“Where do you think the Martians went, or what happened to them?” I asked.
“They ran their cycle, I suppose. They grew up, matured, aged, went senile, and died. Like every other race. Where are the Assyrians, the Maya? Ragged remnants absorbed into other cultures, only on Mars there is no other, absorbent culture. So they died off, like the dinosaurs, the tigers, the musk ox . . .”
“What about all those legends of supermartians developing into creatures of pure energy?”
“Legends. Human legends. Human wish-fulfillment, like creating God in their image so they could understand him. Maybe they’re right, maybe the Secret Knowledge Foundation has a lock on the truth. With about thirty galaxies for every human being on Earth there is room enough for almost anything,” she said.
“And that’s in this universe.”
“Oh, concepts like that are just unreal! It would take a mind or a computer or something much bigger than mine to comprehend more than one universe. Even the idea of black holes popping out of space-as-we-know-it and popping back in as quasars is something very difficult to understand.”
“If it’s true,” I said, “then it’s comforting to know there is an outside and an inside. If there’s an ‘outside’ then there might be another universe. If there’s another, there might be universii.”
“There’s no such word, Diego.”
“I was just checking your alertness. How about universia?”
“No, Diego. The idea of black holes popping out and in is scary. What would happen if there were too many holes punched? The whole thing might fall apart!”
“Quick! This is a job for Captunnnn Laserrr! Planetary catastrophes averted, holocausts under cost, evil beings from OuterWherever vanquished and captured, universes saved. Three FTL
ships, no waiting, no out-of-town checks, first come, first saved.”
“Oh, Diego. . .”
The time I spent with Nova was instructive, delightful, satisfying, joyous, ecstatic, and quite mind-warping.
I knew I was falling in love, and the great trap to that has always been that you rarely fight it. Once you start, you don’t want to stop. I had a woman who interested me and the time to get know her. I must confess to a little conceit here. As “Brian Thorne” it was very unusual for me not to obtain the woman of my desires. Money, fame, and charm are great aphrodisiacs. But as “Diego Braddock” I felt it was I who earned the love of Nova Sunstrum, and I could not have been more pleased.
I told her I loved her in the middle of the second week; it was the first time I had used that phrase since Madelon. Saying it comes easy to some men, but it has never come easily to my lips. Some men say it and believe it, at least for the moment, or say it cynically, knowing its falseness, but believing it to be something the other person wants to hear. I have never said it except honestly, an Nova was only the third woman to whom I had said it.
She was naked in my arms, cuddled in her narrow bunk, when I said it. She pulled back to look up at me, her face serious and concerned. She studied me searchingly, and for a fleeting moment I thought that perhaps I had done the one thing she would not want, that I had somehow ended a “game” whose rules I did not know, doing the one forbidden thing that our days of lovemaking, of learning and laughter, would not permit.
Then she opened her lips and said the words back to me and the fear dissolved, and the joy burst over both of us. We made love in a burst of frenetic delight that left us speechless, exhausted, and very happy.
Sexually, it was as if every thing, every time, was the first time. There was a freshness to her, a vitality, and at times, great insight. She had both innocence and wisdom; she was pixie and earth mother. She seemed instinctively to have the skills and erotic ingenuity of the Great Whore of Babylon, yet there was no coarseness or hardness. For a man like me, jaded by a thousand superb bodies and artfully acquired skills, it was like being reborn. To do the same old things for the first time was a miracle of the mind. I had been spoiled by women, sometimes lovingly, always knowingly, for their own reasons or for the best of reasons, but those who counted most—Suzanne, Gloria, Michele, Louise, Vincene, and, of course, Madelon—had ruined me for the others.
There were those with finer bodies, greater eyes, bedroom skills of amazing versatility, fast, shrewd minds, and an inner toughness like steel. Sometimes I thought there was a secret factory someplace that bred those sleek creatures like thoroughbreds, with genetic star lines and platoons of stylish teachers, a faculty of clever predators that trained these women and sent them out. They were a familiar type to every man of riches, supple-bodied beauties with brilliant minds. The dumb but beautiful ones were weeded out at the lower levels, with corporation presidents and big algae farmers and entertainment executives. The smart ones, the really smart ones, kept rising. They were the women I met almost daily, sometimes accidentally, sometimes by artfully arranged means, designed to show them off to the best advantage. Some even had managers, and always lawyers.
It got so you didn’t care. They all wanted out of the mass, and if one was a good example of a type you wanted, you bought her. A simple business deal, no matter how gracefully put. Sometimes the two of you never discussed it, letting it all be handled by lawyers or expeditors. But Nova was different. That each love is different, that it is somehow hand-made each time, is the conceit of all lovers. Or perhaps it was that Diego Braddock was different from Brian Thorne. As Braddock, as Howard Scott Miles, as Waring Brackett, as Andrew Garth, I had pursued and won the attention of certain women. But in the secret room in the back of my mind there was always the thought that somehow they knew I was Brian Thorne.
Perhaps it was the going to Mars that made me leave that room behind, and the thoughts with it. It didn’t matter. Maybe I just wanted not to carry that burden of a large question mark. There was a fine feeling of freedom to being someone other than Brian Thorne, just as sometimes there was a fine feeling being Brian Thorne. But the simple matter was that I wanted to be in love with someone. I wanted to be in love, not in lust. The time was right, the woman was right, and I was ready.
What a strange world it is when whim is made of steel, when chance seems like destiny, when mood diverts a life. But it is the way of life. You are a leaf upon a river and come rapids or quiet pool, you go down the river. You, the Lord Leaf, proudly declaim your free will, your freedom of choice, your powerful ambitions, and everything changes when the current shifts.