Wilson woke with a smile on his face. When he turned over, Anna’s dark hair tickled his nose. She was curled up on the jellmattress beside him, one arm around her head like a small child warding off bad dreams. A whole series of delightful memories—and a deliciously wicked one—drifted through Wilson’s head. He kissed her shoulder. “Good morning.”
She stretched with a cat’s lethargy, giving him a sleepy grin. “That’s a horribly smug smile you’re wearing there, mister.”
“Yeah? I wonder what could have put it there?”
She giggled as he slid his arms around her. One hand stroked down her spine until it came to rest on her rump. “Was it this?” His other hand squeezed a small beautifully shaped breast, mercilessly tweaking the nipple. “Or this?” He kissed her neck, moved around to her mouth to smother the giggling. “This?”
One of her hands wriggled down between them, gripping.
“Wa-how!”
“Might have been that,” she said with a laugh.
“Oh, yeah?” He started to tickle her ribs. She retaliated. It turned into a mild wrestling contest, which soon developed into a much more intimate body contact sport.
In the end she grinned down victoriously from her position straddling his hips. “Well, whadda ya know: it is true what danger does to a man.”
He could hardly deny it. Last night had been all about survival, his body celebrating with its most basic physical reaction. The amount of relief he’d experienced when the Second Chance had risen above the spaceplanes had actually produced the shakes (which thankfully only Anna had witnessed). The others on board—the youngsters—had been delighted, ecstatic even, with their dramatic escape; but the prospect of dying hadn’t been too much for them to stand.
Wilson had never quite realized before how scared he was of dying, especially now. It wasn’t something today’s society could understand, not with all the expectation of rejuvenation and re-life procedures instilled from birth. The post-2050 generation knew they could live a good chunk of forever, it was their right. He thought his fear might have come from growing up in a time when there was only one life and then you died. The idea that memories could be saved and downloaded to animate a genetically identical body was a reassuring crutch for everyone else. But he couldn’t quite convince himself that was a continuation of his current existence. There would be a discontinuity, a gap between what he was now, and what that future Kime would remember being. A difference; a copy that was flawless was still a copy, not the original. People got around the dilemma by saying that every morning when you woke the only link to your past was memory, therefore waking in a new body was just an extended version of that ordinary nightly loss of consciousness. It wasn’t enough for him. His body,this body , was his life. The longer he lived in it, the more that identifying link was hardened. Three hundred plus years had produced a rock-solid conviction that nothing could break.
“I don’t think I’d survive another dangerous night like that one,” he told her, still panting slightly.
She folded her arms across his chest, and bent forward until her chin was resting on her hands, putting their faces inches apart. “What’s ship regulations about the captain sleeping with the lower ranks?”
“The captain is very much in favor of it.”
A finger tapped on his sternum. “You do have a sense of humor.”
“Carefully hidden, but cherished nonetheless.”
“So what do we do tonight if there isn’t an attack?”
He pursed his lips in mock thought. “Practice just in case?”
“My diary’s free.”
“You don’t have anyone?”
“No. Not for ages, actually. Too damn busy with my new job. You?”
“Not really. I haven’t been married since my last rejuvenation. Some affairs, but nothing serious.”
“Good.” She straightened up. “I’d better get a shower. Do you really want to meet up again tonight? Last chance for a clean getaway.”
“I would like to meet up again tonight.”
“Me, too.” She gave him a quick kiss. “Life’s too uncertain not to try and keep hold of something good. Yesterday really made that clear to me like nothing else. Nobody’s ever tried to kill me before.”
“You did a magnificent job up there. Combat stress is hardly something you’re used to. I’m proud of you.”
“Have you been through something like that before?”
“Not exactly. But I’ve seen active military service. It was a long time ago, though. Not that you ever really forget, not even with rejuvenation editing.”
“Did you—” She hesitated. “Kill anyone?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. I certainly shot at a lot of people. You don’t hang around to see the result. Slam on the afterburners, and head for home almost before the missile’s left the rail.”
“It’s hard to think how old you are. I just know you as a corporate chief. I had to run a search program to dig up the Ulysses story.”
“Ancient history. If you accessed it recently you probably know more about it than me.”
“But you did it, though. You traveled through space in a ship. It can be done.”
“I wouldn’t call that mission an unqualified success.”
“Oh, but, Wilson, it was! You reached Mars. Millions and millions of kilometers from Earth. It doesn’t matter that Sheldon and Isaac found another way. Don’t denigrate what you did. After all, look who needs you now.”
“Sheldon. Yeah, I suppose that’s poetic justice. You know what he said to me yesterday after we got back? He just fixed me with that smartass smile of his and said: You’re having a ball, aren’t you? He was right, too, the bastard. It felt so right flying the starship. We did it on a wing and a prayer. And we won! It’s like everything I’ve done since Ulysses was an interlude; I’ve been marking time for three centuries.”
“And now you’re doing what you were born to do.”
“Damn right.”
She looked down at her body, then his. Her expression became coy. “There’s a question a lot of us on the project have speculated about. You don’t have to answer.”
“What?”
“All those months on Ulysses. It was a mixed crew. You were all young and fit. The whole voyage was in freefall.”
“Oh. Sorry. That’s classified government information.”
“Classified, huh?”
“Yes. But let me just say this: the longer you spend continuously in freefall, the more immune you get to motion sickness. Even vigorous motion.”
“Really? A long time acclimatizing.”
He gave her an evil grin. “Worth every minute of the wait.”
“It better be,” she muttered. “I’ve really got to take that shower now. I’m supposed to be on duty in another ten minutes.”
“Take the day off. Tell them the boss said it was okay.”
Anna scrambled off the bed. “Uh?”
“That door.” He pointed. There hadn’t been much time to show her around the apartment last night. Clothes were coming off before the door shut.
“Thanks.” Another giggle, and she headed for the bathroom. “At least you don’t have to ask what my name is.”
“Certainly don’t: Mary.”
One of his slippers flew across the room and hit him on the leg. “Ow!” The door closed. As the sound of the shower began, Wilson put his hands behind his head and stared happily up at the ceiling. Given that yesterday he’d nearly been killed, this really wasn’t a bad way to start a brand-new morning.
Not even the sight of the badly damaged complex brought down his mood. As he approached along the heavily guarded highway, thin trails of dark smoke were still leaking up into the sky from the ruined power plant. The missing circular administration tower was still a shock. Debris was piled high where the big atrium used to be, and most of the windows on the remaining two towers were either cracked or missing. Firebots picked their way delicately over the fragments of glass and concrete that sprawled out from the base, occasionally spraying out a jet of white foam. Medical salvage crews were working alongside the firebots, sending smaller remote sensors down into the rubble. They were seeking out bodies to remove their memorycell inserts ready for re-life.