Thorns

TWENTY-EIGHT: CRY, WHAT SHALL I CRY?

He was growing weary of Titan. He had taken to the icy moon as to a drug after Lona’s departure. But now he was numb. Nothing Aoudad could say or do … or get for him … would keep him here any longer.

Elise lay naked beside him. High overhead, the Frozen Waterfall hung in motionless cascade. They had rented their own power-sled and had come out by themselves, to park at the glacier’s mouth and make love by the glimmer of Saturnlight on frozen ammonia.

“Are you sorry I came here to you, Minner?” she asked.

“Yes.” He could be blunt with her.

“Still miss her? You didn’t need her.”

“I hurt her. Needlessly.”

“And what did she do to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about her with you.” He sat up and put his hands on the controls of the sled. Elise sat up, too, pressing her flesh against him. In this strange light she looked whiter than ever. Did she have blood in that plump body? She was white as death. He started the sled, and it crawled slowly along the edge of the glacier, heading away from the dome. Pools of methane lay here and there. Burris said, “Would you object if I opened the roof of the sled, Elise?”

“We’d die.” She didn’t sound worried.

“You’d die. I’m not sure I would. How do I know this body can’t breathe methane?”

“It isn’t likely.” She stretched, voluptuously, languidly. “Where are you going?”

“Sight-seeing.”

“It might not be safe here. You might break through the ice.”

“Then we’d die. It would be restful, Elise.”

The sled hit a crunching tongue of new ice. It bounced slightly, and so did Elise. Idly Burris watched the quiver ripple its way all through her abundant flesh. She had been with him a week now. Aoudad had produced her. There was much to be said for her voluptuousness, little for her soul. Burris wondered if poor Prolisse had known what sort of wife he had taken.

She touched his skin. She was always touching him, as if reveling in the wrongness of his texture. “Love me again,” she said.

“Not now. Elise, what do you desire in me?”

“All of you.”

“There’s a universe full of men who can keep you happy in bed. What in particular do I have for you?”

“The Manipool changes.”

“You love me for the way I look?”

“I love you because you’re unusual.”

“What about blind men? One-eyed men? Hunchbacks? Men with no noses?”

“There aren’t any. Everyone gets a prosthetic now. Everyone’s perfect.”

“Except me.”

“Yes. Except you.” Her nails dug into his skin. “I can’t scratch you. I can’t make you sweat. I can’t even look at you without feeling a little queasy. That’s what I desire in you.”

“Queasiness?”

“You’re being silly.”

“You’re a masochist, Elise. You want to grovel. You pick the weirdest thing in the system and throw yourself at him and call it love, but it isn’t love, it isn’t even sex, it’s just self-torture. Right?”

She looked at him queerly.

“You like to be hurt,” he said. He put his hand over one of her breasts, spreading the fingers wide to encompass all the soft, warm bulk of it. Then he closed his hand. Elise winced. Her delicate nostrils flared and her eyes began to tear. But she said nothing as he squeezed. Her respiration grew more intense; it seemed to him that he could feel the thunder of her heart. She would absorb any quantity of this pain without a whimper, even if he tore the white globe of flesh from her body entirely. When he released her, there were six white imprints against the whiteness of her flesh. In a moment they began to turn red. She looked like a tigress about to spring. Above them, the Frozen Waterfall rushed downward in eternal stillness. Would it begin to flow? Would Saturn drop from the heavens and brush Titan with his whirling rings?

“I’m leaving for Earth tomorrow,” he told her.

She lay back. Her body was receptive. “Make love to me, Minner.”

“I’m going back alone. To look for Lona.”

“You don’t need her. Stop trying to annoy me.” She tugged at him. “Lie down beside me. I want to look at Saturn again while you have me.”

He ran his hand along the silkiness of her. Her eyes glittered. He whispered, “Let’s get out of the sled. Let’s run naked to that lake and swim in it.”

Methane clouds puffed about them. The temperature outside would make Antarctica in winter seem tropical. Would they die first from freezing, or from the poison in their lungs? They’d never reach the lake. He saw them sprawled on the snowy dune, white on white, rigid as marble. He’d last longer than she would, holding his breath as she toppled and fell, as she flopped about, flesh caressed by the hydrocarbon bath. But he wouldn’t last long.

“Yes!” she cried. “We’ll swim! And afterward we’ll make love beside the lake!”

She reached for the control that would lift the transparent roof of the sled. Burris admired the tension and play of her muscles as her arm stretched toward it, as her hand extended itself, as ligaments and tendons functioned beautifully under the smooth skin from wrist to ankle. One leg was folded up underneath her, the other nicely thrust forward to echo the line of her arm. Her breasts were drawn upward; her throat, which had a tendency toward loose flesh, was now taut. Altogether she was a handsome sight. She needed only to twist a lever and the roof would spring back, exposing them to the virulent atmosphere of Titan. Her slender fingers were on the lever. Burris ceased to contemplate her. He clamped his hand on her arm even as her muscles were tensing, pulled her away, hurled her back on the couch. She landed in a wanton way. As she sat up, he slapped her across the lips. Blood trickled to her chin and her eyes sparkled in pleasure. He hit her again, chopping blows that made the flesh of her leap about. She panted. She clutched at him. The odor of lust assailed his nostrils.

He hit her one more time. Then, realizing he was giving her only what she wanted, he moved away from her and tossed her her discarded breathing-suit.

“Put it on. We’re going back to the dome.”

She was the incarnation of raw hunger. She writhed in what could have been self-parody of desire. She called hoarsely to him.

“We’re going back,” he said. “And we aren’t going back naked.”

Reluctantly she dressed herself.

She would have opened the roof, he told himself. She would have gone swimming with me in the methane lake.

He started the sled and sped back to the hotel.

“Are you really leaving for Earth tomorrow?”

“Yes. I’ve booked passage.”

“Without me?”

“Without you.”

“What if I followed you again?”

“I can’t stop you. But it won’t do you any good.”

The sled came to the airlock of the dome. He drove in and returned the sled at the rental desk. Elise looked rumpled and sweaty within her breathing-suit.

Burris, going to his room, closed the door quickly and locked it. Elise knocked a few times. He made no reply, and she went away. He rested his head in his hands. The fatigue was coming back, the utter weariness that he had not felt since the final quarrel with Lona. But it passed after a few minutes.

An hour later the hotel management came for him. Three men, grim-faced, saying very little. Burris donned the breathing-suit they gave him and went out into the open with them.

“She’s under the blanket. We’d like you to identify her before we bring her in.”

Subtle crystals of ammonia snow had fallen on the blanket. They blew aside as Burris peeled it back. Elise, naked, seemed to be hugging the ice. The spots on her breast where his fingertips had dug in had turned deep purple. He touched her. Like marble she was.

“She died instantly,” said a voice at his elbow.

Burris looked up. “She had a great deal to drink this afternoon. Perhaps that explains it.”

He stayed in his room the rest of that evening and through the morning that followed. At midday he was summoned for the ride to the spaceport, and within four hours he was aloft, bound for Earth via Ganymede. He said little to anyone all the while.