Part 41 (1/2)

She filled a second gla.s.s. She was still wearing green, but she had pulled her hair back. She patted the sawhorse, and, gingerly, he seated himself beside her. ”What are you doing?” she asked.

”Fixing a flicker in the bubble's skin. Trying to fix it,” he amended. He found his s.h.i.+rt and put it back on.

”I thought you were a medic and a pilot,” she said.

”I am. But I've watched engineers. I used to think someday I'd go back to Nexus, maybe pick up engineer's training.”

She said, ”I've never been to Nexus. I've seen holos of it, though. I'd like to go someday.”

”Do you like cities?” he asked.

”Not especially.”

”Then you won't like Nexus. Except for the Flight Field, Nexus is all city, and the parts that aren't city are flat and covered with grain. No mountains. There's an ocean or two, but even the oceans have been turned into kelp and fish farms. Imagine a city covering half a continent -- that's Nexus.

And only a small portion of that is Port City.”

”Nexus Compcenter, where the stars.h.i.+ps are,” she said. ”I'd like to see them.”

”The Net's a stars.h.i.+p.”

”That's not the same. Tell me about them?”

Pleased, he described Port City, the bubbles on their cables, the movalongs, the Bridge -- Nexus' aerial walkways for foot traffic -- casting shadows on the tree-lined streets. He described the Flight Field, which stretched for kilometers into the continent's interior. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head canted slightly to one side, listening. They finished the fruit drink. Leaving the hangar, they went outside and walked in the dusk. A dragoncat slinked to stroll beside them. ”Thoth,” said Zed. The great cat permitted Zed to scratch the ruff of his neck. But when Darien touched his flank, the cat sidled from her fingers.

”They all do that,” she said. ”They just don't seem to like me.”

”Undiscriminating beasts,” Zed said.

The dragoncat's tail twitched. He leaped away, offended.

The sweat on Zed's chest and clothes dried as they walked beneath the shadows of the trees. He took his s.h.i.+rt off again and left it, with a grin of mischief, hanging on a tree branch. Timithos would find it and bring it in. He reached behind for a middle-of-the-back itch. ”I'll do it,” said Darien, without subservience. ”Hold still.” They stood beside the bitter-pear as she scratched his back.

She laid her fingers on his left shoulder. ”What's this?”

”The mark?” It was arrow-shaped, two centimeters wide. ”I was born with it.”

”On Enchanter,” she murmured, ”we get such imperfections fixed.”

Her fingers were cool in his skin. Turning around, he reached for her hand, held it. ”On Chabad,” he said, ”we are not so neat.” They walked slowly along the slate paths, linked hands swaying between them. Darien was silent. He wondered: Was she waiting for him to speak? The silence might have been uncomfortable; it wasn't. He watched her, marveling at her composure. She didn't look nervously at him, or fidget, or pull away from his touch, or stride ahead of him, or pace.

In bed that night he pictured her lying in her room in the slaves' hall.

It would take no effort to call her through the intercom and summon her to him.

But -- that wasn't how he wanted it to happen. He kept seeing her in his imagination, laughing, smiling at him, touching him -- and running. He tossed.

He did not expect to get much sleep.

But in the morning, he awoke to morning sunlight and knew that he had slept, and slept well. He watched the sun pour over the skeleton's cranium. He felt lighthearted. It seemed almost disloyal. A clinking sound from the kitchens captured his attention, and he showered and dressed and hurried downstairs.

Darien was arranging egg tarts in a pattern on a tray.

”You don't have to do that,” he said.

Immeld, fussing at a drawer, straightened and glared at Darien, a resentful, puzzled stare. Already, he realized, he had stopped thinking of the girl as a slave. It was bound to create friction in the household. He didn't care. Picking up four tarts, two in each hand, he said, ”Forget the tray, I don't want to eat indoors anyway. Come outside.”

Timithos had set the sprinklers going, but they found a dry place in the gra.s.s. The arcs of water surrounded them with rainbows. They ate. ”These are good,” Darien said.

”Have you never eaten egg tarts before?” he said, licking his fingers clean of the thick sweet filling. A dragoncat poked its head out of the bushes, more than willing to help. But when it scented Darien, it sniffed and glided away.

”No,” she said, watching the cat vanish into the shrubbery. ”Are they native to Chabad?”

”The cats? No. They're a product of the Enchanter labs.” As he said it, he realized how stupid it was of him to mention her homeworld. Her face had gone stiff. He had not wanted to cause her pain. ”I'm sorry,” he said.

She shook her head. ”Talk to me.”

”About what?”

”Anything.”

”All right.” He talked about the Clinic. Remembering her profession, he described the surgical computers -- those marvelous machines which enabled the parameters of an injury to be mapped out even before the surgeons saw it -- and discovered that she had programmed clinical computers on Enchanter but had never seen the results of her work. ”That's ridiculous,” Zed said, indignant. ”They should at least have invited you to attend an operation.”

”I've seen holos.”

”It's not the same,” he said. ”Would you like to fly with me to Abanat sometime, come to the surgery, as my guest?”

Her face lit with pleasure. ”Yes. I would like that.”

This time, when they rose to return to the house, she did not shy away from his touch when he offered to help her to her feet.

In the afternoon he took her for a ride in the defective bubble. As she drank in the terrible aridity of Chabad's hills, her eyes grew bright with wonder. He flew northward to show the nearest green spot, which was Family Levos' estate. The opaqueing mechanism's failure finally made the interior of the bubble too hot for the cooling unit to cope with, and they headed back. They ate dinner in the kitchen together. He wanted her to sit with him in the evening, but there did not seem to be a place -- he did not want her in his bedroom. Finally he told Cara to have Timithos remove the table and chairs from the dining alcove and fill it with cus.h.i.+ons and two big armchairs. He sat in one chair; Darien in the other. She read Nakamura's _History_.

Zed read a book he had forgotten he owned, about ice climbing -- the more traditional sort -- on Ley. Immeld left food and drink where they could get it, and she and Cara retired. Zed had no doubt they would spend the rest of the evening discussing him. He was getting a little tired of Immeld's sour faces.

Darien sat cross-legged in the big blue chair, soft red hair hiding her features as she read. Zed found himself looking up from the viewer to watch her. Every once in a while she asked a question about Nakamura's a.s.sertions. She kept checking the index.

”What are you looking for?” he asked.

She blushed. ”I was reading the parts about your Family,” she confessed.

Zed laughed. ”Nakamura doesn't think much of us.”

She said, ”It's interesting -- what he says.”

He was midway through an account of a Cla.s.s 5 climb on Ley's Karhide Glacier, when the intercom began to spout a regular _beep-beep-beep_. Cara came to the alcove. ”That's the com-unit,” she said. ”Do you want me to answer it, Zed-ka?”

”No.” Turning off the viewer, he rose, beckoning to Darien. ”I'll go.” He walked to the stairs. Darien followed him.

Timidly she said, ”What do you think it is?”