He nodded. She was so beautiful in the half-light that he felt her presence as heat radiating against the side of his body toward her. The effect might be subjective, but it was powerful.
“This Aia — was she me?”
“No. She was a spy, a courtesan.”
“She still could have been me, Ivo. That name is close. And I was used to — to keep you at the station, so that Schön would be available. I’m not very proud of that.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have known. I don’t like being stupid, particularly about a thing like that. Brad told me to be nice to you. I — I’m trying to say I’m sorry. About that and a lot of things. But that isn’t why I came here.”
He felt it safest not to comment. Why did a lovely woman come to the bed of an admirer? To reminisce?
“I suppose it’s like the — the handling. I’ll just have to say it. And do it. I heard what you said to her. About me.”
Oh-oh. “I was afraid of that. I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t you apologize to me! I’m the one at fault. All I can say is that I was dense, or blind, or both. I didn’t know, I really didn’t know — until I read it on the printout. I didn’t know you loved me.”
“I didn’t want you to know. I’d rather you forgot it.”
She did not move, but it was as though she leaned over him where he lay. “That isn’t the past tense, is it, Ivo. You love me now — and I won’t forget it. I — well, you know my situation. I can’t say I love you or ever will.”
“I understand.”
“That Aia — she offered herself to you, and you wanted her. But you told her—”
Ivo felt his face burning again. “Can’t we just let that pass?”
“No we can’t, Ivo. You held her in your arms and she made you recite poetry — but then you didn’t make love to her. And you could have.”
“How do you know? It was my vision.”
“Not entirely, Ivo. I do know. Did you think you were having an innocent wet dream? I was with you.”
He had thought he was already embarrassed, but once again she had made him realize that he had been naïvely skirting the edge of the chasm. Again he had fallen in.
“I know this hurts you, but I have to say it. The girl you held was me. Naked, ready—”
What possible comment? “But if I’d—”
“I said you could have. I won’t say I’m sorry you didn’t.”
“But why?”
“I had this crazy idea that if I could somehow bridge the gap between us — between your world and mine — it would bring you back. I felt responsible… maybe guilty is the word. It wasn’t premeditated. There was something nagging at my mind — something Brad once told me about Schön — but it wouldn’t come clear. I did realize where Schön was, of course, though it took me entirely too long to put two and two together. And I think if Schön had won, I could have — I don’t know. I just had to do something. I was monitoring the tape, the others were asleep, and… the time seemed right. And — we do need you, Ivo. Objectively. We can’t locate ourselves in the galaxy without you. Not close enough.”
She had been talking rapidly, throwing justifications at him as quickly as she thought of them. As though she had to apologize for ever having offered her body to him in any guise. And, he thought bitterly, if she felt ashamed of the impulse, then her apology was in order. She had said once that she did not like acting like a whore.
She took his silence as an objection. “We had to have you back. It was that simple. It isn’t as though there are any physical secrets between us, after the handling and the melting. If you were falling and I could offer a hand to pull you back — the principle is the same. You did it for me, on Triton, with your trial. So this time it was my turn to — to contribute.”
The irony was that it might have worked. Could he possibly have made physical love to Afra and not been drawn back to her world? He doubted it.
“I thank you for the gesture,” he said, feeling quixotic.
“Now that we understand each other,” she said, relieved, “the rest is easy. I want you to know that this world needs you more than that one does. So — this world offers you more. It is, as I said, that simple.”
“It’s still too complicated for me. What are you getting at now?”
“You love me. I need you. That’s not the same thing, I know, but it’s honest. If my embrace will hold you here, I give it to you. Anything Aia had for you — I will match. Anything any woman has for you. You don’t have to travel to any other world — you mustn’t travel—”
“I suppose you are pretty much like Aia.”
There was no flickering lamplight, but the classic lines of her forehead, nose and chin wavered in his gaze. “That’s no compliment, but it’s the truth,” she said. “We sell what we have for what we need. Men their brains, women their bodies. Better that than hypocrisy.”
There was a silence of several minutes. Ivo thought of all the things he might say, but knew she knew them already. She had said one thing and meant another, earlier; now the truth was coming into view as the base warred with the sublime. She was offering paid love — the last thing he wanted from her, but all she had, realistically, to give.
Again the question he had asked himself in Tyre: why not settle for the best he could get? He had been willing to embrace Aia’s body in lieu of Afra; why not accept Afra’s body — in lieu of Afra? Both women had come to terms with their necessities, knowing they could not bring their lovers back to life; why not he?
Yet if he had learned any lesson in Tyre, it was this: there was no salvation in a surrogate.
“Maybe next time,” he said.
She did not move or look at him. “Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands…”
She was still sitting there when he fell asleep.
It was night in the marshes of Glynn. He had either to wait a few hours and try again, or travel to the daylight side of the globe.
He felt Afra’s hand take his left. “If you go, I will don the goggles and follow you,” she said. It was a threat, for she would encounter not Tyre but the destroyer.
“I’m on guard now, and rested,” he replied. “It’s safe.” But he felt better for the touch of her fingers, their almost-affectionate pressure. Last night he had turned her down; today, oddly, she was warmer toward him.
Tyre appeared unchanged, superficially. Warships still docked at the ports of the island city and the buildings remained tall and crowded. He recognized the temple complex and the area where he had met Aia, that night.
“We don’t seem to have moved,” he said, perplexed. He wondered how he could have seen the city so accurately before, since they had probably removed him from the macroscope as soon as he fell into the Mediterranean. He must have been there!
“More likely it’s a fifty-year jump,” Afra said. “Backward or forward or sidewise. Can you find a landmark?” She still had not relinquished his hand, except for the brief periods he needed it for coordinated adjustments.
He centered on Gorolot’s house, quite curious and a little nervous. Strangers occupied it, and the configurations of the structure had changed, as though the house had been rebuilt. Ivo lingered, disappointed, though he remained apprehensive about the effect the sight of Gorolot — or Aia — might have on him.