"I see."
"Anyway," Laura said, brisk now. "I usually go to sleep around an hour—around a half-kasse before midnight. If you finish your meeting in time, come by for a nightcap. Otherwise, another day."
"I’ll do that," he said, and she could hear the warmth in his mental voice. "Thank you, Laura."
He cut the channel, and Laura sighed, because it was clear the man’s life was not his own. Then she shook herself, and called Julian down for dinner.
"So what have you been playing today, kiddo?" she asked, as he obligingly demolished a large portion of a carefully prepared meal. "Anything you’d recommend?"
"Red Exchange. I wanted something that doesn’t revolve around Setari and psychics, something more fantasy based. Since everyone here is at least a tiny bit psychic, it’s pretty rare for a game to have no people with talents. But in Exchange, the people in the game go around collecting contracts with nature spirit things. They get powers in exchange for blood, but the spirits aren’t, like, demons, or anything considered bad. It’s pretty cool—as much puzzle as combat based—and it’s only just released, so everyone’s not a million times stronger. Here."
He sent her a link. Laura read through the details, and thought it a good option for a distraction. Diving into a virtual world would spare her several hours of waiting hopefully for Gidds to show up.
"Another thing I like about the game is it has this weird accent modulator thing depending on which island you start on, which is good for hiding mine," Julian said, collecting plates. "Most games I just don’t talk, since I can’t speak Muinan well enough. You know, there’s actually people who pretend to be me, and put on bad Aussie accents?"
"Cass said there are several people playing Home who have completely convinced a large number of players that they’re her—or Kaoren, or one of the other Setari."
"It’s so stupid. The accent modulator is good, though—I even joined a band. That’s what they call player teams or guilds in the game. I started on Zylat—message me if you need anything. My character’s called Space Ninja."
"You think a name in English is a good way to hide your identity?"
"Everyone’s doing it. Cass' translation app got sort-of hacked."
That sent Laura off for a brief tour of current news, and the reflection that she’d best not assume she wouldn’t be understood having a conversation in English. Then she plunged into character creation, discovering that all the people of Red Exchange’s world were different shades of blue, and had one less finger on each hand, and that the island of Zylat was wonderfully fantastical.
Thoroughly engrossed, Laura had in fact almost forgotten Gidds altogether when he messaged her with a brief "On my way," and she had to hurriedly redirect her thoughts.
Laura: Are you forbidden alcohol, like Kaoren?
Gidds: No. That ban operates only for those with elemental talents, and the higher Telekinesis ratings. But I avoid anything that confuses my senses.
Laura: Name a favourite drink, then.
He named several, showing a preference for light, energising flavours, and Laura settled on bennen, a gingery infusion. Since she’d remembered to turn on the proximity alarm, the interface warned her of Gidds' approach, and it amused her to meet him at the door, cups in hands, and pass him one.
A flicker of a smile showed he recognised the symmetry, but instead of drinking he took her cup as well, set them both on the nearest flat surface, and slid his arms around her waist. For a moment he simply studied her, and she considered him gravely in return: clearly fresh from a shower, with his hair still damp. Then he kissed her very thoroughly, and only after a good five minutes let her go so he could retrieve the cups and give one back to her.
Entertained, Laura accepted her bennen, and headed for one of the lounges: "Do they always overwork you, or just on special occasions?"
"This week has been excessive. There are meetings where I can usefully contribute, but too often I am being used to shift responsibility. If I—if my Sights—raise no objection to a proposal, then arguments against it are weakened. It is not a good use of my time, or particularly sensible. Sight Sight triggers too unpredictably to ever be considered a guarantee."
"Is that what happened tonight?"
"No, the Ormon of Nent accused the Southern Ancipars of attempting to undermine his rule. They have Place and Sight Sight talents with them, but have taken to using me as a neutral third party during disputes." He grimaced. "A lie detector. Not a role I enjoy, although I was at least able to defuse this particular crisis."
He’d stopped the two major political regions of Kolar from…what? Squabbling? Going to war? After a week without any time for a break. No wonder he looked hollowed out, more than tired. But he was also incredibly focused, watching her unwaveringly as he drank. The gravitational effect seemed to double, triple, with every moment that passed.
The man could make it hard to breathe. To think. Laura set aside other considerations, and did what she’d been planning ever since he’d vanished into the mist. This time, she took his gloves off last. It was an act he clearly found highly erotic, and Laura began to hunt for other things that would make him catch his breath that way. She wanted to leave him stunned.
A suitable interlude ensued, and Laura thought that she’d at least partially achieved her goal. She was learning this man.
"Do you have another dawn start tomorrow?"
"Mid-morning." His eyes were heavy-lidded, barely open.
"Good," she said, firmly, and he smiled, then promptly fell asleep. Very tired indeed.
Laura took her thoughts to the shower.
She had wanted the man back in her bed, and that’s where she had him, but she knew perfectly well she didn’t have the temperament for an ongoing, purely sexual relationship—and she would be surprised if Gidds did either. They were finding their ground with each other, feeling their way toward whether they wanted more, and Laura was discovering a streak of coward in herself whenever she started to frame that answer.
It was not simply that he was so overwhelming, this precisely correct Event Horizon. Nor that he spent his days doing things she suspected she’d need a higher security classification for him to fully share. Laura had never been easily awed by people with political or social power. It was more that she still could not readily name things they had in common. When the edge had been taken off their mutual attraction, what would they talk about?
And, despite herself, when she imagined conversations, she kept positioning the things that were central to her life—stories and her own creative response to them—as trivial in comparison to the Serious Business of Gidds' packed schedule. She had no patience for the dismissal of Art as a valuable facet of life, but she also saw little evidence that Gidds spared any time for it. No doubt he would demonstrate a polite interest in whatever she was doing, and…
Annoyed at herself, Laura abandoned her overlong shower, and went back to the bedroom. They’d kept the lights on dim, so she could see him, curled a little in his sleep. On the far side of the room, the door to her workroom stood firmly closed, and she thought about the symbolism of that, and wondered again whether his Place Sight would plaster the door with big keep out signs, and how that would make him feel.