Survey Ship (16 page)

teroid belt —"

“At the rate we're going, that will be about six minutes,” Peake said shortly, bending to check what he was doing, “and you need food just as much as the rest of us. Anyhow, even if we were out beyond the orbit of Neptune, there would be no way to exclude the possibility of a grain-of-sand type hitting us again. It's about as unlikely as the sun going nova in the next twenty minutes. Come along and have some dinner, Ravi; sitting there in that chair isn't going to keep all the little meteors out of our path!”

“You too, Moira,” Ching said, stopping behind her chair. “You'll think more clearly with some food inside you — and I know I will, too.”

Peake slung his pressure suit over his arm. He said, “All of you. Bring these, and the helmets, back to me— main cabin and store them right where they were. You can see, now, the importance of having them accessible in every module, at every moment!”

As they pushed, one by one, into the free-fall corridor which would take them back to the main cabin where the food console and their musical instruments were stored, Teague bounced up behind Ching. She had taken off the helmet of the pressure suit, and had it tucked under her arm; the heat of the suit made her dark hair cling in wispy little tendrils to the back of her neck. He pried her hands loose from the crawl-bar. “Come on,” he said, “I'll hold on to you. I won't let you get hurt. You've got to learn not to be afraid of it. Ching. Come on, put your arms around my neck.”

Hesitantly, she complied, feeling his rough cheek against hers. Somehow the feel steadied the lurching sickness inside her. Under ordinary conditions she very much disliked touching anyone, feeling they were all too aware of her difference; she knew how they felt,

that she was not quite human. . . as if the genetic tinkering had had some monstrous effect on her, freakish-ness, and if they touched her, the strangeness would somehow rub off; she had learned to keep herself rigidly away. Only, under the multiple shocks of the past hours, Teague's strength felt warm and comforting, she wanted to cling to him and cry. She wound her arms around him with relief, hiding her face as he pushed off and they flew the length of the corridor, coming up with a soft bump at the far end. Teague pushed her gently through the lock and they were in the familiar gravity of the main cabin. She clambered down from his arms, began to strip off her pressure suit, hanging it in the rack, She felt self-conscious about the way the thin tunic clung, wrinkled and sweaty, to her small breasts.

“I ought to go and shower and put this thing in the disposal!”

Teague chuckled. “We're all the same. Look,” he said, laughing at the long rip in the thin nonwoven fiber of his pants, “I'm practically exposed! Not that it makes any difference here, for heaven's sake, we'd all better get accustomed to the sight of each other's bodies. Unless we need clothes for protection, I see no reason we should't go nude at least part of the time. You're not prudish, are you, Ching?”

She shook her head. She had grown accustomed, certainly, to the sight of nude bodies — about half the athletics at the Academy were done co-educationally and in the nude, clothing being worn only where needed for support. Full-breasted women like Fontana had needed some support when running or engaged in active sports. Ching was thin and small-breasted and never needed them; but she had never been one of those who felt more comfortable in the nude, and had in
general worn at least a minimum of clothing. Teague, she remembered, had usually preferred to go naked in the gym or swimming pools. She said, trying not to feel embarrassed at her own unwillingness to do the same, “You don't have to wear clothes for my sake, Teague. Whatever feels comfortable.”

“Thanks.” Teague stripped off the thin fiber suit and thrust it into a disposal chute. He noticed a stray sheet of the music paper he had covered with a scribbled note, lying on the floor; caught it up and started to send it down the chute after the paper suit, but Ching caught his arm.

“Teague, don't. Finish it first. I really want to see how it comes out, and I'm sure Peake would, too. He's enough of a musician —”

“Enough of a musician not to appreciate anything less than Bach or Mozart,” Teague said, wryly, but he did slide the page into the bin which held his flute, Ravi came in, saw Teague's nude body, and said, “That makes sense.” He took off his pressure suit, pulling off part of the wrinkled fiber suit under it. As Fontana and Peake and Moira came in through the sphincter, Ravi asked, “Does anyone here seriously object to nudity? We could conserve material for clothing by wearing it only when we're doing dirty work, or want protection.” “I don't mind anyone else going naked,” Peake said, “but I like something between my bottom and the seat of the chairs.” He hung his pressure suit and helmet in the rack, went and dialed himself some food from the console.

“I handle that by putting a towel or something on the seat,” Teague said, taking a small handful of fiber towels from the dispenser at the bottom of the food machine and putting them over the seat. “We recycle the towel material anyhow.”

“I don't care who wears what, either,” Moira said, “and personally I prefer to go naked about half the time. As long as one thing is made perfectly clear — that it's not a sexual invitation. When it is, I'll make it obvious. If people can distinguish between simple nudity and putting my body up for grabs, I'll go naked. Just don't get the wrong idea, anybody.” She stripped off her own crumpled tunic and pants, got herself a plate of food, and sat down to eat.

Ching felt abashed and embarrassed at her own unwillingness to follow suit, as if she were a spoilsport. I envy Moira's confidence, she thought. I wish I could do that.

Fontana said, “Well, I prefer wearing clothes. My skin is sensitive, and I prefer not to shiver with every stray draft. Anyhow, I prefer to keep nudity for private occasions, if nobody minds.”

Ching thought, well, if Fontana feels that way too, at least I'm. not the only one!

Ravi's eyes followed Moira; her pale skin was freckled all along the back, too, and her small breasts hardly more than brown nipples, the body of a girl of twelve. Fontana and even Ching had more sensuous bodies, but he remembered, with a quick stir of sexual memory, how intensely he desired Moira. Damn; and she had made it very clear how she felt about having that associated with simple nudity. Maybe that was the trouble with nudity, that it was hard to refrain from making those associations here, when you were with a woman you had known. In the gym, or even on the Bridge, where they were deliberately doing something else, he might not have betrayed himself but here he knew he would do so.

Peake watched Teague bringing a tray toward Ching, looking again with appreciation at the heavy layered
muscles, the thatch of curling red hair on Teague's chest and the matching red patch below. He was acutely conscious of his own body, thin, dark, gangling, awkward, bones protruding with almost skeletal impact, Ugly, he thought. It's not that I'm black. Ravi's darker than I am and he's beautiful, he's one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen, but I'm a damned scarecrow.

Teague saw the direction of Peake's gaze, and the interest and admiration in it, and felt suddenly abashed, turning his eyes away. Maybe all this nudity wasn't such a good idea, maybe I shouldn't have started it.

He carried his own tray over toward Peake and sat down at the edge of the long seat. He lowered his voice to where only Peake could hear.

“Listen,” he said, with some embarrassment, not knowing quite how to phrase it, “I can't put it quite the way Moira did, but does my running around this way bother you, Peake?”

“Hell, no,” Peake retorted good-naturedly, “I was just admiring the crop of muscles you've got. No matter how hard I train, and I'm pretty husky and perfectly fit, I keep on looking like a famine victim!”

“Well, you're an ectomorph,” Teague said, feeling awkward. He moved the tray over his lap, lowering his eyes, and began to eat, wishing he had not brought up the subject. Peake said deliberately, “Let's get one thing straight, Teague. Sure, I like men. I prefer sex with men. But I don't go around leching about them, not even when they're running around in the nude; I got used to that in the gym at the Academy before I was twelve years old. If I reacted all that much to nude males, I'd have gone crazy a long time ago. And there's one thing you'd better realize. I prefer enthusiastic co-operation in my — shall we say, encounters. Disinterest, or even
tolerance, turns me off — way off. And the notion of rape makes me just as sick as it makes any other decent man. Clear?”

Teague stared at his lap and mumbled, “Yeah, clear.” And suddenly, perversely, he found himself aware of Peake's slender, dark body, the graceful fingers moving on the spoon. “No offense, Peake?”

“Not a bit,” Peake said with deliberate cheerfulness, scooping up the last of this rice, and went to put his plate through the disposal.

Ugly. Ugly as sin. OnJy Jimson ever thought any different, and he's gone.

Teague went back to Ching, who was picking at the food he had brought her. “You look tense,” he said gently. “Here, let me rub your neck.” He leaned over her, his firm fingers kneading the tight muscles, feeling her relax, gradually, under his hands. He kept on massaging, transferring the smooth motion down between her thin shoulder blades, and after a bit persuaded her to lie down on the seat, bending over her to knead her back muscles.

She said drowsily, “I'll fall asleep if you keep doing that.” She was amazed at herself; once again, her body was betraying her, not this time with sickness, but with a flood of warmth, of lazy, sensuous awareness; she felt that she could lie here forever, with Teague's hands moving on her body.

He leaned over and whispered, his warm breath tickling her ear, “I've got a better idea.”

Momentarily Ching went tense under his hands; then, still mesmerized by the caressing movement, she thought, Why not? Her body was very alien somehow, she felt she did not recognize it. She let him scoop her up, half-carry her to the door; he held her as they floated through the free-fall corridor.

I cannot trust my body, I cannot trust the computer. But I feel I can trust Teague. Why not? And then, defiantly, Why should I be the only woman in the crew who doesn't know what it is to have sex with a man?

But in her own cubicle, as he was gently taking off her clothes, a wave of diffidence, of awareness of her own difference, overcame her again.

“Listen, Teague,” she said shyly, “I'm not sure I — I mean, I've never done this before, I'm not sure I'll — well, know how. Except, you know, sort of theoretically. Do you mind?”

Teague was overcome with sudden warmth and sympathy. He bent close, kissing her, gently prying open her inexperienced lips. He whispered, “No, Ching, I don't mind at all.”

It was Ravi and Moira, in full EVO gear, who approached the building designated the gym through the free-fall corridor, this time slowly, holding to the crawl bar. There was a flaring red light, indicating airlessness and vacuum beyond, and the sphincter had locked automatically, isolating the damaged module. Ravi sealed the first sphincter of the free-fall corridor, so that the corridor could function as an airlock in this emergency, then thrust the tool into the sphincter lock and twisted the lock free. The red light was still blinking.

His pressure-suit audio sounded loud in his own ears.

“Here we go. Let's see what kind of damage we have.”

Ravi heard in the audio the sharp breath Moira drew, as the door opened; almost a cry, as if the damage were to her own body. A gaping hole flared in one edge; the meteorite or whatever it had been, had impacted them at tremendous velocity, ripped straight through the module, destroying the rowing-machine Teague had been using as if a bomb had struck it, then, deflected, richocheted and gone out, leaving a surprisingly small hole not really very far from the point of entry.

“Well,” he said, trying to make light of it, “looks like we've got a leak in the roof, in here.”

Moira giggled; a small, somehow disconsolate sound. Then she noticed that the debris was still lying all over the “floor” of the room, the painted running-track; Ching's ballet barre had been broken by a flying fragment of the rowing machine, holes gouged in the sanded and varnished surface, mats flung about. But the debris lay on the “floor,” not strewn, drifting, all over the module.

“There's still gravity in here.”

Ravi said, “That's right, the DeMags are still on.” He had hoped to find them turned off, damaged by the impact perhaps; then he could have attributed the former DeMag failure to accidental jarring or damage to the control, a hypersensitive control dial.

“Good thing too,” Moira said. “Otherwise we'd have to run an obstacle course through floating debris, or tie everything down, before we could start repairing the damage to the module.”

“Why couldn't we just have turned it on — oh, that's right; we couldn't trust it not to jolt on hard, the way it did the other day, and everything come raining down hard on top of us,” Moira said. “Actually I'm beginning to think the trouble isn't in the DeMags themselves but in the backup system, the fail-safe.”

“I'm not sure,” Ravi said. “I trust your intuition about machines, certainly. But if that's so, why the failure in the music room the other day?”

“Well, we'll have to check it out,” Moira said absently. She was not thinking of Ravi at all, and somehow he felt cold, deserted and lonely. He had known this woman's body, he loved her and cared about her; yet now, facing desolation and destruction and the awareness of barely-escaped death — for if they had all been in the gym, some of them would certainly have been killed — he knew that he was less important to
her than the pieces of Teague's destroyed rowing-machine, which she was dragging together, trying to lay them out like the broken pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Moira does not love me, not as Jimson and Peake loved; she does not try to see God in me. I wanted to see her that way, to feel that the love between us was a little echo of the Cosmic Love which I am aching to know. But since the meteor struck, I am nothing to her. Ravi set his teeth, grimly accepting this; Moira was not his property; she had given him sexual access to her, body, and since she had the right to give it, he knew that the ethics to which he had been reared demanded she had also the right to withdraw it, without any reason given, unconditionally. But he hungered for her, physically, and he felt a deeper desolation which, he knew, had nothing to do with lust, its frustration or satisfaction.