ve a bit of trouble convincing him the upright vacuum cleaner isn’t a gun. He makes me lug it into the living room and demonstrate. A grin turns him human. “Give me a charwoman,” he says. “She doesn’t howl like a mad wolf.”
We leave it where it is and return down the hall. In the kitchen-dinette, he admires the pilot-lighted gas range. Tell him, “I need a sandwich-food—and a beer. What about you? Tepid water and half-cooked tortoise for days.”
“Do you offer me hospitality?” He sounds amazed.
“Call it that.”
He ponders. “No. My thanks, but I cannot in conscience eat your salt.”
Funny how touching that is. “Old-fashioned, aren’t you? If I remember rightly, the Borgias were in business in your time. Or was that earlier? Well, let us agree we’re opponents who’ve sat down to negotiate.”
He inclines his head, takes off his helmet, and sets it on the counter. “My lady is most gracious.”
A snack will do me a lot of good. And maybe disarm him. I am an attractive wench when I choose to be. Learn as much as possible. Keep alert. And beneath the tension—damn it, this is flat-out fascinating.
He watches me start the coffee maker. He’s interested when I open the fridge, startled when I pop the tops on a couple of brews. I take a sip from the first and hand it to him. “Not poisoned, you see. Take a chair.” He settles himself at the table. I get busy with bread and cheese and stuff.
“A curious drink,” he says. Surely they had beer in his time, but doubtless it was quite different from ours.
“I have wine, if you’d rather.”
“No, I must not dull my senses.”
Beer in California wouldn’t get a cat tiddly. Too bad.
“Tell me more about yourself, Lady Wanda.”
“If you’ll do likewise for me, Don Luis.”
I serve us. We talk. What a life he’s led! He finds mine just as remarkable. Well, I am a woman. By his lights, I should have devoted my efforts to breeding, housekeeping, and prayers. Unless I was Queen Isabella—Rein it in. Make him underestimate you.
That requires technique. I’m not used to flapping my lashes and cheering a man on to describe how wonderful he is. Can do it when called for, though. One way to keep a date from deteriorating into a wrestling match. Never date that kind twice. Give me a guy who considers himself my equal.