XI.

Journal of Laurel 15.1.17 The evening sky darkened, became a carpet of stars and Stardust. I stood between Carina and Vesta on the balcony of their house as the time drew near, Carina's arm gentle around me. My eyes ached with my staring. Then it seemed to me the sky lightened brieflya"just brieflya"in a tiny corner above the horizon.

"I'd like to be alone," I whispered. They left mea"the single mourner of my s.h.i.+pmates on this world. I contemplated the sky, sorrowful and remembering the men as generously as I could, melancholy that the events that had so opened my life to me had meant the ending of theirs.

After a while I went in and Vesta came to me, took my hands. "Laurel my dear. .. will you talk to me in my chamber? Please let me help you."

I nodded and followed. But I had no need, did not intend, to speak of my dead s.h.i.+pmates.

After Megan had left me, I could not be alone. I had gone to Cybele's main square. But all the women I had grown close to on this world were in the momentous meeting in the council chambers, and I went into the library to watch on the lumiscreen.

In the company of several other women of Maternasa"my sisters now, but strangers to mea"I watched Megan send my s.h.i.+pmates to their deaths; and I wept silent tears for them, for my own pain, and most piercingly for hers.

As she left in'her hovercraft I followed, but she had already activated her privacy s.h.i.+elds and my craft would not land at her house. All that day her s.h.i.+elds were impervious to my siege, her message screen rejecting all transmissions save those over the emergency channel, a frequency which accepts only a specific signal, not voice communication. She had effectively and completely withdrawn from all of us.

*From me.

This I revealed, and all of my heart, to Vesta. Confessing my love, I asked what I should do.

Vesta listened intently, gray eyes softening in compa.s.sion. She took my hands. ''Dear one, does Megan return your love?"

Clasping her hands, I told her about the reflection in the sculpture, how Megan had looked at me. "And so I don't know if she loves me, Vesta," I concluded. "But it's enough that she wants me."

She smiled. "You understand a distinction many who are well beyond your twenty-three years never grasp.

Dear one, I suggest Several possibilities why she would not approach you. First, your status among, us. As a guest of our world, all of usa"she no lessa"owed you certain obligations of conduct until you declared your wish to stay. Second, Megan undoubtedly faced immediately what none of us would contemplate, what the inevitable decision about your s.h.i.+pmates must be. She may believe her decision has irrevocably cost her your affection."

I sat thunderstruck. "But how can Ia"She's cut off all communicationa""

"You can only wait. And then tell her you are as one with our Unity about her action. She knows her decision can never be justified. And truly, such a decision can never be right. But it was correcta"if you understand the philosophic difference." She sighed. "She believes she must have this time alone."

"It's not good for her to be alone now. It's not good, Vesta."

She sighed again. "No, it's not. She suffers greatly, she carries a burden alone not understanding that we all share it. And all we can do is wait."

But suddenly I saw that I would not have to wait. Knowing how I would be able to see her, I went to my bedchamber and slept fitfully.

I arose very early, stepping into my hovercraft as the suns hung just above the horizon. I landed as close to Megan's house as her privacy s.h.i.+elds would allow, and walked down to Damon Point.

Early as I was, she'd preceded me for her morning swim. Her fleece was spread over the moss, a towel and warmcomb laid upon it, white s.h.i.+rt and black pants folded neatly beside her boots. I sat down on the fleece to wait for her.

I didn't wait long. A distance away I saw her cutting through the water, swimming toward sh.o.r.e with strong strokes. When she reached the breakers, she body-surfed almost to the sh.o.r.eline, then stood and walked from the sea.

*Why hadn't it occurred to me that she would swim nude? Of course she would swim nude, my numbed mind told me.

She saw me, paused but a moment. She walked toward me, her ivory skin, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s wetly gleaming in the strong morning light, streams of water coursing over her thighs, water running down her arms and dripping from her elbows as she pushed wet strands of dark hair from her face. She was long lines and slender curving planes, and the dark triangle between her legs1 was small, delicate, as I'd thought it would be . . . Then our eyes met, and held. She sank down upon the fleece.

! came to her, knelt to her, and wrapped her in the towel; and as I felt her s.h.i.+ver I enveloped her in it, wrapping her hair, turning the towel setting fully up. I took her into my arms. Her arms were pinioned in the towel and she could not have prevented me had she wanted to.

I held her for a long moment, pressing my face into the quickly warming towel that swathed her hair. Then I said softly, "You knew long ago what had to be done about your visitors from Earth, didn't you."

"Yes," she said, still s.h.i.+vering against me.

I tightened my arms, drew her face down to my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "If I had chosen to be with them you would have made the same decision, isn't that so?"

"Yes." Her voice was m.u.f.fled against my b.r.e.a.s.t.s; I could fee! the warmth of swift breaths through my tunic.

"Much as it would have . . ." She did not finish.

"To fully protect this world you would've done whatever you had to. Isn't that so?"

"Yes." Her s.h.i.+vering had begun to ease. "But that does not make it right."

"Some lives are more valuable than others."

"There can be no justification for taking life. The taking of three livesa"lives that can never be replaced."

"Share your pain with all of us. Because all of us agree with what was done. Agree and love you still more as our leader."

She lifted her head from my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and looked at me; her eyes seemed defenseless, as if the events of yesterday and her time alone had broken down a barrier in her. But she tried to extricate herself from me. I further tightened my arms, unwilling to release her.

"Laurel," she said, and with effort smiled. "You'll cook me in this towel."

I had to smile then, had to release her; I'd turned the control up full and it was indeed very warm to my touch. She tossed the towel aside and pulled on her clothes. I watched with only little regret. I knewa"

simply knewa"that we would touch again. That she was vulnerable, open to me now.

*I picked up the warmcomb. I dressed her hair efficiently, with none of the caressing delays of before, except that I cupped her face afterward and gazed at her, as before.

"Thank you," she said, her voice husky.

I released her face and did not reply, only looked at her.

We sat still, gazing at each other, her eyes increasingly helpless as we leaned closer, ever closer.

Our lips met. Mine softly pressed hers, so softly ... her lips more tender than I had dreamed ... I reached for her, but her hands grasped my arms. Our kiss became hers. Her lips were tenderly possessive of mine, sweetly savoring mine . . . Again I tried to hold her; her grip only tightened. My body sought hers, yearned toward hers, my lips yielding, parting under hers, and I heard the sound in her throat as my seeking tongue met, stroked hers . . . Her hands on my arms were a vise, and I moaned my need to hold her as her tongue thrust and thrust into me . . .

And then her mouth was torn from mine, and her hands, trembling, held me away from her.

She sat with head bowed, hands still clasping my arms. Then she lifted her head and looked at me, her eyes containing so much pain that I couldn't bear them.

She whispered, "I .. . cannot."

I stared, struggling for voice.

"I . . . have given my word."

And she released me and was gone, running over the moss, fleeing from me.

I took longer to recover from the shock of her words than to interpret their meaning. So this was why she'd lived her days and nights in solitude here beside the sea. Why she had resisted, fought her desire.

Only one person possessed sufficient influence to extract such a vow. The one person on this world whom Megan revered, the one person to whom she would have given such a vow.

Having determined this, I sat on Megan's fleece and gazed out to sea, carefully considering what action I should now take.

Of course f could go directly to Mother. Even to this intimidating personage I was certain that I could convincingly plead my casea"the strength of my love giving me both courage and conviction. But what if she decided that I was simply a fool, an impertinent upstart new to their world and their Unity who presumeda"who dareda"to love the great-leader of them ail? What recourse wouid I then have?

No, I thought as I folded the fleece and towel and packed them away under Megan's coral marker. Going *to Mother would be my final recourse, not my first act. And there was a person of wisdom and prestige and influence whom I could trust to plead my case with Mother.

I set off over the moss to go to my hovercraft, to go to Vesta.

XII.

Personal Journal of Megan 15.1.17 All my privacy s.h.i.+elds were up. Despairingly, I sank into my chaise. I knew now that I'would require more timea"considerably more than I had thought yesterdaya"to reconstruct my strength and resolve. To regain the solitary peace of my life.

Again I was stabbed by memory of the flash in the evening skya"a shattering of my soul. The flash of death, caused by me.

The pain was great again, so terrible that I a.s.suaged it with forbidden memory of Laurel's arms. The flowery scent of her skin. The pliant softness of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the silky fabric of her tunic . .. The soft lips parting under the hunger of mine, the tender touching of that delicate tongue to mine ... My body heated with forbidden memory.

For some time I lay on my chaise, sinking, it seemed to me, ever more deeply into despair.

Then I received a signal on the one non-emergency channel unaffected by any privacy s.h.i.+eld. Composing myself, I opened the channel. I said as calmly as I could, "Good morning, Mother."

Mother did not immediately reply, merely looked at me with shrewd narrowing eyes. "Good afternoon, Megan dear. But it was indeed a lovely morning."

"1 misspoke," I said quickly, stunned that so much time could pa.s.s by me unnoticed.

"Dear one," she said in the tone that permitted no discussion, "would you come immediately to my house'?"

Tiny in her green robe, Mother paced rapidly, a whoofie scampering at her heels in pursuit.

"I've asked much of you, Megan. Because I, better than anyone, knew what was required for the Unity-to survive. When I came to Eartha"misled by fabricated stories, I a.s.sure you my dear, entirely unsuspecting *what a backwater place it really was~l soon discovered that I had to protect myself and my precious baby daughters with every resource at my command. Every resource," she emphasized, "never knowing what next to expect from a planet with so irrational a history, so bizarre a culture."

Mother halted so abruptly that the pursuing whoofie tangled itself in the hem of her robe. She scooped it into her arms and soothed its mournful whoofs with gentle pats as she resumed pacing.

"My responsibility was enormous and terrifying. But it was a blissful Vernal day compared to the fearsome responsibility of your leading our four thousand from Eartha"and the perils of a.s.similation on this new world as forbidding to our presence as Earth was to mine."

Mother released the whoofie which ran two or three steps, skidded to a halt, leaped back into her arms.

"You've done everything I have asked. More than I could ever have asked." She gazed at me with wise and compa.s.sionate eyes. "Perhaps we've all used more of your strength than was right."

Mother sat on the chaise next to me, placing the whoofie gently beside her. "I've raised nine precious babies I would have given my life for. I love none of them more than I love you."

She took my hand, patted my cheek. "The work is not finished, Megana"but the danger is over. We're safe.

Safe, dear one. We've carved our foothold, and we'll soori have carved another in the new colony."

She drew my face down to her, kissed my forehead "if there is someone now who can give you a happiness you desire, then go to her, dear one. Go to her."

Vesta's soft voice was almost inaudible over the hover-craft's transmission channel: "Megan dear, she said she would be at Damon Point."

Un.o.bserved, I approached her. She wore her yellow tunica"the one of Anniversary Daya"and from a distance she was a bright mote on the vast mossy sh.o.r.e. She sat on my fleece gazing at wheeling crying birds that dipped and swooped and dove into a school of leaping fish just below the horizon.

She glimpsed me long before I reached her, and I dropped onto the fleece gratefully; my knees had weakened from her gaze as I had walked to her. Clumsy in this unimagined freedom to give, speak my love, I groped for words, and found that capacity for speech had vanished. Helplessly, I took her hands and looked into her eyes. A word came to me then, the only word I now knew. "Laurel," I whispered.

Never had I known such gentleness as Laurel's soft arms winding around my shoulders, my neck. And as she took the too-brief sweetness of her lips from mine to kiss my eyes, never had I heard such a breathing of my name.

I trembled; again she had breathed my name as my arms enclosed her. Then her tender lips were warm, *warm against mine, parting under mine; and my tongue met her delicate one . . .

My fingers touched her throat; of themselves and unbidden my hands opened her tunic, caressed satin shoulders, cupped the full b.r.e.a.s.t.s that had haunted my thoughts.. .

She gazed at me; she traced my face, brus.h.i.+ng back strands of my hair. She caressed my throat, she opened my s.h.i.+rt...

I slid the tunic from her shoulders. Then my body was angles and simplicity against the richly curving nakedness everywhere under my hands...

She sat touching me, again stroking my face with tender fingertips, smoothing my hair, running her hands across my shoulders. She circled my b.r.e.a.s.t.s with those fingertips, created fiery traiis down my body, over my thighs. Gasping, I reached for her.

There was the flowery scent of her skin amid the sharp salt fragrance of the moss; I do not know if I drew her down or if she lowered me. Her hair was spreading silk over my throat, my shoulders, her body was curved over mine as again she kissed my eyes. Again a breathing of my name and more: "So beautiful, beautiful Megan . . ."

Then softness, the soft curves of her body everywhere melting into the angles of my own, her mouth melding with mine.

I took her silken hair into my hands, filling my hands with it as I kissed her face ... My fingers, my lips explored the velvet of her throat... my lips returned to hers. . .

Her arms were warm around me, she held me close into her as we kissed; but as I took my lips from hers to kiss her face, her throat, she caressed me, slowly stroked her soft hands over the planes of my back and down over my hips; and as my mouth came back to hers I felt her arms again slide around me to gather me closely into her. ..

She kissed my body, pouring waves of her hair over me, sighing as I gasped my pleasure . . . She covered my b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her warm hands; and then I writhed as my nipples hardened and tingled to the brus.h.i.+ng of her hair, as they ached and throbbed in her mouth .

Irresistibly, I took her b.r.e.a.s.t.s into my hands and kissed them, my tongue stroking and loving each taut jewel ... I reveled in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, fed on them, endlessly kissed them .. .

My hands on her were hungry . . . careful, gentle, but hungry . .. Her body arched in my hands and she breathed Megan against my throat, but my hands were awkward . . . and soon I would touch her tender places only with my lips...

I feasted. A long slow feasting . . . When her soft thighs opened to me I brushed the golden softness between with my lips, the most delicate softness of all, softer than the moss covering the earth beneath us, her moss damp to my most gently stroking fingertips; within the moss the moist velvet flower of her...

*The sweetest feasting of all . . . Pa.s.sionate feasting; her sounds, her quivering shaping and feeding my pa.s.sion . ..

Her cry blended with the cries of the wheeling birds, and her quivering ceased ... but I bathed my face, all of my warm face in her...

She dried her wetness from my face with her hair. Then she put me under her and began sensuous loving of me, her lips tender and warm, her hands a feathery caressing. She sighed her own pleasure as she stroked my thighs. . .Soon she parted them gently and her fingers began another feathery stroking that turned my breath to gasping.

Soon I could not breathe from her fingers and I took them away, groaning. Blindly I pressed the throbbing center of me into the still-wet moss of her. She clasped my hip and pressed up into me, undulating, her legs enclosing me, and I groaned again, my sensations escalating as my body moved in involuntary rhythm with hers. Pleasure became urgency, and I buried my face in her shoulder, moaning as pleasure swiftly rose and sharpened . . .