“Mmm,” the Spike said. “I’m doing a month of lectures on Jacque Lynn Col ton. After I finish here and on to Neriad, I’ll be going back to Io, Europa, Ganymede ...” She shrugged. “It’s the usual rotation. Somehow, though, under the University—even on the run—just isn’t the place to do creative work. At least, not for me. They’ve promised me some direction as soon as I get back. I’m working on plans for simultaneous, integrated productions of La Vida Es Sueho, Phedra, and The Tyrant—one cast for all three, all on the same stage, with both cast and audience using the new concentration drugs. The University has already used them to allow people to listen to four or five lectures at once, but nobody’s tried to use them for anything aesthetically interesting.”
“I thought ... um, macro-theater wasn’t your field?” Bron said, wondering where the information came from, or if it was even right.
The Spike laughed. “Macro-theater is just a lot of coordinated micro-theater productions done one right after another without a break.”
“Oh,” Bron said again. Three plays at once sounded too confusing even to ask about. “Are you still with Windy and what’s-her-name?”
“Charo. No, not really. Charo’s here on Triton; and we see each other, get drunk together, and reminisce about old times. She’s a pretty spectacular kid.”
“Where’s Windy?”
The Spike shrugged.
“Well—” Bron smiled—“I must admit he struck me as the roving kind.”
“He’s probably dead,” the Spike said. “The whole company left Lahesh the same day you did, but Windy was going to stay behind on Earth for another six days. Windy was born on Earth, you know. He’d planned to hitchhike somewhere or other to see one of his families, and then join us later. Only the war ...” She looked about the street. “Eighty-eight percent of the population at last report ... The confusion there is still supposed to be horrible. They’ve said not to expect any reliable information from the place for at least another year. Then there’re those who say there’ll never be anything there again to have any reliable information about.”
“I saw a public-channel coverage of the cannibalism going on in both the Americas.” Bron felt welling distress. “And that was only a month ago ... ?”
The Spike took a deep breath. “So that means the chances are—what? Four out of five that he’s dead? Or, by this time, nine out of ten.”
The only response to come to Bron was a tasteless joke about the chances of Windy’s having been eaten. “Then you’re not really involved with anybody anymore—” And the distress was still growing; her heart began to knock again. What is this? she wondered. It certainly couldn’t be sex! Was it the terror, or the embarrassment, of death? But she’d hardly known Windy; and his death was a probability, not a certainty, anyway. Then, astonishing herself, Bron said: “Spike, let me come with you. All the rest is ridiculous.” She looked at the pavement. “I’ll give up everything I have, go wherever you like, do whatever you want. You’ve had women lovers. Love me. I’ll have a refixation, tonight. I want you. I love you. I didn’t even know it, but seeing you again—”
“Oh, Bron ...” The Spike touched Bron’s shoulder.
Bron felt something inside reel about her chest, staggering at the touch. “Feeling like this ... I’ve never felt like this about ... anyone before. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” the Spike said. “I do.”
“Then why can’t you—?”
“First of all, I am involved with someone else. Second of all, I’m touched, I’m complimented ... even now: But I’m not interested.”
“Who are you ... with ... ?” Despair built behind Bron’s face like a solid slab of metal that began to heat, to burn, to melt and run across her eyes. She wasn’t crying. But water rolled down one cheek.
The Spike dropped her hand. “You’ve met him, actually—though you probably don’t remember ... Fred?
I believe the first time you saw him, he’d just punched me in the jaw.”
“Him ... ?” Bron looked up, blinking. “I hope he’s taken a bath since I ... !”
The Spike laughed. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think he has. I’m always on the verge of trouble with the University over him—another reason I’ll be glad to get out of teaching and back to work. I took him to one of my lectures .... on a chain—I had some of the students throw raw meat—he likes that. It was just for the theater. But I’m afraid most of the University types have simply never encountered anything quite like Fred before. I mean up close. They don’t know what to do with him. It’s too bad you never got a chance to talk with him—though, of course, a lot of his ideas have developed since we first met.”
“But what in the world do the two of you—?”
“Fred is into some rather strange things—sexually, that is. And no, I haven’t decided whether they’re really me, yet. Frankly, it’s not exactly my concept of the ideal sexualizationship but it’s the one I currently care about the most and—Look—let’s not talk about it, all right?” She looked at Bron and sighed.
“Does he want another woman?” Bron asked. “I’ll go with him. I’ll do anything he wants, as long as you’re with him too; and I can be near you, talk to you—”
“Bron, you don’t get the point,” the Spike said. “Whether he might want you or not has nothing to do with it. / don’t want you. Now let’s call it a day. The transport’s up there. You go on. I’ve got other things to do.”
“You don’t believe you’re the only person I’ve ever felt like this about?”
“I told you: I do believe it.”
“I’ve felt this way about you from the moment I first saw you. I’ve felt this way about you all along. I know now that I’ll always feel this way, no matter what.”
“And I happen to believe you’ll feel rather differently three minutes—if not thirty seconds—after I’ve left.”
“But I—”
“Bron, there’s a certain point in meaningless communication after which you just have to—” Suddenly the Spike stopped, made an angry face, started to turn away, then hesitated: “Look, there’s the transport. Use it. I’m going down this way. And if you try to follow me, I’ll kick you in the balls.”
Which, as Bron watched the Spike stalk down the street, naked back moving away between other pedestrians, seemed so absurd she didn’t even try to run after her.
The burning behind her face continued: under its heat she could feel her eyes drying, almost painful. Suddenly she turned and started toward the station kiosk. Feel differently in thirty seconds! Shaking with rage and embarrassment, Bron thought: How could a woman like that know what anyone felt! About anything! I must be crazy (she passed a kiosk, stepped onto the moving ramp, and kept walking), completely crazy! What could possess me to want a woman like that? And it hadn’t been sex! For all the fear, the heart pounding, the sickness unto death, there had been none of the muzzy warmth in the loins, or even the muzzy expectation of it, that she had felt enough times just walking along the street, looking at some transport attendant, perhaps some worker from another office, or even the occasional e-girl. If anything, it was sex’s certain absence that had made the whole thing more distressing. Crazy! she thought again. There I was, about to throw over all I believe in, my work, my ideals, everything I want, everything I’ve become, for some leftover reaction that doesn’t even have the excuse of pleasure about it, unless it’s just a memory of sex—and what else are emotions anyway? An idea that had haunted her for the whole half year returned: Somehow she was now more at the mercy of her emotions than she had been.
Where the hell am I? she suddenly thought, and stepped off at the corner. She was at another kiosk, but which station? She looked up at the green street coordinate, took a breath, and started down the ramp.