Pleasure first, then displeasure, right on its heels. The scent would do a hundred and eighty. Sweet would turn to stink: a puzzling, troubling development, and a surefire motivator.
She could start with her own scent. Plenty to work with. Currently, droplets of sweat surrounded her, like effervescent bubbles of champagne. The smell of sweat was not precisely the smell of sex, but it was close. She could distill it, purify it, then modify it. Make it into something irresistible, something you couldn’t ignore, you couldn’t get enough of, which would mean customizing it person by person, challenging but not impossible. Her scent would be the platform for a limitless number of other scents. Offer these to anyone over the age of sixty. Fifty.
Her gift to the elderly of the planet. A potential project, and a lifesaver to boot. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t help Cav: one, because it didn’t exist; and two, because he wouldn’t take it if it did, for a number of reasons. The most annoying of these at the moment: he was even more intractable than usual. He had crossed, or was about to cross, a line.
His conviction that the Ooi was alive: pure insanity, in her humble opinion. With the slim possibility that it wasn’t, that the world (the Ooi, in this case) was as he described, that it existed solely from his perspective, his and his alone, the way insanity worked.
She felt a growing distance from him. A chill in the air when they were together. Her respect for him, a pillar of their relationship, was beginning to erode. Every so often she felt physically repelled by him, which was new, and which she hated.
She carried a double burden of wanting to help and being unable to, or not allowed, and of being stuck with him and unable to get away. Love and loyalty vied with mounting frustration. The balance was not a happy one, nor was it sustainable. She needed a new balance, but something had to give first.
She could leave. Pack her things (there weren’t that many), hop the shuttle, and pop down to Earth (where else?). Take some time off. Size things up from a distance. Let him and Dashaud do whatever they were going to. Create some space for herself.
She had a whole new life ahead. Didn’t happen every day. What to do with it? Research had been good to her, so probably that. But there was so much she hadn’t tried. So much else.
She pedaled faster just thinking about all the possibilities. Didn’t notice Cav at first. He kind of snuck up on her.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
“Ten minutes.”
He gave her twenty.
“What’s up?” she asked, wiping herself down.
“No response to loud noise. To vibration. To bright light, strobe light. Any light. To touch.”
“You touched it?”
“With a glove.”
“How did it feel?”
“Firm. Smooth. Maybe a little slippery.”
“Cold or hot?” she asked.
“Warm.”
“Like what? Room temperature?”
“Warmer.”
She needed better than that. “How much?”
“Not much. A little. I didn’t have a thermometer.”
“And it didn’t move, either during or after?”
“No.”
“Or before. It’s never moved, Cav.”
“Not that we’ve detected.”
“Let me guess. You think it’s biding its time. Waiting for the right moment. Dormant. Transitional. In stasis.”
“Living things move, Gunjita. Maybe it’s moving too fast, or too slow, for our eyes and our instruments. Maybe to it, we’re immobile. Maybe even undetectable. The burden’s on us to find a way to communicate.”
“This is crazy, Cav.”
“In what way?”
“You’re making things up.”
“If I had the answers, I wouldn’t have to. But I’m ignorant. It could be biding its time. It could be a seed, waiting for the right soil, or substrate, or conditions, to germinate. It could be anything.”
“Have you talked to it?” she asked.
“That’s funny.”
“Have you?”
He averted his face.
“Great,” she said.
“Not aloud.”
“Wonderful.”
He was skating on thin ice. Now would be the time to make light of himself. “Maybe I should try.”
She cut him a look.
“I’m joking,” he said.
She wasn’t in the mood. “Has it talked to you?”
He tried out various answers—truths, half-truths, outright lies. A change of subject seemed advisable.
“How old do you think it is?” he asked.
“A trillion years.”
“Seriously.”
“Two trillion.”
“From another universe then.” It boggled the mind.
“Obviously.”
“Ancient.” He felt overwhelmed. “Or not. Maybe it’s a child where it came from. An innocent.”
She was at a loss for words. Didn’t know whether to humor him, pity him, or harden her heart.
“You should have asked,” she said. “We should have discussed it first.”
There was no mistaking what this was about. “There was a window of opportunity. I jumped on it.”
“I’m not talking about the HUBIES.”
“Dashaud had a window, too.”
“Bullshit.”
“He’s been enhanced. His sense of touch. He can feel anything. Everything.”
“Good for him.”
“It’s been fifty years, Gunjita.”
“Sixty.”
“He’s not the same. Give him a chance.”
“Maybe I will. Not up to you.”
“You still bear a grudge.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why the fuss?”
She gritted her teeth. “Are you dense?”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have talked to you first.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“What would you have said?”
“I have no idea.”
“You would have said no.”
She tossed this aside. “Moot point. But probably.”
No was not an option.
She got off the bike, but he didn’t move, effectively blocking her way.
“Was there something else?” she asked. “Because I have work to do.”
“Would you do it again?”
“Do what?”
“If you could. Would you juve?”
“Would I juve?”
“Hypothetically.”
“A third time? Like Laura Gleem?”
“Hypothetically.”
The CEO was etched in her mind. Her image was obviously manufactured. Was there even such a thing as Laura anymore, beyond the corporate label?
“She hasn’t been seen in public since. I’m guessing she’s dead.”
He didn’t care about Laura Gleem. “If there weren’t a risk. If it were safe.”
“It’s not.”
“If it were. Proven. Would you do it?”
“A third time?”
“Yes.”
The holy grail. That’s what they’d called one, then two.
“In a minute,” she said.
“You would.”
“Yes. In a minute.”
“And after that? Would you do it again?”
“A fourth time? I’d be what? Two hundred and fifty years old? Maybe. Or maybe I’d stop. Two hundred and fifty is a lot of years. Maybe enough.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why ever stop? You could be immortal.”
“Methuselan maybe. Immortal I doubt.” She gave him a look. “Is that what this is about? You’re morally opposed? It offends your sense of, what? Dignity? Decency?”
“Normalcy.”
“It is normal. Normal, everyday people do it.”
“Not everyone.”
“Everyone who can. Or nearly everyone.”
“Everyone can’t.”
“The world isn’t fair. Progress is uneven. This isn’t news.”
“It’s numbing,” he said. “Living so long. When time is cheap, where’s the incentive to make the most of it?”
“The incentive’s built in. You need motivation? A deadline? A prod? Since when?”