“It makes a sense you do not appreciate.”
“Is that a cut?” she demanded. “When I asked if you respected me, you hesitated. Why? Out with it.”
He did not like this, but it was a valid issue. “You deceived the Emperor of the DoOon, in the other reality, and tricked him into terminating his anchor.”
“It was the only way to save us and all the rest of the realities! He was going to conquer everything!”
“True. But you prevailed by trickery, violating your honor, and causing me to violate mine.”
“I may have saved us and every other universe—and you condemn me?”
“No. You have a standard other than mine. But it is a taint on my love for you.”
“I don’t understand you!” she exclaimed. “I did what had to be done. You know that. It was the only way. Tell me: how can you blame me?”
He suspected that it would not persuade her, but he tried to clarify it. “The Emperor had made captives of us all, though he did not treat us badly in the direct sense. He proposed to confine us to his reality until he had what he wanted from us, which was a Chip to enable him to cross realities. He threatened to kill Seqiro if you did not cooperate, so you cooperated. He threatened to destroy you if I did not cooperate, so I cooperated. What he did was wrong. But that did not justify wrongness on our part. When I agreed to help him—”
“Under duress!”
“I became bound by my word. Whether given freely or under duress, it was my commitment. He trusted me because he knew I would not break my word. Then we came to the anchor, and you had Seqiro, whose power I did not then know, get into the Emperor’s mind and make him free the anchor. That cut us loose from his reality, and we spun through the realities until we connected with another person who formed a new anchor. Now we are in Nona’s reality. That may be better for us and for the realities the Emperor would otherwise have invaded. But it was accomplished by a betrayal of trust. I promised to help the Emperor and not to seek harm to him. Instead I led him into betrayal. Because I depended on your word to buttress mine, and your word was not good. For that I must condemn you. How can I love a woman who can not be trusted?”
She was hurt. He saw it in the way her body shrank into itself, and felt it in the roiling darkness of her mind, which remained connected to his. For the first time he felt like killing himself, and knew it was her feeling. His own power of emotional projection might be void in this reality, but that of the horse remained. If only he had understood this aspect of her nature before he loved her! But she had betrayed him in that too, though unwittingly. She had not understood that he needed a woman full of joy, not pain. Had he known, he would have avoided any relationship with her, especially love.
Then her pain turned abruptly to fury. Now her rage beat at him. “Oh, you would have, would you? You didn’t care about me or anything, just about a vessel full of joy you could empty, so you could do your job at home. It was all strictly business. But you made a mistake. You got emotionally involved before you were sure. Too bad. Well, let me tell you some things you maybe didn’t think of. Here you’re so damned concerned with your private personal code, you’re not looking at what’s best for everyone else. You think your given word is more important than the rest of the universe, literally? You’re crazy! The universe doesn’t give a wormy horse dropping about what goes on in your head. You think it’s better to let billions of people be enslaved and maybe die than to break your word, when you only gave it to save me? I’m not worth it! Your word isn’t worth it. You have no right to impose your foible on the rest of everything.”
He tried to answer, and could not. Never before had she assaulted him like this, with her grief and her fury, and it was devastating. She refused to heed his logic. She continued, her emotion so strong that he was helpless.
“And even if you did, you still have no call to condemn me for doing what I had to do. Maybe you had to keep your word. I had to save our realities. I don’t have the luxury of your kind of integrity. I never was able to impose my standard on anyone else. Not when my family started breaking up, and it tore me up more than it tore up my folks, but they were the ones doing it and I was the one who suffered from it. Not when I got raped by those four horny freaks who didn’t care who else they hurt, so long as they dipped their sticks. The only real choice I ever had was surviving, any way I could—and I’m not sure I want to do that. So don’t tell me you can’t love me because I’m not what you thought I was. If you want to love me, it better be for what I really am. You can trust me to be what I am, and that’s all. And what I am is in love with you, and you’re the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and without you I’d be dead by now, and if you’re in trouble I’m going to save you some way, and if I have to kill someone to do it, then I will, and if I have to break my word, then I will, and if I have to hate you for not loving me back the same way, then I will.”
She stopped speaking, overcome by emotion. Her face was slick with tears and her hair disheveled. Darius stared at her. As she spoke, something had been occurring in his mind, a subtle but painful change, and now he realized what it was.
It was the realization that he was wrong. That he had judged her by the wrong standard. She was beautiful in her own way, mentally as well as physically, and he did love her for what she was, and he desperately craved her wild and total passion.
He owed her a phenomenal apology.
He started to speak, but she had his thought before he could formulate the words. “Oh, Darius!” she cried, and flung herself into his embrace, her forgiving as abrupt and total as her fury.
He kissed her and held her, feeling her love coming back at him with the cutting edge of her suicidal nature. She did not do things halfway; when she gambled, she gambled everything. When she loved, she loved without restraint. Perhaps he had somehow known her nature all along, and been attracted to it. She was almost completely different from him, but he needed her and could not give her up.
They lay together on the bed, their bodies pressed together. Her damp hair fell partly across his face. “Was that our first?” she asked.
“We didn’t do it,” he said.
She hit him gently on the shoulder with her fist. “I know we didn’t do that! I mean, our first knock-down, drag-out fight?”
“May it be our last!” he said fervently.
“No, folk can fight if they want to. It’s fun making up, after. Now we can do it.” The reference needed no clarification; her mind made it compellingly plain.
“No. Just let me love you, with understanding.” It was his mind’s turn to make it clear: he did not want to follow after callous young men who had sought no more than her body. Her body was unimportant compared to her feeling.
“That’s the nicest thing anybody ever thought about me,” she murmured, satisfied.
So they slept, their passion spent in a way the despots would not have understood. Indeed, the despots were probably watching, not understanding their words, mystified by the whole business.
IN the morning they had breakfast with their hosts. King Lombard looked amused, and Queen Glomerula looked grim. Knave Naylor was absent. Provos kept to herself, unworried, as became one who had no need to be concerned about the future. Obviously the despots were satisfied that the visitors were of the animus, but not satisfied about their purpose here. It might be dangerous as well as unethical to murder visiting animus, but might also be dangerous to let them stay. Or go.
Hobard continued working on common words. Communication, aided by Seqiro’s hidden assistance, became better. But they were at cross-purposes. Darius and his retinue, as the despots thought of it, wanted only to return through the anchor and travel the Virtual Mode, going home. The despots wanted only to find out enough to exploit the visitors, or to kill them. It was pointless to remain here much longer.