Complete Short Fiction, page 71
“All right.” He touched her earlobe with his fingertip. “What did you do with the earrings I gave you?”
She snorted. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I gave them to Nyasa Tso.” She turned and looked at him. “Kind of a going-away present.” Relenting a little, she slid herself across the rock until her behind was pushed against him. “We were lovers when we came to that party. I think you must have guessed that. But she’s never forgiven me for you. It made her so angry! I don’t know why. I don’t know what she expected. I’m never sure what people expect.”
Now he understood Nyasa’s mood. Hektor absently massaged Laia’s neck as he thought. It wasn’t unusual for heterosexual women of Nyasa and Laia’s class to have affairs with each other when they were young. It was part of growing up. It was serene and calm and evaded some of the brutalities that came along with being that age. The problem came when it was time to grow up and someone discovered that it wasn’t just a phase after all.
Suddenly Laia was crying. “Oh, Hektor, is that all there’s ever going to be to it? Love affairs, dinners, meetings, marriages, children? Is that all we’re ever going to do? Are we going to breathe the same goddamn stagnant air until we suffocate? I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it!”
“Laia—”
“For a moment it looked different. Remember? When those lunatics murdered DeCoven. Right there in the middle of the Feast of Gabriel! You saw it, you got blood on yourself. Didn’t you feel the whole planet tilt under your feet? I did. But then it all settled down again. The sand got in our wheels and we sank right back into the dune. Soon ice and carbon dioxide will cover us and we’ll turn into mummies. . . .”
Her skin was hot under his fingers and her body shook with her breathing. Her pupils were dilated in the darkness of the cathedral.
“Come on,” he said. “Come on.”
They slid down the tumbled rock and down into a side chapel. Mosaics, icons, lamps, were long gone. The rock walls were scored with crude chisel marks. He tugged her jacket off and rolled it into a pillow. Then, ever a gentleman, he lay down on the hard rock and let her kneel down on top of him.
There was something excitingly angry about their coupling. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, but he could feel it, in the way she turned her head away as she slammed up and down above him. She must have been hurting herself. He reached, slid her shirt up, and held the sides of her rib cage. She did not take his hands, as she usually did. The muscles of her belly swelled and shrank. He wondered what she saw beneath her closed eyelids.
After, she climbed off of him, and stood. Facing away from him, she tugged up the one trouser leg she had removed. She straightened her clothes and fluffed her hair, every gesture sharp, with a distinct end to it. The light coming in from overhead was getting faint. The day was ending.
“Hektor,” she said, finally. “Do you believe in heroism?”
“Of course I do.” He stood.
“No. I mean, do you really believe in it?”
“In that case, I don’t know what you mean. I thought I did.”
She turned to him. Her eyes were just dark shadows on her face. He peered into it. Martians were not used to involuntary darkness. Day and night had no meaning in the canyons, which were always active, and being out on the surface was a matter of deliberate choice. Standing here in the darkening, ruined cathedral disturbed him in a way he did not understand. It was as if the light was being sucked out of everything. Could even the tunnels and open spaces of the Valles Marineris turn dark like this, leaving their inhabitants clawing at each other? Martian civilization was a mold on the waxy hide of an orange, easily sponged off, leaving no trace save some residual toxins.
“I’ve seen where Bertilla died,” she said musingly. “Out at the eastern edge of the Labyrinth. She carved her dying words on the wall.”
No she didn’t, he wanted to say. Hadn’t Breyten himself said there were just some meaningless scratches on the rock? What had changed them into something with meaning?
He stepped forward and put his arms around Laia. He could feel the frantic beating of her heart.
“You saved me, you know,” she said. “Saved me from . . . life is full of crevasses to fall into. They still find old explorer’s bones in them, you know? Those people were crazy. They went out there, they didn’t care if they ran out of air, or froze to death, and they fell right into holes because they were too involved in looking at the cliffs and the high tip-top of Olympus.”
She whispered quickly, like a child reciting something she only half-remembered, and Hektor knew it wasn’t true. He hadn’t saved her, and she didn’t even think he had. He’d only delayed her.
“There’s always another one ahead,” he said.
“Maybe. Maybe.” She rested her head on his shoulder. They rocked back and forth, as if they were dancing, tired at the end of a long night, the last dance the band would play.
“I know I shouldn’t ask this of you.” Lon was uncharacteristically tentative. “It’s not your job, God knows. But there’s no one else to ask.” A sunlit rock wall reflected red light into the room, staining the white cushions.
Hektor shifted in his seat. Most encounters with his father had some element of authority. This was almost pleading. He was hit with the delayed realization that his father now thought of him as an equal. He had grown up, in his father’s eyes. It made him uncomfortable.
“Who else should you ask?” He waited a moment, but Lon did not speak. “You’re worried about Breyten.”
“You know, Hektor, there was a time when I thought Breyten was by far the more suitable of you two for a political career.” He peered at Hektor as if expecting surprise.
“So you were wrong.” Hektor shrugged. “Not too surprising, really. I was a poor student, disorganized, never in control. I’m sorry I spent the first part of my life disappointing you.”
Lon nodded slowly. “There was a long time when you didn’t seem a member of the family at all. You ran with that tunnel gang, what was their name. . . .”
“The Quito Mountaineers,” Hektor said with some embarrassment. “Remember, the Sichuan War had heated up again, and they were in the news. We liked the name.”
“I remember.” Lon showed no sign of amusement. “You played at war on the surface. All of you went far beyond the bounds of normal adolescent games. You took random risks, when the risks of the surface are bad enough on their own. One day you tore your skintite and almost froze off your leg. And what were you doing? Showing a girl how quickly you could slide down a rock face, as if that’s a useful skill.”
“How did you know that?” Hektor asked, startled. He had crawled home and hid in his room. The bruising on his calf had gotten worse and he had started to worry, but been unwilling to tell his father what had happened and ask for help.
“You suffered nobly, Hektor. You’d read the story of the Spartan boy and the fox . . . absurd. Dying because of a flirtatious accident is not heroic. How did I know? Breyten told me. He knew what order things come in. It was hard for him, but he told me, and I had you treated. Enjoy having two legs, eh? I thought so.”
“I never knew,” Hektor said.
“Breyten has a romantic practicality.” Lon sighed. “Or did. I don’t know what to make of this all.”
“All right, Father. Where is he?”
Lon wouldn’t look at him. “It’s an address down in Ringhofer’s Fossa.”
“Ringhofer’s Fossa?” Hektor couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Breyten?”
“Yes, Breyten. He’s a member of some club now. It has a silly name: the Friends of St. Rabelais, some such foolish thing. Sons and daughters of significant families, striving to make their family names a mock.” He shook his head in disgust. “You have, I take it, heard of the place?”
“Well, of course I have. Who hasn’t?”
Hektor certainly knew Ringhofer’s Fossa. He had spent many hours of his early manhood there in that dark lubrication, the sweaty, almost Terran air that flowed there, seeming to make almost visible vortices.
Hektor remembered telling Breyten all about it once, flushed with adolescent sexual victory. Breyten, skinny and pale, had sat in his bed, arms around his knees, listening to Hektor’s babbled boasting. He hadn’t looked at Hektor, not once. Hektor had finally run down, stumbling over his words, and ended in midsentence. Open on Breyten’s bed was a red-bound book, which Hektor recognized as a much-read copy of the Iliad he had himself given to Breyten for his tenth birthday.
Without another word, he had left Breyten’s room, feeling shame: not for his actions, which had after all been delightful and demonstrated his manhood, but for using them as a sort of weapon against his brother. After that day he never again brought them up.
“Is Breyten still working for Trep as an agent in the Olympus Clubs?” Hektor said.
“How did you know that?”
Hektor chuckled. “How did you know I’d injured my leg? Breyten knows when a secret is poisonous. Is he still working?”
“Bad, when security is so easily penetrated.” Lon looked wrathful. “Things are worse than I thought.”
“Father! Things are always worse than you thought. Were you really going to send me after Breyten without telling me the real situation?” Now that he thought about it, Hektor was getting angry. “How was I supposed to do my job under those circumstances? Now tell me, is he still acting for you and Trep?”
Lon was long silent. “I don’t know, Hektor. Forgive me for being so confused, but . . . I don’t know. The Olympus Clubs seem to have largely disbanded, and those that are left are mere political pressure groups, of no more account than those people who want to drop ice asteroids into the upper atmosphere to make it rain. But, of course, Hounslow hasn’t disappeared. What he wants hasn’t disappeared. Where has it gone, then? What has happened? You’re the only one who can find Breyten. You’re the only one he’ll talk to. I’m worried about him.”
That saddened Hektor, in a way he didn’t want to acknowledge. He could imagine his father directing all sorts of emotions at him: anger, respect, amusement, even love, but could not imagine that one, worry. It was always tacitly assumed that Hektor could take care of himself and if he didn’t, well, that was just his own goddam fault for being such a fool. That had once given him a sense of immense freedom.
“Yes, Father.”
He stood up, bowed briskly, and walked out. Lon Passman continued sitting, looking out of the round window at the rock wall, which was now deeply cut by shadows.
It was hot in the room. Not Martian hot, which could be comfortable for a Terran. Hot. And wet, as thick as the air Hektor remembered from the Amazon. He felt like he was sweating slithery gobs of semen. Jesus, why was he thinking that?
Probably because of the two naked women in the empty, gold-lined tub. They leaned their heads back, eyes closed, heads at opposite ends of the tub. One had fine skin and he could see the delicate vein in her throat. The other was darker and her huge breasts floated dreamlike in his vision.
“Sweat,” the pale one said dreamily. “It all depends on how you feel it. I sweat quicksilver. I’ll fill this tub, see if I don’t. Here.” She held a delicate pale-blue flower out to Hektor. “Smell.”
Something was wrong here. He could feel it. He’d been invited into the clubhouse, not a hint of resistance, yet he’d been here an hour and not found anything out. Nevertheless, politely, he leaned forward and inhaled. A shy, fugitive scent, gone before he could really smell it.
“Breyten Passman,” he said, not for the first time. “He’s supposed to be up here.”
“No one’s supposed to be anywhere.” The second one opened her eyes. “Don’t you know that?”
The room’s heat redoubled and Hektor’s skin flushed. The itch of his clothing against him was almost intolerable. He shifted and—he had an erection. How had that happened without his noticing? And it hurt, goddamit, like a young man’s raging morning hard-on. He felt like it was ready to explode.
The one with the flower raised a hand toward him, still without opening her eyes. It swelled in his vision.
“See?” she said. “What did I tell you?”
He squinted, trying to focus. Her hand was dripping like a squeezed sponge, and the liquid was gleaming silver. Hektor’s clothing was hideously uncomfortable. He wanted to strip naked in the blessed hot air and slide into the tub with both of them. The silver sweat would heal him. He felt like he could have both of them, and a dozen other women besides.
He pushed himself back, gulping air that burned his throat. “Breyten,” he managed. “Breyten Passman. He’s my brother. I want to talk to him.”
“It’s a side effect,” she explained. “The quicksilver sweat.” She giggled. “Just a side effect of what I really want.”
An upside-down head poked through a riser entrance just above them. Hektor focused muzzily. It was Breyten. He grabbed the bar at the entrance, swung himself around and dropped to the floor. He grinned.
“Hektor! Good to see you. Glad you could come visit. I see you’ve met Brenda and Pion.”
“Yes,” Brenda drawled. “He’s worried about sweating. Seems to be his main issue.”
“Well, we all have those.” And then Breyten leaned over and kissed her, a deep, tongue-lashing kiss. Hektor watched in stunned dismay. Hallucinations. He was having hallucinations. The second woman, Pion, climbed on Breyten’s back, pressing her large breasts against him. Breyten reached a hand back and cupped a buttock.
“You can come back here later,” Breyten said, standing. “To see them, if you want. I think they’d like that.” There was silver clinging to his lips, great stains of it on his clothing. He smelled of some nostril-clogging, flowery perfume. “But right now we need to talk.”
“Let’s leave here,” Hektor said. “Out on the street—”
“No.” Breyten was firm. “This is my place now. You’ll have to deal with me here.”
They walked through several rooms before they got to where Breyten wanted to go. Two men copulated on a blower-powered air bed of the sort used in hospitals. They grunted noisily, competing with the roar of the misadjusted blower. A woman with long hair puked in a corner, not into a drain, just on the floor, getting her vomit in her hair and smearing it irritably with her fingers. A group of about six people lay on the floor in one room, clothing disarranged as if they had all just had sex without taking it off, snoring with desperate tenacity. Hektor recognized one of them, a delicate-looking boy with long eyelashes, formerly an austere wearer of functional coveralls who worked with a rescue team on Tharsis ridge. His fingernails were colored with rainbows. Hektor had seen a rainbow, on Earth. They did not occur on Mars.
“Here, here.” They sat down on some mossy stones underneath a waterfall. It was a statement of most un-Martian extravagance. Intellectually, Hektor knew that water was efficiently stored in almost any form. Given adequate energy generation, a waterfall made as much sense as any other. Emotionally, he found it a chilling statement, like letting your blood flow out over your skin in order to show off its color. Breyten contemplated the extravagantly splashing water, then ran his fingers under it and let the water drip wastefully onto the stone floor. The image of blood recurred, and Hektor shook his head at his own mental extravagance.
Breyten handed him a bottle. It was Terran wine, Andean. Shipping it here must have been hideously expensive. Seeing his brother’s confusion, Breyten took it back, gulped at the neck, and thrust it out again. Hektor sipped reluctantly. This was no way to drink fine wine, even to prove a point.
“This is the life, eh, Hektor?” Breyten’s eyes gleamed at him.
“Father’s worried about you,” Hektor said.
“He’s always worried about me.” Breyten burped, then paused for a moment to contemplate how fine a thing he had just accomplished. “First it’s because I don’t have a good enough time and don’t hang around with women, then it’s because I’m having a too-good time and am hanging around with women.”
Damn it, that was true enough. True enough, and not true at all.
“What’s happened, Breyten. What’s brought you here?”
Breyten frowned, as if not quite understanding the question. “I’m here, Hektor. I choose where I am, don’t I? I choose what I do. Just like you.”
Hektor felt a surge of irritation. “You know what I mean. You know what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Breyten—” Hektor controlled himself. “Father wants to talk to you. He really is worried. And I’m worried about him. He’s getting old, now. I think things are getting to be too much for him. . . .”
“Well, well, so now Hektor’s trying to get into Daddy’s good graces. A little late, isn’t it? Well, don’t try to use me to do it, all right? Suck up on your own account.”
This was too much. “God, Breyten, are you really that pissed off about it?”
“About what?”
“About Laia.”
There was a moment of silence, then Breyten laughed. It wasn’t a forced, nervous laugh, but one of genuine pleasure. Hektor had just said something genuinely stupid. “Laia? Really, Hektor, you are making less sense every second. What, you think you stole her from me, and I’m chewing my heart every time you sleep with her? Come on now. You’re chasing around the wrong planet completely.” He looked merrily at Hektor. “Are you still seeing her?”
“No,” Hektor said reluctantly. “I’m not.” Her final note had been cool, and not at all a surprise. They had never again made love after that day in the abandoned cathedral.
But long ago, just before the Landing Day party, Breyten had said that a woman he was interested in would be there. Who had it been, if it had not been Laia Korvengeld? Someone who had told him stories of Hounslow at St. Hilarion’s.
“My God,” Hektor said. “Nyasa Tso.”
It was a hit. “What about Nyasa Tso?” Breyten’s voice was suddenly measured.
