The Ooi resisted description. The infrared absorption results, like the Raman spectra, were variable and impossible to pin down. Ditto, crystallography, thermography, and CT. They couldn’t say one way or another if it had an aura, and therefore how many of the seven aural layers were functional, and if it had seven layers and not eight, or twenty-eight, and how they looked, and what they did, because they didn’t have an auralyzer. It hadn’t made the equipment cut.
Otherwise, the station was decked to the nines. If John and Jane Q could have a Doppler in their bedroom, a chemalyzer in their bathroom, and a MRI in their closet, a state-of-the-art lab, with state-of-the-art experts, and a state-of-the-art medical boutique in the works could hardly expect less.
The ultrasound alone provided a stable image. It showed a grayish, ground glass, nonspecific matrix broken here and there by chunky inclusions.
“What the hell is it?” Gunjita was intrigued. She couldn’t help but be. She also felt thwarted.
“A puzzle, that’s what.”
They were in their sleep mod, a double-wide. Venus, the Bringer of Peace, was playing. Cav was making an entry in his journal.
“I have an insane desire to charge in there and rip it off the rock,” she said.
“Please don’t.”
“I feel like it’s holding out on us. Like it might respond to more forceful measures.”
He gave her a look. “I just want to touch it. I think it might respond to touch.”
He was starting to get on her nerves. He sounded so tentative. So touchy-feely and irresolute. It had been two long days of testing and retesting. Hope and frustration. Talk and more talk.
“Let’s wrestle,” she said.
He was bigger than she was. Outweighed her by twenty kilos. This meant little to nothing in space. She was far superior to him in agility and reflexes.
She grabbed his wrists, stepped inside his leg, and pulled him toward her. He fell forward, she tucked herself into him, and the two of them somersaulted backward. They quickly struck a wall, and ping-ponged back to strike another. She was having fun, and clearly in charge.
His breath was coming in bursts.
“Give up?” she asked.
“Not on your life.”
She took him through another circuit. By the end of it he was gasping.
“Now? Ready to wave the white flag?”
He had a snappy rejoinder, but it died on his lips. He felt faint. His heart was skipping beats, like a drunk doing hopscotch. It was scary, and definitely not good.
“Cav? What’s the matter? Cav? Talk to me.”
He heard the worry in her voice, but it was distant. She was distant. A darkness was descending. The world was slipping away.
Then suddenly, sharply, it was back.
Gunjita was on full alert.
“I’m okay,” he assured her.
“Don’t lie.”
“No, really. I’m fine.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He drew a deep breath, exhaled. “I had a thought. Before I was ruthlessly assaulted. All these nonresults. Maybe it’s deliberate. Intentional.”
“What just happened? You looked like you were on the way out.”
He waved her off. “What if it is communicating? Communication by noncommunication. Silence by design.”
“Enough. Please. Stop.”
“There’s a pattern. There’s got to be a pattern.”
She slapped him, then pulled down his pants and grabbed his cock.
Stunned, he looked down. She was holding it like a bludgeon.
“Easy does it,” he said.
“Are you going to fuck me or not?”
Another shock. The old Gunjita made her desires known differently.
Turned out the old Gunjita had different desires. He felt stretched, like a hamstring. Not a bad experience.
Not bad at all.
Afterward, she floated above him, pupils wide, hair a thick black tangle, brain on fire.
“What if we made it a smell?”
“It being?”
“The catastrophe alarm. What if we linked the warning cascade with the olfactory system?”
He was also floating, on the proverbial post-fuck cloud. It was all he could do to reply. “What if?”
“Wouldn’t even have to be unpleasant. As long as it got your attention. A pheromone, say. A sex pheromone. What’s a bigger attention-getter than that?”
He had to agree. He was swimming in her scent. It—she—had taken him prisoner. Taken him by storm.
“Perfect.”
“You couldn’t care less.”
“Not true.”
“You’re not listening.”
“I’m intoxicated. I want to bottle you.”
“I’ve got a better idea.”
“What could be better than that?”
“Let’s wrestle again.”
His eyes widened.
“No? Not up to it?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Poor baby. I wore you out.”
He couldn’t deny it. He was spent, and had never felt better. His dopey smile told the happy story, as his eyelids drifted closed.
All at once, she was alone. She felt restless and far from satisfied, far from done. She wanted more, but of what she wasn’t sure. Sex was fun, and she’d always loved his body. All her life she’d had an appetite for large men. Now, strangely, his size seemed excessive and faintly repulsive, an overindulgence, like an extra plate of food when she was already full.
She wasn’t full, but more of him wasn’t the answer. This came as a surprise to her, as did her budding discontent.
“You’ve only yourself to blame,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t you want to be young? Or do you, but not with me? Is that what this is?”
“Only with you.”
“Then do it.”
He opened his eyes. “I already agreed.”
“Under duress. To shut me up.”
“As soon as we get back.”
“So you say.”
“I will. I promise. Consider it done.”
And if he didn’t? What then?
“It’ll be done when it’s done,” she said.
“Can we talk about something else for a minute?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“I want to try some provocative tests. Bright lights, loud noise, pressure variation. See if we can get our unknown visitor to respond.”
“Okay. Good. And then? If it doesn’t?”
“Take the next step.”
“We need a sample.”
“First I want to touch it. With my bare skin. I want to smell it.”
She knew he did. She did, too. “Big risk.”
“You don’t even believe it’s living.”
“I don’t. You’re right. But a tiny percentage of me isn’t sure. I have you to thank for that.”
“I’ll sterilize my hands. I’ll exhale into a tube. I’ll make sure not to sneeze.”
“You could still contaminate it.”
“I could. It’s true.”
“And the risk to you?”