The Best of All Possible Worlds (27 page)

“Are you going to stay awake all night?” I said softly.

“If necessary,” he replied just as quietly.

“I may snore,” I warned after a pause.

“I shall try not to listen,” he said with mild amusement.

“Is something wrong between Nasiha and Tarik?” It might have seemed a nosy question,
except that it came out in the plaintive tones of a child wondering why Mommy and
Daddy are arguing.

“Tarik is struggling to find the right way to deal with a certain matter. Nasiha is
concerned for him. They will be all right, Grace.”

There was a very long pause during which the silence rang loudly in my all-too-awake
ears.

“You going to tell me about the kissing thing or not?”

He exhaled audibly. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would forget that.
Kissing is not a Sadiri custom. To us it seems … unhygienic. And yet much of Terran
romance appears to center around the practice, to the point where potential partners
may even be rejected solely on the basis of a lack of proficiency in this area.”

“Well, it
is
rather unhygienic,” I admitted, “but there are variations, you know, ranging from
a kiss on the cheek to the full-on,
bite-for-blood kiss. There are plenty of Terran cultures that don’t find the extreme
versions attractive.”

“Where do you fall on this spectrum of preference?” he asked.

For a moment I had a kind of mental stumble that made me glad Dllenahkh hadn’t linked
to me yet:
He’s asking me how I like my kisses!
Then I pulled myself together. “I suppose I’m a bit tame by urban standards. I prefer
a no-fluids approach myself, just minimal moisture at the most.” I was very proud
of my clinical tone. “Um … does your culture have an alternative to the kiss?”

I heard him sit up, felt him take my right hand. He gently uncurled my fingers and
turned my palm toward him. I opened my mouth to say, “Oh, yeah, that thing Nasiha
and Tarik do.” But the words died on my tongue.

First he simply touched his fingertips to mine, which was pleasant enough. Then he
lightly traced the length of my fingers, moving slowly, a low hum of sensation for
the front of my hand, a warm tingle for the back. Finally, he set his palm to mine.

“Ohh!” I exclaimed, enlightened and entranced.

It felt like warm, golden light—not the muted gold of late afternoon but something
more sharply metallic, conducting its own electricity along the nerves in my hand
directly to my brain and throughout my body. There was a ripple like lighthearted
laughter, a more solemn surge like a deep contented sigh, and then a comforting ebb
and flow like the rocking of an ocean wave … very soothing … very relaxing … very …

“… good of you to put me to bed, Councillor,” I said, smothering my chagrin under
a jesting tone.

Memory returned to me, bright and sharp as life, but strange as déjà vu in a hall
of fractured mirrors
.

“We sometimes forget that most Cygnians need at least eight hours of sleep,” Dllenahkh
said apologetically as he set down the
last piece of baggage in the hotel lounge. “In the future, we will try to arrange
our meetings to take place at a more convenient hour and within a shorter time frame.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Councillor,” I said with a teasing grin. Then,
much to my dismay, I saw Qeturah glancing in my direction as if considering whether
or not to deal with me in public. I decided not to give her the chance. It was the
work of a moment to slip out of the hotel with Nasiha on the pretext of a quick stop
in town to take a look at a nearby craft market.

I hadn’t considered the extent to which clothes are protection. Ordinarily, Nasiha
would have been wearing her Science Council blues and I would have been wearing one
of my Civil Service uniforms, but we had both taken to wearing civilian clothes bought
in that region. That must have been why they thought we were fair game.

One moment we were walking down the road, and then we were gone—dragged into an alley,
choking rags drenched in some sedative pressed over our faces. Nasiha was too strong
and too quick for them. I saw the man who grabbed her go flying over her head. At
that point, I blacked out completely.

When I came back to consciousness, it was in a paralyzed body. I could feel the vibration
of an aircar under me, but I could neither open my eyes nor move. I heard shouts and
the sound of running feet, and then I felt the sudden crush of a quick liftoff. I
struggled and finally cracked open my eyes just as they picked me up by the wrists
and ankles and swung me out of the open door of the rising car.

The aircar hadn’t risen very far, perhaps no more than five meters. If I’d had the
use of my limbs, I would have feared at most some contusions, a broken wrist perhaps.
But I was limp
and helpless, and I waited to feel all my bones break and my skull shatter on the
hard ground.

But that’s not the way it went
.

I collided not with the unforgiving ground but with a pair of strong arms and a broad
chest, all connected to a form and face that I knew well.

You caught me, I murmured to the presence in my mind
.

Of course, he answered, but below the calm was the fear and wonder of having arrived
in the nick of time
.

Nasiha?

I saw an image of her, wrap torn away and face furious, spinning around helplessly
in a now-empty alley as the gang got away through the close gaps between the buildings
like rats scurrying into a maze. I saw an image of Tarik outside the hotel, face peaceful
one moment, then wide-eyed with horror, sprinting away instinctively to find her via
the telepathic link they shared. In three minutes, Lian and Dllenahkh drew up in a
groundcar and hauled him in. Tarik found Nasiha all right, but it was Dllenahkh who
found me, reaching out with all his strength to sense my half-conscious awareness,
as faint as the whirr of a hummingbird’s wings.

I was unreasonably perky when the drugs wore off. “Can’t remember a thing!” I said
cheerfully. “Look at me—I’m walking, I’m talking, I’m fine!”

Qeturah scanned me, scowling at her instruments as they confirmed my words. “Very
well. But you’re not coming with us to Piedra. You’re on twenty-four hours’ rest and
observation.”

I think Nasiha would have stayed with me if Tarik hadn’t tried to order her to do
so. In the end it was Lian who volunteered to watch over me.

“Poor Tarik,”
I said, thinking of his silent shows of anger and
understanding at last how even a Sadiri,
especially
a Sadiri, could be almost incapacitated by fear for the well-being of his wife and
unborn child. The fear felt like falling …

 … falling through darkness … falling forever …

 … because there was nothing to fall
to
. Deep space had no pull, no solidity. There was only hopeless spinning in the void
and tumbling fear within.

What life begins, death must end …

 … but so much death had its own gravity well, impossible to escape, an open grave
that had drawn millions from existence—friends, strangers, enemies, lovers—turning
everyday loss to utter loss.

He was falling, so I caught him, grasping his wrist as the arc of his orbit passed
me. I tugged him down to the ground and turned him right side up so he could see the
huge silver moon rising over the horizon. I touched the tip of my forefinger to his,
kindling a golden glow, and placed my hand gently over his heart as I whispered the
timeless cliché for all those who no longer had voices to tell him.

The light from the opening shuttle door woke me. They came tiptoeing in.

Shhhh
, I signed one-handed, and pointed down at the cot.

His hand loosely gripping mine, chest rising and falling slightly, Dllenahkh was asleep.

REMEMBRANCE DAY

S
omething changed. It
was bizarre. We had been side by side in the dark, hands touching, minds touching,
and some of that intimacy lingered in speech and shared silence, but I still could
not find a way to ask him directly about his nightmare. True, much of our time together
was in a purely professional setting, but even so, I wasn’t sure I had earned that
right. I read voraciously instead, my desire to impress giving way to an insatiable
curiosity about old Sadira, New Sadira, and the disaster in between.

The hidden motive behind my new obsession was not professional but personal. During
our close communication, I had seen myself through Dllenahkh’s eyes. It had been disconcerting,
even alien. I found myself wondering how the average Sadiri would view me, something
I’d hardly cared about when I was visiting the settlement. The standards for courtesy
and professionalism could not be the same as the standards for … friendship. Kissing
was a minor detail. I’m no Gilda; I didn’t want to experiment. I wanted to get things
right
, and I had no idea how to go about it.

I stood before the mirror, paused and pondering, a stick of kohl held loosely in my
fingers. Everything else was as usual. I was wearing a long black skirt and a belted
white short-sleeved
tunic. My wrap remained on the bed in my hotel room. I would go bareheaded tonight
and see if I could get accustomed to the unruly, thumb-length fuzz that my hair had
become after nearly four months without a trim. A band pulled it back smoothly from
my forehead in an attempt at elegance. I looked fine. The concert hall wouldn’t throw
me out.

A knock at the door startled me. Lian came into our shared bathroom and in two seconds
took in my slightly guilty look and the stick of kohl, which I was sheepishly trying
to make disappear behind my back.

“Don’t worry,” Lian said with a gentle, understanding smile. “Some things are too
important for teasing.”

“You look sharp tonight,” I said quickly, opting for diversion.

Lian went to the mirror and ran a professional eye over each crease and fastening,
each braid and ribbon, ensuring that everything was in place. “It’ll do.”

My colleagues from the Cygnian Military Service and the Interplanetary Science Council
had been invited to a Remembrance Ceremony commemorating those who had died in the
crisis events that had brought various peoples to Cygnus Beta. The entire team had
attended a general service of remembrance earlier in the day, but this was something
exclusive for the military and quasi-military bodies, perhaps a special reminder of
their mandate to protect humanity.

We were in town for only a couple of days en route to another visit, so I hadn’t been
surprised when Qeturah declared she was happy to stay in and rest and Joral said he
had to catch up on some work. Dllenahkh, on the other hand, was interested in going
to a local performance of Pakal’s
Requiem
and asked me if I’d like to come along. I said yes. It wasn’t an unusual invitation
by any means, yet there I was, standing in the bathroom with a stick of kohl held
indecisively in my fingers.

Lian gave the shoulders of the dress uniform one final brush, looked at me, and nodded.
“I’ll give you some privacy.”

When the door closed, I laughed a short, quiet laugh at myself and applied the kohl.

Ganymede is a small
town, but it prides itself on its history and culture. As a result, the concert hall
was impressive and the orchestra magnificent, rivaling even the finest in Tlaxce City.
I did not regret my efforts to look my best, and I was foolishly proud of Dllenahkh
too. He could take the simplicity of a formal suit and make it as crisp and stylish
as any military dress uniform. The small teak elephant I had given him rode discreetly
on the collar of his shirt, adding to my satisfaction.

Pakal’s
Requiem
is very moving but not particularly long, and that suited my mood perfectly that
night. We spent a mere thirty minutes with the orchestra and the audience, then went
out with the rest of the crowd to mill about in the brightly lit town park. We were
both rather silent. It was that kind of evening. Everyone, couples and families alike,
seemed a bit hushed and reflective as they walked, as if it were a planetwide holy
day.

“Does Sadira have a Day of Remembrance?” I asked Dllenahkh. I meant to say “New Sadira,”
but he overlooked the slip and answered directly.

“Different tribes have had different ways and times for honoring their ancestors and
fallen heroes. There is nothing as specific as this, although in time there may be.”

I stopped walking and looked up at him with a small frown. “There hasn’t yet been
a ceremony for the loss of Sadira? It’s been well over a year.”

He bowed his head slightly, matching my frown, as if genuinely puzzled that such a
thing had not yet taken place. “The day
was remembered, but not as a formal event. I suppose … I believe we have been too
busy to think of such a thing.”

We walked on in silence for a while.

“Although,” he continued in a low voice, “to do so would have meant accepting that
there could be no returning to Sadira in our lifetime, nor for many generations to
come. I suspect we were not ready to admit that.”