“A baby learns to walk. Every other step was a disaster no matter how hard we concentrated — and then suddenly we were running and we were such a good team that our services came to be in high demand.”
“I thought you were the smoothest people I knew,” Kathein said, laughing.
“So did we. That’s the danger signal. As soon as you learn to walk so well that you can run over rough ground, then you want to fly and you break your bones in your first sailplane crash. We hadn’t counted on Aesoe.”
Oelita broke her silence. “Joesai told me that one day Aesoe just ordered you to marry me.”
“That’s the way it was. We were outraged.”
“He wanted me,” said Kathein contritely.
Gaet grinned. “He gave us a fair trade. Aesoe had excellent taste in women!”
The women stared at Gaet and he knew the question that each was asking him with her eyes but was unwilling to speak. Which of us do you prefer?
Gaet paused solemnly. “We have arrived at a conflict of futures. The five of us learned to love you, Kathein, and I think it was mutual — and then you left us and we still loved you but we began to look at alternatives. The five of us didn’t want you, Oelita, not because we didn’t love you when we met you, but because you had been imposed on us against our will.”
“And against mine,” she added.
“But wasn’t Aesoe right? You could have become part of a functional Six. Still, Aesoe’s vision went awry and so we have this situation in which two futures try to occupy the same present The five of us cannot resolve this conflict. It is up to you two.”
“We’re back where we started,” said Kathein, almost angrily.
“You cannot ask that of us,” said Oelita.
“We could flip a coin,” said Kathein bitterly.
Gaet was smiling. “Do you like each other?”
“Of course we like each other!” flared Kathein.
Tears were running down the ridges of Oelita’s facial cicatrice.
“Could you live with each other?”
A look of astonishment crossed Kathein’s face. She turned to Oelita. “Do you know what this man is proposing?”
“No.”
Kathein was on her feet. She was dressing. “Poor Hoemei and Joesai are back at the mansion feeling miserable, and this lecher here has the audacity to think he can have both of us. I know this man very well. I know what he is thinking.”
“I don’t believe it!” said Oelita, staring at Gaet’s face. She saw it was true and rose with Kathein to dress, too.
“It’s one solution,” said Gaet, admiring two women he loved.
“But a Seven is illegal!” exclaimed a shocked Oelita.
“By custom, not by law. With Hoemei as the Prime Predictor it would hardly be a problem.”
“Where were you planning to take us? I know you! There must be pillows around here somewhere.” Kathein was sarcastic.
“The Temple of the Gray Rocks. It’s small, but it has a charming game room. What better place to spend the night?”
“See!” said Kathein indignantly. “See how easily he betrays his brothers!”
Oelita was still staring at Gaet, remembering all the lonely nights, the suffering, the string of lovers who had been her fate because of her vow never to marry, the fear she carried with her which even the peace of the desert had never mollified. She began to speak firmly. “Joesai and Hoemei have fought. Let them suffer. At the creches they would have a name for it: the Trial of Stupidity. Kathein and I have not been fighting. We’ve only committed ourselves to loving, and challenged our fear to find that. We deserve our pleasures. Gaet, I’ll go with you.” She turned her eyes to Kathein defiantly. “I love this man. And I can live with you — because I love you.”
64
A FEW WINDOW-FRAMED globes added their green glow to the night sky. Then, like a black cloud across the stars, a shadow passed into the yard, examining the stairways and balconies and the footholds in the face of the wall. The Queen of Life-before-Death clutched the black shawl that made her invisible by night, waiting for the globes to be shrouded. Gaet had left her with women and she was resentful. She wanted to be with Hoemei. It was her duty to be with men. Her knees were like jelly knowing this was the most important night of her whole life. Someone inside the mansion covered the globes.
She heard sea noises. She was a wave rising as it ran toward shore at the very heartbeat before it crested, foaming, roaring, to lay itself on the beach.
As silently as God flowing across His Sky she moved up the stairs. With an assassin’s stealth she stole through the window-door open to the night breeze. She knelt beside the figure on the pillows, colored by the pale reflection of a waxing Scowlmoon across the sea. She longed to touch him but pulled her fingers back. Hoemei. This was the man she was raising to the highest position on Geta.
His sudden darting hands reached out to grab her by the arms, paralyzing her.
“It’s just me,” said her soft Liethe voice.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to dance at your wedding.”
“You’re early.”
“No I’m not. I’m your beloved Honey.”
“You gave me heart failure. I thought you were an assassin for the Expansionists.”
“They’ve hired me to enchant you and take you away with me to the North Axis where we can go around in circles together for the rest of our lives and not bother anyone.”
He dismissed the notion. “Gaet must have sent you,” he sighed.
“I have a present for you.” She brought out a tiny strip of dried and salted Aesoe. “Eat it. It will make you strong. I have a gut feeling that you’re going to need all your strength.”
He looked at her, wondering at the symbolism and the smug smile on her starlit face. “Are you thinking that they’ll make me Prime Predictor? Have you been listening to gossip at the Archives?”
She stuffed the fragment of Aesoe into his mouth. “That’s not the kind of strength I mean. Silly. You’re going to need all your strength to make love to me — now.”
He munched and laughed. “Be a good woman and tell me what Gaet is cooking. I have a shortage of spies.”
“Ask Joesai.”
“I’m not speaking to him.”
“Gaet ran away with Kathein and Oelita. He was looking very hard-crotched. I think they are off to the South Axis for a cozy ice cave to be away from us mortals. I couldn’t bear the idea of you being left alone — so I came to console you.”
“Hmmm. Do you still have your job at the Palace?”
“No, silly. Not unless you hire me after your triumphant return to Kaiel-hontokae. If you love me, you’ll hire me. Do you love me?”
“Only a besotted fool loves a Liethe.” He was undoing her black robe.
He wasn’t shy anymore. He had changed. She liked his hands. “Are you a besotted fool?”
“All kinds of a whiskied fool this last week.”
“Do you have remorse?”
“Yes.”
“Let me make you feel better.”
She prolonged the loving of their bodies until the moon was three-quarters full. Then she couldn’t hold her grief in any longer. She let her fingers run over the rough texture of his scars and sobbed. “You forgot me! You left me all alone! You didn’t care! You don’t think about me because you know you’ll always have me!” He rocked her and patted her and kissed her tears away and she liked that. Rocking her, he rocked himself to sleep. She watched him wide-eyed, loving him.
Happy now, she rose stealthily to her feet and unhooked a covered globe from the wall. In the corridor by the mirror she unwrapped it to fix her hair so that she might be less mussed in her beauty. The globe was dim enough for her to think to feed it and clean the scum from its filters.